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How does the coronavirus kill?

sciencemag.org

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Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#51

Post by dominotw »

e40 wrote: post #21
m0xte wrote: post #10

Interesting read. My father-in-law died of Covid-19 last week. The thing that got him in the end after a 9 day battle was kidney failure. He had heart problems and diabetes already as underlying conditions. There’s one thing I take away from all of this and that is to eat and live healthy to reduce the things working against you as you get older. Age is bad enough on its own.

NYT just has an article about kidney failure being a cause of death for COVID patients: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/health/kidney-dialysis-co...

wow. How are we supposed to plan for future calamities like this we cannot predict what we are going to need for the next pandemic. Looks like we should overstock everything we could possibly ever need.

Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#52

Post by wallflower »

wenc wrote: post #26
ajross wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not inside a body, no. These aren't the most accurate tests (the big failure mode has nothing to do with the science, it's that the little clamp falls off the finger), but they are very mature technology with well characterized behavior. Basically everyone who's been under anaesthesia of any kind (even stuff like wisdom teeth removal) for the past 3-4 decades has had one of these on them. We know how they work.

I read that despite the simple measurement mechanism ("shine a light through a finger"), the accuracy is generally pretty high (+/- 2%). This document from the American Thoracic Society does state some corner cases though [1]. Quote: "How accurate is the pulse oximeter? The oxygen level from a pulse oximeter is reasonably accurate. Most oximeters give a reading 2% over or 2% under what your saturation would be if obt…

One very important thing to note is that the Oxygen - Hemoglobin dissociation curve has a sigmoidal shape. It is not linear. After a certain point, around 90 %, there is a very sharp drop-off.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen–hemoglobin_dissociati...

Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#53

Post by ajnin »

coldcode wrote: post #22

I wonder if there is something in your immune system, maybe genetic or your viral experience, that determines how well your body will cope with this new virus. There are reports of really old people (I read a 103 and 99 year old's stories) who recovered from a bout, yet my niece lost a 30 year old friend. I guess its like debugging an app you have never seen and the source code is in a language you barely know; every…

From my layman understanding the initial viral load is a strong factor in how well you can respond to the infection. Immune response more or less happens in a constant time, while the unchecked virus spreads roughly exponentially. If your initial load was low, then by the time your immune system responds, the infection will be relatively little spread, but if your initial load was high, the virus will have spread much more, which can be challenging for the immune system to handle, event for healthier people.

Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#54

Post by joezydeco »

danenania wrote: post #41
jajag wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracorporeal_membrane_oxygen...

Interesting, thanks. Apparently it's already being used to treat covid-19. But the potential side effects seem to be nasty and the survival rate not great, so I guess it's only really a last resort treatment. Human bodies are just too damn complex. Even when the problem is clearly identified--a lack of oxygen in the blood--there's no way to just insert more that doesn't cause a hundred new problems :-/ Natural select…

There's also a concern that the filters in an ECMO machine damage or eliminate the antibodies that are trying to fight the virus.

So putting someone on an oxygenator might condemn the patient to stay on one until the virus kills them.

Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#55

Post by pleasereadthis »

please read this report by dr sherif sultan based on consultations with frontline doctors and postmortem examinations. it forms a coherent picture of symptoms and medication trials that we keep hearing about.

https://www.facebook.com/ProfSherifSultan/posts/319343963736...

Here is a treatment protocol that is being regularly kept up to date with latest information

https://www.evms.edu/covid-19/medical_information_resources/

i fear that well meaning doctors are killing their patients because they don't have updated treatment protocols: even though so much of this information has been released in chinese treatment protocols many weeks ago, i still keep seeing "news" articles with these "new discoveries".

i fear a tragedy of the commons situation where everybody assumes the next guy already knows. who is responsible for keeping treatment protocols updated and propogating this information to doctors? much of this information is readily testable, why are we not hearing either positive or negative feedback to this data?

please help me get this information out to doctors. even if it is not all accurate, they can make a better informed judgement. please help me understand if my understanding of this reality is correct, or how to get more information about this. thank you for your attention.

Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#56

Post by pacala »

danenania wrote: post #47
ycombobreaker wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Natural selection seems to be really bad at modular design. Or the other way around, modular design does not appear to be a requirement for "success.". We like it for the reduction in complexity but that is ultimately a tradeoff.

Well, it’s successful until it’s not. Nature’s primary approach to debugging seems to be: you die. We clearly weren’t intended to open up the hood and fix things.

Biology doesn't care about individuals. It cares about populations. The main mechanism is exponential growth, capable of quickly filling carrying capacity boundaries of arbitrary size. Individual death is a small setback, as another branch of the exponential growth tree takes over shortly.

Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#57

Post by untilted »

dominotw wrote: post #51
e40 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYT just has an article about kidney failure being a cause of death for COVID patients: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/health/kidney-dialysis-co...

wow. How are we supposed to plan for future calamities like this we cannot predict what we are going to need for the next pandemic. Looks like we should overstock everything we could possibly ever need.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease_X

Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#58

Post by bb123 »

bodeadly wrote: post #43
jniedrauer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proposing intermittent fasting as a cure for COVID-19 with no clinical research is dubious. This is the same as any other quack medicine. Ironically carb consumption is important to maintain immune function in very active individuals.

The poster did not claim it was a "cure". The way I read it was that if you're gut biome is dysfunctional because you eat too much, that is a factor in the immune response to SARS-CoV-2. That is actually possible. Resetting your gut biome with a 72 hour fast is known to provide significant health benefits. Clearly the poster is not a medical professional and states that fact. But everything stated is reasonable advic…

That’s an interesting idea. Could you point me at any papers on the subject?

Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#59

Post by darkerside »

nradov wrote: post #50
darkerside wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most recent Samsung Galaxies have one built in. You just need to enable it in the Samsung Health app.

I have a Samsung Galaxy myself but it's less accurate than a real medical device. Readings depend on how you hold your finger against the sensor.

I think you'd only be looking for a significantly low reading anyway. So if you get a low reading try again until it goes up or it's time to go to the hospital.

Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#60

Post by rurban »

Latest theory is high correlation with air pollution. NOx and tiny dust particles. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896972...

This would explain the extraordinary high death rates in Lombardy, Spain, Styria, Wuhan,... compared to other regions with worse ICU situation and more seniors.

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