Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

[vijayk]

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-54465733
BCG: Can a vaccine from 1921 save lives from Covid-19?

BCG strikes again

The vaccine was designed to stop tuberculosis, but there is some evidence it can protect against other infections as well.

Around 1,000 people will take part in the trial at the University of Exeter.

But while millions of people in the UK will have had the BCG jab as a child, it is thought they would need to be vaccinated again to benefit.

Vaccines are designed to train the immune system in a highly targeted way that leaves lasting protection against one particular infection.

But this process also causes wide-spread changes in the immune system. This seems to heighten the response to other infections and scientists hope it may even give our bodies an advantage against coronavirus.

Previous clinical trials have shown the BCG jab reduced deaths by 38% in newborns in Guinea-Bissau, mostly by reducing cases of pneumonia and sepsis.
Studies in South Africa linked the vaccine to a 73% reduction in infections in the nose, throat and lungs; experiments in the Netherlands showed BCG reduced the amount of yellow fever virus in the body.
"This could be of major importance globally," Prof John Campbell, of the University of Exeter Medical School, told the BBC.

"Whilst we don't think it [the protection] will be specific to Covid, it has the potential to buy several years of time for the Covid vaccines to come through and perhaps other treatments to be developed."

The UK trial is part of the international Brace-study, which is also taking place in Australia, the Netherlands, Spain and Brazil, recruiting 10,000 people in total.

It will focus on health and care workers, as they are more likely to be exposed to coronavirus, so researchers will know more quickly if the vaccine is effective.

[saip]

For whatever it is worth, my nephew got identical treatment in Hyderabad, that was given to Trump with exception of the mono clonal cocktail (whose efficacy is yet to be proven). His treatment regimen included steroids and remidisivir, zinc and vit D. He was in the hospital for a week. His share for the stay was 2 lakhs after insurance payments. He is 35 and somewhat over weight. But, his heart seems to have been affected. Cardiologist told him to take it easy for the next 3 months. Now, Trump is 74 and obese. His medical records are state secret.

[juvva]

For whatever it is worth, my nephew got identical treatment in Hyderabad, that was given to Trump with exception of the mono clonal cocktail (whose efficacy is yet to be proven). His treatment regimen included steroids and remidisivir, zinc and vit D. He was in the hospital for a week. His share for the stay was 2 lakhs after insurance payments. He is 35 and somewhat over weight. But, his heart seems to have been affected. Cardiologist told him to take it easy for the next 3 months. Now, Trump is 74 and obese. His medical records are state secret.

trump's medical team chose to throw everything including, the kitchen sink, at the virus from the word go.
i doubt if this was the case with your nephew.(? )

hope he recovers soon and gets fully well.

[saip]

Eli Lily which also is trialing monoclonal antibody treatment (similar to the Regeneron's that Trump took) has put a pause on it because of 'safety concerns'.
To me the success of any treatment depends on how soon you start the treatment. In my nephew's case the infection was caught at an early stage (even though he tested negative twice, he was experiencing typical COVID symptoms) and was admitted into a hospital in Hyderabad. Even though he recovered after a week he still has trouble breathing and some unknown problems with his heart. It is more than a month he was discharged.
But in the case of his father, he waited too long after the appearance of symptoms and by the time he was admitted into a government hospital, the infection seems to have progressed too far for any effective treatment. Though the hospital put him on a ventilator they did not start the treatment as they waited for the results of COVID test which took over 24 hours to come through. By then it was too late and he passed away.

[Ambar]

Eli Lily which also is trialing monoclonal antibody treatment (similar to the Regeneron's that Trump took) has put a pause on it because of 'safety concerns'.
To me the success of any treatment depends on how soon you start the treatment. In my nephew's case the infection was caught at an early stage (even though he tested negative twice, he was experiencing typical COVID symptoms) and was admitted into a hospital in Hyderabad. Even though he recovered after a week he still has trouble breathing and some unknown problems with his heart. It is more than a month he was discharged.
But in the case of his father, he waited too long after the appearance of symptoms and by the time he was admitted into a government hospital, the infection seems to have progressed too far for any effective treatment. Though the hospital put him on a ventilator they did not start the treatment as they waited for the results of COVID test which took over 24 hours to come through. By then it was too late and he passed away.

