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

[bdutton]

Results of the first ultraviolet light suppository on this test subject look promising.

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by bdutton

[Figster]

Speaking of rays,

 

https://radiationoncology.emory.edu/news/featured/low-dose-chest-radiation-for-covid19-patients.html

 

 Could radiation help unlock some of the mysteries to Covid 19?

 

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by Figster

[OldTimeAFLGuy]

6 hours ago, Figster said:

Thanks AFL, 

 

This helps illustrate the older age group we are talking about that has been hospitalized. 

 

 To be clear while 25% of the population may smoke. A smaller percentage of the ages 60 on up will be smokers. ( Approx. 5 % )

 

Eventually more information/accurate numbers will become available to the general public of how pre-existing condition may have played a role in Covid 19 fatalities. It would not surprise me if there was an indication that smokers who have quit after smoking for many years were at greater risk from Covid 19 then non smokers. 

 

....just found out two of my cousins have Covid-19....both are around 70 and both reside in nursing homes......one is in VA and in good health other than Alzheimers.....tested positive but has been asymptomatic for 7 days so far....the other is in Rochester, but she is in terrible health with COPD (HEAVY smoker), diabetes as well as severe obesity.....got the info second hand but apparently she was sent to ICU, somehow recovered and was returned to nursing home......and apparently contracted it again (?) resulting in a second trip to ICU with doctor's telling her brother 20% chance of survival (she stuck to DNR and refused ventilator).....supposed to be discharged on Monday............

[Hapless Bills Fan]

5 hours ago, Figster said:

Thanks AFL, 

 

This helps illustrate the older age group we are talking about that has been hospitalized. 

 

 To be clear while 25% of the population may smoke. A smaller percentage of the ages 60 on up will be smokers. ( Approx. 5 % )

 

Eventually more information/accurate numbers will become available to the general public of how pre-existing condition may have played a role in Covid 19 fatalities. It would not surprise me if there was an indication that smokers who have quit after smoking for many years were at greater risk from Covid 19 then non smokers. 

 

So to this point.....CDC has come out with some data on covid-19 hospitalizations from Mar 1 - Mar 28 (a lot of data from April not yet included).  Their network is based on the

pre-existing flu surveillance network and involves "population-based surveillance for laboratory-confirmed COVID-19–associated hospitalizations among persons of all ages in 99 counties in 14 states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, and Utah)"  - please note that 99 counties is far from the entire state.  But it's still data)

 

The dataset seems to be 1,482 patients (small fraction of all hospitalized)

 

* 74.5% of those hospitalized were >50 (thus 25.5% of those hospitalized must have been <50). 

* Data for 180 hospitalized adults (small # of small fraction) showed 89.3% had one or more underlying conditions

*"The most commonly reported were hypertension (49.7%), obesity (48.3%), chronic lung disease (34.6%), diabetes mellitus (28.3%), and cardiovascular disease (27.8%)."

 

Chronic lung disease is a lump-all that includes asthma, COPD, and 3-4 other broad categories (each with many sub-categories), but smoking is a common underlying cause of COPD - even if the person no longer smokes.

 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

Just now, OldTimeAFLGuy said:

 

....just found out two of my cousins have Covid-19....both are around 70 and both reside in nursing homes......one is in VA and in good health other than Alzheimers.....tested positive but has been asymptomatic for 7 days so far....the other is in Rochester, but she is in terrible health with COPD (HEAVY smoker), diabetes as well as severe obesity.....got the info second hand but apparently she was sent to ICU, somehow recovered and was returned to nursing home......and apparently contracted it again (?) resulting in a second trip to ICU with doctor's telling her brother 20% chance of survival (she stuck to DNR and refused ventilator).....supposed to be discharged on Monday............

 

I'm glad to hear one of your cousins is OK and the other due to be discharged...she must be a tough tough lady.

 

...it seems to be a pattern that covid-19 may be a two part illness.  The first part is flu-like with fever, aches, cough, chills, fatigue...the person seems to recover.  Then the second part hits, involving bilateral interstitial pneumonia, hypoxia, and all the complications and damage to other organs.  The second phase may be immune related (cytokine storm).

