***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.”

[TinyEvel]

My friend got Covid in early February (he’s a tall healthy 48 year old cyclist) and was admitted to UCLA ICU February 14th. Two days later he was intubated and out under forced sedation and immobilized (basically a coma) for 20 days while medical teams worked in ways to keep his oxygen levels up and fevers down. Ultimately he was given a tracheotomy.
Every day his wife would post updates.
Nobody should have to go through what that family has gone through.
After 20 days they revived him and a week later he’s about to get the trach tube out. He is re-learning how to walk and eat and use his hands.
Here is an update he posted today...

Covid feels like a lot of things. It feels like pressure on your chest. It feels like a fever ripping down your spine. Mostly, though, it feels like drowning. As if you’re drowning yourself from the inside.

The moment I started to understand what it was to have Covid was when my lungs started to fill with fluid. Phlegm, it looks like me. Secretions, the doctors call it. Covid attacks the linings of your lungs, and they respond by secreting mucus to protect themselves. That’s what overwhelms you.

It’s not drowning as if you’ve fallen overboard in a storm. It’s drowning as if you’re tied to the ocean floor and the tide is rising. You feel a tickle at the bottom, and you ignore it. It’s a long way from the surface. It starts to rise and you notice it when you breathe, a little ragged catch. It’s halfway up and you’re actively fighting against it. Then it’s at the top and there’s only a fistful of air left, and there’s no way to swim away.

My recovery time has been a fight against that tide in my chest. I was always aware of its climb, listening to every gurgle. Feeling the pressure in my chest increase. As soon as I could hold it, they gave me a suction tube, and it never left my hand. Every time I coughed something up, I would suction it out. At first it was mostly red, then odd colors, then finally clear.

I realized that I was thinking of my lungs in two halves. The top half, the top that was getting secretions to my mouth and out of my body, belonged to me. The bottom half belonged to someone else, unnamed. And they were not doing their job. I learned how to shape my coughs so that they reached higher, so I could clear more.

The respiratory techs would come in to give me treatments—the IPV treatment that shakes your chest like a jackhammer to loosen phlegm, a nebulizer to open up the airways. But the most important was their suction. Unlike me, who was limited to suctioning the mouth, the RTs could put a suction tube right into my tracheotomy and reach down in my lungs, to do the job of the people who had skipped out on their responsibilities.

They’d place a long red rubber catheter on the end of the suction tube, coil it around their wrist as it hissed like a snake. Then they’d feed it in until I could feel it and I was forced to cough. The catheter would slurp it up. I had been afraid of coughing the night blood sprayed out of my trachea tube, but I became an expert on coughing as hard as I could, as long as I could. I became an expert at breathing and listening to my lungs and knowing exactly how much was left, how many more passes I would need. I’d catch my breath, wipe the tears from my eyes, and nod at the RT. “Do it again,” I’d say.

The last two days, my lungs have been empty. The only time I have to clear my lungs is when I drink liquid that is too thin, too fast. But I still listen for the raggedness at the edge of my breath.

The second night after I woke up for good, Sunny talked them into finally giving me my sleep meds again, and I had my first true sleep since coming to the hospital. It didn’t last long. I woke in the darkness, but lay there in twilight for hours. I listened to my breathing. I was aware of the secretions but they didn’t alarm me this time. My lungs had weight. It was as if they had wrapped themselves around my heart for protection. Each breath traveled through the fluid like waves.

I thought maybe I had the secretions wrong. I thought of the movie The Abyss, where they use a pink goo to breathe underwater. It fills your lungs and oxygenates you. You just have to swallow it in, let it fill your lungs. You have to fight past the panic because you know it will work. Maybe these secretions were like that, I thought.

Then I woke up for real, and suctioned my mouth. These secretions were pink, too. But that was from the blood.

[Bowser]

I find it insane how random this thing is. I have work acquaintances that are morbidly obese and completely without any semblance of athleticism that have come down with it and had symptoms nothing more than a mild cold, while your cycling friend is in an induced coma and on death's doorstep. None of this makes sense.

Hope your friend makes a complete recovery.

