For those like myself who profess ZERO medical knowledge: Is this a case of if you survive it, you naturally acquire / develop an immunity making it more difficult to become reinfected OR? (No, I'm not proposing a new QOTD. )
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Ron Hebbard
Perceptions and facts about Coronavirus - discussion
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Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
If you choose to follow the CDC and other guidelines to use hand sanitizers and soap, I can only state that in 3 trips to assorted supermarkets today and yesterday, there is no hand sanitizer to be had (NYC metro area). Anybody's guess when the manufacturers will ramp up and start pushing this stuff to the stores. I actually found in the basement a goodly supply of rubbing alcohol and gloves - helps to have a spouse who's a scenic and keeps this as part of her kit, so will make up some to keep with me.
Purell has been working basically 24/7 to ramp up production. https://www.cleveland.com/coronavir...eased-demand-due-to-coronavirus-concerns.html
I spent an hour or so yesterday trying to stock up for my trip to ETC tomorrow. Nada, zip, ziltch. The town next to me has 11 town employees who were with an employee of Biogen who is a confirmed case. So they are all self quarantined. That being said, after watching the ESA webcast, and talking to my wife’s friend at the cdc, it all an over reaction. Unfortunate that that turns into loss revenue for people.
I am in the neighboring county to "ground zero." Events are being cancelled. Businesses, including my employer, are telling us to work from home whenever possible. Three, nearby colleges are switching to distance learning this week. Our legendary rush hour traffic is more like a weekend. My brother is in assisted living, and they are not allowing visitors because that is the most vulnerable population (60+). I don't know whether Egilson's friend is a secretary, or what, but this is the real deal, folks. I'm certainly not panicked, and I'm not stocking up on canned goods, but I am following the recommendations and being careful.
Warning: political comment. Trump is deliberately slowing testing and censoring what the medical experts can say. He's going to do everything he can to reduce the actual numbers to spin this to look "beautiful, just like his phone call." He admitted that when he said he preferred to leave the cruise ship off shore, "to keep the numbers down." He's trying what he always does, which is to hide or bluff his way past anything that he thinks reflects bad on him. It's going to backfire, because the lack of proper tracking of the disease is going to harm a lot of people. Unfortunately, we will ultimately pay dearly for electing this buffoon.
Warning: political comment. Trump is deliberately slowing testing and censoring what the medical experts can say. He's going to do everything he can to reduce the actual numbers to spin this to look "beautiful, just like his phone call." He admitted that when he said he preferred to leave the cruise ship off shore, "to keep the numbers down." He's trying what he always does, which is to hide or bluff his way past anything that he thinks reflects bad on him. It's going to backfire, because the lack of proper tracking of the disease is going to harm a lot of people. Unfortunately, we will ultimately pay dearly for electing this buffoon.
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There's some unnecessary degree of panic, but just looking at that nursing home in WA -- 70 of 180 employees showing symptoms, 13 residents have died so far with confirmed COVID-19, another 11 deaths who have not been ruled in or out as COVID-19, of a total of 120 residents. They haven't even yet been able to test all of the residents. That's a pretty startling number of deaths in a small frame of time. Almost triple what the nursing home says they normally see in a typical month.
For those 20- and 30- somethings who want to mosh at a festival, COVID-19 may not pose a major risk but when they go home to their families or go back to work now they could be spreading it to people who are in at-risk populations. I live in God's Waiting Room and a tourist destination, so this area will see the impact both in tourism revenue and in deaths. Community and repertory theaters whose audience base is largely over 50/60 will probably have a depressed turnout across the country. If I had to guess, I'd estimate we're probably looking at 3-6 months of most large assembly events getting cancelled or seeing depressed turnout, and another few/several months to rebound from that.
The US bungled the response to this. There are probably many, many more cases in the wild that have not been confirmed or tested, including deaths. The CDC seems to be taking a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Dammit I Said Don't Tell" approach to testing for lacking of being prepared to test. Doctors are turning people away, saying they're not allowed to test and telling people to return if their symptoms worsen. This is all to say that the experiment has escaped the cage and this is going to get worse before it gets better. If/when we can test as many people as we should be testing and the statistics catch up to reality, the US will probably see more of a reaction of people avoiding public gatherings.
I was hoping to see Rammstein's tour in August, but with this on the horizon I'm not going to bother attempting to make those plans until it's more clear where we will be in 5 months. For that matter I'm supposed to be travelling to see all of my family next month for my brother's wedding. We had the first confirmed case in Florida a mile from my office. The patient was out in the community and at the hospital before the CDC raised warning flags, so the doctors were looking for pneumonia and were not attempting to quarantine him until late in his cycle of having the virus. The virus is likely spreading in my community, so I'm thinking twice about whether or not to go to my brother's wedding next month. Both of my parents are around 70 yrs old, so I don't want to be the straw that breaks the camel's back for them or anyone else who may be attending.