This is absolutely true. Early detection and early anti-viral treatment is the key, once it hits the lungs there is no saying what happens next especially for the aged and comorbidities. I wish there was a more detailed study on the anomalies where even with early treatment and early hospitalization the patients take a turn for the worst in the 2nd week. Remdesivir is said to be most effective between day 2 and day 7 of the course, any later then the virus has already replicated enough to do damage.

[vijayk]

https://www.businesstoday.in/current/ec ... 18700.html
COVID-19 vaccine: Harsh Vardhan says cure to be ready from more than one source in early 2021
"We're expecting that early next year we should have vaccine in the country from maybe more than one source," says union health minister Harsh Vardhan


https://www.businesstoday.in/current/co ... 13739.html
Countdown begins! 73 days to COVID-19 vaccine; Indians to get free shots
Centre has sought 68 crore doses for 130 crore Indian citizens from Serum Institute by June, next year

"Presently, the government has granted us permission to only manufacture the vaccine and stockpile it for future use. COVISHIELD will be commercialised once the trials are proven successful and all the requisite regulatory approvals are in place, Serum Institute said in a statement.

The central government has already indicated to SII that it will directly procure the vaccines and is planning to immunise Indians for free. Centre has sought 68 crore doses for 130 crore Indian citizens from Serum Institute by June, next year.

For the rest, it is likely to place orders with 'Covaxine' being developed by ICMR and Bharat Biotech and Zydus Cadila's 'ZyCoV-D' if their trials proceed successfully.

Bharat Biotech is yet to indicate when it would start and finish the trials, though Bharat Biotech's CMD Krishna Ella had said that to ensure safety and efficacy it would not expedite the vaccine with short-cuts.

[sajo]

Gurus, can the china virus be transmitted via people who have seen the last of their symptoms 3+ weeks back?
My mother met some of our neighbours in the parking lot of the apartment complex, about 3weeks after their quarantine ended (so 5 weeks or so after the appearance of symptoms and testing positive), and had an extended chat for about half an hour, with masks. She had not come in contact with anyone for months, except these two.
4 days later, she developed a sore throat and a persistent 100F fever, would subside for an hour or so after paracetamol, but would be back soon. A day later, my father also developed a lot of fatigue and mild fever, which also wouldnt go away. So they called a doctor, who advised COVID test. 3 days after the first fever, they both underwent an RT-PCR test through a private lab. 24 hours later received the results, both negative. Nevertheless, the doctor has advised 2 weeks of isolation and has prescribed the following medicines :
1) Omez-20
2) Azee -500
3) Vitamin and Iron supplements for mother.

Their symptoms are thankfully on the wane, but they are not taking any chances. The fatigue persists though.

[vijayk]

My cousin who was COVID patient and a doctor said it is possible that virus exists in your system for up to 90 days and you can transmit till then. I don't know if this is confirmed or not.

Keep taking Vitamin C/D/Zinc

[Shivaji]

One more Covid19 experience / ground feedback from my side which may be of help.

Me and my family were infected with Covid 19 in Pune and all of us had recovered in first week of July.

With lockdowns and monotony of Work-From-Home, I decided to visit my native place in Marathwada region of Maharashtra a month back. One of my Cousin sister based in Pune also decided to visit her parents.

Cousin sister and her husband are dentists and carried Covid19 with them infecting his and her parents (60 years to 74 years, diabetic) at native place. District administration has made institutional quarantine and treatment mandatory.

Although institutional mechanism was good, cousin sister was finding it very difficult to manage non-spicy food for her 1.5 year son. Due to suddenness of this, they needed lot of help in medicines, other stuff.

I having recovered from Covid19 and with no one else willing to help, visited her in Hospital to help. Despite me taking all the precautions, I seem to have carried Covid19 to my own family exposing my mother (65 + BP) and sisters.

In all, about 11 adult members and 6 children got Covid19 positive in this episode. All of them have recovered well now.

