Just curious, anyone have a plan, or preps for global pandemic?

[Sibiriak]

2 hours ago, Ron Put said:

 ....rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively” (Fauci et al., 2020)

Nothing surprising there.  That's been the mainstream view for some time, afaict.

Dr. Anthony Fauci has been dubbed   "the face of America's fight against coronavirus,  "a trusted presence behind the podium at White House Covid-19 briefings" .  Apparently,  he and Gov. Coumo   are the most trusted leaders in America on that issue right now.

“If you look at the curves of outbreaks, they go big peaks, and then come down. What we need to do is flatten that down" -- Anthony Fauci .

 

Donuts Delite in Rochester is selling "Fauci doughnuts."   If the virus doesn't kill you, these  might.

Edited March 28, 2020 by Sibiriak

[mccoy]

10 hours ago, tea said:

Do you know at what level of oxygen saturation they will consider admittance necessary?

It has been just hinted at by the specialist who was speaking. The tolerance is pretty low, a few percentages and you go to admittance. But they were clear in that the baseline is not the same for everyone, those who have ashtma have a lower one and the threshold is shifted accordingly.

According to Mayo clinic: 

Quote

Normal pulse oximeter readings usually range from 95 to 100 percent. Values under 90 percent are considered low.

As far as I understood from the interviewed doctors, they check the baseline, then adopt a threshold of just a few percentages, with less tolerance than the Mayo clinic values.

Also, the pulse oximeter, as it's commonly called, seems to be a pretty inexpensive item, of course then raises the issue of accuracy, precision and so on, I am tempted to order it at Amazon, before they run out of it, LOL.

Edit: I just checked, delivery times here are in the order of a few weeks, not a frequently sold item, usually.

Edited March 28, 2020 by mccoy

[mccoy]

A 26 march report on Covid-19 deaths in Italy. Translated from Google. Deaths for under 50s are still pretty rare and some of'em had known comorbidities.

 

Translate Report-COVID-2019_26_marzo.it.en.pdf

[mccoy]

The 'complications' section is not reassuring:

It's not very clear if renal and cardiac complications are independent from respiratory complications (lesser circulating oxygen). 

[mccoy]

12 hours ago, Sibiriak said:

onuts Delite in Rochester is selling "Fauci doughnuts."   If the virus doesn't kill you, these  might.

😁☠️ ☣️

[BrianA]

According to this doctor/author he has heard the CDC will be updating guidance on masks in 10 days, to advise all Americans to wear masks. This is an unsourced rumor at this point.

 

 

[Sibiriak]

3 hours ago, mccoy said:

A 26 march report on Covid-19 deaths in Italy.

Hypertension is  by far the most common pre-existing condition associated with Italian Covid-19 mortality.  I've noted that in other analyses as well.

[Iporuru]

Another New Zoonotic Virus Disease Emerging In China - Orthohantavirus

[Sibiriak]

Troopers go door to door hunting  down New Yorkers
 

Quote

From police roadblocks in the Florida Keys, national guard troops knocking on doors in Rhode Island in attempt to “hunt down” New Yorkers, and city leaders nationwide threatening fines for residents found out in the open, the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on personal freedoms was becoming clearer on Saturday, as the death toll continued to rise.

Measures in Rhode Island attracted harsh words from the American Civil Liberties Union, which criticized what it saw as the “blunderbuss approach” of state troopers stopping vehicles from New York and ordering occupants into quarantine.

[...]Gina Raimondo, the Rhode Island governor, implemented the policy in a two-pronged attempt to keep out or contain visitors from New York. Another controversial measure saw the national guard, in the words of the New York Post, “hunting down” New Yorkers by going door to door, beginning on Saturday. Any found would be ordered into a 14-day quarantine and face fines or jail time for refusing to comply.

“Right now we have a pinpointed risk. That risk is New York City,” Raidondo said in a press conference on Friday.

New Yorkers are personae non gratae in other areas of the country, too, with governors in Florida, Maryland, South Carolina and Texas imposing quarantine restrictions.

 

Quote

Texas joined other states Thursday in imposing quarantines on travelers from the New York area, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., and put similar restrictions on people arriving from nearby New Orleans as the number of cases there surges dramatically.

 

Quote

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has warned that those who don’t comply with his Thursday order [...] risk jail time. State troopers would be conducting visits to make sure people were staying put as required, he added.

Texas vigilante groups have reportedly volunteered to assist in  the hunt for New Yorkers. 😁

Trump says he's considering an enforceable quarantine of New York,  New Jersey and parts of Connecticut.   Gov. Coumo responds:

Quote

I don’t even know what that means. I don’t know how that could be legally enforceable. And from a medical point of view I don’t know what you would be accomplishing. But I can tell you I don’t even like the sound of it. Not even understanding what it is, I don’t even like the sound of it.”

 

Edited March 28, 2020 by Sibiriak

[Matt]

My mother has to get tested for coronavirus in just over an hour. She feels like she has a chest infection, pains when taking deeper breaths feels hot (but not fever), and tired.

I told her a million times that she should not be leaving the house but she wouldn't listen to me.