For anyone in our business living contract to contract, now's probably a good time to take a close look at finances and consider backup plans if this leads to prolonged disruptions in the entertainment industry. Things are likely to suck for next six months.
Wouldn't encourage anyone to take a cruise right now, but the risk of getting stranded away from suitable medical facilities will be a nail in the coffin of the cruise industry for the foreseeable future. Screwing around with policy to save face on numbers is going to make a bad situation worse.
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No, no cruises, or airline flights. The State Dept. has already warned Americans to not take cruises. That’s going to make the cruise line companies go into panic mode as they see their business go into hibernation for the next 6 mos. ?.
Airlines will follow suit shortly and people will not be flying unless it’s a life or death reason.
I am anticipating that our college will be slow to close, it’s the City University of NY and generally only closes when the NYC schools close. When that happens you know things are dire but who knows, the Governor of NY may well take proactive decisions as they realize that schools are huge hotbeds of an illness like this.
EDIT:, And as we all work (mostly) in places of public assembly, we will see activities and events cancelled. Many, if not all for a duration that nobody can estimate.
My take is this is going to be a huge hit to both the US and global economy, forgeting for a moment the potential for a lot of people dying. In theory we are a better able to deal with a pandemic like this due to better communications and better medical systems, than say the Spanish Flu of 100 years ago, but already are seeing a very disjointed response at the national level, where they should have been all over this 2 weeks ago and have not been.
Airlines will follow suit shortly and people will not be flying unless it’s a life or death reason.
I am anticipating that our college will be slow to close, it’s the City University of NY and generally only closes when the NYC schools close. When that happens you know things are dire but who knows, the Governor of NY may well take proactive decisions as they realize that schools are huge hotbeds of an illness like this.
EDIT:, And as we all work (mostly) in places of public assembly, we will see activities and events cancelled. Many, if not all for a duration that nobody can estimate.
My take is this is going to be a huge hit to both the US and global economy, forgeting for a moment the potential for a lot of people dying. In theory we are a better able to deal with a pandemic like this due to better communications and better medical systems, than say the Spanish Flu of 100 years ago, but already are seeing a very disjointed response at the national level, where they should have been all over this 2 weeks ago and have not been.
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@FMEng
Thank @dvsDave we're not posting on ProSound's LAB. I've been in and out of one of our local hospitals 3 times this past week; twice last Sunday alone. You wanna believe they're taking this SERIOUSLY:
The hospital's triage person on duty Sunday at 3:30 a.m.: "When were you last out of Canada?"
Me: "I haven't been out of my room for the past month."
Released from hospital at ~5:30 a.m. Back in emergency by 9:30 a.m.
All hospital staff had a shift change at 7:00 a.m. The people who released me at ~5:30 a.m. were no longer there.
At 9:30 a.m., their triage nurse began as if she'd never met me before, because she hadn't. I showed her the arm band the overnight shift had shackled on my right wrist and suggested she scan my bar code.
No! (snip) and we began again from the overture.
Released for my second time Sunday at ~1:30 p.m. with an RX and a decree to reappear Tuesday morning with ~10:00 as a suggested arrival time.
Accessories inserted and installed TWICE on Sunday March 1st were extracted and removed for the second time Tuesday March 3rd shortly past 1:30 p.m.
Short version: Yes, this IS definitely being taken VERY seriously.
With my apologies for your buffoon: May the force get him, if not the force, possibly MERSA, Corona Virus, AIDS, Tuberculosis or 17 wacko's toting their 2nd amendment MANDATORY full bore ASSAULT RIFLES!! Thank you @dvsDave I'll again stifle myself on my side of lil' Donnie's walls.
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Ron Hebbard
Sorry that you've been in/out of hospitals Ron. That's never fun, but especially not now. Feel better quickly.
The latest news is that as the test kits gradually become more available, the laboratory capacity is still extremely limited, and lab approvals is slow. I read that the CDC hasn't approved the New York state lab to test yet. Gee, I wonder why?
The latest news is that as the test kits gradually become more available, the laboratory capacity is still extremely limited, and lab approvals is slow. I read that the CDC hasn't approved the New York state lab to test yet. Gee, I wonder why?
1 lab, Northwell Health was approved today. I think there are 3 or 4 additional large capacity labs in the NYC area shortly to get approval. The Governor is screaming bloody on this and is ready to hammer the government leadership over the delays.
