Good news!
2 arthritis drugs have been approved on the UK to treat Covid-19 patients.
"About 36 percent of patients died in the hospital who received standard care, while 28 percent died on tocilizumab and 22 percent died when given sarilumab. Patients treated with the drugs spent about a week less in the ICU, on average." https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/01/08/covid-arthritis-drugs-treatment/
I just saw on CNN that the vaccine appears to protect against the mutated version of CV19. I am in group 1C (over 65) and can’t wait to be able to get it. My daughter is a supervisor in a regional jail here in VA (they had 4 cases in July) and she will be able to get the vaccine by the beginning of February.
So there is now a mutated strain in the UK a different one in S. Africa and one in Japan which appears to have come from travelers from Brazil. The UK one is causing an enormous spike in the UK because it is so transmissible. The S. African and Ja[panese one also appear to have high transmission rate possibilities.
https://www.newsweek.com/new-covid-variant-japan-potential-more-infectious-1560475
Its going to keep mutating to get more transmissible and ultimately less fatal. If you notice the % of cases ending in deaths is going down and has gone down enormously since last March/April. That is some to do with treatment but not much. It is in the viruses evolutionary best interests to become more infectious and keep more of its hosts alive. This happens with almost every virus out there. Also, I'm very confident that the vaccine makers planned for this so they are all using proteins less likely to evolve and will still be fully effective.
We in the general public know about a few mutations but there have been thousands so far, and at least a dozen or two that have stuck since it first started infecting humans. This isn't anything to worry about
I am more concerned that the new strains will cause a dramatic rise of cases because of how contagious they are which will put more stress on hospital systems that are continuing to function in a war zone type way. This is currently happening in the UK. I am glad they don't appear to be more dangerous.
Theyre already here. We don't gene map positive tests near what we should but just look at the spikes we've had. Most, if not all, of the "new found strains" are already in the US. The one I had I know of 5 symptomatic people in the line of contact and all had symptoms within 48 hours of exposure. That is right on par with what the Australian strain has been doing, but supposedly that one isn't here.
The US has reached the heartbreaking number of 407,202 deaths from Covid-19 today. It is indeed going to be a very dark next few months as Dr.Fauci predicted. 173,492 new cases today. My state of Georgia is ranked 7th highest in infections and deaths. I can only imagine what all of those thousands of travelers to DC and unmasked rioters at the Capitol did that is super spreading this virus. I do hope that as soon as they are sworn in ~ there will be a mask mandate for those essential workers that must be out, that there is a lockdown and financial support to help us get through this and out the other side..and get the vaccines rolling...before it mutates and is not viable.
The US has reached the heartbreaking number of 407,202 deaths from Covid-19 today. It is indeed going to be a very dark next few months as Dr.Fauci predicted. 173,492 new cases today. My state of Georgia is ranked 7th highest in infections and deaths. I can only imagine what all of those thousands of travelers to DC and unmasked rioters at the Capitol did that is super spreading this virus. I do hope that as soon as they are sworn in ~ there will be a mask mandate for those essential workers that must be out, that there is a lockdown and financial support to help us get through this and out the other side..and get the vaccines rolling...before it mutates and is not viable.
Agreed.
There is a glimmer of good news, however. The number of daily new cases in the US has been declining recently-- hopefully this is the beginning of a long-term trend. Maybe the thing is starting to burn itself out with a bit of "herd immunity".
Every day I look at this website https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us to track the progress in the world, the US and my state. I use the 7-day smoothing option on the bar graphs to get a better idea of the trends. The site also has a link ("Projections") to another site which attempts to predict progress of the pandemic-- and according to that site we have just gotten over the peak. With the vaccine and better behavior the pandemic is predicted to tail off rather quickly. (Unfortunately, with new mutant strains of the virus coming out which are more infections the data model may have to be changed-- with the result being a less optimistic prediction.)