ziyadnazem

[ziyadnazem]

AI and ChatGPT

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) have become essential tools in modern society. ChatGPT, a large language model developed by OpenAI, has made significant strides in various industries, including STEM and business. Its ability to understand and generate human-like text has the potential to revolutionize many industries and replace traditional methods of data analysis and customer service. However, this technology also raises concerns about privacy and potential job loss, leading some countries to consider banning its use.

AI is a branch of computer science that aims to create intelligent machines that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, and decision-making. NLP is a subfield of AI that focuses on the interaction between computers and human language, allowing machines to understand and generate natural language text.

Creative destruction is a process in which new technologies or innovations replace existing ones, often resulting in the destruction of traditional business models and industries. This process can lead to significant benefits in terms of efficiency and productivity, but it can also have negative consequences, such as job losses and social upheaval.

ChatGPT is an excellent example of how AI and NLP can be creative destruction. Its ability to generate human-like text has the potential to revolutionize many industries and replace traditional methods of data analysis and customer service. In STEM, ChatGPT has proven to be an invaluable tool for researchers and scientists, allowing them to generate hypotheses, analyze data, and make predictions. In the business world, ChatGPT is being used to improve customer service and enhance marketing strategies.

However, the use of ChatGPT also raises concerns about privacy and potential job loss. In industries such as customer service and data analysis, companies may be tempted to rely solely on the use of AI tools such as ChatGPT, potentially replacing human employees. Additionally, the use of ChatGPT in certain fields, such as journalism, has sparked concerns about the authenticity of news articles and the potential for misinformation.

One country that has already started the process of banning ChatGPT is Italy. The country's data protection authority has expressed concerns about the potential misuse of the technology and has called for a ban on its use. This has sparked a debate about the ethics and regulation of AI technologies and the potential impact they may have on society.

Despite its potential benefits, the use of ChatGPT also raises concerns about privacy and the potential misuse of AI technologies. Its ability to generate human-like text raises questions about the potential for the creation of deepfakes and the manipulation of text for malicious purposes. Additionally, the vast amount of data required to train such models raises concerns about the security and privacy of personal information.

In conclusion, AI and NLP technologies such as ChatGPT can be incredibly powerful tools for businesses and researchers. However, their use must be carefully considered to avoid negative consequences such as job losses and privacy concerns. By working together to develop regulations and guidelines, society can ensure that these technologies are used safely and responsibly, while also reaping the benefits of creative destruction. As the technology continues to advance, it is essential to carefully consider its ethical implications and the potential risks associated with its use.

Author Note: This entire post was written by ChatGPT through prompt engineering.

[ziyadnazem]

The “Great Resignation”

The great resignation. It’s a phrase I’ve heard on and off recently. You might even say I was a part of it, having recently changed jobs into a role that I love with a company that’s great. But, is it really a great resignation or is it a great migration? A migration towards finding yourself — rethinking what work means, how you’re valued, and how you spend your time.

Research shows that voluntary employee turnover is expensive, and that people quit their jobs after “turnover shock” — a life event that precipitates self-reflection about one’s job satisfaction. Shocks could be negative or positive such as a new baby or graduate school graduation, or even a global pandemic such as COVID-19 that upends daily life.

The Great Migration

As the pandemic is settling, the great migration has begun — people are leaving their jobs in search of more money, more flexibility, and more happiness. Many are rethinking what work means, how they are valued, and how they spend their time — ultimately leading to a dramatic increase in resignations. Post-pandemic, everyone is realizing where and how they spend their time is valuable, and that it’s even more valuable how employers engage employees in mission-driven work that makes them fulfilled and motivated.

Employer’s likely are wondering why so many people are quitting in droves right now — spending money at the problem, or trying to make work more meaningful and sustainable, rather than focusing on giving workers better reasons to stay.

Career Development

From my point of view, one real reason for the great migration is workers suddenly are realizing the lack of career transparency. Career transparency around job path and growth, and are measuring their value and their happiness.

How can you (try) get employees to stick around?

Listen. You know you’re supposed to listen, and probably know how (and how not) to listen, but do you have a culture of listening? Do you have a simple system for employees to generate ideas and voice complaints? Do you address any of these ideas or complaints? Do you regularly offer explanation as to why other issues aren’t addressed?

Growth. Do you have clear growth plans for employees? Do you know where employees want to develop? Do you help them create plans to get there?

Engagement. Plans are great, but are you proactive and having regular check-ins? Are you measuring growth? Are you engaged in social issues? Are you giving employees more power? Do you connect with your employees and care about them?

Wins. Celebrate wins. Make sure pay is keeping up with development. Talking about goals is free, but when employees are keeping up with their goals and making progress, employers need to review compensation too.

