March 16, 2020

Four Ways Experts Say Coronavirus Nightmare Could End (Daily Beast, very good article)

Very informative article; well worth reading in entirety.

As major cultural events are forgotten, workplaces, bars, and restaurants close, and prominent politicians around the world go into quarantine, two simple questions about the novel coronavirus pandemic seem to rise above the rest: How long will this last? And how will it end?

William Haseltine, president of the global health think tank ACCESS Health International, who recently chaired the U.S.-China Health Summit in Wuhan, where the virus likely originated, has a theory.

“There are four ways,” the doctor told The Daily Beast. “One, it peters out with the weather. Two, everybody gets infected, so it’s got no new places to go... so it ends—but that’s a pretty horrible ending. Three is a vaccine, which is about a year away. Fourth way is the most likely: We’re going to have a few drugs, within a few weeks to a few months, that prevent people from getting infected—like PrEP for HIV—and for treatment.”

Let’s break those down.

(Much more at link)

https://www.thedailybeast.com/four-ways-experts-say-coronavirus-nightmare-could-end?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning

March 15, 2020

Dutch researchers first to find Covid-19 antibodies

https://nltimes.nl/2020/03/14/dutch-researchers-first-find-covid-19-antibodies-report

A team of ten scientific researchers from the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam and Utrecht University say they are the first in the world to discover an antibody capable of fending off an infection by the Covid-19 variant of coronavirus. The discovery could lead to an antiviral medication, and the ability for people to test themselves at home for the presence of the virus.

“I am too old to jump on a table,” said cellular biology professor Frank Grosveld to Erasmus Magazine. Their article is undergoing a peer review by other researchers on the online platform BioRxiv, and they believe it well then be published by top science journal Nature.

"Here we report a human monoclonal antibody that neutralizes SARS-CoV-2 (and SARS-CoV)," the researchers state in their academic paper's abstract. This is the SARS-2 virus, which causes coronavirus induced disease 19, or Covid-19 for short.

They claim the antibody they found "neutralizes" the virus, and "offers the potential to prevent and/or treat COVID-19, and possibly also other future emerging diseases in humans caused by viruses from the Sarbecovirus subgenus."

"As far as we know, this is the very first antibody that blocks the infection," Grosveld explained to the magazine. "Finding something like this is very rare," he said.

Their research would not necessarily lead to a vaccine, but rather a new medicine that could be used to treat those infected with the current coronavirus strain. It could be developed far faster than a vaccine, but would need months of testing, he stated, adding that it would also be more expensive to produce than a vaccine.

"We are now trying to get a pharmaceutical company on board – which is looking promising, by the way – that can produce the antibody on a large scale as a medicine," Grosveld said.

"If you were to take this as a patient, it is expected – only an expectation right now – that the infection will be stopped. And so it can give the patient an opportunity to recover," he told the magazine.

March 14, 2020

Animals that will make you laugh, because don't you need something to make you laugh?

And one that is just sweet:



https://animalencyclopedia.info/20-random-animal-photos-that-will-cheer-you-up/18/

March 12, 2020

What does trashing a thread do?

March 12, 2020

Mystery of Why the Trump Administration Still Hasn't Sent Out Promised Million CV Tests

https://buzzflash.com/articles/privatization-may-be-killing-us-mystery-of-why-the-trump-administration-still-hasnt-sent-out-promised-million-cv-tests-as-delay-is-facilitating-transmission-of-the-virus-by-undetected-carriers

After it was widely reported that Tom Hanks and his wife were able to simply walk into a clinic in Australia with the symptoms of a common cold and instantly get a coronavirus test – which was positive – Americans are beginning to ask out loud, “Why can’t we get tested?“ According to President Obama‘s Ebola Czar (last night on Rachel Maddow‘s show), Ron Klain, Trump “privatized“ the testing here in the United States. Instead of taking the World Health Organization (WHO) test kits which are cheap and widely available all over the planet, and having them distributed across the country back in December, or January, or February when we knew this disease was spreading in the United States, Klain said that Trump has outsourced the testing to two big American companies, Quest and Labcorp. Trump’s head of HHS, Alex Azar, is the guy who doubled the price of insulin when he was CEO of Eli Lily company. Do he and Trump owns stock in these testing companies? Why are we refusing to accept the WHO test that the entire rest of the world is using? What the hell is going on here?

