But let’s be frank and put it out there that many people do not believe that he necessarily died from COVID-19. It was very convenient that he - a young, otherwise healthy doctor - died after embarrassing the government. The reporters who reported on the outbreak just…disappeared.
Li Wenliang was not identified as corona positive before death - at least I saw no mention of his positive test before reports of his death.
Ditto for the news tech at MSNBC. No one in the audience knew who he was until he was dead. (And MSNBC has a tiny audience anyway as compared to the population as a whole.)
Not that these people do not matter - of course they matter - but neither of them is akin to Trudeau and his wife, Tom Hanks and his wife, or even the Finance minister of Brazil for that matter, etc., in the public consciousness.
Anyone else “famous” anyone can think of? Even someone “famous” who is struggling in a hospital?
Every person on msnbc yesterday had a tribute to him. Almost every one made me cry.
Rachel maddow couldn’t even get through her tribute. It was very stark to see it affect real people that we feel like we know because we see them everyday. (Or at least I do)
The other issue that will become more grating as time goes on is that the younger people who are less likely to die from this are going to realize they’re also the ones being asked to give up their jobs and income while the retirees most likely to die from this are already retired. Of course it’s not that simple and that’s a horrific way to view this without also examining the human elements, but it is a part of the equation people will be considering when they make their choices, especially when unemployment hits 20%+ and people start not being able to buy groceries even when they’re on the shelves while the retirees continue to get their social security checks that the young people also feel they’ll pay for but never receive.
Spoke with my friend who is a hospitalist in Michigan. It hit them pretty hard in the last week, with a whole floor with “stable” patients and 24 intubated ones, some are young, under 50 with no other health problems. Although most transmission is droplets, there has to be some aerosol transmission, since most of these people had no sick contacts.
@1Benice that’s part of the problem with beds and resources.
They found that early intervention with intubation highly effective once there’s significant lung involvement.
So the younger cohort that are in the category won’t be fatal in the majority of cases, but they are sick and need the care. And this is upping the numbers. Even if it’s a small percentage of total actual infections.
Generally it’s used from what I’ve read when things are much more serious. It’s almost being used very early as preventative versus the normal protocols. Or that’s how I as an untrained person read the information.
From the Portland Press Herald, written by an ER doctor:
“One of the big changes in emergency medicine and critical care over the past few decades was the introduction of BiPap, a kind of breathing machine that helps patients breathe without them needing a breathing tube inserted or needing to be sedated. It helps patients who are too tired to breathe, it helps push fluid out of the lungs, it helps patients with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder. We can’t use BiPap on COVID-19 patients because it creates aerosols that spread the virus. And since we don’t know who has COVID-19, we can’t use BiPap on anyone. We also can’t give nebulized breathing treatments, the mainstay of therapy for asthma and COPD exacerbations, because those create aerosols. I’ve had to learn how to use alternate medications that have been out of practice for decades to treat these conditions.”
This affects my family directly since my dad uses a BiPap. If he were to be hospitalized, he would not get the treatment he needs.
Yeah, that scares me too because my daughter sometimes needs a nebulizer when she has an asthma attack. I was kind of thinking if she contracts the virus, at least we have that as a last resort emergency tool. I guess that’s not a good option. I wasn’t thinking about how it does generate aerosols.
@sorghum ok. Please try not to parse my words. It’s only an online college forum and not TNEJM online.
No one - - out of the 30 patients, many elderly, with underlying conditions and very sick - - died.
That to me means 100 percent effective.
There is a good article in the New York Times about some of the factors believed to have contributed to the continuing catastrophe in Italy.
They are asking people to stand on your balconies or wherever you are at 8pm at night to applaud as a people for our health care workers across the country.
Seems like a nice symbolic gesture. They deserve it. Man I will never take them for granted again.
In general the protocol is that if you do not go into respiratory failure in 2-3 days while in hospital, you will be discharged and isolate at home. Some patients, however, will start to get worse pretty fast and when the O2 sat gets in the 89-90 with respiratory rate in the low 30s, it is best time to intubate. Controlled intubation is better, rather than in a rush while the patient is crushing. I am not sure what the average intubation length is for this virus but I assume it could be 5-10 days ( for the ones in previously good shape ). Most of the intubated ones will make it and eventually get extubated. So it is not that the young people can’t get severe illness, they may, but in general they will make it alive with respiratory support. In the end, the hospitals need to have enough ventilators and people to operate them and that will make a difference in survival rates in this illness.
It does and that’s certainly a great lead Wish we know the composition of the group. There are many clusters of 30 infected folks where no one died or ill enough to be hospitalized, much less intubated
Horrifically bad reporting from Bloomberg, or maybe this was an editorial.
French sources reported this story, the US president was not the source of it.
The study you quoted in post #8887 is way too small to draw that conclusion, as it included asymptomatic individuals as well as those with moderate symptoms.
From your previous post:
We are dealing with a disease that expresses as asymptomatic or moderate (no required hospitalization) for at least 80% of patients.
