COVID infected 3 in 4 Americans by start of 2023 https://t.co/qWb2V2dzIk
— Jess (@MeetJess) July 6, 2023
Covid is still with us. Please practice normal safety routine of wearing a mask, washing your hands and take the test if you’re feeling below the weather.
New COVID-19 Variants Giving XBB.1.16, or ‘Arcturus,’ a Run for its Money | Health News | U.S. News https://t.co/qJXfmQQ1di
— Donna Brazile (@donnabrazile) July 10, 2023
… Updated Covid shots are coming this fall from Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax, and all are designed to target XBB.1.5, the Omicron variant that currently accounts for roughly 27 percent of cases. The full recommendations will not be available until the F.D.A. authorizes the shots and the C.D.C. reviews new data.
Federal health officials aren’t talking about a primary series of shots followed by boosters. (Officials aren’t even calling the shots “boosters” anymore.) Instead, they are trying to steer Americans toward the idea of a single annual immunization with the latest version of the vaccine…
R.S.V. is a frequent cause of respiratory illness among older adults, particularly those 75 or older who have other conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, chronic lung disease or diabetes.
The new R.S.V. vaccine is not approved for Americans younger than 60. The C.D.C. recommends that people aged 60 and older sign up for the shot after consulting with their doctors….
No one knows when these viruses will re-emerge, so you should get the shots early enough in the fall to build immunity against the pathogens. Most people will not want or be able to make multiple trips to a clinic or pharmacy to space the shots apart.
That probably means September or October. Most Americans may want to consider receiving the flu and Covid shots at the same time, so they are prepared to face either virus. Older adults who are in poor health — who have heart or lung disease, for example, or are on home oxygen — should get all three shots, some experts said.
They should “get them as quickly as possible and definitely before the season, and do it all at once,” Dr. Chu said…
The C.D.C. is expected to make recommendations on administration of the vaccines together in the coming weeks.
What's known about the EU.1.1 #SARSCoV2 variant? It's a descendant of XBB.1.5. and now causes an estimated 1.7% of U.S. #Covid cases https://t.co/VAX61hYzb3 pic.twitter.com/9ZCxdn8jov
— delthia ricks 🔬 (@DelthiaRicks) July 6, 2023
On the money article by @liammannix "The scientists who have consistently been making the case for a zoonotic origin have a location, a time, an animal. The lab leak theorists have nothing." https://t.co/EJE7PwYdVC
— Robertson (@robertson_lab) June 27, 2023
I get why some want to be cautious, what with the long history of people getting out over their skis with COVID.
But if you’ve been paying attention not to vibes but the actual claims and actual science, the lab leak theory as it as been known is over. https://t.co/eQOytE4kJR
— Jonathan M. Katz [email protected] (@KatzOnEarth) June 29, 2023
Opening Tuesday’s House subcommittee hearing on the origin of the COVID virus, the panel’s chairman, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), promised an impartial inquiry.
“This is not an attack on science,” he said. “And it’s not an attack on an individual.”
He and his GOP colleagues proceeded over nearly three hours to accuse Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — one of the most respected such scientists in the world — of having masterminded the creation of the virus, with the connivance of Dr. Francis Collins, then the director of the National Institutes of Health….
For years, Republicans have asserted without a scintilla of evidence that Fauci and Collins manipulated the scientific consensus away from the lab-leak hypothesis.
Why have they seized on this theory? Its provenance may offer a clue: It flowered during the Trump administration among political appointees in the State Department, who saw it as a cudgel with which to beat the Chinese government, which they viewed as an economic threat to the U.S. It was also useful to undermine the authority of Fauci, whose skepticism about Trump’s COVID policies was manifest…
One low note among many others during the hearing came from Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), who charged that “Dr. Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins realized that they had been implicated in the creation of production or the creation of this virus and they were doing everything they could including both of you to come on board as tools or vehicles to undermine that theory.”
