Worried About Coronavirus- thread 37

[TheStarryNight]

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Custardy I remember they had issues with this in Japan too with their earlier infections. This is an older Reuters article but it goes into the possibilities in a bit more detail.

Either way, whether it’s reinfection (which they seem to think is less likely) it lying dormant, or it being difficult to “find” the virus in a test, it’s worrying stuff. Not to mention the recovery time that a lot of posters have talked about here after Covid 19 type symptoms. It is indeed an embuggerance.

“Experts say there are several ways discharged patients could fall ill with the virus again. Convalescing patients might not build up enough antibodies to develop immunity to SARS-CoV-2, and are being infected again. The virus also could be "biphasic", meaning it lies dormant before creating new symptoms.

But some of the first cases of "reinfection" in China have been attributed to testing discrepancies.

On Feb. 21, a discharged patient in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu was readmitted 10 days after being discharged when a follow-up test came back positive.

Lei Xuezhong, the deputy director of the infectious diseases center at the West China Hospital, told People's Daily that hospitals were testing nose and throat samples when deciding whether patients should be discharged, but new tests were finding the virus in the lower respiratory tract.

Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at Britain's University of East Anglia who has been closely following the outbreak, told Reuters that although the patient in Osaka could have relapsed, it is also possible that the virus was still being released into her system from the initial infection, and she wasn't tested properly before she was discharged.”

Link to the article that I took the above quote from - it’s from the end of February, so if anyone’s come across anything more recent and definite, and this is no longer relevant, let me know.

www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-reinfection-explainer/explainer-coronavirus-reappears-in-discharged-patients-raising-questions-in-containment-fight-idUSKCN20M124

It's so frightening. I'm a miserable bugger at the best of times (lifelong depression and anxiety) but this is just horrific. It's just like an apocalyptic film come true. A living nightmare with no end.

Custardy I’m sorry if that article made you worry I’ve struggled with anxiety in the past and it hits really hard doesn’t it.

I’m trying to think about it in a slightly positive light that it is just an issue with the method of testing. If the virus is hiding far down the throat/top of lungs it will be harder to swab for. A lot of the “reinfections” could be testing errors/not finding the virus even though it’s there.

And not virus related but your username is one of my favourite jokes to tell the kids

I am really struggling with this today.
It is clear the governments strategy is still for us all to get it. They want kids to go back to school soon to infect households. The lie is that the pandemic will inevitably die down during the summer and we will have another peak in the Autumn, as if this is somehow seasonal. So have the kids in school when the pandemic has died down.
There is zero evidence that this is affected by temperature. So the real reason is kids go back, then lots of households get infected and we have a second peak of people dying.

Hospitals are also sending patients with corona back to care homes to die or nor admitting them in the first place. Care homes are not set up for this level of infection control, and so it means it inevitably spreads throughout the care home. It almost seems a deliberate policy to kill off elderly people who need care.

I am really struggling with this utter disregard for life, while parents I know go on about how schools need to go back because their kids are missing their friends. It has made me realise how utterly selfish most people are, and I am afraid I have little regard for most people at the moment.

The masks and emptiness with the sun shine is surreal custard. Shouldn't say but I think about death more clearly than before. They can't open the schools

They are talking about opening the schools. And if they do then people will have to go back to work.
And more people will die.

I mentioned that Reuter’s article in Feb and was dismissed for scaremongering. Couldn’t make it up. Has anyone else seen the yahoo article tonight about neurological issues in COVID19 patients?

uk.news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-patients-suffered-strokes-other-neurological-symptoms-says-155200137.html

No I hadn't, but I remember when this was originally raised.

I read in February about it potentially hiding in neurons. It made me sick

It is clear we have no real idea of potential long term health impacts. But still the government wants nearly every one to get it.

Wehttam I noticed you were like a conspiracy theorist to general posters. You said being suspicious every cough and sneeze from others will be our new reality. That sounded like a movie scene. But that is exactly what it is like now.

