COVID-19 Coronavirus Containment Efforts

[StatGuy2000]

I don't think that's a good reason to post wrong information and advice that can be harmful. There is enough correct information available to calm down panicking people.Let me put it that way: You certainly want someone in charge who is willing to listen to scientists and their results. I'll leave implications to the readers as I don't want to go more into politics here.

Excuse me, but at what point did I give wrong or false information?

Everything I've posted on this thread is based on the available information I've gathered from news sites, published journal articles, and conversations I've had with those in the health-care sector (of which I'm involved as a biostatistician), along with my own analysis and speculation based on these.

And at no point did I claim that COVID-19 is not serious. In particular, any major outbreak will put a strain on the health care systems of those countries affected. My intention was to put all of this in perspective.

 

[chemisttree]

Why don’t we just keep the discussion to the containment efforts for the virus? Nitpicking the “tone” (whatever that is!) or some minor errors doesn’t interest me at all.

So, it’s here in the US and Europe in small numbers. Mistakes were made and people are prepping. Preparing is NOT PANIC. What is certain is that more mistakes are in our future, that Singapore seems to have the best response so far, Japan miffed it initially, Korea is probably a close second to Singapore in handling it and now it’s Iran and Italy’s time in the barrel.

 

[berkeman]

This seems to be a new twist. Can an infected animal infect a human?

https://www.kron4.com/news/dog-test...irus-first-known-pet-amid-worldwide-outbreak/

 

[OmCheeto]

This seems to be a new twist. Can an infected animal infect a human?

Let me fix that for you; "Can an infected human infect their pet?"

Off the top of my head, based on the calliope of vector candidate beasts, I would say yes.

 

[chemisttree]

Foods I’m giving up for Lent

1. Bats. I’ll miss those spicy wings.
2. Snakes. No more late night stops at the House of Slitherin
3. Pangolin. I didn’t like it anyway. Too many scales.
4. Dogs. Tastes too much like Pangolin.
5. Jackfruit. Just because...

 

[kadiot]

Foods I’m giving up for Lent

1. Bats. I’ll miss those spicy wings.
2. Snakes. No more late night stops at the House of Slitherin
3. Pangolin. I didn’t like it anyway. Too many scales.
4. Dogs. Tastes too much like Pangolin.
5. Jackfruit. Just because...

I'm curious to know why favorite jackfruit is included in your list to abstain from eating. Please elaborate. Just because what?

 

[berkeman]

"Can an infected human infect their pet?"

From the article, it appears that they aren't hurt by the virus. They are pretty unhappy about the unfashionable masks, though. Just look at their eyes...

 

[mfb]

Excuse me, but at what point did I give wrong or false information?

I quoted two examples in post 369. Concerning trips, you realized that already in #370, reducing the scope of the previously too general statement.

So, it’s here in the US and Europe in small numbers. Mistakes were made and people are prepping. Preparing is NOT PANIC. What is certain is that more mistakes are in our future, that Singapore seems to have the best response so far, Japan miffed it initially, Korea is probably a close second to Singapore in handling it and now it’s Iran and Italy’s time in the barrel.

Germany had 13 cases in Bavaria and fully contained this outbreak - no more cases anywhere for two weeks. Recently several more cases came from travel to Italy.
Japan has a very slow rise of cases, in Singapore the rate of new cases seems to go down. They are on a good path to stop the outbreak in their countries.

 

[Mary Conrads Sanburn]

UC Davis

Vetinary Medicine

Can Pets Contract Coronavirus from Humans or Vice Versa?February 06, 2020

Posted by Trina Wood

Dr. Niels Pedersen, a distinguished emeritus professor at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and a renowned expert on infectious and immunologic diseases in dogs and cats, addresses the question, "Can pets contract Coronavirus from humans or vice versa?"

The simple answer is as follows: No, you won’t get or give the Coronavirus to your family pet. Coronaviruses occur in virtually every species of animal, including humans, and are commonly associated with unapparent or transient intestinal and respiratory infections. They tend to be very species specific and cross-species transmission is uncommon.

The more complex answer goes like this: Coronaviruses have adapted themselves by mutation over a period of 50,000 years or more to virtually every species of animal, including humans. They only cause disease in their new species and tend to remain in that species in whatever genetic form that allows adaptation to their new hosts.

The various coronaviruses have been sequenced and their relationship to each other determined. The common cold-causing coronaviruses of humans (OC43, 229E and NL63) are in the alphacoronavirus group, along with the intestinal Coronavirus of our pet cats and dogs. The more recently humanized strains of coronavirus, MERS, SARS and Wuhan (2019-nCoV) have jumped over from the betacoronaviruses of bats, possibly by intermediate infection of other animals such as camels and civet cats. Interestingly, MERS and SARS coronaviruses did not quite make the jump from bats to humans, and died out.

