Novel Coronavirus COVID-19

[Pleasant-Sage]

Just now, CautiouslyOptimistic said:

I ordered glasses from Zenni and they took forever (I got multiple email updates about the virus).  My daughter ordered a birthday gift for her boyfriend on Jan. 30 and it is finally being shipped tomorrow....ON his birthday....

I was wondering how it effected Wal Mart products. Marketing is usually on a pretty tight seasonal schedule. I know not all of their products come from China. Like some are from Taiwan and elsewhere but you would think all those companies would be using the Chinese port.

I bet you Wal Mart loses very little (if any at all) and those companies lose a whole lot of revenue.

[CautiouslyOptimistic]

2 minutes ago, Pleasant-Sage said:

I was wondering how it effected Wal Mart products. Marketing is usually on a pretty tight seasonal schedule. I know not all of their products come from China. Like some are from Taiwan and elsewhere but you would think all those companies would be using the Chinese port.

I bet you Wal Mart loses very little (if any at all) and those companies lose a whole lot of revenue.

I was at a ladies gathering tonight at a neighbors house and one of the women was talking about prom dresses and the "shortage" because of the virus.  I forget how she said she found this out, but she was saying, "Now is the time to shop if you need a prom dress that will need to be ordered...." (Or probably any kind of formal gown for this spring/summer).  

Edited February 28, 2020 by CautiouslyOptimistic

[Pleasant-Sage]

1 hour ago, gaius said:

I actually spent a dollar on that a few days ago. 😆

All these red maps I see in the news got me in the mood to play it again.

I bought it on ps4 last year sometime. Challenging little time killer.

[Libby1]

8 hours ago, gaius said:

He'd be at a pretty high risk for death if he got it considering his age. Maybe he should lay off the feet washing for a while.

Apparently Iran's female vice president has just been diagnosed with the virus and she's been in cabinet meetings with the president while infected. Maybe the Pope and the Ayatollah will hit the hospital bed at the same time. 

I'm increasingly getting the feeling this is going to be one of those stories we tell the kids when we're old. 

"And there were plagues of locusts in Africa".  It feels like a dubious sort of privilege, to live in Biblical times.

In Iran, the death rate is about 10% of reported cases, yet in non Wuhan parts of China where stringent measures to contain it have been applied, the fatality rate is far closer to that which tends to occur with seasonal flu.  I know Iran is ranked pretty low by the WHO for healthcare, but so is China - which seems to be doing quite a good job to contain and treat it outside of Wuhan.  There doesn't seem to be much consistency to indicate how deadly this virus is.

[lana-banana]

South Korea has been testing hundreds of people for free per day, going so far as to create drive-through testing stations. The death rate has been extremely low. Italy is making tests available for about a euro apiece. Their death rate is higher but they have been far less aggressive, so it's quite likely there are many others infected who don't know it.

Meanwhile, in the US, the CDC is only making tests available to those who have been to China or had close proximity to a Chinese traveler. The "unknown origin" case languished for a week because the CDC refused to provide a test. And the test is so inadequate that the state of New York is producing their own.

Worse still, our first "unknown origin" case is almost certainly tied to the administration's insane decision to send unqualified, untrained individuals to evacuate Americans from Wuhan with no protective gear or equipment---and then send them back on the same flight with recovered people or untested individuals. (WSJ, NYT, and the Post have this story leading today if you're curious.) And there is no official pandemic/outbreak response team since the president dismissed them in 2018. The government hasn't even committed to providing free vaccines or treatment for infected individuals, which the rest of the world is taking as a given---if people can't afford to be treated, of course they won't. And apparently a single coronavirus test in the US is hundreds of dollars without insurance, never mind that most people so far overseas are tested multiple times before they read positive.

If a single person dies in the US, it's on the hands of this administration. But I'm less interested in blame and more interested in seeing what we can do to protect vulnerable groups. People over 60 have a much higher mortality rate and it skyrockets after 80. And you know your waitress, cab driver, cashier, bartender etc won't take a day off---if they don't work, they aren't paid! What's the plan to support those most likely to suffer from or spread the disease?

