Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic

[K]

Some other stuff on loss of smell and coronavirus (see the Campbell, NY Times, and AAO posts on the last page too):

"I have personally seen four patients this week, all under 40, and otherwise asymptomatic except for the recent onset of anosmia – I usually see roughly no more than one a month."

https://www.entuk.org/sites/default/files/files/Loss%20of%20sense%20of%20smell%20as%20marker%20of%20COVID.pdf

[Letter from ENT-UK]


"The coronavirus is capable of attacking key cells in the nose..., Harvard Medical School researchers found.

Their study of human and mice genomic data found certain cells at the back of the nose harbor the distinctly shaped proteins that the coronavirus targets to invade the body. Infection of these cells could directly or indirectly lead to an altered sense of smell, they said in a paper published Saturday."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-28/have-coronavirus-and-can-t-smell-harvard-scientists-explain-why

"The COVID-19 virus is believed to enter the nasal tissues through the angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor – though further research is needed to confirm whether this is the case. This protein is abundant in the nose, although the function of it is not clear."

http://theconversation.com/coronavirus-loss-of-smell-and-taste-reported-as-early-symptoms-of-covid-19-134564

'When doctors at the University Hospital Bonn in Germany recently interviewed more than 100 patients infected with COVID-19, they discovered that nearly 70% "described a loss of smell and taste lasting several days," said Dr. Hendrik Streeck, head of the hospital's Institute of Virology.

"It goes so far that a mother could not smell the full diaper of her child. Others could no longer smell their shampoo, and food began to taste bland," Streeck told the German news site Frankfurter Allgemeine.'

https://www.livescience.com/odd-coronavirus-symptom-smell-loss.html


But Slate takes issue with the NY Times article:

"Hopkins wrote me back again to say that it appears the 15 percent figure came from an updated version of the South Korean study, which accounted for patients through Tuesday, two full days after the New York Times ran its original story. It’s possible that the numbers in the letter and Times piece accurately reflected earlier findings. But the bottom line is the same: The rate of anosmia in COVID-19 cases does not appear to be as high as the Times article reported Sunday."

https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-sense-of-smell-nytimes-fact-check.html

[Jezza]

Thanks, K.

I'll check them all out.

[K]

More Americans Should Probably Wear Masks for Protection

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/health/us-coronavirus-face-masks.html

Experts have started to question whether masks may offer at least some protection to healthy individuals and essential workers.

"While wearing a mask may not necessarily prevent healthy people from getting sick, and it certainly doesn’t replace important measures such as hand-washing or social distancing, it may be better than nothing, Dr. Atmar said.
...

But studies of influenza pandemics have shown that when high-grade N95 masks are not available, surgical masks do protect people a bit more than not wearing masks at all. And when masks are combined with hand hygiene, they help reduce the transmission of infections.

When researchers conducted systematic review of a variety of interventions used during the SARS outbreak in 2003, they found that washing hands more than 10 times daily was 55 percent effective in stopping virus transmission, while wearing a mask was actually more effective — at about 68 percent. Wearing gloves offered about the same amount of protection as frequent hand-washing, and combining all measures — hand-washing, masks, gloves and a protective gown — increased the intervention effectiveness to 91 percent.

With the current coronavirus, researchers are also finding that there are more asymptomatic cases than were known early on in the pandemic. Classified data from the Chinese government that was reported in the South China Morning Post indicated that up to a third of all people who tested positive for the coronavirus could have been silent carriers. Widespread testing on the Diamond Princess showed that half of the positive cases on board the cruise ship had no symptoms. And officials in Iceland, who have tested a high proportion of citizens in the country, have found similarly high percentages of asymptomatic infection.
...

“It’s still hard to tell what percentage of people are truly asymptomatic because many go on to develop symptoms a few days later,” said Dr. Neil Fishman, the chief medical officer of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. “What we do know is that individuals can shed virus about 48 hours before they develop symptoms and masking can prevent transmission from those individuals.”
...

“For individuals working in certain essential industries, where they still have to go out every day, I think wearing a mask makes sense,” Dr. Fishman said.

In many Asian countries, everyone is encouraged to wear masks, and the approach is about crowd psychology and protection. If everyone wears a mask, individuals protect each other, reducing overall community transmission. The sick automatically have one on and are also more likely to adhere to keeping their mask on because the stigma of wearing one is removed.
...

And places like Hong Kong and Taiwan that jumped to action early with social distancing and universal mask wearing have gotten their cases under much greater control.

“If everyone in the community wears a mask, it could decrease transmission,” Dr. Fishman said. “But unfortunately I think that we don’t have enough masks to make that effective policy in the U.S.”"