This isn’t some new cutting edge management advice, this is just common sense, and caring as a management tool.

[ziyadnazem]

Menthol Cigarettes To Be Banned?

Yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it would start the process of banning menthol-flavored cigarettes and flavored cigars from the market. 

Which probably makes you question, why not all cigarettes?

Well it appears that, with this attempt, that they’re not after tobacco, but rather after flavors/ingredients in tobacco -- essentially a half assed attempt at banning cigarette usage. It’s still a victory, a life-saving attempt to reduce tobacco usage particularly among minorities and the young.

But, why menthol?

Menthol is the last allowable flavor in cigarettes -- and has played an outsized role in hooking young people, and people of color on smoking. Young people and Black Americans are more likely to smoke menthol cigarettes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 54% of smokers ages 12-17 use menthol, and 7 in 10 African American smokers in that age group smoke menthol cigarettes. Non-Hispanic Black adults smoke the most menthol cigarettes, the CDC says. The majority of Black Americans who smoke use menthol cigarettes, according to the CDC, and a majority who started smoking began by using menthol cigarettes. The product is more addictive than cigarettes without menthol, studies show, and has a cooling effect in the body. 

As a health informatics professional, an area we frequently research is social determinants of health (SDoH). When looking at the rate of new lung cancer by race, we commonly see Black American men with the highest rate of new cases of lung cancer, while the estimated deaths by Black Americans is the highest in Lung & bronchus cancer. Essentially meaning, Black people are more likely to die of smoking-related illness than white people, and tobacco use in general is a prime contributor to cancer, heart disease, and strokes among Black Americans.

Once we protect the Black American communities by reducing the harm created by big tobacco, how do we give back to these communities? 

[ziyadnazem]

Cancer is nothing new...

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have released new research showing that 1 in every 10 residents in medieval times in Britain died with cancer in their body. Cancer was first record as far back as 5,000 years ago in Ancient Egypt. 

But this new study, published Friday in the journal Cancer, suggests that cancer has been a regular feature of people’s lives for quite some time.

Researchers in the UK examined the skeletons of 143 people excavated from six medieval cemeteries located around the city of Cambridge; these people had died between the 6th and 16th centuries. They then analyzed the bones using medical imaging, looking closely for traces of advanced cancer that might not have appeared on the surface.

Most cancers start somewhere else in the body besides bone, but some of these soft-tissue tumors will then spread to a person’s bones, leaving behind lesions that can be spotted through medical imaging. Based on the amount of cancer the team found in these bones, they tried to extrapolate the baseline level of cancer among medieval people in the area.

“We think the total proportion of the medieval population that probably suffered with a cancer somewhere in their body was between 9-14%,” said study author Piers Mitchell, a researcher from Cambridge University’s Department of Archaeology, in a statement released by the university.

[ziyadnazem]

The Staggering Cost of Healthcare

On Twitter @jpegjoshua, recently posted about a staggering healthcare bill for going to the hospital for a life-threatening condition and then receiving an outrageous statement, which reminded me of a similar story that I had.

I also received a bill for nearly $40,000, but luckily managed to have it cleared through an unmentioned secret. For myself, it all started the second week of May, back in 2009. I had this excruciating pain from just above the peri-umbilical region of my abdomen and the epigastrium, which ran downwards to the right iliac fossa -- it felt like the worse pain of my life! Being the stubborn medical student I was, I still went about my days and just pretended to ignore it the best possible! 

A few days later, the pain became a sharp burning pain localized directly at McBurney’s point. As I was a medical student, I knew exactly what was wrong; I had appendicitis. I performed the Psoas sign test only to confirm what I had known already. As stubborn as I was, I ended up wandering into the emergency room of a local hospital which, surprisingly, I had never stepped foot in before. 

The hospital staff was amicable and took me in and treated me promptly even though I had no medical or health insurance of any kind. The emergency physician was pretty cool; he reminded me of myself a lot! After a short series of tests and CT scans, I was rushed into emergency surgery to remove my appendix.

The surgery went well, except for the part where the anesthesiologist couldn’t wake me up immediately -- but, not to worry, these kinds of things happen from time to time. I ended up leaving the hospital a day later, feeling like a million bucks -- minus the scars across my abdomen and the post-surgery pain. I didn’t think much more of my visit to the emergency room and my subsequent surgery until all the medical bills started flooding in.

My jaw dropped; I couldn’t believe what the hospital wanted to charge me! The hospital wanted to charge me $2,000 just for using iodine during my surgery, so you can imagine how much all of the bills ended up coming to. The bills for my surgery, hospital stay, and other medical expenses ended up totaling a staggering $40,000 since I didn’t have any health insurance! 

