3083 replies to this topic

[Mind]

Overview: How Coronavirus Mutates and Spreads.
https://www.nytimes....-mutations.html

Punch line of the opinion: mutation seems slow. So I think tracking is possible. Strategy: TIT: Test, Isolate, Track

"...In fact, researchers have found that the coronavirus is mutating relatively slowly compared to some other RNA viruses, in part because virus proteins acting as proofreaders are able to fix some mistakes. Each month, a lineage of coronaviruses might acquire only two single-letter mutations. In the future, the coronavirus may pick up some mutations that help it evade our immune systems. But the slow mutation rate of the coronavirus means that these changes will emerge over the course of years..."

 

Strategy: TIT: Test, Isolate, Track

 

The most optimal solution is an effective treatment. That is what I am focused upon. Hundreds of trials are ongoing and many will be releasing preliminary data soon.

[bladedmind]

Substances in Ecklonia Cava promising for COVID-19 trial.

 

https://www.mdpi.com...97/18/4/225/htm

 

We identified potent Mpro inhibitors employing computational techniques that entail the screening of a Marine Natural Product (MNP) library. MNP library was screened by a hyphenated pharmacophore model, and molecular docking approaches. Molecular dynamics and re-docking further confirmed the results obtained by structure-based techniques and allowed this study to highlight some crucial aspects. Seventeen potential SARS-CoV-2 Mpro inhibitors have been identified among the natural substances of marine origin. As these compounds were extensively validated by a consensus approach and by molecular dynamics, the likelihood that at least one of these compounds could be bioactive is excellent.

 

 

 

https://examine.com/.../ecklonia-cava/

[Daniel Cooper]

Strategy: TIT: Test, Isolate, Track

 

The most optimal solution is an effective treatment. That is what I am focused upon. Hundreds of trials are ongoing and many will be releasing preliminary data soon.

 

Exactly.  Test, Isolate, Track is useful very early in a infectious disease spread.  When you have a limited number of cases.

 

Right now, there must surely be hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in this country with an active infection at this moment.  A fair number of which will never show symptoms.  Unless you have the capability to test a significant portion of the population repeatedly (not just once), you're never going to be effective with that strategy.  With so many cases running around, again many of which will be asymptomatic, tracking goes out the window.  And you'd probably need the capability to run something on the order of 10 million tests per month to stay on top of it via testing. 

 

The Test, Isolate, Track ship sailed months ago, if it was ever viable here in the US.  We now know that the virus was here unobserved no later than sometime in December. The genie was out of the bottle before we knew there was a genie.

 

Treatment and vaccination are the only ways we are going to get on top of this.

 

 

 

 

 

[gamesguru]

The Test, Isolate, Track ship sailed months ago, if it was ever viable here in the US. We now know that the virus was here unobserved no later than sometime in December.

Except we don't know it was here much before mid January.

And the only reason tracking is in possible now is the early denial phase. We should have used that time to ramp up PPE and testing abilities, to lock down and scope out any infectees. Instead we chose to down play the threat and not spook the stock market.

Places like Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan have all been proactive and willing to make the small sacrifices needed to keep this thing in check. Talk to them about a vaccine or herd immunity and they will say it's nice but they have a different plan A.

[Gal220]

This vitamin D discussion is myopic. Vitamin D is a PROXY for Solar Exposure

What does that do? It helps blood flow more freely, it relaxes endothelial stuff via NO, it improves mitochondria function via Cytochrome C Oxidase, it stimulates synthesis of immune products in the skin.

You are not gonna get even 25% of this via any pills.

 

Kessler aggrees on his vitamin D page - https://chriskresser...-is-not-better/ .  But from a pragmatic standpoint, I can only do this on weekends, and during the winter hardly any vitamin D is produced unless you live below the Mason-Dixon - see map -https://www.health.h...-more-vitamin-d . Time of day is also important , 10am-3pm.  To top it off,  Vit D synthesis also gets worse with age.

 

It appears the BBC is going for the Darwin award this year, apparently they got wind of the corona / vit D correlation and decided to let their readers know to supplement 400IU ! Hopefully their readers seek out their medical advice elsewhere.

 

https://www.bbc.com/...health-52371688

[gamesguru]

wait, is the vitamin D just for people who are deficient or are they suggesting mega-dosing

[Daniel Cooper]

Except we don't know it was here much before mid January.

