Health Care-Illness

'Toxic Individualism': Pandemic Politics Driving Health Care Workers From Small Towns

NPR 12/29/20 Frank Morris

Rural hospitals were in deep trouble before the pandemic. Morgan says 132 of them have closed since 2010. COVID-19 made matters worse. The surge of desperately sick and highly contagious patients stopped hospitals from doing the lucrative elective outpatient procedures that keep them in business. Their small staffs have been run ragged. And the pandemic has filled the air with vitriol against medical expertise.

More than a quarter of all the public health administrators in Kansas quit, retired or got fired this year, according to Vicki Collie-Akers, an associate professor of population health at the University of Kansas. Some of them got death threats. Some had to hire armed guards.

Hunting for 'Disease X'

Sam Kiley Tue December 22, 2020

Humanity faces an unknown number of new and potentially fatal viruses emerging from Africa's tropical rainforests, according to Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum, who helped discover the Ebola virus in 1976 and has been on the frontline of the hunt for new pathogens ever since.

"We are now in a world where new pathogens will come out," he told CNN. "And that's what constitutes a threat for humanity."

As a young researcher, Muyembe took the first blood samples from the victims of a mysterious disease that caused hemorrhages and killed about 88% of patients and 80% of the staff who were working at the Yambuku Mission Hospital when the disease was first discovered.

A Supercomputer Analyzed Covid-19 — and an Interesting New Theory Has Emerged

A Supercomputer Analyzed Covid-19 — and an Interesting New Theory Has Emerged Elemental Thomas Smith Aug 31·2020 8 min read

A closer look at the Bradykinin hypothesis

Earlier this summer, the Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee set about crunching data on more than 40,000 genes from 17,000 genetic samples in an effort to better understand Covid-19. Summit is the second-fastest computer in the world, but the process — which involved analyzing 2.5 billion genetic combinations — still took more than a week.

According to the team’s findings, a Covid-19 infection generally begins when the virus enters the body through ACE2 receptors in the nose, (The receptors, which the virus is known to target, are abundant there.) The virus then proceeds through the body, entering cells in other places where ACE2 is also present: the intestines, kidneys, and heart. This likely accounts for at least some of the disease’s cardiac and GI symptoms.

The True Coronavirus Toll in the U.S. Has Already Surpassed 200,000

<embed> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/12/us/covid-deaths-us.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage </embed> NY Times By Denise LuAug. 13, 2020

Across the United States, at least 200,000 more people have died than usual since March, according to a New York Times analysis of estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is about 60,000 higher than the number of deaths that have been directly linked to the coronavirus.

Smallpox and other viruses plagued humans much earlier than suspected

<embed> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02083-0?utm_source=Nature%20Briefing&utm_campaign=a0e80cbbed-briefing-dy-20200724&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-a0e80cbbed-42787455&fbclid=IwAR2saXk615K6gst45KlLNiavgGkaQrYa_kMrNYHCHXmsyAXq0331iZp_RYo </embed>Nature Laura Spinney 23 JULY 2020

The death date of smallpox is clear. After killing more than 300 million people in the twentieth century, it claimed its last victim in 1978; two years later, on 8 May 1980, the World Health Assembly declared that the variola virus, which causes smallpox, had been eradicated. But the origins of this devastating virus are obscure. Now, genetic evidence is starting to uncover when smallpox first started attacking people.

Humans as far back as AD 600 carried variola, an international research team reported this week1 after years of fishing for viral DNA in ancient human remains. The analysis also implies that the virus was circulating in humans even earlier: at least 1,700 years back, in the turbulent period around the fall of the Western Roman Empire, when many peoples were migrating across Eurasia.

Inside the body, the coronavirus is even more sinister than scientists had realized

<embed> https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-06-26/inside-the-body-the-coronavirus-is-even-more-sinister-than-scientists-had-realized?fbclid=IwAR0XPpIpcjzT8cBk9PR3clOp6r1hPE3SO3MBdGDX5R5S2wPGHZS1EFW-RSk </embed>

Researchers exploring the interaction between the coronavirus and its hosts have discovered that when the SARS-CoV-2 virus infects a human cell, it sets off a ghoulish transformation. Obeying instructions from the virus, the newly infected cell sprouts multi-pronged tentacles studded with viral particles.
These disfigured zombie cells appear to be using those streaming filaments, or filopodia, to reach still-healthy neighboring cells. The protuberances appear to bore into the cells’ bodies and inject their viral venom directly into those cells’ genetic command centers — thus creating another zombie.

We Have No Idea If Covid Immune Responses Fall Off Rapidly in Cases Where There Is A Full Response!

<embed> https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/7/13/1960485/-We-Have-No-Idea-If-Covid-Immune-Responses-Fall-Off-Rapidly-in-Cases-Where-There-Is-A-Full-Response?utm_campaign=spotlight </embed> DailyKos July 13 2020

We barely understand how the immune system works, actually, that isn’t completely accurate, we know parts of it.  We know that a full response involves numerous cell types.  Making antibody isn’t the end-all and be-all of the immune response.  As I wrote above, long-term immunity requires T and other types of cells.  We don’t even fully understand how long term anti-body responses work, completely.  What triggers are necessary to get anti-body production upon reexposure?  None of these studies are looking at the immune responses of the folks they are examining, they are looking at one aspect of a very complex system and drawing huge conclusions about the importance of the work.  

COVID-19 Antibody Response Drops in 3 Months According to Kings College London Report in Review

<embed> https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/7/13/1960341/-COVID-19-Antibody-Response-Drops-in-3-Months-According-to-Kings-College-London-Report-in-Review?utm_campaign=trending </embed>

In the first longitudinal study of its kind, scientists analysed the immune response of more than 90 patients and healthcare workers at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS foundation trust and found levels of antibodies that can destroy the virus peaked about three weeks after the onset of symptoms then swiftly declined.

I'm a physiotherapist. Seeing the impact of Covid on survivors will haunt me forever

<embed> https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/25/physiotherapist-seeing-impact-covid-survivors-haunt-forever </embed>

I’ve never seen anything like coronavirus before. Recovering will be a Herculean task for patients, but we are here to help.
But never have I seen the cracked-glass effect on lung CT scans like those of Covid-19 patients. I have stared at them wondering where the breath is coming from, worrying if they will be able to conjure up the respiratory effort to sit, stand, step, move, live. Those scans will skulk in the depths of my brain for the rest of my days.

Clinical and immunological assessment of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections

| Nature Published: 18 June 2020

These data suggest that asymptomatic individuals had a weaker immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection. The reduction in IgG and neutralizing antibody levels in the early convalescent phase might have implications for immunity strategy and serological surveys.

<embed> https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/24/1955596/-Widely-cited-study-has-left-some-doubting-a-COVID-19-vaccine-is-possible-but-not-so-fast </embed>