Having allergies does not seem to affect Covid recovery

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-allergies-outcomes-similar-hospitalized-patients.html

British inhaled drug SNG01 containing natural human protein “interferon beta” improves and shortens Covid recovery

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-clinical-trial-inhaled-immune-response.html

Sample quote

The trial was conducted at nine UK hospitals with patients who had a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. It compared the effects of SNG001 and placebo given to patients once daily for up to 14 days, and followed up patients for a maximum of 28 days after starting the treatment. Patients were recruited from March 30 to May 30, 2020, and were randomly assigned to receive the treatment or a placebo. All members of the research team were blinded to which group the patients were allocated. During the study, changes in the clinical condition of patients were monitored.

Of the 101 patients enrolled in the study, 98 patients were given the treatment in the trial (three patients withdrew from the trial) - 48 received SNG001 and 50 received a placebo. At the outset of the trial 66 (67%) patients required oxygen supplementation at baseline (29 people in the placebo group and 37 in the SNG001 group). Patients who received SNG001 were twice as likely to show an improvement in their clinical condition at day 15 or 16, compared with the placebo group.

In the placebo group, 11 (22%) of 50 patients developed severe disease (defined in this study as requiring mechanical ventilation) or died between the first dose and day 15 or 16, compared with six (13%) of 48 patients who received SNG001 (this includes three deaths in the placebo groups and none in the treatment group).

Over the 14-day treatment period, patients who received SNG001 were more than twice as likely to recover, compared to those in the placebo group—with 21 (44%) patients in the SNG001 group recovering compared with 11 (22%) patients in the placebo group (patients were deemed to have recovered when they were no longer limited in their activity). In a secondary analysis, the authors found that at 28 days, SNG001 patients were over three times more likely to recover than patients receiving placebo.

End quote

which test for covid is more reliable, a nasal swab or a blood draw, and why ?
sorry if this was covered pages and pages ago..........

The nasal swab test detects an active Covid infection.

The blood draw tests that I know about detect antibodies against Covid-19
which indicates your body has had more than 7 days to make these,
so you have had active Covid-19 virus quite a while,
or more likely, have gotten over Covid quite some time ago.

This article comments on how accurate that blood test is, and how some people overcome Covid with T-cells, and may not have detectable antibodies.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-accuracy-rapid-covid-previously.html

This Yahoo article explains how a cheap and fast T-cell test is needed, in addition to the nasal swab PCR test, and the blood drop antibodies test.

https://news.yahoo.com/study-testing-covid-19-t-114701645.html

There are saliva spit tests for active Covid-19.
I only know they are 5-10% less accurate,
and so far take a long time because they have to be sent off site to get the final result

https://time.com/5891887/covid-19-saliva-spit-test/

Last week I needed to spend multiple days with my 8 month pregnant daughter helping her and her immune suppressed husband do two house closings in one day and move all their belongings, with a nearby hurricane. I told them I would self quarantine a week before arriving, and take two Covid tests prior. The first test was, for reasons undisclosed, 5 days later, was "rejected", the second test a week later was lost, then found, and was negative. The third test was a "rapid" test I took the day before departing to my daughters, I stood in a line, outside, for over two hours, in the wind, with over a thousand? other people who also wanted a covid test, all up wind, under two hours later the test results indicated I was negative for covid. But if you read the fine print, the test mainly only indicates "accurately" a positive, to confirm a negative, they suggest one take a second, 5 day test.

I would say in the past 9 months, the most risky covid exposure I have had, was the taking of the rapid test. Go figure.

One would think going to the epicenter is the best way to get it?

Here they are telling people to only get tested if you have obvious symptoms, or if you discover that you have been around someone who has been identified as having it.

Plenty of hypochondriacs getting tested over and over again and clogging up the testing facilities for the people who legitimately need the help.

The USA CDC has put out a “scientific brief” about what trials have been done on two subjects:

1. Whether a sick person who wears a mask reduces the virus amount going outward towards others.
2. Whether a well person who wears a particular type of mask breathes in a lesser percentage of particles of virus.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/masking-science-SARS-cov2.html

I condense these as follows:

A sick person who wears a high quality mask catches 60% of the outgoing viruses when wet droplets get caught.

