Formerly DT: COVID-19 - Featuring Lots of Politics, now CR because political talk not going away

[Moby Ric 2058]

13 minutes ago, Deej said:

This thing has Alex Jones so rattled, he got arrested for a DWI last night. 

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/alex-jones-travis-county-dwi/269-a570d5bf-9839-4eeb-a54a-85bfc351c654

I hope the cop had a body cam on, I would love to see that footage.

[bolverk 29394]

14 minutes ago, closetojumping said:

Sorry, I keep seeing the "Italy is out of hospital beds" and "they're picking who to treat and who will die in Italy" stuff coming up. Is this based on the tweets from the one guy last night? Or are there articles or stories somewhere else? If so, can someone link those? It would be helpful to anchor this position in something better than a random "friend of friend" Tweetstorm from yesterday. 

Similarly, for people referencing that Kirkland, WA is out of hospital beds and overwhelmed, are there articles you can point to that highlight this? 

It feels like there's a lot of shit being said on tv or somewhere else that isn't making it to this thread, based on the matter of fact way in which some of you guys are referencing these things, which is usually not the case on the live-update Daily Texan threads of crisis. 

Obviously, none of us is in the position to verify the triage tweet from last night, but here is a story pointing out that Lombardy was indeed running out of beds as of yesterday.

Some snippets:

Quote

 

Hospitals in the locked-down Italian region of Lombardy are beginning to run out of beds as the country recorded its highest day-on-day rise in deaths from coronavirus.

Twenty days into its outbreak, Italy is grappling to contain the spread of the virus and find space and beds in intensive care units, which are dwindling day by day. To manage the emergency, the sick are being placed in operating rooms or in hospital corridors.

“I am very concerned,” said Prof Massimo Galli, the director of infectious diseases at Sacco hospital in Milan. “The pressure on hospitals in Lombardy these days is enormous. I am very, very worried about the impact the virus will have on our health system.”

 

Quote

 

There are about 500 available beds for intensive care in Lombardy’s public health sphere, with another 160 in private care facilities. Despite a massive effort to locate additional space there are still not enough.

The emergency commissioner and civil protection chief, Angelo Borrelli, announced that 13 patients had been transferred or were on the way to neighbouring regions for their care.

Negative-pressure isolation rooms, designed to contain airborne contaminants, are needed to treat coronavirus properly, to protect doctors and medical technicians from contracting the virus from the patients in their care.

“Just a small portion of the patients affected by Covid-19 in Lombardy are hospitalised in negative pressure rooms,” said Galli. “The majority is not, and this is a dangerous problem because it can lead to transmission to other patients and medical staff throughout an entire hospital.”

Authorities in Lombardy are attempting to free up beds as quickly as possible. According to new guidelines, if a patient infected with Covid-19 has been without a fever for three days and appears to be getting better, then he or she will be released from intensive care and placed in a dedicated rehabilitative pulmonary ward for coronavirus patients.

“Beds in intensive care units and in hospitals in general must be freed quickly to make room for more patients,” the health minister for the Lombardy region, Angelo Garra, told the Corriere della Sera.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/09/italian-hospitals-short-beds-coronavirus-death-toll-jumps

They've since add 150+ cases in the last 24 hours.

[Hanrahan 1306]

There does seem to be some correlation with weather, right?  Looks like it's spreading much quicker in cold weather.  Tehran, Milan, Wuhan, Washington, Germany and France all aren't getting north of 70.  Are there any places seeing exponential growth where the temp. is 70 or higher?  

[Hanrahan 1306]

4 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Obviously, none of us is in the position to verify the triage tweet from last night, but here is a story pointing out that Lombardy was indeed running out of beds as of yesterday.

Some snippets:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/09/italian-hospitals-short-beds-coronavirus-death-toll-jumps

They've since add 150+ cases in the last 24 hours.

There are also no houses available to rent in Tuscany.

[Guest Lobo]

Si, Si there is this one to rent.

 

Some correlation?  Yes, there is some correlation to weather.  As well as a measurable correlation to traffic lights and most frequently downloaded books on Amazon.com 

70 degrees is tricky for viruses though, you know...because of room temperature which has baffled germs for centuries.  

