Covid-19 superspreaders

[jochen]

Hello Together,

I have a question to you! Maybe someone knows something about it.

In the last months i searched in my freetime for data or scientific studies if i can find something about the maybe slower spread of Covid-19 or lower infection rate in the group of people, who spend a lot of time in or at salt water. For example: diver, surfer, fisher etc., or Covid-19 data about places where they live.

Because i wonder, if it could be possible to reduce the high Sars-CoV-2 viral load in the upper airways with salt-water. And use it in a nose spray, for example.

Additionaly it could relieve sneeze* and the nasal congestion.  

(maybe a normal isotonized salt-water-spray will do, possibly a mixture with too strong salt content is not suitable for the long term use)

Perhaps, if the most of us do this as a additionally preventive measure, the high spread of Covid-19 could be reduced a little? Especially in the group of superspreaders i can imagine an effect.

* Recently I found an interesting study in this regard: "A study of fluid dynamics and human factors driving droplet dispersion from a human sneeze": https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0032006 (Physics of Fluids,12. November 2020)

As far as I know, the measure can also strengthen the mucous membranes, make them more resistant and moisty, especially when people are often in closed rooms.

What do you think, could it do anything? Or do you know who I could ask about it?

Thank you very much.

Best Wishes,

Jochen 

[Hope Kroog]

Hi Jochen,

Thank you for reaching out once again to DIYbio and posting your question on our Google Forum!

Best,

Hope

on behalf of

Jason Bobe

co-founder, DIYbio.org

http://bit.ly/about_jbobe

[Tom De Medts]

Interesting question, Jochen. I am a plant biotech / genomics person. So I am not an expert in infectious disease / virology.

However, I feel you may be on to something. Here are links to some potentially related scientific papers - in no particular order, and all are free to download:

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6052543/

Vet Res. 2018; 49: 65.
Published online 2018 Jul 18. doi: 10.1186/s13567-018-0568-0
PMCID: PMC6052543
PMID: 30021653
Ciliostasis of airway epithelial cells facilitates influenza A virus infection

2. bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.06.328369; this version posted October 6, 2020.

SARS-CoV-2 infection damages airway motile cilia and impairs mucociliary clearance

3. MICROBIOLOGY Volume 150, Issue 9

Ciliostasis is a key early event during colonization of canine tracheal tissue by Bordetella bronchiseptica
Tracy L. Anderton1, Duncan J. Maskell1, Andrew Preston1,2
First Published: 01 September 2004 https://doi.org/10.1099/mic.0.27283-0

4. https://iai.asm.org/content/iai/29/3/1111.full.pdf

INFECTION AND IMMUNITY, Sept. 1980, p. 1111-1116 Vol. 29, No. 3

0019-9567/80/09-111 1/06$02.00/0
Ciliostatic, Hemagglutinating, and Proteolytic Activities in a Cell Extract of Mycoplasma pneumoniae

What a quick perusal of their abstracts suggest to me, are the following ( I do not have bandwidth to search for / read more such papers):

A. In humans, various pathogens that enter through the airway, may induce ciliostasis to improve colonization, for effective infection

B. This appears to be true in non-human animals as well.

C. Salt treatment may be able to reverse ciliostatis

D. If 1-3 are accurate, salt water irrigation of oral and nasal mucosa with a certain [NaCl] may be helpful?

Since this is such a low-tech solution, and because there is easily available literature to support such an approach,

I wonder if there might not already be experimental data (from amateurs to DIYers to professionals) looking to test this hypothesis.

Because this is not my area of expertise, I cannot and will not comment further. But I welcome a scientific discussion on this

that is comprehensible for all levels of audience in this email thread. 

Our collective quarantine fatigue, combined with the promise of effective vaccine may cause some of us to engage in disproportionally 

risky behavior, in terms of SARS-CoV-2 spread. Therefore, salt VS. SARS-CoV-2, if found to be effective, would have both practical application and scientific value.

Thank you, in advance. Cheers!

