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

[Augie]

9 minutes ago, Joe in Winslow said:

Your opinions....Higher number:

 

People killed by COVID or people bankrupted by the actions taken to prevent the COVID spread?

 

 

The financial ramifications are going to be ENORMOUS. Future daughter- in-law had the big meeting at her major hotel today. Out of approximately 600 people she was one of only 40 who still has a job tomorrow. Instead of relieved she’s extremely upset. (That says something very nice about her.) Lives come first, but this is some very serious stuff in so many ways! 

 

I can’t wait until we can look back on this like 9/11 or 2008. Make it just a horrible memory, and learn from it! 

[BillsFan4]

41 minutes ago, Warcodered said:

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001106855/article/nfl-offers-fans-free-access-to-nfl-game-pass?campaign=Twitter_atn

Thanks for sharing!

[Foxx]

3 hours ago, GoBills808 said:

No

 

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/488227-trump-orders-hud-to-suspend-evictions-and-foreclosures

right. thank you for the correction and fact check. 

 

Fannie and Freddie as well.

[Hardhatharry]

49 minutes ago, Warcodered said:

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001106855/article/nfl-offers-fans-free-access-to-nfl-game-pass?campaign=Twitter_atn

[plenzmd1]

2 minutes ago, Hardhatharry said:

If someone can figure the new interface out on Firestik i would be awfully appreciative. Been watching games on the laptop, but cant for the life of me pull up games on the Firestick, which on the old UI was easy peesy

[K-9]

1 hour ago, Sundancer said:

I would like to see statistical compilations in more detail by age that do not include China's numbers in a week. I see glimpses of these now but not tabled. 

 

Anyone who thinks they can draw conclusions from China's numbers, especially their decreasing cases and apply them elsewhere, may not have their thinking hat on straight. 

- We are not China and lockdowns there are not the same as in the west

- China has a very loose relationship with the truth. 15000 to 15 patients does not ring true with what the rest of the world is experiencing.  

 

I’ve been more interested in Italy’s numbers. Our delayed response to this closely mirrors theirs, imo. 

[RaoulDuke79]

All I know is that a few days ago our governor said  only essential business should be open, and it would appear that every business seems themselves essential. 

[CommonCents]

On 3/18/2020 at 6:02 PM, RaoulDuke79 said:

All I know is that a few days ago our governor said  only essential business should be open, and it would appear that every business seems themselves essential. 

Right and it’s crap. We get deliveries from UPS and Fedex drivers who combined are going to an estimated 600 other houses and buisnesses then coming to ours each day. Isn’t that the definition of community transmission? 

 

Maybe im nuts but all these half measures are the wrong approach. If it’s as serious as they are saying then shut ***** down for a month. If it’s not, open the gym so I can workout and then go drink at the bar. 

 

Once they roll out drive though testing and the numbers become more clear panic will strike and governors will then act. 

 

Edited March 21, 2020 by CommonCents

[GoBills808]

Our governor told tourists to stay away from Hawaii today

 

in a state that is 100% dependent on tourism that's a ***** huge move

 

going to hurt and immediately

[CommonCents]

1 minute ago, GoBills808 said:

Our governor told tourists to stay away from Hawaii today

 

in a state that is 100% dependent on tourism that's a ***** huge move

 

going to hurt and immediately

It takes balls to make a tough call. Good on him/her. 

[Warcodered]

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

7 hours ago, BillsFanNC said:

Early on I had read that the problem was with false positives in patient samples which would indicate a problem with primer design that might result in a test that lacked adequate specificity as you suggest.  Later on I had read this article:

 

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615323/why-the-cdc-botched-its-coronavirus-testing/

 

As someone who has done a fair amount of PCR that suggested to me that the kits suffered from a negative control that had been contaminated with target sequence amplicons, something that can happen quite easily if routine PCR guidelines aren't followed.  Without seeing the data we can only guess what the true failure was, but it was indeed a major failure by the CDC no matter how you slice it.

 

Totally agree with the last.  Pro publica is usually pretty durn good at the facts, but so is Tech Review.  It sounds as though there might be more than one problem: it definitely sounds as though they initially tried to design a more complex test that would test for SARS and MERS at the same time and it flubbed.  Of course, they can have contaminated negative controls as well, and it could be the State labs got earlier kits with good controls, then they shipped a contaminated batch.  Like you say, bottom line is major failure.

 

Quote

I agree with the bolded, but my response in terms of IVD validation was based on my experience in dealing with both the CDC and FDA in the past.   Having dealt with them specifically in developing a surveillance test for antiviral resistance, albeit when we weren't in the middle of a global pandemic, still gave me no reason to expect that they would react in a manner or with the appropriate speed that this situation required.

 

I dunno @BillsFanNC.  I was involved a bit with one of the MenB vaccines which got fast tracked at the FDA's request and Holy Hand Grenade, Batman! you wouldn't know it was the same agency.  They can turn it up and turn it on when they're properly motivated.  CDC, got nothin' on the testing side.

