Coronavirus, End of Year 2020

 Coronavirus, End of Year 2020

The year ends with hope.  Vaccines are rolling out.  The first people vaccinated in the USA should be immune 37 days later on Jan 20. 

Other treatments to mitigate the severe symptoms are testing well.  At one hospital, a study of 83 patients, who tested positive for C-19, and all of who would have probably been admitted due to being in the high risk groups were treated with Bamlanivimab first.  Of the group, only 1 needed admission.

As of Christmas Eve, the number of new cases continued to grow, including my nephew and his fiancé.  (they have since hit the “recovered” status, but physically exhaust easy)  By doing an estimate based on number 21 times new cases, we peaked at 5,170,000 active cases on Christmas Eve, but have since retreated below the 5 million mark.

This is the horror story we were trying to avoid with the shutdown in March.  Then the number of known active cases was in the 10’s of thousands and had the potential to spread to 8 million by the end of April.  We avoided that calamity then, but are in it now.  But we have hope now.  I am repeating myself here, but assuming the current production schedule, about 190 million Americans will be vaccinated by June. 

That assumes no other vaccine becomes available.  Others are in the works by many companies partially funded with seed money by Project Warp Speed.  Like Moderna for 100 million doses and an option for 400 million more.  Pfizer developed their vaccine without seed money from the project, but agreed to provide 100 million doses as well, with an option for another 500 million doses.  World wide, there are a known 230+ vaccine projects in the works.

To be clear, the current vaccine’s takes two doses, a month apart, to be effective. 

One warning, the RNA vaccine has been shown to cause anaphylactic shock (an allergic reaction) in some people, even those who have never demonstrated this problem before.  A reaction of some kind in .63% of recipients of the trial group, and so far, about 1 in a million for full fledged Anaphylaxis.  These numbers may be adjusted as we get more data.  I am not an expert here, but I believe an injection of epinephrine can treat Anaphylaxis, and vaccine sites will probably have an “Epi” pen handy.

Regarding Long Term Impact.  Vascular damage has shown to affect the heart, kidneys, and lungs.  Back in July, this has shown damage between 35% and 70% of patients examined.  This even applies to mild cases when tested 2 months later, showing heart function degradation.  A recent German study is showing vascular damage in 10 times the mortality rate in patients.  Which is around 10% the number of cases.  Other studies range the numbers between 10 and 88%.  So the answer here is there is long term effects, but how prevalent, we don’t know. 

Men are shown to be more likely to contract the virus, but this may be just risk taking.  Women are more likely to die from it.  Type A blood types are more vulnerable, which may explain why Europe suffered as much as it did. 

One study has shown that 50% of hospitalized, but non-ICU patients are suffering from cognitive dysfunction. 

Children which exhibited minimal effects of the illness also are showing vascular damage, but this is masked by lower operating pressures.  It is unknown if these will heal over time.

This was shared on a Covid survivor group: 

I have not validated any of this, but everything here makes sense.

HOW TO FIGHT COVID AT HOME

The doctor sent me home to fight Covid with two prescriptions - Azithromycin 250mg & Dexamethason 6mg. When the nurse came in to discharge me, I asked her, "What can I do to help fight this at home?" She said, “Sleep on your stomach at all times with Covid. If you can’t sleep on your stomach because of heath issues sleep on your side. Do not lay on your back no matter what because it smashes your lungs and that will allow fluid to set in.

Set your clock every two hours while sleeping on your stomach, then get out of bed and walk for 15-30 min, no matter how tired or weak that you are. Also move your arms around frequently, it helps to open your lungs. Breathe in thru your nose, and out thru your mouth. This will help build up your lungs, plus help get rid of the Pneumonia or other fluid you may have.

When sitting in a recliner, sit up straight - do not lay back in the recliner, again this will smash your lungs. While watching TV - get up and walk during every commercial.

Eat at least 1 - 2 eggs a day, plus bananas, avocado and asparagus.These are good for Potassium.

Drink Pedialyte, Gatorade Zero, Powerade Zero & Water with Electrolytes to prevent you from becoming dehydrated. Do not drink anything cold - have it at room temperature or warm it up. Water with lemon, and little honey, peppermint tea, apple cider are good suggestions for getting in fluids. No milk products, or pork. Vitamin’s D3, C, B, Zinc, Probiotic One-Day are good ideas. Tylenol for fever. Mucinex, or Mucinex DM for drainage, plus helps the cough. Pepcid helps for cramps in your legs. One baby aspirin everyday can help prevent getting a blood clot, which can occur from low activity. "

Drink a smoothie of blueberries, strawberries, bananas, honey, tea and a spoon or two of peanut butter.

Coronavirus, by the Numbers, As I See It. Mid December

Coronavirus, by the Numbers, As I See It.  12/15/2020

The number of new cases had been increasing at an accelerated rate.  At the end of September, the new cases per day was 40,000 increasing by around 2% per day.  By the end of October it peaked at 101,000 while growing an average of 4% per day.  In November, the number of daily new cases hit a growth rate of 6% per day for 3 days, on the 7, 8 and 10th, before declining.  On November 20, the number of new cases was first hit 200,000.  December has had 10 out of 14 days over 200,000. The last week averaging 215,000 per day.  The good news the rate of increase for all of December is 2% per day.

