COVID-19 | science, damage limitation, NO POLITICS

[Jeremy Roussak]

February - Spanish team publish paper showing efficacy of a drug in treatment of ARDS
February to June - lots of people with COVID19 die with ARDS
June - British team issue press release showing efficacy of drug in treating patients with COVID19.

The chronology doesn't come close to justifying your gloating comment, itself a politically-driven insult to the researchers at Oxford and elsewhere (who have actually contributed something other than nastiness) and betrays an alarming ignorance of the way in which scientific advances are based on earlier discoveries.

If I have seen further than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.

Jeremy

[jeremyrh]

The chronology doesn't come close to justifying your gloating comment, itself a politically-driven insult to the researchers at Oxford and elsewhere (who have actually contributed something other than nastiness) and betrays an alarming ignorance of the way in which scientific advances are based on earlier discoveries.

If I have seen further than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.

Jeremy

Noted that you have not actually said anything to refute my comments and posted only personal insults.

[kers]

Is it because you two share the same name?

[jeremyrh]

Is it because you two share the same name?

You'd better ask Roussak - he reacted to my posting a link to a relevant study with a string of personal attacks.

[Jeremy Roussak]

Noted that you have not actually said anything to refute my comments and posted only personal insults.

There's nothing to say; you have misunderstood the medicine (there are numerous causes for ARDS), misrepresented the paper you cite and insulted the British researchers, all in the cause of being spiteful to Boris Johnson.

That's all there is to it.

Jeremy

[jeremyrh]

There's nothing to say; you have misunderstood the medicine (there are numerous causes for ARDS), misrepresented the paper you cite and insulted the British researchers, all in the cause of being spiteful to Boris Johnson.

That's all there is to it.

Jeremy

There you go again, more abuse, more accusations, no evidence provided or reasoned discussion attempted.

But let the readers make up their own minds. Let them look at the references I provided, and google the use of corticosteroids in treating Covid-19 patients, check out how long this drug has been used in Spain, and while they are at it maybe look at the UK press release ( https://www.gov.uk/government/news/world-first-coronavirus-treatment-approved-for-nhs-use-by-government )  and decide if it is balanced information or overblown jingoistic spin.

[John Camp]

Newsweek:

"Sweden's total number of coronavirus cases grew by more than 100 overnight Wednesday, making it the second most-infected country per capita in the world.

The Scandinavian country known for its light-touch approach to battling the pandemic reached 54,562 total cases Wednesday, according to covidgraph.com, which compiles current data from multiple government health agencies and universities across the world.

When adjusted to reflect Sweden's population of over 10 million, the country's total number of [deaths] currently sits at 5,334 — dangerously close to numbers in the U.S., which currently leads the world in total coronavirus cases and deaths."

The bracketed [deaths] I added for clarity.

[kers]

Sweden made a different plan with a soft lockdown and compared to the neighbour countries they have about 10 times more casualties and 10x more infections.
Today they have 1400 more infected people and the neighbours have about 10 ...
So it looks like they are the perfect example what happens if you do not apply a strict lockdown- as soon as possible.
Let it be a warning for the US and the UK. They were late with a lockdown and want to open up too soon.
The risk is the virus will linger on...

[Alan Klein]

If Covid comes back next year and the Swedes are protected better, it may turn out that their methods were better.  It's too premature to assume outcomes. 

[hogloff]

If Covid comes back next year and the Swedes are protected better, it may turn out that their methods were better.  It's too premature to assume outcomes.

Well here's hoping we have a vaccine by next year. If not, I think the world will be in for some hurting including Sweden. It'll be the Spanish flu again...but with a much more interconnected world.

[BobShaw]

Well here's hoping we have a vaccine by next year. If not, I think the world will be in for some hurting including Sweden. It'll be the Spanish flu again...but with a much more interconnected world.

I don't know if there will be a vaccine next year. Is there a vaccine for the common cold?
And I don't think that it will be like the "Spanish" Flu. That was a different time.
There was no easy communications then. My father told me that a newspaper arrived 7 days late in his town.

