SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

[Carolina Red]

You are stating opinions as facts (Sweden have got it wrong) and then facts as opinions (the above) if as I am assuming by "better" you mean less people dead.

What part of “I believe” do you fail to understand?

 

[Pogue Mahone]

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With news coming out of Switzerland of kids don't spread the virus and grandparents can hug their grandchildren it could be important to read this and wait for more information.

It seems like every bit of legitimate new data about this fecking virus is bad news. Any chance of catching a break at some point?! Feck me.

 

[Grinner]

It seems like every bit of legitimate new data about this fecking virus is bad news. Any chance of catching a break at some point?! Feck me.

Can you pretend that I'm a bit thick and don't understand the implications of that piece of data? Explain to me...

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

Interestingly it is mostly the right wing nutters and especially the far right who want a lockdown in sweden.

The far right just object to the accepted status quo. Emotionally retarded across the board.

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

Not only that @africanspur, to call them “miserable” you have to also look at it long term and believe other countries will do better once restrictions are eased. You have to consider that this virus is likely to be around for at least a year, probably longer and imagine that countries who “started well” will continue to do so out of lockdown.

State your point.

Do you think Swedens policy will lead to lower deaths over 12-18 months than if they’d imposed harsher restrictions?

 

[Hugh Jass]

Good news about remdesivir. Apologies if posted already.

 

[lynchie]

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With news coming out of Switzerland of kids don't spread the virus and grandparents can hug their grandchildren it could be important to read this and wait for more information.

Darn, I was really hoping I could get my son back to preschool soon.

Can we all agree that that way of visualising the data is almost as bad as the stupid tornado plot thing though?

Edit: although this just tells us that sick children are likely as infectious as adults. But children still seem to be more resistant to becoming sick, so maybe it's (relatively) fine for them to hang out together?

 

[Organic Potatoes]

Can you pretend that I'm a bit thick and don't understand the implications of that piece of data? Explain to me...

@Pogue Mahone is more qualified, but I’ll give it a crude shot: the number of children infected is underrepresented due to them not always showing symptoms, and they’re still just as infectious to everyone else. So if we open the schools back up we are fecked...

 

[Camilo]

Imagine how much happier we'd all all be if the Internet didn't exist. Blissfully unaware of the new virus joining the ranks.

 

[jymufc20]

Darn, I was really hoping I could get my son back to preschool soon.

Can we all agree that that way of visualising the data is almost as bad as the stupid tornado plot thing though?

Edit: although this just tells us that sick children are likely as infectious as adults. But children still seem to be more resistant to becoming sick, so maybe it's (relatively) fine for them to hang out together?

What about the teachers that the children will infect whilst probably showing no symptoms themselves ?

 

[BobbyManc]

@Pogue Mahone is more qualified, but I’ll give it a crude shot: the number of children infected is underrepresented due to them not always showing symptoms, and they’re still just as infectious to everyone else. So if we open the schools back up we are fecked...

Is that news? I'd been under the assumption from the little I'd read since the outbreak began that children were nearly always asymptomatic but that obviously didn't mean they couldn't spread it so long as they were infected.

 

[Wumminator]

Imagine how much happier we'd all all be if the Internet didn't exist. Blissfully unaware of the new virus joining the ranks.

I’d probably be wondering why so many people I know have been on a ventilator in hospitals recently tbf.

 

[Organic Potatoes]

Is that news? I'd been under the assumption from the little I'd read since the outbreak began that children were nearly always asymptomatic but that obviously didn't mean they couldn't spread it so long as they were infected.

It’s a rigorous analysis on the viral load that children can spread. And it wasn’t obvious from a scientific standpoint just how infectious they could be without displaying any symptoms.

So it’s proof of something some might have assumed, I guess. And important when so many are pondering when to re-open schools.

 

[RoadTrip]

Is that news? I'd been under the assumption from the little I'd read since the outbreak began that children were nearly always asymptomatic but that obviously didn't mean they couldn't spread it so long as they were infected.

Agreed. I’d been assuming this since day one too.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Darn, I was really hoping I could get my son back to preschool soon.

Can we all agree that that way of visualising the data is almost as bad as the stupid tornado plot thing though?

Edit: although this just tells us that sick children are likely as infectious as adults. But children still seem to be more resistant to becoming sick, so maybe it's (relatively) fine for them to hang out together?

