Coronavirus prep

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  • amtyrell
    amtyrell Posts: 1,449 Member
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    just_Tomek wrote: »
    Ontario just declared state of emergency. Lots of places where ppl might gather are shutting down.

    What does state of emergency mean there. Ie what exactly is being required to close
  • snickerscharlie
    snickerscharlie Posts: 8,578 Member
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    amtyrell wrote: »
    just_Tomek wrote: »
    Ontario just declared state of emergency. Lots of places where ppl might gather are shutting down.

    What does state of emergency mean there. Ie what exactly is being required to close

    The Premier of Ontario has just declared a state of emergency for our Province.

    This means prohibiting organized events of 50+ people and closing:

    • Facilities providing recreational programs
    • Libraries
    • Private Schools
    • Licensed child care centres
    • Bars and restaurants (takeout and delivery permitted)
    • Theatres, cinemas and concert venues

    For now, malls are allowed to operate, but the restaurants within them must close unless they have take-out or delivery services available.


    In addition, Shopper's Drug Mart - our largest national drug store chain in Canada - has announced the following:


    Shoppers Drug Mart

    @shopprsdrugmart

    Starting this week, Shoppers Drug Mart is dedicating the first opening hour of shopping at our stores to our customers who need assistance or consideration, including seniors and people living with disabilities.

    We encourage you to check with your local store to confirm operating hours. Shoppers Drug Mart will also offer the 20% Seniors Day discount on regular priced items for the first hour each day every day. This is in addition to Seniors Days each Thursday.



    This is wonderful. Seniors and the disabled only will be permitted in the stores for the first hour they're open. Thoughts are that this is when the stores will be at their cleanest, given that deep-cleaning is being done, especially overnight.

    Shoppers also has a Senior's Day every Thursday - almost everything in the store is 20% off for seniors. So glad this is now being extended to the Seniors Only hour every day.

    Supermarket chains here are following suit with similar programs to allow the most vulnerable to get the food and supplies they need in relative safety.
  • bmeadows380
    bmeadows380 Posts: 2,981 Member
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    Evidently WV isn’t even testing, at least where one person was sent with symptoms. No test, just a doctor’s note to self-quarantine for 14 days. Maybe that’s the reason for no confirmed cases - geeze Louise.

    Got some Rainbow Chard seeds in the ground, at least if things persist we might have some fresh something to eat in the relatively near future.

    WV is testing, but not many in the grand scheme of things - the WV health department's website says we've had 80 negative tests and 4 pending - not really a lot to be able to accurately say it's not here. I've heard of one case in the Beckley area that they thought for sure was it, but the test came back negative. I've also heard this morning of a case that looked very similar in Wheeling that was not tested because they didn't show the fever. If that one is true, that's the sort of thing that gets me frustrated. There is this note on the health department's website:
    *NOTE: Now that COVID-19 testing is expanded and available through commercial laboratories and some hospitals, DHHR is only reporting those tests that have been processed through its state public health lab. All positive results obtained by commercial laboratories are reportable to DHHR and are included in the positive case counts.

    The state's testing guidelines are this:
    The state’s public health lab, West Virginia Office of Laboratory Services (OLS), is the primary facility for COVID-19 testing until commercial laboratories and hospitals develop testing capacity for COVID-19. The state public health lab has remained available 7 days a week to provide testing for any healthcare or public health provider submitting specimens. At present, all tests submitted to OLS are being processed within a 2-3-day timeframe, often earlier. Most states are seeing turnaround time increase as testing submissions rise and supplies remain on backorder.

    Since early March, two groups have been and remain prioritized for COVID-19 testing through OLS. These groupings prioritize the likelihood of finding disease (testing those who are most likely to have been exposed), support care for those most at risk, and support proper infection control in the healthcare setting. Individuals prioritized for testing by OLS include the following:

    1) Seriously ill individuals hospitalized or otherwise at high risk of complications: This includes seriously ill individuals with symptoms of COVID-19 who are hospitalized, near hospitalization or otherwise at highest risk of poor health outcomes (e.g., those who are elderly or have serious underlying chronic diseases, nursing home residents, etc.) AND who do not have another identified cause for their illness (e.g., flu, other respiratory viruses). No history of potential exposure is needed for these patients.
    OR
    2) Individuals at medium to high risk of having been infected: This includes any individual with symptoms of lower respiratory illness (fever, cough, shortness of breath) AND a history of likely exposure to COVID-19 within 14 days of symptom onset (e.g., close contact with an individual confirmed to have COVID-19 or recent travel history from or living in areas with widespread community transmission) AND do not have another identified cause for their illness (e.g., flu, or other respiratory viruses).

    These are slight modifications of CDC Guidelines, focusing on those most ill in criteria one above, given that supplies are limited, and some products remain on backorder in West Virginia and nationally. They are subject to change. For current testing criteria, visit coronavirus.wv.gov.

    “DHHR continues to actively work with providers to assure they are knowledgeable about specimen collection and submission protocols, and to adjust to changing supplies and supply chains,” said Dr. Cathy Slemp, State Health Officer and Commissioner of DHHR’s Bureau for Public Health. “We are also working with local and federal partners to build novel testing systems as supplies and resources are made available federally.”

    All providers seeing patients meeting the above criteria and requesting testing through the state’s public health lab are asked to first obtain a public health consult in order to provide applicable patient information and coordinate specimen submission.

    Most individuals who are seriously ill have testing arranged by their healthcare provider. Individuals with a likely history of medium or high-risk exposure (as per above) may contact their healthcare provider by phone or call the Coronavirus Hotline, 1-800-887-4304, to help determine their need for testing.



    So based on that, I'm thinking its very likely its here and we just haven't gotten a confirmed case. On the other hand, we're not having an influx of people with pneumonia into our hospitals, either. A lot of people in my area are thinking that we might have already had it back in January when we had this pretty contagious version of the flu go around that had a dry cough with it, and I thought that too, but now that I really study it, I'm not so sure - a lot of people did get it, but certainly not half the population of the area. For instance: my mom got it back in January and was down for about a week and had the cough for about another week, but my dad and sister who live with mom never got it - especially my dad who insists on sharing a bed with mom, sick or not (he won't go to the guest room when she's sick). Knowing that he has weak lungs anyway and that my sister is in poor health, if what mom had was COVID-19, I would have expected both my dad and my sister to get it, so now I just don't know.
  • T1DCarnivoreRunner
    T1DCarnivoreRunner Posts: 11,502 Member
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    I know many of us are interested in reading straight from the source rather than media interpretation. Here is a new site created to "contain" research on Covid-19:

    https://pages.semanticscholar.org/coronavirus-research

    *As with all research, not everything is available for all users for free.
  • hesn92
    hesn92 Posts: 5,967 Member
    edited March 2020
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    Kansas City area is pretty much shutting down. restaurants, movie theatres, etc. are all closing. Gatherings of 10+ are banned. Schools are closed at least through April 3. I'm still at work though! I'm really annoyed with my work, there's no communication going on as to what the f we are planning on doing. Thankfully my coworker, the IT guy, has been working on getting me remote access to my computer. Unsuccessfully so far. My husband is in sales and is still working which I'm not happy about.

    Regarding going outside, I was planning on running outside since I can't go to the gym. I thought that was ok.