Octopus Overlords

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Wed Nov 11, 2020 8:36 pm
Moot. Russia is 92% success. Is better waccine drug.

Measles cases reached the highest level in 23 years in 2019 and health authorities warned that many countries aren’t vaccinating enough people amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The global total for confirmed measles infections rose to 869,770 last year, the World Health Organization and U.S. Centers for Disease Control said in a report released Thursday. The number of deaths soared by 50% compared with a low reached in 2016.

The percentage of people who have received a first measles shot has stagnated in recent years and the coronavirus pandemic is now lowering vaccination rates by halting immunization campaigns, putting 94 million people at risk, according to the WHO.

Friends: my daughter Rose is a front liner at the local hospital here in Muskegon, working COVID intensive care on long shifts caring for patients who are deathly ill. I am asking for your prayers today. Prayers for her safety, the safety of her hubby and baby daughter at home, the safety of dozens of her co- workers who are either working double shifts, sick or in isolation. Grace for the patients who are gravely sick and dying, and comfort for the families who have had to say goodbye to their loved ones. It is far worse for this overwhelmed health care facility than I will describe here. All of those affected by this horrible virus need all the prayers and positive energy that you can muster.

Locals, a call has gone out for meals and/or snacks for the overwhelmed staff who are having a difficult time finding enough time to eat. Especially those on the second and third shifts. If you own a restaurant and can deliver some meals, send over some pizzas, or just want to bake up some treats then give Mercy hospital a call and know that ANYTHING you can do to help would be so greatly appreciated.

dbt1949 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 12:03 amJust read a story about the hoarding coming back. Oh joy.

Paingod wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 7:46 am We certainly don't intend to go to the grocery store and wipe out the baked beans and toilet paper, but we do have enough food (dry rice/beans/baking materials) on hand to last a month or more if all else fails.

Researchers have discovered that a deadly virus found in Bolivia can spread from person to person in healthcare settings, raising potential concerns of additional outbreaks in the future, according to new findings presented today at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH). The research also provides preliminary evidence regarding the species of rodent that carries the virus and may spread it to people or to other animals that can infect humans.

Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) laid out new clues to the many mysteries surrounding the Chapare virus, which caused at least five infections near Bolivia’s capital city, La Paz, in 2019–three of them fatal. Prior to that, the only record of the disease was a small cluster and a single confirmed case in 2004 in Bolivia’s Chapare Province, about 370 miles east of La Paz. The recent outbreak surprised health authorities, since initially all they knew was that it was a hemorrhagic fever that produced symptoms similar to diseases such as Ebola. It sparked a rapid mobilization of infectious disease experts from Bolivia’s Ministry of Health, the CDC and the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) to explore the origins of the disease, including securing samples from patients and developing a new diagnostic test.

“Our work confirmed that a young medical resident, an ambulance medic and a gastroenterologist all contracted the virus after encounters with infected patients–and two of these healthcare workers later died,” said Caitlin Cossaboom, DVM, PhD, MPH, an epidemiologist with the CDC’s Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology. “We now believe many bodily fluids can potentially carry the virus.”

dbt1949 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 16, 2020 6:17 pm My wife's nurse was do to come today. She felt bad all day and when she got here she vomited between her car and the house. She came in and washed my wife's hair before leaving early.
Looks like we are going to die now.

AWS260 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 16, 2020 6:48 pm

dbt1949 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 16, 2020 6:17 pm My wife's nurse was do to come today. She felt bad all day and when she got here she vomited between her car and the house. She came in and washed my wife's hair before leaving early.
Looks like we are going to die now.

That's horrible. Fingers crossed that she just had a bad hangover.

dbt1949 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 16, 2020 6:17 pm My wife's nurse was do to come today. She felt bad all day and when she got here she vomited between her car and the house. She came in and washed my wife's hair before leaving early.
Looks like we are going to die now.

Sudy wrote: ↑Mon Nov 16, 2020 11:44 pm Oh man, norovirus. While we didn't get an official diagnosis, I'm pretty sure that's what we came down with when we visited the in-laws several years ago. About twelve hours of losing it from both ends, often simultaneously in my case. This was with five of us sharing one bathroom... I have no idea how we made it. And then there was the week of weakness and exhaustion that followed.

