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It seems from an epidemiological standpoint, this was a virus whose spread characteristics are more perfectly designed to disproportionally affect places like nursing homes with “super spreader” events. That’s why we saw so many deaths so quickly in a short period.
That does not mean it is necessarily drastically more deadly than flu to any given person. It means their spread characteristics are different.
Another way of putting it is it isn't much more deadly than the flu for those under 70. But the flu has to infect a lot more people to kill as many so it depends on how you look at it.
Another way of putting it is it isn't much more deadly than the flu for those under 70. But the flu has to infect a lot more people to kill as many so it depends on how you look at it.
Wow, no. Hold it right there. Based on the NYC serology tests and death rates, broken down by age, here is how deadly COVID-19 is compared to the 2018 influenza:
0-17: Too low to define. - LESS deadly than the 2018 influenza, which was 0.001%.
17-45: 0.08% - 38 times MORE deadly
45-65: 0.69% - 66 times MORE deadly
65-75: 2.27% - 23 times MORE deadly (at this age, influenza becomes a serious threat to life)
75+: 5.69% - No data for this age group for 2018 influenza.
The overall NYC death rate across all ages was extremely high: 0.76%
In California, the death rates I have calculated from serosurveys have been lower, closer to 0.2%
Even if the NYC numbers are skewing high (and they likely are) and the California numbers are correct (they are likely skewed low), you can divide the death rates by up to 4 if you want, that still gives you a minimum deadliness of 10 times that of influenza for "young" people, and 16X as deadly for middle-aged people. That's a full order of magnitude.
Please be realistic about this virus. It is much more deadly than influenza for all adults.
Children are the only ones who are relatively safe. Unfortunately, because this is a pandemic of a novel virus, nearly everyone is likely to catch it in the next year or two. So, while it is less deadly for children than influenza, 80% of children are likely to contract it, compared to 10% for the seasonal flu. So total deaths from COVID-19 among children will probably be greater than the typical number of deaths from the seasonal influenza, even though it is a less dangerous virus for them.
The world needs Covid-19 vaccines. It may also be overestimating their power
With a little luck and a lot of science, the world might in the not-too-distant future get vaccines against Covid-19. But those vaccines won’t necessarily prevent all or even most infections.
In the public imagination, vaccines are often seen effectively as cure-alls, like inoculations against measles.
Rather than those vaccines, however, the Covid-19 vaccines in development may be more like those that protect against influenza — reducing the risk of contracting the disease, and of experiencing severe symptoms should infection occur, a number of experts told STAT.
This just released study is damaging to the HCQ proponents - "...decreased in-hospital survival and an increased frequency of ventricular arrhythmias when used for treatment of COVID-19."
Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine, often in combination with a second-generation macrolide, are being widely used for treatment of COVID-19, despite no conclusive evidence of their benefit. Although generally safe when used for approved indications such as autoimmune disease or malaria, the safety and benefit of these treatment regimens are poorly evaluated in COVID-19.
Methods
We did a multinational registry analysis of the use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19. The registry comprised data from 671 hospitals in six continents. We included patients hospitalised between Dec 20, 2019, and April 14, 2020, with a positive laboratory finding for SARS-CoV-2. Patients who received one of the treatments of interest within 48 h of diagnosis were included in one of four treatment groups (chloroquine alone, chloroquine with a macrolide, hydroxychloroquine alone, or hydroxychloroquine with a macrolide), and patients who received none of these treatments formed the control group. Patients for whom one of the treatments of interest was initiated more than 48 h after diagnosis or while they were on mechanical ventilation, as well as patients who received remdesivir, were excluded. The main outcomes of interest were in-hospital mortality and the occurrence of de-novo ventricular arrhythmias (non-sustained or sustained ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation).
Findings
96,032 patients (mean age 53·8 years, 46·3% women) with COVID-19 were hospitalised during the study period and met the inclusion criteria. Of these, 14 888 patients were in the treatment groups (1868 received chloroquine, 3783 received chloroquine with a macrolide, 3016 received hydroxychloroquine, and 6221 received hydroxychloroquine with a macrolide) and 81 144 patients were in the control group. 10 698 (11·1%) patients died in hospital. After controlling for multiple confounding factors (age, sex, race or ethnicity, body-mass index, underlying cardiovascular disease and its risk factors, diabetes, underlying lung disease, smoking, immunosuppressed condition, and baseline disease severity), when compared with mortality in the control group (9·3%), hydroxychloroquine (18·0%; hazard ratio 1·335, 95% CI 1·223–1·457), hydroxychloroquine with a macrolide (23·8%; 1·447, 1·368–1·531), chloroquine (16·4%; 1·365, 1·218–1·531), and chloroquine with a macrolide (22·2%; 1·368, 1·273–1·469) were each independently associated with an increased risk of in-hospital mortality. Compared with the control group (0·3%), hydroxychloroquine (6·1%; 2·369, 1·935–2·900), hydroxychloroquine with a macrolide (8·1%; 5·106, 4·106–5·983), chloroquine (4·3%; 3·561, 2·760–4·596), and chloroquine with a macrolide (6·5%; 4·011, 3·344–4·812) were independently associated with an increased risk of de-novo ventricular arrhythmia during hospitalisation.
