***NON-POLITICAL COVID-19 Discussion Thread***

[JakeF]

A couple of reminders...

Originally Posted by Bwana

Once again, don't come in this thread with some kind of political agenda, or you will be shown the door. If you want to go that route, there is a thread about this in DC.

Originally Posted by Dartgod

People, there is a lot of good information in this thread, let's try to keep the petty bickering to a minimum.

We all have varying opinions about the impact of this, the numbers, etc. We will all never agree with each other. But we can all keep it civil.

Thanks!

Click here for the original OP:

Spoiler!

Apparently the CoronaVirus can survive on a inanimate objects, such as door knobs, for 9 days.

California coronavirus case could be first spread within U.S. community, CDC says
By SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA, JACLYN COSGROVE
FEB. 26, 2020 8:04 PM

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating what could be the first case of novel coronavirus in the United States involving a patient in California who neither recently traveled out of the country nor was in contact with someone who did.

“At this time, the patient’s exposure is unknown. It’s possible this could be an instance of community spread of COVID-19, which would be the first time this has happened in the United States,” the CDC said in a statement. “Community spread means spread of an illness for which the source of infection is unknown. It’s also possible, however, that the patient may have been exposed to a returned traveler who was infected.”

The individual is a resident of Solano County and is receiving medical care in Sacramento County, according to the state Department of Public Health.

The CDC said the “case was detected through the U.S. public health system — picked up by astute clinicians.”

Officials at UC Davis Medical Center expanded on what the federal agency might have meant by that in an email sent Wednesday, as reported by the Davis Enterprise newspaper.

The patient arrived at UC Davis Medical Center from another hospital Feb. 19 and “had already been intubated, was on a ventilator, and given droplet protection orders because of an undiagnosed and suspected viral condition,” according to an email sent by UC Davis officials that was obtained by the Davis Enterprise.

The staff at UC Davis requested COVID-19 testing by the CDC, but because the patient didn’t fit the CDC’s existing criteria for the virus, a test wasn’t immediately administered, according to the email. The CDC then ordered the test Sunday, and results were announced Wednesday. Hospital administrators reportedly said in the email that despite these issues, there has been minimal exposure at the hospital because of safety protocols they have in place.

A UC Davis Health spokesperson declined Wednesday evening to share the email with The Times.

Since Feb. 2, more than 8,400 returning travelers from China have entered California, according to the state health department. They have been advised to self-quarantine for 14 days and limit interactions with others as much as possible, officials said.

“This is a new virus, and while we are still learning about it, there is a lot we already know,” Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “We have been anticipating the potential for such a case in the U.S., and given our close familial, social and business relationships with China, it is not unexpected that the first case in the U.S. would be in California.”

It is not clear how the person became infected, but public health workers could not identify any contacts with people who had traveled to China or other areas where the virus is widespread. That raises concern that the virus is spreading in the United States, creating a challenge for public health officials, experts say.

“It’s the first signal that we could be having silent transmission in the community,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. “It probably means there are many more cases out there, and it probably means this individual has infected others, and now it’s a race to try to find out who that person has infected.”

On Tuesday, the CDC offered its most serious warning to date that the United States should expect and prepare for the coronavirus to become a more widespread health issue.

“Ultimately, we expect we will see coronavirus spread in this country,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “It’s not so much a question of if, but a question of when.”

According to the CDC’s latest count Wednesday morning, 59 U.S. residents have tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus — 42 of whom are repatriated citizens from a Diamond Princess cruise. That number has grown by two since Messonnier’s last count Tuesday, although the CDC was not immediately available to offer details on the additional cases.

More than 82,000 cases of coronavirus have been reported globally, and more than 2,700 people have died, with the majority in mainland China, the epicenter of the outbreak.

But public health leaders have repeatedly reminded residents that the health risk from the novel coronavirus to the general public remains low.

“While COVID-19 has a high transmission rate, it has a low mortality rate,” the state Department of Public Health said in a statement Wednesday. “From the international data we have, of those who have tested positive for COVID-19, approximately 80% do not exhibit symptoms that would require hospitalization. There have been no confirmed deaths related to COVID-19 in the United States to date.”

CDC officials have also warned that although the virus is likely to spread in U.S. communities, the flu still poses a greater risk.

Gostin said the news of potential silent transmission does not eliminate the possibility of containing the virus in the U.S. and preventing an outbreak.

“There are few enough cases that we should at least try,” he said. “Most of us are not optimistic that that will be successful, but we’re still in the position to try.”

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by O.city

The Swedish one seems to be the best setup I can find so far.

They all have issues. I know that people are dying for information, but going to the press with pre-prints is malpractice right now. It's leading to people without scientific knowledge drawing uninformed conclusions regarding a situation that is still highly uncertain.

The Swedish blood donor study I saw was 100 people. Unless we're talking about different studies, that sample is far too low to draw conclusions from.

There is still a lot we don't know and although infections are plateauing, we haven't descended the peak. We need to take this time to learn and let the infection rate continue to drop, not throw more kindling on the fire.

