Thursday, September 3, 2020

A Supercomputer Analyzed Covid-19–and an Interesting New Theory Has Emerged: A closer look at the Bradykinin hypothesis — Thomas Smith


I haven't been posting on Covid-19 since Naked Capitalism Links is the go-to place. But this link (ht Automatic Earth) is interesting.

Elemental
A Supercomputer Analyzed Covid-19 — and an Interesting New Theory Has Emerged—A closer look at the Bradykinin hypothesis
Thomas Smith

44 comments:

Matt Franko said...

“ Covid-19 is like a burglar who slips in your unlocked second-floor window and starts to ransack your house. ”

Nice figurative language... anybody there know what is really going on?

Peter Pan said...

What is the average age of fatalities? 80?

I prefer the Boomer Remover Hypothesis... find the culprits.

Tom Hickey said...

Here is the scientific article reporting it.

A mechanistic model and therapeutic interventions for COVID-19 involving a RAS-mediated bradykinin storm-Michael R Garvin, Christiane Alvarez, J Izaak Miller, Erica T Prates, Angelica M Walker, B Kirtley Amos, Alan E Mast, Amy Justice, Bruce Aronow, Daniel Jacobson

Peter Pan said...

It's targeting old people to an unusual degree. Investigate this virus for evidence that is was engineered in a laboratory.

Matt Franko said...

You have to investigate if the virus could have gained the novel recombinative characteristics via random chance...

Darwin people just assume it is possible without proof... and all these people seem like big Darwin people...

Matt Franko said...

“ Although pre-existing hypertension is a reported comorbidity for COVID-19, recent reports indicate hypotension is highly associated with COVID-19 patients once in the hospital ”

Well if they have hypertension then they are probably already on blood pressure pharma that LOWERS blood pressure... then the covid causes a response that apparently decreases it again ... membrane flow may then reverse and you get the inflammation..

Would be better if the people didn’t have to take pharma to lower blood pressure before presence of the covid

Matt Franko said...

Pete what it looks like is these people were doing gain of function research on this class of virus thinking along these lines:

“Well... this virus could evolve from the apes by random chance mutation someday soooo what we should do is make the changes ourselves right now by splicing the genes ourselves in a lab ... and then study how to defeat it once we create it so then when it finally does evolve from the apes by random chance mutation we will be ready for it...”

Something like that ... then it escaped from the lab and here we are...

I blame Darwin... Trump looking to blame Chinese... Cuomo blaming Trump... etc...

S400 said...

”I blame Darwin... Trump looking to blame Chinese... Cuomo blaming Trump... etc...”

Yep blame game is your thing.

NeilW said...

Still can't understand why mass dosing of Vitamin D isn't happening. Here's another bunch of evidence:

Effect of Calcifediol Treatment and best Available Therapy versus best Available Therapy on Intensive Care Unit Admission and Mortality Among Patients Hospitalized for COVID-19: A Pilot Randomized Clinical study

which makes me wonder whether both sides are trying to use this for political ends.

Peter Pan said...

An experiment to find out what the public will tolerate, does have a political end: social control.

Matt Franko said...

It’s rather called “cause and effect” in Science.... not the figurative “blame game!”...

Hey S, did you see I checkmated you people .... AGAIN .... where Wray has formed a new sect within MMT (Kansascityism) that advocates for non ZIRP for retirement savers?

Matt Franko said...

Neil the whole thing is a political hoax....

Dems created it to trash the trump economy ... now trump using it to trash Chyna...Etc...

lastgreek said...

"Neil the whole thing is a political hoax....

Dems created it to trash the trump economy ... now trump using it to trash ...Etc..."

WTF is this crap? His country is approaching 200,000 deaths and he's joking around.

Matt, seriously, for your sake and your family's get some immediate mental help. No shame in that, Matt.

Help for Mental Illnesses

If you or someone you know has a mental illness, is struggling emotionally, or has concerns about their mental health, there are ways to get help. Use these resources to find help for you, a friend, or a family member


https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help/index.shtml

NeilW said...

"His country is approaching 200,000 deaths"

It's a big country. People die.

When you look at the numbers correctly, you find that number of people who have died of Covid-19 is vanishingly small. Really tiny. And that the infection fatality ratio is rapidly heading down to about the same as a bad flu. Which of course was flagged up by Iceland months ago with their IFR of 0.13%.

It's way past time to stop acting emotionally over this and start looking at the actual numbers.

"Whilst everyone is panicking about the ever-increasing number of cases, we should be celebrating them. They are demonstrating, very clearly, that COVID is far, far, less deadly then was feared. The Infection Fatality Rate is most likely going to end up around 0.1%, not 1%."

https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/09/04/covid-why-terminology-really-matters/

It's those that can't calm themselves down that need to avail themselves of mental services. This is now getting beyond a joke.

Peter Pan said...

Imagine a province being ruled by decree by a premier with a college diploma in appliance repair...

Peter Pan said...

