Good news on remdesivir

The New Neo Posted on by

Remember those drug trials that are going on regarding COVID-19? One of them concerns the antiviral remdesivir.

First results are in:

New results from a clinical trial conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases establish the drug as the standard of care for Covid-19, which has killed 50,000 people in the U.S. so far, said agency Director Anthony Fauci. He likened the good news about remdesivir to the discovery of the first medicine found to help treat HIV more than three decades ago.

That’s a pretty strong endorsement. And because it’s Fauci saying it and not Trump, the MSM might be a bit less likely to go on the attack.

More here:

Hospitalized patients with advanced COVID-19 and lung involvement who received remdesivir recovered faster than similar patients who received placebo, according to a preliminary data analysis from a randomized, controlled trial involving 1063 patients, which began on February 21. The trial (known as the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial, or ACTT), sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, is the first clinical trial launched in the United States to evaluate an experimental treatment for COVID-19.

An independent data and safety monitoring board (DSMB) overseeing the trial met on April 27 to review data and shared their interim analysis with the study team. Based upon their review of the data, they noted that remdesivir was better than placebo from the perspective of the primary endpoint, time to recovery, a metric often used in influenza trials. Recovery in this study was defined as being well enough for hospital discharge or returning to normal activity level.

Preliminary results indicate that patients who received remdesivir had a 31% faster time to recovery than those who received placebo (p<0.001). Specifically, the median time to recovery was 11 days for patients treated with remdesivir compared with 15 days for those who received placebo. Results also suggested a survival benefit, with a mortality rate of 8.0% for the group receiving remdesivir versus 11.6% for the placebo group (p=0.059).

Several things seem important here. This was a trial of the drug against placebo, one of the first of that type. The patients who received it were already in dire straits, and so it is particularly impressive in that population. The change in death rate isn’t up to what one might hope (it isn’t up to what I hoped, anyway). But it’s still in the right direction, and it’s highly possible that if the drug were given earlier it would be more effective in that regard.

Remdesivir is not an innocuous drug (in fact, I don’t think there is such a thing). So I don’t think it will necessarily be given to patients with mild symptoms, because of possible side effects involving liver enzyme and GI problems. But ultimately it might be very helpful for those with moderate to serious symptoms, and I believe there will be additional drugs proven to be of value as well.

De Blasio and “the Jewish community”: a tale of two tweets

The New Neo Posted on by

The genesis of de Blasio’s admonition to “the Jewish community” – a pretty diverse group, and in NYC a fairly large one – was apparently a funeral for a rabbi held in Brooklyn by an ultra-Orthodox sect called the Satmar. Not only are they not “the Jewish community” at large, they’re not even “the Orthodox Jewish community.” The NY Satmar are based in Willliamsburg, and they are such an extreme sect that they could correctly be called not just ultra-Orthodox but ultra-ultra-Orthodox. They are so Orthodox they are radical, if that makes any sense (among other things, they don’t recognize the state of Israel). It’s hard to get a bead on their numbers in Brooklyn, but let’s just say that although it’s in the thousands, it’s a miniscule percectage of the Jews of New York City. They no more represent the Jewish community than the Branch Davidians represented the “Christian community.”

But that didn’t stop de Blasio from referring to them that way. It is no accident, either, although he tried to backtrack somewhat when howls of protest ensued regarding his addressing Jews in general. De Blasio may be mayor of New York, but he’s a leftist of the Corbynesque variety, and anti-Semitism is part of the genre.

Oh, and by the way, the Satmar said they had a police permit for the event and tried to make the crowd conform to social distancing rules:

Neither de Blasio nor his police commissioner, Dermot Shea, addressed reports that the funeral procession had actually been coordinated with the New York Police Department and the knowledge of City Hall. Shea said that 12 summonses had been issued for refusal to disperse and for violating social distancing. “That event last night never should have happened,” he said. “It will never happen again.”