[RollChiefsRoll]

Originally Posted by Mecca

At Tuesday's Orange County Board of County Commissioners meeting, a #WWE employee named "John" submitted public comment they're being "forced to work" TV tapings despite stay at home orders. Says he's unable to speak out and feels he will be fired if he approaches his higher-ups. pic.twitter.com/UJTvX1RGc7

— Jon Alba (@JonAlba) April 21, 2020

To add to this, though, "John" said that despite the sanitation standards, there are no social distancing guidelines at shows even before they step into the ring so he's asking the government to shut down the tapings so they can adhere to stay-at-home orders.


This is such a great look there WWE.

Cena off the top rope!

[petegz28]

NY's initial report is at 481 for new deaths. They did do two reports yesterday that took them to 631 total. This is the I think the 3rd bit at least the 2nd day in a row where their initial report for new deaths was under 500.

You can spin this any way you wish but the bottom line is the numbers are significantly lower than they were last week and it appears to be continuing to go down.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

They all have issues. I know that people are dying for information, but going to the press with pre-prints is malpractice right now. It's leading to people without scientific knowledge drawing uninformed conclusions regarding a situation that is still highly uncertain.

The Swedish blood donor study I saw was 100 people. Unless we're talking about different studies, that sample is far too low to draw conclusions from.

There is still a lot we don't know and although infections are plateauing, we haven't descended the peak. We need to take this time to learn and let the infection rate continue to drop, not throw more kindling on the fire.

Problem I see is we don't really know if they're peaking. It's all a damn circus.

Even if you wait for it to go down, it's likely to ramp up again.

I may be confusing the studies as I thought it was a much larger sample size.

[dirk digler]

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.16.20065920v1


Outcomes of hydroxychloroquine usage in United States veterans hospitalized with Covid-19

Abstract BACKGROUND: Despite limited and conflicting data on the use of hydroxychloroquine in patients with Covid-19, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized the emergency use of this drug when clinical trials are unavailable or infeasible. Hydroxychloroquine, alone or in combination with azithromycin, is being widely used in Covid-19 therapy based on anecdotal and limited observational evidence.

METHODS: We performed a retrospective analysis of data from patients hospitalized with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection in all United States Veterans Health Administration medical centers until April 11, 2020. Patients were categorized based on their exposure to hydroxychloroquine alone (HC) or with azithromycin (HC+AZ) as treatments in addition to standard supportive management for Covid-19. The two primary outcomes were death and the need for mechanical ventilation. We determined the association between treatment and the primary outcomes using competing risk hazard regression adjusting for clinical characteristics via propensity scores. Discharge and death were taken into account as competing risks and subdistribution hazard ratios are presented.

RESULTS: A total of 368 patients were evaluated (HC, n=97; HC+AZ, n=113; no HC, n=158). Rates of death in the HC, HC+AZ, and no HC groups were 27.8%, 22.1%, 11.4%, respectively. Rates of ventilation in the HC, HC+AZ, and no HC groups were 13.3%, 6.9%, 14.1%, respectively. Compared to the no HC group, the risk of death from any cause was higher in the HC group (adjusted hazard ratio, 2.61; 95% CI, 1.10 to 6.17; P=0.03) but not in the HC+AZ group (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.14; 95% CI, 0.56 to 2.32; P=0.72). The risk of ventilation was similar in the HC group (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.43; 95% CI, 0.53 to 3.79; P=0.48) and in the HC+AZ group (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.16 to 1.12; P=0.09), compared to the no HC group.

CONCLUSIONS: In this study, we found no evidence that use of hydroxychloroquine, either with or without azithromycin, reduced the risk of mechanical ventilation in patients hospitalized with Covid-19. An association of increased overall mortality was identified in patients treated with hydroxychloroquine alone. These findings highlight the importance of awaiting the results of ongoing prospective, randomized, controlled studies before widespread adoption of these drugs.

[tk13]

Originally Posted by KCChiefsFan88

So you are denying that the #of daily cases in Georgia has leveled off?

You would be incorrect if yes.

You might want to check your facts before continuing to babble on without evidence to support your claims.

Link: https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-daily-status-report

Where do I say that? That's what people who are losing an argument do, they change the subject. I never, ever said any such thing. You just changed the focus of the argument.

You were praising Georgia as a state who basically wasn't having any issues even though they were late on a stay-at-home order. I corrected you and mentioned that there's a place in Georgia that's one of the biggest hotspots in America. And frankly for a large portion of this time the state has been at or near the top 10 in cases. Hardly an example of an area who is hitting it out of the park right now.

And even on top of that, in the very article you posted, they had 2 of their top 3 days of cases last week. It's not like they had this under control. It's not growing exponentially, but there's a lot of places where that is happening, which I've said multiple times. It's not growing exponentially in this country at the rate it could, because a lot of people are doing a decent job of staying apart. Which is great. If you think this magically isn't going to spread more if people start interacting in public a lot, be my guest.

