Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

[Rahul M]

Mod Warning :
No more discussing US politics here folks.

===========
My experience with Covid & Coronil.
My mother was diagnosed with Covid last month. She had gone out once, to the market and that was enough ! The family physician immediately put her on Azithromycin even before the positive report. Given the situation at hospitals in kolkata we decided to go for home treatment after a discussion with a very experienced govt. Hospital doctor. CT scan revealed some infection in lungs and liver. She is diabetic & needs daily insulin, so it was a pretty harrowing time for us. The Doc put her on a course of antibiotics and insisted that anti-virals can be given only in a hospital environment. Thankfully she got better without any complications.

Coming to Coronil, my father is a big believer in Baba Ramdev medicines, having benefited from it for some skin ailment that was not cured by allopathy for years.
He had put everyone in the family on daily Coronil & saswari bati doses ever since it came out. Did it help ?
Frankly, I don't know. What I do know is that my father & grandmother, both in the at risk category, who lived in close proximity with my Covid positive mother didn't catch it. From anecdotal evidence among friends & relatives Covid seems to spread like wildfire among people living in proximity from a single positive patient.
I am just thankful we could avoid it. Will continue with Coronil.

[Mort Walker]

Rahul M,

I am glad your mother is doing better. Are there any covid related symptoms that she's still experiencing a month later? The concern are blood clots months after covid has past.

I'm getting direct anecdotal evidence from family members that Coronil, in combination of hand washing/sanitizing and masks, either prevents or reduces the COVID-19 viral load. I've started taking it recently and have not noticed any side effect so far. I am also starting on Dabur Chavanprash of 10 grams per day as directed by GoI Ministry of Ayush. Here in the US, should the common man get covid, take acetaminophen until you have difficulty breathing, then go to hospital to die. No guidance on reducing the viral load or prevention at the federal or state level by any political party. I suspect a very significant percentage of covid deaths in the US are due to medical negligence.

[Rahul M]

We did put her on ecospirin on alternate days on the advice of a BRFite. Her ECG & echo reports were fine. She is a HT patient coming with a family history of such ailments but it has been under control for years. Fingers crossed and all that.
One strange thing was sudden drops in blood Hb week after week by about 0.5gm drp per week. Even the Doc (who has around 200 covid patients under his care at any one time) says we are still mostly ignorant about how post-COVID symptoms evolve.

No covid symptoms now to speak of, she had fever around 101 F for a day and then low grade fever (maxing around 99F, her normal temperature is around 97.5) for a week thereafter, complete loss of smell & some weakness for a couple of weeks but that's about it. It's been one and a half months.

[darshhan]

We did put her on ecospirin on alternate days on the advice of a BRFite. Her ECG & echo reports were fine. She is a HT patient coming with a family history of such ailments but it has been under control for years. Fingers crossed and all that.
One strange thing was sudden drops in blood Hb week after week by about 0.5gm drp per week. Even the Doc (who has around 200 covid patients under his care at any one time) says we are still mostly ignorant about how post-COVID symptoms evolve.

No covid symptoms now to speak of, she had fever around 101 F for a day and then low grade fever (maxing around 99F, her normal temperature is around 97.5) for a week thereafter, complete loss of smell & some weakness for a couple of weeks but that's about it. It's been one and a half months.

Any residual fatigue or abnormal heart palpitations?

[Rahul M]

Nope.

[Amber G.]

This well written article from Stanford explains how viruses work (particularly Corona viruses) and how treatments to combat these viruses are developed.

Technically accurate and written in clear understandable terms for a wide audience.
https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2020issue2 ... ments.html

[Amber G.]

Rahul M - Best wishes for your Mom and your family.

FWIW - My advice would be to find a person (source) *you* trust and is reputable to get information and making decisions. There is a lot we still do not know, and are learning fast so latest *and* *accurate* information is very helpful.

BRF (and most news media) form what I see is not an ideal place for reliable info. In fact narrative from many (majority?) here is quite unscientific, some parts absolutely wrong and dangerous.

