Covid-19 discussion and humor thread [Was: CDC says don't touch your face to avoid Covid19...Vets to the rescue!

[OldTimeAFLGuy]

...today we learned that two employees out of 220 advised that they each had a college age child test positive ONLY because both were now scheduled for elective surgery prior to (hopefully) returning to school and had their tests....note that BOTH were and continue to be asymptomatic....we have notified our two prospective customers and so far, they as well as the employee's PCP have yet to say anything about a mandatory 14 day quarantine.....I'm not sure how this should be reported and perhaps Hap can chime in.....should they just be lumped into the "new cases count" as seemingly the force driving the MSM and their non-politicization (COUGH)?....or does identifying cases in this matter somewhat mitigate the feeding frenzy, BUT with no inference to let your reasonable, collective guard down?....I'd bet this disinformation, incomplete information/accurate guidance or politicization .just adds to the "defiant mode" of people......

[Hapless Bills Fan]

4 hours ago, OldTimeAFLGuy said:

...today we learned that two employees out of 220 advised that they each had a college age child test positive ONLY because both were now scheduled for elective surgery prior to (hopefully) returning to school and had their tests....note that BOTH were and continue to be asymptomatic....we have notified our two prospective customers and so far, they as well as the employee's PCP have yet to say anything about a mandatory 14 day quarantine.....I'm not sure how this should be reported and perhaps Hap can chime in.....should they just be lumped into the "new cases count" as seemingly the force driving the MSM and their non-politicization (COUGH)?....or does identifying cases in this matter somewhat mitigate the feeding frenzy, BUT with no inference to let your reasonable, collective guard down?....I'd bet this disinformation, incomplete information/accurate guidance or politicization .just adds to the "defiant mode" of people......

 

I'm not understanding your question or point especially the last several sentences about MSM and "nonpoliticization".  The disease and the principles of epidemiology don't GAS about one's politics.  It's all gobbledy ***** to me.  If you're saying people have a "defiant mode" that is activated without giving a ***** about whether they might bop around and infect someone else, I don't know what to say.

 

They should be counted as new cases, because they are new cases, they tested positive. 

 

They should self-isolate for 14 days.  They should be interviewed and their contacts traced to see where they may have been infected so that those people may be tested and if positive, also isolated, because it's now evident that's how this disease spreads - silently and without symptoms until it hits a vulnerable person or people, who, judging by the number of people <49 who are hospitalized, does not require age and infirmity.

 

The child did not test positive "only" because they had a test due to surgery, they tested positive because they are infected with Sars-CoV2 virus, which the test detected

 

They should follow the state's instructions about quarantine.  If you're in NYS, they are here:

https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/travel-large-gatherings-and-quarantines

Quarantines

Local Health Departments (LHDs)  must utilize the following definitions in determining whether or not to institute a mandatory or precautionary quarantine:

Mandatory Quarantine

Person has been in close contact (6 ft.) with someone who is positive but is not displaying symptoms for COVID-19.

Mandatory Isolation

Person has tested positive for COVID-19, whether or not displaying symptoms for COVID-19.

LHDs must immediately issue an order for Mandatory Quarantine or Isolation once notified, which shall be served on the person impacted.

My interpretation:

The college age children should be in mandatory isolation.
The families (if the child is living with them) should be in mandatory isolation and should be tested.
People who have had contact with the families (assuming they test negative) like other employees, are secondary contacts and do not have to quarantine

There is further information about what isolation and quarantine that means on the NYS website

If the employee's PCP did not inform them of this it is very concerning.

 

 

[ALF]

I got Covid-19 two months ago. I'm still discovering new areas of damage -- Richard Quest

 

(CNN)The cough has come back, without warning and seemingly for no reason; so has the fatigue. True, neither are as debilitating as when I had the actual virus, but they are back.

 

The virus is like a tornado. When it lands, it swirls through the body, causing chaos, confusion, coughs, wreaking damage to each organ it touches. Some won't survive its visit. For those that do, when it has gone, one surveys the damage to the human landscape and realizes it's much greater than first thought. My symptoms were on the milder side: I never had breathing difficulties, or loss of sense or smell. I was wiped-out tired and I always had "the cough," which has now returned.

