Long term post viral syndrome after covid
“Glatter pointed out a study Trusted Source revealing that 87 percent of patients who have recovered from COVID still have one persistent symptom.”
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/fauci-warns-about-post-viral-syndrome-after-covid-19
Kids can spread the virus
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Coronavirus-live-updates-news-bay-area-15237940.php
Hadassah doctors crack the cause of fatal corona blood clots
Trump Now Has Free Rein to Cook the Books When It Comes to COVID
https://truthout.org/articles/trump-now-has-free-rein-to-cook-the-books-when-it-comes-to-covid/
Coronavirus: Things US has got wrong – and right
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53337483
USA passports are worthless now. “Oh, the places you can’t go.”
https://medium.com/@indica/the-plague-states-of-america-53b20678a80e
How Many Sick Children and Teachers Are Worth It? What About Dead Ones?
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a33274466/school-reopenings-coronavirus-trump-no-plan/
These 3 teachers in Phoenix who were doing remote instruction from the same classroom. They distanced, wore masks, sanitized. EVEN WITH NO STUDENTS IN THE BUILDING, ALL 3 OF THEM CAUGHT Covid-19, and 1 of them died.
https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/5411122002
Cases will probably reach 100
100% positive test rate after Trump’s rally
New studies show people are NOT infectious again
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/people-reinfected-with-covid-19-werent-infectious
How the virus won
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-spread.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
“At every crucial moment, American officials were weeks or months behind the reality of the outbreak. Those delays likely cost tens of thousands of lives.”
Unique covid strand in Chicago
For those that have recovered from covid, don’t over do it because YOU COULD RELAPSE. Luckily, studies show that people are NOT contagious when they relapse.
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/coronavirus/dallas-woman-battling-coronavirus-again/2389265/
Diet Can Fight Diseases Linked to Poor COVID-19 Outcomes
https://www.pcrm.org/news/blog/diet-can-fight-diseases-linked-poor-covid-19-outcomes
“The statistics are grim. The American Heart Association reports that “data from the outbreak in Wuhan, China, shows a 10.5% death rate among people with COVID-19 who also have cardiovascular disease, 7.3% for those with diabetes, 6.3% for those with respiratory disease, 6% for those with high blood pressure and 5.6% for those with cancer.” Earlier research found that 99% of people who have died from COVID-19 in Italy had cancer, diabetes, or lung disease, and 76% had high blood pressure.”
Race and covid mortality
https://shotwell.ca/posts/2020-05-23-race-and-covid/
Low vitamin D not only has links with worse covid symptoms, it also has links to diabetes and other diseases.
https://spectrum.diabetesjournals.org/content/24/2/113
A doctor’s list of studies on the correlation between low vitamin D and worse covid symptoms.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yMr3bhIbYkLF9USP84ZU2vLmKEDBPDpgnyhHz2Dyp_s/htmlview
Interesting research on the connection between people with darker skin having lower vitamin D levels and worse covid symptoms.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/vitamin-d-and-coronavirus-disparities-11587078141
Coronavirus: The Most Essential People To Follow On Twitter During The COVID-19 Outbreak
Second U.S. Virus Wave Emerges
Up to 80% of COVID-19 Infections Are Asymptomatic, a New Case Report Says
https://time.com/5842669/coronavirus-asymptomatic-transmission/
WHO official walks back comments on asymptomatic transmission being ‘very rare’
Studies do show asymptomatic people a spread it. That’s why WHO walked back their statement
“Masks and testing are necessary to combat asymptomatic spread in aerosols and droplets.”
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/06/08/science.abc6197.full I’m
In Chile, over 2,000 kids, less than 5 years old, have covid.
And over 257 are hospitalized. I wonder why Chile has such a high rate of children infected.
Have people heard of this anywhere else? Maybe they have a bad covid strand?
