Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Two urgent care doctors in Bakersfield, California discussed their own data and questioned the wisdom of social distancing and shutdowns in their area in an interview with a local news station. Californians are under strict stay-at-home orders. Some residents have gotten tickets for watching the sunset at the beach  and one man was arrested for paddle boarding alone on the ocean , while their governor Gavin Newsom commuted 21 prison sentences and pardoned five people, some of whom killed children, citing coronavirus concerns. YouTube removed the video, citing "content that explicitly disputes the efficacy of local health authority recommended guidance on social distancing that may lead others to act against that guidance." Note that their beef wasn't that the information was false or that the doctors recommending violating the law, but that they were disputing the authorities' guidance. But as YouTuber Matt Christiansen observes , the WHO has changed its own guide...

Due to COVID outbreaks at meat processing plants, the supply of pork is down 25% and the meat supply is down overall according to an Associated Press article . I haven't been to the store in weeks, but my last shopper didn't offer any substitutions on the hamburger I ordered. Maybe it was all gone. However, I was able to buy hamburger, bacon, sausage and lard this morning through a family farm in my state. If I'm not well by the pick-up date, I'll have someone else get it for me. I've ordered from this farm many times. Even a big order fits in the freezer section of my normal-sized refrigerator. You can search for farmers selling directly to the public through eatwild.com . The site lists farms in the US, Canada and a few international locations. Note that there may be a minimum order and you'll probably have to go somewhere to pick it up.

Leading COVID expert Professor Woo-Joo Kim of Korea University Guro Hospital discusses relapse vs. reinfection, false negative tests, cytokine storms, severity vs. contagiousness, treatments, fake news, spread to your pets, and lots of other interesting facts in this interview with Youtube channel Asian Boss. Youtube channel Asian Boss also interviews Dr. Jerome Kim, a leading vaccine expert with the International Vaccine Institution. One piece of good news: the virus isn't changing much, unlike the flu. "We hope that the immune response that defeats Strain A will defeat Strain B." Dr. Kim discusses the process and timeline to create a vaccine and who will get it first. Dr. Kim mentions a 2% mortality rate and 10% to 20% of people needing to be hospitalized. Probably, the video was recorded before antibody studies came out showing more widespread infection and therefore a lower death rate.

Dr. Google once again came to my rescue. The physician's assistant I saw last week asked if I had shortness of breath and I said no--because it wasn't any worse with my cold. And my oxygen was 96, which looks like the low end of normal. But I was short of breath with any exertion. Dr. Google said to take iron if you wanted more oxygen. I doubled up on my iron pills and voila--it's better. This in spite of a normal iron test a few months ago. Between that and the antibiotics, I felt well enough today to make pizza and put up some hangers in the garage. I even thought that I'd pack the pizza to work for lunch, but I'm still coughing a little and have to stay home until I've been symptom free for three days. At least, I think so. That was what a nurse said when I didn't know whether I had COVID. Indiana has had a mixed bag of COVID rates--several counties have not had any deaths; Decatur County (where I had my test) has one of the highest death rates in th...

I wish I were one of those low carb/paleo people who never get colds, never get sunburns, never have a complaint. I've had a cold for two and a half weeks, sat in the sun yesterday, and got a sunburn. Monday I read the news that Indiana was offering COVID testing in Greensburg , an hour from home. I drove down there, answered some questions from National Guard members, and got ready to have my finger pricked. In reality, that's the antibody test. This was the test where someone pushes a swab into your nose halfway to the back of your head. It's the closest I've ever come to a violation of the Geneva Convention. I could still feel it an hour later when I was home. Two days later, I was going downhill. I emailed some coworkers that if I stopped answering emails and my phone to please call an ambulance. They asked if I'd like one of them to call me every hour to make sure I was OK, but about that time I got my test results back: negative for COVID. I went to urg...

There's been a lot of talk about following the science in forming policies on COVID-19. The scientific method is to make an observation, ask a question, form a hypothesis, test your hypothesis, then either accept your theory or form a new hypothesis. In January, the World Health Organization reported  there's no clear evidence of human to human transmission of COVID19 and that they were "reassured of the quality of the ongoing investigations and response measures implemented in Wuhan, and the commitment to share information regularly." Oops. They didn't test their hypothesis. The World Health Organization didn't recommend healthy people wear masks , citing "no evidence," until April. Oops. No test. The World Health Organization advised against travel restrictions to countries experiencing COVID19 outbreaks: In general, evidence shows that restricting the movement of people and goods during public health emergencies is ineffective in most...

Stanford University did a COVID-19 antibody study in Santa Clara County, California April 3-4. From the pre-print write-up: Under the three scenarios for test performance characteristics, the population prevalence of COVID-19 in Santa Clara ranged from 2.49% (95CI 1.80-3.17%) to 4.16% (2.58-5.70%). These prevalence estimates represent a range between 48,000 and 81,000 people infected in Santa Clara County by early April, 50-85-fold more than the number of confirmed cases. At this date, there have been 69 deaths from COVID19 in Santa Clara County. That puts the mortality rate at .09% to .14%. Of course, mortality rates may be higher elsewhere. Santa Clara County residents are mostly college educated, high earners, according to the Census . There aren't many black people--a group that's been hit especially hard. And for whatever reason, California has seen few cases compared to most of the US. But the mortality rate seen here is comparable to the regular flu.