Coronavirus COVID-19 (2019-nCoV) Thread - 2021 Breaking News

The Quarantine Zone
731

That first one is interesting. Though, as with all of the studies I’ve seen on long COVID, nearly all the symptoms are self-reported (I realize there probably isn’t a good alternative at this point) and likely hard to disentangle from non-COVID causes. The Lancet study reports

At 6 months after acute infection, COVID-19 survivors were mainly troubled with fatigue or muscle weakness, sleep difficulties, and anxiety or depression. Patients who were more severely ill during their hospital stay had more severe impaired pulmonary diffusion capacities and abnormal chest imaging manifestations, and are the main target population for intervention of long-term recovery.

Pretty much the entire world is suffering from increased anxiety, depression, and fatigue - with or without a COVID diagnosis. How does the studied population compare to a control group? Lumping the serious, abnormal chest imaging patients in with people experiencing some degree of mental distress seems pretty low-information to me.

The second study:

The CDC report is based on telephone surveys of 274 COVID-19 patients.

Ehhhh… this is on the quality level of self-reported Facebook groups for me. The headline “One-third of COVID-19 patients who aren’t hospitalized have long-term illness” is absurdly misleading.

Found the cite I was looking for: LINK

We analysed data from 4182 incident cases of COVID-19 who logged their symptoms prospectively in the COVID Symptom Study app.

558 (13.3%) had symptoms lasting >=28 days,
189 (4.5%) for >=8 weeks and
95 (2.3%) for >=12 weeks

Long-COVID was characterised by symptoms of fatigue, headache, dyspnoea and anosmia and was more likely with increasing age, BMI and female sex.

There’s obviously a ton a research still to be done, but for me, based on my understanding of the stats at this moment in time, serious, long-term symptoms shouldn’t be terribly large concern for the majority (again closer to 100% than 50%) of the population. As more and better data comes out I will adjust my opinion.

732

115,768,952 total cases
2,571,785 dead
91,469,136 recovered

In the US:

29,456,377 total cases
531,652 dead
20,003,325 recovered

Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:

733

I created a thread to discuss long term covid here. Please join if you care to.

734

i use the multi-layer gaiter at the office. much more comfortable and easier on/off. then i wash it when i leave so it is ready for the next day.

735

Brazil is making the news on another freont , not only is it claimed to be the source of another variant, it has just hit its all time high for daily deaths.

Worth noting that Brazil’s leadership is closest to that of Trump when it comes to Coronavirus management.

So that means not supporting maks mandates or social distancing, and interference in the covid repoirtiung structure.

Meantime individual Brazilian states are trying to do the best they can, so if you want to see where Texas and Mississippi are headed, just maintian observation on Brazil

736

Oklahoma:

This seems high. The entire population of Oklahoma is only 4 million people.

737

Unemployment claims over the last 10–12 months have consistently been higher than ever before in history. Only the Great Recession came anywhere close.

738

116,233,565 total cases
2,581,943 dead
91,902,761 recovered

In the US:

29,526,086 total cases
533,636 dead
20,093,442 recovered

Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:

739

116,674,473 total cases
2,592,128 dead
92,285,355 recovered

In the US:

29,593,704 total cases
535,563 dead
20,183,329 recovered

Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:

740

A small but significant step in vaccine nationalism - Italy used an EU provision to block the export of Astra-Zeneca vaccine to Australia, saying it was not vulnerable, which is true, but also neatly eliding over the lower than expected take-up of AZ vaccine in Europe, leading to potentially significant wastage.

Doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 Vaccine Pile Up in Europe Amid Government Restrictions - WSJ [paywall might apply]

741

Here’s some news:

742

You can get gaiters with pockets in them for inserting filters that will cover your nose and mouth if you position them properly. Three layers of fabric + however many the filters are.

743

:cry: :grimacing: Not surprising. I guess we can expect something like that here soon.

744

117,081,763 total cases
2,600,048 dead
92,656,095 recovered

In the US:

29,653,891 total cases
537,119 dead
20,273,915 recovered

Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:

745

117,449,675 total cases
2,605,347 dead
92,964,137 recovered

In the US:

29,696,250 total cases
537,838 dead
20,336,656 recovered

Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:

746

Thank you so much for giving us our daily depressing numbers @Snowboarder_Bo. Its been a long slog and I hope you know that many of us appreciate your efforts.

747

In the last year, more research has been done on masks than was done in the previous 50 years, and we’re still in the dark ages of ignorance.

Hydrating the respiratory tract: an alternative explanation why masks lower severity of COVID-19: Biophysical Journal (cell.com)

" We demonstrate that normal breathing results in an absorption-desorption cycle inside facemasks, in which supersaturated air is absorbed by the mask fibers during expiration, followed by evaporation during inspiration of dry environmental air."

"We propose that the recently reported, disease-attenuating effect of generic facemasks is dominated by the strong humidity increase of inspired air. "

Your beard is providing an enhanced transpiration volume and path length: your mask is serving the same function it does in cold weather.

(That’s a legitimate research report, not some crazyness, but it’s a legitimate research report, not a recommendation on what kind of mask to wear)

748

749

I agree. Have you decided on an end condition? A point where you will decide daily tracking isn’t worth the effort any more, because the data isn’t as relevant? There may be a point where looking at them weekly makes more sense.

750

Super cool. I thought that humidity within the mask would help to keep droplets to large to make it far enough along the respiratory tract. The authors are suggesting that the humidity helps by promoting a nice mucus layer allowing for cilia to push pathogens back up.