Coronavirus (NO POLITICAL OR SOCIAL COMMENTARY PLEASE)

[Lacit170]

Originally Posted by MrHT

Is that worse than the flu?

Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the flu kills 290,000 to 650,000 people per year.

[dublinbluray108]

A lot of college students in Galway are still not getting the message about not having large gatherings & large house parties being held in their locality to actually avoid getting Covid. I saw a photo trending on Twitter last night of a large number of students gathering around the Spanish Arch & Galway City Centre on their official return to college yesterday even though most of them have begun remote learning since yesterday.

There was estimates of about 300 students drinking alcohol in Salthill promenade going through various Twitter posts last night.

And of course; you guessed it. There was also a number of house parties taking place among the students in Galway last night as well. I don't know the numbers taking part in those events. But it must be a massive number of them at those parties giving a much higher risk of spreading Covid among themselves & the staff who work at these institutions as soon as they have begun their time in college.

Official Irish health service figures released last night have said that more new cases of Covid have been rising in Galway, Waterford, Limerick & Cork from last week onwards. The trend of the figures have been very high lately. Other counties like Dublin, Donegal, Louth & Wicklow have shown much higher increases of cases in recent weeks. Ireland's r number is somewhere 1.4 & 1.7 atm unless it has been updated recently.

This is the photo in question that was on Twitter last night.



They are currently in a lot of trouble with residents living in these areas and with the heads of NUIG & GMIT for doing this activity. A emergency crunch meeting with the various representatives affected by last nights events had to be held today to discuss it. There is now talk of the students beginning their time in these institutions now getting severe sanctions for attending these events after they completed their 1st day of term.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ceq-IrQSeyo

[Dubstar]

why am I not surprised in the least:

Coronavirus: Florida reports 3,266 new cases Tuesday after just 738 a day earlier

[Bigdog]

Originally Posted by Dubstar

why am I not surprised in the least:

Coronavirus: Florida reports 3,266 new cases Tuesday after just 738 a day earlier

The numbers seem pretty consistent to me, this is only going back a couple weeks too. This is what happens when you read past the headline.

Tuesday: 3,266
Monday: 738
Sept. 27: 1,882
Sept. 26: 2,795
Sept. 25: 2,847
Sept. 24: 2,541
Sept. 23: 2,590
Sept. 22: 2,470
Sept. 21: 1,685
Sept. 20: 2,521
Sept. 19: 3,573
Sept. 18: 3,204
Sept. 17: 3,255
Sept. 16: 2,355
Sept. 15: 3,116
Sept. 14: 1,736

[Penton-Man]

Dubstar, I don’t know about Florida at this time, but one of my housemates from college gives me heads-ups as to what’s going on in the state of Wisconsin, where they really need to strictly adhere to, and take seriously, public health measures, e.g. importantly, no excuses, the wearing of masks – https://whbl.com/2020/09/25/covid-19...out-wisconsin/

[Penton-Man]

^
The latest on CNN, posted within the last hour - “Wisconsin reports highest number…- https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/...b3fcc1b641cfa3

[Chaotic]

A fed ex driver at my facility tested positive. Of course it’s a driver on my belt line.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by ctujackbauer

The Mayo Clinic post hoc subgroup analyses also suggested a benefit of high-titer plasma in patients who received plasma within 3 days of COVID-19 diagnosis (17).

Sounds pretty decent to me, give it early and give it to people under 80. What's the problem?

Jack, as a follow-up to what I tried to explain last week, now more eloquently stated in the New England Journal of Medicine, yesterday, in the editorial “The FDA and the Importance of Trust”.

As no randomized trial has established efficacy or addressed potential toxicity, and the data underlying the FDA’s recommendation are opaque and unclear. Many questions remain: Does convalescent plasma work? Are all units of convalescent plasma equal (i.e., is the immune response generated by one person generalizable to all recovered persons)? Do the active antibodies generated in Covid-19 persist in potential donors, allowing proper harvesting? Will antibody activity be equivalent in all patients and at every stage of illness?

And also not mentioned in the NEJM article is that a result of the Emergency Use Authorization for COVID-19 plasma is that it’s become more difficult to recruit patients for 34 clinical trials to date – https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/resul...ype=Intr&rslt=

Because patients (and for that matter, their doctors) are inclined to choose not to take the risk of being randomized to a placebo in prospective, well-controlled, adequately powered randomized trial, preferring rather to receive the real thing, for sure, vis-à-vis the EUA.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Dubstar, I don’t know about Florida at this time, but one of my housemates from college gives me heads-ups as to what’s going on in the state of Wisconsin, where they really need to strictly adhere to, and take seriously, public health measures, e.g. importantly, no excuses, the wearing of masks – https://whbl.com/2020/09/25/covid-19...out-wisconsin/

^
Also emphasizing the practice of socially distancing, too, as the WH Task Force has recommended ‘maximal’ social distancing for the state of Wisconsin

[Penton-Man]

whereas, in the spirit of staying positive and testing negative – https://www.afi.com/news/afi-fest-20...ual-oct-15-22/

[ctujackbauer]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Jack, as a follow-up to what I tried to explain last week, now more eloquently stated in the New England Journal of Medicine, yesterday, in the editorial “The FDA and the Importance of Trust”.

