SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus (COVID-19)

fortunately, there aren't many people there. except for green bay. and milwaukee

perhaps @ericbecky has insights

 

The numbers don’t support opening, yet.

Bob Wilson

 

and yet, several theme parks are open, with similar virus statistics. Sauce for the goose.
https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/experience-updates/parks/
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Speaking of numbers, am having a time figuring out the the "Table 1. Parameter Values" and how to translate "Infection Fatality Ratio(s)" in to an actual %.

Had asked @tochatihu for help with this, but anyone is welcome to answer.

 

My guess would be that you don't, really. The choice of phrase "an actual %" has the sound that one way of framing the question is more "actual" than another, but I'm not sure I see that. IFR seems to be chosen as a simple way of defining an underlying parameter for use in running scenarios: at one step, n people will contract the disease, and n·IFR of them will ultimately die of it.

If God is running this show, he probably starts by choosing IFR, and therapeutic efficacy, and how many cases will be correctly identified, and how many deaths will be correctly attributed, and after what lag, and then stirs all of those together to produce the only things we have any tools to observe. For our part, the best we can do is use tools to observe things, and then statistical inference to try to work backward and put lower and upper bounds on what those actual parameters might be, and then run multiple scenarios making different choices of parameter from within those likely ranges.

According to the page, the lower and upper bounds of IFR they are using are "based on age-specific estimates of infection fatality ratios from Hauser, A., Counotte, M.J., Margossian, C.C., Konstantinoudis, G., Low, N., Althaus, C.L. and Riou, J., 2020. Estimation of SARS-CoV-2 mortality during the early stages of an epidemic: a modeling study in Hubei, China, and six regions in Europe. PLoS medicine, 17(7), p.e1003189. Hauser et al. produced estimates of IFR for 10-year age bands from 0 to 80+ year old for 6 regions in Europe. Estimates exclude infection fatality ratios from Hubei, China, because we assumed infection and case ascertainment from the 6 European regions are more likely to reflect ascertainment in the U.S. To obtain the best estimate values, the point estimates of IFR by age were averaged to broader age groups for each of the 6 European regions using weights based on the age distribution of reported cases from COVID-19 Case Surveillance Public Use Data. The estimates for persons ≥70 years old presented here do not include persons ≥80 years old as IFR estimates from Hauser et al., assumed that 100% of infections among persons ≥80 years old were reported. The consolidated age estimates were then averaged across the 6 European regions. The lower bound estimate is the lowest, non-zero point estimate across the six regions, while the upper bound is the highest point estimate across the six regions."

So the Hauser et al. paper might give more details on how they went about trying to unstir the soup.

 

nyc on the rise...

 

ma now reporting weekly school children cases, and staff separately. will be interesting to watch

 

This is not a recent finding, but ethnicity and genotype have been shown to link to the severity of COVID-19.
Do Your Genes Predispose You to COVID-19? - Scientific American

Now there is more concrete information on the Ace1 polymorphism genotype link to COVID-19 mortality difference between Central European who has experienced a far greater number of cases and deaths than the East Asian population.
SARS-CoV-2 infections and COVID-19 mortalities strongly correlate with ACE1 I/D genotype - ScienceDirect

 

i was reading a study linking high rdw blood counts and mortality rates.

so mrs b and i pulled up our latest blood tests, and mine was higher than hers

 

The paper can be downloaded and here is the abstract:

The control of viral outbreaks requires nucleic acid diagnostic tests that are sensitive, simple and fast. Here, we report a highly sensitive and specific one-pot assay for the fluorescence-based detection of RNA from pathogens. The assay, which can be performed within 30–50 min of incubation time and can reach a limit of detection of 0.1-attomolar RNA concentration, relies on a sustained isothermal reaction cascade producing an RNA aptamer that binds to a fluorogenic dye. The RNA aptamer is transcribed by the T7 RNA polymerase from the ligation product of a promoter DNA probe and a reporter DNA probe that hybridize with the target single-stranded RNA sequence via the SplintR ligase (a Chlorella virus DNA ligase). In 40 nasopharyngeal SARS-CoV-2 samples, the assay reached positive and negative predictive values of 95 and 100%, respectively. We also show that the assay can rapidly detect a range of viral and bacterial RNAs.​

This is impressive. I've not read the body of the paper but my first question is the thermal range for storage and use. Too hot or too cold and there could be problems with field deployment.

Bob Wilson

 

Source: As Their Numbers Grow, COVID-19 “Long Haulers” Stump Experts | Infectious Diseases | JAMA | JAMA Network

...
Five months, 16 emergency department trips, and 3 short hospitalizations later, Lockman can’t remember a lot of things. She places the blame squarely on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

“I joke, ‘Well, COVID has eaten my brain, because I can’t remember how to remember words, keep track of medication,’” she said. “My brain just feels like there’s a fog.”

Lockman considers herself to be a “long hauler,” someone who still hasn’t fully recovered from COVID-19 weeks or even months after symptoms first arose. She serves as an administrator of 2 “Long Haul COVID Fighters” Facebook groups, whose members now number more than 8000.

The longer the pandemic drags on, the more obvious it becomes that for some patients, COVID-19 is like the unwelcome houseguest who won’t pack up and leave.
...​

I had heard of some suffering persistent maladies after recovery from COVID-19. I had assumed it was specific organs that had been hit harder than others. Now that we're into the 10th month, we're seeing medical articles addressing these persistent cases. No longer infectious, some symptoms can linger, the "long haulers."

Bob Wilson

 

Ever since H1N1 my wife has suffered chronic migraines. On a good day she just has a headache. Long term effects of COVID do not surprise me.

Neurologists think my wife suffered some brain damage fromH1N1 causing this condition. After visits with the head of neurology at a major University we are just left with grating the symptoms.

 

ya, i don't like people who say, the odds of getting it are low', or, 'the odds of dying are low', or, 'the odds of long term ramifications are low'.

i don't want any of them!

so when i hear 'this is 99% safe' i run the other way.

 

not to diminish the agony that the Long Haul folks suffer, but I wonder what the ratio of covid patients this is. 1 in 10k? 1 in 100k?
It reminds me of the term used in law, the" eggshell" plaintiff, where you have some as in the MMA who can take a Blow To The Head multiple times per week & show much less harm then the eggshell person who might just bump their head on a car door and feel the impact equal to a concussion ..... as is the case with my better ½.
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It seems that you may be off by several orders of magnitude. I'm seeing suggestions for long term lung damage as 1 in 3, other problems as greater than 1%, some greater than 10%.

If the recent findings of chronic traumatic encephalopathy being found in 99% of recently deceased NFL players are any indication, that MMA fighter is more likely to be a not-yet-diagnosed CTE patient.

 

Hanging out with the 1% again . . .

 

yes .... not to diminish the effects of many things smashing into one's head, you still have folks like George Foreman who can remain a vibrant entrepreneur into his 70s. In a sad way, my wife now has to have more compassion on my "dumb Factor" (ie originally her executive functioning was far above mine, where as I truly had to struggle to get through graduate school - so - off and I was not shown much grace) such that after a few additional light head bumps, she's now on par with yours truly. Couple her issues with fibromyalgia, loss of ballance, respiratory issues, multiple chemical sensitivities etc .... she's one of those most susceptible to any flu-like virus.
Yeah, it's great that most folks, maybe 99.99 5% have nothing to worry ... but those who are in a weakened state? You'd best not mention how unlikely serious side effects are to them - personally.
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