[OldTimeAFLGuy]

24 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

I'm glad to hear one of your cousins is OK and the other due to be discharged...she must be a tough tough lady.

 

...it seems to be a pattern that covid-19 may be a two part illness.  The first part is flu-like with fever, aches, cough, chills, fatigue...the person seems to recover.  Then the second part hits, involving bilateral interstitial pneumonia, hypoxia, and all the complications and damage to other organs.  The second phase may be immune related (cytokine storm).

 

...so then it IS possible Hap to get it a second time?......or is it more reasonable to think she was possibly released too early and returned to the nursing home population?.....I would think with all of her longstanding health ailments that her immune system would not be up to the fight for "round 2", which is why I said I was getting info second hand....

[Hapless Bills Fan]

3 minutes ago, OldTimeAFLGuy said:

 

...so then it IS possible Hap to get it a second time?......or is it more reasonable to think she was possibly released too early and returned to the nursing home population?.....I would think with all of her longstanding health ailments that her immune system would not be up to the fight for "round 2", which is why I said I was getting info second hand....

 

I don't think it's likely to get covid-19 a second time, though it can't be ruled out.  But in cases where there's evidence someone had cleared the virus.. someone tested negative 2x 24 hrs apart, as in S. Korea...the reported second symptoms have been very mild, and possibly due to something else (seasonal allergies say)

 

I think most likely your cousin was released too early without testing for having cleared the virus (not being done here AFAIK) or for possible cytokine storm, then relapsed.

[OldTimeAFLGuy]

4 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

I don't think it's likely to get covid-19 a second time, though it can't be ruled out.  But in cases where there's evidence someone had cleared the virus.. someone tested negative 2x 24 hrs apart, as in S. Korea...the reported second symptoms have been very mild, and possibly due to something else (seasonal allergies say)

 

I think most likely your cousin was released too early without testing for having cleared the virus (not being done here AFAIK) or for possible cytokine storm, then relapsed.

 

...appreciate your insight and agree....thank you..........

[Justin C]

Quote

 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is confident that January is a realistic deadline for a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine to become widely available, if "things fall into place."

 

Speaking to Today's Savannah Guthrie on Thursday morning, Fauci said he was part of the team at the White House that was developing the vaccine plan. A Phase I trial is underway for a potential vaccine and the next step would be to do a Phase II trial to determine if it works and is safe.

If the vaccine proves to be a viable option in the Phase I trial, the administration won't wait for results from the Phase II trial to start producing the vaccine, according to Fauci.

 

"You don't wait until you get an answer to start manufacturing," Fauci told Guthrie. "You, at risk, proactively start making it assuming it's going to work and if it does then you can scale up."

By ramping up production "at risk," if the results are positive from the Phase II trial, it'll mean a quick roll out to the general public because the supplies are already in place.

While a January 2021 timeline may seem shocking for people who kept hearing "12 to 18 months," Fauci noted that when he first started giving that timeline, it was back in January and February. So, it isn't all that different from his original statements, but he added it's "aspirational."

Governors in Illinois and California floated the idea that mass gatherings could be canceled until a vaccine is available and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the crisis won't be over until people can be inoculated. Even if officials lift restrictions before a vaccine is ready, business leaders are concerned that consumers won't fully return until they can be protected against the new coronavirus.

 

"Of course we worry about it," Chris Narsetta, president and CEO of Hilton, said during a Wednesday roundtable at the White House.

 

President Donald Trump acknowledged that vaccines haven't been created for every virus, but said "a lot of progress" was being made with the one for SARS-CoV-2. Although he thinks America will be successful with a new coronavirus vaccine, he wouldn't wait for that to reopen restaurants and stadiums at 100 percent capacity.

As of Friday morning, 1,040,488 people in America have been confirmed to have the virus, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. Of those people, 60, 999 people have died and with encouraging results from a trial for a treatment drug, called a therapeutic, Trump said he might prefer treatment over a vaccine.

"If you gave me both, I'd rather have the [therapeutic] because that makes people better right now," Trump said on Wednesday. "Whether it's helping them along or makes them better almost instantly, we have to see."

It's likely a therapeutic will be on the market before a vaccine because when you're dealing with people who are already ill, the safety issues are "much, much different," according to Fauci. Plus, you can tell if the drug is working "almost immediately," whereas determining the efficacy of a vaccine requires additional research.

