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COVID-19 Check-in 2.0
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Comments
Hey, some good news! And from the NYT no less.
The TLDR version is herd immunity is coming.
@RxDawg That is an encouraging article and from the NYT! Here is another one that will take you by surprise. This week's Newsweek ran an oped by a Yale epidemiologist and it strongly endorses hydroxychloroquine along with an antibiotic and zinc. Very interesting read, too.
https://www.newsweek.com/key-defeating-covid-19-already-exists-we-need-start-using-it-opinion-1519535
To add to this informative article, Swedish scientists have been doing a lot of research on these memory T cells that are capable of mounting a defense against CV 19. They have tested a lot of Swedish blood and they have found that roughly, for every positive IGG serology test, there are two negative tests that contain memory T cells for fighting CV 19, and the rest are completely negative. A lot of speculation has followed, but obviously if 15-20% of your population randomly tests positive for antibodies and that represents a third of the actual immunity, you are looking at 45-60% of your population that might have immunity. That might explain why Sweden appears to have hit a degree of herd immunity at lower levels of positive antibody tests.
Interestingly, Florida publishes a sampling of antibody tests and last week the total positive rate was about 14%. That's from Jax, Orlando, Palm Beach County, and Miami. The Miami positives were in the high teens! Obviously, the higher that number for the general population, the greater the immunity. If you hit 15% to 20% you could be hitting the real HIT. How long it lasts is probably a lot more complicated, but even if you can catch it again down the road, maybe some immunity will last. Sort of like a flu shot that mutes the intensity of the disease, even though you may still catch it. I'm cautiously optimistic that Florida is leveling off and will be dropping in the coming weeks, like Sweden did. That all assumes that Sweden is due to immunity and not some other factor.
Finally, another preprint study on vitamin D from overseas. This one is from Israel. They found lower levels of D in positives compared to negatives, and after correcting for variables they found a blood level below 30ng/ml resulted in about twice the hospitalization levels of those with D above 30. That is very close to the results of the observational studies from Indonesia and the Philippines. 30ng/ml or higher was strongly associated with milder CV 19 and a better outcome.
Good summation from one of the docs on the research team:
>>“We don’t know the mechanism,” Frenkel-Morgenstern said. “What we do know is that people who develop severe COVID and were hospitalized – these people have significantly low vitamin D levels.”<<
https://www.jpost.com/health-science/vitamin-d-deficiency-could-make-you-more-prone-to-covid-19-new-study-636350
Wow. Those are certainly encouraging and impressive numbers, especially given the concentrated participation of high risk individuals and nursing home patients.
"These seven studies include: an additional 400 high-risk patients treated by Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, with zero deaths; four studies totaling almost 500 high-risk patients treated in nursing homes and clinics across the U.S., with no deaths; a controlled trial of more than 700 high-risk patients in Brazil, with significantly reduced risk of hospitalization and two deaths among 334 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine; and another study of 398 matched patients in France, also with significantly reduced hospitalization risk."
400 high risk patients, + 500 high risk/nursing home patients + 334 high risk in Brazil (not enough details to included the French study).
That's 1234 HIGH RISK individuals with a loss of life totaling 2.
I wonder what the untold story is on this?
In another post you stated, "I'm cautiously optimistic that Florida is leveling off and will be dropping in the coming weeks, like Sweden did. That all assumes that Sweden is due to immunity and not some other factor."
I feel the same way as you. Cautiously optimistic. I believe US deaths were predicted to be around 1500 by the end of this month somewhere in this thread. Thankfully, we are not likely to approach that number without a big makeup day for the low Sunday totals. Fingers crossed.
Do you have a link to the Florida report?
@Bankwalker >>I wonder what the untold story is on this?<<
I think the untold story is that they have to figure out a way to get the medicine in them ASAP after infection. Most of the negative studies are looking at the combo of drugs observationally after folks have checked into the hospital and after the cascade of negative factors has kicked in full force. I don't think it helps at that point. But, this really is a question for the experts. Certainly, developing a fast and accurate test would help. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if Yale hangs the epidemiologist at sunrise for defending HCQ. If they don't do it, it will likely be done in effigy by others.
