Coronavirus 2

[Coconut Flan]

2 hours ago, 47of74 said:

network contributor Raymond Arroyo

That's the same Raymond Arroyo that is on EWTN.  That explains quite a bit.

42 minutes ago, Ozlsn said:

My favourite meme about this said basically "sell your private island you tosser".

I love that philosophy.

42 minutes ago, Ozlsn said:

Totally agree. Conference centres, holiday villages, university residences, hotels - the recovering patients don't have to be in Manhattan, or even greater New York City. The recovering and currently not infected should be as far apart as possible given the level of risk to this group. Personally I'd be doing away with room mates too to lessen the chance of spread - work out ways patients can chat without sharing a room. Run bingo via Zoom or similar. 

I was appalled about forcing recovering COVID patients into facilities with frail, vulnerable populations.  When this all started, I was thinking I'd have to run over and get mom if they should try to put recent releases from the hospital in where she is.  Thankfully they promptly closed to new admissions except in a very few instances and those have to be isolated for 14 days.

[Ozlsn]

Test, test, test - can Britain find a way out of lockdown?

What suns up how they got to the current situation:

"The criticism of ministers and their advisers is all the greater because they know the UK started on the right road only to halt, change course, then resume when the virus had spread and all that could be achieved was damage limitation."

...

"

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents NHS trusts, said: “There has been a lot of zig-zagging and veering on what is the policy, who is responsible for mobilising it, what is the plan.” When Hancock first announced his target of 100,000 tests a dayshe says no one really knew how it would work. “In our view it was not clear. It was just a number that was put out there.” Cordery says it is not clear who the 100,000 should be initially, nor who would be involved in the testing. Should those to be tested include NHS staff, patients, who?

This lack of action was irksome for scientists, who last week pointed to the UK’s massive but ignored capacity for carrying out genetic testing. Medical virology, molecular cancer and regional genetic laboratories as well as other academic centres around the country routinely use PCR [polymerase chain reaction] technology, which could easily have been turned to Covid-19 work a long time ago, they say.

“Only the US has a greater capacity to do testing,” said ProfGerome Breen, of King’s College London. “But the NHS has refused to reply to many offers of help from research centres to supply tests.” One of these offers came from Breen, a geneticist whose department already carries out PCR testing on a large scale. “A month ago we offered to turn our laboratory over to Covid-19 work and test medical staff at King’s College Hospital to find out who might have been infected with the virus. We could have started within a fortnight and would have been doing thousands of tests a day by now. We had a couple of emails from the department but heard nothing from them after that. It was intensely frustrating.”"

[Smee]

I know @Ozlsn already reported on Aus, so I’ll just add that our daily trends are very encouraging when you take into account the recoveries. We get 10-20 new cases most days but also 50-200 new recoveries, so our “active cases” will probably drop below 1000 tomorrow. Still under 100 deaths. I find myself far less anxious these days, though my heart still breaks to look at the worldwide stats and stories.

Everyone is talking about the new tracing app and privacy/misuse concerns. It’s not that I trust the government to use it properly, but I do find it kinda ironic that people are urging one another not to get it ON FACEBOOK, like anyone with the Facebook app hasn’t already given away a heck of a lot more personal data than this app collects, to private companies that have already been shown to manipulate political elections. It seems we’re far more wary of technology when the primary purpose isn’t to entertain us and sell us stuff.

[clueliss]

1/3 of patients showed nuerological symptoms

Meanwhile I Russia - we have docs contracting the virus and falling out of windows.  

Spoiler

 

 

[clueliss]

Warnings about the supply of meat (parts of the middle of the country are suddenly not okay out here.  Trust me)

 

[Cartmann99]

Recently, my local newspaper did a story on a local business whose employees were helping to sew face masks for hospitals in our area, and had a picture of the employees with some of the masks they had produced. My first thought when I saw the picture was that they were standing way too close to each other. Flash forward to today, and guess which local business now has multiple confirmed cases of COVID-19?
 

