Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

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KLNMurthy
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by KLNMurthy »

dr.uday wrote:
That is exactly the plan sir. As the incubation period is max around 14 days and the people recently infected may infect their contacts in next few days, we should get to know all the cases , isolate and treat them in next 21 days. Few cases anyway will be missed, will be aggressively sought and isolated with increased testing capacity. Low level infection will keep continuing in some pocket but will be contained by surveillance. Lockdown can be confined to those pockets

If we fail, then its plan B. We will not get a hold of community spread. Cases will keep pouring in. We will rely only on treating the patients by increasing treatment facilities. We should continue to lockdown to not overwhelm the hospitals. This may eventually fail with indian masses not following lockdown protocols.

Plan C is to just let the virus do what it does and atleast save the economy. Many nations are already getting ready for this as they have not acted in the early stages.

But Modiji acted very early. The gov has done a commendable job in quarantining travellers. Many are criticising the testing protocols, but i dont think we are missing any community spread here. If not, the hospitals would have been already overwhelmed with respiratory cases which has not happened at all. I am hoping this lockdown would achieve the intended goals.
I think the last is a key point that is being missed by those that say, India's efforts are an eyewash, the numbers are meaningless, and there is not enough testing.

Under-reporting or not reporting cases has real-world consequences that are visible to everyone--like hospitals overwhelmed with patients needing ventilators etc. This is what happened in China back in Dec-Jan-Feb.

This is not being seen India, so it gives a fair degree of confidence that the number of cases being reported reflects reality.

Secondly, under-reporting cases and taking drastic measures like national-level shutdown represent mutually contradictory motivations. The first one is an avoidance of the gravity of the situation, whereas the second one is a hyper-awareness of the gravity.

For me, these two points are enough to conclude that those who are questioning GoI's motives and actions are either blessed with no mind, or not applying their mind, or just propagating falsehoods for malicious reasons.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by KLNMurthy »

Suraj wrote: ...
That is rather unfair to them. They have responded to the concerns by offering a clear guidance on day 1 . What more do you need ? Regardless of how much prior guidance you offer, there will be at least SOME day 1 confusion. It is unavoidable. The human mind is not tailored to process a sudden change of circumstances with a collection of new behavioral guidances. It always involves a period of restabilization.

In the US, the greatest/most powerful/yadayada/stable genius run place, and especially Bay Area, home of almost all major tech companies, people lost their collective heads, emptied out shelves of TP, water (what for ??) and I saw a shirt-pulling brawl over beer at the neighboring grocery between two guys who probably then went back home in their respective Teslas.

Posters are advised not to indulge in armchair nitpicking, like the proverbial all knowing unclejis whom we all have. A moment of national crisis and pulling together is not a time for such things.
I talked on phone to a buddy of mine in Chennai. He quoted a whatsapp joke: "till yesterday, all my whatsapp friends were constitutional experts. Today, they are all epidemiologists (and I guess administrators)."

Keep in mind that a lot of the details of the shutdown are left to the States, which own the Public Health subject, and the administrative decisions as to what stays open etc. We know that, generally speaking, there is a massive drop in ability and skill level from Center to state level, and again from state to local level., So, there will be mistakes, absurdities and omissions. Hopefully with prodding from Center and by watching other states, all states will come up to some standard of management.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Suraj »

KLNMurthy wrote:[For me, these two points are enough to conclude that those who are questioning GoI's motives and actions are either blessed with no mind, or not applying their mind, or just propagating falsehoods for malicious reasons.
:rotfl: Well said.

Please stop couching CTs in 'it sounds really plausible, let's wait and see'. Please do the waiting and seeing elsewhere. Keep this thread to actual focused discourse. The last few pages have very good SNR and a lot of useful information and resources are being posted, together with useful conversation. Please keep it that way.

