COVID-19, let's put updates here

[boo99]

That's NOT what we were told - at all. The statement was...

World Health Organization:
"There is currently no evidence that wearing a mask (whether medical or other types) by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can prevent them from infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19."

By contrast, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States has recently recommended everyone wear a (cloth) mask. However, this is to prevent infected people passing on the infection, not to prevent the wearer getting infected.

So, you can see why there is confusion over the necessity/advantages of mask use.

Good post

And yes, very confusing for sure


Below is what happened at a gym in NJ and it made my day!!!

[Heisman2]

I'm trying to just stick to things that are game changers or particularly relevant at this point.

Here's one: new prinprint indicating higher androgenic levels will increase receptor expression for SAR-CoV-2 entry into cells, which may help explain why children become less ill, why males may have worse symptoms than females, and in particular for bodybuilding.com may give caution to using Vitamin S at this time. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...ZuanFaZxfiWcQc No firm conclusions can be drawn from this but I want people to be aware of the potential increased risk of increased risk with anabolic compounds in case people want to adjust things personally.

[Strawng]

I'm trying to just stick to things that are game changers or particularly relevant at this point.

Here's one: new prinprint indicating higher androgenic levels will increase receptor expression for SAR-CoV-2 entry into cells, which may help explain why children become less ill, why males may have worse symptoms than females, and in particular for bodybuilding.com may give caution to using Vitamin S at this time. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...ZuanFaZxfiWcQc No firm conclusions can be drawn from this but I want people to be aware of the potential increased risk of increased risk with anabolic compounds in case people want to adjust things personally.

How much weight do you think there is to this? I have very high testosterone/DHT levels & I’m terrified. Is this thing gonna be killing enhanced lifters left and right?

[Heisman2]

How much weight do you think there is to this? I have very high testosterone/DHT levels & I’m terrified. Is this thing gonna be killing enhanced lifters left and right?

Not a huge amount of weight if otherwise healthy. I think there is still likely a large genetic component that is governing outcomes. We have certainly seen many women have terrible outcomes and many men have been asymptomatic, so androgens definitely do not explain the whole story.

[Strawng]

Not a huge amount of weight if otherwise healthy. I think there is still likely a large genetic component that is governing outcomes. We have certainly seen many women have terrible outcomes and many men have been asymptomatic, so androgens definitely do not explain the whole story.

How conclusive is this study? Is this a definitive correlation? If so, should I consider lowering my testosterone or taking prostate cancer drugs if I actually become sick?

[Heisman2]

How conclusive is this study? Is this a definitive correlation? If so, should I consider lowering my testosterone or taking prostate cancer drugs if I actually become sick?

That's the hard part to answer for sure. I'd consider running the study by your own physician and discussing your options. This data is still quite preliminary. There's no clinical intervention study on this yet so I can't really say the evidence suggests you do this vs. that, but several lines of evidence in that paper point to this being at least somewhat relevant. I certainly think it'd be worth considering going lower temporarily while this is still being teased out if one could go lower without suffering a large negative impact on their quality of life.

[Heisman2]

A few more updates:

1. It appears that people who test negative and then positive again due so from lingering viral sample, not new infection, at least per this South Korea data showing these people are not infecting other: https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es...00000&bid=0030

2. I did not read the full study but here is a study on convalescent plasma indicating it is unfortunately not a game changer: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...stract/2766943

3. We've discussed this to a degree previously but this may be a blood vessel disease in its most severe form: https://elemental.medium.com/coronav...g-2c4032481ab2 and https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020...FH8KBPh34oVCHE

4. Reading through this and the articles linked in the comments at the bottom, one of the large studies finding a negative impact of HCQ may have used fabricated data, or at least very questionable data: https://retractionwatch.com/2020/06/...sBFGe2kCvv2xo4 This is rather unfortunate for several reasons, one of which being I think multiple trials on HCQ were stopped when this came out.