The mourning event in the Williamsburg neighborhood Tuesday night was organized by followers of the late Rabbi Chaim Mertz. Organizers said that they thought the procession would conform with social distancing guidelines because they asked everyone to stay six feet away from each other. The police department cooperated by barricading streets and putting up street lights, according to David Greenfield, the CEO of a Jewish anti-poverty organization and a former city councilman.

Video of the event showed that funeral marchers were also guided by members of Shomrim, the Jewish community security organization. A Hasidic source who is familiar with the Shomrim’s preparations for the funeral, but not authorized to speak publicly, told the Forward that the Shomrim and NYPD had worked together in planning the funeral.

“The plan was to have a specific number of people who could go into one street, then close it down, and have the car go to the next street,” the source explained. The source added that in addition to lights and barricades, the police had also approved having a sound system so that attendees could hear eulogies, but that at the last minute, officers ordered organizers not to use the speaker system.

In their joint news conference, de Blasio and Shea did not respond to the claims of NYPD involvement.

Sounds like it was an event that was held with good intentions but ended up getting out of control, probably through emotion. And de Blasio’s office isn’t wanting to talk about the issue of the government’s supposed involvement.

A few weeks ago I happened across a video on YouTube (don’t recall which it was) about the ultra-ultra Orthodox Jewish community’s response to COVID. It mentioned that initially they were still getting together in large groups because so much of their lives involved such things, but in recent weeks they were practicing all sorts of social distancing, including for deaths and funerals. I even recall their having set up a sort of dial-a-prayer hotline for families with dying members. It was quite heartrending. These groups – and all groups who are accustomed to large social gatherings as part of the fabric of their lives and their worship – are particularly challenged by the social distancing resulting from the COVID rules. It’s not surprising that violations occur, just as they occurred in non-religious settings such as the Blue Angels flyover.

But I also noticed that in the comments to that video about the ultra-Orthodox community – and there were many – every single one expressed fervent anti-Semitism, sometimes of the rabid kind. The internet is one of the main conduits of a vicious sort of anti-Semitism, and these sorts of events are opportunities to unleash it.

[ADDENDUM: The inevitable “Downfall” parody emerges rather quickly.]

Spambot of the day: getting the cling of it

The New Neo Posted on by

You really make it seem so easy with your presentation buut I fid this matter to be actually one thing which I believe I’d nevr understand. It sort of feels too complex and very broad for me.

I am taking a look forward on your subsequent publish, I wiill attempt to get the cling of it!

The cling of it – it has a certain ring, doesn’t it?

I assume that “the cling of it” is an auto-translation program’s version of “the hang of it.”

Sexual allegations: the Democrats, Biden, and Kavanaugh

The New Neo Posted on by

The blatant and politically opportunistic hypocrisy of the Democrats is easily revealed by comparing their position regarding the Kavanaugh sexual accusations versus the Biden sexual accusations.

The Republicans have been relatively consistent in saying about both: take a look at the evidence, and let’s see.

The Democrats shrieked that Christine Blasey Ford was completely believable and that Kavanaugh was unfit for office because of his obvious guilt, but with Biden – crickets. The difference is so stark that it would be funny if it weren’t very very sad and extraordinarily dangerous.

I don’t know if Biden’s accuser is telling the truth, but I do know that her charges are far more credible – and relevant – than those of Christine Blasey Ford. That word “credible” means believable, and it’s been a favorite of Democrats whenever an accusation is lobbed against a Republican in public life. Now, not so much.

In fact:

Every Democrat in the Senate has refused to acknowledge the sexual assault allegations against 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden that were brought forward by a former staffer, even after new evidence lends credibility to the alleged assault.

The Daily Caller contacted every Democrat in the Senate, asking them if they would even consider the allegations by Biden’s accuser, Tara Reade, who has accused the then-senator of kissing her, touching her and penetrating her with his fingers without her consent in 1993. Each Senate office was given 24 hours to respond but not one did…

Every one of the senators contacted, besides Manchin, voted against the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, due to sexual assault allegations.

