OtherGround Forums OG doc. AMA on COVID-19

MMArijuana - 

mataleo1 - 

tbizzle - 

Why is COVID-19 more dangerous than swine flu when 60 million Americans were infected and 300,000 were hospitalized? There was no where near this amount of panic back then. 

We don't have exact data to compare and numbers might be completely off, but, based on what we have, I can break it down quickly:

Mortality: for swine flu (in the US) was about 4k/22 million and preliminary data from Italy and Spain is that it's somewhere between 2-5%

Acute Care necessity: around 0.2% for swine flue and about 10-15% for COVID-19.

Hospitalizations: about 1-2% for swine flu, about 25% for COVID

Again, the numbers might be completely different as we know more, but it seems reasonable to be prepared.

Seems high, considering none of the celebs/athletes/politicians with it are hospitalized to my knowledge.

You're correct. Let's see what happens here but these numbers will likely be lower in the US.

mataleo1 -

lazermonkey -

mataleo1 -

lazermonkey - 

mataleo1 -

lazermonkey - 

Is it true there are patients suffering scar tissue in their lungs? I don’t think it’s a real common after effect? But, I’m pretty sure I read an article stating that that is in the more severe cases.

Thanks for being here and answering our questions and as always. Stay safe.

Not enough data and not enough longitudinal data.

Some with severe ARDS from influenza or pneumonia may have scarring tissue and a decrease in lung parameters such as FEV1.

My personal bias is that this isn't true but we'll have to see.

Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions. 
 

In your opinion, based on the numbers we’ve seen and those yet to be tested, how many people in the United States and Canada will test positive?

Putting me on the spot here and I'm sure I'll be off by a factor-10 here at least. But if I had to bet: 500k. Smarter and more knowledgeable MDs think that it'll be vastly superior to that number

Again thanks for answering all of our questions. 
 

I read an article where a Professor from Johns Hopkins threw out a number just like yours. So, you may be spot on with your estimate. 
 

 

Thx but honestly I don't care to be completely off the mark here.

I don't even care that i'll get a lot of shit on here if it turns out to be completely benign. Politicians and health care professionals are taking this seriously. There's enough reasons to be worried and I'll be the first one to cheer if we get out of this with minimal damage.

All the people trying to play it down and say it is no biggie have to realize that, in order to get to the point of it not being a big deal, somebody (medical professionals and policy makers, officials, etc.) NEED to consider it a "big deal" when it first arises, then you can confidently say it is "no big deal" after a lot of hard work, time, stress, etc.

That is not the same as "panic"

I didn't get my question answered.. does race have an impact on the virus?

ABCTT_delinodeshields -

Thanks for taking the time doctors.

ALL OF THIS!!! Stay safe you guys! Xo

Any truth to zinc sulfade being the cure 

Kona Silat - 

I didn't get my question answered.. does race have an impact on the virus?

Sorry about that.

Yes, most likely.

ACE2 expression is race-dependent.

There are plenty of other factors which may either be attributable to race or confounded by other factors (univariate vs multivariate analysis for those who like stats). Example: higher mortality in Italy, but may be because of protein expression of a cofactor. Other example: alcoholics have higher incidence of lung cancer but it's because they tend to smoke more.

Kona Silat -

I didn't get my question answered.. does race have an impact on the virus?

Nobody will be able to answer this. 

This will require additional testing. 

I still haven't seen any breakdown based on ethnicity 

OP, the toen of Teaneck, NJ..less than 5 miles from NYC has just revealed they have a cluster of covid confirmed cases (orthodox jewish pop)..

Mayor asking all 40k residents to self quarantine

Wow shit is getting real

Here's my theory on a potential treatment as a total armchair scientist

Zinc is known to disrupt replication of RNA viruses such as this one. 

Chloroquine has shown possible efficacy as a treatment. Chloroquine is a zinc ionophore. Quercetin and epigallocatechin gallate have also been shown to be zinc ionophores. Therefore give people who are symptomatic zinc and quercetin and egcg early in the course of their illness to minimize viral load and decrease severity of infection.

