COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US) (17 Viewers)

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Netflix Pandemic.

Its a series with 4 or 5 different vignettes, but one that caught my interest is about Distributed Bio.
They are pursuing a vaccine for ALL influenza. Basically, they have taken the idea that creating a vaccine taking bits of all historical inluenza up to recent and combining. They are currently in Guatemala doing trials. In the lab, it seems to be effective.

What a novel idea. Instead of focusing on one strain and estimating which strain will be virulent in the coming year, the vaccine would protect one from all influenza.
 
Third case in Japan, but also from Wuhan. Still no second degree infections anywhere in the world - that I know of at least.

 
Most of the base material used to make our medications in the US is manufactured in China. We better load up on steroids, z-pacs, and Albuterol inhalers now. I'm not an expert, but I did take a three day course in EMT training...
 
How about he gives us the total numbers including suspected cases.

 
I missed this yesterday - a case in Vietnam is a family member that had not been in Wuhan (the father had been). This kind of spreading is something to watch closely.

 
Netflix Pandemic.

Its a series with 4 or 5 different vignettes, but one that caught my interest is about Distributed Bio.
They are pursuing a vaccine for ALL influenza. Basically, they have taken the idea that creating a vaccine taking bits of all historical inluenza up to recent and combining. They are currently in Guatemala doing trials. In the lab, it seems to be effective.

What a novel idea. Instead of focusing on one strain and estimating which strain will be virulent in the coming year, the vaccine would protect one from all influenza.
This is interestiing. Thanks for the heads up.I will check it out.

The CDC is working on one as well.


At this time, CDC is participating in a broad inter-agency partnership coordinated by BARDA that supports the advanced development of new and better influenza vaccines. These efforts already have yielded important successes. But part of this effort is the eventual development of a “universal vaccine” that would offer better, broader and longer-lasting protection against seasonal influenza viruses as well as novel influenza viruses. This task poses an enormous scientific and programmatic challenge, but a number of government agencies and private companies already have begun work to advance development of a universal flu vaccine.
 
How would a universal vaccine work against flu viruses that mutate relatively rapidly? Would this be something they'd have to constantly be updating, like virus definitions on a computer?
 
This has the makings of World War Z (the book version, amazing read if anyone has an interest). Man, it will be a time I will be extra happy to live in Louisiana as opposed to NYC or Miami.

That’s what I’ve been trying to say
 
How would a universal vaccine work against flu viruses that mutate relatively rapidly? Would this be something they'd have to constantly be updating, like virus definitions on a computer?
The end goal with the universal flu vaccine is pretty cool. Each flu virus has thousands of different DNA code but every flu virus also has part of the DNA code that is same. It basically uses every flu virus since 1918 in one shot and trains the immune system to recognize the the parts of the code that are the same in the flu so that any mutation it is ignoring everything but the base code that is the same. It's done really well in animal testing. Also of note, Bill Gates foundation has done a whole lot along the way to help make it happen.
 
Who knows? That said the flu strain making it's yearly round in the USA is far more deadly than the wuhan virus.


h1 and h5 varieties are the most deadly. they generally have a generational pandemic associated with them. I think in 2018 there were like 80k deaths from the flu but it still was a super low percentage vs the total number of cases.

Mortality rate is the key. The Spanish Flu killed 2% which was unheard of at the time. Spanish flu also killed the healthy more than the old/young/already sick. I bet that had a lot to do with the medicine at the time but still... if this strain kills between 5-15% then we are talking globally a potential of 780,000,000. In developed, westernized countries say its closer to 5% and in the parts of the world without indoor plumbing its closer to 20% My God....
 
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Third case in Japan, but also from Wuhan. Still no second degree infections anywhere in the world - that I know of at least.


I think it's going to be a while before we see widespread confirmed cases of Wuhan from people that have not been in China because right now, the only people that are being tested are people that hit the very specific criteria of going to Wuhan or being in close contact of someone that has the virus. With the symptoms being so closely related to the Flu you aren't going to be able to confirm Wuhan cases without looking for it.

Yesterday I went full crazy and bought full facial respirators, tyvek suits, gloves, disinfectant sprays, wipes, hand sanitizers, etc. Not because I'm scared of it though, just think it's going to be a big story in the US in the coming weeks and if I want to go cover a high risk area for media then I'll have the option to do it safely.
 
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