Please use reasoned judgment when discussing past events. For example, immunological history or data built on prior catastrophes like the enormous Indian casualty counts in 1918-20 are certainly valid. However, discussion on British perfidy, etc etc are noise here. If you're posting something of the kind, please do so with clear regard to furthering the subject of this thread. We're all better off - potentially quite literally - from the active moderation and focus of this thread.

disha: both those brawlees were TFTA so it couldn't have been an SDRE like you :)
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by rahulm »

Coronavirus: Fatal mistake that saw virus spread

Article uniformly pillories China and the party. Our very own BC is quoted.
The Chinese Communist Party’s proclivity for secrecy was reinforced by President Xi Jinping’s eagerness to be perceived as an in-control strongman, backed by a fortified CCP (Chinese Communist Party),” writes ASPI analyst Brahma Chellaney.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by KLNMurthy »

yensoy wrote:At the high level things are going great - tough talk, tough action, clear lines, but a lot of people at the margins are getting crushed. Migrant labour wasn't given the time to reach their natives. If the intent was for them to not proceed to their natives (which is quite logical - we don't want to disperse the virus) this should have been clearly messaged.
I listened to Modi's speech. He said very clearly, migrant laborers, please don't think of going back to your native places. Stay where you are. You will be endangering your families and friends there. In so many words.

Did you have a more clear messaging in mind that he should have done?
Not much thought was put into how to house and feed these armies of people on whom our economy runs. Facilities should have been provided for them by the state administration, with prior announcements so they wouldn't try to cram into the few remaining trains and carry WuhanVirus to interior villages. Putting the onus on employers would also not be the right thing to do because (i) employers are themselves hurting and (ii) many of these labourers don't have steady employment and are working gigs, or with other contractors who are themselves migrants.
The states have the job of handling the supply chains of essentials for people. They will take some time to ramp up, once a rapid decision to get ahead of the stage 3 spread by a national shutdown was taken.(If it wasn't taken, I suppose we would be complaining that the government "dithered."). Rapid and bold decisions mean a tradeoff in preparation and setup time. Do we not understand this much?

I imagine that everyone in administration is working full-bore, 24/7, prioritizing and covering as much ground as they can cover, to the best of their ability. "Not much thought was put into xyz" is a vague & blanket allegation under these circumstances.
"Stay within your homes" seems a tad elitist - good for those of us who have steady and stable homes but doesn't work for all. A cousin got booted from a working womens hostel because they were asked to shut down. She has nowhere else to call home. (She got lucky with an alternative arrangement)

This is not a knock on the govt which has its own pressures, just an observation and reminder that there are a lot of unfortunate people out there in worse situations than our own so let's count our blessings.
I think we are all doing that (counting our blessings). It is a difficult time, and more vulnerable people will face more difficulties. Execution will be less than perfect, but evaluation depends on what the baseline expectation is. When I compare with what is being done by various branches of government in the USA, India is miles ahead in paying attention to the vulnerable sections of the population and those at the low end of the economic scale. There's no room for complacency, but random complaining, just because we may be in the habit of always complaining that India is useless, is certainly out of place.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by dr.uday »

Deleted
Last edited by Suraj on 26 Mar 2020 03:09, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: No more of this line of CT here
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by dr.uday »

Sorry. I would delete my other post too.
Last edited by dr.uday on 26 Mar 2020 03:11, edited 1 time in total.
KLNMurthy
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by KLNMurthy »

self-deleted, low SNR
Last edited by KLNMurthy on 26 Mar 2020 03:28, edited 1 time in total.
Philip
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Philip »

Has there been any data on the ages of the cases we have thus far? The old CW was that it would affect mostly the elderly and v.young as one has seen in Italy.However news on right now says that in the NY area,50% of the cases are of those in their 40s. One UK case was a girl just 21 with no case history of any disease.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Raveen »