Why is Reade more credible than Ford was? Here are five reasons, but the obvious ones are that Reade apparently told various people about it at the time it occurred or not too long after the time, and the fact that (unlike Ford, who could not prove she’d ever even met Kavanaugh) Reade knew Biden and had worked for him. What’s more, Kavanaugh was a high school student at the time of his alleged actions and Biden was a fully adult US senator.

But as Ace points out, when the MSM does cover the Reade/Biden story, it’s the usual “Republicans pounce” angle.

The press and the Democratic politicians have been on a mission, and they don’t care about truth or consistency or any of the causes they profess to care about. That includes sexual harassment. The only thing that matters is politics, power, and winning. The rest is just posing, for “the masses” whom they profess to love but for whom they actually have contempt. They believe the public is just that gullible, just that lacking in long-term memory, and just that stupid.

[ADDENDUM: (Hat tip: Ace). Tara Reade might be getting close to her own WalkAway moment. It almost seems that until this point she believed that her allegations might be treated fairly. But disillusionment has set in.

See also this for what Reade has to say about the MSM’s and the Democrats’ hypocrisy;

“I’ve basically had no substantive support from women’s groups that are considered liberal or Democratic. I’ve had no support from any Democratic candidate, although I’ve reached out. And I’ve received either slanted reporting that ended up being talking points for Biden’s campaign or silence from the mainstream media. So that’s my contention and my concern.”

The Biden accuser expressed hope that “the next kind of case” like hers will be approached in a “more educated way and with emotional intelligence.”

Oh Tara, Tara, Tara. Accusations such as yours will continue to be treated in an utterly political manner.

Oh, and as for the Democrats’ approach to someone like Al Franken (whom I defended because I didn’t think his offense was more than a stupid joke), the only reason the Democrats turned on him was that politically it cost them nothing, since he would be replaced by another Democrat. And the Democrats will turn on Biden if and when they figure they have someone to replace him who might have a chance of beating Trump, and a method by which to kick Biden out. The Reade accusations could someday become that mechanism, but not until then.]

Andrew C. McCarthy on the latest revelations in the Flynn case

The New Neo Posted on by

The news that’s been coming out recently on the Flynn case would be shocking if we hadn’t already suspected as much from the start. But here’s the latest:

In the motion, [Flynn’s lawyer] Powell argues that the new information “proves Mr. Flynn’s allegations of having been deliberately set up and framed by corrupt agents.” She elaborates that the evidence that has finally been communicated to her “defeats any argument that the interview of Mr. Flynn on January 24, 2017, was material to any ‘investigation.’ The government has deliberately suppressed this evidence from the inception of this prosecution — knowing there was no crime by Mr. Flynn.”

…[I]t has long been speculated that Flynn — though he did not believe he was guilty (and though the agents who interviewed him also did not believe he had intentionally misled them) — nevertheless pled guilty to false-statements charges because prosecutors from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s staff threatened him. Specifically, Flynn is said to have been warned that, if he refused to plead guilty, prosecutors would charge his son with a felony for failing to register with the Justice Department as a foreign agent. Such a so-called FARA violation (Foreign Agent Registration Act) is a crime that the DOJ almost never charged before the Mueller investigation, and it had dubious application to Flynn’s son (who worked for Flynn’s private-intelligence firm).

Well, Powell now contends that the new disclosures demonstrate that Mueller’s prosecutors — she specifically cites Brandon Van Grack, who now runs Justice’s FARA unit — did indeed promise Flynn that they would not charge his son if Flynn pled guilty. Worse, Powell avers that the prosecutors coerced Flynn and his counsel to keep this agreement secret. That is, this was to be a side deal that would not be written into the plea agreement and therefore would be kept from the court and the public.