A well person who wears the best filtering mask available might reduce the amount incoming viruses in droplets of more than 1 micron size by 50%.
{Keep in mind a single Covid-19 virus is 0.125 microns in size, so a bundle of six viruses could pass through a hole 1 micron in diameter}

Earlier post #2841278 has more info on masks,
including
“Why has the big Danish 6,000 person clinical trial results on wearing masks not been made widely known”

It sure seems the Danes found a result that some find embarassing.

Barnes Jewish Hospital in St Louis says Covid-19 lung failure cause is still mostly unknown,
and only 4% of severe patients have a “cytokine storm“ like was originally reported by Chinese Wuhan hospitals:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-respiratory-failure-covid-driven-cytokine.html

Sample quote

With cytokine storm largely ruled out, the cause of most cases of respiratory failure in COVID-19 patients remains unknown, Mudd said.

"In the population we studied, 24% died but only 4% had a cytokine storm," Mudd said. "Most people who died of COVID-19 died without a cytokine storm. Severe flu is more inflammatory than severe COVID-19. So what's causing their lungs to fail? We still don't know. We're trying to find out."

End quote

the blood draw i had done a few days ago consisted of 7 medium sized vials, and was requested by my neurologist.
the hospital called the other day and said i tested negative for covid, so i would assume the test was different than the finger poke test ?
i didn't know i was to be tested for covid, but since it is exploding around here, it makes sense.
i'm glad i don't have it, but my wife and i take all the precautions we can so [hopefully] we don't get it.

My guess is that when the hospital said you tested negative for Covid
they mean you have no antibodies for it in your blood,
so you “Probably” have not silently had it in the past without any felt symptoms.

British study finds in adults 3% to 10% already have a few antibodies against Covid-19 due to past “common cold” infections.
Children have an even higher %

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/ar...regularly-exposed-to-other-coronaviruses

Sample quote

In a group of 50 blood samples from pregnant people from May 2018, the team found that 10% had cross-reacting antibodies. In a separate cohort of 101 samples from May 2019, three had these antibodies.

In a further experiment, the team analyzed 13 additional samples from adults who had recently had an infection with a common cold coronavirus. Of these, only 1 sample had cross-reacting antibodies.

Overall, the authors report, 16 of 302 samples, or 5.29%, had SARS-CoV-2 cross-reacting antibodies. The median age of the donors was 51 years.
...snip...
To look for a link between age and SARS-CoV-2 cross-reacting antibodies, the team analyzed 48 blood samples from children and adolescents aged 1–16 years. All of the samples stemmed from before the pandemic.

Here, they found that 21 of the samples had cross-reacting antibodies, while in a separate cohort of samples from people aged 17–25 years, these were only present in one sample.

“Our results show that children are much more likely to have these cross-reactive antibodies than adults.

End quote

Swedish say USA drug company Lilly made
drug Baricitinib (Olumiant trade name)
helps reduce Covid deaths 71% especially in over 65 year old patients.

The British firm BenevolentAI used computers to predict this months ago, after examining thousands of drugs using artificial intelligence programs.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-baricitinib-treatment-linked-mortality-covid-.html

Sample quote

We are pleased to report a 71 percent reduction in mortality for the group receiving baricitinib in addition to standard care," says Volker Lauschke, corresponding author and associate professor of personalized medicine and drug development at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet. "These results are especially encouraging seeing as the study included a large cohort of elderly patients, a group that is often excluded in other trials."

In the study, 83 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 pneumonia in Italy and Spain were treated with baricitinib in addition to standard care. Of these, 17 percent suffered an adverse outcome that resulted in death or invasive mechanical ventilation. This compared to 35 percent in the matched control group of 83 patients who received standard care only. The patients had a median age of 81 years.

The drug was generally well tolerated with a reduction in inflammation from the first treatment days, according to the researchers. Previously reported side-effects of long-term baricitinib use, including coagulopathy and thrombosis, were not evident in any of the patients, possibly due to treatment with anti-coagulating medicine.
...snip...
The researchers note that a limitation of the study was the lack of a placebo control group, which is included in industry-sponsored randomized controlled trials that are currently ongoing.

End quote

Slightly off topic: new shoulder and hip pain relief technique

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-technique-stuns-arthritis-pain-shoulder.html

Sample quote

"In our study, the results were very impressive and promising," Dr. Gonzalez said. "The patients with shoulder pain had a decrease in pain of 85%, and an increase in function of approximately 74%. In patients with hip pain, there was a 70% reduction in pain, and a gain in function of approximately 66%."

