Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #45

[tresir2012]

Haha, yes it is an expensive experiment. With deadly consequences no matter which course is taken. Projections show that the death toll from COVID-19 in the U.S. might even get as high as the flu season in 2018.

Attached is a plot of projected U.S. COVID deaths from the the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), an independent global health research center at the University of Washington. With "full social distancing", whatever that means, deaths will go to zero by June 1. Despite the fact that there will be no vaccine for a year, there is no proven treatment, and experts say that the cat is out of the bag and can't be contained.

There must be some extreme assumptions put into the model to show that output.

This only has 3k predicted peak? US is way past that. What were the flu deaths in 2018?

 

[Rose in SC]

My 19 yo son is in the ER. He was there 2 days ago and told he had pleural effusion/water on his lung. He left NY state 2 weeks ago. He's clearly worse and struggling to breath. No one was allowed to go back in with him. A police officer was there to tell my mil the rules had now changed. Please pray for him and that he can advocate for himself while he can also barely breath. He's only 19 yo and he barely slept last night.

beatrixpotter - oh no! I am so sorry to hear that! Will definitely pray for him - and for you! You said he left New York 2 weeks ago - where is he now? My heart aches for both of you!

 

[Hatfield]

I have an android. I turn my location on and my phone tracks every location I go to,
How many miles I traveled and how long I was on the road.
All I have to do is go to my activity and a map pops up with everywhere I went.
My March and April History has my one trip to the butcher on April 3rd.
It shows I never left my address any other day.
(If you forget your phone at home, then obviously you won't get any data) < I do that sometimes! I usually carry it in my purse though.
For anyone interested...
Here's a link.
Moo
How to view your location history in Google Maps

Thanks for sharing that as I have an Android too.

When I first got a smart phone I turned off its GPS capability because of reading cases here and learning how "big brother" can track wherever we go by our phones. It was all new to me and I had concerns at first.

About 30 minutes after I shut it off I turned it right back on as I envisioned me running off the road and wrecking my car in the country and not knowing where I am as I called 911 for help and being pinned in the car upside down.

I calculated that I was more likely to need that feature to help me in an emergency and that was way more important to me than any concerns about "big brother" that I had.

 

[The Night Watchman]

This only has 3k predicted peak? US is way past that. What were the flu deaths in 2018?

I think the worst day in the U.S. was 1300 deaths. Yesterday was 1,255, and this is a lower rate than the model predicted. Good news that shows our extreme measures are working, and hopefully that COVID is not as deadly as predicted.

The flu in 2018 killed 80,000 Americans. Nobody noticed. Basically because seasonal flu deaths are an accepted risk in life for the most part.

 

[tresir2012]

snipped and BBM
That sentence must bring comfort and reassurance to Brits. Of course, time will tell if that will actually come to fruition. Still, I wish our government would have the message for the U.S. IMO

It has already happened. I personally know people who have been furloughed but will still get their pay packet of 80% from their employers, who will be reimbursed by the govt, possibly by not having to send the tax and NI that they collect and send to the government on a normal basis. It is impressive if it works out OK. If this only goes on for another month those employees could possibly just get reemployed.

 

[justbeachy]

My 19 yo son is in the ER. He was there 2 days ago and told he had pleural effusion/water on his lung. He left NY state 2 weeks ago. He's clearly worse and struggling to breath. No one was allowed to go back in with him. A police officer was there to tell my mil the rules had now changed. Please pray for him and that he can advocate for himself while he can also barely breath. He's only 19 yo and he barely slept last night.

Oh my gosh. I can only imagine what you must be feeling right now. I wish I could offer you some words of comfort, but please know that I am praying for him and your family. Does he have his cell phone with him? Are you able to communicate with him directly? We are all here for you...please keep us updated on him.

 

[oviedo]

It’s starting to get surreal: I woke up to the news that my childhood friend’s mom died in New York from COVID-19. I knew the odds were I would know someone affected but it’s still surreal. Now we’re really not going out anywhere for the next 3 weeks. It’s so serious, I wish more people could see it.

so sorry to hear this my childhood friends' mom was a second one to me and am so worried for my older attorney who is like a dad to me - many risk factors but they are being very careful - FL is going to be really bad in the coming days IMO. I wish I could just stay home...

 

[margarita25]

My 19 yo son is in the ER. He was there 2 days ago and told he had pleural effusion/water on his lung. He left NY state 2 weeks ago. He's clearly worse and struggling to breath. No one was allowed to go back in with him. A police officer was there to tell my mil the rules had now changed. Please pray for him and that he can advocate for himself while he can also barely breath. He's only 19 yo and he barely slept last night.

Hugs Beatrix! Thinking of you and your son and sending lots of love and light from the bottom of my heart. Please keep us posted. All the best for your son’s recovery! Hang in there, friend. We are here for support.

