Coronavirus (NO POLITICAL OR SOCIAL COMMENTARY PLEASE)

[ctujackbauer]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I was thinking that with all the voluntary interest in coronavirus by contributors here that some may want to channel that energy and empathy? into something a bit more productive in terms of public health service and for those unemployed posting here, with lots of time on their hands, alert them as to the possibility of a new, satisfying career as a bonus.

An inside look - https://www.jhsph.edu/covid-19/artic...ct-tracer.html

Penton, hundreds of thousand of people if not millions of people, were gathering in mass and shouting (much like a sports stadium) with no regard to social distancing (many wore masks, but not all). A contact tracer isn't going to be able to pinpoint people who were infected in mass gatherings like that.

Any chance there was of containing this left with those protests. And the majority were in big cities where congregation is already a problem.

If people are disobeying mandatory city-wide curfews, flipping over cars and setting them on fire, and breaking retail store glass - then contact tracing is small potatoes.

[bruceames]

After doing some reading, I realize that contact tracing will only follow up on cases where there have been "close contact" (being within 6 feet of someone for more than 10 or 15 minutes).

You generally need to be in close contact with a sick person to get infected. Close contact includes:

Living in the same household as a sick person with COVID-19,

Caring for a sick person with COVID-19,

Being within 6 feet of a sick person with COVID-19 for about 10 minutes, OR

Being in direct contact with secretions from a sick person with COVID-19 (e.g., being coughed on, kissing, sharing utensils, etc.).

If you have not been in close contact with a sick person with COVID-19, you are at low risk for infection.

From the CDC website:

Contact tracing will be conducted for close contacts (any individual within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes) of laboratory-confirmed or probable COVID-19 patients.

I can see the app being effective for those riding public transportation, where social distancing is impossible and your stuck in the same car or bus with other for quite a while. But if everyone is wearing a mask and there is ventilation (having windows down in a bus for example) there should be low risk even in those situations. Don't know how well ventilated subways are (here we have BART, but I never use it).

Seems the highest risk areas are in poorer communities and in nursing homes. Nursing home employee are generally low paid and more likely to live in these high risk neighborhoods, where social distancing is next to impossible, and you have several families sharing an apartment. Making things worse, undocumented immigrants don't qualify for financial assistance and these are the people who are more likely to live in crowded apartments and pass it on to others there. Being unemployed creates a bad situation where they are more likely to take risks and seek out help from others, possibly infecting other households as well.

In my county, 55 percent of the cases have been latinos, who only comprise 16 percent of the population. None of the 14 deaths have been latinos however (since they generally are more youthful).

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

don't forget that these are nothing but guesses, it is not like they can go back look at some footage see the guy as green, see him meat someone red, see some red spittle go from red guy to green guy and green guy becomes red. So that they can say "that is exactly where and when he caught it. It would be more like "did you go to the market on X?"; "yes";"did you go to any interior stalls?";"yes"; "OK, chances are he caught it indoors at the market" plus any Chinese study with 7300 (could not find any reference outside from that article to such study) was probably done in the winter time when people will naturally spend a lot more time indoors, temperatures are around freezing that time of year

There were others studies like this done (one in Japan and another in South Korea that I recall), all with similar results, where at least 99% of the cases originated indoors. I don't know where this study was done, but Wuhan isn't exactly freezing in winter and neither for that matter most of mainland China. Bottom line you can get it outdoors of course, but the risk is much lower.

[Batman1980]

Back to work Wednesday as I expected, looks like it's roughly my old pre-CO VID 19 schedule too.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by ctujackbauer

Penton, hundreds of thousand of people if not millions of people, were gathering in mass and shouting (much like a sports stadium) with no regard to social distancing (many wore masks, but not all). A contact tracer isn't going to be able to pinpoint people who were infected in mass gatherings like that.

Any chance there was of containing this left with those protests. And the majority were in big cities where congregation is already a problem.

Well then, given the interest in coronavirus and the knowledge some are accumulating vis-à-vis news reports and their own online research (outside of this thread, how many here ever actually used the word ‘asymptomatic’ before last December, anyone?), perhaps there is a small silver lining in so much as maybe some of the folks here will be inspired to the real deal - becoming doctors or nurses or other health care providers…noble professions in the service of others.

