Thank you.
I don’t recall reading anything about house cleaners, but this thread moves so fast, I pbly missed it.
So the President said we Doctors can get masks now…hahahahahah…LOLOLOL
thank goodness we put in larger orders before this happened. Today I was able to restock ( I am a Podiatrist with sports medicine practice and my own operating room and recovery) cam walkers for injuries. I was able to do surgery yesterday and trying to just take on infections and things more serious now since I am elective surgery. Talked to both Mckesson and Henry Schein and Moore etc and after the laughter my Henry Schein dude might be able to get me some large gowns and surgical masks. I have small/ medium gowns but I wear large/ xlarge but can do surgery with the smaller ones for now. I can guy a surgical cap of fabric and not use the disposable ones. There are ways I can safely take short cuts if needed. I can only get long acting injectibles and not short acting so that injection might sting a bit more.
My receptionist is home for a week since she wasn’t feeling well. So I am short on staff but my patients understand. We are using our billing/ answering service to make live appointments while we are helping patients to minimize people in the office. I have done this for years. it works well. They can even take payments if needed.
We are playing around with a few Tele-medicine products just in case. I called my patient from yesterday. (he’s doing great so thx for asking), no reason to do Telemedicine for something I have done for 31 years. Patient are always surprised when me, the doctor actually calls them to see how they are doing…what is wrong with our society. Doctors should always do this (maybe not the CV ones at the moment…)…
Everyones spaced out nicely. No spouses allowed in the office that ask too many questions anyway…(I might like this change…lol).
Hopefully no one is sick today or coughing. If so they will not be treated unless its an emergency basis…
Ha, earlier today I was listening to a French class in the room next to me.
Coronavirus infects faster, lasts longer than Sars, raising containment fears
Researchers found that on average, infected people expel virus particles from their bodies for a relatively long period of 20 days, even before symptoms appear
Findings indicate longer quarantine periods may be needed for patients, according to researchers from the China-Japan Friendship Hospital
The official numbers area going to be a mess. As I posted yesterday, a college student who just returned from Europe that I know wasn’t tested because he is managing his fever ok at home.
Same thing with my daughter. Not enough tests means cases not being tested because they don’t need medical attention.
As of yesterday, it looks like Ohio has tested less than 300 people. If anyone has other data, please present it.
If you want the article about chicken, try this link:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-chicken-idUSKBN2153F3
It’s a separate thread on Covid-19 and domestic workers.
Wisconsin #COVID19 test results:
Positive: 155
Negative: 2192
Actor Daniel Dae Kim says he’s tested positive for coronavirus
From CNN’s Megan Thomas
Daniel Dae Kim, a prolific actor best known for his work in the television series “Hawaii 5-0” and “Lost,” said he’s tested positive for COVID-19.
“Looks like I’ll be ok, but I wanted share my journey with you in the hopes that you find it informative or helpful,” he wrote in an Instagram post on Thursday.
Kim also shared a 10-minute video about his experience and said his test results came back Wednesday.
Mexico has reported its first coronavirus death, reader Lou Canton points out. He was a 41-year-old who suffered from diabetes, the country’s health ministry said.
He had not travelled abroad and had probably become infected when he attended a concert in Mexico City on 3 March.
His wife complained that she had been given mixed messages about his condition, local media report. First, doctors told her her husband had pneumonia due to influenza. Then they told her he had coronavirus, but did not show her any results from a test, she said.
She also added that she had not been tested for coronavirus test and said she was allowed to enter the hospital to visit her husband. (Guardian)
Netflix is reducing traffic on European networks by 25%
From CNN’s Hadas Gold in London
After a request by officials from the European Union concerned about the unprecedented strain on the internet, Netflix said in a statement it would begin reducing bit rates across all streams in Europe for 30 days.
“We estimate that this will reduce Netflix traffic on European networks by around 25 percent while also ensuring a good quality service for our members,” the statement said.
