Coronavirus prep
Replies
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cmriverside wrote: »I think quite a lot is being withheld from the public in the U.S. How is it that we have 68,000 reported positive tests yet only 995 deaths?
I don't believe either of those numbers. I think they are both much higher.
About half of those reported cases were reported in the last three days. About three-quarters of those reported cases were reported in the last six days. About seven-eights of those reported cases were reported in the last nine days.
Although we aren't getting a lot of statistical information on average time from positive test to death, in cases that resolve in patient death, I've heard a lot of individual anecdotes that indicate in some cases it can take weeks for someone to die. Or recover. The vast majority of cases in the U.S. are sort of like Schroedinger's cat. They could be fatalities. They could be survivors. We don't know yet. (Think of time as a black box. I know it's not a perfect analogy.)5 -
snowflake954 wrote: »cwolfman13 wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »missysippy930 wrote: »How did Germany anticipate this well enough to have a good supply of tests available? Availability of the tests seems to be a major problem, at least in the US.
THAT my dear is everyone's question. Or they are prepared for this. Most governments were caught with their pants down and no plan. I don't understand it because at least 15 years ago The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta was working on the possibility of an unstoppable virus. I read many articles on the topic and how they went into remote areas of the world to collect samples to try and stay ahead of any virus. What happened? I am dissapoint.
The administration dismantled the pandemic directorate in 2018
Thank you for this. I just couldn't understand what happened there--now clear as a bell.
Nice--they did it just in time too.
I realize this isn't a board for politics, but I do have to correct a blatant lie. And really this isn't politics, just some information about what government offices exist or don't exist. The pandemic response office was not dismantled. It was reorganized into a stronger combined directorate where related expertise could be co-mingled. This is according to Tim Morrison the former director of this office, who some of you may be familiar with because he testified against the president in his recent impeachment trial.
I realize there was widespread media reporting that the office had been dismantled, but there was also widespread correction in the media that this was not true.
Quite true, but there is more than one way to skin a cat.*
ETA: Which I would never do. Nor put one in a box with a flask of poison. I do seem to be having some dark thoughts about cats today.
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moonangel12 wrote: »
That’s my question... because, I admit quite selfishly, I don’t want to use my pretty fabric if they are just going to be tossedbmeadows380 wrote: »@AnnPT77 my pastor just put out a call saying his wife is asking church members to help her make masks based upon a few patterns she's found online. Are these masks considered disposable, or can they be washed and re-used, or bleached or something?
I have a resource for quite a bit of older fabric I was told I could have, though!
ETA: thanks for the added info! I was posting and hubby came in from work so there was a few minutes lag, enough time for others to chime in!
My mother and I were just laughing yesterday about people making fabric masks. We're pretty sure every quilter on the planet of Earth is probably chortling about how this is the time they've been waiting for all their lives--a deep societal need for items made from all the fabric remnants they've been stashing for years!
I know the introverts thought this was their time to shine, but it looks like it's the quilters that are going to save the world!
Being a crafter myself, I feel like the Venn diagram of quilters and introverts has a pretty decent-sized overlap.
There are a bunch of introverts who don't quilt . . . but my experience suggests that quite a fraction of quilters are introverts.
My mother quilted at home alone, but for my grandmother, aunt, and sister, it is at least in part a social pursuit. Of course they work on stuff at home alone, but they also work together on projects with other people, sometimes quilting a single quilt together (what used to be called a quilting bee), other times getting together for classes on new techniques for making blocks, or going on trips together to various quilting destinations, gathering for quilt shows, etc.3 -
moonangel12 wrote: »My cousin in IL had two people in the ER die of acute respiratory failure after being intubated (I think that’s the correct terminology? I myself am not in the medical field), but neither were tested. Not sure if it’s the same hospital my uncle was admitted to, twice, for COVID symptoms and sent home without being tested. I don’t know if it saddens, angers, or scares me that testing just isn’t being done like it should be
Are you saying that even after dying they're not being tested? So COVID deaths could be even higher than are being reported?
