COVID-19 Links

Information Related to SARS COV2 (COVID-19)

Online Statistics/Modeling Pages:

• Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Dashboard
• Worldmeter Caronavirus
• USA States table - sortable and annotated with sources
• CDC Summary Page
• Another COVID-19 dashboard
• COVID-19 Projects:  This is a collection of projects based upon the IMHE model.

Other Links

• RAPS COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker - Tracking Vaccine development

Videos

SARS COV-2 Information Videos from MEDCRAM

Update 99: "Long Haulers" - Lingering and Long-Term Symptoms After COVID-19

Update 98: At Home COVID-19 Testing - A Possible Breakthrough

Update 97: Vitamin D & COVID-19 Immunity, The Endothelium, & Deficiencies

Update 96: RNA Vaccine; Ivermectin; von Willebrand Factor and COVID-19

Update 95: Widespread Clotting on Autopsy; New COVID-19 Prognostic Data

Update 94: Inhaled Steroids COVID-19 Treatment; New Pneumonia in Kazakhstan?

Update 93: Antibodies, Immunity, & Prevalence of COVID-19 - New Data from Spain

Update 92: Blood Clots & COVID-19 - New Research & Potential Role of NAC

Update 91: Remdesivir Pricing & Disparities in Drug Availability

Update 90: Assess The Quality of COVID-19 Info With A Validated Research

Update 89: COVID 19 Infections Rising in Many States; Dexamethasone Cautions

Update 88: Dexamethasone History & Mortality Benefit Data Released From UK

Update 87: More on Dexamethasone; Do COVID-19 antibodies last?

Update 86: COVID-19 Testing & Cases Increasing but Daily Deaths Decreasing

Update 85: Dexamethasone and Key Questions to Ask if in The Hospital (Part 2)Need to get this.

Update 84: Key Questions to Ask if in the Hospital for COVID-19 (Part 1 of 2)

Update 83: High Fructose, Vitamin D, & Oxidative Stress in COVID-19

Update 82: Racial Disparities with COVID-19 & Vitamin D 

Update 81: New Data on Hydroxychloroquine Side Effects & Prevention of COVID-19

Update 80: COVID-19 Retractions & Data (Hydroxychloroquine, ACE Inhibitors)

Update 79: COVID-19 Vaccines to Keep an Eye On - mRNA, Antigen, Others

Update 78: Mask Controversy; Vaccine Update for COVID-19

Update 77: Remdesivir Update; COVID-19 in Mexico

Update 76: Antibody Testing False Positives in COVID-19

Update 75: COVID-19 Lung Autopsies - New Data

Update 74: Vitamin D & COVID 19; Academic Censorship

Update 73: Relapse, Reinfections, & Re-Positives - The Likely Explanation

Update 72: Dentists; Diabetes; Sensitivity of COVID-19 Antibody Tests

Update 71: New Data on Adding Zinc to Hydroxychloroquine + Azithromycin

Update 70: Glutathione Deficiency, Oxidative Stress, and COVID 19

Update 69: "NAC" Supplementation and COVID-19 (N-Acetylcysteine)

Update 68: Kawasaki Disease; Minority Groups & COVID-19

Update 67: COVID-19 Blood Clots - Race, Blood Types, & Von Willebrand Factor

Update 66: ACE-Inhibitors and ARBs - Hypertension Medications with COVID-19

Update 65: COVID-19 and Oxidative Stress (Prevention & Risk Factors)

COVID-19 Clinical Updates CME Webinar

Update 64: Remdesivir COVID-19 Treatment Update

Update 63: Is COVID-19 a Disease of the Endothelium (Blood Vessels and Clots)?

Update 62: Treatment with Famotidine (Pepcid)?

Update 61: Blood Clots & Strokes in COVID-19; ACE-2 Receptor; Oxidative Stress

Update 60: Hydroxychloroquine Update; NYC Data; How Widespread is COVID-19?

Update 59: Dr. Seheult's Daily Regimen (Vitamin D, C, Zinc, Quercetin, NAC)

Update 58: Testing; Causes of Hypoxemia in COVID-19 (V/Q vs Shunt vs Diffusion)

Update 57: Remdesivir Treatment Update and Can UV-C Disinfect Public Spaces?

Update 56: What is “Forest Bathing” & Can It Boost Immunity Against Viruses?

Update 55: How COVID-19 Infection Attacks The Immune System & Differs From HIV

Update 54: COVID-19 Antibody vs. PCR Testing; When to Relax Social Distancing?

Update 53: Anticoagulation; Can Mechanical Ventilation Make COVID-19 Worse?

Update 52: Ivermectin Treatment; Does COVID-19 Attack Hemoglobin?