You've got it, Den. It's a link at the bottom of the FLDOH page that leads you to the dashboard. See the serology POC on the antibody test line.
https://floridahealthcovid19.gov/#latest-stats
Here it is, though, directly.
Here is another great one for real time hospital bed data. You can check available beds and available ICU beds (via the buttons at the top of the page) and it is updated several times a day. Invaluable for checking your own hospitals and county and to note the stress on hospitals. Every hard hit state should have this available. Where you do get the daily hospital adds and 7 day avg.?
https://bi.ahca.myflorida.com/t/ABICC/views/Public/COVIDHospitalizationsCounty?%3AshowAppBanner&%3AisGuestRedirectFromVizportal=y&%3Aembed=y
HCQ has been repeatedly shown to not work. This doctor sums it up pretty well.
The vit d "study" you posted was also bad.
Okay thanks. That's what I thought it may be. Just wanted to check that it wasn't a special study. The problem with antibody testing, aside from false positives, is that they cost in excess of $100 and are not covered by insurance. For this reason they are anything but "Random". There is likely a bias towards those that had symptoms and are looking to check if it was the virus and/or those who tested positive and want to check if they have "protection". The YTD numbers for Dade are
The combination of factors outlined above makes it unremarkable that there was 107k positive tests for Covid and 5,460 of over 72k positive for antibodies.
Den, my point wasn't that they were random, but the key takeaway is that antibody positives have trended up very sharply of late all over FL and especially in MD. You can see that the overall test rate is about 8% positive. Last week was about 18% positive. One week doesn't seal the deal, but it suggests the disease has spread through a good bit of the population. If the same ratio that the Swedish scientists saw holds up, it might mean we are close to the HIT. Admittedly, a lot of conjecture based on antibody tests despite the fact that postitives have risen over 100% recently.
I understand that you are 100% convinced that vitamin D isn't a factor and I understand why. I'm fine with that. However, can we agree that all three of these studies (thousands of patients across Asia and Israel) found that adequate D levels and above (as defined by the AACE and Endocrine Society) experienced dramatically more mild cases. Deficient and insufficient levels of D were strongly associated with bad outcomes. You think it was coincidental and because healthier people have higher levels. I believe you used the analogy of it being like ice cream consumption and crime. I disagree because eating an ice cream cone every day has never been shown to affect the immune system or increase criminal activity to my knowledge. Vitamin D has been shown to dramatically reduce viruses causing RTIs in numerous studies. (We are fishing in the right hole.) We can also observe the deadliness of this disease in Europe and N. America in winter, and we can note that it has become much, much less deadly during summer. I would be happy to share numbers. Conversely, the virus was very mild at high latitudes in the southern hemisphere last March, while it has become utterly deadly of late as they have moved to winter. S. Africa is rumored to have tens of thousands of recent deaths that are unaccounted for and the virus is described as "spreading like wildfire." They barely had any deaths until fairly recently.
https://time.com/5870723/south-africa-coronavirus-death-rate/
My point all along was to encourage people to talk to their doctor to make sure they had an adequate level of D. Virtually nothing to lose and many doctors believe that there are potential health benefits to gain, and if you turn out to be wrong, perhaps your life. Obviously, some don't think it matters as you have linked. Nothing wrong with presenting opposing views.
Good stuff @PerroGrande .....I appreciate your posts.....
Unfortunately they contain too much positivity and hope to be widely accepted on Dawgnation.
You are the king of correlation and you run to vitamin D as the answer instead of critically evaluating the situation. Vitamin D is not going to cure COVID-19. This is the same song and dance that was done for cancer and heart disease as well as all of the other things that Vitamin D deficiency is associated with. It is more likely to be a general marker for health than the cause of disease. There is some evidence it could marginally help with respiratory tract infections like colds and flu (not SARS-COV-2) in people who are really deficient in vitamin D, but a meta analysis of that data showed significant heterogeneity among those studies and bias and cautioned against strong interpretations of the data.
I'm not saying vitamin D is pointless and its important to have healthy levels. However, its not going to be a panacea and its not going to save people from COVID-19.
Texas death count - waiting for Florida and Georgia to follow suit. Not sure the Texas numbers are validated but seem more reasonable than previously reported.
Revised total today is 462 and counting!
BTW - I have similar issues with California