Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

sooraj · Post by **sooraj** » 21 Mar 2020 20:16

Spain reports 3,355 new cases of coronavirus and 233 new deaths, raising total to 24,926 cases and 1,326 dead.

Germany reports 778 new cases and 1 new death bringing total confirmed cases there to 21,483 and 73 total deaths, with 1,635 new cases and 5 new deaths reported today.

L.A. County gives up on containing coronavirus, tells doctors to skip testing of some patients - Los Angeles Times.

kit · Post by **kit** » 21 Mar 2020 20:21

ricky_v wrote:the legion of the 50 cents

please post your source link, thanks

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 21 Mar 2020 20:35

Brahma Chellaney @Chellaney · 19h
Under Tedros, WHO's credibility has taken a severe beating. He's not a medical doctor, nor had prior global health management experience. While going out of his way to defend China, he has mismanaged current efforts, declaring a pandemic only on March 11.

a clear case of cheque management and paid public endorsement, in true lootyens India style

and we should all believe cheeni credibility, right after they kicked out the western media. Sure.

arvin · Post by **arvin** » 21 Mar 2020 20:39

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/t ... 2020-03-21

Kerala count up by 12 to 52. But positive side is (pun intended) all cases are dubai returned and not local transmission. 6 in kasargod, 3 in kannur, 3 in ernakulam.

sooraj · Post by **sooraj** » 21 Mar 2020 20:42

MRI, X-Ray, pathological machines will be manufactured in India, says Ravi Shankar Prasad.

sooraj · Post by **sooraj** » 21 Mar 2020 20:46

COVID-19 treatment might already exist in old drugs – we’re using pieces of the coronavirus itself to find them

Why don’t we have drugs to treat COVID-19 and how long will it take to develop them?

SARS-CoV-2 – the coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19 – is completely new and attacks cells in a novel way. Every virus is different and so are the drugs used to treat them. That’s why there wasn’t a drug ready to tackle the new coronavirus that only emerged a few months ago.

As a systems biologist who studies how cells are affected by viruses during infections, I’m especially interested in the second question. Finding points of vulnerability and developing a drug to treat a disease typically takes years. But the new coronavirus isn’t giving the world that kind of time. With most of the world on lockdown and the looming threat of millions of deaths, researchers need to find an effective drug much faster.

This situation has presented my colleagues and me with the challenge and opportunity of a lifetime: to help solve this huge public health and economic crisis posed by the global pandemic of SARS-CoV-2.

Facing this crisis, we assembled a team here at the Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI) at the University of California, San Francisco, to discover how the virus attacks cells. But instead of trying to create a new drug based on this information, we are first looking to see if there are any drugs available today that can disrupt these pathways and fight the coronavirus.

The team of 22 labs, that we named the QCRG, is working at breakneck speed – literally around the clock and in shifts – seven days a week. I imagine this is what it felt like to be in wartime efforts like the Enigma code-breaking group during World War II, and our team is similarly hoping to disarm our enemy by understanding its inner workings.

A stealthy opponent

Compared with human cells, viruses are small and can’t reproduce on their own. The coronavirus has about 30 proteins, whereas a human cell has more than 20,000.

To get around this limited set of tools, the virus cleverly turns the human body against itself. The pathways into a human cell are normally locked to outside invaders, but the coronavirus uses its own proteins like keys to open these “locks” and enter a person’s cells.

Once inside, the virus binds to proteins the cell normally uses for its own functions, essentially hijacking the cell and turning it into a coronavirus factory. As the resources and mechanics of infected cells get retooled to produce thousands and thousands of viruses, the cells start dying.

Lung cells are particularly vulnerable to this because they express high amounts of the “lock” protein SARS-CoV-2 uses for entry. A large number of a person’s lung cells dying causes the respiratory symptoms associated with COVID-19.

There are two ways to fight back. First, drugs could attack the virus’s own proteins, preventing them from doing jobs like entering the cell or copying their genetic material once they are inside. This is how remdesivir – a drug currently in clinical trials for COVID-19 – works.

A problem with this approach is that viruses mutate and change over time. In the future, the coronavirus could evolve in ways that render a drug like remdesivir useless. This arms race between drugs and viruses is why you need a new flu shot every year.

Alternatively, a drug can work by blocking a viral protein from interacting with a human protein it needs. This approach – essentially protecting the host machinery – has a big advantage over disabling the virus itself, because the human cell doesn’t change as fast. Once you find a good drug, it should keep working. This is the approach that our team is taking. And it may also work against other emergent viruses.

