CORONA Main Coronavirus thread

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JbpR7lC7sc
13:01 min
COVID vs Common Cold vs Flu - Which one is it? (Doctor Explains)
•Oct 23, 2020


Doctor Mike Hansen


COVID vs Common Cold vs Flu - Which one is it? Every fall and winter - coughing, sneezing, and sniffling, and the like. Is it the common cold? Is it the Flu? or It is COVID?

All 3 of these have overlapping symptoms. And COVID cases are already starting to increase in the US with the cold weather, and this is just the beginning, of the 2nd surge that everyone is talking about. COVID, flu, and common colds are all caused by viruses.

Relevant Videos which mentioned in this video : Airborne Transmission - https://youtu.be/xJ4Epf8i1uk Long Haulers COVID - https://youtu.be/GuA8umd9txI Pulse Oximeter for COVID - https://youtu.be/3siQzuXP3qE Rapid Antigen Test for COVID - https://youtu.be/3siQzuXP3qE

These tiny infectious agents can survive only by getting inside the cells of animals or humans. There are more than 200 different viruses that can cause the common cold. The most common viruses that cause common colds are rhinoviruses and different types of coronaviruses. COVID is caused by a specific type of coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2. The specific virus that causes infection, and how your body’s immune system responds to the virus, is what determines the symptoms and severity of illness.

The main way that these viruses spread from person to person are through the tiny droplets that sick people propel when they cough, sneeze or talk. These droplets can fly six feet or more in the air, and they can spread the virus if they deposit on someone’s mouth or nose, or they get inhaled into a person’s lungs. The novel coronavirus, meaning SARS-CoV-2, is also aerosolized, and can actually travel up to 27 feet in the aerosolized form, and that is something I talk more about in a separate video, called airborne transmission. With COVID, an infected person doesn’t need to show symptoms to spread the virus.

About 40% of viral transmission happens before infected people show symptoms. After people are infected, if they do develop symptoms, it can be for several days, or it can be for the duration of their illness. And about 1/3rd of people with COVID never develop symptoms. With the common cold, you’re contagious the entire time you have symptoms, but you’re most contagious right after you catch the infection before you have symptoms. With the flu, you’re most contagious from the day before your symptoms start until about the fifth day of symptoms. With any of these illnesses, it’s important to stay home when you or your child is most infectious. Viruses also spread through physical contacts like kissing or shaking hands, or when a person touches a surface (like a desk or doorknob) that has accumulated droplets from a sick person and then touches his or her own eyes, mouth, or nose. Viruses can live on surfaces for hours to days, although how long they remain intact and infectious depends on the virus, the surface, and the environment.

COVID is a real wild card here. There can be no symptoms, or it can be similar to the common cold. Or it can be similar to the flu. But it can also cause loss of smell, so that is somewhat of a unique symptom. And it becomes concerning when people develop shortness of breath, which is a result of pneumonia developing. So although both flu and COVID can cause pneumonia, COVID is more likely to do so. With COVID, it can take anywhere from two to 14 days after exposure to the virus for symptoms to appear. On average it's 5 days. And that is if people do develop symptoms. Another unique aspect of COVID is that symptoms can start out mild or even improve temporarily, and then get worse. Some people continue to have fatigue and other symptoms for months after their infection, the so-called “long haulers.”

Why do some people get so sick with COVID? With COVID, the death rate ranges from 10% to 27% in people ages 85 and older, but is less than 1% in those ages 54 and younger. One reason for this disparity may be differences in the aging immune system. We know that besides age, there are other risk factors for more severe illness, like being male and having certain medical conditions like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, tobacco use. In a recent October study published in NEJM, researchers identified a specific cluster of genes that make some people more prone to have severe COVID illness, and they also confirmed a potential involvement of the ABO blood-group system. There seems to be a higher risk in Type A than in other blood groups and a protective effect in Type O.
 

abby normal

insert appropriate adjective here
Sure seems like it's ramping up again. Thanks Marsh and others for keeping this thread going.

I really hope I don't get it again this year. My earliest signs were pain in/around my ears, loss of taste, and pinkeye. My ears are my early warning system for most any illness.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e9lRQK9eVQ
3:29 min
COVID-19 cases surge with more than 82,000 in single day
532,568 views
•Oct 23, 2020

5.2K3.8KSHARESAVE




ABC News

10M subscribers


SUBSCRIBE
Chicago imposed new curfews for nonessential businesses, including bars, after Illinois saw 4,000 new virus infections. Fourteen states hit record hospitalizations this week.

[COMMENT- note the screen shot of the infection map. Likely Red States.... could this infection be intentional to mess with the election? Too late to mail...Lockdown on polls?]

1603558156505.png
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE0twpuYfh4
11:50 min
Coronavirus second wave hits Europe: What's different this time around? | COVID-19 Special
•Oct 7, 2020


DW News (Germany)

The second wave is here: Europe sees a surge in coronavirus infections in many countries and cities. Spain's capital Madrid is Europe's new coronavirus hotspot. But medical staff say they're ready. And there's good news: the speed of new infections in Spain is waning. But that could change. Whatever the case, Madrid is back under lockdown. A great deal of Europe is re-introducing restrictions, as infections spike. Berlin is imposing a curfew from Saturday. Parts of the city are now hot-spots. In Germany, daily coronavirus cases have hit a new high since April. Rising hospital rates have health officials worried in the UK. The government's reviewing measures. In Iceland, pubs, clubs, arcade halls and gyms are closed. There are fears the latest wave of infections could be much higher than the first. And Paris has shut its bars.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Researchers Learning More About How The Coronavirus Sabotages Blood Vessels

October 25, 20207:51 AM ET
Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday
WILL STONE

LISTEN·4:474-Minute ListenAdd toPLAYLIST
COVID-19 symptoms like strokes and kidney damage are unusual for a respiratory disease. Researchers are looking into how the coronavirus damages blood vessels and what that means for treatment.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:
Shortness of breath and a dry cough are often telltale signs of COVID-19. But even early on, doctors realized the virus can inflict all kinds of other damage, from strokes to strange rashes. What do these symptoms have in common? As Will Stone reports, many researchers are focused on how the coronavirus sabotages our blood vessels.

WILL STONE, BYLINE: Picture a skating rink before a hockey match. The top layer of ice is glassy and slick. The players and pucks glide smoothly across. Dr. William Li says that ice is like the lining of your blood vessels when you're healthy. But during a coronavirus infection...

WILLIAM LI: The virus damages the inside of the blood vessel and shreds the lining. That's like the ice after a hockey game.

STONE: The lining becomes ragged and leaky. Things start to get stuck.
LI: And you wind up actually having this situation which is really untenable for blood flow.

STONE: Li and an international team of researchers compared the lung tissue of people who died from COVID-19 with those who died from influenza. They found stark differences. For example, the COVID lungs had nine times as many tiny blood clots.

LI: The surprise was that this respiratory virus that gets into the lung makes a beeline for your vascular endothelial cells, the cells lining blood vessels.

STONE: These endothelial cells are a vital part of the vascular system, coating the inside wall of every artery, vein and capillary. If the novel coronavirus is wreaking a special kind of havoc on the endothelial cells, as Li and other scientists think, that helps explain why COVID complications can appear anywhere in the body.

LI: The effects in the brain, the blood clots in the lung and elsewhere and in the legs, the COVID toe, the problem with the kidneys and even the heart.

STONE: Early in the pandemic, Dr. Gaetano Santulli saw how many different organs could be affected, and he suspected endothelial cells might hold the key. Santulli's a researcher at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. He says, consider what these endothelial cells do in a healthy person.

GAETANO SANTULLI: Mainly the endothelial cell function are to avoid high blood pressure and to avoid blood clotting.

STONE: But when these cells don't work properly, when they're dysfunctional, the opposite can happen. Santulli saw this with COVID and realized...

SANTULLI: If there is endothelial dysfunction because of the virus, we can explain why we have an increased risk of blood clotting in COVID-19 patient.

STONE: Scientists aren't sure exactly how COVID damages blood vessels. What's clear is the body's immune response often begins to spiral out of control.

YOGEN KANTHI: What we see with the SARS-2 coronavirus is really an unprecedented level of inflammation in the bloodstream.

STONE: That's Dr. Yogen Kanthi of the National Institutes of Health.

KANTHI: We start to get this relentless, self-amplifying cycle of inflammation in the body. And that may lead to clotting.

STONE: This is most striking in severe cases of COVID. And doctors who care for these sick patients, like Roger Seheult, have come to see COVID as a vascular disease in addition to a respiratory illness. Seheult is a critical care and pulmonary physician in Southern California. Early in the pandemic, he noticed the patients who ended up in the ICU tended to have diabetes, high blood pressure or were obese. All those conditions can damage the blood vessels and cause inflammation. So if you catch the virus on top of that...

ROGER SEHEULT: It's a stress test. If you're right on the edge and you get the wind blown from this coronavirus, now you've gone over the edge.

STONE: And he also noticed that the patients hospitalized with COVID are different from those hospitalized for respiratory viruses like the flu.

SEHEULT: They are having shortness of breath, but we have to realize that the lungs is more than just the airways. It's an issue with the blood vessels themselves.

STONE: That's why COVID patients can struggle to get enough oxygen, even if air is being pumped into their lungs by a ventilator. Seheult says even after breathing improves, some patients still have damaged blood vessels.

