Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) (SARS-CoV-2) [2020]

[zed]

A 50x multiplier would imply almost nobody showing symptoms

Thats a very valid & strong argument. My question is what is asymptomatic? No symptoms at all, mild symptoms, eg just a slight cough, no fever, reduction of smell? (in normal time you would think you had nothing)
Very what I read in china even ppl showing fever and all the symptoms ( bar limbs falling off, projectile vomiting their own organs out of their mouths were considered non symptomatic, even death I heard was not enough to get classified, though to be far lots of countries in the west also dont consider that you died of covid f you had the misfortune of dying in a rest home )

 

[Cyan]

The numbers from the Ohio prisons is shockingly abysmal. A reporter during Monday's State of Ohio press conference said most of Monday's new cases was from the prison facilities, with nearly 800 at one facility and 200 at another.

Ohio’s Marion Correctional Institution is now the biggest single-source hotspot of coronavirus cases in the United States, The New York Times reported on Monday. More than 70 percent of inmates have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, state officials said late Sunday. To date, more than 471 people have died and 11,602 more have been infected with the virus across the state, according to the Ohio Department of Health. Of those infected, about 21 percent are in the state’s prison system—with a majority of that number, about 1,828 inmates, at Marion. State officials said Sunday that while there have been no reported deaths among the inmates, the 667 remaining prisoners who have not yet tested positive are now in quarantine.​

https://www.thedailybeast.com/more-...ion-in-ohio-have-tested-positive-for-covid-19

darn, once it gets to a somewhat "secluded" place it wrecks havoc. On residences for the elderly, in a city like Madrid it killed 13000-14000 elders, iirc.

The shutdown is a completely unsustainable way of flattening the curve, it's not like you can keep it going till herd immunity ... it's way way too slow. There would be riots in the street long before you get there. The shutdown was meant to get infections to decrease and allow contacting tracing and testing to work for total containment.

Flattening the curve and herd immunity are the same thing and they require social distancing measures which are more sustainable than an economic shutdown.

There were some people in Texas in a protest, I've seen it on the TV from the corner of the eye the other day.

Imo, lockdown should pay out in the long run. The main issue is the uncertainty. The summer is around the corner, but high temperatures aren't going to stop it from spreading. It is going to live less time on certain surfaces, but.... I've read that Austria has found a few dozens medicines which seem to be candidates to help fighting the virus.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

He mostly points to euromomo's results, that counts Europe's deaths:

1 - Throughout the years, the biggest killer of population is the seasonal flu. Every year, Europe goes from a traditional 50 000 deaths / week towards up to 70 000 deaths / week when the seasonal flu peaks during the winter.

2 - The last two seasonal flus were very mild on mortality rates (winters of 2019 and 2020).

3 - The mortality rate of coronavirus isn't worse than a typical Influenza peak. This mortality peak happened in week 12 of 2020, that's the 3rd week of March, and the mortality rate has been free-falling ever since.

Now, what we can take from here:

- Mortality peak happening in the 3rd week of March points to contagions that happened 1 or 2 weeks before that.
This means the peak of new contagions happened in the half of March, before lockdowns were in place in any European country. Therefore there's no actual proof that the government-mandated lockdowns had any influence in decreasing the mortality rate.

- A contagion peak happening in the beginning of March with free-falling contagions happening 2 weeks later points to herd immunity already happening in Europe in the middle of March -> again, before most European governments issued lockdowns.

I think you are reaching conclusions there that have no evidence shown. The overall mortality peak of population and corona spreading/deaths so far don't have to be and more likely aren't connected the way you imply. I personally too believe that Corona isn't as lethal compared to deaths from all other reasons when averaged across all ages as many worry, but I don't think that graph proves it or gives information about herd immunity etc.

I think it actually points more towards that corona case numbers are still low relatively to population just like the official figures are saying and thus barely register in overall deaths if at all. For example the official figures from Italy are 180K cases and 24k deaths, those are about 0.3% and 0.04% of Italy's population. The death rate from registered cases is high, but the overall figures are so low that it doesn't really show in the graph you provided and that is with or without overlap for deaths from substitute causes.

There is no evidence this death curve aligns with corona spreading timeline, but IF it actually does it could be that corona cases have already peaked only because of the lockdown procedures and other policies. If there were no policies made, corona cases/deaths and total deaths could see a new high or average higher level later on that curve, despite deaths from other causes going down.

As I explained above, there are no antibody (serological) tests in the field. There are only virological tests, which do miss a truck load of positives.
I wasn't aware of this until recently. Antibody tests take a much longer time to develop than virological tests (which AFAIK only test positive for a substantial presence of the virus in your mucosis). Most people without symptoms will test negative, regardless of having been infected or not. There are people who test negative with symptoms, and then test positive a week later.