Anyway, after getting told this news... she gets off the phone and goes into the kitchen and starts putting the dishes, forks, and spoons away in the drawers. Touching everything...

😞

I asked her why she is doing this knowing she might have the virus.. she said: "I didn't think..."

And I'll have completely run out of food by tomorrow. I have nothing.

 

[mccoy]

4 minutes ago, Matt said:

And I'll have completely run out of food by tomorrow. I have nothing.

Long queues out there? Let us know about your mother, might not be SARS-COV2

Edited March 28, 2020 by mccoy

[Matt]

Maybe not, we'll see soon. So far the symptoms seem mild but she only just woke up with it a few hours ago.  Since she has had chest infections before and is constantly on azithromycin (takes it daily), it might not be the virus. She also takes hydroxychloroquine every day too for lupus.

I'm just slightly annoyed really cos she ignores the warnings and advice from the NHS, the government... and me when I keep telling her she has to stay at home.

Yet she takes me nan who has COPD (not emphysema as I thought..) to the shops twice a day to get things like the newspaper and things that are not essential.

So then I have the anxiety about this and constantly have to be careful. I've not even been out of the house in 2 weeks now. If she wasn't leaving the house, it'd make life a bit easier.

[TomBAvoider]

Matt, do you have a mask and gloves? If you take precautions, it's reasonably safe to go to the store to grab some essentials - if I were you, I'd go by myself and not let your mum come with you, because you can probably practice safe behavior with more success... for her, it's best to just stay home. Do you have an option of food delivery? That's another possibility, depending on your location.

The only times I've been out, is for my jogging, and for daily walks (and I wear a mask, plus I circle around anyone I encounter). And, for sheer out the door - around the building, the garden etc. when I walk my cat (on a leash) a few times a day.

I have not been to a store in 2 weeks now. In a few days, we're (my wife and I) going to run out of milk and yoghurt. Initially I was going to go to the store sometime next week, but we've decided that we'll take this as a challenge and see how long we can go until we start missing something essential. Milk and yoghurt are not essential. We have enough hardy vegetables and fruits to last: cabbage, brussel sprouts, carrots, cauliflower, apples, oranges, mandarins, melons; plus frozen fruits and veggies: berry mixes, broccoli, brussel sprouts, spinach, green beans. When we run out of those, it's time to hit the store (we have canned veggies, but those are only in case of a dire emergency). We figure we'll be fine for another month before we have to hit the stores.

 

 

[Dean Pomerleau]

Hang in there Matt, and best wishes for your mom.

Apologies if this website has already been posted in this thread, but I don't remember it.

I've been frustrated by lack of data on the number of tests being conducted in the US and especially data broken down by state. Are the states with few reported cases just not testing very much?

This website is a treasure trove for such data:

http://coronavirusapi.com/

It shows that across the US about 18% of tests are coming back positive. But there is a HUGE range. Below is the most interesting table from that website, showing the data broken down by state. I've highlighted New York (NY) and my state of Pennsylvania (PA). As you can see, both states have tested about the same fraction of their population (2000-3000 tests per million citizens). But in NY they are seeing 90% of their tests return positive, while PA is only seeing 10% of their tests return positive, which is below the national average of around ~18%. But some states are much lower still, such as Minnesota (MN) where they've also tested ~3000 people per million citizens and are only seeing 2.7% of tests coming back positive.

This clearly suggests two things: a) some state (like NY) are only testing very sick people who are very likely to have the virus and b) the percent of the population who has the virus does indeed appear to vary quite widely between states.

In other words, the low # of cases in some states isn't just that those states aren't testing very much, they really haven't been hit hard by the virus yet.

--Dean

[TomBAvoider]

A grim reminder that in times of social stress, civilization breaks down very rapidly. This report is from a reputable source, The Guardian:

NHS staff warned to hide ID after spate of targeted muggings

"Robbers targeting doctors and nurses to obtain free food offered for tackling coronavirus"

Stay safe folks, because even the front line workers who are attempting to save us are now targeted by sociopaths with no regard for anyone.

[BrianA]

Some good news from this realtime US fever-tracking site:

 

https://healthweather.us/

 

The 2nd chart lower down on the page is showing a steady decline in overall percentage of their users showing fevers. It's now well below the typically expected rate for this time of year. Also if you switch the main chart to "Trends" mode you can see essentially the entire country is "cooling off" fever-wise.

[KHashmi317]

1 hour ago, Dean Pomerleau said:

This website is a treasure trove for such data:

http://coronavirusapi.com/

...and this site (based on data gathered from Univ. Of Washington)  shows projected hospital resource use based on COVID-19 deaths...

https://covid19.healthdata.org/

 

[KHashmi317]

Well, to lift everyone's spirits, it could be MUCH worse ...

The above 2008 talk presented  the heightened likelihood of pandemic influenza, due to significant increased use of LARGE-scale industrial farming. If this happened in the near future, then this human planet may very well face multiple, parallel viral pandemics. 

And then of course, there are the "usual" monthly disasters ... equakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.

