Coronavirus 2

[clueliss]

Op Ed on why people refuse to social distance.

Confession - My real question is about the woman with the goose on a leash.

 

[Ozlsn]

We still don't know how coronavirus is killing us

CW: goes into detail about symptoms etc.

Spoiler

Over the last few weeks, the country has managed to stabilize the spread of the coronavirus sufficiently enough to begin debating when and in what ways to “reopen,” and to normalize, against all moral logic, the horrifying and ongoing death toll — thousands of Americans dying each day, in multiples of 9/11 every week now with the virus seemingly “under control.” The death rate is no longer accelerating, but holding steady, which is apparently the point at which an onrushing terror can begin fading into background noise. Meanwhile, the disease itself appears to be shape-shifting before our eyes.

In an acute column published April 13, the New York Times’ Charlie Warzel listed 48 basic questions that remain unanswered about the coronavirus and what must be done to protect ourselves against it, from how deadly it is to how many people caught it and shrugged it off to how long immunity to the disease lasts after infection (if any time at all). “Despite the relentless, heroic work of doctors and scientists around the world,” he wrote, “there’s so much we don’t know.” The 48 questions he listed, he was careful to point out, did not represent a comprehensive list. And those are just the coronavirus’s “known unknowns.”

In the two weeks since, we’ve gotten some clarifying information on at least a handful of Warzel’s queries. In early trials, more patients taking the Trump-hyped hydroxychloroquine died than those who didn’t, and the FDA has now issued a statement warning coronavirus patients and their doctors from using the drug. The World Health Organization got so worried about the much-touted antiviral remdesivir, which received a jolt of publicity (and stock appreciation) a few weeks ago on rumors of positive results, the organization leaked an unpublished, preliminary survey showing no benefit to COVID-19 patients. Globally, studies have consistently found exposure levels to the virus in most populations in the low single digits — meaning dozens of times more people have gotten the coronavirus than have been diagnosed with it, though still just a tiny fraction of the number needed to achieve herd immunity. In particular hot spots, the exposure has been significantly more widespread — one survey in New York City found that 21 percent of residents may have COVID-19 antibodies already, making the city not just the deadliest community in the deadliest country in a world during the deadliest pandemic since AIDS, but also the most infected (and, by corollary, the farthest along to herd immunity). A study in Chelsea, Massachusetts, found an even higher and therefore more encouraging figure: 32 percent of those tested were found to have antibodies, which would mean, at least in that area, the disease was only a fraction as severe as it might’ve seemed at first glance, and that the community as a whole could be as much as halfway along to herd immunity. In most of the rest of the country, the picture of exposure we now have is much more dire, with much more infection almost inevitably to come.

But there is one big question that didn’t even make it onto Warzel’s list that has only gotten more mysterious in the weeks since: How is COVID-19 actually killing us?

We are now almost six months into this pandemic, which began in November in Wuhan, with 50,000 Americans dead and 200,000 more around the world. If each of those deaths is a data point, together they represent a quite large body of evidence from which to form a clear picture of the pandemic threat. Early in the epidemic, the coronavirus was seen as a variant of a familiar family of disease, not a mysterious ailment, however infectious and concerning. But while uncertainties at the population level confuse and frustrate public-health officials, unsure when and in what form to shift gears out of lockdowns, the disease has proved just as mercurial at the clinical level, with doctors revising their understanding of COVID-19’s basic pattern and weaponry — indeed often revising that understanding in different directions at once. The clinical shape of the disease, long presumed to be a relatively predictable respiratory infection, is getting less clear by the week. Lately, it seems, by the day. As Carl Zimmer, probably the country’s most respected science journalist, asked virologists in a tweet last week, “is there any other virus out there that is this weird in terms of its range of symptoms?”

You probably have a sense of the range of common symptoms, and a sense that the range isn’t that weird: fever, dry cough, and shortness of breath have been, since the beginning of the outbreak, the familiar, oft-repeated group of tell-tale signs. But while the CDC does list fever as the top symptom of COVID-19, so confidently that for weeks patients were turned away from testing sites if they didn’t have an elevated temperature, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, as many as 70 percent of patients sick enough to be admitted to New York State’s largest hospital system did not have a fever.