I'll take my Nobel prize with a side of hookers please

Stea1th - 

Any truth to zinc sulfade being the cure 

Too early to tell. Indirect evidence that it reduces symptoms of the common cold. Some data for coronavirus: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21079686

turducken - 

Here's my theory on a potential treatment as a total armchair scientist

 

Zinc is known to disrupt replication of RNA viruses such as this one. 

Chloroquine has shown possible efficacy as a treatment. Chloroquine is a zinc ionophore. Quercetin and epigallocatechin gallate have also been shown to be zinc ionophores. Therefore give people who are symptomatic zinc and quercetin and egcg early in the course of their illness to minimize viral load and decrease severity of infection.

 

I'll take my Nobel prize with a side of hookers please

Give this man a prize!

NoNeed4aScreenName -

Kona Silat -

I didn't get my question answered.. does race have an impact on the virus?

Nobody will be able to answer this. 

 

This will require additional testing. 

 

I still haven't seen any breakdown based on ethnicity 

We will have to make a backwards assesment once the virus is over and if mild conditions have the potential to not be accounte for we will be left with an incomplete data set. 

We will probably find out a year down the road. 

There's a paper out there that shows that in east asia there is a different allele that is more common and it's affinity for the virus is possibly stronger or more expression levels than the more common allele. 

a Schematics of 32 coding variants in ACE2 identified in the ChinaMAP and 1KGP databases. Yellow stars indicate the nonsense variants; dots indicate the missense variants. The number of samples with hotspot variants was marked. b The distribution of hotspot missense mutations of ACE2 in different populations. The colors indicate different populations. c The distribution and the allele frequencies of representative eQTL variants for ACE2 in different populations. Pie charts depict the allele frequencies of an intron variant of ACE2 (rs4646127) in the world. Orange color denotes the frequency of alteration allele, and blue color denotes the reference allele. The allele frequencies of 15 eQTLs for ACE2 gene are shown in tables. The color gradient from blue to red indicates the increasing of allele frequencies. The allele frequencies of INDEL variant rs200781818 were annotated by the gnomAD database. EAS, East Asian; EUR, European; AFR, African; SAS, South Asian; AMR, Ad Mixed American.

mataleo1 -

turducken - 

Here's my theory on a potential treatment as a total armchair scientist

 

Zinc is known to disrupt replication of RNA viruses such as this one. 

Chloroquine has shown possible efficacy as a treatment. Chloroquine is a zinc ionophore. Quercetin and epigallocatechin gallate have also been shown to be zinc ionophores. Therefore give people who are symptomatic zinc and quercetin and egcg early in the course of their illness to minimize viral load and decrease severity of infection.

 

I'll take my Nobel prize with a side of hookers please

Give this man a prize!

Lol. Do you have the ability to test the theory? Safe and cheap to try

turducken - 

mataleo1 -

turducken - 

Here's my theory on a potential treatment as a total armchair scientist

 

Zinc is known to disrupt replication of RNA viruses such as this one. 

Chloroquine has shown possible efficacy as a treatment. Chloroquine is a zinc ionophore. Quercetin and epigallocatechin gallate have also been shown to be zinc ionophores. Therefore give people who are symptomatic zinc and quercetin and egcg early in the course of their illness to minimize viral load and decrease severity of infection.

 

I'll take my Nobel prize with a side of hookers please

Give this man a prize!

Lol. Do you have the ability to test the theory? Safe and cheap to try

Here's the only way to do this:
2 groups, comparable baseline characteristics, comparable disease severity, one group gets standard care, the other gets standard care + zinc

You'd need at least 150 patients to see a 20% difference in mortality. That's called a clinical trial and I can tell you that these are neither cheap, nor easy to do (I'm doing one right now...)

Good luck!

turducken -

mataleo1 -

turducken - 

Here's my theory on a potential treatment as a total armchair scientist

 

Zinc is known to disrupt replication of RNA viruses such as this one. 