Below are my learnings from this:
1. I had recovered from Covid19 in July, still I developed symptoms due to visits to Covid quarantine centre. My own symptoms were very mild this time compared to July episode.
2. My wife and daughters did not show any symptoms at all despite my wife having severe symptoms first time around.
3. My being Covid19 recovered or mild symptoms did not prevent it from latching onto my mother and sisters.
4. Kids in primary school had hardly one-time fever. Kids in secondary school had symptoms for around 2 days but recovered without any issue.
5. Adults developing symptoms one-after-another and kids recovering within a day was used as a trigger for Covid19 test by me and hunch proved right.
6. Timely admission and treatment meant only two male members (62+diametic and 74+) needed Oxygen support.
7. Not much problem in getting bed. We had younger members in Government facility and elders in a private hospitals.
8. Oxygen / ventilator infrastructure is established very quickly from no Ventilator at Government Hospital in my town at start of the year to many being available now.
9. Remdesivir treatment was given by different doctors treating all elders in the family immediately. Procuring Remdesivir proved to be very difficult. There are variants of Jubilant, Hetero and Cipla. An injection that normally costs 5400 INR was getting sold at about 7500 INR.
10. Small town-folks seem to have accepted Covid19 reality much better than Metro or rural folks. Metro folks are too engrossed in self to come to show any compassion while rural folks want to be left alone.
11. Particularly impressed with the way District administration has rose to the challenge. Care received during treatment was very good. After family members were home, received call from Collector office (teachers have been roped in for such duties) asking for feedback on scale of 1 to 10 regarding Doctors, infrastructure, food etc.

[sampat]

Dutch woman dies after catching COVID-19 twice, the first reported reinfection death

An elderly Dutch woman has become the first known person to die from catching COVID-19 twice, according to experts, raising serious questions about how long immunity and antibodies can last.

The woman, 89, suffered from a rare type of bone marrow cancer called Waldenström's macroglobulinemia. Her immune system was compromised due to the cell-depleting therapy she received, the researchers at Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands wrote in a paper accepted for publication in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

However, the researchers said her natural immune response could still have been "sufficient" to fight-off COVID-19, as the type of treatment she received for cancer "does not necessarily result in life threatening disease.".......

[Karan M]

Shivaji, this is crazy. You got reinfected despite all precautions, i.e. mask, gloves etc?

[Ambar]

Shivaji, glad to hear that everyone in your family recovered. Did you get yourself re-tested the 2nd time or are you assuming you carried COVID because you fell mildly sick ? If you did get tested was it RT-PCR or the quick antigen test ? Atleast reading on Twitter and other internet forums India seems to be reporting the highest number of repeat infections, there are only handful of cases in other parts of the world. Many people who have reported repeat infection say that the 2nd time was much worse than the first time. Today's numbers from India for daily deaths is the lowest since late July, the dramatic drop has been out of MH where cases and deaths seems to have dropped overnight by 60%. Hope the trend continues so people can go about their lives as usual.

[DavidD]

Gurus, can the china virus be transmitted via people who have seen the last of their symptoms 3+ weeks back?
My mother met some of our neighbours in the parking lot of the apartment complex, about 3weeks after their quarantine ended (so 5 weeks or so after the appearance of symptoms and testing positive), and had an extended chat for about half an hour, with masks. She had not come in contact with anyone for months, except these two.
4 days later, she developed a sore throat and a persistent 100F fever, would subside for an hour or so after paracetamol, but would be back soon. A day later, my father also developed a lot of fatigue and mild fever, which also wouldnt go away. So they called a doctor, who advised COVID test. 3 days after the first fever, they both underwent an RT-PCR test through a private lab. 24 hours later received the results, both negative. Nevertheless, the doctor has advised 2 weeks of isolation and has prescribed the following medicines :
1) Omez-20
2) Azee -500
3) Vitamin and Iron supplements for mother.

Their symptoms are thankfully on the wane, but they are not taking any chances. The fatigue persists though.

Sure, it's possible, but the risk is probably high enough to warrant any extra precautions. Here in the US the current recommendation is that even for the very sick COVID patients, isolation precautions may be removed 20 days after positive test. In my hospital we've stopped isolating many patients who're still on oxygen in the hospital because they're 20+ days out from their initial positive test.

[sajo]

the dramatic drop has been out of MH where cases and deaths seems to have dropped overnight by 60%. Hope the trend continues so people can go about their lives as usual.

Maybe because of this :

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cit ... 651545.cms ?

