OT: Corona virus

[JohnDillworth]

Man doesn't want to give up his "liberty machine" to the government because he needs to defend against the Looting Hordes from Atlanta: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/former-gop-rep-campaigning-with-gun-giveaway-to-fend-off-looting-hordes-from-atlanta

[Canoerebel]

Numbers just posted for France at Worldometers. A huge drop in New Cases and a substantial one in Mortality. Almost certainly this report and yesterday's (and possibly others) are skewed by timing issues. I doubt there were 11k new cases yesterday and 3.8k today.

Neverthless it's good news.

[Canoerebel]

John, I clicked on that site and read. I'm not familiar with Broun but that report is far too wonky to pay attention to.

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

Man doesn't want to give up his "liberty machine" to the government because he needs to defend against the Looting Hordes from Atlanta: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/former-gop-rep-campaigning-with-gun-giveaway-to-fend-off-looting-hordes-from-atlanta

[JohnDillworth]

John, I clicked on that site and read. I'm not familiar with Broun but that report is far too wonky to pay attention to.

I include it for entertainment value only

[Canoerebel]

Oh, sorry. It's hard to tell these days, ya know?

How're things in your burrough?

Er, borough? How to spell it; I dunno.

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

Man doesn't want to give up his "liberty machine" to the government because he needs to defend against the Looting Hordes from Atlanta: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/former-gop-rep-campaigning-with-gun-giveaway-to-fend-off-looting-hordes-from-atlanta

The comments are more telling of society than the article. Ive noticed a increase in the police presence on my road and I'am in the middle of no where.

I also saw a single Pileated Woodpecker today. They are very common around here, but in pairs. Looking for love.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I just found a nugget I thought would be too elusive for retrieval. A memory from more than 15 years ago, but I found it in the dusty archives of the internet. It flies contrary to expectations, and relates to some of our previous discussions, so here it is.

The Drudge Report (for those of you unfamiliar) posts an accumulation of links to news stories from various sources. For much of its existence it was widely perceived as right wing. But UCLA and other schools did a study (in 2003, I just learned) that rated it as centrist, of all things. Other sources (New York Times) received different ratings.

Here's the link to the study: https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty_p ... eMilyo.pdf

For clarity: I am not a fan of The Drudge Report.

Holy antiquated study, Batman! I think I've just time-traveled to an era before the smartphones, social media and reality TV.

I'd forgotten the internet used to look like this! The image below is a link from the study.

There have been a fair number of papers on media bias, and the recent ones tend to point toward a mostly centrist core group of big journalism. It's more the outlier blogs and small outfits that have become so popular and influential that don't appear in these studies (and didn't exist in 2003 because the internet still looked like the below!) I'll link some soon. [;)]

Not so subtle use of font and case to emphasise "Discover Want" in the early Amazon ad.

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

I like this! Assertion backed by evidence, this is new! A bit dated though; here's something a bit more recent.

https://m.5harad.com/papers/mediabias.pdf

This is a haul when I'm focused on other stuff a bit more, but looks interesting.

[MakeeLearn]

US coronavirus death toll prediction drops over 25% to 60,000
April 8, 2020 | 2:11pm


https://nypost.com/2020/04/08/us-corona ... 00-people/


"An influential model cited by the White House has cut its projected coronavirus death toll by 26 percent — along with its forecast of the fatalities for New York’s worst day.

As of Wednesday, the University of Washington’s model now predicts that 60,000 Americans will die in the pandemic by Aug. 4, down from a projection of nearly 82,000 just a day earlier.

Nationwide, the model moves the country’s coronavirus death toll apex to Sunday — four days sooner than expected — when 2,212 people are projected to perish from the deadly bug."

[Sammy5IsAlive]

The situation in the UK is a bit odd. Just going off the numbers today's reported deaths are higher than all but the worst single days in Italy and Spain. But we have not seen the kind of scary reports of hospitals being overwhelmed that came from Lombardy/Madrid. There is of course the possibility that the coverage is being managed to an extent by the government. But in these times of Twitter etc I'd suggest it is pretty difficult to 'gag' those on the front line. If we'd been overwhelmed I think we'd know about it.