Hey, which OOer told the story of getting sick like that in a server room, and having to substitute a box of old keyboards for a bathroom? Am I remembering that right?

dbt1949 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 20, 2020 12:06 am Ended up my wife's nurse sickness was food poisoning. How in the hell do you that?

ocregister.com wrote:LOS ANGELES — A widely used tuberculosis vaccine is associated with a reduced likelihood of contracting COVID-19, according to a new study by Cedars-Sinai.

The findings raise the possibility that a vaccine already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration may help prevent coronavirus infections or reduce the severity of the disease, Cedars-Sinai said in a statement.

The vaccine, known as Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, or BCG, was developed between 1908 and 1921 and is administered to more than 100 million children around the world every year. In the U.S., it is FDA-approved as a drug to treat bladder cancer and as a vaccine for people at high risk of contracting TB. The BCG vaccine is currently being tested in multiple clinical trials worldwide for effectiveness against COVID-19.

In the new study, published online Nov. 19 in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, investigators tested the blood of more than 6,000 healthcare workers in the Cedars-Sinai Health System for evidence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and also asked them about their medical and vaccination histories.

They found that workers who had received BCG vaccinations in the past — nearly 30% of those studied — were significantly less likely to test positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in their blood or to report having had infections with coronavirus or coronavirus-associated symptoms over the prior six months than those who had not received BCG. These effects were not related to whether workers had received meningococcal, pneumococcal or influenza vaccinations.

The reasons for the lower SARS-CoV-2 antibody levels in the BCG group were not clear, according to Dr. Moshe Arditi, director of the Pediatric and Infectious Diseases and Immunology Division at Cedars-Sinai and co-senior author of the study.

“It appears that BCG-vaccinated individuals either may have been less sick and therefore produced fewer anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, or they may have mounted a more efficient cellular immune response against the virus,” said Arditi, professor of Pediatrics and Biomedical Sciences. “We were interested in studying the BCG vaccine because it has long been known to have a general protective effect against a range of bacterial and viral diseases other than TB, including neonatal sepsis and respiratory infections.”

In the new study, the lower antibody levels in the BCG group persisted despite the fact that these individuals had higher frequencies of hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and COPD, which are known risk factors for being more susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 and developing the more severe forms of COVID-19.

While noting that no one believes BCG will be more effective than a specific vaccine for COVID-19, Arditi said it could be more quickly approved and made available, given that it has a strong safety profile demonstrated by many years of use.

“It is a potentially important bridge that could offer some benefit until we have the most effective and safe COVID-19 vaccines made widely available,” he said.

Doctor Susan Cheng, associate professor of Cardiology and director of Public Health Research at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai and a senior study co-author, said that “given our findings, we believe that large, randomized clinical trials are urgently needed to confirm whether BCG vaccination can induce a protective effect against SARS-CoV2 infection.”

In fact, a number of randomized clinical trials have been launched to study the potential protective effects of BCG vaccination against COVID-19, according to the Cedars-Sinai statement. Along with Texas A&M University, Baylor College of Medicine, and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Cedars-Sinai is a site for the U.S. arm of this ongoing trial, which is recruiting hundreds of healthcare workers. Arditi serves as the principal investigator of this clinical trial at Cedars-Sinai.

“It would it be wonderful if one of the oldest vaccines that we have could help defeat the world’s newest pandemic,” Arditi said.

dbt1949 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 20, 2020 6:28 pm I had a tuberculosis vaccine when I was young. Whether it was this one or not I have no idea.

Anonymous Bosch wrote: ↑Fri Nov 20, 2020 6:34 pm Wikipedia suggests the US has never used mass immunization of BCG due to the rarity of tuberculosis in the US.

Jeff V wrote: ↑Fri Nov 20, 2020 7:13 pm Wow, potentially good news for my wife -- The Philippines vaccinates against TB, but then again, so many of her friends here have had it that anecdotal evidence might indicate it's not all that affective. Or else maybe The Philippines use a different vaccine.