totm april 2020 Coronavirus

[tater]

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2764365

Patient populations in Italian ICUs. Mostly old men.

 

This is interesting:

It will be interesting to see what our critical care docs will come up with. Maybe aggressive vents are not the way.

5 minutes ago, Selective Genius said:

So can I get COVID from my cats now? They are semi-stray and they roam all around the neighborhood....

Unlikely.

The bottom line about cats testing positive in decent %s is that the number of people who have been exposed is likely far higher than imagined.

[Shpaget]

5 minutes ago, tater said:

Maybe aggressive vents are not the way

What's the alternative for those that can't breathe on their own?

The only thing that I can think of is iron lungs, but those are all but extinct, not to mention not practical when doctors need access to the patient.

[Retro Starship]

Went for walk today and met basic human nature that made me chuckle. Well let me back up a few days though to understand this. I have been walking everyday since this virus started. Safe, quiet and not too many people around. To my amazement, some people on the narrow sidewalks do not take a 6 foot circled turn on the grass when they go by you. They don't get it. Most of the time I have to do this myself to keep us both safe.

Our state recently decided to recommend that we wear masks now. This is to be on the safe side before the peak hits very soon with the important pharmacy and grocery store trips that we all still need to do. Even though walking does not seem to be a problem with that, I put my small white 3M airbrush mask on. I will do this for these walks from now on. (I am a model maker so I already had these).

Now when I went for my walk today, with the mask on.... EVERY body walks around me on the grass!!

So wear one, it will save you from some of the stupid people that really still don't understand whats going on.

[Flavio hc16]

Italy is slowly going down in cases and especially icu patients ( 3rd day in a row) especially considering that we are doing more tests by the day, but mortality remains high. Luckily Rome ( where i live in) and other big cities of the south aren't heavily affected. we may start some reopening on the 18th of April, but  the majority  of activities will probably reopen the 2nd of may with schools that probably will reopen only next year (september 2020).

edit: hoping that the trend will continue

Edited April 6, 2020 by Flavio hc16

[tater]

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/lost-smell-and-taste-hint-covid-19-can-target-the-nervous-system-67312

 

[DDE]

1 hour ago, Retro Starship said:

Went for walk today and met basic human nature that made me chuckle. Well let me back up a few days though to understand this. I have been walking everyday since this virus started. Safe, quiet and not too many people around. To my amazement, some people on the narrow sidewalks do not take a 6 foot circled turn on the grass when they go by you.

Hey, there are other reasons to walk on grass.

1 hour ago, Retro Starship said:

Now when I went for my walk today, with the mask on.... EVERY body walks around me on the grass!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cshZ6439yI

Truly a hero for our Batvirus era.

[tater]

If being within 2m of someone outside was a meaningful risk we'd be at herd immunity levels of infection already.

 

[sevenperforce]

On 4/4/2020 at 5:21 PM, tater said:

The testing we need immediately is a pinprick blood test for antibodies.

It rolled out yesterday in the US but nothing like volume yet.

Unrelated, Boris Johnson now in ICU.

[DDE]

11 hours ago, DDE said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52177125

So Boris is in hospital.

Russian tabloids rush to put him on the ventilator almost immediately.

https://news.ru/en/europe/media-boris-johnson-to-be-connected-to-ventilator/

Well zog me sideways.

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, tater said:

If being within 2m of someone outside was a meaningful risk we'd be at herd immunity levels of infection already.

 

This, the two meter rule is not so much passing some as staying close over times like queues or public transport, risk is also far larger indoor than outdoor. 

Public transport is an problem many places as many places has cut routes in half all over the board creating issues for places where few people has cars like residential areas close to downtown during the rush hour. 
Rater than look at demand, drop in demand will be very high in suburbs, increasing as you get farther from center as most there have cars and would prefer to use them even if previously used buss or train because reduced risk and as the roads are so empty. 
Had to go to office to fix some stuff and because have to pass trough Oslo the capital of Norway I tend to use the train, I started driving 8:30 and was at work before 9:00, it was Sunday level traffic. 
Now for trains this is pretty easy just join together more sets leaving more rooms. This is already standard but guess this is more about saving an conductor and power and you can clean and maintain the sets then demand is lower in the middle of day or at night. 

[tater]

^this is why I think one size fits all models are not going to work. LA is not NYC.

[tater]

Read the linked overview on mask efficacy.

[tater]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/well/live/coronavirus-doctors-hospitals-emergency-care-heart-attack-stroke.html#commentsContainer

Where are all the other emergency medical problems?

My wife is seeing the same thing, they have cancelled elective surgeries, forcing cancer patients to live some extra number of weeks with their tumors until this calms down, but the usual emergency cases are also down. They see fewer emergencies now, but worse, since people are avoiding care until they can't stand it any more.

 

[StrandedonEarth]

2 hours ago, tater said:

Where are all the other emergency medical problems?

For the first week of "social distancing" the local search-and-rescue agencies were disappointed that there was no downturn in call-outs. It seems people were taking the opportunity to go exploring in the back-country, and weren't necessarily prepared. But the message got out, and calls dropped during the second week.