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[jochen]

Hello Tom,

Thank you for your answer and your commitment!  As far as I can tell, (I'm not an expert, I work in gardening and landscaping) these further studies support my guess. And I also believe it could be a practical and comparatively gentle approach. I will keep working on it.  Thanks again!

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[Tom De Medts]

YW, Jochen!

But it's probably best to get the opinions of experts in at least a few, if not all of these subject areas:
1. infectious disease

2.virology

3. epithelial biology (epithelium = outer surface of living beings, itself made of cells)

4. biostatistician

5. epidemiologist

Also, you would need to design an experiment to test your hypothesis that needs to factor in details including but not limited to:

A. what would be positive control?

B. what would be negative control?

C. size of test and control groups for sufficient statistical power of downstream analyses of results?

D. type of infection challenge to mount on subjects - any ethical issues about administering such a challenge?

E. importantly, before anything else, what is your null hypothesis and your alternative hypothesis?

I imagine you might be thinking of a more casual and less rigorous experimental design.

But I must warn you that most casual experiments do not lead to any conclusive inferences.

There is a reason pharma companies spend up to hundreds of millions of $ for clinical trials. And even then....

I am not trying to discourage you, but just being realistic about what you can infer /report even if your saline treatment can stave off SARS-CoV-2 infections.

If you test only yourself, and it works, it will still only be considered a hypothesis, with anecdotal evidence. 

Don't allow this to discourage you though. Before penicillin was confirmed as an anti-biotic, it was hypothesized to be one. (just one example) 

In science, all confirmation has to start as a hypothesis, you need good experimental design to be able to accept or reject it, is all I am saying....

Good luck!

Tom

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[j boogie]

The problem is the anatomy of the upper respiratory tract. The nose is kind of a "drain" at the low point. The interior is very complex with a large surface area.  Lets assume you are driving saltwater, saline, or whatever "up" into your respiratory tract. Now you may have possibly transported a virus that is capable of attacking your cells way up in these labyrinthine folds which are very close to the brain. There is an old medical shorthand for this area, its called "the triangle of death", from the corners of the mouth to the bridge of the nose. Deaths have occurred from users of saline irrigation, then transporting waterborne amoebas up there, that otherwise exist in municipal water systems, and don't cause problems because they aren't transported into these areas. This area is NOT designed to be tampered with. If the human body had an area that should be stamped with "no user serviceable parts" it is this area. You cannot optimize this system. It is a diverse ecosystem of immune defenses, from populations of phages, innumerable antibodies, beneficial polysaccharides, etc., etc., all working together.  Instead of external treatment, there are various ways to increase the natural function of this system: things like spicy food, capsacin, pepper, sad movies featuring orphaned puppies, etc. Anything that will induce a tears and mucus production. 

[jochen]

Hi,

@ Tom

I wrote to some infectious desease experts and virologists.  Perhaps they already have evident knowledge about the effect of salt on Sars-CoV-2. Lets see what happens. greetings

@ J Boogie

I wrote "nosespray, for example".  You can also garglin or inhale the NaCI solution. I just thought of a practical application for everyday life, which is also able to reduce sneezing and nasal congestion (see "study of Fluid Dynamics..." in my mail above). For hygienic reasons and in order not to disturb our complex system too much, I thought of a normal, isotonized seawater spray that you can buy in pharmacies or supermarkets.  It is approved for permanent use and some allergy sufferers use it for a longer period of time.  Personally, therefore, I don't think that it would be extremely dangerous to use.  But who knows, maybe yes?  I will check again.

Thank you very much.

Jochen

[Jonathan Cline]

This could probably be tackled ("solved") as a bioinformatics problem if you can find and connect the right databases between covid and demographics. 

Large, specific populations of people in the world use saline rinses on a daily basis.  Hindus(*) in India for example will use a neti pot as religious practice to flush their noses (bioinformatics sample populations of 100M+) with arbitrary water quality and locally sourced salt, i.e. dirty ingredients.  Yoga practitioners or new-agey types in America also use a neti pot often with pre-measured saline mix packets.  Correlate that population against covid logs.