DavidD wrote:
Sumair wrote: Interesting question. Someone should write a paper on this. India was also spared the wrath of the SARS virus. It is not the case just with India but most of the tropical countries. My personal opinion is that Indian population in large has immunity to malaria and since corona virus’s infection mechanism in human body is similar to that of malaria, Indians and other tropical populations are less vulnerable. Secondly we are blessed with abundance of sunlight; the primary source of vitamin D in the human body. Vitamin D deficiency is associated with acute respiratory infections along with host of other disease such as Tb, Influenza, COPD, asthma etc. Vitamin D inhibits pro inflammatory cytokines and promotes cathelicidin production. Cathelicidin is the only anti microbial protein that humans make that kills viruses, fungi and bacteria. It is no surprise that influenza case decline in summer times in the northern hemisphere when Vitamin D levels spike due to the sunlight exposure. We will know if this holds true in the coming few weeks.
It's a temperature preference for the specific virus. The flu is very rare in northern hemisphere countries in the summer because it's not very active in hotter and more humid conditions. MERS on the other hand is a coronavirus that tolerates heat very well and has a reservoir in camels. Dengue and Zika also prefer hotter climates, for example. Each virus is different, and it appears that COVID and Influenza have similar preferences temperature/humidity-wise.
No, you are wrong, the reason why dengue spreads more in the summer not because the virus prefers it, but because the vector, a mosquito, only survives in the summer not the winter. Please don't get those get those confused.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by dr.uday »

KLNMurthy wrote:
dr.uday wrote:
/quote]
Doc, respectfully, I think your time is better spent right now in medical work and educating laypersons on technical matters.
Sir, i am really sorry. I am on leave for 2 days as i had some work in another town and got stuck because of lockdown. I will be resuming my work tomorrow. Will add any info on new treatments, and treatment outcomes if possible.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by sudarshan »

disha wrote:
sudarshan wrote:
Don't you have to account for the initial number of cases?

Meaning - if you had 600 initial cases and after 5 days, it becomes 728, that's an increase of 128 in 5 days. If you had 10 initial cases and it becomes 138 in 5 days, that is also an increase of 128 in 5 days. Is the R0 the same in both cases?
For the initial cases, they were imported and not part of any local transmission. Now since India is in total lockdown and its ports are sealed, it can be monitored as transmissions in a closed space.

We will know the true picture in a week. It does turn out that most of the cases are in clusters and it is not surprising that those clusters have the most cases. For example., Kasargode, Karimnagar, Bhiwani etc.
I got that, but there's a difference between transmission from 600 initial (imported) cases vs. 10 initial (imported) cases. If ten initial cases lead to 128 new cases in 5 days, then the R0 is far higher than if 600 initial cases lead to 128 new cases in 5 days.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by KLNMurthy »

dr.uday wrote:I have been lurking ever since balakot sir. I little bit know the norms here. But this theory has actual impact if it holds true. If some of us can really verify how severe is the lockdown in china, then we can come to a conclusion and stop chasing our tails. And may be we can decrease the economic losses. My only problem is why is everybody going crazy over corona. Didnt 80k die last year in UK with flu? In my practice we see lot of old people just falling really sick of seasonal cold. Is it just me or am i missing something?
I think it is the nature of any civilized & healthy society that, once it comes to know of a new & effective disease (novel corona is highly contagious as we all know), it will be compelled to take action to control it. If it doesn't, it could lead to public loss of confidence (1% mortality in India would be 13 million deaths, which people will notice and ask what is the government doing?) and maybe anarchy. Also, it will affect commerce between countries--Every other country will shut out India, which they already see as SDRE.

Things like flu have been normalized over the decades; TB is somewhere in between, it is well-known and normalized in one sense, but Indians and other "third-worlders" face a stigma worldwide as potential TB carriers.

Not doing anything about Coronavirus is not an option for any country, especially India.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by KLNMurthy »

dr.uday wrote:
KLNMurthy wrote:
Sir, i am really sorry. I am on leave for 2 days as i had some work in another town and got stuck because of lockdown. I will be resuming my work tomorrow. Will add any info on new treatments, and treatment outcomes if possible.
Take it easy doc. All your other posts have been very informative and set up high expectations.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Suraj »