More likely, my speculation would be two possible (not mutually exclusive) explanations. One would be that our classification of deaths is less stringent than Italy/Spain. So a similar number of 'Coronavirus deaths' would not be representing an equivalent stress on health services on the ground. The other possibility is that Italy and Spain had their cases confined to much more localised regions (Lombardy/Madrid/Barcalona) whereas the UK - which is even more densely populated than the European average (England is twice as densely populated as Italy and 4 times more densely populated than Spain and indeed the USA) has had cases and deaths - and the strain on health services these represent - spread across the country. That would tally with the FT graphs which suggest that whilst things are bad in London they are not anywhere near as bad as they were in equivalent regions in Spain/Italy.

[JohnDillworth]

Oh, sorry. It's hard to tell these days, ya know?

How're things in your burrough?

Er, borough? How to spell it; I dunno.

Well I currently don't live in NYC but live in a village, that is part of a town, which is part of a county. NYC, where I was born and raised has 5 boroughs. Manhattan (what the locals call "the city"), Brooklyn (where I was born and where I work), Queens (where I mostly grew up), The Bronx (the only part on the mainland and where I work sometimes) and Staten Island (which no one from NYC really considers part of the city and is really just a legalized version of New Jersey). All of the boroughs are also counties, but some have different names (the borough of Brooklyn is Kings County). Much of the mish-mash is result of the Dutch to English transition. Confusing, I know.....but Louisianan has parishes instead of counties so who knows?

[Wuffer]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Numbers just posted for France at Worldometers. A huge drop in New Cases and a substantial one in Mortality. Almost certainly this report and yesterday's (and possibly others) are skewed by timing issues. I doubt there were 11k new cases yesterday and 3.8k today.

Neverthless it's good news.

Scroll down a bit, they explain it (missed and previously not counted fatalities from nurseries).

Yeah, this virus is a beast, a little bit like a certain man 'with education and taste'.
If we add all this heart attacks in NY of people dying at home the predictions could be very true.
I would guesstimate the final numbers became clearer after a comparison with normal deaths during the same time from past years.
Let's hope five digests will be enough — the mayor of Bergamo suggested 60 (!) times the normal death rate (it was part of the Reuters article CR highlighted some pages ago). Basically 5 years in a single month.

Worldometers numbers allone didn't tell the true story I am afraid, for several reasons they are undercounted, but hopefully not too much.
In general, it could be muuuch worser.

[MakeeLearn]

Media bias???

[Canoerebel]

[:D]

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Media bias???

The actress in the movie would say that there is no place like home. But after her family left her hometown, she never went back. They even have a museum there for Frances Gumm.

[obvert]

This guy was looking ahead, and took the necessary steps. If only others had listened to those saying similar things in other places earlier.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... -19-deaths

His laboratory, which was primarily geared to test salmon for viral infection, was adapted and he purchased the extra ingredients required to test humans. There has been mass testing for virus among salmon farmed in Faroese waters since an outbreak of salmon anaemia virus in 2001 ravaged the species. Of the archipelago’s total export value, 90% is accounted for by fish and half of that is salmon.

According to official records, 10% of the population of 61,000 people have now been tested for the coronavirus. Faroese doctors have been able to track and quarantine everyone who has had contact with the 184 people who had tested positive for the virus. Of those who have fallen ill, 131 have fully recovered.

