Corona Virus Updates Part 6

Also important, usually in research, viruses like SARS-CoV-2 are classified as a select agent. Basically an agent that can potentially be used as a weapon. Similar to SARS or MERS, not very effective but could potentially be.

Because of the way it infects, it’s very stable and that area should not mutate quickly, because of its high affinity.

They are not classifying it as a select agent because so many are testing positive for antibodies, this may not be the first wave (Nov-Feb anyone?), and they are predicting so many infections by the end of the year or by when this thing goes into seasonal circulation that we will have herd immunity and it will be useless as a weapon. It also maximizes availability of laboratories to support research.

I found that interesting.

a reply to: TheAMEDDDoc

It is indeed

Thanks for the extra symptoms to look out for. I haven't experienced any in an acute fashion and i'm male, but it's great info for others here too and i'll stay alert to it.

And thanks for the Covid research update. It's a real eyeopener and clearly written for plebs like me to understand. Always anticipated and appreciated.


Edit: After reading your research post you mention autoimmune conditions. I've seronegative inflammatory arthritis; chronic and completely manageable without resorting to any NSAIDs apart from the odd Ibuprofen from time to time (gets worse if i have bug). Would this effect any decision to use Claritin etc during coronavirus? Guessing not, but thought i'd ask just in case!

a reply to: McGinty

I only mentioned it because we always treat symptoms and forget underlying issues causing those problems. Pressure, pain and issues with ear and we take a med to fix it. It goes away or complicates we could miss something.

The RA question is best answered by your immunologist. Usually it’s target tissue, say if a patient had autoimmune encephalitis and it crossed over, very bad. But you also have an outlier without antibodies and that needs to be evaluated by your doc. I just don’t know enough about it. I would lean yes based on your description though and increased symptoms when sick because it could be a signaling rather than an antibody issue with inflammation.

a reply to: McGinty

Look more into immune system modulation, cytokines, etc. as a general topic.

Suppression or stimulation will be dependent on the individual, which makes it very difficult to give advice without more info and is what makes OTC "one size fits all" meds so appealing (though, they dont "fit all" anyway).

Everything from Honokiol & Magnalol (Magnolia Bark) to things like Turmeric can help general modulation either direction. Same with Green Tea (contains stuff like EGCg). Quercetin can be immensely helpful as well, but tends to take longer to really help (days or weeks). Vit D can help, but its best to try to get as much from sunlight as possible.

My personal note is that try to get them from diet & food and "normal" sources (like sunlight) as much as possible, and only supplement beyond that. Then, only after long term look to things like OTC or prescription meds.

Things like allergies and hay fever, while a pretty broad topic themselves, will frequently be indicative of an overactive immune system. So, suppression isnt necessarily the worst thing depending on how its done. Probably best to think of it like a scale and we want it perfectly level. This can require both short AND long term approaches.

Vitamin C helps my recent immune modulation issues to an extreme degree as well. Its been very interesting to see how my own research has dovetailed with the 'Rona.

Its a very general topic that seems to be at the core of a vast array of issues. Coupled with ignorance (not a bad word!) of immune systems.. general perception of vitamins and minerals being "weak".. and its an oft overlooked topic (particularly in the medical community itself).

In the cases of viruses that lead to cytokine storms, or even just cytokine problems in general, this can lead to a lot of bad news. Interestingly, novel viruses tend to present with cytokine storms quite frequently.. Perhaps as a result of generally ill modulated immune systems trying to cope with a new threat.

originally posted by: tanstaafl

originally posted by: RP2SticksOfDynamite
Would it be possible to collate a similar set of expert opinions and charts which conflicts with or contradicts what is written in your compilation? The reason I say this is because it is common for conflicting opinions within the medical world and common for there to be as many against, as for a particular prognosis/analysis.

Yeah, don't let anything get in the way of your doom-porn.

At least you're consistent.

Common sense statements are not doom porn you Pikelet!

originally posted by: RP2SticksOfDynamite
Common sense statements are not doom porn you Pikelet!

I agree - but I haven't seen any common sense statements coming from you you doom-porn fear-monger!

Meanwhile in Australia Instagram Post

So This new Health Force is taking moms from children.

a reply to: McGinty

What is this the McGinty is unknowing????? Furksake thought from your reports on Boris and the decisions he's made you were an absolute authority on all things . Sad to see you just a bitter know nothing with an overinflated knowledge of making a decision were there are so many possibilities with the outcome.

Just like Boris you have a decision to make -
if you treat your hay fever or for him the Economy there is a higher risk of Covid spread.