SEHEULT: They're now off oxygen. They can be discharged home. But their vasculature is not yet completely resolved. They still have inflammation.

STONE: So what does this mean for COVID treatment? Doctors are already using drugs to manage inflammation and prevent clots, though they're still working out the best combinations and dosages. But they're also looking at more direct ways of protecting endothelial cells to prevent blood vessels from breaking down in the first place.

For NPR News, I'm Will Stone.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Watch: ‘Shove Your New World Order Up Your *ss!’ — London Erupts in Protest Against Lockdown
Kurt Zindulka
26 Oct 20202,787

Thousands of protesters descended on the British capital on Saturday to call for an end to coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions on businesses in the UK, which they described as a form of “tyranny”.

In a Breitbart London exclusive video, protesters were seen singing: “I would rather be a human than a slave”, “We are the 99 per cent”, and “You can shove your New World Order up your ass”.

The ‘Stop the New Normal’ march was organised by the anti-lockdown activist group Stand Up X and was one of the largest rallies against the government’s coronavirus restrictions since the beginning of the lockdowns in March.

The large scale act of civil disobedience followed more restrictions being imposed on the people of Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland, as well as the introduction of a ‘tier system’ by Prime Minister Boris in England, in which local regions and cities are placed under lockdown if spikes in coronavirus cases are recorded.

At around 4 pm the police in London began using tactics to split the protest into separate groups and made at least 18 arrests in Trafalgar Square and on Westminster Bridge.

One woman told Breitbart London: “I’m so angry, all these police that are storming in, they’re going to lose their pensions. They’re supposed to be protecting us, they’re not, this is tyranny.”

“I cannot believe in this day and age, in this time now, more than ever we need to stand together, and if people can’t get together and get united for the cause, for their freedom, for everybody, then we’ve lost already,” she said.

“I don’t understand, if your children are not the motivation to fight for your freedom… my grandfather and my grandad did not fight in the First World War and the Second World War as snipers to not be under a ****ing dictatorship, for it to happen now in 2020,” she added, going on to urge the rest of the country to “wake up”.
Exclusive Video: Watch Cops Storm, Forcibly Shut Down Peaceful Anti-Lockdown Protest in London Watch: Police Storm, Forcibly Shut Down Anti-Lockdown Protest in London
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) September 27, 2020
The lead officer for the Metropolitan Police’s response to the protest, Commander Ade Adelekan explained his decision to disperse the crowds: “Throughout the day, officers have been managing a number of complex protests at various locations across central London.”

“One demonstration, in particular, attracted a large number of protesters and I became increasingly concerned that those in the crowd were not maintaining social distancing or adhering to the terms of their own risk assessment,” he said.
“Organisers did not take reasonable steps to keep protesters safe which then voided their risk assessment. At this point, officers then took action to disperse crowds in the interests of public safety,” Adelekan added.

In footage shared online, police were again seen physically confronting the anti-lockdown protesters, with one man wearing a ‘Make Britain Great Again’ hat being thrown to the pavement.

In contrast, the police took a hands-off approach to a large-scale protest against police brutality in Nigeria, that was led by Black Lives Matter activist and self-described Black Panther, Sasha Johnson.

Hundreds of protesters against police brutality in Nigeria took to the streets of London on October 24, 2020. Kurt Zindulka, Breitbart News

Hundreds of protesters against police brutality in Nigeria took to the streets of London on October 24, 2020. Kurt Zindulka, Breitbart News

At a 'Stop Trump Coalition' Protest in London on October 24, 2020, a man dressed as President Trump is seen 'injecting' a pantomime cow with growth hormones. Kurt Zindulka, Breitbart News

At a ‘Stop Trump Coalition’ Protest in London on October 24, 2020, a man dressed as President Trump is seen ‘injecting’ a pantomime cow with growth hormones. Kurt Zindulka, Breitbart News

Another protest organised by the Stop Trump Coalition — which saw around 50 people gather in Parliament Square to protest against the American leader as well as the prospect of a trade deal between the UK and the United States — was not broken up by the police either.
WATCH: Police Standby as Hundreds of BLM Protesters Gather in London, While Cracking Down on Anti-Lockdown Demos WATCH: Police Standby as BLM Protest in Lockdown London
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 20, 2020
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

October 26, 2020
Are Recent Reports of COVID Surges an Attempt to Suppress In-Person Voting?
By Brian C. Joondeph, M.D.

Back in March, the COVID mantra was, “15 days to slow the spread”, meaning flattening the curve. The purpose was to avoid overwhelming the medical system as no one really knew what we were up against with the Wuhan virus.

This allowed time for the system to adapt and recalibrate to this new illness. As the virus peaked in mid-April, the subsequent months should have been the normal course of a viral pandemic, some getting sick to varying degrees, others unfortunately dying, but eventually reaching herd immunity, itself a longstanding concept -- suddenly controversial.

This has been the course of past flu seasons and other viral pandemics, but none lead to shutting down economies all over the world, causing incalculable financial and social devastation to cities, states, countries, and individuals. Just when we see a light at the end of the tunnel there is a reported surge in cases, often timed to political events.

The first surge was in mid-summer, as businesses were opening and the presidential campaigns began in earnest with nominating conventions. President Trump’s rallies energized his base and are a unique feature to his campaign, something Sleepy Joe Biden could in no way replicate. Conveniently the surge put a damper on Trump rallies.

The second surge is now, just weeks before the 2020 presidential election. The Atlantic, one of many left-wing mouthpieces for the Democrat party, framed it politically, “The Coronavirus surge that will define the next four years.” How exactly does a viral illness define a future presidential term? Easily, if this has never been about the virus but instead about the election.

One only needs to look back to January 15, the same day, coincidentally or not, when the first case of the Chinese flu arrived in the US, the US and China signed a phase 1 trade deal, and the day that House Democrats waddled over to the Senate in solemn fashion carrying articles of impeachment against the President. A confluence of likely related events all on the very same day. Subsequent moves by Trump have been portrayed under a political microscope following on the heels of that January day.

What if the latest surge is just another political move, an attempt to influence election, now a week away?

224741_5_.png

YouTube screen grab
What exactly is this current surge? Is it a surge in positive tests, cases, hospitalizations, or deaths? A positive test alone is not a case, according to the CDC. The “case definition” of COVID is a positive test and symptoms. People who might have had a mild case a month ago may still have dead viral particles in their noses, triggering positive tests.

Over a million tests per day are performed in the US with acceptable positive rates of under 5 percent. That means 50,000 positive tests per day but most not infectious or symptomatic. More tests mean more positive results, what the media calls “cases.” If the US didn’t offer tests on demand as we do now, this so-called surge would go away. According to the New York Times,
The standard tests are diagnosing huge numbers of people who may be carrying relatively insignificant amounts of the virus.
Most of these people are not likely to be contagious and identifying them may contribute to bottlenecks that prevent those who are contagious from being found in time.
Conveniently, this current surge is in positive tests. Despite a rare moment of honesty and clarity from the New York Times, their current headline is, “US sets coronavirus case record amid new surge.” CNN is singing in harmony, “The US just reported its highest number of Covid-19 infections in one day since the pandemic's start.”

No one speaks of false positive tests, likely inflating the test numbers. Remember how a goat and pawpaw fruit “tested positive” for COVID in Tanzania? How many of the current “cases” in the US are false positives?

What does this mean for the election? According to Gallup, Democrats by more than a two to one margin over Republicans, vote early, 62 to 28 percent. Republicans understandably distrust mail-in ballots given the daily reports of missing ballots and other electoral chicanery.

If voters planning on voting in person on Election Day can be scared or kept away, this favors Democrats as more of them have already voted early.

Conveniently, this current surge may do just that.

The Atlantic offered a preview of this strategy back in June with this headline, “The looming threat to voting in person.” They worry that the Wuhan virus “needlessly jeopardizes the health of poll workers and voters” due to concerns over long lines, distancing, masks, hand sanitizer, and the older ages of poll workers. It’s funny that many of these same concerns are poo-pooed when it comes to BLM and Antifa protests.

NPR backed up the narrative this month asking, “Is casting a ballot in person a risk to your physical health?” Politico asked the same question, “Is it safe to vote in person?”

What a great way to scare voters, especially the elderly and vulnerable, from voting in person, targeting Republicans who are more likely to vote on election day. The electoral map provides another clue regarding this vote suppression strategy.

Where are these so-called COVID surges? The Chicago Tribune answers, “Coronavirus cases surge in key battleground states as election nears.” There is no concern for states like California and New York, which are a lock for Democrats. But instead, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin, all necessary for Trump to win on his way to reelection.

The pieces of the puzzle are coming together. Early mail in voting, pushed by and favoring Democrats, suppressing same day voting, disadvantages Republicans, particularly in the states Trump needs to carry. Election interference by voter suppression, brought to you by the Democrat media.

Don’t be surprised to see fear porn over in-person voting ratcheted up over the next, scaring voters into staying home, more Republican than Democrat voters. Nothing else is working for the Democrats and they are pulling out all the stops to pull rabbit out of the hat and salvage a losing candidate and campaign. Get out and vote, as if your life depends on it. Because it does.
 

mzkitty

I give up.
Well. This afternoon my son was telling me about something he saw on Reddit -- in Poland Corona is so bad that people are dropping sick peeps at hospital doors and the hospitals are so crowded that they can't take them. I'll see if there's any news on it.

In the meantime, I just saw this:

polish 1.PNG

Video - scroll down a bit; see also the protesters in Italy and Spain. Round 2 is bad bad bad.