The vaccine's in the third phase of the Phase 1 study and Phase II will start in the summer, which will involve hundreds of people, according to Fauci.

 

 

Fauci is normally hesitant about being overly optimistic or putting dates on stuff. So you have to like that he's talking about dates.

 

Link to the article: https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-says-coronavirus-vaccine-could-widely-available-january-if-things-fall-right-place-1501210

[muppy]

I'll just leave this right here..

[Figster]

5 hours ago, OldTimeAFLGuy said:

 

....just found out two of my cousins have Covid-19....both are around 70 and both reside in nursing homes......one is in VA and in good health other than Alzheimers.....tested positive but has been asymptomatic for 7 days so far....the other is in Rochester, but she is in terrible health with COPD (HEAVY smoker), diabetes as well as severe obesity.....got the info second hand but apparently she was sent to ICU, somehow recovered and was returned to nursing home......and apparently contracted it again (?) resulting in a second trip to ICU with doctor's telling her brother 20% chance of survival (she stuck to DNR and refused ventilator).....supposed to be discharged on Monday............

Yikes, returning your cousin to the nursing home before she was recovered from Covid 19 was not good. 

 

Do you happen to know how big the outbreak was in the nursing home?  I almost hate to ask.

 

...thats one brave lady... your cousin in Rochester...

 

...I hope the one in VA has a safe recovery...

Edited May 1, 2020 by Figster

[UConn James]

https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab-millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741
 

“SARS-CoV-2 , the virus now causing a global pandemic, is believed to have originated in bats. U.S. intelligence, after originally asserting that the coronavirus had occurred naturally, conceded last month that the pandemic may have originated in a leak from the Wuhan lab.

...

The work in question was a type of gain-of-function research that involved taking wild viruses and passing them through live animals until they mutate into a form that could pose a pandemic threat. Scientists used it to take a virus that was poorly transmitted among humans and make it into one that was highly transmissible—a hallmark of a pandemic virus. This work was done by infecting a series of ferrets, allowing the virus to mutate until a ferret that hadn't been deliberately infected contracted the disease.“

 

Gain-of-function... bio-weapon manufacturing... what’s the difference?

[Augie]

5 hours ago, OldTimeAFLGuy said:

 

....just found out two of my cousins have Covid-19....both are around 70 and both reside in nursing homes......one is in VA and in good health other than Alzheimers.....tested positive but has been asymptomatic for 7 days so far....the other is in Rochester, but she is in terrible health with COPD (HEAVY smoker), diabetes as well as severe obesity.....got the info second hand but apparently she was sent to ICU, somehow recovered and was returned to nursing home......and apparently contracted it again (?) resulting in a second trip to ICU with doctor's telling her brother 20% chance of survival (she stuck to DNR and refused ventilator).....supposed to be discharged on Monday............

 

My 92 year old mother lives in a retirement place 9 miles from us. She keeps mentioning that she does not want us to offer to bring her to our house until this passes (despite our never offering, so I wonder). She also mentions that her friend moved to her kids place until this passes. 

 

All of our bedrooms are upstairs, and the last time she stayed here my sister was visiting and shared a Jack and Jill bath and found mom on the floor next to the toilet in the middle of the night. 

 

I’m not sure if she’s better off in a place that is pretty well locked down or taking the risk of less handicap-cap friendly housing with us, who routinely leave the house for required activities. She would have stairs daily, and lack the familiar situation she can handle, even at her age, somewhat without thinking. This sucks, but it too shall pass.  

 

Best of luck to you and your family! 

[Nervous Guy]

7 hours ago, UConn James said:

https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab-millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741
 

 

Gain-of-function... bio-weapon manufacturing... what’s the difference?

If this is what happened, that's really ***** up.

[OldTimeAFLGuy]

8 hours ago, Figster said:

Yikes, returning your cousin to the nursing home before she was recovered from Covid 19 was not good. 

 

Do you happen to know how big the outbreak was in the nursing home?  I almost hate to ask.

 

...thats one brave lady... your cousin in Rochester...

 

...I hope the one in VA has a safe recovery...

 

...25 cases with 8 deaths at last report (4/20) for the one in Rochester..........