Did you know that medical bills cause 60% of bankruptcies in America?

Knowing this, on top of studying for medical school and finding money to pay for medical school. I just felt like I was doomed! It all just made me stress out, and in turn, freak out that much more! I was going nuts trying to figure out how to pay for such incredible bills on top of paying for medical school and everything else -- which ended up only leading me to have some short-term depression. 

So what did I do? What was this secret?

I searched far and low for a solution, talking to the hospital, billing representatives, and even the physicians who treated me. As a non-resident of the state, I didn’t qualify for aid. Then finally, someone mentioned that most hospitals have an unmentioned “charity fund” for cases like mine. After all the talking, blog posts, and letter writing, it finally paid off.

A few months later, I received a letter in the mail from the hospital and a few generous physicians who decided not to bill me for services and cover my medical bills in full! Making me forever grateful to these kind souls.

While this still occurs, this is just proof that the healthcare system does work -- you have to believe in it. I got a chance to see how the healthcare system works. I got a chance to feel it and see what millions of Americans go through firsthand -- which was great because now I know how to change it.

[ziyadnazem]

Not a Case of The Monday’s

I love Mondays, it's a chance to start over again, to make this week better than the last. 

With everyone working remotely these days, perhaps you might catch a case of the Mondays.

Key to being the most productive? 

Sit down first thing Monday morning, and reflect on the things you did well the week before, and where you need improvement, then create a fresh to-do list to get going after it.

In case I haven’t won you over (yet) here are 3 reasons to love Mondays:

It’s the first day of the week and if you were responsible over the weekend you should be feeling refreshed and ready to go for whatever life throws at you. If you made poor choices this will not be you…

It’s the first day of the week and it is the day you set the tone for what follows that week! If you start the week by building momentum the rest of the week becomes easier.  

Mondays are where you get back to consistency.

Next time you’re sitting there on a Sunday night dreading Monday morning I challenge you to change your outlook. Look at it as an opportunity to be better than you were last week. Change your perspective and change your week!

Every Monday gives you the chance to get stronger, to eat better, to live healthier, and be a better version of yourself!  

[ziyadnazem]

Dear Trump campaign, do I have this right?

With two weeks to the election, the Trump campaign focuses on Hunter Biden rather than focusing on talking about relevant things to the people they need to reach?

And this is all because Hunter Biden, who lives in Los Angeles, decides to fly 3,000 miles across the country to drop off his MacBook Pros at a Mac repair shop in Wilmington, DE. So for some reason, Hunter gets off the plane and drunk drives to the repair shop (because there aren't any Mac repair shops in LA). He supposedly drops his MacBooks off, signs a contract for repair, and then disappears. 

The repair shop owner (John Paul Mac Isaac) recovers the data from the MacBooks, and decides to browse through Hunter's pictures and recovers and reads Hunter's *private* emails -- a few of which mention a possible meeting with his dad. The repair shop owner is so alarmed; he contacts the FBI, or the FBI contacted him (he has said both).

The FBI arranges to pick up the hard drives, but the computer repair shop owner takes a totally normal process of copying them for himself. Once he realizes the FBI isn't doing anything with them, he calls up the most credible ex-Mayor on Earth (Guilliani) and hands him the contents of these drives.

Steve Bannon, Trump's ex-aide, that's indicted on fraud, says on Dutch TV that he has Hunter's hard drive.  The totally credible ex-Mayor sits on the hard drives for months, then chooses to release them three weeks before the election. 

Shortly after this, the ex-Mayor decides to give the New York Post some contents from the drive. The mainstream media asks to verify their validity independently. Said ex-Mayor does what all people trying to prove facts do and ignores these requests.

Are we really this stupid?

[ziyadnazem]

Taking a poll: do you wear a mask when you go out to do groceries?

#qp_main2878603 .qp_btna:hover input {background:#00355F!important} #qp_all2878603 {max-width:815px; margin:0 auto;}

Do you wear a mask when doing groceries?

Yes

No

Created with riddles

[ziyadnazem]

Social distancing is a privilege!

How many of you realize that social distancing is a privilege?

Do you realize that being able to wash your hands is a privilege? It means you have access to clean running water.

Do you realize being under a shelter-in-place / stay-at-home order is a privilege? It means we can afford to be at home, and live in a safe environment. It’s the easiest thing we can do, to save lives.

For the destitute, most of the ways to ward of, and prevent COVID-19 can only be dreamt of -- and are privileges that many take for granted.

Think about it this way -- we have a disease, a virus, that was spread around the globe by people who can afford to travel -- yet it is killing many of the underprivileged. It is wreaking havoc on the destitute, the old, and the sick.

For those of us who are practicing social distancing, we must keep calm, and appreciate how privileged we really are.