Chloroquine has shown possible efficacy as a treatment. Chloroquine is a zinc ionophore. Quercetin and epigallocatechin gallate have also been shown to be zinc ionophores. Therefore give people who are symptomatic zinc and quercetin and egcg early in the course of their illness to minimize viral load and decrease severity of infection.

 

I'll take my Nobel prize with a side of hookers please

Give this man a prize!

Lol. Do you have the ability to test the theory? Safe and cheap to try

today I started having insane muscle aches and slight rasied temp out of no where. I have zinc and took some. guess it cant hurt if I have the virus. 

So my family vacation to Hawaii on April 21,I should cancel it?

EKPOGI - 

So my family vacation to Hawaii on April 21,I should cancel it?

There are very few cases in Hawaii. At least you'd be in the US. But same problems being in a plane for a long while. I'd wait.

If you do, just make sure they won't force you to quarantine before you go.

Dude I swear the OG has better info than the shit on the news networks, this place is badass 

The_Pundits_Ghost -

Good thread

 

where do I get some of that zinc stuff mentioned above?

 

 

 

 

and the hookers?

Vitamin shoppe or gnc or any vitamin store.

Or just get zinc and eat a fuckload of onions and apples and drink a ton of matcha

In Limbo -

 

OP, the toen of Teaneck, NJ..less than 5 miles from NYC has just revealed they have a cluster of covid confirmed cases (orthodox jewish pop)..

Mayor asking all 40k residents to self quarantine

 

Wow shit is getting real

 

https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/bergen/teaneck/2020/03/14/coronavirus-nj-teaneck-mayor-asks-all-residents-self-quarantine/5051974002/

a major hospital is right in teaneck (Holy Name) and a few other major hospitals within a 5 mile radius (hackensack med, englewood)

i teleconferenced with a couple of Drs and RNs today (tax stuff) and it is terrible in the hospitals here

a couple work at the Bellevue ER and says there are people crowding the hallways, bc they are past capacity

mataleo1 -

turducken - 

mataleo1 -

turducken - 

Here's my theory on a potential treatment as a total armchair scientist

 

Zinc is known to disrupt replication of RNA viruses such as this one. 

Chloroquine has shown possible efficacy as a treatment. Chloroquine is a zinc ionophore. Quercetin and epigallocatechin gallate have also been shown to be zinc ionophores. Therefore give people who are symptomatic zinc and quercetin and egcg early in the course of their illness to minimize viral load and decrease severity of infection.

 

I'll take my Nobel prize with a side of hookers please

Give this man a prize!

Lol. Do you have the ability to test the theory? Safe and cheap to try

Here's the only way to do this:
2 groups, comparable baseline characteristics, comparable disease severity, one group gets standard care, the other gets standard care + zinc

You'd need at least 150 patients to see a 20% difference in mortality. That's called a clinical trial and I can tell you that these are neither cheap, nor easy to do (I'm doing one right now...)

Good luck!

Shit. Get some funding for it. You can share the nobel prize, but the hookers are all mine

Thanks for the thread. Very interesting and informative.

you did not answer my q. 

remdesivar? does it work?

What are your thoughts on the veracity of the coronavirus numbers in Quebec? On one hand they seem to be reassuring that there's no community spread as every single case is tied to international travel but on the other hand it seems that they simply won't test you if you haven't travelled. It seems Ontario's new testing approach is the complete opposite and they're specifically looking for community spread now. In any case, I'm worried Quebecers are getting a false sense of security when they're out fighting for TP at Costco.

Thanks for the AMA and if you do a nephrology AMA I'd like to ask about your awareness of roxadustat and if approved, you'd use it. Also curious about bardoxalone and it's ability to improve eGFR in CKD.

John Cable -

 

 

you did not answer my q. 

 

remdesivar? does it work?

early data promising. 

I tried to get access to a WJ article that just came out but it was paywalled.