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Who Pays the Coronaman? - Covid #8


Tywin Manderly

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I live about half an hour west of Madison, WI and commute to work in Madison itself.  This is the view from here.   WI is under stay at home orders but the list of exceptions is so long as to make it next to meaningless.  If everyone is essential, no one is. Shutting down bars and restaurants, except for carry-out and delivery, should make an impact, and is a big deal in the heaviest drinking state in the union.  But it falls far short of the needed mark I work in a lab that does cancer screening, which being medical, is being considered essential.  So I continue to go in.  At least the company has sent home everyone who can reasonably work from home and is doing what it can to separate people while continuing operations.   And being medical, cleanliness is a big deal.  So its better than having to keep on working at a lot of places.   My wife is working from home, both my kids' jobs are closed for the duration, and my youngest school is going to distance learning after a long spring break (my eldest taking time between high school and whatever it is she will do next)

Traffic during my commute has really dropped this past week compared to even the week before.   Its also not mostly empty roads, as it would be if we were truly aiming for a standard of only truly essential work continues for the duration.   Yesterday, as I was in town due to work, we decided to get carry-out from a Thai restaurant we've frequented both to support a local business and to break the monotony somewhat.   Driving through the city center was shocking.  While again, it wasn't empty, it was damned close to it.  People were out walking or biking but there were no gatherings, no groups, and lots of distance.  While not a ghost town, it was eerie.    This morning, we had to go grocery shopping.  Just running out of a lot of things.  Our store of choice, which is normally hectic, was down to about a third of its normal volume based off the parking lot.  About half the other customers had face masks or gloves or both and almost everyone was working hard to keep that 6 ft distance.  

So, at least around here, people are taking this pretty seriously.   Its not enough, though.  With so many people still having to work, its going to continue spreading.  Hopefully it will flatten the curve enough, but I doubt it.  As far as I can find out, the hospitals have not yet been overwhelmed.  But that could change quickly.  I fear what is going to happen in Milwaukee, with its higher population density and large areas of deep poverty.  

 

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26 minutes ago, Arakan said:

Interesting. The UK Deputy CMO said that the WHO advice for systematic mass testing is for poor countries only with bad health service and thus not necessary for the UK. 

They are not wrong, exactly. The WHO's standard focus on systematic mass testing really is motivated by the question of resources available to care for people who are not accurately or certainly diagnosed (or diagnosed early) but present a burden to the health care system when ill. Countries that have the capacity to care for many ill people really don't have to test as widely so long as their capacity is not outstripped by cases.

The issue, of course, is the uncertainty about the rate and spread of the illness. But part of the problem is that the current testing regimen is potentially too broad in its findings -- it detects the RNA of the disease but that can be present in people who have already had it in the past but are no longer ill. This is the theory behind how some countries (Sweden, for example) are approaching it, that the tactics used by, for example, South Korea and Germany are a sledge hammer rather than a razor because the testing is too unspecific. 

We'll see how it plays out over the next couple of weeks, especially as antibody testing begins to ramp up.

 

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1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

What is it you're trying to say ? 