Germans have been on the streets, chaffing at the restrictions. Will they be our vanguard?

hoonose said...

I'm glad NeilW removed his post.

150+K of excess deaths in the USA in 6 months due to Covid 19 is a very serious problem.

Greg said...



Well if they have hypertension then they are probably already on blood pressure pharma that LOWERS blood pressure...
———————————

Geeeee ya think so?......people with hypertension taking anti hypertensives.... great detective work there Matt





Would be better if the people didn’t have to take pharma to lower blood pressure before presence of the covid

————————


No Matt, people with hypertension need to take “pharma” to control their BP. It is now being discovered that a particular class of anti hypertensives known as ACE inhibitors are essentially acting in same manner on blood vessels as the Corona Virus does.
Please don’t give that advice to people you know who are on BP medication.

Stick to the “science” ๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜‚ of accounting.

NeilW said...

I haven't removed anything.

150,000+ deaths is always depressing, but it still represents an extremely small number of people in a country of 328,500,000 people.

Bearing in mind that 675,000 people died of the Spanish flu in 1918 with a much smaller population 116,000 of the Hong Kong Flu again with a much smaller population.

But the estimates of order of magnitude difference is way out. If we're unfortunate it may be twice as bad as flu. The difference is Covid tends to kill older people rather than the young. It's status as the "Boomer Remover" is well established amongst teenagers.

It's time to get things in perspective.

Greg said...

Couple things Neil.
1) the 675,000 is during the whole pandemic, almost two years vs almost 200,000 in a little over 6 months with Covid
2) today the 1918 pandemic would kill far far less, they didn’t even have routine IV fluid hydration nor the level of hospital beds per 100,000 population. Covid is killing with the best in modern medicine available to well over 65% of developed world AND we have limited large interactions greatly for half a year. No concerts, no large sporting events, fewer church gatherings

I think you are missing some perspective as well

Calgacus said...

Matt, everybody in biology "believes" in evolution for the reason explained in the title of this famous paper. Not believing evolution is like not believing you have eyes.

Theodosius Dobzhansky- Nothing in Biology Makes Sense except in the Light of Evolution- American Biology Teacher 35- 3 (1973)

It might change your mind. Was arguing with someone once, quoted from it, showed my quote wasn't faked and gave a larger context to it, and we came to complete agreement.

hoonose said...

The Pandemic is real, as are the excess deaths this year.

My wife and I had it, and it nearly killed her. She's still not done with it. If I wasn't a doc she wouldn't have survived! And we lost one of our fellow local Docs a few back.

The sudden excess deaths in the USA is very real. The graph is part way down:

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

Peter Pan said...

The pandemic is real, the response to it is out of proportion.

hoonose said...

Early on, medical communities all over the world had to drop what they were doing and prepare for all the unknowns of the Pandemic. In the US looking at China and Italy, we had no choice but to drastically alter our acute medical capabilities and then recommend that our communities do what they could to limit spread.
In my own rural medical community, we knew that we would not be immediately hit, but with limited Pandemic related supplies, equipment and trained personnel, we decided just like thousands of other medical communities, that we just could not wait.

Peter Pan said...

In Canada, health is a provincial responsibility. Some of the things they did in the first two months were inept, if not criminally negligent.

Now that it is September, their response has become a farce. It is also anti-democratic. Yet the people put up with it.

NeilW said...

Greg,

Congress was told 3 million could die. They were wrong by an order of magnitude. That is the best modern medicine offers - which is far worse than people seem to believe. They had no clue how to respond to this virus and made a load of honest mistakes. We're getting much better very quickly as we learn how deamaethasone, Vitamin D and the like help. (And that certain anti-malarial don't).

Limited interactions *don't reduce infections by that much* as we see from Peru, Belgium, Argentina and other areas. They slow things down at best.

There is a world of difference between a response for 3 million dead, and one for 200,000 or so. Unless you have a population that is somehow permanently on the edge of a panic attack and can't cope with the realities of life.

Greg said...

Neil,
At best ??!! Slowing them down IS THE POINT at this point!! 300,000,000 population, 1% death rate = 3,000,000 dead. That’s not unreasonable. They weren’t told 3 million would die this summer . “They “. aren’t wrong yet

Vit D is certainly interesting .....Decadron?.... steroids have always shown promise with inflammatory conditions but steroids usually have limitations. They help at certain stages with certain things but past a certain point steroids become a hinderance.


@Peter

“The pandemic is real, the response to it is out of proportion.”


And you know this how? What should the response have been to an unknown pathogen that early measurements pointed to as highly transmissible and way more lethal than flus.

When being asked to help in decisions affecting hundreds of millions it’s better to be cautious and use common sense. Keeping a distance around strangers , washing your hands frequently and self isolating when you do t feel well are all common sense things regarding highly transmissible diseases

Peter Pan said...

What should the response have been to an unknown pathogen that early measurements pointed to as highly transmissible and way more lethal than flus.

Containment.
Canada was one of many developed countries who did not act in time, and failed to contain the outbreak. They were unprepared.