There are many people around the world who aren’t nearly as fortunate as we are. 

[ziyadnazem]

The Truth of Coronavirus: Is it worse than the conspiracy theories?

The COVID-19 pandemic is a disorienting, fast-moving, dangerous crisis that has basically everyone in the world in its grips. As is so often the case in times of disaster, people, including political leaders, are promoting conspiracy theories about the origin, spread, and seriousness of the new coronavirus.

It’s a bioweapon?

This is perhaps the most prominent conspiracy theory to date, and the reasoning is simple enough. According to this theory, the coronavirus—officially called SARS-CoV-2—isn’t just an unlucky product of nature but a viral weapon created in the lab in order to terrorize unspecified targets.

Politicians and cranks across the world have espoused some version of this theory, though not always blaming the same perpetrator. U.S. Senator Tom Cotton blames the Chinese government. Leaders in Iran and China have argued that the origin of the virus is actually the U.S. military. This conspiracy theory has also gotten support from the usual internet-dwelling suspects, with QAnon adherents claiming the virus is a so-called false flag invented by the “deep state” (among other bizarre ideas).

One argument points out that Johns Hopkins University hosted a public exercise last October of how a pandemic would affect the world, suspiciously using a coronavirus as its fictional germ. That Bill Gates, a common target of the QAnon crowd, helped fund this simulation exercise has only further stoked those flames.

Of course, you’d have to wonder why Bill Gates and the Illuminati would offer a preview of their diabolical plan just a few months in advance. The choice to use a coronavirus in the pandemic simulation was certainly prescient but completely logical, given that two of the scariest epidemics in the past 20 years were both coronaviruses, SARS and MERS. It’s the fact these viruses tend to spread like a typical cold or flu that makes them so potentially dangerous.

In truth, there’s no evidence on the genetic level that SARS-CoV-2 was manmade, but there’s plenty to suggest that it recently crossed over from animals to humans, as many infectious diseases have done for millennia and will continue to do long after this pandemic is over. It may be comforting to think that someone is in control of this calamity, but unfortunately, the world is ruled by chance and chaos.

Celebrities are lying about having it?

Idris Elba was one of the first celebrities to announce he had contracted the coronavirus. He had only a brief time to enjoy the well-wishes of his fans before he found himself publicly denying allegations that he and other celebrities were being paid to say they have it.

It’s certainly true that famous people have gotten tests for COVID-19 with much more ease than the rest of us, and it’s the poorest who will fare the worst in this crisis. In this case, though, the real conspiracy is the longstanding collaboration among the rich and powerful to maintain their advantages while keeping the rest of us down.

It’s a media conspiracy to hurt President Trump?

Perhaps the most widespread conspiracy among conservatives in the U.S. right now is that the (over)reaction to COVID-19 is a Democrat and/or liberal media conspiracy to bring down President Donald Trump. How exactly we in the liberal media have managed to get so many other countries on board with our plot is not clear.

If this pandemic is really as serious a threat to the U.S. as it appears to be, then Trump and his administration have colossally failed to protect the country from it. For years, the Trump White House hollowed out resources from the federal government that was explicitly meant to predict and prevent pandemics. 

During the initial outbreak in China, Trump, GOP lawmakers, and conservative media publicly downplayed the risk to the U.S., despite warnings from their own intelligence experts telling them otherwise. And even when it became obvious that COVID-19 was spreading within the U.S., the country’s testing capability was basically nonexistent for weeks, sinking any possibility that it could be contained. Many journalists were called hysterical for reporting, accurately, that the U.S. was in imminent danger from this virus and that we were woefully unprepared.

But if you believe that the coronavirus is nothing more than a false flag operation that is meant to make Trump look bad, then all of the above doesn’t matter. You might argue that this is no worse than the flu, as prominent conservative figures still continue to do, despite early projections that the virus could kill upwards of a million Americans without mitigation efforts.

Conspiracy theories, at their heart, are ways to explain away an unpleasant reality, and they often have a grain of truth to them as a result (the U.S. government didn’t plan 9/11, but maybe it could have prevented it, and it certainly does lie about a lot of things). In this case, it’s the bleak reality that, despite all our technological advances, the Western world has been completely outwitted by a virus that we should have been plenty prepared for. And now a lot of people are going to die, the economy is shit, and there’s no end in sight.

[ziyadnazem]

No Evidence That Hydroxychloroquine Works Against COVID-19

A small trial from China may already throw into question whether a treatment touted as a way to save people with severe covid-19 can really work. It found no evidence that the existing drug hydroxychloroquine alone was more effective for patients hospitalized with the novel coronavirus than standard care. However, the results aren’t any more definitive than the earlier research that suggested the drug can work.

