“The disease itself appears to be shape-shifting before our eyes.”
We are now almost six months into this pandemic, which began in November in Wuhan, with 50,000 Americans dead and 200,000 more around the world. If each of those deaths is a data point, together they represent a quite large body of evidence from which to form a clear picture of the pandemic threat. Early in the epidemic, the coronavirus was seen as a variant of a familiar family of disease, not a mysterious ailment, however infectious and concerning. But while uncertainties at the population level confuse and frustrate public-health officials, unsure when and in what form to shift gears out of lockdowns, the disease has proved just as mercurial at the clinical level, with doctors revising their understanding of COVID-19’s basic pattern and weaponry — indeed often revising that understanding in different directions at once. The clinical shape of the disease, long presumed to be a relatively predictable respiratory infection, is getting less clear by the week. Lately, it seems, by the day. As Carl Zimmer, probably the country’s most respected science journalist, asked virologists in a tweet last week, “is there any other virus out there that is this weird in terms of its range of symptoms?” […]
In a fantastic survey published April 17 (“How does coronavirus kill? Clinicians trace a ferocious rampage through the body, from brain to toes,” by Meredith Wadman, Jennifer Couzin-Frankel, Jocelyn Kaiser, and Catherine Matacic), Science magazine took a thorough, detailed tour of the ever-evolving state of understanding of the disease. “Despite the more than 1,000 papers now spilling into journals and onto preprint servers every week,” Science concluded, “a clear picture is elusive, as the virus acts like no pathogen humanity has ever seen.”
“Doctors at New York City's Mount Sinai Hospital say a growing number of recovered COVID patients are developing heart disease, lung disease, blood clots and kidney problems. All issues they did not have before.” https://t.co/cMloxZsoEi
— fred walton (@fredwalton216) May 1, 2020
The blood clot issue — “The virus is acting as if its primary target is the endothelium”
It appears that as the numbers fail to live up to computer projections and a forced false reporting of deaths, we now need to make it sound even more sinister. Good grief. There just seems to be no end to what is or is not happening.
Old White Guy,
Exactly !
as the number of people who can see the covid is not the black plague is growing, the stories about it are becoming more dramatic.
the media are so desperate they began, about 4 days ago, to say that all those death statistics from the previous 25 or 50 years about the flu, they were inflated and almost no one dies of the flu.
by making the flu a tiny killer this makes the covid look bigger
they are that desperate!!!
those obvious LIES were published in the magazine Scientific American ( which used the occasion to remind us that orange man bad ) and in the New York Times
we are now supposed to believe it has been a lie all along that people die of the flu
I am rolling on the floor laughing!
I would bet money next month they will say the Spanish flu was not that bad, and it actually only killed 65,000 and not 65 million , that way this will make the covid look more menacing
they will rewrite history to keep the covid the star of the show
Fake news on steroid that is what it is
I have been following the various reports of “death numbers” around the world. there is one that is not reported on a daily basis and that is the world wide fatalities from all cause so far this year. As of the end of day today there will have been, approximately, over 18,900,000 deaths world wide. Please folks, stop with the fear of dying, it is the end result of being born.
So we don’t need to get flu shots anymore?
Correct, most people don’t need them. My flu shot got me a flu that seemed very much like the whoowho flu in Jan, the entire month, headache that I thought would stroke me out and a cough that made me feel like I had been smashed in the ribs by a two by four for three weeks. Efficacy can be a questionable thing when it comes to flu shots.
CF: EXACTLY I agree totally thanks for say!!
“Pseudo-Science behind the Assault on Hydroxychloroquine”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/05/02/pseudo-science-behind-the-assault-on-hydroxychloroquine/
OWG: EXACTLY!!!!
Well if you were developing a good biological weapon……………………..
………and then you would need a stupid greedy puppet within the enemy camp to Keep the Borders Open, tell them they don’t need N95 masks, and continue to disarm the lazy population completely.
Pseudo-Science behind the Assault on Hydroxychloroquine
“The COVID-19 Treatment Panel of NIH evaded disclosure of the massive financial links of its members to Gilead Sciences, the manufacturer of a competing drug remdesivir. Among those who failed to disclose such links are 2 out of 3 of its co-chairs.”
“The Panel criticizes some studies of patients’ treatment with HCQ+AZ for the absence of a control group. Stephen McIntyre tweeted about this argument long before the Panel used it: “there’s a very large control group of COVID19 patients not receiving this drug combination: hospitals and morgues are full of them.””