I think these two articles need to be read in full but I'm going to put a warning on them that they are not cheery.

www.forbes.com/sites/victoriaforster/2020/04/08/can-you-get-sick-with-coronavirus-again-after-youve-already-had-it-new-research-continues-to-emerge-but-the-jury-is-still-out/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
Can You Get Sick With Coronavirus Twice? The Jury Is Still Out

The work was published on preprint server MedRxiv by scientists from Fudan University in Shanghai and has not yet been peer reviewed by external experts, nor accepted for publication in a scientific journal. The study looked at blood samples from 175 patients from Shanghai who had experienced mild cases of COVID-19 and subsequently recovered. They found that almost a third of those who recovered had low levels of neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) against the virus, with ten patients having no detectable level of the neutralizing antibodies at all.

“About 30% of recovered patients generated a very low level of NAb titers and NAb titers in ten of them were below the limit of detection,” said the authors in the paper.

And

Although the paper has not been officially peer-reviewed, scientists on Twitter identified a few possible caveats in the paper which might affect the conclusions. Firstly, some suggested that perhaps some of the patients who had low or undetectable levels of protective antibodies may not have had COVID-19 at all due to a possibility of faulty tests. The study also only followed the patients for 24 days after their illness, with some scientists questioning whether this was enough time for protective antibodies to be developed. There were also other criticisms about the experimental methods in the study, including that the researchers only looked for antibodies against one viral protein, the spike protein, rather than others which are also important to consider and may also give immunity to SARS-CoV2.

amp.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3079443/coronavirus-could-target-immune-system-targeting-protective?__twitter_impression=true
Coronavirus could attack immune system like HIV by targeting protective cells, warn scientists
Researchers in China and the US find that the virus that causes Covid-19 can destroy the T cells that are supposed to protect the body from harmful invaders
One doctor said concern is growing in medical circles that effect could be similar to HIV

To the surprise of the scientists, the T cell became a prey to the coronavirus in their experiment. They found a unique structure in the virus’ spike protein that apparently triggered the fusion of a viral envelope and cell membrane when they came into contact.

The virus’s genes then entered the T cell and took it hostage, disabling its function of protecting humans.

And

A doctor who works in a public hospital treating Covid-19 patients in Beijing said the discovery added another piece of evidence to a growing concern in medical circles that the coronavirus could sometimes behave like some of the most notorious viruses that directly attack the human immune system. “More and more people compare it to HIV,” said the doctor who requested not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue. In February, Chen Yongwen and his colleagues at the PLA’s Institute of Immunology released a clinical report warning that the number of T cells could drop significantly in Covid-19 patients, especially when they were elderly or required treatment in intensive care units. The lower the T cell count, the higher the risk of death.

This observation was later confirmed by autopsy examinations on more than 20 patients, whose immune systems were almost completely destroyed, according to mainland media reports

There does seem to be a growing number of stories which suggest that covid-19 is doing something strange with the immune system - some people are completely asymptomatic, some people are having cytokine storms, people apparently 'relapsing', BCG vaccinations possibly changing how immune systems work, autopsies showing damage to the body like AIDs and SARS, the whole died 'with' covid-19 rather than 'of' it.

We simply do not have a clue what's going on with this disease, nor the long term impact of having had it.

I believe your T cells can recover, but it's much slower and harder the older you are.

I really don't know what to make of any of this, but it's troubling.

Re the stuff about the victorian slums - that's my point; where its got into the most deprived areas of cities its been really bad. But it's not got to a lot of more provisional areas in widespread numbers (yet). These areas have less healthcare provision and ability to cope with a large outbreak compared to cities due to infrastructure. This makes them more vulnerable in this way than metropolitan areas. Plus general health is lower than elsewhere (age and obesity rates being higher for starters)

We don't want large outbreaks in poor provincial towns as death rates could well be higher than elsewhere.

that is very worrying indeed.

the 'open window effect' with severe flu or other illness is known (opportunistic infections etc), but this is a whole different scale.

