Mutating Corona Virus

[BazzaS]

7 hours ago, tobyjugg2 said:

 

Seems strange that a front line nurse (I assume Unc isnt a frontline nurse) not offered squat yet unc is ...

 

Not strange at all.

 

it depends if the nurse isn’t in the highest risk group, and if UB is, OR where UB has been offered the PANORAMIC trial. Is your nurse relative over 50? Or in a risk group?

 

The ‘highest risk’ group is offered treatment by a CMDU.

 

https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2021/12/C1479-covid-19-treatment-pathway.pdf

 

BN : they won’t offer Vitamin D or Ivermectin. Remdesivir is only first line if outside of 5 days but within 7.

 

“patients under the following conditions:
- Onset of symptoms of COVID-19 within the last 5 days (for nirmatrelvir/ritonavir, sotrovimab and molnupiravir) or 7 days (for remdesivir), remains symptomatic and with no signs of clinical recovery
- SARS-CoV-2 infection is confirmed by either PCR or lateral flow test (registered via gov.uk or NHS 119)
- The patient is a member of a ‘highest’ risk group
- The patient is not hospitalised for COVID-19 and is not requiring new supplemental oxygen specifically for the management of
COVID-19 symptoms”

The PANORAMIC trial

https://www.panoramictrial.org

may be offered:

”if they are:
• aged 50 and over, or aged between 18 to 49 years with underlying health
conditions that make them clinically more vulnerable (see PANORAMIC); and
• have been unwell with COVID-19 for less than five days.
• have a recorded positive PCR or registered lateral flow test within the past seven days.”

so even if UB isn’t in the highest risk group, he may be offered the PANORAMIC trial (and it sounds like he is / was)

Equally, if the nurse isn’t in the higher risk group but isn’t selected at random to be offered a place in PANORAMIC….. nothing odd with UB being offered it and the nurse not.

 

If UB has an underlying medical condition and the nurse not (or, due to the  age stratification) : that’d explain it, too.

[BazzaS]

very little circulating Delta at present. Almost all are (a variant of) Omicron.

[BazzaS]

11 hours ago, tobyjugg2 said:Here, we report an unusual case of varicella-zoster virus (VZV) reactivation in a 68-year-old male patient who was vaccinated against COVID-19.

 

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8217581/

Good grief! A case report (a SINGLE case) from early/mid 2021, of a case of shingles……

 

No data on how many other cases of shingles for the groups of

a) the unvaccinated

b) the recently vaccinated

c) those vaccinated some time previously.

 

Without that data, how do we know if : They may have been going to get shingles anyway?

 

The vaccine might have raised their chance of shingles by a tiny amount (but still better to have that than severe COVID)!

 

Whats next? Observing that someone recently vaccinated has won £10 on the national lottery, and suggesting that there may be a link and it needs further study …. Someone must have been pretty desperate to get a research publication!

[BazzaS]

10 hours ago, tobyjugg2 said:

Worth a peruse

 

I've flagged this as needing far more examination:

Many older (and not so old)  people are on anti-inflammatory medication  although they commonly have other health issues

 

I’m sure Nature is grateful for you flagging it as needing more examination !

 

Until then, what is your point about older people and anti-inflammatory medicines?

or are you just quoting learned articles at random in the hope that occasionally you’ll either “get lucky” with a comment, or that you’ll gull someone into thinking you actually understand the cytokine / interleukin / inflammasome pathways…..

The utility of steroids (dexamethasone) for in-patients needing oxygen has been demonstrated by the RECOVERY trial.

I can’t see where this has been analysed on a sub-group basis for older people on anti-inflammatory meds : are you suggesting the trial has “missed a trick”?

 

What is your feeling on which interleukin needs to be targeted? And should it be upregulated or downregulated?

 

More to the point (since I don’t expect an answer that shows any degree of understanding, if you answer at all) :

 

What is your point, rather than just posting journal articles at random!

Edited May 20, 2022 by BazzaS

[BazzaS]

Sigh. Another “ohh, I’ll post something sexy, that I don’t really understand”.

 

it works in theory.

it works in practice, in limited and specific circumstances.

 

it FAILS in practice if you don’t know what you are doing. Shadows. Exposure from the contaminated items while setting up the decontamination run.

 

So, the item(s) must be physically clean.

Dirt? Creates a shadow, that the organism can be protected from the UVC.

 

Irregular shape of item to be disinfected?

risk of shadows, shadows -> organism can be protected from the UVC.

 

When SARS-CoV first ‘hit’, there were sites using UVC to decontaminate FFP3 masks for re-use (as the masks were in such short supply). The set up was designed by engineers with input from Infection Prevention teams, so that the limitations were mitigated, and a rig that “worked” was created.

 

The team involved published a paper on this.

 

I was asked by a friend (who was / is “extremely clinically vulnerable”) about UVC, for him to treat the shopping he was having delivered that couldn’t be left to stand for 48 hours. I sent him the link to the paper.

Then again, he is also a scientist and has an engineering focus too, while he could source / build a UVC rig, and would understand the uses, risks, benefits and limitations of its use, including correct use of PPE while handling the items for decontamination.

 

I wouldn’t try it for myself : how sure am I that the UV is safe? (Even if it is focused on UVC, am I sure there is no UV-B or UV-A)

For “Joe Q. Public” : how sure are you they’d get around the cleaning / shadows? (Or risk being exposed while cleaning?)

it might give them a false sense of security ……

 

care homes? No way

Edited May 26, 2022 by BazzaS

[BazzaS]

On 23/06/2022 at 10:53, brassnecked said:

 The polio in sewage ukhsa thinks it a mutation from a live vaccine potentially

Poliovirus detected in sewage from North and East London -

 

It IS a mutation from a live (attenuated) vaccine strain (the UKHSA notes make that clear).