Update 51: State by State Projections; Ultrasound to Diagnose COVID19 Pneumonia

Update 50: Dip in Daily New Deaths; Research on Natural Killer Cells & COVID-19

Update 49: New Data on COVID-19 vs Other Viral Infections (Ventilator Outcomes)

Update 48: Curve Flattening in California, PPE in the ICU, Medication Trials

Update 47: Searching for Immunity Boosters & Possible Lessons From Spanish Flu

Update 46: Can Hot/Cold Therapy Boost Immunity? More on Hydroxychloroquine

Update 45: Sharing Ventilators, More on Sleep, Immunity, & COVID-19 Prevention

Update 44: Loss of Smell & Conjunctivitis in COVID-19, Is Fever Helpful?

Update 43: Shortages, Immunity, & Can a TB Vaccine (BCG) Help Prevent COVID-19?

Update 42: Immunity to COVID-19 and is Reinfection Possible?

Update 41: Shelter In Place, FDA Investigates Hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19

Update 40: Ibuprofen and COVID-19 (are NSAIDs safe?), trials of HIV medications

Update 39: Rapid COVID-19 Spread with Mild or No Symptoms, More on Treatment

Update 38: How Hospitals & Clinics Can Prepare for COVID-19, Global Cases Surge

Update 37: The ACE-2 Receptor - The Doorway to COVID-19 (ACE Inhibitors & ARBs)

Update 36: Flatten The COVID-19 Curve, Social Distancing, Hospital Capacities

Update - 33: COVID-19 Medication

Update - 32: COVID-19 Important Data

Update - 31: COVID-19 Medication

Update - 30: COVID-19 Medication

Other Videos:

• Good review of infectious disease process and COVID-19
  

Misc Videos:

These are videos not of a direct medical nature.  Related directly or indirectly.  Posted here because they seem interesting.   No sense of accuracy is included.

• I Found The Source of the Coronavirus

Articles/Papers

• Israeli Professor Shows Virus Follows Fixed Pattern

Treasure Boxes - A Woodworking Project From The Past

Years ago, in 1990 or 1991, I attempted to be a garage wood worker.  I had taken wood shop when I was in junior high school, now called middle school, at Cedar Park middle school in Beaverton Oregon.   For years after that I would build the occasional project or route the occasional sign. 

In 1990/1991, don't honestly remember, it seemed like a good idea to build treasure boxes for my nephews.  I built three identical box.   I never recorded the design or photos of the boxes and asked my nephew Nick to share a few photos of his box.   He provided the photos below.

This page is to provide a place to share what these boxes looked like and how they were built.

Front

Back

Side view - shows front/back dovetail joinery

Closeup view of dovetail - note cut to expose inside of box

Box open

Box open showing cut dovetail

Box interior

Box Dimensions

FreeStyle Libre Recycling

FreeStyle Libre Recycling - Sharps

DISCLAIMER:  The information contained in here is my own.  This information is not for everyone and is has not been reviewed or discussed with any representative of Abbott Diabetes Care Inc.  This process isn't for everyone.  You are solely responsible for the outcome of this process.  Be sure to properly dispose of the extracted needle using proper sharps management techniques.

If you have no experience with the Abbott FreeStyle Libre sensor application, consult the documentation that is included with the packaging provided by Abbott.  The information there is accurate, effective and achieve a properly applied sensor.

After doing all that is described, the Abbott procedure and documentation leave the disposal of the application hardware to you.  This documentation is simply what I've done to manage the issue.

Review Of Components

This discussion assumes you are familiar with the application of the sensor.  For review and reference the following images are provided to help clarify details.

Sensor and needle to install sensor

Applicator with electronics and adhesive

This is the electronics with the adhesive layer

Sensor plus needle attached to electronics ready to apply

Removing The Needle

Once the sensor has been applied to the skin, the application device looks like the picture below.  The position of the grey plastic carrier is extended out. 

Applicator after sensor applied

Each of the light grey oval points in the device shown above need to be pried loose to needle and application spring underneath.  To accomplish this task  I use a medium flat blade screwdriver.  The picture below shows approximately where to insert the screwdriver tip and pry apart the plastic bond.

Screwdriver to break plastic bond

While breaking the final  tab, be sure to hold the white plastic in place or you will have to retrieve the piece from wherever the spring sends it across the room.

Once the three bonds are separated, you will be able to remove the white piece:

White retaining plate

Left inside the applicator is the spring and needle used to place the sensor in the skin.

Applicator Spring

Remove the spring above to reveal the small insertion needle used to place the sensor in the skin.

Sharp needle in bottom of applicator

I reach inside the applicator and retrieve the sharp needle using a pair of hemostats.  I lock the hemostats on the needle and gently pull up.  The needle is easy to remove.

There really is nothing more to it than this.