Raveen wrote:
DavidD wrote: It's a temperature preference for the specific virus. The flu is very rare in northern hemisphere countries in the summer because it's not very active in hotter and more humid conditions. MERS on the other hand is a coronavirus that tolerates heat very well and has a reservoir in camels. Dengue and Zika also prefer hotter climates, for example. Each virus is different, and it appears that COVID and Influenza have similar preferences temperature/humidity-wise.
No, you are wrong, the reason why dengue spreads more in the summer not because the virus prefers it, but because the vector, a mosquito, only survives in the summer not the winter. Please don't get those get those confused.
Same for zika and chikungunya - they're all spread primarily by mosquitos (sexual contact and transfusion are far less transmissive means) and they peak during monsoon season as a result.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Sumair »

dr.uday wrote:Malaria and coronavirus dont have similar mechanism of infection. Please provide any source of this info if available. Rest of the vitamin D part i agree.. and importantly due to overcrowding and poor hygeine, we are repeatedly exposed to more infections and that keeps our immunity more robust. All these infections we have suffered every year are may be blessings in disguise. This theorey is not conclusively proven, but is popular.
And the food habits part mentioned above is right too.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/scie ... quine.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by ricky_v »

Captain hindsight to the rescue
Image
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by dr.uday »

Sumair wrote:
dr.uday wrote:Malaria and coronavirus dont have similar mechanism of infection. Please provide any source of this info if available. Rest of the vitamin D part i agree.. and importantly due to overcrowding and poor hygeine, we are repeatedly exposed to more infections and that keeps our immunity more robust. All these infections we have suffered every year are may be blessings in disguise. This theorey is not conclusively proven, but is popular.
And the food habits part mentioned above is right too.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/scie ... quine.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/
I have already read the article. Ok i will explain. Malaria and corona both have intracellualr life cycle related to a cell organelle(apparataus) called golgi. Ths similarity ends there. Infact all the viruses are essentially intracellular. Their mechansim of entry into the body, target tissue ( liver and Red cells for malaria, and lung for corona), life cycle , transmission, everyhting is different. There is not at all any cross immunity for these diseases. In other words, malaria doesnt give u immunity against corona.
But this article explains chloroquine has some effect on corona. Decreasing the acididfication of lysosome decreases viral replication to a small extent. It MAY also prevent attatchment to cells to a very limited extent.
But one should not use chloroquine without a prescription. Because in viral infections, heart muscle is inflammed(irritated in lay terms) and any drug acting on heart muscle will cause ryhtm abnormality and immediate death. Let the doctors decide if u can take chloroquine when infected.
As prophylaxis, people in close contact with the cases can use it as the risk of contracting the virus outweighs the side effects. But may need to stop taking it after they get infected because of above mentioned side effect. There are many more side effects. I am not getting into details.
Last edited by dr.uday on 26 Mar 2020 05:07, edited 1 time in total.
dr.uday
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by dr.uday »

WHO botched up the entire operation. What ideally should be done after we detect a new virus?
1)Should have restricted movement into and out of the country. They didnt do it. Should have assumed that the virus would be transmitted from person and person and only if proven otherwise should have relaxed the lockdown. Instead they went ahead and said it is not transmissable from person to person.
2) after the first few cases were detected in neighbouring countries, should have advised lockdown in those countries. Instead they said there is no person to person transmission outside mainland china. Why would a virus, that has already shown the transmission in china not do it in other country??!!
3) when asked about why they were not advising travel restrictions, they said people may simply slip into the country unofficially and couldnt be traced.
Better sense prevailed in our country and the leadership imposed travel restrictions a bit earlier than other countries.
4)a week ago they said 'it is time to act now'. And how exactly are we supposed to act after witnessing community spread? And now they are saying it should have been a month ago.
Knowingly or unknowingly they helped spread it everywhere.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by sudarshan »

Does that Ethiopian guy specify how the world should have acted, or is he generally pontificating?

