Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Republicans in disarray!

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

A fool as well as an oath-breaker.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Tuesday/Wednesday, Oct. 20-21

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Tuesday/Wednesday, Oct. 20-21

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  1. 1.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Yesterday, China reported 0 new domestic confirmed cases and 0 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
    Yesterday, China reported 11 new imported confirmed cases and 15 imported asymptomatic cases:

    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 3 confirmed cases, a Chinese national returning from Congo (Kinshasa) (via Addis Ababa), an Iraqi national coming from Iraq (via Doha & Istanbul), and a Nigerian national coming from Nigeria (via Nairobi);  6 asymptompatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Argentina (via Amsterdam), Myanmar, Nepal, and Benin (via Istanbul), a Benagli national coming from Bengladesh, and a Nigerian national coming from Nigeria (via Nairobi)
    • Shenzhen in Guangzhou Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Filipino national coming from
    • Foshan in Guangzhou Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Iran
    • Chengdu at Sichuan Province – 3 confirmed cases , 1 Chinese national each returning from Iraq (via Qatar) and Saudi Arabia, and 1 Uzbek national coming from Uzbekistan (via Istanbul and Amsterdam); 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese nationals returning from Iraq (via Qatar)
    • Shanghai Municipality – 2 confirmed cases, a Romanian national coming from Romania (via the UK) and an Iranian national coming from Iran (via the UAE)
    • Zhengzhou in Henan Province – 2 confirmed and 1 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Xiamen in Fujian Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Malaysia
    • Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province – 2 asymptomatic cases, both Chinese nationals returning from the Philippines
    • Xi’an in Shaanxi Province – 2 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Uzbekistan and the UAE
    • Nanjing in Jiangsu Province – 1 asymptomatic case, no information released

    Today, Hong Kong reported 8 new cases, 1 from local transmission, source of transmission unidentified.

  2. 2.

    gkoutnik

    So Trump’s CDC is telling us that the real number is not 221,000 but 300,000. With that official Administration confirmation, it should be the number we use consistently when referring to US coronavirus deaths.

    One death is too many; one is too big a number. But Trump must be made responsible for every single one.

  5. 5.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    CNN explains why they’re covering Covid with a powerful, intese (video)

     

    There are 220,417 reasons to talk about the Coronavirus.

    There are nearly 60,000 cases per day in the U.S. and rising. The person whose response failed upon most objective measures is not fixing his government’s approach to the crisis, instead he is suggesting we just ignore it. The president doesn’t even regularly acknowledge the huge loss of life that we have experienced here in the last nine months. In fact, he has instead questioned whether the horrifying number is accurate.

    220,000 dead.

    We cover COVID for them and the ones who they leave behind, forced to say goodbye through a phone screen.

    We cover COVID for those who never got the chance to say goodbye.

    We cover COVID for the children who bury their mother and then two weeks later their father.

    We cover COVID for the ones that not only lost multiple family members to this virus but their livelihoods too.

    We cover COVID for the millions who are relying on overwhelmed food banks for their next meals.

    We cover COVID for the ones struggling to keep a roof over their heads, forced to leave everything they own behind.

    We cover COVID for the students who can’t go to school safely and for the parents who are juggling their children and their jobs.

    We cover COVID because at least 14 states report record hospitalizations in the last week because we just saw the highest number of cases on a Monday since the peak in July, because experts say the next few weeks are going to be the darkest yet.

    And until these numbers on your screen slow down, we’re not going to stop.

    ~ Brianna Keilar

  9. 9.

    gkoutnik

    @debbie: 
    Agreed. They’re accessories both after and, by now, before the fact. They remained silent, and/or supported his criminal (in)activity, and now they know what the consequences are and they still support and enable.

  11. 11.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Chyron HR:

    Just keep telling yourself, “We saved America from the emails,” Brianna.

    And from a highly qualified woman who actually wanted the job of being President.

  12. 12.