Sensor needle removed from applicator

Next I fold the needle in half, shown below, and place in our sharps container.

After going through this process, you can see the pile of plastic and parts that don't have to be stored in the sharps container taking up space.  I  believe this plastic can be recycled as any plastic would be.

I save the springs for no particular reason other than I might find a use for them.

Android Tracking Software for E-Boarding

First Impression of ztrack Geotracker for E-Boarding

Not long ago I replaced my Samsung Galaxy Note 4 with a Note 8.  On the Note 4 I had a tool named "Geo Tracker" that I really liked.  I assumed that the Samsung transfer utility would have made this application available on my new Note 8.  This didn't happen.  I went looking for the application in the Android Play store and didn't locate it.  I did a little looking around at other applications and found one that had the summary page I liked from Geo Tracker.  The application was not free so I was a little hesitant.  Kind of an ironic position to take when you consider the cost of the Metro-Board Dual Drive combined with the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 phone. I went ahead and installed the $0.99 application and started exploring the features while driving to and from work.  I had the basics I was looking for.

Recently the weather in the Beaverton Oregon area has been nice enough to get out and do some riding on the Dual Drive.  I put together a 6.9 mile ride and thought I'd provide the first impressions of how the application worked as a skateboard tracker.

Initial map without track

The experience starts at the main screen where you have to turn on tracking.  The red dot in the upper right corner does this.  From there I placed the phone in my inside coat pocket and headed out.   If there are existing tracks on the screen, they will be retained so if you are beginning a new journey, you will need to remove existing tracks.  This is done by selecting "Clear" from the main menu - top left.  After that, the map display will be empty.

Start your recording by pressing the red dot to begin.  During the ride I put the phone inside my pocket but from watching on driving trips I observed the application attempting to track the current position on the map.  At higher speeds, 60mph+, the map under the position was no keeping up.   Not really a big deal since the position and data is collected.

At the conclusion of a ride I like to save the ride by adding a descriptive name.  This is accomplished by using the main menu "Edit" function to change the provided name.   At the conclusion of my ride, here is what the screen looked like after I turned off recording.  It is important to turn off recording so averages from the ride are locked in place.

Map Track

Zoomed Display

You can see I changed the name to 2018-03-10 Metroboard.   This display can be zoomed and panned to exploring the location.  I was surprised at the detail when I zoomed in to the area of the West Side trail, shown to the right.  While these displays are nice and well done, the most important data about the ride is distance, elevation, and velocity.  These are displayed very nicely in the Stats display.   The example Stats below shown below is pretty self explanatory.

Statistics Display

The things I'm interested in are

• Distance traveled
• Maximum speed
• Average speed
• Altitude

The Altitude information is pretty interesting for DualDrive owners like me because it shows that little elevation change impacts the Metro-board DualDrive.

After that I don't really care.  The whole point of riding the Metro-Board Dual Drive is to get away from other worries and enjoy.

In addition to the Stats display, there are a few other interactive displays that are fun to play with.  The "Distance vs Speed" display allows the instantaneous speed to be viewed relative to position of the journey.

Distance Vs Speed

An additional display in the Chart category that I like is the display of "Distance vs Altitude."  The overlay of altitude shows the nature of where I usually ride.

Builtin Vacuum Clog Solved

My family and I live in our home which we had built for us about 19 years ago (1998).  During the build process we elected to install a central cyclonic vacuum system with an external exhaust system.  The primary reason for this choice was health.  Our son had reactive airway issues and we felt it important to have anything the vacuum picked up ejected from the house.  It was pretty much that simple.   Since that time, the system has worked relatively well.  The main power unit in the garage is the same - VacuMaid.  The only wear and tear items have been the power heads and hoses.  The original system was installed with 120V power ports at each vacuum outlet to support a power head that we felt we needed.  Several years later, when the power head started to fail, we switch to air turbine driven power heads and have used these for years.

This particular vacuum story is about what happened, after 19 years, when the tubing system became plugged somewhere in the walls.  The suction power was undiminished - when you put your hand over the end of the hose, you can hear the vacuum power unit bear down and observe the hose start to collapse.  This indicated to me that the power unit in the garage wasn't suddenly weaker.  There was a faint whistle sound coming from the system that suggested, at least to me, that there was some kind of blockage.  I tried using my 6HP shop vacuum to pull any item stuck in the system the opposite way.  Didn't really succeed.  I took a 50+ foot section of cord and let the vacuum suck the cord in through the system, making darn sure to not let the other end go.  This was interesting - the cord went in and continued to be pulled in to the vacuum until it was at the very end.  After that I  took one of my granddaughter's socks, tied it to the end of the cord.  The sock was big enough to fill up the 2" diameter of the vacuum piping.  This time it pulled the sock and the cord in and reached a blockage.    I tried using a light duty plumbing snake on the system starting with the port upstairs that is closest to the power unit.  After being careful not to over do the pressure on the piping, I reached the end of the snake - 15ft - and didn't see any results.  I took the same device down to the first floor port closest to the power unit and repeated the process.  It seemed like something happened - the sound changed a little bit and I could hear some debris moving in the vacuum pipe.  Still nothing accomplished.  I knew from examining the vacuum piping in the crawlspace under the first floor that the distance wasn't that far to the power unit but farther away than the 15ft snake could reach.  I looked up plumbing snakes on Harbor Freight Tools website and found a light duty 25ft snake with an arbor to attach a drill. 