That your description of being ill with the virus is useful and would help other people to know they may be ill too.  Particularly very high risk people who have diabetes and so on, like CS.

~~~~~~~~

Put on mask, protective gloves and went to walk to relieve stress and get some exercise.

Walking was supremely stressful. The streets and sidewalks look empty but if maintaining that essential 6” – nobody is watching for anyone else or maintaining Distance except me. Dog walkers are talking on fone and concerned with dog. Delivery people.  Huffing and puffing runners (droplets can hang in the air for 90 minutes, you know and do I need to say they aren't wearing masks, because you know running) who prefer the sidewalks to the empty streets. People bringing back supplies. Plus the cyclists who don't wear masks because bicycling have taken over the sidewalk instead of riding in the empty streets. WTF???????

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An emergency doctor I know is not allowed to enter a building if he suspects a COVID-19 case. When someone, mostly distrought adult children of old people according to him, descripes symptoms that make him suspect it he calls a special unit that does mobile testing. In most cases he or other doctors he works with(a shift system) gets called again a day or two later to sign the death certificate. He has yet to hear about a test result and they are not allowed to mention COVID-19 in it without a positive test. :(:(:(

 

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15 minutes ago, Zorral said:

The streets and sidewalks look empty but if maintaining that essential 6” – nobody is watching for anyone else or maintaining Distance except me.

I tried to play the 6-foot game in NYC yesterday and it's basically impossible -- it was a nice day and there were a lot of people out. Also, the stores are packed and I distinctly heard at least a couple of the cashiers coughing (they were wearing masks, but I doubt it helps).

On the bright side, at least I don't have to use mass transit anymore. In its infinite wisdom, the NYC Metropolitan Transit Authority has reduced the number of trains and buses... but without suspending service altogether except on a few lines. This means that despite most people staying home, a substantial fraction of the remaining vehicles is pretty crowded -- certainly far too much so for the 6-foot rule.

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31 minutes ago, Zorral said:

That your description of being ill with the virus is useful and would help other people to know they may be ill too.  Particularly very high risk people who have diabetes and so on, like CS.

If you think that can be helpful, sure (that's the entire point of exchanging information). Just bear in mind that this is based on the expertise of the GP I saw yesterday though, and that symptoms do vary widely from person to person anyway.

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46 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Walking was supremely stressful. The streets and sidewalks look empty but if maintaining that essential 6” – nobody is watching for anyone else or maintaining Distance except me. Dog walkers are talking on fone and concerned with dog. Delivery people.  Huffing and puffing runners (droplets can hang in the air for 90 minutes, you know and do I need to say they aren't wearing masks, because you know running) who prefer the sidewalks to the empty streets. People bringing back supplies. Plus the cyclists who don't wear masks because bicycling have taken over the sidewalk instead of riding in the empty streets. WTF??????? 

I have taken to carrying a trekking pole with me when I go out, with the idea that I can wave it at people who look like they might be getting too close. So far I have only had to point it at the ground a foot of so away from me a couple of times, but I find it makes a huge positive psychological difference to feel that I do have some way of fending off people if I have to.

Plus it is useful for opening gates etc without touching them.

 

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5 hours ago, Mudguard said:

California and other states tried the group size restriction, going quickly from 500 to lockdown.  Looks like the doubling rate in Sweden is about 7 days for the last two weeks, which is much better than many other countries, but not good enough, which is why they shrank the group size.  I'm skeptical that will be enough, but good luck.  

I think Sweden's demography really makes a difference. We're much less densely populated -- our densest city (and our worst hit) is a little more than half as dense as LA, and about a quarter as dense as San Francisco and something like a sixth as dense as New York City. We have a lot more single-person households. As noted by Anders Tegnell, spokesperson for the Public Health Agency, we have practically no multi-generation households where grandparents reside with grandchildren or great-grandchildren, which is part of why schools for younger students remain open:

 

Quote

Tegnell argues that because in Sweden there are almost no stay-at-home parents, closing schools would have knocked out at least a quarter of doctors and nurses, crippling the health service. By pushing children out into society, it might even have increased the threat to the elderly, particularly if they were called upon to babysit.

He points out that Sweden has almost no households where the over-70s live with younger adults and children.

But of course, it's worth considering what he says at the end: he's not strictly sure anything that anyone is doing is really stopping this thing. The one thing the Swedish authorities have taken as gospel is that covid-19 is here to stay. Not even likely that vaccines will kill it, given the facility that coronaviruses have for mutating, but regular contact will lead to immunity build ups over time, and in general these viruses get less lethal over time as H1N1 has.

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@Rippounet, good to hear you are okay after the sickness.