5. Regarding the drug that starts with an "R", it seems to likely have a benefit but not a game-changing one from what I've seen. It makes sense to me if it's the immune system overactivation that is killing people as an antiviral drug may not prevent that from happening if it's a cascade process that takes time to ramp up. https://www.gilead.com/news-and-pres...HMUEDND4E6XgCk

[AdamWW]

Article claiming asymptomatic spread is uncommon:

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/06/08/...T9mLt47kmL7dhQ

[Strawng]

Article claiming asymptomatic spread is uncommon:

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/06/08/...T9mLt47kmL7dhQ

I just read this. What in the fuk?! This is a potential game changer if it's true.

[AdamWW]

I just read this. What in the fuk?! This is a potential game changer if it's true.

No kidding!

[Heisman2]

I have no idea where this claim comes from. I am so disappointed with how the WHO and CDC have handled things with this pandemic. To make a claim like that they need to put forth strong evidence. This review just came out 5 days ago saying a substantial amount of spread is from asymptomatic individuals: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-3012

[Strawng]

I have no idea where this claim comes from. I am so disappointed with how the WHO and CDC have handled things with this pandemic. To make a claim like that they need to put forth strong evidence. This review just came out 5 days ago saying a substantial amount of spread is from asymptomatic individuals: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-3012

According to their “tracking”...

[AdamWW]

I have no idea where this claim comes from. I am so disappointed with how the WHO and CDC have handled things with this pandemic. To make a claim like that they need to put forth strong evidence. This review just came out 5 days ago saying a substantial amount of spread is from asymptomatic individuals: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-3012

One thing I struggle to understand how contact tracing and how they extrapolate the data into any kind of usable transmission rate for asymptomatic people.

[Strawng]

One thing I struggle to understand how contact tracing and how they extrapolate the data into any kind of usable transmission rate for asymptomatic people.

This. Any idea if this might somehow hold weight? I’m extremely skeptical but I wanna be leaf.

[Heisman2]

I have no idea what they used to come up with that statement. Perhaps they really mean that most "asymptomatic" people actually have quite mild symptoms so they aren't actually asymptomatic. I just don't understand how they can state this without providing an evidence-based rationale that somehow refutes all the evidence prior to this that suggests otherwise.

[Heisman2]

Ok, looks like they are walking back on that statement, which I am happy about: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/who-...193933330.html

The ineptness of the WHO and CDC during all of this has been incredibly disappointing to me.

[AdamWW]

Ok, looks like they are walking back on that statement, which I am happy about: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/who-...193933330.html

The ineptness of the WHO and CDC during all of this has been incredibly disappointing to me.

The fact that the WHO is making 'oopsy' statements is troubling...

[Strawng]

Latest on the relationship between Covid & testosterone: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...111/andr.12836. It seems that both low and high testosterone may increase covid risk, with lower being even worse, but I'm not sure how important it is outside of obesity. I'd love to hear your thoughts if you get the chance, Dr. H. Also, I keep reading that "bald men" are genetically more likely to get covid because 80+% of men in the ICU have some male-pattern baldness. I think this could instead have something to do with the fact that the vast majority of men over 65 have some form of male-pattern baldness...

[hardyboysare]

A promising new drug dexamethasone has been highlighted in the UK to reduce COVID-19 deaths by 1/3. Will be interesting to see how this responds to peer review as they have skipped past that step due to the need of a drug.

https://www.recoverytrial.net/files/...20_v2final.pdf

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53061281

[Heisman2]

Latest on the relationship between Covid & testosterone: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...111/andr.12836. It seems that both low and high testosterone may increase covid risk, with lower being even worse, but I'm not sure how important it is outside of obesity. I'd love to hear your thoughts if you get the chance, Dr. H. Also, I keep reading that "bald men" are genetically more likely to get covid because 80+% of men in the ICU have some male-pattern baldness. I think this could instead have something to do with the fact that the vast majority of men over 65 have some form of male-pattern baldness...

Sorry, I am just now seeing this. Moved into a new home 6/13 and I've been busy. I don't really have anything further to add regarding testosterone; I imagine more will be known in the coming weeks. I do agree with you regarding the male pattern baldness aspect being related to age of patients with severe presentations.

