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Showing posts from March, 2020

What if the coronavirus is already more widespread in the U.S. than we realize?

The  first confirmed case  of the SARS-CoV2 virus (formely known as 2019-nCoV) in the U.S. has been traced back to January 15, 2020 .  That case was directly linked to a visit to Wuhan.  However, is it possible that ‘community spread’ of the virus began around that same time?  There is no way to know without widespread testing using an antibody-based test (one has been  successfully demonstrated in Singapore ). Although this is by no means definitive, I offer below some anecdotal support for the possibility.  It makes sense to me, but judge for yourself. My 17-year-old son became sick around February 8 with an intermittent fever and serious cough that kept him home from school for almost a week, with the cough persisting for another week or so.  I developed similar symptoms around February 12.  After about 10 days of ‘not being myself’ (according to my wife’s observations), I went to see a doctor (at her insistence).  The physician stated that there had been a lot of non-flu res

Could America's college students actually serve as a major part of the 'solution' to the COVID-19 problem?

Two different trains of thought led me to envision American college students as the possible ‘solution’ to the COVID-19 pandemic. First, Steve Hilton (FoxNews) voiced a valid question on  his show (The Next Revolution) on 3/16/20 , asking why we need to close schools and universities (because  children and young people have relatively low risk  of serious complications from SARS-CoV2 (the virus that causes COVID-19), with  epidemiologists estimating the fatality rate of 0-15 year-olds as zero, using data from Wuhan ) instead of focusing our efforts specifically on isolating and protecting the most vulnerable in society (the  elderly and those with certain pre-existing health conditions ). Second, there have been multiple reports about an extremely promising potential treatment for SARS-CoV2, that uses plasma from infection patients who have recovered: Report: Plasma Therapy Showing ‘Excellent’ Results Against Coronavirus How blood plasma from re