by THASF
This is the letter that I have been sending to numerous scientists, bureaucrats, and businessmen regarding the threat posed by COVID-19. It contains my own analysis and summary of the various scientific papers in circulation regarding this disease and the severe complications it causes. This may be the closest thing to an actual picture of what SARS-CoV-2 is and what it can do. I have been posting this in as many places as possible to try and raise awareness of the severity of this:
SUMMARY OF SARS-CoV/SARS-CoV-2 AND COVID-19 FINDINGS
The disease has an R0, the reproduction value, of around 6.6, which means 1 person infects that many other people, on average. There are also super-spreader incidents where one person can infect dozens of others. The R0 has been variously calculated as being somewhere between 3 and 7, and one Belgian scientist says between 4.7 to 7:
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.07.20021154v1
The median incubation period is around 5 days, but outliers of 24+ days have been seen:
www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(20)30026-1/fulltext
SARS-CoV-2 is strongly suspected to be airborne:
SARS-CoV is known to have spread by the oral-fecal route and through airborne sewage particulate matter, and SARS-CoV-2 is likely no different in that regard. SARS contaminates sewers and makes them hazardous:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5302810/
SARS-CoV-2 is capable of asymptomatic transmission and it is practically impossible to stop the spread by contact tracing and minor quarantines. There are a multitude of asymptomatic carriers walking around:
www.jwatch.org/na50998/2020/02/24/potential-transmission-sars-cov-2-asymptomatic-carrier
wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/20-0198_article
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2001737
www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30114-6/fulltext
SARS-CoV-2 can enter the eye through the ocular surface. Any protective mask must be full-face. Half-face masks are insufficient:
www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30313-5/fulltext
The virus attacks ACE2 receptors in cells. ACE2 stands for Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2, and it’s part of the angiotensin-renin system that regulates vasoconstriction and vasodilation. This system is essential for your body to maintain the correct blood pressure. ACE2 receptors are found in many vital organs and reproductive tissues in the human body. Lungs, heart, kidneys, brain, and also in the testis in males:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angiotensin-converting_enzyme_2
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renin–angiotensin_system
www.dicardiology.com/article/cardiac-implications-novel-coronavirus
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.12.20022418v1
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2667944/
The primary pathology of note in COVID-19 is bilateral pneumonia with ground-glass lesions visible in CT scans:
www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30086-4/fulltext
SARS-CoV (a relative of SARS-CoV-2) has been shown to cause neural death (surprisingly without encephalitis) in transgenic mouse models:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2493326/
SARS-CoV was also found in the brains of infected patients in previous outbreaks:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2667944/
Recent information seems to suggest that SARS-CoV-2 can cause neurological symptoms and cerebrovascular disease, leading to loss of autonomic functions of the brain and, in the worst case, lingering brain damage:
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.22.20026500v1
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/jmv.25728
SARS-CoV-2 can also possibly cause massive co-infections of prevotella, a normally harmless gut bacteria, potentially even displaying bacteriophage-like synergistic behavior with prevotella. The researchers seemed to have low confidence in this result, but it may be something worth following up on to see if the virus actually is capable of bacteriophage-like behavior in vitro:
The action of SARS-Coronaviruses (which attack ACE2 pathways) can dysregulate the angiotensin system and cause cardiopulmonary damage and inflammation directly through this route:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/59272
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1829448/
www.futuremedicine.com/doi/10.2217/fvl.10.4
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32061198
SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 can both cause cytokine storms, where inflammatory agents released by the body’s own immune system begin to over-accumulate and damage tissues that they were sent to protect:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3294426/
www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30076-X/fulltext
www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736(20)30183-5
SARS-CoV-2 can cause myocarditis leading to myoglobin accumulation in the blood and renal failure. It can also directly attack several vital organs of the body:
www.acc.org/~/media/665AFA1E710B4B3293138D14BE8D1213.pdf
SARS-CoV has been shown to be capable of Dengue-like antibody-dependent enhancement, tricking the immune system into aiding the virus. It is unknown whether or not SARS-CoV-2 can do the same. Also, some of these studies use in vitro models that have not been verified in vivo, and should perhaps be viewed with skepticism:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3019510/
www.msi.umn.edu/~lifang/flpapers/fang_li_mers_ade_jvi_2019.pdf
SARS-CoV has been known to cause vasculitis of the organs by attacking blood vessels directly. It is unknown whether or not this also applies to SARS-CoV-2:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1829448/
SARS-CoV-2 has a furin cleavage site on the spike glycoprotein that may greatly enhance cell-to-cell fusion and infectiousness:
virological.org/t/the-proximal-origin-of-sars-cov-2/398
www.virology.ws/2020/02/13/furin-cleavage-site-in-the-sars-cov-2-coronavirus-glycoprotein/
There is some hope! Various drugs and therapies are being investigated.
