26251 replies to this topic

[Victoria Watcher]

I suppose if patient beds lining hallways, refrigerated trucks serving as temporary morgues, and nurses wearing garbage bags as PPE is still below your threshold for calling a hospital system "overwhelmed", then yeah, everything was cool. But by most people's standards NYC was temporarily overwhelmed.

the largest damage done in New York was caused by the governor ordering infected patients loaded into long term care homes by mandate. hundreds killed by that action.

however you have a “news” organization allowing interviews of the governor to be conducted by his own brother. that’s hardly going to lead to fact finding.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 24 May 2020 - 02:48 AM.

[Jason-L]

The moderators should get rid of trolls. I don't like seeing disinformation being spread.

Make use of the Ignore feature and eventually, hopefully, they'll just be spreading it to themselves.  We can call it "forum distancing".

Edited by Jason-L, 24 May 2020 - 05:38 AM.

[Mike K.]

A couple of weeks ago I stated here that our hospitals are empty while British Columbians suffer from conditions that require “elective” surgeries cancelled due to covid. Now I’m hearing from my VIHA contact that spouses of hospital workers are also not working to keep doctors and nurses safe. Meanwhile many nurses have had their hours cut drastically and are themselves sitting at home waiting for work, or working half-shifts. And finally we’re getting some media attention on empty hospitals, but why wasn’t this covered in greater detail weeks earlier?

Meanwhile the American CDC is now stating the death rate is 0.26%, not the WHO’s estimate of 3.4%.

For the first time, the CDC has attempted to offer a real estimate of the overall death rate for COVID-19, and under its most likely scenario, the number is 0.26%. Officials estimate a 0.4% fatality rate among those who are symptomatic and project a 35% rate of asymptomatic cases among those infected, which drops the overall infection fatality rate (IFR) to just 0.26% — almost exactly where Stanford researchers pegged ita month ago.

Until now, we have been ridiculed for thinking the death rate was that low, as opposed to the 3.4% estimate of the World Health Organization, which helped drive the panic and the lockdowns. Now the CDC is agreeing to the lower rate in plain ink.

- https://townhall.com...ountry-n2569367

[amor de cosmos]

^ the CDC data is next to useless. I've shared a few stories about that. Here's yet another one:

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and several state health departments have been reporting COVID-19 diagnostic tests and antibody tests as one grand tally, rather than keeping their results separate, The Atlantic reported.

Reporting these numbers as a lump sum, rather than two distinct data points, presents several major issues.

Namely, combining the numbers could make America's diagnostic testing capabilities and testing rates appear higher than they actually are, according to The Atlantic. And as the tests serve profoundly different purposes, "positive" results from either test cannot be interpreted in the same way. Reporting all the positive results together, as one number, could skew our understanding of how many new COVID-19 cases emerge over time — a crucial metric to help control outbreaks as states begin reopening.

When told how the CDC chose to lump the results of both tests together, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute Ashish Jha told The Atlantic, "You've got to be kidding me ... How could the CDC make that mistake? This is a mess."

https://www.livescie...body-tests.html

Peer-reviewed findings were published late Friday from one of the key trials of remdesivir, perhaps the most promising antiviral agent for COVID-19, confirming and extending topline results announced a month ago via press release.

Hospitalized patients with COVID-19 who received remdesivir had a median recovery time of 11 days versus 15 days with placebo (rate ratio for recovery 1.32, 95% CI 1.12-1.55, P<0.001), reported John Beigel, MD, of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and colleagues.

Mortality estimates by 14 days were lower for the remdesivir group compared to placebo, but non-significant (HR for death 0.70, 95% CI 0.47-1.04), the authors wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Interestingly, when researchers examined outcomes on an 8-point ordinal scale, they found patients with a baseline ordinal score of 5 had a rate ratio for recovery of 1.47 (95% CI 1.17-1.84), while patients with a baseline score of 7 had a rate ratio for recovery of 0.95 (95% CI 0.64-1.42).

