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[Loud Whispers]

Toiletpaper barons are gonna make a killing

[McTraveller]

We were legit effectively out of TP (down to 3 rolls for our family of 4).  Was able to score an 18-roll pack from the grocery store here with no problems.

I guess at least here in civilization, panic has not yet struck.

[martinuzz]

Just Whatsapping with an old highschool friend of mine, who is a neurologist at a hospital one province south of me.
Patients and doctors who live in my province (North Brabant) are no longer allowed there if they have even the slightest cold-like symptoms (most cases in the Netherlands are in my province).
They also are nearly out of testing materials.

Apparently there is a worldwide shortage of basic rescources to make more testing materials.

[Reelya]

This one should make you angry:

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/leaders-fatal-error-in-us-covid19-response/news-story/78c969786f07faf556658bb18d537283

A sick Californian nurse made a desperate appeal for help.

She says the federal Centres for Disease Control had been unwilling, or unable, to test her for COVID-19. Her patients may have infected her. She may have infected others.

She had volunteered to help.

“I did this because I had all the recommended protective gear and training from my employer,” she wrote in an open letter. “I did this assuming that if something happened to me, of course, I too would be cared for.”

She was wrong.

The protective gear did not work. She is sick. But she’s not getting any treatment.

“I’m awaiting ‘permission’ from the federal government to allow for my testing, even after my physician and county health professional ordered it. I am a registered nurse, and I need to know if I am positive before going back to caring for patients.”

As of yesterday, the US had only identified some 300 cases. Only eight have so far recovered, and 17 have died.

The resulting death rate of 5.9 per cent is the world’s highest. But that is a statistical aberration: the numbers are simply incomplete.

Epidemiologists know the actual number of sufferers is likely to already be in the tens of thousands. They just can’t prove it.

That’s because the test kits tailored to identify this specific virus are unavailable. And the government-run CDC has been imposing strange conditions upon its distribution and use.

“The National CDC would not initiate testing,” the Californian nurse wrote. “They said they would not test me because if I were wearing the recommended protective equipment, then I wouldn’t have the coronavirus … What a ridiculous and uneducated response from the department that is in charge of our health in this country.”

So that's the thing. If a health worker was wearing the gear, they couldn't possibly be infected, so they have to keep coming into work and treating people, No Test For You. Fuck these assholes.

At what point does this stop being bungling and clearly become malice, where they're clearly throwing all the little people under the bus in an attempt to kill any news about this until after the elections?

[coalboat]

A few pages earlier (and about a month ago) I talked about how hospitals in Wuhan couldn't manage to test or treat every patients. Hopefully it will cause less casualty in US as the population is more sparse and most people have car and are free to drive to distant hospitals that have the medical capacity.

edit:
When the epidemic began to spread in Wuhan, the situation was downplayed because there was the election for regional delegates(yes there is election even in China, very different from in US though).

[McTraveller]

Is the course of care different if you are diagnosed with COVID-19 compared to any other lower respiratory infection?  I mean, aside from the panic-inducing quarantine?  This is an honest question here - is the treatment any different from any other severe influenza or pneumonia?

[Reelya]

coalboat, You have a funny idea about how the US medical system works.

In the US, with the private health insurance, you need to go to specific hospitals that are in your health insurer's "network". Otherwise, you aren't covered by health insurance and have to pay the full fee. Maybe if they're rich they can afford to hospital-shop. Otherwise, they're up shit creek without a paddle.

This crisis is really exposing the flaws in the profit-gouging medical system of the USA. Note also, incidents such as Hurricane Katrina in the USA. In that, there was no public transport for evacuation, so there was profit-gouging of people wanting to escape from the hurricane.

Also note what was in the article I linked before, that the government's CDC is refusing to hand out the tests. It doesn't matter what hospital you go to, they require the test kits to be allocated by the government, and they have restrictive rules about who can be tested.

[Iduno]

Toiletpaper barons are gonna make a killing

Yeah, but it's a shitty way to earn money.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Is the course of care different if you are diagnosed with COVID-19 compared to any other lower respiratory infection?  I mean, aside from the panic-inducing quarantine?  This is an honest question here - is the treatment any different from any other severe influenza or pneumonia?

There's a much higher likelihood of you needing ICU care if not outright mechanical ventilation to prevent a rapid descent to death, and there aren't effective antiviral therapies at this time.