[K]

A third of coronavirus cases may be ‘silent carriers’, classified Chinese data suggests

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3076323/third-coronavirus-cases-may-be-silent-carriers-classified

More than 43,000 people in China had tested positive without immediate symptoms by the end of February and were quarantined

22 March 2020

"One obstacle is that countries tally their confirmed cases differently.

The World Health Organisation classifies all people who test positive as confirmed cases regardless of whether they experience any symptoms. South Korea also does this. But the Chinese government changed its classification guidelines on February 7, counting only those patients with symptoms as confirmed cases. The United States, Britain and Italy simply do not test people without symptoms, apart from medical workers who have prolonged exposure to the virus.

The approach taken by China and South Korea of testing anyone who has had close contact with a patient – regardless of whether the person has symptoms – may explain why the two Asian countries seem to have checked the spread of the virus. Hong Kong is extending testing to airport arrivals in the city, even if travellers have no symptoms. Meanwhile in most European countries and the US, where only those with symptoms are tested, the number of infections continues to rapidly rise.

A growing number of studies are now questioning the WHO’s earlier statement that asymptomatic transmission was “extremely rare”.
...

Based on their research, Nishiura put the proportion of asymptomatic Japanese patients evacuated from Wuhan, ground zero of the outbreak in China, at 30.8 per cent – similar to the classified Chinese government data.
...

More than 20 per cent of the asymptomatic cases reported to the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention remained without symptoms until they were discharged from hospital.

“Korea currently has a significantly higher rate of asymptomatic cases than other countries, perhaps due to our extensive testing,” Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of South Korea’s CDC, told a press briefing on March 16.
...

An EU report has put the proportion of asymptomatic cases in Italy at 44 per cent, but in most parts of the country people without symptoms are not tested.

In Hong Kong, 16 of the 138 confirmed cases as of March 14 were asymptomatic or presymptomatic, according to Ho Pak-leung, a professor with the microbiology department of the University of Hong Kong."

[K]

Everyone In Iceland Can Get Tested For The Coronavirus. Here's How The Results Could Help All Of Us.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertonardelli/coronavirus-testing-iceland

March 18, 2020

"But — crucially — the testing also includes people who show no symptoms of the disease.

Iceland’s government said it has so far tested a higher proportion of its citizens than anywhere else in the world.

The number of individuals tested by the country’s health authorities and the biotechnology firm deCode Genetics — 3,787 — roughly translates to 10,405 per million...

"Iceland’s population puts it in the unique position of having very high testing capabilities with help from the Icelandic medical research company deCode Genetics, who are offering to perform large scale testing," Thorolfur Guðnason, Iceland’s chief epidemiologist, told BuzzFeed News.

"This effort is intended to gather insight into the actual prevalence of the virus in the community, as most countries are most exclusively testing symptomatic individuals at this time."
...

"Early results from deCode Genetics indicate that a low proportion of the general population has contracted the virus and that about half of those who tested positive are non-symptomatic,” said Guðnason. “The other half displays very moderate cold-like symptoms."
...

In the small northern Italian town of Vo, one of the communities where the outbreak first emerged, the entire population of 3,300 people was tested — 3% of residents tested positive, and of these, the majority had no symptoms, researchers said.
...

The initial data from Iceland and Veneto appears to be in line with authoritative studies that have attempted to model the novel coronavirus.

A study* published on Monday in the magazine Science found that for every confirmed case of the virus there are likely another five to 10 people with undetected infections in the community. The scientists, which based their model on data from China, reported that these often milder and less infectious cases are behind nearly 80% of new cases.

Another report** published this week by the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team — a group of experts who have been advising the British and other European governments on how the disease could spread — makes a similar case.

It states: “Analyses of data from China as well as data from those returning on repatriation flights suggest that 40-50% of infections were not identified as cases. This may include asymptomatic infections, mild disease and a level of under-ascertainment.”"


* https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/03/24/science.abb3221

** https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

[K]

In Australia you will not be tested without symptoms (and they have to be serious):

"Testing
...

You will only be tested if your doctor decides you meet the criteria:

* You have returned from overseas in the past 14 days and you develop respiratory illness with or without fever
* You have been in close contact with a confirmed COVID-19 case in the past 14 days and you develop respiratory illness with or without fever
* You have severe community-acquired pneumonia and there is no clear cause
* You are a healthcare worker who works directly with patients and you have a respiratory illness and a fever"

https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/what-you-need-to-know-about-coronavirus-covid-19#testing

[Tannin]

[Pies4shaw]

From the ABC's live blog in the last couple of minutes (the numbering is mine):

15: BREAKING: Woman dies in Qld after contracting COVID-19

The 75-year-old woman had been a passenger on board the Ruby Princess cruise ship.

