HIPAA and safety. I ask my wife questions about work and the ICU she changes the subject. Can’t and won’t talk about it. I also think she just doesn’t want to know. It’s tough enough.
What makes you think the government has all these resources stockpiled to ramp-up? They have a secret stash of PPE’s, drugs, API’s tucked away that would allowing regular testing for 300M people?
@BunsenBurner that is exactly what I’ve been saying since March. ‘We need to see what it is like in the wards. Some people do not believe things until it happens to them or someone they know, or they can see, feel, taste, etc. it.’ Vietnam was real and hard to stomach when they started showing the war on prime time news.
As far as the numbers go, I wonder how they are calculated. I am working at a Covid Surge facility (skilled nursing rather than acute). A lot of my patients are here because it is not safe for them to go home because they live in a group environment or with someone who is high risk. Many have multiple Covid tests between the time they are admitted and the time they leave. I wonder if these are counted as a new case each time or if there is some way to distinguish those that have already tested positive.
The saliva tests would be used to supplement the plans already in place by the NFL and universities to restart. They are already assuming risk.
My county publishes both the number of tests that were positive, and the number of covid cases. There are more positive tests than cases.
I predicted back in March on the other thread that contact tracing would not work…
Can’t wait for the first case to get thrown out. The state has no authority to make you talk to them. None.
Study indicates immunity wanes quickly in people with mild Covid-19 infections
From CNN’s Maggie Fox
There’s more evidence that people start to lose any immunity to the novel coronavirus within a few weeks after they have been infected — especially if they have mild symptoms or no symptoms.
A team at the University of California Los Angeles did an in-depth study of 34 people who had recovered from mild coronavirus infections. They tested their blood two or three times over three months.
They found a rapid drop in antibodies – the immune system proteins that help stop viruses from infecting cells in the body. On average, the antibody levels fell by half every 73 days, Dr. Otto Yang of UCLA’s Geffen School of Medicine and colleagues reported in The New England Journal of Medicine.
A survey of people in Spain released earlier this month found similar results.
“Our findings raise concern that humoral immunity against SARS-CoV-2 may not be long lasting in persons with mild illness, who compose the majority of persons with Covid-19,” Yang and colleagues wrote.
“It is difficult to extrapolate beyond our observation period of approximately 90 days because it is likely that the decay will decelerate. Still, the results call for caution regarding antibody-based ‘immunity passports,’ herd immunity, and perhaps vaccine durability, especially in light of short-lived immunity against common human coronaviruses," the study says.
It’s still not known if people can be infected more than once with the novel coronavirus. But there are other, related coronaviruses that cause common colds, and people can and do catch those repeatedly.
“A crucial question is the extent to which these mildly infected individuals contribute to onward transmission. Another one, is whether or not a mildly infected individual, if infected again, is any more or less likely than average to develop a severe infection the second time around,” said Rowland Kao, an epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh in the UK who was not involved in the study.
More than 1 in 5 US homes don’t meet quarantine guidelines set by officials, research says
From CNN’s Naomi Thomas
More than one in five homes in the US, housing about a quarter of all Americans, do not have sufficient space and plumbing to meet quarantine and isolation recommendations set by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, according to new research published Tuesday.
Both the CDC and WHO recommend that anyone who has been exposed to or infected with Covid-19 should isolate in a separate bedroom, with a separate bathroom where possible.
But Dr. Ashwini Sehgal of the Center for Reducing Health Disparities at Case Western Reserve University and two experts from City University of New York found more than 20% of American homes did not have this kind of space.
“Isolation or quarantine was impossible in 25.29 million dwellings, accounting for 20.8% of all U.S. residential units, because they lacked sufficient bedrooms, bathrooms, or both,” they wrote in the Annals of Internal Medicine. “This included almost 30% of the 88.2 million units with more than 1 occupant. Overall, about 81 million persons lived in units unsuitable for isolation or quarantine. “
They also found that Native American and Hispanic people were two to three more times likely than Whites and Black and Asian people were 1.7 times more likely than Whites to live in homes were isolation was not possible.
This is “a pattern that mirrors both the high incidence of Covid-19 in those groups and racial discrimination in access to housing that was federal policy until the 1960s and, unfortunately, persists today,” the authors wrote.
They make the suggestion that policymakers should consider offering space in underutilized hotels for isolation or quarantine, at no cost. Several Asian countries have done so, and this could decrease transmission of Covid-19, particularly in minority communities.
The researchers looked at data for 57,984 occupied houses from the American Housing Survey, which were representative of 121.57 million houses or apartments nationwide, home to around 303 million people.