Over the past few months, Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital has been compiling and revising, in real time, treatment guidelines for COVID-19 which have become a trusted clearinghouse of best-practices information for doctors throughout the country. According to those guidelines, as few as 44 percent of coronavirus patients presented with a fever (though, in their meta-analysis, the uncertainty is quite high, with a range of 44 to 94 percent). Cough is more common, according to Brigham and Women’s, with between 68 percent and 83 percent of patients presenting with some cough — though that means as many as three in ten sick enough to be hospitalized won’t be coughing. As for shortness of breath, the Brigham and Women’s estimate runs as low as 11 percent. The high end is only 40 percent, which would still mean that more patients hospitalized for COVID-19 do not have shortness of breath than do. At the low end of that range, shortness of breath would be roughly as common among COVID-19 patients as confusion (9 percent), headache (8 to 14 percent), and nausea and diarrhea (3 to 17 percent). That the ranges are so wide themselves tells you that the disease is presenting in very different ways in different hospitals and different populations of different patients — leading, for instance, some doctors and scientists to theorize the virus might be attacking the immune system like HIV does, with many others finding the disease is triggering something like the opposite response, an overwhelming overreaction of the immune system called a “cytokine storm.”

The most bedeviling confusion has arisen around the relationship of the disease to breathing, lung function, and oxygenation levels in the blood — typically, for a respiratory illness, a quite predictable relationship. But for weeks now, front-line doctors have been expressing confusion that so many coronavirus patients were registering lethally low blood-oxygenation levels while still appearing, by almost any vernacular measure, pretty okay. It’s one reason they’ve begun rethinking the initial clinical focus on ventilators, which are generally recommended when patients oxygenation falls below a certain level, but seemed, after a few weeks, of unclear benefit to COVID-19 patients, who may have done better, doctors began to suggest, on lesser or different forms of oxygen support. For a while, ventilators were seen so much as the essential tool in treating life-threatening coronavirus that shortages (and the president’s unwillingness to invoke the Defense Production Act to manufacture them quickly) became a scandal. But by one measure 88 percent of New York patients put on ventilators, for whom an outcome as known, had died. In China, the figure was 86 percent.

On April 20 in the New York Times, an ER doctor named Richard Levitan who had been volunteering at Bellevue proposed that the phenomenon of seemingly stable patients registering lethally low oxygen levels might be explained by “silent hypoxia” — the air sacs in the lung collapsing, not getting stiff or heavy with fluid, as is the case with the pneumonias doctors had been using as models in their treatment of COVID-19. But whether this explanation is universal, limited to the patients at Bellevue, or somewhere in between is not yet entirely clear. A couple of days later, in a pre-print paper others questioned, scientists reported finding that the ability of the disease to mutate has been “vastly underestimated” — investigating the disease as it appeared in just 11 patients, they said they found 30 mutations. “The most aggressive strains could generate 270 times as much viral load as the weakest type,” the South China Morning-Post reported. “These strains also killed the cells the fastest.”

That same day, the Washington Post reported on another theory gaining traction among American doctors treating the disease — that one key could be the way COVID-19 affects the blood of patients, producing much more clotting. “Autopsies have shown that some people’s lungs are filled with hundreds of microclots,” the Post reported. “Errant blood clots of a larger size can break off and travel to the brain or heart, causing a stroke or a heart attack.”

But the bigger-picture perspective the newspaper offered is perhaps more eye-opening and to the point:

One month ago, as the country went into lockdown to prepare for the first wave of coronavirus cases, many doctors felt confident that they knew what they were dealing with. Based on early reports, covid-19 appeared to be a standard variety respiratory virus, albeit a very contagious and lethal one with no vaccine and no treatment. But they’ve since become increasingly convinced that covid-19 attacks not only the lungs, but also the kidneys, heart, intestines, liver and brain.

That is a dizzying list. But it is not even comprehensive. In a fantastic survey published April 17 (“How does coronavirus kill? Clinicians trace a ferocious rampage through the body, from brain to toes,” by Meredith Wadman, Jennifer Couzin-Frankel, Jocelyn Kaiser, and Catherine Matacic), Science magazine took a thorough, detailed tour of the ever-evolving state of understanding of the disease. “Despite the more than 1,000 papers now spilling into journals and onto preprint servers every week,” Science concluded, “a clear picture is elusive, as the virus acts like no pathogen humanity has ever seen.”

In a single illuminating chart, Science lists the following organs as being vulnerable to COVID-19: brain, eyes, nose, lungs, heart, blood vessels, livers, kidneys, intestines. That is to say, nearly every organ.

And the disparate impacts were significant ones: Heart damage was discovered in 20 percent of patients hospitalized in Wuhan, where 44 percent of those in ICU exhibited arrhythmias; 38 percent of Dutch ICU patients had irregular blood clotting; 27 percent of Wuhan patients had kidney failure, with many more showing signs of kidney damage; half of Chinese patients showed signs of liver damage; and, depending on the study, between 20 percent and 50 percent of patients had diarrhea.