Truth to tell, however, the committee majority’s purpose was no secret from the start. The hearing was titled, after all, “Investigating the Proximal Origin of a Cover Up.”…
The #Democrats issued a 24-page rebuttal to the House #Republican claims that #COVID19 originated in a Wuhan lab, funded and even directed by Tony Fauci of @NIH . Enjoy the read. https://t.co/Ho6rniH3bN pic.twitter.com/RdIoPGNTuS
— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) July 11, 2023
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Japan has had high mask uptake, though in May 2023 the government downgraded COVID measures, though many continue to wear masks regardless. Up to now, Japan has overall had a lower per capita mortality rate from COVID than the US since the pandemic began. pic.twitter.com/iG6B2nE4xZ
— Matthew Stoker (@matthewbstoker) July 10, 2023
70% of Hong Kong Covid victims experience long-term after-effects, survey of 10,000 patients finds https://t.co/EkA8JPmVsX
— Jess (@MeetJess) July 9, 2023
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As others have pointed out, one big reason the Chinese government has so fiercely resisted any outside investigation is that the presence of wild animals at the Wuhan wet market is an embarrassment — after the original SARS outbreak, official policy is that this kind of under-the-radar ‘exotic’ trade had been stamped out, entirely and forever.
How many people w/ #LongCovid recover? A study of 1106 people, close to 23% still had symptoms after 6 months. That dropped to ~19% after 1 yr & 17% after 2. Another study found 1/3 of people who had symptoms after 6 months no longer had them at 9 months https://t.co/kkr0trAva1 pic.twitter.com/dBv365Z8ix
— delthia ricks 🔬 (@DelthiaRicks) June 29, 2023
Naloxone—used for drug overdoses—is being studied for #LongCovid's chronic fatigue. Naloxone—also known as Narcan—is a rescue medication for opioid overdoses. Doctors think it may be effective against chronic fatigue by blocking certain brain pathways https://t.co/5Bz8rDcM6J
— delthia ricks 🔬 (@DelthiaRicks) July 5, 2023
Autoantibodies—antibodies that attack your own proteins & tissues—apparently zero in on an enzyme involved in blood clotting regulation. Autoantibodies were detected in a significant number of #Covid patients. Clots are a Covid hallmark https://t.co/dzXaF0qmEQ pic.twitter.com/5nhsAo3Vjh
— delthia ricks 🔬 (@DelthiaRicks) July 6, 2023
"studies now suggest that many of these symptoms may be a consequence of damage to the vagus nerve…body’s primary communication superhighway, the vagus nerve extends into every major organ in the body including heart, lungs, and gastrointestinal tract. https://t.co/UaJXiLX1uy
— laurie allee (@laurieallee) July 10, 2023
It’s not just ‘she should’ve been more careful’:
… Almost as soon as SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID — made the jump to humans, frantic work began to understand the biological lottery that dictates who gets it and how serious the infection is. More than three years later, scientists have some answers, but the exact biological conditions that create a NOVID (people who have never caught the virus), someone extremely susceptible like Marion, or most people in between, remain a mystery.
“It’s the million-dollar question,” says Dr Megan Steain, a virologist at the University of Sydney currently working to develop a variant-proof COVID vaccine. “There’s been a handful of genes that have been associated with it, but making these absolute connections is really difficult.”…
While we don’t yet have the full picture, scientists do have some theories about what makes someone more susceptible to COVID reinfection.
The first, and most obvious, possibility to rule out is environmental causes. The more COVID you’re exposed to, the more likely you are to catch it. For example, if you spend a lot of time mingling with large groups in enclosed spaces, you probably have a higher risk of getting COVID repeatedly than someone who rarely leaves their home and wears a mask when they do.
The next thing to look at is someone’s acquired immune response, which Dr Steain says can be “highly variable” and influenced by things like age, diet, lifestyle or gender.
Professor Stuart Turville and his team at the Kirby Institute are working to track new COVID variants, looking at how well they navigate pre-existing antibodies. He describes B-cells — a key player in our acquired immune response — as individual Lego blocks.