I have been following trends for my town Pune, and it seems the numbers are down to a third from the peak :
15-Oct-2020 :
528 +ve/4495 tests (Swab+antigen)/839 Critical patients/28 Deaths

13-Oct-2020 :
486 +ve/4090 Tests/833 Critical/27 deaths

12-Oct-2020
351 +ve/1920 tests/856 Critical/14 Deaths

The highest ever in the Pune (not PMR) was close to 1200 per day. The worrying thing is, the number of critical patients and deaths seem to be near constant everyday, irrespective of the total case count. Its too early to let our guard down though.

[Shivaji]

Shivaji, this is crazy. You got reinfected despite all precautions, i.e. mask, gloves etc?

Yes sir...it was sanitizer before and after entering premises of quarantine center, strict use of mask. Except one or two instances where I had to be in the vicinity for longer period. Unavoidable reasons like filling of forms (that bane of Indian system), taking patient to testing center / quarantine centre etc. My misjudgment in that I thought being Covid 19 recovered, social distance / mask / short duration would reduce probability of getting re-infected.

Ambarji,

No I did not test. If I would have tested and test result turned positive, I would have been compulsorily quarantined. We had to manage kids at home and Mother who was in a private hospital. Reinfection possibility is deduced from mild symptoms I witnessed and for the fact that my mother / sister did not venture out at all throughout this period.

For my part, I travelled only in car when absolutely essential, no visits to relatives, no maids at home for the duration and ensured chain breaks at us.

But this can give you an idea how they say for 1 tested individual, there are 4-5 individuals that go below the radar.

[vijayk]

https://www.wionews.com/india-news/indi ... ket-335483

India's new 'game-changing' strip test for coronavirus ready to hit market

A fast and easy paper-based testing strip called 'FELUDA' which can act as a game changer for the India is ready to hit the market.

The Drugs Controller General of India had approved FELUDA, an acroynym for FnCas9 Editor Linked Uniform Detection Assay, last month after it met the quality benchmark of the Indian Council for Medical Research.

It has been developed by a team of young scientists of the Council of Scientific Industrial Research (CSIR).

Also read: India scales up testing capacity from 1 in January to over 7.7 cr in October: Health ministry

FELUDA delivers results in minutes as opposed to the existing RT-PCR kits, which takes anywhere between 4 to 5 hours.

According to CSIR's Director General Shekhar C Mande, "This test kit only takes 30 minutes to test for COVID when the RT PCR takes around 4 to 5 hours. Also, this testing kit is three to five times cheaper than the RT PCR based test kit".

[Ambar]

After failing HCQ & convalescent plasma, now WHO says Remdesivir is ineffective against coronavirus. So far everywhere including in India Remdesivir has been the first course of action, if it too is ineffective then i wonder what are the other options ? I

[sudarshan]

^ I for one am feeling encouraged that the WHO said the above. It corroborates my notion that the WHO is seeing the same long term trends that I've been noticing in the actual data, and that their projections for the future are also in line with those trends. I've been dropping gentle hints in this thread, seems like folks are not picking up on them.

Per my understanding: This disease is real. Modi did right to impose the initial lockdown, a lot of lives were saved that way in India. Lives were nevertheless lost, and a good bit of tragedy ensued, with some of it even affecting forumites (heartfelt condolences again). Individual doctors performed heroically, and some even made the ultimate sacrifice (hats off to them). Most forumites seem to relate to this disease based on these experiences.

There is a lot more going on though. The WHO has not played an exemplary role, the initial subterfuge was obvious, I hardly need to talk about that again. But the overall upper medical establishment (as opposed to individual doctors) does not seem to relate to this disease in the same way that forumites seem to be doing. They seem to be on a different frequency. So please stop looking at their pronouncements, and media reports, through the prism of your personal experiences. Instead, please take a hard, objective look at actual data.

Then the WHO pronouncement above will make a lot more sense.

[vijayk]

AP zonal coordinator is saying:

COVID-19 drastically went down in AP
* They received 5000 ventilators recently and half of them are not being used since not that many serious cases are coming
* Deaths went down by 50%
* Anti-bodies - Highest in VIzianagaram district

Over all it seems to be going well

[vijayk]

[Ambar]

MH always revises the numbers twice, they've done so again today taking India's daily toll past 1k. There's a great variance in the data between sources and it is not even close. Nagpur Municipality says there were 3 deaths from Covid on Oct 17, where as covidIndia dashboard's reporting says a whooping 205 people died in Nagpur today ! Don't know which one is correct.

