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More Covid-19 Context

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Created: Sunday, 29 March 2020 14:19

Written by Super User

Is Covid-19 the Pandemic that wasn't?

Current "consensus" seems to be that the "Case Fatality Rate" (CFR) of Covid-19 will be about 2%.

During the SARS outbreak of 02 -04, estimates of Case Fatality Rates (CFR) were x3 too low. During the H1N1 outbreak of 09 the CFR estimates were x10 too large. This only illustrates that the "consensus" CFR is almost totally useless, and calls to mind how often the "experts" are wrong. After all, the "experts" all agreed on the presence of WMD in Iraq, processed seed oil's are healthier than butter, eggs will cause heart disease, all natural gas will be depleted by 1980, Gasoline will never be less than $3 / gallon. The list is endless.

Yet we continue to be preached to by "experts" who expound position points that contain little or no basis in fact. 

Yesterday the news was headlined with the need for New York City to build more morgues due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. 

Really?

A city with a population of 9 million people that "normally" has about 420 deaths per day, needs to build new morgues to accommodate the 50 - 60 Covid-19 deaths per day - many of which would have made up the original 420 a day anyway. To believe the "New Morgue" sensationalism, one would have to believe that NYC morgue capacity was already running at 100% capacity, and that there was no possible method of increasing efficiency to handle a temporary 15% spike. This is reminiscent of the lead news stories of the number of body bags reported as ordered prior to the start of both wars in Iraq. 

How about some reality. Currently neither the rate of infection, nor the CFR for Covid-19 are extraordinarily alarming. As of Sunday, March 29th the CFR looks like this:

It's difficult to dismiss the fact that the CFR is widely divergent in differing geographic locations. Italy is a definitive outlier. Seems to me that about 2 weeks ago the nearly sainted Dr. Fauci told us "we were 2 weeks behind Italy." 

Why was that?

Why weren't we 2 weeks behind Germany, which has experienced a rather high rate of infection - but very low CFR?

Why is it that Japan, a country that had hundreds of fights every day in and out of China for months while the Covid-19 virus was raging in China, has almost no Covid-19 infections, and only 43 fatalities?

Similar statistics for South Korea. Both Japan and South Korea were almost certainly more exposed to the virus at an early stage than Italy.

What would explain the differing results?

Even more importantly, Why is no one asking these questions?

Why aren't we studying what makes Germany, Japan, and South Korea so resistant to Covid-19 rather than shutting down the country and instituting an effective adverse possession of all private sector businesses in America?

For just a bit more context, let's add the overall infection rate to the discussion: 

Yes, the world is currently infected at the rate of .0087% of the population. Note that's not 8 percent. That's 87 one thousandths of one percent. ( a number that could be statistically considered 0)  In the U.S. we're infected at the rate of .0381%, that's 38 hundredths of one percent. For a bit of context, the Spanish Flu of 1918 infected about 30% of the world population. Keep in mind that this virus was circulating the globe with no restrictions for at least 60 and probably 90 days before any restrictions were put in place. The Spanish flu infected 30% of the world population in about 18 months in an era when air travel was non-existent. 

Despite what the "Experts" are telling us, the current numbers are telling us that Covid-19 is a nasty virus that has an incrementally higher CFR than seasonal flu, and an infection rate that could be incrementally higher than seasonal flu - but is largely manageable threat that has been met with an unmanageable response. 

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The Cytokine Storm Response to Covid-19

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Created: Sunday, 22 March 2020 18:46

Written by Super User

Last week this page discussed the irrational state of panic that had gripped the country in response to Covid-19. Sadly, this week, the state of panic has become worse rather than better. In a wonderfully descriptive statement of irony Dr. Zubin Damania during an interview with Dr. Paul Offit (Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia) described our societal response to Covid-19 as the "Cytokine Storm" that is now threatening our Country.

For those that aren't fully up to speed on this, the deadliest component of the Covid-19 virus is that once the infection takes hold in the lungs and is identified by the immune system, the immune system goes into something of an "overdrive response" destroying large amounts of healthy as well as infected cells. This overdrive response of the immune system has been named a "Cytokine Storm." In short, the virus itself hasn't done the worst damage to victims - but rather the "Cytokine Storm" caused by the immune system response that has caused irreparable damage to the lungs and sometimes heart of victims. For those with about 50 minutes to spare, we've linked to the discussion below...

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAeaFoSuJho

At this point, it's difficult to argue with the premise that the destruction of the U.S. economy is more damaging than the effects of the virus. Currently we have 26,747 confirmed infections, of which will result in about 6,000 serious illnesses - while 10's of millions are unemployed (at least temporarily) to prevent a further spread of this virus. The loss of employment is only a part of the Societal Cytokine Storm that's been created in our irrational response to this virus. Home Health Care visits to the elderly (the most at risk segment of the population) have been ended in many States. Yesterday we delivered meals to two elderly neighbors who called explaining their Home Health visits were ordered cancelled to "protect" them against Covid-19. Surely, this is madness. In one case, it's an 85 year old with Parkinson's disease who has very limited ability to cook and feed herself. 

