Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #58

[tresir2012]

I know someone struck by lightning, my sister brother- in- law, and dog in their boat in Maryland. It struck their boat while they were sleeping, but that counts. And they lived and got a new boat out of the deal.

When I was a kid, a tree near me was hit by lightning and crashed down narrowly missing me. I hope to escape Covid by the same luck, now I am older.

 

[epiphany]

Would you be in a position you could shelter in a less densely populated area? Even renting a small apartment or house in a rural area. Sometimes the reduction in cost can be offset. Lower utility cost, able to do contact free store pick up vs delivery fees, our stores are full, farmers markets tons of vegetables, organic meats, heck most of us have at least tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash planted, even in pots.

I've always thought we didn't have a lot "to do" in a small town, but during a pandemic, we're appreciating drive in theaters, neighborhood dancing in the street, kids parading the block playing band instruments, fishing docks, parks and walking trails.

Yea, you can classify me a 100% southern with a slight touch of recheck. LOL

If I must classify you, I'd say you're 100% touch of southern warmth!

 

[tresir2012]

The US comprises 4% of the world population but accounts for nearly 30% of covid deaths, according to current data.

Does anyone have ideas about why that is?

High age expectancy? High air travel and transport, large amount of elderly in care homes, high incidences of diabetes, heart disease and Alzheimer/Dementia, limited public health care? High population density in certain areas. MOO.

 

[jjenny]

So Nick Cordero has been in the hospital since March 31st. Only 41 and no pre-existing conditions. Even if he survives, his quality of life will never be the same. So when we are talking about young healthy people being just fine-they really can't count on it.
"He didn't have a fever. He didn't have a cough. He had a sense of smell, he had a sense of taste, so we really didn't think it was COVID, especially his no preexisting conditions," Kloots told "Good Morning America" last week. "Very shortly, after about only two days, he was on a ventilator."
Broadway star Nick Cordero's wife gives update on his COVID-19 fight: 'He's not done'

 

[MyBelle]

Thank you for your concern.

The call centers here are hiring!!! They just received the state contract to open a division of Motor vehicles and Unemployment Insurance because the state workers are refusing to return to work.

I have concerns, both of our call centers have State and Federal government contracts. Child enforcement services, Virginia, Tenn, and Kentucky Medicaid and now the Motor Vehicles and Unemployment. Now these folks are home with family and friends and computers with vast amounts of personal information, including but not limited to Social Security numbers, DOB, drivers license numbers, checking account numbers and more.

I'm NOT liking this work from home with all MY personal information. How can a call center protect MY information on 100s of computers in folks living rooms? We had one call center close several years ago close due to employees stealing credit card information. Yeap, Sprint and Verizon.

Imo.

Those businesses use a highly secured intranet. That's been true for decades.

JMO
COVID-19: Preparing for the ‘New Normal’ - Lexology

The US comprises 4% of the world population but accounts for nearly 30% of covid deaths, according to current data.

Does anyone have ideas about why that is?

The states aren't doing enough to protect nursing home patients. Front line health workers at our hospitals have been self-quarantining from their own families when off-duty. Front line health workers at nursing homes have not done so and the catastrophic number of deaths in nursing homes has resulted.

Patient families are still not allowed to enter to visit. It is the nursing home workers who have not self-quarantined who bringing it in and spreading the virus. In Nebraska, an elderly nursing home patient two weeks ago called the news media and begged to be removed from the nursing home. The state has done nothing to intervene. She and 7 others have now died and the number is climbing. Meanwhile, staff is still free to come and go. It's a real travesty. The Washington Post wrote a scathing article about the corporate owner, Life Care Centers which also owned the Kirkland Washington Life Care Center.

JMO

Woman who warned of outbreak at Life Care Center dies of COVID-19 complications

 

[tresir2012]

Study controlled for confounding factors. Which means you can't attribute higher death rate to history of heart disease.

"After controlling for multiple confounding factors (age, sex, race or ethnicity, body-mass index, underlying cardiovascular disease and its risk factors, diabetes, underlying lung disease, smoking, immunosuppressed condition, and baseline disease severity), when compared with mortality in the control group (9·3%), hydroxychloroquine (18·0%; hazard ratio 1·335, 95% CI 1·223–1·457), hydroxychloroquine with a macrolide (23·8%; 1·447, 1·368–1·531), chloroquine (16·4%; 1·365, 1·218–1·531), and chloroquine with a macrolide (22·2%; 1·368, 1·273–1·469) were each independently associated with an increased risk of in-hospital mortality."
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31180-6/fulltext

So they removed all those with conditions and just compared those who were left? So that would only be about 10% of them based on UK statistics, ie healthy people except for CV19. Is that correct? Then they also did something regarding sex, race age and ethnicity, which I don't understand. What were they left with to compare?