Many scientists (with good support from powers to be like GoI in India) are working *very* hard in the field to distribute reliable information (and prevent silly rumors etc).. I know IITK worked/working with other top institutions (DST) on a portal (AI) so you (or your doctors) can get accurate information. Even Twitter and SM of people like health minister / DST secretary / IISc / ICMR and websites are quite good and improving.

Best. Hope people really listen to science.
Stay Safe! It is NOT a hoax. Follow your doctors advice.

[Amber G.]

Meanwhile: Folks, here in USA let me present just utterly sobering fact —cases rising so fast that we will likely see 3000 deaths a day by end of year. That is one 9/11 death toll *per day*!. (Sad part is it was quite unnecessary)..
..

Another interesting data - Vermont and South Dakota two states similar in many ways in population and demographics. South Dakota (home of Sturgis Motorcycle Rally with thousands of mask less believers) did not believe in the "hoax" ..and Governor literally mocked mask wearing etc..

[Cyrano]

Rahul M, best wishes for your mathashree and your family.

[Cyrano]

Seeing US projections, Interferon therapy will help a lot more than vaccines in the near term. Hope it gets required approvals and is produced in required quantity. Will the Govt take the cost of Interferon ?

[vera_k]

Too Much Caution Is Killing Covid Patients

Doctors should follow the evidence for promising therapies. Instead they demand certainty.

Behind paywall, use google search to access. Lack of clinical judgment is being proposed as one reason why the death toll is higher in the USA. Seems plausible to me having experienced health care in both India and USA. A patient in the USA will be better off in reading up and asking for treatments that look promising.

[Jay]

My mother was diagnosed with Covid last month.

Sorry to hear the news, Rahul ji, but glad she recovered and is doing well.

[sudeepj]

Thanks for sharing your personal experience with the Chicom virus Rahul. I am happy everyone of you made it safely to the other side of the ordeal.

[Amber G.]

Just announced: CDC director says vaccine rollout to begin in 2nd week of December. Presumably in healthcare workers and essential workers.

[saip]

Based on these ethical principles as well as scientific evidence and considerations about the best ways to actually deliver the vaccine, ACIP determined that four groups of people should have first access to the vaccine:
Health care personnel, which includes an estimated 21 million people working in health care settings.
Other essential workers, including 87 million people "who conduct operations vital for continuing critical infrastructure," such as those who work in food, transportation, and education.
Adults with underlying health conditions (such as diabetes and heart disease) that put them at a higher risk for COVID-19 complications, which could include more than 100 million people.
Adults over the age of 65, who are also considered to be high-risk, which includes about 53 million people.

Link

[Mort Walker]

Just announced: CDC director says vaccine rollout to begin in 2nd week of December. Presumably in healthcare workers and essential workers.

I thought such scoundrels, such as the CDC director, didn’t believe in science? He was opposed by the US Center for Science in the Public Interest. The vaccine should not be given until the believers in science take over in January.

[Cain Marko]

Mod Warning :
No more discussing US politics here folks.

===========
My experience with Covid & Coronil.
My mother was diagnosed with Covid last month. She had gone out once, to the market and that was enough ! The family physician immediately put her on Azithromycin even before the positive report. Given the situation at hospitals in kolkata we decided to go for home treatment after a discussion with a very experienced govt. Hospital doctor. CT scan revealed some infection in lungs and liver. She is diabetic & needs daily insulin, so it was a pretty harrowing time for us. The Doc put her on a course of antibiotics and insisted that anti-virals can be given only in a hospital environment. Thankfully she got better without any complications.

Coming to Coronil, my father is a big believer in Baba Ramdev medicines, having benefited from it for some skin ailment that was not cured by allopathy for years.
He had put everyone in the family on daily Coronil & saswari bati doses ever since it came out. Did it help ?
Frankly, I don't know. What I do know is that my father & grandmother, both in the at risk category, who lived in close proximity with my Covid positive mother didn't catch it. From anecdotal evidence among friends & relatives Covid seems to spread like wildfire among people living in proximity from a single positive patient.
I am just thankful we could avoid it. Will continue with Coronil.

Sorry to hear of your mother's illness Rahul, glad to know that the worst is past! best wishes for her full and speedy recovery.