 

Quote

With flu the the overall umbrella of surveillance is two pronged, diagnostic results (Flu A/B) are gathered from clinical labs in all states and territories to monitor how much flu is out there and where it is.  These diagnostic data can be collected from rapid tests (both antigen and molecular based) and from traditional PCR.  The rapid molecular and antigen based tests are something we did not have for covid19, although the Roche isothermal PCR test that was granted approval under the EUA should help in this regard.  A smaller subset of samples are tested at public health laboratories for subtype (A/H1N1, A/H3N2, B) and lineage, which as you stated is primarily for identifying circulating strains to assess vaccine efficacy.  And yes, they certainly do ramp up surveillance efforts when a novel strain appears such as in 2009.

 

I think we are largely in agreement here that the CDC/FDA failed on both technical and bureaucratic levels in a big way.  They clearly failed in rolling out enough tests that would have helped in giving an earlier picture on the spread of covid19.  You can be certain that there will be congressional inquiries into this when all is said and done.

 

Yes.  But speaking of the Roche test (and Thermo Fisher), a real ray of hope we might turn the corner on testing!!!!!!

I'll leave it to you to insert the eye roll where appropriate 
https://www.wired.com/story/fda-approves-the-first-commercial-coronavirus-tests-in-the-us/

 

Quote: "Both tests received approval on Friday, less than 24 hours after the companies submitted their applications to the FDA. “This action today shows our agency’s dedication to working around the clock to review and authorize diagnostics during this public health emergency,” FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn said in a statement.

Officials from Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant, say the company has 400,000 tests ready to be shipped and plans to manufacture 400,000 more per week. Medical-device maker Thermo Fisher representatives say they have 1.5 million of their own test available, and a goal of producing 5 million per week by April. Both companies have promised their tests can turn around results in a matter of hours."
 

Of course, we still need benches, equipment, and hands to run them.

 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

3 hours ago, CommonCents said:

Right and it’s crap. I work for a defense contractor they fancy themselves saving the world. We get deliveries from UPS and Fedex drivers who combined are going to an estimated 600 other houses and buisnesses then coming to ours each day. Isn’t that the definition of community transmission? 

 

Maybe im nuts but all these half measures are the wrong approach. If it’s as serious as they are saying then shut ***** down for a month. If it’s not, open the gym so I can workout and then go drink at the bar. 

 

Once they roll out drive though testing and the numbers become more clear panic will strike and governors will then act.

 

I agree, there's a haphazard state-by-state and community-by-community approach now that is the worst of both worlds: too many businesses still open and too much going on to be effective at slowing this thing, but so many businesses already closed and they and their employees bleeding to death from it.  We really need a centralized, coordinated response.

 

I'm afraid we'll see the cases continue to climb exponentially until the hospitals are overwhelmed in the hardest hit areas and screaming about triage, OR we'll see an outbreak in a part of the country that's essentially 3rd-world in its healthcare infrastructure (like W. Va) and a world-worst death rate.

 

Then we'll see a total shutdown and see an epidemiologist put in charge.  But that's just my opinion.

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

8 hours ago, Cripple Creek said:

Gastros are, apparently feeling under appreciated. 

https://www.fox5dc.com/news/gastrointestinal-symptoms-should-be-monitored-amid-coronavirus-outbreak-doctors-say

 

I don't know quite what to make of this.  The statement by this physician that diarrhea preceded the difficulty breathing seems out-of-whack with the rate of reported symptoms in the WHO-CHina  55,000 cases, where overall nausea and vomiting was a symptom in 5% of the cases, and diarrhea in only 3.7%. 

 

 "He says about 50% of the 200 Covid 19 cases studied out of Wuhan had presented diarrhea even before respiratory symptoms showed up." 

 

So it sounds as though perhaps he studied a sub-set of cases involving shortness of breath (18.6%) and found that half of them presented with diarrhea?  So it might presage the most serious cases?  I don't know.  Even there, something's out of whack.

 

I guess the take home point is if you have fever and GI symptoms, covid-19 should not be ruled out as some cases do present that way.

 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

9 hours ago, Cripple Creek said:

Ventilator shortage update:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandrasternlicht/2020/03/18/theres-a-shortage-of-ventilators-for-coronavirus-patients-so-this-international-group-invented-an-open-source-alternative-thats-being-tested-next-week

 

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/17/21184308/coronavirus-italy-medical-company-threatens-sue-3d-print-valves-treatments

 

Those are cool stories.  I have to admit, that as a patient it would not give me confidence to be hooked up to a ventilator that was just 3D printed and had never been use-tested for how long it would hold up and what its failure modes were, but it's pretty damn cool. (it's apparently not true that the medical company threatened to sue; it wouldn't release the design files, but it didn't threaten to sue)

[Hapless Bills Fan]

12 hours ago, Sundancer said:

Economically, it might be. The data from outside of China (where we have limited confidence) will tell how serious this is across wider populations. To get that data, we need...Hapless? 