I've been wondering about this for a while, given that even now it sounds like in many states testing is only done if you're admitted to the hospital. If they decide you're not sick enough to be admitted and send you home without testing, and you die at home (maybe you take a sudden turn for the worse and an ambulance doesn't arrive in time, or you live alone and by the time you start having trouble breathing you can't manage to call 911), does that mean you're not counted as a COVID death?6 -
IL has actually been pretty proactive in testing and has been testing a bunch since we got the tests to do that. IL currently has done 21,576 tests, which is only behind CA, FL, MA, NY, PA, TX, and WA. Plus, positives per test in IL are 14%, vs 18% in CA, 9% in FL, 11% in MA, 35% in NJ, 31% in NY, 10% in PA, 7% in TX, and 7% in WA. That suggests that FL, MA, PA, and TX have been testing even more without serious symptoms, but that CA, and esp NJ and NY have been testing fewer as a percentage of those who may have it. WA, of course, had the earliest outbreak so has been testing longer.
In Maryland, last I checked, about 90% of tests were positive. Which says to me they're not bothering to test anybody whom they're not already pretty sure has it, and for whom they've probably already ruled out influenza and a bunch of other respiratory diseases.8 -
bmeadows380 wrote: »@AnnPT77 my pastor just put out a call saying his wife is asking church members to help her make masks based upon a few patterns she's found online. Are these masks considered disposable, or can they be washed and re-used, or bleached or something?
Not Ann but: They can be washed and re-used BUT they must be made of 100% cotton tightly woven or finely knit fabric which can withstand the high temps needed to properly sanitize them. Most are using quilting cottons which also gives a nice selection of cute prints.
News from Italy---Giorgio Armani is going to making masks, as are other fashion houses here. You ladies are going to have some stiff competition for the most fashionable mask.
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lynn_glenmont wrote: »
Just curious: Do you think Iran is overreporting or underreporting?
ETA "think"
could go either way, though I'd lean more toward under-reporting. At the very least, I'd have more trust in what was being posted online by individual citizens than what the government there report - this is the country that just recently tried to cover up that they had shot down a civilian plane after all.
Then again, I think the under-reporting is happening everywhere, for reasons ranging from a desire to suppress numbers in some places, probably, but mainly because of lack of testing and many mildly symptomatic people not getting tested or thinking to ask to be tested. Its like when I look at the map and see that there aren't that many cases showing up in Africa being reported. I'd love to think that's because it hasn't spread much there, but then I think of the plight of many of the people on that continent and realize that testing is probably non-existent there just because resources are so scarce.
Where would I go to find the currently mortality statistics for the 2019-2020 flu season? I've tried the CDC and the WHO and can't make heads or tails of what they are showing and can't find a total cumulative number to compare to.
I keep hearing 30,000 bandied about, but I don't know if that is supposed to be total US flu deaths or world flu deaths.
And the map confirms now that there definitely has been a case now reported in my county.3 -
bmeadows380 wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »
Just curious: Do you think Iran is overreporting or underreporting?
ETA "think"
could go either way, though I'd lean more toward under-reporting. At the very least, I'd have more trust in what was being posted online by individual citizens than what the government there report - this is the country that just recently tried to cover up that they had shot down a civilian plane after all.
Then again, I think the under-reporting is happening everywhere, for reasons ranging from a desire to suppress numbers in some places, probably, but mainly because of lack of testing and many mildly symptomatic people not getting tested or thinking to ask to be tested. Its like when I look at the map and see that there aren't that many cases showing up in Africa being reported. I'd love to think that's because it hasn't spread much there, but then I think of the plight of many of the people on that continent and realize that testing is probably non-existent there just because resources are so scarce.
Where would I go to find the currently mortality statistics for the 2019-2020 flu season? I've tried the CDC and the WHO and can't make heads or tails of what they are showing and can't find a total cumulative number to compare to.
I keep hearing 30,000 bandied about, but I don't know if that is supposed to be total US flu deaths or world flu deaths.
And the map confirms now that there definitely has been a case now reported in my county.