Edited February 28, 2020 by lana-banana

[Libby1]

7 minutes ago, lana-banana said:

If a single person dies in the US, it's on the hands of this administration. But I'm less interested in blame and more interested in seeing what we can do to protect vulnerable groups. People over 60 have a much higher mortality rate and it skyrockets after 80. And you know your waitress, cab driver, cashier, bartender etc won't take a day off---if they don't work, they aren't paid! What's the plan to support those most likely to suffer from or spread the disease?

That would be my concern.   People working for larger companies will be fine, but I've worked for a few very small companies where you know that if you take one day off sick, the boss will be bitching like hell about you and in some cases people might worry about their job being on the line.  I can just imagine the conversation going on in those places right now.  It'll be all "what a lot of crap and overreacting about this coronavirus.  People quarantining themselves over a sniffle."   And of course, people who are self employed are going to feel additional pressure to work through an illness.

[pepperbird]

9 hours ago, Pleasant-Sage said:

I was wondering how it effected Wal Mart products. Marketing is usually on a pretty tight seasonal schedule. I know not all of their products come from China. Like some are from Taiwan and elsewhere but you would think all those companies would be using the Chinese port.

I bet you Wal Mart loses very little (if any at all) and those companies lose a whole lot of revenue.

I'm wondering how much of an impact this virus will have on the dollar store. many of the items there ( heck, most of them) hail from China.

[lana-banana]

2 minutes ago, Libby1 said:

That would be my concern.   People working for larger companies will be fine, but I've worked for a few very small companies where you know that if you take one day off sick, the boss will be bitching like hell about you and in some cases people might worry about their job being on the line.  I can just imagine the conversation going on in those places right now.  It'll be all "what a lot of crap and overreacting about this coronavirus.  People quarantining themselves over a sniffle."   And of course, people who are self employed are going to feel additional pressure to work through an illness.

This entire situation is a sterling argument for Medicare for All. Everyone should be able to get treatment and rest without worrying about whether they'll be able to afford rent. It's not just about basic human decency (which seems like it should be argument enough), but in a pandemic situation, everyone else is affected too.

[gaius]

1 hour ago, Libby1 said:

"And there were plagues of locusts in Africa".  It feels like a dubious sort of privilege, to live in Biblical times.

In Iran, the death rate is about 10% of reported cases, yet in non Wuhan parts of China where stringent measures to contain it have been applied, the fatality rate is far closer to that which tends to occur with seasonal flu.  I know Iran is ranked pretty low by the WHO for healthcare, but so is China - which seems to be doing quite a good job to contain and treat it outside of Wuhan.  There doesn't seem to be much consistency to indicate how deadly this virus is.

I think cases outside of Wuhan skew toward the newer variety, so the disease hasn't had a full chance to work it's way to a resolution. This morning China reported 327 new cases and 44 deaths, for a 13-14% rate. When those infected are given a full time frame to either recover or pass away those numbers probably won't look like the flu anymore.

We also might see variations on the numbers due to where the virus breaks out. If it hits a certain group of people who skew younger it might end up looking a lot less lethal.

I guess Iran is refusing to quarantine infected areas and take a lot of the precautions other countries are taking. There's actually a video of their deputy health minister giving a press conference to a group of people while he's profusely sweating, due to being infected with the virus himself. Not wearing a mask or anything. Unreal.

 

[gaius]

As far as the politics goes, since there seems to be a primal urge to try and use it for political gain in some circles, every country has messed up at this point.

Thousands of healthcare workers in China are infected due to insufficient protective gear. Hospitals in Italy and South Korea have botched handling of cases and contributed to the spread. And in the US, one of our evacuation flights was mishandled. Socialized medicine or not nobody was ready for this.

If you want to sit around, offer no ideas or potential solutions to how we handle this, just wait till Trump does something and find a way to criticize it, then you're part of the problem.

[justwhoiam]

I am in the most affected Western area. Schools were closed down for a week. Churches too. Same for pubs, cafés, bars, clubs & libraries. Movie theaters went deserted, and theaters are experiencing issues. La Scala had someone who tested positive, so they blocked any show. Japan closed down schools for the next two months.

Are these measures too much? Some believe so, but we need to consider that what the general public is being told might be just part of the story, not the whole story.