What will the great McGinty do?
Everyone else will have to follow your lead, come on McGinty do we stay in or go out? or are you going to only think of yourself?

a reply to: TheAMEDDDoc

Wow, i've had this almost 20 years and saw rheumatologists regularly for the first year, but that's by far the most insightful comments i've had. It was never suggested to me that i seek an immunologist, despite them diagnosing the pain (mainly in my ribs, but also a foot) as an inflammatory issue.

The NHS here wasn't interested in looking for the cause (a missing blood serum was all i got out of them), they just wanted to push ever increasing strengths of NSAIDs, testosterone injections and finally a walking stick and methotrexate. I refused the last 2 and stopped all their meds and i got 80-90% better within a month and have remained that way since then.

At the risk of boring you i'll throw in my 2 pet theories for the cause: In '97 i had about half a dozen vaccines within a couple of weeks because i was about to go backpacking around the world. Within a month my appendix popped (luckily just before going to India). Then shortly after i got dysentery while in India and later stung around my feet and torso by several sea urchins in Thailand. So my immune system got pretty battered. But it was about 3 years before the inflammation first appeared in my ribs, so there's that gap which undermines this theory.

My second daft theory is that in '89/'90 at the end of my teens i got a post-Flu 'mystery condition' that had me bed bound for about 3-4 months. No tests were done, since i was too weak to leave the house, but a visiting Dr guessed it was bad pneumonia, maybe mild TB (however, i'd had a BCG vaccine shortly after i was born - no idea why; wasn't customary).

Looking back now there's some similarities to what i read about coronavirus; it severely attacked the lungs and i had to constantly fight for breath for a week or 2 at the peak (thought my number was up at some points and i think being a wee bit of an athlete at the time got me through it). I was incredibly weak and tired and would imagine my O2 levels were extremely low.

About 10 years later i developed this inflammatory condition. Were the vaccines triggers for something left dormant by the virus? The 2 things are most likely not connected, but can't help wondering if i had an early version of this virus and this latest incarnation brings about that inflammatory response with greater speed and devastation.

Thought this when i read on ATS yesterday that the US Army are reluctant to recruit those that have had the virus (later changed to 'have been hospitalised with the virus'). It got a few of people here wondering if the army know, or suspect long term effects! Could one of those effects be seronegative inflammation?

In many these post viral conditions would make them unsuitable soldiers with symptoms falling under many disturbing umbrellas such as ME, Lyme disease and arthritis, meaning down the road potentially lots of money needing to be spent on army pensions, or the like after they're demobbed on disability.

In short could some/many of us have been suffering the post viral effects of this virus' ancestor for decades. The mysterious modern malaise of autoimmune conditions, such as the wide spread ME (which my brother has) could have a common root.

All HIGHLY speculative and Occam's razor probably dictates than none of this is connected.

Can i ask what you meant by:

I would lean yes based on your description though and increased symptoms when sick because it could be a signalling rather than an antibody issue with inflammation.

Sorry to abuse your time, but you shouldn't be so damned insightful

a reply to: McGinty

That’s another interesting issue, chronic inflammatory issues coming post infection after a disease from the Far East Tropical Regions. We talked about a few rare conditions that follow severe illnesses over there in some of my medical diagnostic coursework. I have to go pull up the old projects, but I’ll look.

Inflammation is caused by signaling, in autoimmune diseases we look for auto or self antibodies to figure out what is going on. We also look for abnormal white blood cell counts with lymphocytes, neutrophils and antibodies. Autoimmune diseases like to present as neutrophils increase, sign of stress or infection, and lymphocytes decreasing, also a sign of infection or stress, and they use a neutrophil to lymphocyte ratios to determine risk of disease, inflammation etc. We also look for certain types of white blood cells and antibodies to be where they don’t belong, say fluid outside of lymph or blood.

Neutrophils are kamikaze like cells that destroy invaders early on, lymphocytes are adaptive and they learn and remember how to fight specific pathogens, they also signal, destroy infected cells and release antibodies.

The problem is other conditions like stress or viral infection can present the same way so it’s a nightmare to diagnose these things accurately. That’s why you use NLR (Neutrophil to Lymphocyte Ratio) with other diagnostic criteria to rule out another issue and test specific areas for abnormalities in cell counts, antibody counts or other issues. Many doctors look at one or the other and say yeah stress response or recent illness and miss the underlying issues. They get stuck treating idiopathic or unknown causes and focus on symptoms rather than disease relief.

With autoimmune diseases we may not know the antibody or have a test for it, they could also be absent and it could be a cell signaling problem and the cells have issues telling each other they are in trouble or to relax. It may increase the chances of complications in severe infections.

So severe Covid infection may increase the chance of the body signaling too much or cause complications during/after infection.

Numbers from around the world are taken from Worldometers for May 10th.

