Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #58

[MimosaMornings]

Four coronavirus clusters pop up in Santa Cruz County – Santa Cruz Sentinel

“All known transmission is associated with close contact between households during family gatherings, according to a press release issued by the county Friday afternoon.

These gatherings, according to the county, include interaction between people from different social cohorts, including a multi-generational Mother’s Day gathering and a large gathering involving individuals who traveled from out-of-state.

Under the orders, non-essential travel is prohibited and gatherings of any size are not allowed.”

 

[Deleted member 158085]

I don't know why she wasn't wearing gloves but you're right, I touched everything. Maybe she was warned about the plastic cards and thought there was more risk with them. Maybe there is? IDK

Maybe because she’d probably have to use her fingernail to pick it up since it was flat on the conveyor belt? That’s different from just grabbing items. I really, really don’t want to get anything under my fingernails.

 

[KALI]

For the USA. For sure, we're going to see more cases, because we're doing more testing.
We're going to see more Hospitilazions too as the sick people who test positive are hospitalized.
We're going to see more deaths as well.
Those are facts.
Right now we have 98,683. Deaths. (WorldoMeter.com)
We have a population in the USA of over 328 million people. (Worldometer.com)
* This equates to... 0.0003% deaths of the population of the United States.
Of the amount of deaths we've had, 50% or more have been in nursing/Care homes.
The rest had underlying morbidity factors.
Every single death of a human is sad, and terrible, affecting all of their loved ones.
I wish every day that this terrible virus had not come upon any of our shores.
It has caused death, destruction and chaos that I think we've never experienced in our current society.
This should not stand. We cannot allow another disaster upon the human race like this.
As we struggle to recover, our leaders need to develop a plan to protect us against further and potential worse viruses.
MY OPINION X a MILLION

 

[jjenny]

Pandemics happen regularly and we were due for one. People were predicting a pandemic starting many years back. It was not a question of if it was going to happen, but when. Yet we still ended up completely unprepared.

 

[jjenny]

Maybe because she’d probably have to use her fingernail to pick it up since it was flat on the conveyor belt? That’s different from just grabbing items. I really, really don’t want to get anything under my fingernails.

If she doesn't want to touch things with her hands, she should wear gloves. In Kroger, cashiers scan your items and then put these items in bags (unless there is another person present who puts items into bags), she would have to touch whatever customers are purchasing, yet she is scared to touch a card? Not making sense to me.

 

[Cool Cats]

Online shoppers have lost millions to fraud during lockdown: 'Enormous vulnerability'

1. Strong Security Software


2. A VPN

3. A Password Manager

4. A Pop Up
__Ad Blocker

5. A Mobile Security App

 

[SoCalDavidS]

Pandemics happen regularly and we were due for one. People were predicting a pandemic starting many years back. It was not a question of if it was going to happen, but when. Yet we still ended up completely unprepared.

Well, we did have a Pandemic Response Team back in 2016. I wonder what happened to it.

 

[SoCalDavidS]

Four coronavirus clusters pop up in Santa Cruz County – Santa Cruz Sentinel
These gatherings, according to the county, include interaction between people from different social cohorts, including a multi-generational Mother’s Day gathering and a large gathering involving individuals who traveled from out-of-state.

Under the orders, non-essential travel is prohibited and gatherings of any size are not allowed.”

I know we are the United States, but in times like this, it is really unfortunate that logistically we can't have 2 Americas. One America where people fearful of the virus can stay at home, maintain social distancing, and wear masks when outside, while the other America can go back to life as normal, start packing into bars and restaurants, and refusing to social distance or wear masks.

 

[Trino]

For the USA. For sure, we're going to see more cases, because we're doing more testing.
We're going to see more Hospitilazions too as the sick people who test positive are hospitalized.
We're going to see more deaths as well.
Those are facts.
Right now we have 98,683. Deaths. (WorldoMeter.com)
We have a population in the USA of over 328 million people. (Worldometer.com)
* This equates to... 0.0003% deaths of the population of the United States.
Of the amount of deaths we've had, 50% or more have been in nursing/Care homes.
The rest had underlying morbidity factors.
Every single death of a human is sad, and terrible, affecting all of their loved ones.
I wish every day that this terrible virus had not come upon any of our shores.
It has caused death, destruction and chaos that I think we've never experienced in our current society.
This should not stand. We cannot allow another disaster upon the human race like this.
As we struggle to recover, our leaders need to develop a plan to protect us against further and potential worse viruses.
MY OPINION X a MILLION

No. The rest did not all have underlying conditions. Many examples out there of healthy individuals dying.

 

[Trino]

I know we are the United States, but in times like this, it is really unfortunate that logistically we can't have 2 Americas. One America where people fearful of the virus can stay at home, maintain social distancing, and wear masks when outside, while the other America can go back to life as normal, start packing into bars and restaurants, and refusing to social distance or wear masks.

I think we already have two Americas.

 

[tresir2012]

COVID-19 Antibody Seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California

Results The raw prevalence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in our sample was 1.5% (exact binomial 95CI 1.1-2.0%). Test performance specificity in our data was 99.5% (95CI 99.2-99.7%) and sensitivity was 82.8% (95CI 76.0-88.4%). The unweighted prevalence adjusted for test performance characteristics was 1.2% (95CI 0.7-1.8%). After weighting for population demographics of Santa Clara County, the prevalence was 2.8% (95CI 1.3-4.7%), using bootstrap to estimate confidence bounds. These prevalence point estimates imply that 54,000 (95CI 25,000 to 91,000 using weighted prevalence; 23,000 with 95CI 14,000-35,000 using unweighted prevalence) people were infected in Santa Clara County by early April, many more than the approximately 1,000 confirmed cases at the time of the survey. Conclusions The estimated population prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in Santa Clara County implies that the infection may be much more widespread than indicated by the number of confirmed cases. More studies are needed to improve precision of prevalence estimates. Locally-derived population prevalence estimates should be used to calibrate epidemic and mortality projections.