Some of these data were released by the NIAID on April 29, but without further details such as 95% confidence intervals. On May 1, the FDA agreed to let remdesivir be used clinically under an emergency use authorization. Since then, however, clinicians and other researchers have clamored for a fuller report, to help guide their clinical practice. For example, questions were raised as to whether particular subgroups got more benefit from the drug than others.

https://www.medpaget...e/covid19/86670

As the world remains in almost a standstill and silenced after being ravaged by the novel coronavirus, scientists worldwide are sprinting to find solutions by researching vaccines and therapeutics. A Chinese research team spearheaded by Peking University (PKU) is taking the lead by unsheathing neutralizing antibodies, which will likely lay the foundation for potent COVID-19 treatment that would hopefully be available as early as this winter, in case of a resurgence of the virus.

The research team led by Sunney Xie, the director of the Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics at PKU, has successfully identified multiple highly potent neutralizing antibodies against the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the causative virus of the respiratory disease COVID-19, from convalescent plasma by high-throughput single-cell sequencing.

Such a drug would hopefully be able to stop the COVID-19 pandemic, in case the vaccine isn't available soon, Xie said in an exclusive interview with the Global Times on Wednesday.

*snip*

Xie's team is working with WuXi Biologics, a Hong Kong-listed company, on clinical trials for the drug, which are expected to start in July in some foreign countries such as Australia. Not too many patients are available for testing in China, according to news portal yicai.com.

longish
http://www.globaltim...t/1189193.shtml

BEIJING (Reuters) - The United States should stop wasting time in its fight against the coronavirus and work with China to combat it, rather than spreading lies and attacking the country, the Chinese government’s top diplomat Wang Yi said on Sunday.

*snip*

“Regretfully, in addition to the raging coronavirus, a political virus is also spreading in the United States. This political virus is using every opportunity to attack and smear China,” said Wang, who is also China’s foreign minister.

https://www.reuters....e-idUSKBN230076

The crowded Gaza Strip recorded its first death from the coronavirus on Saturday, officials said, amid fears an outbreak could paralyze the territory's already overstretched health care system.

The Palestinian health ministry said the deceased was a 77-year-old woman who had underlying health problems and had been placed at a special field hospital near the Rafah border crossing point upon arriving from Egypt.

https://www.ynetnews...ticle/HJmGvpLiI

Energy companies have been slashing exploration and production budgets since the Covid-19 pandemic took hold and sent oil prices tumbling, but, with few profitable investment alternatives, operators are now likely to increase spending in decommissioning work. Rystad Energy estimates the total value of the global pool of decommissioning projects that will accumulate through 2024 could reach $42 billion. With an average asset age of 25 years, the Northwest European decommissioning market could grow 20% in annual commitments through 2022 if the current low oil prices don’t show signs of substantial recovery soon. In addition to a rapidly maturing asset base and low oil prices that erode commercial viability and potential life extensions, the North Sea decommissioning market will also be helped by favorable service contract prices.

https://oilprice.com...rough-2024.html

[Mike K.]

So one man’s grand tally (Lancet study) is suddenly another man’s garbage (CDC data), because The Atlantic says so? Jeez Louise.

See how politicized all of this has become? Anti-vaxxer Lancet is the definitive word on psyants, the Centre for Disease Control is now a junk bond.

Tread carefully here, folks.

[amor de cosmos]

not the Atlantic, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, Ashish Jha

[Mike K.]

The Atlantic went to Jha for a sound bite. Let’s not elevate an opinion as someone that’s doing research on the CDC’s data.

So now it’s Harvard (Jha) vs Stanford, which came to the same conclusion on death rates as the CDC? Shocker. Wanting to create controversy, The Atlantic doesn’t go to Stanford. No, they go to a competing university.

Who wins?

[Greg]

So one man’s grand tally (Lancet study) is suddenly another man’s garbage (CDC data), because The Atlantic says so? Jeez Louise.

