Amerika

Spread of Coronavirus Pandemic Slows

• CDC Director: Coronavirus Death Toll Will Be ‘Much, Much, Much Lower’ than Projected

  In fact, what we’re seeing is a large majority of the American public are taking the social distancing recommendations to heart. And I think that’s the direct consequence of why you’re seeing the numbers are going to be much, much, much lower than would have been predicted by the models.

  Translation: if you keep people from mingling, the virus dies out. This is what we want. Stay home, wash your hands, clean your room, and read Siege.

• Germany’s Number of Coronavirus Recoveries Exceeds New Cases

  Some 7,381 people recovered from the illness in 24 hours, compared with 3,252 new cases, the lowest growth in infections in two weeks, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Deaths rose by 226 to 1,810 on Tuesday, the highest number of new fatalities in a day for the country.

  As the virus runs its arc, deaths will increase but new infections will fall.

• Denmark Joins Austria in Easing Virus Curbs as Europe Cases Slow

  Denmark and Austria were among the first countries in Europe to shut down public life in response to the Covid-19 outbreak that first emerged in China. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz earlier announced the first steps to restart his country’s economy, with small retailers, hardware and gardening stores allowed to reopen after Easter, to be followed by the opening of all stores from May 1.

  Denmark will press ahead with a “cautious reopening” starting with kindergartens and primary schools on April 15 if the virus numbers remain stable, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said at a press briefing in Copenhagen on Monday evening. The government will also start talks with business leaders on gradually moving employees back into offices, Frederiksen said.

• The hilltop fortress town that cut itself off from the world — and coronavirus

  On March 14, Zahara cut itself off from the outside world as a dangerous coronavirus spread its tentacles across Spain. The mayor, 40-year-old Santiago Galván, decided to block all but one of the town’s five entrances.

  Borders work. Seal off the world, avoid its (many) problems.

• Coronavirus wreaks havoc in African American neighbourhoods

  Black Chicagoans account for half of all coronavirus cases in the city and more than 70% of deaths, despite making up 30% of the population.

  Other cities with large black populations, including Detroit, Milwaukee, New Orleans and New York, have become coronavirus hotspots.

  White residents account for about 23% of recorded cases in Michigan and 28% of deaths, according to the data.

  Mayor Lightfoot said diabetes, heart disease and respiratory illness were “really prevalent” in black communities.

  More likely urban populations suffer from more pollution. In addition, there are biological/genetic differences between races, castes, and ethnic groups. Which would you prefer: everyone gets the same treatment (equality!!!1!) or you get treatment tailored to your group, and hopefully your social class within that group and familial history?

• Hunt Is on for Genetic Clues to Why Coronavirus Impact Varies

  Those studying the outbreak say one of the most perplexing questions is why some young and middle-aged people who have no underlying disorders, and appear to be otherwise healthy, have required serious medical intervention or died after being infected.

  Perhaps they should also investigate why many if not most who encounter it have mild symptoms. Somehow, genetics and HBD become important when Leftism fails to address a crisis, but not before!

Treatment Watch

• No need for healthy to wear face masks, says WHO after review

  Even with the mouth and nose fully covered, the virus can still enter through the eyes.

  In other words, wear masks, but also protect the eyes. The usual backward headlines help us not at all.

• On average only 6% of actual SARS-CoV-2 infections detected worldwide

  This shows that countries have only discovered on average about 6% of infections. The number of infections worldwide may already have reached several tens of millions.

  Look for mortality rates to fall closer to initial estimates based on SARS.

• 51 recovered coronavirus patients in South Korea test positive again after release from quarantine

  The virus likely was reactivated, said KCDC Director-General Jeong Eun-kyeong, instead of the people being reinfected once they left, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

• Why Does Covid-19 Make Some People So Sick? Ask Their DNA

  But the disease it causes, Covid-19, is more mercurial in its manifestations. Only some infected people ever get sick. Those who do experience a wide range of symptoms. Some get fever and a cough. For others it’s stomach cramps and diarrhea. Some lose their appetite. Some lose their sense of smell. Some can wait it out at home with a steady diet of fluids and The Great British Baking Show. Others drown in a sea of breathing tubes futilely forcing air into their flooded lungs. Old people, those with underlying conditions, and men make up the majority of the casualties. But not always. In the US, an alarmingly high fraction of those hospitalized with severe symptoms are adults under the age of 40. Kids, and in particular infants, aren’t invincible either.