I fear we might enter something similar to pre-antibiotics, where we need to be really cautious about getting infections and need to re-think our approach to home and food hygiene.

^I am really struggling with this today.
It is clear the governments strategy is still for us all to get it. They want kids to go back to school soon to infect households. The lie is that the pandemic will inevitably die down during the summer and we will have another peak in the Autumn, as if this is somehow seasonal. So have the kids in school when the pandemic has died down.^

Dh and I were talking about this last night.

He asked the simple question: "why are we still building the nightingale hospitals?"

And that's the thing. The press conferences over the last few days have been keen to point out the rate of transmission and hospital admissions has levelled off and we've stayed within capacity.

Yet behind this we have pressed on with construction of the nightingales and announced at least two more over the past few days.

Why?

They are obviously still concerned about what happens next. Their modelling of 'flattening the curve' always had a second bigger wave following it.

In terms of what happens next for the UK there are a few things going on. Firstly we have more time - we can observe what's happening in Singapore, South Korea and Japan (and to a lesser extent China).

Restrictions in parts of Europe are now also being eased.

The UK cabinet is apparently split between the 'Hawks' (Rishi, Patel, Raab, Johnson) who want to lift lockdown around the first bank holiday in May versus the 'Doves' who think it should be more like the second bank holiday in May (Hancock and Gove). The latter are better know for their attention to detail and not being as far to the hard right (eugenics sympathisers).

The way I see it, Macron announcing the French lockdown will gradually start to be lifted on May 11th, makes it much harder politically for the UK go start to reopen in early May as we are known to be a couple of weeks behind France in terms of the peak. Going earlier than France would be too much of a political gamble especially with a care home scandal brewing and the ONS figures over the coming weeks liable to be catastrophic and showing us to be far higher in numbers than elsewhere (there was something published last night that suggested that EU figures had shown half of all deaths had been outside hospitals)

The French lockdown being lifted relies heavily on testing being widespread. Again we are behind on this, and this has become something of a brewing issue with criticism right across the political spectrum of newspapers.

There is going to have to be a lot more ramping up of capacity if PPE production and distribution, food distribution to the vulnerable and testing to get out lockdown in an effective way.

The only thing that possibly looks good right now, is that estimates of asymptomatic cases might be lower than we realise and that more people than we realise may already have had it.

But going forward, there is a lot of silence on particular concerns, and I was always taught as part of my education in journalistic skill that you should listen harder to where there are silences and unknowns as they can often tell you more or be more important than the stuff you know and people want you to know.

My concerns right now are the care home disaster, unknown long term effects on health, prospects of end of isolation for vulnerable groups in relation to a vaccine at end of 12 weeks, effectiveness of a vaccine, second wave predictions and continued building of nightingales, approval of industry produced ventilators being blocked as they aren't up to standard required for specific Covid-19 patient requirements (too much fan fare and pr on how clever UK industry was only for it quietly dawn that promises of a lot of equipment haven't come to fruition), lack of adequately trained staff for nightingales, lack of knowledge of how widespread covid-19 actually is. And that's for starters off the top of my head.

These presser are supposed to reassure the public that the government know what they are doing and are in control of the situation.

If you can 'read' a presser for what's NOT being said and what's being omitted, the reality is much much scarer.

Useful analysis Red . Thanks

news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-government-has-hit-only-13-of-ventilator-target-11972730?dcmp=snt-sf-twitter
Coronavirus: Government has hit only 13% of ventilator target
Ministers have come under pressure to explain how they intend to "ramp up" supplies of the vital machines.

Quote-These presser are supposed to reassure the public that the government know what they are doing and are in control of the situation.

Agree I find them just full of soundbites and rhetoric not very reassuring at all. In fact the earlier ones were slightly better to the shambles they have now.