 

Krayola

Veteran Member
I saw this today and a thought occurred to me. The death rate has been lower the last few months and most people attribute it to the fact that younger people are being infected vs. older folks plus the treatments have gotten better.

However, I wonder if it is also because Vit D levels have been higher the last few months because we've just gone through the spring and summer. Vitamin D levels go up in the warmer months and with people trying to do more outdoors to avoid infection, this could have helped Vit D levels go higher.

I hope that with the return of winter/lack of sunshine that we don't see the death rates spike again due to lack of Vit D.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x-biB_JrcU
3:24 min

CDC Reveals Hospitals Counted Heart Attacks as COVID-19 Deaths
•Oct 27, 2020


One America News Network

The latest numbers from the CDC reveal hospitals have been counting patients who died from serious preexisting conditions as COVID-19 deaths. One America’s Pearson Sharp has more, as the CDC counts over 51-thousand patients who actually died from heart attacks, as opposed to the coronavirus.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge8T4fzrWnU
8:03 min

Coronavirus Update 115: Convalescent Plasma vs Monoclonal Antibodies for COVID 19 Treatment

•Oct 27, 2020


MedCram - Medical Lectures Explained CLEARLY

Professor Roger Seheult, MD discusses new and concerning data on convalescent plasma that was published in the British Medical Journal. Dr. Seheult compares convalescent plasma treatment for COVID-19 to monoclonal antibodies such as the treatment made by Regeneron and Eli Lilly and also gives a brief coronavirus vaccine update. (This video was recorded on October 27, 2020). Dr. Seheult is the co-founder and lead instructor at https://www.medcram.com

LINKS / REFERENCES: Johns Hopkins Tracker | https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html Worldometer | https://www.worldometers.info/coronav... COVID-19 vaccine tracker (RAPS) | https://www.raps.org/news-and-article... Johnson & Johnson Prepares to Resume Phase 3 ENSEMBLE Trial of its Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate in the U.S. | https://www.jnj.com/our-company/johns... Moderna Completes Enrollment of Phase 3 COVE Study of mRNA Vaccine Against COVID-19 | https://investors.modernatx.com/news-... This 12-year-old is happy to be testing a Covid-19 vaccine (CNN) | https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/26/health... AstraZeneca, Johnson&Johnson to resume Covid-19 vaccine trials in US (CNN) | https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/23/health... AstraZeneca says its coronavirus vaccine triggers immune response among adults (CNBC) | https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/26/oxfor... Convalescent plasma in the management of moderate covid-19 in adults in India: open-label phase II multicentre randomized controlled trial (BMJ) | https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/371/b... Convalescent plasma is ineffective for covid-19 (BMJ) | https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/371/b... Covid-19 vaccine trials from AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson to restart https://www.statnews.com/2020/10/23/c...
 

Krayola

Veteran Member
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x-biB_JrcU
3:24 min

CDC Reveals Hospitals Counted Heart Attacks as COVID-19 Deaths
•Oct 27, 2020


One America News Network

The latest numbers from the CDC reveal hospitals have been counting patients who died from serious preexisting conditions as COVID-19 deaths. One America’s Pearson Sharp has more, as the CDC counts over 51-thousand patients who actually died from heart attacks, as opposed to the coronavirus.
It's hard to know what to believe anymore. Accurate info is hard to come by. I don't trust anyone these days and that includes CDC. However, it's not like Covid has not been known to damage the heart, which could lead to heart attacks. The video above even questioned patients who died from ARDS and whether they should have been classified as Covid deaths. Are they kidding me?!

I totally understand the criticism of listing hospice patients under the death tally. If you are in the last stages of kidney failure or terminal cancer and were only expected to live a few more weeks/months I would not count that under covid but the others would still be walking around if not for covid. I think there is lying going on on both sides of this argument. They all have an agenda on this particular issue, sadly even OAN. OAN is claiming that the spanish flu didn't kill that many because so many of them got bacterial pneumonia as a secondary infection, as if they caught pneumonia in a vacuum and the spanish flu had absolutely nothing to do with them coming down with pneumonia.

Shaking my head.
 

naturallysweet

Has No Life - Lives on TB
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x-biB_JrcU
3:24 min

CDC Reveals Hospitals Counted Heart Attacks as COVID-19 Deaths
•Oct 27, 2020


One America News Network

The latest numbers from the CDC reveal hospitals have been counting patients who died from serious preexisting conditions as COVID-19 deaths. One America’s Pearson Sharp has more, as the CDC counts over 51-thousand patients who actually died from heart attacks, as opposed to the coronavirus.
I'm sorry, but this story proves the writer is ignorant on the topic. Covid CAUSES heart attacks! We've known that since winter. Here is no excuse to be ignorant on this

I've gone through the racing heart, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, shortness of breath and chest pain from this one. Luckily, the tests have shown that my heart is ok now. But I was scared to death for quite a while that it wouldn't be. (I'm still dealing with the occasion low blood pressure spells. Which makes no sense. But nothing about this monster does.)
 

naturallysweet

Has No Life - Lives on TB
This might explain the long haul symptoms. Covid causes an immune disorder. Makes me worried about getting it again since my body is already trained to attack itself. But also provides hope that the effects will weaken through time.
So much we don't know about this monster. Boggles my mind that people can act so stupid as to only point to the immediate death rate and demand that people not even take personal protection to protect themselves.



Some Covid Survivors Have Antibodies That Attack the Body, not Virus
New research found ‘autoantibodies’ similar to those in lupus and rheumatoid arthritis patients. But patients may also benefit from treatments for those autoimmune diseases.


merlin_177384153_eaa6ff01-797b-4e21-aaf6-d27f3da914d0-articleLarge.jpg

Covid-19 patients were discharged from a temporary hospital in Lima, Peru, last month. The study may help explain why so-called “long-haulers” continue to experience symptoms long after the virus has left their bodies.

Covid-19 patients were discharged from a temporary hospital in Lima, Peru, last month. The study may help explain why so-called “long-haulers” continue to experience symptoms long after the virus has left their bodies.Credit...Martin Mejia/Associated Press
Apoorva Mandavilli
By Apoorva Mandavilli
  • Oct. 27, 2020
Some survivors of Covid-19 carry worrying signs that their immune system has turned on the body, reminiscent of potentially debilitating diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, a new study has found.
At some point, the body’s defense system in these patients shifted into attacking itself, rather than the virus, the study suggests. The patients are producing molecules called “autoantibodies” that target genetic material from human cells, instead of from the virus.
This misguided immune response may exacerbate severe Covid-19. It may also explain why so-called “long haulers” have lingering problems months after their initial illness has resolved and the virus is gone from their bodies.
The findings carry important implications for treatment: Using existing tests that can detect autoantibodies, doctors could identify patients who might benefit from treatments used for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. There is no cure for these diseases, but some treatments decrease the frequency and severity of flare-ups.

“It’s possible that you could hit the appropriate patients harder with some of these more aggressive drugs and expect better outcomes,” said Matthew Woodruff, an immunologist at Emory University in Atlanta and lead author of the work.
The results were reported Friday on the preprint server MedRxiv, and have not yet been published in a scientific journal. But other experts said the researchers who carried out the study are known for their careful, meticulous work, and that the findings are not unexpected because other viral illnesses also trigger autoantibodies.

“I’m not surprised, but it’s interesting to see that it’s really happening,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University. “It’s possible that even moderate to mild disease may induce this kind of antibody response.”


For months it has been clear that the coronavirus can cause the immune system to run amok in some people, ultimately wreaking more damage to the body than the virus itself. (Dexamethasone, the steroid President Trump took after his Covid diagnosis, has proved effective in some people with severe Covid to tamp down this over-exuberant immune response.)

Viral infections cause infected human cells to die. Sometimes the cells die a quiet death — but sometimes, and especially in the throes of severe infection, they can blow up, strewing their innards. When that happens, DNA, normally cloistered in coiled bundles inside the nucleus, is suddenly scattered and visible.
In the typical response to a virus, cells known as B immune cells make antibodies that recognize pieces of viral RNA from the virus and lock onto them.
But in conditions like lupus, some B cells never learn to do this and instead produce autoantibodies that glom onto DNA debris from dead human cells, mistaking them for intruders. Something similar may be happening in patients with Covid-19, the research suggests.

“Anytime you have that combination of inflammation and cell death, there is the potential for autoimmune disease and autoantibodies, more importantly, to emerge,” said Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Dr. Woodruff and his colleagues reported earlier this month that some people with severe Covid-19 also have such unrefined B immune cells. The finding prompted them to explore whether those B cells make autoantibodies.
In the new study, the researchers looked at 52 patients within the Emory health care system in Atlanta who were classified as having either severe or critical Covid-19, but who had no history of autoimmune disorders.
They found autoantibodies that recognize DNA in nearly half of the patients. They also found antibodies against a protein called rheumatoid factor and others that help with blood clotting. Among the top half of the most seriously ill patients, more than 70 percent had autoantibodies against one of the targets tested, Dr. Woodruff said.
“It’s not just that these patients have an autoimmune-like immune response,” he said. “It’s that those immune responses are coupled with actual true testable clinical auto-reactivities.”
Some of the autoantibodies the researchers identified are associated with blood flow problems, noted Ann Marshak-Rothstein, an immunologist and lupus expert at the University of Massachusetts, Worcester.
“It’s very possible that some of the coagulation issues that you see in Covid-19 patients are being driven by these kinds of immune complexes,” she said.
If the autoantibodies do turn out to be long-lasting, she said, they may result in persistent, even lifelong, problems for Covid-19 survivors.