As time goes on, through exposure the body becomes better at understanding how the virus works and these cells are able to come together and build increasingly effective barriers. “Our biggest ally in the pandemic is that our B-cells have been given enough time and experience to mature … so the right combination can come about,” he says. “Our antibodies aren’t static — they’re getting better and better over time.”
For some people, however, this doesn’t seem to be happening, leading to prolonged COVID infections and higher chances of repeat infections. People who are immunocompromised or immunosuppressed, say from cancer treatment, are at particularly high risk…
Research is currently underway to understand whether genetic differences in how these receptors operate influence how susceptible we are to COVID infections and how serious the illness is.
One hormone that has been of considerable interest is Type-1 Interferon, one of the key players in our innate immune system. “It’s basically molecules produced by cells to try and stop viral infection from occurring,” Dr Steain says. “Some people seem to produce these very rapidly in large amounts, and we think that can help control or really stop a viral infection in its tracks.”…
There's an apparent role for #Paxlovid in younger #Covid patients w/ serious comorbidities, a new study has found. The research noted better outcomes for people 50 & under w/ cancer or heart disease who were given Paxlovid when they contracted Covid https://t.co/rZIohNpKra
— delthia ricks 🔬 (@DelthiaRicks) July 8, 2023
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How aging increases vulnerability to #SARSCoV2 infections, higher viral load, worse Covid severity.
A B-cell inhibitor senolytic drug , via selective depletion of senescent cells, mitigates the impacthttps://t.co/qE3urSkqeM @NatureAging https://t.co/pUzO4tsWrP [in expt'l model] pic.twitter.com/IdUncvhZf4— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) July 6, 2023
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Experimental air monitor can detect #SARSCoV2 variants in ~5 minutes. Device could be used in hospitals, schools & gyms. Scientists created a device that combines advances in aerosol sampling & ultrasensitive biosensing to monitor indoor air in real time https://t.co/MDanWDC3Y0
— delthia ricks 🔬 (@DelthiaRicks) July 10, 2023
Here's a schematic of how the #SARSCoV2 monitor that detects variants in ~5 minutes works 👇https://t.co/pt3zh28oZu
— delthia ricks 🔬 (@DelthiaRicks) July 11, 2023
Researchers create test to detect SARS-CoV-2 in any animal species.
The researchers validated the tool using serum samples from animals with known infection status, achieving a diagnostic sensitivity of 97.8%, and a diagnostic specificity of 98.9%.https://t.co/0kSwuskfzw
— CoronaHeadsUp (@CoronaHeadsUp) July 8, 2023
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Mortality rates in U.S. counties during the #COVID19 pandemic show that unlike cities, rural areas were impacted more in the second year of the pandemic. https://t.co/TSEhIj2WXv @ScienceAdvances pic.twitter.com/Z8ODiXRvVl
— Science Magazine (@ScienceMagazine) June 30, 2023
Denied life insurance due to #longCOVID. Pretty sure the insurance underwriters understand the risks of COVID better than public health and the general public. pic.twitter.com/pXUGUNb3T9
— Jennifer Hulme (@jenniferhulme) July 8, 2023
People with MECFS die young, so… yep. Endothelial dysfunction and systemic inflammation doesn’t end well.
— Jennifer Hulme (@jenniferhulme) July 8, 2023
Nate is either stupidly or dishonestly conflating learning loss from the pandemic with learning loss from REMOTE SCHOOL. We can look at schools that never spent much time remote, and guess what?? Their kids suffered too! Because there was a massive pandemic disrupting everything! https://t.co/ThnMsX0ure
— Will Stancil (@whstancil) July 5, 2023
The implicit premise of Nate’s whining is that, if schools had just ignored COVID, nothing would have changed and kid’s lives would have gone on as normal. In other words, COVID was, in effect, some kind of liberal media hysteria. It’s one step removed from conspiracy theory.
