Written by Steven Hansen
The U.S. new cases 7-day rolling average is 18.5 % HIGHER than the 7-day rolling average one week ago. U.S. deaths due to coronavirus are now 3.4 % HIGHER than the rolling average one week ago. U.S. hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are up 11.8 % from the levels one week ago. At the end of this post is a set of interactive graphs and tables for the world and individual States – as well as today’s headlines which include;
- Scientist from Russia’s Novosibirsk contracted COVID-19 twice for sake of experiment
- Covid-19 death rates have fallen as understanding of the disease improved
- Most people with mild to moderate COVID-19 illness produced a robust antibody response lasting at least 5 months
- For some patients, COVID-19 apparently becomes an autoimmune disease
- How does the coronavirus affect the heart?
- Regeneron Antibody Cocktail Cuts COVID-19 Viral Load, ‘Medical Visits’
- Covid trajectory in the U.S. looks ‘a lot like Europe’
- A Flu Shot Might Reduce Coronavirus Infections, Early Research Suggests
- Lower-ranking employees feel more pressure to return to the workplace
The recent worsening of the trendlines for new cases should be attributed to going back to college/university, cooler weather causing more indoor activities, fatigue from wearing masks / social distancing, holiday activities, and continued loosening of regulations designed to slow the coronavirus spread.
My continuing advice is to continue to wash your hands, wear masks, avoid crowds, and maintain social distancing. No handwashing, mask, or social distancing will guarantee you do not get infected – but it sure as hell lowers the risk in all situations – as the evidence to-date shows a lower severity of COVID-19. In addition, certain activities are believed to carry higher risk – like being inside in air conditioning and removing your mask (such as restaurants, around your children/grandchildren, bars, and gyms). It is all about viral load – and outdoor activities are generally safe.
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Hospitalizations (grey line) and Mortality (green line) For Week ending 17OCT2020
source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html
Coronavirus News You May Have Missed
How does the coronavirus affect the heart? – AP
Even though it’s known as a respiratory virus, doctors believe the coronavirus can directly infect the heart muscle and cause other problems leading to heart damage.
In some people, as COVID-19 decreases lung function, it may deprive the heart of adequate oxygen. Sometimes it causes an overwhelming inflammatory reaction that taxes the heart as the body tries to fight off the infection.
The virus can also invade blood vessels or cause inflammation within them, leading to blood clots that can cause heart attacks.
Clots throughout the body have been found in many COVID-19 patients. That has led some doctors to try blood thinners, although there is no consensus on that treatment.
Dr. Sean Pinney of the University of Chicago says people with heart disease are most at risk for virus-related damage to the heart. But heart complications also have been found in COVID-19 patients with no known previous disease.
A recent review in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology notes that evidence of heart involvement has been found in at least 25% of hospitalized coronavirus patients. At some centers, the rate is 30% or higher. And some studies have found elevated enzyme levels and other signs suggesting heart damage even in patients with milder disease. It is not known whether that damage is permanent.
One small study found evidence of the virus in the hearts of COVID-19 patients who died from pneumonia. Another, using heart imaging, found inflammation of the heart muscle in four college athletes who had recovered from mild COVID-19 infections. There were no images available from before the athletes got sick, and therefore no way to know if they had pre-existing heart problems.
Scientists warn of new coronavirus variant spreading across Europe – Financial Times
A coronavirus variant that originated in Spanish farm workers has spread rapidly through much of Europe since the summer, and now accounts for the majority of new Covid-19 cases in several countries – and more than 80 per cent in the UK.
An international team of scientists that has been tracking the virus through its genetic mutations has described the extraordinary spread of the variant, called 20A.EU1, in a research paper to be published on Thursday.
Their work suggests that people returning from holiday in Spain played a key role in transmitting the virus across Europe, raising questions about whether the second wave that is sweeping the continent could have been reduced by improved screening at airports and other transport hubs.
Because each variant has its own genetic signature, it can be traced back to the place it originated.
