Busy is not a fair word to describe the amount of work that must be taking place at Cornerstone Coordinated Health Care in Frackville and Ashland this past week..
The locations in both towns have opened their doors to patients who want antibody tests for Covid-19..
The phones were overrun.. dedicated staff worked nonstop to keep up with the heavy demand..
Apparently more than a few people seem to really ponder if they had this already..
Dr. Greenfield from Cornerstone Coordinated Health Care told Eyewitness News, “It’s going to tell us how many people truly have it. And what our government needs to do, and what the healthcare needs to do to better protect us.”
The test is a quick process. A medical professional will draw about a tube of blood and you’ll get the results in about a day or two.
They’ve started with emergency responders but are also taking appointments for other people interested. Just in the first day, Cornerstone saw over seventy people come for testing.
Dr. Greenfield says “If you have symptoms we might do nasal swab too, but and that depends on each person. But most cases it’s just the blood.”
The results are not only providing a peace of mind to those worried about having the virus. It may also bring us a step closer to reopening the economy.
“We really want to see this economy get going. And we have a community here in Schuylkill County that needs to get back to work. So we are trying to step up and find out who can work and who can’t because they’ve been effected,” says Dr. Greenfield.
There are a number of rumors floating in cyberspace: Did I have the virus!?
Was my December, January.. February cough something stranger than normal?
Was that cold that hung around for weeks possibly the deadly coronavirus.
Many of us will hope we had it for the sheer fact we think our bodies will be uniquely immune to further threats.
But would they be?
THE DOUBTS
Dr. Rachel Levine has repeatedly cautioned on overhyping the potential promise of antibodies.. She points out daily in her briefings from Harrisburg that COVID-19 is novel — we don’t know enough about it yet to know if having antibodies will prevent a patient from getting it again in the near or distant future.. Nonetheless, Pennsylvania is one of the many states that is looking at antibody tests as a part of the pathway out of lockdown.
“Some have been approved by the FDA. Most have not been approved by the FDA,” she said. “We are looking at these tests, and when the time is right we will choose one of the antibody tests.”
Levine said the test will be used as a surveillance tool by state epidemiologists.
“What we don’t know is how effective those antibodies to COVID 19 are,” she said.
She said that with some viruses, once you get the virus you develop antibodies so you do not get it again. It’s not yet known, however, how much protection COVID-19 antibodies provide or how long that immunity might last.
In New York, where Governor Andrew Cuomo mentioned a report that showcased the number of MILLIONS of New Yorkers potentially carrying antibodies–which mean they HAD the virus–to Covid-19, a deputy commissioner at the city Health Department is also warning of caution. Demetre Daskalakis wrote in a letter, “They may produce false negative or false positive results, the consequences of which include providing patients incorrect guidance on preventive interventions like physical distancing or protective equipment.” Daskalakis warned medical providers shouldn’t assume any of the tests now being marketed are “reliable enough for use in routine clinical practice” and that some are falsely claiming they’ve been approved for use by FDA.
THE PROMISES
There is also a chance that having the antibodies will prove the virus can be contained with herd immunity.. While many are banking on a potential vaccine now being rushed through *anyone wonder if too fast?* some think herd immunity can be better achieved by people actually succumbing to the virus and developing the antibodies to beat it.. they could donate plasma for high risk patients to have a better survival rate. We don’t get flu shots 100% to the strain each year, and there is no vaccine for the common cold.. It’s hubris to think that a vaccine will definitely work against COVID-19.
Here are some facts: The proteins don’t exist until at least a few days into an acute infection, and often aren’t detectable until a week or more after symptoms appear, Rangarajan Sampath, the chief scientific officer of the nonprofit Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, says. MORE:
It’s quite likely that someone with SARS-CoV-2 antibodies will have some degree of immunity to the virus because it’s a sign the body has seen and responded to the pathogen before and because it’s typical of most viruses that spark short-term infections.
“Generally we know with infections like this, that at least for a reasonable period of time, you’re going to have antibody levels that will be protective,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in an April 8 interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Scientists nevertheless caution that protection is not a given. UNC’s Gralinski said immunity would be “very likely,” but because the virus is new — and there isn’t direct evidence yet — it can’t be known for certain.
CAN YOU TRUST THE RESULTS?
This seems to be the big question.. Apoorva Mandavilli in the New York TIMES reports this on the number of antibody tests being evaluated and the conclusion that only a few worked:
Dr. Marson is also an investigator in the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, which partly funded the study. The results were published online on Friday; the research has not yet been peer-reviewed and may be revised.
Other scientists were less sanguine than Dr. Marson. Four of the tests produced false-positive rates ranging from 11 percent to 16 percent; many of the rest hovered around 5 percent.
“Those numbers are just unacceptable,” said Scott Hensley, a microbiologist at the University of Pennsylvania. “The tone of the paper is, ‘Look how good the tests are.’ But I look at these data, and I don’t really see that.”
THE TIMELINE
The theory behind the antibody test is somewhat interesting.. you have to suspend everything you know about the official timeline of COVID-19. You know.. that China found out in Mid-December of a strange virus that emerged from a fish market.. told the WHO .. and then WHO warned the world on the final day of 2019..