But this is how a lot of elites have chosen to remember COVID: they didn’t die, they eventually got it (omicron, and while vaccinated) and it was no big deal, so the cranks were right and we blew the whole thing out of proportion. Never mind the million dead and all that.
And of course, only a small share of the population got the early, more dangerous strains, and no one was vaccinated, so if we’d let it run rampant probably millions more would have died. Some places tried! And they almost always had to pull back because things got so bad.
On The Road – frosty – Suwanee River State Park (5)Reader Interactions
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NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY:
13 new cases on 07/01/23.
8 new cases on 07/02/23.
6 new cases on 07/03/23.
10 new cases on 07/04/23.
10 new cases on 07/05/23.
13 new cases on 07/06/23.
3 new cases on 07/07/23.
10 new cases on 07/08/23
10 new cases on 07/09/23
7 new cases on 07/10/23
9 new cases on 07/11/23
Deaths still at 2290, up 0 from 3 weeks ago.
Shalimar
I wash my hands all the time, and i will take the test if i feel sick. Haven’t worn a mask in a ling time but i do still follow my normal practice of staying away from people outside the house.
rikyrah
I am still one of the four. I think these posts are part of that
Matt McIrvin
Wastewater counts have had a recent tick up in the central Boston area after a period of very low numbers. Hard to say if this is just a local blip or the beginning of something. Maybe I’m staring at noise too closely. I don’t see it in my own town’s numbers.
The “lab leak” business has gotten very odd: it seems as if the scientific community is moving to a consensus that there’s nothing to it, but the intelligence community (at least the people who talk to newspaper writers) is almost convinced it’s the correct answer, and it’s hard not to think that the reason for the latter is political/cultural.
gene108
When NYC schools reopened in the 2021-2022 school year, my nephew’s school had fewer student sick days than most, but he still reported 1/5 to 1/3 of students were out sick at any given time. I’m not sure what the teacher sick days situation was like, but it was also an issue.
Some of his classes were combined with other sections to fill out classrooms.
I have to think other places without vaccine mandates and no to little efforts at mitigation were at least as badly impacted due to illnesses.
Reality is there were no fool proof solutions to avoid disruptions to education.
Edit: I just wish all the idiots with platforms and axes to grind would just admit there’s no way to handle a pandemic that doesn’t result in disruptions to education.
VeniceRiley
Vacation next week is a drive to a holiday home with a private heated pool. I get to see Stonehenge on the way; so I hope its raining! I’m gobsmacked that people do sporting events and festivals.
narya
@rikyrah: Come sit by me. I am usually the only person on the CTA wearing a mask. I admit I have recently made a dive into a store w/o a mask (e.g., for coffee), but it’s usually a quick dive, and these days windows are likely to be open. And I’m going out to dinner tomorrow for my birthday, so . . . maybe we can find a place with a patio. Even at the beer runs, I look for a spot near a window, away from others, outside, etc., and most places do seem to have an outdoor patio.
MisterDancer
@narya: Me too — or, at least, if I did have a case, it was mild enough to pass and not trip home testing.
But I’m aware that I had the privilege to be very careful, and the luck to dodge an “actual case.”
narya
@MisterDancer: Yes, absolutely a ton of privilege here, too–I worked from home from March 2020 til they got rid of me in December 2022, so, nearly three full years. No kids, no public-facing job, etc. But also some luck–I renovated the kitchen and had surgery in that time period. I’m looking forward to the new vaccine, I gotta say.
Soprano2
@gene108: I can’t get over the people who seem to believe there are no adults in schools! It might even have been true that it would have been not that bad for the kids to be together, but there are adults there too, plus the kids can bring it home to the adults they live with. I think people did the best they could in an unprecedented health emergency.
NotMax
So far so good when it comes to dodging becoming infected.
eclare
@rikyrah:
Same here.
