Covid 4/29/20 | COVID 19 Information Page

Well the interview with the two doctors was interesting if you got to watch. I wouldn’t necessarily trust their math or their comparisons but I appreciated their perspective. Censorship of different opinions whether you believe them or not is very dangerous – it stops one from feeling safe to critically think and questions ones own beliefs. We are already naturally inclined for confirmation bias – proven to be true. To troll or not to troll – if you don’t follow people that go against your belief you will be trapped in confirmation bias. Questioning and understanding different perspectives allows one to have a discussion. Because of the interview – they made me think and research immune systems and I do feel concerned the kids of Covid-19 might be missing out on key microbial as we race to clean.

Of the several immune papers I reviewed I will highlight the following – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3515894/

This paper establishes the need for early immune response vs. later in age is important.

This paper cleans up the hygiene hypothesis with semantics to make it more palatable to all – its not about hygiene directly but the lack of microbial activity which could come from excess hygiene but perhaps other societal trend which reduces microbial activity e.g. C-section vs. Vaginal delivery – https://www.pnas.org/content/114/7/1433

This paper is recent – Jan 2019 – which demonstrate in mice the role of microbial products causing allergic airway disease – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190109110115.htm

All this reminds me of the story in the New Earth by Eckart Tolle – “Is that so” the point of the story is to not judge an outcome – at least very quickly. We reduce infectious disease – GREAT – but later we see growth in immune disorders. We have a child who always gets sick – how awful – but then as an adult hardly gets sick.

So I found this site that predicts the path of covid by country – https://ddi.sutd.edu.sg/

Notice something consistent in all countries….1 hump

I sent a question in and asked them to try to emulate 1918 would their model produce a second hump….waiting for the response….not that the past exactly repeats but how can you say the model works without backtesting to something? Maybe it maps well with Sars and ebola? Would be nice to know that….

Another ship stat – https://news.usni.org/2020/04/28/uss-kidd-arrives-in-san-diego-to-treat-covid-19-outbreak-first-cases-emerged-more-than-a-month-after-hawaii-port-visit

~20% infected

~30% confirmed/tested

“The first sailor began to show symptoms of the virus on April 22, more than 30 days after the ship’s last port visit in Hawaii, according to a status update provided to Congress and reviewed by USNI News.”

Here is a quick and easy prevention suggestion – https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/brushing-teeth-right-time-helps-4087439

Fresh breath for everyone before you leave the house ?

Japan to offer anti-flu avigan (favipiravir) – https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2020/04/01f746e01617-japan-to-offer-anti-flu-avigan-to-38-countries-as-early-as-this-week.html

“A scientific study in China concluded in March that the drug had been effective for patients, especially those with mild symptoms. Beijing has said it will officially adopt the drug as part of its treatment guidelines for COVID-19 patients.”

2017 study on favipiravir – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28769016

I like the old studies as they are not Covid tainted.

“Favipiravir is effective against a wide range of types and subtypes of influenza viruses, including strains resistant to existing anti-influenza drugs. Of note is that favipiravir shows anti-viral activities against other RNA viruses such as arenaviruses, bunyaviruses and filoviruses, all of which are known to cause fatal hemorrhagic fever. These unique anti-viral profiles will make favipiravir a potentially promising drug for specifically untreatable RNA viral infections.”

April 2020 – https://www.jwatch.org/na51293/2020/04/09/favipiravir-potential-antiviral-covid-19

“With regard to COVID-19, lay media have reported on a non-placebo, open-label trial in Shenzhen, China, of oral favipiravir (1600 mg twice daily for 1 day, then 600 mg twice daily) plus inhaled interferon compared with a historical cohort of patients receiving lopinavir/ritonavir for 14 days (Med News Today; 2020 Mar 27). Those receiving favipiravir and interferon had median shedding of virus of 4 days, compared with 11 days in the lopinavir/ritonavir group. Radiographic improvement was seen in 91% of favipiravir-interferon treated subjects compared with 62% of those on lopinavir/ritonavir. The results of this study have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal to date. A prospective, multicenter, open-label, randomized trial in China comparing favipiravir with umifenovir (Arbidol), a membrane-fusion inhibitor active against influenza viruses, was recently reported (MedRxiv 2020 Mar 27; [e-pub]). It demonstrated a higher clinical recovery rate at day 7 in those on favipiravir among moderately ill patients but not among mildly or severely ill patients.”

Speaking of Japan – they do deserve the gold star along with S. Korea. The most common compared countries I put in the bar chart below. Using US is quite unfair so I just looked at NY and Washington state to compare to other countries.

The amount of deaths in NY is amazingly high compared to COUNTRY totals. The demographics difference is very hard to explain NY outlier. Italy is based on 3X the population of NY. All three are much older than NY.

Italy, Japan, and S. Korea all have very high pop density relative to NY. BMI is the only thing that sticks out for NY relative to those 3. In terms of the largess of economic impact, once again it would seem forcing a better diet on the US could be cost effective and would assist in other areas beyond covid.

The other countries shown a lot can be probably attributed to smaller pop density. Interesting to see New Zealand BMI so high but they have youth and low pop density.