[DaFace]

My parents and my wife all got their second shots late last week. My mom was pretty much laid out for a full day. My wife felt fine at first but couldn't sleep last night as she went between chills and sweats. My dad said he felt like nothing happened. Just weird how variable the side effects are.

And of course that's nothing compared to the disease itself as Bowser pointed out.

Thoughts with your friend, TE. Hope he continues to recover.

[suzzer99]

I’ve heard a few anecdotes of marathon runners and other heavy exercisers getting hit hard. Marathon running does thing to the heart that resemble myocarditis. I wonder if hardcore athletes aren’t more at risk.

[louie aguiar]

Originally Posted by Bowser

I find it insane how random this thing is. I have work acquaintances that are morbidly obese and completely without any semblance of athleticism that have come down with it and had symptoms nothing more than a mild cold, while your cycling friend is in an induced coma and on death's doorstep. None of this makes sense.

Hope your friend makes a complete recovery.

It is very odd. My wife’s 95 year old grandma got Covid and had very mild symptoms. The only reason she knew she had it is because of the weekly testing at the home she stays at.

[Monticore]

Originally Posted by Bowser

I find it insane how random this thing is. I have work acquaintances that are morbidly obese and completely without any semblance of athleticism that have come down with it and had symptoms nothing more than a mild cold, while your cycling friend is in an induced coma and on death's doorstep. None of this makes sense.

Hope your friend makes a complete recovery.

Yeah it’s done some weird things and that’s why it was so incredibly difficult to treat and come up with a plan to protect people without being heavy handed , 30 year old body builders spending 2 weeks on a vent , then You see a 70 year old smoker with renal failure and bilateral pneumonia’s without even a cough or any symptoms.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Monticore

Yeah it’s done some weird things and that’s why it was so incredibly difficult to treat and coke up with a plan to protect people without being heavy handed , 30 year old body builders spending 2 weeks on a vent , then You see a 70 year old smoker with renal failure and bilateral pneumonia’s without even a cough or any symptoms.

I remember reading at some point a theory that it was related to the viral load that one was exposed to. If you got a small initial virus by picking up restaurant food from someone who was contagious, you tended to get a light case. But if you were at a party hanging out in a room with a contagious person for hours, you tended to get a worse case. I read that a while back, so I don't know if it's been proven or disproven.

[Monticore]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I remember reading at some point a theory that it was related to the viral load that one was exposed to. If you got a small initial virus by picking up restaurant food from someone who was contagious, you tended to get a light case. But if you were at a party hanging out in a room with a contagious person for hours, you tended to get a worse case. I read that a while back, so I don't know if it's been proven or disproven.

I am not sure We have seen people from the same household where the more fit person got hit worse.

[RedRaider56]

Originally Posted by TLO

What medication if I may ask?

Prednisone, which is a steroid.

[TLO]

Yesterday was my birthday and I felt so optimistic compared to last year around this time. The weather has been in the 70's, people around the neighborhood were outside BBQing, someone even shot off a few fireworks after sun down.

[BigCatDaddy]

Originally Posted by TLO

Yesterday was my birthday and I felt so optimistic compared to last year around this time. The weather has been in the 70's, people around the neighborhood were outside BBQing, someone even shot off a few fireworks after sun down.

Pretty sure those were gun shots coming from US Oil.

[loochy]

Originally Posted by Monticore

Yeah it’s done some weird things and that’s why it was so incredibly difficult to treat and come up with a plan to protect people without being heavy handed , 30 year old body builders spending 2 weeks on a vent , then You see a 70 year old smoker with renal failure and bilateral pneumonia’s without even a cough or any symptoms.

Well bodybuilder is a bad example...if you know anything about bodybuilding you know that it is one of the most unhealthy things out there.

[mlyonsd]

90 year old dad got his second Moderna shot Saturday. No side effects as of this morning.

[O.city]

Interesting observation about this thing I read this morning. As the spike protein mutates, it's likely to have less affinity for binding to the ACE2 receptor. They're also thinking that there isn't much more mutations to come on the spike protein as it's a pretty basic amino sequence.

[Monticore]

Originally Posted by loochy

Well bodybuilder is a bad example...if you know anything about bodybuilding you know that it is one of the most unhealthy things out there.

not sure he was an actual bodybuilder he just looked really fit lol.