It’s about historical context and lack of trust. Our leaders are given the benefit of the doubt IF the public has respect for them and their decisions over a long period of time. Leadership is about being open and honest with your people and when our leaders continuously embellish (and frankly lie to us), it very hard to see any action they take as positive or thinking that they have ulterior, political motives.
@doschicos - this 300 number for Ohio is not correct. In four days of testing we have tested over 2,200 people (this is in my health system only). I don’t have the number for the state.
Egypt shuts all airports, suspends flights
Egypt has shut down its airports and air travel until March 31 to contain the outbreak of the coronavirus.
The new measures will heavily impact the country’s economy and tourism sectors, with some 138,000 jobs immediately at risk and a loss of $1bn in airline revenues, according to IATA.
No tourists were in sight near Giza’s pyramids, Egypt’s iconic landmarks, and coffee shops and restaurants were shuttered in Cairo, a city of over 20 million.
Egypt, which has reported nearly 210 cases and six deaths from the virus, has suspended flights, closed schools, and is quarantining more than 300 families in a Nile Delta village, and imposed a lockdown in the Red Sea resort town of Hurghada.
Sharp increase in Moscow pneumonia cases
A reported sharp increase in pneumonia cases in the Russian capital and contradictory information around the issue is fuelling fears about the accuracy of official coronavirus data as it remains much lower than many European countries.
Russia, which has a population of 144 million, has reported just 199 coronavirus cases and some doctors have questioned how far the official data reflects reality, given what they say is the patchy nature and quality of testing.
A spike in pneumonia cases in Moscow, Russia’s biggest transport hub and a city with a population of about 13 million, has further raised doubts.
“I have a feeling they [the authorities] are lying to us,” said Anastasia Vasilyeva, head of Russia’s Doctor’s Alliance trade union.
The government, however, says its statistics are accurate and President Vladimir Putin has complained that Russia is being targeted by fake news to sow panic.
South Africa to erect 40km fence on Zimbabwe border
South African authorities announced they would erect a fence along its border with Zimbabwe to prevent illegal immigrants from entering and spreading the coronavirus.
President Ramaphosa has already ordered 35 out of 53 land entry points closed.
“This measure will … not be effective if the fences at the border are not secure, which in many places, they are not,” Public Works Minister Patricia de Lille said in a statement.
South Africa has long sought to reduce illegal immigration from Zimbabwe, which it sees as a threat to local jobs in a country with unemployment of around 30 percent.
‘Quarantine shaming’: US navigates radical new social norms
“Quarantine shaming” - calling out those not abiding by social distancing rules - is part of a new and startling reality for Americans who must navigate a world of rapidly evolving social norms in the age of COVID-19.
As schools close and shelter-in-place orders sweep across the US, the divide between those who are stringently practising self-isolation and those still trying to go about some semblance of normal life has never been clearer.
Complicating matters, what was socially acceptable even 48 hours ago may now be taboo, as government officials race to contain the virus with ever-expanding circles of social isolation.
“The time matrix seems to be shifting. I’ve never known several days to go by so slowly and watching the collective conscience move more and more in one direction day by day,” said Paula Flakser, who lost her bartending job when California’s Mammoth Mountain ski resort closed this week.
Al Jazeera
Separate thread: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/2178536-coronavirus-and-the-domestic-worker.html
Africa sees ‘extremely rapid evolution’ of pandemic, UN says
More African countries closed their borders on Thursday as the coronavirus’s local spread threatened to turn the continent of 1.3 billion people into an alarming new front for the pandemic.
“About 10 days ago we had about five countries” with the virus, WHO’s Africa chief Dr Matshidiso Moeti told reporters. Now 34 of Africa’s 54 countries have cases, with the total close to 650. It is an “extremely rapid evolution”, she said.
Netherlands tests blood samples for unseen coronavirus spread
Dutch health authorities have begun a major project testing blood donation samples to see how many people in the Netherlands may have already had the new coronavirus.