[Amber G.]

This will soon be covered by most main stream media in India -

Have been busy doing some real interesting work ..

Sharing some very informative items from the recent virtual conference on Mathematical Model "COVID-19 India National Supermodel"

Some of the best scientific minds in the world shared some findings today.

Information is mainly for India, but tools and learnings can be applied world-wide. We are really fortunate that in India, the administration listens to the scientists. In US too, we must listen to the scientists.

Thanks to Abhay Karandikar (IITK Director & Renowned scientist) and Manindra Agrawal(world renowned mathematician & computer scientist who was leading the effort) and the whole team for this tremendous leadership. I am sharing some press release. Findings will be published (has been peer reviewed etc) coming this Monday.
>>>> Highlights:

1. Potential impact of the lockdown measures - did it help reduce the peak load on our healthcare system, and thus gave time to build on our capacity

2. Assess the impact of migrant laborers traveling back to their places of origin in May and June
The following conclusions have emerged about the course of the pandemic:

a) With no lockdown, the pandemic would have hit India very hard, with a peak load of 14+ million cases arriving in June. Given our lack of preparedness back then, the healthcare system would have been overwhelmed, leading to many additional deaths.

b) Had India waited until May to impose the lockdown, the peak load of active cases would have been around 5 million by June.

c) In actuality, the peak of active cases came in late September at around 1 million. By this time, we were far better equipped to handle the pandemic in terms of diagnostics and vital equipment inventories.

In view of this and the scenarios analyzed, as well as the upcoming festival season the committee strongly recommends that:

a) The existing personal safety protocols need to continue in full measure. Otherwise, we may see a sharp rise in infections. Avoiding congestion, especially in closed spaces and special care of those above 65 years and children is even more significant. Personnel with co-morbidities need to be extra cautious.

b) Fresh lock downs may not be imposed on a district and statewide levels unless there is imminent danger of the healthcare facilities being overwhelmed.

It is significant that such models are being used by the policymakers to serve as input in making decisions.

The mathematical model developed by the National Supermodel Committee has been integrated with public domain data from https://covid19india.org
(Mathematical model (called "super model" - name not given by scientists but political leadership ), adopted was powerful yet simple - refined form of something I have discussed in this thread long ago - it used four parameters - details in the ref given below )

Users can generate plots and look at predictions at https://sair.iitgoa.ac.in/ (Very easy to use and informative)
Details about the mathematical model at
https://www.iith.ac.in/~m_vidyasagar/ar ... -Model.pdf.

HT: IIT Kanpur research.

There is a press conference on IIT Kanpur and IIT Hyderabad site. worth watching.

I will put some graphs below:


I will put two graphs here (for UP and Bihar) for the impact of migrant workers.. This was some what political topic which many news-papers in India and US discussed. The data shows that what GoI did, in retrospect (to have lockdown earlier rather than later in May) saved *many* lives and negative impact was virtually none (less than what their model predicted)


This is quite intersting and important: (By End of February it will be all over - if we keep up current level of precautions).. ("Flattening the curve" was something I put here in this thread long before it was became fashionable ) ...

[Amber G.]

^^^ Some additional random points - (For details please see the whole document)
--- Worse is almost over - another few months but will see it almost over in February.
--- Bad part is coming Divali and other festivals.
--- Extremely important to restrict big gathering (specially in close environment). Transmission in air is *much* higher than what we thought in earlier days. (Recent big festivals - gatherings caused quite a bit effect)
-- Not necessary to have additional restrictions as long as we use masks and no big gatherings.
-- Cold season is bad - fortunately we will be effected less than North America / Europe etc)
-- Even without vaccine end of Feb will be sort of end of this season. Vaccines , thus will be given to older (and younger) and health professionals first with higher priority.

[sudarshan]

Amber G (ji), thank you so much for posting this hopeful news. From the data trends, I had already concluded that once this current peak in India wound down, India would not see any further resurgence of cases/ deaths. IOW, the virus has done its worst in rural and urban India. It seems that the above would confirm this, would you agree, or am I reading the data wrong?