And the only reason tracking is in possible now is the early denial phase. We should have used that time to ramp up PPE and testing abilities, to lock down and scope out any infectees. Instead we chose to down play the threat and not spook the stock market.

Places like Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan have all been proactive and willing to make the small sacrifices needed to keep this thing in check. Talk to them about a vaccine or herd immunity and they will say it's nice but they have a different plan A.

 

The first death has now been placed at February 3rd.  On average it takes about 1 month between infection to death, so very early January.  That person had not traveled overseas or been in contact with someone that had, which means they probably didn't get it from a 1st generation infection. 

 

It was clearly here before the end of the year.

[gamesguru]

The first death has now been placed at February 3rd.  On average it takes about 1 month between infection to death, so very early January.  That person had not traveled overseas or been in contact with someone that had, which means they probably didn't get it from a 1st generation infection. 

 

It was clearly here before the end of the year.

 

The death latency may be less early in the pandemic, because no one seeks treatment or knows what to look for, and then bam.. sudden death.

 

That person was also from the San Francisco Bay area.  They get plenty of travel from China.  It could have easily been a 1st generation or 2nd generation infection.

 

Not saying it wasn't here in December, but the earliest date I can be sure of is mid January.

[Daniel Cooper]

The death latency may be less early in the pandemic, because no one seeks treatment or knows what to look for, and then bam.. sudden death.

 

That person was also from the San Francisco Bay area.  They get plenty of travel from China.  It could have easily been a 1st generation or 2nd generation infection.

 

Not saying it wasn't here in December, but the earliest date I can be sure of is mid January.

 

The first death has now had extensive tracking done around them.  The consensus is that they probably did not have contact with a 1st gen patient.  Yes, there is a lot of travel between CA and China, so it is logical that somewhere in CA would get the first cases, but if our dead guy had contact with someone that traveled overseas, they likely would have found it by now. The press is saying that this patient probably got it from "community spread", i.e. a 2nd or later generation patient.

 

And keep in mind that this is the first known death.  You almost never really find "patient zero", you find "patient zero that we know about". It is highly likely that the first death was some random person that came in to some emergency room with an upper respiratory infection/pneumonia.  They were probably older and when they died probably no one batted an eye.  Older patients come into hospital emergency rooms all the time with random upper respiratory infections/pneumonia and end up dying within a week or so.  Particularly right in the middle of flu season.  This death would have raised no alarm bells because it is so common. The true first death would have been utterly unremarkable. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gamesguru]

The first death has now had extensive tracking done around them.  The consensus is that they probably did not have contact with a 1st gen patient.  Yes, there is a lot of travel between CA and China, so it is logical that somewhere in CA would get the first cases, but if our dead guy had contact with someone that traveled overseas, they likely would have found it by now. The press is saying that this patient probably got it from "community spread", i.e. a 2nd or later generation patient.

 

And keep in mind that this is the first known death.  You almost never really find "patient zero", you find "patient zero that we know about". It is highly likely that the first death was some random person that came in to some emergency room with an upper respiratory infection/pneumonia.  They were probably older and when they died probably no one batted an eye.  Older patients come into hospital emergency rooms all the time with random upper respiratory infections/pneumonia and end up dying within a week or so.  Particularly right in the middle of flu season.  This death would have raised no alarm bells because it is so common. The true first death would have been utterly unremarkable. 

 

Gavin has been proactive on this front, he ordered all suspicious deaths in Jan/Dec be exhumed and tested for mRNA.

 

Yes, it could have been infected from a Gen 2.  But that doesn't take much.  Someone visits the Bay area, coughs at a market, an unlucky soul picks it up.  He goes asymptomatic, but four days later passes it on to our "patient zero", who dies two weeks later.  It's easy to explain how things would have started as late as Jan 20 almost, for sure Jan 10.

[Daniel Cooper]

Gavin has been proactive on this front, he ordered all suspicious deaths in Jan/Dec be exhumed and tested for mRNA.

 

Yes, it could have been infected from a Gen 2.  But that doesn't take much.  Someone visits the Bay area, coughs at a market, an unlucky soul picks it up.  He goes asymptomatic, but four days later passes it on to our "patient zero", who dies two weeks later.  It's easy to explain how things would have started as late as Jan 20 almost, for sure Jan 10.

