Health & WellnessS


Biohazard

Flashback Best of the Web: US flu season arrives earliest in 15 years, driven by unexpected virus

Mike Stobbe
Phys.org
Sat, 07 Dec 2019 21:50 UTC

Comment: Note the date this article was published. Could these have been Covid-19 cases? They apparently weren't testing, so we may never know, but the US joins the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Iran and Israel in reporting 'early', 'many' and/or 'strange' 'flu cases' back in December last year... concurrent with the Wuhan outbreak. I.e, it's already been and gone, so all of this lockdown malarkey is thoroughly useless.


influenza virus microscopy
© CDCElectron microscopy of influenza virus.
The U.S. winter flu season is off to its earliest start in more than 15 years.

An early barrage of illness in the South has begun to spread more broadly, and there's a decent chance flu season could peak much earlier than normal, health officials say.

The last flu season to rev up this early was in 2003-2004 — a bad one. Some experts think the early start may mean a lot of suffering is in store, but others say it's too early to tell.

"It really depends on what viruses are circulating. There's not a predictable trend as far as if it's early it's going to be more severe, or later, less severe," said Scott Epperson, who tracks flu-like illnesses for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Comment: This, just after 2018 was dubbed as one of the worst flu seasons in the US in nine years, and the UK fared just as badly: NHS cuts and flu crisis push UK hospitals to the brink

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Microscope 1

South Korean study shows no evidence recovered COVID-19 patients can infect others

Richard Harris
NPR
Fri, 22 May 2020 15:16 UTC
south korea fever check
© SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesSouth Korean soldiers wearing protective masks sit at a temperature screening point at Incheon International Airport, South Korea, on March 9.
South Korea's Center for Disease Control has reassuring news about people with COVID-19 who test positive for the coronavirus weeks after their symptoms have resolved.

Health officials there studied 285 patients who tested negative for the virus after recovering, but weeks later tested positive again. The question — in this and similar situations — is whether a positive test in this circumstance means that these people can still spread the virus.

To find out, the scientists followed up with nearly 800 of those people's personal contacts, such as family members. They found no evidence that they had contracted the virus from the people who had a fresh positive result. The scientists also tried to grow the virus in secretions from these patients. They could not.
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Microscope 2

Inflammatory syndrome affecting children: Kawasaki disease, COVID-19... or something else?


Children's Health Defense
Thu, 14 May 2020 00:00 UTC
kawasaki
There are many medical uncertainties swirling around the COVID-19 story, but one widely accepted observation has been that children are among the least affected, both in number and symptom severity. At least until recently. In the United Kingdom, elsewhere in Europe and in a handful of locations in the U.S. (including New York, New Haven, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area), reports are surfacing of a pediatric inflammatory syndrome that many are rushing to blame on COVID-19. New York State has attributed the deaths of up to five children to the mystery ailment that, in some cases, has resulted in multisystem organ failure.

The potpourri of symptoms "striking newborns and teenagers alike" has prompted clinicians to draw comparisons to the rare childhood inflammatory condition called Kawasaki disease (KD) as well as to toxic shock syndrome (a condition resulting from poisoning by bacterial toxins). Years before COVID-19 came on the scene, the CDC estimated that about 5,450 children, primarily under age five, are hospitalized for KD each year in the U.S. — the equivalent of about 15 every day. While rare compared to other childhood diseases, KD attracts concern as the leading cause of pediatric acquired coronary artery disease, with life-threatening aneurysms being a possible outcome.
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Info

CDC now says coronavirus 'does not spread easily' via contaminated surfaces

Madeline Farber
Fox News
Thu, 21 May 2020 07:20 UTC
hand sanitizer
© Getty ImagesMaintaining a “good social distance," (keeping 6 feet away from others while in public), as well as washing hands often and “routinely” cleaning and disinfecting high-touch surfaces are still listed as key precautions.
For those of you still wiping down groceries and other packages amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, breathe a sigh of relief: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now says the novel virus "does not spread easily" from "touching surfaces or objects" — but experts warn that doesn't mean it's no longer necessary to take "practical and realistic" precautions in stopping the spread of COVID-19.