“From the spread of 20A.EU1, it seems clear that the [virus prevention] measures in place were often not sufficient to stop onward transmission of introduced variants this summer,” said Emma Hodcroft, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Basel and lead author of the study which is yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
The scientific teams in Switzerland and Spain are now rushing to examine the behaviour of the variant to establish whether it may be more deadly or more infectious than other strains.
Dr Hodcroft stressed that there was “no evidence that the variant’s [rapid] spread is due to a mutation that increases transmission or impacts clinical outcome”.
But she emphasised that 20A.EU1 was unlike any version of Sars-Cov-2 – the virus that causes Covid-19 – she had previously come across. “I’ve not seen any variant with this sort of dynamic for as long as I’ve been looking at genomic sequences of coronavirus in Europe,” she said.
For COVID-19, attempt to build ‘herd immunity’ is a losing strategy – USA Today
The campaign to eradicate smallpox provided real-life experience demonstrating the inadequacy of herd immunity as a concept or valid target.
Fifty-five years ago, as I became interested in smallpox, I was told repeatedly that “herd immunity” for the infectious disease would be achieved when 80% of a population was immune, either from vaccination or surviving the infection.
That turned out not to be the case then, and a herd immunity approach is likely to be inadequate now in the battle against the novel coronavirus.
The current discussions of herd immunity often concern hypothetical possibilities and are not based on evidence. Even when science-based discourse is presented, it is often one dimensional.
The discussions provide an immune percentage that supposedly gives the point at which natural transmission will cease. The crucial feature is how many susceptible people are in a given area. No herd immunity figure is meaningful without population density, plus information on the frequency and types of contacts between people.
[editor’s note: this post deserves a full read – and below is another video on herd immunity which I think is very thought-provoking. Lay people who follow “science” will be deceived by the hocus-pocus of scientific gobbledygook. I go back to the middle ages where science believed the world was flat, and heretics believed the world was round. In today’s world, it is even worse as the scientists are politicized. Beware …]
For some patients, COVID-19 apparently becomes an autoimmune disease. – New York Times
Some survivors of Covid-19 carry worrying signs that their immune system has turned on the body, reminiscent of potentially debilitating diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, a new study has found.
At some point, the body’s defense system in these patients shifted into attacking itself, rather than the virus, the study suggests. The patients are producing molecules called “autoantibodies” that target genetic material from human cells, instead of from the virus.
This misguided immune response may exacerbate severe Covid-19. It may also explain why so-called “long haulers” have lingering problems months after their initial illness has resolved and the virus is gone from their bodies.
The findings carry important implications for treatment: Using existing tests that can detect autoantibodies, doctors could identify patients who might benefit from treatments used for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. There is no cure for these diseases, but some treatments decrease the frequency and severity of flare-ups.
“It’s possible that you could hit the appropriate patients harder with some of these more aggressive drugs and expect better outcomes,” said Matthew Woodruff, an immunologist at Emory University in Atlanta and lead author of the work.
The results were reported Friday on the preprint server MedRxiv, and have not yet been published in a scientific journal. But other experts said the researchers who carried out the study are known for their careful, meticulous work, and that the findings are not unexpected because other viral illnesses also trigger autoantibodies.
A Flu Shot Might Reduce Coronavirus Infections, Early Research Suggests – Scientific American
U.S. health officials are urging Americans to get their flu shots this year in the hopes of thwarting a winter “twindemic“-a situation in which both influenza and COVID-19 spread and sicken the public. But a new study suggests that there could be another key reason to get a flu jab this year: it might reduce your risk of COVID-19. The research, released as a preprint that has not yet been peer-reviewed, indicates that a flu vaccine against the influenza virus may also trigger the body to produce broad infection-fighting molecules that combat the pandemic-causing coronavirus.
The paper is in line with some other recent studies published in peer-reviewed journals that point to similar effects. But researchers caution the research is preliminary and needs to be bolstered by more rigorous experiments.