“You never really cure lupus — they have flares, and they get better and they have flares again,” she said. “And that may have something to do with autoantibody memory.”
Dr. Marshak-Rothstein, Dr. Iwasaki and dozens of other teams are closely studying the immune response to the coronavirus. Given the ease of testing for autoantibodies, it may soon become clear whether the antibodies were identified only because the researchers went looking for them, or whether they represent a more permanent alteration of the immune system.
“It’s not clear to me what it all means at this point,” Dr. Pepper said. “It’s going to take a little bit of time to understand if this is something that’s going to lead to downstream pathology.”
The Immune System and the Coronavirus
How Covid Sends Some Bodies to War With Themselves
Aug. 11, 2020

Coronavirus Can Set Off a ‘Cytokine Storm.’ These Drugs May Calm It.
June 11, 2020

The Coronavirus Patients Betrayed by Their Own Immune Systems
April 1, 2020


 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehdgceGzQxs
.30 min
Coronavirus Update With Anthony Fauci - October 28, 2020
•Streamed live 3 hours ago



JAMA Network

Anthony S. Fauci, MD returns to JAMA's Q&A series to discuss the latest developments in the COVID-19 pandemic, including the continued importance of nonpharmaceutical interventions (masking, handwashing, physical distancing) for managing rising case numbers in the US and globally. Recorded October 28, 2020.

 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy8Y-PfsF9c
19:32 min
Doctors discuss COVID-19 Second Wave in the UK // DOCTOR Covid-19 Vlog #26

•Oct 28, 2020


Dr Hope's Sick Notes


With Covid-19 cases rising across Europe and the UK, Dr Sonia (ICU Consultant) and catch-up for a discussion on the rising cases, whether Covid-19 has become less aggressive, and how we feel coming into the winter. Timestamps... 00:00 Welcome! 01:37 The R Number 06:58 Is Covid-19 less severe? 11:52 What has changed from the first wave? 16:58 How do we feel about the wider impacts on society? 19:07 Thank you for watching!
{Dr. Ed Hope is a Junior ER Dr. in the UK]
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
Watch: CNBC’s Shepard Smith Repeatedly Interrupts Fauci to Demand He Call for National Mask Mandate

PAM KEY28 Oct 2020257

CNBC anchor Shepard Smith repeatedly pressed National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci to call for a nationwide mask mandate during a Wednesday interview.

Smith said, “You’ve said a national mask mandate is maybe a good idea. Why maybe?”

Fauci said, “Well, the reason is, I would hope that we could pull together as a country and realize the importance —”

Smith said, “We haven’t.”

Fauci said, “Yeah. We have not, and that’s the reason why I said very clearly—”

Smith pressed, “Is it time for the mandate, Dr. Fauci?”

Fauci replied, “Yeah, I—”

Smith interjected, “We lean on you for advice. Do we need a national mandate or not?”

Fauci said, “Well, we do. If we don’t get one, then I would hope that the governors and the mayors do it locally if it’s not done nationally.”

Smith said, “But Dr. Fauci, are you still — does the president — are you still in the president’s ear, or no, and if not, who is?”

Fauci said, “Well, I haven’t spoken to the president in quite a while about the situation with regard to the outbreak, but I can tell you right now, regardless of that, what we do need is adherence to — mandate or not — if mandate is needed, let’s do a mandate.”

Smith said, “You’re the one who decides what is needed, Dr. Fauci.”

Fauci asked, “Hey Shep, are you going to let me finish?”

Smith replied, “It’s pretty, urgent, doc.”
 

OldArcher

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Watch: CNBC’s Shepard Smith Repeatedly Interrupts Fauci to Demand He Call for National Mask Mandate

PAM KEY28 Oct 2020257

CNBC anchor Shepard Smith repeatedly pressed National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci to call for a nationwide mask mandate during a Wednesday interview.

Smith said, “You’ve said a national mask mandate is maybe a good idea. Why maybe?”

Fauci said, “Well, the reason is, I would hope that we could pull together as a country and realize the importance —”

Smith said, “We haven’t.”

Fauci said, “Yeah. We have not, and that’s the reason why I said very clearly—”

Smith pressed, “Is it time for the mandate, Dr. Fauci?”

Fauci replied, “Yeah, I—”

Smith interjected, “We lean on you for advice. Do we need a national mandate or not?”

Fauci said, “Well, we do. If we don’t get one, then I would hope that the governors and the mayors do it locally if it’s not done nationally.”

Smith said, “But Dr. Fauci, are you still — does the president — are you still in the president’s ear, or no, and if not, who is?”

Fauci said, “Well, I haven’t spoken to the president in quite a while about the situation with regard to the outbreak, but I can tell you right now, regardless of that, what we do need is adherence to — mandate or not — if mandate is needed, let’s do a mandate.”

Smith said, “You’re the one who decides what is needed, Dr. Fauci.”

Fauci asked, “Hey Shep, are you going to let me finish?”

Smith replied, “It’s pretty, urgent, doc.”

Good Ol’ Shep- still the liberal twinkletoes and asswhole... One of the few good changes that FOX made- firing him... Suits CNBC to a tee...

Lock & Load

OldArcher
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
US Might Not See Life Get "Back To Normal" Until 2022, Dr. Fauci Warns

US Might Not See Life Get "Back To Normal" Until 2022, Dr. Fauci Warns

Thu, 10/29/2020 - 14:32

With Larry Kudlow back in front of the cameras on Thursday talking up Thursday's record-breaking GDP report and promising - with a newsman's confidence - that the American economy will have made a "full recovery" by the Spring of next year.

Though he acknowledged that his take was "optimistic", he reiterated that the president doesn't want to shut down the economy again, adding that he doesn't think shutdowns are "helpful".


It's unsurprising to see the White House dispatch Kudlow to carry out a string of TV interviews: Because as the Trump Campaign pushes its message that Trump's response to the pandemic wasn't as fatally flawed as critics have claimed, Dr. Fauci is on the other end, claiming that President Trump's projections for when a vaccine might be approved are fanciful. And as the outbreak has accelerated these past few weeks (with Europe hit much harder than the US), the good doctor has been pushing his estimates for when we might expect a vaccine to be widely available further and further back.

On Wednesday evening, Dr. Fauci appeared on CNBC for an interview with Shep Smith, the latest Fox News refugee to try his luck as restarting his career, only to be hectored by the reporter who repeatedly pressed Dr. Fauci to unreservedly declare that a mandatory mask order must be passed across all of the US.
Nationwide, Covid has never been this bad. "This is going to get worse," Dr. Fauci told us last night. Follow the latest pandemic news here: https://t.co/zjSdSomZ5F #FollowTheFauci pic.twitter.com/bBHImV5LpF
— The News with Shepard Smith (@thenewsoncnbc) October 29, 2020
After acknowledging last night that he "hasn't spoken to the president in quite a while", on Thursday, Dr. Fauci is cranking up his warnings to '11', claiming that life in the US might not go "back to normal" until 2022, or late 2021 at the very least, and that mask wearing would likely continue until around this time next year.

That is, unless Americans change things up and start taking the virus more seriously. The comments were apparently made during a live virtual interview held by the NIH "in cooperation with Facebook and Twitter live".
I will be joined by my colleague @NIAIDNews Director Dr. Anthony Fauci for a LIVE Q&A today (10/29) at 12:00 pm ET to provide updates on the #COVID19 @Moderna_tx #clinicaltrial, other vaccine research, & answer questions about vaccine safety. Tune in on @NIH & #NIH’s Facebook! pic.twitter.com/C3UBiSuG7e
— Francis S. Collins (@NIHDirector) October 29, 2020
Earlier, some news outlets reported that Dr. Fauci has just come out in favor of a national mask mandate - Joe Biden's stated preference for combating COVID-19 - for the first time, which is of course nonsense. He's essentially been advocating for a national mandate since it became clear that restrictions and enforcement would vary dramatically from place to place.

When it comes to evaluating how much faith we should place in Dr. Fauci's warnings, just remember, we've been here before...
1. Fauci doing all he can to sabotage Trump election with endless dire predictions; the same Fauci who failed the American people by saying early on the coronavirus wasn't any worse than a flu and told the public not to wear masks;
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) October 29, 2020
2. and to this day has not even commented on the decision by Cuomo and others to send coronavirus positive patients into nursing homes. The same Fauci who blew the swine flu in 2009 with his buddies Obama and Biden. He's a disgrace and a political hack. Dr. Fauci warns of a ‘whole lot of pain’ due to coronavirus pandemic in the coming months
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) October 29, 2020
As Dr. Joseph Ladapo argued in a commentary piece published Thursday by WSJ, data garnered so far shows that widespread mask wearing has made little difference (one widely cited study claimed just a 2% difference in the rate of growth. Though compounding is certainly a factor, the circumstances of the study are hardly definitive. As Dr. Lapado writes: "By paying outsize and scientifically unjustified attention to masking, mask mandates have the unintended consequence of delaying public acceptance of the unavoidable truth.

