Just to add to the above: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/health/virus-hydroxychloroquine-lancet.html “Scientists who wrote and signed the letter criticizing the study included clinicians, researchers, statisticians and ethicists from academic medical centers, including Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University and Duke University.”
WA hospitals association is spending $$$ on TV and social media ads begging folks to go see their doctor.
Go see their doctor to get tested for Covid19? or go see the doctor as part of regular screening, etc?
Of course, to see this “regular” docs to treat cancer, broken bones, and for other similar “non-essential” procedures. We have been strictly prohibited from doing so unless it was an imminent death situation to preserve PPE for treatment of Covid patients. You can skim our local paper - there are plenty of references to what a major disaster that order has been. So bad that UW Medicine furloughed 5,500 employees.
Now people are either still spooked by Covid or don’t know that they are allowed to get treatments.
I am disappointed in how slow the rollout of testing is going. Has anyone read anything new on saliva tests and quick tests? How about testing in private business and airports?
The testing ramp-up has been ridiculously slow in my state. Up until yesterday, unless you met certain criteria, you could not get tested even if you presented to your doctor with Covid symptoms. Our governor just said yesterday that these individuals could begin to get tested.
My son, who lives in another state, just went back to his office this week after working from home since March. He was offered both a Covid test and the antibody test and had nurses on-site to administer the tests.
Very interesting:
^Immunity to this virus via T-cells vs measurable IgG antibodies is important to consider. There has been speculation that T-cell immunity might function just fine without involving B cells. It’s so complicated…
Are you an immunologist? Are you questioning the folks at Fred Hutch who happen to know a thing or two about this? What is the point of this post?
I’m not questioning Fred Hutch or the article. I am merely pointing out that not having measurable anti-COVID19 IgG may not necessarily mean the individual cannot fight it or has not fought it. See e.g. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/t-cells-found-covid-19-patients-bode-well-long-term-immunity# (Not an immunologist. A parent of a child with an immune deficiency. Just thinkin out loud is all.)
Fair enough. But please do not make it sound like the world class immunology experts at the Hutch do not know what they are doing.
I don’t believe evergreen5’s post sounded like that at all. She was adding additional information to be considered.
That “additional info” definitely sounded like that to me. Here is the deal: people have very short attention span. That’s why headlines work like a charm - most people do not read beyond them.
More mixed remdesivir results:
5 day dose shows clinical improvement vs. standard of care, 10 day doesn’t. No impact on survival or time to recovery.
Part of the issue is likely that standard of care is getting better, even though there are no approved drugs (beyond remdesivir EUA) for covid-19. Drug development is difficult.
https://endpts.com/gilead-releases-another-round-of-murky-remdesivir-results/
This is pretty cool:
Does anyone know anything about the Italian doctors;’ claim, the virus is losing its potency? Will be great if true.
Can someone jog my memory? Didn’t the SARS virus mutate to a weakened one?
It would be wonderful if this virus did the same.
Another interesting development:
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/01/russia-approves-drug-to-treat-covid-19-hospitals-to-use-in-june.html
Can’t figure out if this is the same as the Japanese drug. They appear to be the same. The CNBC link implies it is not, so maybe a formulation has been tweaked - ?
For @scout59:
I haven’t seen any evidence for the Italian doctor’s pronouncement other than reduced viral loads. Reduced viral loads could be due to a whole range of factors which have nothing to do with the virus mutating to be less potent.
Here are some reactions from virologists etc. on the Science Media Center site:
Zangrillo (the Italian doctor quoted) is an an anesthesia and critical care doctor who studies “advanced circulatory and ventilator supports, reduction of perioperative mortality and organ damage, treatment of acute cardiac failure, cardiac protection by halogenates and prevention and treatment of acute kidney failure.”
He is not experienced in infectious disease, emerging diseases, virology, or global health. He is a specialist in keeping people alive in the ICU. Of course I still wish for him to be right, but I think a lot more information is needed in order to judge.
Yes, SARS 1 had mutation that made it less virulent.
https://www.virology.ws/2020/01/23/a-lesson-from-sars-cov-for-2019-ncov/
IOW, you can’t count on getting lucky twice.