 

The Covid cough is not like your usual cough-it-up deep cough (what doctors politely call a "productive cough.") It is very distinctive. It is a dry, raspy, wheezy, cough. In my case, lots of short, expelling gasps of air, followed by a long, deep, chest-wrenching expiration cough, that has standers by wondering if I am going to keel over.

 

I am also discovering new areas of damage: I have now become incredibly clumsy. I was never the most lissome person, no one ever called me graceful, but my clumsiness is off the chart.

 

For those who have not had Covid, or witnessed the mess it leaves behind, again, I urge you, do whatever you can to avoid this tornado.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/health/richard-quest-covid-wellness-intl/index.html

[Hapless Bills Fan]

The Infection Fatality Rate vs Case Fatality Rate placeholder

 

Put your thoughts here

3 hours ago, ALF said:

I got Covid-19 two months ago. I'm still discovering new areas of damage -- Richard Quest

 

(CNN)The cough has come back, without warning and seemingly for no reason; so has the fatigue. True, neither are as debilitating as when I had the actual virus, but they are back.

 

The virus is like a tornado. When it lands, it swirls through the body, causing chaos, confusion, coughs, wreaking damage to each organ it touches. Some won't survive its visit. For those that do, when it has gone, one surveys the damage to the human landscape and realizes it's much greater than first thought. My symptoms were on the milder side: I never had breathing difficulties, or loss of sense or smell. I was wiped-out tired and I always had "the cough," which has now returned.

 

The Covid cough is not like your usual cough-it-up deep cough (what doctors politely call a "productive cough.") It is very distinctive. It is a dry, raspy, wheezy, cough. In my case, lots of short, expelling gasps of air, followed by a long, deep, chest-wrenching expiration cough, that has standers by wondering if I am going to keel over.

 

I am also discovering new areas of damage: I have now become incredibly clumsy. I was never the most lissome person, no one ever called me graceful, but my clumsiness is off the chart.

 

For those who have not had Covid, or witnessed the mess it leaves behind, again, I urge you, do whatever you can to avoid this tornado.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/health/richard-quest-covid-wellness-intl/index.html

Just a note that lasting neurological deficits are being observed in recovering covid patients, including those not severely ill.  Autopsies are finding a physical basis for neurological impacts in the form of areas of cell death in the brain and multiple clots.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7188454/

[Gugny]

11 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

Just a note that lasting neurological deficits are being observed in recovering covid patients, including those not severely ill.  Autopsies are finding a physical basis for neurological impacts in the form of areas of cell death in the brain and multiple clots.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7188454/

 

I thought this was the HUMOR one!!!  

 

 

Edited July 7, 2020 by Gugny

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

2 minutes ago, Gugny said:

 

I thought this was the HUMOR one!!!

 

Just humor Hap and go along with it.       :LOL: 

 

[BillsFan4]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html

 

 

 

 

Edited July 7, 2020 by BillsFan4

[BillsFan4]

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

You can't make this stuff up
 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/07/coronavirus-live-updates-us/ (scroll down for this part)

Alex Azar, Secretary of Health and Human Services, on why we should reopen schools:

"Health-care workers “don’t get infected because they take appropriate precautions. They engage in social distancing, they wear facial covering, they use good personal hygiene,” Azar said during a White House event about safely reopening schools. “This can work. You can do all of this. There’s no reason schools have to be in any way any different from the rest of what we need to do in opening ourselves up.”
“The tools are there to bring our kids back safely, to protect our teachers and our staff, and it’s time to do it now,” he said.

In fact, at least 18,000 health care workers have become infected with covid-19.  The CDC says that 500 HCW have died;  Kaiser Health Network says it's at least 600.
 

So if our nation's top health official says we can safely reopen schools because HCW don't get infected, so if kids take the same precautions they won't get infected...

....that's not exactly reassuring.

 

Note that I'm neither arguing for or against opening schools, just flabbergasted that our HHS secretary would say something like that.

