Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #66

[Paroxytone]

The US is just the worst in tackling this pandemic, with almost 3 million confirmed cases, some are still debating if they should wear a mask or not.

 

[CharlestonGal]

So what's going to happen to all the non-covid patients with heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, etc? This is a consequence of allowing this "99% harmless" problem to run willy nilly through the community. Allowing hospitals to over-run is going to kill a lot of people as collateral damage. jmo

https://www.newsweek.com/4-hospital...-another-record-new-daily-covid-cases-1515485

All intensive care unit (ICU) beds are currently occupied at four hospitals in Pinellas County, Florida, as the state continues to see a record spike in new cases and hospitalizations related to the novel coronavirus.

 

[10ofRods]

Puerto Rico has tested ~359,000 people and has 7916 total cases.

Source: Worldometer

Feel free to contact the administrator of that Johns Hopkins based page cited above and ask why they didn't proof read/fact check their document.

100% positivity apparently didn't even make the typist (much less the author) wake up and check the facts, which can be verified on Puerto Rico's official healthcare site or on Worldometer.

No place has ever had 100% positivity in CoVid testing. It would be a huge topic of research in science and medicine if that were true.

https://estadisticas.pr/en/covid-19

Again, that's the official data and it is what is on Worldometer.

 

[Reasonable & Just]

#IamSA55's mother (No I'm not, but I GET IT! I feel the same way many days)

I vent and I'm very very depressed and have so many feelings as she does. I live alone, and I'm very depressed. I need help and support.

PLEASE Let's all pick up the phone and support folks like "mother"... please please please please please. I beg of you all!

YES. Older folks in my life, who were such firecrackers well into their 80's and very socially responsible, are suffering from all the isolation and disruption to their vibrant lives. It doesn't feel like much to me as a younger person, but I can only imagine what it's like for them not to feel safe to just get their hair done or go out to restaurants and do the things they loved.

 

[CharlestonGal]

Tent opens at ER facility in Weslaco; adds 20 beds, staff for COVID-19 patients - The Monitor

With a tent provided by the Weslaco Fire Department, the South Texas Health System ER facility in Weslaco will now have room for 20 additional beds for patients being treated for COVID-19.

Wesley Robinson, who is the assistant chief nursing officer for STHS Edinburg and STHS’ free standing emergency departments, said this was part of their pandemic plan in case they had a healthcare surge — several people presenting to the ER simultaneously.

“What is difficult with COVID is that the patients have to be admitted to the hospital and lots of times they’re in the hospital for several days, now weeks,” Robinson said. “This makes it hard to get new patients into the hospital and that’s why all the hospitals in the Valley are more or less at capacity, so they’re completely full.”

 

[tresir2012]

I've been wondering where Drs Birx, Fauci and Redfield have been. I would really like to hear from them about the best way to move forward in this quickly deteriorating situation in the US.

IMO, it's time to form a completely independent body of experts to tackle this problem and inform the public as to the best course of action. jmo

Dr Birx has been on a road trip with VP Pence I believe.

 

[tresir2012]

“What is difficult with COVID is that the patients have to be admitted to the hospital and lots of times they’re in the hospital for several days, now weeks,” Robinson said. “This makes it hard to get new patients into the hospital and that’s why all the hospitals in the Valley are more or less at capacity, so they’re completely full.”

SBM


Has he not been watching the news?

 

[Lilibet]

#IamSA55's mother (No I'm not, but I GET IT! I feel the same way many days)

I vent and I'm very very depressed and have so many feelings as she does. I live alone, and I'm very depressed. I need help and support.

PLEASE Let's all pick up the phone and support folks like "mother"... please please please please please. I beg of you all!

@dixiegirl1035 please know you have support here. I’m 74 and I get it too, and I can sympathize with both ends of the age spectrum. SA55 has no support from her family either, since they aren’t taking this seriously. So any age can feel alone. This whole thing is HARD. I hope you will check in with your doctor and see what help is available to you. My heart goes out to y0u. And you are absolutely right that we need to support each other.

 

[Spider92]

Florida Surpasses 200,000 Total Covid-19 Cases
FL positive rate looks like 18.7% yesterday. Ouch.

 

[CharlestonGal]

Georgia Tech Professors Revolt Over Reopening, Say Current Plan Threatens Lives Of Students, Staff

The majority of Georgia Tech professors, including some the university’s most acclaimed faculty members, have launched a revolt over reopening this fall amid the coronavirus pandemic, saying the current plan “threatens the health, well-being and education of students, staff, and faculty.”