That’s the hope I’m clinging to. In Iceland they’ve tested a decent chunk of their population and almost none of the kids tested positive for prior infection. So it’s positive they’re a lot less likely than adults to get infected.

Either that or they get infected and recover without generating the antibodies they use to test for previous infection.

It’s all a bit of a headfeck and I’m really hoping we work out what’s going on in the next few weeks/months.

 

[Smores]

We all know they're little petri dishes in general so i don't see why this would be much different. Their hygiene is just too poor not to spread things.

Good luck coming up with a system that doesn't see it spread throughout nurseries and juniors and all their parents. As always they'll be parents who get ill but send their kid in anyway. Then what? Shut the school down for two week each time?

Hopefully we ease back in and trial it one or two days a week with split classes perhaps.

 

[Revan]

Good news about remdesivir. Apologies if posted already.

Good news. The improvement seems to be modest, but statistically significant. By far the most promising drug for covid19 until now.

If Trump decided to shill this instead of Plaquenil, he would have been called a prophet from MAGA crowd.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

It’s a rigorous analysis on the viral load that children can spread. And it wasn’t obvious from a scientific standpoint just how infectious they could be without displaying any symptoms.

So it’s proof of something some might have assumed, I guess. And important when so many are pondering when to re-open schools.

I don’t think this study actually answers that question, as all the kids tested seem to have been sick.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Good news. The improvement seems to be modest, but statistically significant. By far the most promising drug for covid19 until now.

If Trump decided to shill this instead of Plaquenil, he would have been called a prophet from MAGA crowd.

No effect on mortality though. I’d also like to know how sick the patients were, as well as other outcomes, like ITU admissions.

It would be hard to get excited about a (quite possibly expensive) drug that shaves a few days off recovery time for patients that would get better anyway, left to their own devices.

 

[Ødegaard]

I really don't understand how anyone can say that Sweden is doing well.
There isn't evidence that immunity will last long enough for the virus to die down naturally and not get another wave before a vaccine will be ready, and then there is the question of if they achieve herd-immunity at all.
People are likely dying due to other things because covid is taking up so many resources at the hospitals and those could definitely have been avoided through social distancing, that's on top of those who could have been saved from covid or the effects that are reported to have a chance of coming after the virus is dealt with.
I doubt there is any consolation for those who lose loved ones that "the economy was spared". It sends a bad message to the people about the value of their lives in my opinion.

The idea that anyone is doing anything based on it being scientifically the right tactic also seems weird. Do you think every most countries want to sacrifice their economy to get the view across that they are doing the politically correct thing? Or maybe it's down to there not being a scientifically definite tactic on this as it's something that wasn't known much about when it hit us?

Sweden is taking a chance and that might work out for them but I highly doubt we'll end up seeing Sweden with less deaths than those countries who are social distancing. If anything they are hoping to be done with the deaths faster and they are risking the lives of their people on those hopes.

Fully with @Arruda on this one from the little I've read on the discussion. As things are now I feel anger and sadness for the Swedish people for what currently looks like avoidable deaths and hope that it works out as best as possible for them.

 

[Revan]

No effect on mortality though. I’d also like to know how sick the patients were, as well as other outcomes, like ITU admissions.

It would be hard to get excited about a (quite possibly expensive) drug that shaves a few days off recovery time for patients that would get better anyway, left to their own devices.

I think the mortality went down to 8% (from 11%), that is what Fauci said (though he said that he still doesn't have the p-value for that).

I guess that the infected patients were already quite sick, otherwise 8-11% mortality rate makes no sense.

 

[Dumbstar]

Good news. The improvement seems to be modest, but statistically significant. By far the most promising drug for covid19 until now.

If Trump decided to shill this instead of Plaquenil, he would have been called a prophet from MAGA crowd.

I've said as much a few weeks ago when the trials started that he would be the saviour of 10s of 1000s of American lives. Doesn't matter which drug. Which will win him another four years. I'll dig it out of the trump thread tomorrow.

 

[P-Ro]

I read the BBC article about the remdesivir trial and what struck me is that they gave people the drug as well as a placebo. I know for testing purposes its vital that you have a percentage of people given a placebo but in these literally life and death scenarios it strikes me as a bit harsh that the ones who weren't given the drug had a higher mortality rate (albeit statistically not significant). I would assume that pretty much everyone who went on this trial actually wanted to be given this drug and I imagine it must be hard on the families of those who died having been given a placebo because if the deceased were given the option of being administered the drug they would have taken it.