I suppose with the rec leagues shut down, there are less heart attacks being triggered. But I am half expecting an uptick in ER visits as people get bored and start trying to do some home improvements and end up falling off ladders, or gashing themselves on table saws, etc...

 

[Nightside]

1 hour ago, tater said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/well/live/coronavirus-doctors-hospitals-emergency-care-heart-attack-stroke.html#commentsContainer

Where are all the other emergency medical problems?

My wife is seeing the same thing, they have cancelled elective surgeries, forcing cancer patients to live some extra number of weeks with their tumors until this calms down, but the usual emergency cases are also down. They see fewer emergencies now, but worse, since people are avoiding care until they can't stand it any more.

 

People are also driving much less, That’s gotta be a factor.

[tater]

52 minutes ago, Nightside said:

People are also driving much less, That’s gotta be a factor.

Her emergencies are disease related, not trauma (they have dedicated trauma surgeons for trauma). It's way down.

Zdogg is right here, of course. Vaccine is not happening in 1-1.5 years. Fastest vaccine ever was 4 years, most are more like decades. Exit strategy will be lowering cases to the point we can contact trace, then we do that (plus likely better treatments).

 

[sevenperforce]

4 hours ago, tater said:

Read the linked overview on mask efficacy.

Looks like I was prescient. 

https://medium.com/@davidstarlingm/no-you-dont-need-masks-2f8335702f66

[tater]

That's been what medical people have been saying for a while. They have some utility in reducing spread from symptomatic people, but they are not really protective. The hospital has my wife wearing a clinic mask (not as good as her OR masks), and she'll wear one in the ER, and only with full gear if she has to do anything really messy. My whole state only has 45 people hospitalized right now, though, and a few of those are in ICUs.

I think I posted way up the thread, but there was a study that looked at negative pressure rooms (ERs, most of hospital, actually) and they looked at PPE after staff were in for a whole shift with COVID-19 patients. Nothing on the PPE, basically.

[tater]

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-05/I'm a spambot, report me.-discovery-could-treat-coronavirus-patients?fbclid=IwAR2I18Y6A0J_opFXW1NaxdS1y4mU7vPZBnIo7kEnMxvxdNCQMbQDork5FKc

[mikegarrison]

LOL. By posting a URL with the name of a commonly advertised drug, the forum filters decided that you are a spambot.

[tater]

32 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

LOL. By posting a URL with the name of a commonly advertised drug, the forum filters decided that you are a spambot.

LOL

OK, that's funny, I didn't notice it changed the URL name (I mean who reads those).

 

[Nightside]

28 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

LOL. By posting a URL with the name of a commonly advertised drug, the forum filters decided that you are a spambot.

And yet the link still works...
you know what with the Olympics being canceled, there should be a big surplus of ways to get oxygen into the bloodstream.

 

[Shpaget]

Quote

An estimated additional 180 - 195 deaths per day occurring at home in New York City due to COVID-19 are not being counted in the official figures. "Early on in this crisis we were able to swab people who died at home, and thus got a coronavirus reading. But those days are long gone. We simply don't have the testing capacity for the large numbers dying at home. Now only those few who had a test confirmation *before* dying are marked as victims of coronavirus on their death certificate. This almost certainly means we are undercounting the total number of victims of this pandemic," said Mark Levine, Chair of New York City Council health committee

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

 

[Pds314]

Regarding the question of "can you trust statistics released by country XYZ?"

1. Look at how the statistics are gathered and sourced. It might not be structurally possible to make them propoganda if they are reported in a way that doesn't allow easy censorship or inflation of data.

2. At best, the data a government or any other organization puts out is as reliable as what they can actually get. If they don't do enough testing or monitoring, for example, their data can never be accurate regardless of intentions.

3. Some particularly hard hit regions have noticeable increases in excess deaths, which are quite difficult to hide when they happen unpredictably. Often times these exceed the official figures by a factor of 2 even.

4. Any country is either exponentially growing or is shrinking its case numbers. There is no reason to expect prolonged active case number stagnation. As such, countries which lie about their active cases decreasing and start reopening things, stop testing, stop social distancing, etc would see near total population infection within a couple months or less. This is something even a closed country couldn't hide. Therefore, even if numbers are propoganda, the general direction of those numbers usually reflects either strategically self-destructive behavior on the part of the government or at least a general indication of the government feeling like it has the outbreak under control. This is because government officials do not want to be shown as liars in under 2 months when an outbreak reaches total population infection because they lied to their citizens and stopped containment measures.

 

So, long story short, no data is perfect, but as for faking data, good liars know their lies won't withstand the truth, so they don't make them if they believe being exposed as a liar is both likely and going to have worse consequences for them than the benefits of lying.

Edited April 7, 2020 by Pds314

[Pds314]

If a country lies, then presumably it has a reason that they don't expect to come back and bite them in two months. So lying about whether an already significant outbreak is contained is extremely inadviseable. Something no strategically-motivated government with accurate data would want to do.

Edited April 7, 2020 by Pds314