Coronavirus/COVID-19, Thread 2

[Gant]

Ranking by safest countries during the Covid-19 pandemic:

https://www.dkv.global/safety-ranking


Ranking of the riskiest countries:

https://www.dkv.global/risk-ranking

[Slax]

Ranking by safest countries during the Covid-19 pandemic:

https://www.dkv.global/safety-ranking


Ranking of the riskiest countries:

https://www.dkv.global/risk-ranking

What's the metric for safe/risky? I can't find it documented.

[zoyathedestroya]

Ranking by safest countries during the Covid-19 pandemic:

https://www.dkv.global/safety-ranking


Ranking of the riskiest countries:

https://www.dkv.global/risk-ranking

What's the metric for safe/risky? I can't find it documented.

Here's an article that referenced those rankings...

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/South-Korea-and-China-earn-high-marks-in-pandemic-safety-ranking

DKV, best known for appointing an AI algorithm to its board, is scoring countries based on more than 70 criteria and data from a range of sources, including the World Health Organization.

The safety ranking is broken down into categories such as "quarantine efficiency," including travel restrictions; "government management efficiency," which covers defense capabilities; "monitoring and detection," such as the scope of testing; and "emergency treatment readiness," which includes factors like the quantity of hospital beds.

[Gant]

Unless I missed something, only one western hemisphere country made the safest 40 (Canada), and only two made the riskiest 20 (US and Mexico).

I'd imagine these rankings will change rapidly.

[Slax]

Ranking by safest countries during the Covid-19 pandemic:

https://www.dkv.global/safety-ranking


Ranking of the riskiest countries:

https://www.dkv.global/risk-ranking

What's the metric for safe/risky? I can't find it documented.

Here's an article that referenced those rankings...

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/South-Korea-and-China-earn-high-marks-in-pandemic-safety-ranking

DKV, best known for appointing an AI algorithm to its board, is scoring countries based on more than 70 criteria and data from a range of sources, including the World Health Organization.

The safety ranking is broken down into categories such as "quarantine efficiency," including travel restrictions; "government management efficiency," which covers defense capabilities; "monitoring and detection," such as the scope of testing; and "emergency treatment readiness," which includes factors like the quantity of hospital beds.

I'm actually pretty surprised the US was rated worse than countries like the UK and Mexico on those measures. Most US states started physical distancing and shutdowns much earlier, the US has more hospital beds per capita, and the US more testing capacity in place, etc. Mexico especially has been almost absurdly late in addressing this crisis.

[Gant]

I think there's something to this.

What Do Countries With The Best Coronavirus Responses Have In Common? Women Leaders

https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/04/13/what-do-countries-with-the-best-coronavirus-reponses-have-in-common-women-leaders/?fbclid=IwAR1jN0eQL2XhLifEduQTAgFGAPVUUb48RhqDsRFOygZg6KjvTQl5KEzsWHI#3684f9c83dec

[KGboss]

I think there's something to this.

What Do Countries With The Best Coronavirus Responses Have In Common? Women Leaders

https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/04/13/what-do-countries-with-the-best-coronavirus-reponses-have-in-common-women-leaders/?fbclid=IwAR1jN0eQL2XhLifEduQTAgFGAPVUUb48RhqDsRFOygZg6KjvTQl5KEzsWHI#3684f9c83dec

And who is finland...

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[djFan71]

Yep. Scary part about Bulgaria is that we're literally a 3rd world country from Eastern Europe. If this gets big here, lots of people will die unattended and alone. Most people don't understand that at all and think it's a scheme to **** with their pocket, which could be true in a way, but the virus is very real.

We were in Sozopol, Varna and Ruse a while ago and loved it. But those were the big cities, and I can definitely see what you're saying. People were super nice - and a little surprised we were there. In Ruse a girl tried to sell us a wireless deal in the main plaza thinking we were locals, and flat out asked us why when we said we were travelling. I really wanted to make it to Sofia & Plovdiv, but couldn't fit it in. Anyways, I hope you (& everyone) stay safe.

[Green89]

Scary reports out of South Korea and Italy where patients are still testing positive weeks after recovering. The big question is are they still contagious?

[claycarver]

I think there's something to this.

What Do Countries With The Best Coronavirus Responses Have In Common? Women Leaders

https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/04/13/what-do-countries-with-the-best-coronavirus-reponses-have-in-common-women-leaders/?fbclid=IwAR1jN0eQL2XhLifEduQTAgFGAPVUUb48RhqDsRFOygZg6KjvTQl5KEzsWHI#3684f9c83dec

[Bad-Thoma]

I think I hit the rookie wall in the quarantine league today.

[SuperDeluxe]

Here are a few articles with positive news to brighten your day:

In any case - on our last call I mentioned one of the drugs that those in biotech are most excited about, with imminent data, is Gilead's antiviral remdesivir.