There were some limitations to the research, the authors noted, such as the fact that people may have over or underreported occupants in the initial survey.
There you go. dont talk to a contact tracer get fined in NY
If 90% of people did these 3 things, there would be no large outbreak of Covid-19, study finds
From CNN Health’s Jen Christensen
Three simple behaviors could stop most all of the Covid-19 pandemic, even without a vaccine or additional treatments, according to a new study. Those behaviors are:
Washing hands regularly
Wearing masks
Keeping physical distance from others
The study, published Tuesday in the journal PLoS Medicine, created a new model to look at the spread of the disease and prevention efforts that could help stop it.
The contact rates in the study were based on people’s interaction in the Netherlands, but the model is appropriate for other Western countries, the team at the University Medical Center Utrecht said.
“A large epidemic can be prevented if the efficacy of these measures exceeds 50%,” they wrote.
If, however, the public is slow, but does eventually change behavior, it can reduce the number of cases — but not delay a peak in cases, according to the model.
If governments shut down early, but no one takes additional personal protective steps, this will delay, but not reduce a peak in cases. A three-month intervention, would delay the peak by, at most seven months, the study found.
But if there’s government-imposed social distancing combined with disease awareness and personal steps, the height of the peak can be reduced, even after government imposed social distancing orders are lifted.
“Moreover, the effect of combinations of self-imposed measures is additive,” the researchers wrote. “In practical terms, it means that SARS-CoV-2 will not cause a large outbreak in a country where 90% of the population adopts handwashing and social distancing that are 25% efficacious.”
The reason it isn’t 100% is because even with self-imposed social distancing, contacts with others might not be totally eliminated. For instance, people who live together will interact, increasing the likelihood that someone could get sick.
The researchers argue that governments should educate the public about how the disease spreads and raise awareness about the crucial nature of self-distancing, hand washing and also mask use to control an ongoing epidemic. It does not differentiate between mandating some of these behaviors or encouraging them.
Remember: There are limits to the model. It doesn’t take into effect demographics, nor does it account for the imperfect isolation of people who are sick with Covid-19, meaning they can infect others who care for them in a health care setting or at home. It also doesn’t account for the possibility of reinfection.
“First vaccines may not be our best vaccines,” US disease expert warns
CNN Health’s Shelby Lin Erdman
It’s hard to draw many conclusions at this point from the vaccine data published Monday by the University of Oxford, said Dr. Peter Hotez, professor and dean of Tropical Medicine at the US’ Baylor College of Medicine, during an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
Hotez predicted it will take until the middle of next year to find out if the vaccine actually works.
“Looking at the data coming out of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, in a single dose, the vaccine did not seem to do all that much. The levels of virus neutralizing antibody, which many think is a good indicator of whether the vaccines are going to work, were not very high,” Hotez said. “In two doses it seemed to be better, but there were only 10 patients who got the two doses.”
“So, it’s really hard to conclude, very much from this,” he said.
Hotez said the results suggest a larger trial is needed.
“And that’s the idea behind Operation Warp Speed. All of these vaccines will start entering phase 3 clinical trials at various times over the next year and then it’ll take a year to accumulate all the data showing the vaccines actually work, as well as that they’re safe … But keep in mind the first vaccines may not be our best vaccines, added Hotez.
“It’s looking like many of them are just partially protective, potentially preventing people from getting very sick, but not interrupting transmission. So, even then we’re still going to have to maintain ongoing public health control.”
There are 23 Covid-19 vaccines currently in clinical trials globally, according to the World Health Organization.
Two weeks is crazy and useless.
Covid-19 test results could take as long as two weeks
From CNN’s Curt Devine
While the surge in coronavirus cases in the United States has amplified the need for timely testing, diagnostic companies continue to grapple with turnaround times of multiple days or more for coronavirus test results.
Some labs have attributed the longer waits to extreme demand and strain on testing supply chains. There are now more than 3.8 million confirmed coronavirus cases in the US, with tens of thousands of new infections every day.
Quest Diagnostics said in a statement Monday that average turnaround time has increased to seven days or more for the general population, and that a “small subset of patients” may experience wait times of up to two weeks.
Prioritized patients, such as symptomatic healthcare workers and those who are hospitalized, get results in two days on average, the company said. Quest says that’s longer than the one-day average wait time priority patients had a week ago.
On Saturday, the Food and Drug Administration authorized Quest to use its Covid-19 test with pooled specimens, where samples from multiple patients are tested together, which the company said should help increase capacity.