Soprano2
Springfield’s wastewater testing shows extremely low levels. I see that levels are increasing around St. Louis, though, not sure why. Hubby & I are both over it; turns out he never had to take Paxlovid because his symptoms stayed pretty mild, and by the time we got the prescription he was almost over it. The pharmacist told me that unless someone has pretty severe symptoms and is in danger of being hospitalized he doesn’t think they should take it, because it has lots of side effects and is contraindicated with some pretty common medications, like statins. I was just glad we didn’t get too sick.
I think we’ll wait until fall to take the new boosters since we just had Covid. If I remember right, they want you to wait 60 or 90 days after having had it to get the shots anyway, or is that different now?
Jeffg166
At 75 with a diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis I am the perfect candidate for covid to have killed. Somehow I managed to dodge it. I have had every shot to date.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reported 139 new Covid-19 cases on 8th July, for a cumulative reported total of 5,116,265 cases. 138 of these new cases were local infections; one new case was imported. It also reported no deaths, for an adjusted cumulative total of 37,158 deaths – 0.73% of the cumulative reported total, 0.73% of resolved cases.
4,472 Covid-19 tests were conducted on 8th July, with a positivity rate of 3.8%.
There were 13,892 active cases on 8th July, 28 fewer than the day before. 276 were in hospital. Nine confirmed cases were in ICU; of these patients, four confirmed cases were on ventilators. Meanwhile, 167 patients recovered, for a cumulative total of 5,066,437 patients recovered – 99.0% of the cumulative reported total.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 123 doses of vaccine on 11th July: 11 first doses, eight second doses, 77 first booster doses, and 27 second booster doses. The cumulative total is 72,835,608 doses administered: 28,130,526 first doses, 27,543,940 second doses, 16,335,779 first booster doses, and 825,363 second booster doses. 86.1% of the population have received their first dose, 84.3% their second dose, 50.0% their first booster dose, and 2.5% their second booster dose.
teakay
Anne Laurie, your posts are an incredibly helpful resource. Thank you for your time and effort. It continues to be greatly appreciated.
Mai Naem mobileI
@Matt McIrvin: i wonder if the waste water counts go up because there are new students coming to Boston for summer programs, from out of state/country traveling on planes catching/spreading COVID.
I am really tired of the people looking at the actions taken 2019-2021 in hindsight. I’d like to erase 2019-2021 from my memory too but I remember the uncertainty, anxiety and fear.
Phylllis
My district absolutely wasted so much time in the Spring of 2020 that could have been used for intensive teacher training regarding remote learning. Our superintendent’s response to any suggestion along that line was ‘we’re not allowed to have them in the buildings.’ Which wasn’t true. I thought the world of her, but the COVID situation really highlighted that she was past her prime regarding the job.
Lapassionara
Many thanks, AL, for continuing these updates. I’m in the old and immune compromised group, and I still wear a mask inside. I’m not sure where to get good information on the status of COVID in my county. I’m glad to know there will be another shot in the fall. I think we are supposed to try to get one every four months.
sdhays
I was never a Nate Silver fan, but his COVID opining has put him in the same bucket as Glenn Greenwald for me – a ridiculously overrated stupid, annoying crank. I don’t care what he has to say on any topic now.
lee
Thanks for the update.
I’m trying to put my head around the first tweet that 3 out of 4 in the US have been infected.
I’m guessing there are a significant number that were infected without any major symptoms.
Yarrow
@rikyrah: I was one of the four too until about three weeks ago. I’m as fully vaccinated as I’m allowed to be and still wear a mask when I’m out. I don’t know where I got it but it was bad. Several days of fever and the fatigue, brain fog, dizziness, and loss of taste and smell were something else. I tested positive for over two weeks (home tests).
As a kind of PSA I’ve been telling people about my experience – that Covid still out there and can be bad. The number of people who’ve responded with something like, “Covid? I thought that was over/we never hear about it anymore” has been eye-opening. It’s over three weeks now and while I’m mostly better my energy isn’t fully back. I think it will return given my overall improvement but I basically lost three weeks. Stay safe out there, folks.
Cameron
I don’t follow nationally published opinions about COVID. I get shot with vaccines as they become available, I wear N95 masks when I’m on the bus or in the movies, and generally try to stay safe. It ain’t that hard.
