Coronavirus (NO POLITICAL OR SOCIAL COMMENTARY PLEASE)

[Moe Szyslak]

Originally Posted by Moviefan1203

It’s becoming like that at my place of employment as well. Masks are essentially encouraged but not enforced.

I recall you mentioning you're a PA resident. Do you work in PA? If so, is your place of employment in the green or yellow phase?

[Moviefan1203]

Originally Posted by Moe Szyslak

I recall you mentioning you're a PA resident. Do you work in PA? If so, is your place of employment in the green or yellow phase?

I work in York Country currently yellow but moving to green soon.

[bruceames]

I've noticed a trend in fewer people wearing masks on the single track trails. Especially from bikers and younger people. I carry one but only use it when encountering someone I can't social distance from (which would be nearly every encounter on a single track that slopes sideways). But since they aren't bothering, I don't either. I just look the other way when passing.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Moviefan1203

People are just making a decision about what it more important for mankind.

It’s a dilemma regarding the right to protest and at the same time the presence of the coronavirus pandemic because many personally believe that injustice to people of color represents just as much, or more, of a public health hazard than COVID-19 as evidenced even by health care providers in several cities joining in the peaceful protests. It’s become a matter of moral conscience based upon sincere individual beliefs -

Health Care Workers On Coronavirus Front Lines Join Protests Against Injustice | NBC Nightly News - YouTube

Personally, I don’t like the idea of exposing society to a greater risk of a significant surge in COVID-19 morbidity and mortality, but I can really empathize with the passion of the situation especially if protestors are motivated to then get tested following their activism.

However, I have little sympathy for those defiantly not following social distancing guidelines, mask wearing, etc. with regards to more trivial pursuits like hitting nightclubs, downtown streets, casinos, etc. – or facilities not properly reopening with protective measures in place and adhered to by both employees and patrons.

“This week Governor Ducey indicated the increase in COVID-19 cases statewide was attributable largely to increased testing, but health officials are now saying the end of the stay-at-home order is having an impact, especially when crowds are hitting the nightclubs and downtown streets.”
From “Banner says ICU beds are approaching 100% capacity”

https://www.abc15.com/news/region-ph...g-100-capacity

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by mar3o

Sorry but that's an unfair statement. I have said many, many times that we need a balance - opening things up carefully, taking the advice of experts, and maintaining some level of distancing whenever possible. I have actually used the word balance in here many times over the weeks. The problem is some in here are speaking in binary, and saying we all just need to return to work as before and get back to life as it was since it appears the levels are dropping. We have some bar and gym owners ready to open full back up, with some owners in previous weeks literally hanging signs saying "no masks allowed". Is that responsible? Is this balance?

When we have posters in here saying "it's sad what qualifies these days as a pandemic", how can anybody defend that kind of statement?

The numbers defend that kind of statement in the context it was written in, an iCFR of 0.26% and hospital capacity of 3% and we are still stuck in "Phase I" where it's okay to go shop with 60 other people at the supermarket and mingle with 30 other people at the liquor store, but not go over to your brother's house for tea? No logic whatsoever. When you extrapolate what someone else wrote into your own interpretation, is that fair to the other person? I don't think so. And yet now you want to incite others by repeating the same thing over and over again, we can point fingers at your posts for sure when the thread gets locked.

[dobyblue]

Interesting about Arizona's "spike", turns out they've been including seropositive tests in those numbers - https://twitter.com/KurtisCicero/sta...102662/photo/1

Also, hospital capacity is absolutely increasing...because they're now allowing elective surgeries - https://ktar.com/story/3249719/azdhs...ther-patients/

"health officials said Saturday the majority of beds in the state are being used by patients who don’t have the virus.

There are more than 1,200 inpatients infected with the virus reported in Arizona hospitals, according to a report released from the Arizona Department of Health Services.

That number represents about 22% of inpatient beds and 33% of ICU beds currently in use statewide by those with the virus."

[LordoftheRings]

Originally Posted by mar3o

Coronavirus Live Updates: Study Indicates U.S. Shutdowns Prevented 60 Million Infections

Yeah, amazing what qualifies as a pandemic these days.

1. That study doesn't mean much @ all. Nobody can tell with accurate data what if and what if and how many are infected and never tested and never showing symptoms, nobody.
We don't even know how many cases exactly are in the world and how many deaths exactly are in the world related to COVID-19. Many of us, including the health scientist experts, assume that the numbers are higher than what the data shows. I do.

