Corona Virus #6

[California]

Lots of misinformation here. I'll make comments in capital letters. Not meaning to scream. And, while I am sure the physician at Hopkins knows a lot, something must have been lost in translation.

Thank you!!!

When the first line said somebody anonymous got that from a friend of a friend I decided to wait for a link to its original at Johns Hopkins. Apparently no credible original version exists. And this was created in someones imagination to post on Facebook.

Thank you for adding real information to that good-intentions but misleading Facebook post.

 

[IslandTractor]

Italy is at the 11% death rate now and the US has risen to 1.7%

Germany has risen to .7% S. Korea has risen to 1.5%

So judging by the article about flu in Italy, they have always been dying like flies from seasonal flu. So the Covid19 plague is just adding to their already high death rate they have always had.

Guys you cannot simply divide total deaths by total cases to calculate a death rate. In the USA the number of cases freshly reported in the past week is something close to a third of all US cases. It takes more than a week to die on average so you’ll get an inaccurate and low estimate of case mortality by doing that. Even if there are zero additional new cases in the USA from this point on there will continue to be thousands of additional deaths. The USA mortality rate is certainly going to be higher than what you’ve calculated. To make matters more complicated, we don’t yet have serologic (antibody) surveillance studies yet to capture mild infections that never had contact with the medical system to get a pcr virus test. And, you cannot compare country to country when different standards for testing are used. Italy is only testing people sick enough to be hospitalized now. We are testing lots of worried folks who are able to stay home. Different populations.

 

[rswyan]

JUST IN: Gov. DeWine announced the FDA has authorized Columbus-based Battelle to sterilize only 10,000 surgical masks in Ohio each day, despite their ability to sterilize up to 160,000 masks per day in Ohio alone.

Twitter

Gov. DeWine: FDA’s ‘reckless’ decision limits Battelle’s PPE mask sterilizing technology to only 10k a day | NBC4 WCMH-TV

Hard to escape the potential political aspects/ramifications of that type of a decision ... looks like extortion/blackmail ...

OTOH, never underestimate the possibility that this "limiting decision" was orchestrated ... in order for a "white knight" to come riding to the rescue ...

#neverletacrisisgotowaste

 

[k0ua]

Guys you cannot simply divide total deaths by total cases to calculate a death rate. In the USA the number of cases freshly reported in the past week is something close to a third of all US cases. It takes more than a week to die on average so you’ll get an inaccurate and low estimate of case mortality by doing that. Even if there are zero additional new cases in the USA from this point on there will continue to be thousands of additional deaths. The USA mortality rate is certainly going to be higher than what you’ve calculated. To make matters more complicated, we don’t yet have serologic (antibody) surveillance studies yet to capture mild infections that never had contact with the medical system to get a pcr virus test. And, you cannot compare country to country when different standards for testing are used. Italy is only testing people sick enough to be hospitalized now. We are testing lots of worried folks who are able to stay home. Different populations.

Oh, I understand that. But I don't have hospitalizations figures and cant' really track things.

 

[Jstpssng]

^^^^^^
In order to know the rate, we first would need to determine number of cases... which we don’t have. Nor do we know the rate of death from the flu, despite the frequent inaccurate postings we’ve seen since the first CV-19 thread. How many of you go to the doctor because you had the flu? I don’t recall having it since nineteen ninety something but I didn’t leave the house.

 

[daugen]

My BIL is an excavator in Bucks County PA and he wrote this to me today:

Just laid the men off Friday, can't afford the payroll any longer with no money coming in.

repeated in a lot of places I'm sure

 

[IslandTractor]

Oh, I understand that. But I don't have hospitalizations figures and cant' really track things.

I didn’t mean my comment as a criticism. Nobody can accurately estimate Coronavirus mortality yet. Even the widely quoted CDC data on annual influenza mortality for years past is just an estimate with a wide confidence interval of tens of thousands of cases. My point is simply that we just cannot tell what our mortality rate will be and importantly it is nearly impossible to accurately compare one country to another.

 

[rswyan]

Governor Dewine's 2PM press conference (live) on the FDA/Battelle matter, already in progress:

Coronavirus in Ohio Sunday update: 1,653 cases, 29 deaths; DeWine addresses FDA mask decision | NBC4 WCMH-TV

 

[/pine]

Many states have web pages set up (usually by the state health dept) that have comprehensive reports for the individual states...Obviously the data is only as good as the numbers they use...but they should be as good as it gets...This state updates twice daily and make it easy to do your own calculations with the latest data...

 

[ultrarunner]

N95 mask expiration date

All 21 million of California strategic stockpile of N95 is past expiration date.

The SF Chronicle story said for masks properly stored it is not the filter medium going bad but the elastic headband ensuring the proper snug fit of the mask.

Currently, in the SF Bay Area we have Nurses and Docs wearing the same single N95 for days...

The anxiety of Nurses is very apparent... the biggest fear is bringing the virus home.

 

[lostcreekranch]

Twitter

Gov. DeWine: FDA’s ‘reckless’ decision limits Battelle’s PPE mask sterilizing technology to only 10k a day | NBC4 WCMH-TV

Hard to escape the potential political aspects/ramifications of that type of a decision ... looks like extortion/blackmail ...