I read all the posts in this thread. China can't be fully trusted: true. Official news might not be telling the whole story: possible.

There are rumors spreading. Is anything about those rumors true? There's a chance some of it might be true. Or maybe it's completely false. Official sources are comdemning these rumors, but I'm in favor of multiple sources and points of view, so that people can have a better picture of the whole situation and judge for themselves.

Russian sources (or rumors) stated that the Wuhan lab where they regularly experiment on viruses is like half a mile from the market that was accused of spreading the virus. And the experimenting involved a military operation. Although this might be just speculations, these same sources say that people working at the lab - going against international protocols - used to sell animals that died after these experiments (mostly monkeys and rats) to top up their salaries. And apparently, the preferred place to sell underhand was that Wuhan market. So it makes sense that 1. infected meat was not found and 2. many infected people had never set foot in that market. Livestock has nothing to do with anything. Said sources also stated that the virus once spread through saliva particles can keep floating in the air for several hours, possibly even days, and the same goes for surfaces that have been touched (possibly up to 5 days). That explains why airlines that flew infected people removed magazines and other gadgets (like blankets) from the planes. Again, the same sources added that masks won't do much because you can be infected through your eyes if you are exposed to the virus, and obviously by touching stuff. People exposed to the virus get infected at a rate of 83%. So contagion on the Diamond Princess cruise ship  (20%) was extremely contained, due to measures that were adopted and confinement imposed on guests.

These Russian sources finally affirm that the coronavirus contains a strain of HIV, which would only be possible if the virus is man-made, not possible in nature. No one talked about it and for this reason I have no idea if this piece of information is true. But one thing is true: Italian patients infected with COVID-19 are being treated with an HIV drug, aka Lopinavir or ABT-378, a highly potent inhibitor of the human immunodeficiency virus protease as "this enzyme is present both in the HIV virus and the coronavirus". That was declared by one of the Italian doctors treating patients in a hospital. It looks like it's administered together with another drug with the same effect: ritonavir aka ABT-538. These are the Italian protocols right now. These patients are being fed a number of drugs, and the mix seems to be working.

What is the real threat for everyone? Why does this virus need to be contained? Besides the death rate of 3% in a Western country up to 15% in other countries (though it might be too early to draw conclusions as measures in Italy have been taken for just 10 days so far), there's an average rate of 10% of infected people needing intensive care (even in young healthy adults). So if numbers go up, intensive care might not be available for everyone who needs it. That's the biggest scare. So countries need to watch out and keep those numbers down, not to risk to clog up hospitals. Australians have already documented how Chinese hospitals have experienced exactly that and there are people needing care lining up in the streets outside hospitals, or just dying. People have been confined to their apartments with shortages of food, while others were forcibly taken by the military forces and were not seen anymore.

So, no panic, but don't underestimate what's going on, and - most of all - consider there's a good chance this virus is due to human error.

[simpycurious]

Thanks for the information Just.  If true, that is ALARMING.

[serial muse]

1 hour ago, justwhoiam said:

I'm in favor of multiple sources and points of view, so that people can have a better picture of the whole situation and judge for themselves.

Russian sources (or rumors) stated that the Wuhan lab where they regularly experiment on viruses is like half a mile from the market that was accused of spreading the virus. And the experimenting involved a military operation. Although this might be just speculations, these same sources say that people working at the lab - going against international protocols - used to sell animals that died after these experiments (mostly monkeys and rats) to top up their salaries. And apparently, the preferred place to sell underhand was that Wuhan market. So it makes sense that 1. infected meat was not found and 2. many infected people had never set foot in that market. Livestock has nothing to do with anything. Said sources also stated that the virus once spread through saliva particles can keep floating in the air for several hours, possibly even days, and the same goes for surfaces that have been touched (possibly up to 5 days). That explains why airlines that flew infected people removed magazines and other gadgets (like blankets) from the planes. Again, the same sources added that masks won't do much because you can be infected through your eyes if you are exposed to the virus, and obviously by touching stuff. People exposed to the virus get infected at a rate of 83%. So contagion on the Diamond Princess cruise ship  (20%) was extremely contained, due to measures that were adopted and confinement imposed on guests.

