I found it a fascinating read, it does a great job of connecting lots of symptom related questions I have talked about with people.
A Supercomputer’s Covid-19 Analysis Yields a New Way to Understand the Virus | Elemental
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Really interesting, and kind of scary as that it seems that COVID starts as an upper respiratory disease, but then seems to spread throughout the body and wreck havoc on the entire circulatory system including the heart. This is explains the range of contributing factors in CDC’s mortality data.
"But once Covid-19 has established itself in the body, things start to get really interesting. According to Jacobson’s group, the data Summit analyzed shows that Covid-19 isn’t content to simply infect cells that already express lots of ACE2 receptors. Instead, it actively hijacks the body’s own systems, tricking it into upregulating ACE2 receptors in places where they’re usually expressed at low or medium levels, including the lungs.
The renin–angiotensin system (RAS) controls many aspects of the circulatory system, including the body’s levels of a chemical called bradykinin, which normally helps to regulate blood pressure. According to the team’s analysis, when the virus tweaks the RAS, it causes the body’s mechanisms for regulating bradykinin to go haywire. Bradykinin receptors are resensitized, and the body also stops effectively breaking down bradykinin. (ACE normally degrades bradykinin, but when the virus downregulates it, it can’t do this as effectively.)
As bradykinin builds up in the body, it dramatically increases vascular permeability. In short, it makes your blood vessels leaky. This aligns with recent clinical data, which increasingly views Covid-19 primarily as a vascular disease, rather than a respiratory one. But Covid-19 still has a massive effect on the lungs. As blood vessels start to leak due to a bradykinin storm, the researchers say, the lungs can fill with fluid. Immune cells also leak out into the lungs, Jacobson’s team found, causing inflammation.
And Covid-19 has another especially insidious trick. Through another pathway, the team’s data shows, it increases production of hyaluronic acid (HLA) in the lungs. HLA is often used in soaps and lotions for its ability to absorb more than 1,000 times its weight in fluid. When it combines with fluid leaking into the lungs, the results are disastrous: It forms a hydrogel, which can fill the lungs in some patients. According to Jacobson, once this happens, “it’s like trying to breathe through Jell-O.”
The bradykinin hypothesis also extends to many of Covid-19’s effects on the heart. About one in five hospitalized Covid-19 patients have damage to their hearts, even if they never had cardiac issues before. Some of this is likely due to the virus infecting the heart directly through its ACE2 receptors. But the RAS also controls aspects of cardiac contractions and blood pressure. According to the researchers, bradykinin storms could create arrhythmias and low blood pressure, which are often seen in Covid-19 patients.
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Which gives credence to the heart damage concerns some doctors have expressed for athletes. (Subject to debate)
But conference doctors are like expert trial witnesses. The PAC and BIG needed those other doctors.
The analogy of it breaking into your house then letting everyone else in is accurate.
This theorizes about it from a circulatory and pulmonary side. Then there is the diabetes part and how it affects it in the body.
I was not aware that the nose had the most receptors. I wondered about masks and how too many people have the mask below their nose thus leaving the most vulnerable part exposed.
I have not seen much data on risks but what is the role of public restrooms and the spread.
Universitys are checking sewage to check for the virus and has been used to catch a Hotspot.
Live virus is passed in a person’s stool.
Public restroom toilets have been tested and shows they can aresolize toilet water up to three feet in the air.
It seems to be an ideal combination to spread it…live virus, sprayed in the air, and masks below the nose in a confined space.
With that scenario where do most people use public restrooms?
Not at the grocery stores.
Bars…sporting events…concerts…lol where ever there is a lot of drinking.
Might explain why bars became super spreaders sites. You don’t have to wear a mask while drinking but I am guessing no one is enforcing it while using a restroom.
To paraphrase…lol…”If I smell it…who dealt it?”.
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Good point on the virus getting aerosoled in the bathroom, and why cleaning surfaces isn’t really enough. Same reason you shouldn’t keep your toothbrush too close to the toilet lol. They are also very purposely very confined spaces.
Grocery stores and what-not are very different from places like bars, stadiums, office buildings, and schools…where you have a high density of people spending hours in a confined indoor space. And yes probably a high number of people using things like the bathroom, eating/drinking. Shopping or picking up take-out is a largely transient experience…you’re in and you’re out. Not spending an extended period of time increasing the viral load in a space if you are infected, or taking in more of the virus is a space if you are not.