Researchers concluded that patients with Type A blood were 50 percent more likely to need to get oxygen or go on a ventilator
Your cloth face covering may protect them. Their cloth face covering may protect you.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html
“Study shows Covid-19 patients who took heartburn drug, like Pepcid, were less likely to die, but researchers caution more research is needed.”
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/09/health/famotidine-covid-19-correlation-study/index.html
Antibody tests for Covid-19 wrong up to half the time, CDC says
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/26/health/antibody-tests-cdc-coronavirus-wrong/index.html
Chris Cuomo says he’s ‘not 100 percent’ recovered from coronavirus
https://covidteacher.com/2020/05/27/chris-cuomo-says-hes-not-100-percent-recovered-from-coronavirus/
Hospitals Knew How to Make Money. Then Coronavirus Happened.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/us/hospitals-revenue-coronavirus.html
Doctors condemn secrecy over false negative Covid-19 tests
“A PHE study last week found that as many as 20% of inpatients and 90% of healthcare workers contracted the virus while in hospital.”
Antibody that inhibits the new coronavirus discovered in patient who had SARS 17 years ago
https://www.livescience.com/sars-antibody-inhibits-new-coronavirus.html
“Blood samples from the patient, who had SARS in 2003, contained an antibody that appeared to block the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2”
THIS IS GOOD NEWS FOR IMMUNITY, WRITTEN MAY 24th, 2020:
[“I have yet to see a definitive case of reinfection reported in the scientific literature [to date]. To truly prove reinfection, and discriminate from prolonged viral shedding related to the first infection, would require sequencing of both the first and second viruses and demonstration that the two viruses are genetically different,” he said, adding it will also be important to look at symptoms and how long reinfection lasts.
“It is also important to recognise that documentation of one or a handful of reinfections does not prove that this is a common, epidemiologically important event.”
What happened in South Korea, where patients tested positive after having recovered from Covid-19?
This initially caused concerns, as experts feared the results might suggest patients had been reinfected. However, the World Health Organization has since said the results were actually false positives, a result of the test picking up particles of the virus within dead lung cells – but this is not active virus. That’s because the PCR (or “have-you-got-it”) test is based on detecting genetic material from the virus – on its own it does not reveal whether that virus is active, and infectious, or not.]
Sweden’s mortality rate is the highest in Europe due to failed “Herd Immunity” theory
[“Unlike its Nordic neighbors, Sweden decided early on in the pandemic to forgo lockdown in the hope of achieving broad immunity to the coronavirus. While social distancing was promoted, the government allowed bars, restaurants, salons, gyms and schools to stay open.
Initially, Sweden saw death rates from COVID-19 that were similar to other European nations that had closed down their economies. But now the Scandinavian nation’s daily death toll per 1 million people is 8.71 compared to the United States’ 4.59, according to online publication Our World in Data. Sweden’s mortality rate is the highest in Europe.]
HOW LONG DOES COVID LAST ON VARIOUS SURFACES?
https://apple.news/AkSq_itnTT6qMJqpNiwDpvw
Covid does NOT last long on most things. “Here is how long it lasts:
Paper for up to 30 minutes.
Tissue paper for up to 30 minutes.
Wood for up to a day.
Cloth for up to a day.
Glass for up to two days.
Bank notes for up to two days
Stainless steel for up to four days
Plastic for up to four days
The inner layer of a mask for up to four days
The outer layer of a mask for up to seven days”
Coronavirus patients stop being infectious after 11 days even if they still test positive for the disease, study finds (only 73 people were tested so probably not very accurate)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8353093/Coronavirus-patients-stop-infectious-11-days.html
An infected person becomes contagious around two days before symptoms show, researchers from Singapore found.
They then remain contagious for between seven and ten days after they start showing signs of the disease – which include having a high temperature and a new and continuous cough.
Covid-19 ‘could not be isolated or cultured after day 11’ of the illness, researchers said.
Scientists from Singapore’s National Center for Infectious Diseases and the Academy of Medicine examined 73 patients with coronavirus.]