Edited March 10, 2020 by Lobo

[Beau Vine 53978]

51 minutes ago, Don Johnson said:

Crazy to see how thing has divided directly down party lines. You can see that just from something as basic as twitter sports media takes. 

I hate both parties.  I'm just trying to use common sense and data and critical thinking and stuff like that because I can't rely on a party line.  

[Dahobbs 17420]

1 hour ago, hayden_horn said:

i've posted it here, and others have as well, but we are only testing really sick people and those who have had contact with known cases. what's to say this thing isn't already at a 20%-25% penetration rate for the whole population, or even higher, but it just doesn't make most people really sick?

(1) We know in isolated populations that it has made a significant number of people really sick. 

(2) Even if it only matched flu level of hospitalizations, there would be a very noticeably effect on our healthcare system if it had already infected 20%. 

(3) Some screening from China suggests that they weren't missing a ton of cases and that the actual CFR may be pretty close to our current estimates based on reported cases:

Quote

 

So far, some preliminary population screening for COVID-19 infections has been done in China, specifically in Guangdong province. Screening of 320,000 people who went to a fever clinic suggested that we may not be missing a vast number of mild cases. This in turn suggests that the CFRs we are calculating now are not wildly higher than they should be. However, experts still suspect that many mild cases are going unreported, and many still anticipate that the true CFR will be lower than what we are calculating now.

 https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/03/dont-panic-the-comprehensive-ars-technica-guide-to-the-coronavirus/#h12

 

Edited March 10, 2020 by Dahobbs

[Beantown Express 2.0 6552]

17 minutes ago, Mack Tripper said:

 

We’re number one!  We’re number one!  We’re number one!

[Hanrahan 1306]

2 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Si, Si there is this one to rent.

 

Some correlation?  Yes, there is some correlation to weather.  As well as a measurable correlation to traffic lights and most frequently downloaded books on Amazon.com 

70 degrees is tricky for viruses though, you know...because of room temperature which has baffled germs for centuries.  

I knew even mentioning it would get the crisis hobbyists riled up.  

[Guest Lobo]

actually my hobby during this pandemic is not giving a fuck.  Our leadership is absent, my children aren't in the highest vulnerable group, my mother with upper-respiratory issues who just turned 74 is convinced this thing is bullshit.  I am a misanthropic germaphobe by nature so this suits me just fine.  I'm spending these last ten days of winter partying my ass off.  Rest of you can fight it out/off.  

And if winter weather is what helped this virus along, please explain Ecuador, Argentina, Indonesia, and Australia.  And feel free to use sharpies on your map as you run through the details  

Edited March 10, 2020 by Lobo

[closetojumping 62141]

 

 

18 minutes ago, NoName said:

that is totally fair and needs more research/confirmation - i took that twitter thread as gold and didn't do the research on my own until now...

BBC: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/09/italian-hospitals-short-beds-coronavirus-death-toll-jumps

Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-10/virus-spread-pushes-italian-hospitals-toward-breaking-point

Business Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/italys-doctors-are-forced-to-prioritize-saving-the-young-2020-3

Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-italy-doctors-intensive-care-deaths-a9384356.html

CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-02-29-20-intl-hnk/h_107385512466e48a650572952e5590be

Time: https://time.com/5799586/italy-coronavirus-outbreak/

A place called WeForum: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/suddenly-the-er-is-collapsing-a-doctors-stark-warning-from-italys-coronavirus-epicentre/

 

 

 

 

10 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Obviously, none of us is in the position to verify the triage tweet from last night, but here is a story pointing out that Lombardy was indeed running out of beds as of yesterday.

Some snippets:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/09/italian-hospitals-short-beds-coronavirus-death-toll-jumps

They've since add 150+ cases in the last 24 hours.

Thanks, these are helpful and informative. It's not as bleak as the Twitter secondhand stuff, but it's certainly instructional for what an actual unmitigated outbreak can and will do to an area outside of China with real openness about the populace and environment. 

