SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus (COVID-19)

...It is possible they were first given a false negative test result, which can happen if the swab used to collect samples of the virus misses bits of the virus. Dr. Li Wenliang, a whistleblowing doctor who later died of the virus himself in February, tested negative for the coronavirus several times before being accurately diagnosed.

In February, Wang Chen, a director at the state-run Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, estimated that the nucleic acid tests used in China were accurate at identifying positive cases of the coronavirus only 30%-50% of the time.

Another theory is that, because the test amplifies tiny bits of DNA, residual virus from the initial infection could have falsely resulted in that second positive reading...

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Really hard to better understand this pandemic and develop optimal strategies when this is just one of many problems we have with our data. We have plenty of models but we're probably modeling (insert expletive noun of your choice).

 

Not very surprised given the poor accuracy rate of the Chinese test kits.
Coronavirus test kits withdrawn in Spain over poor accuracy rate | World news | The Guardian

 

Iceland will be something interesting to watch unfold. Over at the Johns Hopkins global case map, at the moment they are only at 2 deaths per 1020 reported cases.

Based on trends from elsewhere, this would suggest such low mortality rates are at the moment from relatively high per capita testing and perhaps vigilance in starting to capture the actual case curve days to a couple weeks sooner than average. Also, relatively low median age for an industrialized nation and low population density seem thus far to correlate with lower reported mortality rates elsewhere. Not implying necessarily this will line up well to actual mortality rate when this is all said and done and measured retrospectively with appropriate serum IgG testing.

Certainly things can change in Iceland in days and weeks from now, and like most places that appear to start with relatively low mortality ratios, these inevitably rise when not expanding testing populations as the death counts lag.

 

We know HIV, another RNA virus (aren't they all?), tended to mutate often enough that it led to different strains. Without the redundancy of a double strand, transcription errors are likely.

I applaud the mad dash to release the ~30 various test kits. But I am skeptical that they will have universal agreement when tested on a fixed set of subjects. This is where quality metrics are critical so we quickly identify the "happy tests" (i.e., false negatives.)

Bob Wilson

 

No, there are many DNA viruses. Adenovirus, cytomegalovirus, Herpes simplex virus, Smallpox virus are examples of known infectious DNA viruses for human hosts.

 

read an article written by a 40 y.o. doc today. he got extremely sick, tested negative, then got sicker, tested positive.

he and some colleagues are starting to think it's floating in the air in hospitals, and there's no avoiding it.

he said the symptoms he has are worse than any illness he has ever experienced.

 

March 16, 2020 report: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

In total, in an unmitigated epidemic, we would predict approximately 510,000 deaths in GB and 2.2 million in the US, not accounting for the potential negative effects of health systems being overwhelmed on mortality.
. . .
Perhaps our most significant conclusion is that mitigation is unlikely to be feasible without emergency surge capacity limits of the UK and US healthcare systems being exceeded many times over. . . . In addition, even if all patients were able to be treated, we predict there would still be in the order of 250,000 deaths in GB, and 1.1-1.2 million in the US.​

Bob Wilson

 

That was mentioned in the task force briefing today. The US has extended the isolation recommendation until the end of April. They are promising a data rich briefing on Tuesday.

 

The Guardian posted a summary of today's briefing and included a link to the UK, March 16, study:
Coronavirus US live: Trump extends distancing guidelines and attacks media at briefing | World news | The Guardian

I'll read a report about Trump proclamations AFTER fact checkers do their work.

Bob Wilson

 

The experts say they will present the facts on Tuesday.

 

you folks keep conflating the fhop and non fhop threads

 

most worldometer numbers down from yesterday, maybe we're hitting the inflection...

 

According to JHU site, China is the only country that has reached the plateau on confirmed cases. South Korea's numbers have slowed down, but not flat. All other countries are still on an exponential increase.

 

You folks who folks?

 

... or maybe it is just weekend reporting issues. BTDT.

 

I've gone on quite a bit on how Dr. Robert Cathcart cured illness with vitamin C. Short video about how dogs and cats don't get colds because they make their own ascorbate.

And here's a 26 minute lecture overview of his experience with C. Audio is poor the first minute or so, but clears up after that.

There are many more short videos available by searching YouTube.com for "robert cathcart". I suspect that using C the way he did would eliminate the need for ventilators, or even hospital beds for that matter.