 

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

14 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

You can't make this stuff up

yet we see this mentality daily 

 

 

[K-9]

25 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

You can't make this stuff up
 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/07/coronavirus-live-updates-us/ (scroll down for this part)

Alex Azar, Secretary of Health and Human Services, on why we should reopen schools:

"Health-care workers “don’t get infected because they take appropriate precautions. They engage in social distancing, they wear facial covering, they use good personal hygiene,” Azar said during a White House event about safely reopening schools. “This can work. You can do all of this. There’s no reason schools have to be in any way any different from the rest of what we need to do in opening ourselves up.”
“The tools are there to bring our kids back safely, to protect our teachers and our staff, and it’s time to do it now,” he said.

In fact, at least 18,000 health care workers have become infected with covid-19.  The CDC says that 500 HCW have died;  Kaiser Health Network says it's at least 600.
 

So if our nation's top health official says we can safely reopen schools because HCW don't get infected, so if kids take the same precautions they won't get infected...

....that's not exactly reassuring.

 

Note that I'm neither arguing for or against opening schools, just flabbergasted that our HHS secretary would say something like that.

 

I’m not surprised at all. Azar is a tool of the highest order. Pure amateur hour at HHS. It’s a shame that so many others in the various health agencies under its control have to tolerate such an unqualified person in charge. 

[Warcodered]

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

I had not heard this story before, and it's really kind of cool:

 

"Patient 91" in Vietnam

 

Background: you have to understand that Vietnam has been Kicking Virus Butt.  369 cases - total.  Of whom 342 have recovered, 27 are active, and 0 have died.  This is not because they're slouching off on the testing.  They've run 275,000 tests starting very aggressively in February and have been quite thorough in the contact tracing.  Add that to an unambiguous public health message from the start and it seems they've "got this".  It's been a month since their last community transmission.

 

So when this British Pilot walked into a bar on St Patricks Day and later was one of 18 people who became ill, they tested 4,000 people who were at the bar or in contact to find them.

 

Well, he became very ill and wound up on a ventilator in early April.  Meanwhile everyone else in critical care recovered and was released.  So there was Patient 91, the last covid-19 patient in the ICU - on a ventilator, on ECMO, for 10 weeks.  Vietnamese Critical Care physicians held daily teleconferences about his care.  He became a media figure, with daily details of his condition reported in newspapers and on TV.

 

And he recovered.  Like many ICU patients, he faces long months of therapy to try to learn to walk again,  build up his lung capacity, and correct other deficits: "Rehabilitation for the most severely ill patients after ICU is always a delicate dance. Progress and pitfalls are faced in equal measure, and it can be dragged out over several years."
 

"There's a place for Cameron on a Vietnam Airlines flight back to the UK on 12 July. Meanwhile, planes continue to shuttle Vietnamese nationals back from Europe, and having been declared fit to fly a week ago, Cameron is confused why he can't return home sooner.

"As I'm such a well-known public figure here now, everything about my case is controlled by the government."

The politics of his return are a reminder that the miraculous recovery of Patient 91 is not just a story of a Scottish pilot who recovered from Covid-19 and overcame the odds. It is the story of how a developing Southeast Asian country with a turbulent recent history beat the odds too."

 

PS people question whether Vietnam's numbers are legit but experts say yes: Vietnam took prompt measures to close borders and institute quarantines as well as PR campaigns to persuade people to wear masks, distance etc., at the point where Wuhan was reporting only 2 deaths.  Their response wasn't fancy but it was cost effective and it worked.  "The government's data is so strikingly low that there are inevitably questions about whether it's accurate, but the overwhelming consensus from the medical and diplomatic community is that there is no reason to doubt it.  Prof Guy Thwaites, director of Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU) in Ho Chi Minh City, is based in the country's main infectious diseases hospital. He says if there had been unreported, undiagnosed or missed cases "we would have seen them on the ward - and we haven't".  His team has also carried out nearly 20,000 tests, and he says their results match the data the government is sharing.  Even if there were some missed cases, he says "what there wasn't was a systematic cover up of cases - I am very confident of that".  "
 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

5 hours ago, BillsFan4 said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html

 

"Implicit in these approaches is the assumption that governments must balance saving lives against the imperative to spare jobs, with the extra health risks of rolling back social distancing potentially justified by a resulting boost to prosperity. But Sweden’s grim result — more death, and nearly equal economic damage — suggests that the supposed choice between lives and paychecks is a false one: A failure to impose social distancing can cost lives and jobs at the same time......In short, Sweden suffered a vastly higher death rate while failing to collect on the expected economic gains."

