Focus covid-19
Gordon Doig
The leader of clinical medical intensive care research group of Sydney University, associate professor of intensive care medicine, doctor of epidemiology and biostatistics. He has won the research award of intensive care medicine and worked on critical illness and traumatic nutrition. Published 116 academic articles, H-index: 43.
During the outbreak of the COVID-19, as an epidemiologist, Prof. Gordon has been going directly to credible sources like the World Health Organisation. He sets up a website to describe in plain language what the WHO recommends and to provide links to WHO content so people can understand exactly what they are saying.
As a member of Chinese Acute Pancreatitis Clinical Trials Group(CAPCTG), Prof. Gordon shows his impressive
professionalism and humanistic care. We would like to stand together with him, making our own contribution to fight against COVID-19.
Virus in Evolution
CoVID-19 approaches being the perfect pandemic virus:
* it is highly contagious；* the majority of people infected have no symptoms；
* it has a ~5 day incubation time during which a good number of the infected will be contagious；
* it spreads by respiratory and by fomite means as well as via bioareosols created during defecation when the gut is infected；
* the virus has a multi-day viability period on surfaces and can survive indefinitely if cooled to -20 deg C；
* it kills mostly the people who are the least likely to spread it；
*it spares children from infection disproportionately, so as they become adults they will become vulnerable；
* antibody levels (including neutralizing antibodies) drop sharply starting around 3 months post infection (it may not provoke robust t and B cell immunity)；
* there are increasingly credible reports of people becoming reinfected；
* it yields a high rate of false negatives with lab testing；
* it has superspreaders；
* asymptomatic people may spread the virus much longer than those who become ill；
* it is quite possible, or even likely, that it could become endemic；
* it does not produce fever or other easily detectable signs in the vast majority of people who are infected making mass screening virtually impossible without laboratory investigation；
* suppression of the virus requires an inhuman degree of social isolation and droplet precautions; it spreads best when people talk with enthusiasm or, perish the thought, sing；
* much of the morbidity (and possibly the mortality) it inflicts will likely not become apparent till years later；
* it is highly infectious year round；
* by the time herd immunity is achieved (several years?) it will have newly minted high susceptibility people to infect as the population ages and one cohort morphs into another；
* It has been mutating in the direction of increased infectiousness。
