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In France half of the Covid-19 patients in ICUs are age 19-50. With flu life or death at that point (ARDS) is about 50% so no reason Covid 19 will be different. The notion that you are relatively safe if not old or sick is no longer a safe assumption. Stay home whenever possible.

Sobering numbers. In France half (50%!!!) of Covid 19 patients in ICUs are age 19 to 50. This is from French government stats. The same pattern is emerging in Italy. People who survive ARDS (the syndrome that occurs with severe Covid 19) will have pulmonary fibrosis which leads to much...

It is definitely possible that high temperatures cause the S-protein to denature in virus particles that are on surfaces especially if UV light from the sun is present. But bear in mind, the virus spreads to other cells within the respiratory epithelium after it hijacks the machinery of the...

Stay healthy everybody!

This came out today. It is a preprint, not yet peer reviewed. It concludes that about 12% of cases were transmitted by people not yet showing symptoms. ------------- The serial interval of COVID-19 from publicly reported confirmed cases Zhanwei Du, Xiaoke Xu, Ye Wu, Lin Wang, Benjamin J...

Please see the article I linked to up -thread from the Harvard scientist for more details about SARS and what actually made it go away. It is not known for sure how much was due to temperature. Also temperature in region of host cells (type 2 pneumocytes) doesnt depends upon season or external...

By warm temperature, I think of 30 degrees or more. Summer temp in Beijing. But temp may not be the key factor. Langel, the S protein of SARS-CoV-2 has to engage with ACE2 protein in lung cells to infect you. That protein has to maintain its structure up to at least body temp. So any effect...

Here is a great article from a leader in the field at the Harvard School of Public Health explaining in detail the reasons why viral infectious disease epidemiologists are not certain if warm weather will slow down Covid-19. It is a very balanced article and he makes cogent points about SARS by...

Here is an interesting article in this weeks issue of Science about seasonality of infectious diseases in general. It turns out in a lot of cases the reason for the seasonality is not known. Different viruses peak at different times of year. That's a good part of the reason people are saying...

I'm not a virologist but I know a lot of biochemistry and cell biology and pulmonary physiology (I teach some the later two at a university). I would be a bit surprised if hot weather doesn't slow it down, especially highly humid conditions, which would tend to reduce movement of virus in...

UK theorizes that quarantine wont help. This is different from knowing.

All countries are suspected countries now. Certainly the US and Europe. An implication of aerosol transmission is the whole 6 foot distance thing is probably not enough. SARS transmitted as an aerosol.

This is from a large Cochrane Review. Those are good meta-analyses. We reviewed 24 controlled clinical trials with 4631 participants investigating the effectiveness of several different Echinacea preparations for preventing and treating common colds or induced rhinovirus infections. Our review...

Tropical, one of my best friends and playing partners has a personal history a bit like yours. Somehow he made it to Malaysia and from there to here. I would NEVER willingly do something that would risk transmitting something like this to him. Also he smokes, so I especially worry about him...

Since I've been mostly saying depressing things, like the fact that it's going to get worse before it gets better, in fact it WILL get better. I recently read that there has been no new outbreak of SARS-CoV-1 since it emerged in China in the 2000s. It's as if it ran its course and disappeared...

I've seen it reported in several places.

Hmm. I'm not personally going to go that far. But I'm not going to criticize anyone for staying home.

By the way, here is an interesting tidbit. Spain is locked down. A lot of professional road cyclists live in Girona Spain. They are not allowed to train and were told to stay at home. Now riding a bike outdoors isn't going to any sort of risk for catching or spreading CV. So why? Spanish...

Why? That is a question for later, and it will come (although research labs like mine are shut down for awhile). Right now the question is what to do when we dont yet have vaccines, rigorously tested therapies, herd immunity, and at a time when the health system could be overwhelmed. And as...

I strongly advise people to ignore anything NL writes about health or disease. NL is quite a decent person but what he is writing about this is mind boggling. I shouldnt have to say it because it is obvious that death rates are an order of magnitude higher than flu, and EVERY credible public...