Interpretation
We were unable to confirm a benefit of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine, when used alone or with a macrolide, on in-hospital outcomes for COVID-19. Each of these drug regimens was associated with decreased in-hospital survival and an increased frequency of ventricular arrhythmias when used for treatment of COVID-19.
A new study underlines safety concerns about using the malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat Covid-19, and heightens questions about whether or not the drugs are effective at all.
The study, which was published in the Lancet, cannot answer the question of whether or not hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine can help patients fight off Covid-19 or whether the drugs increase or decrease the death rates in those patients. Those answers can only come from large studies in which patients are randomly assigned to either receive the drugs or a placebo. Dozens of such studies are ongoing.
The results, however, are a reminder of the risks of deciding to use medicines without clear evidence of their benefits and risks.
One of the findings of the current study seems hard to ignore: that the drugs increase the risk of dangerous disturbances in heart rhythms. These are known side effects of both medicines, but the increases in the study are striking. After adjustment for other risk factors, it appears that patients on hydroxychloroquine had double the risk of ventricular arrhythmias, and those on chloroquine had triple. When an antibiotic such as azithromycin was added, as some proponents have advocated, the risk jumped to fivefold.
Covid19 is toowelladapted to humans to have a zoonotic origin ! All previous zoonotic events were one-way streets, i.e. the more the virus spread through humans, the replication creates errors such that the virus is less virulent. Covid19 has gone through at least 5.2M people, and no degradation ??
You'd think the chinese would be thoroughly investigating all the other wet markets, that have bats on sale, to see if there's reservoirs of possible covid19 still out there ! It's not like they don't have a massive incentive to show the world they aren't responsible.
"SARS-CoV-2 viruses with a 382 nucleotide deletion, which encompasses almost the entire open reading frame of Orf8, have now been isolated from eight hospitalized patients in Singapore (image below). These viruses appear to have been circulating in Singapore for at least four weeks."
A similar mutation in SARS-CoV-1 made it less transmissible.
I do believe the Chinese are still looking for the intermediary between bats and humans. Not having found it yet does not mean it does not exist. If it was an illegal pangolin the intermediary may never be found, all the evidence having been destroyed.
Norwegian-British cancer medicine to be tested on British COVID-19 patients
This likely has some commercial angle to it as well but might be promising ...
Hopes of finding a successful treatment have so far centered on the American drug remdesivir. In recent studies, patients receiving remdesivir recovered a little faster from COVID-19. But it is still unclear whether the drug has any effect on the mortality rate from the disease caused by the coronavirus.
Godfrey told the British newspaper that bemcentinib's effect on COVID-19 as seen in the laboratory completely overshadows the effect of other drugs. He says this is because the Norwegian-British drug works in a completely different way than other treatments, such as remdesivir.
The drug from BerGenBio is intended to prevent the body's immune system from being weakened in the face of the virus behind COVID-19. More specifically, it prevents the virus from lurking into the body by using a special protein made from the AXL gene.
Last week bemcentinib was selected by the UK Government as one of the most promising treatments for COVID-19.
Consequently, the drug from Bergen and Oxford will now be the first in a project to test several possible coronavirus remedies. The rapid testing is being done under a programme the British health authorities have called ACCORD (The Accelerating COVID-19 Research & Development Platform).
BerGenBio believes it is 80 per cent likely that their bemcentinib pill will help people who are sick with the coronavirus. The pill is now being tested on 120 British patients who have COVID-19.
This did not grab much attention on the forum but is one of the important trials as it relates to prophylactic / early stage treatment option. The following opinion piece (by two senior doctors / professors) highlights the importance and makes reference to the study I referenced in the quote -
This did not grab much attention on the forum but is one of the important trials as it relates to prophylactic / early stage treatment option. The following opinion piece (by two senior doctors / professors) highlights the importance and makes reference to the study I referenced in the quote -
31% under 18 city of San Ysidro, California has 15 times COVID cases of retiree-centric Coronado with similar population
Seems like areas with huge population of asymptomatic superspreaders under 18 have lots and lots of cases.
With so many children being asymptomatic carriers and areas that have lots of children having 10 to 15 times the number of cases per-capita, I wonder why they are considering opening schools and day-cares before a vaccine.
Seems odd that they are considering opening up schools and day-cares before a vaccine based on the COVID cases being 10 to 15 times higher in neighborhoods with a younger population.
I noticed the same trend in Los Angeles County neighborhoods with tremendous number of births and children (Pico-Union) under 18 have 10+times the rate typically of more retiree centric areas like Claremont
Seems like areas with huge population of asymptomatic superspreaders under 18 have lots and lots of cases.
With so many children being asymptomatic carriers and areas that have lots of children having 10 to 15 times the number of cases per-capita, I wonder why they are considering opening schools and day-cares before a vaccine.
Seems odd that they are considering opening up schools and day-cares before a vaccine based on the COVID cases being 10 to 15 times higher in neighborhoods with a younger population.
I noticed the same trend in Los Angeles County neighborhoods with tremendous number of births and children (Pico-Union) under 18 have 10+times the rate typically of more retiree centric areas like Claremont
San Ysidro is on the border with Mexico. So what are you trying to prove?
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31% under 18 city of San Ysidro, California has 15 times COVID cases of retiree-centric Coronado with similar population