    Mary G

    I get an older monoclonal antibody infusion for RA. There are two treatments two weeks apart. The first one takes six hours and the second three or four. They have to keep it at -80 degrees and it’s so unstable there’s a pharmacist on site who won’t even touch the freezer handle until the oncology nurse has hooked me up to the complicated IV machines. Some hospitals do them in individual patient rooms, some in bigger rooms holding seven or eight recliners. They are almost always all full with chemo patients and people getting blood infused, etc. Twitler got it with  no problems, but scaling it up to do thousands of people who aren’t president at a time will take a massive effort. Biden is up to it because of his experience with Beau and his cancer moonshot, but the current crew will be hard put to even take care of their biggest donors.

  13. 13.

    Platonicspoof

    From the second set (2nd box) of Helen Branswell links there’s one to a Scientific American article

    that clearly explains how they list Covid-19 as a patient’s cause of death, comorbidity, etc., as opposed to a certain cockwomble’s retweet of a QAnon conspiracy theory.

    This group isn’t likely to forget the vaccines we do have, and doctors and pharmacies usually automatically provide individual schedules, but more at this HHS page on who and when, cost, etc.  E.g., even if you have no insurance other than Medicare A and B, vaccinations for flu, Hep B (certain situations) and pneumococcal disease are free.

    As always, thanks Anne Laurie.

  14. 14.

    Sloane Ranger

    Yesterday’s news from the UK.

    We had 21,331 new cases nationwide. This is about 2500 more than the day before. We are being told that the rate of increase is slowing, but, to be honest, I’m not seeing it.

    Cases per home nation are:

    England – 17,814 (up @1500)

    Northern Ireland – 913 (up @100)

    Scotland – 1456 (up @500)

    Wales – 1148 (up @500).

    Deaths – There were 241 new deaths. A big jump from the last 2 days and up by about 100 from the 17th. 213 deaths were in England, 3 in Northern Ireland, 15 in Scotland and 10 in Wales.

    Testing – 260,338 PCR tests were processed out of a capacity of 362,121, a bit lower than normal.

    Hospitalisations – 6421 people were in hospital on 18th October of which 629 were on ventilators. All still trending upwards.

    General – Boris has forced Manchester into lockdown but only given them £22 million in support rather than the £65 million Andy Burnham wanted. This is being seen as a punishment. According to at least one newspaper, “an account that seems to be linked” to the Conservative Students Group at Manchester University has accused Boris and Co. of betraying the north and called on him to go, saying he’s not a Conservative, just pro-Brexit (actually today, that IS the definition of Conservatism) and Tory MP William Wragg (Hazel Grove) has definitely slammed the move in the Commons. More areas are expected to enter Tier 3 shortly, which will mean that @50% of England will be in the highest tier.

  15. 15.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s daily Covid-19 numbers, much delayed by a series of typing mishaps. Director General of Health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reports 732 new cases today, including eight imported cases, for a cumulative reported total of 22,957 cases, and six new deaths for a total of 199 deaths — 0.87% of the cumulative reported total, 1.32% of resolved cases. He also reports eight new clusters: three in Sabah, three in Selangor, one in KL, and one in Labuan.

    I’m having a very frustrating time with the typing — my mouse died, and I cannot comfortably work a laptop without one — so for my sanity I think I’d better skip the state-by-state breakdown today.

    580 more patients recovered and were discharged, for a total of 14,931 patients recovered — 65.04% of the cumulative reported total. 7,827 active and contagious cases are currently in hospital; 102 are in ICU, of whom 31 are on respirators.

    The six deaths were all reported in Sabah, and all but one were Malaysians.

  16. 16.

    Bill Arnold

    Bunch of newer Vitamin D / COVID-19 studies, since I didn’t see last night’s discussion. These are all hospital studies, that is, they do not see mild or aympomatic cases, which may be important if there is a general shift to lower population case severity as population Vitamin D deficiency/insufficiency levels decline, and vice versa. (I did not spot any new RCT results in google scholar.) We are entering Northern latitudes lower-vitamin-D-levels season in countries that don’t ubiquitously supplement their population in the winter. (Some northern countries do, as a part of their health care system. Don’t know about the Southern hemisphere. Please consider not being Vitamin-D deficient this particular (northern hemisphere) winter. Or Zn or VitC deficient, at least RDAs of those.)
    Impact of Serum 25(OH) Vitamin D Level on Mortality in Patients with COVID-19 in Turkey (05 October 2020, S. Karahan & F. Katkat)

