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 Re: COVID-19, Coronavirus. Its real, stay safe! #4

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xyzcf:
Previous thread:
https://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=11445.0

Recent articles posted by HS members on previous thread:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-3-day-average

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/anthony-faucis-boss-on-why-things-could-be-much-better-soon.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB&fbclid=IwAR3ae0nX0qFVHCG_MttS0cwiAS0lK_cYDEcJHBybdIR_TBCuzmOhB7-zmbs

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/07/09/1004935/these-are-the-factors-that-put-you-at-higher-risk-of-dying-from-covid-19/?utm_source=digg

There are several others and it is great that members are contributing to this body of knowledge from their reading and around the world.

Milly:
Joining the new thread, xy. Thank you.

marvin4242:
More data in an intriguing correlation between TB vaccine and reduction in mortality. I haven’t seen any theories as to why, but it seems data shows a correlation on countries that have a consistent TB vaccination policy and reduction in deaths when all other factors are accounted for. It doesn’t appear enough to recommend vaccinations, at least not right now. But it may an interesting path to follow about why and how it could be used.

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/07/07/2008410117

xyzcf:
So much research being done worldwide.

Everyday, new information is added to the body of knowledge.

I was very interested in the article marvin posted concerning BCG vaccination both because I was given BCG as a child in Quebec and I once was head of a tuberculosis program in the public health dept that I worked in.

Here is the issue though, information like this comes out and well meaning people think, ok, let's start giving people BCG. However, the vaccine itself has several risks and the following is a concern when it comes to identifying actual cases of tuberculosis.

"Another concern with the administration of BCG is its effect on the tuberculin skin test. Because administration of BCG induces a positive skin test of variable size in a large proportion of vaccinated individuals, this reaction will make the interpretation of skin test results in contact tracing more difficult and, thus, damage a valuable tool in the control of TB transmission in the community."

As an aside, if you have ever had a positive skin test (and the measurement that indicates it to be positive depends on several facts so best to consult and expert on this) you should not have another skin test done as it can get progressively larger each time you are given it.

Many of you may have received a Mantoux test to rule out that you have been exposed to TB or have active disease. I have a very severe reaction to this test most probably because I received BCG as a child. Vaccines do not give us complete immunity to a disease so I could still get TB...only a skin test, which is one of the main tools used to determine if I have been exposed is useless in my case.

The problem with all the misinformation floating about is that immunology is very complicated and the ordinary person is not really going to be able to understand some or most of it.

The CDC does an amazing job of simplifying information so that the general public can understand infectious diseases better.

I am terribly disturbed that the US is going to withdraw from the WHO because it is the WHO that coordinates the many health issues world wide. We are a global family and what happens in other countries can and will impact the health of this nation..whether you agree or not that we should discuss issues on HS from a political standpoint, the reality is that withdrawl from the WHO will be bad for the US and ultimately the world.

Treasur:
I know that some of our US folks here might feel that the US is getting a lot of attention (and judgment) about its response to the coronavirus. It seems to me though that they are far from alone in finding that their politicians and political system has not worked as well as we might all have wished. I guess this kind of crisis highlights the inherent character of those in power and the weaknesses of our existing systems.

Here in the UK, the NHS has many things about it for which we feel grateful. But we have not been particularly competent in dealing with the practicalities of the crisis and people have lost confidence in a government system that communicates poorly and seems to be looking for political scapegoats. And some priorities that seem odd and last minute announcements that seem not to be well thought through before announcement. With a compassionate eye, one can accept that all of us - including politicians - are dealing with a set of complex and novel challenges and that there are many areas of uncertainty. But sometimes one just has that feeling that the world looks a bit different if you are sitting inside a political bunker than it does outside in the real world. As an example.....the NHS went through two significant bouts of large scale organisational restructuring in 2002 and 2012. Both were expensive, long drawn out and created long periods of confusion about control and accountability. Both had large elements of cutting large bits into smaller bodies and creating various versions of an internal 'market' and the use of 3rd party providers outside the NHS. It is not a primary sector of expertise for me when I was a consultant working with leadership teams, but on the few occasions I did I saw a system that, despite the best efforts of many good people, had been thrown into a world with very unclear boundaries and relationships between disparate parts. A process of being 'given' a structure that took a few years for humans to work out how to make it work that brought a tremendous amount of stress to those working in it.....

And now apparently Mr Johnson has decided according to the latest news that NOW is a good time to reorganise the NHS again......https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/10/what-might-boris-johnson-restructing-plan-mean-for-the-nhs

All I could do was shake my head in disbelief.....
Do I think that this crisis is also a way to reimagine how bits of our societies and systems might work differently? Yes. Do I think that this crisis may have shown us weaknesses or highlighted new priorities? Yes
Do I think that - when we are still navigating a crisis with a barely functioning economy and exhausted NHS staff who have pulled miracle rabbits out of hats for the last few months and without an efficient test/trace system or time to have set up a 'new normal' way of wider health and social care operating in the absence of a vaccine - NOW is the time to unleash a huge restructuring process run by a government that has not yet shown that it is operationally and logistically very competent? Oh my goodness, no. Even if the goals of it were clear and worthwhile, this kind of restructuring is messy, complicated and takes a lot of organisational energy.  It is depressing to even think what a hash could be created or how much it might distract energy from the realities that need to be dealt with yet. And we have not withdrawn from WHO, true enough, but we have withdrawn from EU bodies linked to vaccination issues bc of a still pretty unclear Brexit departure at the end of the year....a tow-headed politician who withers on about going to the pub or blames care homes or spends millions on tracing apps that everyone knows don't work starts to look rather out of touch with the reality of life for his voters

Looking from the outside, it seems to me that we are all judging our politicians and systems of collective governance with a different eye than we did before this crisis. I have no idea at all where that will take us in any of our countries.....but I'm pretty clear that no one country takes the single prize for incompetence. Mr Trump is noisy and the US is a significant global player historically, that's true, but all of us are likely to be dealing with changes in how we see ourselves as countries, societies and communities....and the extent to which our political systems seem fit for new purpose or not.

Trust seems to me to be a newly important thing.
The absence of trust in our collective bodies....government, healthcare, corporate entities...makes it more difficult to operate collectively doesn't it? And every time we feel gaslit by what they say or do, a little bit more of that trust is chipped away.

And, even if we had the perfect vaccine, any programme of vaccination would have to do much better than the average current percentage take up of say annual flu vaccines in order to achieve its minimum collective immunity goal. Will people trust either the politicians or experts sufficiently to be vaccinated if that becomes a possibility? Idk. Finding sources of information that each of us feels we can trust is an important bit of the process for all of us isn't it? And some of the behaviour we see in our fellow citizens seems to me to be part of that unfolding process of how we all choose to respond when things are not so clear or when we don't have the kind of feeling of control or certainty that as humans we crave. Jmo.

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