A promising new drug dexamethasone has been highlighted in the UK to reduce COVID-19 deaths by 1/3. Will be interesting to see how this responds to peer review as they have skipped past that step due to the need of a drug.

https://www.recoverytrial.net/files/...20_v2final.pdf

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53061281

There are some questionable aspects about that data but it makes a lot of sense for dexamethasone to work (it's antiinflammatory so should help with cytokine storming, steroids help with severe pneumonia and there are similarities with COVID-19). It's not really new though as many physicians have been using steroids for weeks/months at this point. Yes it is new data but certainly not a new drug for this purpose. It is great to have something that can give people hope though, but I expect this will only be helpful at the later stages in really severely hit patients.

[Heisman2]

This paper implies immunity for asymptomatic individuals may only last a few months, while immunity for symptomatic patients may also be short-lived. https://www.nature.com/articles/s415...yCBgM9to0_aYM0

While I don't have reason to think that someone who is asymptomatic will develop a severe infection the second time around, this makes the concept of immunity passports much harder to carry out. I don't know if there would still be some protecting conferred by a first infection to help minimize the impact of a second infection. It's still possible a vaccine could induce longer lasting immunity; we'll see.

[Heisman2]

Not published yet but this group (https://elifesciences.org/articles/5...Is0QOZZypxCq-M) claims to have tested a drug that blocks the b2 receptor from being activated by bradykinin and has had extremely fast recovery for patients who are oxygen dependent. If it sounds too good to be true then perhaps it is but this is hopeful.

[AdamWW]

Info about mutation of virus... looks like it now spreads more easily

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/healt...UABbbDkX8uQwZI

[TheIronAsylum]

been sayin it from the start this lab built disease gon strike again on all these asymptomatic carriers in the fall

this **** is a mutant evolved in a lab

[AdamWW]

lab built disease gon strike again on all these asymptomatic carriers in the fall

this **** is a mutant evolved in a lab

go read a book

[BromanianDL]

Now that the election is over, time to focus on covid again as cases are rising. I saw this article posted and didn't really understand what Human recombinant soluble ACE2 is. Is this something that could be mass produced quickly? The death rate seems to have fallen, but hospitals in my area are completely full again.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-020-00374-6

[Mrpb]

Obviously simple cloth masks are far from perfect, but they do help to reduce the amount of droplets expelled during speech, coughing and sneezing. They will also reduce amount of droplets you get into your mouth from other people somewhat. So they help a bit, assuming you clean, handle and wear them correctly. For the smaller droplets they'll be less effective. Personally I use KN95 masks, which are far more effective.



Low-cost measurement of face mask efficacy for filtering expelled droplets during speech
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/36/eabd3083

[Strawng]

Obviously simple cloth masks are far from perfect, but they do help to reduce the amount of droplets expelled during speech, coughing and sneezing. They will also reduce amount of droplets you get into your mouth from other people somewhat. So they help a bit, assuming you clean, handle and wear them correctly. For the smaller droplets they'll be less effective. Personally I use KN95 masks, which are far more effective.



Low-cost measurement of face mask efficacy for filtering expelled droplets during speech
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/36/eabd3083

Yea, I use a bandana when I'm outside because I tend to avoid people and I don't think it's too likely to be transmitted in open air (here in California it's stupidly mandated to wear a mask at all times...even outside). Even basic masks are helpful because, even if they don't totally protect you from the virus, thy'll likely reduce the amount you're exposed to, and viral load is believed to be highly correlated to severity of symptoms. When I need to be around people indoors, I wear a K95. Some argue they're not quite as effective as regular N-95's, but they're very easy to buy in large numbers online for cheap.

[AdamWW]

Got my first COVID test the other day as a precaution before visiting my mom/dad/sister... negative result.

I'll admit the swab is pretty uncomfortable

[Mrpb]

Yea, I use a bandana when I'm outside because I tend to avoid people and I don't think it's too likely to be transmitted in open air (here in California it's stupidly mandated to wear a mask at all times...even outside). Even basic masks are helpful because, even if they don't totally protect you from the virus, thy'll likely reduce the amount you're exposed to, and viral load is believed to be highly correlated to severity of symptoms.

Yup. So many people seem to not grasp that.