"The coronavirus does not stop at national borders. Despite the government’s decision to allow the domestic economy to roll on, Swedish businesses are stuck with the same conditions that produced recession everywhere else. And Swedish people responded to the fear of the virus by limiting their shopping — not enough to prevent elevated deaths, but enough to produce a decline in business activity.

Here is one takeaway with potentially universal import: It is simplistic to portray government actions such as quarantines as the cause of economic damage. The real culprit is the virus itself. From Asia to Europe to the Americas, the risks of the pandemic have disrupted businesses while prompting people to avoid shopping malls and restaurants, regardless of official policy."

Interesting.
 

It's kind of like I said to someone here: the country needs me, and others like me, to get my financially stable but high risk butt out of the house and eat in restaurants and shop in stores, hire people to remodel inside my house, go on vacation.  Saying "if you're concerned about covid-19, then just stay home - I'm not gonna wear a mask or modify my behavior to protect you" doesn't work because my response is "Well, All Righty Then - Wilco" and that doesn't cut it from an economic viewpoint.  Young bar-hopping immortals and Florida Man/Arizona Woman apparently aren't enough to drive the economy by themselves.  

The economy literally "takes a village", and not 1/4 or 1/3 or 1/2 of a village either.

[ALF]

Can the AC filter in your home, office or local mall protect you from Covid-19?

 

(CNN)When New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced last week that malls in New York could not reopen until they installed high-efficiency particulate air filters capable of trapping the virus that causes Covid-19, Harvard environmental health researcher Joseph Gardner Allen was thrilled.

 

"I've been writing consistently since early February about how healthy buildings should be the first line of defense against the novel coronavirus," said Allen, who directs the Healthy Buildings program at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

 

"I'm really grateful that we have a leader in the country -- somewhere -- who was finally talking about healthy buildings, ventilation and filtration," Allen said. "That hasn't happened before. It just hasn't happened."

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/health/covid-19-air-conditioning-ventilation-wellness-scn/index.html

[Warcodered]

 

[Bad Things]

22 hours ago, Warcodered said:

 

Mate, my wife and I talk about this all the time.

We moved away from the US 15 years ago and try to imagine how our level of sanity would be in we never moved.

 

One controversy after another.  Day after day.

 

Kia Kaha! (Stay strong!)

Edited July 8, 2020 by Bad Things

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

I wonder if this guy had trouble breathing 

 

 

[TBBills]

50 minutes ago, Bad Things said:

 

Mate, my wife and I talk about this all the time.

We moved away from the US 15 years ago and try to imagine how our level of sanity would be in we never moved.

 

One controversy after another.  Day after day.

 

Kia Kaha! (Stay strong!)

If you don't pay attention to it you never have to worry. 

[Punching Bag]

Fairfax County Schools Asks Parents to Choose: Virtual Or In-Person Learning for Fall

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/northern-virginia/fairfax-county-schools-reopening-fall-2020-virtual-in-person-learning/2342543/

 

My wife works for school system and has heard this for a while.

 

Quote

Parents with students in Fairfax County Public Schools have some big decisions to make before fall 2020: Choosing whether to return to in-person classes or to keep their children in virtual education.

The virtual learning option would have students log on for full-time schooling. Interactive instruction will be offered four days a week.

Parents could also choose the in-person option, which would mean students spend at least two full days at school and do an independent study on other days. The school may be able to offer more than two days a week, depending on how many kids choose the virtual option.

 

Fairfax County is the tenth-largest school district in the U.S. and educates more than 188,000 students.

 

I am guessing "two days" is so they can do two sets of classes in schools.

 

Honestly if I was a college or employer and I was comparing a "home virtual schooled" and "school schooled" candidate I'd favor the  "school schooled" candidate if other things were equal.