In the new study, Mihai Netea, an infectious disease immunologist at Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands, and his colleagues combed through their hospital’s databases to see if employees who got a flu shot during the 2019-2020 season were more or less likely to get infected by SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19. Workers who received a flu vaccine, the researchers found, were 39 percent less likely to test positive for the coronavirus as of June 1, 2020. While 2.23 percent of nonvaccinated employees tested positive, only 1.33 percent of vaccinated ones did. Netea and his team posted their findings on the preprint server MedRxiv on October 16.
These findings do not prove that flu vaccines prevent COVID-19, however. “This is an intriguing study, but it doesn’t provide definitive evidence,” says Ellen Foxman, an immunobiologist and clinical pathologist at the Yale School of Medicine. There could be other explanations for the association the Radboud scientists and their colleagues found. For instance, people who choose to receive a flu shot may be more health-conscious and more likely to follow COVID-19 prevention guidelines than individuals who do not get vaccinated. Netea agrees, noting that overall behavior, rather than the shot, might have made people in the former group less likely to get sick in his study.
Studies such as these, which find correlations between behaviors and outcomes, cannot establish cause and effect.
Most people with mild to moderate COVID-19 illness produced a robust antibody response lasting at least 5 months, a small longitudinal analysis found. – Science Magazine
SARS-CoV-2 has caused a global pandemic with millions infected and numerous fatalities. Questions regarding the robustness, functionality, and longevity of the antibody response to the virus remain unanswered. Here we report that the vast majority of infected individuals with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 experience robust IgG antibody responses against the viral spike protein, based on a dataset of 30,082 individuals screened at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. We also show that titers are relatively stable for at least a period approximating 5 months and that anti-spike binding titers significantly correlate with neutralization of authentic SARS-CoV-2. Our data suggests that more than 90% of seroconverters make detectible neutralizing antibody responses. These titers remain relatively stable for several months after infection.
Scientist from Russia’s Novosibirsk contracted COVID-19 twice for sake of experiment – TASS
Alexander Chepurnov, professor of virology and an employee of the Novosibirsk Federal Research Center of Basic and Translational medicine, contracted the coronavirus twice for the sake of an experiment. The scientists sought to find out, for how long the antibodies will protect him for repeat contraction of the disease.
“I spoke to the covid patients and realized that the exposure happens at certain period. In six months after the first case, I had confirmed covid once again,” Chepurnov told TASS.
He disclosed that he first contracted the coronavirus in the early days of the pandemic, during a flight from France to Novosibirsk with a connection in Moscow. The disease was accompanied by characteristic symptoms and caused a pneumonia later. After the scientist has recovered, he took a test that revealed the presence of covid antibodies.
Chepurnov conducted a second test in three months and discovered that the antibodies had disappeared. However, repeated infection did not happen despite his constant close contact with the coronavirus patients. The scientists decided to take covid tests with a certain period in a bid to determine for how long his immune system will continue to protect him from the virus; he faced the symptoms of the disease in about six month, with test confirming the infection.
“My conclusion is that the mankind will most likely be unable to obtain a herd immunity to the coronavirus. I was ready to contract the infection for the second time in order to clear the situation this way,” Chepurnov said.
According to the scientist, the disappearance of the antibodies will prevent the people from developing a collective immunity. This, Chepurnov explained, may indicate that a one-time administration of the Russian coronavirus vaccine may be insufficient to maintain the immunity. According to the scientist, periodic vaccination may be much more efficient.
Regeneron Antibody Cocktail Cuts COVID-19 Viral Load, ‘Medical Visits’ – MedPage
Regeneron’s REGN-COV2 monoclonal antibody combination met its primary endpoint and a key secondary endpoint in a phase II/III trial involving high-risk patients with mild to moderate COVID-19, the company said Wednesday.
Compared to patients receiving standard of care plus placebo, patients randomized to combined doses of REGN-COV2, the average daily decrease in viral load through day 7 for patients with a high viral load — the primary outcome — was 0.68 log10 copies/mL greater than in patients randomized to placebo (P<0.0001).
Patients also showed a 1.08 log10 greater reduction in the intervention group by day 5 relative to placebo.