    Overall, 149 COVID-19 patients (females 45.6%, mean age 63.5 ± 15.3 (range 24–90 years) years) were included. Forty-seven patients (31.5%) had moderate COVID-19, whereas 102 patients (68.5%) had severe-critical COVID-19.
    …
    Mean serum 25(OH) vitamin D level was significantly lower in patients with severe-critical COVID-19 compared with moderate COVID-19 (10.1 ± 6.2 vs. 26.3 ± 8.4 ng/mL, respectively, p<0.001). Vitamin D insufficiency was present in 93.1% of the patients with severe-critical COVID-19.

    N==142
    Does Serum Vitamin D Level Affect COVID-19 Infection and Its Severity?-A Case-Control Study (13 Oct 2020)

    This case-control study compared serum 25(OH)D levels and rates of vitamin D deficiency (VDD) between 80 healthy controls and 62 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 and admitted to Guangxi People’s Hospital, China, 2/16/2020–3/16/2020. Cases were categorized into asymptomatic, mild/moderate, and severe/critical disease. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to examine the associations between 25(OH)D level, or VDD, and case status/severity of COVID-19 while controlling for demographics and comorbidities.
    …
    The serum 25(OH)D concentration in COVID-19 patient was much lower than that in healthy control. And 25(OH)D level was the lowest in severe/critical cases, compared with mild cases. In further, significantly higher rates of VDD were found in COVID-19 cases (41.9%) compared to healthy controls (11.1%). And VDD was the greatest in severe/critical cases (80%), compared with mild cases (36%). These statistically significant associations remained even after controlling for demographics and comorbidities.

    A small study not finding a (strong) link between VitD deficiency and COVID-19 severity:
    Impact of Vitamin D Deficiency on COVID-19—A Prospective Analysis from the CovILD Registry

    Furthermore, available laboratory specimens close to hospital admission were used to retrospectively analyze 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels at disease onset. A total of 109 patients were included in the analysis (60% males, 40% females), aged 58±14 years.
    …
    Low VITD levels at disease onset or at eight-week follow-up were not relatedto persistent symptom burden, lung function impairment, ongoing inflammation, or more severe CT abnormalities. VITD deficiency is frequent among COVID-19 patients but not associated with disease outcomes. However, individuals with severe disease display a disturbed parathyroid-vitamin-Daxis within their recovery phase. The proposed significance of VITD supplementation in the clinical management of COVID-19 remains elusive.

    Another small study:
    Vitamin D Deficiency and Outcome ofCOVID-19 Patients (10 September 2020, authors at University of Heidelberg)

    To explore possible associations of vitamin D (VitD) status with disease severity and survival, we studied 185 patients diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and treated at our center.
    …
    When adjusted for age, gender, and comorbidities, VitD deficiency was associated with higher risk of IMV/D and death(HR 6.12, 95% CI 2.79–13.42,p<0.001 and HR 14.73, 95% CI 4.16–52.19,p<0.001, respectively). Similar correlations were observed in the inpatient subgroup. Our study demonstrates an association between VitD deficiency and severity/mortality of COVID-19, highlighting the need for interventional studies on VitD supplementation in SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals.

    N==105 older adult UK study. (Vitamin D levels may be predictive of worse morbidity outcomes.)
    Vitamin D status and outcomes for hospitalised older patients with COVID-19 (1 August 2020)

    The cohort consisted of patients aged≥65 years presenting with symptoms consistent with COVID-19(n=105). All patients were tested for serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) levels during acute illness.Diagnosis of COVID-19 was confirmed via viral reverse transcriptase PCR swab or supporting radiological evidence.COVID-19-positive arm (n=70) was sub-divided into vitamin D-deficient (≤30 nmol/L) (n=39) and -replete groups (n=35).
    Conclusion: Older adults with vitamin D deficiency andCOVID-19 may demonstrate worse morbidity outcomes.Vitamin D status may be a useful prognosticator.

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