Hillary 2020 posted:

Also all the hosed up stuff is the fault of the China-controlled WHO because they didn't declare Covid-19 to be a pandemic fast enough.

Inceltown posted:

Pretty solid 7 moving towards 8

twoday posted:

Can anyone read behind this paywall?

quote:

Have I found the missing ingredient in a coronavirus vaccine?

Angus Dalgleish

30 March 2020 • 10:00pm

This new development could also explain Italy's high death rate

With the death toll rising and no end in sight to coronavirus lockdown, it might seem that several dark weeks lie ahead. As well as claiming over 1,000 lives here, the Covid-19 crisis has shown how vulnerable my frontline colleagues in the NHS are. But a possible development may offer a chink of light.

As a cancer immunologist, I have been involved with a number of clinical trials involving vaccines and other immune therapies. One of these is a mycobacterial product known as IMM-101, which has proved an effective treatment in both melanoma and pancreatic cancer studies. Intriguingly, a number of participants in trials I have worked on have remarked that, since taking this “vaccine”, they have not suffered any flu or cold symptoms, often having succumbed every winter previously. Many were elderly, with more than one serious illness.

More recently, I was asked by colleagues in Norway, with whom I have collaborated on a therapeutic HIV vaccine programme, to help with a Covid-19 inoculation they have manufactured, and which is being produced for trials. I suggested swapping the vaccine’s current adjuvant (an ingredient added to boost the immune response) with IMM-101. The result has now been supplied for pre-clinical studies.

It is encouraging that our candidate vaccine – along with several others around the world – is being made and tested, but, soberingly, it will not be available for some months. That’s why I would like to propose that, as a short-term immunity boost, NHS workers should be provided with IMM-101 shots.

IMM-101 is available immediately, and is safe, having been approved for cancer trials. It could quickly be used on frontline staff and I have asked colleagues to help design and agree on the best form a trial could take.

There will be obstacles to progress. There is no proof that this will work on Covid-19, I am told repeatedly when I have proposed this. Statisticians tell me that anecdotes are meaningless. But IMM-101 shares properties with the BCG vaccine, which protects against tuberculosis, and may help us fill in the gaps.

My colleagues and I have dissected the mechanism of action of IMM-101 and have shown that it stimulates the innate immune system that protects us from attack by viruses. The cells stimulated by IMM-101 include natural killers (NKs) and secrete cytokines which are known to kill viruses.

Many of these properties are shared with the BCG vaccine. BCG is not as effective, nor as safe, as IMM-101 in the context of immune-boosting clinical trials (unlike the BCG, an IMM-101 shot can be given again if the reaction fades; the BCG can also cause ulcers and infections at the injection site). Nonetheless, given its common basic properties with IMM-101, BCG does provide some fantastic statistical support for our proposal.

In particular, colleagues from America have published a paper in which they have tried to address a question that has been puzzling us all. Why are the mortality rates so different from country to country? For Covid-19, it appears that there may be a relatively simple answer. In the US, Italy and Spain, there have never been comprehensive BCG vaccine programmes, whereas countries like Japan, with a strong programme, have a low mortality rate. The UK used to have a programme when I was young but stopped it. We may therefore have a very mixed mortality rate depending on BCG exposure.

Support for this hypothesis comes from another source. A recent study showing that prior BCG exposure boosted the response to flu vaccination has led to colleagues proposing to inoculate frontline workers in the Netherlands. This has already been approved by their government. We have an even better product in IMM-101; it boosts the antiviral defences more effectively than BCG without the latter’s negative effects.

Here is an opportunity for Britain to make a significant contribution to the scientific battle against Covid-19 – and protect thousands of the country’s health workers at the same time. We can’t let it pass us by.

Angus Dalgleish is professor of oncology at St George’s University of London, and the principal of the Institute for Cancer Vaccines and Immunotherapy

Rah! posted:

slutsk!

gradenko_2000 posted:

Busy Bee posted:

BCG is prevalent in Japan as well. I also think it was in Germany but they stopped in in the 90's?

Algid posted:

BCG is the one that leaves a little divot on your arm after scarring right?

Xaris posted:

Were they a tested-positive case? How are you sure they had it? What did symptoms did they have?

Bruteman posted:

Yes, they were a tested positive case.