[putnanja]

Mod Warning :
My mother was diagnosed with Covid last month. She had gone out once, to the market and that was enough ! The family physician immediately put her on Azithromycin even before the positive report. Given the situation at hospitals in kolkata we decided to go for home treatment after a discussion with a very experienced govt. Hospital doctor. CT scan revealed some infection in lungs and liver. She is diabetic & needs daily insulin, so it was a pretty harrowing time for us. The Doc put her on a course of antibiotics and insisted that anti-virals can be given only in a hospital environment. Thankfully she got better without any complications.

Glad to hear your mother has recovered fully now.

About anti-virals in hospitals only, I am not sure. I was told by someone that he was prescribed Fabiflu and he was in home quarantine only. Even other family members who had it were prescribed same in Hyderabad. But they were all in their 20s an 30s, otherwise healthy folks.

[darshhan]

Nope.

Ishwar Aaki mata ji ko swasth rakhein aur lambi Aayu Pradaan karein.

[tandav]

More interesting is how China has completely solved COVID using aggressive contact tracing technology and regular steam inhalation

There is no evidence of steam inhalation being useful. But I do it to keep peace in the house. Anecdotally WhatsApp University claims that practice is followed in China.

[tandav]

Right now, India has 440,000 active cases and daily death rate of around 500. In US, CA alone has over 500k active case and daily deaths in the USA have topped 2000. What explains these numbers? Bad statistics from India? Or bad management of the pandemic in the USA?

As per some those who are dying at home from COVID are not being tested and buried/ burnt to hide stats. Some Sikh gurdwara in Delhi mentioned this on Social media but those guys AFAIK got arrested by police

[prasannasimha]

No the numbers are far less in India . Also for eg in KA testing before burial or cremation is mandatory. You may hide infections but cannot hide deaths so easily

[Amber G.]

No the numbers are far less in India . Also for eg in KA testing before burial or cremation is mandatory. You may hide infections but cannot hide deaths so easily

To add: Virtually all reputable data sources have very strong algorithms to "validate" or measure "reliability" of the data. This is taken into account when scientists use them in the mathematical models. This is much more complex than just dismissing (as many in newspapers etc do) "the data is *wrong*". As said, "excess" deaths will show up in other routine data gathering places (like funeral homes records etc)...serological surveys are also used to cross check the community spread..etc..

[Amber G.]

Meanwhile allow me to post a picture taken a yea or so ago (before the pandemic) ..(Credit: Indian Express)

Dr Celine Goundar (left) is US president-elect's Covid-19 advisory board Her foundation (named after her father) The Raj Gounder Foundation supports children’s education.. Modakurichi Boys Higher Secondary School..

[disha]

As per some those who are dying at home from COVID are not being tested and buried/ burnt to hide stats. Some Sikh gurdwara in Delhi mentioned this on Social media but those guys AFAIK got arrested by police

I am glad those people who spread rumours got arrested. How much underreporting you are expecting for deaths? 2x? 3x?

Deaths cannot be hidden. It shows up both literally and figuratively. That is there will be a beeline in morgues and at burials and crematoriums all over the place and that will give you the data literally. Figuratively, it will show up in stats when life insurance and other claims are filed. Or certain economic activity decreases.

Let's say the deaths are underreported by 3x. That is, instead of 135k officially as of now, the real deaths are 3x and it is close to 500k. The morgues/crematoriums/burials will be operating at 3x the capacity. Deaths in 5 top states viz. Maharashtra, Karnataka, TN, Delhi and WB will be 3x more at 150k, 30k, 30k, 24k & 24k.

Hence before you trust any message that says the deaths are underreported, do ask by how much? 2x? 3x? 10% or 50%? And see if there is a correlation? One has to be really really really careful before going around the town claiming that deaths are undercounted in India.

Couple of reasons, for all known and unknown reasons, India has managed the pandemic extraordinarily well. The world was waiting for India to get a pandemic so that they can sell sob stories and show how deprived and depraved Indians are. Instead of relishing at the prospect of doing a chaddi uttaro of India, they ended up with their own knickers in twist. Germans, Italians, Brishitstanis., All of them have mismanaged with better resources and better infrastructure.