However, the Wuhan Coronavirus appears to have successfully adapted to humans (i.e., it has become humanized) and is therefore looming as an even more severe disease problem than MERS and SARS. Viruses that have either not fully humanized, or have only recently adapted to humans, tend to cause much more severe disease, as is the case with the MERS-, SARS- and Wuhan-Coronaviruses.

Although coronaviruses can jump from one host to another, this is a slow process and requires significant genetic change. There is no evidence that coronaviruses of our common veterinary species have entered humans in the recent past or vice versa. However, the tendency for coronaviruses to jump species is an ongoing occurrence and it is possible that a Coronavirus from a common pet species such as a cat or dog may enter humans and cause disease sometime in the future. However, if it should ever humanize, it will no longer be a cat or dog virus, but rather a new human virus. The same is true for a Coronavirus of humans that decides to change their host species.

https://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/news/can-pets-contract-coronavirus-humans-or-vice-versa

 

[berkeman]

https://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/news/can-pets-contract-coronavirus-humans-or-vice-versa

Thank you Mary.

 

[nsaspook]

https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2020/02/coronavirus-appears-in-oregon.html

A Lake Oswego elementary school employee contracted Oregon’s first apparent case of coronavirus, causing the closure of the 430-student school as health officials try to figure out how many people may have been exposed.

The employee lives in Washington County and is isolated at Kaiser Permanente Westside Medical Center in Hillsboro in what state health officials described Friday as another case of an unexplained transmission of the disease.

The patient hadn’t been under monitoring for Coronavirus symptoms and doesn’t appear to have traveled to any of the countries with outbreaks of the disease or have associated with anyone who did, Oregon Health Authority officials said.

That means the person could have caught the disease from someone in the community.

In other Corona news.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/5wpr-survey-reveals-38-of-beer-drinking-americans-wouldnt-buy-corona-now-301012225.html

5WPR's survey found that:

• 38% of beer-drinking Americans would not buy Corona under any circumstances now
• Among those who said they usually drink Corona, only 4% said they would stop drinking Corona, but 14% said they wouldn't order Corona in a public venue
• 16% of beer drinking Americans were confused about whether Corona beer is related to the coronavirus

 

[Bandersnatch]

16% of beer drinking Americans were confused about whether Corona beer is related to the coronavirus

Spoiler

 

[OmCheeto]

This is like the Energizer Bunny of viruses.

Reuters; "A growing number of discharged Coronavirus patients in China and elsewhere are testing positive after recovering, sometimes weeks after being allowed to leave the hospital..."

 

[mfb]

Bill Gates on how to limit the spread of this virus - and how to improve our reaction next time.

 

[lekh2003]

This is like the Energizer Bunny of viruses.

Reuters; "A growing number of discharged Coronavirus patients in China and elsewhere are testing positive after recovering, sometimes weeks after being allowed to leave the hospital..."

Interesting, I wonder what this means about the virus fundamentally. That's actually terrifying.

 

[kadiot]

Feb 02 - 14k confirmed cases worldwide

Feb 29 - 85k confirmed cases worldwide

The slope is tapering off towards a sideways extension rather than a 45 degrees incline.

Unfortunately, there were intermittent spikes in the past month as there are spikes in the past week.

 

[bhobba]

The vaccine is coming at breakneck speed (also a good explanation how the new molecular clamp technology works):
https://www.theage.com.au/national/...19-vaccine-is-being-made-20200220-p542rh.html

Manufacturing of test batches has already started:
https://www.theage.com.au/national/...oes-into-test-production-20200221-p5436l.html

I am still hearing differing estimates from experts on when it will be available to the general public - some say with the new manufacturing techniques and accelerated testing 5 months from now, others 2 years, and others in between. I really do not know who to believe here.

BTW it's pretty certain its broken confinement here in Aus - a beautician on the Gold Coast, returning from Iran, gave facials to 40 people and was then found to have it. They are trying to track down the 40 people but don't seem confident.

Thanks
Bill

 

[berkeman]

Where do I volunteer to be a test dummy for the vaccine? And who do I have to pay off so I don't get the placebo shot?

 

[Bandersnatch]

Where do I volunteer to be a test dummy for the vaccine? And who do I have to pay off so I don't get the placebo shot?

I can offer you a 101% certified free* and totes legit trial. You just have to purchase this small bridge off of me.

*something something

 

[StatGuy2000]

This is like the Energizer Bunny of viruses.

Reuters; "A growing number of discharged Coronavirus patients in China and elsewhere are testing positive after recovering, sometimes weeks after being allowed to leave the hospital..."

