Tag Archives: Healthcare

Coronavirus dashboard for April 30: the US has the worst record in the world, by far Here is the update through yesterday (April 29): Number of new and total reported Infections (from Johns Hopkins via arcgis.com and 91-divoc.com): Number: South Korea: ZERO (4 detected from incoming flights at airport) Number: Taiwan: ZERO Number: Vietnam: ZERO Number: Germany: 1,627 (up from 988 on April 27; 3 day average of 1,256 down -81.5% from 6,790 peak on April...

The widely followed IHME model of coronavirus cases has been much too optimistic The IHME model by the University of Washington has gotten a lot of attention in the past month, most likely because it has always forecast a much lower number of total deaths caused by coronavirus than, for example the Imperial College of London’s model, that forecast over 1 million US deaths if no quarantine measures were put in place. But that model has come in for a lot...

 Which Nations Have Most Rapid Rate Of Increase In Deaths Per Million from SARS-Cov-2? As of earlier today, 4/29/20,. according to “Our World in Data” ourworldindata.org/coronavirus, there are currently nine nations that based on looking at the three-day rolling average, have rates of increase of more than 5 per million per day.  They are in order with their rates: Belgium 15.97 Ireland 10.73 UK 9.2 Spain 9.01 Sweden 8.38 Italy 7.82 France 7.32 USA 6.2...

The NIAID Trial of Remdesivir has closed early, because they concluded it was not ethical to treat people with placebo given what they consider proof that Remdesivir is effective. This is huge news (I am surprised that the Dow Jones only went up 2% not that I care about the Dow Jones). This is a large double blind randomized controlled trial. The null of no effectiveness was rejected using the principal outcome measure. This is the sort of outcome which...

Abbreviated coronavirus dashboard for April 29: actual good news on testing,deaths  Here is the update through yesterday (April 28). This is somewhat abbreviated since I want to post about a couple of other items. As usual, new items of significance are in italics. Yesterday was the 3rd day in a row of not just significantly increased testing, but actual lower number of infections found by that testing – a very good sign. The 7 day average of deaths also...

An Update on Shadow Government Not only is the current level of testing for the coronavirus insufficient, the tests themselves are flawed.  Read this summary by infectious disease specialist Michael Osterholm and a coauthor for particulars.  Their key policy conclusion is A blue-ribbon panel of public health, laboratory and medical experts, ethicists, legal scholars and elected officials should be convened immediately to set out a road map with...

Coronavirus dashboard for April 28: good news on testing at least Here is the update through yesterday (April 27). s usual, significant developments are in italics. There were some late-reporting States for testing yesterday, so the initially discouraging number was actually pretty good. We are now seeing much more testing, and for the last two days an actual decrease in new infections being found. One problem is that this is mainly due to one State:...

The biochemistry of how COVID-19 attacks the body: a synopsis of the medical studies I’ve been doing some reading over the past several weeks, trying to understand how the COVID-19 virus attacks the human body. Below are quotes I found most noteworthy or interesting from these articles. In essence, they indicate that biochemically the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, mainly binds to the ACE-2 receptor of cell surfaces to gain entrance. These are most...

What the ratio of positive tests to total test results for coronavirus is telling us I want to make a comment about the value of measuring the number of coronavirus tests being administered vs. the number of cases found by those tests. This is because a few people are claiming that the ratio of positive tests to total tests does not give us value. Rather, they claim, increased testing simply reveals increased infections. I will make a bold, unqualified...

 Where Are People Dying Most Intensively Now of SARS-Cov-2? More than a century later, we still do not  know the origin of the Spanish flu, with at least three currently scientifically supporte origins out thers: North America (possibly Kansas), China, and British soldiers in France. This will not be resolved.  I suspect that this may become the outcome of the current debate over the origin of our current pandemic.  While mostly this seems to have become...