I am sure they had it because they made the local news when they got sick; they were the head of a local organization that had to shut down and were one of the first positive cases in the community reported by the local health department.

They had fever, cough, chills, fatigue and shortness of breath. They're three weeks out from the initial positive test and over the worst of the sickness, doing better but apparently still feeling fatigued. They are 60 years old, diabetic, had two heart attacks in the last five years and had heart surgery last year. I was truly amazed because I was certain they'd end up in the hospital but it never got bad enough for them to go.

This is why I wonder if it's just truly random or some genetics lottery thing because I know I've seen news reports of people much younger and in better shape without the usual issues (lung/cardiovascular/weight etc) being utterly hosed.

Man Musk posted:

Nah Cuomo is just governor of the largest media market in America and covering him saves everybody (in the media) the trouble of meeting a new governor. Reality is boring and doesn’t make sense because it doesn’t need to.

It is remarkable that in the middle of a global pandemic, cspam is the only place on the internet that is still talking about Joe Biden. 🤦‍♀️

Bearjew posted:

$1200 checks lmao

quote:

Amazon has fired a Staten Island warehouse worker who organized a strike to demand greater protections for employees amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Chris Smalls, a management assistant at the facility, known as JFK8, said he was fired Monday afternoon following the strike. Smalls and other employees walked out to call attention to the lack of protections for warehouse workers. The workers are also urging Amazon to close the facility after a worker tested positive for the coronavirus last week. The organizers said that at least 50 people joined the walkout.

“Amazon would rather fire workers than face up to its total failure to do what it should to keep us, our families, and our communities safe,” Smalls said in a statement. “I am outraged and disappointed, but I’m not shocked. As usual, Amazon would rather sweep a problem under the rug than act to keep workers and working communities safe.”

An Amazon spokesperson confirmed to CNBC that Smalls was fired, saying he received “multiple warnings” for violating social distancing guidelines and refusing to remain quarantined after coming into close contact with an associate who tested positive for the virus.

Epic High Five posted:

A lot of preppers are super sad that what they were preparing for is basically a slow burn over months of isolation, and not the ruskies detonating an EMP and invading from the north with the assistance of the deep state or whatever lmao

FAUXTON posted:

https://twitter.com/RitaJKing/status/1244782872076128256

Solarin posted:

feels like it's gonna be very regional how hosed it gets and on what schedule. Gonna own when state 1 being devastated by the virus is laughed at by state 2 who then gets their own peak and blames it on state 1

dex_sda posted:

genetics lottery is also random

dex_sda posted:

also the unlucky young who eat poo poo make the news because - get this - it's loving uncommon

Man Musk posted:

It is remarkable that in the middle of a global pandemic, cspam is the only place on the internet that is still talking about Joe Biden. 🤦‍♀️

Solarin posted:

I mean just imagine what somebody running against trump for president would have to say about his monstrous handling of the situation

FAUXTON posted:

https://twitter.com/RitaJKing/status/1244782872076128256

Tei posted:

Joe Biden is some hollywood lobbyist, and for that, my enemy. Biden patrons would want to extend copyright laws even further, increase the penalties for copyright infringement, raise the cost of creating content, increase internet vigilance / lower privacy on the internet. Also he is another very old dude that did not played videogames has kid and think videogames are worse than rock and roll and king size beds. He also probably think all videogames are for kids. Biden patrons probably want to attack videogames, since if you are playing a videogame you are not watching a hollywood movie, so they would concentrate a lot of efforts to hurt videogames.

Joe Biden is my enemy. But given the choice between him and Trump, I would choose survival, Biden. I hope every Democrat rot in hell. Please vote for Biden in this false democracy that is the United States.

Bloody Hedgehog posted:

Hillary 2020 posted:

Prepping for the Red Dawn / Dawn of the Dead / Tremors scenario where society instantly crumbles rather than the Fall of the Roman Empire where everything slides downhill for a couple of centuries before we finally get overrun by Germans.

Hillary 2020 posted:

Prepping for the Red Dawn / Dawn of the Dead / Tremors scenario where society instantly crumbles rather than the Fall of the Roman Empire where everything slides downhill for a couple of centuries before we finally get overrun by Germans.

Solarin posted:

I mean just imagine what somebody running against trump for president would have to say about his monstrous handling of the situation