I expect that apart from the Americas perhaps the world will be back to a new normal shortly and we just live with it.
We haven't had a Covid death in Australia since May 23.
Provided these idiots stop protesting and breaking the rules it has already gone away to a manageable level.

I do think that it will be a different normal.
I am very sorry for those that have died but it may be a better normal.
Many jobs can now work from home, our education can be online, we are now making more things locally and the people want to buy things made locally.
There is a new thrust for skilled jobs.
Most families have probably seen more of their kids.

Here in Australia we may never make cars again, but I think there will be a viable manufacturing industry of some sort again.

[Chris Kern]

Well here's hoping we have a vaccine by next year. If not, I think the world will be in for some hurting including Sweden. It'll be the Spanish flu again...but with a much more interconnected world.

In a recent interview, Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, sounded fairly optimistic about having one or more vaccine candidates before the beginning of the new year, but cautious about predicting its or their effectiveness:

. . . Merck CEO Ken Frazier effectively questioned the assertion—which you have made—that we could have Covid-19 vaccines within 12 to 18 months. Merck has a ton of experience developing vaccines. Are you at all worried that expectations for the timeline to vaccines have been set too high?

I am not really very concerned about the timetable of this for the following reasons.

The general trend on the part of the pharmaceutical companies, because of the enormous investment that goes into the development of a vaccine, is that you don’t go to the next step until you’re fairly certain that the step you’re in is going to be successful. The other thing is you don’t start manufacturing anything until you have a pretty good idea that you have a successful efficacy signal. That protracts out the time frame. But what we’re doing is something that’s called developing “at risk.”

What it means is that at the same time you’re finishing your Phase 1 trial, you’re preparing your Phase 3 trial sites, which is very expensive, and then you’re starting to manufacture the vaccine even before you know it works. All of that cuts months off.

We’re now completing the Phase 1 [with the Moderna vaccine]. The initial data look very promising from the neutralizing antibody standpoint. And so they’re planning to start the Phase 3 in the first week or so of July. Not only with the Moderna vaccine, but also very likely with the AstraZeneca vaccine. And then as we get later into the summer, we’ll get the Johnson & Johnson in clinical trials.

You need a few months at least of having vaccinated individuals getting exposed. So let’s say it’s July, August, September, October. By November, you should have an efficacy signal.

If you do and you’re already manufacturing doses, by December and January, if you’re lucky and if in fact it is effective, you can have a significant number of doses available by the end of the year, the beginning of 2021. So I think it’s aspirational, but it’s certainly doable.

The only thing that’s the big unknown to me is that, is it going to be effective? I think we could do it within the time frame that I’ve outlined. But there’s no guarantee that it’s going to be effective.

And, of course, there's the enormous logistical challenge of making the vaccine(s) widely available, at an affordable price in less affluent countries, distributing it (or them), and actually vaccinating enough people to effectively snuff out the pandemic.  As you suggest, in an interconnected world, that will be a daunting task.

[hogloff]

I don't know if there will be a vaccine next year. Is there a vaccine for the common cold?
And I don't think that it will be like the "Spanish" Flu. That was a different time.
There was no easy communications then. My father told me that a newspaper arrived 7 days late in his town.

I expect that apart from the Americas perhaps the world will be back to a new normal shortly and we just live with it.
We haven't had a Covid death in Australia since May 23.
Provided these idiots stop protesting and breaking the rules it has already gone away to a manageable level.

I do think that it will be a different normal.
I am very sorry for those that have died but it may be a better normal.
Many jobs can now work from home, our education can be online, we are now making more things locally and the people want to buy things made locally.
There is a new thrust for skilled jobs.
Most families have probably seen more of their kids.

Here in Australia we may never make cars again, but I think there will be a viable manufacturing industry of some sort again.

Much of the world is just getting into their first phase of the virus...look at the daily cases, never been higher. South America, South Asia...and who knows what is happening in most of Africa. i don't think anyone really knows what is in store going forward nor what this so called new normal will be.

[Alan Klein]

I don't know if there will be a vaccine next year. Is there a vaccine for the common cold?
And I don't think that it will be like the "Spanish" Flu. That was a different time.
There was no easy communications then. My father told me that a newspaper arrived 7 days late in his town.