PEOPLE DEVELOP SOME COVID IMMUNITY WITHIN 6 DAYS:
https://news.emory.edu/stories/2020/05/coronavirus_antibody_study_sheds_light_on_immunity/index.html
“New research from Emory University indicates that nearly all people hospitalized with COVID-19 develop virus-neutralizing antibodies within six days of testing positive. The findings will be key in helping researchers understand protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2 and in informing vaccine development.
The test that Emory researchers developed also could help determine whether convalescent plasma from COVID-19 survivors can provide immunity to others, and which donors’ plasma should be used.”
Cuba credits two drugs with slashing coronavirus death toll
“In Cuba, with the use of these drugs, 80 percent of those who end up in critical or serious condition are being saved,” President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on Thursday in a meeting shown on state television. Official data suggests that Cuba, with universal healthcare and a well-staffed care system, has done well in containing its outbreak. It has registered less than 20 cases per day over the past week, down from a peak of 50 to 60 in mid-April. In total, Cuba has reported 1,916 cases for a population of 11 million and 81 deaths.”
When doctors can’t help patients, patients turn to support groups
This is so true!!!
1 out of every 20 patients have lingering symptoms for many months, even young healthy people like me. Joining Fb covid support groups and the “Stack” text chat has helped me immensely.
[Doctors couldn’t help these COVID-19 patients with their endless symptoms. So they turned to one another.
Connecting with others online has brought “relief, excitement, sadness that somebody else knows what you’re going through.”]
Holy moly this is HUGE! This is why there are 30-50% FALSE NEGATIVES:
I got tested probably 2-3 weeks after my start of symptoms and I tested negative but my doctors say I definitely have covid
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M20-1495
Results:
Over the 4 days of infection before the typical time of symptom onset (day 5), the probability of a false-negative result in an infected person decreases from 100% (95% CI, 100% to 100%) on day 1 to 67% (CI, 27% to 94%) on day 4. On the day of symptom onset, the median false-negative rate was 38% (CI, 18% to 65%). This decreased to 20% (CI, 12% to 30%) on day 8 (3 days after symptom onset) then began to increase again, from 21% (CI, 13% to 31%) on day 9 to 66% (CI, 54% to 77%) on day 21.
ARTICLE: Why Is Chicago Still Seeing So Many New Cases Of COVID-19?
DON’T GET CAUTION FATIGUE, CONTINUE TO QUARANTINE AND USE SOCIAL DISTANCING WHEN YOU HAVE TO LEAVE THE HOUSE:
Caution fatigue could mean we see even more cases
Experts understand that the more time we spend in isolation, the harder it might be to stay vigilant. This is known as “caution fatigue,” says Dr. Jacqueline Gollan, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Asher Center for the Study and Treatment of Depressive Disorders at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
“Fatigue occurs when we become desensitized to warnings or risk. When this happens, people show low motivation or energy to comply with safety guidelines,” Gollan says.
If we can recognize this fatigue in our behavior and do things to reverse it, we can actually help to reduce the number of cases, and even deaths, Gollan says.
Though many people still claim to be practicing social distancing, this fatigue can cause people to cut corners. Dr. Tina Tan at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine suspects some folks may not always be super honest about following the rules.
“People say they are observing social distancing, but you saw what happened where it was a nice day and people had a party in their house,” she says.
“I Wish I Could Do Something for You,” My Doctor Said.
Young, healthy people like me are getting very, very sick from the disease caused by the coronavirus.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/opinion/coronavirus-young-people.html
VERY GOOD ARTICLE THAT I DEFINITELY CAN RELATE TO. I’M ON DAY 35 (BUT PROBABLY MORE LIKE DAY 52). YOUNG PEOPLE, READ THIS:
[The day before I got sick, I ran three miles, walked 10 more, then raced up the stairs to my fifth-floor apartment as always, slinging laundry with me as I went.