Though it's not exactly clear when, the federal health agency appears to have recently changed its guidelines from early March that simply said it "may be possible" to spread the virus from contaminated surfaces. The CDC now includes "surfaces or objects" under a section that details ways in which the coronavirus does not readily transmit.

Other ways in which the virus does not easily spread is from animals to people, or from people to animals, the federal agency said on its updated page.

Comment: It seems they're dialing back the hysteria, but only a little. There is significant evidence, from actual reputable scientists, that the best course of action would be for the virus to spread amongst the population leading to herd immunity. Protect the vulnerable, of course (as you would for the flu, or any other easily transmissible disease), but for the rest, let it spread throughout the population normally. Most won't even notice they've got it, while their bodies build up natural immunity.

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Beaker

China: New drug in development stops Covid-19 without vaccine

Drago Bosnic
FRN
Wed, 20 May 2020 00:00 UTC
testtube/coronavirus
© Born2Invest
A Chinese laboratory has been developing a drug it believes has the power to bring the coronavirus pandemic to a halt. The outbreak was first reported in China late last year before spreading across the world, prompting an international race to produce treatments and vaccines.

A drug being tested by scientists at China's Peking University could not only shorten the recovery time for those infected but even offer short-term immunity from the virus, researchers say. Sunney Xie, director of the university's Beijing Advanced Innovation Centre for Genomics, told AFP that the drug has been successful at the animal testing stage.
"When we injected neutralizing antibodies into infected mice, after five days the viral load was reduced by a factor of 2,500. That means this potential drug has (a) therapeutic effect."
The drug uses neutralizing antibodies, produced by the human immune system to prevent the virus infecting cells, which Mr. Xie's team isolated from the blood of 60 recovered patients.

Comment: Another source claims potential to bypass vaccines and reduce symptoms of coronavirus:
A clinical trial for a drug with the potential to treat one of the symptoms of the illness caused by the new coronavirus (Covid-19) will begin in Belgium on Wednesday. French biotechnology company Biophytis got the green light from the Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products in Belgium to test their medicine Sarconeos.

Administered orally, Sarconeos is a molecule the company is developing to treat neuromuscular disease and which they said has the potential to treat breathing difficulties in Covid-19 patients. The trial will focus on the drug's potential to treat acute respiratory failure associated with the disease and will be carried out on a reduced pool of about 50 patients suffering from Covid-19.

"Our product has an effect on all muscles, including respiratory muscles, because it acts on an endocrinal system that controls cardio-respiratory function," Biophytis CEO Stanislas Veillet told Le Soir.

Veillet said that the spread of the epidemic in Italy had confirmed to medical experts that the virus attacked this system's cell receptors, which he said was exactly where the drug acts. "It could, therefore, have the potential to counterbalance this viral attack that results in respiratory distress."

By protecting respiratory function, the drug could result in patients either no longer needing oxygen therapy or in helping them make the most out of it, and it would also help avoid lesions resulting from patients' intubation.

In Belgium, the study will last 28 days and will be coordinated by Dr Muriel Lins, a pulmonologist at the AZ Sint-Maarten hospital in Mechelen.

The drug's use on the pool of 50 patients will randomised and include the use of placebos, and the results of the patients treated with Sarconeos will later be compared with a larger pool of 180 Covid-19 patients.

The results of the study will be reviewed by an independent committee tasked with deciding whether to give the go-ahead to larger clinical trials for the drug.


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Microscope 2

Best of the Web: Ioannidis releases new medical analysis of 12 global coronavirus studies finding 9 of 12 show COVID-19 fatality rates similar to seasonal flu

Jim Hoft
Gateway Pundit
Tue, 19 May 2020 20:45 UTC
Dr. John Ioannidis
Dr. John Ioannidis
In April Stanford University researcher Dr. John Ioannidis presented a summary report from his recent coronavirus study in Santa Clara, California.

The research project looked at 3,300 people in Santa Clara County in California. The Stanford study revealed that 2.5% to 4.2% of people tested for COVID-19 were positive for antibodies.

The doctor's data indicated that there are between 50 to 80-fold more infections in the general population than the confirmed cases.

This was a huge development.