Moreover, the two-antibody combination significantly reduced COVID-19-related “medical visits” by 57% through day 29, defined as hospitalizations, emergency room or urgent care visits, or physician office or telemedicine visits.
Notably, though, the vast majority of patients avoided medical visits whether they received the active agents or placebo. Regeneron said 2.8% of patients in combined REGN-COV2 dosing groups and 6.5% of patients in placebo reported a medical visit.
According to one online calculator, those numbers yield a number needed to treat of 27: meaning 27 patients would have to receive the treatment to prevent one medical visit. Regeneron did not provide a breakdown for the composite outcome’s individual components.
Lower-ranking employees feel more pressure to return to the workplace – the Conference Board
According to a recent survey from The Conference Board of over 1,100 US workers, 20 percent of individual contributors feel pressure to return to the workplace in order to keep their jobs. That is in stark contrast to the 4 percent of C-suite executives who feel such pressure. And while individual contributors feel the most pressure to return, they also feel the least comfortable with returning (42 percent vs. 31 percent overall). “These survey results reinforce the need for employers to hear concerns about the pressure that individual contributors and front-line managers, especially, feel to return to the workplace to keep their jobs. These cohorts are less likely to be involved with planning the return. Without a continuous dialogue, and in many cases, the lack of a detailed plan about returning to the workplace, it comes as no surprise that these workers are more apprehensive,” says Rebecca Ray, PhD, Executive Vice President of Human Capital at The Conference Board.
Covid-19 death rates have fallen as understanding of the disease improved, researchers say. – New York Times
In April, the coronavirus killed more than 10,000 people in New York City. By early May, nearly 50,000 nursing home residents and their caregivers across the United States had died.
But as the virus continued its rampage over the summer and fall, infecting nearly 8.5 million Americans, survival rates, even for seriously ill patients, appeared to be improving. At a New York hospital system where 30 percent of coronavirus patients died in March, the death rate had dropped to 3 percent by the end of June.
Doctors in England observed a similar trend. “In late March, four in 10 people in intensive care were dying.” said John M. Dennis, a University of Exeter Medical School researcher. “By the end of June, survival was over 80 percent.”
Though the virus has been changing slowly as it spreads, most scientists say there is no solid evidence that it has become either less virulent or more virulent.
As older people took greater precautions to avoid infection, however, more of the hospitalized patients were younger adults, who are generally healthier and more resilient. By the end of August, the average patient was under 40.
Were the lower death rates simply a function of the demographic changes, or a reflection of advances in treatment that blunted the impact of the new pathogen?
Researchers at NYU Langone Health zeroed in on this question, analyzing the outcomes of more than 5,000 patients hospitalized at the system’s three hospitals from March through August. They concluded the improvement was real, not just the result of a younger patient pool.
Even when they controlled for differences in the patients’ age, sex, race, underlying health problems and severity of Covid symptoms – like blood-oxygen levels at admission – they found that death rates had dropped significantly, to 7.6 percent in August from 25.6 percent in March.
Gottlieb says Covid trajectory in the U.S. looks ‘a lot like Europe’ – CNBC
The latest surge of the coronavirus in the U.S. is three or four weeks behind the uptick Europe is experiencing, Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC. The former Food and Drug Administration chief stressed, however, that “we’re on a trajectory to look a lot like Europe as we enter the month of November, so I think things are going to get worse.”
Gottlieb said on “Squawk Box” he believes that although the U.S. outbreak is more diffuse than Europe’s, “we’re at the beginning of that steep part of the epidemic curve right now.” He added, “I wouldn’t be surprised if we challenge 100,000 diagnosed cases [per day] this week. We’ll certainly get above 90,000 towards the end of the week if all the states report.”
The following are foreign headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
India’s Spiraling Cases: The world’s second most populous nation now has a confirmed coronavirus caseload that has surpassed 8 million as concerns grew over a major Hindu festival season and winter setting in.
Australia Travel Ban: The country has sought to prevent new cases from reaching its shores by banning most residents from leaving in the first place. The ban creates a heartbreaking burden on a multicultural population, where around half the country was born overseas or has an immigrant parent.