Case in point, BBC is trolling Kerala https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-54985981 and trying to see if it can be extrapolated to rest of India. Problem there is a large state like UP has managed to do remarkably better than a scientific, well educated and comparatively richer state like Kerala. So much so that even racist nytimes is becoming a contortionist trying to explain how badly India is doing.

Given all the attention, to come back and say that India is hiding the deaths is basically being cynical and lying to oneself and others to rationalize how bad India is and how others are better. Yes. There are definite issues with health infrastructure in India. Yes, there are more quacks than doctors. And yes both the government hospitals and the private hospitals are dens of corruption. Inspite that and despite that, India seems to be doing better.

Question should be asked how? I think the world can learn a lot.

PS: China does not matter. Nobody trusts shanghai statistics.

[madhu]

Now that many european country planning or in the grip of second wave and planning to or in second lockdown, Any paper being published discussing Sweden stratagy vs rest of europe?

[IndraD]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... l-ceo-says

Astra Zenca to repeat Oxford vaccine trial after flip flop over doses and effectiveness claims raises concerns

[chanakyaa]

Interesting news on AstraZeneca. On the AstraZeneca vaccine, the news articles are sending conflicting messages. Some are reporting that SII appears to have already produced 40 million shots and others are saying the testing is still going. It is good that India is hedging its bets with in-house vaccine program.

Have produced 40 million doses of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, says Serum

In the meantime, Russia's Sputnik V clinical trials are still underway in India.
Russia's Sputnik V vaccine to be manufactured in India

[DavidD]

Most vaccine makers have started production long before testing are finished, so not really surprising to hear AstraZeneca has already produced 40 million doses.

[SSridhar]

China now says that the Wuhan Corona Virus Came from India - SCMP
Excerpts

Now, a paper from researchers in China has examined the same issue and proposed that Sars-CoV-2 existed on several continents before the Wuhan outbreak. And they have a new theory: the first human transmission may have taken place on the Indian subcontinent.

The traditional approach to tracing the origin of the coronavirus strains – a process known as phylogenetic analysis – did not work. The approach used a bat virus discovered several years ago in Yunnan, southwest China, as an ancestral reference to identify the mutations and evolutionary history. But the bat virus was not the human virus’ ancestor, so nobody was able to trace the pandemic to its very beginning.

They instead used a new method that simply counts the number of mutations in each viral strain. The strains with more mutations have been around for a longer time, and those with fewer mutations are closer to the original ancestor of Sars-CoV-2.

Shen’s paper said the team found that some strains had fewer mutations than the one first collected in Wuhan. It concluded: “Wuhan cannot be the first place where human-to-human Sars-CoV-2 transmission happened.”

Furthermore, the paper stated that the least mutated strain was found in eight countries from four continents: Australia, Bangladesh, Greece, the US, Russia, Italy, India and the Czech Republic.

But the virus could not have jumped to humans from all these places at the same time. The area of the first outbreak should have the largest genetic diversity, indicating it had been around for longer. No other regions had more viral diversity than India and Bangladesh, the researchers found.

“Both the least mutated strain’s geographic information and the strain diversity suggest that the Indian subcontinent might be the place where the earliest human-to-human Sars-CoV-2 transmission occurred,” the paper said.

Extreme weather may have triggered the pandemic, according to Shen and colleagues. In May 2019, India had its second-longest heatwave on record. Drought forced animals and humans to the same sources of drinking water. This may have increased the chance of the virus jumping to humans, they said.

Shen said the large proportion of young people in India could have reduced the frequency of severe cases and made the virus more difficult to detect.

Mukesh Thakur, an Indian government virologist with the Zoological Survey of India, disagreed with the conclusion of the Shanghai study.

“It seems the misinterpretation of the results,” Thakur said in an email response to questions by the South China Morning Post. He did not elaborate further.

In an interview with the Post, Shen said that he welcomed scrutiny of his team’s paper and that this was the point of open academic debate, to help establish scientific conclusions. “Only by doing so can it be rightfully refuted or accepted,” he said.

[vijayk]

Oxford vaccine news is unfortunate. Will their trial in India be independently evaluated or FAD has to approve before India can?

