Coronavirus Updates

[Clara D.]

Yay for salmiakki!!!! If you want to see something hilarious look on youtube for americans trying it.

Reminds me of when my Aisan co-workers judged my ability to eat salted plums XD

Mexicans have the same thing (Saladitos), so I was already prepared.

 

[Caete]

Yelp decides to "help" businesses without telling them, decides to halt setting up gofundme pages after backlash and lack of transparency.


Yelp, GoFundMe team up to help local businesses

Yelp and GoFundMe say they will match up to $1 million dollars in donations. The money will be given in the form of waived advertising fees, free advertising, products and service.

Bolding mine.

 

[Caete]

Yelp Causing Yelps for Unauthorized GoFundMe Business Pages | The SandPaper

They were even setting up pages for restaurants that were still open.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Would this be possible? I mean, suing is big in the US.

Thread about that:

 

[Sovereignty]

Fascinating and perhaps important video from MedCram today. Can Hot/Cold Therapy Boost Immunity?

If you want to try using saunas/hot baths to activate your immune system (simulate a fever), be careful. Hot temperatures can have bad effects on your circulatory system. For instance, if your heart cannot maintain your blood pressure as blood vessels near your skin dilate, you could lose consciousness. There could be other problems, too. As Dr. Seuhult says, consult your physician.

Two countries have a culture of saunas/hot baths, Japan and Finland. Neither is doing badlly with Covid19 so far.

This is all very interesting since it ties together a lot of features of the disease. Covid19 gets an upper hand by suppressing the innate immune system. Children have robust innate immune systems, so they do not get severe disease from it. The disease progresses fairly slowly, in contrast to the flu which comes on quite suddenly. In most people first Covid19 has to suppress the innate immune system. After that it can cause havoc.

The hopeful part is that both increasing and decreasing core body temperatures help activate the innate immune system. Seuhult goes through a number of papers on research done on the effects of Finnish style saunas and related phenomena. It seems like temporarily vaccinating the innate immune system which is what the BCG vaccine (for tuberculosis) also seems to do. There's a previous MedCram video discussing the BCG vaccine.

ETA: See Shortages, Immunity, & Can a TB Vaccine (BCG) Help Prevent COVID-19?
This video also gives background info on the innate and specific immune systems. Vaccines bolster the specific immune system. The innate immune system is a kind of all purpose immunity.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Yay for salmiakki!!!! If you want to see something hilarious look on youtube for americans trying it.

Oh, I've seen it first hand, though I'm not the only person in our little group who has developed a taste for them, so when I do break down and get some [I do get the german ones, not actual salmiakki, but ever type of salted licorice I have had has been similar], I can share it.

Reminds me of when my Aisan co-workers judged my ability to eat salted plums XD

Mexicans have the same thing (Saladitos), so I was already prepared.

Sad thing, I got some salted plums once, but somehow nothing I'd learned in Japanese class had told me they were salted. I'm sure I'd like them -with- something, but plain when not expecting omg salt..... yeah.

Fascinating and perhaps important video from MedCram today. Can Hot/Cold Therapy Boost Immunity?

If you want to try using saunas/hot baths to activate your immune system (simulate a fever), be careful. Hot temperatures can have bad effects on your circulatory system. For instance, if your heart cannot maintain your blood pressure as blood vessels near your skin dilate, you could lose consciousness. There could be other problems, too. As Dr. Seuhult says, consult your physician.

Two countries have a culture of saunas/hot baths, Japan and Finland. Neither is doing badlly with Covid19 so far.

This is all very interesting since it ties together a lot of features of the disease. Covid19 gets an upper hand by suppressing the innate immune system. Children have robust innate immune systems, so they do not get severe disease from it. The disease progresses fairly slowly, in contrast to the flu which comes on quite suddenly. In most people first Covid19 has to suppress the innate immune system. After that it can cause havoc.

The hopeful part is that both increasing and decreasing core body temperatures help activate the innate immune system. Seuhult goes through a number of papers on research done on the effects of Finnish style saunas and related phenomena. It seems like temporarily vaccinating the innate immune system which is what the BCG vaccine (for tuberculosis) also seems to do. There's a previous MedCram video discussing the BCG vaccine.

I can't even get into a sauna, I have always gotten dizzy. But I can do hot baths just fine....

 

[Sovereignty]

A long time ago, sitting in my father's office waiting for him to go home, I read an article in Science about how lizards, cold-blooded of course, can give themselves fevers when ill and thereby better handle infections. In fact, lizards seemed to do this instinctively.

The researchers infected lizards (apparently the rhesus monkeys of lizards) with some bacteria and then either allowed them to sit under a heat lamp or denied them a heat lamp. Offered a heat lamp, infected lizards spent more time under the heat lamp than lizards in a control group. That raised their body temperatures and they got better. Infected lizards denied a heat lamp, uh, didn't do so well.

That experiment was done before we knew about interleukin and all that (1066 and All That). My father was a biochemist and around that time once remarked how no one knew what actually made someone run a fever. They knew there was some substance in the blood that caused it and called it a pyrogen. They could take plasma from someone with a fever and inject it into a healthy patient who would immediately run a fever, too. I remember at the time feeling dumbfounded that no one knew what the substance was. That's all changed now.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Donald Trump the ratings hit!

 

[Jopsy Pendragon]

salmiakki - A friend made me try one while I was driving in city traffic. I got through the salt part then the bitter licorice tar flavor kicked in. I couldn't get my window down fast enough to yeet that nasty ass lump of tongue punching rubber.