Learning the enemy’s plans

The first thing our group needed to do was identify every part of the cellular factory that the coronavirus relies on to reproduce. We needed to find out what proteins the virus was hijacking.

To do this, a team in my lab went on a molecular fishing expedition inside human cells. Instead of a worm on a hook, they used viral proteins with tiny chemical tags attached to them - termed a “bait.” We put these baits into lab-grown human cells and then pulled them out to see what we caught. Anything that stuck was a human protein that the virus hijacks during infection.

By March 2, we had a partial list of the human proteins that the coronavirus needs to thrive. These were the first clues we could use. A team member sent a message to our group, “First iteration, just 3 baits … next 5 baits coming.” The fight was on.

Counterattack

Once we had this list of molecular targets the virus needs to survive, members of the team raced to identify known compounds that might bind to these targets and prevent the virus from using them to replicate. If a compound can prevent the virus from copying itself in a person’s body, the infection stops. But you can’t simply interfere with cellular processes at will without potentially causing harm to the body. Our team needed to be sure the compounds we identified would be safe and nontoxic for people.

The traditional way to do this would involve years of pre-clinical studies and clinical trials costing millions of dollars. But there is a fast and basically free way around this: looking to the 20,000 FDA-approved drugs that have already been safety-tested. Maybe there is a drug in this large list that can fight the coronavirus.

Our chemists used a massive database to match the approved drugs and proteins they interact with to the proteins on our list. They found 10 candidate drugs last week. For example, one of the hits was a cancer drug called JQ1. While we cannot predict how this drug might affect the virus, it has a good chance of doing something. Through testing, we will know if that something helps patients.

Facing the threat of global border shutdowns, we immediately shipped boxes of these 10 drugs to three of the few labs in the world working with live coronavirus samples: two at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and Mount Sinai in New York. By March 13, the drugs were being tested in cells to see if they prevent the virus from reproducing.

Dispatches from the battlefield

Our team will soon learn from our collaborators at Mt. Sinai and the Pasteur Institute whether any of these first 10 drugs work against SARS-CoV-2 infections. Meanwhile, the team has continued fishing with viral baits, finding hundreds of additional human proteins that the coronavirus co-opts. We will be publishing the results in the online repository BioRxiv soon.

The good news is that so far, our team has found 50 existing drugs that bind the human proteins we’ve identified. This large number makes me hopeful that we’ll be able to find a drug to treat COVID-19. If we find an approved drug that even slows down the virus’s progression, doctors should be able to start getting it to patients quickly and save lives.

KLNMurthy · Post by **KLNMurthy** » 21 Mar 2020 20:51

ramana wrote:
sooraj wrote:Italy reports 5,986 new cases of coronavirus and 627 new deaths, raising total to 47,021 cases and 4,032 dead.

France reports 1,617 new cases of coronavirus and 78 new deaths, raising total to 12,612 cases and 450 dead.

UK reports 714 new cases of coronavirus and 33 new deaths, raising total to 3,983 cases and 177 dead.

Pakistan gets USD 588 million from World Bank and ADB.

We are looking at the data wrong way. Instead of mortality rate, we should look at the survival rates.

Italy (47021-4032)/47021= 91%
Rest are 96%

The mortality has been due to underlying factors like age (over 65years), smoking (male vs females and weaker lungs), health conditions like diabetes, BP, CHD.

So cheer up. No need for a morose outlook.

Q to docs:

Is there some concern about lasting lung damage, even if one survives?

nvishal · Post by **nvishal** » 21 Mar 2020 21:01

Cases are steadily rising. Currently at 321
We are now starting to see locally transmited cases
Cases went from 40ish on 10march to 321 on 21march. Clearly the weather isn't stopping it.

This puts the warm climate argument to rest. This thing is in the air and it's sticking on the bank notes. If we don't impose section 144 now, we'll have a much bigger problem in the next 10 days.

The bloody thing is in the air.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 21 Mar 2020 21:08

@ProfBhargava at the Press Briefing released the revised guidelines for testing of COVID-19

MAR 17

saip · Post by **saip** » 21 Mar 2020 21:14

kit wrote:
ricky_v wrote:the legion of the 50 cents
please post your source link, thanks

Here you can read the 'instructions' for the 50 centers.
http://i.4cdn.org/pol/1584784768031.jpg

Pratyush · Post by **Pratyush** » 21 Mar 2020 21:14

KLNMurthy wrote:
Q to docs:

Is there some concern about lasting lung damage, even if one survives?

