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

New video by the mysterious RUN-DMC, who does a really good job going through the research on antibody tests. Apparently he's also a long hauler.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pHfsmX467s

Here are some of his previous videos :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuKAg52mz4s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9y9o6Dy5jI

 

Yes, what's up with that? I can't help wondering if and how it's connected to the stuff in the press in Sweden at the moment, to do with other countries' decisions to keep their borders closed to people from Sweden for now (Norway, among others), and earlier reports about the Swedish government trying to improve the country's image internationally in various ways (for example by asking international diplomats/ambassadors to portray Sweden's covid strategy in a more positive light).

Soon after it became clear that many countries wouldn't open their borders to Sweden for now, it was reported that testing would increase (thank you, finally!). That was about 3 weeks ago, I think?

For the last few weeks there have been plenty of articles in the press where "experts" are speculating about immunity, how many people in Sweden "actually" have been infected so far (as opposed to the numbers based on research and other official reports), and why the studies that show low numbers "might be wrong", etc... Articles here, here and here.

Here's an example of a recently published serological study done in May in Norrbotten (a relatively sparsely populated region in the North). "Region Norrbotten" is also the name of the local government responsible for healthcare etc.

This study didn't seem to get much attention in the press at all (the spotlight seems to be on the speculating "experts" instead), but here's an article in Aftonbladet. ("The alarm from Norrbotten - the herd immunity may never come")

Another recently published report on number of infected here, and another one here.

Also, the government has given the Public Health Authority the task of helping the local governments "restart" or increase their tracing efforts. However, in many regions the local healthcare system doesn't have the required capacity, they don't have time to make the phone calls, so they are now putting the responsibility on the patients, expecting the patients to do the actual tracing... The infected patients are told to contact the people they have been around, and in most cases it seems no one will check if the patients actually make those phone calls or not. Which obviously is a problem, it doesn't meet the requirements in WHO's guidelines. (Articles here, here and here).

Meanwhile, the Public Health Authority is pushing forward with the immunity approach. Here's a news article. And here are the new guidelines, published a couple of days ago. They are loosening some recommendations for people with confirmed antibodies:

There are plenty of news articles commenting on "the number of infected going down" despite a growing number of people not following the recommendations for social distancing etc, sending the message that "it might be because of the immunity",... (while the numbers are actually going up in several regions, and last week WHO registered the highest number of infected in Sweden so far.) Some are even making it sound as if this might the last bit of it, that things might be going back to something close to normal in the fall.

There is still a lot of focus on the number of deaths in care homes, for example this recent investigation by the newspaper Aftonbladet.

Data on the excess deaths in Sweden indicate that it's 200% higher for people who were born in another country (Irak, Somalia and Syria, in particular), suggesting that social structures is a huge factor.

 

Paywall/sign-up wall, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/two-in-three-victims-of-covid-19-had-a-disability-dcdx3gm20

 

I don't think this has been posted yet... NewScientist, 1st July 2020: Can we become immune to the coronavirus? What the evidence says so far

Sorry for the cliffhanger, the rest is behind a paywall. If anyone has access I'd be interested to know more. Thanks...

 

The Swedish Research Council has announced which projects will be receiving grants for coronavirus and covid-19 research in their recent request for research grant applications. A total of 23 researchers will share SEK 33 million (approx GBP 2.84 million, EUR 3.1 million) in 2020. They approved 23 out of 255 applications.

Announcement in English here.

In Swedish here.

Here's a very informative and easy to read Twitter thread (in Swedish) about research funding, how the application process works, what the researchers can use the money for, and a short description of each of the 23 research projects:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1279002515548377095


There's one study on face masks, and another on long-term health consequences of covid. I had a quick look, but didn't see anything ME related (except that I recognised the name of one grantee because she is a well known ME denier...).

 

Merged thread

Thailand Medical News

Could Study That Shows Proteins Nsp12 And 13 Of SARS-Cov-2 Causing Mitochondrial Dysfunction Explain For Prevalence Of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome In COVID-19 Patients?

https://www.thailandmedical.news/ne...prevalence-of-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-in-cov

 

My amateur opinion after Googling for 2 minutes and not reading the paper. Nope. Please tell me if I'm talking nonsense.

I think you would need a lot of these proteins in the body for there to be a significant ATP loss. Yet fatigue can also be a problem when there aren't many, if any, detectable viruses left in the host (doesnt't mean they are absent just that they aren't widespread). It's more likely that prolonged fatigue results from the body's response to the virus or damage the body.

The authors may be describing something that's interesting and possibly important but they don't show that this is relevant to ME/CFS.

 

The idea that NSP12/13 could be a cause of CFS is the opinion of the journalist, CFS is not mentioned in the preprint at all.

The hypothesis doesn't really explain why symptoms persist for a long time even after the individual has recovered from the viral infection itself.

 

That's it? Wow. The sense of urgency is palpable... Is Sweden OK? Doesn't sound OK.

 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32500504/
SARS-Coronavirus-2 Nsp13 Possesses NTPase and RNA Helicase Activities That Can Be Inhibited by Bismuth Salts

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W3cqiR2C_M

https://www.newsmax.com/t/newsmax/a...=05&date=22&id=968688&oref=r.search.yahoo.com
I wonder if ivermectin works in a similar way to suramin
Then the counter argument
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11934870/sick-amazon-evangelicals-animal-drug-coronavirus-ivermectin/

 

https://www.nihr.ac.uk/news/major-s...-effects-of-covid-19-launched-in-the-uk/25200

 

https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/...ew-study-long-term-health-impacts-coronavirus

 

Williamson et al. OpenSAFELY: factors associated with COVID-19 death in 17 million patients

Abstract

Open Acces at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2521-4_reference.pdf

 

Made a Twitter thread about the OpenSafely study:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1280944444745940992


2) Data from china had previously indicated an increased risk of COVID-19-related death for persons with various chronic illnesses, from diabetes to heart disease. At the time, however, correction for correlation with age - also a significant risk factor - was not possible.

3) Now there is data from 17 million people in the UK, with more than 10.000 with COVID-19 related death. It shows what many expected: persons with various chronic illnesses are at increased risk of death, even when other risk factors such as age and sex are controlled for.

4) The authors write: “The UK has a policy of recommending shielding (staying at home at all times and avoiding any face to face contact) for groups identified as being extremely vulnerable to COVID-19 on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions.”

5) “We were able to evaluate the association between most of these conditions and death from COVID-19, and confirmed increased mortality risks, supporting the targeted use of additional protection measures for people in these groups.”

6) This may be relevant for ME/CFS patients.

Although ME/CFS wasn’t one of the conditions tested, there was an increased risk of COVID-19 related death for neurological conditions and autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis or lupus.

 

The problem with all this discussion about "asymptomatic" transmission is they aren't actually asymptomatic. Such people often do have symptoms, but they don't report it. There also is an assumption by some that unless you have a fever, anosmia/hypogeusia or obvious shortness of breath, then you are "asymptomatic".

All of these claims from modelling that asymptomatic transmission is necessary (given known contact tracing) is speculative, given that contact tracing itself is always incomplete. It could simply be the contract tracing that is flawed, though I don't disagree with the conclusion that "symptom-based isolation must be supplemented by rapid contact tracing and testing". Given the recent putative opinion that COVID can spread via aerosols (and thus longer distances - 10m+, not 2m), the range of possible contacts increases significantly.

 

"Can symptoms alone diagnose covid-19? / Comprehensive Symptom Studies Analysis", new video by RUN-DMC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24IJ2dHbYPk