1

COVID-19 / Re: Does a high prevalence of virus in the community lead to a higher mutation rate?

« on: 15/01/2021 06:23:24 »

- Does allowing the virus to roam freely increase the chance that mutations will create a new strain that needs a different vaccine?

The harder we make it for the virus to spread, the greater the evolutionary pressure in favour a more transmissable variant.

Can't be true. This is like saying if we seal a virus in a jar, then the virus is more likely to jump out of the jar because it adapts. Nope, the virus does not have an intention.  Rather, it is a statistical consequence that the more viruses there are, the higher chances of variants produced.

The active virus pool will consist of all the variants which are left alive.
Those that can hide in our bodies and show no symptoms but reactivated now and then will be most disturbing to us.

I am starting to accept that this will be our future.
 

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COVID-19 / Re: Does a high prevalence of virus in the community lead to a higher mutation rate?

« on: 15/01/2021 05:25:17 »

There has been an extensive "family tree" of SARS-COV2 RNA sequences created since the Wuhan RNA sequence was leaked to scientists outside China.

The RNA sequence was shared to Australia. Not leaked.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Are stem cell therapies for arthritis safe and effective?

« on: 06/01/2021 08:09:57 »

Some stem cell therapy clinics are already treating the knee with stem cells.

I guess NHS Consultants could be the port of call about these stem cell treatments.

For example:-
https://www.theregenerativeclinic.co.uk/body-areas/knee/

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Are stem cell therapies for arthritis safe and effective?

« on: 06/01/2021 07:50:53 »

Hmmm going back to 2017 University of Hong Kong.

Researcher Barbara Pui Chan
https://www.ke.hku.hk/story/innovation/new-cartilage-regeneration-technology

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Are stem cell therapies for arthritis safe and effective?

« on: 06/01/2021 07:43:03 »

Hopefully, this stem cell discovery to regenerate cartilage will become a widely available treatment one day
2020-08-17 https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/08/Researchers-find-method-to-regrow-cartilage-in-the-joints.html

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Can cartilage re-grow in the human body?

« on: 06/01/2021 05:26:32 »

Many people will start crying when cartilege regeneration becomes a widely available treatment.

Standford has made the most fundamental break through  : 2020-08-17

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/08/Researchers-find-method-to-regrow-cartilage-in-the-joints.html

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Cells, Microbes & Viruses / Re: What are the best links for up to date COVID-19 statistics?

« on: 27/10/2020 11:27:06 »

Sweden is looking interesting, even though there are cases the mortality rate is persistently low. It may be a change in how they report deaths but if not they have worked a minor miracle considering that deaths have not been in double figures since mid July and the UK and other countries still have a higher overall mortality rate

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

Sweden has a sparse, well educated, caring population. So when the herd immunity strategy at the beginning began to look wrong, they changed strategy, and the population trusted and followed the guidance of authority, which is basically very simple.

Not so with many other countries. So they suffered and are about to suffer a really bad winter ahead.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: How is traditional Chinese Medicine is getting recognition from the WHO?

« on: 06/10/2020 02:13:39 »

Whatever attitudes are, this is the factual report:-

Quote from the SCMP article: <<"The potential of TCM – and its contribution to medical knowledge – is also gaining international recognition. Last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) added TCM therapies to its global diagnostic compendium for the first time.">>

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: How is traditional Chinese Medicine is getting recognition from the WHO?

« on: 05/10/2020 18:09:42 »

Like the t shirt says: "will convert for evidence".

There is no suggestion nor invitation for you to convert.
Read what it says again:

Quote from the SCMP article: <<"The potential of TCM – and its contribution to medical knowledge – is also gaining international recognition. Last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) added TCM therapies to its global diagnostic compendium for the first time.">>

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: How is traditional Chinese Medicine is getting recognition from the WHO?

« on: 05/10/2020 12:36:49 »

Quote from the SCMP article: <<"The potential of TCM – and its contribution to medical knowledge – is also gaining international recognition. Last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) added TCM therapies to its global diagnostic compendium for the first time.">>

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: How is traditional Chinese Medicine is getting recognition from the WHO?

« on: 05/10/2020 12:34:16 »

So the failure of one western drug means that western medicine is rubbish?

I would say that Traditional Chinese Medicine was likely complicit in the coronavirus jump from bats into humans.

Traditional Chinese Medicine values pangolin scales as a medicinal, even though they are chemically equivalent to toenails.
- One possible route for the coronavirus jump from bats to humans was in the markets supporting the illegal trade in wildlife (including pangolins), which puts many species in close proximity that would normally be far apart in the wild.

See: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/group/pangolins/

If you read the SCMP article, you would have learnt that TCM & western medical practices are working together in Hong Kong and China. Each tradition has different emphasis and biases, and Hong Kong's life expectancy has exceeded Japan. 
The practice of medicine isn't a pure investigative science like chemistry or physics, but a blend of many physical, biological, psychological, managerial, resource utilisation, philosophical, life views, life strategy, .  .  .  So if you start out looking at TCM as "scientific heresy" then you have already gone down the route of those who will never discover something new:-

The WHO has recognised that TCM exists and that it has a system for the classification of diseases and has overseen the production of standardised English translations for the classifications.