On April 15, the Washington Post reported that, in New York and Wuhan, between 14 and 30 percent of ICU patients had lost kidney function, requiring dialysis. New York hospitals were treating so much kidney failure “they need more personnel who can perform dialysis and have issued an urgent call for volunteers from other parts of the country. They also are running dangerously short of the sterile fluids used to deliver that therapy.” The result, the Post said, was rationed care: patients needing 24-hour support getting considerably less. On Saturday, the paper reported that “[y]oung and middle-aged people, barely sick with COVID-19, are dying from strokes.” Many of the patients described didn’t even know they were sick:

The patient’s chart appeared unremarkable at first glance. He took no medications and had no history of chronic conditions. He had been feeling fine, hanging out at home during the lockdown like the rest of the country, when suddenly, he had trouble talking and moving the right side of his body. Imaging showed a large blockage on the left side of his head. Oxley gasped when he got to the patient’s age and covid-19 status: 44, positive.

The man was among several recent stroke patients in their 30s to 40s who were all infected with the coronavirus. The median age for that type of severe stroke is 74.

But the patient’s age wasn’t the only abnormality of the case:

As Oxley, an interventional neurologist, began the procedure to remove the clot, he observed something he had never seen before. On the monitors, the brain typically shows up as a tangle of black squiggles — “like a can of spaghetti,” he said — that provide a map of blood vessels. A clot shows up as a blank spot. As he used a needlelike device to pull out the clot, he saw new clots forming in real-time around it.

“This is crazy,” he remembers telling his boss.

These strokes, several doctors who spoke to the Post theorized, could explain the high number of patients dying at home — four times the usual rate in New York, many or most of them, perhaps, dying quite suddenly. According to the Brigham and Women’s guidelines, only 53 percent of COVID-19 patients have died from respiratory failure alone.

It’s not unheard of, of course, for a disease to express itself in complicated or hard-to-parse ways, attacking or undermining the functioning of a variety of organs. And it’s common, as researchers and doctors scramble to map the shape of a new disease, for their understanding to evolve quite quickly. But the degree to which doctors and scientists are, still, feeling their way, as though blindfolded, toward a true picture of the disease cautions against any sense that things have stabilized, given that our knowledge of the disease hasn’t even stabilized. Perhaps more importantly, it’s a reminder that the coronavirus pandemic is not just a public-health crisis but a scientific one as well. And that as deep as it may feel we are into the coronavirus, with tens of thousands dead and literally billions in precautionary lockdown, we are still in the very early stages, when each new finding seems as likely to cloud or complicate our understanding of the coronavirus as it is to clarify it. Instead, confidence gives way to uncertainty.

In the space of a few months, we’ve gone from thinking there was no “asymptomatic transmission” to believing it accounts for perhaps half or more of all cases, from thinking the young were invulnerable to thinking they were just somewhat less vulnerable, from believing masks were unnecessary to requiring their use at all times outside the house, from panicking about ventilator shortages to deploying pregnancy massage pillows instead. Six months since patient zero, we still have no drugs proven to even help treat the disease. Almost certainly, we are past the “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals” stage of this pandemic. But how far past?

The rapid mutation is very interesting to me, and I need to go and look at what the current strain information is in different parts of the world. If some areas have strains producing a higher viral load that could explain some of the variation in transmission and therefore hospitalizations.

I'm reading the play "Angels In America" right now, and focusing on 'this will pass'. This uncertainty will change, and we will establish a new normal. It's the getting to that that will be stressful.

[Audrey2]

9 hours ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

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.

My Mom (77) and stepdad (66) went to Aldi today. They have been doing the full cart thing there once a month. Each had a cart, but one cart was for my brother. They shopped his list for him, and in a week or two, he'll shop and pick up their groceries (like milk). It sounded like one cart wouldn't have been enough. 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

4 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

My Mom (77) and stepdad (66) went to Aldi today. They have been doing the full cart thing there once a month. Each had a cart, but one cart was for my brother. They shopped his list for him, and in a week or two, he'll shop and pick up their groceries (like milk). It sounded like one cart wouldn't have been enough. 

I wouldn't have even noticed normally, but the aisles are one way and I was behind them and the amount of time they spent holding up aisles (especially with the wine) having discussions about what to get was really irritating.  And the wine thing...I stood there for several minutes with no way to move without encroaching on others distancing properly and it was an excessively long time to expect someone to stand there while you decide which bottles of Aldi wine you want.

[CTRLZero]

11 hours ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

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.

I've been fairly calm about the grocery situation, but reading about processing plants shutting down and other food supply problems, I couldn't rest today until I did another grocery run.   It seems others in my community are reading the same articles.  When we got to our usual store (WinCo), there was a line out the door a half-block long.  We decided instead to try a small Safeway store tucked away in a neighborhood, and it was quiet and fairly well stocked.