[clueliss]

Meat Plant Closures

Also MO Governor Parsons announced the phase 1 opening of MO beginning May 4.  I'm still trying to mentally process that one.

[Howl]

7 hours ago, clueliss said:

Meanwhile I Russia - we have docs contracting the virus and falling out of windows.  

Defenestration.  A Russian specialty. 

[clueliss]

FYI - the reopening of Missouri.  Go forth and gather in groups of more than 10.  Among other things.  (I'll be hiding mostly in my apartment for 2 more weeks)

 

[Ozlsn]

2 hours ago, clueliss said:

FYI - the reopening of Missouri.  Go forth and gather in groups of more than 10.  Among other things.  (I'll be hiding mostly in my apartment for 2 more weeks)

 

I just do not understand this. I had a look at their figures, and to quote from yesterday:

"The health department website said there were at least 7,171 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus, as well as 288 virus-related deaths in Missouri as of Monday. It's an increase of 174 cases and more than a dozen deaths since Sunday."

Apparently they can test 50,000 per week now, which is helpful.

That is not a particularly low number, even if the last bar is significantly down. I suspect it's down because people have been locked down.

I really can't see what they're trying to achieve - are they following the Swedish model of attempting to get herd immunity as quickly as possible, or is this a totally business driven decision?

Either way, I suspect their numbers are going to start spiking again about 11th May as people see this announcement, think "why wait" and go out and get infected.

[clueliss]

The covid tracking project noted earlier this afternoon that today’s stats looked odd across the board, but it sounded like they weren’t sure.  I know for Missouri we had a recent day where they had to catch data up because a lab’s data had been missed.  
 

my personal plan is to continue as I have been (as much as possible) thru the next two to three weeks just to make sure I don’t get caught in some stupid spike/resurge.  I feel like despite the way his announcement is worded that this is opening up too fast.  I’m waiting to see if my county will have a follow up announcement in the next day or so.  

[47of74]

Meanwhile in Iowa Kimmy is being a fucking idiot like usual.

Quote

At her morning press conference today, Gov. Kim Reynolds laid out the path Iowa will take to reopen its economy.

The reason for doing it now, she said, is that the mitigation strategies previously in place aren’t sustainable, so the state’s approach must change.

“The reality is that we cannot stop this virus. It will remain in our communities until a vaccine is available,” Reynolds said. “Instead we must learn to live with coronavirus activity without letting it govern our lives.”

The mitigation efforts have included closing non-essential businesses like restaurants, salons, stores and fitness centers across the state. It also involved restricting social gatherings to 10 people or less and closing locations like campgrounds and playgrounds.

if we can’t get some responsible people in office I’m going to look at moving out of Iowa at some point.  Once I’m done with the bar I’m gone. 

 

Edited April 28, 2020 by 47of74

[Don'tlikekoolaid]

I just wanted to say that I really miss seeing the little kids.  They’re all safe at home.  I never knew how much I liked to see strangers children till they were gone. 

[Ozlsn]

6 minutes ago, Don'tlikekoolaid said:

I just wanted to say that I really miss seeing the little kids.  They’re all safe at home.  I never knew how much I liked to see strangers children till they were gone. 

All the kids are going for walks or bike/scooter rides - there are so many kids around in the day with their families (spaced out and socially distanced). I have never seen so many families out walking in their one hour of exercise!

[Don'tlikekoolaid]

1 hour ago, Ozlsn said:

All the kids are going for walks or bike/scooter rides - there are so many kids around in the day with their families (spaced out and socially distanced). I have never seen so many families out walking in their one hour of exercise!

Not where I am.  I haven’t seen a little person since the end of Feb.,  we are very rural.

[Ozlsn]

Some interesting announcements. 

Britain has issued a warning about a potential Covid-19 linked syndrome occurring in children.

Spoiler

London: Health officials in Britain warn that a potential new coronavirus-related syndrome is emerging in children, with a rise in cases prompting an urgent alert to doctors across the country.