The next day, April 17, I became one of the thousands of New Yorkers to fall ill with Covid-19. I haven’t felt the same since.
The second day I was sick, I woke up to what felt like hot tar buried deep in my chest. I could not get a deep breath unless I was on all fours. I’m healthy. I’m a runner. I’m 33 years old.
In the emergency room an hour later, I sat on a hospital bed, alone and terrified, my finger hooked to a pulse-oxygen machine. To my right lay a man who could barely speak but coughed constantly. To my left was an older man who said that he had been sick for a month and had a pacemaker. He kept apologizing to the doctors for making so much trouble, and thanking them for taking such good care of him. I can’t stop thinking about him even now.
Finally, Dr. Audrey Tan walked toward me, her kind eyes meeting mine from behind a mask, goggles and a face shield. “Any asthma?” she asked. “Do you smoke? Any pre-existing conditions?” “No, no, none,” I replied. Dr. Tan smiled, then shook her head, almost imperceptibly. “I wish I could do something for you,” she said.
I am one of the lucky ones. I never needed a ventilator. I survived. But 27 days later, I still have lingering pneumonia. I use two inhalers, twice a day. I can’t walk more than a few blocks without stopping.
I want Americans to understand that this virus is making otherwise young, healthy people very, very sick. I want them to know, this is no flu.
Even healthy New Yorkers in their 20s have been hospitalized. At least 13 children in New York state have died from Covid-19, according to health department data. My friend’s 29-year-old boyfriend was even sicker than I was and at one point could barely walk across their living room.
Maybe you don’t live in a big city. Maybe you don’t know anybody who is sick. Maybe you think we are crazy for living in New York. That’s fine. You don’t have to live like us or vote like us. But please learn from us. Please take this virus seriously.
One thing I learned is how startlingly little care or advice is available to the millions of Americans managing symptoms at home.
In Germany, the government sends teams of medical workers to do house calls. Here in the United States, where primary care is an afterthought, the only place most people suffering from Covid-19 can get in-person care is the emergency room. That’s a real problem given that it is a disease that can lead to months of serious symptoms and turn from mild to deadly in a matter of hours.
The best care I received came from my friends. Fred, an emergency room resident treating patients at a New York hospital, called me on his bike ride to work, constantly checking in and asking about my symptoms. Chelsea, my college roommate and a physician assistant, has largely managed my recovery from pneumonia. Zoe, my childhood friend and a nurse, taught me how to use a pulse oximeter and later, the asthma inhaler I now use.
Through them, I became an amateur expert. This is the advice they gave me. Here’s what I’m telling my family and my friends: If you can, get an oximeter, a magical little device that measures your pulse and blood oxygen level from your fingertip. If you become sick and your oxygen dips below 95 or you have trouble breathing, go to the emergency room. Don’t wait.
If you have chest symptoms, assume you may have pneumonia and call a doctor or go to the E.R. Sleep on your stomach, since much of your lungs is actually in your back. If your oxygen is stable, change positions every hour. Do breathing exercises, a lot of them. The one that seemed to work best for me was pioneered by nurses in the British health system and shared by J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series.
Nearly a month later, I’m still sleeping on my stomach and still can’t go for a run. But I will be able to do those things, and much more. For now, every conversation with an old friend brings a new rush of love. Every sunny day feels like the first time I saw the ocean as a child and wanted to leap right in.
Why are more people dying of this disease in the United States than in anywhere else in the world? Because we live in a broken country, with a broken health care system. Because even though people of all races and backgrounds are suffering, the disease in the United States has hit black and brown and Indigenous people the hardest, and we are seen as expendable.
I wonder how many people have died not necessarily because of the virus but because this country failed them and left them to fend for themselves. That is the grief for me now, that is the guilt and the rage.
I hope the coronavirus never comes to your town. But if it does, I will pray for you, too.]
“Asthma really hasn’t shaken out to be a significant risk factor.”
