Tracking the next pandemic: Avian Flu Talk |
correlation discovered from corona virus updates |
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grav
Valued Member Joined: March 29 2020 Status: Offline Points: 80 |
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Posted: March 29 2020 at 6:30pm |
We know that warmer climates do not help much with the spread of the corona virus, but might it help with recovery of people that have already become sick? Upon looking through the corona virus update numbers for the deaths and recoveries of each of the countries a couple of weeks back, I noticed that many of the warmer climate countries seemed to be doing much better than many of the countries with colder climates. So I started looking up the average temperatures for march of each of the countries by typing "march weather *country*" into bing search engine which quickly gives the average march temperatures for the capital city of that country at the top of the list of results. I then grouped the countries together that lie within the same temperature range and added the total number of deaths together for each range and the total number of recoveries together for each range. |
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Sheep Lady
V.I.P. Member Joined: February 06 2020 Status: Offline Points: 3215 |
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Thank you for all your hard work and data sharing. We will certainly be watching to see if this holds true. A very interesting postulation. There is hope here. |
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Sheep Lady
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CRS, DrPH
Expert Level Adviser Joined: January 20 2014 Location: Arizona Status: Offline Points: 26660 |
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Interesting analysis, thank you! Warmer countries (ex. tropics) tend to have younger populations than cooler mid-latitude countries, and age is a very strong predictor for mortality with SARS-CoV2. We are still trying to figure that out, it may have to do with damage to the lung tissue from years of smoking/pollution etc. I really don't expect temperature nor climate to impact this bug much. It seemed to spread just fine in Singapore, which is close to the equator, and Latin America is now starting to wind up with infections.
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CRS, DrPH
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JoeColo
Experienced Member Joined: March 30 2020 Location: Colorado Status: Offline Points: 10 |
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I really think fever might be truly helpful for patients with coronavirus, even if it evolved in bats, which spike high fevers when flying, then cool off to ambient temperature when sleeping. The virus might remain dormant or less active, and/or remain in body cells during a bat's fever, coming out or becoming more active when it goes down, and might do the same in humans, so keeping the patient's fever going might keep the viral activity lower. Of particular interest would be whether a decrease in fever is followed by a turn for the worse, whether moderate or rapid. If this even works at all, how high a fever could be sustained for several days, or even two weeks, when weighed against the risk of death from coronavirus? Really pushing the limits to just below serious organ damage, if necessary. Of course, less would be much preferred, if it works well. I've never heard of anyone having a high fever for that length of time. Ventilator air as hot as can be (but not dry) without causing tissue damage might help, which might simulate in the lungs an even higher fever that would otherwise be extremely dangerous or fatal if occurring in the whole body. Maybe even more "out there," might be a "hotsuit" to heat up the torso, and especially the lungs, as much as possible, while simultaneously cooling the head and neck only as much as required to protect the brain, and rinsing with, but not swallowing, cool water. I really don't know how much temperature differential could be achieved this way, because cooler blood returning from the head might cool the torso, defeating the whole purpose. |
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Schrodinger's Cat
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Nanook
V.I.P. Member Joined: April 21 2013 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 165 |
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Warmer countries likely have more sunshine hours thus increasing the populations vitamin D. This in turn, I believe, increases your immune system and likely helps fight this virus thus decreasing mortality. |
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Always be Prepared!
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Technophobe
Assistant Admin Joined: January 16 2014 Location: Scotland Status: Offline Points: 88450 |
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You could be on to something there Nanook. |
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How do you tell if a politician is lying?