Is there anything like this out there regarding Kirkland? I did some googling, but didn't see anything about their system in that city being unable to function. Someone mentioned an NPR story about people with light risks or symptoms showing up too frequently to ERs, but I didn't see that one snippet as a source for the whole system being overwhelmed. Some of you guys are more on top of this stuff than the rest of us. 

[Don Johnson 4745]

12 minutes ago, Hanrahan said:

There does seem to be some correlation with weather, right?  Looks like it's spreading much quicker in cold weather.  Tehran, Milan, Wuhan, Washington, Germany and France all aren't getting north of 70.  Are there any places seeing exponential growth where the temp. is 70 or higher?  

There’s a direct correlation between weather and most viruses. That’s why flu season is in the winter and the stomach bug is prevalent during the same time period. I would imagine the longer the delay in this hitting us the better as it’s about to warm up a good bit. 

Edited March 10, 2020 by Don Johnson

['stache 21744]

46 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Billionaires should be able to handle the downturn. 

But they might have to stop trickling down their prosperity all over our faces. Only a bailout for them can get them trickling all over us again as we wait in anticipation. 

[MoJames 8241]

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/flu-virus-fortified-colder-weather

The researchers discovered that at temperatures slightly above freezing and below, the virus's lipid covering solidified into a gel. At about 70 degrees Fahrenheit, much of the lipid was still in gel form. At warmer temperatures, however, the gel melts to a liquid phase. At temperatures of about 105 degrees and higher, the coat was all in liquid form.

[Hanrahan 1306]

2 minutes ago, Don Johnson said:

There’s a direct correlation between weather and most viruses. That’s why flu season is in the winter and the stomach bug is prevalent during the sage time period. I would imagine the longer the delay in this hitting us the better as it’s about to warm up a good bit. 

That's what I was figuring.  Not seeing a huge run on medical center beds in Houston in the near future.  

[ChiTownDoc 21097]

2 hours ago, Girdwood said:

 @immamac 

What a fucking moron.  Mommy!!!!!

[Guest Lobo]

1 minute ago, MoJames said:

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/flu-virus-fortified-colder-weather

 

 

So like the consistency of a hand sanitizer then?  Right when we put our summer guard down?  Gee, I can't imagine what the next terrorist attack idea on America is...........

['stache 21744]

I'm interested in what kind of insurance claims are available for all of these high dollar cancelled events. I have an event in Phoenix next week that usually has about 1000 attendees, and I assume they make a lot of money from that event. Is the organization SOL if they don't get that revenue because of this stupid virus? They sent a very criptic email today that they are discussing how it might affect the event, so I anticipate we'll be told tomorrow that it's cancelled.

[babysdaddy 2718]

2 minutes ago, Lobo said:

So like the consistency of a hand sanitizer then?  Right when we put our summer guard down?  Gee, I can't imagine what the next terrorist attack idea on America is...........

Just take the good news and say thanks rather than acting hysterical to every response that isn't "OH MY GOD, WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE".  jfc

[atomheartbevo 89396]

Massachusetts is jealous of NY

 

[Goredho 17341]

1 hour ago, Mack Tripper said:

 

I liked him better in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"

[Guest Lobo]

babysdaddy:  GO read my previous post on page 189.  I'm totally cool with it, just pointing out that I can no longer bring hand sanitizer on the flight with me to shove up my own ass to get a buzz. 

I realize anything other than "liberal hoax" sounds hysterical to you.  But out of honest curiousity...you said "say thanks."  To whom do I direct that gratitude?  Serious question.  

Edited March 10, 2020 by Lobo

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13010]

12 minutes ago, Don Johnson said:

There’s a direct correlation between weather and most viruses. That’s why flu season is in the winter and the stomach bug is prevalent during the same time period. I would imagine the longer the delay in this hitting us the better as it’s about to warm up a good bit. 

Are we rooting for global warming now? 

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13010]

tp

Edited March 10, 2020 by Casual Encounter

[atomheartbevo 89396]

Shit, we are liable to hit 1,000 confirmed cases overall today

 

Edited March 10, 2020 by atomheartbevo

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13010]

dp

Edited March 10, 2020 by Casual Encounter

[babysdaddy 2718]

Americans tend to over respond once it gets to crisis levels.  If we have a huge uptick in cases, social distancing/self quarantine will happen until it warms up.  