Pollution levels are reportedly down in many Indian cities, from the reports I'm getting. Rather ironic - trying to contain a virus, the overall respiratory health of Indians improves. The IT guys in B'lore staying home seems to have made a huge difference. Maybe after this is all over, look for ways to keep certain sections of the workforce from having to report to an office every day, so long as they maintain productivity.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by ricky_v »

Spain vids
http://i.4cdn.org/pol/1585177985768.webm
http://i.4cdn.org/pol/1585177763327.webm
The ethiopian gent has to speak something now that the world is under lockdown and he was more interested in playing footsie with xi the pooh during the initial stages; if he had anything meaningful to offer he already would have. If we survive this, sections of un should be reorganized or funding from governments to these must stop.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by pravula »

ricky_v wrote:Captain hindsight to the rescue
Image
Why is this guy still allowed near a press conference? Comic relief?
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Ambar »

I was curious about Italy's recent past on dealing with common flu. Here are the figures i found -

In the winter seasons from 2013/14 to 2016/17, an estimated average of 5,290,000 ILI cases occurred in Italy, corresponding to an incidence of 9%.

More than 68,000 deaths attributable to flu epidemics were estimated in the study period.

Italy showed a higher influenza attributable excess mortality compared to other European countries. especially in the elderly.

https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S120 ... 5/fulltext

Its kind of bizarre that for such a small country, with what claims to have one of the best healthcare systems in the world to have such high mortality rate. Keeping the number of deaths in the last measurement year 2016-17 of somewhere around 25k, it now becomes clear why its facing the brunt of this pandemic.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by ramana »

He is not a medical doctor. Once the dust settles DT is going to cut off funds unless he is removed and future only doctors head WHO.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by ramana »

Ambar sharable?
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by nandakumar »

sudarshan wrote:
Deans wrote:No country so far has tested even 1% of its population.
Not Italy (High no of cases, very advanced medical system), Not Switzerland (Italy with a low population),
Not SoKo and the GCC countries which have high cases, a small population and a policy of broadening the testing criteria.

Testing capacity in India is significantly higher than the current demand. That capacity will go from 1000/day 3 days ago to 10,000/day within a week,if required. The problem we have is not lack of tests or testing capacity. That said, we should do more random tests in localities where infected people stayed to check for stage 3. Sample size of the only previous test was too low.
Did you look at UAE and Kuwait? UAE tested 1.3% of its population, Kuwait - 2.9%. Source:

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing

Take the number of tests, divide by population, or just look at the "tests per million" figures in the site. UAE comes to 13,000 tests per million, Kuwait to 29,000. I acknowledge that "number of tests" could be a lot more than "number of people tested" but Kuwait seems to have got to 1% even if you factor 3 tests per person.

EDIT: Ah, they updated the site since the last time I checked, it seems UAE and Kuwait did not report new numbers, so they left those countries out. But I had saved the data from around 17th March, and the above numbers are what I got. For raw numbers of tests - UAE=125,000, Kuwait=120,000 (17th March).
Both Kuwait and UAE have a large immigrant population. The correct ratio should be tests per resident population.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by ramana »

The point is in India its community spread and from foreign travelers. So they are testing those who show symptoms and all those contacts. And their strategy is working. Second-guessing is nice but useless.
Both Kuwait and UAE are close to Iran which has quite a severe infection rate so their testing makes sense.
Also, it's easy to find an exception to nay statement to prove your point.
In general, the < 1% testing generalization holds except in highly infected countries.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by sudarshan »

Ambar wrote:I was curious about Italy's recent past on dealing with common flu. Here are the figures i found -

In the winter seasons from 2013/14 to 2016/17, an estimated average of 5,290,000 ILI cases occurred in Italy, corresponding to an incidence of 9%.

More than 68,000 deaths attributable to flu epidemics were estimated in the study period.

Italy showed a higher influenza attributable excess mortality compared to other European countries. especially in the elderly.
That jives with their social habits and all, but then why is their health system being overwhelmed by an additional 70 K cases, at a time when their flu season is ending?
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Sachin »

Sicanta wrote:And in UP - India Today - UP Police is announcing in different parts of the state that medical stores and groceries will be opened only between 8-10 in morning and 4-6 in the evening.
The states have been given leeway to formulate the steps on implementing the curfew under Sec 144 Cr.PC and the states have diluted their powers to the local revenue and police officials. So it is not going to be a "one size fits all" scheme coming from the central government. UP has also announced a plan to ensure that basic vegetable and grocery items would be delivered at the door steps.