Antibody tests are being made at least here in Finland and I assume in other places as well. At least some providers are doing a 2 stage test, where they first take a small blood sample from your finger and get a result in 15 min and if positive for antibodies, they draw more blood from your armpit and send the sample to a lab for a more accurate measurement. However the time to get those lab results is quite long at the moment, about 2 weeks.

 

[Arwin]

Any illusions about covid-19 being like the flu were definitively shattered here when we saw that the number of deaths per week peaked above our previous record, the hunger winter in the last year of WWII.

So don’t kid yourself.

And yes, without sufficient ICU capacity that will go much higher.

And yes, those that survive the long and harsh ICU treatment often have a long revalidation period ahead of them and psychological trauma.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

And then we hear that ventilators may be doing more harm than good.

 

[AlphaWolf]

And then we hear that ventilators may be doing more harm than good.

That's a bit like suggesting cpr does more harm than good because most people who get cpr don't survive.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Have you looked at the arguments? It's not just a simple 'people on ventilators die, therefore ventilators are bad' assessment, like my earlier ironic correlation that hospital gowns are killing people. It's medical observation of patients and how they respond to treatment. It's a new disease and the medical services are having to learn its specifics and best treatments. The protocols that work for some diseases may not be ideal for this one. This wouldn't be the first time in medical history that the accepted standard of treatment was wrong and there was a much better one waiting to be discovered.

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/doctors-for-some-ventilators-may-do-more-harm-than-good/2220913/

"I’ve never seen anything like this," said Dr. David Farcy, head of emergency medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach. "This has challenged every dogma, has channeled every belief, has challenged anything I’ve studied."

He described how his first patient entered the ER with blood oxygen levels so low, he was amazed he could speak lucidly.

"I would have probably intubated him and he’s looking at me like he wants to go home. And he’s like, 'I’m not staying in the hospital,'" Farcy recalled. "I was finding myself having a conversation with somebody I thought was hypoxic (lacking sufficient oxygen) and I'm thinking to myself, he's not capable of making decisions. But he made more sense than me at the time. I was very confused, but at the same time, it opened my mind and the mind of others to find alternatives to ventilation."

After all, he said, "catastrophic" data from China and Europe shows 50% to 80% of those intubated die.

So he gave the patient high levels of oxygen and had him lay on his side, and then on his chest, and saw blood oxygen quickly return to safe levels.​

https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/are-ventilators-doing-more-harm-than-good/

Reynolds said doctors are finding Covid-19 patients’ lungs may behave somewhat differently than lungs afflicted with other diseases.
Viral pneumonia or a lung infection usually leads to “stiff” lungs, he explained, and ventilators treating those diseases use high pressure to keep the lungs open.
“We expect the lungs, when they’re inflamed and injured, to act a certain way and there’s indications that [Covid-19 patients’ lungs] actually act differently,” he said.
“Our regular way we manage these patients may not be optimal.”​

 

[Arwin]

That is weird because those ‘catastrophic’ figures are completely wrong afaik most people survive the icu treatment, and first oxygen and only respirators when that fails has always been the standard? Maybe I am overlooking something.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Ya intubation is nowhere near the first option, it is the last. There are several oxygen options that will be used first. They are putting people on a ventilator because they are not getting enough oxygen to survive without it.

Now if you want to build a few hundred thousand more ECMO machines and go there instead of ventilators that'd be great.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That is weird because those ‘catastrophic’ figures are completely wrong afaik most people survive the icu treatment, and first oxygen and only respirators when that fails has always been the standard? Maybe I am overlooking something.

The data mentioned in these articles say the average fatality for intubation ventilators is 50% by default, but as high as 80% for Covid19 patients.

Ya intubation is nowhere near the first option, it is the last. There are several oxygen options that will be used first. They are putting people on a ventilator because they are not getting enough oxygen to survive without it.

Except that example shows the guy wasn't getting enough oxygen so the doc thought to put him on a ventilator, but instead had him lay on his side and give oxygen and that was good enough for that patient. The existing understanding of when to use a ventilator may be off for this disease.

 

[3dilettante]

Thats a very valid & strong argument. My question is what is asymptomatic? No symptoms at all, mild symptoms, eg just a slight cough, no fever, reduction of smell? (in normal time you would think you had nothing)
Very what I read in china even ppl showing fever and all the symptoms ( bar limbs falling off, projectile vomiting their own organs out of their mouths were considered non symptomatic, even death I heard was not enough to get classified, though to be far lots of countries in the west also dont consider that you died of covid f you had the misfortune of dying in a rest home )

I'm not sure if it's being applied the same across all contexts. The way the term asymptomatic is used by some of the pandemic experts is that an individual exhibits no symptoms. This is distinct from pre-symptomatic, where there's a period of time before symptoms manifest. There are apparently instances where patients were infectious for days to weeks prior to showing any signs, but once they developed symptoms they wouldn't fall in the asymptomatic category.
Because that usage of asymptomatic means it's not known until after the fact, it's been harder to verify it is happening. The cruise ship and other physically contained outbreaks would have been some of the first opportunities to study known exposed patients, particularly since testing in the early was still evolving.