DARPA thinks they'll have found the monoclonal antibodies that could serve as a temporary shield against the virus until a vaccine can be brought online.  I personally know epidemiologists that are working on rapid PCR tests and vaccines.  

https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/03/us-military-scientists-hope-have-coronavirus-therapeutic-summer/163659/

[hornbri 1369]

1 hour ago, Don Johnson said:

Crazy to see how thing has divided directly down party lines. You can see that just from something as basic as twitter sports media takes. 

I thought that as well but then I noticed Berine and Biden still had rallies today so I guess both parties are downplaying the significance. It does look like Berine just canceled one rally (TBD if that is because he feels he has lost). 

[InkaUtexas 25486]

1 minute ago, hornbri said:

I thought that as well but then I noticed Berine and Biden still had rallies today so I guess both parties are downplaying the significance. It does look like Berine just canceled one rally (TBD if that is because he feels he has lost). 

both cancelled tonights events. 

[InkaUtexas 25486]

3 minutes ago, Casual Encounter said:

Are we rooting for global warming now? 

Brazil. 

 

[Mitch Cumsteen 18523]

36 minutes ago, Mack Tripper said:

 

Our country/government/healthcare system is doing an unbelievably piss poor and frankly terrifying job of testing, but this chart is gigantic misleading piece of shit. Outside of China, none of those countries remotely compare in geographical area to the US. And it was convenient that they only put Guangdong, China instead of all of mainland China in there. Throw 1.4 billion into that denominator instead of 113.5 million and I'm guessing those numbers look a little bit different.

[atomheartbevo 89396]

Welp, this should empty some stores so we can restock on a year’s worth of TP

Quote

Walmart (WMT) announced an emergency leave policy Tuesday after one of its store associates in Cynthiana, Kentucky tested positive for coronavirus, according to a memo from John Furner, US CEO of Walmart, Sam’s Club CEO Kath McLay, and Donna Morris, Walmart’s Chief People Officer.

The employee’s condition is improving, and she is receiving medical care, according to a memo to employees. 

Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, has been in contact with health experts and will “continue to take precautions and actions to keep our stores, clubs and other facilities clean and ensure the well-being of our associates, customers and members.”

 

[Aqua Buddha 14501]

Worker at a Walmart in Kentucky has it.  This will be interesting.

[Loco 3752]

This is a fun listen...

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/10/812865169/how-a-south-korean-city-is-changing-tactics-to-tamp-down-its-covid-19-surge

 

Quote

The city of Daegu, about 150 miles southeast of Seoul, has long been a bustling industrial center and transport hub, home to 2.5 million South Koreans. But lately Daegu has become a shadow of its usual self. "It actually looks like a scene from a disaster movie," says Dr. Lee Jun-yeup, communications director for the Daegu Medical Association. "Streets are empty, restaurants and shops closed. People stock up on instant noodles because they want to avoid going out."

Daegu has so far been the main battleground of the coronavirus outbreak in South Korea, accounting for 75% of the country's 7,513 cases as of Tuesday. The country has one of the highest number of infections outside of China.

Despite a national system that has a reputation for providing affordable, good-quality health care, the city's hospitals have been overwhelmed with infected patients, necessitating a shift in tactics.

The past couple of days saw the smallest daily increases in new cases in South Korea since Feb. 26. But President Moon Jae-In said Monday it was too soon for anyone to be optimistic.

Daegu's first known coronavirus case was confirmed on Feb. 18. A 61-year-old woman was South Korea's 31st case. Epidemiological investigators believe she came into contact with more than 1,100 people.

Most are fellow members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a religious group that accounts for most of the cases in Daegu.

The disease's rapid spread through Daegu is due in part to the way patients transmit or "shed" the virus. "With this virus, symptoms are mild in the early phase, even though viral shedding is high," explains Dr. Choi Sung Ho of Chung-Ang University College of Medicine in Seoul. "Patients may not realize they are infected and so go about their everyday lives."