OTOH, never underestimate the possibility that this "limiting decision" was orchestrated ... in order for a "white knight" to come riding to the rescue ...

#neverletacrisisgotowaste

As usual your linked article’s “sensationalized headline” doesn’t match the contents of the article.

Maybe you should read beyond the headline occasionally ... before making your snarky comments?

 

[Gale Hawkins]

As usual your linked article’s “sensationalized headline” doesn’t match the contents of the article.

Maybe you should read beyond the headline occasionally ... before making your snarky comments?

That is to be expected since the article writer and the writer of the headlines typically are two different people that may not even know each other. Anyone reading newsprint for medical info is grasping at straws. The writer of the piece often is trying to explain something they do no remotely understand. The writer of the headline is writing to enhance sales volume.

 

[rswyan]

As usual your linked article’s “sensationalized headline” doesn’t match the contents of the article.

Maybe you should read beyond the headline occasionally ... before making your snarky comments?

Uh-huh ...

From the article, a direct quote of Governor Dewine:

"The FDA’s decision to severely limit the use of this life-saving technology is nothing short of reckless," said DeWine in the statement. "Battelle’s innovative technology has the capability to protect healthcare professionals and first responders in Ohio and across the country, but in this time of crisis, the FDA has decided not to support those who are risking their lives to save others. This is a matter of life and death. I am not only disappointed by this development, but I’m also stunned that the FDA would decline to do all it can to protect this country’s frontline workers in this serious time of need."

 

[lostcreekranch]

That is to be expected since the article writer and the writer of the headlines typically are two different people that may not even know each other. Anyone reading newsprint for medical info is grasping at straws. The writer of the piece often is trying to explain something they do no remotely understand. The writer of the headline is writing to enhance sales volume.

And some never read beyond the hyped headline?

 

[rswyan]

That is to be expected since the article writer and the writer of the headlines typically are two different people that may not even know each other. Anyone reading newsprint for medical info is grasping at straws. The writer of the piece often is trying to explain something they do no remotely understand. The writer of the headline is writing to enhance sales volume.

You may wish to take rlgustafson's advice ... and actually read the article ... :thumbsup:

Preferably before the next gas lighting attempt ...

 

[locknut]

Lots of misinformation here. I'll make comments in capital letters. Not meaning to scream. And, while I am sure the physician at Hopkins knows a lot, something must have been lost in translation.

Thanks for the additional comments on that report. Are you familiar with the reports of hydroxychloroquine+ZPAK,or other antiviral drugs as a remedy for this disease,especially in early and mid-stage progression? Here's the latest report from France and a Dr here in NY.

Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19: results of an open-label non-randomized clinical trial - ScienceDirect

Giuliani interviews Dr. Zelenko on Covid-19 treatment… – CITIZEN FREE PRESS

 

[wheelbuilder]

Oh, I understand that. But I don't have hospitalizations figures and cant' really track things.

I don't know that we're ever going to have good data on this. Some folks go to the doctor for every wheeze or hurt, some don't go until they need an undertaker on standby. (And sometimes this means skipping the Doc entirely)

 

[Gale Hawkins]

And some never read beyond the hyped headline?

And some know what follows the headline is not worth reading if it is going to be taken hook, line and sinker. I have not read one article over the last six weeks concerning COVID-19 that was proofed for a medical test book. They are full of misunderstandings and out right errors.

This is why reading the news in print or digital formats is basically a waste of time if one is going to take the info as something to be acted upon. Grasp at straws long enough and one can actually come up with a usable bale of straw.

 

[MossRoad]

BINGO!

I WIN AGAIN!!! That's twice now.

 

[IslandTractor]

Thanks for the additional comments on that report. Are you familiar with the reports of hydroxychloroquine+ZPAK,or other antiviral drugs as a remedy for this disease,especially in early and mid-stage progression? Here's the latest report from France and a Dr here in NY.

Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19: results of an open-label non-randomized clinical trial - ScienceDirect

Giuliani interviews Dr. Zelenko on Covid-19 treatment CITIZEN FREE PRESS

Very familiar with those reports. Unfortunately they really are pretty much useless in assessing whether chloroquine or azithromycin are helpful at all. The way to determine that would be to randomly assign patients to receive either the experimental treatment or a placebo and then follow for outcome. They didn't do that. They didn't even use very ill patients with a high expected mortality. The outcome therefore is likely to be no different for the patients who were given the experimental drugs than what would have been expected with no therapy.

I'm sure there are good studies underway now (or starting shortly) and we'll just have to wait a while for results. It shouldn't take long to do an appropriate blinded placebo controlled trial in someplace like NYC or NOLA given the number of new infected patients each day.

I feel bad for the poor guy who died after taking aquarium pills when he got excited by what POTUS was shooting from the hip about in his daily briefing a few days ago. That is exactly why hypotheses should NOT be touted by politicians before being evaluated by scientists. We don't need 18 months to answer this particular question by the way....it should take a total of about 500 patients followed for a few weeks to give a preliminary useful answer in this setting. A few weeks might seem like a long time but it is really quite quick. Otherwise you might as well shoot at a dart board or flip a coin.