All the while China was censoring scientists who were talking about it on Wechat, the WHO was stating that China would stop the spread with closing down the fish market, the WHO saying that there was no human to human transmittal, and every government official stating “Don’t wear masks!” for months until official guidance turned into “wear masks in order to shop” … a wild few months for sure..
Just for some giggles, here is the official WHO timeline of the coronavirus:
31 Dec 2019
Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, China, reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei Province. A novel coronavirus was eventually identified.
1 January 2020
WHO had set up the IMST (Incident Management Support Team) across the three levels of the organization: headquarters, regional headquarters and country level, putting the organization on an emergency footing for dealing with the outbreak.
4 January 2020
WHO reported on social media that there was a cluster of pneumonia cases – with no deaths – in Wuhan, Hubei province.
5 January 2020
WHO published our first Disease Outbreak News on the new virus. This is a flagship technical publication to the scientific and public health community as well as global media. It contained a risk assessment and advice, and reported on what China had told the organization about the status of patients and the public health response on the cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan.
10 January 2020
WHO issued a comprehensive package of technical guidance online with advice to all countries on how to detect, test and manage potential cases, based on what was known about the virus at the time. This guidance was shared with WHO’s regional emergency directors to share with WHO representatives in countries.Based on experience with SARS and MERS and known modes of transmission of respiratory viruses, infection and prevention control guidance were published to protect health workers recommending droplet and contact precautions when caring for patients, and airborne precautions for aerosol generating procedures conducted by health workers.
12 January 2020
China publicly shared the genetic sequence of COVID-19.
13 January 2020
Officials confirm a case of COVID-19 in Thailand, the first recorded case outside of China.
14 January 2020
WHO’s technical lead for the response noted in a press briefing there may have been limited human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus (in the 41 confirmed cases), mainly through family members, and that there was a risk of a possible wider outbreak. The lead also said that human-to-human transmission would not be surprising given our experience with SARS, MERS and other respiratory pathogens.
20-21 January 2020
WHO experts from its China and Western Pacific regional offices conducted a brief field visit to Wuhan.
22 January 2020
WHO mission to China issued a statement saying that there was evidence of human-to-human transmission in Wuhan but more investigation was needed to understand the full extent of transmission.
22- 23 January 2020
The WHO Director- General convened an Emergency Committee (EC) under the International Health Regulations (IHR 2005) to assess whether the outbreak constituted a public health emergency of international concern. The independent members from around the world could not reach a consensus based on the evidence available at the time. They asked to be reconvened within 10 days after receiving more information.
28 January 2020
A senior WHO delegation led by the Director-General travelled to Beijing to meet China’s leadership, learn more about China’s response, and to offer any technical assistance.
While in Beijing, Dr. Tedros agreed with Chinese government leaders that an international team of leading scientists would travel to China on a mission to better understand the context, the overall response, and exchange information and experience.
30 January 2020
The WHO Director-General reconvened the Emergency Committee (EC). This was earlier than the 10-day period and only two days after the first reports of limited human-to-human transmission were reported outside China. This time, the EC reached consensus and advised the Director-General that the outbreak constituted a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). The Director-General accepted the recommendation and declared the novel coronavirus outbreak (2019-nCoV) a PHEIC. This is the 6th time WHO has declared a PHEIC since the International Health Regulations (IHR) came into force in 2005.
3 February 2020
WHO releases the international community’s Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan to help protect states with weaker health systems.
11-12 February 2020
WHO convened a Research and Innovation Forum on COVID-19, attended by more than 400 experts and funders from around the world, which included presentations by George Gao, Director General of China CDC, and Zunyou Wu, China CDC’s chief epidemiologist.
16-24 February 2020
The WHO-China Joint mission, which included experts from Canada, Germany, Japan, Nigeria, Republic of Korea, Russia, Singapore and the US (CDC, NIH) spent time in Beijing and also travelled to Wuhan and two other cities. They spoke with health officials, scientists and health workers in health facilities (maintaining physical distancing). The report of the joint mission can be found here: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf
11 March 2020
Deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction, WHO made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic.
13 March 2020
COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund launched to receive donations from private individuals, corporations and institutions.
18 March 2020
WHO and partners launch the Solidarity Trial, an international clinical trial that aims to generate robust data from around the world to find the most effective treatments for COVID-19.
The WHO site does forgets to acknowledge some of the accounts of human to human spread being impossible and China being able to stop the spread to the world.. Before Wuhan was locked down, countless people left the city to travel around the world..
But is this timeline even real?
The COVID-19 whistle blower, Dr Li Wenliang, posted in a WeChat forum in December 30, 2019 that “7 confirmed cases of SARS were reported [to hospital] from Huanan Seafood Market.” The Chinese government censured him for “making false comments on the Internet” but also shuttered the market on January 1. Dr Li Wenliang died of COVID-19 in February and Chinese authorities apologized to his family and dropped their reprimand, six weeks after his death.