Hydroxychloroquine and its close relative chloroquine are both existing drugs, used to treat acute cases of the infectious disease malaria as well as certain autoimmune disorders like lupus. But scientists have long speculated that both drugs have a broad antiviral effect. Earlier research in the lab had specifically shown these drugs could kill the SARS virus, closely related to the new coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2. Most recently, reports from doctors in China and France treating severe covid-19 patients reported success with using hydroxychloroquine, sometimes in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin.

Those reports prompted President Donald Trump to praise these drugs, calling for them to be deployed immediately to hospitals across the U.S. Trump’s own public health experts and outside researchers, however, have struck a more cautious tone, rightly arguing that more rigorous research is needed to test out any promising treatment for covid-19 before it could be widely used. This week, the World Health Organization announced that hydroxychloroquine/chloroquine would be among the drugs evaluated in a large, globe-spanning clinical trial of covid-19 treatments.

But given the early anecdotal success of these drugs, doctors have already started carrying out their own small, controlled clinical trials. This latest one, reported in the Journal of Zhejiang University, involved 30 patients in China that had been hospitalized with covid-19. Half were given standard care, and the other half received hydroxychloroquine for five days alongside this care. The patients also had their throats routinely swapped for the genetic presence of the virus, with a negative result indicating that the active infection had passed.

By day seven, most people in either group had negative throat swabs, with no clear advantage seen for those on hydroxychloroquine. There was also no significant difference in the amount of time it took patients in either group to stop having symptoms such as a high fever (one person’s condition in the hydroxychloroquine group worsened severely, but all had improved by the end of the trial).

The findings seem to be the first from a randomized and, importantly, controlled trial involving hydroxychloroquine. But the sample size is still very small. It also didn’t test the combination of azithromycin, which researchers theorize can have an added anti-inflammatory effect and help treat severe covid-19 cases where people are infected by bacteria along with the coronavirus.

This study, in other words, isn’t a death knell for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, but it may provide a clear lesson for why any experimental treatment shouldn’t be hyped too early.

Following Trump’s proclamation, people in the U.S., including doctors, are already rushing out to stockpile these drugs, which could affect their supply for patients who rely on them for their intended purpose. Tragically, one person has died after taking tablets containing chloroquine that were originally intended to treat parasitic infestations in aquariums, while that person’s wife remains in critical condition (chloroquine can easily be toxic in too high a dose).

Most patients in both groups, for instance, got the flu drug umifenovir (not sold in the U.S.), and two patients in the control group took lopinavir/ritonavir, a combination therapy used typically to suppress HIV. However, he noted, these drugs also haven’t shown much if any success in subsequent trials, including in an earlier study published by his team.

Again, this study is limited in what it can tell us due to the small sample size. Though their results suggest that hydroxycholoroquine by itself doesn’t provide any added efficacy for covid-19, larger clinical trials are needed to determine effective drug therapies for covid-19.

[ziyadnazem]

COVID-19: Natural Selection

No matter where you go online these days, there’s bound to be a discussion of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Some folks are even making outrageous claims that the new coronavirus causing the pandemic was engineered in a lab and deliberately released to make people sick. A new study debunks such claims by providing scientific evidence that this novel coronavirus arose naturally.

The reassuring findings are the result of genomic analyses conducted by an international research team, partly supported by NIH. In the research, they used sophisticated bioinformatics tools to compare publicly available genomic data from several coronaviruses, including the new one that causes COVID-19.

The researchers began by homing in on the parts of the coronavirus genomes that encode the spike proteins that give this family of viruses their distinctive crown-like appearance. 

By the way, “corona” is Latin for “crown.”

All coronaviruses rely on spike proteins to infect other cells. But, over time, each coronavirus has fashioned these proteins a little differently, and the evolutionary clues about these modifications are spelled out in their genomes.

The genomic data of the new coronavirus responsible for COVID-19 show that its spike protein contains some unique adaptations. One of these adaptations provides the special ability of this coronavirus to bind to a specific protein on human cells called angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE2). A related coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in humans also seeks out ACE2.

Existing computer models predicted that the new coronavirus would not bind to ACE2 as well as the SARS virus. However, to their surprise, the researchers found that the spike protein of the new coronavirus actually bound far better than computer predictions, likely because of natural selection on ACE2 that enabled the virus to take advantage of a previously unidentified alternate binding site. Researchers said this provides strong evidence that the new virus was not the product of purposeful manipulation in a lab. In fact, any bioengineer trying to design a coronavirus that threatened human health probably would never have chosen this particular conformation for a spike protein.

The researchers went on to analyze genomic data related to the overall molecular structure, or backbone, of the new coronavirus. Their analysis showed that the backbone of the new coronavirus’s genome most closely resembles that of a bat coronavirus discovered after the COVID-19 pandemic began. However, the region that binds ACE2 resembles a novel virus found in pangolins, a strange-looking animal sometimes called a scaly anteater. This provides additional evidence that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 almost certainly originated in nature. If the new coronavirus had been manufactured in a lab, scientists most likely would have used the backbones of coronaviruses already known to cause serious diseases in humans.

So, what is the natural origin of the novel coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic? The researchers don’t yet have a precise answer. But they do offer two possible scenarios.

In the first scenario, as the new coronavirus evolved in its natural hosts, possibly bats or pangolins, its spike proteins mutated to bind to molecules similar in structure to the human ACE2 protein, thereby enabling it to infect human cells. This scenario seems to fit other recent outbreaks of coronavirus-caused disease in humans, such as SARS, which arose from cat-like civets; and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), which arose from camels.

The second scenario is that the new coronavirus crossed from animals into humans before it became capable of causing human disease. Then, as a result of gradual evolutionary changes over years or perhaps decades, the virus eventually gained the ability to spread from human-to-human and cause serious, often life-threatening disease.

Either way, this study leaves little room to refute a natural origin for COVID-19. And that’s a good thing because it helps us keep focused on what really matters: observing good hygiene, practicing social distancing, and supporting the efforts of all the dedicated health-care professionals and researchers who are working so hard to address this major public health challenge.

Finally, next time you come across something about COVID-19 online that disturbs or puzzles you, I suggest going to FEMA’s new Coronavirus Rumor Control web site. It may not have all the answers to your questions, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction in helping to distinguish rumors from facts.

Reference: [1] The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 . Andersen KG, Rambaut A, Lipkin WI, Holmes EC, Garry RF. Nat Med, 17 March 2020. [Epub ahead of publication]

Links:

Coronavirus (COVID-19) (NIH)

COVID-19, MERS & SARS (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases/NIH)

Andersen Lab (Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA)

Robert Garry (Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans)

Coronavirus Rumor Control (FEMA)

[ziyadnazem]

Social Distancing is a Must

Even in less challenging times, many of us try to avoid close contact with someone who is sneezing, coughing, or running a fever to avoid getting sick ourselves. Our attention to such issues has now been dramatically heightened by the emergence of a novel coronavirus causing a pandemic of an illness known as COVID-19.

Many have wondered if we couldn’t simply protect ourselves by avoiding people with symptoms of respiratory illness. 

Unfortunately, the answer is no. 

A new study shows that simply avoiding symptomatic people will not go far enough to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s because researchers have discovered that many individuals can carry the novel coronavirus without showing any of the typical symptoms of COVID-19: fever, dry cough, and shortness of breath. But these asymptomatic or only mildly ill individuals can still shed virus and infect others.

This conclusion adds further weight to the recent guidance from U.S. public health experts: what we need most right now to slow the stealthy spread of this new coronavirus is a full implementation of social distancing. 

What exactly does social distancing mean? 

Well, for starters, it is recommended that people stay at home as much as possible, going out only for critical needs like groceries and medicines, or to exercise and enjoy the outdoors in wide-open spaces. Other recommendations include avoiding gatherings of more than 10 people, no handshakes, regular handwashing, and, when encountering someone outside of your immediate household, trying to remain at least 6 feet apart.

These may sound like extreme measures. But the new study by NIH-funded researchers, published in the journal Science, documents why social distancing may be our best hope to slow the spread of COVID-19. 

Here are a few highlights of the paper, which looks back to January 2020 and mathematically models the spread of the coronavirus within China:

For every confirmed case of COVID-19, there are likely another 5-10 people with undetected infections.

Although they are thought to be only about half as infectious as individuals with confirmed COVID-19, individuals with undetected infections were so prevalent in China that they apparently were the infection source for 86% of confirmed cases.

After China established travel restrictions and social distancing, the spread of COVID-19 slowed considerably.

The findings come from a small international research team that included NIH grantee Jeffrey Shaman, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York. 

The team developed a computer model that enabled researchers to simulate the time and place of infections in a grid of 375 Chinese cities. The researchers did so by combining existing data on the spread of COVID-19 in China with mobility information collected by a location-based service during the country’s popular 40-day Spring Festival, when travel is widespread.

As these new findings clearly demonstrate, each of us must take social distancing seriously in our daily lives. Social distancing helped blunt the pandemic in China, and it will work in other nations, including the United States. While many Americans will likely spend weeks working and studying from home and practicing other social distancing measures, the stakes remain high. If this pandemic isn’t contained, this novel coronavirus could well circulate around the globe for years to come, at great peril to us and our loved ones.