[Primus]

Trump may be a despicable person, and there is no doubt that his administration could have handled CV better, but what they did is no less remarkable. That we have a vaccine in less than 10 months is unprecedented, the credit must go to them, no matter what else can be said.

Primus ji, to an extent I agree that not everything Trump did was bad and there is a major way he is demonized in the public media, for things prior presidents, and democrats have done in the past. I absolutely do not agree that what his administration did was remarkable and it was very ordinary and the proof of it is in the daily covid deaths that are occurring and accelerating even as we move into 11th month of the pandemic in the US. Trump himself promoted various dubious treatments in the early days, downplayed the seriousness of the virus, promoted election campaigns, and white house events that directly contributed to the spread of the virus, and most importantly denied the financial aid to the masses which would have enabled less commercial activities to get a handle on the transmission rates.

Please, no Ji for me.

I think it is unfair to attribute all the CV cases and the deaths in the US to Trump's 'mishandling' of the pandemic. We should also discuss the accountability on the part of the State policies for example in NY and other Democratic held cities and States. It also does not explain how all the European nations have fared just as badly if not worse than the US. Trump was certainly not in power there.

I truly believe most governments around the world have done what they felt was the best way to deal with the unknown menace. As things became apparent changes were made, some led to positive outcomes, some did not, there is so much that is still unknown.

As I've said before, the major agencies - WHO, CDC have become political and sadly have pursued their own agendas to some extent.

I think there is far too much credit - negative in particular being given to Trump for this miserable pandemic and its toll on the US population and economy. There are events beyond any single agency's control, it is too complicated an issue to blame one single person. If you listen to those who are closely involved in vaccine research and development, at least in the US, it is evident that this administration truly worked hard to make this happen at unprecedented speed. Paul Offit is just one example.

[Cyrano]

You only need to contrast the messaging by Modi and Trump to realise the difference they have generated in people's behaviour. And its impact on virus spread is borne out by the numbers.

Vaccine funding indeed appears great, when you can create trillions of $$$ of wampum fiat money and dump it wherever your friends and cronys are who can promise a miracle in few months, which Trump bought and kept parroting the vaccine is around the corner because that's what he was fed with. When there is a narcissistic idiot at the helm, you think big Pharma will not jump in to take advantage and go laughing all the way to the bank?

I could be and would be happy to be wrong, but I remain highly skeptical of the vaccine efficiency claims by Moderna, Pfizer, et al. Already Oxford-AZ have shot themselves in the foot. My hope is that the virus itself will weaken and Peter out in the next 12-18 months, but I think whatever vaccines are approved and administered will happily take credit as their cash registers keep ringing non-stop. Time to buy more Pharma stocks.

[IndraD]

Oxford vaccine news is unfortunate. Will their trial in India be independently evaluated or FAD has to approve before India can?

it appears US media like NYT are doing hit job on Oxford as it is easy on logistics and Astrazenca has tie up with poor countries.
here is explanation for errors from Oxford https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55086927

About 3,000 participants were given the half dose and then a full dose four weeks later, and this regime appeared to provide the most protection or efficacy in the trial - around 90%.

In the larger group of nearly 9,000 volunteers, who were given two full doses also four weeks apart, efficacy was 62%.

AstraZeneca reported these percentages and also said that its vaccine was, on average, 70% effective at preventing Covid-19 illness. The figures left some experts scratching their head.

Prof David Salisbury, immunisation expert and associate fellow of the global health program at the Chatham House think tank, said: "You've taken two studies for which different doses were used and come up with a composite that doesn't represent either of the doses. I think many people are having trouble with that.″

AstraZeneca stressed that the data are preliminary, rather than full and final - which is true for the reported Pfizer and Moderna jab results too. It is science by press release.

When they can, all of the companies will publish full results in medical journals for public scrutiny.

And they are submitting full data to regulators to apply for emergency approval so that countries can start using these three different vaccines to immunise whole populations.

[saip]

Moderna (part of Op Warp Speed and recd hundreds of million dollars in funding) received Gene Sequence of the China Virus on Jan 11 and created TWO days later the vaccine candidate mRNA-1273 and THREE WEEKS later (Feb 7) manufactured the first batch and then shipped it for Phase I trials two weeks later (Feb 24). Pfyzer, Sputnik 5, Sinopharma or the Bharat Biotech, all I am sure followed the same trajectory in the vaccine developmement though they were not part of any op. How is this possible? Methinks, it is because of the hyperfast development of gene technology and computing power that is available now which was not available a decade ago.