[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by BWillie

We have 800,000 TOTAL cases. There are still 684,000 cases that haven't concluded yet resulting in EITHER a death or a recovery. There are 43,177 deaths. 72,561 recoveries. Deaths + Recoveries of cases with a result = 115,738. We know that the total cases reported are mostly the significant and more severe cases, so the CFR is much lower than this BUT of reported cases the death rate is 43,177 deaths / 115,738 total cases w/ a result = 37%. (The world rate is 21% of reported cases. Being that we are one of the obese nations of the world with many citizens with comorbidities this makes total sense. Being that we rarely test asymptomatic people & those who are younger experiencing mild symptoms, again this makes total sense)

Since we have 684,000 active cases, if we assume a constant death rate of those cases of 37% that is 255,171 That is probably high and worst case scenario. But even if we assume that at most HALF of the 684,000 active cases will recover (or have recovered and just aren't reported which is a HUUUGE stretch) then that gives us 342,000 active cases. Even if the death rate DECLINES to even 15% (which mind you is way below our current of 37% and 21% world death rate of REPORTED more significant cases) then that puts us at 51,300 more deaths.

This is the bare, bare minimum and best, best case scenario you could EVER hope for with these numbers and that is about 95k deaths. This doesn't take into account ANY new cases being reported. And the assumption that nobody ever gets Covid-19 ever again, and that nobody at home as Covid-19 currently. Which clearly will not be the case. We ALSO know that alot of deaths are slow to report so there are likely many deaths that have occurred that haven't even been reported yet.

With that data we can easily conclude we will eclipse 100k deaths very, very easily. And within the next 45 days even.

Your numbers are simply way off on the high end on every single speculation. You are using numbers we know right now aren't true like your ridiculous death rate. CFR in known cases is 3-8%. At the high end that predicts 64K deaths and we know its not going to be 8% when this is over.

[tk13]

Originally Posted by petegz28

NY's initial report is at 481 for new deaths. They did do two reports yesterday that took them to 631 total. This is the I think the 3rd bit at least the 2nd day in a row where their initial report for new deaths was under 500.

You can spin this any way you wish but the bottom line is the numbers are significantly lower than they were last week and it appears to be continuing to go down.

I don't know who here is spinning anything. You're creating a problem that doesn't exist. Most people think the curve is being flattened and it has been going in the right direction. The only question I generally see people raising is whether it's a good idea to open things up, or wait a few weeks for things to go down at a more significant level before pulling the trigger.

[FD]

Originally Posted by dirk digler

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.16.20065920v1


Outcomes of hydroxychloroquine usage in United States veterans hospitalized with Covid-19

Seems like every new study that comes out just makes hydroxychloroquine look worse and worse. Remdesivir on the other hand...

[loochy]

The reopening has begun here. I got this email from a local popcicle store:

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by FD

Seems like every new study that comes out just makes hydroxychloroquine look worse and worse. Remdesivir on the other hand...

Yep. I don't think we've really seen anything at all showing that hydroxychloroquine is going to do much. Fingers crossed that the positive signs for remdesivir continue to come in.

[petegz28]

Originally Posted by tk13

I don't know who here is spinning anything. You're creating a problem that doesn't exist. Most people think the curve is being flattened and it has been going in the right direction. The only question I generally see people raising is whether it's a good idea to open things up, or wait a few weeks for things to go down at a more significant level before pulling the trigger.

Right....

[dirk digler]

Originally Posted by FD

Seems like every new study that comes out just makes hydroxychloroquine look worse and worse. Remdesivir on the other hand...

So far that sounds correct. From my understanding NY sent their data\testing results off to the government last week so we should know the results soon.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by tk13

Where do I say that? That's what people who are losing an argument do, they change the subject. I never, ever said any such thing. You just changed the focus of the argument.

That's his M.O. He spews a bunch of false horseshit then when confronted, will change the subject or parameters.

Don't waste your time addressing him.

[FloridaMan88]

Originally Posted by tk13

Where do I say that? That's what people who are losing an argument do, they change the subject. I never, ever said any such thing. You just changed the focus of the argument.

You were praising Georgia as a state who basically wasn't having any issues even though they were late on a stay-at-home order. I corrected you and mentioned that there's a place in Georgia that's one of the biggest hotspots in America. And frankly for a large portion of this time the state has been at or near the top 10 in cases. Hardly an example of an area who is hitting it out of the park right now.

And even on top of that, in the very article you posted, they had 2 of their top 3 days of cases last week. It's not like they had this under control. It's not growing exponentially, but there's a lot of places where that is happening, which I've said multiple times. It's not growing exponentially in this country at the rate it could, because a lot of people are doing a decent job of staying apart. Which is great. If you think this magically isn't going to spread more if people start interacting in public a lot, be my guest.

The two main supposed justifications for social distancing are to stop the exponential growth in hospitalizations from COVID-19 and to preserve the capacity of hospitals.

Georgia has successfully achieved both of those objectives.

So has the state of Florida... another state that received criticism for the timing of its shelter in place order.