APRIL 5TH, 2020 THE THREE S’ES: SCIENCE, PSYCHOLOGY, STUPIDITY, SENSE AND SELFISHNESS
Chris Marshall
(see what I did there?)
The Science behind this AND more. Sooner or later, probably midway actually, there should be a vaccine element in our annual flu jabs, and that may well sort things out regarding COVID-19 at least for the next few years, until the next mega pandemic virus arrives.For those who are sincerely interested, heavy duty wise, below is some historical stuff about the science involved in all of this, and where we are now, in April 2020.
ALL OF THESE FACTS in this blog are supported by discussion with my former biochemical research buddy, plus about eight very interesting online scientific journal articles, and all may be checked by clicking on the links I’ll supply at the foot of today’s wise words (if you’re keen).
Viruses are tiny things which can be completely harmless and undetected, OR rarely can cause HUGE amounts of damage, like COVID-19. To fight them effectively, you’ve got to generally find a vaccine. Understanding the process of doing this requires what follows.
1) ISOLATE SPECIMENS OF THE VIRUS
(which scientists in half a dozen countries started to do in late December 2019). This coronavirus is actually named SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). Now coronaviruses generally are like flu viruses in that they are very common, generally don’t kill (well in the UK in recent years, number of deaths have been recorded as between 8,000 and 28,000 during varying degrees of winter, and flujabs usually vaccinate quite successfully). HOWEVER COVID-19 was transmitted from ANIMALS, (as were SARS and MERS, previous nasty viruses, which were HIGHLY fatal to humans), and with this virus, it’s accepted now that the first person infected was in a food market in Wuhan, China where several kinds of live and dead animals, including bats, chickens etc were kept in close proximity. Whether this happened MANY months earlier, and the Chinese kept the figures quiet, or actually in November/December, is up for speculation. Whatever, the genetic “sequence” of the virus or “genome” was discovered and defined by the Chinese by the middle of January 2020, and the sequence shared with World scientists. While the Chinese went into astonishingly high lockdown, gathering together up to 40,000 of its own scientists to surround and rapidly test thousands of patients with symptoms, (then sending HUGE numbers to Quarantine Camps within the Hubei Province, and instantly Locking Down the rest)…..the 6 or so groups of virologist scientists around the world worked hard to get an initial basis for a vaccine, which was more or less found by the third week of January 2020! The first human trials are CONFIRMED to commence from the last week of April 2020. This is flipping unprecedented, and though ridiculously rapid, it does then take MONTHS of trials on humans to modify the vaccine produced to make it more than 80% successful, which is generally regarded as the minimum figure before calling a vaccine “effective”. It’s also incredibly expensive and vaccine developers need high teams of fundraisers to even get to the stage where small scale vaccines can be produced after very expensive tests and manufacturing. Let’s then hope that there aren’t too many “Anti-Vaxxers” who are against ANY form of vaccination, as they can always cause symptoms similar to those with the virus (from injecting into your body bits of the virus genes).
PHEW, got that? So that’s what these groups of scientists are doing NOW. Development in Canada of the vaccine is particularly well detailed and analysed (see link below) if you like to read that kind of thing! Epidemiologists (yup, that’s what they’re called), were and are CERTAINLY not all in agreement about what to do about this virus.
2) ONCE IT’S INFECTED PEOPLE & DEALING WITH COVID-19 KINDA INVOLVES THESE THINGS:
A) CONFIRMATION of when people have it (using TEST A as mentioned before on this blog site, otherwise know as the Antigen Test, which Germany are carrying out in half a million per week, and we’re going currently about 70,000 a week). Then if they’ve been tested and not simply left to do 7 - 14 days self-isolation, which lets antibodies build up resistance to it, then the symptoms go away. If the symptoms don’t go away, as with most people who end up having huge breathing difficulties, end up hospitalised, and given oxygen to help breathing, then if other underlying or otherwise conditions arise, the patient can sadly die, and is usually highly infectious so needs isolation. Those who don’t die either get released back into the world at large, or their symptoms just go away (like a standard flu, as this may eventually be classed alongside), and they are infectious no more.
The idea of CONTAINING it was in fact the first idea. The Chinese ended up CORDONING OFF about 100 MILLION folks around Wuhan, but EVEN SO, the virus has now been found in nearly every country in the world. But the Chinese method of TESTING, ISOLATION and QUARANTINE of people AND THEIR CONTACTS (often with the aid of relatively simple Phone Apps which locate and send texts to people to self-isolate) seems to have been largely successful in controlling the spread of the virus.
At least Antarctica seems clear! Some epidemiologists think up to 70% of the World Population will eventually be infected by this SARS-CoV-2 virus, and thus will get COVID-19. Of these billions of people, at least 15 percent will have NO symptoms at all, same as most cases of influenza. The majority will have minor symptoms, bit of fever, bit of a cough, etc etc, but some, and this figure is slowly and surely being agreed upon, SOME will die, as discussed above. The MORTALITY rate for seasonal FLU in the world is about 0.1% according to the WHO. According to the incredibly disagreeing epidemiologists from all different schools of though around the world, the current figure, based on highly incomplete data, is that 3% approx of people with the virus will die. This of course doesn’t include the zillions of people who haven’t been tested and so consequently don’t know if they’ve got the virus or had it, or not. So the 3% is likely to fall dramatically, maybe even to the same as standard influenzas. Whatever, it’s MOSTLY elderly adults who catch it, then people with “underlying” conditions which affect the ability of the body to cope and build up resistance, such as people with cancers, heart problems, lung diseases and others…
SO…if you can actually CONTAIN IT, what next?WELL, the NEXT PART is where it is now regarded that the UK has totally blown it. Public Health England at first decided that using mathematical models, forget what the Chinese had done, and that they should MANAGE THE EPIDEMIC, let loads get it, then get to a relatively low maximum deaths but ensure that HERD IMMUNITY had been built up, and then the overall number of deaths would then drop, while more and more people became immune. problem was that the people advising the government GOT IT WRONG because over 20% of people infected in the UK by the end of January got very ill, weren’t building up immunity, and people started to die, indicating that as hardly any testing had been done (still in the 100s a day in February!), there were probably hundreds of thousands already with the virus, and no isolation measures had even been considered. Same certainly goes for Italy and Spain, who have the second highest infection figures in the world.