BillConnerFASTC
Well-Known Member
Around 100 people die per day in US from automobile accidents. So far, total deaths in US from caronavirus is in low 20s last I heard. Total. Just perspective. Just odd we don't get more excited about sear belt use and DUI which cause many many more deaths. I guess if it bleeds it leads, and we are a society that loves the media.
DUI, seat belts, and life jackets in boats, canoes, 'n kayaks.
"if it bleeds it leads" You've sunk to a new low in the annals of journalism; annals, an inadvertent, Freudian, near slip of, I won't say it: (tongue) [I feel the justifiable pending descent of @dvsDave 's Silver Hammer] @derekleffew and / or @GreyWyvern Comments and / or thoughts??
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Ron Hebbard
I don't think that's fair, either as a comparison or to the media. Automobile accidents are in the news all the time, a bus driver has a heart attack and the bus hit a tree, and a child died, a car lost control and skidded off the highway in the mountains and was lost in the snow, and wasn't found for weeks, etc, etc, etc. There are examples of tragic accidents and road-rage, vehicle pileups and senseless acts of violence everyday.
But, those things are an accepted risk of getting into your car everyday. Kids today are taught to drive more defensively in drivers Ed, cars have gotten much safer, with anti-collision sensors, and automated braking, and a host of thousands of incremental improvements every year. Better crumple zones, stronger and lighter materials, better airbags, more airbags, active sensors on seatbelt pre-tensioners, sensors that detect if you start falling asleep at the wheel. Lane-drift correction, the list goes on and on. We, as a society, are getting really good at being able to mitigate as much risk as possible, while still allowing the freedoms we all enjoy today.
Coronavirus is much scarier than a car accident, you can't see it, you can't sense it, and you have no immediate way to know if you contracted it. It traveled so fast through parts of China that production of goods basically came to a standstill, and the Chinese government responded by putting more than 45 MILLION people into involuntary quarantine, which would basically be the same as the US shutting down all of California and Oregon combined. That is a very scary prospect. The scope, and speed of transmission is what sets coronavirus apart. It's not part of society's collective known risk factors.
We all accept that influenza raises it's ugly head every winter, in fact, myself and my whole family, all 7 of us, had influenza over a two week period in February. It nailed our house, we were in a self-imposed quarantine for nearly 2 weeks, only venturing out to the doc's and to the pharmacy. We had groceries delivered, and thankfully, I work remotely from home. What could have been a major financial blow for us was not, and I know that I am extremely lucky in that regard. I have a great job, and the flexibility to take time off, or work in my PJs at odd hours while sipping soup and trying to breathe normally. The whole family getting the flu sucked, like a lot, and it truly underscores the fact that we need true healthcare reform in this country, we were able to weather the flu because we all had insurance, either provided by my job, or through the state. Too many people do not have that. But, I digress.
The flu is a known risk factor. Coronavirus is not part of our collective risk factors. It's an outlier, a non-discriminating virus, transmitted invisibly and undetectably. Our only saving grace is that while it's amazingly easy to transmit, it's not sd amazingly deadly. Please don't get me wrong, it's still deadly and has killed thousands, but its death vs transmission rate could be much worse. That said, the statistics of coronavirus survival on non-immunocompromised people is really good. Especially for kids. That's the good news, the bad news is that it's really bad for people who have respiratory issues and for older generations. Older people, and people with pre-existing medical conditions (such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease) appear to be more vulnerable to becoming severely ill with the virus.
Much remains unknown about the novel coronavirus ripping through China, but one thing is certain. The disease can cast a storm over the whole human body. Such has been the nature of past zoonotic coronaviruses, ones that hopped from animals to humans like SARS and MERS. Unlike their common-cold-causing cousins, these emergent coronaviruses can spark a viral-induced fire throughout many of a person’s organs, and the new disease—dubbed "COVID-19" by the World Health Organization—is no exception when it is severe.
That helps explain why the COVID-19 epidemic has killed more than 3,800 people, surpassing the SARS death toll in a matter of weeks. While the death rate for COVID-19 appears to be a fifth of SARS, COVID-19 has spread faster.
On February 14th, the confirmed cases rose to more than 50,000, nearly a 50 percent jump relative to the prior day, and the tally has since increased by another 13,000. Today, it stands at over 111,000 globally. The leap in cases reflects a change in the way Chinese authorities are diagnosing infections instead of a massive shift in the scope of the outbreak. Rather than wait for patients to test positive for the virus, diagnoses now include anyone whose chest scan reveals COVID-19’s distinctive pattern of pneumonia. This is what kills people, the way it attacks our respiratory system, causing the cilia, which helps keep our lungs clear, to die and we basically drown with fluid in our lungs. The virus ups the ante by attacking the cytokine response, which is our bodies attack beacon for our immune system, and our body starts attacking healthy cells as well.