The alert revealed an "apparent rise in the number of children of all ages presenting with a multi-system inflammatory state requiring intensive care across London and also in other regions of the United Kingdom".

Cases have been building over the past three weeks, according to the warning from National Health Service officials and distributed to doctors by the Paediatric Intensive Care Society.

"There is a growing concern that a [COVID-19] related inflammatory syndrome is emerging in children in the UK, or that there may be another, as yet unidentified, infectious pathogen associated with these cases," the advisory note said.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock told reporters at Downing Street that he was "very worried" by the development, which is now being investigated by one of the United Kingdom's most senior experts.

Children have so far escaped the worst health effects of the coronavirus pandemic however little is still known about the disease, how it spreads and what it does to the body.

Children affected by the new condition have "overlapping features of toxic shock syndrome and atypical Kawasaki disease". Kawasaki disease is a rare illness that largely affects children under five and involves the swelling of blood vessels in the body. It can trigger a temperature, rash or swollen glands in the neck.

Abdominal pain, gastrointestinal symptoms and cardiac inflammation have been common features among seriously ill children over recent weeks. Some have had to be treated in intensive care units.

The illness has been discovered in children who tested positive to the virus, as well as those who have not. There is also some evidence of "possible preceding" COVID-19 infection in some children.

Chief medical officer Chris Whitty said: "This is a very rare situation but I think it is entirely plausible that this is caused by this virus - at least in some cases - because we know that in adults, who of course have much more disease than children do, there are big problems with the inflammatory process and this looks rather like an inflammatory process.

"Therefore given we've got a new presentation of this at the time of a new disease, the possibility ... that there is a link is certainly plausible. But numbers are very small and the key thing is that if parents are worried, phone up and get advice."

NHS England national medical director Stephen Powis has asked NHS England's national clinical director for children and young people to investigate "as a matter of urgency" whether there was a link with the coronavirus outbreak.

The UK death toll rose to 21,092 on Monday, however the actual figure is much higher because thousands of deaths in care homes and private houses have not been added to the tally. The outbreak has killed 83 NHS staff and 16 care home workers.

Schools remain shut and the government appears unlikely to open them once it starts easing the nationwide lockdown.

"It remains the case that the great majority of children either don't get coronavirus or if they do, the symptoms are minor," Whitty said. "That doesn't mean sadly that is absolutely true: there are still a small number of cases, including some very severe cases. But they are much less than adults."

Whitty said the reason schools had been closed and would remain closed was not because the virus presented a major danger to children, but because the closures contributed to lowering the overall transmission of the virus.

There is quite a debate at the moment around the world in science about what contribution do children make to the actual spread of this virus between families, around the country," he said.

"Is it different for example, between young children and older children, which it may be. But unfortunately we do not yet have direct data that really helps us, remembering this is a new disease.

"While I think it remains the case we think the contribution of children at school to the spread of this virus is probably less than for example the flu, we do think it certainly contributes."

Of the 18,749 people who have died from coronavirus in England's hospitals, nine were aged between zero and 19. Some 137 were between 20 and 39 years old, and 1505 between 40 to 59 years old.

The president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Russell Viner, stressed only a small number of children have become severely ill.

"New diseases may present in ways that surprise us, and clinicians need to be made aware of any emerging evidence of particular symptoms or of underlying conditions which could make a patient more vulnerable to the virus," he said.

If that wasn't stressful enough there are also reports of "Covid toes".

Also predominantly in kids, this is basically a skin condition with bumps and lesions that may or may not be related to the virus but does appear to be novel. 

Finally, autopsy report on the first US victim has come back.

Spoiler

The first person who died from the coronavirus in the US passed from a ruptured heart caused by her body’s effort to defeat the virus, according to her autopsy.

Patricia Dowd, a 57-year-old from California, died on February 6 — far earlier than the February 29 death in Washington state that officials believed was the first COVID-19 death in the country.