These Russian sources finally affirm that the coronavirus contains a strain of HIV, which would only be possible if the virus is man-made, not possible in nature. No one talked about it and for this reason I have no idea if this piece of information is true. But one thing is true: Italian patients infected with COVID-19 are being treated with an HIV drug, aka Lopinavir or ABT-378, a highly potent inhibitor of the human immunodeficiency virus protease as "this enzyme is present both in the HIV virus and the coronavirus". That was declared by one of the Italian doctors treating patients in a hospital. It looks like it's administered together with another drug with the same effect: ritonavir aka ABT-538. These are the Italian protocols right now. These patients are being fed a number of drugs, and the mix seems to be working.

Auuuuuggghgh NONONONO the spread of misinformation and conspiracies like this is far more dangerous than the spread of the disease itself. Christ on a cracker, what is so appealing about such conspiracy theories when life itself is scary enough??? Is it that it feels more manageable somehow? I don't get it, I truly don't.

LS denizens do enjoy themselves a conspiracy, I know this, and mostly I don't care that much, knock yourselves out. But this is a public health crisis so...I'll do what I can to help explain the science here.

OK. I too am in favor of multiple points of view. I"m also in favor of digging deeper beneath the whisper campaigns to see what the actual science involved might be. First, it's important to know that viruses mutate. It's what they do, and it's why you have to get a different flu shot every year, which hopefully you are all doing. (I know many aren't, but that's my PSA.) The flu virus is different every year, because mutation.

This virus has also mutated, which is not indicative of human tinkering. There was a paper by a team of Indian scientists last month, which alleged that the virus had bits of HIV in it. That paper was also quickly withdrawn, meaning that the researchers themselves pulled it. It lives on in social media but it has no scientific merit.

Why is that? Because what they found were tiny sequences of DNA that are replicated again and again and again and again in MULTIPLE forms of life, not just HIV, it has nothing to do with HIV. These are such tiny sequences that they are the opposite of unique or fingerprint bits.

The virus' genome, at least as it appeared in about 100 patients from Wuhan, has been sequenced and is publicly available. There's no coverup. Scientists around the world have been analyzing the thing, and have found that it is slowly mutating as it moves from patient to patient. Those aren't necessarily changes that make it more virulent, just normal, natural mutations. It's doing what viruses do.

Now let's tackle the Wuhan lab. The source of this particular conspiracy is apparently one guy who said it without the least bit of proof, who then went on Russian TV and repeated his idea, and it ended up in the Washington Times and the NY Post and similar places. (And then it was repeated again by, you know, Tom Cotton and so forth. Cool. Is this thing political? It is when your leaders are displaying rank incompetence and ignorance.)

But! There's absolutely no evidence whatsoever for any of it. It was literally ONE GUY who started the whole thing, because he could. And now it's spreading like wildfire bc people want to ignore the entire human history of plague. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes an epidemic is just an epidemic.

Finally. This bit about the Italian patients being treated with Lopinavir is true, of course, but not because the disease is part-HIV. People are desperately trying to repurpose drugs right now because of course it's too early for there to be a treatment against this novel coronavirus, so repurposing is what we've got. There are multiple drugs being repurposed and tried against this virus. Doctors also tried Lopinavir against SARS, by the way, with some clinical benefit.

Doctors in Wuhan were actually testing a combo of lopinavir and ritonavir, a combo also used to treat HIV. That combo specifically targets protease, which is an enzyme that BOTH HIV and coronaviruses use to cut up proteins so they can replicate themselves. You will not be surprised, perhaps, to learn, that people are also trying this combo against MERS. However! The combo has so far proven more effective against HIV, because it's more sensitive to the drug. Coronaviruses appear to be less sensitive. In other words, it's not a panacea, but it's all we've got so far.

Edited February 28, 2020 by serial muse

[sothereiwas]

1 hour ago, justwhoiam said:

Italian patients infected with COVID-19 are being treated with an HIV drug

No, they are being treated with a broadly effective antiviral, which is also effective against the virus that causes HIV. 

[justwhoiam]

6 minutes ago, serial muse said:

Auuuuuggghgh NONONONO

Saying there's no proof about something I mentioned claiming it was "rumors" adds very little to the whole story. Taking sides when you have no proof about whatsoever isn't helpful. I prefer to be objective. SARS started in the very same area.

