Tag: medicine

COVID-19 & humidity

Folks, this is huge because it shows that a simple remedy (indoor humidification in temperate areas in winter months) can cut COVID-19 mortality by almost an order of magnitude.

Humidity from masks may lessen severity of COVID-19:

High levels of humidity can limit the spread of a virus to the lungs by promoting mucociliary clearance (MCC), a defense mechanism that removes mucus − and potentially harmful particles within the mucus − from the lungs. High levels of humidity can also bolster the immune system by producing interferons, a process known as the interferon response. Low levels of humidity have been shown to impair both MCC and the interferon response, which may be 1 reason why people are likelier to get respiratory infections in cold weather.

Coronaviruses

Eventually I think we will categorize all the recent betacoronavirus outbreaks (Sars-1, Sars-2, MERS) as part of this broader process, and require a vaccination strategy that can be quickly deployed against new recombinations from this original ancestral betacoronavirus as they randomly emerge from the primordial stew across many animal species, including ours. The evidence thus far points to recombinations resulting in the emergence of a distinct dangerous variant with some regularity.

2020-11-23: Horseshoe bat origin?

2 lab freezers in Asia have yielded surprising discoveries. Researchers have found a coronavirus that is closely related to SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the pandemic, in horseshoe bats stored in a freezer in Cambodia. A team reported the discovery of another closely related coronavirus — also found in frozen bat droppings.

The viruses are the first known relatives of SARS-CoV-2 to be found outside China, which supports the World Health Organization’s search across Asia for the pandemic’s animal origin. Strong evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 originated in horseshoe bats, but whether it passed directly from bats to people, or through an intermediate host, remains a mystery.

80% not susceptible to COVID-19?

His models suggest that the stark difference between outcomes in the UK and Germany is not primarily an effect of different government actions (such as better testing and earlier lockdowns) but is better explained by intrinsic differences between the populations that make the “susceptible population” in Germany — the group that is vulnerable to Covid-19 — much smaller than in the UK.

Even within the UK, the numbers point to the same thing: that the “effective susceptible population” was never 100%, and was at most 50% and probably more like only 20% of the population. He emphasises that the analysis is not yet complete, but “I suspect, once this has been done, it will look like the effective non-susceptible portion of the population will be 80%.”

Stop Superspreaders

In our study, just 20% of cases, all of them involving social gatherings, accounted for an astonishing 80% of transmissions. Another 10% of cases accounted for the remaining 20% of transmissions — with each of these infected people on average spreading the virus to only 1 other person, maybe 2 people. This mostly occurred within households. No less astonishing was this corollary finding: 70% of the people infected did not pass on the virus to anyone.

Against Physicals

The move to more remote and virtual health care delivery is inevitable. So is the recognition that the routine physical exam offers little beyond serving as a pretext for doctors and patients to meet. The advent of wearables, home automatic blood pressure cuffs, pulse oximetry devices, video calls, etc. will bolster unlinking care from in-person visits to doctors’ offices and clinics.