The article above seems to raise one of 3 possibilities:

1. Recovering patients may not have developed enough antibodies to develop immunity to COVID-19, and are being infected again (I wonder if this may be more often the case for those with weakened immune systems).

2. COVID-19 could be "biphasic", meaning that it lies dormant before creating new symptoms. Anthrax is one example of a biphasic infection, but as far as I know, none of the other Coronavirus infections like SARS or MERS exhibit this behaviour. So it would be curious to say the least if COVID-19 would exhibit this pattern.

3. The cases of "reinfection" may be due to testing discrepancies. In other words, due to the inaccuracies of the method of testing used, a patient may have been declared as "recovered" even though the patient may still have COVID-19 in their system from the initial infection.

My own speculation (FWIW) is that #1 and #3 are the more likely explanations, but we would need more data and further research on this question.

 

[BillTre]

Here is a Science mag news article that discusses some antibody tests being developed.
Singapore has been testing one. Not a large scale production at this time.

Antibody (or serological) tests show if someone has been exposed to the virus (since their immune system has made antibodies against it), presently or in the past.
The PCR tests look for virus present at the time of sample collection, in what ever part of the body the sample was collected from (spit, pee, blood, or ??). If the virus was already cleared by the patient, or if the virus is present in other parts of the body, but not where the sample was collected, then you could get a negative result not fully informative of the situation or the patient's history.

 

[OmCheeto]

The article above seems to raise one of 3 possibilities:

...

Being a layman, with a wild imagination, I can think of lots more.

4. Lots of viruses exhibit this phenomena. This is just the first one we've looked at exhaustively enough to have noticed it. Being dead to begin with, the virions cling to the inside of recovered asymptomatic patient's sinuses, just waiting to be swabbed.

Actually, that's all I can think of at the moment.

hmm... I think this may be the JAMA article referred to in the Reuters story: Positive RT-PCR Test Results in Patients Recovered From COVID-19

I'm not sure why I found this interesting; "The same technician ... was used for all RT-PCR testing"

Talk about eliminating variables!

 

[mfb]

Feb 02 - 14k confirmed cases worldwide

Feb 29 - 85k confirmed cases worldwide

The slope is tapering off towards a sideways extension rather than a 45 degrees incline.

Unfortunately, there were intermittent spikes in the past month as there are spikes in the past week.

The overall numbers taper off as China reports low numbers of new infections, especially from Hubei.
Outside China the numbers are growing rapidly.
Feb 1: 168
Feb 10: 461
Feb 20: 1198
Feb 28: 5275
We are at over 1000 new cases per day now, largely driven by South Korea (800 new today), Iran (200 new today), and Italy (no number for Feb 29 yet). The Iranian numbers are likely underestimating the outbreak there.

What I don't understand is Italy. Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, France, Croatia, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Greece, Lithuania, Romania, North Macedonia... basically all European countries that had cases recently got them from Italy (Estonia got one from Iran). If there are tens of cases where people brought the virus from Italy elsewhere to Europe within a few days, then how can Italy have only 900 cases? Are they that behind with testing, or did all these cases happen in places with many international travelers?

 

[chemisttree]

This is like the Energizer Bunny of viruses.

Reuters; "A growing number of discharged Coronavirus patients in China and elsewhere are testing positive after recovering, sometimes weeks after being allowed to leave the hospital..."

We don’t know if the virus is able to transmit in these patients yet. Hopefully not and hopefully these tests are only seeing residual viral particles covered by antibodies just waiting for their host’s leucopenia to resolve and sweep them away. When I see these reports paired with a statement that the patient’s white blood cell count is normal, that’s when I’ll start worrying.

 

[atyy]

We don’t know if the virus is able to transmit in these patients yet. Hopefully not and hopefully these tests are only seeing residual viral particles covered by antibodies just waiting for their host’s leucopenia to resolve and sweep them away. When I see these reports paired with a statement that the patient’s white blood cell count is normal, that’s when I’ll start worrying.

In the Science news item on the antibody test in Singapore mentioned by @bhobba (post #374) and @BillTre (post #406), two people who had recovered were detected as having had the virus by antibody testing.

It does mention that surprisingly, one of them also tested positive for the virus. In this case, since the patients were inferred by contact tracing, and not tested until after recovery, we don't know whether the patient who was PCR-positive might have earlier tested PCR-negative for some swabs - but I do wonder.

It might also be interesting to do a study similar to that mentioned by @OmCheeto (post #407) with combined PCR and antibody testing.

 

[atyy]

hmm... I think this may be the JAMA article referred to in the Reuters story: Positive RT-PCR Test Results in Patients Recovered From COVID-19

I'm not sure why I found this interesting; "The same technician ... was used for all RT-PCR testing"

Maybe the negative tests were on his first day on the job? (Probably, not since this is China, and they've been testing thousands.)

