I remember early on in the outbreak, asian males were said to have inherited risks, as they had a higher ACE2 receptors in their lung cells, where the virus attaches. Have not heard if that trait is present in Italians. South Korea doesn’t seem to have that problem. Also heard A blood types had higher complications. On a good note, we should be seeing an antibody test coming out in a couple of weeks. UK will get them by the millions next week. It’s an at home, 15 minute test like a pregnancy test. Checks for covid-19 antibodies. Will show if you’ve been exposed, you’re past it and if you have some type of immunity. That should free up people sitting at home that actually had an asymptotic infection, are worrying about contracting virus when actually they’ve had it already. I think they’re going to find there’s a lot more community spread than realized.
Men seem to get corona significantly more than women too. Could be lifestyle, could be underlying conditions, could be too much eating beef jerky for breakfast. We don't know yet. But there are theories being bandied about that there are one- or more- genes on the the X chromosome that are protective and of course women have a double dose of the X chromosome. Or conversely some genes on the Y chromosome that would put men more at risk. Don't know yet.
I took some astronomy in school. One of the 400 level courses was taught by a guy who ran the solar observatory on Mt. Wilson. His rig used a couple of old DEC PDP 11/34 mainframes and I had a lot experience writing command scripts for that OS... RSX11 so I got to know him and occasionally went up the mountain and wrote stuff for him. He discovered the spherical resonance of the sun... it rings like a bell. He once told me that the most complicated object in the known universe is a female human. If you think about it.... he is probably right. Women have a more complicated immune system that can tolerate foreign organisms more than men, probably for childbirth. The Spanish Flu actually took advantage of that tolerance and killed young pregnant women more than others.
Yeh, as with all things biological, it is interesting but complicated. Actually, I believe the overall mortality rate from the spanish flu was higher for men than women- although that does not mean that the mortality rate for the specific cohort of pregnant women was not- as you said- higher than that of men in general. In addition, it is not clear that the higher mortality rate for men was due to the spanish flu, only that the flu did more damage to men because men had a higher rate of TB either active or dormant and the TB got worse as the spanish flu weakened them or that they already had a high load on their immune system when the spanish flu came along. It is still like that for everyone even today. Most people who die of the flu or even many from corona actually die of pneumonia rather than the virus. Everyone has pneumonia bacteria in them but it does not kill you until the virus knocks your immune system down- then it flares up. That is also the reason why this proposed hydroxychlorinol regime also includes an antibiotic with it, even though antibiotics do not work against a virus. But pneumonia is caused by a bacteria and is waiting there to kill you as soon as the virus can weaken you enough. Of interest is the fact that the dna from spanish flu victims and of the virus are still available in the cemeteries in the permafrost of alaska and some researchers have recovered it and are still learning things. It's more than I can get into in a post but if you are interested google with keywords: alaska brevig mission permafrost spanish flu. And some articles will pop up. Speaking of women and complicated bodies, and on a lighter note, I read an article quite a while back that said that a survey showed that 30% of men were not sure whether a prostate gland was something that women had or they had. heh......womp....womp..womp.
Listened to a Medcram video the other day, talking about mortality rate of the Spanish flu, specially the 2nd wave was probably caused by overprescribing in large doses aspirin, a NASID which we are now hearing compounds symptoms of Covid-19
I keep hearing a lot of rumors about the ibuprofen stuff but I don’t see any actual evidence nasids are a viral multiplier. To each his own, though. My thoughts on this is that people with headaches and fever take Advil and the Advil is in their system when they enter the hospital.
Yes the verdict on NASID’s are out, same can be said for Chloroquine but it’s showing sign’s of being a viable treatment. When there’s enough evidence to show concern with doctors actually in the field treating patients, do you continue to use a drug that may be harmful when there’s another that works just as well that’s potentially safer? By all means eat your Advil.
To use ibuprofen, Tylenol, etc... So the follow up to this discussion is that (for covid-19) you shouldn’t treat a fever unless it’s extremely high or the patient is dehydrated as the body uses fever to supercharge the immune system.
The curve will flatten when "official" numbers hit 300,000 infected and 3k-5k dead. Rule of thumb is 100x official number of infected, actually infected. Here's a poll where 2.3% of Americans said they were infected which translates to about 7.3 million people. There were 70k cases when the poll came out so it's about right on track with the 100x number. Since there is only 320m people, we have to flatten at around 300k because there's no more people to infect. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...reuters-poll-might-offer-a-hint-idUSKBN21D2XJ
I watched that. Very interesting. That guy went up there and failed to get his data so failed to get his PhD (he was already an MD). He went back decades later and got the job done with modern DNA technology.