Yesterday evening they published their first results. It's a small study, with the most important data still to come (from the first of the many clinical trials) -- but they are encouraging (read the NEJM article here). Of those who received the drug:

68% (36 of 53 patients) had improvement in oxygen support; only 15% worsened

57% (17 of 30) on ventilators improved enough to be taken off ventilators

3 of 4 on ECMO improved enough to be taken off the machine (ECMO is for the most severe cases - the machine that pumps + oxygenates blood outside the body)

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/some-reason-hope-fight-against-covid-19-susan-cain/

Article mentioned in the article above, with additional info. The title is "Counting the Arrows in Your Ass," so you know it must be good: https://www.bahcall.com/newsletter-april-2020-judahs-story/


More on remdesivir:

Of the 61 patients who received at least one dose of remdesivir, data from 8 could not be analyzed (including 7 patients with no post-treatment data and 1 with a dosing error). Of the 53 patients whose data were analyzed, 22 were in the United States, 22 in Europe or Canada, and 9 in Japan. At baseline, 30 patients (57%) were receiving mechanical ventilation and 4 (8%) were receiving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. During a median follow-up of 18 days, 36 patients (68%) had an improvement in oxygen-support class, including 17 of 30 patients (57%) receiving mechanical ventilation who were extubated. A total of 25 patients (47%) were discharged, and 7 patients (13%) died; mortality was 18% (6 of 34) among patients receiving invasive ventilation and 5% (1 of 19) among those not receiving invasive ventilation

https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa2007016?articleTools=true

Seven high-risk patients in Israel suffering from COVID-19 are recovering after receiving treatment from a plant-based therapy product.

The Jerusalem Post reports that Pluristem Therapeutics Inc., an Israeli medicine company that specialized in cell therapy products, treated patients at three different Israeli medical centers for one week.

Those patients treated with its allogeneic placental expanded (PLX) cells saw improvement with severe symptoms, like respiratory distress. The company's preliminary data showed a 100 percent survival rate for all seven patients.

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2020/april/high-risk-covid-19-patients-show-100-chance-of-survial-after-new-israeli-medical-treatment

[FlatearthZorro]

Yep. Scary part about Bulgaria is that we're literally a 3rd world country from Eastern Europe. If this gets big here, lots of people will die unattended and alone. Most people don't understand that at all and think it's a scheme to **** with their pocket, which could be true in a way, but the virus is very real.

We were in Sozopol, Varna and Ruse a while ago and loved it. But those were the big cities, and I can definitely see what you're saying. People were super nice - and a little surprised we were there. In Ruse a girl tried to sell us a wireless deal in the main plaza thinking we were locals, and flat out asked us why when we said we were travelling. I really wanted to make it to Sofia & Plovdiv, but couldn't fit it in. Anyways, I hope you (& everyone) stay safe.

Amm, Sofia, Plovdiv and Stara Zagora are kinda metropolitan(Sofia is the capital and the biggest city in the country), Varna too.

What were you doing in Ruse? Sozopol is nice.

Thank you, stay safe.

[Parliament10]

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

[djFan71]

Spoiler:

Yep. Scary part about Bulgaria is that we're literally a 3rd world country from Eastern Europe. If this gets big here, lots of people will die unattended and alone. Most people don't understand that at all and think it's a scheme to **** with their pocket, which could be true in a way, but the virus is very real.

We were in Sozopol, Varna and Ruse a while ago and loved it. But those were the big cities, and I can definitely see what you're saying. People were super nice - and a little surprised we were there. In Ruse a girl tried to sell us a wireless deal in the main plaza thinking we were locals, and flat out asked us why when we said we were travelling. I really wanted to make it to Sofia & Plovdiv, but couldn't fit it in. Anyways, I hope you (& everyone) stay safe.

Amm, Sofia, Plovdiv and Stara Zagora are kinda metropolitan(Sofia is the capital and the biggest city in the country), Varna too.

What were you doing in Ruse? Sozopol is nice.

Thank you, stay safe.

We worked our way up from beaches in Sozopol to city/beach in Varna and then Ruse. Then left Bulgaria and went up to Bucharest. Ruse we didn't do too much, but stayed for 2 or 3 nights and just kinda enjoyed walking around seeing the architecture, eating/drinking and enjoying the vibe of the city. I think Varna was my favorite, but really liked all 3.

[K For Three]

I think there's something to this.

What Do Countries With The Best Coronavirus Responses Have In Common? Women Leaders

https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/04/13/what-do-countries-with-the-best-coronavirus-reponses-have-in-common-women-leaders/?fbclid=IwAR1jN0eQL2XhLifEduQTAgFGAPVUUb48RhqDsRFOygZg6KjvTQl5KEzsWHI#3684f9c83dec

Spoiler:

Biden is running with a woman BTW.

[threrf23]

Doctors who work with Boston's homeless population are sounding the alarm about asymptomatic spread of the coronavirus and the need for more testing.

For the first weeks of the outbreak, Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program tested only people who showed symptoms. A few dozen tested positive. There weren't enough test kits from the state to check everyone else.

Then the clinicians realized that a cluster of the people who had come up positive were staying at Boston's Pine Street Inn. So the state made testing kits available, and just over a week ago, Health Care for the Homeless tested everyone coming into that shelter.

The results? Out of 397 people tested, 146 (36%) came up positive. But even more surprising, they weren't showing any signs of sickness.