As we commit ourselves to spending more time at home, progress continues to be made in using the power of biomedical research to combat this novel coronavirus. A notable step this week was the launch of an early-stage human clinical trial of an investigational vaccine, called mRNA-1273, to protect against COVID-19. The vaccine candidate was developed by researchers at NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and their collaborators at the biotechnology company Moderna, Inc., Cambridge, MA.

This Phase 1 NIAID-supported trial will look at the safety of the vaccine—which cannot cause infection because it is made of RNA, not the whole coronavirus—in 45 healthy adults. The first volunteer was injected this past Monday at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute, Seattle. If all goes well and larger follow-up clinical studies establish the vaccine’s safety and efficacy, it will then be necessary to scale up production to make millions of doses. While initiating this trial in record time is reason for hope, it is important to be realistic about all of the steps that still remain. If the vaccine candidate proves safe and effective, it will likely take at least 12–18 months before it would be widely available.

In the meantime, social distancing remains one of the best weapons we have to slow the silent spread of this virus and flatten the curve of the COVID-19 pandemic. This will give our health-care professionals, hospitals, and other institutions more valuable time to prepare, protect themselves, and aid the many people whose lives may be on the line from this coronavirus.

Importantly, saving lives from COVID-19 requires all of us—young, old and in-between—to take part. Healthy young people, whose risk of dying from coronavirus is not zero but quite low, might argue that they shouldn’t be constrained by social distancing. However, the research highlighted here demonstrates that such individuals are often the unwitting vector for a dangerous virus that can do great harm—and even take the lives of older and more vulnerable people. Think about your grandparents. Then skip the big gathering. We are all in this together

[ziyadnazem]

Gilead Retracts Monopoly Rights

Pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences on Wednesday retracted its effort to score extended monopoly rights and tax breaks on its antiviral drug remdesivir, which scientists are evaluating as a possible treatment in the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Per the Intercept, on Monday the Food and Drug Administration awarded Gilead “orphan” drug status for remdesivir, which would give it a marketing monopoly on the drug for seven years rather than the more typical five, blocking rivals from introducing lower cost versions of it. It would also accelerate FDA approval of the drug and entitle Gilead to grants and tax credits amounting to 25 percent of the cost of clinical drug testing. As the Intercept noted, this status is supposed to encourage development of drugs for rare diseases and is limited to drugs for ailments that affect less than 200,000 people in the country or where the manufacturer is not expected to recoup costs. But it has become one of the vehicles by which pharmaceutical companies are able to extend exclusivity periods and maintain high pricing.

Gilead was able to claim the status because, despite projections showing the virus is likely to infect many times that number, at the time of its application there were far fewer cases. According to the Intercept, remdesivir was developed with at least $79 million in federal funding, while Bank of America analysts projected Gilead would make up to $2.5 billion in one-time revenue. Gilead claimed it had only applied for orphan drug status to expedite remdesivir’s approval, but the FDA’s approval faced swift political backlash from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and a coalition of 50 groups organized by Public Citizen.

On Wednesday, Gilead formally asked the FDA to retract the orphan drug status and told the New York Times in a statement that it was now confident the FDA would pursue a speedy approval regardless. The FDA has agreed to the request, per Reuters.

As Stat noted, former Gilead executive Joseph Grogan is on the White House’s coronavirus task force, and Gilead filed for the status in early March, when it would have been well aware that the disease was likely to grow beyond the 200,000 person cap.

“Gilead folded,” Knowledge Ecology International head Jamie Love told Stat. “It was already known that Covid-19 was spreading in the U.S. and the CDC was warning it could be a pandemic.

Remdesivir, along with hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, is one of the drugs Donald Trump claimed could accelerate efforts to handle the pandemic in the U.S., which now has over 68,350 confirmed cases of the coronavirus. It’s previously shown effectiveness in limiting mortality from the Ebola virus. While early signs were promising, remdesivir’s efficacy in treating the virus has yet to be proven. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci has sought to temper expectations on how well known drugs will perform.

The drug is one of several being looked at in a major World Health Organization study. Earlier this week, Gilead halted distribution of the drug under an emergency access program to start large-scale trials that have not yet begun, catching some patients and doctors off guard.

“Gilead has submitted a request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to rescind the orphan drug designation it was granted for the investigational antiviral remdesivir for the treatment of COVID-19 and is waiving all benefits that accompany the designation,” Gilead wrote in the statement. “Gilead is confident that it can maintain an expedited timeline in seeking regulatory review of remdesivir, without the orphan drug designation. Recent engagement with regulatory agencies has demonstrated that submissions and review relating to remdesivir for the treatment of covid-19 are being expedited.”