I'm a big fan of the History Channel series Mega Disasters (2006-2008). 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_Disasters

Since you're home, anyway, why not stream some entertaining episodes 😉

 

 

[Gordo]

16 hours ago, mccoy said:

It has been just hinted at by the specialist who was speaking. The tolerance is pretty low, a few percentages and you go to admittance. But they were clear in that the baseline is not the same for everyone, those who have ashtma have a lower one and the threshold is shifted accordingly.

According to Mayo clinic: 

As far as I understood from the interviewed doctors, they check the baseline, then adopt a threshold of just a few percentages, with less tolerance than the Mayo clinic values.

Also, the pulse oximeter, as it's commonly called, seems to be a pretty inexpensive item, of course then raises the issue of accuracy, precision and so on, I am tempted to order it at Amazon, before they run out of it, LOL.

Edit: I just checked, delivery times here are in the order of a few weeks, not a frequently sold item, usually.

Yea, I just checked amazon and the one I bought/recommended earlier here (which was $20) is now sold out, they have other ones that are more expensive but have very good reviews. It seems they are going fast. I think it is an excellent tool to have on hand as it offers a very simple gauge of lung function which could possibly indicate the presence of pneumonia or covid-19 infection. When you get one, just take a baseline reading, most healthy people are going to see 98 or 99%, below 95% is a red flag, below 90 and you should probably get to a hospital. Here is a pic I just took of the oximeter on my wife’s finger.

 

[Gordo]

12 hours ago, BrianA said:

According to this doctor/author he has heard the CDC will be updating guidance on masks in 10 days, to advise all Americans to wear masks. This is an unsourced rumor at this point.

 

 

That’s nice, when they were in short supply the experts said masks could only help medical workers and would be useless or even dangerous to use by the public, but now that they are being pumped out by the millions they can help regular people too, haha.

Here’s a pic from 1918 (California) during the Spanish flu, note the sign “Wear a mask or go to jail”

 

 

But this may be taking things too far: 

Edited March 29, 2020 by Gordo

[Sibiriak]

 

Quote

Experts at Imperial College London found the unprecedented curbs on daily life mean the 260,000 fatalities once feared if the previous less restrictive policy had continued should be avoided.

[...] Prof Ferguson said, when presenting the paper, that he would consider the lockdown a success if deaths kept below 20,000.

In the winter of 2017-18 26,000 people died from seasonal flu.

The new paper assesses the effects of social distancing in China, where the global crisis began and assumes Britain will follow a similar path.  

The statisticians’ best estimate for the total number of deaths is 5,700 in Britain, 28,000 deaths in Italy and 46,000 in Spain.

 

Following the "Chinese Model",  however,  has its detractors:

On 3/28/2020 at 6:22 AM, Ron Put said:

[it] will cause unseen in living memory damage to the Western economies and weaken the unity and the appeal of liberal democracies in the long run, which is a much greater danger to the world than Covid-19.

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by Sibiriak

[Clinton]

17 hours ago, DHL said:

I’m not a practitioner of CR. In fact I’m very fond of ice cream and pizza.

But I’m guessing  that some CR fans might be reversing course and possibly putting on pounds at the moment.

 

[KHashmi316]

22 hours ago, TomBAvoider said:

I have not been to a store in 2 weeks now.

I have to shop regularly because of my high plant-food diet. 

Here in SoCal, IME, large produce/super markets (esp Hispanic, but also Vons , etc) are (now) well-stocked, not crowded. Many shoppers are wearing masks/gloves (including employees) and practicing SDing in checkout lines. Usually, there is the ubiquitous hand-sanitizer towelettes at entry doors.

I don't like Trader Joe's b/c of very long "metering" lines. Their small stores were never designed for SD.

Given all the above observations and practices, I think normal grocery shopping is the safest way to go. With restaurant-delivered food or app-delivered groceries, you never know what, e.g., may be on your pizza box or delivery bag. A sick preparer too scared to call off work. Disgruntled (sick) cook with a propensity for bio-terrorism, etc. etc.

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by KHashmi316

[KHashmi316]

1 hour ago, KHashmi316 said:

Disgruntled (sick) cook with a propensity for bio-terrorism, etc. etc.

 

Some may recall the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack in USA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attack

[TomBAvoider]

Those are good thoughts, Khurram. We are kind of hankering after fresh veggies that are highly perishable, and which we don't have - tomatoes, fresh arugula etc. Damn, now I'm tempted to go out into one of those stores and stock up :).

To the other poster - just a one (well two - my wife) rat report: neither of us is tempted by "sin foods". If anything, we're more strict wrt. diet as we think it's extra important to keep healthy because medical resources are not readily available. That extends to not engaging in even mildly risky behaviors such as biking, because if you fall and break something going to the hospital may be a very fraught proposition - not only are they likely crowded and infectious, but you don't want to take resources away from the COVID-19 related patients.

This is not a good time to have any medical issues, including dental. I suspect that even when the immediate lockdown orders are lifted, the hospitals and medical facilities will continue to be overwhelmed, so the longer you don't need them, the better. YMMV.