Ms Dowd died from what seemed to be a heart attack, but officials now say she had coronavirus.

Dr Judy Melinek told The Mercury News that it showed the heart “muscle was infected, that’s what caused her heart to rupture."

Melinek said Dowd’s heart was a normal size and weight — and added that heart ruptures like Dowd’s usually only happen to people with bad cholesterol.

“There’s an indication the heart was weakened,” the pathologist said.

“The immune system was attacking the virus and in attacking the virus it damaged the heart and then the heart basically burst.”

An autopsy of Ms Dowd’s body was performed after her husband, who said the 57-year-old had good exercise habits and generally good health, requested it.

The woman’s brother, Ricardo Cabello, said: “She was in shape. She did spin class. She was always doing some kind of aerobics.”

Ms Dowd worked as a manager at a semiconductor company, and became sick in late January with flu-like symptoms.

She appeared to recover and was working from home on the day she died.

Local officials in the San Francisco Bay Area didn’t issue stay-at-home orders until roughly six weeks after Ms Dowd’s death.

Dr Sara Cody, a health official in Santa Clara County, said on Wednesday: “If we had understood then that people were already dying … we probably would have acted earlier than we did.”

Dr Cody said that Ms Dowd’s death, and the deaths of two others on February 17 and March 6, show the virus was spreading on the West Coast earlier than officials thought.

All three of their deaths appear to have stemmed from community transmission of the virus, the health official said.

“If we had had widespread testing earlier and we were able to document the level of transmission in the county, if we had understood then people were already dying, yes, we probably would have acted earlier than we did, which would have meant more time at home,” Cody said.

The first coronavirus death reported publicly in Santa Clara County was on March 9.

After news of Dowd’s coronavirus death, Governor of California Gavin Newsom said he directed coroners through California to take another look at deaths as far back as December to see when the coronavirus actually started hitting the state.

Given the first "unexplained pneumonia" reports in Wuhan were roughly early Nov, it's not impossible that deaths from other causes were occurring and not being picked up - this death would probably have been listed as unknown virus causing heart attack (in, you know, medical terminology) - and it's also not impossible that co-infections are playing a role in outcomes as well as any underlying genetic or other reasons for susceptibility.

This is going to be a long haul.

[nst]

Introspection time

As a child of the 80's in the Reagan era we were always prepared for a nuclear war. In fact they promised one after the 90's. Years and decades went by and no nuclear war, what we have now is essence a nuclear war of sorts, not literally but it is a war and life will never be the same. It's a new norm.

[clueliss]

Supply Chain issues in the US due to Mexico Shutdown.  

And my employer has issues with this.  Our facilities in Juarez are on shutdown.  We're having to rethink some things on a short term basis to be able to produce and ship orders right now.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

That idiot Branch Trumpvidan Candace Owens just had to speak out:

 

[nst]

and now i don't even know if I can even go back to the office june 15. 

it's almost like they are maybe weeding me out because i chose my parents over going in. 

that's ok my parents are more important. 

my dad has history now with his prostate, - this normally once healthy man again found blood in his urine this weekend because of the medication cause of his prostate. 

Fridays and Sundays are hard...it seems now 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

I went grocery shopping yesterday and for the first time was really stunned by how little was on the shelves in both Aldi and my regular grocery store (Kroger.)

From the looks of things the supply chain is in trouble.  Not gonna lie, I'm getting a little nervous.

We're okay for now, but I can't recall the last time I saw toilet paper in a store.  After seeing the dearth of cleaning products I'm going to use a lot more steam and vinegar to clean at home and save the disinfectant products I have for as needed.

I didn't hoard anything, I go about every 3.5 weeks now and my son who works at Whole Foods will pick up milk, eggs, and such to suppliment as he's working there anyway.  