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Snakes in Suits

Best of the Web: As Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine takes the lead, its Chief Medical Officer's recent promotion of 'gene-editing vaccines' comes to light

Whitney Webb
The Last American Vagabond
Mon, 18 May 2020 19:16 UTC
moderna
More and more frequently, government officials, political pundits and self-appointed "global health experts" like billionaire Bill Gates have been instructing the public that mass gatherings and any semblance of "normalcy" will not return until a vaccine for the novel coronavirus Covid-19 is created and subsequently distributed to the masses. In recent weeks, it has quickly become apparent that the leading Covid-19 vaccine candidate is the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine being developed by Boston-based Moderna Inc.

Today, Moderna announced that its vaccine candidate, named mRNA-1273, "appeared to produce an immune response in eight people who received it." Moderna's response is odd given that the "study" in question is focused on safety and "is actually not designed to measure effectiveness of the vaccine," according to a report in TIME. Notably, none of the study's findings on vaccine safety were reported aside from claims it was "generally safe." It is also worth noting that this "safety-focused" study only began in March and thus, to date, represents only an examination of the vaccine's effects in the very short term.
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Pills

Best of the Web: Growing evidence for vitamin D deficiency affecting Covid-19 severity

Matt Ridley
The Spectator
Mon, 18 May 2020 09:32 UTC
VitaminD
© Shutterstock/KJN
The argument that vitamin D deficiency may contribute to more severe cases of Covid is gaining ground. It is now reaching the point where it is surprising that we are not hearing from leading medical officials and politicians that people should consider taking supplements to ensure they have sufficient vitamin D.

This is not the same as arguing that vitamin D is a magic bullet that will cure the disease. Vitamins are not medication, the taking of which will have positive effects on everybody. They are top-ups: things that hurt you when you don't have enough of them in your system but do no extra good when you have enough. Indeed, with many vitamins, including D, taking too much can be toxic.

However, it is true that many people are deficient in vitamin D, especially at the end of winter. That is because, uniquely, vitamin D is a substance manufactured by ultraviolet light falling on your skin. You can get some from fish and other foods, but not usually enough. So most people's vitamin D levels fall to a low point in February or March when the sun has been weak and its UV output especially so. Public health bodies have long advised people to supplement vitamin D in winter anyway.

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Health

Association of American Physicians and Surgeons: Hydroxychloroquine has about 90 percent chance of helping COVID-19 patients


Association of American Physicians and Surgeons
Tue, 28 Apr 2020 17:25 UTC
prescription
In a letter to Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) presents a frequently updated table of studies that report results of treating COVID-19 with the anti-malaria drugs chloroquine (CQ) and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ, Plaquenil®).

To date, the total number of reported patients treated with HCQ, with or without zinc and the widely used antibiotic azithromycin, is 2,333, writes AAPS, in observational data from China, France, South Korea, Algeria, and the U.S. Of these, 2,137 or 91.6 percent improved clinically. There were 63 deaths, all but 11 in a single retrospective report from the Veterans Administration where the patients were severely ill.

The antiviral properties of these drugs have been studied since 2003. Particularly when combined with zinc, they hinder viral entry into cells and inhibit replication. They may also prevent overreaction by the immune system, which causes the cytokine storm responsible for much of the damage in severe cases, explains AAPS. HCQ is often very helpful in treating autoimmune diseases such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
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SOTT Focus: Objective:Health - The Menace of the Authoritarian Follower


Sott.net
Tue, 19 May 2020 00:00 UTC
O:H header
In 2006, Canadian psychologist Bob Altemeyer wrote a book called 'The Authoritarians' detailing his research on the subset of the population that seem to thrive on following orders. They have a high degree of submission to established and legitimate societal authorities, display high levels of aggression in the name of these authorities, and a high level of conventionalism.

With the recent lockdown, it would seem the whole world is getting a lesson in authoritarianism, and the authoritarian followers are all out in force. Snitching on neighbors, calling the police for any slight disgression against stay at home orders, screeching, both on social media and in person at anyone not staying at home, (whether they have a good reason or not) and actually demanding the lockdown stay in place, despite the harm it's doing. It seems these times were made for authoritarian followers, while the rest of us, independent thinkers as we are, suffer their wrath.

Join us on this episode of Objective:Health as we discuss the authoritarian follower. What is a thinking person to do in the face of this tyrrany?


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Running Time: 00:47:02

Download: MP3 — 38.5 MB

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