As the virus spread in the early days of the outbreak, a slow trickle of patients entered Daegu's hospitals, which were equipped to handle it, Lee says. "Daegu city's policy, at first, was to put every patient in a negative pressure room, regardless of the severity of their symptoms," he says. Negative pressure rooms isolate infected patients by preventing contaminated air from escaping the room.

The trickle soon turned into a deluge of hundreds of patients, and by Feb. 23, when the increase in new cases in Daegu exceeded 100 per day, the city's hospitals became clogged with patients with mild symptoms. As of Friday, some 1,800 of Daegu's coronavirus patients were at home awaiting hospital beds. Two of them died waiting.

"We're now seeing all-out local transmissions nationwide," Dr. Kim Dong-hyun, a professor at the Hallym University College of Medicine in Chuncheon city, referring to infections that have been traced to the region in South Korea where the infection was reported.

This represents a new phase of the outbreak, Kim argues, and authorities must adapt their response to it. At first they were focused on tracking suspected cases and quarantining them. But, Kim says, "at this point, tracing how the infection spread is meaningless." Tracing takes up too many resources, he says. He adds that the city doesn't have enough epidemiological investigators and that the virus is so widespread that investigators can no longer sort out who infected whom in Daegu.

Kim Hyeonggab, president of the Korean Association of Public Health Doctors and a medical volunteer in Daegu, says he's seeing a shift in tactics from health authorities from trying to contain and trace the virus to trying to mitigate its impact and prevent deaths. This has been done nationwide and involves a range of actions, from canceling schools to calling off K-pop concerts.

"Since last Saturday, I've seen government efforts shift to securing more hospital beds and building a triaging system," says Kim — prioritizing patients with severe symptoms at health facilities.

But, he adds, it's not happening fast enough. "We should've been preparing mitigation strategies even while we were in the containment phase."

Currently, the goal of the mitigation efforts is to delay the inevitable peak of infections — the point at which Daegu reaches the maximum number of coronavirus cases. It will buy time for the authorities to marshal resources and deploy medical personnel to Daegu, Kim says.

Despite these advances, halting the virus' spread in South Korea could require tougher measures. "I believe the surest way is to stop people's activities and movements," says Dr. Choi Sung Ho, of Chung-Ang University's College of Medicine in Seoul. "And I personally suspect that the government understands this and wants to impose stricter limits on social activities."

But domestic travel bans — lockdowns similar to China's Hubei province — could be politically unpopular. One of the most common criticisms is that President Moon should have banned all travelers from China. If a domestic ban is enforced, it could look like the government is showing more deference to China than to South Korean citizens.

And the bans could be reminiscent of North Korea, where freedom of movement is tightly controlled even when there are no epidemics. So far, Seoul has not even suggested them.

 

[MoJames 8241]

Not sure how you lump in the local healthcare with the system failing. Granted I'm limited to my sphere, but we are currently doing an exceptional job of communicating and planning. The main issue at this point is how many tests are currently available at the CDC. 

[Guest Lobo]

Looks like my policy of treating every Wal-Mart is covered in human feces and phlegm is finally gonna pay dividends.  I mean, not stock dividends...those are going away for Wal-Mart.  Sorry.  

[Moby Ric 2058]

aggy cancelling classes for the 2 days after Spring break.  I am sure that 2 day shutdown will solve shit.

[Pescado_Rojo 19330]

5 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Worker at a Walmart in Kentucky has it.  This will be interesting.

Is Oxy a viable treatment? I guess we're about to find out. 

[babysdaddy 2718]

7 minutes ago, Lobo said:

babysdaddy:  GO read my previous post on page 189.  I'm totally cool with it, just pointing out that I can no longer bring hand sanitizer on the flight with me to shove up my own ass to get a buzz. 

I realize anything other than "liberal hoax" sounds hysterical to you.  But out of honest curiousity...you said "say thanks."  To whom do I direct that gratitude?  Serious question.  

To Mo James for the NIH article that you mocked. 

