The biology of coronavirus COVID-19 - including research and treatments

Andy said:
Covid-19 will be followed by a deconditioning pandemic
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/06/15/covid-19-will-be-followed-by-a-deconditioning-pandemic/
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The authors have obviously not tried to take a walk along the sea wall in Woodbridge. Or on Hampstead Heath. What is obvious to both my wife and I and my daughter in London is that in lockdown people are doing regular exr]
excise much more regularly than they normally would because they have nothing better to do - no pubs to go to etc.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
The authors have obviously not tried to take a walk along the sea wall in Woodbridge. Or on Hampstead Heath. What is obvious to both my wife and I and my daughter in London is that in lockdown people are doing regular exr]
excise much more regularly than they normally would because they have nothing better to do - no pubs to go to etc.
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this is also what my friends re all telling me, that they been exercising more out of sheer boredom & because for a long while that was the only allowable outdoor activity other than essential shopping
 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-lungs-victims-beyond-recognition-expert-says

Covid-19 can leave the lungs of people who died from the disease completely unrecognisable, a professor of cardiovascular science has told parliament.

It created such massive damage in those who spent more than a month in hospital that it resulted in “complete disruption of the lung architecture”, said Prof Mauro Giacca of King’s College London.

In findings that he said showed the potential for “real problems” after survival, he told the Lords science and technology committee that he had studied the autopsies of patients who died in Italy after 30 to 40 days in intensive care and discovered large amounts of the virus persisting in lungs as well as highly unusual fused cells.

“What you find in the lungs of people who have stayed with the disease for more than a month before dying is something completely different from normal pneumonia, influenza or the Sars virus,” he said. “You see massive thrombosis. There is a complete disruption of the lung architecture – in some lights you can’t even distinguish that it used to be a lung.
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ahimsa said:
But I don't understand the pros and cons of using 7 days vs. 14 days. Is one better than the other?

Any thoughts?
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I can only point out the obvious - 14 days is smoother, but less responsive to new trends. There are also weighted moving averages to throw into the mix...
 
MeSci said:
Just want to say that I may have had Covid toe. I treated it like gout, assuming that it was (haven't had it before) but it lasted longer than gout normally does. It lasted from early February to early March, and was painful enough to require paracetamol at first, and needed a dressing, which I had to change daily, and which was very difficult due to the skin sticking to the bandage. It was on the toe next to the big toe. Very relieved when it went!

Just want to add an 's' in case others have the problem I have in not being able to find words less than 4 letters long: toes.
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My otherhalf had something similar. Chemist thought it was gout. Also pink eye. All through February. Plus mildish flu symptoms. I had flu with breathing, chest pain, swollen glands, temperature etc.
 
JemPD said:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53061281 report on dexamethosone
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Thanks for posting. I've just heard the BBC radio news interview with one of the researchers. It sounds promising. And even better, it's cheap and easily available everywhere.
Coronavirus: Dexamethasone proves first life-saving drug
A cheap and widely available drug can help save the lives of patients seriously ill with coronavirus.

The low-dose steroid treatment dexamethasone is a major breakthrough in the fight against the deadly virus, UK experts say.

The drug is part of the world's biggest trial testing existing treatments to see if they also work for coronavirus.

It cut the risk of death by a third for patients on ventilators. For those on oxygen, it cut deaths by a fifth.

Had the drug had been used to treat patients in the UK from the start of the pandemic, up to 5,000 lives could have been saved, researchers say.

And it could be of huge benefit in poorer countries with high numbers of Covid-19 patients.
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I received a letter from the NHS a couple of days ago offering me a swab test for active coronavirus. I would have to register with a website online, then undertake some form of survey into any symptoms of Covid I might have as well as general health questions, then I would be sent a swab for my nose and my mouth which would be collected by a courier from my home.

Taking part is voluntary and I'm not keen on taking part.

So much of my medical information has been stolen by the government and given away or possibly sold to private healthcare companies already despite me opting out of as much data sharing as I can so I'm not keen on providing them with any more information at all. I don't care whether the NHS or the government says all data is anonymised. Their ideas of what constitutes anonymity have turned out to be totally absurd and laughable. The other thing that annoys me is that the data that has been taken is so inaccurate that it's just a sick joke. (I bought a copy of my GP records a few years ago, which is how I know.)

I haven't actually checked the sequence of events yet, but I suspect I would have to register to take part in the survey. But I want to know what information about my health they want before I register. I hate surveys I have to register for before I find out what the questions even are. If I don't want to answer any of their questions they will still have whatever info I gave them in the registration process.

Incidentally, in case anyone is interested, I don't have any symptoms of covid-19 at the moment and I suspect I probably haven't had it yet.
 
A lot of people on Twitter are frustrated that the dexamethasone researchers have sent out their press release without releasing their results to fellow scientists, for example in a preprint. I think COVID-19 has shown the importance of post-publication peer review.

One of the researchers has tweeted the main results:
 
Arnie Pye said:
I received a letter from the NHS a couple of days ago offering me a swab test for active coronavirus.
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Is this separate from the ONS survey? I've been part of that since the outset, but it started in early April. They were originally planning to extend the numbers taking part, and they may still be doing this, but as yours is a single sample it may be a different project. (I was swabbed every week for five weeks and had a blood test for antibodies, and now I'm going to do it once a month for a year.)

If you want to take part, maybe you could ask for a sample of the questions? I don't know how easy it would be to actually get in touch, but it may be published somewhere. I was only asked for basic details such as name, contact details, nationality, working status, etc – things they already know – and information related directly to coronavirus. During the course of the study all I've been asked is whether I've had symptoms, are currently self isolating, or have been in contact with anyone who's tested positive ('No' in every case, as I've hardly seen anyone).
 
Arnie Pye said:
I don't know anything about the ONS survey, so I don't know if what I've been asked to do is part of it. I have to do the swabbing myself, and only once as far as I can tell, so it doesn't sound the same.
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Probably not, then – I got an 8-page leaflet explaining what they're doing and why, and it's all marked ONS. I've taken part in their surveys a few times before, which is presumably why they asked me.

I'm not hugely worried about the privacy aspect, but I am a bit disappointed that, whilst they inform GPs of any positive swabs, they won't tell us the results of the blood draw for antibodies. It's because the antibody test hadn't been fully validated by early April; however, the chances are that it would have been validated by the time they actually started doing them last week (if it had been shown to be unreliable, they would presumably have dropped it). I may have had atypical Covid-19, so I'd quite like to know about that.


ONS.jpg
 
MeSci said:
Had he had gout before? Were his eyes like this? https://www.express.co.uk/life-styl...date-uk-news-symptoms-red-eyes-conjunctivitis
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My eyes go like that when I'm in severe PEM - it's been like that for almost 30 years since I first got the symptoms of M.E.

Coronavirus-symptoms-Red-eyes-could-be-a-symptom-2381708.jpg


Edit: I have anti-histamine eye drops on permanent prescription for this problem. They help a little but my eyes get better after a few days in bed, so it's directly related to PEM. I also get discharge from them if I've overdone things more than normal.
 
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