Predictions about Coronavirus

SEPTEMBER 5TH 2020.

This time I have a little to add except updating world statistical data, with special emphasis on Mexico and analyzed from my perspective.

1- There are many models of how to contain the pandemic from the mandatory confinement of the citizens of a country or a region, to being more lax and allowing free movement with a healthy distance and the use of hygiene and mouth covers (Mexico), and finally in places where the mouth cover is not used except in public transport and the country believes in its citizens that they will maintain hygiene and physical isolation in society (Holland).

It is perhaps a question of the maturity of population and the historical and social facts by which citizens trust politicians in their decisions.

2- Is it difficult to indicate how the seriousness of an epidemic like  we are experiencing should be calculated, will it be based on the number of deaths in relation to those infected? Or of the total population of the country, or per million inhabitants, ¿etc.…?????

3- We can talk about many things that have happened this month of August 2020, but for me there is no way to look at the raw numbers. I will give you some tables where I compare the numbers of infected and deceased in different countries,  so you can see the European reality of those countries that began their experience in February of this year how they are doing in fatality rates currently, evaluating what happened to them between 1 and 31 of this past month.

Increase rate of death in European countries (%)

Spain: .02

Italy: .005

UK: .007

Germany: .01

France: .01

This means that the increase in some countries such as Argentina, despite the longest quarantine in the world, its figures are alarming (will that strict quarantine help where citizens are not really trusted?) And that in European countries the lethality It is already almost normal due to the number of deaths that occur annually in these countries, which takes away too much severity from Covid infections, despite outbreaks, beaches, demonstrations, etc. ……

Get your own conclusions.

For me, the continuous absolute quarantine (or lockdown ) has shown that it does not work. In the long run, the contagion and mortality rates between countries with massive quarantines and those that do not end up being the same, representing a balance between the infertility of the virus and the immunological tolerance of the individual in society.

4- The task of governments in terms of managing the Pandemic and its citizens is difficult. The health focus is the number of beds available in intensive care and the number of ventilators. The economic approach is not to let so many people die of hunger, thus facilitating violence and insecurity. If we said earlier that the virus is here to stay, I am afraid that economic paralysis is also here to stay in many countries….

5- As for new treatments, there are none, but doctors have learned how to treat these patients in a much more efficient way, avoiding many cases that in April would have died and now we save them. Anticoagulants, Corticosteroids, anti-inflammatories, Immunomodulators, are basic and accepted throughout the world.

I repeat that the use of plasma from infected persons who supposedly have antibodies against the virus, unfortunately, does not have the approval of most researchers and countries as an effective treatment and some researchers consider it even dangerous.

6- The issue of reinfection has attracted attention lately. And I think that it is possible since the immunity that this contagion gives is generally low because like other coronaviruses, they give immunities that vanish (waning immunity).

For this reason, unfortunately the first vaccines to be released will be of short-term biological activity as well. Until they get vaccines that stimulate an immune reaction on the part of the body much stronger than the infection of the virus itself. It will be a second generation of vaccines.

Until then, it may be necessary to get vaccinated frequently, every 6-9 months.

What I do believe is that in all populations there is a percentage of people who are not susceptible or sensitive to Covid 19 – that is, they have a natural defense against the virus. According to the Genius of Karl Friston it can vary from 50 to 80% of the population

7- There are reports that the coronavirus infection is more aggressive according to the race of the affected individual. It may be, but it happens that in many places this sector of the population also suffers from chronic and pre-existing diseases that make them more sensitive to severe infections. The last word has not yet been said regarding racial differentiation or whether people with group 0 blood are more protected. I believe that the differences between countries are not exclusively due to the actions of the State, but to intrinsic differences between populations. Neither the concentration of Vitamin D nor the genetic differences between populations has been conclusively demonstrated.

8-I think that between over information by the media and politicians as we have mentioned several times and the restriction of civil liberties of the population, people enter stages of anxiety, anguish and depression that do not do well physically and return to us more vulnerable to all kinds of diseases. The loneliness created by social and family isolation should be considered more by politicians who distrust their populations and believe that this will control the Pandemic, which we see in Mexico and other countries is not true.

9- Since I started this line of research I said something that I still believe: People who are vulnerable due to age and pre-existing diseases must be cared for and tried to save them until the vaccine comes out and proves to be effective. But young people, let them join the productive and labor society of the country and that little by little they will form herd immunity at an exceptionally low cost of their health and below certain ages almost non-existent.

10- Finally my conclusion is Optimistic, we will be fine, but let’s not build a society that when we have the weapons to fight the infection, we have a group of very poor people with important psychological problems that are very difficult to recover.

Dr. Adán Oliveros C