I overheard an employee behind the deli counter saying all staff members were receiving increased pay for working during the pandemic.  There were no checkers available unless you required special assistance, so everything was self-checkout.  The aisles were one-way.  There was a looped recording imploring people to make contributions of cash or food for local families who are experiencing food shortages. 

With luck, we'll be able to now hunker down for a longer period of time. 

[adidas]

Boris Johnson and Carrie Symons have welcomed a baby boy.

While I think he’s an enormous numpty, I am glad their baby has arrived safely and that he has recovered well.

[fraurosena]

Haven't done an update in a couple of days, so here we go:

• There were 170 corona-related deaths reported in Belgium in the past 24 hours, 36 more than the day before.
  There were 525 new confirmed cases.
  here were 174 new hospitalisations, 51 more than a day earlier. 340 patients left the hospital. The number of ICU covid-patients went down with 79 to 797.
• There are almost 100.000 confirmed cases in Russia (99.399), surpassing China and Iran in number of cases.
  The official number of corona-related deaths rose by 108 up to 972. Other than in many other European countries, the number of corona patients is still growing fast in Russia. There are between 5000 and 6000 new cases a day. President Putin warned yesterday that the coming two weeks will be the hardest period in the crisis. The lockdown in Russia is in place until May 11. After that the authorities are planning a phased easing of measures.
• From yesterday, New Yorkers can get tested to see if they have antibodies against the virus, which would show if they have been infected. For a fee CityMD will test anyone who wants one, even people who don't have symptoms.
  Authorities say there are 157.000 confirmed cases in New York; although the actual number of infections is probably much higher.
• About 370 million children are missing crucial meals because schools have been closed due to the corona crisis, which could have serious consequences for their overall health. 
  "For millions of children in the world, the meal they receive in school is their only meal of the day," according to Unicef's Suzanne Laszlo. "We have to take action now to prevent the corona pandemic from becoming a hunger catastrophe." According to Unicef, for most of these 370 million children school is the only way to escape poverty.
• The number of registered corona-related deaths in Germany went up with 202 to a total of 6115; 39 more than the day before. 
  The number of confirmed cases went up with 1304, bringing the total number up to 157.641; 200 more than a day earlier.
  Germany has eased a number of measures last week. Many shops have re-opened and a number of schools have opened as well. 
• The basic reproduction number (R0) has gone up slightly in the Netherlands. Not long ago it was down at 0.7, but now it's creeping back up to 1 again.
• Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has been criticised for a lack of French language crisis communication on consumer products. French-Canadians say the lack of French language communication is 'dangerous' and 'disrespectful'. 
  "In these extreme times that isn't always attainable," said Trudeau. "We would like to see everything in both languages, not only because of our Canadian identity, but also because of the safety of our residents." That information is only available in English is because companies have only recently started producing medical supplies and they don't have the capacity or manpower to also include information in French.
• The number of deaths in the US has risen substantially. In the past 24 hours there were 2207 corona-related deaths, 900 more than the day before. The total number of deaths in the US has risen to 58.348. This means that Covid-19 has cost more American lives than the Vietnam war. During the two decade long war, 58.220 Americans died.
  More than a million Americans have now been tested positive for the virus; the prognosis is that the number of deaths will rise exponentially in the coming weeks. Epidemiologists say that the number of deaths will depend on the willingness of Americans to follow the corona measures. According to White House calculations, the number of deaths could rise up to 74.000.
  26 million Americans have lost their jobs because of the corona crisis ant the prognosis is that about 20% of people will be jobless by the summer. Economists warn that if small businesses don't receive aid by June 1 there will be a historic turning point towards a deep recession or depression.
• The Chinese Parliament will hold its key annual session in Beijing on May 22. The session, which usually continues for 10 to 14 days, was previously planned for March 5, but was postponed because of the corona crisis. 
  According to Chinese authorities the corona outbreak in the country is under control enough for the annual session to take place. The past couple of days there were very little new confirmed cases.
  Another naval ship, the USS Kidd, has been berthed in San Diego because of an outbreak of the corona virus. 47 crew members tested positive. Everyone has been taken off board and the ship is being disinfected. Two patients had already been taken off board earlier in order to get them the medical care they needed. The ship was on mission in the Caribbean. The first infections became known last week. 
• Spain has announced plans to come out of lockdown. The country hopes to ease out in four phases, and arrive at the 'new normal' by the end of June. 
  Yesterday the total number of deaths in Spain rose with 301 up to 23.822. The number of new confirmed cases rose with 1308 up to a total of 210.773.
• France reported 367 corona-related deaths yesterday, bringing their total up to almost 24.000. 
  The number of confirmed cases rose to almost 130.000.
  The number of hospitalisations went down, to a total of 27.484 patients, 4387 of whom need ICU care.
  France would like to ease the corona measures, but will not do so if the daily number of new confirmed cases is still above 3000 by May 11, prime minister Édouard Philippe announced in parliament. Research has shown that the strict French measures have saved 62.000 lives. The current situation can't last much longer though. According to Philip a collapse of the French economy is looming if the lockdown stays in place. He said that there isn't anywhere near group immunity yet, but that it's time the French learned to live with the virus and to protect themselves. On May 7 the government will publish an overview of the departments where stringent restrictions will be maintained.
• The number of corona-related deaths in the UK rose with 586 up to 21.678. Health secretary Matt Hancock announced that from tomorrow, government will not only be reporting the number of daily corona-related deaths in hospitals, but will also include deaths that occurred in care and nursing homes. 
• Nearly two months after the outbreak of the virus in Italy there are still hundreds of corona-related deaths each day. Yesterday the total number of deaths rose with 382 up to 27.359. 
  Since late February there have been more than 200.000 confirmed cases, of which more than half is ill. The past 24 hours there were 2000 new confirmed cases. About a third of infected patients has recovered.
• There were 145 corona-related deaths in the Netherlands yesterday, bringing the total up to 4711. 
  There were 76 new hospitalisations, bringing the total up to 10.685 (including recoveries).
  The number of confirmed cases went up by 386 to a total of 38.802. 
  Today's numbers are higher because of the lagging numbers from the weekend and Kingsday (Monday).
• Researchers at Oxford University's Jenner Institute have made headway in developing a vaccine against Covid-19. If everything goes well, the first million doses of the vaccine could be available on the market as early as September. The researchers have a head start because they already had proved a vaccine against another corona virus was harmless to humans. This enabled them to leap ahead and schedule tests of their new coronavirus vaccine involving more than 6000 people by the end of next months, hoping to show not only that it is safe, but also that it works.