His lips or pen are moving. |
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grav
Valued Member Joined: March 29 2020 Status: Offline Points: 80 |
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Here are the newest results taken from the updates on saturday morning 4/4/2020. The numbers are high enough now that I just ran them "as is" this time using the straight-forward equation (deaths) / (deaths + recoveries) for all countries listed that have at least 30 outcomes and did not truncate any countries within the temperature ranges. I did, however, exclude 5 of the larger countries that contain more than a couple of the temperature ranges within their borders during the month of march, which are USA, chile, argentina, brazil, and china. |
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g0ldl10n
Valued Member Joined: March 26 2020 Location: Ohio Status: Offline Points: 60 |
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grav, that is quite interesting, so thank you for taking the time to research this. Now, I am not what you would call an enthusiast when it comes to diseases like many of you are here, I just found this forum due to current situation we're in and thought I'd join, so excuse me if my questions are simple/obvious. Do you have an opinion as to why these numbers show what they show? To me it would seem if one catches a virus whether you're in a cold or warm climate it shouldn't have really any impact on the severity of the infection, but your numbers (at least at this time) seem to indicate the contrary. Do you know (or anyone reading this) of any other virus that has been confirmed to be less lethal during the infection due to temperature? And if so, are there theories as to why? |
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Taxman100
V.I.P. Member Joined: May 27 2013 Location: Richland Wa Status: Offline Points: 295 |
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From what i have heard it has to do with the air and how moist the upper respiratory tract is. With warmer drier air the virus is less likely to adhere to the cells in the nose and throat. This is postulated why flu illness spreads less in the warmer months. But with everyone susceptible to this virus the R value would still be above 1 so eventually people would be infected it will just take longer to get the exponential growth going. |
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Together we succeed
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grav
Valued Member Joined: March 29 2020 Status: Offline Points: 80 |
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grav
Valued Member Joined: March 29 2020 Status: Offline Points: 80 |
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Here is something interesting. I ran the numbers for the countries with at least 50 outcomes each, excluding the 5 countries I listed before. Of those 69 countries that remained I divided them into 8 temperature ranges with 8 or 9 countries within each one. I then truncated the countries with the top 2 and the bottom 2 ratios within each temperature range and averaged the remaining mid-ratio countries together. The number of countries averaged together within each range is the number of countries shown in the graph minus 4. Here are the results. |
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grav
Valued Member Joined: March 29 2020 Status: Offline Points: 80 |
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Here's what Wiki says about how vitamin D affects the immune system in terms of infectious diseases. "In general, vitamin D functions to activate the innate and dampen the adaptive immune systems. Deficiency has been linked to increased risk or severity of viral infections, including HIV. Low levels of vitamin D appear to be a risk factor for tuberculosis, and historically it was used as a treatment. Supplementation slightly decreases the risk of acute respiratory tract infections and the exacerbation of asthma." |
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Sheep Lady
V.I.P. Member Joined: February 06 2020 Status: Offline Points: 3215 |
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This seems to correlate with what was reported when Wuhan first became an item; that is, it thrives in near the end range of either hot or cold, not so much mid range temps. Thank you for your ongoing stats! |
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Sheep Lady
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grav
Valued Member Joined: March 29 2020 Status: Offline Points: 80 |
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The website 'prevention' says "The risk of developing pneumonia is more than 2.5 times greater in people with the lowest vitamin D levels in their blood, researchers at the University of Eastern Finland found. Previous research suggests that vitamin D deficiency weakens the immune system, which increases your risk of contracting illnesses such as respiratory infections." |
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FluMom
Adviser Group Valued Member Since 2006 Joined: February 03 2020 Location: Colorado Status: Offline Points: 14695 |
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Well I can tell you since I started taking 2,000IU of D I have not gotten sick with colds, flu, sinus infections and I work with little kids, germ pockets!!! I started taking D because my endocrinologist said I was low in D. Before I took D I was sick twice a year with sinus infections and or colds. |
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grav
Valued Member Joined: March 29 2020 Status: Offline Points: 80 |
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Well, I ran the numbers for this weekend and the correlation still remains the same as we have been seeing so far. The correlation really pops out if we truncate a couple of countries in each temperature range that are doing the worst, falling to single digit percentages above about 78 degrees F. I also wanted to see how vitamin D affects these ratios with the next best source to UVB in sunlight being fish, so I found a list of countries which gives the fish consumption per person per year at the Helgi library and ran the numbers for ranges of fish consumption in the same way as with the temperatures before. |
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Technophobe
Assistant Admin Joined: January 16 2014 Location: Scotland Status: Offline Points: 88450 |
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With the exception of one species of salmon (sockeye), fish is not a brilliant source of D. Mushrooms are better, if they have a 'suntan'. Two portions of mushroom (one big one if you are a pig like me) will deliver a week's D requirement. If they are 'white' forget it, they have been grown commercially without UV and are worthless. |
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How do you tell if a politician is lying?
His lips or pen are moving. |
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KiwiMum
Chief Moderator Joined: May 29 2013 Status: Offline Points: 29670 |
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We're eating loads of mushrooms at the moment. It's Autumn and they're popping up all over our cow paddocks. And they're brown, so that's good information you shared. Thanks. |
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Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts.
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