In countries with active community transmission and no herd immunity, nothing short of inhumane lockdowns can stop the spread of Covid-19, so the most sensible and sustainable path forward is to learn to live with the virus."
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Top UK Scientists Warn "Many, Or All" COVID-19 Vaccine Projects Could Fail, First Gen "Likely To Be Imperfect"

Thu, 10/29/2020 - 04:15

MSM outlets seized on groundbreaking research produced by the Imperial College of London yesterday, claiming that the study's findings that COVID-19 antibodies degrade during the months following infection to bash the Great Barrington Declaration, arguing that herd immunity would be virtually impossible to establish without the help of a vaccine that can provoke a stronger immune system response.

Well, on Wednesday morning, as the US government struck a deal to buy $375 million worth of an experimental Eli Lilly COVID-19 antibody drug following questionable trial results, a team of leading scientists in the UK warned that the quest for a vaccine could be complicated by an "imperfect" initial round of tests.

In fact, members of the UK's Vaccine Taskforce warned in an article published in the Lancet that a fully effective vaccine might never be developed, and that early versions of approved vaccines might not work for all people.



The letter is clearly an effort to temper people's expectations as a growing body of research shows that COVID-19 immunity is more complicated than many would suspect, while President Trump continues to insist that a vaccine will be available within weeks as he battles for reelection. Recently, Pfizer, the current US frontrunner, saw its CEO delay the release of trial data that was expected by the end of the week.

Importantly, the team warned that there might never be a working vaccine: "However, we do not know that we will ever have a vaccine at all. It is important to guard against complacency and over-optimism," said Kate Bingham, the chair of the UK Vaccines Taskforce.

"The first generation of vaccines is likely to be imperfect, and we should be prepared that they might not prevent infection but rather reduce symptoms and, even then, might not work for everyone or for long." The taskforce added that "many, and possibly all" of the vaccine projects currently in the works could fail.

Readers can find the letter below in its entirety (text courtesy of the Lancet).
* * *
No vaccine in the history of medicine has been as eagerly anticipated as that to protect against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Vaccination is widely regarded as the only true exit strategy from the pandemic that is currently spreading globally.

The UK is at the forefront of a huge international effort to develop clinically safe and effective vaccines. The Vaccine Taskforce was the brainchild of Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK Government's chief scientific advisor, who saw the need for a dedicated, nimble private-sector team of experts embedded in the Government to drive forward the development of vaccines for the UK and internationally. The Vaccine Taskforce was set up under the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in May, 2020, and I was asked to chair the taskforce, reporting directly to the prime minister, and working alongside Deputy Chair Clive Dix. The Vaccine Taskforce aims to ensure that the UK population has access to vaccines as soon as possible, while working with partners to support equitable access for populations worldwide, whether rich or poor.

However, we do not know that we will ever have a vaccine at all. It is important to guard against complacency and over-optimism. The first generation of vaccines is likely to be imperfect, and we should be prepared that they might not prevent infection but rather reduce symptoms, and, even then, might not work for everyone or for long.

Our strategy has been to build a diverse portfolio across different formats to give the UK the greatest chance of providing a safe and effective vaccine, recognising that many, and possibly all, of these vaccines could fail. We have focused on vaccines that are expected to elicit immune responses in the population older than 65 years: over three-quarters of deaths caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection are in this older population,1, 2 so it is essential that any vaccine is able to protect this group. Scalability of vaccine manufacture was also a key criterion, with the goal being to manufacture in the UK, if possible, to secure supply and create long-term resilience. We considered only vaccines that have the potential for approval by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and European Medicines Agency and for vaccine delivery as early as the end of 2020 or, at the latest, in the second half of 2021.

The Vaccine Taskforce has now secured access to six vaccines (from more than 240 vaccines in development) across four different formats: adenoviral vectors, mRNA, adjuvanted proteins, and whole inactivated viral vaccines, which are promising in different ways. The most advanced vaccines, such as those developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, BioNTech and Pfizer, and Janssen, are based on novel formats for which we have little experience of their use as vaccines, although the initial immunogenicity and safety data are encouraging.3, 4, 5 Vaccines based on frequently used vaccine formats, such as adjuvanted protein vaccines developed by Novavax, and by GSK and Sanofi, and inactivated whole viruses developed by Valneva, will not be available until late in 2021.

We also have an agreement with AstraZeneca to supply a neutralising antibody cocktail as a prophylactic treatment once clinical trials are completed and it is approved by regulators. This treatment will be provided in the short term for people who cannot receive a vaccine, such as people who are heavily immunosuppressed and cannot mount an immune response, or people who need immediate protection, such as health-care workers.

The Vaccine Taskforce has options to purchase sufficient doses of each vaccine type to vaccinate the appropriate UK population. Following the interim advice by the UK's Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisations,6 vaccination would be recommended for adults older than 50 years, health-care and social-care workers on the front line, and adults with underlying comorbidities. The precise dose required will be determined as part of the clinical trials and by the decisions made by the UK Government on the basis of the advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. We anticipate that most vaccines will require two doses, and we are also investigating whether annual or biannual revaccination booster shots might be required to maintain durable protection.

Developers of COVID-19 vaccines range from small biotechnology companies to big pharmaceutical companies, each with different commercial objectives and with different amounts of funding to support manufacturing scale-up and clinical trials. In some cases, the Vaccine Taskforce is investing at risk to support these activities before we know whether the vaccine is safe and effective, and, in other cases, we have negotiated an advanced purchase agreement. In both instances, government funding is usually linked to reaching clinical, regulatory, and other milestones. If a vaccine is not going to work, then we will stop funding.

Some of the developers, such as AstraZeneca, GSK and Sanofi, and Janssen, are pursuing the development of a vaccine on a non-profit basis, at least for the pandemic period; whereas others view the resources and risk that they are assuming as justification for seeking a profit.

The first phase 3 efficacy data from the leading vaccine candidates are due by the end of 2020, subject to accruing sufficient rates of infection within the clinical trial cohorts to show the vaccines' efficacy. The primary endpoint is to show that the vaccine can protect against SARS-CoV-2 infection and reduce symptom burden. Two phase 3 efficacy clinical trials are now underway in the UK; the Oxford AstraZeneca adenovirus-vectored vaccine (NCT04400838) and the world's first phase 3 study for Novavax's protein-adjuvant vaccine (NCT04368988), both occurring at various sites across the UK. Numerous phase 3 studies are in preparation to start in the UK in 2020 and 2021 with US, European, Australian, and possibly Chinese vaccine developers, reflecting the UK's strong reputation for running clinical trials and postauthorisation pharmacovigilance of high quality.

To help to accelerate the development of successful vaccines, we launched the National Health Service COVID-19 vaccine registry7 and have enrolled over 295 000 volunteers,8 with a focus on populations who are at high risk of severe infection and mortality from COVID-19. We plan to accelerate recruitment in disease hotspots with mobile research teams informed by robust PCR testing, and have provided funding for clinical trials of crucial importance, including Janssen's two-dose Ad26 protocol (NCT04505722), Imperial College London's self-amplifying RNA (ISRCTN17072692), and Valneva's whole inactivated vaccine.

We are also exploring the potential for future controlled human challenge studies, dependent on ethics and regulatory approvals. These studies have the potential to assess the efficacy of vaccines more quickly and with far fewer participants than a standard phase 3 trial. The Vaccine Taskforce is also supporting the development of heterologous boost clinical protocols, through the National Institute for Health Research, to explore whether different vaccine combinations can increase immunity or durability of protection.

To harmonise results from the various clinical trials, and to help to define immune correlates of protection, we have supported development of standardised, accredited assays, including quantitative high-throughput spike-protein ELISAs, live viral-neutralisation assays, and T-cell assays, which will be available to all vaccine developers.

A major challenge is that the global manufacturing capacity for vaccines is vastly inadequate for the billions of doses that are needed, and the UK manufacturing capability to date has been equally scarce. The Vaccine Taskforce has provided funding for flexible and surge production in several new UK sites for vaccine manufacture to provide the UK population with a new vaccine in less than 9 months from the identification of the pathogen. We also plan to bring new vaccine technologies and capabilities to the UK for future pandemic preparedness.

No-one has ever done mass vaccination of adults anywhere in the world before and the two-dose regimen, plus cold-chain restrictions for some vaccines, adds to the complexity of this deployment operation. National Health Service England has flexible deployment plans to start the vaccination of prioritised cohorts as soon as the vaccines are approved by the regulatory authorities, currently not to be coadministered with the influenza vaccination (although clinical trials are exploring coadministration of influenza and COVID-19 vaccines). Deployment plans have been developed for a range of settings from mass vaccination sites to large and small mobile (eg, pop-up) sites, general-practitioner surgeries and pharmacies, and even roving teams to visit people in care homes and people who are housebound or shielding.

We cannot, however, protect the UK without working with our international partners to protect the world. SARS-CoV-2 is a global pandemic with a toll of over 1·1 million deaths.9 No one is safe until we are all safe. Pandemic viruses do not respect national borders. There will not be one successful vaccine, or one single country, that is able to supply the world. We urgently need international cooperation to pool risks and costs, address barriers to access, and scale up the manufacturing capacity to produce sufficient doses to protect everyone at risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection globally.