“We are alarmed to see the Board of Regents and the University System of Georgia mandating procedures that do not follow science-based evidence, increase the health risks to faculty, students, and staff, and interfere with nimble decision-making necessary to prepare and respond to COVID-19 infection risk,” the professors wrote.

 

[tresir2012]

YES. Older folks in my life, who were such firecrackers well into their 80's and very socially responsible, are suffering from all the isolation and disruption to their vibrant lives. It doesn't feel like much to me as a younger person, but I can only imagine what it's like for them not to feel safe to just get their hair done or go out to restaurants and do the things they loved.

Visit your mothers. I had a visit last weekend against the rules after getting a lawmakers ok in an email. We were sensible.

 

[BetteDavisEyes]

The US is just the worst in tackling this pandemic, with almost 3 million confirmed cases, some are still debating if they should wear a mask or not.

Welcome to Websleuths!

 

[squareandrabbet]

Georgia Tech Professors Revolt Over Reopening, Say Current Plan Threatens Lives Of Students, Staff

The majority of Georgia Tech professors, including some the university’s most acclaimed faculty members, have launched a revolt over reopening this fall amid the coronavirus pandemic, saying the current plan “threatens the health, well-being and education of students, staff, and faculty.”

“We are alarmed to see the Board of Regents and the University System of Georgia mandating procedures that do not follow science-based evidence, increase the health risks to faculty, students, and staff, and interfere with nimble decision-making necessary to prepare and respond to COVID-19 infection risk,” the professors wrote.

interesting... looks like they’re going to be having plenty of company...

What the top 25 colleges and universities in the US have said about their plans to reopen in fall 2020, from postponing the semester to offering more remote coursework

 

[Reasonable & Just]

Georgia Tech Professors Revolt Over Reopening, Say Current Plan Threatens Lives Of Students, Staff

The majority of Georgia Tech professors, including some the university’s most acclaimed faculty members, have launched a revolt over reopening this fall amid the coronavirus pandemic, saying the current plan “threatens the health, well-being and education of students, staff, and faculty.”

“We are alarmed to see the Board of Regents and the University System of Georgia mandating procedures that do not follow science-based evidence, increase the health risks to faculty, students, and staff, and interfere with nimble decision-making necessary to prepare and respond to COVID-19 infection risk,” the professors wrote.

Yet, students have been paying massive tuition for years now, and will be asked to do so again in the fall, and many do not feel distance learning is worth the money - and I agree with them. Some of my brightest students expressed the desire to take the year off rather than pay for distance learning. It's just not adequate for many majors and many learners.

 

[10ofRods]

There have been almost 37,000,000 tests in the US (slightly fewer yesterday, obviously). POTUS was just rounding off to a higher number, a common tactic in campaign speeches.

Meanwhile, more and more science is showing that even the asymptomatic have lasting consequences (harmful, not harmless) to CoVid. So far, there are no harmless symptoms of Covid. The loss of sense of smell is tied to CoVid traveling up the nerves from the nasal passages into the brain. It is not a harmless symptom at all.

Ministrokes and lung damage are the two most common harmful findings in the asymptomatic and mild cases.

I'm sure most of you know that there is a post-CoVid syndrome affecting children:

New study looks at post-COVID-19 emerging disease in children

In the UK, doctors and researchers are calling for a new diagnostic code, Post-Covid Syndrome, as so many people are not fully well, even if they are no longer testing as positive for active CoVid:

Calls for 'post-Covid syndrome' to be recognised

The US has the same experience:

Here’s What Recovery From Covid-19 Looks Like for Many Survivors

It's too soon to know what to say about viral recurrence or about the lung problems that the asymptomatic show on x-ray. But, it's concerning that some people do relapse after having been cleared by their swab tests.

Clinical recurrences of COVID-19 symptoms after recovery: viral relapse, reinfection or inflammatory rebound?

There are predictors of a severe course that are related to genetics and epigenetics, but the number of genes involved is definitely more than just 1-3:

Blood biomarker score identifies individuals at high risk for severe COVID-19 a decade prior to diagnosis: metabolic profiling of 105,000 adults in the UK Biobank

 

[BetteDavisEyes]

Michigan garage sale may have exposed attendees to virus

People who attended garage sale should monitor themselves for symptoms of virus

CHARLOTTE, Mich. – Health officials in Michigan on Thursday said that people who went to a garage sale near the community of Charlotte last weekend may have been exposed to the coronavirus.

The Lansing State Journal reported that the Barry-Eaton Health District said in a news release that a person who was working at the garage sale on the West Kalamo Highway from June 26 until June 28 reported having symptoms of the virus...

Hosting a garage sale and attending a garage sale during a pandemic? You can't fix stupid

 

[dixiegirl1035]

Puerto Rico has tested ~359,000 people and has 7916 total cases.