I say undereporting worldwide, with very few exceptions. Simple logistics because there aren’t enough tests available.7 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »[
Russia only has 800 or so cases right now (only about 100 more cases than were on one cruise ship, the Diamond Princess) and 3 deaths, with a population nearly twice that of Germany (about 44,000 cases/267 deaths) and about three times that of South Korea (about 9,000 cases/139 deaths).
I just noticed that on the Johns Hopkins covid tracker site, and got curious how they were handling it. There's an interesting New Yorker piece speculating on whether they're just lucky or doing a great job.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/why-is-russias-coronavirus-case-count-so-low
Russia is lying. And/or not testing. He would not be locking down the country if they had this contained.
I have a colleague in neighboring Ukraine. On Mar 24 he said "currently we have only 97 confirmed cases (but someone jokes it’s because we have only 97 coronavirus test checkers applied in the whole country)" and that because of the lack of testing people are being classified as dying of pneumonia when it is quite possible they actually had Covid-19.5 -
bmeadows380 wrote: »Where would I go to find the currently mortality statistics for the 2019-2020 flu season? I've tried the CDC and the WHO and can't make heads or tails of what they are showing and can't find a total cumulative number to compare to.
I keep hearing 30,000 bandied about, but I don't know if that is supposed to be total US flu deaths or world flu deaths.
And the map confirms now that there definitely has been a case now reported in my county.
It varies a lot by year, but according to this (https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html) that number would have been for the US (and would actually likely have been higher). Last year was a bad flu season, and I think I'd heard that this one was too.
This is useful: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/faq.htm#hospitalizations
"CDC does not know exactly how many people die from seasonal flu each year. There are several reasons for this. First, states are not required to report individual flu illnesses or deaths among people older than 18 years of age to CDC. Second, influenza is infrequently listed on death certificates of people who die from flu-related complications. Third, many flu-related deaths occur one or two weeks after a person’s initial infection, either because the person may develop a secondary bacterial co-infection (such as bacterial pneumonia) or because influenza can aggravate an existing chronic illness (such as congestive heart failure or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). Also, most people who die from flu-related complications are not tested for flu, or they seek medical care later in their illness when influenza can no longer be detected from respiratory samples. Sensitive influenza tests are only likely to detect influenza if performed within a week after onset of illness. In addition, some commonly used tests to diagnose influenza in clinical settings are not highly sensitive and can provide false negative results (i.e. they misdiagnose flu illness as not being flu.) For these reasons, many flu-related deaths may not be recorded on death certificates. These are some of the reasons that CDC and other public health agencies in the United States and other countries use statistical and mathematical models to estimate the annual number of flu-related deaths."4 -
missysippy930 wrote: »bmeadows380 wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »
Just curious: Do you think Iran is overreporting or underreporting?
ETA "think"
could go either way, though I'd lean more toward under-reporting. At the very least, I'd have more trust in what was being posted online by individual citizens than what the government there report - this is the country that just recently tried to cover up that they had shot down a civilian plane after all.
Then again, I think the under-reporting is happening everywhere, for reasons ranging from a desire to suppress numbers in some places, probably, but mainly because of lack of testing and many mildly symptomatic people not getting tested or thinking to ask to be tested. Its like when I look at the map and see that there aren't that many cases showing up in Africa being reported. I'd love to think that's because it hasn't spread much there, but then I think of the plight of many of the people on that continent and realize that testing is probably non-existent there just because resources are so scarce.
Where would I go to find the currently mortality statistics for the 2019-2020 flu season? I've tried the CDC and the WHO and can't make heads or tails of what they are showing and can't find a total cumulative number to compare to.
I keep hearing 30,000 bandied about, but I don't know if that is supposed to be total US flu deaths or world flu deaths.
And the map confirms now that there definitely has been a case now reported in my county.
I say undereporting worldwide, with very few exceptions. Simple logistics because there aren’t enough tests available.
I agree. In the US, at least, I don't think it's an issue of hiding anything, but not having enough tests and having started testing later than we should have as a result. I think we likely won't know how many got it, what the true death rate from it is, what the true hospitalization rate from it is until perhaps we can do an estimate after the fact and use tests for the antibodies.7 -
Thanks to everyone for such thoughtful and intelligent insights.