 

Nothing would be better than if people could say in June that they told you so and this was never going to be a big deal but areas ahead of us in time are showing it's a big deal. 

 

I'm not sure what you're asking me about? If you want to see what's going on all over the world, go here.  The countries where the case fatality rate is low, are the countries that have had a rapid and aggressive response - tested widely and contact traced and quarantined like Singapore, Japan,  Taiwan, S Korea - even though it's got a lot of cases, they're well within their health care system's capacity.  The countries that are in a world of hurt are countries that fiddled while it  burned - Italy, Spain, about to be Switzerland apparently.

 

I personally don't have the same scope of limited confidence in the data from China.  This time they internationally shared the genome of the new pathogen immediately - they deserve a lot of credit for that.  They let an international panel go all over and review their measures and gave them pretty open access, and wrote a pretty comprehensive report.  So it's not just something going on behind a "Great Wall" with no international oversight on it.  Yes, they saw a dramatic drop in cases, but they threw a *****-ton of resources to achieve that.  Wuhan alone: 1,800 contact-tracing teams of 5 persons per team.  Just immense, immense effort at testing huge numbers of people and extensive and immediate contact tracing of anyone positive. 

 

Right now they're apparently placing entering foreign travelers in mandatory quarantine for 14 days.

 

China is doing some things that we won't do - for example, they're using a 15-minute field-readable test that is said to be 80% accurate because it depends upon early, non-specific IgM antibody response to infection- they know it's not perfect, but they'll use any tool that can help. 

 

I'd rather have us pattern a response on Taiwan, or Singapore (both democracies, and both still pretty much operating daily life) but I think it's a mistake to dismiss China's experience as though it doesn't count.  It's a disease.  It doesn't care what country it's in.  And all experience counts.

[BillsFan4]

This is heart breaking.

 

 

Quote

Grace Fusco — mother of 11, grandmother of 27 — would sit in the same pew at church each Sunday, surrounded by nearly a dozen members of her sprawling Italian-American family. Sunday dinners drew an even larger crowd to her home in central New Jersey.

 

Now, her close-knit clan is united anew by unspeakable grief: Mrs. Fusco, 73, died on Wednesday night after contracting the coronavirus — hours after her son died from the virus and five days after her daughter’s death, a relative said.

Four other children who contracted coronavirus remain hospitalized, three of them in critical condition, the relative, Roseann Paradiso Fodera, said.

 

Mrs. Fusco’s eldest child, Rita Fusco-Jackson, 55, of Freehold, N.J., died Friday; after her death, the family learned she had contracted the virus. Her eldest son, Carmine Fusco, of Bath, Pa., died on Wednesday, said Ms. Paradiso Fodera, the family’s lawyer who is Mrs. Fusco’s cousin and is serving as a spokeswoman.

 

Mrs. Fusco, of Freehold, died after spending Wednesday “gravely ill” and breathing with help from a ventilator, unaware that her two oldest children had died, Ms. Paradiso Fodera said.

 

 

 

Quote

“They’re young and they don’t have any underlying conditions,” Ms. Paradiso Fodero said.

 

 

Quote

He said officials are in the process of evaluating the patients’ medical histories to look for clues about why the disease might have progressed so rapidly, and been so potent.

“I don’t know if it’s a strain thing,” Dr. Matera said. “I would consider these particular people to be unusual.”

 

Ms. Fusco-Jackson died a day before her test for coronavirus came back positive on Saturday evening.

 

Her relatives are urging officials at CentraState or the C.D.C. to conduct an autopsy to learn more about how the virus killed Ms. Fusco-Jackson. She had been in good health, they said.

 

Scary how it seems to hit some people so hard. The eldest son who died has to be younger than 55 if Rita was the eldest child. And it sounds like both were in good health.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 hour ago, BillsFan4 said:

This is heart breaking.

 

 

Scary how it seems to hit some people so hard. The eldest son who died has to be younger than 55 if Rita was the eldest child. And it sounds like both were in good health.

 

Agreed, heartbreaking and scary.

 

Covid-19 apparently binds to Angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE-2) expressed in lung epethelia.  I wonder if some people have higher levels of lung epithelial ACE-2 expression or a variant with higher affinity??  Total speculation and probably too simple.

 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/live-blog/coronavirus-updates-global-cases-approach-200-000-lockdown-becomes-new-n1162561/ncrd1163471#liveBlogHeader

 

NYC cases doubled.  Hope it's more testing....wish they'd say

[Hapless Bills Fan]

My Boi viral epidemiologist Trevor Bedford does his stuff.  Washington State is almost all community-spread at this point with 4 recent introductions.

Limited sequence data from NYS and MN appear to be recent imports from Iran, Europe, and Netherlands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time will tell if his suspicion is correct...hope they are getting their hands on more virus to sequence (or that other genomic epidemiology labs are doing this) as understanding the principle factors behind spread will factually guide how we attack a containment phase.  

 

Well, that, and a 99% reliable 15 minute test that reads like a pg test....Dream Big