But Quest also said the biggest factors they face now are the limits of the complex machines that perform the tests, as well as limited supply of reagents, the chemicals used to perform the tests.
US Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir said on CNN’s “New Day” Monday the average turnaround time for tests in most states is longer than three days, though in 18 states the average is two to three days.
“That is not optimum. We want to reduce that. It will be reduced,” said Giroir, who added that supply of reagents is “tight.”
[/quote]
Indeed, a two week turn around time for a test for a highly contagious virus is pretty much useless.
But, we learned in our favorite podcast, This Week In Virology, episode 640, that virologists have shown that the amount of virus rapidly multiplies in humans, and basically blows past the point of needing a test as sensitive as the one we use withIn a few HOURS of contracting the virus. The current tests are WAY more sensitive than needed for all days past that very first day.
The FDA requires this level of sensitivity. But using that test all the time is like using a hammer to kill an ant. An expensive hammer.
We apparently DO have an inexpensive solution, equivalent to stepping on the ant lightly. (Ant is also dead). Would cost $1ish. Now, it won’t catch the virus on day 1, but since it costs only a dollar, everyone can test themselves daily. Or as soon as one expects to encounter other humans.
But the government isnt jumping on this, researchers say.
Um…why not? The researcher (I should look up his name) very clearly made his case, and claims we could be swimming in these things quickly if only the FDA would approve them.
I am puzzled. This researcher (from Harvard, I think) is surely well respected and his publications are read. No doubt there are one or two folks inside one or two big, powerful universities (flagships) who could bring this problem to their president, who could then get on the phone to his or her Senator (call would be taken) and scream their heads off to get these tests through the pipeline. We can argue about whether or not this cheap test would help or not, but indulge me and assume that it would make a gigantic difference at a place like a university.
What am I missing? I would think many college presidents would trade their left arm for a couple million of those tests. If I knew he’d take my call I sure would be telling my Senator to get going on this.
I must be missing something here. I don’t know how these tests could exist and not have at least one person who is powerful and loud throw a complete hissy fit that an irrational FDA standard is blocking its use. Anyone heard someone who can fix this talk about it? Or has this Harvard professor been outed as a quack and I didn’t get that memo?
Are those tests so much better than taking a temperature if it works mainly after you feel sick?
If there is an inexpensive quick test that detects infection (or contagiousness) during the pre-symptomatic stage, that would be much more effective at detecting the silent spreaders at points of entry to workplaces, classrooms, and other high-risk-of-spread environments. Checking for fevers or coughs is already two to four days too late, since the infected person can be contagious two to four days before symptoms.
Note that detection of infection is not necessarily the same as detecting contagiousness.
Call me cynical but there’s no money to be made in cheap tests. The testing for Covid was quickly farmed out to private, for profit companies - Quest and clan. How will those interests profit of the pandemic with cheap tests?
Many don’t have temp when infected so taking temperatures will never, IMO, be a good screening tool.
Agreed if there is an inexpensive easy quick tests. So far, there’s none… The test mentioned in #1452 is no such thing. As far as I can see, it is only a little better than taking temperature. It detects after 3-4 days, presumably after someone is sick.
This is NOT what Michael Mina says on TWIV! I wish it were true. If someone tested positive on the more sensitive PCR test within hours of contracting the virus, then my son wouldn’t have to be spending 14 days quarantining in a separate area of my house. He could’ve just gotten a PCR test, waited a few days for the negative, and I’d be able to hug him.
But no. Mina says something very different. He says that once someone is at the point where they would test positive on the sensitive PCR test, then they are at the exponential phase of virus growth in their bodies, and in a few hours, they’ll test positive on the less sensitive test too. Sadly, however, it takes days between the time of exposure and the time of first being able to test positive on the sensitive PCR test.
Here’s the link: https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/
The relevant episode is 640, and the comment is around 10:40.
Source on that? The podcast I referred to is less Th an a week old. The tests were described as catching Virus presence the day after initial infection. The fact that the virus multiplies very quickly was the thrust of the researcher’s argument. If what you say is true, it directly contradicts what he said. His recommendation was that everyone be given a ton of these things (which use saliva) to use daily, and since virus is caught in day 2, it would take cooperative people out of circulation FaR more commonly than now (because right now only 10% of cases are caught prior to victims getting sick).
His argument is solid if what he says is accurate. But if what you say is accurate (the saliva tests don’t work for 4 or 5 days), then his argument falls apart. Seems odd that a Harvard researcher would make such a big claim and be so wrong.