What isn’t clear is if the mutation is “reversion to wild type”, where the mutation from the attenuated strain makes it able to again cause the disease polio.

 

Shedding of the live attenuated vaccine virus has always been recognised. It is why the sewage surveillance system was set up (the surveillance that picked up sustained detection of the virus rather than the usual, expected, sporadic detection every now and again of imported vaccine strains)

 

Once the risk of “reversion from wild type” risk from shed vaccine exceeded the risk from polio for the U.K., this was when the U.K. switched back from live-attenuated (“sugar lump” oral) vaccine to the non-live injected vaccine to remove the risk FROM people vaccinated in the U.K. passing on the attenuated virus / it reverting to “wild type”.

 

This vaccine derived strain detected here is from virus that has come into the U.K. with someone vaccinated abroad with the attenuated vaccine, OR a non-vaccinated U.K. traveller returning to the U.K. having met the vaccine strain abroad.
 

 

[BazzaS]

17 hours ago, tobyjugg2 said:

1. I'm not so sure LFTs are at all effective with omicron v.4 and V.5. even when highly symptomatic - and the Omicron variants transmit very quickly with very low 'quantity

Its claimed that perhaps 50% of 'colds' are actually covid. I know a number of people who have had (or have) cold symptoms, often for unusually extended periods, yet they continue to test negative (including myself)

 

Where is your evidence? (For the LFD’s in use in the U.K. having low sensitivity, with the “highly symptomatic” for BA.4 and/or BA.5? Folks, don’t hold your breathe for this as that poster rarely if ever can back up their assertions.

 

You do know coronavirus HKU-1 is circulating, too, and likely HCoV-229E, HCoV-OC43, and HCoV-NL63. (I’ve seen 2 lab reports for HKU-1 in hospitalised patients with other health conditions as part of being asked to help with “how do we explain these to people so they know it is different to Covid”)

[BazzaS]

Whatever they did : “damned if they do, damned if they don’t”

 

stricter lockdown? When would that have ended? (As in China is still enforcing strict lockdowns now).

 

Less strict? Less societal harm from impact on business (and education), but more deaths from an overwhelmed healthcare system (including lack of ITU beds).

 

So, the politicians get criticism regardless - but that was the job they chose, with that risk of criticism inherent.

 

Yet, to know seek to blame the scientific advisors (indirectly, by blaming the outgoing Prime Minister [ / the Cabinet at the time] for listening to them “too much”) : disengenious.

 

The healthcare scientists would have reported the best estimates they had, to the question asked (“estimated number of deaths for Plan A” : here’s the average, best and worst case scenario numbers). They won’t have commented on the societal effect if that was outside their area - up to the government to ask that question (& there were a variety of expert groups across health and behaviour so I can’t imagine there wasn’t a socio-economic group!).

 

So, if it is now “we listened to the experts too much”: perhaps it is “we listened to one set of experts over another set, too much”, but

 

a) That is government’s job, not the fault of the experts, and

b) If you were part of the Cabinet then, don’t criticise now, aiming to make yourself look better. Your choice then was to accept the collective decision and take responsibility for it now, or you could have resigned if you really felt it was that wrong.

 

One can predict, that if asked this question the response will be :

a) I disagreed

b) There was a collective decision

c) I didn’t resign in disagreement as “the country needed me to stay on”.

A politician’s answer, as that way they never have to accept responsibility for anything.

 

So, if they “listened too much to the experts” : it was their job to balance the opinions from the different groups of experts with their conflicting pressures.

 

Blaming the experts, or saying “I disagreed at the time, but went along with it anyway”: what a cop out!

Edited August 29, 2022 by BazzaS

[BazzaS]

Well, is probably me agreeing with her as she has a wider readership

but I hadn’t seen her article, just reached the conclusions on my own

[BazzaS]

On 07/12/2022 at 18:42, honeybee13 said:

Which antibiotic is needed for Strep A?

fortunately: “lots of choices”

It hasn’t become resistant to penicillin despite 70+ years of penicillin usage.

 

My understanding is that it can sometimes have resistance to some of the tablet alternatives used for people who are penicillin allergic, though there are ‘drip’ antibiotics for severe Group A Strep infections where resistance isn’t seen (& that includes non-penicillin based ‘drip’ alternatives, too), so there are reliable options for severe Group A Strep disease even for those allergic to penicillin.

Edited December 11, 2022 by BazzaS

[BazzaS]

1 hour ago, theoldrouge said:

 vaccine for COVID-19 has produced reports of 875,000 adverse drug reactions in the U.K. public, including 1,334 deaths,

 

OK, I'll bite.

 

Let us say, even for sake of discussion, that the 1,334 deaths is true, AND that the vaccine is responsible for those 1,334 deaths (which hasn't been established!).

 

The unanswered question when "1,334 deaths" is brought forward is "how many deaths would have occurred without the vaccine". If it exceeds 1,334 (and especially if it vastly exceeds 1,334!), then surely the vaccine is the better option overall?.

 

Even if there was a 'risk free vaccine', (vaccine B) .. and the current vaccine being looked at was vaccine A, one would still have to compare the lives saved: if the lives saved by B were 1333 (or less) than vaccine  A's lives saved, A is still the better option, in terms of lives saved overall.

 

You can't quote "vaccine deaths" without looking at "vaccine lives saved" (unless you have an unreasonable anti-vaccine agenda, that is).