outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

Here's the interview I mentioned earlier.

http://www.cnn.com/2020/03/20/politics/congressman-ben-mcadams-coronavirus-symptoms-cnntv/index.html

I have soreness tonight but that is standard for MM/post-chemo drip/sitting in my chair while remote working when I would be retired in a civilized country.

It bears repeating that if 80% of cases are asymptomatic or mild, and it's relatively easy to transmit, and this has been going on since Nov/Dec., then a lot of people have had this already. and once those people are identified or identify themselves, they can start getting things/life back to normal.

Yeah, but exponential growth means that something can be circulating for a while without a particularly noticeable number of cases and then explode. I would be wary of assuming that a lot of people have already had it.

There was a Washington Post posted a couple of hours ago that requires a subscription or that incognito Google thing.

"U.S. intelligence agencies were issuing ominous, classified warnings in January and February about the global danger posed by the coronavirus while President Trump and lawmakers played down the threat and failed to take action that might have slowed the spread of the pathogen, according to U.S. officials familiar with spy agency reporting."

Trump would obviously be the most reprehensible culprit here, but I'm sure "and lawmakers" reels in a lot of other people.

I put in another thread but N95s were sparse/gone back in January. they sat around being bitchy doing nothing.

The N95s were not bitchy. The administration was.

I would be wary of assuming that a lot of people have already had it.

Yeah, we may never know. But if it spreads fast, and the vast majority of people are either asymptomatic or show only mild symptoms, and it had been spreading for a month or even months before anyone was really looking for it, there's got to be some not insignificant number of people exposed and OK that don't know it. For sure it kept certain situations from getting worse. I'm thinking specially of that small Italian town that tested everyone and found 50%-70% had it but didn't really know it. Imagine if all those people (and health workers) *did* know it.

frogbs, best to you and your wife.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/breaking-trump-eyes-2-week-quarantine-only-drug-grocery-stores-open

No other country has been this far into the pandemic and still had the number of cases growing at the rates the U.S. is seeing.
(https://t.co/yEPNzjICd9) pic.twitter.com/QjoGl0LDgT

— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) March 20, 2020

how long did it take for Italy to start testing en masse? I'm not sure if a 1:1 comparison even works considering how long it took for us to expand testing availability, but if Italy had the same problems at this point, then that's a moot point.

yeah, definitely. there are like dozens of asterisks and caveats on all of these things. surely the lack of testing up until now is playing a role, but still, not where you want to be on the graph

Looks like the rate of new cases fell over the last couple days in the USA?


https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/685d0ace521648f8a5beeeee1b9125cd

re that wolfers tweet it is also consistent with the US catching up in testing fyi

a 'smart' friend in LA just on wednesday was complaining about people overreacting and she thought I would agree. I immediately was like "No, this is going to be very very VERY bad for awhile and there is basically no realistic way to prevent it at this time." That may be a bummer but she didn't have any food in her house.

and there was this
"The nation’s second-largest municipal health system has told its staff that it is essentially abandoning hope of containing the coronavirus outbreak and instructed doctors not to bother testing symptomatic patients if a positive result won’t change how they would be treated.

The guidance, sent by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services to its doctors on Thursday, was prompted by a crush of patients and shortage of tests, and could make it difficult to ever know precisely how many people in L.A. County contracted the virus."

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/l-a-county-gives-up-on-containing-coronavirus-tells-doctors-to-skip-testing-of-some-patients/

frogbs I wish you, your wife and kids health and well-being

My wife has started coughing, with sore throat and swollen glands. No fever yet though. Fingers crossed.

I had a horrible 9 day cough + wheezing session over the week before last and came out the other end. Did an e-visit with my HMO and they told me to suck it up, get over my cold and pick up some cough medicine from their pharmacy if I felt up to it.

That's not to diminish what anybody else is going through.

just found out a friend of mine had to fly to florida to retrieve her hubby and kids after he fucked up his achilles tendon. so I'm feeling relatively fortunate today lol

Tom, plz be well

also collardo, frogbs and all your people

Thanks morbs, you too

I'm more worried about you Morbs. Hang in there yourself.

finally some good news: bolsonaro's test is positive

― shosple colupis (bizarro gazzara), Friday, 13 March 2020 13:55 (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

we’re back in the bolsonaro business babey

After a week of denial, Brazil's far right President Jair Bolsonaro has just announced that he thinks he might be infected with coronavirus and suggested he is going to take another test.

— BrianMier (@BrianMteleSUR) March 20, 2020

Infections specialist goes on vacation to Spain, brings back COVID-19 didn't self-isolate. Now in intensive care and a whole load of people including doctors on quarantine in Stavropol

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4298603

Ed, Frogs, Collardo, all of you: be well guys.

Grim thread on how bungled the lockdown has been in Italy.

In Italy it’s been now ten days of nationwide restrictions - the first country in the world to do so. I want to summarise all that is wrong with the current situation, which gets more concerning every day. (longish thread) 1/10

— Andrea Bagnato (@andreabagnato) March 19, 2020

People have been going to work over there so this has gotta a long way to go.

People are still going to work everywhere though, right? Even in countries with the tightest lockdown.

Hubei (and the rest of China to a certain extent) stopped people from going to work.

Article from Italy published on RTE today. This was interesting:

Stefano Paglia and Enrico Storti, the chief medic at the Resuscitation Unit in Lodi, have devised a no-nonsense technique for immediately identifying patients with Covid-19 - one we could christen the 'Lodi method' - that will go down in medical history.

"It's not based on the temperature of the patient, but on breathing difficulties, and the area it stems from," explains Castelli. "This method was used to identify the first patients who needed to be isolated, then to distinguish between the most severe cases and the milder ones; they would have a chest X-ray, and the level of oxygen saturation in the blood would be measured after having made them walk up and down the corridors for 50 meters. That's how they managed to deal rationally with the emergency throughout the night of 20 February.

Stuck in Lodi again

People are still going to work everywhere though, right? Even in countries with the tightest lockdown.

― Le Bateau Ivre, Saturday, 21 March 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Hubei (and the rest of China to a certain extent) stopped people from going to work.

― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Saturday, 21 March 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Even if China (and maybe South Korea and Taiwan) hadn't done it Italy ought to have.

everyone take care! and if there is anyone in your life that is still vaping anything, now is a great time for them to stop.

c’mon what about a little bit of weed in the evening eh. is that reallllly so bad

bein stoned is one of the few things getting me through this

cook it down, make some snacks?

I hate to be a party pooper but sending your lungs into overdrive is definitely not a good idea right now.

please don’t police other functioning adults

that italy thread xyz posted is hideous. Jesus fucking Christ.

I’m not a functioning adult so it’s my prerogative.

next they’ll be telling me not to go outside

i switched to vaping from smoking bowls largely to relieve my lungs! idk what to tell yall but i’m not stopping, i’ll let you know if i die immediately for the schadenfreude

Thanks for the well wishes everyone. Still no fever so that’s a good sign. I guess the uh...good news is that if this is gonna get serious we’ll know pretty soon

Btw with respect to vaping, if you’re just doing dry herb through a convection style vape I don’t think that’s gonna do much to your lungs other than irritate them with hot air

Just make sure it doesn't contain vitamin E acetate.

And good luck, frogbs!

yeah, I am not anyone's mother but a nurse friend in CA was venting last night (while we were talking about how younger people in the US were ending up in the hospital) and the least controversial things she said was that people "need to stay the fuck home and stop vaping anything."

( I am not an expert on anything vape)