I drove down to Irvine today to get that antibody test. Just looking around on the streets - the level of human interaction has to be like 1-2% of what it was before all this. Few people out, and the people who are staying far away from each other and wearing masks. I was thinking - if this isn’t good enough we’re fucked.
I pity da fool virus that messes with Mr. T Cell.
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They will all be working from home.
There’s a lot of changes going on right now. Whole centres have been shut down in India and the Philippines. Some companies are mass hiring.
Australia’s biggest Telco is trying to hire 2000 people for example.
I’m assuming the UK is similar. There will be lots of applicants, sure, but probably lots of jobs too.
I once ran a play in a Ugandan school where 90% of the jokes were us doing Mr T cell jokes to educate kids about HIV.
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Not a fan of “It’s like HIV in that way.”
Sure seems to me like if we know it’s replicating in the throat before we even have symptoms, there could be something we could take as a prophylactic which would slow or halt the replication. Maybe not zinc lozenges but something? @Will1530 - do you know of any medicines like this?
Oh hey, comprehensive testing of pregnant women in NYC found that more than 15% of them had coronavirus infections! The sample stretches back to March 22, so potentially significantly behind where we are now. Almost all asymptomatic over their maternity admission.
https://twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/1249873227939266560
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Also I wonder how many more things from the SARS playbook (like it’s only from deep coughs, and nasal swabs are the only way to test) are eventually going to be proven wrong?
People still seem hung up on this idea you need to cough or sneeze to spread it, when that seems really unlikely right now. That video I posted showed that loud talking can spread breath droplets. There was the one choir practice where everyone got sick. Seems like singing could be very bad. Heavy breathing obviously.
I suggested that to a friend and former coworker who’s been really sick with a respiratory virus for weeks and definitely has it, but she didn’t want to. She’s doing better now anyway.
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Sadly it may doing just that
Immunology was a long time ago and I’m sure they have learned a ton more. But here goes
Antibodies can bind to the virus site that binds to the cell receptors. Virus can’t infect a new cells.
Antibody-virus conjugates can cross link and get treated by the other parts of the immune system or simply filtered out. Functionally similar to the first.
Antibody bound to virus are recognized by macrophages which envelope and destroy the virus.
Killer T cells kill infected cells (also can kill cancer cells).
Probably more but basic mechanisms
Inactivation (first 2)
Catch and kill the virus
Kill the infected cells.
Really bad news if it whack T cells. This thing is really a bad mofo. Interferes w oxygen uptake two ways (lungs and hemoglobin) and also impacts part of the immune system.
Good news that a high dose of donated antibodies can help.
Hopefully some help here too
This is the one Japan has been using. There is a strong double blind going at Emory (I think). Some compassionate use anecdotes sound good but really need those big blind studies.
Would be nice to have a real weapon against this thing in the mid term pre vaccine.
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I’m in the process of negotiating a contract to consult for a Chinese industrial biotech firm. Will be awhile before I’d actually go. I asked for epidemic as a specific reason I could not travel and I made sure all travel was at my discretion. I’d be more worried about getting quarantined on the way back at this point.
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This sounds unbelievably shady
Well it’s the same company the Stanford antibody experiment is going with. That’s the only reason I gave it a shot. Although apparently it’s just a franchise company and each lab is independent. So who the hell knows.
Curious why you think it seems shady from his description?
The part about soaking your wife in the divorce.
I should have taken a picture. It said “prove the affair”, DNA, and something about divorce settlements. But maybe it could be using a hair sample the woman found on her husband, or something? It didn’t seem aimed at men.
Good study from the NEJM where women giving birth were all screened for SARS-CoV-2 on admission to two hospitals in NYC:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2009316
This was March 22 - April 4. 33 women tested positive, of whom 29 were initially asymptomatic, but 3 of those went on to develop symptoms before discharge.
Extrapolating to the population of NYC, if you compare current death count to those case numbers (which is about the right time delay, maybe a bit too long) that suggests an IFR of 0.56%. Probably deaths are undercounted in NY, if you look at the rise in all-cause mortality. I continue to think the IFR of COVID-19 will be on the order of 0.5% to 1%.
The other big takeaway obviously is that a ton of these women, like 75-80%, were asymptomatic, though possibly some developed symptoms post-discharge. Probably the age range implied by giving birth means that the rate of asymptomatic infection was higher than it would be if you included older people.
Edit for obligatory “if this is true, it might be the end of civilization”.
I know of nothing otc that we know helps. Our cells don’t have enough zinc uptake channels to get enough zinc into the cells to slow viral reproduction. Remdesivir is undergoing multiple trials around the USA and the world. I know midpoint data analysis hasn’t produced good enough results to stop the trials and recommend it as a first line therapy. Doesn’t mean it won’t pan out as a good treatment, but it is unlikely to be a game changer imo.
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When they do the vaccine trials, how do they go about trying to intentionally infect them with coronavirus afterwards… or are they already certain the vaccine works to prevent infection and just need to test side effects?
Also, I haven’t seen a single news article from someone who was quarantining and got infected by an amazon delivery box… but maybe someone who is completely staying at home is also being particularly careful with their deliveries…
LOL, that university was running “asymptomatic tests” in the frigging Villages… it really seems to make sense that older people are less likely to be asymptomatic.