Originally Posted by ctujackbauer

flipping over cars and setting them on fire,

a more reasonable solution for killing the virus -
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a3...l-coronavirus/

[Batman1980]

I was a pharma tech a long time ago, gave up on that, that was how I became exposed to the word asymptomatic. As far as I know it means you have something interrupting your homeostasis but you're not showing any symptoms.

[IndyMLVC]

Originally Posted by ctujackbauer

Penton, hundreds of thousand of people if not millions of people, were gathering in mass and shouting (much like a sports stadium) with no regard to social distancing (many wore masks, but not all). A contact tracer isn't going to be able to pinpoint people who were infected in mass gatherings like that.

Any chance there was of containing this left with those protests. And the majority were in big cities where congregation is already a problem.

If people are disobeying mandatory city-wide curfews, flipping over cars and setting them on fire, and breaking retail store glass - then contact tracing is small potatoes.

Apparently it won't matter. Because it was all exterior, no one will get anything.

[Batman1980]

Reminds me of Batman and Alfred's conversation in B v S. You have to treat it this way - if there's a 1% chance you could get it, you have to treat that as an absolute certainty and take appropriate precautions.

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by ctujackbauer

Penton, hundreds of thousand of people if not millions of people, were gathering in mass and shouting (much like a sports stadium) with no regard to social distancing (many wore masks, but not all). A contact tracer isn't going to be able to pinpoint people who were infected in mass gatherings like that.

Any chance there was of containing this left with those protests. And the majority were in big cities where congregation is already a problem.

If people are disobeying mandatory city-wide curfews, flipping over cars and setting them on fire, and breaking retail store glass - then contact tracing is small potatoes.

Originally Posted by IndyMLVC

Apparently it won't matter. Because it was all exterior, no one will get anything.

There is a lot of risk in mass gatherings, especially if people are standing next to each other and yelling. It's about close contact, whether that indoors or outdoors. But outdoors the droplets will disperse more quickly or evaporate. So close contact indoors is more dangerous indoors than outdoors. Again that's why there are trying to get as many traditional indoor activities (such as dining and office meetings) moved outdoors. Here in Marin they are allowing outside dining only starting tomorrow and will be opening up sidewalk and parking spaces to allow for those who don't already have outside tables.

For those involved in these gatherings and not wearing masks and just basically throwing caution to the wind, I doubt they care about contact tracing anyway. It's not going to work for these types of individuals.

[Pondosinatra]

So dinner was ok...

It was just us and one other table in the entire place.

All the staff were wearing masks. There was a plexiglass divider between booths.

Menus were disposable.

Waitresses weren't allowed to reach across the table to place food. ie. they'd put it down at one end and you'd have to bring the food to yourself.

Other than the lack of live sports, for a moment it was almost as if you could pretend things were normal.

I just simply don't see how any restaurant can stay in business at 50% capacity, when in actuality only 5% of people show up to dine in. Yes there's takeout, but services like Skip The Dishes take such a big cut it's almost not worth it either.

[Batman1980]

Yeah I see how ambitious the schedule at work for this week's shifts are but unless things pick up substantially from how they were right before we shut down, I don't see how they will be profitable anytime soon. Just gotta hope I still get hours so I can pay my bills till I graduate.

[Dbuck64]

Ten weeks ago the wife and I were on a trip to Scotland, literally on the plane when they declared the pandemic. I will skip the long story and just say we managed to get home but man o man was it rough.

When we arrived back in the US we were greeted by the CDC and told to quarantine ourselves. Okay, we can manage that. We felt fine and had no temperatures.
The next day I had what I usually get on planes, head funk. No biggie. (Now, the plane was essentially empty as were the airports)
Then the wife got a bit sick. And I admit, she coughed on my face while sleeping.
And she got sicker.
And sicker.
Almost every common symptom except temperature. She would go up a teeny bit but right back down. She lost her sense of smell and taste, and body aches like she has never had before. She would cough so hard she’d vomit. I lay awake at night downstairs listening and being absolutely frightened.
Yet I was fine.
She got a bit better for a day, and then dropped even more.
Her doctor told her to take mucinex and Tylenol and stay home and isolated until it got better or she had REAL trouble breathing. She had some, but not quite oxygen deprived. Her coughing was something fierce and scary.
She lived upstairs and I lived downstairs and I delivered water, tea, and what little food she could manage. Even when she did eat it tasted like cardboard. I swear there was three days she ate maybe four pieces of toast. She just couldn’t or wouldn’t eat. I kept trying to get her to drink, but it took everything she had to even do that.
I was texting our daughter and trying to remain optimistic but I was sure she’d have to go to the hospital and possibly get put on a respirator, and if you end up on one of those you’ve got maybe a thirty percent chance of coming out of it alive.
I went through all the insurance paperwork and financial accounts to get them in order and make sure I could continue on. We both felt she was going. She wanted to write notes to the grandkids and couldn’t muster the strength.
And then literally hours after she almost decided to go to the ER she started to get a little better.
And better.
I was afraid to get too optimistic with our daughter, so I held back a bit until I was sure.
But she was mending. Phew.