And to the couple at Aldi last night:  

1. The sign said they were limiting customers and one person per cart.  You are both clearly in your 60s and appeared quite able bodied for the purpose of shopping, either one of you should be able to shop alone.  Guess rules don't apply to you.
2. Standing forever discussing your various options in the wine aisle where there was no way for me to safely get around you....IT'S ALDI WINE!   How hard can that decision possibly be?!
3. And bitch part of the couple, when you looked at me all aggravated because I needed to get through and reluctantly moved it didn't help....because your husband stood like he was planted there blocking the aisle.
4. I have fantasies about making a citizen's arrest for violation of protocol and then having you tried and beheaded for your crimes again humanity.

Edited April 28, 2020 by HerNameIsBuffy

[OHFL2009]

I haven't been to the store in a week, but I went to BJ's last Sunday and Publix last Monday, and both were well stocked. The only items I've had issues finding are things that Publix puts on BOGO. I usually love their BOGOs, but it's made it so people just clear out any BOGO items. Last week Pillsbury stuff was BOGO, and there was one can of cinnamon rolls and nothing else. Ben & Jerry's was BOGO, and even the non-dairy flavors (which I have to have) were gone. I mean, it's pretty good for fake ice cream, but who would buy that if they didn't have to eat dairy free? I haven't seen toilet paper at Publix (but I haven't really been looking) but BJ's had a fair amount and a neighbor said Costco had tons. 

I do hope all this is over before we get into the thick of hurricane season. Season technically starts a month from Thursday, and we generally don't see big ones until late summer, but I can't imagine dealing with a whole different kind of panic shopping on top of everything else. We buy as much as we can early in the season, but you always think of something you need right when a storm is coming. And I hate to think of trying to put shutters up with social distancing. Usually all the neighbors pitch in and do one house at a time so it goes a lot faster, but that would be a challenge to stay 6 feet apart and not touch all the same things. 

 

[klein_roeschen]

A little update on my little corona front. Since friday my federal state made face masks mandatory when visiting a store and using public transport, while allowing shops up to 8600 sq ft. The shops that opened up have signs at their doors about only coming in while wearing a mask and only allowing a certain number of costumers at once.

At work our fixed teams stay in place for another month, I miss the coworkers I won't see for another month. One of our coworkers at the other pharmacy my boss owns where visiting his cousin on easter, said cousin was tested positive last week and he is in home quarantine since then. He should had to come back to work next monday but in told my boss yesterday that in the last week he visited a friend who also now tested positive, so his home quarantine will continue.

My brother is currently on his second week of home quarantine after one of his coworkers in his shift at the warehouse tested positive. So far no symptoms and I'm hopefull he stays that way. Since we share the apartment, I put some meassures in place since I'm not allowed to quarantine with him, at least not if I want to get paid. He is on paid sick leave because of an official order and that order will only expand to me if he shows symptoms. And sadly, we can't live on that alone. So he is now mostly confined to his room and opens up the windows in the kitchen and the bathroom after he used them to air the rooms out for at least 10 minutes before I close them or use these rooms. I only touch door and window handles with a desinfectant wipe. He goes bonkers with boredom and social isolation and I feel that I slowly grew paranoid with my desinfeting everything he touched. And I wear a facemask at work, just in case. I prefer to better be safe than sorry.

Persons I refuse to speak about Covid19 now, my very best friend. The woman, I can talk about everything fell down the rabidhole of if you are healthy you don't have to fear it and everyone that died had other health conditions. We talked sunday and hearing her indirect say, it's okay that cronically ill people die so that everyother don't have to wear a mask and we go back to "normal" hurts.

[WiseGirl]

1 hour ago, OHFL2009 said:

and even the non-dairy flavors (which I have to have) were gone. I mean, it's pretty good for fake ice cream, but who would buy that if they didn't have to eat dairy free? 

I'm wondering the same about gluten free items. I mean they aren't cheap but damn if I can find anything! Eat the regular stuff people. Leave gluten free for the Celiacs (please and thank you). 

[47of74]

NY Times lawyer to Hannity's lawyer: Fuck You

That's awesome but I would have gone with the former Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley approach...

Spoiler