None of This Can Be Rushed
https://medium.com/@laurenfeldmanlcsw/none-of-this-can-be-rushed-c830fed61345
[I’m 53 days into my experience with the novel coronavirus. This is the longest stretch of time that I have ever been sick. Usually, when I contract a viral illness, I recover in a traditional amount of time and it is a linear process. Well, the coronavirus came in like a wrecking ball and changed all of that.
I don’t meet any of the criteria for a severe case of Covid-19. That doesn’t seem to matter. The coronavirus doesn’t care that I have no pre-existing conditions. It doesn’t care that I’m a lifelong non-smoker. It doesn’t care about how much yoga I practice or how dedicated I am to my own health and wellness. That was my first valuable lesson.
The next lesson that I learned was even harder. My body simply could not be rushed. When I contracted the coronavirus, I expected to be on the road to recovery within a few weeks. However, life had other plans.
My unrealistic expectations didn’t appear out of thin air. They were born out of the dangerous way that society treats us when we are sick, especially in the United States. The truth is, we can’t handle being sick. We can’t handle anyone else being sick.
I let my body dictate when I returned. I stopped comparing, pathologizing and judging my experience. I reassured myself that there was nothing inherently wrong with my recovery process. I just let myself heal. And then, something miraculous happened: I started to get better.
I know that we all want to skip to the part where this is over. We want the virus to be mild and to last for two weeks. We want the world to go back to the way it was. We want to bypass the general discomfort of this era. We want all of this to have been a nightmare.]
‘Weird as hell’: the Covid-19 patients who have symptoms for months
[According to the latest research, about one in 20 Covid patients experience long-term on-off symptoms. It’s unclear whether long-term means two months, or three or longer. The best parallel is dengue fever, Garner suggests – a “ghastly” viral infection of the lymph nodes which he also contracted. “Dengue comes and goes. It’s like driving around with a handbrake on for six to nine months.”
“I’ve studied 100 diseases. Covid is the strangest one I have seen in my medical career,” Spector says.
Meanwhile Covid “long-termers” have been comparing notes via a Slack support group. It has #60plus-days and #30plus-days chat groups. The dominant feeling is relief that others are in the same grim situation, and that their health problems are not imaginary.]
Antibody test results of 2 Snohomish County residents throw into question timeline of coronavirus’s U.S. arrival
“Jean is among two Snohomish County residents who have positive serology tests potentially linked to COVID-like illnesses dating back to December, throwing into question whether the coronavirus arrived in Washington, and the United States, earlier than previously known.”
Doctors keep discovering new ways the coronavirus attacks the body
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/05/10/coronavirus-attacks-body-symptoms/
A very good read. It’s intense though!
[It attacks the heart, weakening its muscles and disrupting its critical rhythm. It savages kidneys so badly some hospitals have run short of dialysis equipment. It crawls along the nervous system, destroying taste and smell and occasionally reaching the brain. It creates blood clots that can kill with sudden efficiency and inflames blood vessels throughout the body.
But many scientists have come to believe that much of the disease’s devastation comes from two intertwined causes.
The first is the harm the virus wreaks on blood vessels, leading to clots that can range from microscopic to sizable. Patients have suffered strokes and pulmonary emboli as clots break loose and travel to the brain and lungs. A study in the Lancet, a British medical journal, showed this may be because the virus directly targets the endothelial cells that line blood vessels.
The second is an exaggerated response from the body’s own immune system, a storm of killer “cytokines” that attack the body’s own cells along with the virus as it seeks to defend the body from an invader.
Research and therapies are focused on these phenomena. Blood thinners are being more widely used in some hospitals. A review of records for 2,733 patients, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, indicates they may help the most seriously ill.
“What this virus does is it starts as a viral infection and becomes a more global disturbance to the immune system and blood vessels — and what kills is exactly that,” Mehra said. “Our hypothesis is that covid-19 begins as a respiratory virus and kills as a cardiovascular virus.”