(Edit: she lost twelve pounds)

So did she have the virus? At the time, we weren’t sure. Her doctor said if she had come in to the ER they would have tested her if they could but she’d probably show negative anyway because she’d been sick for too long. Maybe it was a really bad upper respiratory infection, maybe not. I’ll tell you though, YOU DO NOT WANT THIS!
If we did get the virus we figured it was on The plane going over or on a tour bus with people from all over the world when we went to Loch Ness and the Scottish Highlands. The timing for that is about right. The next day social distancing was put into place. The good news is no one we were exposed to or know has been infected. Our quarantine worked.

The best day I‘ve had in forever was when I finally could hold her at night once again.

So now it’s more than two months later, and I swear she has some mild lingering effects but mostly full normal. God only knows what this does to the body long term. Two weeks ago she went in for an antibody test. One week later, the test showed positive.
So I went in a week ago. Positive. Yup, I had been asymptomatic. I did have the head funk and a slight cough for more than a week, and figured there was no way I hadn’t been exposed, but I still wondered. Oddly enough I live on Prilosec for heartburn and it apparently is one of the things that may help fight COVID-19. Maybe it helped, maybe I just got lucky. Considering my age I did not want to catch this.
Now we just hope you can’t catch it again.

[Pondosinatra]

Originally Posted by Dbuck64

Ten weeks ago the wife and I were on a trip to Scotland, literally on the plane when they declared the pandemic. I will skip the long story and just say we managed to get home but man o man was it rough.

When we arrived back in the US we were greeted by the CDC and told to quarantine ourselves. Okay, we can manage that. We felt fine and had no temperatures.
The next day I had what I usually get on planes, head funk. No biggie. (Now, the plane was essentially empty as were the airports)
Then the wife got a bit sick. And I admit, she coughed on my face while sleeping.
And she got sicker.
And sicker.
Almost every common symptom except temperature. She would go up a teeny bit but right back down. She lost her sense of smell and taste, and body aches like she has never had before. She would cough so hard she’d vomit. I lay awake at night downstairs listening and being absolutely frightened.
Yet I was fine.
She got a bit better for a day, and then dropped even more.
Her doctor told her to take mucinex and Tylenol and stay home and isolated until it got better or she had REAL trouble breathing. She had some, but not quite oxygen deprived. Her coughing was something fierce and scary.
She lived upstairs and I lived downstairs and I delivered water, tea, and what little food she could manage. Even when she did eat it tasted like cardboard. I swear there was three days she ate maybe four pieces of toast. She just couldn’t or wouldn’t eat. I kept trying to get her to drink, but it took everything she had to even do that.
I was texting our daughter and trying to remain optimistic but I was sure she’d have to go to the hospital and possibly get put on a respirator, and if you end up on one of those you’ve got maybe a thirty percent chance of coming out of it alive.
I went through all the insurance paperwork and financial accounts to get them in order and make sure I could continue on. We both felt she was going. She wanted to write notes to the grandkids and couldn’t muster the strength.
And then literally hours after she almost decided to go to the ER she started to get a little better.
And better.
I was afraid to get too optimistic with our daughter, so I held back a bit until I was sure.
But she was mending. Phew.