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/05/02/pseudo-science-behind-the-assault-on-hydroxychloroquine/
And let me add there is quite a discussion about … “conspiracy theories” at the top of the comments to that incredibly detailed story. My comment? That it is simply PURE EVIL … for government individuals and institutions to LIE about the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine. I don’t give a shit about which “conspiracy” motivated the government to warn against its use, and lie about its effectiveness … although the likely culprit is the “Orange Man Bad” conspiracy … it’s simply pure EVIL to use the power of a government agency to HARM Americans.
Lots of assumptions are out there despite it being too soon to know with certainty. We have been assured that children and many adults who had undetected or mild cases are fine going forward, but I don’t think you can rule out that this virus could be a time bomb.
Lots of viruses are time bombs to some people and not to others. Measles, chicken pox, syphilis, Lyme borreliosis, and many many others cause long term “time bomb” effects coming decades later in a percentage of humanity. AIDS, as horrible as the virus that causes that is, has resulted in enormous leaps forward in our understanding of our immune system. I hope SARS2 does the same for us.
It my causes autoimmune disorder.The virus makes the immune system attack health cells and the person dies from the damage the immune system does to the body.
The cytokine storm was what lots of people think killed so many during the Spanish Flu pandemic. Therefore it makes sense that a cytokine storm would be killing during this pandemic. I think what is far more important than this sinister virus attacking the endothelium is understanding why some people get a cytokine storm and others don’t. It’s just like how some people develop life threatening allergies and some people don’t. We don’t know why and until we do we can’t treat it.
Huh? I thought everyone’s healthy body threw up cytokine storms as part of their fully functional antibody defense. All I know is that Kate just managed to frighten me a bit more than my somewhat lax concern about the CHICOM-19. The blood and blood vessel attack is ‘bloody’ frightening (sorry). And it really speaks to an engineered virus … created to kill. Yeah, I expect my Government is doing the same kind of “research” … which I hope is more “defense” oriented (creating cures for ChiCom viruses). But I have no such ‘hope’ when it comes to a Godless, Evil, Communist/Fascist Chinese government. I pray this virus isn’t laying in wait … waiting to kill all those who have … recovered.
Uh-oh, you’re spreading disinformation that contradicts the official government line – that’s a banning from the interwebs.
But seriously, the idea that this is a blood disease rather than a respiratory disease was floated early on. As I understand it, the theory was that the virus blocks a receptor in the red blood cells normally used to transport oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body via an iron ion. Ventilators don’t work because the problem isn’t that the patient can’t breathe, it’s that the patient’s blood can’t transport oxygen.
This theory was also more recently floated on Medium, an uncurated website where anybody can post anything, and was thoroughly debunked by an actual MD who, with all of his many years of experience dating back to when he graduated medical school in (checks notes) December, 2019, knows everything there is to know on the subject and Medium took the post containing the silly misinformation on the coronavirus down. You can check this for yourself by googling “Covid-19 had us all fooled, but now we might have finally found its secret” and “Covid-19: Debunking the Hemoglobin Story”, the titles of the two posts.
Now let us hear no more of this silliness that the experts don’t know everything there is to know and that the science isn’t settled. Rest assured that any alternative theories you might hear about the coronavirus are being put forward by crackpots and certainly not by the experts.
Some were treating it like hypoxia.
Isn’t that ‘non-communist’ central planning wonderful?
Jeremiah 17:5-6 KJV
(5) Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.
(6) For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.
….“a clear picture is elusive, as the virus acts like no pathogen humanity has ever seen.”
No Shit Sherlock….why should we be surprised.??
We’ve never Engineered one before either.
WET market ..?? My (_i_)….
ChiComm Asymetrical Warfare
There is no longer any such thing as an exspurt. Just varying degrees of dogmatic zealotry, in all fields and increasingly in medicine as more and more long marchers get their degrees. We don’t know what we don’t know so how can we know anything about anything? Like with modern finance the whole medical system has become a means to the same specious end. Note one comrade Tam, et al.
The Chinese bat soup flu is doing exactly what the Chinese sent it out in the Western world to do. Destroy it.
Exactly, the people who trust the media are those who have never been reported on. Here, in French only, is a story that suggests the heroes of the epidemic are the Roxton Road Xers because they ended up “using their arms and hearts” (my translation) to care for Quebec’s elderly!?!
https://plus.lapresse.ca/screens/97edcd7a-f4df-48c1-a537-0de2d7e72cef__7C___0.html?utm_medium=Twitter&utm_campaign=Microsite+Share&utm_content=Screen
How many did they infect? It’s racist to ask, I’m sure.
The Intelligencier article is mostly second hand garbage.
It begins by dissing the drugs that Trump suggested – which have now been shown by proper trials, not half-assed lies by ORANGE MAN BAD activists to be effective if used early enough.
Then goes on to cite the “20% of NY has had it” thing. From a trial that used not a correctly selected random sample, but from a sample that effectively self-selected the most likely to contract the virus.