 

[24Roses]

Iowa numbers today. Also posting in state thread. 1 additional death, 102 new positive COVID-19 cases in Iowa 102 positve new tests (IMO the highest in a day yet for Ia.) and 1 passed. Total of 1,048 positive and 26 passed. We also have 104 hospitalized and 341 recovered (this IMO is 57 more than yesterday). April 7: 102 new COVID-19 cases in Iowa, 1 additional death

 

[tresir2012]

<sigh> (At the article, not you )


The “what do you have to lose” attitude is worrisome. We had a joke in school: death is always a possible side effect. But it’s true. In the medical world, even oxygen is considered a drug. Too much, too little, given under the wrong circumstances—can all lead to less-than-optimal outcomes.


You just can’t take one look at a drug, without extensive and methodological study, and declare it a miracle-worker. The rules are there for a reason. And even then, there are usually circumstances that haven’t been anticipated. They are already making allowances and relaxing regulations to expedite new or repurposed therapies in this state of emergency. But there’s a threshold before it becomes unsafe and the risk outweighs the benefit.


Additionally, data, studies, experiments, etc—they’re great, but you have to understand the context, condition, method, and much more in order to draw a legitimate conclusion. It’s incredibly tempting—especially under pressure—to cherrypick favorable data to support your claim. And no one is immune to that. It’s human nature. But you must be aware of it and mitigate it, especially when you have lives that depend on it.

Jmo

One of my favorite discoveries, that shows (often humorous) examples of how appearances can be deceiving in data analysis, is this site:
Spurious Correlations
Enjoy

There are numerous clinical trials going on for the Ebola drug and the malarial drug though, so they should know how and if the patients are responding. These are considered safe drugs already so not too much of a risk hopefully.

 

[gngr~snap]

DEATHS AT HOME ARE NOT GETTIMG COUNTED AS CORONAVIRUS.
:EDITED: They try to resuscitate them for 20-30 min, if the have no pulse. They do not take them to a hospital. This is around 100 people a day!
Moo

"This past Sunday I personal did 12 cardiac arrests,” he said, noting another medic told him that he did 10. “They’re all various ages and underlying medical conditions and some not. No one is immune to this. You have to stay home, if you can.”

"Almojera went on to say that he doesn’t believe the deaths they are reporting aren’t coming from people they’re losing in the field, because firefighters and EMTs don’t have any way to test people in the field."

Grim New Rules for NYC Paramedics: Don’t Bring Cardiac Arrests to ER for Revival

 

[margarita25]

I just want to say thanks to everyone for the ventilator conversation in the last thread. It is really depressing but I was somewhat, uh relieved for lack of a better term, to see that you all were discussing this bc at that very moment I was having the same conversation with my family. I’m afraid one of them who is undergoing chemo MAY have been exposed during a hospital treatment recently so they are now in isolation, etc. Anyway too much to talk about atm and highly personal and distressing but thanks everyone for being here.
ETA: @mickey2942 we also had the same discussion you referred to. We decided this member can’t just stay at home and die, even though that’s what they want, bc it’s too much for the other relatives in the house to watch them gasp for air, etc., cross exposure, etc. Nutshell. So anyway the decision was made to seek hospitalization and die there and say bye via Facebook or whatever if it happens. This member also said there’s no reason for family to fly from out of state bc that is risky and also there’s no point because you can’t go in to see them anyway. So we will plan to have a ceremony, etc after it happens IF it happens. We are accepting that chances are slim this family member will survive due to their age and serious health conditions with cancer and chemo, if they do contract the virus.

 

[BHughes]

LOUISIANA

Tuesday
16,284 Cases Reported*
582 Deaths reported
63 of 64 parishes


Monday 4/6
14,867. Cases Reported*
512. Deaths Reported
62 of 64 parishes

 

[tresir2012]

I think the worst day in the U.S. was 1300 deaths. Yesterday was 1,255, and this is a lower rate than the model predicted. Good news that shows our extreme measures are working, and hopefully that COVID is not as deadly as predicted.

The flu in 2018 killed 80,000 Americans. Nobody noticed. Basically because seasonal flu deaths are an accepted risk in life for the most part.

Oh I didnt realise it was daily CV19 deaths not cumulative. So it will also be interesting to see if the flu deaths also drop from the lockdown measures.

 

[The•Qwill•Pen]

Circulating on nursing forums, this is a better explanation of a possible mechanism for CoVid (summarizing various juried publications and pre-prints, as well as computer analysis of observations):

///
"Might not even be a respiratory illness after all and that's just a byproduct of the wreckage it makes in blood haemoglobin (thus making ARDS a symptom not a cause).

