Coronavirus – Quick Information & Mythbusting

This page will be updated daily throughout the pandemic. Please send me corrections or new (verifiable) information.
New articles will be placed in Resources at the bottom.

December 10 update:
This was the first video many saw about Coronavirus – from those first three crazy days, March 10. Let’s compare what he predicted.
At the 1:55 mark, Dr. Osterholm predicted:
48 million hospitalizations
96 million cases
489,000 deaths
So how far are we along?
I couldn’t find the cumulative hospitalizations.
15.5 million cases (reported)
290,000 deaths
Although we aren’t out of it yet, this will probably be the last wave. With vaccines, coming, I think we are looking somewhat good compared to what he predicted. We will probably end up ~400,000 when all is said and done.
Also of note – I believe the actual cases have been at least four times that which was reported – around 57 million. I got that figure by taking the ratio of the projected death rate and case rates, and then comparing to the actual death rate. We will never know.
But I have a feeling without any of these pesky maskers and social distancers we would have hit 489,000 dead already.

Coronavirus Videos Playlist, recent first:

The following Joe Rogan interview of Michael Osterholm was the first, most important video of the epidemic. This appeared right before the hysteria began, and has a lot of background information.
Watch this if you haven’t already, notes below (please see the updated note below on wearing masks):

Note: Joe Rogan has gone downhill. He should still be commended for hosting this early interview.
Also, surgical masks are not pointless. Their purported uselessness was recently retracted! It’s primarily spread in the air, and can spread without coughs or sneezes – anything helps!

About Michael T. Osterholm

Michael T. Osterholm has served under five presidents and is an American public health scientist and a biosecurity and infectious disease expert. Osterholm is the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota and a Regents Professor, the McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in Public Health, a Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, a professor in the Technological Leadership Institute, College of Science and Engineering, and an adjunct professor in the University of Minnesota Medical School, all at the University of Minnesota. He is also on the Board of Regents at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.

Infection Rate

Infection rates are manageable and are determined by local government practices.

The infection rate mentioned in the video is ~30% which is the conservative, best case scenario. According to most forecasts, however, coronavirus is ultimately likely to reach 40-70% of the world’s population (Dr. Marc Lipsitch, Harvard Epidemiology Professor, 2/24/20)

My very simple projection, simply parsing most generally accepted infection and mortality rates (I am NOT an epidemiologist!):
7.7 billion world population
50% infected (from 30-70%)
1% mortality rate
= 38.5 million projected dead worlwide

Nature throws a curveball:
Japan confirms first case of person re-infected with coronavirus
(This could be due to a variety of reasons, including faulty testing, or, worse, some retrovirus-like character of the virus that enables it to hibernate.)
A Promising Treatment

Video Takeaways

Chinese wet markets and African bushmeat are primary sources of animal-to-human pathogen transmission, although prions in deer is an impending problem in North America.
Coronavirus is primarily passed in microscopic exhaled water droplets, typically when people sneeze or cough, from six feet (~2 meters) depending on air conditions.
Incubation can be anywhere from 2-14 days, and is contagious and can be transmitted before symptoms appear.
Coronaviruses may survive on surfaces for just a few hours or several days,  although many factors will influence this, including surface material and weather.
It affects adults more than children. We don’t yet know why, but children don’t get sick. They can still carry it. Middle aged and elderly are particularly vulnerable.
Primary risk factors are age, health, obesity, and smoking. Americans are more at risk than Chinese due to obesity, so our mortality rates could be higher.
The mechanism of mortality of Coronavirus lies in an over-vigorous immune response causing complications of secondary bacterial pneumonia from the damage in the lungs.
As in epidemics in general, once people get infected, they develop immunity and cease to spread it. This herd immunity is how the virus will stop spreading. [However, as stated above, some appear to be testing positive twice, and we do not know why.]
Probably about half a million in the U.S. will die, but it could be as bad as the 1918 Spanish Flu which had ~3% mortality.

Mythbusting

Hand sanitizer, washing your hands 20 seconds, and avoiding touching your eyes, nose, and mouth is always an excellent idea for health reasons, but, as Coronavirus is an airborne virus, having clean hands is only somewhat helpful in stopping its spread.

