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

Well, this is interesting:

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...t-covid-19/ar-BB19ohb9?li=AAnZ9Ug&ocid=ASUDHP

 

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/09/23/science.abd4585

Auto-antibodies against type I IFNs in patients with life-threatening COVID-19

Science, 24 Sep 2020 (open access)

Paging @Jonathan Edwards for comment.

 

Potentially interesting. It would be useful to have some control antigens studied. For instance heat shock protein 60, which pops up as a non-specific result in all sorts of situations where there is B cell activation.

I am a bit puzzled by there being antibodies to all sorts of different interferons if this is a specific pathogenic pathway.

Still, it might be a factor. Antibodies that engage immune mediators could well come up at least actually with infections. Rheumatic fever may have something to do with antibodies that engage complement in an aberrant way and allow immune complexes to deposit, for instance. And of course Guillain Barre has been linked to antibody production.

 

This seems like a fairly strong effect and the one of the most surprising COVID-19 findings (if replicated) I have seen so far.

The authors also claim:

Which seems high for what is hypothesised to be a pathological auto-antibody!?

This is a bold claim too:

 

I think that the problem is that a 'positive' antibody test is always defined by an arbitrary cut-off on a particular assay. There are always a few normal people who have levels a bit away from the massif the population.Nobody has a completely negative binding to an antigen.

 

They use them to sniff out cancers and the like, so why not train dogs to detect people who have Covid-19?

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknew...est-friend/ar-BB19qfNN?li=BBoPWjQ&ocid=ASUDHP

 

I think finland have trained dogs.

 

Yes. From a Swedish news article yesterday:

SVT: Finland: Hundar används i jakten på smitta

 

and they are also doing it in the UK
https://www.medicaldetectiondogs.org.uk/dogs-could-join-the-fight-against-covid-19/

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1309491638604042241

 

World beating, I believe the claim was.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1309446092057202689

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54307526

This is the BBC's take on that. Fred Karno's army.

 

Slightly nearer to world beating.
https://twitter.com/user/status/1309947123140620288

 

The function of the "app" seems fairly weak and only really functions as a cost saving measure when it comes to contact tracing.

Compared to the Chinese app which spies on you all the time and you can't get into any public buildings without having a "green light".

 

But you still can't log a negative result, meaning you're nagged by a self-isolation countdown for days afterwards.

 

Although I'd be willing to contribute to all this, I'm still very content with my old iPhone 4, which is a long way short of the required spec to run the app. And I'm not prepare to spend £100s to upgrade just for that.

 

We have a report here in Florida of a treatment protocol developed by AdventHealth in Ocala. (This non-profit hospital system is one of the better ones in the state in my experience.) ICAM only depends on supplements and generic drugs which can be used off-label. It has been very successful in limited use on hospitalized patients. Florida has plenty of such patients for a trial.

One of the possibilities this opens up is that weak positive results from such questionable drugs as hydroxychloroquine may have been due to other treatments not spelled out.

 

What *is* the required spec? Where do I find it? I'm not sure my phone will cope with it.

 

Apparently requires Bluetooth Low Energy v4 tech, which means iPhone 6S or newer or most Android phones built in 2015 or newer should work.

 

https://faq.covid19.nhs.uk/article/KA-01167/en-us?parentid=CAT-01028&rootid=CAT-01024