But .. It is still unclear whether the wholesale market was the source of the outbreak or a breeding ground for the virus to spread among more people. Some old rumors still persist that a nearby Wuhan lab created the virus.
Consider this:
The 2019 Military World Games, officially known as the 7th CISM Military World Games and commonly known as Wuhan 2019, was held from October 18–27, 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei, China.
The Wall Street Journal reported that on December 10, 2019, the first known case was identified as Wei Guixian, a seafood merchant at Hua’nan market. Forty plus days after the Wuhan Military Games ended.
New information states that Wuhan was seeing earlier transmission of coronavirus that first reported by the “official” WHO timeline.
Researchers with the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control and Prevention looked at patient samples from October 6 until January 21 to search for undetected cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.
They studied 640 throat swabs collected from young and adult patients with influenza-like illnesses – all outpatients with a sudden onset of a fever higher than 38 degrees Celsius and a cough or sore throat.
Nine adult samples tested positive for the Sars-CoV-2, the previously unknown coronavirus. One of 40 samples taken from two Wuhan hospitals on January 4 tested positive. There were three positive swabs among samples taken the next week and five the following week.
“Although the weekly sample size was small, it seems that Covid-19 was gradually expanding among the influenza-like illness cases during January,” the researchers, led by Liu Manqing, wrote in a paper published in Nature Microbiology on Tuesday.
THE HIDDEN EARLY CASES
Not just China..
There are other nations that are re-writing their outbreak timelines..
“To me it looks like we don’t yet have a large fraction of the population exposed,” says Nicholas Christakis, a doctor and social science researcher at Yale University. “They had carnivals and festivals, but only 14% are positive. That means there is a lot more to go even in a hard-hit part of Germany.”
There is also information that earlier viral spread was occurring among people who did not travel around the world..
Community spread.
Unseen carriers of the disease, many of them with mild symptoms or none at all, can still spread the virus. For that reason, by the time leaders in many cities and states took action, it was already too late to slow the initial spread.
A few cities with early outbreaks, notably Seattle, are believed to have avoided enormous growth later by heeding the models available at the time and taking action well ahead of the rest of the country.
“We knew the numbers we saw were just the tip of iceberg, and that there were much greater numbers below the surface,” said Jenny A. Durkan, the mayor of Seattle, in an interview. “We had to act.”
City and state officials in New York acted more slowly, waiting until known cases were at a higher level to shut down schools and issue a stay-at-home order. Mayor Bill de Blasio was reluctant to embrace shutdowns until mid-March, citing the impact they would have on vulnerable New Yorkers.
“Even while we learn new things about this virus almost daily, one thing remains consistent: New Yorkers were put at risk by the federal government’s total failure to provide us with adequate testing capability,” said the mayor’s press secretary, Freddi Goldstein.
In mid-February, a month before New York City schools were closed, New York City and San Francisco already had more than 600 people with unidentified infections, and Seattle, Chicago and Boston already had more than 100 people, the findings estimate. By March 1, as New York confirmed its first case, the numbers there may already have surpassed 10,000.
From these primary travel hubs and a few other cities, the model shows, the disease was then spread to other locations in the United States.
Let’s consider some early mistakes.
New York’s mayor and Governor said to attend the Chinese New Year celebration..
New York City official said to to Broadway shows..
New Orleans still had Mardi Gras….
These deaths now stand as the country’s earliest two attributed to the coronavirus, a development that appears to shift the understanding of how early the virus was spreading in the country, health experts told CNN Wednesday.Northern California’s Santa Clara County announced the autopsy results Tuesday. The two were a 57-year-old woman who died in her home in the county February 6, and a 69-year-old man who died at home in the same county on February 17, officials said.The United States’ previously understood first coronavirus death happened on February 29 in Kirkland, Washington.
WHEN WAS THE FIRST CASE?
That is the magic question..
Was it in December?
November?
October!?
The during military games?
So many questions persist.
And … Dare I say.. even those strange autumn “vaping deaths” sure had lung x-rays looking the same as COVID-19.
A few days ago, I asked this question on my Coal Speaker Facebook page:
So here is a question.. did you or someone you know have a strange long running “flu” or pneumonia any time between November 2019 and March 2020 that didn’t make sense until now? Were there strange deaths attributed to the flu that took your loved ones quickly in these months?
We had some interesting responses..
Like:
Yep. My whole house. Got tested for the flu and nothing. Told by both my doctor and pediatrician just another respiratory virus😷😒 been saying this since February
Mine started December 23rd on my way home from work. By the time I got home, I was losing my voice and I was cold, even with the heat turned up and the heated seat turned on. By Dec 24th, no voice, no taste, no smell, cough, heavy chest. We didn’t celebrate Christmas until after the New Year because still sick. Lots of cough drops, elderberry syrup, guaifenesin, tylenol, hot baths, and still felt like sh*t until around January 13th. Husband was ill as well. He NEVER takes OTC cough medicine, elderberry or cough drops. He did those weeks.
Son was sick on and off for 3 weeks, then got hit with strand B .
I was coughing, tired, fever, chills and upset stomach, part of November until December 20 or so, then seemed to sweat it out