Not a doctor. But lung damage is being detected in recovered cases.

It's too early to conclude if it is permanent.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 21 Mar 2020 21:17

nvishal wrote:Cases are steadily rising. Currently at 321
We are now starting to see locally transmited cases
Cases went from 40ish on 10march to 321 on 21march. Clearly the weather isn't stopping it.

This puts the warm climate argument to rest. This thing is in the air and it's sticking on the bank notes. If we don't impose section 144 now, we'll have a much bigger problem in the next 10 days.

The bloody thing is in the air.

CONFIRMED 310

ACTIVE 283

RECOVERED/MIGRATED 23

DEATH 4

Updated on - 21.03.2020 at 04:45 PM

check http://covidindiaupdates.in/ for latest GoI Updates from official site Maintained by : ICMR National Institute of Epidemiology , Chennai

Best not to draw conclusions unless based on facts available from an official source.

Pratyush · Post by **Pratyush** » 21 Mar 2020 21:18

sajo wrote:Gurus, would the management of Corona like symptoms change in pregnant women? 2 of my extended team members are on maternity leave (one very close to her due date) and are having an intensely harrowing time just thinking about the consequences.

Prevention is better than cure at the moment. Let's hope that they don't have to visit the hospital any time soon.

nvishal · Post by **nvishal** » 21 Mar 2020 21:21

Chetak,

Head over to https://covidout.in/
And check the transmission source section

Imported 157 49%
Local 150 47%
Not Sure Yet 14 4%

kit · Post by **kit** » 21 Mar 2020 21:28

Meanwhile beebeecee is asking why India is testing so "little" for corona virus

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 21 Mar 2020 21:55

The vaccine was rapidly synthesised as novel coronavirus sequence was available

Unlike a usual vaccine, RNA vaccines work by the introduction of an mRNA sequence into the host’s cells. This mRNA codes for a disease-specific antigen. Once inside a cell, the mRNA instructs the cell to produce the antigen, which is recognised by the immune system which makes an antibody or cellular response.

The first vaccine to enter human trials is Moderna’s mRNA-1273. This is a novel lipid nanoparticle-encapsulated mRNA vaccine that codes for the full-length prefusion stabilised spike (S) protein.

saip · Post by **saip** » 21 Mar 2020 22:01

Trump is tweeting that

HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains - Thank You! Hopefully they will BOTH (H works better with A, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents).....

He will get Nobel for Medicine and Peace at the same time for this.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 21 Mar 2020 22:04

nvishal wrote:Chetak,

Head over to https://covidout.in/
And check the transmission source section

Imported 157 49%
Local 150 47%
Not Sure Yet 14 4%

It is not an official source.

No idea about the antecedents of covidout@kiprosh.com or his backers

this is from their about page

About

With an aim to reduce panic and rumors about the affected cases, we at Kiprosh are developing this dashboard of the Corona Virus outbreak in India.
We are aggregating data from MoHFW Government website and multiple sources. We then re-verify and organize the data in this dashboard.
We are working hard to have the data updated quickly. We are also adding more analytics and a data re-validation workflow.
Please join us in this initiative and collaborate by
spreading the word to everyone in your network about this site
sending us information about the affected or hospitalized cases in your neighborhood
helping us re-verify the data
reporting errors or issues
notifying security concerns, if any
sending us feedback and suggestions
Please email us at covidout@kiprosh.com
Thank you, and Gratitude.

Disclaimer: This is not an official Government of India site. Refer to this sources page.

SRoy · Post by **SRoy** » 21 Mar 2020 22:07

Either MoHFW or local / state administrators are suppressing data.

Srikanth P · Post by **Srikanth P** » 21 Mar 2020 22:19

KLNMurthy wrote:
ramana wrote:

We are looking at the data wrong way. Instead of mortality rate, we should look at the survival rates.

Italy (47021-4032)/47021= 91%
Rest are 96%

The mortality has been due to underlying factors like age (over 65years), smoking (male vs females and weaker lungs), health conditions like diabetes, BP, CHD.

So cheer up. No need for a morose outlook.
Q to docs:

Is there some concern about lasting lung damage, even if one survives?

