Help the Fight Against COVID-19

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Piing said:
Tests with the Japanese drug Avigan (Favipiravir) started last February in China

320 patients tested, 91% confirmed improvement on X-Rays
Improvement of patients without the drug: 62%

That doesn't look bad

The drug's laboratories belong to Fuji Film Holdings. It seems like their shares are sky rocketing

https://www.france24.com/en/20200318-fujifilm-shares-soar-after-china-backs-drug-to-treat-virus

Fuji 1 - Donald 0
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This statement sounds promising.

“He said those who were given the medicine in Shenzhen turned negative for the virus after a median of four days after becoming positive, while it took a median of 11 days for those without the drug.”

Is this an already available and approved drug?
 
The reaction in Japan (according to The Guardian):


Doctors in Japan are using the same drug in clinical studies on coronavirus patients with mild to moderate symptoms, hoping it will prevent the virus from multiplying in patients.

But a Japanese health ministry source suggested the drug was not as effective in people with more severe symptoms. “We’ve given Avigan to 70 to 80 people, but it doesn’t seem to work that well when the virus has already multiplied,” the source told the Mainichi Shimbun.

The same limitations had been identified in studies involving coronavirus patients using a combination of the HIV antiretrovirals lopinavir and ritonavir, the source added.

In 2016, the Japanese government supplied favipiravir as an emergency aid to counter the Ebola virus outbreak in Guinea.

Favipiravir would need government approval for full-scale use on Covid-19 patients, since it was originally intended to treat flu.

A health official told the Mainichi the drug could be approved as early as May. “But if the results of clinical research are delayed, approval could also be delayed.”
 
Piing said:
But a Japanese health ministry source suggested the drug was not as effective in people with more severe symptoms. “We’ve given Avigan to 70 to 80 people, but it doesn’t seem to work that well when the virus has already multiplied,” the source told the Mainichi Shimbun.
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Hopefully, they can get it approved quickly and give it to people who have been potentially exposed or when they first exhibit symptoms, before it multiplies. Sounds like it might be a start though.
 
I predicted 250K cases by the end of the month. Unfortunately it looks like I was too conservative.

April is one of the worst months for virus transmission. If we don't get serious we'll have 10 million or more cases by the end of April.
 
Donnie B. said:
Re: Guns
How stocked are my 200+ very close neighbors? How desperate/nuts are
people going to get one week from now when the news start sounding
10x (at least) more dire than it is now?
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So far the mentally fragile have held together longer than I expected, although they've got to be close to snapping. That's the next thing to get ready for. I'm not talking people with guns robbing neighbors (police and army are geared up for that - it would be a good way to get killed) I'm talking about people snapping and doing really weird, bizarre, wacky stuff none of us would think of. I'm guessing that's just around the corner so don't be surprised if it happens.

The more we test, the faster the numbers will rise. It's a great time for people to reach out to others, check in virtually, see how they're doing, offer friendship and support, send some digital money, have someone deliver food, make someone laugh, etc.
 
This is not intended to be political but is very important to the discussion.
Just heard mortal political enemies Donald Trump and Mario Cuomo heaping praise
on each other and pledging to work together hand in hand until we get through this.

I think there's some stubborn people who needed to hear this at this point.
 
Donnie B. said:
This is not intended to be political but is very important to the discussion.
Just heard mortal political enemies Donald Trump and Mario Cuomo heaping praise
on each other and pledging to work together hand in hand until we get through this.

I think there's some stubborn people who needed to hear this at this point.
Click to expand...

Not left, not right, FORWARD.
 
By now this has to be the largest thread in Fractal forum history, right? I think the only thing that could possibly compare would be announcement threads for the II or III.
 
A hospital CEO was just on TV saying that one mfg., who has a million in stock, is charging $7.00
for a $0.58 mask. AND, that they were probably going to buy a bunch for their workers because
without a mask they have zero resistance to the virus when coming in contact with those infected.

The Fed goverment needs to set up a watchdog website for stories like this, so when the smoke clears
any business found to be guilty of this gets payback.

I heard that Amazon and others have been watching and have shut down or denied a number of people
doing it.
 
In 48 hours, 44 states have closed their bars and restaurants, effectively killing off the rest of the live music industry across the nation nearly overnight.

A few have not, but mayors of larger cities have taken action. Those are included in the list of 44 in this thread.
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/thre...usic-died-bars-restaurants-in-the-usa.159485/

Based on quick search this morning, these states are still holding out against closure of bars and restaurants:

Alabama
Arkansas
Georgia
North dakota
South Dakota
Oklahoma
 
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Interesting analysis of the Diamond Princess cruise ship "petri dish":
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/16/diamond-princess-mysteries/

I confess I'm also puzzled by the wide variation in, uh, behavior of this virus.

Apparently community spread started in late February, except there was a big uptick in the "flu season" in Seattle in December so maybe it was here earlier but unrecognized.

Apparently it's extremely infectious, except when it isn't. (Diamond Princess analysis, above.)

Apparently it sometimes has the severe "I've been hit by a freight train" profile, and other times, you barely notice it.

Has anybody seen any speculation about there possibly being two different strains of this thing floating around?

Or are such mysteries -- examples that don't fit the profile, for no obvious reason -- pretty common, simply because viruses are weird and humans are weird and the interaction of the two isn't terribly predictable except in very large aggregate data?
 
Donnie B:

Donnie B. said:
Haven't read it in 25+ years but I keep getting reminded of it the past few days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain
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Love that book.

(Just so long as I'm not living in that town, that is. I have no desire to drink Sterno to stay alive.)

Best bit of dialogue from that book was the transcript when the mission control for the Scoop project was having Houston track their satellite, and it suddenly shows a changed and decaying orbit, and they start to realize that it's coming down:

Scoop Control: GET US THE DECAY RATIOS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. COMMAND WISHES TO MAKE A DECISION ON INSTRUMENTATION TAKEDOWN WITHIN THE NEXT TWO ORBITS.

Houston: Understand, Scoop. Our condolences here.

Houston: Scoop, Houston Projection Group has confirmed orbital instability and decay ratios are being passed by the data trunk to your station.

Scoop Control: HOW DO THEY LOOK, HOUSTON?

Houston: Bad.

Scoop Control: NOT UNDERSTOOD. PLEASE REPEAT.

Houston: Bad. B as in Broken, A as in Awful, D as in Dropping.

Scoop Control: ...
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I find that bit hilarious.
 
FWIW....no idea if it's good info:

https://nextstrain.org/help/coronavirus/FAQ
Is one strain of the COVID-19 virus more severe?
There is not evidence that any strain of the COVID-19 virus, SARS-CoV-2, is more severe. A recent paper has claimed that SARS-CoV-2 has split into two strains, “L” and “S”, with the “L” strain causing a more severe version of COVID-19. This theory was used to try to explain the higher case fatality ratio that has been seen in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak as compared to other parts of China. Nextstrain team member, Richard Neher, PhD, summed up why this theory is inaccurate in this twitter thread. In short, this difference in case fatality rates is likely a statistical artifact due to the way that “genomes are sampled extremely heterogeneously in time and space. Rapidly growing local outbreaks get sampled intensively and result in overrepresentation of some variants.”
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