Saw parts of the interview yesterday. Extremely bright kid
My wife’s got a friend who’s had Covid since May or so.
It was very bad for a while. Now, most of the symptoms are gone, but she has very high blood pressure. She’s not heavy and no pre-existing conditions.
Ironically, her pretty overweight husband had it and got over it in about a week with no known long-term effects.
Lots still to figure out about this stuff.
Obviously the wife needs to add some pounds. Science.
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Is this the typical college kid?
I am fortunate to have a chance to talk with experts in this field. I will share some info from a call today. Nothing ground breaking just info to pass along.
Did the virus mutate? Yes, it did. The are 12k unique variants. But not enough to make it different in what is does. One variant has showed up the most the D614G mutation. This was first reported in Jun and has been looked at more over the summer and but didn’t get a ton of attention the last few weeks when new information was released.
In March this variant accounted for 10% of all cases. By May and into the summer it accounts for almost 80% of all cases. This was when we began to hear that it was more contagious but less deadly.
A virus wants to stay viable if it is too lethal it will die out.
Which is good news. The vaccines are being studied in this variant and so far vaccine trials show that it is more effective in this variant than the original strain.
Bad news is if it mutates to a different version that becomes a dominant strain it might render a vaccine ineffective (theoretical worst case scenario)——it was just an opinion
I found this after my call that lays out some details
A SARS-CoV-2 variant carrying the Spike protein amino acid change D614G has become the most prevalent form in the global pandemic. Dynamic tracking of variant frequencies revealed a recurrent pattern of G614 increase at multiple geographic levels: national, regional, and municipal. The shift occurred even in local ep- idemics where the original D614 form was well established prior to introduction of the G614 variant. The con- sistency of this pattern was highly statistically significant, suggesting that the G614 variant may have a fitness advantage. We found that the G614 variant grows to a higher titer as pseudotyped virions. In infected indi- viduals, G614 is associated with lower RT-PCR cycle thresholds, suggestive of higher upper respiratory tract viral loads, but not with increased disease severity. These findings illuminate changes important for a mech- anistic understanding of the virus and support continuing surveillance of Spike mutations to aid with devel- opment of immunological interventions.
One of the epidemiologist is based in NYC and shared what worked from an efficacy standpoint
Remdesivir and Covalesent Plasma (they have been using this since April)
The game changer was Dexamethasone (a steroid). Note which drug was not effective, the one with anecdotal evidence and my company is a global manufacturer of said malaria drug.
Some patients recover just fine but a significant number have lingering symptoms that may take weeks and months to resolve and may involve multi organ symptoms (not just respiratory)
Masks are the cornerstone to prevention multi layer masks that fit properly. If there are gaps, it makes them less effective.
A good fitting mask may significantly reduce the viral load one is exposed to and gives you a potentially better outcome- theoretical.
They agreed kids should be in schools if safe and it is hard to apply one set of standards. The needs and requirements in a rural district are different than a major metro one. As parent when making the decision make sure the district follows medical advice and articulated benchmarks for opening and closing schools. Only one of the 3 had kids, and was not sending them back to in person. Be wary of districts driven by political pressure.
Again, it’s a personal choice per family and each family has to mitigate risk.
Now that kids are back in school families may have to re-evaluate their social bubble. Kids visiting grandparents, for example. Perhaps both need to wear a mask.
Regarding kids and masks. They are resilient. Masks are are un natural…but so are socks and shoes but if parents model good behavior and practices kids will pick it up. Make masks interesting for kids.
The medical community has made mistakes. They are learning, but they are getting better. Trust your healthcare folks.
Biggest risk for them…no surprise eating indoors at a restaurant.
One doctor said he would not hesitate to enter a room with a covid patient with proper PPE 30 times a day but you would not get him in a restaurant. All three agreeded, no restaurants for them. Nor bars.
If you put off basic medical treatment or procedures now might be the best time to reach out to your doctor (colonoscopy, mammogram…etc). Doctors offices are taking extra care to make sure offices are safe. Get in before flu season.
Flu season…lots of unknowns. Yes, you can have both at the same time. It is unknown if getting the flu makes you susceptible to catching covid easier.
Best thing you can have at home in the age of covid. A pulsoximter, they are cheap. There is even an ap that can give you a reading…not as accurate though.
If your pulse ox drops below 90 reach out to your doctor.
The most worrisome symptom is chest pain and shortness of breath.
In May many were afraid to go to the hospital due to fear and when they did they were in a really critical state.
They are using fewer ventilators now than before to treat covid. A ventilator is not a death sentence and earlier intervention might avoid the need for it.
Regarding vitamin D and Covid. You don’t have to search hard to find research on an illness and a link to low Vitamin D. You can get your vitamin D going for a walk outside, if you can’t then as a supplement it is cheap and can’t do harm in an approved dose.
But there is no data that it is a silver bullet.
Sadly, this will be a marathon and not go away even with a vaccine as a vaccine will take time. Ugh, think the end of 2021 to really see the effectiness of a vaccine.
Nothing surprising, and I hope you guys find it useful. I may share more, as I have pages of notes it was a 2 hour conversation.
Sorry it is a long post.