The other thing I had theorized, looking at the data for India, was that India had already seen both wave 1 and wave 2 (possibly also a wave 3), just that they were merged together almost to the point of indistinguishability.

One question - do you see a real need for a vaccine, at least in India, beyond the early part of next year? (EDIT: I see you had partly talked about this in the last part of your post, but my question was about beyond Feb.).

AMBAR ji (capitalizing and coloring to avoid confusion with Amber G., nothing else): do you see now why the WHO made that pronouncement about remdesivir? This is what I was hinting at, I can elaborate if you still don't see it.

[vijayk]

Amberji - Incredible find! Thank you so much

I am so impressed with these guys ... Incredible work

[sudarshan]

Seems like the simpler SIR model, with an "A" category for "Asymptomatic," so "SAIR?" It seems this was good enough for the purpose. Heterogeneity wasn't addressed, so the model doesn't account for super-spreader events?

Will trawl through further, I'm curious about what kind of HIT number this model predicts for India with the current mitigation scenario. It might even be different for individual states?

[vijayk]

.

Where did you get these charts?

Can you please post the link to press conference?

[sudarshan]

From the above:

All the four parameters change with time as a function of level of lockdown and medical facilities available. Although epsilon is constant, its measurement is not exact due to effects of lockdown as well as testing strategies. Therefore, their estimation needs to be done in multiple phases. For the purpose of estimates below, we have used following three phases:
For India: May 1 - June 15 (Phase 1), June 16 - August 15 (Phase 2), August 16 - now (Phase 3)

It seems I may have been right, there was an inflection around June 15th, which *might* have been the second wave, just that it merged with the first. From my post on 29th August, page 183 of this thread:

Now it seems that in India, the "second peak" might have also simply merged with the "first peak." It's interesting, looking at the charts - Europe, Aus, Japan showing distinct peaks, USA showing a first peak plateauing before shooting up again, whereas in India both peaks are practically merged together. But you can see an inflection point in the India curve, where the rate of rise drastically increases - that's probably the second peak taking over from the first. This is around June 15th, the same time as the start of the second peaks in Aus/Japan/USA!
.
.
.
India seems to be at the height of the second peak now - it wasn't very evident from the charts, but the pattern seems to be the same as the two distinct peaks elsewhere, just with both peaks merged together almost to the point of indistinguishability.

(Note: Deliberately referring to it as "second peak" not "second wave" - it seems to be due to lockdown-release effects, rather than actual die-down and resurgence of the disease like in 1918).

[SriKumar]

-- Even without vaccine end of Feb will be sort of end of this season.

Could you please expand on this a bit. What does it mean to that it 'ends' in February. Does it mean that most Indians will have already been infected by Feb. and hence cannot be infected again, or is it something else?
Does the same physics/logic/causality factors apply to the situation in US as well?

(Also curious about when was the prediction shown in figure 1, made).

[Amber G.]

Some comments -
- Most Indian Newspapers are carrying this story (or will be carrying in next day or so)- Including ToI, Hindu etc..
will be interesting to see their spin. (It was quite educational to hear their "questions" after the press conf. - more of this later)
- The paper will be coming out on this Tuesday. Nice writeup will go up by or before then. (I will post the links - but apart from GoI sites like DST, IIT Kanpur and IIT Hyderabad sites have or will have most of the material I posted. (Some of my material is from social media/email/screen shots from zoom talks etc but I will summarize the links.

- I will post some of my comments .. meanwhile the links I already gave has good material and technical info.
- I do have video of the whole press conference (recorded) and scientific presentation.. but will post the you-tube link (this might already be on IITK or IITH's, or DST site)

Meanwhile Here is something I saw: summarizing the above.
(From ToI article <ToI Article>



(I am *extremely* impressed by the quality of work and sheer amount of coordination between different teams - I don't think I ever saw this kind of speed and cooperation in India before this pandemic - This of course shows, in many other fields - for example manufacturing of N95 Masks and PPE's, ventilators etc - BIG credit goes to Modi's admin for creating a good atmosphere for scientists to work as a team).

[Mukhi]

Ambarji,

There is one puzzle That I just can’t seem to solve. With no medicinal cure available, how is it possible for this ChinaVirus to go away completely. I am working numbers in my head and charting the graphs as over all total number of cases increases, Theoretically, the trend must continue until every single one of us is infected, and then we learn to live with it.