You were much better on the grocery store point I was trying to make. People are in and out. Less risk when adding in not using a redtroom. I was trying to point out where folks use restrooms.
Grocery stores don’t have lots of bathroom traffic.
However, gastations like Buckees that is a different story. However, their toilets are enclosed.
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I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been in a grocery store bathroom. I’m not sure I can do that in one night at a bar. Lol
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Exactly.
Once you break the seal at a bar, using the restroom becomes like clockwork.
Muggy earthy smelling restrooms at TDECU right after halftime…(giving you the side eye)…lol
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Since it seems that the primary point of entry is the nose, we can see why masks are so effective.
But masks do not offer 100% protection. We know this from the various tests that have been put online. Wearing a mask reduces the risk by a set percentage based on the mask you use (and how it is worn), but common sense social distancing needs to be put into place as well.
The problem with packing people in confined spaces for extended periods is that you are increasing the level of risk…and also people are less likely to wear them properly the longer they wear them.
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Something is better than nothing but folks who have their nose hanging out are increasing their risks if around others.
My wife teaches and has been doing it virtually. She is militant about mask wearing (hates but does it). She has had a few days at her school and she was floored by how many teachers did not comply…either wearing one or if they did it was on their chin or below their nose. They got tired of wearing them. Once kids are fully back in the classroom…in the next few weeks…they to will do the same.
I figure it will also be just a few days before a parent calls to complain their kid came home wearing a different mask than he left home with. (Kid traded it for a different one).
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This is what the south korean data showed us. Older kids were not complying with masks because they got annoyed of them throughout the day. They were transmitting covid as the same rate as adults. And middle school and high schools are where the risk is because of the density of students per school
They make a statement about vitamin D in that article. I would recommend people read it.
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Yep Vitamin D is good too.
Not listed and I have to look for it is the effects of a Fenofibrate on covid.
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Serious question based on what im seeing out in public:
How many people out there honestly believe that as long as a mask covers their mouth, they are protected?
I see tons of people like this. Do we, as Americans, not even know how to wear a mask?
I’ve alread lost 4 people, that I know personally, to this virus and im beyond annoyed by peoples’ negligence and/or political show boating
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I was at GameStop today…a lady walked in with her kid with her nose hanging out. Employee asked her to wear it properly and she barked back about having asthma and suing the store if she passed out. Totally scripted like she’s said this many times.
Stupid thing is that if she has asthma, then she is at risk…and from what we’ve seen in the studies (including this one), covering your mouth is most important for protecting others…covering your nose is most important for protecting yourself.
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Sorry to hear about your loses 
I share your annoyance. Yes, I’ve seen the nose hanging out wearing of a mask. Or wearing it over the chin even. American individualism or stupidity.
Probably both.
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Both. You’re going to see more of this and the numbers will start to go back up. Many believe they’ll be taking a vaccine in another month or do
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You know, I hadn’t considered that folks may become even more social and less mask wearing
because they think it’s whipped ! There is a vaccine now… let’s PARTY !!!
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We need to be telling people to lose weight and get out in the sun.
What does this do about the immediate threat of COVID though? Nothing.
We get it ok…we’re fat, old, and don’t get enough vitamin D. We’ve known that about the US population for a while…knowing the underlying risk given the composition of the US population, we should been especially careful with our covid response. But instead, we’ve resigned ourselves to putting all the old and fat people at risk because freedom! A big part of the reason why obesity is an epidemic of its own is that people in the US are entitled, don’t like being told what to do, and don’t care about the societal ramifications of their health. The same mindsets that made us fat set us up to fail royally with covid.
51, we agree Americans are fat and lazy. We would rather reach for a pill for heart disease and diabetes than put in the work to lose weight or get healthy. Our general diet is awful. But we are not going to fix it to deal with covid.
Certain conservative media outlets have a field day when it is suggested soft drinks be taxed.
Or require people to eat healthy. When ketchup is now considered a vegetable we are in real trouble. Each time you bring this up it is to deflect or yet another “what about ism”.
I also have lost 4 people I know to this…4 people who would not have died this year and I would be cooking out with today.
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