In this study there were three groups of 10. If one in a group died, that would be a 10% death rate – higher than reported even in areas with highest mortality. So statistically, out of the total group of 30, you might expect 6 to get seriously ill, and maybe 1 death. But with a group that small, -0- deaths would not be an anomaly – so the fact that “not one” out of the 30 died means nothing.
10 of the subjects were in the control group – none of them died either. So no evidence at all that this treatment saved anyone who wouldn’t have lived anyway.
The size of the groups is also too small to draw statistical inferences.
This study is important, but all it does is tell us that there is a drug regimen that may help, and perhaps it can also reduce the number of people needing ventilators or ICUS beds. That would be a huge benefit – if it worked – but again, the group size is too small to support a statistically significant conclusion.
I realize that right now it’s pretty difficult to set up studies, and there are also huge ethical problems with any person being assigned to a no-treatment control group, especially in the future when there are at least preliminary indications of a regimen that might work.
So I’m just pointing out that “might” or “maybe” doesn’t translate into 100%, if you are looking at number of deaths as the key metric.
Potentially good news from researchers at Stanford-
Other researchers have taken startling new approaches. On Saturday, Stanford University researchers reported using the gene-editing technology Crispr to destroy coronavirus genes in infected cells.
The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has infected more than 100,000 people worldwide with over 3,000 deaths since December 2019. There is no cure for COVID-19 and the vaccine development is estimated to require 12-18 months. Here we demonstrate a CRISPR-Cas13-based strategy, PAC-MAN (Prophylactic Antiviral CRISPR in huMAN cells), for viral inhibition that can effectively degrade SARS-CoV-2 sequences and live influenza A virus (IAV) genome in human lung epithelial cells. We designed and screened a group of CRISPR RNAs (crRNAs) targeting conserved viral regions and identified functional crRNAs for cleaving SARS-CoV-2. The approach is effective in reducing respiratory cell viral replication for H1N1 IAV. Our bioinformatic analysis showed a group of only six crRNAs can target more than 90% of all coronaviruses. The PAC-MAN approach is potentially a rapidly implementable pan-coronavirus strategy to deal with emerging pandemic strains.
I agree with you totally.
My post was only conveying in my non expert way that this small study was “100 percent effective” at preventing those 30 humans from dying.
Actually, I stole that line from the oncology chair at the nyc hospital who was explaining it during the interview.
He also stated that it was a pretty good group from his standpoint from an age and severity level to be meaningful to him. He also talked about why they released the info so quickly - as scientists they felt compelled to do so without the normal study process from an ethical standpoint. I applaud them.
I believe I also said they are starting real scientific trials at this point and that’s where the experts get involved.
As Dr Fauci said today. Doctors can decide to try this now under the rules for compassionate care of the very sick. Just like the early hiv attempts is how he framed it.
There’s also some anecdotes that it’s helping.
I never said it was proven. I just hope perhaps it does work. And to offer a different view of the efforts than some were framing here.
As dr Fauci said today, paraphrasing. a bit… Offering ideas and hope is not incompatible with scientific investigation. Or close enough to that sentiment.
I’m no expert and simply sharing a view on things as fellow poster.
Edit. The drs name is dr William grace of Lennox hill. He was the Chief of oncology and cancer research at St Vincent’s Hospital in NYC for 20 years.
The entire interview is on a podcast from this afternoon from minute 3 to about minute 25. If you want the name of the pod dm me anyone. It’s 100 percent focused on the pandemic.
CHINA - 46 new cases totaling 81,054 and 6 new deaths totaling 3,261.
ITALY - 6,557 new cases totaling 53,578 and 793 new deaths totaling 4,825.
**USA - 7,396 new cases totaling 26,779 and 88 new deaths totaling 344.
SPAIN - 3,925 new cases totaling 25,496 and 285 new deaths totaling 1,378.
GERMANY - 2,516 new cases totaling 22,364 and 16 new deaths totaling 84.
IRAN - 966 new cases totaling 20,610 and 123 new deaths totaling 1,556.
FRANCE - 1,847 new cases totaling 14,459 and 112 new deaths totaling 562.
50% of the 1,525 patients currently in intensive care are under 60 years old
S. KOREA - 245 new cases totaling 8,897 and 10 new deaths totaling 104.
SWITZERLAND - 1,248 new cases totaling 6,863 and 24 new deaths totaling 80.
*UK - 1,035 new cases totaling 5,0183 and 56 new deaths totaling 233.
NETHERLANDS - 637 new cases totaling 3,631 and 30 new deaths totaling 136.
AUSTRIA - 343 new cases totaling 2,992 and 2 new deaths totaling 8.
BELGIUM - 558 new cases totaling 2,815and 30 new deaths totaling 67.
CANADA - 241 new cases totaling 1,328 and 7 new deaths totaling 19.
PORTUGAL - 260 new cases totaling 1,280 and 6 new deaths totaling 12.