On a side note, our coworker’s wife tested positive. Coworker notified us on Monday of not feeling well as well. Self and spouse got tested on Wednesday and the results came today. Both negative. Phew. Coworker and his wife are recovering. No sign of fever today.

[Amber G.]

Where did you get these charts?

Can you please post the link to press conference?

Press conf link <From IITK Site .. Hope this works for public. (I am sure there will be a youtube link shortly ..if so I will post it)

Charts are from Prof Vidyasagar's presentation... (Link I gave in the first post). (Also see below newspapers)

These group of scientists were appointed by GoI (DST) with task to "formulate a Supermodel of the current pandemic."

Here are other links from Indian Newspapers -
https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/healt ... 3.ece/amp/
https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2020/ ... 1.amp.html
https://www.livemint.com/news/india/cov ... 60870.html
https://www.business-standard.com/artic ... 407_1.html

[Amber G.]

Ambarji,

There is one puzzle That I just can’t seem to solve. With no medicinal cure available, how is it possible for this ChinaVirus to go away completely. I am working numbers in my head and charting the graphs as over all total number of cases increases, Theoretically, the trend must continue until every single one of us is infected, and then we learn to live with it.

The presentation (when published, please take a look) describes it in details. (So does most text-books etc)..In simple terms:
- Virus can not "spread" if there are no human hosts. You get it from other person who is at present "infected" *and* shedding viruses. (We are not considering the first case when it jumped from bat/whatever to human or mutated etc).
- If you get the virus - you become sick for a few weeks then either you body's immune system get rid of virus (or you die) - after that you no longer shedding the virus. What is more, once you get a virus and the fight is over (either you are negative now or virus won) - you are immune to it, at least for some time. (Number of getting COVID second time is quite rare - may be just a few dozen times out of millions). No one know how long/short this "some time is

- Once you are immune, you no longer can catch the virus - or spread the virus.
- If enough people (about 30% in present case for India - assuming we keep masks etc..- according to this model) have gotten it once, and thus now are immune, and most people are wearing masks, it becomes less and less likely that a infected and *active* person (within 2 weeks) can find an uninfected person to pass this virus to... and the "spreading" stops.
- Thus after reaching a peak, the total active cases decline .. and they become fairly low..
(There are many other factors are involved, but I just covered the basic points .. hope this helps)

Best luck to you, and your family and coworker.
Prof Abhay Karandikar of all people, also got Covid and was seriously ill for quite some time - Thank god, he is okay now and back to work.

[Amber G.]

SriKumar-

"With dramatic declines expected in December and the government underlining that a vaccine would likely be available by March, Lt. Gen. Kanitkar added that a vaccine would still be useful particularly for healthcare workers and the old and those most vulnerable who've been “confined to homes and unable to move around more freely."

The article goes quite in details and there are some quite interesting points. Another point is this may comeback and vaccine may be helpful (like flu vaccines).

[SriKumar]

^^^Thanks. I’ll take a look but your response to Mukhi answers my question. It will be very good If the prediction was made a month ago (rather than a week ago).

[Amber G.]

Sudarshan - I have not followed this thread for quite some time, so have not seen your earlier posts here. The "super" model - name coined by DST many months ago - evolved as the scientists were asked by Modi et al to consolidate all models and make it easy for decision makers to make decision. So well known/reputable people got involved and provided leadership etc.. the model was simple yet practically as accurate as it can be.
You or anyone interested can check out IISc (or IIT's site or DST site - for detail technical info..

Another model/data/tool ( Initially started right in the beginning by academics at IITs, IISc, NCASR, AFMS etc and blessed by GoI admin etc..
I have been following - can be checked here:

https://covid19medinventory.in/ ..

(At district level, one can see data/projection of patients - inventory (like Ventilators/masks/hospital_beds etc).. etc..

[SRoy]

-S Roy edited no personal attacks- disagree if you want but no direct attacks etc
And mind your language.

That stuff has already made into ToI
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ind ... 750163.cms

On what basis are these "experts" claiming 30% already infected now? That's approximately 39 crore. Taking 2% mortality rate, must be 0.78 crores dead already.

50% by Feb end 2021 means 65 crore and 1.3 crores dead.

Numbers don't makes sense.