 

[Simply Southern]

Those businesses use a highly secured intranet. That's been true for decades.

JMO
COVID-19: Preparing for the ‘New Normal’ - Lexology

That's true. What I have a problem with is anybody in the home could look at personal protected information. Call centers usually have a no cell phone at workstations policy and no paper and pen, for security. These are locked down facilities/ you gotta scan your fingerprint to open a door, with government contracts for unemployment, Medicaid benefits, state motor vehicles, child enforcement services.

Nope don't want that information in someone's living room, where kids, family, friends could take a peek.

MOO...and an adventure with fraudulent credit card charges years ago. Now who would think a gal in southern Virginia would have a monthly membership to a gym in NYC?

 

[tresir2012]

Those businesses use a highly secured intranet. That's been true for decades.

JMO
COVID-19: Preparing for the ‘New Normal’ - Lexology

The states aren't doing enough to protect nursing home patients. Front line health workers at our hospitals have been self-quarantining from their own families when off-duty. Front line health workers at nursing homes have not done so and the catastrophic number of deaths in nursing homes has resulted.

Patient families are still not allowed to enter to visit. It is the nursing home workers who have not self-quarantined who bringing it in and spreading the virus. In Nebraska, an elderly nursing home patient two weeks ago called the news media and begged to be removed from the nursing home. The state has done nothing to intervene. She and 7 others have now died and the number is climbing. Meanwhile, staff is still free to come and go. It's a real travesty. The Washington Post wrote a scathing article about the corporate owner, Life Care Centers which also owned the Kirkland Washington Life Care Center.

JMO

Woman who warned of outbreak at Life Care Center dies of COVID-19 complications

If I had a parent in somewhere like that, they would be out in a heartbeat. It is disgraceful and has happened all over Canada and Europe too. This is the real tragedy and we have to bring it up to the governments. No way I will ever go in one of those places.

 

[10ofRods]

It seems it will become even more untenable here once the second wave hits unless you are very wealthy.
It's already costing me a small fortune with the delivery fees, tips, price increases for basic food and supplies (when & if available mind you) and Uber or Lyft if I need to leave my apartment.

I examined my checking account & credit card statements, and although I knew it, I still got a good jolt. I don't even want to say what I've paid for paper towels and toilet paper, and my rent increase - relatively new lease falling smack in the middle of this pandemic: It was NYC outrageous!

I've rationalized that I want to be close to my adult children, but guess what - they can't control the behavior of those around them any more than I can. It's too risky for me. I'm on my own now.

I suppose the glass half full piece of me was hoping there would not be a second wave here, but that's obviously unlikely.

I feel defeated and still afraid and need to turn off the news.

[[hugs]] Things are going to get better. I really feel for you. The hardest part is that we have no idea what's going to happen exactly. Only the models of epidemiologists and virologists given a clue - and the jury seems to be out. Trust your instincts, and have conversations with those adult children and see what they think.

 

[TMAN2014]

Every time I hear the argument about people who would probably die anyway, or should just take their chances with the virus reminds me of Shirley Jackson's short story, The Lottery.

Everyone one has their own situation. Some people might have less to lose in certain situations, where the alternatives are just as bad as COVID, where it is worth the risk to them. It's too bad some of the leaders making decisions for them don't always face the same level of risk.

Some people fear death more than others.

 

[tresir2012]

Hospitals are in the business of treating infectious disease, mitigation, and containment.

I can not judge the entire US healthcare system by what happen in NYC. I'm not criticizing NYC, they were the front line of a massive outbreak, with few tools to work with. I commend NYC !!!! No know therapeutics, lack of PPE, ventilators, staffing. We learned a lot from NYC and HC systems have better working plans to mitigate surge. We have more "tools"...ventilators, PPE, shifting of staff, better ways to treat, heck, the military can now throw up a 1000 bed ICU hospital within days and staff it, if needed.

Times have changed since the first days of the NYC crisis. We've learned a lot, what to and not to do, pulled together as a nation, military, and healthcare system, and become more proficient in battling this virus.

Hopefully, you live in a state that is prepared for the future. I live in a very small rural town. I've already made my plan, should I become infected. I will travel to UVA hospital in Charlotesviloe, VA. They've been on the cutting edge, early developing Covid testing, participating in the first NIH Hydroxychloroquine study, I've been in their care before and have faith and confidence, this is where I would have the best chance of survival. I got a plan, as we all should, now is the time to make one if you don't.