[NoName 16286]

17 minutes ago, closetojumping said:

Is there anything like this out there regarding Kirkland? I did some googling, but didn't see anything about their system in that city being unable to function. Someone mentioned an NPR story about people with light risks or symptoms showing up too frequently to ERs, but I didn't see that one snippet as a source for the whole system being overwhelmed. Some of you guys are more on top of this stuff than the rest of us. 

doubt we see something like this there for a couple of reasons - I think you mean Seattle in general (Kirkland is something like the 5th largest city in King County)?

1) it isn't good for anyone (owners/shareholders/public) if that info gets out that they are running at 90% capacity - creates a panic and will further burden the ER/clinics who are working on finding those who actually are sick. I was thinking they may go on ER diversion but evidently they outlawed that back like 15 years ago so cancel that. 

2) they can still shift patients who are lower acuity or even really sick elsewhere and likely are - would love to see their transfer rates and trends vs the last few weeks/months vs now

3) it's part of a large area with a ton of hospital beds - King County has about 5200 beds so once the places tied to #2 are busy they can keep pushing patients elsewhere

The fact it is kind of limited in scope currently and it isn't being tested for appropriately limits the likelihood that in Seattle overall the health system is or ends up overloaded in the next couple of weeks. 

I would bet that in Seattle/King County there has been a HUGE uptick in ER visits over the last week vs the last few weeks trended. 

[Mack Tripper 696]

[deleted]

Edited March 10, 2020 by Mack Tripper

[NoName 16286]

13 minutes ago, Mitch Cumsteen said:

Our country/government/healthcare system is doing an unbelievably piss poor and frankly terrifying job of testing, but this chart is gigantic misleading piece of shit. Outside of China, none of those countries remotely compare in geographical area to the US. And it was convenient that they only put Guangdong, China instead of all of mainland China in there. Throw 1.4 billion into that denominator instead of 113.5 million and I'm guessing those numbers look a little bit different.

let's be very, very clear here. the healthcare system does not deserve to be looped in here. the overwhelming majority of hospitals, clinics, physicians, nurses and others in healthcare are on the side of test more. 

grouping the "healthcare system" (generic) into that list is wrong.

Edited March 10, 2020 by NoName

[ChiTownDoc 21097]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

We don’t have the military capacity to lock down on a large scale, even if a huge chunk of them were not overseas (or at sea).   We don’t even have half-a-million active duty in the Army, and most of them are busy doing Army shit, and not trying to keep Cletus from breaking out of a quarantine   

No CR MF!!!!  #immamac  

[InkaUtexas 25486]

 

[Guest Lobo]

3 minutes ago, babysdaddy said:

To Mo James for the NIH article that you mocked. 

That I mocked?  How fucking old are you?  

We're not all gonna die.  Just our dear leader and a few chosen followers blessed enough to get through the gates of Heaven.  

But seriously, you said I should "say thanks"........to whom do I direct that gratitude?  

[NoName 16286]

10 minutes ago, MoJames said:

Not sure how you lump in the local healthcare with the system failing. Granted I'm limited to my sphere, but we are currently doing an exceptional job of communicating and planning. The main issue at this point is how many tests are currently available at the CDC. 

seconding this. 

the number of bulletins and updates i have seen shared by facilities and health systems large and small plus talking to others i know in the business (who are all preparing for this, just like they did for Ebola, Swine Flu, etc) is pretty impressive. 

most facilities (hospitals) I know of are having daily updates regardless of location and "closeness" of infections - this includes both urban and rural facilities. 

[Sbbruin 21704]

1 hour ago, MNLonghornFUKM said:

I thought Yale vs Harvard or Princeton was always a high school atmosphere in a small gym

[NoName 16286]

1 minute ago, InkaUtexas said:

 

as a reminder Turkey currently reports ZERO cases

 

['stache 21744]

14 minutes ago, Moby Ric said:

aggy cancelling classes for the 2 days after Spring break.  I am sure that 2 day shutdown will solve shit.

They need time to make the vaccine maroon. 

[GreenspointTexas 9559]

Damn, US cases have quadrupled in less than 5 days