Coronavirus good news thread

An unscientific bit of good news. I've spoken to a West Yorkshire paramedic and tthe person responsible for infection control in several Leeds hospitals ... both said the same thing, that the situation on the ground is pretty much back to normal now aside from occasional cases.
 
An unscientific bit of good news. I've spoken to a West Yorkshire paramedic and tthe person responsible for infection control in several Leeds hospitals ... both said the same thing, that the situation on the ground is pretty much back to normal now aside from occasional cases.
https://www.nomoresurgeons.com/post/drinking-more-than-your-doctor

Seems James Cook have put their covid wards back to normal use now and are putting intensive care patients in isolation rooms. I think they only have 1 ward now for non critical covid patients
 
Really good news of treatment advancement in the mysterious toxic-shock syndrome like disease that was causing serious concern and affecting kids, linked to covid 19. The disease is now no longer expected To be fatal, and kids are recovering faster thanks to treatment developed at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Again, the U.K. has been instrumental in identifying and treating this-

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...rough-means-mysterious-covid-linked-kawasaki/

A breakthrough in treatment means that a mysterious Covid-linked children's inflammatory syndrome is "no longer expected to be fatal", a top paediatrician has said.

Dr Karyn Moshal, a senior consultant in paediatric infectious diseases at Great Ormond Street Hospital (Gosh) in London, said that youngsters who show symptoms are now recovering within three to five days.

In April, Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, ordered an urgent investigation into a reported rise in children needing intensive care after contracting Covid-19 after the NHS issued an alert to GPs. It led to calls for schools to stay closed, and panic among parents.

But Dr Moshal said that condition is now "no longer expected to be fatal", after a combination of treatments were rapidly developed by doctors.

"It was a brand-new phenomenon and we had to make quick decisions in the absence of evidence," Dr Moshal said.

"A multi-disciplinary, multi-hospital team designed a treatment plan using drugs which we have evidence works well in both toxic shock syndrome and Kawasaki disease.

"We used Intravenous Immunoglobulin together with Methylprednisolone, a similar steroid preparation to the drug that Oxford was testing (Dexamethasone). Then for those who were most ill, or were taking a little longer to respond, we added an immune modulatory therapy.

"Individual treatment plans were discussed and agreed by this group, and response to treatment monitored. It's this combination that has proved successful."

Gosh, the country's leading children's hospital, has dealt with between 50 and 60 children with Paediatric Inflammatory Multi-System Syndrome (PIMS-TS), which is a large proportion of the cases found in Britain.

These were first reported in March, when eight children, six of them of African-Carribean origin, were rushed to the Evelina London Children's Hospital. One of those, a 14-year-old, died. They had high fevers, rashes, red eyes, swelling and general pain.

The sudden illness showed some similarities with the extremely rare toxic shock syndrome, and with Kawasaki disease, a condition that affects around one in 10,000 children under the age of five. Kawasaki patients have a rash and swollen glands in the neck, as well as dry and cracked lips.

But PIMS-TS syndrome strikes at older children, from ages seven up to the age of 16.

A small number of children, who had coronavirus symptoms develop a hyperinflammatory syndrome. This is a disordered immune response to infection, which results in severe illness and sometimes shock, Dr Moshal said.

"This contrasts with most cases we have seen of Covid-19 in children, where it is usually very mild. In a very small number of cases where children have, or have had, Covid-19, children experience a 'disordered over-reaction' of their immune systems which results in severe disease," she told The Telegraph.

To find a way to treat PIMS-TS, paediatric intensive care doctors and paediatric infectious diseases specialists at Great Ormond Street Hospital adapted their experience of treating similar disease processes, Dr Moshal said. This had been done in collaboration with colleagues at two other large London paediatric centres, Evelina and St. Mary's.

Britain has been the world leader in recognising and treating PIMS-TS, Dr Moshal said.

"We noticed a pattern of clinical symptoms and signs in a number of patients over a short period of time, which seemed to indicate a new disease syndrome, distinct from Kawasaki Disease and Toxic Shock Syndrome and sent out alerts worldwide," she explained.

"Hospitals then started to report that they had seen a similar phenomenon but had not recognised it as a distinct and new syndrome, initially."

Paul Martin is editor of correspondent.world
 
Daisy the cow might be able to produce high volumes, high concentration of antibody treatment.

https://www.technologynetworks.com/...es-more-neutralizing-antibody-suggests-336015

A different report, on Fox business, states
‘ SAb says it's "on track" to initiate clinical trials for its potential COVID-19 treatment this summer but did not specify how many people would participate or how long the trial would last.
 
I can’t read the article because of paywall, but from the headline, hopefully he’s right and it fizzles out in lethality and becomes less and less dangerous. That’s got to be the ideal situation for everyone.

edit - would be nice to see some concrete evidence of this though.
Yeah the paywall is a pain. He's not the first Italian doctor to come out with this though. It's was reported a few weeks back. Can be an explanation for the rise in infections some places but not a a rise in deaths.
 
Yeah the paywall is a pain. He's not the first Italian doctor to come out with this though. It's was reported a few weeks back. Can be an explanation for the rise in infections some places but not a a rise in deaths.
Isn't this the same story that was coming out of Italy about a week ago, though? It received a lot of push-back then and this latest claim likewise:
Dr. Oscar McLean from the University of Glasgow countered the Italian's claims stating: "Bassetti's claims seem fairly implausible on genetic grounds" adding "without significantly stronger evidence, no one should unnecessarily downplay the danger this highly virulent virus poses, and risk the ongoing society-wide response."

Edit: Actually, on checking I found it was over 3 weeks ago that this story first came out. There was a quote I found back then, which I think provides a much more plausible explanation, especially given that there is no genetic evidence of the virus having mutated to a less deadly strain:
Zangrillo’s clinical observations are more likely a reflection of the fact that with the peak of the outbreak long past, there is less virus in circulation, and people may be less likely to be exposed to high doses of it. In addition, only severely sick people were likely to be tested early on, compared with the situation now when even those with mild symptoms are more likely to get swabbed, experts said.
 
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Interesting article in the Guardian. Particularly striking is the bit about a small study of family members who had been infected with Sars Cov 2. 75% of them had not antibodies but did have positive T cell response. This makes so much more sense of the serology test results where antibody tests gave surprisingly and implausibly low percentage of positives, given the known scale of infection. It also makes sense when taken with the correlation of vitamin D levels with disease severity, as vitamin D is crucial to T cells. Obviously the sample size is low, but the implication is that perhaps 3 times as many people have been infected in the population than the serology test results suggest.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...t-antibody-tests-covid-19-immuity-coronavirus
 
The T cells subject has been discussed a lot I've seen over the past few weeks.

Separately this guy is worth a follow or even just look through his timeline on Twitter. Screenshot_20200626-100605.png

Speaks a lot of calm sense. His video about a second wave is worth a watch too.
 
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