*BRAZIL - 208 new cases totaling 1,178 and 7 new deaths totaling 18.
CZECH REPUBLIC - 162 new cases totaling 995.
*TURKEY - 277 new cases totaling 947 and 12 new deaths totaling 21.
ISRAEL - 178 new cases totaling 883.
IRELAND - 102 new cases totaling 785.
55% are male and 44% are female
the median age of confirmed cases is 44 years
30% of cases have been hospitalized
13 cases admitted to ICU – representing 2% of all cases hospitalized
147 cases – 25% of cases are associated with healthcare workers
Dublin has the highest number of cases at 55%, followed by Cork 15%
LUXEMBOURG - 186 new cases totaling 670 and 3 new deaths totaling 8.
PAKISTAN - 144 new deaths totaling 645.
CHILE - 103 new cases totaling 537. 1st death.
POLAND - 111 new cases totaling 536.
ECUADOR - 106 new cases totaling 532.
ICELAND - 64 new cases totaling 473. 1st death.
INDONESIA - 81 new cases totaling 450 and 6 new deaths totaling 38.
SINGAPORE - 47 new cases totaling 432 and first 2 deaths.
THAILAND - 89 new cases totaling 411.
SAUDI ARABIA - 48 new cases totaling 392.
ROMANIA - 59 new cases totaling 367.
INDIA - 83 new cases totaling 332.
PERU - 55 new cases totaling 318 and 1 new deaths totaling 5.
PHILIPPINES - 77 new cases totaling 307 and 1 new death totaling 19.
RUSSIA - 53 new cases totaling 306.
PANAMA - 45 new cases totaling 245 and 2 deaths totaling 3.
SOUTH AFRICA - 38 new cases totaling 240.
LEBANON - 53 new cases totaling 230.
*CROATIA - 76 new cases totaling 206.
MEXICO - 39 new cases totaling 203 and 1 new death totaling 2.
COLOMBIA - 51 new cases totaling 196.
SLOVAKIA - 41 new cases totaling 178.
SERBIA - 36 new cases totaling 171.
ALGERIA - 45 new cases totaling 139 and 4 new deaths totaling 15.
- DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - 40 new cases totaling 112 and 1 new death totaling 3.
- BURKINA FASO - 24 new cases totaling 64 and 2 new deaths totaling 3.
- TRINIDAD & TOBAGO - 40 new cases totaling 49.
1st cases confirmed - Eritrea, Timor-Leste, Uganda
California Governor urges residents not to be selfish and stay home
California Governor Gavin Newsom is telling young people at beaches that the outbreak is not the time to party – it’s time to stay home.
“Don’t be selfish,” Newsom said, adding that for young people “thinking this is a party, (it’s) time to grow up,”
He encouraged everyone to stay at home to combat the coronavirus outbreak, saying that it was best to assume you are contagious and distance yourself from others.
Testing issues: The Governor said the big issue around testing is about swabs and gathering evidence. There was a need for targeting testing, he said.
He said he was encouraged by the spirit of collaboration and offers of help from Tim Cook and Elon Musk.
Housing issues: Housing the homeless in hotel rooms and trailers is a priority, he said. His office has identified 1,000 additional nursing facility beds that could be readied for the senior community.
Anyone who arrives in Hawaii will be subject to a 14-day quarantine
Anyone arriving in the state of Hawaii – including returning residents – will be subject to a 14-day quarantine.
The mandate, which is the first of its kind in the United States, will go into effect Thursday at 12:01 a.m. and remain in place until further notice, the state’s governor David Ige said.
“We want this action to send a message to visitors and residents: we appreciate their love for Hawaii, at this time we believe our community is very, very important and we need to come together as a community to fight this virus,” he said at a press conference.
Ige said that while the economy will suffer from this move, it was necessary. Violators could be subject to a $5,000 fine and a year imprisonment.
US workers may get “unemployment insurance on steroids”
The United State’s emergency stimulus package will help the workers hardest hit by the coronavirus outbreak, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
Schumer told CNN’s Wolf Blizter on The Situation Room on Saturday night that a tentpole of the stimulus package was putting “workers first” by giving them “unemployment insurance on steroids.”
“If you can’t work because your business is closed for all the obvious reasons, you will get your full pay from the federal government and unemployment insurance on steroids will cover all workers," Schumer said.
“It will cover part-time workers, workers who are independent, it will cover the freelancers, and you will be able to stay on this for four months.”
Under this scheme, Schumer noted that workers would be “furloughed by their employer so that you can go back to work.”
CNN
US Vice President Mike Pence has tested negative for coronavirus
From CNN’s Nikki Carvajal
United States Vice President Mike Pence and his wife have tested negative for coronavirus, his spokeswoman announced Saturday evening.
“Pleased to report that the Covid-19 test results came back negative for both Vice President @Mike_Pence and Second Lady @KarenPence," his spokesperson tweeted.
Pence announced he and his wife would be tested Saturday afternoon after a staff member at his office tested positive for coronavirus.