Under federal law, all understandings that are relevant to a guilty plea must be disclosed to the judge. It would be not merely a serious ethical breach for government lawyers to fail to reveal such an arrangement. It would be a fraud on the court.

Much more at the link.

No one on the right will be surprised at any of this. No one on the left will care about it. And I’m not the least bit sure anything will be done about it.

And that’s where we stand today.

COVID-19: prison testing results

The New Neo Posted on by

Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would say.

In Michigan:

Of the 1,403 inmates tested at Lakeland Correctional Facility in Branch County, 785 of them tested positive for the virus. There are about 30 inmates still awaiting results as of Monday morning…

Lakeland is the first of Michigan’s prisons to have all of its inmates tested, prior to this only those who complained of symptoms were tested. The facility is one that Michigan Department of Corrections said it was most worried about considering half of those housed at Lakeland are either elderly or medically frail…

Gautz said the department estimates roughly 80% of those who tested positive for the virus last week were asymptomatic.

“The vast majority of prisoners who tested positive last week were confused as to how they were positive because they hadn’t had any symptoms,” Gautz said.”

Just to be clear – the 1403 were basically the entire prison population. This prison was already known to have had a serious outbreak; 12 prisoners there have died, most or all of them geriatric. Of the entire prison population tested, a little over half were positive. That’s not positive for antibodies, that’s for the virus itself. And 80% of those were asymptomatic.

We’re not talking about a previously hale and hearty bunch of people here, either, compared to the general population.

It’s not just Michigan. There’s North Carolina:

…[O]fficials [at Neuse state prison took] the extraordinary step of testing all 700 prisoners at the medium-security facility near Raleigh.

Within a week, infections had surged to 444. Perhaps even more revealing: More than 90% of the newly diagnosed inmates displayed no symptoms, meaning that the deadly virus could have remained hidden had the state followed federal guidelines that largely reserve testing for people displaying common symptoms, such as fever and respiratory distress.

I read both articles rather quickly, but as far as I can tell neither article discussed whether these asymptomatic yet positive patients have been showing symptoms yet. Perhaps not enough time has passed to know. But still, why isn’t the issue even addressed? It seems of the utmost importance, because if these cases remain asymptomatic or only develop mild symptoms, it would seem that herd immunity will be reached in very short order. That would be excellent news.

The bad news would be if this represents the potential in the next week or two for a huge number of deaths, because the testing happened to have been done before the disease reached full flower in the asymptomatic patients, and many eventually go on to develop extremely serious disease.

Similar results to Lakeland’s have occurred in Ohio prisons, according to the USA Today article. And I’ve read of similar findings within the homeless population in a shelter in Boston:

The results? Out of 397 people tested, 146 (36%) came up positive. But even more surprising, they weren’t showing any signs of sickness.

In all these articles, the public health officials and the administrators are very disturbed by the results, and understandably so. The idea that half or nearly half of their populations might have the virus without anyone knowing it – and could be spreading it at a rapid pace – is potentially disturbing. But it’s just as possible that it’s extremely encouraging, as I mentioned before. If the virus spreads that quickly, and if most of the victims – even in a vulnerable population such as prisons and homeless shelters – remain asymptomatic or only mildly symptomatic, that would mean we would reach herd immunity quite quickly. Even without achieving full herd immunity, the more people who become immune the less easily the virus can spread.

That’s assuming, of course, that infection with the virus confers immunity. I keep reading that they don’t know for sure. But that merely means they haven’t yet tested for that. If this virus doesn’t confer immunity, it would be highly unusual.

And no, there’s no analogy to flu, because having a certain strain of flu does confer immunity – to that strain. It’s just that flu mutates quickly and in the process changes so much that it effectively becomes a new variety. Although COVID-19 also mutates (as do all RNA viruses), its rate and type of mutation has been slow in pace, and the variations on the COVID-19 theme are minor. In other words, there’s no particular reason to expect that a COVID-19 infection wouldn’t confer immunity for quite some time, probably long enough for a vaccine to be developed. Perhaps longer.