2. As for what qualifies as a pandemic nowadays ...

20200608_141212.jpg
20200608_141318.jpg

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

HCQ prophylactically

A Randomized Trial of hydroxychloroquine as postexposure prophylaxis for COVID-19
https://www.nejm.org/action/cookieAbsent

take home message(s) from that ^ recently published randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial across the United States and parts of Canada -

#1 - HCQ was not of medical value in protecting against COVID-19 in that scenario, as a p = 0.35 is not statistically significant
#2 – in their scenario (“We included participants who had household or occupational exposure to a person with confirmed Covid-19 at a distance of less than 6 ft for more than 10 minutes while wearing neither a face mask nor an eye shield (high-risk exposure) or while wearing a face mask but no eye shield (moderate-risk exposure)”, one can surmise that a person has about a 15% chance of getting COVID-19 when exposed to another person with laboratory confirmed Covid-19

[LordoftheRings]

Iran second wave ...

20200608_144938.jpg

One of my favorite COVID-19 data sources...
• https://covid19info.live/

[Chaotic]

39% of Americans say they’ve consumed Bleach to protect from corona

https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/06/..._source=social

[Moviefan1203]

Originally Posted by Chaotic

39% of Americans say they’ve consumed Bleach to protect from corona

https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/06/..._source=social

[chip75]

Originally Posted by Chaotic

39% of 502 Americans say they’ve consumed Bleach to protect from corona

https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/06/..._source=social

Correction.

It's like 8 out of 10 cats loved the cat food.

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

Interesting about Arizona's "spike", turns out they've been including seropositive tests in those numbers - https://twitter.com/KurtisCicero/sta...102662/photo/1

Also, hospital capacity is absolutely increasing...because they're now allowing elective surgeries - https://ktar.com/story/3249719/azdhs...ther-patients/

"health officials said Saturday the majority of beds in the state are being used by patients who don’t have the virus.

There are more than 1,200 inpatients infected with the virus reported in Arizona hospitals, according to a report released from the Arizona Department of Health Services.

That number represents about 22% of inpatient beds and 33% of ICU beds currently in use statewide by those with the virus."

That would help explain some of the increase in California cases too. I suspected the increases were largely a result of new hotspots in high risk areas, rather than a statewide increase caused by the reopenings.

[LordoftheRings]

Originally Posted by Chaotic

39% of Americans say they’ve consumed Bleach to protect from corona

https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/06/..._source=social

No freekin' way, get out of here!
That survey has to be total baloney.
If this would be any close to be accurate there's something real wrong with this world ...

[Bigdog]

Originally Posted by chip75

Correction.

It's like 8 out of 10 cats loved the cat food.

Just like I was talking about the other day, headline framing, they go fishing for lazy people that cant be bothered to actually read the story and find them by the thousands today.

[Underworld54]

Originally Posted by Moviefan1203

That’s silly, of course not. With the magnitude of this pandemic, we can make the argument that things still should be locked down. The government needs to better take care of its citizens who need financial assistance. The brave individuals protesting in close proximity to one another have made the decision that civil rights are worth the risk.

That's sort of hypocritical, they shouldn't be allowed to make those decisions.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

The numbers defend that kind of statement in the context it was written in, an iCFR of 0.26% and hospital capacity of 3% and we are still stuck in "Phase I" where it's okay to go shop with 60 other people at the supermarket and mingle with 30 other people at the liquor store, but not go over to your brother's house for tea? No logic whatsoever. When you extrapolate what someone else wrote into your own interpretation, is that fair to the other person? I don't think so. And yet now you want to incite others by repeating the same thing over and over again, we can point fingers at your posts for sure when the thread gets locked.

Wow. I have no idea what I said or did to anger you but I have been pretty respectful in here all along to the posters in here. I'm a long-term member of this blu-ray community and I do not enjoy "inciting" trouble. That's not my style. In fact I spoke up for this thread last month when it was locked down previously and said most everyone in here has been okay and we all just needed a place to discuss things.

And yes, I do agree that it's ridiculous in some areas that people can't have a friend over, yet are allowed to gather in some areas that aren't even considered critical. Like I said, things need to be balanced, and they're not.

But the poster I replied to has previously made a mockery of COVID-19. This isn't the first time, and I'm not the only one who has taken issue with it.

As far as posting the same things over and over, I have been posting a variety of links in here since this thing began.

I doubt I'm worth closing the thread over. I don't think I'm that important.

Whatever. This thread is no longer worth it to me. I don't feel like being banned or losing my account that I've had for going on 10 years just for some pointless arguments in here.

Since it seems this thread is more and more becoming a place where people are just getting riled up, I think I'll be backing off and posting a lot less in here. Like I said, not worth it.

[bruceames]

This is what I theorized, that asymptomatic people (not to be confused with pre-symptomatic) don't spread the virus easily because they don't carry much a viral load, so that their breathing and talking have very low levels of virus particles, compared to pre-symptomatic and symptomatic carriers.

The World Health Organization says it still believes the spread of the coronavirus from people without symptoms is “rare,” despite warnings from numerous experts worldwide that such transmission is more frequent and likely explains why the pandemic has been so hard to contain.

Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19 said at a press briefing on Monday that many countries are reporting cases of spread from people who are asymptomatic, or those with no clinical symptoms. But when questioned in more detail about these cases, Van Kerkhove said many of them turn out to have mild disease, or unusual symptoms.


Advertisement
Although health officials in countries including Britain, the U.S. and elsewhere have warned that COVID-19 is spreading from people without symptoms, WHO has maintained that this type of spread is not a driver of the pandemic and is probably accounts for about 6% of spread, at most. Numerous studies have suggested that the virus is spreading from people without symptoms, but many of those are either anecdotal reports or based on modeling.

Van Kerkhove said that based on data from countries, when people with no symptoms of COVID-19 are tracked over a long period to see if they spread the disease, there are very few cases of spread.

“We are constantly looking at this data and we’re trying to get more information from countries to truly answer this question,” she said. “It still appears to be rare that asymptomatic individuals actually transmit onward.”

https://www.wesh.com/article/spread-...ains/32802614#

[bruceames]

Deaths have fallen much more sharply than cases in the last month.

Could it be that it has mutated into a less deadly form?

Is it because of increased testing, making the death rate appear to be lower, because more cases are found?

Or is it because of advances in treatments?

Or a combination of the above?

[Show spoiler]

Good news: A new study finds that the novel coronavirus has become less lethal over the past few months. While there’s no evidence that mutations are making the virus less deadly, treatments have improved enormously as scientists have learned more.

Doctors have observed that the coronavirus case-fatality rate seems to have decreased considerably since the early days of the pandemic. But a pre-publication study from Italian universities and local public-health authorities comparing the case-fatality rates in two provinces (Ferrara and Pescara) during March and April is the first to show this might be true.

After adjusting for age and comorbidities, the study found the overall death rate declined by some 40% from March to April with huge reductions in those over age 80 (from 36.3% to 16.1%), and subjects with hypertension (23% to 12.1%), diabetes (30.3% to 8.4%), cardiovascular disease (31.5% to 12.1%), COPD (29.7% to 11.4%) and renal disease (32.3% to 11.5%).

The study’s findings need to be confirmed by more studies of fatality rates over time in other places. But the researchers note that the decline in death rates is unlikely to be due to less crowded hospitals since infection rates were low in the two provinces and never exceeded the intensive care unit capacity. Hospital utilization could confound results in other hot spots.

They say their study confirms anecdotes from expert physicians that “the early administration of more tailored medications, is considerably improving the clinical course of COVID-19.” Doctors are using a cocktail of targeted therapies including repurposed HIV antivirals, anticoagulants and monoclonal antibodies like tocilizumab that lower inflammatory cytokine attacks on organs.

A European Journal of Internal Medicine study last month found that two of 62 patients receiving tocilizumab died compared to 11 of 23 in a group with similar characteristics. Randomized clinical trials are needed to draw solid conclusions about the efficacy of drug treatments, but they usually take months. So doctors have been experimenting and learning on the fly.

We now know, for instance, that deaths among severely ill patients often result from an overreactive immune response known as “cytokine storms” as well as systemic blood clots. The Food and Drug Administration this week approved a new blood test by Roche that measures levels of the inflammatory-causing protein interleukin-6 and can help predict patients at risk for cytokine storms. Using drugs to break up blood clots and calm down the immune system earlier can prevent severe cases from turning deadly.

Doctors have also observed that some patients with fatally low oxygen levels aren’t gasping for air or losing consciousness and their symptoms resemble altitude sickness—dizziness, nausea and headaches—more than pneumonia or acute respiratory distress. As a result they are using less intensive ventilation such as nasal cannulas and sleep-apnea machines.

Mechanical ventilators can cause long-term brain and respiratory damage as well as secondary infections. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association has found that a shockingly high 80% of those between ages 18 and 65 who were placed on ventilators in New York City died while just 2.4% were discharged alive during the study period. More targeted therapeutics can reduce the need for ventilators.

The FDA last month approved Gilead’s antiviral remdesivir for emergency use after a phase-one trial found that the drug reduced recovery times in hospitalized patients on average to 11 days compared to 15 days for those in a control group. Remdesivir stops the virus from replicating, so it may be even more beneficial if administered earlier in the illness.

The treatment learning curve has been as steep as the infection curve. But even if there’s a second Covid-19 wave, it is likely to be less deadly than the first.[/quote]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronav...ws-11591399491

[Moe Szyslak]

Originally Posted by bruceames

This is what I theorized, that asymptomatic people (not to be confused with pre-symptomatic) don't spread the virus easily because they don't carry much a viral load, so that their breathing and talking have very low levels of virus particles, compared to pre-symptomatic and symptomatic carriers.

https://www.wesh.com/article/spread-...ains/32802614#

This could be game changing, we'll see how it develops. Seems for now WHO and CDC aren't adjusting their recommendations.