Imo.

My plan is stay living in a rural coastal area off the beaten track and never go in an old persons home.

 

[Lavender Moon]

Every time I hear the argument about people who would probably die anyway, or should just take their chances with the virus reminds me of Shirley Jackson's short story, The Lottery.

That's a " must-read".

 

[10ofRods]

So they removed all those with conditions and just compared those who were left? So that would only be about 10% of them based on UK statistics, ie healthy people except for CV19. Is that correct? Then they also did something regarding sex, race age and ethnicity, which I don't understand. What were they left with to compare?

That's not how it's usually done. I worked in patient recruitment for years and now teach classes in it.

You try to match morbidities. At UCLA, within particular study units, all patients being admitted (and later recruited for certain studies) have quite a bit of information taken from them. Depending on the study, patients are pulled up and contacted for studies based on a set of matching traits.

You can also do this with the population at large. Many of my students do internships doing exactly this - for studies.

You can't control for every variable, but depending on the study, a published study will list the comorbidities (you need them to be controlled for severity and age, as well - so there's often an awful lot of going through medical records).

I did that medical record data base design and record keeping for many years when I was right out of graduate school. That's how a person learns to do hospital-based research (I've also worked in jails, care facilities and mental hospitals/facilities).

That's why it's so important that the authors include the methodology somewhere in the study. Naturally, some rapid-response research takes place too, and that should be described in the method. That helps us rule out some hypotheses and focus on others.

 

[MyBelle]

That's true. What I have a problem with is anybody in the home could look at personal protected information. Call centers usually have a no cell phone at workstations policy and no paper and pen, for security. These are locked down facilities/ you gotta scan your fingerprint to open a door, with government contracts for unemployment, Medicaid benefits, state motor vehicles, child enforcement services.

Nope don't want that information in someone's living room, where kids, family, friends could take a peek.

MOO...and an adventure with fraudulent credit card charges years ago. Now who would think a gal in southern Virginia would have a monthly membership to a gym in NYC?

Not everybody in the home is allowed to have access to a business' intranet. That is a good way to get fired. It is password protected and also monitored by security. My husband worked at his home office for 15 years. His company owned his computer, paid his fax/phone bills. None of the rest of us were allowed to use it. His computer also had a camera on it.

JMO

 

[branmuffin]

That's a " must-read".

It's a very unsettling story.

 

[MyBelle]

How so when the Flu is more deadly to 2/3 of the US Population than Covid19? Are Covid 19 deaths the only meaningful deaths now? What about the 4,600 people that died due to Cuomo putting Covid patients in Nursing homes?

What about Cancer patients that died because they couldn’t have chemo?

The solution that’s going to happen is this: if you want to shelter in place until a vaccine is created then you can but the majority of people won’t do that because we don’t need too. I’m not going to come anywhere near you unless you leave your house so we won’t bother each other. I don’t understand why that’s so hard?

Classes will be in person and sports will be played this fall with fans. That’s what’s going to happen. Continue to shelter if you’re at risk and problem solved.

I've seen no mention of lifting the face mask and social distancing requirements this fall. Nor have I seen anything that suggests concessions and rest rooms will be open this fall at stadiums. Do you have a link? Thanks.

 

[TMAN2014]

That's a " must-read".

It's a film too, if you can find it. I watched in school, a long time ago.

 

[Simply Southern]

If I must classify you, I'd say you're 100% touch of southern warmth!

And if it won't Covid time, I'd say....Come on over, pull up a chair, sit a spell and lets have a sweet tea.

 

[TJtennispro]

Thr media can’t interpret numbers correctly and we have at least 50 different ways to count Covid19 stats. The numbers are wrong many people know that and in time those numbers will be proven incorrect. That’s why the CDC is reporting 71,000 deaths because the deaths for the year didn’t add up with reported Covid 19 deaths. That’s why they been posting amended counts based on actual death certificates. The 100,000 number is a projection and not reality currently.

They’re already being exposed but it will take time for the truth to gain traction. The fear is on the brink of collapsing but it hasn’t yet.

The US comprises 4% of the world population but accounts for nearly 30% of covid deaths, according to current data.

Does anyone have ideas about why that is?

The US comprises 4% of the world population but accounts for nearly 30% of covid deaths, according to current data.

Does anyone have ideas about why that is?

 

[tresir2012]

Unless they were all wearing N95 masks, I wouldn't count on minimal spread.

It would only need the hairdresser to have on a N95 or similar mask and maybe face shield. Not sure what sort they had on. Is there a pic?