PM needs to rein in these clowns. People playing with numbers that they don't have any idea about.

[vijayk]

So, what Amber G has posted is ... I don't what he is smoking.

That stuff has already made into ToI
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ind ... 750163.cms

On what basis are these "experts" claiming 30% already infected now? That's approximately 39 crore. Taking 2% mortality rate, must be 0.78 crores dead already.

50% by Feb end 2021 means 65 crore and 1.3 crores dead.

Numbers don't makes sense.

PM needs to rein in these clowns. People playing with numbers that they don't have any idea about.

I saw the presentation. https://www.facebook.com/iitkanpur/vide ... 449404439/
They talked about 14% anti-bodies. If that is 17 crores and deaths are 100,000.

Based on that mortality rate will come down to 0.1% or less. They won't say 2%. Where did you get that?

[sudarshan]

Sudarshan - I have not followed this thread for quite some time, so have not seen your earlier posts here. The "super" model - name coined by DST many months ago - evolved as the scientists were asked by Modi et al to consolidate all models and make it easy for decision makers to make decision. So well known/reputable people got involved and provided leadership etc.. the model was simple yet practically as accurate as it can be.

Of course ji. Nice name they came up with, BTW . I am also thoroughly impressed with Modi's action. I am not questioning why the model was that simple, in fact, I agree that simpler models are better, so long as they are accurate. I was just curious about why they did not feel the need to model heterogeneity (super-spreading events and people). There was also another reason.

It seems, if I read your post right, that the predicted HIT (Herd Immunity Threshold) under the current mitigation scenario is 30%. The initial claim was, with an R0 of 2.1 2.4, the expected HIT would be 60%. I did dig up a lot of material, which I posted before, which said that if heterogenity effects were included in COVID models, the HIT came down to 20%, 10%, or even less. Simply put, heterogenity accounts for the variations in - a. infection susceptibility; b. ability to pass on the infection; c. opportunity to pass on the infection; d. other relevant factors. These are modeled with coefficient of variation (COV) parameters, which affect the gamma distributions of the model parameters, such as epsilon, beta, etc. in the above SAIR model. These COV parameters were also available for COVID based on observations from around the world, so they weren't unknown.

As I said, modeling heterogenity as well, reduces the expected HIT, even for the same R0 value.

But the above model does not account for this. So what was the factor which reduced the HIT from the initial estimate of 60%, down to 30%, especially since you also said - "the air transmission is much more than initially thought" (which would increase R0 and thus HIT).

Was it just the lockdown? Talking to folks in India, what I heard was that lockdowns were iffy, with people brushing past in close quarters in grocery stores without masks, crowded streets, that kind of thing.

That's all I was asking, I don't believe that the model needs to be complex just for the sake of complexity.

You or anyone interested can check out IISc (or IIT's site or DST site - for detail technical info..

Another model/data/tool ( Initially started right in the beginning by academics at IITs, IISc, NCASR, AFMS etc and blessed by GoI admin etc..
I have been following - can be checked here:

https://covid19medinventory.in/ ..

(At district level, one can see data/projection of patients - inventory (like Ventilators/masks/hospital_beds etc).. etc..

Thanks, I'll look through that as well.

[sudarshan]

On what basis are these "experts" claiming 30% already infected now?

If I read right, they are not claiming that. They are claiming HIT of 30%, i.e., eventually, by Feb., they expect 30% to be infected. It's probably half that right now.

That's approximately 39 crore. Taking 2% mortality rate, must be 0.78 crores dead already.

So, don't take 2% mortality rate. Simple, no?

This is not a flippant statement. The mortality rate comes from the numbers which are actually seen on the ground, it's not a number you assume and to which you then try to force-fit the ground reality. If it is observed that 100,000 people are dead of the disease, and given the case counts, the mortality rate comes from that, not the other way round, like you're doing.

50% by Feb end 2021 means 65 crore and 1.3 crores dead.

Numbers don't makes sense.

With more sensible numbers for mortality rate and current infected rates, the model seems bang on target. You can also look at the charts comparing to actual case counts, that's the real test of the model, not how much sarcasm can be brought to bear on it.

PM needs to rein in these clowns. People playing with numbers that they don't have any idea about.

It seems that's you here. I will let the PM know, he can rein you in.