[JohnDillworth]

Latest reports from the CDC here: (tech jargon warning) CDC

Some interesting notes on underlying conditions at time of hospital admission:
"During March 1–30, underlying medical conditions and symptoms at admission were reported through COVID-NET for approximately 180 (12.1%) hospitalized adults (Table); 89.3% had one or more underlying conditions. The most commonly reported were hypertension (49.7%), obesity (48.3%), chronic lung disease (34.6%), diabetes mellitus (28.3%), and cardiovascular disease (27.8%). Among patients aged 18–49 years, obesity was the most prevalent underlying condition, followed by chronic lung disease (primarily asthma) and diabetes mellitus. Among patients aged 50–64 years, obesity was most prevalent, followed by hypertension and diabetes mellitus; and among those aged ≥65 years, hypertension was most prevalent, followed by cardiovascular disease and diabetes mellitus"

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

Latest reports from the CDC here: (tech jargon warning) CDC

Some interesting notes on underlying conditions at time of hospital admission:

"During March 1–30, underlying medical conditions and symptoms at admission were reported through COVID-NET for approximately 180 (12.1%) hospitalized adults (Table);

89.3% had one or more underlying conditions.

The most commonly reported were:
hypertension (49.7%),
obesity (48.3%),
chronic lung disease (34.6%),
diabetes mellitus (28.3%),
and cardiovascular disease (27.8%).


Among patients aged 18–49 years, obesity was the most prevalent underlying condition, followed by chronic lung disease (primarily asthma) and diabetes mellitus.

Among patients aged 50–64 years, obesity was most prevalent, followed by hypertension and diabetes mellitus;

and

Among those aged ≥65 years, hypertension was most prevalent, followed by cardiovascular disease and diabetes mellitus"

Dress Right Dress!

[Wuffer]

ORIGINAL: obvert

Everyone continues to ask what Germany is doing well to keep deaths down.

While many of the overarching strategies have been discussed, like extensive testing, case tracking and isolation early, early-on lower age case rates, keeping the vulnerable as safe as possible, and their high numbers of ICU beds (although those will likely come more into play at a later stage).

The more I think about the more I believe it's a cultural thing and a lot of luck.

First, there is the habit of annoying everyone with absurdly high standards, which in the end you can't meet yourself. /s

Germans distance themselves socially far more than francone or Romanic cultures, the normal distance between conversations is at least an arm's length, rather two. When talking to southern Italians, we like to take a step back, whereupon the other one takes another step forward - I have often observed how people wandered across the room during a heated dialogue.

You don't find hugs or kisses in the > 50 years old generation, we were just about to introduce this into our behaviour.

Compare this with Switzerland: the number of cases in the Italian-speaking Kanton (Tessin) is significant higher than in the German-speaking world, the French part is in between.
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:C ... canton.svg

Regarding the numbers of tests, they were not that much available in the beginning, so the more important work was tracking down e.v.e.r.y. single case and isolating all contact persons - at some point they were 3-5 or more people quarantined for every confirmed case.

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

Latest reports from the CDC here: (tech jargon warning) CDC

Some interesting notes on underlying conditions at time of hospital admission:
"During March 1–30, underlying medical conditions and symptoms at admission were reported through COVID-NET for approximately 180 (12.1%) hospitalized adults (Table); 89.3% had one or more underlying conditions. The most commonly reported were hypertension (49.7%), obesity (48.3%), chronic lung disease (34.6%), diabetes mellitus (28.3%), and cardiovascular disease (27.8%). Among patients aged 18–49 years, obesity was the most prevalent underlying condition, followed by chronic lung disease (primarily asthma) and diabetes mellitus. Among patients aged 50–64 years, obesity was most prevalent, followed by hypertension and diabetes mellitus; and among those aged ≥65 years, hypertension was most prevalent, followed by cardiovascular disease and diabetes mellitus"

I think you have to take into account the baselines though. I've just done a quick google but the top results seem to be reputable sources. I've got:

40% of adults in the US obese
45% with hypertension
11% with diabetes
7.7% with asthma and 6.5% with COPD (I imagine there is an overlap between the two?)
I've not got a prevalence statistic for cardiovascular disease but do have a statistic that 1 in 4 deaths in the USA 'normally' are due to it.

