Coronavirus Pandemic

[F-ZeroOne]

I agree that Vitamin C is probably going to be fairly harmless, though considering that the evidence for any effectiveness seems a bit sketchy, I do have to wonder if the staff time and resources spent administering it might be better employed (also considering its the US, if patients will be charged for its use). I suppose there may also be a placebo effect (its been shown that making things look "medical" enhances the effect) though you have to be careful there because the placebo effect usually isn't an actual cure...

[Little stoned kiwi]

Also, in medicine, there can be harm in trying:

https://www.bbc.com/news/52012242

There's a difference between doctors giving vitamin C a go and some random taking fish tank cleaner. What's your problem?

[F-ZeroOne]

I will reiterate: if they want to try giving patients Vitamin C, and it does no harm, then fine. The reason it raised a flag for me is that Vitamin C comes up a lot in crank medical interventions and "alt-med" type things (including as a "treatment" for cancer). Its being reported as if its going to be a massive help for patients, the evidence for which appears to be a little on the thin side at present. If subsequent, quality follow-up studies (and its possible for studies to be done very poorly) show that it had some benefit or helped shorten the disease period (once other possible confounding factors have been excluded) then that is also fine with me. If I find myself in the unfortunate position of being hospitilised by COVID-19 and someone wants to give me an IV of the stuff, I likely won't refuse. I also wouldn't expect it to have much effect without more significant evidence being provided.

Yes, there is a difference. What I was pointing out was in direct response to the comment "theres no harm in trying". Someone tried something, suggested by an unreliable source, and it proved fatal. This is highly unlikely with Vitamin C, but equally, as I've already said the evidence that its going to have a significant benefit to sufferers appears to be sketchy.

[Little stoned kiwi]

Sure, I've met anti-vaxers who believe polio could have been cured with vitamin C, all the way down to being a solution to cancer. They think it's some sort of wonder drug that should be used in place of actual medicinal treatment. Those people create harm not because of the suggestion to take vitamin C, they create harm by suggesting it should be used in place of medical treatment.

That's not what's happening here though. It might very well be beneficial to augment treatment with it. For someone that needs intensive medical treatment it could be the difference between life and death, more likely to the side of life or no difference than death.
If you have concerns about it creating complications then you should raise them with the medical community rather than automatically rubbishing it; that's exactly what people who don't trust traditional medicine and big pharma do.

[(o)(o)]

Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, has antioxidant properties. When sepsis happens, the cytokine surge caused by sepsis is activated, and neutrophils in the lungs accumulate in the lungs, destroying alveolar capillaries. Early clinical studies have shown that vitamin C can effectively prevent this process. In addition, vitamin C can help to eliminate alveolar fluid by preventing the activation and accumulation of neutrophils, and reducing alveolar epithelial water channel damage. At the same time, vitamin C can prevent the formation of neutrophil extracellular traps, which is a biological event of vascular injury caused by neutrophil activation. Vitamins can effectively shorten the duration of the common cold. In extreme conditions (athletes, skiers, art workers, military exercises), it can effectively prevent the common cold. And whether vitamin C also has a certain protective effect on influenza patients, only few studies have shown that vitamin C deficiency is related to the increased risk and severity of influenza infections. In a controlled but non-randomized trial, 85% of the 252 students treated experienced a reduction in symptoms in the high-dose vitamin C group (1g / h at the beginning of symptoms for 6h, followed by 3 * 1g / day). Among patients with sepsis and ARDS, patients in the high-dose vitamin group did not show a better prognosis and other clinical outcomes. There are still some confounding factors in the existing research, and the conclusions are different.

Therefore, during the current epidemic of SARI, it is necessary to study the clinical efficacy and safety of vitamin C for viral pneumonia through randomized controlled trials.

Link was in the article.

[gilesgoat]

Meanwhile .. the king of thailand ..

https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2020/0 ... 252695829/

Use Google Translate, basically he has booked the entiere super luxury hotel for himself all his entourage including 20 official lovers and probably his 4th wife as well ...

.. and we are here home rationing food and heating and discussing if we should take more or less C vitamins that probably will have no effect ...