BuzzFlash Afterword: The CV tests that are being done now are generally in private labs, through commercial insurance via a doctor or hospital. BuzzFlash doesn’t know if these for-profit labs are covered by government insurance. but the one million government tests that have been promised by Mike Pence for a bit of time, it appears, have yet to show up.

If one were a cynic, one could argue that someone or persons is willfully holding these Coronavirus tests up. One must also mention that is likely the US could still accept the WHO test, as Hartmann notes, and end the rampant infection that is assuredly exponentially growing because infected people are walking around untested due to the WH's utter failure on testing. In Addition, there is the issue of the additional kit needed to confirm the tests and its shortage. As Politico detailed in a November 10 article: “US coronavirus testing threatened by shortage of critical lab materials.”

The disaster of the missing and falsely promised government CV testing kits, given that it is resulting in perhaps boosting the Coronavirus toll out of manageable control because of untested transmission that may paralyze our hospital system when the testing kicks in, should be the lead story in every news medium

Most journalists are caught up with reporting what the Trump propaganda machine says, not what it does. The exponential additional transmissions that result from the delay in distributing the CV kits, and remember againthe Trump administration could still use the WHO test, is akin to criminal homicidal negligence.

Mike Pence symbolized the mysterious failure of the Trump administration to distribute CV testing kits in a CNN interview. According to a March 12 Raw Story article, Mike Pence was forced to admit government Coronavirus testing numbers appear, on the CDC website to be going down! Maybe the CDC is just disorganized in its data collection, or maybe it is due to no adults being in charge of ensuring widespread national Coronavirus testing.

March 11, 2020

How many of you are feeling much more hopeful than you have in a long time?

What a different landscape than two weeks ago. I am actually starting to get excited about Biden rather than just picking him because I think he is most likely to beat he-who-shall-not-be-named.

March 10, 2020

Anyone found a link to Inslee on Rachel/ coronavirus earlier? Heard he was excellent but can't find

anything on it.

March 10, 2020

Anyone listening to Joe on Lawrence? He's sounding excellent. Don't know where dementia talk

is coming from. Or I guess I do. It's just negative campaigning on the other side. He is sounding really good on every single question. A voice of reason; calm, thoughtful, resourceful, has a good handle on things. Somebody you could feel safe with as POTUS. Yet still very engaging and inspiring. A very effective candidate.

March 8, 2020

Daniel Goldman: "Today is my last day as Dir of investigations w House Intel Cmte..more to come."

https://twitter.com/danielsgoldman/status/1235956268734521344

Wonder what the "more to come" is about? I like the sound of it.

March 6, 2020

8 years "presidential" experience in Obama WH makes Joe most qualified to rebuild

I just listened to Obama presenting Joe with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. (https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287409101) In Biden's response, he talked of how the VP position has no inherent power, and says to Obama that he more than kept his commitment to Joe to help govern. He says that every single thing Obama asked him to do, he trusted him to do. That if someone asked Obama if he could get Joe to do something, Obama would say "I don't keep his schedule;" that when Obama sent him around the world, they knew that Joe spoke for Obama.
That this kind of relationship had not existed before between POTUS and VP.

So what struck me is that essentially Joe already has as close as you can get to presidential experience without actually being POTUS and is by far best situated to repair and rebuild in the most efficient and effective way possible. He already knows the job and the people both in the US and around the world - the potential cabinet picks, agency heads, etc. He will have a much shorter learning curve and broader overview than any of the others, which is very much needed at this time, more than ever.

Edited to add: Also, listening to the video, what comes across is this is a man who is well aware of his own strengths and weaknesses; a very important quality in a POTUS. He is humble.