The panic at the grocery store is worse this week than last week. Most grocery stores in the Austin Texas area (6 known cases of Covid) have limited hours of operation and implemented strict purchasing limits. Yesterday at 7:30 am, there was a line approximately 1/4 mile long to get into the HEB which opened at 8:00 am.  The Sams "Wholesale Store" limited purchases of ribeye steak to 1 package at a time. Both of the above serve to create both additional panic, and additional crowding which is supposedly the worst thing we can do to spread this virus.

Guns and ammunition are almost impossible to buy. About 2 months ago I placed an HK-P30 in lay-away at "Bud's Guns," a large online gun store. I didn't really need it, but it was a great deal, and I didn't want to pass it up. I pretty much forgot about it until I received an email from Bud's reminding me about my lay away. Realizing we were in panic mode - I quickly paid up my lay away and had the gun shipped to a local Gun Dealer to complete the FFA transaction paperwork. I got notice from UPS on Thursday that the gun had been delivered. When I arrived at Elite Guns in Austin on Thursday afternoon, I encountered a line that looked like the grocery store - and shelves that looked even more bare than those in the HEB. The single working employee was being inundated with phone calls to which he answered with the greeting, "Elite Guns - we're out of 9mm and 12 ga. amm" - and then usually hung up. After waiting about 30 minutes to speak with the employee, he advised me that there was no way he could go through today's arrivals and that I'd have to come back tomorrow. 

I did go back. I did get my super cool HK P30. I do have several hundred rounds of ammo stored. I'm really glad that I'm not shopping for guns and ammo in the middle of this Zombie Apocalypse. On the bright side, I did get to speak with a few of the patrons hopeful of buying their first firearm. Both were young black women. Both seemed surprised that they could "legally" buy a gun after passing a background check, and both seemed surprised that they were so well received and welcomed into the family of gun owners. Having more armed and self sufficient Americans is a potential upside to this current madness.

I started this wanting to delve a bit deeper into the actual mechanics of the Cytokine Storm caused by Covid-19 and what one can do to decrease the possibility of creating such a reaction - but I've already rambled past the attention span of most readers - I'll try to get to that tomorrow - if anyone is still alive.

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Defeating Covid-19 Is Convalescent Serum our Best Chance?

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Created: Saturday, 14 March 2020 21:35

Written by Ax D. WhiteMan

Covid-19, the disease manifestation of the 2019 Novel Corona Virus, has demonstrated many unique characteristics, some of which may be contributing to what appears to be irrational level of hysteria. 

First, let's review the rationality of the current hysteria. Yesterday, March 13th, 2020 every major school district in and around Austin TX, closed. By this morning most major grocery stores were overrun with patrons hoarding supplies of food, disinfectant, and water. At my local HEB (Texans will recognize that - others can google it) at 6:30 am - the parking lot was full, and the checkout line wound around the entire store. Wait time in line to check out - for those lucky enough to have filled their baskets - was over two hours. There is no event in my lifetime that has created this level of hysteria, and that includes the assassination of JFK, 911, and numerous Hurricanes, Floods, and Blizzards. We are certainly living in historic times.

And the cause of this hysteria?

About 35 reported cases of Covid-19 in Texas. None within 100 miles of Austin. Yes, people - this is irrational.

Yet, there are troubling and mysterious things about Covid-19. The mortality rate is uncertain, but evidence suggests that it's somewhat higher than seasonal flu, which is about 0.1%. Currently in South Korea the mortality rate is running at about 0.8%, while in Italy the mortality rate is currently 6.81%. There are numerous possible reasons for the disparity. Perhaps the most glaring is the bias toward only confirming the virus in the most severely sick people - therefore skewing the mortality rate to the high end.

Still, there are other unusual characteristics of Covid-19.

-It seems to rarely infect very young people.

-There seems to be a large percentage of health care workers that have become seriously ill with Covid-19.

-It appears to not be limited to respiratory infection with evidence of both intestinal and cardio infection.

The above characteristics were described by Dr. Peter Hotez, M.D., Ph.D, Dean - Baylor College of Medicine in discussion with Dr. Peter Attia on March 13th, 2020. The discussion is available at  https://peterattiamd.com/peterhotez/ for those who can stand to listen to real information rather than media driven hysteria. These unique characteristics support treating this virus as more than a severe seasonal flu.

Dr. Hotez suggested that a "Convalescent Serum" be developed and used both as treatment and preventatively against Covid-19. A "Convalescent Serum" is a serum derived from the anti-bodies of people who have recovered from Covid-19. Diagramatically, the process looks like this:

The technology and process for developing such a serum is established and mature. In some respects, it may even be considered "antiquated" - but it may be the best alternative we have. The concept is more formally described here : https://www.jci.org/articles/view/138003 in an article by Arturo Casadevall and Liise-anne Pirofski. 

Perhaps most importantly, this is exactly the kind of thing for which President Trump is famous. That is, finding and organizing the best people at applying known technologies to solve current problems - and doing it quickly.  Trump could quickly identify and mobilize a team to fast-track a Convalescent Serum that would almost certainly aid in protecting Health Care providers and others at risk, and be distributed on a prioritized basis as it became more available. 

In any event, it would be much more valuable to the Nation's morale than waiting in line for toilet paper to run out.