All of this is to say that the danger is not over-hyped. It is deadly, maybe not to you, but to a large segment of the global population, it has the potential to be fatal. We have seen pandemics before, but this one is scarier because of how fast it travels. I don't think the media is overplaying this.
We, as a society, need a wake-up call. A call for taking better care of ourselves, a call to recognize that the herd has to protect the weak and that we all share the responsibility to act responsibly and try not to spread our illnesses around.
Perhaps, for those of us in the US, this is what we need to finally get people to agree that healthcare for all benefits society as a whole. I really don't care where people stand politically on most subjects, but there is no good argument that our current system isn't terribly broken and that healthcare should be a basic human right.
So, let's stop comparing coronavirus to other risk factors of life, like auto deaths, influenza, and obesity. These are all known risk factors, that we have the ability to fight. When we have a vaccine for coronavirus, it will fade from our consciousness, but until it does, it's gonna be part of the conversation for the next year or two, and it will have a lasting impact on our society.
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Not gonna ban Bill for an opinion. I did respond with my own thoughts, but not gonna ban him for that. I hope we can keep the conversation going.
@dvsDave I felt you were going to delete me for daring to critique FAST Billiy's comments / opinion. Your post was MUCH appreciated, not anticipated but MUCH appreciated.
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Ron Hebbard
We've two cases in the Hillsboro area, West of Portland proper but the middle of Intel and Nike country. Vancouver Washington just had it's first confirmed case. and Portland Proper had it's first case diagnosed at OHSU. As the husband of a woman who works at a Title one school I'm quite concerned for her health.
I believe @RonHebbard asked if this was like the flu or other viruses where you gain immunity after infection and recovery. Short Answer, no, it seems that COVID-19 is maintaining a 20% re-infection rate in China 13-15% everywhere else but that may just be due to better testing and caution in China.
Is it Panic in the streets time? No. Is it time to be poo-pooing safety measures and writing this off as a cold? No. the Flu has a mortality rate of .1% COVID-19 has a 3-5% by loose calcs, 2-3 by conservative counts and in the US if you take reported cases and reported deaths we're at 14-17% but that's because active cases are not being screened for or diagnosed. Why? because we have not acted in a timely fashion. The politically expeditious idea of Don't test/Don't Tell doesn't work real well when dealing with an emerging virus, of course gutting the CDC and all of it's international outreach centers is a real brainiac move too but, hey, why start keeping track of bonehead moves now, Right?
For the record The Spanish Flu of 1918 had a mortality rate of 1-2%, at it's highest it's estimated that 1/3 of the worlds population was infected. In the end the widely agreed upon death toll was 25-39 million. Some estimates put it as high as 100 Million because we have no idea what the infection and death toll was in China and other 3rd world areas.
I believe @RonHebbard asked if this was like the flu or other viruses where you gain immunity after infection and recovery. Short Answer, no, it seems that COVID-19 is maintaining a 20% re-infection rate in China 13-15% everywhere else but that may just be due to better testing and caution in China.
Is it Panic in the streets time? No. Is it time to be poo-pooing safety measures and writing this off as a cold? No. the Flu has a mortality rate of .1% COVID-19 has a 3-5% by loose calcs, 2-3 by conservative counts and in the US if you take reported cases and reported deaths we're at 14-17% but that's because active cases are not being screened for or diagnosed. Why? because we have not acted in a timely fashion. The politically expeditious idea of Don't test/Don't Tell doesn't work real well when dealing with an emerging virus, of course gutting the CDC and all of it's international outreach centers is a real brainiac move too but, hey, why start keeping track of bonehead moves now, Right?
For the record The Spanish Flu of 1918 had a mortality rate of 1-2%, at it's highest it's estimated that 1/3 of the worlds population was infected. In the end the widely agreed upon death toll was 25-39 million. Some estimates put it as high as 100 Million because we have no idea what the infection and death toll was in China and other 3rd world areas.
I'm still chuckling and chortling. Quoting you: "why start keeping track of bonehead moves now"
You're from Portland, betcha can't count that HIGH, even with your snazzy new, made in Malaysia, DIGITAL abacus!!!
( Know when you're being ragged mercilessly 'n please keep your pet buffoon on his side of his walls! )
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Ron Hebbard
@StradivariusBone I wasn't suggesting FAST Billie'd get deleted but myself. My expeditions to and fro' our local hospital were a fabulous treat, I met many, MANY, fabulously attractive ladies; ALL ladies are attractive, some more so than others; more than 'enough said.
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Ron Hebbard
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