 

[tmar]

Photos of the Week: Sydney Fog, House Hat, Crow Pursuit

Carolyn Keter/AP
A deer rests among the headstones at the United States Soldiers' and Airmen's Home National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., on May 20, 2020.

 

[tresir2012]

MERS, H1N1 and swine flu are very much still alive and kicking.

That's not true. See below link.

How novel coronavirus compares to SARS, MERS and other recent viral outbreaks

"Influenza is another contagious respiratory illness with symptoms that are similar to SARS, MERS and COVID-19. It is caused by the influenza A and influenza B viruses. Different strains of influenza are responsible for the flu season that occurs every year. The CDC estimates that there have been 18,000-46,000 flu deaths so far this season.

The swine flu, or influenza A (H1N1) virus caused the 2009 global pandemic. An estimated 151,000-575,000 people worldwide died from the H1N1 virus in 2009. Of those, there were an estimated 12,400 deaths in the U.S. The estimated global death rate was very low at 0.02%. This strain continues to circulate as a seasonal flu virus each year, but can be prevented with a flu vaccine."

"No cases of SARS have been reported anywhere in the world since 2004.

MERS (Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome) was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Of the 27 countries affected globally, 10 countries are in or near the Arabian Peninsula and 17 countries are outside of the Arabian Peninsula. Only 2 patients in the U.S. ever tested positive for MERS.

To date, there have been nearly 2,500 laboratory confirmed cases of MERS with a death rate of about 34%."

 

[tresir2012]

Hydroxy is not a MAB.

What's a MAB?

 

[tresir2012]

Yea, it will miraculously disappear. Now, where did I hear that before?

SARS, MERS and H1N1 probably.

 

[tresir2012]

Yes, it does look bad. CDC estimates that the 2018–2019 season included an estimated 34,200 deaths from influenza. That's with a vaccine which is probably taken by a large part of the vulnerable population.

CoVid-19 is much worse. In the past two months there have been 98,652 deaths, and that's even though the country has taken extreme measures to try to prevent the spread. The annual tally is not in yet.

Does anyone know the actual flu figures ?

 

[tresir2012]

"The CDC, they note "like many similar disease control agencies around the world, presents seasonal influenza morbidity and mortality not as raw counts but as calculated estimates based on submitted International Classification of Diseases codes."

Thus, between 2013 and 2019, the yearly seasonal influenza deaths ranged from 23,000 to 61,000. However, the actual number of counted influenza deaths over that timespan ranged between 3,448 and 15,620 deaths each year. On average, the researchers said, CDC influenza death estimates are about six times greater than the number of counted deaths.

Conversely, COVID-19 deaths are not estimated, but counted and reported directly. The researchers suggested that a more valid measure would be to compare weekly counts of COVID-19 deaths to weekly counts of seasonal influenza deaths.

So, they did.

During two weeks in mid-April, 29,933 COVID-19 deaths were counted in the United States. In contrast, according to CDC, counted deaths during the peak week of the influenza seasons from 2013-2020 ranged from 351 (2016) to 1626 (2018).

The mean number of counted deaths during the peak week of influenza seasons from 2013-2020 was 752.4."

Study Shows COVID-19 Body Count 20 Times Higher Than Seasonal Flu Deaths

Ah TY. I am catching up and just reading this. Somehow I find these figures hard to believe. Are they also including Pneumonia and other causes of death with t 'Flu?


"The CDC believes that flu counts are underestimated at several points in the healthcare system. But if that were true, we’d see increases in overall death counts in bad flu seasons. We simply don’t observe that. Their explanation in here. But the assumptions it make are simply not supported by reality. If they were, again we would see more “all cause” deaths in bad flu seasons. That does not occur," Faust wrote.

Faust said it's possible that CDC is reporting larger numbers of influenza deaths in the hopes of encouraging the public to use better hygiene and get flu shots.

"But I believe those aims can be achieved without that tactic. In fact, we tend to make the opposite argument for other vaccines. The proof that measle/mumps/rubella vaccines are so effective? That there are so few cases these days," he wrote.

Faust says he not quite clear why CDC sticks to these estimates for seasonal flu, rather than counting deaths, which they do with pediatric influenza.

"However, if they did that, they’d have to borrow those deaths from other causes, like heart failure," he wrote.

"Interestingly, if the CDC counted all of these and reported them directly it might very well be that the raw counts would come down even further than they are now," he wrote.

Why?

"If official documents are only 'allowed' to count one cause of death, that means the yearly total of deaths in the United States needs to add up to 2.5 million. In that regime, medical examiners would have to choose between causes of death," he wrote.

"For those dying of flu after a three-year battle with cancer? I’d give cancer the credit. The big question becomes: is this also happening with COVID-19? The answer is very little so far. How do we know? Because unlike a bad flu season, total numbers of deaths are up. That’s what makes this 'real.'"

 

[CharlestonGal]

What's a MAB?

Monoclonal antibodies. Antibodies that are created in a lab rather than antibodies created naturally by the immune system. Sometimes also called synthetic antibodies.

 

[ilovewings]

The world may be overestimating the power of Covid-19 vaccines

We may be overestimating the power of vaccines!!

 

[Simply Southern]

Does anyone know the actual flu figures ?

Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report (FluView)

At the bottom are charts, weekly by lab type.


Preliminary In-Season 2019-2020 Flu Burden Estimates