Surgical masks are pointless, unless you are infected and want to avoid transmitting it to others. This was recently retracted! It’s in the air, no coughs or sneezes needed – anything helps on a mcro level.

More useful is an N-95 Respirator, but good luck getting your hands on one of those. They can’t be worn for long periods anyway.
Coronavirus is not a military weapon that escaped a lab.
Probiotics have been proven not to help, whether in general or against Coronavirus, unless it is “fecal implants” used to treat an unrelated rare disease.
Saunas do not help.
Alex Jones is selling a fraudulent toothpaste.
“Colloidal Silver” sold by televangelist Jim Bakker does not help and are in fact harmful. Bakker is currently being charged by the State of Missouri.
A vaccine could be made overnight, but, as always, safe vaccine will take years to develop.

What You Can Do

The best thing you can do is stay healthy, get sleep and exercise and a good diet, and avoid smoking and excessive alcohol.
Now is a great time to stop smoking.
If you are elderly, do not skip medications such as cardiovascular e.g. high blood pressure medicine even for a day.
And obviously, avoid people who are coughing and/or sneezing.

Conclusions

You will probably contract Coronavirus and survive it
We are not prepared for this at all.
Coronavirus will be with us for the next three to seven months.
This will happen again.

Resources

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Interactive Dashboard
Simple Realtime Table

Why Social Distancing?

How Much Worse the Coronavirus Could Get, in Charts| NYT
Coronavirus Interactive Map| NYT
Mortality Rate by Country| NYT
The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What’s Coming| Wired

Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/history-of-pandemics-deadliest/

“Corona” means “crown.” The molecule has all these spikes around it like a crown so it was named that.

Just in case…

Coronavirus is Not Manmade

Coronavirus is not manmade. Its maker is far more powerful and grandiose – Mother Nature.
She made the Bubonic Plague, Lyme Disease, Malaria, Ebola, 1918 Spanish Flu, AIDS, SARS, H1N1, Coronavirus, and countless other diseases, most of which, we don’t even have a cure.
Ask any epidemiologist: through mutation, nature is constantly producing iterations of imperfect weapons. Even in your own body, on a typical day, scientists estimate, the 37 trillion cells will accumulate trillions of new mutations.
Now multiply that out to the total body mass of every living thing on this planet. I tried to guesstimate a word for that amount, but I think it would involve a lot of exponents.
Nature develops its weapons through trial and error and brute force – thoroughly and constantly – with no budgetary constraints, on an inconceivably massive and complex scale with no mercy whatsoever.
The next Big One, and the one after that, will also be natural. They are all natural.
Even if you gave a CRISPR DNA editing kit to every man woman and child and told them to Get Started Making Bad Things, and had them play mad scientist for centuries, we simply cannot nor could we ever compete with such insidious perfection. We would need to become gods, for all intents and purposes, to combat the old gods, so to speak.
And on a side note, if China weaponized Coronavirus, they certainly had a…let’s just say… sloppy way of implementing it.

Beware of Chain Letters

There is a chain letter about Coronavirus going around. It sounds very reasonable and is pretty clearly written and has some decent use of biology jargon. The problem is while much of it is true, much of it isn’t. And it ends with the ever-suspect “Share with everyone!”
And finally, in the inevitable game of telephone, the name was eventually changed from that of a nurse on Facebook to the more credible sounding “immunologist from Johns Hopkins.”
Many people right now are at home, online, scared and are desperately looking for reassurance and solutions. But this is not the way.
https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comments/fkfzoa/new_fb_thing_that_im_guessing_is_mostly_bogus_can/

• The New Dark Age | Atlantic
• Measles is now in twelve states
• Study: Extreme identity politics makes you depressed
• Dreams are Cheaper than Drugs, Easier to Acquire, and Safer
• Understanding the Body Electric | New Yorker
• Taking hydrocortisone immediately after a traumatic event may help prevent PTSD | Psypost
• PSA: Fentanyl now has a Vaccine
• Severe depression eased by single dose of synthetic ‘magic mushroom’ | CNN
• Rapid eye movements during sleep are not random, but are you looking around the dream world your brain creates, study reveals | Daily Mail
• ‘Magic mushroom’ psychedelic may help heavy drinkers quit | AP

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