More here:

…[M]ost experts do think an initial infection from the coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2, will grant people immunity to the virus for some amount of time. That is generally the case with acute infections from other viruses, including other coronaviruses.

With data limited, “sometimes you have to act on a historical basis,” Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a webcast with JAMA this month. “It’s a reasonable assumption that this virus is not changing very much. If we get infected now and it comes back next February or March we think this person is going to be protected.”

And speaking of a vaccine, this seems encouraging:

Researchers at the National Institute of Health Rocky Mountain Laboratory injected the six rhesus macaque monkeys with the Oxford concoction, then exposed them to “heavy quantities” of COVID-19 — exposure that had consistently sickened other monkeys in the lab, the New York Times reported Monday.

But 28 days later, all the chimps were still healthy.

Let’s hear it for the chimps.

On Cuomo: I wonder whether…

The New Neo Posted on by

…these revelations will dim Andrew Cuomo’s newish luster for the Democrats:

Nursing homes in New York were required to accept people with COVID-19, rather than have them go to other settings with less vulnerable populations. This policy easily could have resulted in a significant increase in the death toll.

What did Cuomo know and when did he know it? Does anyone on the left care?

Cuomo’s star has risen on the left for a couple of reasons, all of them coming down to the fact that the left is desperate for a candidate who can talk in some sort of coherent manner and is not really really old. At 62, Cuomo isn’t actually a spring chicken. But he seems nearly fetal compared to the alternative facing the Democratic Party right now.

The COVID curve: apples vs. oranges

The New Neo Posted on by

One of the many problems with evaluating what’s going on with COVID-19 is that no place on earth is quite like any other place. So one can pick and choose statistics from different areas, depending on what one wishes to prove. And even if a person is trying to be fair and logical, sorting it out is really really hard.

There are a number of articles such as this one claiming lockdowns are irrelevant because the virus seems to follow a similar pattern no matter what is done. There are obvious differences between countries and between states and even between cities, but the patterns of why are not clearly related to social distancing policies.

That doesn’t mean such policies are useless. It simply means we don’t know how important they are, and one of the possibilities is “not very.”

But be very very careful what you choose to compare. Just as an example, to compare Sweden with Michigan (as a recent commenter did) isn’t really a good choice, although it may seem on the surface to be one. After all, Sweden has a population of about 10 million, and so does Michigan. And they’re both kind of cold. And as we know, Sweden has one of the least intrusive social distancing strategies compared to all the other developed countries, and Michigan one of the strictest.

But the two places are very unalike in many ways that matter. Just to take one example, the black population of Sweden is very small (hard to get exact statistics because Sweden doesn’t compile them that way, but here’s a start), whereas the black population of Michigan is large: 13.4% in the state and a whopping 78.6% in the city of Detroit, where most of the COVID cases and deaths are occurring. We already know that for a number of reasons (probably mostly a high number of pre-existing conditions that increase vulnerability), black people are dying in higher percentages from COVID-19 than white people.

And that’s just one difference, but it’s a difference that could make a huge difference.

The population density of Sweden is 64 people per square mile, and for Michigan it’s 177 per square mile. That’s another big difficulty with any attempt to compare Sweden and Michigan.

The better comparison for Sweden is with Norway, which is far more similar – although Swedes and Norwegians might tell you different. You can see that the Swedish death rate per million is 225, whereas in stricter Norway it’s 38. In very strict Michigan, it’s 342. What can we conclude from this about shutdowns and their effectiveness? IMHO, not all that much, although the Sweden/Norway data goes in the direction of indicating they may have some preventive or delaying effect. I think we’ll learn more as time goes on, but I doubt we’ll ever know anywhere near enough to guide us definitively in the future.

Fear is an opportunity for tyranny

The New Neo Posted on by

And ’twas ever thus.