[justwhoiam]

9 minutes ago, sothereiwas said:

No, they are being treated with a broadly effective antiviral, which is also effective against the virus that causes HIV. 

You are misinformed. Lopinavir + ritonavir, plus an additional cocktail of drugs. This is from official sources.

[sothereiwas]

15 minutes ago, justwhoiam said:

Lopinavir + ritonavir

are effective against a variety of viral infections, including HIV. You're saying the same thing in a different way and then misconstruing it. 

[elaine567]

Interesting article
Coronavirus puts drug repurposing on the fast track
"Existing antivirals and knowledge gained from the SARS and MERS outbreaks gain traction as the fastest route to fight the current coronavirus epidemic."

 

[justwhoiam]

27 minutes ago, sothereiwas said:

are effective against a variety of viral infections, including HIV. You're saying the same thing in a different way and then misconstruing it. 

As stated in the article posted by elaine567, those drugs "were designed specifically for HIV".

[sothereiwas]

23 minutes ago, justwhoiam said:

As stated in the article posted by elaine567, those drugs "were designed specifically for HIV".

Minoxidil was developed as a treatment for ulcers, this does NOT make Rogaine an anti-ulcer drug. 

[justwhoiam]

1 minute ago, sothereiwas said:

Minoxidil was developed as a treatment for ulcers, this does NOT make Rogaine an anti-ulcer drug. 

You are comparing pears and apples. Minoxidil was never used to treat ulcers, as it proved to be ineffective for that purpose. Before a drug is launched on the market, there are studies and trials. It never passed trials for ulcers. Get your facts straight. I don't know what you're trying to prove but it's not working.

[sothereiwas]

2 minutes ago, justwhoiam said:

I don't know what you're trying to prove but it's not working.

That using an antiviral to treat COVID-19 is not evidence that this Corona virus is related to HIV.

Drugs get repurposed if they are useful, that's all this is. Find a group of suckers and sell your conspiracy theory to them. 

[Libby1]

2 hours ago, justwhoiam said:

Saying there's no proof about something I mentioned claiming it was "rumors" adds very little to the whole story. Taking sides when you have no proof about whatsoever isn't helpful. I prefer to be objective. SARS started in the very same area.

There's a good article in Quartz about why the Wuhan lab is having difficulty quashing those rumours.  Google "why a Chinese virology lab is unable to quell the coronavirus conspiracy theories" if you want to find it.  The article posits that the lack of information about this virus results in people thinking that all explanations have equal merit.  People like answers, and when experts can't provide definitive explanations then speculation will start up...and of course, if scientists are still trying to find answers, it's a lot harder for them to counter that speculation with facts.  Also, the article notes

Li Wenliang, a doctor, had told others about a cluster of cases of viral pneumonia before the outbreak had been made public, but was summoned by Wuhan police for “spreading rumors.” He later became infected himself, and his death turned him into a vivid symbol of the costs of the government’s opacity—prompting an outpouring of anger and grief, and rare public demands for freedom of speech and transparency from the government.

When the news about the virus first started hitting the headlines, the main explanation was that it was thought to have emanate from the Wuhan seafood market where all sorts of wild, living creatures were sold in less than hygienic conditions, and there seemed to be a common belief among people researching the virus that it may have been passed onto humans via a bat or some other wild creature.  As far as I know, that's still the most popular theory, but a lot of people probably don't like it because it resulted in social media filling up with gruesome pictures of people eating bat soup, mice etc along with a fair bit of racist commentary.  I read Twitter because it's often the best source for breaking news, but I ended up blocking/muting loads of accounts because every time I did a search on the coronavirus my feed would fill up with religious vegan spam or videos of people eating live mice.

Edited February 28, 2020 by Libby1

[justwhoiam]

Just now, sothereiwas said:

That using an antiviral to treat COVID-19 is not evidence that this Corona virus is related to HIV.

Did I say that? I reported the words of a doctor front line in treating patients infected with the coronavirus. That's it.

[justwhoiam]

Maybe some of you feel like following this Harvard expert: https://twitter.com/DrEricDing