B) TESTING - TEST A One guy that seems to write a whole load of sense is a UK Paediatrician called Anthony Costello who was a director at the WHO, who said “We’ve got this totally wrong: the government weren’t being advised by people involved in public health, and the globally respected and accepted form of virus management was and should be TESTING, ISOLATION, QUARANTINE.” They’re doing this now almost everywhere in the world. It took us until MARCH 23rd 2020 before the UK changed its tack. Testing however is a massive problem in the UK. It isn’t in South Korea. Why?
IN SOUTH KOREA, these Tests A (antigen or PCR “polymerise chain reaction” tests) are everywhere. They do 20,000 a day in 633 sites. They are FREE, many are drive-through, they swab your mouth/nose and get taken to one of a large number of labs, where a six hour incredibly complicated series of steps is involved in the analysis. Essentially the Chinese isolated the virus “RNA” (the viral blueprint), and this PCR test ends up with a version of RNA (converted to a more measurable DNA) which if compared with the with the Chinese original version shows YOU’VE GOT VIRUS in your body. Still there. NOW. Because there’s tons of steps to do this, 6 hours is till incredible, but up to 30% of these tests can be simply wrong. However if you give it to someone with symptoms, there’s at least a very strong case that they have it. If they’re negative, it is NOT an all clear for the patient/testee. Got it? You get the result back BY TEXT within 24 hours. As simple as that.
Because of this test, you get a very good idea where the virus has spread to in the population so that they, and everyone they’ve been in contact with (up to a point, with the ubiquitous aid of phone Apps) may be quarantined (7 - 14 days). A hell of a lot more people know if THEY HAVE IT, and the South Koreans also know WHERE THEY ARE.
What then? As we know if symptoms don’t diminish within 7 - 14 days, people may need to go to hospital, and as discussed they may pass away, if the oxygen and use of ventilators and constant care doesn’t assist sadly. (N.B. Yes, in the UK, we are lacking these ventilators in the thousands, maybe more, with no immediate chance of enough, plus have turned down the EU offers to join in mass purchases from the Far East. China this morning sent New York1000 ventilators, as Central Government said they didn’t need them, so the Mayor put out an appeal.)
In summary, this is what is happening in ever increasing amounts in the UK and USA where we started incredibly late to test. Bad bad news. Unforgivable, I’d say. Because in SOUTH KOREA, there have been 174 COVID-19 deaths out of only 10,000 positive cases compared with as of today nearly 5000 deaths out of nearly 50,000 positive cases. In the USA, they started to isolate and test very very late, and the figures there are soaring.
SO, can we get to 100,000 tests/day in the UK? Can we get the test kits (which include swabs and active reagents)? The US companies making them have been banned from exporting them…only TWO countries even manufacture the swabs, and they are in Italy and the USA. The UK has not even set up a minimal capacity laboratory regime to analyse the samples. That is finally starting after an appeal to Universities and Private Labs, two months too late, experts say. Plus, there’s a bidding war going on worldwide for these test kits and experts think it’s going to seriously affect the mortality outcome.
Anyway. That’s Test A.
TESTING - TEST B This would be the “Antibody Test”. This is also called Serologic Testing. The UK has just ordered 3.5 million of these “pinprick” tests. They are quoted today as saying a further purchase for 40 million has been guaranteed. These are all variations on the same test. Basically, a week or two after someone HAS BEEN INFECTED there are antibodies in measurable amounts in the bloodstream. This test is a standard immune system test that tests for immunoglobulin antibodies produced by the body after infection from the virus. There have been kits in the Far East since February, and these are appearing exported all over the world. Unfortunately, they mostly don’t work. Spain and the Czech Republic both sent back hundreds of thousands three weeks ago because they only had a 30% success rate. Those bought by the UK appear to be a newer test which should also “confirm” that the person with antibodies is now immune to the virus, though that sounds pretty dubious bearing in mind nobody knows this yet, and won’t for a considerable time. The UK also states it’s buying 15 minute home antibody kits, and New York says that they’re developing an “antibody serological drug” to test for antibodies, whatever that may be. Most promising seems to be the Rapid In-Clinic Vivalytic Test from Bosch, which tests for a total of 10 different viruses including SARS-CoV-2 (which leads to COVID-19). This produces results in under 3 hours and is done in a clinic. Also there’s a company called Sona Nanotech that is making a rapid test available later in April which can use blood, urine or saliva, and test people anywhere, including getting onto planes. These only take 5 to 15 minutes to get results…..
SO. Where ARE we now? Some countries claim they have reached a peak and have control of the spread of the virus, loosening the lockdown conditions in their cities. Other countries are still seeing the mortality and infection rate rise and have possibly months to go before any end may be in sight. Strategies have come and gone. 2020 will be known as the Year of Covid-19 whatever happens next. Companies investing the millions plus to produce a vaccine will need to be sure of its efficacy. All countries will need to be sure they can test effectively (which the UK can’t say as yet), and will need sufficient ventilator equipment to treat the ever increasing numbers in Covid-19 Wards in hospitals.
Hopefully, this analysis has informed and educated. It sure did me as I was reading and discussing bunches of this stuff.