Mild in the reports I've seen discussed doesn't mean the same thing as the colloquial usage. Public health discussions defined "mild" as not requiring hospitalization, which from most everyday experiences can have a very wide range between feeling somewhat unwell to being just short of requiring acute care.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm not sure if it's being applied the same across all contexts.

If it were, it'd be the first time anything with this disease was consistent.

 

[MfA]

The main reason ventilators are used at all seems to be because all the alternatives create aerosols.

 

[Mariner]

So, the UK ONS figures show 'excess deaths' of 8,000 for the week to the 10th April. The caveat they note is that 10th was Good Friday when many of the registry offices were closed so actual number is probably a couple of thousand more than this. Deaths in care homes are reported to have quadrupled compared to the previous week though only to a thousand (though other reports seem to indicate there is large scale underreporting from care homes). Approximately 6,000 of these deaths are recorded as Covid-19 related so the ONS plans to investigate where the additional 2,000 that we know of came from. Probably people dying at home from treatable conditions because they are scared to go to hospital or don't want to be a further burden on the NHS. I've seen other reports that indicate visits to A&E (i.e. Emergency rooms) are a fraction of their usual levels.

Not looking good considering they think 10th was probably a week or two before the peak.

 

[BRiT]

It's unknown how much of today's numbers are still heavily related to the Prison Facility testing of Inmates, but the daily increase percentage is down to a more expected range for still having social-distancing and self-isolation orders in place.

Ohio's numbers today, Confirmed: 13725 (up from 12919 ), Hospitalized: 2779 (up from 2653 ), and Deaths: 557 (up from 509 ).
CDC Expanded Cases and Deaths: 475 (up from 403 ), 19 (up from 18)
Confirmed Cuyahoga County: 1653 (Up from 1577 ).

Percentage increase: 6.24%, 4.75%, 9.43%
Raw increase: 806, 126, 48

Ohio has total tests of 94,239 (up from 90,839) and tests per 1M population of 8095 (up from 7,803) taken from https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/dashboards/key-metrics/cases and https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ [case numbers updated later]

 

[Cyan]

rich people from Silicon Valley are leaving for their bunkers.

https://www.businessinsider.es/multimillonarios-silicon-valley-bunkeres-fin-mundo-299255

 

[A1xLLcqAgt0qc2RyMz0y]

State of Texas complete COVID-19 data breakdown

https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/ed483ecd702b4298ab01e8b9cafc8b83

Data as of 4/21/2020 @ 12:00 PM:

Total Tests: 205,399 (Up +15,005)
Cases Reported: 20,196 (Up +738)
In Hospitals: 1,419 (Up +8)
Patients Recovered (Estimated*) : 6,486 (Up +780)
Fatalities: 517 (Up +22)

Texas tests per 1M population are 7,366 (Up +538) which places Texas as the 3rd worst State. Ohio is four places better at 8,095 (Up +292) per 1M population.

Click this link: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us
and on the page click the Tests / 1M pop column to sort from worst to first

 

[BRiT]

Kentucky sees record spike in coronavirus cases days after lockdown protests
Despite the demonstrations, Beshear, a Democrat, said Kentucky would not begin incrementally reopening the economy or easing its lockdown restrictions until seeing a downward trajectory of reported coronavirus cases for at least 14 days.​

It was not immediately clear whether the surge in cases was linked to the protests
https://www.foxnews.com/us/kentucky-record-spike-coronavirus-cases-lockdown-protests

 

[Cyan]

Kentucky sees record spike in coronavirus cases days after lockdown protests
Despite the demonstrations, Beshear, a Democrat, said Kentucky would not begin incrementally reopening the economy or easing its lockdown restrictions until seeing a downward trajectory of reported coronavirus cases for at least 14 days.​

It was not immediately clear whether the surge in cases was linked to the protests
https://www.foxnews.com/us/kentucky-record-spike-coronavirus-cases-lockdown-protests

not exactly in Kentucky, but in a lockdown protest in Texas I've seen someone with a banner which read "Work not Welfare". I'd like to smoke what some people smoke.

Hundreds of people got infected in cities during protests -for instance in Madrid during March 8th, Women Day, many got infected, including several ministers-.

Meetings are banned now, so are protests, parties, etc. They are going to prolong the lockdown till May 11th -maybe more afterwards..who knows-, but it's been more than a month. Can't wait to see some of my real life friends, but that's another story.

 

[BRiT]

At least with a few of the southern states reopening before others by 9 to 13 days, we'll be able to see the impact of too soon or done wrong. That of course assumes the states incorrectly opening are actually testing and reporting correct numbers.