Study of 10,000 older people hints that ACE inhibitor blood pressure dugs may mildly help against COVID-19

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-seniors-covid-ace-inhibitors-hospitalization.html

Sample quote

Researchers analyzed retrospective data from about 10,000 patients with hypertension who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. All patients were enrolled in either Medicare Advantage or a commercially insured health care plan and had a prescription for at least one hypertension medication, such as angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARB).

The use of ACE inhibitors was associated with an almost 40% lower risk of COVID-19 hospitalization for the older, Medicare Advantage patients—but there was no significant difference in risk for the younger, commercially insured patients.

The use of ARBs was not associated with a lower risk for COVID-19 hospitalization for either group. Also, neither ARBs nor ACE inhibitors were associated with a lower mortality risk in people hospitalized with COVID-19.

End quote

All mechanical low cost ventilator

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-diego-low-cost-totally-mechanical-emergency.html

It will be interesting to see what happens with ventilators in the future. That industry sure got a big wave of news and attention. Now it has all died out since it turned out that they didn't need that many ventilators after all.

As well as a Covid19 study in NY that showed 88% of those on a ventilator died... the other nations, including China found ventilation was the wrong approach to treatment, I'll blame that bozo Cuomo in NY for hyping the need, IIRC he wanted 70,000 ventilators, along with 39,000 triage centers, and 110,000 ICU beds what a joke...

Nothing like judging some ones actions from hindsight. Please tell us what you would have done with the same lack of information that was available about this virus.

Indeed. About all we knew going in was that in severe cases we would need ventilators to keep people alive. We did some math, and figured we'd need a bunch of them.

I'd rather be left with a lot of unused ventilators, than a bunch of people dead because we didn't have them.

Looks like we ended up with both anyway. Do those at the top bear any responsibility for that?

Can a Fitbit or Apple Watch
detect the first symptoms of COVID-19 ?

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-wearables-coronavirus.html

Sample quote

Also already underway is the Scripps Research Translational Institute's
DETECT (Digital Engagement & Tracking for Early Control & Treatment) Study
to monitor heart rates as a possible way to detect and track coronavirus, flu and other viral infections. As in the other studies, users share the health data captured by the Apple Watch, Fitbit and Garmin devices. For more information on the study, go to the DETECTStudy.org site.

Earlier this year, Scripps' first study on using wearable device data to study flu outbreaks was referenced in The Lancet as "encouraging proof of concept in this direction."

Scripps researchers expanded the flu study to see if
tracking of data (heart rate, activity, and sleep)
using the MyDataHelps mobile app can help predict whether someone will eventually get the flu, COVID-19 or other illness.

End quote

I believe there was an attempt to corner the market there also.

we can store them in the unused refridgerated trailers
https://media.ford.com/content/ford...lators-in-michigan-in-next-100-days.html

ruxolitinib
A drug used to treat the deadly childhood immune disease HLH (hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis)
may help patients survive the cytokine storm in the worst COVID-19 cases:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-treatment-covid-cytokine-storms.html

Sample quote

Patients taking ruxolitinib were randomly selected to receive two daily 5mg oral doses of the anti-inflammatory drug, plus the standard of care treatment for COVID-19. A randomly selected control group of 21 patients received a placebo along with the standard of care treatment.

"Ruxolitinib recipients had a numerically faster clinical improvement," study authors write in their report. "Significant chest CT improvement, a faster recovery from lymphopenia and favorable side-effect profile in ruxolitinib group were encouraging and informative to future trials to test efficacy of ruxolitinib in a larger population."

Patients treated with ruxolitinib saw a shorter median time to clinical improvement compared to the control group. Researchers reported that 90 percent% of ruxolitinib patients showed CT scan improvement within 14 days, compared with 9 percent of patients from the control group.

Three patients in the control group eventually died of respiratory failure.
All the severely ill patients who received ruxolitinib survived.

End quote

Treating over-washed skin on hands

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-skin-excessive-hand-washing-masking.html

We already know one who does not.

The wife and I both talked about this tracking... we are against it.. we dont want a phone
to follow us anymore than it can... just our opinion

Long article on what the big drug company Merck is doing

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...s-its-covid-19-vaccine-and-therapy-plans

Swiss university decides to try Apple & Goggle’s joint app approach on virus tracking

https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-w...p-using-google-and-apples-api-goes-live/

Sample quote

The pilot version of the app is also available to employees of the EPFL University in Lausanne, and of the ETH University in Zurich, which led the development of the technology. The two Swiss institutions decided to build the app on the basis of a model jointly put forward by Apple and Google last month, which was pitched by the tech giants as the better way to develop contact-tracing technology that incorporates privacy by design.
Apple and Google's API follows a decentralized approach, which means that every operation that might involve privacy is carried out on users' phones, rather than through a central database. At the heart of the concept is the imperative to keep data from being stored, and therefore at risk of being hacked or de-anonymized.

Last week, Apple released iOS 13.5, which includes a new COVID Exposure Notification feature. This feature enables the API that lets health officials and developers build contact-tracing technology.

End quote

A trip to A Colorado ER about COVID-19 symptoms resulted in no test, but did generate a $3278 bill

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/he...ollar3278-bill-for-his-visit/ar-BB14GfZc

0.58% COVID-19 fatality rate is estimated from large State of Indiana study of antibodies

https://www.npr.org/sections/health...e-for-the-coronavirus-than-first-thought

45% of infected had no symptoms

This is pretty close to last CDC estimations

Saw this in June 2020 RaceCar Engineering for those wanting take a shot a this ventilator challenge

I guess pre sight out weighs hindsight here, and a chance of a worse second wave has been completely eliminated.

Average 160 minute added delay getting stroke victims to the ER since COVID-19

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-patients-significantly-treatment-covid-pandemic.html

Sample quote

Neurointerventionalists with the Get Ahead of Stroke campaign say that in the case of the most serious strokes—known as an emergent large vessel occlusions (ELVO)—up to two million brain cells die each minute. The longer patients wait before treatment, the greater the impact the stroke will have—potentially paralyzing them for life, or worse. Additionally, for every minute lost before receiving appropriate care, there is an associated medical cost of $1,000 for short- and long-term care. A 160-minute delay amounts to the loss of 320 million brain cells and $160,000 in additional medical costs.

"When it comes to stroke treatment, every minute counts. My colleagues and I have been devastated to see patients arriving at the hospital too late for us to help them," said the study's lead author Dr. Clemens Schirmer who is based at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pennsylvania. "Our findings indicate a dire need for public education to address COVID-19 related fears to ensure people with stroke symptoms seek the lifesaving care they need without delay."
End quote