[ziyadnazem]

Simple Practices for Boosting Your Immune System

Doing this may not prevent you from acquiring COVID-19 (coronavirus), but it will help boost your immune system and help keep you healthy. 

These simple practices can be beneficial for boosting your immune system:

Drink plenty of water - Staying hydrated is one of the best things you can do for your health. Add lemon juice to your water, as it acts as a digestive and detoxifying agent and helps clean the liver.

Avoid processed foods and limit sugar and alcohol intake - Consuming too much of any of these suppresses the immune system.

Increase your vitamin D - Low vitamin D levels are linked to decreased immune function. So try to soak up some sunshine outside (even when it's cold) and eat foods like mushrooms, egg yolks and fatty fish — cold-water species like salmon, cod, and tuna.

Get more vitamin C - Fruits and vegetables are great sources, including berries, citrus, bell peppers, and dark green vegetables. Adding spices like garlic, ginger, and turmeric to your diet can help boost your immune system.

Get some good bacteria - 80% of your immune system is located in the digestive tract, so gut health is important to keep a strong immune system. Probiotics are good bacteria to add to your diet through fermented foods, such as raw sauerkraut, miso, yogurt, kefir, kimchi, and kombucha, or you can take probiotics in supplement form.

Get moving - Exercising is not only a great way to stay in shape but also increases our immune function.

Get plenty of rest and sleep - Adequate sleep helps keep your body working at its best to defend against illness.

[ziyadnazem]

Andrew Cuomo to President Trump

The New York Times published an op-ed letter written to President Trump, by Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York. 

Here are the highlights from the letter:

Cuomo says, “Every country affected by this crisis has handled it on a national basis. The United States has not. State and local governments alone simply do not have the capacity or resources to do what is necessary, and we don’t want a patchwork quilt of policies.”

Slowing the spread of coronavirus is a function of testing and reducing the density of public gatherings.

Cuomo requests Trump to stop the FDA and CDC from overregulating the testing process, and authorize states to certify a wider array of testing labs and methods.

Cuomo further mentions the risk to our healthcare system, saying, “You must anticipate that, without immediate action, the imminent failure of hospital systems is all but certain. According to one projection, as many as 214 million people in our country could be infected over the course of the epidemic. Of those, as many as 21 million people could require hospitalization. This would crush the nation’s medical system.”

Cuomo says, “New York State has just 53,470 hospital beds, only 3,186 of which are intensive-care beds. Our country as a whole has fewer than one million staffed hospital beds, fewer proportionately than China, South Korea or Italy.”

He then asks Trump to ask his experts, “How many intensive-care beds do we need for our vulnerable populations, and how many do we have now?” 

Finally, Cuomo requests the federal government, and the military to step in by writing, “States cannot build more hospitals, acquire ventilators or modify facilities quickly enough. At this point, our best hope is to utilize the Army Corps of Engineers to leverage its expertise, equipment and people power to retrofit and equip existing facilities — like military bases or college dormitories — to serve as temporary medical centers. Then we can designate existing hospital beds for the acutely ill. We believe the use of active duty Army Corps personnel would not violate federal law because this is a national disaster. Doing so still won’t provide enough intensive care beds, but it is our best hope.”

TLDR; Localize testing. Federalize shutdowns. Task the Army Corps of Engineers to expand hospital capacity or face the imminent overburden, and failure of our healthcare system.

[ziyadnazem]

It’s the hoarders who will cause the spread of COVID-19...

Today, I went to do some grocery shopping today as Thursday is my last day of the week that I'm in the office since I work remotely on Fridays, and it was just a total free for all. Being prepared for staying at home for a potential two weeks is one thing, but the fear-mongering and price gouging that is occurring is another. 

Getting essential items like baby supplies, and cleaning supplies shouldn't be so difficult. I don’t care if TP isn’t available, but not being able to find diapers or children’s Tylenol at the store is alarming.

The way I see it -- the hoarders who are stocking up like it's a zombie apocalypse are the ones who are in fact going to contribute to the spread of COVID-19 as they are not allowing other people to gather the essential supplies they require -- making them susceptible to an outbreak pandemic, which will further allow for the spread of COVID-19. 

If people could share, and look out for each other better -- we can decrease the spread together, rather than the situation we have today where you can’t find essential items at the store.

I think the worst part about all of this -- on my way home I stopped at a BP gas station for gas. They had a sign up that said, “hand sanitizer available.” I decided to go inside and take a look. It was being sold behind the counter at a price of $8.99 for one of those mini 2oz bottles (this size usually costs between $0.99 to $2.99). At $8.99 that’s at least 3-4 times the market price -- and way beyond price gouging. 

That is just sickening. 

Trying to profit off of a crisis, 

a human tragedy -- is more than immoral, it’s just wrong.