So there could be some hits & misses considering the huge country India is. Media would be their usual self and only trying to through their weight around by nit picking on minor issues.
Suraj wrote:That is rather unfair to them. They have responded to the concerns by offering a clear guidance on day 1
Exactly. The so called Arm Chair Generals, Chair Marshals generally have expert advice to be given to police department (in particular). Right from how to enforce parking laws all the way on how to solve a murder. The same people generally do not give any advice to other professionals like medical doctors etc. There could be gaps or opportunities for fine tuning any system, and the police and revenue folks are also doing it.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Aarvee »

@ dr Uday

You asked for comparison of antigenic epitopes of circulating Cov to the Wuhan strain.

The following paper compares the S1 glycoprotein of Mers, SARS and the current strain.

Basically, SARS-CoV S Elicits Neutralizing Abs Against SARS-CoV-2 S.

Structure, Function, and Antigenicity of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Glycoprotein
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... via%3Dihub
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Ambar »

ramana wrote:Ambar sharable?
Ramanaji, absolutely.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Ambar »

sudarshan wrote:
Ambar wrote:I was curious about Italy's recent past on dealing with common flu. Here are the figures i found -

In the winter seasons from 2013/14 to 2016/17, an estimated average of 5,290,000 ILI cases occurred in Italy, corresponding to an incidence of 9%.

More than 68,000 deaths attributable to flu epidemics were estimated in the study period.

Italy showed a higher influenza attributable excess mortality compared to other European countries. especially in the elderly.
That jives with their social habits and all, but then why is their health system being overwhelmed by an additional 70 K cases, at a time when their flu season is ending?
One explanation could be because of a sudden surge in cases due to coronavirus or people with common flu are overwhelming the system with the fear that it maybe corona. But once the dust settles it would be interesting to compare the total number of deaths in 2019-2020 flu season in Italy compared to prior years. Unlike the US CDC where they don't track adult common flu deaths, European countries do. So it would make for a better statistical comparison year over year.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by chola »

Sobering. Especially the section on the "end game."

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/arch ... nd/608719/

II. The Endgame

Even a perfect response won’t end the pandemic. As long as the virus persists somewhere, there’s a chance that one infected traveler will reignite fresh sparks in countries that have already extinguished their fires. This is already happening in China, Singapore, and other Asian countries that briefly seemed to have the virus under control. Under these conditions, there are three possible endgames: one that’s very unlikely, one that’s very dangerous, and one that’s very long.

The first is that every nation manages to simultaneously bring the virus to heel, as with the original SARS in 2003. Given how widespread the coronavirus pandemic is, and how badly many countries are faring, the odds of worldwide synchronous control seem vanishingly small.

The second is that the virus does what past flu pandemics have done: It burns through the world and leaves behind enough immune survivors that it eventually struggles to find viable hosts. This “herd immunity” scenario would be quick, and thus tempting. But it would also come at a terrible cost: SARS-CoV-2 is more transmissible and fatal than the flu, and it would likely leave behind many millions of corpses and a trail of devastated health systems. The United Kingdom initially seemed to consider this herd-immunity strategy, before backtracking when models revealed the dire consequences. The U.S. now seems to be considering it too.

The third scenario is that the world plays a protracted game of whack-a-mole with the virus, stamping out outbreaks here and there until a vaccine can be produced. This is the best option, but also the longest and most complicated.

It depends, for a start, on making a vaccine. If this were a flu pandemic, that would be easier. The world is experienced at making flu vaccines and does so every year. But there are no existing vaccines for coronaviruses—until now, these viruses seemed to cause diseases that were mild or rare—so researchers must start from scratch. The first steps have been impressively quick. Last Monday, a possible vaccine created by Moderna and the National Institutes of Health went into early clinical testing. That marks a 63-day gap between scientists sequencing the virus’s genes for the first time and doctors injecting a vaccine candidate into a person’s arm. “It’s overwhelmingly the world record,” Fauci said.