(Edit: she lost twelve pounds)

So did she have the virus? At the time, we weren’t sure. Her doctor said if she had come in to the ER they would have tested her if they could but she’d probably show negative anyway because she’d been sick for too long. Maybe it was a really bad upper respiratory infection, maybe not. I’ll tell you though, YOU DO NOT WANT THIS!
If we did get the virus we figured it was on The plane going over or on a tour bus with people from all over the world when we went to Loch Ness and the Scottish Highlands. The timing for that is about right. The next day social distancing was put into place. The good news is no one we were exposed to or know has been infected. Our quarantine worked.

The best day I‘ve had in forever was when I finally could hold her at night once again.

So now it’s more than two months later, and I swear she has some mild lingering effects but mostly full normal. God only knows what this does to the body long term. Two weeks ago she went in for an antibody test. One week later, the test showed positive.
So I went in a week ago. Positive. Yup, I had been asymptomatic. I did have the head funk and a slight cough for more than a week, and figured there was no way I hadn’t been exposed, but I still wondered. Oddly enough I live on Prilosec for heartburn and it apparently is one of the things that may help fight COVID-19. Maybe it helped, maybe I just got lucky. Considering my age I did not want to catch this.
Now we just hope you can’t catch it again.

Glad you guys had a positive outcome - and nice to see someone new in here.

[Moe Szyslak]

Don't think I'll ever forget that unsettling feeling I had in my gut in the early days of having to go home and stay there. Never thought that, so soon, I would experience that feeling again.

[NARMAK]

Originally Posted by Batman1980

Reminds me of Batman and Alfred's conversation in B v S. You have to treat it this way - if there's a 1% chance you could get it, you have to treat that as an absolute certainty and take appropriate precautions.

Lol, please don't. He turned around and said he was wrong

That said, i jest. People should try to take some appropriate precautions as you said

[Member-222782]

Originally Posted by darkness2918

If im driving in my SUV I don't need a mask. If im at a big park where its more then possible to stay 6 feet apart or more (like Central Park) I don't think you need to wear a mask either. Also wait until its 90-100 degrees out, see how much you like wearing a mask. Me & my wife already stopped wearing gloves because its too hot for them, I carry around hand sanitizer though.

I woke up to 52 degrees this morning. I had to check the calendar to make sure it was actually June and not early March Not complaining - we've had some unbelievably beautiful weather in the Northeast pretty much all Spring. Nice and cool with bright blue skies. If this keeps up I think we might be in for one of those rare cool Summers, which will make wearing a mask more tolerable. If it goes South and we get a long hot Summer, I don't know how I'm going to survive it wearing masks and gloves.

[Underworld54]

Originally Posted by Cinema84

I woke up to 52 degrees this morning. I had to check the calendar to make sure it was actually June and not early March Not complaining - we've had some unbelievably beautiful weather in the Northeast pretty much all Spring. Nice and cool with bright blue skies. If this keeps up I think we might be in for one of those rare cool Summers, which will make wearing a mask more tolerable. If it goes South and we get a long hot Summer, I don't know how I'm going to survive it wearing masks and gloves.

We're supposed to be in for a blazing hot summer here in the northeast.

[Member-222782]

Originally Posted by Underworld54

We're supposed to be in for a blazing hot summer here in the northeast.

Farmer's almanac prediction? I've never put too much stock in that. The pattern so far is crisp cool air and bright skies and that has traditionally meant the pattern continues into Summer. I can't remember the last time we've had weather this cool so late in the Season. In 3 weeks it'll officially be Summer and I had to wear a hoodie this morning. Again, not complaining. Or, it could dramatically change and be really hot. It's been a roller coaster weather-wise for some time.

[MifuneFan]

Brazil's numbers are insane if you look at them. if the source is accurate, there has been 930,013 tests done to date, and of that 514,992 have come back positive. That's a 55% positive rate!

What makes this even more disturbing is Brazil has a population of over 212 million, so to have only done 930K tests means that there is almost certainly 2 to 3 times the amount of cases out there (if not way more), meaning they potentially have more cases right now than the US. For comparison sake, the US has a population of 330 million, has done over 17 million tests to date, and has 1.8+ million cases.

[MrHT]

I really wonder if warm weather does indeed help slow the spread of the virus. Now that weather is getting really warm here in NY, the number of new cases per day has been going down dramatically. One may say it's because we're social distancing and wearing a mask, but we've been doing that for over two months and in fact, I think fewer people are social distancing today than they two months ago since the weather is nicer now and fewer people are staying home.