Doctor here. Yes Lung function is expected to be hit when people recover from any viral ARDS. The infection and inflammation causes fibrosis (scarring) that remains even after the infection is wiped out. H1N1 was notrious for this. But the degree of lung damage vaires from undetectae to very severe. Most people who have recovered (from H1N1) do well in the long run.

Theeran · Post by **Theeran** » 21 Mar 2020 22:47

Karan M wrote:Also, we need armed forces or enhanced CISF deployment at airports and quarantine facilities. Per reports, a bunch of M folks arrived at Coimbatore, and fought/argued their way out of the airport without checks and the staff got worried about the communal angle. This cannot be allowed to happen.

@Karan M Source for the coimbatore report please.

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 21 Mar 2020 22:49

sooraj wrote:MRI, X-Ray, pathological machines will be manufactured in India, says Ravi Shankar Prasad.

One Tata Trust CSR funded entity Voxelgrids in Bangalore is designing an MRI machine (based on low end technology shared by a phoren entity). As it is, a lot of the components of major MRI makers are being made in India, but the critical parts like magnets and cryo systems are still restricted.

The critical technologies for healthcare are even more restricted than the jet engine or radar technologies. A lot of peripheral, low hanging fruit type work is being done in desh, but the core technologies are guarded like fort knox onlee.

We participated in multiple attempts by different entities to build a desi ultrasound machine, but none progressed because the technology will not be available at a reasonable cost.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 21 Mar 2020 22:54

SRoy wrote:Either MoHFW or local / state administrators are suppressing data.

very difficult to cook up data or suppress it in these days of a virulent and vile social media watching this govt like a hungry and angry hawk out for the hunt.

not too difficult to understand if covidout@kiprosh.com has an agenda

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 21 Mar 2020 23:18

Wuhan virus deaths should not be reported solely based on confirmed cases. It may be more reasonable to report all excess deaths as being due to the virus.

https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/15/italian- ... -12401012/

Bart S · Post by **Bart S** » 21 Mar 2020 23:28

arvin wrote:
kvraghav wrote:There is a extradinary spike today. What we are seeing over a period of time is spike in UP, Delhi, Kerala, Ladhak. This might be because these are tourist circuits. We have to keep a watch on these places, mainly Kerala and UP. Work circuits like Karnataka and Maharashtra are pretty stable after initial numbers.
Kerala till morning of 20th march was 25 positive and was doing a good job with no reports for 2 consecutive days . By evening count increased by 12. 6 cases were not surprising since 5 were of british tourists who were with previously infected colleague of theirs who roamed around by breaking quarantine i think in kochi. Remaining 1 case was a mallu returned from UK in palakad.
Other 6 was entirely from kasargod due to local transmission. Kasargod might emerge as a hotspot in coming weeks if measures are not in place.

Sorry only 4 are local while 1 is from dubai and other from sharjah.

Kerala has been extremely lax about enforcing regulations. Apart from the IUML 'activist' who roamed all over, attending a wedding, going to mosques and meeting 2 MLAs, it looks like they had a major temple function yesterday with hundreds of people in violation of all orders and norms.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 21 Mar 2020 23:28

sanjaykumar wrote:Wuhan virus deaths should not be reported solely based on confirmed cases. It may be more reasonable to report all excess deaths as being due to the virus.

https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/15/italian- ... -12401012/

Then that means in India we should report bus accidents that kill 10-12 people as excess due to Corona virus?

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 21 Mar 2020 23:28

Excellent logic.

Bart S · Post by **Bart S** » 21 Mar 2020 23:32

syam wrote:Tamilnadu Health minster is one of the best. What a gem lost in the regular din all these days. May maa bhavani give more shakthi to him. modiji should bring jp nadda saab back to health ministry asap. I don't think harshavardhan can handle the situation in coming days.

TN is OK, but only relatively speaking. In other words the other states are so incompetent that they make a strictly mediocre TN health minister look good. If you go to the official TN portal, it is full of pictures of minister and health authorities posing for photographs as a PR exercise. I think it is the lower level guys who deserve the credit, if any is due.

Coming to JP Nadda, he just had a welcome function for the new MP rebels where he garlanded them. Not only is this kind of stuff completely unnecessary but violates all norms including those that the PM has been tweeting about. Harshavardan is doing a good enough job, he can only do so much, if the political will for a lockdown and shutting down any violations does not exist.