Like other coronaviruses, SARS-Cov-2 infiltrates the body by attaching to a receptor, ACE2, found on some cells. But the makeup of the spikes that protrude from this virus is somewhat different, allowing the virus to bind more tightly. As a result, fewer virus particles are required to infect the host. This also may help explain why this virus is so much more infectious than SARS, Rasmussen said.
Other factors can’t be ruled out in transmission, she said, including the amount of virus people shed and how strictly they observe social distancing rules.
Once inside a cell, the virus replicates, causing chaos. ACE2 receptors, which help regulate blood pressure, are plentiful in the lungs, kidneys and intestines — organs hit hard by the pathogen in many patients. That also may be why high blood pressure has emerged as one of the most common preexisting conditions in people who become severely ill with covid-19.
The receptors differ from person to person, leading to speculation that genetics may explain some of the variability in symptoms and how sick some people become.
Those cells “are almost everywhere, so it makes sense that the virus would cause damage throughout the body,” said Mitchell Elkind, a professor of neurology at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and president-elect of the American Heart Association.
Inflammation spurs clotting as white blood cells fight off infection. They interact with platelets and activate them in a way that increases the likelihood of clotting, Elkind said.
Such reactions have been seen in severe infections, such as sepsis. But for covid-19, he said, “we are seeing this in a large number of people in a very short time, so it really stands out.”]
12 Things I Wish I had Known Before I Got Sick With Covid-19
https://medium.com/@lisajensenthomas/12-things-i-wish-i-had-known-before-i-got-sick-with-covid-19-6d97cc4259bd
MUST READ ARTICLE! I wish I would’ve read this 3 weeks ago!!!
[Here is what I wish I had known, what I wish someone could have told me when I first got sick:
1) All 10,000 of your symptoms are normal
2) The symptoms are easier to list than to live. They can be persistent and intense.
3) It really is a roller coaster. You may feel like hell on Monday, basically fine on Tuesday, only to feel like hell hit by a hurricane on Wednesday
4) You’re going to feel all the feelings. You will feel scared and anxious. You may feel sad, depressed, lonely, isolated, misunderstood, and angry.
5) Decide on day one that you are allowed to be sick for a long time. I hope you won’t be. I hope you’re one of the lucky ones. I was sure I would be lucky. I’m youngish! And fit! And healthy! But now I’ve been sick for nearly eight weeks.
6) Accept that there are no experts (yet). If you consult with more than one doctor, expect to receive conflicting information and advice.
7) Do the obvious things, and do them well. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate, and be sure to include electrolytes. Eat the rainbow (if you can eat). And rest, rest, rest. I’ll repeat that last line for emphasis: REST, REST, REST.
8) Use all the tools! The pulse oximeter that a family member dropped off on my front porch became my best friend.
9) The grass is greener outside. Time spent in nature heals (do it in your backyard so you aren’t around anyone)
10) Get support! Trees and flowers are awesome, but we need people, too. We need people who get us. You are probably going to feel scared, isolated, confused, and anxious during this illness.
11) Find something to feel grateful for.
12) Relaaaax! It’s natural to feel stressed and anxious. Let’s not layer on more stress or anxiety by feeling anxious about our stress and stressed about our anxiety. Your stress and anxiety are normal. Accept them, and they will lessen. Fight them, and they will grow.
The risks, know them and avoid them
Very important read. Read the whole thing!
[But even if that cough or sneeze was not directed at you, some infected droplets–the smallest of small–can hang in the air for a few minutes, filling every corner of a modest sized room with infectious viral particles. All you have to do is enter that room within a few minutes of the cough/sneeze and take a few breaths and you have potentially received enough virus to establish an infection.
But with general breathing, 20 copies per minute into the environment, even if every virus ended up in your lungs, you would need 1000 copies divided by 20 copies per minute = 50 minutes.
Speaking increases the release of respiratory droplets about 10 fold; ~200 copies of virus per minute. Again, assuming every virus is inhaled, it would take ~5 minutes of speaking face-to-face to receive the required dose.