Within the first few paragraphs, the author totally discredits himself.
If fewer than 20% of New Yorkers have had it, then it’s deadlier than 1% of infections. It’s simple math on the number of dead. I think there have been a lot of exaggerations of how widespread it is, but I am not sure NYC is one of them. I think you multiple the number of dead today by 100 to get the approximate number of new cases three weeks ago,
You think? Come back when you know for sure.
“The CDC instructs officials to report deaths as COVID-19 deaths whenever the patient has either tested positive or, despite the absence of a test, presents circumstances from which presence of the infection can be inferred “within a reasonable degree of certainty” — such that its contribution to death is “probable” or may be “presumed.” This is drawn from CDC guidance, which directs that COVID-19 be specified in death certificates whenever “COVID-19 played a role in the death.”” ~National Review
“N.Y.C. Deaths Reach 6 Times the Normal Level, Far More Than Coronavirus Count Suggests”
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/27/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-new-york-city.html
I know, I know. All of these deaths are caused by other stuff, stuff you don’t like, or are made up. So not only are all of the excess deaths due to something else besides COVID, but a large number of the deaths attributed to COVID to boot! What is this mysterious killer?
Let’s make something up so we feel better! Six times the normal number of people are dying because… You guys are better at making this stuff up than I am.
I can’t fully analyze the repercussions of a new virus spreading through the population at the jerk of a knee like some people on the internet, but if this is true, Sweden has royally fucked up and will be paying for it for decades to come.
But that’s a scary thought so it must not be true! I really really hope it’s not true, BTW, but I can’t *know* it’s not true just because it’s horrible to think about like some people.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/hundreds-of-children-brain-damaged-by-the-swine-flu-vaccine-to-receive-90-million-in-financial-compensation-from-uk-government/5444329
The swine flu vaccine caused severe brain damage in over 800 children across Europe, and the UK government has now agreed to pay $90 million in compensation to those victims as part of a vaccine injury settlement.
This is the same swine flu vaccine that the entire mainstream media ridiculously insists never causes any harm whatsoever. From the quack science section of the Washington Post to the big pharma sellout pages of the New York Times, every U.S. mainstream media outlet exists in a state of total vaccine injury denialism, pushing toxic vaccines that provably harm children.
Scary headline.
except we truly have no idea why people die.
Cancer has baffled experts for eons,why does one die ,yet another thrive in the same environment?
Now we are scratching at the edge of the genome,discovering how our very “construction” predisposes us to certain fates(AKA disease).
The initial claim,that we do not know how This Virus kills,is very true, but we also know,from past pandemics,some will live,no matter what exposure they suffer..
So using our ignorance as a rational for panic,is nothing new in this Wuhoo Flu Panic attack.
What seems lost here is the brutal reality of life.
To live is to die.
An irrational fear of dying is an irrational fear of living.
Now our forefathers dealt with plagues and pandemics,with a whole lot less information than we have.
We seem almost rendered impotent by our knowledge.
Yet we have the knowledge of what did work in the past.
So all the babble of vaccines and government imposed social rules are just noise.
Isolate the vulnerable and let the mob gain immunity…
Sooner or later we will be hosts to a plague that turns our immune system totally against us..
The way this virus is operating will be a great precursor to the next one manufactured,to “save us all”.
Yet a cure to the common cold style bugs may lead to very extended lifetimes..
The United States as a whole is now starting to see excess deaths even though the vast majority of the country has not been seriously infected yet. Circulez, rien a voir.
Jeez tim, do you read anything except democrat propaganda. The numbers have been fudged. pay attention.
While it never was the boogie man that the media and ‘experts’ would have us to believe it is quite obvious it is somehow a blood born pathogen. Meat packing plants have inordinately high numbers of cases and no immigrants and housing and work conditions don’t explain it.
Who is shocked media & politicians try to monetize, weaponize, exploit, torque whatever crosses their path??
Something is happening, its serious & its rocking countries around the world. We need to figure it out.
It is called dictatorial response to force control of all aspects of people’s lives.
Self reliant, self governing oriented people would assess & act.
In this case, early on it was obvious Taiwan’s response was good, we purposely ignored Taiwan.
Czechia & many others followed Taiwan, especially wrt everyone wearing masks.
We purposely ignored this also.
Why?
Why the consistent rejection of masks when they are cheap, easy to make & dont require government permission?
The mind boggles…
“As Carl Zimmer, probably the country’s most respected science journalist, asked virologists in a tweet last week, “is there any other virus out there that is this weird in terms of its range of symptoms?”
The Plague at Athens, 430-427 BCE
https://www.ancient.eu/article/939/the-plague-at-athens-430-427-bce/