[F-ZeroOne]

(o)(o), apologies, I missed the link in the original article. At the risk of further cementing my apparent prickly medical cactus status, I will point out that a trial is not exactly the same as a proven treatment.

I will admit that as an intervention Vitamin C is probably relatively harmless and may well turn out to be of some benefit. Probably my experience of reading about anti-vaxxers online has made me a bit sensitive to possibly unproven treatments. I will also say again that I am not trying to "automatically rubbish" the idea, and I apologise if it came across that way, I'm just trying to highlight that Vitamin C as a treatment has been exaggerated before and that some of the research is a bit inconclusive.

[Deckard]

Meanwhile .. the king of thailand ..

https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2020/0 ... 252695829/

Use Google Translate, basically he has booked the entiere super luxury hotel for himself all his entourage including 20 official lovers and probably his 4th wife as well ...

.. and we are here home rationing food and heating and discussing if we should take more or less C vitamins that probably will have no effect ...

Why should it be any different for this pandemic than any other in regards to the super-rich ?

[KlaxonCow]

Here's an amusing "oops" moment.

The Hot Water Comedy Club in Liverpool decided to stream a performance that was recorded on the 7th March on its Facebook.

But, apparently, someone watching didn't realise that the event wasn't live and called the cops, who sent round a van and a car, brimming with officers, ready to raid and shut the place down for a clear massive breach of the quarantine rules:

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus- ... p-11965740

The CCTV footage of them all looking confused outside the front door is worth seeing (but it's Facebook video, so can't embed here, sadly).

It's been taken in good spirits by everyone, including the police who are feeling forgiving that the person who reported it to them did so in good faith and had merely misunderstood that a "livestream", despite its name, is capable of streaming pre-recorded footage as well.

[PFVA]

Officially 6408 cases and 140 deaths. 79 cases in this municipality (around 200 thousand inhabitants)

Talk of cordoning off the region of Porto that has more or less 1/2 the cases of the country. Mayors, all other authorities, commerce, industry associations from there all oppose. Who wants to cordon it is the national government.

Residencial and nursing homes are the biggest problem and getting close to the point of rupture.

Apparently they are getting ready to release some of the 12000 prisoners we have in the country s to avoid things in the jails to get as bad or worse than in the nursing homes.

[Harlequin]

It would appear that the base figures all over the world are inaccurate. I recommend prefixing any of them with "at least". Even where there are no deliberate efforts to suppress numbers (and I would hesitate to assume conspiracies by any but the most authoritarian regimes), there is not enough testing to know actual infection rates, numbers take varying amounts of time to make it to public statistics and there appear to be different definitions of what counts as a death due to C19 or of someone who had a SARS-CoV-2 infection. At this point, I think, all the base figures should be considered only absolute minimums.

Also:

Because countries have taken radically different approaches to testing, and have sometimes changed testing strategies from one week to the next, scientists have struggled to compare death rates between countries. Another difficulty has been working out the proportion of people who die after becoming infected, because many cases are never confirmed.…

[Misfit]

We had no problem getting a takeaway delivered at the weekend. So I decided if all else failed we wouldn't starve, just be poor and fat but decided to try for one big shop to avoid going out as much as possible.

So I did a 7 am Tesco shop today. Nice and quiet with the few people in there being respectful of distance and empty lanes at the checkout.

Importantly there was plenty of food.

Toilet rolls were depleted, but available, the fruit wasn't the greatest selection, veg a bit better, but I don't think they'd put it all out yet. Still no dry pasta (except spaghetti) but did get some fresh though, no hand gel but some soap and zero flour, the world must have gone bake crazy.

But bread, milk, cheese, eggs and everything else was plentiful.

Only real annoyance was they were closing isles when they stocked them, presumably for social distancing, and rightly so. But the women on the meat aisle were taking forever. So I could still do with some mince...

[Misfit]

Even with an empty shop and no queues I can see why my wife generally has our shopping delivered.

Well worth the £4 to have someone sort that for you...

[F-ZeroOne]

https://xkcd.com/2287/

The latest "xkcd" is brilliant but the thing that made me laugh so loud my neighbours probably think I've succumbed to isolation madness is the text pop-up you get if you put your mouse pointer over it.

[KlaxonCow]

The goats are raiding Llandudno's empty streets: