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Calling Dr. Faux chief. Calling Dr. Faux chief. You're needed in the downplay room, STET.

With a name like ravulizumab, it has to be good.

Good news.

Bring Out Your Dead

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

The false positive rate was 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

Quarantine the sick. Protect the vulnerable. Free everyone else.

I have a suspicion that Vitamin D might be useful to reduce the danger of Covid.

Northern England and people of color in temperate areas have a reduced ability to produce Vitamin D.

The Chinese vaccines look promising:

(Spanish language article)
http://www.radiohc.cu/noticias/salud/237396-no-ha-habido-efectos-adversos-en-vacunas-chinas-contra-la-covid-19

As of last week, there were only 50,000 doses of the medicine Trump got available.

Under the C, five.
Bingo!

Link to the original article cited in this article:

Covid patients at 'death's door' recovering with immune system drugs, scientists say by Sarah Knapton, Science Editor, October 22, 2020, The Telegraph.

This article makes a good point that should be obvious given how co-morbidities negatively affect outcomes of COVID:

Professor Sir Stephen O'Rahilly, the director of the MRC Metabolic Diseases Unit at the University of Cambridge, also said people could help themselves by losing weight.
Sir Stephen, who caught coronavirus in the spring, believes he only survived because he had lost 13 pounds in the preceding months and said: "Even a small amount of weight loss can be beneficial. Walk a mile, lose a pound. Even a modest degree of calorific restriction in a matter of days can start to shift fat in the organs even before body weight reduces.

The Telegraph article further links to this one (getting further afield from Ravulizumab):

Experts reveal how to optimise heat and humidity to reduce Covid transmission inside the home by Sarah Newey, Oct 22, 2020, The Telegraph.

That article cites this preprint: Theffect of temperature and humidity on the stability1of SARS-CoV-2 and other enveloped viruses in bioRxiv, October 16, 2020 which states "As mucus gets drier, it becomes worse at trapping infections in our airways." Relative humidity drops very low in heated buildings in winter.

So, lose weight, take your Vit D, keep your house warm, humidify your house, and keep informed about Ravulizumab. I read recently about beneficial effects nasal irrigation which would support this environmental effects article.

Infectious Disease Ping - covid-19, fighting the cytokine storm with medications

" The immune system is usually seen as our ally in fighting disease, but in the case of coronavirus, it can sometimes turn into our foe.
A phenomenon known as a cytokine storm has been implicated in many fatal cases of Covid-19,
and several drugs are currently being tested to calm this storm and raise patients’ chances of survival."

" These drugs are known as anti-C5 drugs as they prevent a molecule named C5 from triggering the complement system to produce cytokines,
which are known to cause inflammation in the body.
Over-activation of cytokines (also known as a cytokine storm) has also been associated with many other diseases
such as asthma, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and inflammatory bowel disease. "

Just make sure your doctor is a Trump supporter, otherwise you’ll never see these life saving treatments.

From:

Ravulizumab: a novel C5 inhibitor for the treatment of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria

"The results of the 301 and 302 studies suggest that ravulizumab is indeed non-inferior to eculizumab in the short-term treatment of both complement-inhibitor-naïve patients with PNH and those previously treated with eculizumab. The two drugs also appear to have similar safety profiles, with both drugs leading to headache in up to one-third of treated patients and posing a small but clinically significant risk of meningococcal infection. With a dosing frequency of every 8 weeks, ravulizumab is likely to be less burdensome therapy for patients with PNH and may be associated with a decreased rate of breakthrough hemolysis. After being given priority review and orphan drug status by the US FDA, ravulizumab was officially granted approval as the second drug for adult patients with PNH on 21 December 2018.16 While the estimated annual average cost of ravulizumab is still exceedingly high at approximately US$458,000, it is about 10% lower than the annual cost of eculizumab.40"

An even less expensive alternative(that has been shown to be effective against a cytokine storm) is large doses of Vitamin D.

A recent study shows that vitamin D is also curative against the Chinese Virus:

In a new study, 76 patients with Covid-19 were treated: 26 with "standard of care" and 50 with "standard of care" + a high dose Vitamin D analog (calcifediol ).

For the group receiving calcifediol, only 1 (of 50) had to go to the ICU, and none died.
For the group not receiving calcifediol, 13 (of 26) went to the ICU and 2 died.

Note that the "standard of care" for this hospital (in Spain) was HCQ. It is not clear whether HCQ and D were cofactors in producing this result. More studies are needed.

Given the proven effectiveness of Vitamin D against respiratory infections in the past, one physician was appalled that the CDC had not already done a similar study. We can expect the bureaucrats to ignore this study.

The study:

“Effect of calcifediol treatment and best available therapy versus best available therapy on intensive care unit admission and mortality among patients hospitalized for COVID-19: A pilot randomized clinical study”

Here is an analysis of the study:
Vitamin D, First clinical trial

Here is another analysis of the same study:
New Study - Vitamin D High Dose and COVID-19

Calcifediol raises blood levels of Vitamin D quickly. This is because it is the same as what the liver produces from regular vitamin D. Processing by the liver introduces days of delay, which might have been fatal for some of the Chinese Virus patients in this study. It is probably a good idea to get a prescription for Calcifediol and have some handy in case you develop Chinese Virus symptoms.

"Eligible patients were allocated at a 2 calcifediol:1 no calcifediol ratio through electronic randomization on the day of admission to take oral calcifediol (0.532 mg), or not. Patients in the calcifediol treatment group continued with oral calcifediol (0.266 mg) on day 3 and 7, and then weekly until discharge or ICU admission."

So the initial dose was equivalent to about 20,000 IU of Cholecalciferol, followed by 10,000 IU on days 3 and 7 and every week thereafter. Assuming a stay of 14 days, this would mean a total of 532+266*3= 1330 mcg of calcifediol. The cost of calcifediol is about $1,100 for a bottle of 30 30mcg capsules. So a full course of treatment would cost about $1700 at retail prices (or about $17,000 at hospital prices).

A possible alternative is to take 10,000 IU of Cholecalciferol every day for a year (instead of waiting to catch the Chinese Virus). At current prices, that would cost less than $100. If you start now, you might be effectively "immune" by the time you are exposed to a significant viral load.