Around 680 cases here altogether by now, and 9 deaths. Most of them were residents in two elderly homes that became the centres of infection in Slovenia.

They said they are going to tighten the restrictions even further because people still don't take precautions seriously enough - more information should follow tomorrow. I went shopping for food and most people seem to comply with the rules. But going around and avoiding touching everything and avoiding everybody and disinfecting your hands constantly is scary. You really start thinking about who touched that particular door handle, money, machine ... Before you.

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1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Fucking DeSantis.

 

My sister sent me a bunch of texts last weekend pissed off about the idiots that had still been hanging out at the beaches.  She's in Tampa, and at least according to her their beaches were shut down last Saturday.  The beaches from Jacksonville to St. Augustine on the other coast attract even more stupid of course, just above Daytona in stupidity and geography.

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3 minutes ago, DMC said:

My sister sent me a bunch of texts last weekend pissed off about the idiots that had still been hanging out at the beaches.  She's in Tampa, and at least according to her their beaches were shut down last Saturday.  The beaches from Jacksonville to St. Augustine on the other coast attract even more stupid of course, just above Daytona in stupidity and geography.

Here's my county, not closing beaches, but I have to say that it looks fine to me -- these are not crowded beaches and social distance can be maintained with little difficulty. But Brevard is not party central, so no big surprise.

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Good grief, the Japanese have only done 27,000 tests, in a country of 125 M.

Sounds like they were doing a Trump-like bury-your-head-in-sand stunt. Now that the Olympics have been postponed they are going to do a lockdown and start testing. There may be a brutal public emergency in Japan....

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1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Good grief, the Japanese have only done 27,000 tests, in a country of 125 M.

Sounds like they were doing a Trump-like bury-your-head-in-sand stunt. Now that the Olympics have been postponed they are going to do a lockdown and start testing. There may be a brutal public emergency in Japan....

Not necessarily. If the 27K tests were done early enough to isolate all contacts of the imported cases, it would be enough -- especially on an island nation. The easy way to tell that there is not enough testing is hospitals (and especially intensive care units) being overwhelmed by demand. If this is not happening in Japan, then they'll probably be fine.

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13 hours ago, Ran said:

They are not wrong, exactly. The WHO's standard focus on systematic mass testing really is motivated by the question of resources available to care for people who are not accurately or certainly diagnosed (or diagnosed early) but present a burden to the health care system when ill. Countries that have the capacity to care for many ill people really don't have to test as widely so long as their capacity is not outstripped by cases.

The issue, of course, is the uncertainty about the rate and spread of the illness. But part of the problem is that the current testing regimen is potentially too broad in its findings -- it detects the RNA of the disease but that can be present in people who have already had it in the past but are no longer ill. This is the theory behind how some countries (Sweden, for example) are approaching it, that the tactics used by, for example, South Korea and Germany are a sledge hammer rather than a razor because the testing is too unspecific. 

We'll see how it plays out over the next couple of weeks, especially as antibody testing begins to ramp up.

 

Good points Ran. My issue is, she is dishonest and lying. She could have said: „We took the WHO recommendations into consideration but decided to follow a slightly different strategy.“ 
 

She is lying. Blatantly lying. She speaks as a politician, not as a medical professional. 

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18 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I didn't really have any fever (just one bad night of shivers, which was one of the very first symptoms). Coughing otoh... yeah I did have coughing fits some days, but really nothing major, and not continuously through the two-ish weeks that the whole thing lasted.

From what I understand (and from what doctors told me), symptoms vary widely from one individual to another. The one constant seems to be respiratory trouble. Though the last doctor I saw yesterday did tell me my case was very typical of Covid-19. To be specific:
1) A bad day/night of shivers (and/or fever) signaling initial contamination.
2) Sore throat (and a blocked or runny nose) (around +2/+3 days). Also, general fatigue.
3) Respiratory troubles (with aching/burning/tickling sensations in the lungs) starting around +3/+4 days and lasting for about a week.
4) A distinct improvement (around +10days).
5) A last bad couple of days (with some wheezing in my case) before being in the clear (at around +14/+15 days).

 

Thank you very much for the detailed response. This is very helpful! 

I wonder though why I do get so detailed and important information on a fantasy board and not on the media which should inform the public... ?:wacko:

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Just read in the Guardian that first planes from China arrived in New York, carrying medical supplies. I wonder how Fox News and the many very intelligent right wingers in the US will try to spin THAT story...

We live in a new era. The age of US hyperpower is over. For good or for bad we will see. 

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