 

[Denis79]

My comment was a joke, but regardless...

Sweden willingly let a large number of their country die as collaterals. I really have a big issue accepting that from any government. Yes, 2k+ deaths may not be a lot compared to the US/UK, but for Scandinavia it's a rather big number.

All the eggs are put in the 'long-term immunity' basket. This is unproven. If people get re-infected after a few months after having already had the virus, it really means you've thrown 2000 lives away to achieve nothing.

Eventually everyone will have to live with this virus, that's true. But its about caring for your population as much as it is keeping the economy afloat. Just because Joe Larsson is 70+ and not working anymore does not mean he has to be sacrificed.

Yeah seems that way, I have a lot of former colleagues and friends in Sweden and some of them are very critical of government. Nurses are free to go to restaurants, pubs bars and later work in elderly homes without protective gear. A good friend lost his father to the virus in an elderly home and he's furious about how everything was handled from start to finish. They refused him intensive care saying he simply was too old for it, while they according to my friend still have intensive care spots available. Disgrace.

 

[sammsky1]

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[Darkhorsez]

Just really sad listening this - so much tragedy linked to this god forsaken disease ....

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/...-suicide-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/coronavirus/

 

[Revan]

I read the BBC article about the remdesivir trial and what struck me is that they gave people the drug as well as a placebo. I know for testing purposes its vital that you have a percentage of people given a placebo but in these literally life and death scenarios it strikes me as a bit harsh that the ones who weren't given the drug had a higher mortality rate (albeit statistically not significant). I would assume that pretty much everyone who went on this trial actually wanted to be given this drug and I imagine it must be hard on the families of those who died having been given a placebo because if the deceased were given the option of being administered the drug they would have taken it.

It has always been like that, there is no other choice.

Bear in mind that the drug might actually have detrimental effects, so it actually might make things worse (I think that hydroxychloroquine actually made things worse for some people, and eventually was put out of clinical studies in Sweden).

 

[Wibble]

Is this not really good news?

Does this mean immunity?

Clear evidence of widespread reinfection would suggest immunity isn't always a consequence of infection. So it is good news if true.

 

[Wibble]

I read the BBC article about the remdesivir trial and what struck me is that they gave people the drug as well as a placebo. I know for testing purposes its vital that you have a percentage of people given a placebo but in these literally life and death scenarios it strikes me as a bit harsh that the ones who weren't given the drug had a higher mortality rate (albeit statistically not significant). I would assume that pretty much everyone who went on this trial actually wanted to be given this drug and I imagine it must be hard on the families of those who died having been given a placebo because if the deceased were given the option of being administered the drug they would have taken it.

The alternative is no trial. One that can't possibly have meaningful results is pointless and little more than rolling a drug out untested.

 

[Wibble]

My comment was a joke, but regardless...

Sweden willingly let a large number of their country die as collaterals. I really have a big issue accepting that from any government. Yes, 2k+ deaths may not be a lot compared to the US/UK, but for Scandinavia it's a rather big number.

All the eggs are put in the 'long-term immunity' basket. This is unproven. If people get re-infected after a few months after having already had the virus, it really means you've thrown 2000 lives away to achieve nothing.

Eventually everyone will have to live with this virus, that's true. But its about caring for your population as much as it is keeping the economy afloat. Just because Joe Larsson is 70+ and not working anymore does not mean he has to be sacrificed.

And you may need in excess of 80% infected (or vaccinated) before herd immunity is achieved so Sweden won't be anywhere near there yet. To get there it means lots more deaths or a vaccine. If a vaccine the avoidable deaths prior to that are for nothing.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Sweden willingly let a large number of their country die as collaterals..

Which is nonsense obviously, unless you believe New York, Belgium, The UK, hell even Ireland “willingly“ let a bunch of people die.

 

[P-Ro]

The alternative is no trial. One that can't possibly have meaningful results is pointless and little more than rolling a drug out untested.

Perhaps I'm missing something but I don't follow the logic of administering a placebo when there is plenty of data of the death/survival rate of patients who haven't been administered the drug in the local area. I've never heard of drug companies administering placebos to cancer patients testing new experimental treatments, but you're implying this does happen? I always thought that the placebo was administered primarily on healthy human testers, rather than those suffering from the disease, to study the side effects of the new drugs.