The exposure to virus x time formulae is the basis of contact tracing. Anyone you spend greater than 10 minutes with in a face-to-face situation is potentially infected. Anyone who shares a space with you (say an office) for an extended period is potentially infected.
The biggest outbreaks are in prisons, religious ceremonies, and workplaces, such a meat packing facilities and call centers. Any environment that is enclosed, with poor air circulation and high density of people, spells trouble.
The biggest super-spreading events are:
Meat packing: In meat processing plants, densely packed workers must communicate to one another amidst the deafening drum of industrial machinery and a cold-room virus-preserving environment. There are now outbreaks in 115 facilities across 23 states, 5000+ workers infected, with 20 dead. (ref)
Weddings, funerals, birthdays: 10% of early spreading events
Business networking: Face-to-face business networking like the Biogen Conference in Boston in March. Or the businessman from Maine who spread the disease to Malaysia while on a business trip.
As we move back to work, or go to a restaurant, let’s look at what can happen in those environments.
Restaurants: Some really great shoe-leather epidemiology demonstrated clearly the effect of a single asymptomatic carrier in a restaurant environment (see below). The infected person (A1) sat at a table and had dinner with 9 friends. Dinner took about 1 to 1.5 hours. During this meal, the asymptomatic carrier released low-levels of virus into the air from their breathing. Airflow (from the restaurant’s various airflow vents) was from right to left. Approximately 50% of the people at the infected person’s table became sick over the next 7 days. 75% of the people on the adjacent downwind table became infected. And even 2 of the 7 people on the upwind table were infected (believed to happen by turbulent airflow). No one at tables E or F became infected, they were out of the main airflow from the air conditioner on the right to the exhaust fan on the left of the room.]
Device that checks oxygen levels could be early warning system for coronavirus, doctor says
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-pulse-oximeter-device-oxygen-levels/
⭐️ A MUST READ ARTICLE ⭐️: PEOPLE DON’T EVEN REALIZE THEIR OXYGEN LEVELS ARE IN THE 50s bc it drops so slowly that the body attempts fo adjust and the brain doesn’t realize how low their oxygen is! Take your oxygen levels frequently!!
[Dr. Richard Levitan: People were sick for days, and then they only came in with shortness of breath, like, the day they presented. … And they would arrive with oxygen levels that basically were incredible to us. I mean, almost unimaginable how people could be awake and alert and have oxygen levels that are half normal. … Normally we are 94% to 100% on these devices, these pulse oximeters that measure how much oxygen we have in our blood. And people were showing up with oxygen levels of 50%. Now, this matches the level of oxygen that we’ve measured on the summit of Mt. Everest. And it’s amazing to me that patients could be sick for days, getting sicker, not realizing it.
Gayle King: So they had these very low oxygen levels, but they had no sensation of, “I can’t breathe.” Is that the point you’re making?
Levitan: Yeah. Exactly.
King: You were surprised that some of them were still talking on cellphones. Why is that significant?
Levitan: You know, what is amazing to me with this disease is people’s brains are working fine. … Their oxygen levels have gone down to scary low levels, but it has happened slow enough that their body has accommodated. So they are not like every other patient we see with serious lung disease … What I’m saying is this disease kills by silent hypoxia, and patients should understand that shortness of breath is a late sign.]
The coronavirus has mutated and appears to be more contagious now, new study finds
[The coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, China, over four months ago has since mutated and the new, dominant strain spreading across the U.S. appears to be even more contagious, according to a new study.
The new strain began spreading in Europe in early February before migrating to other parts of the world, including the United States and Canada, becoming the dominant form of the virus across the globe by the end of March, researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory wrote in a 33-page report published Thursday on BioRxiv.
If the coronavirus doesn’t subside in the summer like the seasonal flu, it could mutate further and potentially limit the effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccines being developed by scientists around the world, the researchers warned. Some vaccine researchers have been using the virus’s genetic sequences isolated by health authorities early in the outbreak.]