As no randomized trial has established efficacy or addressed potential toxicity, and the data underlying the FDA’s recommendation are opaque and unclear. Many questions remain: Does convalescent plasma work? Are all units of convalescent plasma equal (i.e., is the immune response generated by one person generalizable to all recovered persons)? Do the active antibodies generated in Covid-19 persist in potential donors, allowing proper harvesting? Will antibody activity be equivalent in all patients and at every stage of illness?

And also not mentioned in the NEJM article is that a result of the Emergency Use Authorization for COVID-19 plasma is that it’s become more difficult to recruit patients for 34 clinical trials to date – https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/resul...ype=Intr&rslt=

Because patients (and for that matter, their doctors) are inclined to choose not to take the risk of being randomized to a placebo in prospective, well-controlled, adequately powered randomized trial, preferring rather to receive the real thing, for sure, vis-à-vis the EUA.

You chopped off half of my post. The half of the post that said: Unless you're going to give people fake placebo plasma in a hospital environment you're not going to have a large enough untreated group. Plus you'd have to blow it out to vaccine sample size numbers (30,000+)


You're probably not going to get a large enough sample of people willing to try placebo plasma because they're in the hospital for good reason, so why not let people try actual plasma? The baseline results are about as good as Remdesivir.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by ctujackbauer

You chopped off half of my post. The half of the post that said: Unless you're going to give people fake placebo plasma in a hospital environment you're not going to have a large enough untreated group. Plus you'd have to blow it out to vaccine sample size numbers (30,000+)

no offense intended , did so with the intention to address the main point and save redundant reading time

Originally Posted by ctujackbauer

You're probably not going to get a large enough sample of people willing to try placebo plasma because they're in the hospital for good reason, so why not let people try actual plasma?

I’d thought that the editorial in NEJM by Dr. Baden (from Harvard and its affiliate hospitals - http://researchfaculty.brighamandwom...e.aspx?id=1843) et al. and my add-on comment (the resultant difficulty to enroll in proper clinical trials to answer remaining important clinical management questions) had made that clear. Look, the target number of participants for a randomized parallel assignment clinical trial to answer some of these important questions is waaay less than 30,000, e.g. out of HUP - https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/...&draw=2&rank=5

But a doctor is going to get hardly anybody to enroll in a 50/50 proposition when given informed consent that they can get the real deal (convalescent plasma) guaranteed now thru the issuance of the EUA while they're hospitalized fighting COVID-19.

Originally Posted by ctujackbauer

The baseline results are about as good as Remdesivir.

As to Remdesivir, from the same NEJM article -
“Although the EUA that was issued for remdesivir required fewer data than standard FDA approval, it relied on results from at least one high-quality randomized, placebo-controlled trial. But the EUAs granted for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine and, more recently, for convalescent plasma have raised the troubling concern…..”

[Deadend45]

"Stephane Bancel (insider trades) sold 19,000 shares of MRNA on 09/24/2020 at an average price of $66.68 a share."

https://www.gurufocus.com/news/12424...lion-of-shares

Dont you just love stock dumping just before giving bad news?

[Pondosinatra]

Originally Posted by Deadend45

"Stephane Bancel (insider trades) sold 19,000 shares of MRNA on 09/24/2020 at an average price of $66.68 a share."

https://www.gurufocus.com/news/12424...lion-of-shares

Dont you just love stock dumping just before giving bad news?

Now now...the SEC will do an 'investigation'...and well....that's about it.

[deckard82]

I assume tonight's events will be a wake-up call for some people. Just so certain people know: This virus was already dangerous before tonight's events.

And I should add: I don't wish this upon anyone and wish everyone involved a speedy recovery.

[Gold Ranger]

Tonight's events?

[ctujackbauer]

If this were a movie, this would be the part of the movie where the country rallies around the flag and starts those candlelight vigils, like in the movie Air Force One.

We live in two countries these days, essentially, so that will never happen.

[DanTheMan]

My immediate response to the breaking news tonight was "Well, well....."

Twitter is currently saying it better than I could've.

Originally Posted by deckard82

I assume tonight's events will be a wake-up call for some people.

Hopefully for way more than some people.

[ltb2.0]

The President has tested positive for Covid. In case anyone has failed to check the news and were wondering what the above was referencing

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by deckard82

I assume tonight's events will be a wake-up call for some people. Just so certain people know: This virus was already dangerous before tonight's events.

And I should add: I don't wish this upon anyone and wish everyone involved a speedy recovery.

I would hope that any person who tests positive for COVID-19 and is fortunate enough not to get seriously ill, does not end up ultimately minimizing the significance of this disease.

Because remember, for those not so lucky, there is still no proven cure, only supportive therapeutics like Remdesivir, anti-coagulants, Dex – https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...d#post17791930
etc.