Disneyland Paris, other French attractions close
AIDA cancels November cruises amid Germany outbreak
COVID-19 Has Robbed The World’s Poorest Children Of Nearly 4 Months Of Schooling
Remote Marshall Islands Record First Confirmed Coronavirus Cases
Germany Sees Generational Conflict Over Pandemic As Virus Spreads
Brazilian Doctor Latest Person to Get Covid Twice, Second Case Worse
Switzerland imposes new rules on social life, while Greece expands local lockdowns.
Singapore eases restrictions for migrant workers
Sanofi, GSK to provide 200 million vaccine doses to WHO program
Czech Republic is trying to tackle the shortage of health workers
The following are additional national and state headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
Inside Operation Warp Speed’s $18 Billion Sprint for a Vaccine
Updated Guidance OKs Sports Sooner After COVID-19
HIV and COVID-19: What to Do When an Epidemic Meets a Pandemic
The state of Wisconsin is on track to run out of ICU beds and the nurses who staff them in as little as two weeks if the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 does not drop.
CVS Health announced that it will add nearly 1,000 rapid testing sites throughout the country by the end of the year.
While the pandemic has led to a boom for pet care in general, it also has created an underside for pet owners struggling to pay for pet expenses because of lost jobs and reduced wages.
Exxon to lay off 1,900 employees amid pandemic downturn
Moderna says it’s on track to report initial COVID-19 vaccine results next month
Duquesne University suspends Greek activities over ‘egregious’ coronavirus violations
New ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’ clip reveals Khloe tested positive for COVID-19
Two events in NY county turn into superspreaders that infect 56 people
Fauci expresses support for national mask mandate
Russian-Speaking Hackers Unleashing Attacks on US Hospitals, Officials Warn
COVID Vaccine Would Come in January At the Earliest, Fauci Says
Virus cases spike in Montana, where politics and the pandemic seem intertwined.
Officials warn of cyberattacks on U.S. hospitals as virus cases spike.
Exxon announces additional job cuts amid ongoing Covid-19 hit to oil demand
United Airlines offering free COVID-19 test on select routes
The government says it will pay for any future coronavirus vaccine for all Americans
Today’s Posts On Econintersect Showing Impact Of The Pandemic With Hyperlinks
September 2020 Headline Pending Home Sales Declined
24 October 2020 New York Fed Weekly Economic Index (WEI): Index Improvement Continues
Advance Estimate 3Q2020 GDP Shows Record Improvement
Real GDP Expressed As Year-over-Year Change
24 October 2020 Initial Unemployment Claims Improve
Rail Week Ending 24 October 2020 – Modest Improvement Continues
The Seen And The Unseen Of Covid-19
Warning to Readers
The amount of politically biased articles on the internet continues to increase. And studies and opinions of the experts continue to contradict other studies and expert opinions. Honestly, it is difficult to believe anything anymore. A study usually cannot establish cause and effect – but only correlation. Be very careful what you believe about this pandemic.
I assemble this coronavirus update daily – sifting through the posts on the internet. I try to avoid politically slanted posts (mostly from CNN, New York Times, and the Washington Post) and can usually find unslanted posts on that subject from other sources on the internet. I wait to publish posts on subjects that I cannot validate across several sources. But after all this extra work, I do not know if I have conveyed the REAL facts. It is my job to provide information so that you have the facts necessary – and then it is up to readers to draw conclusions.
Analyst Opinion of Coronavirus Data
There are several takeaways that need to be understood when viewing coronavirus statistical data:
- The global counts are suspect for a variety of reasons including political. Even the U.S. count has issues as it is possible that as much as half the population has had coronavirus and was asymptomatic. It would be a far better metric using a random sampling of the population weekly. In short, we do not understand the size of the error in the tracking numbers.
- Just because some of the methodology used in aggregating the data in the U.S. is flawed – as long as the flaw is uniformly applied – you establish a baseline. This is why it is dangerous to compare two countries as they likely use different methodologies to determine who has (and who died) from coronavirus.