[sanjaykumar]

Yes it is not exceptional. That is one massive advantage of DNA or RNA vaccines.

[dhyana]

Yes, relatively speaking, it is trivial to synthesize a genetic sequence. Stabilizing said nucleic acid sequence (in this case, Pfizer/BioNTech's and Moderna's mRNA vaccine candidates) such that they are delivered in an undegraded state into a person's cells so that the spike proteins they encode can be translated is the hard part.

Moderna has been doing this longer than Pfizer/BioNTech, and hence their mastery of the technique... the Moderna vaccine is stable at a higher temp. While Pfizer may take another year or longer to prove higher temp stability for theirs.

[Mort Walker]

After nearly $1B in research funding, Moderna takes $1.5B coronavirus vaccine order from U.S.

[Manish_P]

There were murmurs of another lockdown... especially after the statement by Ajit Pawar.. Cuffe Parade is the posh south mumbai area. A lot of maids to the upper classes come from the slums mentioned in the article. A similar high percentage positivity was reported for a north mumbai slum area a month ago. Anyway i am seeing people relaxing a bit about the masks... especially after the street snack vendors have opened.

3 in 4 residents have had Covid, survey reveals

An astonishing 75 per cent of residents of six slums at Cuffe Parade tested positive for Covid antibodies, a sign of a past infection, in a recent sero survey. The survey was conducted over six days, from October 5 to October 10, and involved 806 residents of the six slums — Machimar Nagar, the transit camp in Ambedkar Nagar, Ganesh Murthy Nagar Part 1, Ganesh Murthy Nagar Part 3, and Geeta Nagar. It was done at the request of local corporator Harshita Narwekar, who roped in Dr Nishant Kumar, an eye surgeon and founding trustee of theEyebetes Foundation.

Of the 806 participants, 605 — or three out of every four — tested positive for Covid antibodies. The Eyebetes Foundation’s report said this was one of the highest seroprevalence rates reported in India. Previous sero surveys in Mumbai’s slums, conducted by the BMC, found Covid antibodies in 54 per cent of residents (in August) and 45 per cent of residents (in October).

[Primus]

Nobody has answered my question about Europe. How come the case numbers and deaths from COVID in Europe parallel or exceed those in the US? Was Trump in power there too? To blame the current administration for all the misery and deaths from COVID is nothing but vengeful nonsense. Over $2 Trillion was pledged and most of it spent on various schemes. In my own office we received PPP funds to allow us to continue paying our bills, including salaries of our employees. Forget about the messaging, talk about the real work done. Trump is a loudmouth, obnoxious and outright despicable person in many ways. Put that aside for a moment and focus on what his administration actually did. Compare that with what was done by many anti-Trump States. I know my own state of NY, it was a total shambles for a long while. Cuomo talked well, but that's about it. If talk was enough, this virus would have been beaten long ago.

As for vaccine development, granted technology is very advanced today, yet, a properly conducted vaccine trial takes 10-15 years for approvals, recruitment, administration and analysis of the data. mRNA vaccines are the easiest to develop but in the US at least, it takes a long time for the approval and testing process. A new drug from first development to availability at your local pharmacy takes at least 10 years due to all the procedural and other delays. In the case of COVID, all of the restrictions were removed, financial aid was provided (to the tune of almost $5billion by the US administration), the pharma companies were indemnified against losses and litigation and allowed to proceed without the usual red tape. They went from Phase I to Phase III directly in the case of Pfizer and Moderna. This was all done under the EUA (emergency use authorization) procedure. Anybody who is at the helm of these things would know this.

Meanwhile, Sinopharma vaccine (adenovirus delivered protein) is being administered in the ME, my classmate got it two days ago.

Trump did promise a vaccine this year and it is here. Whatever else he may be guilty of (and I completely agree that he is), his administration dealt with COVID better than I expected them to, many state Governors did worse but that is easily swept under the carpet by Trump haters.