 

Just curious, why are you so mentally invested in no US covid cased before Jan 1?

 

There are a number of medical experts that have pushed the likely arrival of covid in the US to late December.  That's the way these things go.  You think you know when a pandemic started, and you almost invariably find it started earlier than you thought once the dust starts to settle.

 

Heck, there are medical historians that now think the 1918 Flu was running around China for a number of years prior, as evidenced by the fact that the Chinese mortality rate was notably lower than that in the West, implying that they had developed some immunity.

 

Whenever a retrospective is done on a pandemic it is quite normal to see the initial cases get pushed back in time as more is learned.  I would not personally like to bet against that trend in this case.

 

 

[Gal220]

I started taking C60 again

 

I would love to see more C60 research, seems promising.  If it is preventative, they are missing out on a fortune.

[smithx]

I had a fever for 2 days at the end of December followed by 2 months of coughing and feeling sick. It was viral (did bacterial cultures which were negative) and not identified as anything in particular.

 

Last week I had the Abbot Labs IGG test and am waiting (maybe for up to 3 weeks) for the results. That test is stated to be 100% sensitive and 99.5% specific for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. I also got a PCR test which was negative.

 

I'm probably seronegative for antibodies and didn't ever have covid-19, but if not, that could imply that SARS-CoV-2 was in San Francisco before Jan 1. Will update when I know. 

[Florin]

CPAP + proning

 

https://www.cnn.com/...-gbr/index.html

[gamesguru]

Heck, there are medical historians that now think the 1918 Flu was running around China for a number of years prior

 

Yes, and they're called fringe scientists.

 

Again, I feel it could have been here in December.  But January is the soonest I would bet on.  If we conservatively push it back once, the tendency of mind will be to push it back again, and again.  And the data just do not support that, yet.

Edited by gamesguru, 02 May 2020 - 09:10 PM.

[Daniel Cooper]

Yes, and they're called fringe scientists.

 

 

We're getting off track here but by all means take a look at the Wikipedia article on the 1918 Pandemic.  This is not "fringe science".  It's been discussed for decades.  The 1918 flu seems to have been far less fatal in China, which implies that it may have been endemic there for some time before that year giving that population some immunity.  No one claims anything definite.  It was too long ago and records are too incomplete, but there is a reasonable case for the 1918 flu having been in China for some time before it's breakout into the West. There are also reasonable cases to be made for other places of origin (Kansas being one of them).

 

Let's not fall into the trap of calling things we don't like "fringe science" without something to back that up.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Daniel Cooper, 02 May 2020 - 09:45 PM.

[gamesguru]

The 1918 flu seems to have been far less fatal in China, which implies that it may have been endemic there for some time before that year giving that population some immunity.

 

There's plenty of reasons they could have better tolerance to the (H1N1)pdm09 virus.

 

We don't have to jump the boat and say it was circulating there for years.  Even in the 1900s culture, diseases spread quickly.  Within a year nearly all places that will be affected, are at least beginning to feel the effects.

 

They could have had exposure to previous H1N1 subtypes.  They could have been saved by Chinese herbal medicine.  They could have under-reported deaths.  Taiwan experienced quite a significant wave in 1920.  Pretty much any immunologically-naive population would experience a significant wave from H1N1.  The idea it could be spreading silently in a large country for years just does not seem like the leading theory to me.  Perhaps labeling it fringe was extreme.

[Daniel Cooper]

Again, I apologize for the off-topic (or at least tangentially related to the topic) post.

 

You must understand the world of 1918.  We didn't have cheap, rapid, mass transit.  People didn't routinely move about the globe (well, at least they didn't commonly before a World War started).  China wasn't a locus of world commerce at the time.  It was quite possible for a virus to circulate locally but not globally at that time.

 

I threw out the example as an instance where the starting date of a pandemic has been pushed back as more information develops.  And indeed, no matter where the 1918 pandemic started, the consensus as to the when is around 1915 or 1916, several years before when it was noticed.