Bart S · Post by **Bart S** » 21 Mar 2020 23:35

chola wrote:Cheen recorded 41 cases of imported coronavirus on Friday. That's just in one day compared to India's 250 cases overall.

Human nature is that any recovering nation will see this reverse flow. If Cheen becomes re-infected again then that pretty much means that the thing can't be stopped.

As much as we dislike the chinks, in this case we should hope they recover otherwise the future dims for all of us.

https://www.streetinsider.com/dr/news.p ... 7157&gfv=1
China's imported coronavirus cases soar as students, expats flock home

March 20, 2020 8:04 PM

By Engen Tham and Yilei Sun

SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) - China reported a record rise in imported coronavirus cases on Friday as expatriates returned home from the United States and Europe, sparking fears of a second wave of infections just as the country recovers from the initial outbreak.

Aren't the mandatorily quarantining every incoming person now at that person's expense? If so this may not impact them much as it is fairly low risk. It's not like in India where people are 'encouraged' to home quarantine (something that they or their family promptly violate) or can argue/fight their way out of the airport like many 'middle-east returnees' have been doing.

Bart S · Post by **Bart S** » 21 Mar 2020 23:36

LakshmanPST wrote:If I come to know about a person with a Home-quarantine stamp roaming around freely, where should I complain...?

Call the local police.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 21 Mar 2020 23:36

kanika kapoor, the singer who willfully evaded screening on her return from the UK and knowingly attended large public functions as befitting her "star" status.

this is the bollywoodia "41 year old" baby doll.

nam · Post by **nam** » 21 Mar 2020 23:37

Italy : 795 today.

The rate of death is roughly 20% of the rate of detection.

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 21 Mar 2020 23:44

Finland scoffs at WHO's coronavirus testing protocol, suggests organization doesn't understand how pandemics work

A senior Finnish health official has dismissed a World Health Organization (WHO) advisory to test as many people as possible for coronavirus, arguing that such a measure would be completely illogical when combating a pandemic.

Bart S · Post by **Bart S** » 21 Mar 2020 23:45

https://twitter.com/RudraVS/status/1241 ... 44513?s=20

RV Subramani
@RudraVS
·
Mar 20
Today Madurai Airport plane load of Corona Fidayeens arrived & refused to co-operate for screening procedure. Daily it is happening in some Airport or other.. Obvious this is Corona Jihad. Y people shying of calling out

Can't understand why the govt is not using force to control these kind of uncooperative persons.

nam · Post by **nam** » 21 Mar 2020 23:48

Cannot wait for the flights to stop. Should have stopped long time back. We have limitless morons in our country.

It is time GoI announce cancellation of passport, if people don't test and quarantine.

saip · Post by **saip** » 21 Mar 2020 23:55

FDA approves new "point of care" coronavirus test that promises rapid results
From CNN’s Wes Bruer

The US Food and Drug Administration has announced emergency use authorization of a new on-site coronavirus test that could detect the virus in approximately 45 minutes.

The authorization was made Friday and tests will begin shipping next week, according to a statement from the company manufacturing the tests.

CNN

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 21 Mar 2020 23:56

and we have hair trigger ignoramuses like this entitled soothia who doesn't seem to know jackshite about what's happening when he was actively thermally scanned at the port of entry but lets fly a nasty tweet just because he has a cell phone.

Sravan · Post by **Sravan** » 22 Mar 2020 00:02

chetak wrote:and we have hair trigger ignoramuses like this entitled soothia who doesn't seem to know jackshite about what's happening when he was actively thermally scanned at the port of entry but lets fly a nasty tweet just because he has a cell phone.

This is what I meant by counter narrative. There needs to be organized effort to debunk misinformation and removal of ambiguity. The way the police responded here with facts puts the original tweet poster in a bad light and takes away their credibility. I believe India needs to invest more time and energy to dissuade doing this. Additionally, there should be monetary fines for spreading misinformation or at least an obstruction of duty fine.

Right now there is no material cost for being party to a misinformation campaign other than a slap on the wrist saying don’t do it again. In the US, you would probably be held in custody as a danger to the public for instigating uncertainty and fear.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 22 Mar 2020 00:11

^^^The material cost should be immediate passport cancellation. In a few years they can apply for a new passport and then apply for Kanada vija all over again.

Leonard · Post by **Leonard** » 22 Mar 2020 00:15

At least the ITALIAN's are more open -- going back to my cave ..

https://twitter.com/i/status/1241368028031463425