The project is being carried out on 10,000 blood donation samples a week by blood bank Sanquin, in cooperation with the country’s National Institute for Health (RIVM).
“It’s possible that you had coronavirus without being sick,” Sanquin spokesman Merlijn van Hasselt told national broadcaster NOS. “If we test for antibodies, we can see whether you’ve already had it … and over time get a picture of how that’s evolving.”
[ Good idea. Could that be combined with blood donations to ease the short supply? ]
Al Jazeera
Double ha! It was Hebrew here. 
PM Conte: Italy to prolong anti-coronavirus lockdown
Italy will remain under lockdown beyond previous deadlines due to expire later this month and in early April, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said.
In comments to the Corriere della Sera newspaper, Conte said measures taken to close schools, universities and to impose severe restrictions on movement would have to be prolonged.
Under current measures, Italy’s 60 million people are only allowed to travel for work, medical reasons or emergencies under an order that runs until April 3, while most shops, except those selling food and pharmacies, are supposed to remain closed until March 25. (Al Jazeera)
Scientists are exploring whether an inexpensive anti-malaria drug could be an effective treatment for coronavirus.
Earlier, US president Donald Trump and the US Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr Stephen Hahn announced that chloroquine – which has anti-viral effects and has been used for decades to prevent people catching malaria – was one of a number of approaches being tested to tackle Covid-19.
The University of Minnesota revealed on Tuesday that it was launching a clinical trial of whether hydroxychloroquine, a derivative of chloroquine, can prevent people catching coronavirus.
Trial volunteers who have been exposed to someone with known Covid-19, but who are not ill, will be given hydroxychloroquine to test whether it can stop the illness developing or reduce its severity.
According to a laboratory test conducted by the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, chloroquine was found to be “highly effective” in controlling Covid-19 infection.
The World Health Organisation has also included chloroquine as one of the drugs being prioritised under its global “Solidarity Trial” - an international study bringing together various nations’ efforts to test potential coronavirus treatments.
Dr Andrew Preston, reader in Microbial Pathogenesis at the University of Bath, said:
Chloroquine is better recognised as an anti-malarial drug. It is cheap, considered relatively safe in humans and has been used for over 70 years.
However, for over 10 years there have been studies reporting the anti-viral effects of chloroquine, or its common derivative hydroxy-chloroquine, against flu and Sars, raising hope of activity against the current pandemic virus.
Preston said studies showing chloroquine’s anti-viral effects during the previous Sars virus outbreak received “relatively little attention” as it died away and highlighted recent research in France where a trial of chloroquine treatment on 20 Covid-19 patients in hospital saw 70% considered to be cured after six days, PA Media reported.
Dr Preston emphasised more scrutiny was needed of the results as well as larger controlled trials on chloroquine’s effectiveness.
Robin May, Professor of Infectious Disease at the University of Birmingham, said of chloroquine:
It is a drug that has a long history of use against malaria, essentially because it diffuses into red blood cells, making the environment within the cell less suitable for the parasite to live in.
Since it has a long history of clinical use, the safety profile of chloroquine is well-established and it is cheap and relatively easy to manufacture, so it would - theoretically - be fairly easy to accelerate into clinical trials and, if successful, eventually into treatment.
Meanwhile, Reuters has reported that there is a shortage of generic malaria drug hydroxychloroquine amid surging demand, according to independent pharmacies and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP).
The treatment that has been trialled with some success against the coronavirus. (Guardian)
Trump agrees to keep National Guard units under state control
From CNN’s Nikki Carvajal
President Trump committed to leaving National Guard units under state control during a meeting with the nation’s governors at the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency on coronavirus.
The issue was brought up by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.
“I just want to encourage you all to leave the directives with the National Guards with the governors,” Kemp said to the President and other members of the coronavirus task force. “As you all know, I think we’re on the front line of the fight, and we’re in the fight with you, but I believe we can best make those directives based on what’s going on in our state.”
Without pausing, Trump agreed.
“I like that idea, Brian. That’s done. I like it,” the President said.