 

Let's take something more recent.  The HIV epidemic was thought to have sprung out of the blue in the 1980s.  Then a doctor remembered a mysterious illness of a sailor that he treated back in the late 1960s.  It was such an unusual case that he actually preserved a blood sample.  When it was tested, lo and behold that patent was found to have been infected with HIV circa 1968 (if memory serves).  Gene sequencing of the virus, determining it's rate of mutation, and comparing it to the primate version of HIV from which it diverged kept pushing back the likely jump date to humans further and further back.  I believe I've seen estimates of1920 to the late 1800s.  And this for an epidemic in more or less modern times (trust me - 40 years isn't that long).

 

My point is, it is very common to see a pandemic suddenly appear and believe that you know the start date, but to later have that date pushed back as more information develops.  We've already seen some of that on the arrival date in the US.  Based on past history of these things, it would be normal to see it pushed further back both in China and in the US.  It's possible that covid-19 is the exception, but that pattern is the rule.

 

 

[gamesguru]

You must understand the world of 1918.  We didn't have cheap, rapid, mass transit.  People didn't routinely move about the globe (well, at least they didn't commonly before a World War started).  China wasn't a locus of world commerce at the time.  It was quite possible for a virus to circulate locally but not globally at that time.

 

I really doubt this because the 1510 Influenza pandemic spread across 3 continents within six months.  The same is true of the Plague of 746–747.

 

Yes as time moved on, the HIV epidemic was generally agreed to have started earlier than previously thought.  But this is a reactive process, we don't just go speculatively assuming all pandemics need to be pushed back because a few have.  That is good logic, but bad reasoning.  Instead, we ought to stick with the facts til new ones emerge.  Anything is possible.  The virus could have started in Brazil in 2018, but let's just stick with Wuhan and November 2019 while the facts bear that out.

 

Technology has also gotten better with time.  Gaven Newsom ordered testing of all suspicious deaths in December in the hottest area for Chinese tourists—the Bay area.  That kind of coverage didn't exist in the 1950s.  And it's why we use more speculative techniques to confirm this theory—exhuming corpses, phylogenetic drift, common ancestors, and evaluating antibody prevalence of related diseases, such as SIV in the African forests.

Edited by gamesguru, 02 May 2020 - 10:40 PM.

[lancebr]

I guess Naproxen might be a better choice than Tylenol for this virus:

 

Broad-spectrum antiviral activity of naproxen: from Influenza A to SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus

 

https://www.biorxiv.....04.30.069922v1

Edited by lancebr, 02 May 2020 - 11:25 PM.

[gamesguru]

I guess Naproxen might be a better choice than Tylenol for this virus:

 

Broad-spectrum antiviral activity of naproxen: from Influenza A to SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus

 

https://www.biorxiv.....04.30.069922v1

 

Yeah, it's tough to say.  Sometimes nothing comes of these early correlations

 

Should patients with COVID-19 avoid ibuprofen or RAAS antagonists?

Researchers have hypothesized that treatments that increase angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) may also increase the risk of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). This speculation and other concerns have led some officials and organizations to question whether ibuprofen or other drugs such as renin angiotensin aldosterone system (RAAS) antagonists should be avoided as treatments in patients with COVID-19. Health agencies and professional organizations have said they are not recommending against these medications.

 

[albedo]

Strategy: TIT: Test, Isolate, Track

 

The most optimal solution is an effective treatment. That is what I am focused upon. Hundreds of trials are ongoing and many will be releasing preliminary data soon.

 

Hi Mind! Tks. My comment on strategy was only a side note in the post (focused replying to the mutation rate). As you rise the point, who knows, maybe we are both right and wrong!

Right, in the sense that both approaches should be run in parallel (as many countries are doing after various forms of lock-down, e.g. Italy, Switzerland, Germany, ... there is a blossoming of secure apps emerging), you - solution/saving lives at the bed (possibly also as prophylactic), me - emphasizing TIT as the gold standard of epidemiology before immunization and vaccines. As usual there is also a distinction between the strategy and the tactics.

Wrong, because we both did not emphasize the timing, TIT more effective at the start of the epidemy/pandemy.

In any case this is probably out of topic of supplements and therapies but wished to add an element of reflection too.  
 

Edited by albedo, 03 May 2020 - 10:49 AM.

[albedo]

"...Our multidisciplinary team of researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, called the QCRG, identified 69 existing drugs and compounds with potential to treat COVID-19. A month ago, we began shipping boxes of these drugs off to Institut Pasteur in Paris and Mount Sinai in New York to see if they do in fact fight the coronavirus.