I wish this would get more traction because if this computational analysis is correct, this could completely change the way we approach COVID, globally.

I will copy some summaries that explain this paper in layman's terms:

- Using computational analysis (modeling the behavior of a molecule in a computer), they've worked out the probable mechanism by which SARS-nCov-2 wreaks havoc on patients, as well as why chloroquine and favipiravir seem to work.

- Inside our red blood cells, there is a molecule called hemoglobin, which contains heme groups. Each heme group is a molecular "ring" (called a porphyrin) that can hold an iron (Fe) ion inside. Having an iron ion inside is what allows this heme to carry O2 (and CO2) in our blood. This is how our bodies move O2 to our tissues and remove CO2 waste products.

- The paper modeled these and found that the proteins produced when COVID replicates "collaborate" to knock iron ions out of heme groups (HBB) and replace them with one of the proteins. This makes the red blood cell unable to transport O2 and CO2!

- If the computer modeling is right, it shows that the virus hijacks our [red] blood [cells] and makes it unable to carry O2 to a patient's tissues/organs, and likewise unable to carry CO2 out of them. This would lead to organ and tissue death, roughly in the same way as if a patient were being suffocated. Even when a patient can breath (fill lungs with air), the oxygen isn't getting to the cells in their body.

- The inflammation in the lungs results from the lungs not being able to perform the oxygen/CO2 exchange, and would therefore appear to be a SECONDARY result of the hijacking of the blood. The lungs not working is a result of lack of O2 in blood, not the cause of it. Hence the "ground glass opacities".

- The paper models the behavior of chloroquine and faviparavir as well, which appear to bind to the non-structural viral proteins that hijack the heme groups, thus inhibiting them from knocking out the iron and wrecking the O2-carrying ability of the red blood cells.

- This also explains the observation made by various ER docs (incl this one in New Orleans) that patients tend to have elevated ferritin: ferritin is used to store excess iron. If a lot of iron is knocked out of heme groups and floating around, the body produces more ferritin

If true, this may mean a few things:

1. Starting drug treatment while symptoms are mild keeps virus from hijacking too much blood, enabling a still-healthy body to mount an immune response. Explains why early drug treatment (first week of symptoms) is often successful.

2. Drug treatment and intubation once patient is critical will rarely work because tissues/organs are already damaged, blood can't carry O2, and the body is too weak to produce new red blood cells able to carry Fe (and thus oxygen/CO2) even if drugs inhibit more hijacking.

3. Thus: start severe patients on drug treatment upon hospital intake to suppress further hijacking of blood by the virus, then give them a blood transfusion of new red blood cells immediately that are unhijacked. If all this is true, we would see rapid patient improvement.

---

The problem is we have not yet had studies testing whether patients will respond well to blood transfusions from people who have not had COVID-19. Right now medical attention is focused on blood transfusions from those who have beat COVID and have antibodies. This needs to be looked at

This research ties in to the fact that weight/age/high blood pressure are such risk factor and why certain blood types are less afflicted than other

////

BBM
If you don't mind, could you explain the relationship someone's ABO might have to the lethality of Covid-19?

TIA

 

[margarita25]

In other news another family member who is a first responder, paramedic, has also been potentially exposed and is also in isolation.

I’m truly wondering how many family members and friends I will have left after all this whole thing is over with moo.

 

[SuziQ]

Mayor who sent cops to break up parties found his wife at one of them | Daily Mail Online

 

[jjenny]

I think the worst day in the U.S. was 1300 deaths. Yesterday was 1,255, and this is a lower rate than the model predicted. Good news that shows our extreme measures are working, and hopefully that COVID is not as deadly as predicted.

The flu in 2018 killed 80,000 Americans. Nobody noticed. Basically because seasonal flu deaths are an accepted risk in life for the most part.

Not sure where you are getting 80,000 from. Flu is less infectious and less deadly. Covid is more infectious and more deadly. So we don't want millions infected with covid.

"CDC estimates that the burden of illness during the 2018–2019 season included an estimated 35.5 million people getting sick with influenza, 16.5 million people going to a health care provider for their illness, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths from influenza (Table 1). "
Estimated Influenza Illnesses, Medical visits, Hospitalizations, and Deaths in the United States — 2018–2019 influenza season | CDC

 

[margarita25]

So I have one elderly family member who has a McDonald’s addiction.

I just learned they’ve been sneaking out to go get McDonald’s even though they have been instructed to stay home and have others bring them what they need.

I suppose if they’re just going through the drivethru...Idk, still not a fan of this. Fast food seems dangerous to me. Maybe not if they wash their hands, take all precautions with packaging, etc. before eating the food.

Sigh.

Everything is dangerous. Everything.

 

[jjenny]

And never mind deaths of covid will be on top of deaths from the flu, not instead of the flu.