Every one of these folks were asymptomatic. None of them had a fever, and none of them reported symptoms. So the usual screening tool we had been using in order to see who should be tested turned out to be essentially useless for us.

So this was stunning to us. We were not expecting that. The shelter was certainly not expecting that ... And so, asymptomatic spread of this virus, while known in the past, has always been thought to be just a small part of it. But it may be that in certain centers like shelters — as it was in the cruise ship, as it might be in prisons ... and nursing homes, for example — it can be a real problem. So we're struggling about what the right thing to do is.

https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2020/04/14/coronavirus-boston-homeless-testing

[tfribs45]

Ranking by safest countries during the Covid-19 pandemic:

https://www.dkv.global/safety-ranking


Ranking of the riskiest countries:

https://www.dkv.global/risk-ranking

fake news, especially if you believe Chins is the 5th safest?! LMAO , multiply their numbers times 20 and it will put them right at the top of as the most dangerous and corrupt.

[Gant]

This fairly long article by The Atlantic's outstanding science writer Ed Yong is a MUST read. Here's some highlighted snipped paragraphs. But really, click the link and read the whole thing:

Our Pandemic Summer
The fight against the coronavirus won’t be over when the U.S. reopens. Here’s how the nation must prepare itself.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/pandemic-summer-coronavirus-reopening-back-normal/609940/

As I wrote last month, the only viable endgame is to play whack-a-mole with the coronavirus, suppressing it until a vaccine can be produced. With luck, that will take 18 to 24 months.During that time, new outbreaks will probably arise. Much about that period is unclear, but the dozens of experts whom I have interviewed agree that life as most people knew it cannot fully return. “I think people haven’t understood that this isn’t about the next couple of weeks,” said Michael Osterholm, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota. “This is about the next two years.”

The pandemic is not a hurricane or a wildfire. It is not comparable to Pearl Harbor or 9/11. Such disasters are confined in time and space. The SARS-CoV-2 virus will linger through the year and across the world. “Everyone wants to know when this will end,” said Devi Sridhar, a public-health expert at the University of Edinburgh. “That’s not the right question. The right question is: How do we continue?”


The most crucial piece of missing information, and the one that most dramatically shapes the nation’s options, is what proportion of people have actually been infected. So far, the U.S. has more than 576,000 confirmed cases. But between the lack of testing and the unknown proportion of people who experience mild or nonexistent symptoms, the true number of cases is anyone’s guess.


Tracking such a pathogen requires a lot of people, but due to chronic underfunding, local U.S. health departments lost more than 55,000 workers from 2008 to 2017. In their absence, a corps of volunteers could be quickly trained in the basics of contact tracing, as Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker is planning to do. “It might be an opportunity to bring in people who are recently unemployed—a wartime effort where people aren’t doing their normal jobs,” said Crystal Watson of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

“It’s hard for me to imagine anyone going to Fenway Park and sitting with 30,000 fans—that will almost surely be a bad idea,” said Ashish Jha, an internist and public-health expert at Harvard. “This isn’t going to look like a normal summer in America.”


As I wrote earlier this month, masks are symbols as well as shields. In East Asian countries, where they are widely worn, they signify civic-mindedness and conscientiousness. As their use grows in Western nations, they could send the message that society is collectively acting against a serious threat.


These problems might be surmountable. The U.S. is still a scientific and biomedical powerhouse. To marshal that power, it needs a massive, coordinated, government-led initiative to find the cleverest ways of controlling COVID-19—a modern-day Apollo program. No such program is afoot. Former Trump- and Obama-era officials have published detailed plans. Elizabeth Warren is on her third iteration. But the White House either has no strategy or has chosen not to disclose it.

Without a unifying vision, governors and mayors have been forced to handle the pandemic themselves. Ludicrously, states are bidding against one another—and the federal government—for precious supplies. Six states still haven’t issued any kind of stay-at-home order, while those that moved late, such as Florida, may have seeded infections in the rest of the country. “A patchwork approach to fighting a pandemic is very dangerous,” said Jeremy Konyndyk of the Center for Global Development. “It’s a recipe for a response that’s less than the sum of its parts.”


Over the coming months, we need “to normalize COVID in the public psyche, and reinforce that this will be a part of our day-to-day lives,” said Kissler, the Harvard disease modeler. “Many people I've spoken with are aghast at the thought. We thirst for a swift and decisive 'victory.' But I'm reminded of images from World War II as people in London walked to work, briefcases in hand, against a backdrop of bombed-out buildings. I think we are in store for a similar period in history, as we learn to make greater peace with the world's chaos and our own mortality.”

There is no going back. The only way out is through—past a turbulent spring, across an unusual summer, and into an unsettled year beyond.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/pandemic-summer-coronavirus-reopening-back-normal/609940/

During the Vietnam War, Vice Admiral James Stockdale spent seven years being tortured in a Hanoi prison. When asked about his experience, he noted that optimistic prison-mates eventually broke, as they passed one imagined deadline for release after another. Stockdale’s strategy, instead, was to meld hope with realism—“the need for absolute, unwavering faith that you can prevail, with the discipline to begin by confronting the brutal facts, whatever they are.”

[Parliament10]

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter