The Coronavirus Thread

Discussion in 'Random Thoughts' started by purr1n, Mar 16, 2020.

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  1. gaspasser

    gaspasser Flatulence Maestro

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    I hate misinformation and bullshit.

    You clearly don't understand that this is coming in the next 7-10 DAYS. Treatments even off-label require, first finding the right medication and then usually a dosage adjustment to find the best effect.

    Wrong; the vaccines like Flu are ineffective because the flu virus mutates rapidly and the manufacturing process of the vaccines is problematic in that we get out a vaccine against a slightly different strain than intended.

    The use of plasma is an antiquated treatment that was first used prior to antibiotics and antivirals. This is another area that may help, but not enough to make a dent in the crashing wave of the curve.
     
  2. insidious meme

    insidious meme Ambivalent Kumquat

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    Thought he was gone forever.

    upload_2020-3-21_14-50-49.png
     
  3. Pogo

    Pogo Friend

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    Schiit has announced their new policy of double sanistising wipe downs of all components as they are packaged.
    This is comforting to me as I tend to fondle,sniff and even kiss (no tounge,eeewww) new components.
    Careful with those returns Jason.....
     
  4. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    You are forgetting one major thing: You use your hands to touch something....hard and long.
     
  5. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    [Insert 1/4" jack joke here]
     
  6. atomicbob

    atomicbob dScope Yoda

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    Me too, and I very much appreciate your providing insight from an actual member of the medical profession, thank-you!
    It is exploding now in NYC. A week ago NYC was barely a blip on the chart while we in Washington state were the majority epicenter. That has changed radically in the last several days. Look at NY numbers on this: https://infection2020.com/ Scroll down to break out numbers by quantity. Also have a look at the graph in log mode. It helps to put the tracking of deaths to reported cases into a better perspective. We want that view to widen ASAP, as in deaths are much lower than cases reported, in LOG view.
     
  7. Walderstorn

    Walderstorn Friend

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    I got a call from the hospital 2 hours ago, they told me that one of our patients, from yesterday, was flagged positive, the first in my town. The patient in question never got to me, because I was alone at the time and the patient didn't speak Swedish and so I, since it was a 6hours limit exam, asked the Infection department to wait before sending the patient. I wasn't placed at the CT-scan but I was covering for 2 colleagues that went to lunch, in case we had any emergency.

    Resuming they came back from lunch and I went back to the operation room. They got the patient, who was there to check for extentions of active TBC and no one considered Covid at that time.

    Because I signed a note about the patient inability to speak Swedish my colleague, which is close to me, thought that I had contact with the, now flagged positive, patient.

    Tl,Dr..

    I didn't have contact, yesterday, with a patient that was flagged positive today, by pure coincidence, because she couldn't speak the language and I was alone at the time.

    My two colleagues, that were exposed, will now follow protocol.
     
  8. Thenewerguy009

    Thenewerguy009 Friend

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    Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
     
  9. bilboda

    bilboda Florida boomer

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    As the number of tests performed rise, the number of reported infections also rise. Is it important that more tests be performed? For those seeking treatment, yes. If you may have been infected, why not? You could just isolate yourself instead and seek treatment when and if necessary.
    I am under the assumption that I will be exposed at some point, anyway.

    Wallowing in the wildly inaccurate numbers now is like watching a basketball game without a scoreboard and over analyzing each score. An explosion of new cases in New York could just be an explosion in the number of tests being performed. More and more tests are being made available, so yes, the numbers must increase.
    We are trying to play Monday morning quarterback for A sunday game and it's still Saturday.
    Just take care, follow the steps being proscribed so we old folks can get a bed if needed.

    You just can't predict the number of deaths yet nor the number or rate of infection. You can count the deaths but that's it. That's the only hard data we have. If I test negative today, I could be positive tomorrow, and so on.
     
  10. netforce

    netforce MOT: Headphones.com

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    Just using the current shelter at home states as examples. Closing restaurants and bars first, then non essential businesses, and getting stricter from there.

    California non essential businesses are supposed to be closed, dine in is prohibited. Just driving around today, I saw my barber shop defying the non essential business rule and staying open while plenty of other businesses near by were closed.

    No dine in? Sure most places were closed or takeout only but I saw the boba shops with quite a lot of young people. I saw one with people sitting around close by to each other.

    Gamestop was in the news recently for calling itself essential business for the rationale that they sell necessary gear to teleconference. While it is clear that that want to take advantage of the people stuck at home who want to play video games. That they are also not supplying their necessary workers cleaning supplies.

    Sure we will always have businesses who ignore the rules for a quick buck but as this crisis gets worse hopefully they come to their senses before someone dear to them catches it.
     
