Warm Weather won't stop this virus

Warmer weather may be worse. Australia saw it spreading in warm weather
(77 high/64 low in Sydney) and it is warm in southern states right now but
everyone is getting it. Since people will have cabin fever they will
surge outside in warm weather.

The average high in Baton Rouge is 74 and the average low is 54 but there are
834 confirmed cases, so probably about 5000 just in LA because only New York
is testing a significant percentage of the population.

Experts agree that “almost” isolating is NOT isolating. Standing within 6 ft of
anyone you aren’t already living with is dangerous.

State by state map of coronavirus infection rates
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/mapping-spread-new-coronavirus/

New England Journal of Medicine COVID-19 page
https://www.nejm.org/coronavirus?query=RP

WHO videos related to COVID-19


https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019 

Those with blood type A are at higher risk than type O.

Data from China shows men are at higher risk, but that may
just be the smoking culture - a lot more men in China smoke
than women, or than here.

This is going to be hard, VERY HARD. Keep in contact with friends
and relatives as much as possible, but do it on the phone or even
better use SKYPE which is a FREE videophone.

It works on my Kindle using WiFi and every computer which has
a camera and microphone, also iPhone and most smartphones.

The software is free and already on many computers, person to person
video is also free to any skype anywhere in the world, I video conference
with my editor in Australia.

https://www.skype.com/en/get-skype/

UPDATE Doctors find three common drugs might save coronavirus victims

Update for the story below.
china conducted a test of Kaletra, a combination of two antiviral medicines, lopinavir and ritonavir and found to be ineffective against COVID-19

The latest candidate drug to treat this coronavirus is Gilead's remdesivir which is being tested by the WHO and the NIH.

NO results yet for ritonavir.

The tests on lopinavir and ritonavir was conducted on 199 patients with 99given the experimental combo drug treatment and 100 receiving standard supportive care.

The mortality ratio after 28 days was similar for both groups showing the Kaletra combination was ineffective despite early reports out of Thailand where it was uses successfully. That doesn't mean the Bangkok doctors falsified either the treatment or the result, just that because they only had one patient there could have been other factors which lead to her quick recovery. Also, with viral diseases people often seem to go into a kind of remission only to have the disease return in a week or two. This is what leads people to think they aren't becomming immune from a vaccine or from catching a disease -they never fully recovered the first time. There is no report of a follow up on the Bangkok patient or her current condition.

New England Journal of Medicine Report on Trial
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001282

Doctors at the Rajavithi Hospital in Bangkok tested a mix of HIV and influenza medicines which saved the life of an elderly woman with a severe case of 2019nCoV from Wuhan China.

The treatment used  lopinavir and ritonavir along with high dosage oseltamivir, a common flu treatment.

The flu medicine was formerly used to treat MERS, another coronavirus variant.

It isn't a cure for the virus because the body's own immune system is the only way to fight a virus, but the treatment does help prevent the inflammation which actually kills most patients.

Chart showing how the U.S. is on track to equal Iran, Italy, and Spain

"CLOSE EVERYTHING NOW"

That's still the advice from infectious disease experts.

The hard data isn't quite in yet but so far it looks as if the infection rate for COVID-19 is between 2 and 3.11 which means that EACH infected person will infect between 2 and 4 additional people.

Any number above 1 (the seasonal flu is 1.3) means the disease will spread in the population.

Measles is over 11, while ebola which terrified the world had an infection rate of 2.

A number like 2, 3, or 4 which includes this coronavirus, means the growth will be exponential and that is indicated as accurate by the fact that the number of infected people has been doubling every 3 days.

 A chart produced by the Financial Times shows that while Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore which took immediate action to close down the area, the U.S. is exactly in line with Spain, Italy, France, and the U.K. which strangely has decided to let the virus run wild in hopes that the population will develop a herd immunity - something that works with Measles but there is no evidence it works with any coronavirus.



https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.ft.com%2Fthe-world%2Ffiles%2F2020%2F03%2Ftrajectory-mar14.png?fit=scale-down&source=next&width=700

For the U.S. ten days from the first day when therre were 100 confirmed cases, there are just over 2,000 infected people known positibely have COVID-19, there are probably many more.

Unless something extremely drastic is done and I mean monday or tuesday, in another 10 days there will be more than 20,000 cases in the U.S.

Testing, of course, is vital if public health experts will be able to make rational decisions, but the U.S. is far, FAR behind.

As of March 11 the U.S. reported testing 7,695 people or 23 per 1 Million population.

South Korea where they are getting a handle on the infection, tested nearly 200,000 by March 8 or 3,692 per 1 Million population.

Of course the governor of Ohio says he suspects there are 100 thousand Plus cases in his state and by Wednesday he expects to see almost half a million in Ohio alone.

CLOSE EVERYTHING NOW! Learn what drugs may work in this article

EVERYTHING SHOULD BE CLOSED NOW!!!

The WHO has finally declared this a dangerous pandemic.
Unfortunately practically everyone, including VP Pence
and top CDC doctors, all disagree with the rosy picture
painted by President Trump and the Fox News' conspiracy
theory.

This is a life and death situation.

President Trump is risking his life going to rallies which won't
do the country any good.

I am probably posting too often but will continue to warn and
provide news until someone asks me to stop.

Experts say don't go into crowds or events with more
than 10 or 15 people. Elderly should self isolate as
soon as possible avoiding all, ALL contact.

An older ski club went to Italy for vacation - when
they returned ALL of them went into the hospital with COVID-19.

Remember, Amazon and Walmart both deliver food.
As for grandkids, remember they can easily carry this
infection but have no obvious illness so they can come
home from grade school and kill grandad.

Latest information is this is a minimum of 10 times more
deadly than seasonal flu which kills 20-50 thousand Americans each winter.

Nursing homes are, unfortunately, proving to be the most
dangerous place to be along with cruise ships.

U.S. response is about a month behind, we must protect
ourselves and warn our friends.

Good luck to all of us.

Remdesivir As I reported about a month ago, remdesivir along with 

Lopinavir is a protease inhibitor that is used in HIV treatment. 

Ritonavir (Norvir) is another protease inhibitor used in highly
active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) HIV treatments 

But the two drugs along with the flu medication Tamiflu were
first used in the orient to treat MERS (Middle East respiratory
syndrome) which is another coronavirus and in January a
hospital in Thailand tried the same drug combo on a very ill
woman over 70 who had come from Wuhan and was nearly
dead from COVID-19. The doctors report that she got better
immediately and fully recovered.

Now the FDA is sponsoring a clinical trial in Nebraska at the
University of Nebraska in Omaha using Gilead’s remdesivir a
nucleotide analog antiviral treatment used for Ebola and the 
Marburg virus.

It also seems to be effective against single-strand RNA viruses
which include SARS and COVID-19.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-clinical-trial-remdesivir-treat-covid-19-begins