Coronavirus prep

I am so mad at the American Red Cross. I am a universal donor and I had an appointment today to give blood. I get there and they are taking temps to get in. They are using the mouth prob. The lady doing the tests is changing the sheathing on the prob but not her gloves. I watched her touch the lips of the person ahead of me and then want to take my temp. No changing gloves no forhead or temple scan. They had doen the call a day in advance thing and had assured me they would not have mouth temp scans but forhead ones . I wasn't willing to let someone touch my lips with a glove that had touched others. I am so grossed out. I am also so mad and sad as I wanted to donate but it has to be safe for the donor as well.

cmriverside wrote: »

Lemur, I'm not attacking you.

I didn't think you were but perhaps for the thing about wanting one's own city to be first. Since I never remotely said mine was first (I said the west coast and then NYC were first), I thought you perhaps had misunderstood my post.

I also thought you might think my posts were referring to you or your prior posts, and they weren't at all.

Just continuing the conversation. I agree with you...but I also think it's been here for a long time and there are thousands/tens of thousands/hundreds of thousands/millions who had mild cases and have recovered.

Re this, I think it depends on (a) what "here" means, and (b) what "long time" means. I think it's possible (but not all that likely) that there were unknown cases here in December. (The reason I think it's unlikely is that South Korea learned of its first case in South Korea on Jan 20, and did not have it spreading uncontrollably around the country before that because they in fact controlled it pretty well.) The first known case in the US (in WA) went from China to the US on Jan 15, so I can believe there were cases earlier in Jan too, but not that it was widespread community spread in all parts (or specifically in more remote parts) of the US by late Jan and early Feb.

And note that this case was identified and they tried to contact trace and test. Similarly, there were 5 more cases by Jan 26 (all connected to travel to Wuhan), and they all were tested and tried to contact trace and test. Obviously they didn't catch everyone (or likely mild or non symptomatic travelers also came and spread it), so this period is probably when community spread started in some areas.

In early to mid Feb, there were a bunch more cases, also identified, also related to people who had traveled to China. Again, efforts to trace contacts were made to some degree.

In late Feb, cases that seemed to be community spread started being identified in CA, OR, and WA.

Last day of Feb, someone dies of it at the nursing home in Kirkland, and that becomes the first big outbreak in the US.

So the idea that it was spreading all over in the US in Dec and Jan by community spread without being identified or causing any spikes at hospitals seems unlikely to me given what's going on now. I don't think it would have passed unnoticed, certainly not in January.

Unless and until we get a good antibodies test that is administered to a majority of genpop, no way to know how many. I don't think that will be a priority - ever. I think effective vaccines and treatment will be the places that Public Health spends its money.

It's hard to know how we go forward before a vaccine (and that could be quite a while), so finding treatments and finding out who has had it (if it does seem to convey sufficient antibodies to prevent reinfection) could be important parts of how to open up again. If someone had it, they could then work and be around others without fear. Probably depends on how easy and expensive it would be to produce. That was supposedly the plan in the UK, I think.

From the WHO:

Virus = SARS-CoV-2
Disease = COVID-19
Wuhan virus = not used by any reputable organization. Used a lot by Fox News, also not a reputable organization.

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/naming-the-coronavirus-disease-(covid-2019)-and-the-virus-that-causes-it

JRsLateInLifeMom wrote: »

cmriver- I keep seeing the SARS Cov2 have they renamed the virus 🦠 again? They need to pick one stick with it I’m tired of typing so many of the past to now names just to look up information I need for Buisness to home!
I heard the new name earlier on the news thought is there another virus? Is SARS Cov2
Still the COVID-19,Coronavirus,Wuhan Virus, etc?? Or is it a new one on top of COVID-19?

SARS-CoV-2 is the name of the virus. It is a coronavirus (family of viruses). COVID-19 is the illness caused by SARS-CoV-2

bpetrosky wrote: »

From the WHO:

Virus = SARS-CoV-2
Disease = COVID-19
Wuhan virus = not used by any reputable organization. Used a lot by Fox News, also not a reputable organization.

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/naming-the-coronavirus-disease-(covid-2019)-and-the-virus-that-causes-it

https://youtu.be/5eZtCq1aj2g?t=13

cmriverside wrote: »

Here = Seattle area.

Long time = Late fall, definitely before January.

Thing is, they weren't testing for this. There have been a lot of deaths due to flu or "flu-like illness" and they are (or were) NOT required to RNA sequence all of them, so many cases of pneumonia prior to mid-January may have been this.

The SARS Cov2 wasn't even SEQUENCED until January. There wasn't even a test in the U.S. for another 6-8 weeks.

I just don't believe a million people were infected all over the country in a month.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/its-just-everywhere-already-how-delays-in-testing-set-back-the-u-s-coronavirus-response/

But that's what happens in exponential growth. It is completely believable.

I agree with @lemurcat2 . This was probably spreading sooner than they thought. But if it was spreading in November or early December, I find it hard to believe we wouldn't have seen severe cases earlier. Look how quickly it happened in Italy.

JRsLateInLifeMom wrote: »

Thankyou guys!
Been researching up a storm but finding some of the information in Spanish conflicts with the ones in English. One in Spanish for Spanish speaking USA article said the virus can be killed by heat . I do not believe this to be true at all the English articles say it’s not killed by heat of 26 or 27c .Its updates in Spanish now are also saying was wrong

The WHO says that with information changing rapidly as this progresses to be ready for changes as they perfect how to treat y handle this. So trying to stay up on it all. I did manage to get baby googles children sized in case he needs to go to a doctor y a mask his size..I’ll put winter gloves on him.

Heat does kill coronavirus. But we're talking heat, not warmth.

That is, heating things to something in the region of 145-165F (63-74C), for several minutes, depending on the exact thing you're heating, is believed to kill the virus on those things.

Warm weather? Unknown for sure what effect it will have, as I understand it. I suspect more outdoor surfaces get hot enough to kill the virus when it's high summer, but that's (1) speculation, and (2) even if true, only a subset of surfaces, so meh.

Nony_Mouse wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

JRsLateInLifeMom wrote: »

Thankyou guys!
Been researching up a storm but finding some of the information in Spanish conflicts with the ones in English. One in Spanish for Spanish speaking USA article said the virus can be killed by heat . I do not believe this to be true at all the English articles say it’s not killed by heat of 26 or 27c .Its updates in Spanish now are also saying was wrong

The WHO says that with information changing rapidly as this progresses to be ready for changes as they perfect how to treat y handle this. So trying to stay up on it all. I did manage to get baby googles children sized in case he needs to go to a doctor y a mask his size..I’ll put winter gloves on him.

Heat does kill coronavirus. But we're talking heat, not warmth.

That is, heating things to something in the region of 145-165F (63-74C), for several minutes, depending on the exact thing you're heating, is believed to kill the virus on those things.

Warm weather? Unknown for sure what effect it will have, as I understand it. I suspect more outdoor surfaces get hot enough to kill the virus when it's high summer, but that's (1) speculation, and (2) even if true, only a subset of surfaces, so meh.

And given that Australia had community spread in late summer/early autumn (still plenty warm), I wouldn't be betting on that one. Maybe high summer? But the US is months off that yet.

Yup. I expect little/no effect from summer. Hope I'm wrong, but I hope for lots of unlikely stuff.

lokihen wrote: »

A local meat-packing plant has 80 positive employees. Even with high unemployment will they be able to keep up production? We are supposed to be weeks away from peaking.

That's a good question. If it is 80 out of 81 total, my guess is that they will not keep up with production demand. If it is 80 out of 2,000 employees total; they probably can keep up for the most part.