Source: Worldometer

Feel free to contact the administrator of that Johns Hopkins based page cited above and ask why they didn't proof read/fact check their document.

100% positivity apparently didn't even make the typist (much less the author) wake up and check the facts, which can be verified on Puerto Rico's official healthcare site or on Worldometer.

No place has ever had 100% positivity in CoVid testing. It would be a huge topic of research in science and medicine if that were true.

https://estadisticas.pr/en/covid-19

Again, that's the official data and it is what is on Worldometer.

I have no idea what this post is saying about 100% positivity and it's meaning at United States Coronavirus: 2,952,171 Cases and 132,378 Deaths - Worldometer I don't see where this is said. And even if so, it would show veryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy bad testing, tracing etc. But could be a build up and processing issue over the weekend.

Again, have no idea where the 100% came from as no link to such.

I'm outta here again for a while... back to other WS cases.

 

[10ofRods]

Yet, students have been paying massive tuition for years now, and will be asked to do so again in the fall, even though many do not feel distance learning is worth the money - and I agree with them. Some of my brightest students expressed the desire to take the year off rather than pay for distance learning. It's just not adequate for many majors and many learners.

I had this brilliant idea that maybe the classrooms could be retrofitted to allow professors a safe space. That was pie in the sky.

Unfortunately, the average age for full professors is something like 59. In my own field, it's an average of 13 years post high school till we even become employable, and an average of 5 years of intensive post-doc work to get to a university-based, tenure-track job. The average new hire is about 40.

People who write textbooks and do advanced research do not start that during their tenure track time - I can remember how in historical linguistics, I could peek into the national conference rooms of the world's best linguists - and they were all over 65. It just takes too long to learn the phonology, morphology and syntax of a big number of languages. Same is true now for genetics research, although they find jobs a bit more easily.

It's a tragedy, really. I can remember following one of North America's earliest heart transplant teams around as part of my hospital-based training. There was just one true expert and he was already 56. He could only teach so many new surgeons at a time. He spent most of the rest of his life (27 more years) teaching and overseeing. He was almost 60 when he pioneered the first heart-lung transplant and he was essential in securing funding - and students - to create the anti-rejection regimen that is one of his major legacies.

So...yeah...students need to learn from the best professors, who are mostly over 50 and some of whom have risk factors or underlying conditions.

It's just another massive mess-up that the US faces due to its inability to have a nationwide policy to have limited CoVid back in March.

Is it too late? Since the weekend numbers are marred by so many places not reporting, despite diagnoses and deaths still occurring, we don't know what we'll have going on by tomorrow evening (many places do not update their weekend/holiday figures until close of business local time tomorrow. Many places haven't put any data in since Wednesday. It'll probably look horrific, but even if new cases are down a little, we are in for a bumpy ride.

And the students, themselves, will be very unhappy when they get CoVid and many find out that it may seriously mess up their semester - or their physical well-being, even though very few will die.

 

[Reasonable & Just]

I had this brilliant idea that maybe the classrooms could be retrofitted to allow professors a safe space. That was pie in the sky.

Seriously! When it comes down to it, certain retrofits might be quite cost-effective in the long run. But it's more tempting to have a young, desperate TA do it all for peanuts (and no health insurance).

 

[Trident]

#IamSA55's mother (No I'm not, but I GET IT! I feel the same way many days)

I vent and I'm very very depressed and have so many feelings as she does. I live alone, and I'm very depressed. I need help and support.

PLEASE Let's all pick up the phone and support folks like "mother"... please please please please please. I beg of you all!

OK, I'm probably going to sound like a Pollyanna even though I don't mean to. I'm 78, live alone and have several health conditions so maybe I do know where people are coming from.

There is no need to be depressed, the world is an interesting place even though right now we can't go running around in it. Get on YouTube and watch movies, documentaries, all sorts of interesting things on there. You can even learn to knit, crochet, cook, probably tat if you want to. There is no need to let your brain atrophy, use it, enjoy.

Take a look out the window in the morning and see the beautiful sunrise/sunset. Read the Bible, marvel at the beautiful world God has given us. Pray.

You can read a book, write a book, call up for take out, get a bowl of fish, a canary. The possibilities are endless.

Learn to sew, work on a photo album, write your memories of this virus and everything else that's going on in the world. Who knows, in a hundered years someone might find your writings and learn something from them.

Take this time to work on yourself, do not sit around contemplating your naval, be glad you've still got one.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but there is sooooo much to do at home, to learn about in this world. If push comes to shove, you pick up the phone and cheer up someone else.