China is the country that had to deal with an unknown pathogen. By the time our so-called leaders decided to act, there was enough data to guide their response. What was supposed to have been an effort to 'flatten the curve' has turned into a protracted fear-mongering campaign.

And to top it off, officials knew at the outset that the elderly were susceptible, yet they sent Covid patients to nursing homes. As a result, 80% of deaths occurred within those facilities. A national scandal for which no one is being held accountable.

Thanks to the various states of 'emergency', provincial legislatures have been suspended, and we are being ruled by decree by imbeciles. How very convenient.

Matt Franko said...

Darwin preceded the Perioduc Table by what half a century?

The discipline of biochemistry by what 100 years?

1/3 of biochemists don’t believe it and rising:

https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/16/one-third-biologists-now-question-darwinism/

Now maybe we will start to solve some health problems instead of always trying to defend Darwin’s failed theory...

Half of these NIH papers I’m reading start with some sort of defense or affirmation of Darwin... what does that have to do with it?

How about some Chemistry maybe?

Matt Franko said...

“ Slowing them down IS THE POINT”

Greg “slowing down” is a figure of speech here and is not what is really happening.... what is really happening?

Keeping viral load down? Dosing of the virus is being reduced? Thru distancing?

Many people still being tested positive for the virus but not getting sick.... sounds like dosing to me... if people are just exposed to a small dose they are either asymtimatic or get a small immune response for a day or two...then they are fine ...q

Maybe if they got their blood pressure down thru proper diet and exercise instead of a “magic pill” they wouldn’t get all the inflammation...



Matt Franko said...

Correlation studies are not biochemistry ....

Matt Franko said...

Greg when a patient comes in with the Covid and they are on hypertension pharma do they keep giving that person the pharma while they are being treated for the Covid? I’d assume they do...

Matt Franko said...

Here there are people already looking into this ... makes sense....

https://cen.acs.org/biological-chemistry/infectious-disease/Rethinking-role-blood-pressure-drugs-in-COVID-19/98/i20

The blood pressure medication people will ofc say it doesn’t matter blah blah blah...

How about: “Eat less! ... move more!.., .”. anybody?

Always looking for the magic pill....

Matt Franko said...

Vit D

https://twitter.com/foundmyfitness/status/1301967441002598400?s=21


Matt Franko said...

Good one on HVAC system issues:

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1300777854603591680?s=21

“Green!” HVAC from the climate nutter people allowing build up of virus toxins to lethal levels..

.

Greg said...

So Peter, the methods of containment involve 1) testing testing testing- you gotta know who has it and where to contain it
2) contact tracing- you gotta know who all you’ve been around and where they might be to contain it. 3) isolation of those who are known positive- you gotta keep those infected separate til they are over it/dead/non contagious

Sounds like exactly what is being preached by Fauci et al currently. Containment, flattening the curve pretty much both rely on the same arsenal of tools. This is all common sense I see no fear mongering from Fauci- be sensible and considerate is all they are preaching. Take the risks from this pathogen seriously. It’s not the flu

The ridiculousness is coming from the “no mask flaunters“, the Covid truthers etc

So Peter, would you if in charge. 1) immediately suspend any suggestions from authorities that keeping your workspace clean is encouraged
2) immediately permit concerts, indoor sporting events with no suggestions for any limits on 3) apologize because none of this crap the last 6 months was the least bit necessary

I don’t see fear from the people who are taking precautions I see fear in the people who are screaming at workers doing their job, fear that their way of doing things is being questioned at present. They can’t fathom that they might be part of the problem, so they just tell people the “problem” is made up, a hoax etc

Matt Franko said...

I’ve got 7 4” MERV 13 filers strapped to 20x20 floor fans running 24/7 at work and I got a particulate meter set up...

When we started the meter was at 12 micro grams per m3 now it hardly goes above 3 and is most often 2 or below... when we come in in the morning it is below 1...

$20 for the filter and $20 for the fan... 40 bucks...

Matt Franko said...

2350 sq ft ... 9 ft ceilings... 7 systems...

Matt Franko said...

$280 bucks total... (7 x $40)....

Peter Pan said...

Containment measures would have had to be taken last January. It took two months to shut down air travel; by then it was too late.

The strategy from that point was mitigation and herd immunity. In Canada, this was accomplished in the period between March and June. In late July, there was a second wave... of stupidity by provincial officials. In Nova Scotia, they enacted mandatory mask laws... as if that would justify re-opening the borders to tourism.

There will be no apologies until we hold these people accountable.

Peter Pan said...

Matt, HVAC is uncommon in private residences. We keep our windows open or head to the coast. This may be why there are zero cases this summer. If only it stayed warm year round...

Matt Franko said...

“ HVAC is uncommon in private residences. ”

Not in what were termed the “hot zones”...

Matt Franko said...

Pete you are fine up there in the Maritimes...

Peter Pan said...

Can't complain... from May until end of September, the weather is fine :)