 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

From yesterday, New Yorkers can get tested to see if they have antibodies against the virus, which would show if they have been infected. For a fee CityMD will test anyone who wants one, even people who don't have symptoms.

I read recently that they are by no means sure past illness gives immunity.  Has that been refuted?  If not, it's going to give people a false sense of security.

 

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

"For millions of children in the world, the meal they receive in school is their only meal of the day," according to Unicef's Suzanne Laszlo. "We have to take action now to prevent the corona pandemic from becoming a hunger catastrophe." According to Unicef, for most of these 370 million children school is the only way to escape poverty.

Can we PLEASE address this as a planet, too.  This is criminal.  There was no link in my childhood between school and food (until I went to boarding school, of course) and that's how it should be.  Children deserve access to all the healthy food they need regardless of whether school is in session or not?  

And in this time of social distancing food desserts have to make this so much harder for people in some neighborhoods.  Even if they increase SNAP or parents have money, having to take public transportation far enough to get fresh food is such a problem.

 

[apple1]

Quote

I read recently that they are by no means sure past illness gives immunity.  Has that been refuted?  If not, it's going to give people a false sense of security.

There is not yet (according to what I have read) sufficient data to prove that past illness definitely gives immunity. However, experience/data with similar viruses leads to that conclusion. It's not yet proven, however, for this particular virus. Generally, though, there is still discussion of herd immunity and what that would require. YMMV. (Did I use enough "waffle" words?)

The other (and possibly bigger) piece of this discussion, when I pick it apart, is that a positive antibody test doesn't prove immunity. The issue here is that the existing antibody tests (I'm a clinical lab scientist) really suck. FDA has exempted them from its usual requirements and they don't have FDA approval; most don't even have FDA Emergency Use Authorization. Many of them have some false negatives and a lot of false positives. I certainly wouldn't allow a positive antibody test (as they currently exist) to modify my behavior. This problem will eventually improve as better tests are developed and once the FDA goes back to its usual requirements for manufacturers to submit rigorous validation studies prior to being able to sell their tests. FWIW In my entire professional career, I have never known of the FDA to permit unvalidated tests to be sold/used, until now.

[fraurosena]

57 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

I read recently that they are by no means sure past illness gives immunity.  Has that been refuted?  If not, it's going to give people a false sense of security.

No, that hasn't been refuted. It's not known how long a person has antibodies after having recovered, or even how strong those antibodies are. Everything about this virus is still very much up in the air. I found @Ozlsn's article above very informative (and disquieting) about how much is still unknown right now. 

Oops, I posted before refreshing my screen and I see that @apple1 gave a much better reply than I did already...