  But it’s these very rare mutations that are likely driving cases of extreme susceptibility to Covid-19, says Stephen Chapman, a respiratory physician and researcher at the University of Oxford’s Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, who isn’t part of the 23andMe project. In the mid-2000s, he conducted some of the first genetic studies on susceptibility to bacterial pneumonia, and discovered rare mutations in immune-related genes that made otherwise healthy children and adults especially susceptible to an invasion by one particular bacteria. Chapman suspects similarly rare mutations involved in immune function or inflammatory responses could be what’s putting young, apparently fit adults without other risk factors into ICU beds.

• Doctors Develop a Protocol for Identifying and Treating COVID-19 Cases Likely to Be Most Serious

  Among the score of markers that treating physicians can monitor, the study recommends when evaluating new COVID-19 patients, physicians focus on levels of the protein ferritin as a predictor of affliction with Cytokine Storm. Levels of C-reactive protein provide a measure of the success of treatment with immunosuppressants.

• BAME groups hit harder by Covid-19 than white people, UK study suggests

  The Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre found that 35% of almost 2,000 patients were non-white, nearly triple the 13% proportion in the UK population as a whole.

  Fourteen per cent of those with the most serious cases were Asian and the same proportion were black, according to the study, which has triggered calls for further research to understand why the virus appears to be having a disproportionate impact on non-white ethnic groups.

  Turns out all those diseases that killed our ancestors had some advantages. Those same diseases wiped out people in the New World, and may have been responsible for the majority of deaths on slave ships.

CureWatch

• Atazanavir
• Avigan
• Camopan/Camostat
• Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccine
• Clinical-grade soluble human ACE2
• Favipiravir
• Hydroxychloroquine (but)
• Ivermectin
• Leronlimab
• Malaria/HIV drug cocktail
• Microneedle array delivered recombinant coronavirus vaccines
• Nafamostat
• Plasma
• Remdesivir, lopinavir and ritonavir

Race and Covid-19

• Release Comprehensive Demographic Data about COVID-19

  Without access to demographic data, we cannot adequately respond to the needs of desperate Americans or acknowledge the suffering being endured by our low-income and minority communities.

  This petition kicked off a rampage, and now the news is actually covering this on the back pages of their online search engines.

• Comparative genetic analysis of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV/SARS-CoV-2) receptor ACE2 in different populations

  Only two of these six variants (rs200180615 and rs140473595) could be found in CHB (Han Chinese in Beijing) population with the AF < 0.01. Interestingly, the SNP rs2285666 with the highest AF in the 62 variants exhibited much higher AF in the ChinaMAP (0.556) and CHS (Han Chinese South, 0.557) populations compared to others (AMR, Ad Mixed American, 0.336; AFR, African, 0.2114; EUR, European, 0.235). In addition, the homozygous mutation rate in males (0.550) was much higher than females (0.310) in the Chinese population (Supplementary Table S2). Taken together, the differences in AFs of ACE2 coding variants among different populations suggested that the diverse genetic basis might affect ACE2 functions among populations.

  No word on Africans. Could be higher rates of hypertension and diabetes.

• Single-cell RNA expression profiling of ACE2, the putative receptor of Wuhan 2019-nCov

  Here based on the public database and the state-of-the-art single-cell RNA-Seq technique, we analyzed the ACE2 RNA expression profile in the normal human lungs. The result indicates that the ACE2 virus receptor expression is concentrated in a small population of type II alveolar cells (AT2). Surprisingly, we found that this population of ACE2-expressing AT2 also highly expressed many other genes that positively regulating viral reproduction and transmission. A comparison between eight individual samples demonstrated that the Asian male one has an extremely large number of ACE2-expressing cells in the lung.

Tags: bat AIDS, chinese virus, COHIVID-19, coronavirus, covid-19, linkpost, panicdemic, wuhan flu