From what I am reading, rapid tests are immunoassays. This means they need to raise antibodies to the coronavirus and validate them in a test. This will probably take time. There would also be the question of specificity for the COVID-19 strain vs. general coronavirus. I would assume that there are already many monoclonal antibody cell lines that recognize COVID-19 and coronaviruses in general, so they may be able to ramp up production quickly if they aren’t worried about specificity. The final hurdle is validation in a clinical setting so that there aren’t too many false positives or negatives.
For the moment, the PCR test is both sensitive and specific, but it does require a lab, more labor, and more time.
Speaking as a primary care doc, and thus not in the know–that would certainly seem to me to be a huge problem. There is a lot of run-of-the-mill, weaker coronavirus out there already. I wonder if that is why CDC declined to use the WHO version at first. Thanks.
It does appear there are rapid tests that detect human antibody production to COVID-19 which may be useful. It uses a COVID-19 specific antigen, so it should be specific:
Good question. In reading about the clinical course of patients, it is about 10 days. Essentially what we are doing now with ventilators is trying to,keep,people alive long enough for their immune system to kick the infection. Death is usually but by overwhelming consolidation in the lungs and hypoxia, or perhaps in some a viral cardiomyopathy with arrhythmias and cardiac failure.
I’m not sure what 5 to 10 days “after antigen stimulation” would look like in the timeline of these infections. This would include the incubation period before symptoms show up, but when is the infection strong enough to illicit an IgM response within that incubation period? However, I would expect IgM to show up in patients who have had symptoms for several days or a week which would be useful for patients who are hospitalized. I could be completely wrong, but I don’t think this will be a useful test for people who just started having the sniffles.
Goldman Sachs had a conference call yesterday that had the following points that might be encouraging economically in the long run. While they say half of us will get the virus, they do say this:
The virus appears to be concentrated in a band between 30-50 degrees north latitude, meaning that like the common cold and flu, it prefers cold weather. The coming summer in the northern hemisphere should help. This is to say that the virus is likely seasonal.
Of the markets they said: * Technically the market generally has been looking for a reason to reset after the longest bull market in history .
*There is NO systemic risk. No one is even talking about that. Governments are intervening in the markets to stabilize them, and the private banking sector is very well capitalized. It feels more like 9/11 than it does like 2008" Zerohedge
Of course nothing is guarateed, but it will get worse before it gets better. There is a light at the end of this tunnel and it isn’t necessarily a train.
I wonder if any of the doctors can get a latitudinal distribution of the corona virus. I would like to verify what they say about the general bounds of it between 30 and 50 deg. I would question if some of that is poor reporting in Africa and South America.
On the other hand, another study based on early progress of the disease in and near China found no evidence for an effect of latitude. “Here, we examine province-level variability of the basic reproductive numbers of COVID-19 across China and find that changes in weather alone (i.e., increase of temperature and humidity as spring and summer months arrive in the North Hemisphere) will not necessarily lead to declines in COVID-19 case counts without the implementation of extensive public health interventions.”
Thanks aquaticus. I also saw and lost a report that an HIV and malaria drug combined kills it in test tube. This is from Australia. Now, I personally know the distance from in vitro to in human body. I was on a phase 1 trial for a drug that did wonders for my type of cancer in animals, but it cost me my ability to walk easily. Nothing is sure. That said, one has to start with killing it in the test tube and that is better than if it did nothing lol
Texas has been slow to get additional cases. Florida has has only 155. We have fewer New Yorkers down here so less travel to that hot spot. I don’t know but we only have 82 cases. Will that change? yes, if warmth has nothing to do with it. I and my wife are hunkered down now.
Only 1/4 of the cases are below the Mason Dixon line–VA/NC, OK/KS, NM/CO line, and I included ALL of California in the total. Leaving CA out means that from Arizona east only 526 cases are found (1/8th of he cases). We have 4288 cases today. This ratio hasn’t changed much in a couple of weeks ago.
The HIV drugs are protease inhibitors which could potentially work on any virus that uses proteases to produce mature proteins. Chloroquine appears to affect the human protein ACE2 so that coronavirus doesn’t bind to it and infect the cell.
True, and having drugs with known toxicity that may be effective is positive. What a lot of the pseudoscience sales pitches for cures for this or that leave out is that in the test tube, Clorox,Lysol and .44 Magnums do a great job of killing germs too, but not a good thing for people.
Africa’s #'s might be real. I got my New Scientist today: Two quotes of interest.
Mary Stephen of the WHO, who is based in Brazzaville in he Republic of the Congo, says she believes the running tally of cases is accurate because more than 400 people have been tested for covid-19 across Africa so far. " wouldn’t say it’s an underestimate,’ she says.
Mark Woolhouse of U of Edinburgh said, 'If here were major outbreaks of the scale that Italy or Iran have had, anywhere in Africa, I would expect those deaths to be well above the radar by now." Number of Cases Across Africa Remains low. New Scietist March 14, 2020, p. 9
The article says most cases came to Africa from Europe, which is surprising given how many Chinese are now in and out of Africa.
This is pretty bad! AIG fundagelicals see an opportunity in the corona virus. The faithful are being urged
to buy up hand-sanitizer, etc., package it with a religious tract, and then re-distribute it. Coronavirus: Opportunity for the Church to Be the Hands of Christ
I’m convinced that this coronavirus outbreak is possibly the greatest outreach opportunity for the church worldwide.
Really? Why not simply serve those who need help? Or is AIG acting like a virus?