We need a rapid test to identify people with immunity, so they can go back to work.
Quarantine is worth it, hospitals are overwhelmed, but it is failing, and will continue to fail. The sooner we can identify people who have gotten it and recovered, then put those people to work in high exposure occupations, the sooner we can restart the economy.
The classes of treatment needed here are as follows:
Rapid pcr test: expensive, and needed for surveillance of key workers, as well as contact tracing. We have this, but it won’t scale.
Vaccine: this enables eradication, but is a minimum of 18 months away, and the effort may fail
Post exposure prophylaxis: something given before or immediately after exposure that stops the disease in its tracks (healthcare workers need this, if antimalarials do the job, yay we know those are safe and effective prophylactically)
Symptomatic relief: something given when early symptoms show, which pregents the development of catastrophic symptoms (the malaria drug will hopefully fit this)
Catastrophic care: more and better ventilators and ways of managing ards/cytokine storm. Gl with this, we wanted it before thia crisis.
Rapid antibody test: identifies patients who are exposed. Two weeks after a positive test, if the patient hasn’t been admitted to a hospital, it will be safe to say that that particular patient will not require that level of care and is probably no longer contagious.
We need the rapid antibody test, and we need about a billion of them, do rolling tests, if someone has a positive test and thinks they had symptoms > 1 week prior, return them to work and tell them to avoid anyone with a negative test for a week, if they can.
Antibody tests are here but are not being used to reopen (worries that people will variolate to go back to work, if that’s the case wtf is wrong with your economy).
Prophylaxis and symptomatic relief appears to be ‘Vitamin D to mitigate the bradykinin storm’: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77093-z “As per the flexible approach in the current COVID-19 pandemic authors recommend mass administration of vitamin D supplements to population at risk for COVID-19.” Sure ok, one weird trick that actually works, nice.
Rapid PCR and in New Zealand, full genome sequencing for contact tracing is a thing, awesome. Rapid antigen tests are a thing too, but not helping the economy.
Idk about what works in hospitals, but ventilators and fentanyl scare me more than ‘happy hypoxemia’ so if I’m conscious enough to say don’t take me to a hospital, that’s what I’m saying. Remdesivir is not widely available enough for me to bother thinking about.
The DIY corona vaccine appears from what research has been done to be safe (no biologists who took it died) and according to animal model studies, effective. I have the wherewithal to construct it if I want, I haven’t bothered, therefore I probably won’t screw with the official one when it hits.
Based on present death rates and the state of the economy, quarantine wasn’t worth it.
Edit: my best guess about ‘long hauler’ symptoms is that they’re consistent with permanent damage to the lungs and long term low-moderate hypoxia, lung transplants and oxygen bottles are really the only treatments for that (if you can cure scarring and regenerate lung tissue, let the asbestosis and silicosis communities know), so long-haulers are probably screwed. Vitamin D should limit or halt this process.
We need a rapid test to identify people with immunity, so they can go back to work.
Quarantine is worth it, hospitals are overwhelmed, but it is failing, and will continue to fail. The sooner we can identify people who have gotten it and recovered, then put those people to work in high exposure occupations, the sooner we can restart the economy.
The classes of treatment needed here are as follows:
Rapid pcr test: expensive, and needed for surveillance of key workers, as well as contact tracing. We have this, but it won’t scale.
Vaccine: this enables eradication, but is a minimum of 18 months away, and the effort may fail
Post exposure prophylaxis: something given before or immediately after exposure that stops the disease in its tracks (healthcare workers need this, if antimalarials do the job, yay we know those are safe and effective prophylactically)
Symptomatic relief: something given when early symptoms show, which pregents the development of catastrophic symptoms (the malaria drug will hopefully fit this)
Catastrophic care: more and better ventilators and ways of managing ards/cytokine storm. Gl with this, we wanted it before thia crisis.
Rapid antibody test: identifies patients who are exposed. Two weeks after a positive test, if the patient hasn’t been admitted to a hospital, it will be safe to say that that particular patient will not require that level of care and is probably no longer contagious.
We need the rapid antibody test, and we need about a billion of them, do rolling tests, if someone has a positive test and thinks they had symptoms > 1 week prior, return them to work and tell them to avoid anyone with a negative test for a week, if they can.
Antibody tests are here but are not being used to reopen (worries that people will variolate to go back to work, if that’s the case wtf is wrong with your economy).
Prophylaxis and symptomatic relief appears to be ‘Vitamin D to mitigate the bradykinin storm’: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77093-z “As per the flexible approach in the current COVID-19 pandemic authors recommend mass administration of vitamin D supplements to population at risk for COVID-19.” Sure ok, one weird trick that actually works, nice.
Rapid PCR and in New Zealand, full genome sequencing for contact tracing is a thing, awesome. Rapid antigen tests are a thing too, but not helping the economy.
Idk about what works in hospitals, but ventilators and fentanyl scare me more than ‘happy hypoxemia’ so if I’m conscious enough to say don’t take me to a hospital, that’s what I’m saying. Remdesivir is not widely available enough for me to bother thinking about.
The DIY corona vaccine appears from what research has been done to be safe (no biologists who took it died) and according to animal model studies, effective. I have the wherewithal to construct it if I want, I haven’t bothered, therefore I probably won’t screw with the official one when it hits.
Based on present death rates and the state of the economy, quarantine wasn’t worth it.
Edit: my best guess about ‘long hauler’ symptoms is that they’re consistent with permanent damage to the lungs and long term low-moderate hypoxia, lung transplants and oxygen bottles are really the only treatments for that (if you can cure scarring and regenerate lung tissue, let the asbestosis and silicosis communities know), so long-haulers are probably screwed. Vitamin D should limit or halt this process.
This supercomputer model seems trustworthy so far: https://elemental.medium.com/a-supercomputer-analyzed-covid-19-and-an-interesting-new-theory-has-emerged-31cb8eba9d63