Suzanne
@Mai Naem mobileI:
Yes this. Did some schools stay remote too long? Perhaps. But, like, learning loss can be made up — dead people cannot. You do the best you can with knowledge that you have at the time. I would always prefer to err on the side of caution than the side of risk.
I do think that online schooling is really a terrible idea. Including at the collegiate level. There really does seem to be special sauce to meeting in a room, in person. Writing notes by hand writes them into your brain.
YY_Sima Qian
@Matt McIrvin: “Lab Leak” has become fodder for both the toxic Sino-US Great Power Competition (TM) & the toxic US domestic politics.
Yutsano
I am also one of the 25% although I’m convinced I got the virus but it made no headway in my system somehow. It is very strange those of us who should have gotten it who didn’t. I was even not three feet away from someone who tested positive the very next day and I still didn’t catch it so far. It could be the meds I’m taking or the fact that my immune system really took to the vaccine, but it still hasn’t caught me so far. Or I’m one of those who never knew. I can’t say.
lowtechcyclist
@gene108:
This. Even CrankyOtter’s tweet is off base AFAIAC: schools were shutting down in mid-March of 2020, and if they were going to take the time to figure out how best to do remote learning, and train the teachers, it would have been nearly summer before they were done. So of course they just asked the teachers to do the best they could for the remainder of the school year, because otherwise there wouldn’t have even been a remainder of the school year.
Now, if school systems didn’t use the spring and summer of 2020 to plan how they’d handle remote learning (if they chose to go that route) and train the teachers, that would have been on them. (My school system in Calvert County did a great job there.)
However, I think my school system was hardly the only one that threw in the towel by early 2021, let the parents choose whether to send their kids back to the classrooms or keep them out, and have the teachers simultaneously teach to kids in the classroom and kids at home. I know they had lots of pressure from parents, but this unnecessary added load, on top of everything else they’d had to deal with, caused a lot of teachers to call it quits after the 2020-2021 year was over. Too much had been asked of them.
lowtechcyclist
@YY_Sima Qian:
And of course, the Rethugs don’t give a damn about either China or Covid, except as they provide opportunities to blame the Dems for something. Do they have a proposed China policy? I doubt it.
wenchacha
I had a lovely visit with my kids and grandchild over the last couple of weeks. One difficult spot though: my Japanese daughter-in-law is reluctant to have the grandson get a Covid vaccine.
She and I talked about it, carefully, and I was disheartened to learn that she has many of the classic antivaxxer concerns: vax didn’t have enough testing. MRna unsafe, money-grab for Pfizer and Moderna, “so many deaths from the vax”! Yikes, seriously.
I love her, and I know she had two weeks of misery after her first vaccine. I think all three of them have had Covid once, already. I know that she and I both want to protect her little boy. It is an uncomfortable dilemma.
She doesn’t trust the resources I do, and vice versa.
Denali5
@NeenerNeener:
I live in Monroe County,NY, Yesterday my husband got a call from a friend-they had lunch with 3 others. He had just tested positive. So it is still out there. We are fully vaccinated, but it is still worrisome, as we are old.
Glidwrith
Still one of the 25% despite direct exposure to husband who got it and transmitted to daughter. Both of my parents got it traveling home to Oregon-12+ hours in airports and planes with no masks. Sigh.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
I was one of the 25% until a few days ago. Still feel awful.
YY_Sima Qian
@lowtechcyclist: Their proposed China policy is get the Cold War on ASAP, & let’s fight China over Taiwan before China becomes more powerful. Convincing their followers that SARS-CoV-2 is a Chinese bio-weapon (helped by Fauci/Collins) released on purpose helps justify the war, as well as justifying going after domestic enemies.
hrprogressive
I am still known to have never had COVID, due in part to obsessive isolation and safety measures.
I appreciate this update, as it seems good data is hard to come by.