The procedure offers a new alternative for patients who are facing the prospect of surgery. In addition, it can decrease the risk of opiate addiction.

End quote

Another twist on the old question: is eating two eggs per day healthy.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-easy-eggs-egg-cess-consumption-linked.html

Sample quote

"While the association between eating eggs and diabetes is often debated, this study has aimed to assess people's long-term egg consumption of eggs and their risk of developing diabetes, as determined by fasting blood glucose.

"What we discovered was that higher long-term egg consumption (greater than 38 grams per day) increased the risk of diabetes among Chinese adults by approximately 25 percent.

"Furthermore, adults who regularly ate a lot of eggs (over 50 grams, or equivalent to one egg, per day) had an increased risk of diabetes by 60 percent."

The effect was also more pronounced in women than in men.

End quote

Interm results on Moderna Covid-19 vaccine suggests 94% effectiveness

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...pe-in-race-to-end-pandemic-idUSKBN27W1E6

Sample quote

A key advantage of Moderna’s vaccine is that it does not need ultra-cold storage like Pfizer’s, making it easier to distribute. Moderna expects it to be stable at normal fridge temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (36 to 48°F) for 30 days and it can be stored for up to 6 months at -20C.

Pfizer’s vaccine must be shipped and stored at -70C, the sort of temperature typical of an Antarctic winter. It can be stored for up to five days at standard refrigerator temperatures or for up to 15 days in a thermal shipping box.
...snip...
Most side effects were mild to moderate. A significant proportion of volunteers, however, experienced more severe aches and pains after taking the second dose, including about 10% who had fatigue severe enough to interfere with daily activities while another 9% had severe body aches. Most of these complaints were generally short-lived, Moderna said.

End quote

Diseases like Lupus involve mistakes where one’s immune system makes antibodies that wrongly attack normal human tissues.
These are called “auto-antibodies.”

New research indicates in Covid-19 the sickest patients who eventually die
might have auto-antibodies against “interferons”
which are normal human proteins that fight viral infections.

https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/healt...eveals-why-certain-covid-19-patients-die

Sample quote

In yet another unexpected finding, 94% of patients in the study with these autoantibodies were men. About 12.5% of men with life-threatening COVID pneumonia had autoantibodies against interferon, compared with 2.6% of women.

That was unexpected, given that autoimmune disease is far more common in women, Klein said.

“I’ve been studying sex differences in viral infections for 22 years, and I don’t think anybody who studies autoantibodies thought this would be a risk factor for COVID-19,” Klein said.

The study might help explain why men are more likely than women to become critically ill with COVID-19 and die, Klein said.
...snip...
Akiko Iwasaki, a professor of immunobiology at the Yale School of Medicine, noted that several genes involved in the immune system’s response to viruses are on the X chromosome.

Women have two copies of this chromosome — along with two copies of each gene. That gives women a backup in case one copy of a gene becomes defective, Iwasaki said.

Men, however, have only one copy of the X chromosome. So if there is a defect or harmful gene on the X chromosome, they have no other copy of that gene to correct the problem, Iwasaki said.

[censored] noted that one woman in the study who developed autoantibodies has a rare genetic condition in which she has only one X chromosome.

End quote

VA warns that Male veterans, especially Black veterans,
with Covid-19 experiencing kidney damage

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-covid-associated-kidney-injury-veterans.html

Sample quote

Among the major findings:

1,655 (32%) veterans had AKI: 58%, 13%, and 16% with stage 1, 2, and 3 AKI, respectively.
201 (12%) of these patients received kidney replacement therapy such as dialysis.
80% of patients with AKI developed it within 1 day of hospitalization, and 47% did not fully recover their kidney function by the time they were discharged.
Older age, Black race, male gender, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and lower kidney function were significant predictors of AKI during hospitalization with COVID-19.
AKI was associated with higher likelihoods of needing to be put on a ventilator and of requiring a longer hospital stay.
AKI was associated with a 6.7-times higher risk of death, and this association was stronger in Black veterans.
Rates of AKI exhibited substantial geographic variability (ranging from 10% to 56%), and higher rates were observed in regions with hospitals that cared for more Black veterans.
End quote