Comparing the two sets of numbers I'd suggest that the two that really jump out are the lung diseases (makes sense) and perhaps diabetes.

The obesity and hypertension numbers suggest to me (as a layman and not as a statistician) that in the US at least the two are not predictors of significantly increased risk. I'm aware that elsewhere there have been suggestions to the contrary but my suggestion would be that in a country like China (whose overall obesity rates I've got as 5-6% rising towards 20% in the cities) obesity is not the driver of the increased risk but more an indicater of poorer overall health in comparision to the norm

FWIW I had a look for obesity in European countries and got
UK 29%
Spain 27%
Italy 42% (if you've ever been to Italy and experienced their food you'll understand why!)

[RangerJoe]

Blood Pressure Meds Point the Way to Possible COVID-19 Treatment
There is little evidence that antihypertensive drugs worsen COVID-19, and scientists are instead exploring the idea that such medications—or their downstream effects—may actually alleviate symptoms.
Apr 2, 2020

Instead of making COVID-19 symptoms worse, some antihypertensive drugs may actually reduce the severity of infections, and could therefore be used to treat the disease, both sets of doctors say. A closer look at the underlying mechanisms of the medications has also buoyed another idea for how to treat COVID-19—give patients the enzyme ACE2 as a decoy to direct SARS-CoV-2 away from their cells. A biotech company developing such an approach using recombinant ACE2 received regulatory approval today (April 2) to start clinical trials on COVID-19 patients.

“It’s a very interesting idea,” David Kass, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine tells The Scientist. “Obviously, if the virus binds to this form of ACE2 that’s floating around in the bloodstream and not attached to a cell, it won’t be able to multiply and damage the cells.”
.
.
.
Based on the data, Penninger’s team argued that administering a recombinant ACE2 protein could trick the virus into binding with it, rather than actual ACE2 receptors. This could then protect endogenous receptors and allow them to continue to function in counterbalancing ACE, and, ideally, protect the lung and heart from damage during a viral infection.
.
.
.
Using ARBs to combat the virus is a more promising approach. As Penninger’s team showed, SARS-CoV reduced the abundance of ACE2, causing hypertension and lung failure in mice. If ARBs boost ACE2 expression, that might counteract the effects of the infection. The hypothesis is preliminary at this point, says David Gurwitz, a geneticist with a background in pharmacology at Tel Aviv University. He described the idea, which seems paradoxical, March 4 in a review article published in Drug Development Research. The main difference between ACE inhibitors and ARBs is that the former just frees up existing ACE2 receptors, while the latter leads to an increase in the number of receptors, allowing more angiotensin II to be converted to angiotensin 1-7. That would dilate blood vessels and reduce inflammation, countering any hypertensive state caused by a viral infection.

In clinical analyses designed to ensure that ARBs don’t harm COVID-19 patients, researchers in China have published preliminary data on medRxiv supporting the hypothesis. In the study, the team tracked the health outcomes of 511 patients taking medications for heart conditions who then became infected with SARS-CoV-2. The patients took either ACE inhibitors, ARBs, or other drugs that lowered their blood pressure. The results showed that patients over age 65 taking ARBs were at a lower risk of developing severe lung damage than age-matched patients not taking the medications, but there weren’t enough data to do a similar analysis for ACE inhibitors. The work reveals there was no hazard for ARBs, and there may be benefits, but as always, more data are needed, Kass says.

One way to collect those data on a larger scale, Gurwitz explains, would be to analyze many more COVID-19 patients’ health records to see if they’ve been taking ARBs prior to SARS-CoV-2 infection, then comparing the severity of infection in those patients and how well they recovered with the symptoms of COVID-19 patients not taking the medications.

Gurwitz also recommends researchers compare the percentage of people chronically medicated with different antihypertensive medications in the general population with the percentage of them among hospital admissions for COVID-19. These types of analyses could also be done with many other approved drugs, he notes, not just ARBs.

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opin ... ment-67371