See how politicized all of this has become? Anti-vaxxer Lancet is the definitive word on psyants, the Centre for Disease Control is now a junk bond.

Tread carefully here, folks.

 

Calling Lancet anti-vaxxer is just plain stupid. 

[Mike K.]

And who’s covering the CDC issue for The Atlantic?

None other than a couple of green technology guys, because they’re experts on epidemiology, right?

ALEXIS C. MADRIGAL is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology (and its impacts on the epidemiological processes, I guess)

ROBINSON MEYER is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers climate change and technology (and CDC data, apparently)

[Mike K.]

Calling Lancet anti-vaxxer is just plain stupid.

It would be, if not for the fact that they didn’t rescind a 1998 vaccines-cause-autism study they published until 2010, 12 years after the fact.

[todd]

you are the guy on here giving medical advice from your living room.
I know we don’t agree on many issues but calls for the silencing of differing opinions doesn’t help you win your arguments. it shows you lack the skills to back your positions.

With modern technology you can usually find a doctor who agrees with you via video chat from your living room and their living room.

[todd]

^ https://youtu.be/FK25upIADkY

[Greg]

It would be, if not for the fact that they didn’t rescind a 1998 vaccines-cause-autism study they published until 2010, 12 years after the fact.

 

They retracted it when the fraud was proven. But they printed multiple critiques of it in the following issues, for example:

 

Autism and Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Vaccine: No Epidemiological Evidence for a Causal Association 
https://pubmed.ncbi....h.gov/10376617/

 

It is simply incorrect to say that the Lancet had an anti-vaxxer position. They published a paper. They published papers that contradicted the original paper. They eventually retracted the original paper when fraud was established. More or less how things are supposed to work.

[Victoria Watcher]

I’d like to see someone in officialdom lay out the three of four reasons we are expecting a “second wave”. i’m more than willing to admit it’s probably coming.

but if it is then state the reasons and let’s see if we can behave in the opposite fashion now.

for example: if one reason for the second wave is colder weather and people staying indoors more, then today’s “stay home” message seems counterintuitive.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 24 May 2020 - 09:41 AM.

[todd]

1918 pandemic timeline: https://www.cdc.gov/...meline-1918.htm

[todd]

We will know all in five years.

[Victoria Watcher]

another example:  if it is "school" then we need to work now to change school practices.  eliminate sports/gym/change rooms and other activities outside of desks.  we can't have kids side-by-side at lockers - or maybe using lockers at all mid-day - during class breaks.  we have to halve the number on school buses.

 

similar ideas for post-secondary - less students at lectures and labs.

 

^ are we working on any of this for september?

[todd]

Forced exercise seems a bit barbaric to me anyway.

[Mike K.]

They retracted it when the fraud was proven. But they printed multiple critiques of it in the following issues, for example:

Autism and Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Vaccine: No Epidemiological Evidence for a Causal Association
https://pubmed.ncbi....h.gov/10376617/

It is simply incorrect to say that the Lancet had an anti-vaxxer position. They published a paper. They published papers that contradicted the original paper. They eventually retracted the original paper when fraud was established. More or less how things are supposed to work.

The Lancet’s autism study was literally the foundation for modern anti-vaxxers.

Even our friends at Vox can’t dance around the issue, and wrote back in March of last year:

“Two decades ago, an esteemed medical journal published a small study that has become one of the most notorious and damaging pieces of research in medicine.” - https://www.google.c...es-autism-study

As I’ve said, tread carefully. You never know when the next boondoggle by a prestigious publication is in the making, as I think you’ll recognize the phrase from your profession, that we’d already have the cure for cancer - if men were mice.

[Victoria Watcher]

we've solved cancer in mice because they present a plentiful, inexpensive and mostly controversy-free platform on which to perform experimentation.   too bad we couldn't find more throw-away humans*.

 

*nparker - be careful with your reply

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 24 May 2020 - 10:07 AM.