[billsfanmiami(oh)]

1 hour ago, Nervous Guy said:

If this is what happened, that's really ***** up.

I’ve been saying from the beginning there’s some kind of human element to this whole thing. 

[K-9]

10 hours ago, UConn James said:

https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab-millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741
 

 

Gain-of-function... bio-weapon manufacturing... what’s the difference?

Well for starters, gain-of-function research is performed to gain insight into the creation of vaccines and therapeutic defenses against viruses in order to mitigate a potential pandemic and SAVE LIVES whereas bio-weapons are manufactured for the sole purpose of killing people. NIH and other research labs around the world have conducted this type of research for years. It’s a risky proposition, regardless, as the safeguards are only as strong as the least competent link in the chain. It’s easy to see why scientists have warned about it and called for it to be stopped. 

[Sundancer]

What we are seeing on fatalities in the US is probably a result of our larger country and areas hitting peaks at different times. Where Italy and Spain hit their peaks and dropped off in similar ways, the US remains at its peak deaths/day steadily almost all month, including yesterday. NY has dropped off but NJ is still hitting its daily death highs and so are MA and PA. I am not sure if that means that other states will peak even later than these or if this will finally drop in the coming weeks. It's hard to say what relaxing the lockdown without testing/tracking in place will do to the numbers. 

 

 

If we are heading to a gradual drop off like Italy (see chart below) with a month of more of 1000-1500 deaths per day into June, we will cross the 100K deaths before Independence Day easily. That will be tough to accept. 

 

[Figster]

13 hours ago, Augie said:

 

My 92 year old mother lives in a retirement place 9 miles from us. She keeps mentioning that she does not want us to offer to bring her to our house until this passes (despite our never offering, so I wonder). She also mentions that her friend moved to her kids place until this passes. 

 

All of our bedrooms are upstairs, and the last time she stayed here my sister was visiting and shared a Jack and Jill bath and found mom on the floor next to the toilet in the middle of the night. 

 

I’m not sure if she’s better off in a place that is pretty well locked down or taking the risk of less handicap-cap friendly housing with us, who routinely leave the house for required activities. She would have stairs daily, and lack the familiar situation she can handle, even at her age, somewhat without thinking. This sucks, but it too shall pass.  

 

Best of luck to you and your family! 

Sounds like this is tugging at your heart.

 

Perhaps you should open up a dialogue with your mom and other members of the household.  Stair lift is always an option. Sometimes a downstairs room can be partitioned off and changed over into a bedroom. I see this problem allot in houses with all the bedrooms and only one bath on the upstairs. Stairs can become an obstacle/ safety hazard for the elderly and handicapped. Many people develop knee problems as they get older. There are also portable ways of using the bathroom.

 

92 year old moms are hard to come by... 

Edited May 1, 2020 by Figster

[Augie]

5 minutes ago, Figster said:

Sounds like this is tugging at your heart.

 

Perhaps you should open up a dialogue with your mom and other members of the household.  Stair lift is always an option. Sometimes a downstairs room can be partitioned off and changed over into a bedroom. I see this problem allot in houses with all the bedrooms and only one bath on the upstairs. Stairs can become an obstacle/ safety hazard for the elderly and handicapped. Many people develop knee problems as they get older. There are also portable ways of using the bathroom.

 

92 year old moms are hard to come by... 

 

There’s no way to “create” a bedroom on the first floor unfortunately, and there’s only a half bath downstairs. Where she lives she has a walk in shower (not a challenging and dangerous tub), and pull cords in the bathroom and elsewhere in the unit so in case she falls she can pull/call for help. There are also hand rails where she needs them mounted on the walls. It is designed for people with her needs. 

 

We have been looking at houses with a master bedroom on the first floor, and hopefully a guest bedroom. They are strangely hard to find, but to be in the area we need to be, land is pretty expensive (relatively speaking, of course) so they build up instead of out. 

 

I’m very impressed with how her retirement home has handled precautions to date. If they start having virus cases popping up, we will have to reconsider. The safer housing option is at my niece’s up the road from my mom. They have a one story ranch but not sure if they have a walk-in shower.  These are decisions I hope we don’t have to make, for so many reasons.