Morning all. I'm feeling anxious this morning that life will never get back to any kind of normal or that it will and we will die. Everything looks normal from my house and I've not seen beyond my own view for over 4 weeks now. I can't imagine what it's like out there now. As selfish as it might be, I've never been so glad to have let my nursing registration lapse and continue to be a SAHM. I'm all ds has got. That weighs so heavily normally in terms of responsibility but now it's even more so.

A research trial of coronavirus patients in Brazil ended after patients taking a higher dose of chloroquine, one of the drugs President Trump has promoted, developed irregular heart rates.

@RedToothBrush that is scary. My thoughts on nightingale hospitals though is that they are looking at the coming months and maybe plan to focus all Covid patients, where practicable, near cities where they have a nightingale hospital, to use these and try to have some space in the regular hospitals to go back to a somewhat slimline business as usual with some routine operations etc returning. Everything is on hold atm but there must be a limit to how long this can easily be done without causing additional deaths for other reasons because of this.

I still wonder if thr govt will or should tighten restrictions further in the coming weeks when our curve is predicted to be at peak to prevent it getting higher. Surely as more are hospitalised every day and they all stay for a number of days or weeks they will be using more and more beds for them. Restrict how far people can leave for exercise and leaving home for non essential work to me would make a difference to this if it could be given for just a couple of weeks or so whilst at the peak. I’m worried about our stats and how high they are yet how little outcry there seems to be about it compared to when similar figures were seen elsewhere. It feels like everyone just accepts them and distances themselves from it. I just don’t get it. The poor front line nhs workers, I can’t see how they can sustain the level of pressure they are currently working at for months on end.

My thoughts on catching it remain the same. I don’t want to get it but if the plan is for me to have to get it at some point I want to get it as late as possible so that more is known about it and hopefully treatments are found that help a little more than what we have now. As such I am expecting not to live a normal life for a number of months. I’m just petrified when schools return as I will need to go back to work and I’m not sure mentally I can cope with going out to the world right now, I’m going to have to weigh up whether I can manage to keep my job and work or have to leave my job because of wanting to stay home to protect myself and my family, which I really don’t want to do.

I agree RTB and alltofucks
It's making me increasingly anxious

• about catching it (if we havent already got it or have it)
• about the second wave being huge

The FT model from imperial has it oct and much bigger than this current one.

What if we do all end up immune comprimised. That's in itself reduced life expectancy.
Let alone what this could do to kids.
I think it's awful for those who get it/already had it because what if it does show really serious consequences (other than death).
If some countries keep it out if it's reactivation then anyone who has had it might not be able to go there.
Likewise HTF can we visit elderly relatives ever (if we even have any left).
Some of these factors will affect whether you can use any vax you do make as

• if it does come back and does affect immunity what will that do to elderly that get vax
• will they be sure even a vax dose doesnt do harm too

• tbh it looks like we need to use drugs even on a recovering person to make sure they clear infection and dont continue to infect others.

I just hadnt realised the second wave would be so big. Many times this one as so many not immune.
The focus seems to be away from that so people dont realise and want to stay in.
But reopening schools cpuld only be for 4w as thats how long it took to overwhelm this time

I read in February about it potentially hiding in neurons. It made me sick

It wouldn't be the first virus to 'hide' in the body. Ebola does, Chicken pox does (and can later reactivate as Shingles), Herpes, Norovirus, Epstein-Barr, Rotavirus etc. all do. That way they can evade the body's defences.

www.passporthealthusa.com/2018/08/how-do-viruses-hide-within-the-body/

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200203114330.htm

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180315093824.htm

Glad to see the Care home situation with Covid-19 is now front page news. Victoria Derbyshire devoting the whole program to it this morning. It's scandalous and terrible, both for staff and patients. Someone said 'airbrushing out the elderly'. It feels a lot like that.