Contrary to the previous reply insisting, "the nose is a fragile area, don't tamper there, you can't optimize it," in fact Hindus have been rinsing and sticking things up their nose for thousands of years (go try nostril flossing on your own, hint, don't use minty floss).

(*) I use the term Hindus very generally, it is a broad population with broad set of beliefs & practices.

On Monday, December 21, 2020 at 2:36:55 AM UTC-8 loopd...@gmail.com wrote:

Hi,

@ Tom

I wrote to some infectious desease experts and virologists.  Perhaps they already have evident knowledge about the effect of salt on Sars-CoV-2. Lets see what happens. greetings

@ J Boogie

I wrote "nosespray, for example".  You can also garglin or inhale the NaCI solution. I just thought of a practical application for everyday life, which is also able to reduce sneezing and nasal congestion (see "study of Fluid Dynamics..." in my mail above). For hygienic reasons and in order not to disturb our complex system too much, I thought of a normal, isotonized seawater spray that you can buy in pharmacies or supermarkets.  It is approved for permanent use and some allergy sufferers use it for a longer period of time.  Personally, therefore, I don't think that it would be extremely dangerous to use.  But who knows, maybe yes?  I will check again.

Thank you very much.

Jochen

j boogie <justin...@gmail.com> schrieb am Sa., 19. Dez. 2020, 20:37:

The problem is the anatomy of the upper respiratory tract. The nose is kind of a "drain" at the low point. The interior is very complex with a large surface area.  Lets assume you are driving saltwater, saline, or whatever "up" into your respiratory tract. Now you may have possibly transported a virus that is capable of attacking your cells way up in these labyrinthine folds which are very close to the brain. There is an old medical shorthand for this area, its called "the triangle of death", from the corners of the mouth to the bridge of the nose. Deaths have occurred from users of saline irrigation, then transporting waterborne amoebas up there, that otherwise exist in municipal water systems, and don't cause problems because they aren't transported into these areas. This area is NOT designed to be tampered with. If the human body had an area that should be stamped with "no user serviceable parts" it is this area. You cannot optimize this system. It is a diverse ecosystem of immune defenses, from populations of phages, innumerable antibodies, beneficial polysaccharides, etc., etc., all working together.  Instead of external treatment, there are various ways to increase the natural function of this system: things like spicy food, capsacin, pepper, sad movies featuring orphaned puppies, etc. Anything that will induce a tears and mucus production. 

-- 

## Jonathan Cline

## jcl...@ieee.org

## Mobile: +1-805-617-0223

########################

 

[j boogie]

" Contrary to the previous reply insisting, "the nose is a fragile area,
don't tamper there, you can't optimize it," in fact Hindus have been
rinsing and sticking things up their nose for thousands of years (go try
nostril flossing on your own, hint, don't use minty floss). "

When you live in a city where the concentration of airborne particulate matter at 2.5 microns is so high you can't see farther than a 1/2 mile, then, yes, perhaps you need to wash out your nose. Go to Kerbala and watch some roadside dentistry, or surgery on-demand for cash. Whats the rate of medical malpractice suits? Or do they just run the unliscenced medical technicians out of town via a mob with sticks? The Hindus never conquered the world, did they? Not being facetious. You are engaging in fallacious reasoning (appeal to naturalism or tradition) to justify experimenting with putting stuff in your nose and I salute you. You're an experimenter and an explorer. You will not find scientific support for this endeavor. Did a cursory look- found this: "A recent meta-analysis of 10 controlled trials taken from a review of 11,500 studies included more than 400 allergic rhinitis patients [7]. Regular saline irrigation in adults and children improved nasal symptomatology in 35% of cases and quality of life in 30%" That is not great results. Having a hard time finding efficacy data for studies on the Indian subcontinent.. hehe. I am fully confident going "all-in" against your theory, having experimented with the technique myself- I concluded it was doing more harm than good. Also a Yoga expert. Yoga is about 50% certified bull-crap.  Save yourself some time, or, not, and good luck blazing that trail up your nose and don't say you weren't fairly warned.