Edited April 29, 2020 by fraurosena

[GreyhoundFan]

George is always good for a snappy tweet:

 

[clueliss]

Johnson county (suburban Kansas City - there are 4-5 counties in 2 states working together here) either considering or announcing  plans for soft opening.

 

[Dandruff]

I went shopping today.  It was strenuous and quite stressful but I'm well stocked again.  I should be good for at least another month (it had been a month since the last trip).  Entire process - from getting into my car to getting out of the shower after dealing with the stuff - took over 6 hours.  Four stores and a gas station.  Perishables are sanitized and put away and non-perishables are quarantining in a Hefty bag until this weekend.  I need to do laundry at some point (the clothes I wore are also in quarantine) but it seems minor following the shopping extravaganza.

In the first store not all of the employees were wearing masks, though the customers were.  I called the corporate office to have a word about that.  In the other stores, especially Costco, a decent amount of care seemed to be taken to try to keep people safe.  I'm concerned that restrictions may be easing soon and that some people/businesses might get reckless, leading to more spread of the virus...which is what got me out the door today vs. waiting.

Main scores:  Toilet paper (Costco), a Softsoap refill bottle I found at the back of a shelf, a bit of active dry yeast, and a variety of gf flours.

[Audrey2]

I just made my every two week trip to the grocery store and also got gas. After leaving the gas station, on my way to winco, I drove past to sign not sure which business it was at but it was talking about how we shouldn't be afraid (I know it wasn't a church and don't remember the specific wording on it but it was basically a show no fear sign.). I reflected on this sign on my way to the grocery store and came up with a question.

Why is it that the same people who laugh at those who tried to socially distance themselves and wear face masks and say we're all just a bunch of scaredy-cats are the same ones that have to have their guns with some to go anyplace?

[Dandruff]

44 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

Why is it that the same people who laugh at those who tried to socially distance themselves and wear face masks and say we're all just a bunch of scaredy-cats are the same ones that have to have their guns with some to go anyplace?

A pathological need to feel that they're in control?

I've seen grocery haul videos from Winco and wish I could shop at one.  It looks like a great store.

Few hours past my shopping trip and I'm realizing that I missed a few items...though nothing essential.  I'm still planning to stay out of the stores for a long time, and probably can, but it's annoying.  I miss the old days when I could just stop in somewhere for a couple of things and not feel like I'm risking my life.

[nausicaa]

On 4/28/2020 at 11:21 AM, HerNameIsBuffy said:

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.

Same. Stress is definitely on the supply chain, and if that breaks down (not saying it definitely will), things will get ugly in a way people really don't seem to get. 

 

My other rant:

This pandemic has really brought out how so many people don't take me seriously in arguments and I really think part of it is because I'm a woman and I'm so fucking sick of it. I was one a work trip in late March when even the Supreme Court had been recalled, and as I attempted to explain to my (all male) coworkers and my client how serious this was (health wise but also in terms of us actually getting back home and being able to get groceries), I was repeatedly laughed at and dismissed. I'm frankly so upset I've found myself not really ready to talk about all of it yet.  

I'm now trying to discuss Sweden's policy with a male friend and he keeps getting really upset and then telling me to calm down when I'm...giving him numbers? It's such a weird form of projection that keeps happening and I can't help but think gender plays a role in this. 

Another element of this is people laugh and think I'm joking when I'm 100% serious. I previously had accepted this odd dynamic and assumed it was due to a lack in my social skills, but again during something extreme like a pandemic it really bothers me. Hell, I was telling someone the other day in regards to the supply chain that there's this interesting but terrifying aphorism that "All societies, no matter how civilized, are four missed meals away from a full scale riot." The other person started laughing and told me it was a good joke. It's not a joke? Why would that be a joke?

[moreorlessnu]

5 hours ago, Dandruff said:

 

Main scores... a bit of active dry yeast....

I'm crumpled on the floor in a fit of weeping jealousy.

[GreyhoundFan]

This is an interesting video. It shows just how far the swab has to go back during a COVID test. Yikes.

 

[Audrey2]

So, I decided to look at the Arizona Republic website. The headlines were priceless. On the left, the headline was (governor) Ducey extends stay at home until May 15. Beside that was the headline that Trump will be visiting Arizona (soon- before the stay at home order expires).

[HerNameIsBuffy]

3 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

So, I decided to look at the Arizona Republic website. The headlines were priceless. On the left, the headline was (governor) Ducey extends stay at home until May 15. Beside that was the headline that Trump will be visiting Arizona (soon- before the stay at home order expires).