The UK is committed to ensuring that everyone at risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, anywhere in the world, has access to a safe and effective vaccine. The COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility, to which the UK has committed £548 million, will deliver vaccines for the UK population and provide access to vaccines for lower income countries: initially 2 billion doses for 1 billion people worldwide. Working with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, WHO, and a broad alliance of 180 nations, this pooling of resources maximises the chances of securing access to a vaccine and making it available to all who need it. But we now need to make this global facility a permanent one: ready to respond to future pandemics quickly in the future and to control COVID-19.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is likely to evolve, and other zoonotic pathogens are likely to pose future risks. China, Europe, the USA, and the UK need to work together. If we establish international collaboration right now, then we will be better prepared to control future pandemics without causing the largest global recession in history and the biggest threat to lives in living memory.
* * *
Source: The Lancet
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Regeneron Halts COVID-19 Therapeutic Trials On Sick Patients

GettyImages-1280511671-655x437.jpg

(Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images)
OAN Newsroom

UPDATED 3:50 PM PT – Friday, October 30, 2020

‘Regeneron’ has paused its trials on the sickest patients following safety concerns.

According to reports on Friday, the pharmaceutical company decided to stop giving its antibody-drug to coronavirus patients on ventilators or those receiving high amounts of oxygen.
However, the company has said it will continue the trial on patients with less severe bouts of the illness.

This comes as another pharmaceutical company, ‘Eli Lilly,’ ended trials on hospitalized patients on Monday after the drug was determined ineffective for severe cases of the coronavirus.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
BoJo Imposes 1-Month Lockdown On England As UK COVID-19 Cases Top 1 Million: Live Updates

Sat, 10/31/2020 - 15:44
Summary:
  • Portugal restrictions on movement
  • BoJo announces 1 month lockdown
  • UK COVID-19 cases top 1 million
  • NY Gov announces new quarantine rules
  • BoJo weighs one-month lockdown
  • US reports record new cases
  • North Dakota worst-hit state
  • New cases in Iran fall
  • China reports 33 new cases
  • Poland reports 21k new cases
  • Brazil strikes deal to buy Chinese vaccine
* * *
Update (1550ET): Minutes after BoJo finished his press briefing announcing an England-wide one-month lockdown, Portugal just announced that it is extending its restrictions on movement to more cities and towns beginning Wednesday. Restrictions will now apply to 12 municipalities, according to newswire reports.
* * *
Update (1540ET): As the UK's confirmed cases topped the 1 million mark, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced the nationwide lockdown affecting all of England (the three other constituent nations of the UK can set their own independent policy).

Beginning Thursday, bars, restaurants and nonessential stores will close, and people will be ordered to stay home with a few limited exceptions, including work, school and exercise.
PM Boris Johnson announces the UK will lock down due to COVID spread “from Thursday until the start of December.” pic.twitter.com/kfwLGLfRXm
— The Recount (@therecount) October 31, 2020
BoJo said during an afternoon news conference that schools will remain open, confirming that the UK's lockdown of England will follow roughly the same rules as the lockdowns in France and Germany, with schools remaining open, instead of closing like they did in the spring.
“We’ve got to be humble in the face of nature. In this country, alas, as across much of Europe, the virus is spreading even faster than the reasonable worst-case scenario of our scientific advisers,” he said.
The move is hardly a surprise, and was preceded by press trial balloons which we reported on earlier today. It comes as the UK and the 27 members of the EU have reported, on average, 195,000 new cases a day over the last 7 days.

* * *
Update (1200ET): New York Gov Andrew Cuomo has just shared NY's latest COVID-19 stats, and also announced a confusing new policy for people traveling to the Empire State the requires them to be tested twice (once before and once after arriving) if they want to avoid the whole 2 week quarantine. However, every new arrival will still need to quarantine for three days after arriving in the state, regardless of whether they are on the state's travel warning list.
NEW: @NYGovCuomo announces NYS is shifting from a quarantine list to a testing policy.

➡️ Get a negative test within 3 days BEFORE arriving in NYS.

➡️ Once you arrive in NYS, wait 3 days and then take a test on the 4th day (or after).

✅ If both are negative, no quarantine.
— Jack Sterne (@JRSterne) October 31, 2020
NY reported another 2,049 new cases on Saturday.
Today's update on the numbers:

Of the 136,962 tests reported yesterday, 2,049 were positive (1.49% of total).

Total hospitalizations are at 1,121.

Sadly, there were 8 COVID fatalities yesterday. pic.twitter.com/8briKkbF8e
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) October 31, 2020
Today's update on the numbers:

Of the 136,962 tests reported yesterday, 2,049 were positive (1.49% of total).

Total hospitalizations are at 1,121.

Sadly, there were 8 COVID fatalities yesterday. pic.twitter.com/8briKkbF8e
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) October 31, 2020
The state's positivity rate in its "cluster zones" however, was 2x as high at 3%.
Notably, the new rule announced by Cuomo on Saturday morning doesn't apply to neighboring states or people who commute into the city every day.

Enforcement, Cuomo said, will be carried out by local health departments.

He added that the rule was intended to try and avoid a surge in cases from the Thanksgiving holiday. "People are going to travel for Thanksgiving. We're having issues with small gatherings, which is almost a psychological issue," Cuomo said.
* * *
As countries across Europe continue to step up COVID-19-related restrictions (most recently, Belgium announced what might be the Continent's most restrictive lockdown since the start of the second wave), UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is reportedly considering a month-long national lockdown across England, which would start next week.

According to British press reports, Johnson will meet with his top advisors and government officials on Saturday to discuss the pros and cons of such an arrangement. The return to restrictions in accordance with the country's 3-tiered system has already inspired significant public anger, particularly in the Greater Manchester area and other pockets facing Tier 3 - ie the most restrictive - rules.

Hospitalizations have surged across the UK, while deaths have started to creep higher. Though it trails Spain and France in overall cases, the UK is on the verge of crossing the million-case mark. After reporting another 24,418 cases, yesterday, the UK has a total of 992,878.



Across the pond, the situation wasn't much better. The US reported 99,325 new cases Friday, the most for any country in a single day as infections and hospitalizations surged in the runup to Tuesday's election. The total number of cases in the country exceeded 9 million. North Dakota continues to show the highest rate per 100,000 residents, though its overall numbers are still relatively low compared to its low population. The state reported 1,357 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Friday, eclipsing the record set one day earlier by 135 cases. Total deaths, meanwhile eclipsed the 500 mark with 13 new deaths reported Friday.


Source: mSightly
As we reported yesterday, the US passed the 9 million case mark yesterday after reporting a record 99,321 new cases, according to Johns Hopkins.



As we head into the weekend, here's some more news from Saturday morning and overnight:

With the U.S. reporting almost 100,000 new cases on Friday just days ahead of the election, North Dakota led the increase in infections with a 6.8% rise in cases to almost 43,916, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg. Wyoming, South Dakota, Montana and Missouri had the next-biggest increases, ranging from 4.2% to 3.1%. Colorado, Kansas and Wisconsin all showed 2.4% increases. Texas reported the most new deaths at 109 (Source: Bloomberg).

The number of new infections in Iran fell for a second day to 7,820 after reaching a record on Thursday. The Health Ministry reported 386 more deaths from Covid-19 overnight, taking the total to 34,864. The country’s national coronavirus taskforce announced a series of closures across Tehran and two dozen other major cities (Source: Bloomberg).

Greece is taking further steps to contain the spread of the coronavirus after a surge this week saw daily cases surpass 1,000 for the first time since March. The country will be divided into two zones -- high risk and under surveillance -- with northern Greece and the capital, Athens, and its region in the first category. “We must act now before intensive care units bend under the weight of endangered lives,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said (Source: Bloomberg).

Belgium reported 1,105 patients in intensive care units on Saturday, up 48 from the previous day and near the peak reached during the first wave of the outbreak. The nation of 11 million people, which hosts the European Union’s main institutions and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, announced a lockdown Friday amid fears that its healthcare system could be overwhelmed (Source: Bloomberg).

Infections in Poland increased by 21,897 on Friday, and deaths rose by 280 to 5,631, according to the Health Ministry. More than 500,000 people are in quarantine in the country. The increases come after government employees were ordered to work from home for two weeks, with private companies also encouraged to send staff home (Source: Bloomberg).

Mainland China reports 33 new COVID-19 cases on Oct. 30, up from 25 a day earlier, the country's national health authority said on Saturday (Source: Nikkei).
A "politically intoxicated" environment makes it difficult to probe the origins of the new coronavirus first identified in Wuhan, says the World Health Organization's top emergency expert, Mike Ryan (Source: Nikkei) .

Brazil's government will "of course" buy a Chinese COVID-19 vaccine that is being tested in the country, Vice President Hamilton Mourao said on Friday, in the latest example of him contradicting President Jair Bolsonaro (Source: Nikkei).
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

UK Police Chief: It's A "Civic Duty" To Snitch On Neighbors Violating COVID Restrictions

Sat, 10/31/2020 - 08:10

Authored by Joseph Jankowski via PlanetFreeWill.com,
A UK police chief has called it a “civic duty” to snitch on neighbors and businesses that violate COVID-19 restrictions while criticizing the culture that condemns such tattle tailing.