But it’s also the fastest step among many subsequent slow ones. The initial trial will simply tell researchers if the vaccine seems safe, and if it can actually mobilize the immune system. Researchers will then need to check that it actually prevents infection from SARS-CoV-2. They’ll need to do animal tests and large-scale trials to ensure that the vaccine doesn’t cause severe side effects. They’ll need to work out what dose is required, how many shots people need, if the vaccine works in elderly people, and if it requires other chemicals to boost its effectiveness.

...

It’s likely, then, that the new coronavirus will be a lingering part of American life for at least a year, if not much longer. If the current round of social-distancing measures works, the pandemic may ebb enough for things to return to a semblance of normalcy. Offices could fill and bars could bustle. Schools could reopen and friends could reunite. But as the status quo returns, so too will the virus. This doesn’t mean that society must be on continuous lockdown until 2022. But “we need to be prepared to do multiple periods of social distancing,” says Stephen Kissler of Harvard.
arshyam
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by arshyam »

The Viral Explosion: A State-Wise Projection Map For Covid-19 In India - by Santosh Ansumali and Aloke Kumar, Swarajya - Mar 25, 2020, 7:46 pm
Unlike pan-India models, in the one presented below by the authors, the current lockdown scenario allows one to consider Indian states (and union territories) as separate entities and this can have significant policy implications.

In fact, a state level granularity of predictions is now a necessity as the current lock-down situation has fragmented the Indian population into clusters of sub-populations, which are expected to follow trend-lines already witnessed in other nations.

We present a heuristic predictive model that captures the essential trend-lines from open-source data from other nations. Simply-speaking a heuristic model in this case is a statistical rule-based model, which captures the essential aspects of how the viral disease spreads in a large cluster of population, as it is unfurling in the world now.

<snip>More details about the model is in the article</snip>

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Stats and maths gurus, any thoughts or analysis about these numbers? The reason I ask is the same as this commenter on the article:
Saibaskar P Yesterday at 9:27 PM
The numbers you quote.. Does this take Lockdown factor into account of Lockdown factor? Will India after closing as much as even it's district borders and from what i could see is seriously constricting it's population will face the same exponential spread? I am not asking a rhetorical question but really want to know
EDIT: Added some context from the article.
chola
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by chola »

I don't think Cheen is lying about containing the virus. The princelings are paying $20K plus for a seat back to China.

Elite wouldn't send their kids back home to die. They will, though, be bringing the virus back to China for the second wave.

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/regiona ... ivate-jets

Chinese students pay US$20,000 for seats on private jets

Thursday, 26 Mar 2020

BEIJING: As Covid-19 spreads across the United States, Chinese students from wealthy families are persuading their parents to pay tens of thousands of dollars for seats on private jets to get home.

The alternative, in a world of locked borders and grounded commercial planes, is 60-hour flights with multiple transit hops.

Jeff Gong, a lawyer in Shanghai, asked his daughter, a high school student in Wisconsin, if she wanted 180,000 yuan (RM112,753) as pocket money or a ticket on a private flight home.

“My daughter begged me to get her back home ... She said ‘No papa, I don’t want the money, I want to go home’,” he said.


US-based Chinese students are scrambling to get home as US infections top 50,000 while new cases in China have fallen to zero.

The sense of urgency is further heightened by the dramatic cutback in flight capacity. On Tuesday, 3,102 out of 3,800 planned commercial flights to and from China were cancelled, according to aviation data provider VariFlight.

But even the window for chartered flights is closing fast, further elevating prices. Beijing has banned all chartered flights from overseas and Shanghai is expected to follow suit soon. Hong Kong and Macau have blocked transit flights.

US-based Air Charter Service can fly passengers from Los Angeles to Shanghai on a 14-seat Bombardier 6000 for 2.3mil yuan (RM1.4mil), or about US$23,000 (RM101,896) for a spot.

“We have arranged a number of private jets travelling from the US to China repatriating Chinese nationals with routes including New York and Boston to Shanghai, San Jose to Hong Kong and Los Angeles to Guangzhou,” said Glenn Phillips, a PR and advertising manager at Air Charter Service.