Additionally, there's a host of asymptomatic and mild cases which are likely boosting total infection rate.

[Frumple]

Like, to give reference there, the flu hospitalization rate looks to be about 52 in 100,000; 0.052%. The hospitalization rate ( "severe" cases) for covid-19 is currently pegged at something like 20,000 in 100,000, 1 in 5, 20%, last I saw mention of it. That's subject to change as more information is actually collected, but this shit is not playing around.

So like. The course of care is similar? ICU, ventilation if it's bad enough, etc. But the rate of it being more or less necessary damn sure ain't, as near as we can tell so far.

[Il Palazzo]

Is the course of care different if you are diagnosed with COVID-19 compared to any other lower respiratory infection?  I mean, aside from the panic-inducing quarantine?  This is an honest question here - is the treatment any different from any other severe influenza or pneumonia?

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200306-sitrep-46-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=96b04adf_4

Spoiler: Q. How are COVID-19 and influenza viruses different? (click to show/hide)

The speed of transmission is an important point of difference between the two viruses. Influenza has a shorter median incubation period (the time from infection to appearance of symptoms) and a shorter serial interval (the time between successive cases) than COVID-19 virus. The serial interval for COVID-19 virus is estimated to be 5-6 days, while for influenza virus, the serial interval is 3 days. This means that influenza can spread faster than COVID-19. 

Further, transmission in the first 3-5 days of illness, or potentially pre-symptomatic transmission –transmission of the virus before the appearance of symptoms –is a major driver of transmission for influenza. In contrast, while we are learning that there are people who can shed COVID-19 virus 24-48 hours prior to symptom onset, at present, this does not appear to be a major driver of transmission.

The reproductive number –the number of secondary infections generated from one infected individual –is understood to be between 2 and 2.5 for COVID-19 virus, higher than for influenza. However, estimates for both COVID-19 and influenza viruses are very context and time-specific, making direct comparisons more difficult. 

Children are important drivers of influenza virus transmission in the community. For COVID-19 virus, initial data indicates that children are less affected than adults and that clinical attack rates in the 0-19 age group are low. Further preliminary data from household transmission studies in China suggest that children are infected from adults, rather than vice versa.

While the range of symptoms for the two viruses is similar, the fraction with severe disease appears to be different. For COVID-19, data to date suggest that 80% of infections are mild or asymptomatic, 15% are severe infection, requiring oxygen and 5% are critical infections, requiring ventilation. These fractions of severe and critical infection would be higher than what is observed for influenza infection.

Those most at risk for severe influenza infection are children, pregnant women, elderly, those with underlying chronic medical conditions and those who are immunosuppressed. For COVID-19, our current understanding is that older age and underlying conditions increase the risk for severe infection.

Mortality for COVID-19 appears higher than for influenza, especially seasonal influenza. While the true mortality of COVID-19 will take some time to fully understand, the data we have so far indicate that the crude mortality ratio (the number of reported deaths divided by the reported cases) is between 3-4%, the infection mortality rate (the number of reported deaths divided by the number of infections) will be lower. For seasonal influenza, mortality is usually well below 0.1%. However, mortality is to a large extent determined by access to and quality of health care.

Q. What medical interventions are available for COVID-19 and influenza viruses?

While there are a number of therapeutics currently in clinical trials in China and more than 20 vaccines in development for COVID-19, there are currently no licensed vaccines or therapeutics for COVID-19.  In contrast, antivirals and vaccines available for influenza. While the influenza vaccine is not effective against COVID-19 virus, it is highly recommended to get vaccinated each year to prevent influenza infection.[/quote]

[martinuzz]

Geez, 1500 more infected patients added in Italy today, and 133 dead in 1 day.

[McTraveller]

I guess my question was really this: unless you are preemptively putting people in the ICU when they get COVID-19 versus say influenza, why does it matter if you get tested for it or not*? If you think you have it, can't you self-quarantine?  That is - what did the nurse in that story want to have that she didn't have, that she could have only received with a positive COVID-19 result?

Or is this a manufactured situation where if you will potentially get employment-punished by doing such unless you get the "doctor's note" that you have a positive COVID-19 diagnosis?

*EDIT: excepting perhaps the statistics-gathering and letting other people know aspect.

[ChairmanPoo]

I can tell you in Spain most infectees are at home. People who contacted infectees are quarantined, and if they develop symptoms they are tested.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

"♪Motherfucker got fucked up cause he got in the way...♪"