ICU nurse here. I don't have an answer and won't try to pretend to know the truth any which way about whether it's flu or not etc, I don't care about any of that.
What most of us in healthcare, have experienced and seen and is why we're concerned, is that patients who are critically ill with this thing are unlike anything we've previously dealt with before and treatments are hit or miss.
Hospital I work at has like 18 different clinical trials happening including ivermectin and it literally seems like it comes down to a coin toss on whether any of them will work.
Even in patients with comorbidities, the traditional flu is a respiratory thing and presents as a respiratory thing. Very, very rarely did we ever have flu patients coming in with the massively vast range of issues that the patients are experiencing with this thing now.
Weird types of heart failure, kidney failure, clotting issues in people who should not have clotting issues as well as clotting even when on hard core anticoagulation, neurologic problems, the list goes on.
Basically my point is, even if this does end up being confirmed as a weird flu strain, it doesn't change the fact that this is still stupid difficult to treat.
Maybe it’s because they all tested positive with a faulty test. And all these things that would typically not be connected, are being assumed connected because the over amplification of a pcr test.
Of course. That still doesn't change the fact that this is still something that is difficult to treat.
I guess what I'm basically trying to get at here is even if tomorrow, every world leader came out and said this is an engineered influenza virus created by China, it doesn't change the fact that even our best treatment options are hit or miss. What difference does it make whether it's labeled an influenza strain, or it's man made, or whatever else. It doesn't change the medical problems that come with this.
Some patients get remdezivir, or ivermectin, or whatever and some steroids and are on their way in 5 days despite having diabetes, heart failure, and are overweight. Others get remdezivir, or ivermectin, or whatever and literally nothing happens and they end up in the ICU for 46 days.
The people who have these stays are the ones having crazy other issues like heart and kidney failure, blood clots, etc. They're generally stable from a respiratory standpoint for weeks before the rest of the problems clear up.
Wow that is a crazy 50/50 shot of recovery. Back to the engineered side of things; do you think it's possible the virus specifically targets some dna markers and that contributes to the seemingly inconsistent treatment?
The virus has nothing to do with DNA. DNA is like your cells brain, it's wrapped up neatly in the middle of the cell and is extremely difficult to get into and change. Typically cancer is the result of DNA changes.
Viruses latch onto certain types of receptors on cell walls which allows them to a variety of things, the biggest being able to enter a cell to turn the protein creating portions of your cells into virus producing factories. This process causes your immune system to react and try to kill those infected cells to prevent the spread, this is what generally causes actual symptoms of being sick like fever, body aches, cough, etc. The body can go into overdrive with this which is called a cytokine storm which is the big issue early on with covid. This reaction causes severe inflammation and a bunch of other issues.
In regards to the cell marker the virus targets, it's different for every virus and they all work in different ways. Covid is thought to like the ACE2 receptor which is found largely in the lungs, heart, blood vessels, kidneys, and the GI system which explains the slew of symptoms.
In terms of treatments, the treatments that have been used all work in very different ways. Ivermectin and HCQ are both anti parasitic drugs with HCQ also being an immunosuppressant. The thought behind these ones helping was that it prevented the body from going into the cytokine storm that is essentially the kickstart for the whole illness cascade. Based on what the docs around here are talking about they basically think these drugs have to essentially be timed perfectly for it to be truly effective. Being a preventative treatment means it isn't guaranteed to prevent illness and people will still get sick regardless.
Take all this with a grain of salt. I obviously don't have all the answers to everything, but this is based on what I have seen personally with covid ICU patients over the past year as well as what the infectious disease and pulmonology docs are using in their treatments.
ICU nurse here. I don't have an answer and won't try to pretend to know the truth any which way about whether it's flu or not etc, I don't care about any of that. What most of us in healthcare, have experienced and seen and is why we're concerned, is that patients who are critically ill with this thing are unlike anything we've previously dealt with before and treatments are hit or miss. Hospital I work at has like 18 different clinical trials happening including ivermectin and it literally seems like it comes down to a coin toss on whether any of them will work. Even in patients with comorbidities, the traditional flu is a respiratory thing and presents as a respiratory thing. Very, very rarely did we ever have flu patients coming in with the massively vast range of issues that the patients are experiencing with this thing now. Weird types of heart failure, kidney failure, clotting issues in people who should not have clotting issues as well as clotting even when on hard core anticoagulation, neurologic problems, the list goes on. Basically my point is, even if this does end up being confirmed as a weird flu strain, it doesn't change the fact that this is still stupid difficult to treat.
Maybe it’s because they all tested positive with a faulty test. And all these things that would typically not be connected, are being assumed connected because the over amplification of a pcr test.
Wouldn't an engineered strain of flu be extremely difficult to treat?
Of course. That still doesn't change the fact that this is still something that is difficult to treat.
I guess what I'm basically trying to get at here is even if tomorrow, every world leader came out and said this is an engineered influenza virus created by China, it doesn't change the fact that even our best treatment options are hit or miss. What difference does it make whether it's labeled an influenza strain, or it's man made, or whatever else. It doesn't change the medical problems that come with this.
Some patients get remdezivir, or ivermectin, or whatever and some steroids and are on their way in 5 days despite having diabetes, heart failure, and are overweight. Others get remdezivir, or ivermectin, or whatever and literally nothing happens and they end up in the ICU for 46 days.
The people who have these stays are the ones having crazy other issues like heart and kidney failure, blood clots, etc. They're generally stable from a respiratory standpoint for weeks before the rest of the problems clear up.
Wow that is a crazy 50/50 shot of recovery. Back to the engineered side of things; do you think it's possible the virus specifically targets some dna markers and that contributes to the seemingly inconsistent treatment?
The virus has nothing to do with DNA. DNA is like your cells brain, it's wrapped up neatly in the middle of the cell and is extremely difficult to get into and change. Typically cancer is the result of DNA changes.
Viruses latch onto certain types of receptors on cell walls which allows them to a variety of things, the biggest being able to enter a cell to turn the protein creating portions of your cells into virus producing factories. This process causes your immune system to react and try to kill those infected cells to prevent the spread, this is what generally causes actual symptoms of being sick like fever, body aches, cough, etc. The body can go into overdrive with this which is called a cytokine storm which is the big issue early on with covid. This reaction causes severe inflammation and a bunch of other issues.
In regards to the cell marker the virus targets, it's different for every virus and they all work in different ways. Covid is thought to like the ACE2 receptor which is found largely in the lungs, heart, blood vessels, kidneys, and the GI system which explains the slew of symptoms.
In terms of treatments, the treatments that have been used all work in very different ways. Ivermectin and HCQ are both anti parasitic drugs with HCQ also being an immunosuppressant. The thought behind these ones helping was that it prevented the body from going into the cytokine storm that is essentially the kickstart for the whole illness cascade. Based on what the docs around here are talking about they basically think these drugs have to essentially be timed perfectly for it to be truly effective. Being a preventative treatment means it isn't guaranteed to prevent illness and people will still get sick regardless.
Take all this with a grain of salt. I obviously don't have all the answers to everything, but this is based on what I have seen personally with covid ICU patients over the past year as well as what the infectious disease and pulmonology docs are using in their treatments.