Remdesivir and Chloroquine show promise in inhibiting viral replication:
www.gilead.com/purpose/advancing-global-health/covid-19
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32074550
CytoSorb, an extracorporeal filtration therapy, may help with cytokine release syndrome (a.k.a the dreaded cytokine storm):
cytosorbents.com/cytosorb-the-wuhan-coronavirus-and-cytokine-storm/
Angiotensin blockers (ARBs), like Losartan and Telmisartan, can potentially keep SARS-CoV-2 and similar coronaviruses away from ACE2 receptors, but they may have unwanted side effects:
link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11427-015-4814-7.pdf
Novel antiviral proteins like DRACO could be used to stop pandemics in their tracks even without a vaccine available:
journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0022572
www.draper.com/news-releases/draper-nanotechnology-could-fight-influenza-other-viruses
Quick Summary:
Extremely contagious.
Long incubation period with asymptomatic transmission.
Very high likelihood of airborne aerosol transmission as well as oral-fecal transmission.
Causes severe bilateral viral pneumonia with ground-glass opacities in the lungs visible on CT.
Can potentially cause myocarditis and subsequent rhabdomyolysis that shuts down the kidneys due to myoglobin entering the blood from the damaged heart.
Can potentially damage blood vessels with vasculitis especially inside certain vital organs.
Can potentially damage blood vessels and/or neurons in the brain (which may be the cause for the mysterious sudden drop fatalities with people suffering apparent brain death and seizures, as seen in leaked social media footage). Could cause persistent brain damage, brain stem injury, diaphragm paralysis, seizures, and possibly even a persistent vegetative state due to its neuroinvasive potential.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, it could even infect normally harmless gut bacteria and form a symbiotic relationship with it, possibly becoming a persistent environmental contaminant when COVID-19 victims defecate symbiotic colonies of prevotella and SARS-CoV-2 (bacteriophage-like behavior?).
This thing is so much scarier than the flu, it’s unbelievable.
COVID-19 is a deceptive and sinister disease that outwardly presents as severe pneumonia while stealthily causing damage to many of its victims’ vital organs. Then, they defecate, and their sewage contaminates sewers, groundwater, and bodies of water, infecting other people. That does not mean that it is limited to infecting by the oral-fecal route. If one so much as breathes the exhaled air of a COVID-19 victim, they can be sickened by that person’s exhaled aerosols.
There is no natural immunity or herd immunity, and anyone can become sickened. TH2 vaccines for SARS-CoV have failed in animal tests in the past because they caused abnormal cytokine responses and lung lesions (T-helper immunopathology). In 17 years, no one has successfully discovered a safe and viable SARS vaccine.
This virus is a serious threat to the lives of Americans, and a national security threat beyond compare. We are all in grave danger with something like this on the loose. I implore the authorities to coordinate with virologists, epidemiologists, and critical care experts to come up with a plan of action. If this virus explodes in an American city, you could see hundreds of thousands of terribly sick people swarming into hospitals and overflowing their surge capacity. The window of opportunity to prevent possibly millions of excess deaths is rapidly closing.
We should have had negative-pressure tent cities capable of treating tens of thousands of people established and staged outside major metropolitan areas at the beginning of February, in anticipation of pandemic spread. We need more oxygen concentrators and ventilators for the sick.
Please, investigate possible avenues of research and treatments. Dr. Todd Rider’s DRACO antiviral therapy could have saved thousands of lives already if he’d received a grant to continue his research. Remdesivir, Chloroquine, CytoSorb, Losartan, and Telmisartan could help patients right now.
This illness, if left unchecked, could kill hundreds of millions of people globally and severely damage the quality of life of billions more. There is an urgent need for money and resources to combat this disease and to preserve the health and safety of American citizens, as well as anywhere else across the globe that this disease is currently taking lives.
This pandemic is harming our allies and trading partners, and it is harming innocent lives the world over. Any vaccines, therapies, and screening or quarantine measures we develop may save lives if shared globally.
COVID-19 is the disease caused by a SARS-CoV-2 infection. SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 are very genetically-similar viruses, except SARS-CoV-2 has a spike protein that is far more efficient at cell-to-cell fusion, making it extremely infectious.
It can be 1000 times more infectious, but the rate of transmission is not 1000 times greater. More like 5 to 6 times as contagious as the flu. The reason for this, of course, is that the virus has to actually enter the body by some means to try and infect it. Just because it has 1000 times more efficient cell-to-cell fusion, that doesn’t mean it has gained the ability to teleport. You would still have to come in contact with the aerosols or fomites.
I have determined that the only adequate protection to avoid a COVID-19 infection are gloves, overalls, and a full-face respirator of P100 rating at minimum, 40mm NATO CBRN preferable. It is important to continually wash your hands and decontaminate yourself. Half-face masks provide inadequate protection. The virus can enter the eyes and infect you. Goggles that seal tight against the face are necessary.
Disclaimer: This is a guest post and it doesn’t represent the views of IWB.