Yep, he said he's going next week.  How much you wanna bet he hits a golf course while there and hopes no one notices.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Dogs are being trained to sniff out coronavirus cases"

Spoiler

As some states move to reopen after weeks of shutdowns, infectious disease experts say the prevention of future coronavirus outbreaks will require scaling up testing and identifying asymptomatic carriers.

Eight Labrador retrievers — and their powerful noses — have been enlisted to help.

The dogs are the first trainees in a University of Pennsylvania research project to determine whether canines can detect an odor associated with the virus that causes the disease covid-19. If so, they might eventually be used in a sort of “canine surveillance” corps, the university said — offering a noninvasive, four-legged method to screen people in airports, businesses or hospitals.

It would not be surprising if the dogs prove adept at detecting SARS-CoV-2. In addition to drugs, explosives and contraband food items, dogs are able to sniff out malaria, cancers and even a bacterium ravaging Florida’s citrus groves. Research has found viruses have specific odors, said Cynthia M. Otto, director of the Working Dog Center at Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine.

“We don’t know that this will be the odor of the virus, per se, or the response to the virus, or a combination,” said Otto, who is leading the project. “But the dogs don’t care what the odor is. … What they learn is that there’s something different about this sample than there is about that sample.”

A similar effort is underway at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, where researchers previously demonstrated that dogs could identify malaria infections in humans. In a statement, James Logan, head of the school’s disease control department, called canines a “new diagnostic tool” that “could revolutionize our response to covid-19.”

Logan said Tuesday that his research team expects to begin collecting covid-19 samples “within a matter of weeks” and working with the charity Medical Detection Dogs to train canines soon after. The initial goal is to deploy six dogs to airports in the United Kingdom, he said.

“Each individual dog can screen up to 250 people per hour,” Logan said in an email. “We are simultaneously working on a model to scale it up so it can be deployed in other countries at ports of entry, including airports.”

The Working Dog Center typically trains dogs, which live with foster families, at its facility in Philadelphia, but the pandemic is forcing it to adjust. To minimize social contact, the project instead is working with Labs at a K-9 training firm in Maryland, Tactical Directional Canine, Otto said.

Miss M., Poncho and six other chocolate, yellow and black Labs began the first stage of training — learning to identify an odor for a food reward — this month, she said. Next, the dogs will train using urine and saliva samples collected from patients who tested positive and negative at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

The following step is trickier, Otto said: learning to detect the virus in a human.

“That’s going to be the next proof of concept: Can we train them to identify it when a person has it and that person’s moving? Or even standing still?” Otto said.

Exactly how covid-19 detection dogs might be put to use in the United States would depend on demands, Otto said, though no one’s talking about stationing a dog in every hospital or testing site.

If the need is lots of tests, then Penn chemists and physicists might be able to use what they learn from the dogs to create an electronic “nose,” or sensor. The goal of the Working Dog Center’s research on ovarian-cancer-detection dogs, for example, is to produce “an electronic test where thousands and thousands of samples could be screened in a short period,” Otto said.

Other settings, such as fields where the center has trained dogs to detect the eggs of invasive spotted lantern flies, call for actual canines that can quickly roam and sniff, she said.

“The exciting area is the sort of convergence with what dogs are currently doing with [the Transportation Security Administration] and screening for explosives,” she said. “If we can do a similar approach for screening humans, then there will be a large interest” in using dogs to help flag people for testing, she added.

One potential complication: Explosives detection dogs are already in short supply.

“We don’t have enough detection dogs. And if now, all of a sudden, everyone wants a covid detection dog? It’s going to be a challenge to figure out where are the priorities,” Otto said. “But there’s a lot of opportunity.”

 

[Dandruff]

1 hour ago, moreorlessnu said:

I'm crumpled on the floor in a fit of weeping jealousy.

Awww...it's just a bit.  I think the organic food store divided their bulk yeast into tiny portions and then limited purchases to one per customer.  Not really complaining, of course, but it doesn't look like much more than a teaspoon.

[fraurosena]

Here's today's update:

• Yesterday had the lowest number of corona-related deaths in Belgium in a month: 111.
  The number of hospitalisations went down with 124, bringing the total number down to 3609. The number of ICU corona patients went down by 28 to 769.
  There were 660 new confirmed cases, bringing the total up to 48.519.
  The Belgian railway company is going to sell facemarks and disinfectants in vending machines at train stations. Passengers must cover their mouth and nose  whilst traveling.
• German researchers say children are just as infectious as adults. The number of virus particles in the airways in all age groups is virtually the same, leading researchers lead by virologist Christian Drosten, one of the top advisors to the German government, to say that schools and daycare centres shouldn't be opened without restriction. Their research has not been peer-reviewed yet.
  There were 173 corona-related deaths in Germany, bringing the total up to 6288.
  The number of confirmed cases rose with 1478 up to 159.000.
• South Korea has reported 4 new confirmed cases, all of which were infected outside of South Korea. For the first time in 75 days there were no new cases in South Korea itself. A total number of 11.000 people were infected with the corona virus up til now, with a total of 247 deaths. 
• Yemen, already afflicted with an enormous humanitarian crisis, has  reported their first corona-related deaths. Two people died as a cause of the virus, according to the Yemeni Health minister.
  International health-experts have warned that the Yemeni people are extremely vulnerable for an outbreak. The virus can spread quickly spread unseen in a country where 24 million people, 80% Yemenites, are dependant on aid and 10 million residents are at risk of famine. Healthcare in Yemen has been seriously corroded because of the civil war raging through the country.
• Los Angeles is offering free corona tests to all its residents, mayor Eric Garcetti has announced. People don't have to have symptoms in order to be tested, but those that do will have precedence. 
  Dozens of decomposing bodies were found in trucks at a Brooklyn funeral home. After receiving complaints about stench, police made the gruesome discovery. Inside two trucks, a U-Haul rental and a tractor-trailer, they found several dozen decomposing bodies. It's unclear how many of the people found stacked in body bags inside the trucks died of Covid19. One official said the funeral home had been storing bodies in the trucks after its freezer stopped operating properly. Funeral directors are required to store bodies awaiting burial or cremation in appropriate conditions that prevent infection. New York's death care system has been under extraordinary strain as they try to grapple with the single worst mass casualty event to hit the city since the Spanish flu pandemic. At least 14.000 people in the city have died because of the corona crisis.
  Another 3.5 million people have registered for unemployment in the US. So far, since the outbreak started almost 27 million people have asked for unemployment aid. A staggering total of 20% of Americans is now unemployed. 
  Yesterday there were 2505 reported corona-related deaths in the US, bringing the total number of deaths up to 60.853.
• The improvement of air quality in Europe, that is occurring as a consequence of the corona measures, has brought health benefits that are the equivalent of preventing 11.300 early deaths, according to research by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air in Helsinki, Finland. In the past month hundreds of millions of people in Europe stayed home because of the corona pandemic. Researchers have found that the impact air pollution has on diseases it causes or aggravates was drastically reduced in 21 European countries. During the 30 days before April 24, the average European was exposed to 37% less nitrogen dioxide and 12% less fine dust. 
• Norway is going to reduce its oil production between June and the end of this year, in an effort to aid the stabilisation of greatly lowered oil prices, Energy minister Tina Bru announced. Norway is the largest oil producer in Europe. The oil market is suffering from an oversupply combined with a plummeting demand, mainly because of the corona crisis. Most oil producing countries have agreed to lower production by 10 million vats per day starting next month.
• France is easing its restrictions on May 11. A maximum of 10 people may sport outside within a distance of 100 km from their homes, and at an acceptable distance from each other. People who want to jog or cycle outside will have to keep 10 meters apart. Those who want to do yoga or fitness will have to keep 4 square meters distance.
• Spain reported the lowest number of corona-related deaths in 6 weeks yesterday, when 268 patients died, bringing their total number of deaths up to 24.543. The total number of confirmed cases is 213.435.
• Czechia has the outbreak under control and the country is cautiously restarting its economy, according to Health minister Adam Vojtech. The number of new confirmed cases is under 100 for the 8th day in a row. The infection rate is down to 0.7.
  The total number of confirmed cases is 7581.
  A total number of 227 patients have died.
• After nine years of war, a new tragedy is threatening in Syria because of the corona pandemic, UN-envoy Mark Lowcock has warned. With millions of homeless and bad to non-existent sanitary conditions, it can't be expected that Syria can deal with a crisis that is a challenge to even the most developed countries. Lowcock believes medical aid should be allowed to enter the country and that the border with Iraq should be re-opened.
• Greta Thunberg has donated a Danish prize she received from Danish foundation Human Act. She donated 100.000 dollars to Unicef. Unicef will be able to use the money to combat the negative consequences the corona crisis has on children. "Just like the climate crisis, the corona pandemic is a children's rights crisis," 17-year-old Thunberg said. "It will have effect on all children, now and in the future, but vulnerable groups will be effected the most."

[danvillebelle]

12 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

This is an interesting video. It shows just how far the swab has to go back during a COVID test. Yikes.

 

OH HELL TO THE NO.  

I am fucking staying home forever.

[GreyhoundFan]

2 minutes ago, danvillebelle said:

OH HELL TO THE NO.  

I am fucking staying home forever.

That was my reaction. It looks like the swab goes all the way to the back of the skull.