From September through November of 1918, the death rate from the Spanish flu skyrocketed. In the United States alone, 195,000 Americans died from the Spanish flu in just the month of October. And unlike a normal seasonal flu, which mostly claims victims among the very young and very old, the second wave of the Spanish flu exhibited what’s called a “W curve”—high numbers of deaths among the young and old, but also a huge spike in the middle composed of otherwise healthy 25- to 35-year-olds in the prime of their life.
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Only decades later were scientists able explain the phenomenon now known as “cytokine explosion.” When the human body is being attacked by a virus, the immune system sends messenger proteins called cytokines to promote helpful inflammation. But some strains of the flu, particularly the H1N1 strain responsible for the Spanish flu outbreak, can trigger a dangerous immune overreaction in healthy individuals.
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In those cases, the body is overloaded with cytokines leading to severe inflammation and the fatal buildup of fluid in the lungs.

British military doctors conducting autopsies on soldiers killed by this second wave of the Spanish flu described the heavy damage to the lungs as akin to the effects of chemical warfare.

Given various combinations of an individual patient’s physiology and environmental conditions, such as humidity and temperature, the gas cloud and its payload of pathogen-bearing droplets of all sizes can travel 23 to 27 feet (7-8 m).

Researchers say more studies need to be done on the potential impact of the coronavirus on male reproductive health.Photo: XinhuaResearchers say more studies need to be done on the potential impact of the coronavirus on male reproductive health.Photo: Xinhua
Researchers say more studies need to be done on the potential impact of the coronavirus on male reproductive health.Photo: Xinhua
Doctors in the central Chinese city of Wuhan plan to embark on a long-term study of the effects of the coronavirus
on the male reproductive system, building on small-scale research indicating that the pathogen could affect sex hormone levels in men.

Though still preliminary and not peer reviewed, the study is the first clinical observation of the potential impact of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, on the male reproductive system, especially among younger groups.
In a paper published on the preprint research platform medRxiv.org
, the researchers – from Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University and the Hubei Clinical Research Centre for Prenatal Diagnosis and Birth Health – said they analysed blood samples from 81 men aged 20 to 54 who tested positive for the coronavirus and were hospitalised in January.

The median age of the participants was 38 and roughly 90 per cent of them had only mild symptoms. The samples were collected in the last days of their stay in hospital.

Using the samples, the team looked at the ratio of testosterone to luteinising hormone (T/LH). A low T/LH ratio can be a sign of hypogonadism, which in men is a malfunction of the testicles that could lead to lower sex hormone production.

The average ratio for the Covid-19 patients was 0.74, about half the normal level.

Overfilled waiting rooms packed with people who are contagious. Patients waiting six hours to be seen. Others on stretchers waiting 50 to 60 hours for a bed. Doctors desperately trying to get more ventilators. That is what it’s like to be on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic at a public hospital in New York City, Dr. Rikki Lane, an emergency room doctor at the Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, said.

“Our hospital has never, ever, ever seen anything like this,” said Lane, who has worked for more than 20 years at Elmhurst, a public hospital with 545 beds.

Lane said the emergency department has been “overwhelmed” for about three weeks and the hospital is in desperate need of help as the coronavirus spreads across the city, which has become a fast-growing epicenter of the virus with more than 21,000 known cases and 281 deaths as of Thursday.

American health officials are deeply concerned that the coronavirus outbreak that has overwhelmed New York City hospitals in recent days is just the first in a wave of local outbreaks likely to strike cities across the country in the coming weeks.

Hospitals in U.S. pandemic epicenters have passed a tipping point in the fight against the new coronavirus as the relentless climb in infections forces some to move patients to outlying facilities, divert ambulances and store bodies in a refrigerated truck.

In the United States, at least 81,321 people are known to have been infected with the coronavirus, including more than 1,000 deaths — more cases than China, Italy or any other country has seen, according to data gathered by The New York Times.

NHS is taking over some private hospitals

Authorities said on Monday facilities could not cope and agreed to transform the Palacio de Hielo mall, home to an Olympic-sized ice rink, into a morgue.

Footage from Reuters TV showed vehicles at the building cordoned off by police officers in masks.

we need to figure out what the fuck the marker is that this thing is latching on to

the filter it is applying is just bizarre

In October 2014, U.S. officials announced an unprecedented “pause” on funding for 18 GOF studies involving influenza or the Middle East respiratory syndrome or severe acute respiratory syndrome viruses (SARS).
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Now, the HHS committee has approved the same type of work in the Kawaoka and Fouchier labs that set off the furor 8 years ago.
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Kawaoka’s grant is the same one on H5N1 that was paused in 2014. It includes identifying mutations in H5N1 that allow it to be transmitted by respiratory droplets in ferrets.

As the number of deaths in the United States from COVID-19 soared to 560, with almost 44,000 declared cases, the Big Apple found itself the US bullseye of the global pandemic.

With millions of residents ordered to stay home and non-essential businesses and schools closed, the city that never sleeps is bedding down for an uncertain slumber.
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New York City has now seen more than 12,000 confirmed cases and almost 100 deaths in the outbreak, which first appeared in the United States in Washington state.

California's governor said on Monday that the state needs 50,000 additional hospital beds to accommodate a surge in coronavirus patients predicted by computer modeling.

Newsom said the state had gone to the open market looking to purchase some 200 million pieces of protective gear for doctors and nurses treating patients with COVID-19.

Fears were growing in Spain on Monday of a spiralling coronavirus death toll among the nation’s elderly after military units sent in to offer emergency healthcare assistance and disinfect old people's homes found an unspecified number of abandoned dead bodies.

According to Spain’s Ministry of Defence, the military teams found that most of the staff had stopped going to work in several privately-run centres after residents began to fall ill with Covid-19, leaving the sick and dying unattended.

Defence Minister Margarita Robles said that “the full force of the law will be brought against those who do not fulfil their obligations”.  

Spaniards were stunned last week when it was revealed that 25 old people had died of coronavirus at the Monte Hermoso residence in Madrid, mostly without being transferred to hospital, while dozens more pensioners have perished in other privately-run centres that have been overwhelmed by the epidemic.
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The discovery of the corpses came as Spanish health workers begged the government for help after shocking video emerged of patients lying on the floor of an overwhelmed hospital in Madrid.