I expect that apart from the Americas perhaps the world will be back to a new normal shortly and we just live with it.
We haven't had a Covid death in Australia since May 23.
Provided these idiots stop protesting and breaking the rules it has already gone away to a manageable level.

I do think that it will be a different normal.
I am very sorry for those that have died but it may be a better normal.
Many jobs can now work from home, our education can be online, we are now making more things locally and the people want to buy things made locally.
There is a new thrust for skilled jobs.
Most families have probably seen more of their kids.

Here in Australia we may never make cars again, but I think there will be a viable manufacturing industry of some sort again.

  Many people like waiters, bar tenders, construction workers, manufacturing, etc, cannot work at home.  There are going to be millions of people who will be out of work with no place to go for a long time, at least in the US.  Skilled jobs will be important.  People will have to up their game if they want to eat.  While some families have seen more of their kids, we haven;t seen our relatives who live elsewhere.  It's been especially hard on my wife and her 97 year old mother because her mom lives in an assisted living residence.  And they have closed it down for months.  We were there two days ago and saw her through the window.  No one is allowed in.  I haven;t seen my daughter in three months.  Certainly there are going to be major displacements going forward for all of us. 

[Paulo Bizarro]

If Covid comes back next year and the Swedes are protected better, it may turn out that their methods were better.  It's too premature to assume outcomes.

Not really. Estimates point to 7.5% of the population in Stockholm exposed to the virus. Very far from the herd immunity treshold.

[Paulo Bizarro]

I don't know if there will be a vaccine next year. Is there a vaccine for the common cold?
And I don't think that it will be like the "Spanish" Flu. That was a different time.
There was no easy communications then. My father told me that a newspaper arrived 7 days late in his town.

I expect that apart from the Americas perhaps the world will be back to a new normal shortly and we just live with it.
We haven't had a Covid death in Australia since May 23.
Provided these idiots stop protesting and breaking the rules it has already gone away to a manageable level.

I do think that it will be a different normal.
I am very sorry for those that have died but it may be a better normal.
Many jobs can now work from home, our education can be online, we are now making more things locally and the people want to buy things made locally.
There is a new thrust for skilled jobs.
Most families have probably seen more of their kids.

Here in Australia we may never make cars again, but I think there will be a viable manufacturing industry of some sort again.

Unfortunately, some people do not take this seriously, not even after all the deaths and warnings. Just see what happenned in Naples after the tream win the Italian football cup.

Here in Portugal when 7June there was a party in Algarve where more than 100 people got together with baltant disregard for health guidance. After almost 2 weeks and more than 1,000 tests to party goers and their contacts, there are 70 cases so far.

Greater Lisbon area is still a source of concer, with around 250 - 300 cases a day. Despite that, UEFA decided to held the champions League finals here. Go figure.

The good news is that this second wave in Lisbon is not translating into deaths or ICUs.

[kers]

The US number are still rising in an almost linear way
the trend of last month;

casualties rise with 25.000 a month       now 120.000  total  in only 2.5 months
infections rise with 700.000 a month     now 2.200.00 total  in only 2.5 months

[KLaban]

New York Times article. You May Have Antibodies After Coronavirus Infection. But Not for Long.

You May Have Antibodies After Coronavirus Infection. But Not for Long.

[Alan Klein]

Not really. Estimates point to 7.5% of the population in Stockholm exposed to the virus. Very far from the herd immunity treshold.

The 7.5% is for the country overall.  It's much higher in Stockholm, its major metropolis.  So it will be interesting to see what happens next year.  You're rushing to judgment.

[Alan Klein]

The US number are still rising in an almost linear way
the trend of last month;

casualties rise with 25.000 a month       now 120.000  total  in only 2.5 months
infections rise with 700.000 a month     now 2.200.00 total  in only 2.5 months

Maybe America is getting better prepared then others for next year if it comes back.  Everyone's guessing which is the best policy medically.  In the meanwhile, the economies of the world are taking a big hit that has its own negative effects.  You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.