This brings the estimated number of active cases to over 4.5 million.

And C-19 is now the #1 killer in the US.  Cancer kills 1,650 a day, but is not communicable.  On Dec 9^th, my birthday, Covid killed 3,260. Which was the peak number for the month.  The estimate of 400,000 deaths by inauguration day is no longer hypothetical, but a certainty.  We vectoring to have a higher death count in the USA than the Spanish Flu of 1918 at 675,000.  This assumes the 2,500 number per day till the day the first vaccinated person becomes immune (37 days) then drops to 2,000 per day for 5 months after that for no rational reason other than hope and prayers.   Then a 1,000 new cases per day for the rest of the year. 

The US Population in 1918 is 103 million, less than 1/3 what it is now.  So the overall affect on the psyche of the country will be less.

There is a meme running around about the deadliest days in history.  Galveston Hurricane, 8,000, Antietam 3,600, San Francisco Earthquake 3,000.  Already this list is obsolete.  Insert Dec 9, COVID-19 3,260 between #2 and #3.

On the vaccine front.  Pfizer’s was authorized by the UK at the beginning of the month.  Pfizer’s and Moderna’s was authorized on Dec 12, and first injections started on Dec 14.  They expect to have 40 million doses for the US by year’s end, almost enough for those living in long term health care facilities and health care workers. 

The vaccine requires 2 doses, taken a month apart, to be effective, so when you read the number of doses available, you may have to divide by 2 for calculating how many can be vaccinated.  I’ll use the higher number because that is what the Press uses to avoid confusion.

Between Pfizer and Moderna, they expect to ship 70 million doses a month through the winter.  Priority for those will be the over 65 crowd.  By April it is expected to start vaccination of the general population.  By June that would be enough to fully vaccinate about 190 million Americans. 

“Herd Immunity” requires an estimated 80% of the population.  For the USA, that is 265 Million. 

Dr Fauci, who should have a better idea on the production schedules than I, thinks we will achieve herd immunity by Fall of 2021, and normalized behavior by year’s end.

This is probably not a once and done thing.  Earlier reports said that the vaccine will require yearly boosters.

A note on vaccine effectiveness.  A small amount of immunity will develop about 2 weeks from the first dose, emphasis on the word small.  Full immunity about a week after the second dose.  So from day one, with the exception of test patients, the first immune person will be 37 days from Dec 14, or Jan 20.  The irony that that is inauguration day is not lost to me.  45's supporters will make hay of that coincidence.

It is unknown if the vaccine would keep you from spreading the virus.  That would take more long term testing.  It is only been shown to be 95% effective in keeping the patient from getting it.

There are currently at least 15 other vaccines being tested in the USA.  Status unknown.

There was much in the news about not congregating together during Thanksgiving.  And it seems to have worked.  In 2019, 17 million flew over the holiday, only 7 million in 2020.  While good news, there is no way that many people grouping together cannot have an effect to raise the numbers.  A week after Thanksgiving, the percentage increase per day of new cases started rising again. It had been lowering from 6% at the beginning of November to almost 2% per day.  That turned around the first week of December hitting over 200,000 new cases again on Dec 2.  I cannot explain why the percentage increase went down during the middle of November, and the rise the first of Dec is not explainable with the Thanksgiving holiday either.   To be clear, when I refer to percentage increase per day going down, it still means the number of new cases is going up, just not as fast. In the second week of December the rate of increase was down to 1.5%.  Since there should have been a spike caused by Thanksgiving get togethers, I am interpreting this to mean there is an overall decline in the increases.  And the expected spike is masking what could be a downward trend.  The next week will tell the tale. 

A note on how I am doing the percentage increase per day calculation.  The actual day to day numbers jump all over the place, like -16% then +17%.  Some agencies do not report on weekends, some not on Sunday.  Then there are people that are not sure if they have symptoms, and wait till Monday to be tested, causing a surge in reporting Wed/Thur.   I am averaging the daily increase against the previous 7 days in an attempt to produce a more coherent vector.  I also tried 14 days, but only got slightly better results.

A friend of mine suggested using “inverse harmonic mean”, which I have tried a couple of times, both against the percentage and the raw numbers, but both generated numbers that had no discernible correlation to reality, so I suspect I am not doing it right.  If there is any expertise out there interested in giving it a go, please call me.

At the beginning of the month, it was announced that Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, my home town, had reached 85% of its ICU capacity for C-19 patients (48 beds left).  Montgomery County has been one of the wealthiest counties in the nation for over a hundred years and has a lot of hospitals.  A number of new ones have been built in recent years.  So I shudder for less opulent communities of this nation.  Like Lehigh Valley (not an impoverished county by any means), is at 97% with 5 beds remaining.

The hospitalization rate for C-19 hit 100,000 in early December.  109,000 on Dec 13.  About 20% of them in the ICU, and 7% on ventilators.

https://covidtracking.com/data/national/hospitalization