It hasn't said that TCM works.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Which country's covid-19 vaccine would you prefer if several are available?

« on: 04/10/2020 16:24:26 »

The chinese vaccine based on neutralised viruses are probably the best as the company had a head start in developing the SARS vaccine, and from that experience, they discovered that neutralised viruses are more effective and easy to store with a 3 year expiry date without the need for refrigeration.A New York Times article said that a temperature of -70(F or C?) is required to store the synthetic vaccines for up to 1 month.
However it is labour intensive because egg injections are required to cultivate the vaccine. (I don't know why).

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Physiology & Medicine / How is traditional Chinese Medicine is getting recognition from the WHO?

« on: 04/10/2020 16:12:36 »

2020-09-24 How TCM is helping to fight covid-19
https://www.scmp.com/presented/news/hong-kong/health-environment/topics/worlds-lab/article/3100990/how-traditional

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COVID-19 / Re: Should you cover your face with a scarf if a facemask is unavailable?

« on: 20/09/2020 16:32:22 »

These doctors explain it very well:-  Masks and effect of quantity of inoculum
https://www.facebook.com/ZDoggMD/videos/2627826200866251/

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COVID-19 / Re: Should you cover your face with a scarf if a facemask is unavailable?

« on: 05/09/2020 13:22:16 »

There are 2 big questions that looms.
It was suggested that medics received high viral load  which caused serious infection & death.   

Yes you will hear this, even from self-proclaimed experts. The 'viral load', strictly, refers to the amount of virus a patient has in their body - not the initial dose they receive, which is the innoculum.

In news articles for the public, viral load means quantity of viral innoculum.
It was known very early on, that there are 2 main receptor sites for the virus : the throat and deep inside the lungs.
Viral innoculum of the throat would tend to result in a milder infection, whereas innoculum in the lungs tend to get hidden for a long time and also tend to result in more serious infection.

If the viral load is the quantity of virus in the body, then it is a function of time mainly governed by the rate of reproduction and the effectiveness of defence.

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COVID-19 / Re: Should you cover your face with a scarf if a facemask is unavailable?

« on: 04/09/2020 10:51:12 »

There are 2 big questions that looms.
[1] Viral load - at the beginning of the panademic, a lot of medics treating the patients got ill both in China & Italy for example. Lacking sufficient PPEs & knowledge of how infectious it was.  Many died. It was suggested that medics received high viral load  which caused serious infection & death.   By having better PPEs, the viral load should be greatly reduced, and hence serious infection and death should be reduced;

[2] I keep seeing expert claims that face masks are ineffective. I remember the 1st SARS when the NHS wheeled out a UK expert on BBC to belittle the wearing of masks, and the same again with SARS2. It all seemed to stem from static air laboratory experiments of how far droplets travel in a sneeze and what proportion of droplets a face mask can block. 
I see this as a flaw in thought that ineffective means 100% blocking, hence ignoring the quantity of viral load.

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Cells, Microbes & Viruses / Re: What are the best links for up to date COVID-19 statistics?

« on: 04/09/2020 10:36:34 »

Thanks Evan_Au. Interesting podcasts.
I don't know if the WHO's investigators can settle the political slurrs, as Trump has been slurring China and the WHO right from the beginning, claiming that China has to pay for the pandemic. Clearly, if the WHO's team comes up with nothing to 'convict' China, then Trump's political move would be to keep promoting the global attack on China and the WHO.
We have seen it all before with Bush's invasion of Iraq.

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Cells, Microbes & Viruses / Re: What are the best links for up to date COVID-19 statistics?

« on: 28/08/2020 19:28:31 »

I too thought that the reason they did not develop a vaccine was the mutation, by the time you have manufacture it its useless, this is why we continue to be reinfected with colds. A problem in the corona vaccine.

I thought that the risks & discomfort associated with a cold vaccine would exceed the consequences of having a cold.
This is sufficient to make a cold vaccine unjustifiable.

19

COVID-19 / Re: What are the latest Covid-19 medicines and vaccine news stories?

« on: 27/08/2020 06:25:55 »

2020-07-20 Interferon B protein nasal spray reduces odds of hospitalised Covid-19 patient becoming severe by 79%.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53467022

Interestingly, Interferon 2B was recommended by China quite early on in the pandemic - 2020-03-31
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-03-31/Cuba-s-Interferon-alfa-2b-works-in-treating-COVID-19-in-China-PjAQ7w7I9W/index.html

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COVID-19 / Re: Are there trial vaccines targeting anything other than the spike protein

« on: 26/08/2020 19:26:09 »

China's Sinovac vaccine uses a brute force approach instead of targetting the spikes.
According to an interview I saw, the advantage is that live vaccines work better than those designer ones based on assessing its previous vaccines against SARS. Also, it can be stored for 3 years. Whereas the designer vaccines need refrigerated storage and lasted 1 -3 months.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-24/coronavirus-vaccine-china-s-covid-front-runner-uses-brute-force-approach