  11. Pogo

    Pogo Friend

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    What we've not seen reported is the percentage of new cases declared vs the percentage of increase in new testing declared, the old British hifi saw about "the more we open the window,the more the dust blows in" comes to mind.
    And how accurate are these test results? We've all seen forqued test results in our own hobby world , what are the standards here? We've had it drummed into our heads to expect exponential growth numbers, is this expectation bias at work?
    And the shocking death toll in Italy today, did they really test all of the 750+ corpse to positively confirm the presence of this virus? People die everyday from multiple causes.
    Not saying that this pandemic is overblown but I sure would like better analysis of the numbers.
     
  12. Brause

    Brause Friend

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    The whole of Bavaria has been locked down, the rest of Germany will likely follow suit on Monday. 60-70% of German population is expected to become infected.

    Here in Calgary, AB, Canada, we have drive-through testing by appointment. Public places have shut down.

    My wife works in the Provincial lab in Calgary, things are still under control...people are working hard, managers are helping out, they are calling in retirees. Right now Alberta has performed 20,000 COVID-19 tests — more than any other province in Canada.

    The local peak of infections is expected to occur in ca. 4 weeks.

    Singapore are apparently handling the situation extremely well. My co-blogger has been recruited as a "social distancing enforcer".
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2020
  13. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    the only reason South Korea had thousands of test kits available is because the private biotec company Seegene started developing CV tests before SK had its first case, not even waiting for the government orders. And nobody cared if the testing was private or not.
    Whenever shit happens if you dig long enough you can always find some sclerotic bureaucrats behind it and some f'ing regulations.
    In Canada even two weeks ago "science was not supporting travel restrictions" as our semi-literate health Minister told us. "Science" changed dramatically in 14 days, I guess it was not settled.
     
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2020
  14. Donald North

    Donald North Friend

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    To those who can afford it: Try to support your favorite local mom & pop restaurant and buy some take out/delivery. They won’t survive without your patronage and don’t assume someone else will because they’re not - business is very slow for them.
     
  15. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    This is exactly why Americans don't deserve the more sensible, but also more personal and community responsible measures adopted in Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, etc.
     
  16. GoodEnoughGear

    GoodEnoughGear Evil Dr. Shultz‎

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    Yeah we're supporting our local takouts, who are all publishing the sanitization protocols, encouraging distancing and paying via SnapScan etc. Friends of mine have already lost businesses effectively - they won't make a month of shutdown, that's how little fat they have.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2020
  17. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Welcome to the real world. Where things are never neat and clean like Amir's SINAD.

    Among the many things I do at my RL job is crunch numbers for network security vulnerabilities, ranking them by severity, for over a dozen sites, near three hundred asset groups, and thousands of hosts.

    Getting perfect data is damn near impossible. Any naysayer will bitch that the results are inaccurate, incomplete, or could contain false positives or inactionable items.

    Bottom line is that once the data is massaged smartly, they provide good indicators.

    If indicators, however flawed they might be, tell you something is fucked, are you really going to want to ignore them, especially if your job is to keep things safe?

    There so so much shit that happens when data is ignored because people make excuses that they are not perfect. We are talking about scary predictive shit. I seriously am not even allowed to talk about it.

    In the case of SARS2, it's human lives at stake. Abundance of caution is warranted. Seriously, enough of this denier or even slight-doubts shit. That stage is long past.

    P.S.

    There is other data that shows scary shit, e.g. city emergency room visits for flu-like symptoms, overlaid with prior years, noting that flu season is already over.

    Lack of test kits only tells us that there are more SARS2 cases out there than reported. Colleagues in the UK, France, and Canada (BC, Ontario, and Quebec) have already told me they couldn't get tests. Heck, it's my understanding that you can't even get a test in Italy - the individual EU counties are saving the supplies up for themselves.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2020
  18. dsavitsk

    dsavitsk Friend

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    If you really want to support your local mom and pop establishment, cook for yourself, send them money that would be equivalent to the profit they would make from you, and spare them the risk.
     
  19. james444

    james444 Mad IEM modding wizard level 99

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    I've been told that the bottleneck are not test kits, but the personnel performing the tests - there are quite a few manual steps involved, at least with the ones performed in EU countries. Germany's among the best and has been carrying out 160k tests last week, but that's still just a mere 0.2% of its population (83 million).

    In the absence of testing opportunities, I think the best we can do is be vigilant about our own symptoms and act extra carefully and responsibly, if they point to a possible SARS2 infection. As I said before, mild cases and spreaders not being aware of their infection are probably the main problem of this pandemia.

    That said, here's from an interview with a German virologist, who seems to have found a formerly unknown symptom:
    (Link to the original article in German, for some reason Google translate doesn't work with it: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesells...-hendrik-streeck-zum-virus-16681450.html#void)
     
  20. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    Watching this series. Some nerds into history, games and literature make these series. Their topics might not make your day, but their passion for their chosen topics will. History is awesome...

     
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