Severe Vitamin D deficiency may be connected to COVID-19 complications
[The findings may be particularly beneficial for African Americans and the elderly, groups disproportionately impacted by the virus.
“More than 50 percent of the elderly are Vitamin D deficient. More than 50 percent of African Americans are vitamin D deficient as well,” Backman said. “So, if we are talking about helping vulnerable groups, this would be one aspect I think would make sense to fix.”
The researchers said their findings need to be confirmed by a formal clinical trial, but they hope the new information will lead to better, perhaps protective treatments for COVID-19.]
Hoping Llamas Will Become Coronavirus Heroes
[Winter is a 4-year-old chocolate-colored llama with spindly legs, ever-so-slightly askew ears and envy-inducing eyelashes. Some scientists hope she might be an important figure in the fight against the novel coronavirus.
She is not a superpowered camelid. Winter was simply the lucky llama chosen by researchers in Belgium, where she lives, to participate in a series of virus studies involving both SARS and MERS. Finding that her antibodies staved off those infections, the scientists posited that those same antibodies could also neutralize the new virus that causes Covid-19. They were right, and published their results Tuesday in the journal Cell.]
New study at Rush Medical Center will have coronavirus patients lie facedown with oxygen to see if it saves them from having to go on ventilators
What is ‘happy hypoxia’? Why doctors are concerned by the latest COVID-19 symptom
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/what-is-happy-hypoxia-why-doctors-concerned-latest-coronavirus-symptom-183716741.html
I heard about this. This scares me because my oxygen has been going very low at night.
[Now, there’s another concerning symptom of the virus that doctors are spotting.
It’s being referred to as “happy hypoxia” or “silent hypoxia,” and it refers to a phenomenon where people who have low levels of oxygen in their tissues don’t seem to be impacted by what is a dangerous condition. The internet is flooded with reports of happy hypoxics who are checking their phones and chatting with nurses at blood oxygen levels that should cause them to be incredibly sick.
“With silent hypoxia, you have a gradual reduction in your ability to exchange gas and take in oxygen,” Dr. Osita Onugha, director of the Surgical Innovation Lab at John Wayne Cancer Institute at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif., tells Yahoo Life. “Your body is trying to compensate for that reduction in oxygen, but the reduction is so gradual that you don’t notice it. Most people will be short of breath but might not realize it.”
According to the WHO, people are considered hypoxic when they have an oxygen saturation level of 90 percent or below. And according to some reports, some happy hypoxics have had oxygen saturation levels as low as 50 percent.
Why is this happening with COVID-19?
It’s unclear at this point. “One theory is that the hypoxia is due to clots in the small blood vessels in the lungs, which impedes oxygen exchange,” Dr. Richard Watkins, an infectious disease physician in Akron, Ohio, and a professor of internal medicine at Northeast Ohio Medical University, tells Yahoo Life. “There are reports that the hypoxia improves with anticoagulants — medication that dissolves it.”
Your brain is trained to notice when levels of carbon dioxide in your body are too high, but not when your oxygen levels are low, Watkins says. That, he says, could help explain why some people can have hypoxia and not realize it.]
Low serum potassium in COVID-19 and thoughts on interventions
[In a study of 175 COVID-positive patients in collaboration with Wenzhou Hospital in China, nearly all were identified as having hypokalemia (low serum potassium), likely due to the mechanisms of COVID-19 on ACE2 receptors and the renin-angiotensin system. It may be that COVID creates a hyperaldosteronism kind of imbalance, causing sodium sparing and potassium wasting. Those that already had low potassium before COVID did worse. Those with low serum potassium that responded well to potassium ion supplements were reported to do better.]
4 Ways to Support Your Friend With a Long COVID-19 Recovery
- Believe them
- Encourage Rest
- Anticipate needs
- Spread awareness
Covid Teacher 