There were 31 new cases confirmed int he state overnight, bringing the new total to 656.

16: BREAKING: Fourth person dies from coronavirus in Victoria

The latest victim is a man aged in his 80s who died in a Melbourne hospital.

There are now 769 confirmed cases in the state with an increase of 84 overnight.

[Pies4shaw]

Also from the ABC, ScoMo just now on testing here:

Mr Morrison has given a breakdown of the rates of testing, saying that Australia's testing rate is very high compared to other countries.

"It is very hard to make comparisons between countries for a range of reasons, the way they are collecting data is different but one of the things in Australia which sets out numbers out in terms of their accuracy is the very high level of testing.

"The figures I have in my morning brief today is that we have a testing rate per 100,000 population of 815.9. That compares to 753.7 in South Korea, 177.9 in the United Kingdom, 486.1 in Canada and 484.6 in Austria. These are indicative examples.

"Our positive testing rate is 1.8 per cent, in South Korea it is 2.4 per cent. In Canada, it is 2.6 per cent."

And an encouraging trend in the figures:

The Prime Minister said the rate of new coronavirus cases has fallen to 13-15 per cent from 25-30 per cent from this time last week.

[Dark Beanie]

Returning Australians are complaining about the facilities, food etc. in their quarantine hotels.

More than ever this demonstrates what a pack of self entitled whingers Australians have become.

Went for a solo walk along Gardiners Creek trail this morning.
FFS how hard is it for people to keep one side of the trail? Stonnington Council has put up signs to demonstrate 1.5 metre distance but people still don't get it. Decided to take a couple of shortcuts through the footy ovals where there were fewer people and no large groups of cyclists.

Have avoided the trail till now and will go back to even earlier walk along side streets

[Tannin]

We should have had vaccine already: Australian expert who cracked virus code

The Australian professor who cracked the genetic code of the virus that causes COVID-19 said the world should have been working on a coronavirus vaccine for years but governments had become "complacent" about bat coronaviruses after SARS was defeated.

Edward Holmes, a researcher based at the University of Sydney who is considered among the world's leading experts on the virus's genetics, evolution and origin, said a pandemic had been inevitable but governments refused to take the threat seriously.

"It is no surprise another coronavirus emerged in humans. We have been monitoring these viruses. They've been jumping species boundaries," Professor Holmes said. "We knew this was going to happen.

"Bats have been carrying these viruses for millennia. It's not them that's changed, it's us – the way we interact with them."

After narrowly avoiding disaster with SARS in the early 2000s and MERS in the past decade, governments should have cracked down on wet markets and illegal wildlife trading, and started making broad-based coronavirus vaccines and drugs in readiness for the next coronavirus to emerge, he said.

Professor Holmes, the first to publish a genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, said coronaviruses seem to be uniquely able to jump species for reasons scientists do not understand.

SARS-CoV-2 is the third coronavirus from bats to jump into humans in the past 20 years, after SARS and MERS, which killed hundreds. Ebola, while not a coronavirus, is also believed to have come from bats.

SARS-CoV-2 is far more infectious than MERS and SARS and has already claimed the lives of more than 27,000 patients.

"It is blindingly obvious that we, as humans, have to change the way we interact with the animal world. We have to cut our exposure. Those markets have to go. The illegal trade in wildlife has to end.

"The whole world is now set up for a pandemic; we live in mega cities, there is transport. It's an accident waiting to happen, and it happened."

Michelle Baker, a world-leading bat immunity researcher based at the CSIRO, agreed that scientists had been waiting for the next coronavirus outbreak and she expected they would become more frequent.

"I wasn't expecting it to be this bad. But I'm not surprised it's a coronavirus at all," she said.

When Dr Baker started in the field a decade ago, she "could review everything we knew about bat immunology in an afternoon. There were no resources, no reagents.

"We have been completely complacent. Not nearly enough research has been done.

"It gets really difficult to get funding when there is not an outbreak. People feel a sense of security. They don't feel it's relevant any more."

"We were just waiting for the next outbreak. I'm not surprised at all. And I hope we can learn from this one. Because they are probably going to become more frequent."

From - https://www.theage.com.au/national/we-should-have-had-vaccine-already-australian-expert-who-cracked-virus-code-20200327-p54elr.html

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Wisdom after the event, of course, but it's not as if these people weren't saying these things years ago. And it's not as if our skinflint governments haven't been cutting back on science budgets with fanatical ruthlessness.

[Tannin]

[think positive]

[Morrigu]

[stui magpie]