British researchers claim they will soon have a blood test that predicts who may get severe Covid-19

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-scientists-unique-molecular-signature-blood.html

Sample quote

The researchers analyzed over 100,000 blood samples from the UK Biobank and identified a particular molecular signature in the blood that's common among people who get severe symptoms if infected by the coronavirus. Those with this molecular signature are five to 10 times more likely to be hospitalized. These findings are novel, as the blood biomarkers in the molecular signature have not been previously known as risk markers in healthy people for developing severe forms of COVID-19.

This is the world's largest metabolomic study to date and based on the study's findings Nightingale Health is soon launching a blood test that can predict if a person will develop mild symptoms or become severely ill due to COVID-19. The test can, therefore, be used to identify people who'll need special precautions to avoid infection and prioritize those in most need of the COVID-19 vaccine.

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In 1937 Canada delayed opening schools because of an epidemic: Polio

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-coronavirus-lessons-polio-epidemic-school.html

What heart disease patients need to know about Covid-19

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-heart-patients-covid-.html

Sample quote

Data released in June by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows COVID-19 patients with underlying conditions such as cardiovascular disease are six times more likely to be hospitalized and 12 times more likely to die than patients without any chronic health problems. About 1 in 3 people with COVID-19 has cardiovascular disease, making it the most common underlying health condition.

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Room ventilation and Covid-19
Kind of technical

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-ventilation-air-filtration-coronavirus-indoors.html

Simple quote

If you walk into a building and it feels hot, stuffy and crowded, chances are that there is not enough ventilation. Turn around and leave.

End simple quote

Will Covid-19 infection have a long term affect on elderly brains?
A neurologist speculates....

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-covid-memory-loss-cognitive-decline.html

2 new trials of manufactured antibodies

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-covid-network-monoclonal-antibodies.html

Sample quote

The COVID-19 Prevention Network (CoVPN) today announced two Phase 3 trials to determine whether monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) can prevent SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The first trial, CoVPN 3501, will evaluate LY-CoV555, an Eli Lilly and Company mAb to see whether it can prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection among people living or working in skilled nursing and assisted living facilities. Scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Vaccine Research Center and Abcellera Biologics discovered LY-CoV555. The trial will enroll up to 2,400 participants in the U.S. who will be randomized to receive an intravenous infusion of LY-CoV555 or a placebo. The second trial, CoVPN 3502, will evaluate REGN-COV-2, a Regeneron Pharmaceutical double mAb combination, to see if it will prevent infection among household contacts with close exposure to someone recently diagnosed with COVID-19 that has been sustained for at least 48 hours. The study will enroll approximately 2,000 participants in the U.S.

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Hospital ICU’s were swamped, so her severe Covid-19 was treated at her home by visiting nutses

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-hospitals-full-doctors-severe-covid-.html

Russia claims its vaccine available first.
Putin’s daughter allegedly gets a shot.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-russia-coronavirus-vaccine-global-cases.html

Vaccine development rules in Russia, India, and China not same as USA

https://www.spiegel.de/internationa...e-a-a5276781-7d13-432e-8862-6caf3922906c

Wednesday Wall Street Journal has two articles questioning the Russian Covid-19 vaccine that are worth reading.

Russia can “win” politically
even if the vaccine is a placebo,
or maybe even a disguised MMR vaccine.

Russia and the old USSR routinely gave children the BCG tuberculosis vaccine, so most living Russians had it.
This alone might make their Covid-19 “true” fatality rate much lower than the USA, UK, Spain or Italy.

Russia might report much lower than true Covid-19 fatalities anyway.

Sweden was hoping for Covid-19 “herd immunity” of 60% by now,
instead 15% of population Presently tested have antibodies to Covid-19.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-covid-herd-immunity-sweden-materialize.html

Article does not state it,
but perhaps another 15% have T-cell immunity,
and another 15% are protected by “common cold coronavirus” past infections?

The sad thing is that Sweden has admitted that their Nursing Home fatalities were allowed to die at the Nursing Homes with little treatment.
Very few were taken to ICU’s at hospitals.

3 months ago French said “Do not take Ibuprofen/Motrin if you suspect you might have Covid-19.”

Now British researchers say they find “no strong evidence” that taking

Ibuprofen,
Naproxen sodium (Aleve) or
Diclofenac (Voltaren)

leads to any greater Covid-19 fatality rate.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-ibuprofen-death-covid-.html

A year 1990 study in soldiers suggested that T-cells remain protective for about one year after catching one of the four coronaviruses that circulate as what we call “the common colds”.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-coronavirus-common-cold-covid.html

Sample quote

The findings raised concern that SARS-CoV-2 could infect a person many times and that a vaccine might not generate lasting protection. But the article focused on just one arm of the immune response, the B cells, which produce antibodies that help to clear an infection.

T cells are also key to the immune response against viruses. They play a variety of roles, among them helping B cells to mature into disease-fighting machines. The article by Jose Mateus and colleagues at La Jolla Institute for Immunology is important because it shows that people keep T cells from the milder coronaviruses long enough to potentially interact with a new challenge by SARS-CoV-2 and that those T cells might even recognize SARS-CoV-2 and help to clear the infection.
...snip...

The milder coronaviruses can generate similar antibodies to the ones that are generated by the coronaviruses that cause SARS and Mers. These antibodies are so similar that they nearly tricked a British Columbia care facility into thinking they had an outbreak of SARS after the SARS epidemic had been declared over. In fact, the outbreak was caused by OC43, one of the coronaviruses that causes the common cold.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/general-information.html

Sample quote

If you are found to be infected with a common cold coronavirus (229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1)

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Vaccine from St. Louis

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-experimental-covid-vaccine-severe-disease.html

One wonders:
Couldn’t a well known TV witch
cure herself of hair loss due to Covid-19 ?

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-alyssa-milano-hair-covid-.html

“Eye of Newt, Wing of Bat, Skin of Toad”

UC Riverside details how they discover potential medicines for Covid-19

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-scientists-hundreds-drug-candidates-covid-.html

Sample quote

Ray and Kowalewski used their machine learning models to screen more than 10 million commercially available small molecules from a database comprised of 200 million chemicals, and identified the best-in-class hits for the 65 human proteins that interact with SARS-CoV-2 proteins.

Taking it a step further, they identified compounds among the hits that are already FDA approved, such as drugs and compounds used in food. They also used the machine learning models to compute toxicity, which helped them reject potentially toxic candidates. This helped them prioritize the chemicals that were predicted to interact with SARS-CoV-2 targets. Their method allowed them to not only identify the highest scoring candidates with significant activity against a single human protein target, but also find a few chemicals that were predicted to inhibit two or more human protein targets.

"Compounds I am most excited to pursue are those predicted to be volatile, setting up the unusual possibility of inhaled therapeutics," Ray said.

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First 72 hours is best to give Convalescent Plasma to Covid-19 patients

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-preliminary-covid-patients-convalescent-plasma.html

U of KY finds good response from vaccine candidate

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-preliminary-covid-patients-convalescent-plasma.html

USC researchers have found the likely order in which COVID-19 symptoms first appear:
fever,
cough,
muscle pain, and then
nausea, and/or vomiting,
and diarrhea.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-scientists-covid-symptoms.html

Boston MA researchers make an argument that:
Covid-19 in New York City over two months in year 2020
was more deadly than
Spanish H1N1 influenza was in its worst two months in NYC in year 1918

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-deadly-yorkerscovid-flu.html

( I personally am not convinced)