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" Though research has found children face a small risk of severe illness from coronavirus, Eli said he felt like he “got smashed into a wall.”
This is an opinion piece therefore it is political.
Are political hit pieces permitted on coogfans?
I don’t think you know the meaning of the word “political.”
And yet somehow, you can’t help but stumbling into it more and more frequently.
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This is very true.
For about a decade, I wouldn’t put on a seat belt for the same reasons people won’t wear masks these days–I didn’t want to and would argue it’s a First Amendment thing although that’s logically ridiculous and legally wrong.
In any event, I changed when I had kids. I had to buckle them up. And I made myself buckle up because I wanted them to follow my lead. It worked for all of us.
And now I can’t drive more than a couple of blocks without a seat belt. It feels funny to be without one. And if I forgot for some reason, one of my four kids will loudly tell me to put on my seat belt–and I do.
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I just shared info from an epidemiologist that supports the long term lingering effects.
That is not political either.
Law, I was in the same boat. But my kids were all ‘click it or ticket’.
In our family we grew up racing bikes (10 speed). No one wore helmets if you were a racer. Maybe a hairnet(leather strap helmet) in a race, only because it was required. When they mandated harder shell helmets, it was awful, 30 years later I never ride without a helmet and think of those that ride without one are foolish.
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If eating indoors in restaurants is being recognized as such a big risk recently, why are schools ok?
Fundamentally the risk is the same…you’re in an indoor facility, and have to take the mask off to eat. At several points during a school day, the masks are going to have to come off. (Lunch, water breaks).
Schools are aruguably worse because the density is higher, and the length of time spent in the facility is longer.
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One of the three had small kids and is not sending them back. The other 2 had grown kids. Look at the districts plan and make sure it was developed by consulting with medical experts, be wary of districts driven my political pressure.
Restaurants are optional. Parents have to make a school choice and they have to weigh the risks.
Parents have to make decisions regarding risk about their kids attending school. Their point being what are the numbers set by districts, each family has to decide themselves.
Lunch in the elementaries are much more contained and the kids eat apart from each other. I am not sure what it looks like in the upper grades. I suppose it might look similar.
If I had school aged kids, I would do virtual as well. I get takeout but I don’t eat in a restaurant.
Not easy choices. I don’t claim to have the answers or tell folks what they should do.
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We’ll see what happens. We just had a jump up in cases today. For the schools that have gone face to face they just started 1.5 weeks ago.
One difference between the bars and schools, was the lack of masks and social distancing. At least the schools are attempting to social distance and they are required to wear masks.
The one big difference are the cases and the deaths of K-12 are the numbers are so much less than even the 20 - 29 range. As of today, we have had only 2,050 cases for 10 - 19-year-old and only 777 for 1 - 9-year-old out of an entire set of cases across Texas of 50,294. The 20 - 29 have a remarkable jump up in cases, pretty much the same as the next three 10-year age groupings. The cases just are not showing up in the first two decades.
I am still amazed that my daughter’s gym has had no infections for 3.5 months and the kids are in there 6 days a week for 5 plus hours a day with no masks on. They do clean the gym a hell of a lot more than they use too, but gyms are not the cleanest places in general.
We don’t have this virus figured out yet. Look at NYC going from the most higlhy infected places on the planet to a postive test rate of less than 1. Nobody has really explained that scientifically. Although they celebrated it.
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From what I’ve seen of most plans, the kids will eat their lunch in their classroom. So instead of a number of students in a large space (cafeteria), you have a smaller number of students in the confined to the smaller space of a classroom.
To be clear the risk with opening schools isn’t necessarily the students well-being…that is always something to be considered by families at a micro level, but at a macro level it is well established that the risk to kids is highly minimal. The overall risk is turning kids into asymptomatic carriers and infecting staff, and bringing the virus home and infecting family. More recent studies are showing that kids do in fact contract covid, and are capable of infecting adults. It seems there is a bias in the infection data because kids are typically not going to be tested unless they are symptomatic, and the vast majority of them who do get infected will never show symptoms. This has been interpreted by many to say that they do cannot get covid or pass it to others, but we are starting establish that this is not the case.
Agreed.
At my wife’s school kids have their temps taken getting on the bus or before they get out of the car. In her elementary they are having lunch in the cafeteria. Lunch times are staggered to minimize the number of kids. They added more tables to social distance the kids and they are all facing the same direction when eating.
She said teachers are already being lax, especially if they are running late arriving to school.
Yes the risk is greater to those who may be exposed when kids get home. That is where the comment about rethinking families social bubbles came from. One of the docs spent lots of time with his grandkids over the summer. They are now back in school this week. Moving forward he said his interaction with his grand kids may be limited and will involve everyone wearing masks and likely staying outside.
Coulda fooled me.
I don’t know how they can at the bigger middle and high schools. It is easier at the elementary level.
No question. The elementaries should be able to do it. Can you imagine a school like Allen with more than 5000 students and probably 500 staff members congregating in a building. I’m sure Allen is a spacious school but still. We have about half doing remote, and it makes it so much easier because it’s just impossible to do social distancing if you have over 20 in a classroom.
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https://twitter.com/alexnazaryan/status/1306251534120947714?s=20
Redfield: masks are better than vaccines.
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