“The prices range greatly depending on the positioning of the aircraft on the dates and time requested, and the exact route.” — Reuters
DavidD
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by DavidD »

Suraj wrote:
Raveen wrote: No, you are wrong, the reason why dengue spreads more in the summer not because the virus prefers it, but because the vector, a mosquito, only survives in the summer not the winter. Please don't get those get those confused.
Same for zika and chikungunya - they're all spread primarily by mosquitos (sexual contact and transfusion are far less transmissive means) and they peak during monsoon season as a result.
Yes, you guys are right, I shouldn't have used those viruses as examples. I was trying to list some examples of viruses with geographical predilections, but I definitively should have stuck with only the human-to-human ones! I apologize for any confusion I might have caused.
Deans
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Deans »

sudarshan wrote:
Deans wrote:No country so far has tested even 1% of its population.
Not Italy (High no of cases, very advanced medical system), Not Switzerland (Italy with a low population),
Not SoKo and the GCC countries which have high cases, a small population and a policy of broadening the testing criteria.

Testing capacity in India is significantly higher than the current demand. That capacity will go from 1000/day 3 days ago to 10,000/day within a week,if required. The problem we have is not lack of tests or testing capacity. That said, we should do more random tests in localities where infected people stayed to check for stage 3. Sample size of the only previous test was too low.
Did you look at UAE and Kuwait? UAE tested 1.3% of its population, Kuwait - 2.9%. Source:

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing

Take the number of tests, divide by population, or just look at the "tests per million" figures in the site. UAE comes to 13,000 tests per million, Kuwait to 29,000. I acknowledge that "number of tests" could be a lot more than "number of people tested" but Kuwait seems to have got to 1% even if you factor 3 tests per person.
I haven't considered small countries (under 10 mil pop). UAE and Kuwait have an expat population that is significantly higher than the resident population of citizens (will lowers the % tested). The figures for UAE & Kuwait however are a useful proxy for the extent of people infected.
(2% -2.5% of those tested are positive on a much larger testing base than India, which is reporting the same % of positive cases).
BSR Murthy
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by BSR Murthy »

Dr. Atul Gawande on how to protect healthcare workers from Corona infection. A good analysis of the successful handling of nCV in Singapore and Hong Kong and the lessons learned. He offers evidence based information for healthcare workers to avoid getting infected while using resources in a smart targeted fashion. I know some are badgering President Trump and Modi ji as well on not testing a whole lot more people. WHO's Tedros says the mantra is "test, test and test". Yes test, but, do so focusedly.
The success that Hong Kong and Singapore achieved by screening for people with fever- or flu-like symptoms suggests that the risk of asymptomatic contagion could be much lower than we thought.
Keeping the Coronavirus from Infecting Health-Care Workers
Cain Marko
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Cain Marko »

disha wrote:
Jay wrote:
What about the 1918 spanish flu then that it took the life of 12-20 million in India? Without any conclusive proof, it's hard to believe that we may have super immunity to the flu virus.
I would posit that Spanish flu was less virulent than coronavirus. Still it killed many! Why?

Under Colonial rule and post WWI, all areas under British Raj had

1. Poverty
2. Absymal healthcare infrastructure
3. Mal-nourishment
4. Zero public health policy
5. Unconcerned colonial masters (remember they would have been happy if the native would just die).
6. Zero medical care

All of the above and more needs to be taken into account before we come back and compare the current population set with that of 1918.

Only morbidities I see in the current population set are:

1. Obesity
2. Hypertension and Type-II diabetes
Yes sir. But there are other unhelpful factors in today's India:
1. Far greater population
2. Far more urbanization
3. Far higher population density
4. Far worse air pollution
Shivaji
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Shivaji »

chola wrote: But as the status quo returns, so too will the virus. This doesn’t mean that society must be on continuous lockdown until 2022. But “we need to be prepared to do multiple periods of social distancing,” says Stephen Kissler of Harvard.
Would this be the end-game GOI is targeting when Modi ji gave example of siren during war and subsequent black-out done by people?
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