On Wednesday, Merseyside Chief Constable Andy Cooke condemned the ‘sneering culture’ against those who tip-off police when he told the Daily Mail that if Brits carry out their “civic duty” of snitching on those who refuse to follow the martial-law-esque social and economic restrictions imposed by government, they “will save lives.”
“People are doing a civic duty in contacting us for the right reasons,” Cooke said.
“The vast majority of people across the country are really concerned about this. Any information that you can give us in relation to breaches will save lives, and that’s why people are doing it.”
Cooke’s words follow the decision of West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner David Jamieson to break up any Christmas celebration that violates government lockdown restrictions.
“If we think there’s large groups of people gathering where they shouldn’t be, then police will have to intervene. If, again, there’s flagrant breaking of the rules, then the police would have to enforce,” Jamieson said.
After adding that “it’s not the police’s job to stop people enjoying their Christmas,” the Crime Commissioner stated that this would not stop the police from following orders.
“However, we are there to enforce the rules that the Government makes, and if the Government makes those rules then the Government has to explain that to the public.”
Jamieson says he believes that public “frustration” with decisions to spoil Christmas celebrations could boil over into civil unrest.

Meanwhile, National Police Chiefs Council chairman Martin Hewitt says it’s expected there will be ‘quicker enforcement’ of flagrant rule breaches.

The Mail reports:
For example, officers who are called to a large party in a private house or garden would give people a chance to leave but fines would be issued if they refused. The organisers ‘would be dealt with every time’, he said.
He said ‘flagrant breaches’ likely to attract fines included pubs serving past 10pm.

Mr Hewitt said: ‘With those kind of egregious breaches, which are putting everybody at risk, it is perfectly legitimate for a member of public to share that share that information.’
Encouragement from UK police to rat on those who breach COVID lockdown restrictions is nothing new.

In September, Police Minister Kit Malthouse encouraged reporting neighbors gathering in more than groups of six, labeling it a viable option.
“There is obviously the non-emergency number that people can ring to report issues, if they wish to,” the minister told the BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ show.

“If people are concerned, if they do think there’s a contravention, then that option is open to them.”
In October it was revealed that West Mercia Police had asked taxi drivers to snitch on passengers they suspected of beaching lockdown rules.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council also reported in March that close to 200,000 calls had come through a “snitching” hotline with reports of Brits breaking COVID related restrictions.

Despite the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’s admission that the COVID-19 death rate in England lags far behind the recent spikes in new cases, top government scientists are pressuring ministers to impose even tighter restrictions on the public ahead of Christmas.

Social media reacted to the most recent snitching news:
Not going to grass on my naighbour for having me round for a few festive drinks am I. Be realistic.
If the police do find time to attend my address could you also action some of the incident that have been reported about real crime or is real crime not priority at the moment
— Wazza (@wazza25) October 29, 2020
But yet when I ring police to report someone breaking in or stealing a car etc. They don’t have the resources??? So tell me again why should I grass on my neighbors….??
— Garry Gilbert (@Axelrose1993) October 29, 2020
This is going to backfire on the police. All the community relations work for years zapped in a breath. The trust has gone.
— Andrew Hall (@redamberblack) October 29, 2020
And people wonder why the police are despised, this is one perfect example. Let’s see how he feels when he’s got to sleep with one eye open for fear his family are narked on by one of his own copper mates.
Filth
— Changeling2525 (@Changeling2525) October 29, 2020
All the best Britts Enshrined the 2nd Amendment
— Woodrow Wilson (@WoodrowPWilson) March 28, 2020
1984
— Patrick (@313patrick) March 28, 2020
It would be fantastic if the police addressed the crime sweeping through the country. How many police assigned to keep watch on illegal immigrants who could all rise up and kill us? No one knows who they are or their motive. We could have another episode like France.
— Terry Aston gbeng (@tesa1945) October 30, 2020
You can actually hear the middle fingers all over the country, snapping into place.
— john farmer (@netjohn139) October 29, 2020
 

Tristan

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I saw this today and a thought occurred to me. The death rate has been lower the last few months and most people attribute it to the fact that younger people are being infected vs. older folks plus the treatments have gotten better.

However, I wonder if it is also because Vit D levels have been higher the last few months because we've just gone through the spring and summer. Vitamin D levels go up in the warmer months and with people trying to do more outdoors to avoid infection, this could have helped Vit D levels go higher.

I hope that with the return of winter/lack of sunshine that we don't see the death rates spike again due to lack of Vit D.


There is a thing called Vitamin D3.

Might help cover the gap due to being indoors more...

;)
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
"A Lot Of People Are Leaving": COVID Shutdowns Have Turned San Francisco Into A Ghost Town

Sat, 10/31/2020 - 20:00

San Francisco has managed to curb the virus slightly in its city - but at what cost? Those paying sky high taxes to live in the Bay Area may soon be wondering why they are paying to live in a shut down city that state and local government officials have refused to allow to reopen due to a virus with a CDC-predicted infection fatality rate of between 0.00002 and 0.093.

The entire downtown area of the city, once vibrant with business and tourism, is now "empty" according to a new report by AP. Everything from food trucks to local workers used to be sights one would see on a daily basis in San Francisco. Now, the city has been all but abandoned.

Even the tech giants that San Francisco is known for have left the city, in favor of working remotely from elsewhere. Families have moved out of the city in favor of the suburbs. Rents in the city are crashing, as we highlighted about a month ago. Tourists, once part of the lifeblood of the city, are now "scarce".



As a result, business owners wonder if the city will ever get back to normal. Evan Kidera, CEO of Señor Sisig food trucks, said: “Is it ever going to get back to normal, is it ever going to be as busy as it was — and will that be next year, or in 10 years?”

This past week, part of the city re-opened as a result of virus numbers slowing. We're sure it won't be long until case numbers freak out elected officials heading into the winter, however, and everything is once again put into draconian "the government knows what's best for you"-style lockdown.

San Francisco first announced its residents should stay at home in March, leading to just 12,200 virus cases and 145 deaths among 900,000 residents since then. It is one of the lowest death rates in the country. Long Beach, which is about half the size, has had about 900 more cases and 100 more deaths.



But at the same time, the city has been crippled, with many residents leaving. And many are unsure whether or not the slight re-opening will do much to re-populate the city.

One tech executive, who moved out of his $4,000/month apartment last week, told AP: “San Francisco can say, ‘Hey, it’s cool to open back up.’ But what’s changed? The virus is still there, and there’s no vaccine.” He said of the move with his partner: “We’re both extreme extroverts, so the working from home thing makes us miserable.”

They packed up their things and drove to an Airbnb in San Diego, instead, and are planning on making trips around the country.

30 year old Deme Peterson, another former San Francisco resident, said: “The spark of living in the city just kind of burned out a bit with everything being closed. We kind of didn’t see when it would come back to normal.”
Many restaurants in the city have already closed permanently. Many others are on the brink.


The city's office vacancy has almost tripled to 14.1%, the highest numbers since 2011. At the same time, the median price for a one bedroom apartment has dropped 20% to $2,800.

Coldwell Banker realtor Nick Chen commented: “San Francisco rents have been really inflated over the past couple years. It will come back, but I think the question is: Will it come back to the level it was at previously? Maybe not.”
City historian and author Gary Kamiya concluded: “I don’t know if it’s an exodus, but a lot of people are leaving.”
 

Mprepared

Veteran Member
This might explain the long haul symptoms. Covid causes an immune disorder. Makes me worried about getting it again since my body is already trained to attack itself. But also provides hope that the effects will weaken through time.
So much we don't know about this monster. Boggles my mind that people can act so stupid as to only point to the immediate death rate and demand that people not even take personal protection to protect themselves.



Some Covid Survivors Have Antibodies That Attack the Body, not Virus
New research found ‘autoantibodies’ similar to those in lupus and rheumatoid arthritis patients. But patients may also benefit from treatments for those autoimmune diseases.


merlin_177384153_eaa6ff01-797b-4e21-aaf6-d27f3da914d0-articleLarge.jpg

Covid-19 patients were discharged from a temporary hospital in Lima, Peru, last month. The study may help explain why so-called “long-haulers” continue to experience symptoms long after the virus has left their bodies.

Covid-19 patients were discharged from a temporary hospital in Lima, Peru, last month. The study may help explain why so-called “long-haulers” continue to experience symptoms long after the virus has left their bodies.Credit...Martin Mejia/Associated Press
Apoorva Mandavilli
By Apoorva Mandavilli
  • Oct. 27, 2020
Some survivors of Covid-19 carry worrying signs that their immune system has turned on the body, reminiscent of potentially debilitating diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, a new study has found.
At some point, the body’s defense system in these patients shifted into attacking itself, rather than the virus, the study suggests. The patients are producing molecules called “autoantibodies” that target genetic material from human cells, instead of from the virus.
This misguided immune response may exacerbate severe Covid-19. It may also explain why so-called “long haulers” have lingering problems months after their initial illness has resolved and the virus is gone from their bodies.
The findings carry important implications for treatment: Using existing tests that can detect autoantibodies, doctors could identify patients who might benefit from treatments used for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. There is no cure for these diseases, but some treatments decrease the frequency and severity of flare-ups.

“It’s possible that you could hit the appropriate patients harder with some of these more aggressive drugs and expect better outcomes,” said Matthew Woodruff, an immunologist at Emory University in Atlanta and lead author of the work.
The results were reported Friday on the preprint server MedRxiv, and have not yet been published in a scientific journal. But other experts said the researchers who carried out the study are known for their careful, meticulous work, and that the findings are not unexpected because other viral illnesses also trigger autoantibodies.

“I’m not surprised, but it’s interesting to see that it’s really happening,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University. “It’s possible that even moderate to mild disease may induce this kind of antibody response.”


For months it has been clear that the coronavirus can cause the immune system to run amok in some people, ultimately wreaking more damage to the body than the virus itself. (Dexamethasone, the steroid President Trump took after his Covid diagnosis, has proved effective in some people with severe Covid to tamp down this over-exuberant immune response.)