 

[kadiot]

The article above seems to raise one of 3 possibilities:

1. Recovering patients may not have developed enough antibodies to develop immunity to COVID-19, and are being infected again (I wonder if this may be more often the case for those with weakened immune systems).

2. COVID-19 could be "biphasic", meaning that it lies dormant before creating new symptoms. Anthrax is one example of a biphasic infection, but as far as I know, none of the other Coronavirus infections like SARS or MERS exhibit this behaviour. So it would be curious to say the least if COVID-19 would exhibit this pattern.

3. The cases of "reinfection" may be due to testing discrepancies. In other words, due to the inaccuracies of the method of testing used, a patient may have been declared as "recovered" even though the patient may still have COVID-19 in their system from the initial infection.

My own speculation (FWIW) is that #1 and #3 are the more likely explanations, but we would need more data and further research on this question.

This is the answer to reinfection. There is none. Reactivation, maybe.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/02/28/national/coronavirus-reinfection/#.XlsTYLLmiDa

 

[berkeman]

This is the answer to reinfection. There is none. Reactivation, maybe.

Why are you talking like Yoda?

 

[kadiot]

Why are you talking like Yoda?

Yoda the Star Wars character? Hehehe. I simply based my comment from the article.
As of this moment, even WHO is puzzled with Covid19, this could actually be a new era of a type of infection that is capable of becoming a dormant the reason why a lot of negative results are reported among the infected population because they are looking for flu like symptoms but with degree of difference. The symptom being exhibited by wat of viral reconfiguration this can now be a new type of virus all through out which has a new property not common to other viruses.

 

[Mary Conrads Sanburn]

As U.S. Preps For Coronavirus, Health Workers Question Safety Measures

February 26, 20205:34 PM ET

Heard on All Things Considered
YUKI NOGUCHI

[. . . ]

The new Coronavirus has yet to sicken American health workers, as it has in China. But deaths of hospital workers in Asia have heightened scrutiny of the U.S. health care system's ability to protect people on the front line.

Thomas Northcut/Getty Images

Updated at 6:52 p.m. ET

The U.S. health care system is trying to be ready for possible outbreaks of the new coronavirus, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned communities this week to prepare for the kind of spread now being seen in Iran, Italy, South Korea and other areas outside the virus' epicenter in China.

The CDC notes there are only 15 confirmed cases of the Coronavirus in the United States, plus 45 more cases among Americans who were brought home from the Diamond Princess cruise ship or via flights from Asia arranged by the U.S. State Department. The vast majority of those total cases in the U.S. are travel related; there are no signs, so far, that the virus has spread beyond the CDC totals.

SHOTS - HEALTH NEWS

Health Officials Warn Americans To Plan For The Spread Of Coronavirus In U.S.

Still, some U.S. health care workers on the front line, including Maureen Dugan, worry they are not properly prepared.

Dugan is a veteran nurse at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, where two Coronavirus patients were transferred this month. UCSF is one of the premier hospitals in the country, but Dugan says her frustrations are mounting because she says her employer offered little notice or training to those caring for the infected patients.

"We want to do the best. We work extremely hard to do the best for our patients, so don't set us up to fail," Dugan says. "It's not only nurses — it's all the other staff. It's nursing assistants; it's transport. Every staff member is worried."

https://www.npr.org/sections/health...virus-health-workers-question-safety-measures

 

[nsaspook]

Beijing 4K POV - Drive in the empty ZhongGuanCun - Beijing - China

 

[atyy]

APS March Meeting has been cancelled.

http://nanoscale.blogspot.com/2020/02/aps-march-meeting-cancelled.html?m=1

https://march.aps.org/
"The 2020 APS March Meeting is Canceled Due to rapidly escalating health concerns relating to the spread of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the 2020 APS March Meeting in Denver, CO, has been canceled. Please do not travel to Denver to attend the March Meeting"

 

[chemisttree]

It might also be interesting to do a study similar to that mentioned by @OmCheeto (post #407) with combined PCR and antibody testing.

Nah! If the PCR test were positive you are always going to get antibodies unless the subject has a screwed up immune system. If the PCR test were negative and the antibody test were positive, you know nothing. That could be a false negative, BDL of virus or no virus.

I’d much rather know the white blood cell count + PCR in recovered patients. I’d also like to test tissue samples from immune privileged areas.

 

[atyy]

Nah! If the PCR test were positive you are always going to get antibodies unless the subject has a screwed up immune system. If the PCR test were negative and the antibody test were positive, you know nothing. That could be a false negative, BDL of virus or no virus.

I’d much rather know the white blood cell count + PCR in recovered patients. I’d also like to test tissue samples from immune privileged areas.

What is BDL?

 

[kadiot]

What is BDL?

Below Detection Limit?