Spain - Pop: 44.6 M
264,663 Positive tests…….. or 1 out of 176 Spaniards
10.05% Deaths of positive tested
National Deaths (26,621) 1 per 1,753

Italy - Pop: 60.4 M
219,070 Positive tests….. or 1 out of 276Italians
13.94 % Deaths of positive tested
National Deaths (30,560) 1 per 1,979

UK – Pop: 66.6 M
219,183 Positive tests….. or 1 out of 304 UKers
14.53 % Deaths of positive tested
National Deaths (31,855) 1 per 2,092

France – Pop: 67.0 M
176,658 Positive tests….. or 1 out of 379 French
14.89 % Deaths of positive tested
National Deaths (26,230) 1 per 2,546

Sweden – Pop: 10.2 M
25,322 Positive tests….. or 1 out of 389 Swedes
12.25 % Deaths of positive tested
National Deaths (3,225) 1 per 3,172

Denmark – Pop: 5.8 M
10,429 Positive tests….. or 1 out of 556 Danes
5.07 % Deaths of positive tested
National Deaths (529) 1 per 10,964

US - Pop: 330 M
1,352,320 Positive tests.... or 1 out of 244 Americans
5.93 % Deaths of positive tested
National Deaths 1 per 4,108

US death rates (2017):
1. Heart Disease …………….…………647,457 annual or 1,773 daily average
2. Cancer ……………………..……….….599,108 annual or 1,641 daily average
3. Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936 annual or 465 daily average
7. Diabetes:………………………………….83,564 annual or 228 daily average

COVID-19 ……………………………………….80,323 (71 Day) or 1131 daily average


*** SURPASSED *****

8. Influenza and Pneumonia …………55,562 annual or 152 daily average
9. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis:..50,633 annual or 138 daily average
10. Intentional self-harm (suicide):..47,173 annual or 129 daily average
X. Auto accidents ………………….………37,461 annual or 102 daily average
X. H1N1 2009 ESTIMATED (8,868 – 18,638) for 1 year or 24 – 50 daily average

Meanwhile in Michigan. The Attorney General picks on an old barber. Top cop personally involved. The local and County don't need the aggravation so they are going in with a Swat Team next week. Going to get real ugly.

To add it sounds like Barr is telling the states to back off. Crazy times here in Michigan.

americanmilitarynews.com... urce=amn&utm_medium=facebook&fbclid=IwAR0a8Ct4eG7WW0n6Yrfb-DV7iHUb2YfncNp0riOIr_FkVjN3v3bj3R3UoSE


upnorthlive.com... 6n6dg37igPCeCVFnsfmJHstazlnGvo1jAqpaF4

British PM outlines the new government plan going forward, some minor changes coming, and new restrictions on travellers arriving in the UK

a reply to: TheAMEDDDoc

Again, thanks so much for the time taken and detail in your reply. I've read it twice and still trying to digest. I'm going to look over my blood records and see if the raised inflammation markers they've mentioned looks like the NLR (Neutrophil to Lymphocyte Ratio).

Sero negative inflammation by a strange diagnosis to live with, because if i'm correct it's a indication of the serum that causes rheumatoid arthritis being absent. So i present with rheumatoid arthritis symptoms, but don't poses the serum marker that proves it, so it's sero negative arthritis. It's basically an admission that they haven't a clue why it's happening, but it passes as a diagnosis.

My totally uninformed hunch is it's post viral, or post vaccine, or both, but i guess i'll never know. Unless of course coronavirus research uncovers new insight about autoimmune conditions; many a good thing cam from something terrible.

Always looking forward to your updates

a reply to: CatandtheHatchet

Beat me to it. Can't believe that in the face of scientific advice from many quarters to the contrary, Boris has just told England they have to go back to work if at all possible. He's changed the message from stay at home to stay alert (whatever the frak that means).

Meanwhile the Scottish PM has just asked the Scottish people to ignore his message and to still stay at home. I applaud the Scots (and Welsh and Irish) common sense.

Boris' 'over the top lads! WWI ruling class order to the public to sacrifice themselves and there families makes it clear beyond doubt that Boris cares only about the corporate dividends of his rich sponsors.

His rationale is that testing and monitoring will enable him to strengthen lockdown when and where necessary. How does he expect to do this while still struggling to test and having no monitoring system in place. Yet from tomorrow the public should go back to work!

The other nations of the UK would see through it and if forced overthrow such a regime. Sadly i fear the docile, lazy English will conform to whatever lunacy their masters unleash and thanks them for it afterwards.

a reply to: puzzled2

LOL, fair enough, you're absolutely right!

Difficult to resist asking questions about something you've had for 2 decades that doctors can't really explain, when someone so helpful and so knowledgable provides fresh insight. But my apologies, i'll bother this excellent thread no more with my malady.