One of the many lessons of the COVID-19 response is how easily public officials embrace tyranny, and how many people accept it because of fear.

I’m afraid of COVID-19. I’m in a relatively high-risk group, and I’m laying very low. I’ll probably lay low for longer than my state tells me to, but that’s my decision. I didn’t like the initial 2-week shutdown, but I thought I understood the reasons – flatten the curve and keep the health care system from being totally overwhelmed – and I knew it would buy us time to learn more about the illness.

Mission accomplished. It’s been far more than two weeks, and the damage from the shutdown itself has gotten to the point that it becomes crystal clear it needs to be removed. The benefits have been less clear, too. There doesn’t seem to be much evidence that shutdowns mattered all that much in the curve of the COVID-19 toll in various states and various countries. We understand more than we did, but although we don’t understand enough, we have to take a few leaps because one thing we do understand (and was clear from the start, actually) is that the shutdown itself is causing tremendous damage. And that damage is not limited to economics; it involves mental and physical health as well.

Almost six weeks ago I wrote this:

So here’s my question for all you epidemiologists and infectious disease experts out there –

Wouldn’t it be better to have only high-risk people stay home? People over 60 and those with pre-existing conditions? That way, if all those at low risk kept mingling, a lot of them would get a mild flu and herd immunity will be achieved fairly quickly, to the benefit of all, without overwhelming the health care system.

I’m not suggesting this as an actual policy right now, but I’m just wondering if my logic is flawed. I suppose the question is how long would it take for it to run its course and achieve sufficient herd immunity, and when would it be safe for us old folks to finally emerge. Also, would there be a lot of deaths among the younger ones in the meantime?

I just don’t see the end game for the current mitigation strategies.

It wasn’t rocket science to question what was happening back then. And that was before the worst of the draconian measures were put in place by governors such as Michigan’s Whitmer, which are not only startlingly strict but seemingly unrelated to any public health goal or logic involving such goals.

What’s going on? People in power like more power, particularly people on the left. Tyrants of all stripes have long used emergency powers to increase their control over the people. Sometimes those emergency powers become semi-permanent or even permanent. It certainly doesn’t surprise me that some governors are trying to stretch it out for as long as possible.

I believe that’s one of the reasons the MSM is trying to stoke fear, and has been doing so from the start. There’s plenty of fear to be had, of course, just from the basic facts of the matter without trying to increase it further. But the MSM is strongly motivated in various ways to do just that: in order to get Trump, to give petty tyrants like Whitmer more reasons to clamp down, and to increase traffic because “if it bleeds it leads.”

The real wild card in all this is how long the people are going to take it. Spring is stirring even in northern climes, and it’s fully flowering further south, and people are ready to burst forth from their own enforced isolation. Some people’s livelihoods depend on it, and a lot people feel their sanity does as well.

And some people are just tired of being told what to do without seeing sufficient reason to obey, when all they’re asking for is the freedom to go about their normal lives – or as near normal as possible, taking precautions to protect the most vulnerable.

[ADDENDUM: See also this.]

Bar songs

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m not sure why I decided to do a post on bar songs today. Cabin fever, perhaps?

As you may know, I hardly drink alcohol. And even the shutdown hasn’t gotten me to do much drinking, except for maybe a thimbleful an evening of my favorite brew, Amaretto. And I only drink that because it’s my substitute for dessert.

But the other night the genre of “bar songs” came into my head, and so bar songs it is.

First this one:

And next, of course:

A story-song from Harry Chapin:

I guess this next one isn’t really a bar song. But it’s a drinking song, and I loved it when I was very young:

Joni Mitchell being her unique self:

This is more about alcoholism than bars, but it’s close enough and I like it:

Let’s skip all those numbered bottles of beer on the wall. You’ll be glad we did.

How about this one? (originally a Russian song with completely different lyrics and meaning):

Those were the bar songs that came to mind. But I thought I’d look up a few more, and when I did I found a huge number of country songs about drinking. Huge, huge. I often like country music, but not most of these.