In the last four weeks, we have tested 47 of these drugs and compounds in the lab against live coronavirus. I’m happy to report we’ve identified some strong treatment leads and identified two separate mechanisms for how these drugs affect SARS-CoV-2 infection. Our findings were published on April 30 in the journal Nature..."

 

https://theconversat...covid-19-136789

 

 47 repurposed potential drugs.PNG   947.48KB   0 downloads

[fighter]

 

For prophylaxis and initial infection: Viral replication is greatest in the first week when there are less serious symptoms. Final outcomes (death or recovery) seem to depend somewhat or largely on the viral load in this first stage, so it's essential to stop replication as much as possible as soon as possible!:

 

Vitamin D (2500IU per day or higher). Daily doses are prefered over higher weekly doses for various reasons.

https://papers.ssrn....ract_id=3571484

Vitamin D status is significantly associated with clinical outcomes. A multinomial logistic regression analysis reported that for each standard deviation increase in serum 25(OH)D, the odds of having a mild clinical outcome rather than a severe outcome were approximately 7.94 times (OR=0.126, p<0.001) while interestingly, the odds of having a mild clinical outcome rather than a critical outcome were approximately 19.61 times (OR=0.051, p<0.001). The results suggest that an increase in serum 25(OH)D level in the body could either improve clinical outcomes or mitigate worst (severe to critical) outcomes, while a decrease in serum 25(OH)D level in the body could worsen clinical outcomes of COVID-2019 patients.

 

 

Anything on Lactoferrin/Apolactoferrin? I think that is where the "drink breast milk" idea came about. The dosage administered to HCV patients was 1.8-3.6g qd
Also LEF's adamant on using garlic, garlic oil, allicin 9000-18000mg qd

[osris]

Just saw this:

 

Covid-19 does not thrive in an alkaline body environment.

 

https://www.drugtarg...fight-covid-19/

[bladedmind]

Citrulline and sepsis

 

n summary, plasma citrulline levels are low in patients with severe sepsis and low levels are associated with the presence of ARDS. Further studies are needed to determine whether citrulline supplementation could prevent the development of ARDS in patients with severe sepsis.

 

 

https://ccforum.biom...10.1186/cc11934

[Mind]

I thought this should go here, since there has been a lot of talk about hydroxychloroquine (combination treatment) and the national media in the U.S. went into full attack-mode against the treatment because the President suggested it might be helpful.

 

The woman who claimed her husband died after drinking fish-tank cleaner (because President Trump "told her to do it", lol), is now under investigation for murder.

 

I believed the original story at first, because there are some not-so-smart people in the world, but I thought...that is REALLY dumb, almost unbelievably so.

 

Turns out:

 

The woman hates Donald Trump.

She had a history of violence against her husband.

Wanted a divorce.

Her husband was not "dumb". He was an engineer.

 

Sad to think that the national media fell for the story hook, line, and sinker, possibly delaying an effective treatment.

 

 

[gamesguru]

The woman who claimed her husband died after drinking fish-tank cleaner (because President Trump "told her to do it", lol), is now under investigation for murder.

 

What an idiot.  It's the middle of a pandemic.  Just dispose of the evidence.  No one would notice he's gone til the lock-down ends.

[joelcairo]

Just saw this:

 

Covid-19 does not thrive in an alkaline body environment.

 

https://www.drugtarg...fight-covid-19/

 

This is hypothetical and ingesting carbonate to mess with your pH is potentially dangerous.

 

[Adding... I don't mean to dismiss this out of hand. Even though some people dismiss this by pointing to the body's serum pH always staying in a narrow range, I have seen cancer studies of this type of therapy that suggest that SOMETHING positive can happen -- perhaps the pH of the body's tissues (as opposed to blood) can indeed be gradually affected. Nonetheless I do not buy into the perpetual naturopathic advice to keep your body alkaline and I don't see any evidence backing up the claims here.]

Edited by joelcairo, 03 May 2020 - 07:47 PM.

[fighter]

Other than this, restricting the virus access to iron with curcumin, quercetin and IP6 (Inositol Hexaphosphate) would seem logical.

 

How does this coincide with Lactoferrin and also Vit C which facilitates iron absorption and is also currently being administered to Covid-19 patients in New York NorthWell Hospitals?