[ExI] good news/bad news

[Dave Sill]

On Thu, Apr 9, 2020 at 8:58 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> In our paper this morning is a report of a local anesthesiologist building
> a ventilator for less than $100 from parts available at Lowe's or Home
> Depot.  They can be made in under an hour and more than 100 have been
> made.  Parts include garden hose and a lamp timer.  The MS medical center
> is applying for emergency use permission.
>

Ventilators aren't very effective. This preprint might explain why:


https://chemrxiv.org/articles/COVID-19_Disease_ORF8_and_Surface_Glycoprotein_Inhibit_Heme_Metabolism_by_Binding_to_Porphyrin/11938173/6

"The novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) is an infectious acute
respiratory infection caused by the novel coronavirus. The virus is a
positive-strand RNA virus with high homology to bat coronavirus. In this
study, conserved domain analysis, homology modeling, and molecular docking
were used to compare the biological roles of certain proteins of the novel
coronavirus. The results showed the ORF8 and surface glycoprotein could
bind to the porphyrin, respectively. At the same time, orf1ab, ORF10, and
ORF3a proteins could coordinate attack the heme on the 1-beta chain of
hemoglobin to dissociate the iron to form the porphyrin. The attack will
cause less and less hemoglobin that can carry oxygen and carbon dioxide.
The lung cells have extremely intense poisoning and inflammatory due to the
inability to exchange carbon dioxide and oxygen frequently, which
eventually results in ground-glass-like lung images. The mechanism also
interfered with the normal heme anabolic pathway of the human body, is
expected to result in human disease. According to the validation analysis
of these finds, chloroquine could prevent orf1ab, ORF3a, and ORF10 to
attack the heme to form the porphyrin, and inhibit the binding of ORF8 and
surface glycoproteins to porphyrins to a certain extent, effectively
relieve the symptoms of respiratory distress. Since the ability of
chloroquine to inhibit structural proteins is not particularly obvious, the
therapeutic effect on different people may be different. Favipiravir could
inhibit the envelope protein and ORF7a protein bind to porphyrin, prevent
the virus from entering host cells, and catching free porphyrins. This
paper is only for academic discussion, the correctness needs to be
confirmed by other laboratories. Due to the side effects and allergic
reactions of drugs such as chloroquine, please consult a qualified doctor
for treatment details, and do not take the medicine yourself."

Basically, they think the virus binds to hemoglobin and doesn't unbind. So
forcing oxygen into the lungs is of limited use since the blood's capacity
to carry oxygen is diminished.

-Dave
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