 

[P-Ro]

Perhaps I'm missing something but I don't follow the logic of administering a placebo when there is plenty of data of the death/survival rate of patients who haven't been administered the drug in the local area. I've never heard of drug companies administering placebos to cancer patients testing new experimental treatments, but you're implying this does happen? I always thought that the placebo was administered primarily on healthy human testers, rather than those suffering from the disease, to study the side effects of the new drugs.

Further to this. I just looked up placebos in cancer drug treatment and whilst it says they do administer placebos for some types of treatment testing, there is this caveat:

Furthermore, patients randomly assigned to a placebo must not be substantially more likely than those in active treatment group(s) to: die; suffer irreversible illness, disability, or other substantial harms; suffer reversible but serious harm; or suffer severe discomfort.

 

[Revan]

Perhaps I'm missing something but I don't follow the logic of administering a placebo when there is plenty of data of the death/survival rate of patients who haven't been administered the drug in the local area. I've never heard of drug companies administering placebos to cancer patients testing new experimental treatments, but you're implying this does happen? I always thought that the placebo was administered primarily on healthy human testers, rather than those suffering from the disease, to study the side effects of the new drugs.

Probably no placebo, but for sure they would administer some other medicament to the other people, and see the difference between the new treatment and the old one.

For covid-19, there is no treatment so the alternative is to give placebo treatment. Otherwise, there is no way on understanding if the treatment is doing anything or not (especially considering that 99% of patients survive without treatment, and the vast majority of them have only a mild disease). Just giving the treatment to everyone, you cannot get any conclusion at all, it would be literally impossible to know if the treatment is doing anything, or people just got better on their own. It would be 'anecdotal' evidence, a bit like what happened with hydroxychloroquine when a lot of people said that it saved their lives, but on clinical trials, so far it doesn't seem that it is doing anything, and more than likely those people just got better on their own (same as countless people who did not get any treatment).

 

[Wibble]

Perhaps I'm missing something but I don't follow the logic of administering a placebo when there is plenty of data of the death/survival rate of patients who haven't been administered the drug in the local area. I've never heard of drug companies administering placebos to cancer patients testing new experimental treatments, but you're implying this does happen? I always thought that the placebo was administered primarily on healthy human testers, rather than those suffering from the disease, to study the side effects of the new drugs.

I'm no expert but a placebo control group is standard practice I thought. You need to compare drug results with placebo results and no treatment results. If the results for the placebo and the real drug are the same but different from no treatment you know the drug isn't working. If you didn't do the placebo treatment you might think there was an effect when there wasn't. It will inform our understanding of side effects as well of course. I think you need to use a placebo control group to get regulatory approval in most countries.

 

[Wibble]

Furthermore, patients randomly assigned to a placebo must not be substantially more likely than those in active treatment group(s) to: die; suffer irreversible illness, disability, or other substantial harms; suffer reversible but serious harm; or suffer severe discomfort.

The drug could help, make no difference or do harm, so I don't think this is intended to stop placebo's being used as a control on the basis that the drug might have helped. My mate's wife runs drug trials for a Uni - I'll see if she knows what this means in practice.

 

[Revan]

I'm no expert but a placebo control group is standard practice I thought. You need to compare drug results with placebo results and no treatment results. If the results for the placebo and the real drug are the same but different from no treatment you know the drug isn't working. If you didn't do the placebo treatment you might think there was an effect when there wasn't. It will inform our understanding of side effects as well of course. I think you need to use a placebo control group to get regulatory approval in most countries.

Can that really happen? Shouldn't placebo and no treatment give the same results? I thought that placebo drug is given only to fool the patients so they thought that they got some drug, but instead they get nothing.

 

[Wibble]

Can that really happen? Shouldn't placebo and no treatment give the same results? I thought that placebo drug is given only to fool the patients so they thought that they got some drug, but instead they get nothing.

Not if there is a placebo effect. And yes to your second sentence - to test if there is a placebo effect.

 

[Revan]

Not if there is a placebo effect. And yes to your second sentence - to test if there is a placebo effect.

But does that really happen often? I thought it is more a legend than a real thing.

 

[sport2793]

But does that really happen often? I thought it is more a legend than a real thing.

Na it's definitely real. Shows how funny human psychology can be.