For example, this one is obviously mega-popular because it’s got 68 million views. But it doesn’t do much for me:

Merle Haggard, IMHO better:

Oh hey, why not?:

How unique is COVID-19?

The New Neo Posted on by

A lot of the COVID-19 coverage posits or implies its uniqueness. And of course, every virus is somewhat unique. Is this one that much more unique than others?

It resembles regular seasonal flu in its age distribution of deaths, although it seems to spare the youngest group much more. It may be somewhat more contagious than flu, but flu is very contagious as well, and by a similar mechanism (as far as we know, and we don’t know nearly enough although we don’t lack for speculation). As for the possibility of asymptomatic spread of COVID-19, which is strongly suspected but still unproven as far as I can tell, flu is also supposedly spreadable before symptoms occur, although (as with COVID) we are not 100% sure of that.

“Ah,” you say, “but what about the fact that so many people with COVID never have any symptoms at all?” Well, guess what? Same for flu:

“‘77% of flu infections’ have no symptoms, say experts,” reports ITV News.

The news is based on a large community-based study carried out in England, which found that most people with influenza (“flu”) don’t have symptoms, and even if they do, only a small proportion go to a doctor.

Of course, “flu” is not just one thing, not by a longshot, although it is caused by viruses of a certain type that are related to each other and are different from COVID-19, which is a coronavirus. H1N1 in 2009 killed a much different and younger demographic, as did H1N1 in 1918 (which also was highly contagious and incredibly lethal). Even without those pandemic years, each flu year tends to be at leat somewhat different than the others.

And then there are rare but possible effects of COVID-19 that we’re just starting to learn about, such as the possibility that it can precipitate strokes in young adults. Frightening indeed. But it is not unique in having that effect; several other viruses can increase the risk of stroke even in young people. It’s just not widely known or publicized.

But everything about COVID is being publicized as though it’s uniquely able to cause certain things. Each virus is unique, of course, but some of these supposedly unique characteristics of COVID are not actually so unique.

For example, there’s something called a cytokine storm with COVID-19 that’s been much talked about and is responsible for one of the main ways it can kill. It’s a terrible terrible thing. But when flu kills (including H1N1), the cytokine storm is one of the common ways it kills, also. How many people know that? How many knew that in 2009-2010, when H1N1 was going round – and 80% of its victims were under 65 – that a cytokine storm was the way if killed many of its previously healthy victims?:

…[E]very year, flu carries away perfectly healthy young adults and children, and tens of thousands of people over 65.

How does flu kill, and why does it sometimes kill so quickly?

Doctors who study the body’s immune response say there are three main reasons: co-infection with another germ, usually bacteria such as strep; aggravation of existing conditions such as heart disease and asthma; and a so-called cytokine storm, marked by an overwhelming immune system response to infection…

“In certain individuals there can be a very pronounced immune response that can result in a lot of damage to the cells in your body including the cells in the respiratory tract,” Adalja said.

When a virus is new, like the 1918 strain of H1N1 and the 2009 H1N1 “swine flu”, it usually kills far more people. One theory is that the immune system can become overwhelmed by the never-before-seen invader and sends so many troops to fight it that perfectly healthy tissue in the lungs and other organs gets killed, too.

That article appeared in January of 2018, long before COVID-19 reared its ugly head. I knew something about all of this because I had a very good friend who died that way and another who came within a hair of dying but recovered. But I know that most people weren’t aware, and although the press covered it somewhat, it was subdued.

Now, though, just about everyone who follows the news knows about the cytokine storm. And I suppose that’s a good thing in general. But it’s bad in that many people have the false impression that COVID-19 is unique in this respect.

We don’t know nearly enough about COVID-19, but we’re learning more every day. I doubt we’ll ever know everything we’d like to know, though – just as with flu, which has been studied far longer.