I took this device to the closest port to the power unit on the 2nd floor and carefully guiding the tip through the piping.  The nature of all joints in a vacuum system are that joints always have a curve toward the power unit.  This means that the snake always guides in the right direction.  That being said, it is important to know that vacuum pipe is not heavy duty schedule 40 or 100 PVC pipe.  It is much thinner and more brittle.  This snake, being 10 feet longer than the previous one I tried seemed to move something.  I then repeated the process on the first floor port - also closest to the power unit.  All of this was done with the vacuum system running.  During this last attempt something dislodged.  I retrieved the snake and went to the garage where I had shorted together the low voltage wires to keep the vacuum running.  I removed the short, shutting down the vacuum power unit.  I removed the dust canister and discovered 3 heavy clumps of hair - not previously seen - I started by emptying the canister so I would know when something new arrived - and a large crayon.  These items combined to not allow the clog to move through the joints of the vacuum system.

Summary:

• Problem solved and a lot learned - pipes cleared.

Suggestions:

• VacuMaid power units are built tough.  I took the unit down off the wall to inspect it and was impressed.  This 18 year old power unit is still working strong - it sucks :)
• Be careful with what you do to the PVC vacuum plumbing.  The pipes get a little more brittle as they get old - be gentle.
• Know the layout of your pipes - understand where they go and how the sequence is assembled.
• Empty the dirt canister before you start any work to clear the clog otherwise you won't know what comes out.

2002 Ford Excursion Airbags

My 2002 Ford Excursion Limited recently developed a problem with one of the notification lights in the instrument cluster.  Ever since I acquired this Excursion, the trip odometer hasn't worked.  In addition, the engine temperature gauge doesn't work even though the temperature sender works just fine.  The cost of rebuilding the engine cluster is very expensive -$200+.  The other problem is that to get it repaired requires disassembling the dash and shipping it out of state.  This means my primary driver would be unavailable for a week or more.

Anyway, back to the story about the driver side airbags.  During startup the power on self test (POST) for the air bags lights up the airbag dash light.  When the POST is complete and the system is operational, the light goes off.  While driving the light is intended to come on when there is a problem with the airbag system.  In my way, the light started intermittently going on and off and eventually never went off.  I had my favorite diesel shop Electronic Injector Service, diagnose the problem.  They reported the likely cause as the steering wheel clock spring.  A little research indicated the part price was somewhere in the $188 to $516 range.  Even using the vehicle identification number (VIN) on the Ford Parts web site didn't narrow the part to the exact one I needed.  I ended up using their service chat session and shared the VIN with the support person on the other end.  For my Excursion, the part number I needed is 2C3Z-14A664-CB.  This part is one of least expensive since it only supports connections for:

• Airbags
• Horn
• Cruise control

I acquired the part at Landmark Ford and had the part installed by another favorite car shop of mine - Advanced Automotive.  Once installed, the airbag POST has never failed and the light has never come back on.  I only hope that the airbags themselves, being 14 years old, still work if I need them to.

Free State of Jones - Movie

On Saturday July 9th, my wife Ruth and I saw the movie Free State of Jones at Bridgeport Theatre in Tigard Oregon.  The film was only showing in a limited number of theaters and an even more limited number of times at those theaters.  I don't really know what the films success has been in terms of the usual metrics - dollars earned.  I read a modest amount about the history of Jones County, Mississippi the movie seems to be reasonably historically accurate.

The movie is centered around the actions of Newton Knight from 1862 to 1865.  There are many aspects from military, racial, and historical that make the film interesting and intriguing. The events of the Civil War are huge and broad and have left an intense influence on this county. This is but one of thousands and thousands of such stories that have come responsibly to the big screen.  I highly recommend seeing this movie before it is out of theaters, which will be soon.

Some additional resources:

• Smithsonian article: The True Story of the ‘Free State of Jones’
• Civil War - Vols I-3 - Shelby Foote, On Amazon
• History vs Hollywood - Free State of Jones
• Mississippi History Now article - really interesting.

Map of counties in Mississippi: