Another possible case reported in Fulton county
And one person reported as living in Fulton County apparently lives in Polk County.
The main problem are the large number of people who use the ER for stupid reasons : ankle sprains, red eye, sciatica, running out of pain medication or benzodiazepines. A lot of times I get patients with āER follow upā diagnosis and I am amazed by the lack of basic education about using the ER services. I suspect some of these people will stop going to ER, at least for fear of contamination and a lot of the elective procedures will be postponed. Rehab beds can be changed into acute care.
The other problem is massive quarantine of health care workers after exposure. It may work if you have a case here and there but not if you have multiple cases, you just donāt have enough people.
Outpatient offices can triage sick patients, since most do not need hospitalization but you need enough protective equipment. I have probably 20 gowns and 20 masks in the office, not enough to protect the staff in case we get many suspected cases. It makes more sense to install tents in the parking lots at the malls ( that are empty anyways), have a 3 shift masked and gowned crew and an ambulance ready in case of need. This way you do not crowd the ER with suspected cases and decrease the risk of contamination.
You are co-mingling two different sets of data and reporting and making it sound like they were designed to go together.
They werenāt.
As an engineer, you should understand research design a little better than that.
@privatebanker still huge and tons of forest, and still home to OCS (among many things). The weather is still hot and muggy and buggy all summer long, and the traffic even worse than the weather. Ha.
As far as using med school students for some things (not doctor required things, but medical things), I know itās already happening at least in one place - and this without the new virus being in the area. Too many nurses are sick with the ānormalā bugs.
If Covid-19 takes off, it will definitely put a strain on our health care system regardless of what the specifics of the numbers end up being. The mild cases will be mild and all will be well for them, but what about the others? China was able to build quickly. Iām not sure what the US can do. I suspect this will cause the death rate to increase and some folks would have to decide who gets treatment and who doesnāt. I donāt want to be on that board.
Iām still hoping the PSAs work enough to keep a slow spread or containment. I see nothing wrong in hoping/trying for that. Heck, I wish the flu could be contained too. We have a vaccine to try to help with those strains and still get several deaths, albeit fewer than there would be without it.
Two articles from the WSJ today, both pay walledā¦ I think. The first, which will probably be available to anyone in a day or two, is a pretty damning timeline of whatās been pieced together in regards to the initial handling of the outbreak by the Chinese government.
(Most generous explanation for all this is that loss of face means way more to some than I ever imagined. And, I still donāt believe much of anything as to what China says, even if WHOās singing in the background.)
The other oneā¦ Iām old enough this stings but the pointās sound.
Holman Jenkins:
Which is going to cause more world wide misery?
BULGARIA - 1st 2 cases reported - a 27-year-old man and a 75-year-old woman.
Neither had travelled anywhere recently or been in contact with anyone who had returned from a country with a coronavirus outbreak. Both were tested for the infection as a preventive measure after being hospitalised several days ago with severe respiratory problems.
@Creekland Do you think there are enough PSAs out there to really stem the tide? I have seen much at all, granted I donāt watch TV.
Iām not on TV. Iām talking about whatever methods people are using to get info.
And for the answer - I donāt know, but I can hope. If we just decide to allow the mass outbreak as suggested in the quote from a pp, too many people will needlessly die - over money. I might even put in the word greed myself. Iād like to think humans are better than that and we could sort of Disney-ish pull together for the common good, but I suppose thereās too much in the real history books to assume Disney could even remotely be life-like on a large scale.
Enough with the cruise ships alreadyā¦ Gah!
US authorities are tracking another cruise ship for potential infections, according to vice-president Mike Pence, who is leading the USās response.
"The ship that may have shared crew members with a ship carrying people who tested positive for Covid-19, Pence said on Saturday.
āWe are tracking at this point a ship that may have shared crew with the Diamond Princess or the Grand Princess and weāve taken decisive action to hold until we do a full medical assessment of the crew on that ship,ā Pence said after a meeting with cruise line industry officials.
He did not identify the ship being tracked." (Guardian)
** 1st Case in Missouri **
a St. Louis County woman in her 20s had traveled to Italy and was tested positive for COVID-19. The woman tested positive at a Mercy hospital in the St. Louis County area.
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services tested a total of 26 people for COVID-19 including the positive case. Three additional tests remain in progress.
You know what?? That is UNACCEPTABLE. There is a vaccine available for flu. Granted, the vaccine is not foolproof, but guess what? The majority of those who died did not get a flu shot. This is from 2018, the worst flu season in a long time.
Now the antivaxxers are adding to the burden on our healthcare.
Letās try to figure out how many actual cases we have in the US right now. We know that we have, as of this writing, 19 deaths. Weāll get a lower bound here.
We donāt know the true case fatality rate (death rate). Korea is currently showing a death rate of about 0.7%. Iāve argued before that this is too low. Letās go with 1%, for ease of arithmetic. (If you want to go with a lower number, fine. Youāll end up with more cases in this computation.) For every person who got infected, there were 99 more who got infected and didnāt die.
The trajectory for a coronavirus patient who will succumb is they get infected, get sick, and then maybe three weeks later they die. So for these 19 patients, letās go back three weeks to the minute they got infected. (Yes, I know some of them died last week or earlier. Iām ignoring that. If I didnāt ignore it, I would end up with a bigger number of cases.)
So, three weeks ago, we have 1900 patients that just got infected, 19 of whom will die. The doubling time for this disease is a week or so. So today, we have 5700. Thatās a low estimate. The real number is higher.
Thank god we have real epidemiologists instead of us who stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.
@sdl0625 - I will also be anxious to hear your report to compare with the experience of a loved one today who lives in ATL suburb. The 20-something BF of loved one, who has direct contact with ill people throughout the day, had onset of cough, malaise, and fever late last night. At urgent care today, was told flu test and chest x-ray were protocol as x-ray would be used to screen for Covid-19 (looking for lesions) ā Really?
Results were positive for flu; chest x-ray was clear. And yes - BF had the flu shot.
I welcome opinions on the necessity of the chest x-rayā¦
Well, I have a stuffy nose with a fever and a slight cough, and at the moment Iām in an area with a lot of people self-isolating. Iām not worried about me, because Iām not that sick and I donāt think I have Coronavirus. But I am worried about giving it to a vulnerable person on the off chance I have a mild case. So, Iām self-isolating too.
Iād love to be tested so Iād know whether I can stop self-isolating. And Iām sure there are others in the same shoes as me. For me, I can work from home so my staying at home doesnāt impact the economy so much. But for othersā¦
So I called the local doctorās office today (one of those big corporate offices that has eaten up all the local practitioners) and was told they arenāt dealing with this, I have to call County Dept of Health. I called them and the āafter hoursā voicemail told me to call the State hotline. Person I spoke to at the State originally told me that since I havenāt been out of the country and donāt have a known connection to anyone who tested positive, that I didnāt need to be tested. When I told her I was concerned because Iāve been in Westchester a lot the past couple of weeks, Iāve taken metro-north a bunch, and Iāve flown a lot. She still sounded skeptical but said that if I wanted to I could call the local hospital, as only the hospitals are conducting the tests, and I could see if theyād be willing to test me.
Well, I donāt want to go to the hospital and catch God knows what from other people. I had this ridiculous notion in my head that I could go to the local doctorās office and stand outside and have someone in protective gear take a swab and I could drive off, all without having interactions with other people who I could get sick, or who could get me sick, especially since Iām already down with a cold.
And Iām also worried about what the bill would be. Itās my understanding that the test itself is free, but I donāt know if the hospital charges anything for the testing room etc. Last time my family dealt with a hospital bill, it was $600 for getting wax buildup removed from my kidās ear (she was in a rural area with a horrible earache and no urgent care around and doctors offices closed for the weekend, so she went to the ER because that was the only option available). Part of the bill was for the doctor visit, for the procedure, for the room, and I think there was 1 more category. If I didnāt have insurance, it would have been $2,000. What a turn-off.
Guess Iāll keep staying home. Now I just have to look up how long I have to be symptom free before I can go back to my normal life.
I just thought Iād share, so you all can see that I bet more people have this virus than are being tested for it.
AAAAAAAH! Iām tired of people being innumerate. We are talking about an exponential. If we prevent transmission, we prevent a LARGE number of cases that will require costly medical intervention that we canāt give because our hospitals will be overwhelmed with patients, as the Liz Specht estimates above demonstrate.
Math is math. It is not evaded by not understanding it. We need to make it so a coronavirus infected person himself or herself infects fewer people. We do that by handwashing, cleaning, social distancing and shutting down large events.
I gotta admit, Iām totally lost with this comment and too lazy to googleā¦
Iām also guessing you disagree with someone (me?) and are insulting them - not quite sure why - but I guess it happens.
"15000 Americans die of the flu each year alone. "
@privatebanker I donāt know where you got those numbers, but the CDC reports FAR greater numbers.
Is it āloss of faceā or just that the general tendency to āshoot the messengerā makes it more dangerous to be the bearer of bad news in a more authoritarian environment.
Iām not an engineer - was quoting a PhD engineer and wanting this forum to poke holes in her analysis as I find it to be analytical and thoughtful, but Iām not an expert.