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

Lost or reduced sense of smell and loss of taste for me are sighns it multiplies in nose and mouth.

 

https://www.idexx.nl/nl/about-idexx/covid-19-resources/

IDEXX heeft inmiddels duizenden monsters van honden en katten onderzocht tijdens de validatie van een veterinaire diagnostische test voor COVID-19. Er zijn geen positieve uitslagen bij huisdieren gevonden voor SARS-CoV-2, de coronavirusstam die verantwoordelijk is voor de uitbraak van COVID-19 onder mensen. De monsters die zijn gebruikt voor de ontwikkeling en validatie van de test, werden verkregen uit monsters die oorspronkelijk waren ingestuurd naar het IDEXX Laboratorium voor PCR-testen.

No SARS-CoV-2 found in dogs and cats during valdation of the test in samples originally send in for PCR testing.

 

Thank you Jonathan.

 

I don't know if this has already been posted.

A clinical drug trial has been set up by the Research Center of the Montreal Heart Institute to determine whether a short-term treatment of Colchicine, an anti-inflammatory that targets the immune system and has been used to treat a few diseases, including gout. The medication will determine whether a short-term treatment will help reduce the risk of death and lung complication related to COVID-19. They have a website set up and are looking for positive COVID19 patients.

 

Copied from the Worldwide spread and control thread
Dr Tardif of the Institute of Cardiology of Montreal announced today that his group will be treating 6000 people suffering from Covid-19 with an anti-inflammatory called, "Koshesyn." That is not the correct spelling but I cannot find this med online so I have written it phonetically. He says that they hope to dampen and shorten the symptoms, so that patients do not risk going into full blown pneumonia.

The cases in Quebec are mushrooming, and though Prime minister Legault is fabulous in his daily briefings--level headed, organised, reassuring-- some folks are not listening to his request for confinement, for avoiding contact (even with relatives). Tonight all the stores are going to shut down, except for grocery stores and pharmacies and take out food outlets.

 

Copied from the Worldwide spread and control thread

Colchicine.

It blocks microtubular assembly and phagocyte motility. It might possibly block viral production. It is not usefully anti-inflammatory other than in gout. I would not put money on it but it may be worth trying.

 

Merged thread
This is the link to the Heart Institute's announcement:

https://www.icm-mhi.org/en/pressroo...tment-coronavirus-will-be-tested-canada-today

ETA: Link about drug in this study, Colchicine, which is used to treat gout and pericarditis: https://medlineplus.gov/druginfo/meds/a682711.html

ETA#2: Other articles about this study contained a lot of advertising, which I didn't want to include here (forum rules); however, there are other media articles out there, if members want to read more.

 

A virus that jumps species can indeed cause symptoms. The issue is the target molecule it uses to enter the cell. Viruses for other species will typically not bind to a human version. If it mutates enough to do so then it might indeed cause symptoms, because the critical issue is can it bind to its target receptor and enter the cell. Symptoms might not be identical across species though.

 

I do not know this drug and its not coming up on a Google search for me. It might be a misspelling. Antiinflammatories might indeed help, but could also increase lethality. This is because many will suppress the immune system, depending on their specific mode of action. If it acts on cyclooxygenase or a cortisol pathway it might be a problem

 

Referring to the loss of smell and taste in people who get sick, I haven't seen any mention of whether it comes back when the patient recovers. Does anyone know if it does?

 

Yes, Alex, it's Colchicine, as Dr Edwards pointed out. I kept hearing the word on the Radio Canada station and did not have spelling. Also, this morning I listened to English CBC and the chap was interviewing some researchers (USA and Cdn) and they said they are confident that 'in a couple of months' there will be the possibility to use repurposed drugs to address the severity and symptoms of Covid-19.

 

Thanks, I started to suspect that after I wrote the post, as there was another thread on Colchicine, though I cannot find it now, maybe it merged.

I don't doubt we will have repurposing. However the value of the drug to patients needs to be high or it will be hard to massively increase production, and we are going to need huge amounts of any drugs, especially if other patients on them can stay on them without supply vanishing.

 

Should do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taste_bud

On average, the human tongue has 2,000–8,000 taste buds.[2] The average lifespan of these are estimated to be 10 days.[3]

 

Hope this hasn't been covered already.

An Australian interview article with Nobel Prize winning immunologist Peter Doherty (Australian) about the state of play with vaccines etc.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/...atten-in-couple-of-weeks-20200324-p54dib.html

 

https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/oproep-bloedbank-genezen-coronapatient-kom-plasma-geven~aef2de50/

Bloodbanks in NL are gathering plasma from cured patients to help fix the disease in other patients. I can't translate at the moment, too tired. But with google translate people should be getting a long way.

 

Moved from Coronavirus: Worldwide spread and control

Its the duty of every citizen to roll up their sleeve and take the vaccine. Vaccines are safe period.

 

@Jonathan Edwards - is this likely to be a safe treatment, in the sense of the plasma (or antibodies or whatever, if anything, they're extracting from it) not carrying other infections?

 

The blood does need to be tested. This is an article about a recent Stanford investigation into other viruses that may be present. They are sharing it early at the request of the California Department of Public Health.

Code:

https://medium.com/@nigam/higher-co-infection-rates-in-covid19-b24965088333

 

Ah! Finally some clarity on that. For a while in many places the approach has been to make other viral tests, especially influenza, first and only if they are negative to test for COVID. That seemed to neglect the likelihood of there being co-infections, I'm pretty sure the body does not max out at one infection and decides that, "no, COVID, you will come back after Influenza has had its time".

I was mostly thinking that because of the habit medicine has that, somehow, disease always comes alone, that someone presenting with signs and symptoms of multiple diseases is a clear sign of somatisation and as such not to bother checking. This is a very dangerous and foolish belief and here it may have caused likely thousands of new infections among health care staff (and from them to vulnerable people), who likely continued to interact with co-infected patients assuming that if they had it they couldn't possibly be unlucky enough to have both.

This is a really weird myth and I hope it gets revisited considering the impacts it had here, it very likely killed some health care staff, but I have few expectations that it will.