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But only 20% of Chinese adults have cardiovascular disease, here it's almost half. Will that be reflected in the CFR? That could make it materially higher.

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1). In China men were more likely to be victims than women. Was that for some biological reason? Or cultural reason (say they spent more time in crowds or smoked more or something). Will that result obtain here and in other countries?

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Originally posted by ShiroKuro:
ETA: here are two more questions:

I saw a Japanese news article about a Japanese pharmaceutical that is working on developing a treatment for COVID-19, they are saying they think it will be ready in 9 months. (i.e. not just a medicine to treat symptoms, but something that will aid in healing or cure, in the way that tamiflu does with the flu)

So, isn't the one of the viruses that causes the common cold? Why should we expect a medicine that can treat COVID-19 when we've never been able the common cold?? What am I missing?

The other question is... so, the flu vaccine is said to give partial immunity even when it's not perfectly matched to the particular flu in a given year.... So, if coronavirus is the same as the types of viruses that cause colds, then if someone had already had and gotten over a cold that year (assuming it was a coronavirus and not a rhinovirus), would that give them some partial immunity or resistance to COVID-19? Is this the right way to think about it?

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:
ETA: here are two more questions:

I saw a Japanese news article about a Japanese pharmaceutical that is working on developing a treatment for COVID-19, they are saying they think it will be ready in 9 months. (i.e. not just a medicine to treat symptoms, but something that will aid in healing or cure, in the way that tamiflu does with the flu)

So, isn't the coronavirus one of the viruses that causes the common cold? Why should we expect a medicine that can treat COVID-19 when we've never been able the common cold?? What am I missing?

The other question is... so, the flu vaccine is said to give partial immunity even when it's not perfectly matched to the particular flu in a given year.... So, if coronavirus is the same as the types of viruses that cause colds, then if someone had already had and gotten over a cold that year (assuming it was a coronavirus and not a rhinovirus), would that give them some partial immunity or resistance to COVID-19? Is this the right way to think about it?

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Partial immunity happens when a person's immune response to a pathogen (or vaccine) is enough to prevent severe infection or mortality, but they can still become ill. In the case of partial immunity to influenza, the immunity of the person depends on the antigenic relatedness between two (or more) influenza viruses. There are two types of influenza virus that cause epidemics: A and B. These two types are further broken up into different strains, and they are constantly evolving.

The flu vaccine in any given year is tailored to give immunity to only a few strains or variants of the two types (A and B) of flu. To other strains only partial immunity will be conferred, and little or no immunity to others. The thing is is that the dominant strains vary from year to year and the vaccine has to be prepared many months ahead of the flu season so the vaccine is made using a predicted estimate of what is coming. For example trivalent flu vaccines are formulated to protect against three flu viruses, and quadrivalent flu vaccines protect against four flu viruses. You get full immunity for the "main" strains that year yet only partial for closely related strains.

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Originally posted by wtg:
Emergency med doc in NYC talks about the state of testing.

https://news.google.com/articl...S&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

We really have no clue how many cases are out there.

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They may both be in the same class of viruses, but they are different beasts immunologically speaking

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The epidemiology of coronavirus colds has been little studied. Waves of infection pass through communities during the winter months, and often cause small outbreaks in families, schools, etc. (Fig. 60-2). Immunity does not persist, and subjects may be re-infected, sometimes within a year. The pattern thus differs from that of rhinovirus infections, which peak in the fall and spring and generally elicit long-lasting immunity. About one in five colds is due to coronaviruses.