Felt like I was chewing on a sawed off piece of tire tread after it had been driven on hot asphalt downstream from a stockyard.

It's put me off the flavor of licorice and anise ever since!

 

[Kara Spengler]

Yelp decides to "help" businesses without telling them, decides to halt setting up gofundme pages after backlash and lack of transparency.


Yelp, GoFundMe team up to help local businesses

Bolding mine.

Yeah, I saw his vid yesterday. Talk about scummy, then the businesses have to know about it to claim it. He also talked about some other scams they pulled.

If yelp is one of the companies that does not survive this I will cheer.

 

[eku zhong]

called it weeks ago.. here you go...

Tokyo's infection spike after Olympic postponement sparks questions

Before the Olympics were postponed, Japan looked like it had coronavirus infections contained, even as they spread in neighboring countries. Now that the games have been pushed to next year, Tokyo’s cases are spiking, and the city's governor is requesting that people stay home, even hinting at a possible lockdown.
The sudden rise in the number of virus cases in Tokyo and the government's strong actions immediately after the Olympic postponement have raised questions in parliament and among citizens about whether Japan understated the extent of the outbreak and delayed enforcement of social distancing measures while clinging to hopes that the games would start on July 24 as scheduled.

 

[Kara Spengler]

Fascinating and perhaps important video from MedCram today. Can Hot/Cold Therapy Boost Immunity?

If you want to try using saunas/hot baths to activate your immune system (simulate a fever), be careful. Hot temperatures can have bad effects on your circulatory system. For instance, if your heart cannot maintain your blood pressure as blood vessels near your skin dilate, you could lose consciousness. There could be other problems, too. As Dr. Seuhult says, consult your physician.

Two countries have a culture of saunas/hot baths, Japan and Finland. Neither is doing badlly with Covid19 so far.

This is all very interesting since it ties together a lot of features of the disease. Covid19 gets an upper hand by suppressing the innate immune system. Children have robust innate immune systems, so they do not get severe disease from it. The disease progresses fairly slowly, in contrast to the flu which comes on quite suddenly. In most people first Covid19 has to suppress the innate immune system. After that it can cause havoc.

The hopeful part is that both increasing and decreasing core body temperatures help activate the innate immune system. Seuhult goes through a number of papers on research done on the effects of Finnish style saunas and related phenomena. It seems like temporarily vaccinating the innate immune system which is what the BCG vaccine (for tuberculosis) also seems to do. There's a previous MedCram video discussing the BCG vaccine.

ETA: See Shortages, Immunity, & Can a TB Vaccine (BCG) Help Prevent COVID-19?
This video also gives background info on the innate and specific immune systems. Vaccines bolster the specific immune system. The innate immune system is a kind of all purpose immunity.

Yeah, there are more saunas than people in Finland. When a Finn moves it is often what they build before anything else and the family sauna night is more or less a tradition.

It is a health issue in both a positive and negative sense though. When I started having seizures I reluctantly had to give it up.

 

[Sovereignty]

called it weeks ago.. here you go...

Tokyo's infection spike after Olympic postponement sparks questions

I always thought their onsen use was overstated. More seriously, the trains are insane.

 

[Kara Spengler]

Oh, I've seen it first hand, though I'm not the only person in our little group who has developed a taste for them, so when I do break down and get some [I do get the german ones, not actual salmiakki, but ever type of salted licorice I have had has been similar], I can share it.

Sad thing, I got some salted plums once, but somehow nothing I'd learned in Japanese class had told me they were salted. I'm sure I'd like them -with- something, but plain when not expecting omg salt..... yeah.


I can't even get into a sauna, I have always gotten dizzy. But I can do hot baths just fine....

When I was a kid I used to love the top bench.

For those who do not know what I mean? Heat rises.

 

[Kara Spengler]

Donald Trump the ratings hit!

He is back to the third person again.

I watch news in streaming. I figure if anything newsworthy comes from one of his rallie ... err .. 'newsconferences' one of them will mention it. Day to day I watch Cuomo though, even though it is another state there is more hard data per minute in them than I ever saw in one of the donnie ones in total.

 

[Sovereignty]

Yeah, there are more saunas than people in Finland. When a Finn moves it is often what they build before anything else and the family sauna night is more or less a tradition.

It is a health issue in both a positive and negative sense though. When I started having seizures I reluctantly had to give it up.

There could be indirect benefits if enough people are able to strengthen their immune systems. That would decrease the burden on hospitals and lessens the demand for therapeutic drugs. We can have multiple ways of dealing with the disease using whatever is best for each individual.

Seuhult is very big on the idea of helping people's immune systems by whatever means works and believes this part of the problem has not been getting enough attention. It can reduce the burden on hospitals.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

Donald Trump the ratings hit!

Who the hell would brag about ratings for giving a crisis, yes this is a crisis, update and then compare it to a television show? Donald Trump, that's who. It's a captive audience, albeit a gullible one if they believe they'll hear anything useful from his mouth.

Does he think he's acting and people are watching because they're glued to his performance, or what?

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Bolding mine.

That is freaking craven. Yelp is keeping the "donations" and claiming to be passing them along in the form of "free advertising". Somebody should go to jail for that.

 

[Jopsy Pendragon]

He is back to the third person again.

At least he's "Quoting" the demons running around in his head this time instead of just talking in the third person directly.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Donald Trump the ratings hit!