Huge analysis of 534,000 Medicare patients who caught Covid-19

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.27.20220970v2

Sample quote

Results We identified 534,023 COVID-19 patients
of whom 38,066 had an inpatient death.
Demographic characteristics associated with COVID-19 death included
advanced age (85 years or older: aOR: 2.07; 95% CI, 1.99-2.16),
male sex (aOR, 1.88; 95% CI, 1.82-1.94),

non-white race
Hispanic vs White, aOR, =1.74, CI 1.66-1.83;
Asian vs White, aOR = 1.71, CI 1.61-1.82;
Black vs White, aOR = 1.61, CI 1.56-1.66;
Other or unknown vs White, aOR = 1.44, CI 1.37-1.52

Leading comorbidities associated with COVID-19 mortality included
sickle cell disease (aOR, 1.73; 95% CI, 1.21-2.47),
chronic kidney disease (aOR, 1.32; 95% CI, 1.29-1.36),
leukemias and lymphomas (aOR, 1.22; 95% CI, 1.14-1.30),
heart failure (aOR, 1.19; 95% CI, 1.16-1.22),
and diabetes (aOR, 1.18; 95% CI, 1.15-1.22).

Conclusions We created a personalized risk prediction calculator to identify candidates for early vaccine and therapeutics allocation (www.predictcovidrisk.com).
These findings may be used to protect those at greatest risk of death from COVID-19.

End quote

38036 deaths divided by 524,023 patients times 100% equals
7% fatality rate averaged over those over age 65

The article says:

For patients over the age of 65 with no comorbidities (n=54,669),
the COVID-19 infection fatality rate was 4.7% (n=2,591/54,669).


Another sample quote

The highest prevalence of COVID-19 infections was among white patients (n=396,198, 74.2%), female patients (n=307,595, 57.6%), and those age 85 or older (n=138,195, 25.9%).
The median age of a COVID-19 diagnosed patient was 77 years (IQR 70-85), and the median age of patients who died was 80 years (IQR 73-87).
Each of six comorbidities was present in the majority of COVID-19 patients:
80% (n=423,808) had hypertension,
76% (n=402,979) had hyperlipidemia,
63% (n=335,413) had anemia,
62% (n=332,422) had a cataract,
61% (n=325,498) had rheumatoid arthritis/osteoarthritis, and
54% (n=286,025) had ischemic heart disease (Table 1).

Over 65% of patients that died (n=24,927) had at least one of these comorbidities.

Risk factors associated with COVID-19 death which had a low prevalence in the Medicare population over 65 years of age included pressure ulcers and chronic ulcers (n=85,740), tobacco use (n=69,437), Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders (n=65,303), history of acute myocardial infarction (n=29,728), Blindness and Visual Impairment (n=15,202), lymphoma and leukemia (n=11,996), lung cancer (n=7,578), cerebral palsy (n=3,135) sickle cell disease (n=222),

End quote

The PCR test is overamplified and gives up to 80% positives on non-infectious cases. Amplifies DNA 35 times and more just detects dead nucleotides and non-culturable virus per Fauci.. Most labs do at least 40 cycles of amplification.. If I was treating the patient I would want to know the cycle count the sample turned positive as the DNA multiplies exponentially each cycle. Low cycle count positives are probably infectious disease. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html

I thought we were hearing for months, one of the unique strategies being employed with the rapid vaccine program was, millions (100?) of simultaneous with testing doses were in production, and waiting on the completion of the final phase 3 testing, meaning there would be effectively no ramp up, as the vaccine upon CDC? approval would be "needle ready". This was supposed to be a rather expensive, at taxpayer expense/risk in case approval was not forthcoming, and a never done before vaccine solution for the COVID 19 pandemic. Seems now, the initial doses will be slowly ramped up. What changed?

I was under the same impression, that the vaccine doses were being made and would be thrown away if the clinical trials showed less than 50% effectiveness.

I can only guess that the vaccine factories have had delays.

There is an earlier post in this long thread about Bill Gates funding the construction of factories, only some of which by chance would have the equipment to produce the effective vaccines.

The other factories would be written off as “acceptable wasted money” to ensure speed.

This is kinda like the three different hugely expensive factories built to produce an atomic bomb during WW-II, two at Oak Ridge and one at Hanford Washington.