Here in Washington where the nursing home outbreak was the canary in the coal mine, there are two articles/reports after reviewing this nursing home. It seems they are discussing mitigation and mistakes made. I haven't read them yet, but they're on the front page of our state's COVID response daily update page in case anyone wants to read them. The studies were released yesterday:
New England Journal of Medicine - Epidemiology of Covid-19 in a Long-Term Care Facility in King County, Washington
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6913e1.htm?s_cid=mm6913e1_w
CDC - Asymptomatic and Presymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Infections in Residents of a Long-Term Care Skilled Nursing Facility — King County, Washington, March 2020
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa20054124 -
The FDA just approved a rapid covid-19 test which gives positive results in 5 minutes, negative in 17 minutes. Hopefully they get these tests out quickly.13
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@snowflake954 Lol! The mask is going to be the fashion accessory to have in 2020 and beyond.3
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I mentioned a couple days ago that Washington is testing people from home using a mail-in self-administered test that is obtained through a website affiliated with King County and the Seattle Flu project. https://publichealthinsider.com/2020/03/23/introducing-scan-the-greater-seattle-coronavirus-assessment-network/
I don't know how they are choosing who to test. It does appear from DOH reporting that there are more tests being done on older people - I'm going to presume that's either because more are presenting to hospital in significant distress OR they are choosing to test more older people to get a handle on the coming tsunami. A representative sampling would make me feel better, but I suspect a lot of this is about testing the waters, so to speak. To prepare the infrastructure.
Either way. There are a lot of younger people testing positive in the population.
We're gonna be locked down for a while.
Stay safe everyone.6 -
snowflake954 wrote: »bmeadows380 wrote: »@AnnPT77 my pastor just put out a call saying his wife is asking church members to help her make masks based upon a few patterns she's found online. Are these masks considered disposable, or can they be washed and re-used, or bleached or something?
Not Ann but: They can be washed and re-used BUT they must be made of 100% cotton tightly woven or finely knit fabric which can withstand the high temps needed to properly sanitize them. Most are using quilting cottons which also gives a nice selection of cute prints.
News from Italy---Giorgio Armani is going to making masks, as are other fashion houses here. You ladies are going to have some stiff competition for the most fashionable mask.
Christian Siriano also put his sewers to work making them. Project Runway, mask edition.3 -
Here's a very good piece summarizing information known about the coronavirus: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/tip-iceberg-virologist-david-ho-bs-74-speaks-about-covid-19
Some bits are a little outdated, but not terribly so.2 -
@snowflake954 Lol! The mask is going to be the fashion accessory to have in 2020 and beyond.
Can't you just see the fashion models walking the catwalk next year in masks? We'll all be wearing them. 4 -
There was an interview on NPR the other day that speaks to this, to some extent. (It's an interview with Max Brooks, author of "World War Z" (Zombie book!), but also a real-life disaster planning expert.)
I've tinyurl-ed the link because the link is basically the headline, and and the headline is too click-bait-y for my taste. The interview was interesting and provocative, but I won't go much further to claim that it's authoritative. Use your own judgement. It's not specifically partisan politics, but there is very strong criticism of US actions, not all of it aimed at the current administration.
I promise this links to Fresh Air at NPR.
https://tinyurl.com/thv86y2
ETA: I know it's long (41 minutes), but I recommend the full audio interview over the summary text version. It's more nuanced, among other reasons. Your favorite podcast app may have Fresh Air; this was the Max Brooks interview, broadcast on (IIRC) 3/24.
The interview really helps put a lot of things into perspective, and I appreciate that he is a self-taught expert whose expertise is recognized by the U.S. Military. I also respect that he doesn't blame one person and identifies where others--including the majority of us--can take action to prevent this scenario from unfolding again.
Thanks for sharing the link.
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Here's a very good piece summarizing information known about the coronavirus: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/tip-iceberg-virologist-david-ho-bs-74-speaks-about-covid-19
Some bits are a little outdated, but not terribly so.
Still valuable; thanks.
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