Viral infections cause infected human cells to die. Sometimes the cells die a quiet death — but sometimes, and especially in the throes of severe infection, they can blow up, strewing their innards. When that happens, DNA, normally cloistered in coiled bundles inside the nucleus, is suddenly scattered and visible.
In the typical response to a virus, cells known as B immune cells make antibodies that recognize pieces of viral RNA from the virus and lock onto them.
But in conditions like lupus, some B cells never learn to do this and instead produce autoantibodies that glom onto DNA debris from dead human cells, mistaking them for intruders. Something similar may be happening in patients with Covid-19, the research suggests.

“Anytime you have that combination of inflammation and cell death, there is the potential for autoimmune disease and autoantibodies, more importantly, to emerge,” said Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Dr. Woodruff and his colleagues reported earlier this month that some people with severe Covid-19 also have such unrefined B immune cells. The finding prompted them to explore whether those B cells make autoantibodies.
In the new study, the researchers looked at 52 patients within the Emory health care system in Atlanta who were classified as having either severe or critical Covid-19, but who had no history of autoimmune disorders.
They found autoantibodies that recognize DNA in nearly half of the patients. They also found antibodies against a protein called rheumatoid factor and others that help with blood clotting. Among the top half of the most seriously ill patients, more than 70 percent had autoantibodies against one of the targets tested, Dr. Woodruff said.
“It’s not just that these patients have an autoimmune-like immune response,” he said. “It’s that those immune responses are coupled with actual true testable clinical auto-reactivities.”
Some of the autoantibodies the researchers identified are associated with blood flow problems, noted Ann Marshak-Rothstein, an immunologist and lupus expert at the University of Massachusetts, Worcester.
“It’s very possible that some of the coagulation issues that you see in Covid-19 patients are being driven by these kinds of immune complexes,” she said.
If the autoantibodies do turn out to be long-lasting, she said, they may result in persistent, even lifelong, problems for Covid-19 survivors.

“You never really cure lupus — they have flares, and they get better and they have flares again,” she said. “And that may have something to do with autoantibody memory.”
Dr. Marshak-Rothstein, Dr. Iwasaki and dozens of other teams are closely studying the immune response to the coronavirus. Given the ease of testing for autoantibodies, it may soon become clear whether the antibodies were identified only because the researchers went looking for them, or whether they represent a more permanent alteration of the immune system.
“It’s not clear to me what it all means at this point,” Dr. Pepper said. “It’s going to take a little bit of time to understand if this is something that’s going to lead to downstream pathology.”
The Immune System and the Coronavirus
How Covid Sends Some Bodies to War With Themselves
Aug. 11, 2020

Coronavirus Can Set Off a ‘Cytokine Storm.’ These Drugs May Calm It.
June 11, 2020

The Coronavirus Patients Betrayed by Their Own Immune Systems
April 1, 2020



Isn't that what HIV does? HIV/BAT experiment who knows what might happen.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

White House Slams Dr. Fauci As Outbreak Slows; Australia Sees First COVID-Free Day In 5 Months: Live Updates

Sun, 11/01/2020 - 11:10
Summary:
  • US new cases retreat after back-to-back records
  • White House slams Dr. Fauci after latest interview
  • Australia sees first COVID-free day in 5 months
  • Netherlands extends run of declines
  • French government has plan for store owners
  • Germany won't close borders
  • Iran imposes 5-day ban on non-essential travel
* * *

Yesterday, British PM Boris Johnson declared a new one-month "lockdown light" would begin starting late next week in a swift follow-up to a media trial balloon floated earlier in the day.



On Sunday, the focus shifted back to the US, which saw a sudden drop in new cases during the Halloween holiday. Only 81,227 new cases (according to Johns Hopkins count from its COVID dashboard) were added to the countrywide total on Saturday, after 2 straight days of national records.


As of Sunday morning, the US had 9,127,708 new cases, and 230,566 deaths, after crossing the 230k mark on Saturday.

As administration officials fanned out to various TV studios for the last round of Sunday Show interviews before the election, the White House released a statement Sunday morning slamming Dr. Anthony Fauci, after Dr. Fauci sat for a lengthy interview with the Washington Post that was published last night.

America's top infectious-disease official has seemingly seized every opportunity to raise questions and criticisms of the Trump Administration's coronavirus response in interviews with the press and town halls with other 'experts'.

During the interview, Dr. Fauci warned that the US is "in for a whole lot of hurt" from COVID-19 over the fall and winter.
“We’re in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation,” Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s leading infectious-disease expert, said in a wide-ranging interview late Friday. “All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.”
Once again, Dr. Fauci predicted that the US could see cases surge to more than 100k new cases a week, and that deaths might finally climb, unless the US makes "abrupt changes" to its response. A couple days ago, Dr. Fauci finally openly endorsed a nationwide mask mandate, despite myriad evidence that masks don't markedly low transmission.

Dr. Fauci also said he has "real problems" with Dr. Scott Atlas, a new advisor to President Trump who has in many ways supplanted Dr. Fauci as the president's go-to advisor.

White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement that Dr. Fauci's comments were "unacceptable".
"It’s unacceptable and breaking with all norms for Dr. Fauci, a senior member of the President’s Coronavirus Taskforce and someone who has praised President Trump’s actions throughout this pandemic, to choose three days before an election to play politics," White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement.
Deere added that Fauci was "choosing to criticize the president in the media and make his political leanings known by praising the president’s opponent — exactly what the American people have come to expect from The Swamp." Dr. Fauci has praised Joe Biden's campaign for allowing its candidate to sit in the basement, while claiming President Trump is tackling the outbreak from a different perspective, one focused on "the economy".

Additionally, "Dr. Fauci may have just admitted that he is afraid the cure will be worse than the disease and that unlike the president he has no confidence in the American people to make the best choice for themselves armed with CDC best practices," Deere said.

The CDC on Saturday reported 9,024,298 new cases, an increase of 99,750 from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 1,009 to 229,109.

For the first time in 5 months, Australia reported zero new cases nationwide, the result of some of the most restrictive coronavirus-suppression efforts imposed anywhere outside mainland China.

The state of Victoria, the country's biggest coronavirus hot spot which accounts for more than 90% of Australia's 907 coronavirus-related deaths, saw zero new daily infections and no deaths for the second straight day.

Interestingly, Queensland voters on Saturday handed a victory to the incumbent Labor Party for a third term, a vote that signaled support for keeping the state's internal borders closed, a measure which has put local authorities at odds with the federal government. Last week, the state of Victoria ended most of its 111-day-plus lockdown, one of the world's longest and most restrictive (despite Australia's relatively low infection numbers). Though the measures inspired protests, polls suggest that the public backs them by a slight majority. Victoria's Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said on Sunday that the state may see more movement restrictions eased in the coming days, though he offered few specifics.

"What allowances come...will absolutely be informed by what this week looks like," Sutton said at a televised press conference. "To see 50,000 cases a day in France, to see Belgium sending patients outside the country because they're so overwhelmed - that's what we might have faced if we hadn't been able to get on top of it."

With a population of more than 20 million, Australia has seen fewer than 30k cases reported since the start of the pandemic. On Friday, federal officials warned citizens not to travel to the US, or most of Europe, due to heightened infection risks.

Here's some more COVID-19 news from Sunday morning and overnight:
The Netherlands reported 8,740 new cases in the 24 hours to Sunday morning, extending a recent run of daily declines, the ANP news agency reported, citing data from the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment. That’s down from 9,819 cases reported on Saturday (Source: Bloomberg).

Iran will introduce a five-day ban on non-essential travel to and from 25 major cities, including the capital Tehran, from midday on Monday, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported. The new restriction comes after the country recorded its highest daily death toll yet from Covid-19 (Source: Bloomberg)..

The French government plans to address the concerns of store owners affected by the country’s partial lockdown by imposing limits on supermarkets’ sale of non-essential items and the number of shoppers allowed at any one time, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said in a BFM TV interview. Le Maire said that if the outbreak slows, the government will try to find a way to allow stores to open in the coming weeks, possibly by using an appointment system for shoppers. He said online retailers such as Amazon.com Inc. shouldn’t be “the clear winner of this crisis to the detriment of local shops or even supermarkets.” The finance minister, who contracted coronavirus last month, said he had been “scared” for his own health.“I felt things could change dramatically for the worse,” he said. “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone -- and I’m 51 and I’m in good health" (Source: Bloomberg)..

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the country won’t close its borders even if the coronavirus numbers get worse, according to the Berlin-based newspaper Tagesspiegel. Infections rose by 11,614 in the 24 hours through Sunday morning, down from Thursday’s record of 23,553, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The country is set to enter a partial one-month lockdown on Monday as Chancellor Angela Merkel tries to bring the outbreak under control (Source: Bloomberg).
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muoFngHLniM
16:25min

Findings Associated With Severe Illness and Mortality Among Hospitalized Individuals With COVID-19
•Streamed live 82 minutes ago


JAMA Network

Roy H. Perlis, MD, MSc, joins JAMA Network Open Digital Media Editor, Seth Trueger, MD, MPH, to discuss a cohort study assessing admission laboratory and comorbidity features associated with critical illness and mortality risk among patients hospitalized with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) across 6 Eastern Massachusetts hospitals. Read the article here: https://ja.ma/384dBkt
 
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