While I’m not racing to go try and catch it, I can’t shake a feeling that the most apocalyptic prophesies of the hyper-Zero-Covid crowd don’t appear to be borne in any data I can see (everyone becoming immunodeficient zombies, LONG COVID in the tens and tens of millions, and otherwise healthy people “recovering” and then “suddenly dropping dead everywhere”…
But these are still things that concern me as risks.
But, more and more, I see people behaving a lot more like 2019 than they ever did…and, I mean.
In early 2022 it was evident that sickness was everywhere.
Now? It doesn’t feel that way.
I would really like to get more of my old life back, but I don’t know how confident I am of that yet.
I really hate it tbh.
Randal Sexton
Does anyone have any knowledge or experience with Enovid – ? I have been hearing about it and am not sure if it is effective or is the latest hydroxychlorquine/ivermectin/lightbulbs or whatnot.
Bill Arnold
@gene108:
Another factor, which people willfully ignore, is that COVID-19 can cause cognitive difficulties. Memory problems, problems focusing, problems organizing complex thoughts. And this has been happening for children; not just adults. (A friend’s teenage son had such problems, that cognitively disrupted a high school year.) This means that some fraction of the learning deficits were caused directly by COVID-19 infection, perhaps (more research required) a large fraction. This is consistent with the observations that there was very weak correlation between school closure (vs not) and in-pandemic learning deficits.
Example paper. (There are others, just picked this one because it’s recent.)
Cognition and Mental Health in Pediatric Patients Following COVID-19 (Hadar Avittan and Dmitrijs Kustovs, 2023 Mar 13, review of many studies)
smith
@Randal Sexton: Enovid is a system to spray nitric oxide into your nose as an early anti-viral treatment. It was developed by a joint Israeli-Canadian venture, and can be obtained from Israel or Canada as either Enovid or Sanotize. It can be purchased via Ebay dealers, some of whom are in the US.
I have been using it for the past year when I go out anywhere, and as far as I know have not gotten covid-19 (I’ve also until recently been using a mask indoors in public, but am now only doing that if I’m going to be in an enclosed space with other people for an extended period). I’ve experienced no side effects other than an occasional slight transient sting when applied.
There have been several studies that showed it quickly cleared the virus with a recent infection (e.g., https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lansea/article/PIIS2772-3682(22)00046-4/fulltext). It has gotten emergency use approval in Israel .
It is not approved in the US, and as far as I know, the process has not been started. I suspect it hasn’t gotten much attention here because it’s not a novel drug, and doesn’t have the backing of any major drug companies.
dnfree
We live in an over-55 community (individual homes, a community center with swimming pool, classes, meetings etc.) in suburban Chicago (northwest). We are the only people who still wear masks at meetings. We also mask at medical facilities, grocery stores, etc. Just yesterday a neighbor told us about two families that now have Covid here. There is no centralized collection of that information or public notification by the community manager, so it’s just word of mouth.
Again, thanks for all the work that goes into this!
hrprogressive
@Randal Sexton:
I followed a guy on Twitter who was a big, big proponent of using Enovid as a prophylactic and got COVID a few months back, anyway.
Cited a lapse in mask wearing and air sanitizing in a hotel room during travel as a likely exposure.
This guy is, like, militantly anti-covid, so yeah.
One doctor who was asked about it basically said they couldn’t recommend it bc there weren’t enough trials or studies on it.
Absent “real data” on it, I can’t say I’d recommend it either.
YMMV.
Anne Laurie
@Randal Sexton: Since this is probably a dead thread…
From a very quick look online (& at Amazon), if I were worried about exposure, you can get a spray container of saline solution for under $10 & I think it would be approximately as useful as the $99 Enovid product. But I’m a Cynic, of course.
When we had (very mild, praise the Trickster God & paxlovid!) covid, I actually got two bottles of Arm & Hammer Simply Saline to help us with the burning postnasal drip, and it did that job nicely for us both.
Manyakitty
@VeniceRiley: that sounds dreamy. Enjoy!