- COVID-19 and the flu are different but can have similar symptoms. For sure, COVID-19 so far is much more deadly than the flu. [click here to compare symptoms]
- From an industrial engineering point of view, one can argue that it is best to flatten the curve only to the point that the health care system is barely able to cope. This solution only works if-and-only-if one can catch this coronavirus once and develops immunity. In the case of COVID-19, herd immunity may need to be in the 80% to 85% range. WHO warns that few have developed antibodies to COVID-19. At this point, herd immunity does not look like an option although there is now a discussion of whether T-Cells play a part in immunity [which means one might have immunity without antibodies]
- Older population countries will have a higher death rate.
- There are at least 8 strains of the coronavirus. New York may have a deadlier strain imported from Europe, compared to less deadly viruses elsewhere in the United States.
- Each publication uses different cutoff times for its coronavirus statistics. Our data uses 11:00 am London time. Also, there is an unexplained variation in the total numbers both globally and in the U.S.
- The real question remains if the U.S. is over-reacting to this virus. The following graphic from the CDC puts the annual flu burden in perspective [click on image to enlarge]. Note that using this data is dangerous as the actual flu cases are estimated and not counted – nobody knows how accurate these guesses are.
What we do not know about the coronavirus [actually there is little scientifically proven information]. Most of our knowledge is anecdotal, from studies with limited subjects, or from studies without peer review.
- How many people have been infected as many do not show symptoms?
- Masks do work.
- Do we develop lasting immunity to the coronavirus? Another coronavirus – the simple cold – does not develop long term immunity.
- To what degree do people who never develop symptoms contribute to transmission?
- The US has scaled up coronavirus testing – and the accuracy of the tests has been improving. However, if one loses immunity – the coronavirus testing value is reduced.
- Can children widely spread coronavirus? [current thinking is that they are becoming a major source of the pandemic spread]
- Why have some places avoided big coronavirus outbreaks – and others hit hard?
- What effect will the weather have? At this point, it does not seem hot weather slows this coronavirus down – and it seems air conditioning contributes to its spread.
- Outdoor activities seem to be a lower risk than indoor activities.
- Can the world really push out an effective vaccine in 12 to 18 months?
- Will other medical treatments for Covid-19 ease symptoms and reduce deaths? So far only one drug (remdesivir) is approved for treatment.
- A current scientific understanding of the way the coronavirus works can be found [here].
Heavy breakouts of coronavirus have hit farm workers. Farmworkers are essential to the food supply. They cannot shelter at home. Consider:
- they have high rates of the respiratory disease [occupational hazard]
- they travel on crowded buses chartered by their employers
- few have health insurance
- they cannot social distance and live two to four to a room – and they eat together
- some reports say half are undocumented
- they are low paid and cannot afford not to work – so they will go to work sick
- they do not have access to sanitation when working
- a coronavirus outbreak among farmworkers can potentially shutter entire farm
The bottom line is that COVID-19 so far has been shown to be much more deadly than the data on the flu. Using CDC data, the flu has a mortality rate between 0.06 % and 0.11 % Vs. the coronavirus which to date has a mortality rate of 4 % [the 4% is the average of overall statistics – however in the last few months it has been hovering around 1.0%] – which makes it between 10 and 80 times more deadly. The reason for ranges:
Because influenza surveillance does not capture all cases of flu that occur in the U.S., CDC provides these estimated ranges to better reflect the larger burden of influenza.
There will be a commission set up after this pandemic ends to find fault [it is easy to find fault when a once-in-a-lifetime event occurs] and to produce recommendations for the next time a pandemic happens. Those that hate President Trump will conclude the virus is his fault.
Resources:
- Get the latest public health information from CDC: https://www.coronavirus.gov .
- Get the latest research from NIH: https://www.nih.gov/coronavirus.
- Find NCBI SARS-CoV-2 literature, sequence, and clinical content: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sars-cov-2/.
- List of studies: https://icite.od.nih.gov/covid19/search/#search:searchId=5ee124ed70bb967c49672dad
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