Coronavirus in the US

Parent Cafe
11121

“CDC warns against misusing chloroquine”

My vague recollection is that when I was on a moderate but long term dose of hydroxychloroquine (along with an antibiotic in a successful effort to cure a stubborn infection) the doctor did periodic blood tests in order to verify that my medications were not causing any problems.

I would not do this without appropriate medical supervision.

There are multiple trials going on right now to try to figure out the best way to treat the coronavirus. For people currently infected the results might be too late. However, the majority of infections are probably going to occur in the future. I see these trials as yet another motivation to avoid getting infected for as long as we possibly can. If we can just make it through a few weeks the medical profession is likely to be better at knowing how to deal with this.

11122

Yes. Blood tests (CBC only I think) every 6 months and full long eye exam every year with a check up at 6 mos. (Worth noting that even though theoretically we can go blind, my rheum says he’s never seen it in his nearly 50 years of practice.)

In short term use though Plaquenil is pretty safe - which should be all you need in this situation IF it works at all.

11123

Duke U believes it has found a way to safely reuse N95 masks at least 30 times.

https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2020/03/duke-health-researchers-decontaminate-n95-face-masks-reuse

11124

My coworker’s DIL just had twins by C-section a week ago in a suburban Philly hospital. Coworker’s S was permitted to be present for the birth and stay in the hospital until DIL and twins were discharged (3 days), but if he would have left the hospital at any time, he would not have been allowed back in.

11125

Battelle looking at sterilizing N-95 masks.

https://inside.battelle.org/blog-details/covid-19-deploying-a-critical-new-ppe-decontamination-system

11126

@privatebanker So sorry to hear that your daughter has come down with this! Please update us frequently. I know when my daughter had it I needed to process my anxiety by writing about it. I was scared to death when I didn’t hear from her for about 14 hours. Turns out she had slept for 13.

I had described my daughter’s case as mild because she was able to stay home. This article taught me that she actually had a moderate case because of the fever and cough. I assume the standards are consistent across the country:

https://www.prevention.com/health/a31912784/what-does-coronavirus-do-to-lungs/
…Moderate infection

“If you have a fever and cough, you already have a moderate illness,” Dr. Schaffner explains. Fortunately, many people impacted with a moderate case of COVID-19 “are being sent home and are doing perfectly well.”

In this stage, the virus has replicated enough to travel down your chest and into the bronchial tubes, “causing inflammation that will result in a dry cough,” Dr. Schaffner says. …

Even though my kid’s strength and stamina have returned, her lungs still hurt. The doctor said it will take an unknown amount of time for the lungs to recover.

Does your daughter have any inhalers or such available to her?

11127

Some good news and a proposal. My daughter’s high school just donated 18,000 pairs of disposable gloves and 800 pairs of protective goggles to a hospital in Chicagoland.

If any of you are in contact with schools, reach out - many high schools have all sorts of supplies for their bio labs and workshops which can be used by people in the front lines nurses, doctors, medics, store clerks, delivery people, etc.

Gloves, protective goggles, masks, etc are used in large quantities by high schools, and will not be needed in the near future, and even if they are needed, the high school doesn’t need them as much as the hospitals do.

Some high schools have already done this already, but it’s good to see whether the idea has been raised at your school district.

11128

Also, best wishes for recovery for @privatebanker’s and @“Snowball City”'s daughters.

11129

**USA - 19,452 new cases totaling 123,578 and 525 new deaths totaling 1,696.
NYC now set up to start blood testing for antibodies to see if a person has already had COVID-19.

ITALY - 5,974 new cases totaling 92,472 and 889 new deaths totaling 10,023.

CHINA - 45 new cases (all imported) totaling 81,439 and 5 new deaths totaling 3,300.

SPAIN - 7,516 new cases totaling 73,235 and 844 new deaths totaling 5,982.

GERMANY - 6,824 new cases totaling 57,695 and 82 new deaths totaling 433.

FRANCE - 4,611 new cases totaling 37,575 and 319 new deaths totaling 2,314.

IRAN - 3,076 new cases totaling 35,408 and 139 new deaths totaling 2,517.

UK - 2,546 new cases totaling 17,089 and 260 new deaths totaling 1,019.

SWITZERLAND - 1,148 new cases totaling 14,076 and 33 new deaths totaling 264.

*NETHERLANDS - 1,159 new cases totaling 9,762 and 93 new deaths totaling 639.

S. KOREA - 105 new cases totaling 9,583 and 8 new deaths totaling 152.

*BELGIUM - 1,850 new cases totaling 9,134 and 64 new deaths totaling 353.

AUSTRIA - 574 new cases totaling 8,271 and 10 new deaths totaling 68.

*TURKEY - 1,704 new cases totaling 7,402 and 16 new deaths totaling 108.

CANADA - 898 new cases totaling 5,655 and 5 new deaths totaling 60.

PORTUGAL - 902 new cases totaling 5,170 and 24 new deaths totaling 100.

NORWAY - 244 new cases totaling 4,015 and 4 new deaths totaling 23.

BRAZIL - 487 new cases totaling 3,904 and 22 new deaths totaling 114.

AUSTRALIA - 257 new cases totaling 3,625 and 1 new death totaling 14.

*ISRAEL - 584 new cases totaling 3,035 and no new deaths totaling 12.

CZECH REPUBLIC - 352 new cases totaling 2,631 and 2 new deaths totaling 11.

IRELAND - 294 new cases totaling 2,415 and 14 new deaths totaling 36.

MALAYSIA - 159 new cases totaling 2,320 and 1 new deaths totaling 27.

DENMARK - 155 new cases totaling 2,201 and 13 new deaths totaling 65.

*CHILE - 299 new cases totaling 1,909 and 1 new death totaling 6.

LUXEMBOURG - 226 new cases totaling 1,831 and 3 new deaths totaling 18.

ECUADOR - 196 new cases totaling 1,823 and 7 new deaths totaling 48.

JAPAN - 194 new cases totaling 1,693 and 3 new deaths totaling 52.
Largest 1 day jump in cases. The majority of cases have been recorded in Tokyo and Chiba, where there is a large infection cluster in medical and welfare institutions, according to officials.

POLAND - 349 new cases totaling 1,639 and 2 new deaths totaling 18.

PAKISTAN - 122 new cases totaling 1,495 and 1 new deaths totaling 12.

ROMANIA - 160 new cases totaling 1,452 and 11 new deaths totaling 37.

*RUSSIA - 228 new cases totaling 1,265 and no new deaths totaling 4.

THAILAND - 109 new cases totaling 1,245 and 1 new death totaling 5.

SAUDI ARABIA - 99new cases totaling 1,203 and 1 new death 1 totaling 4.

*SOUTH AFRICA - 17 new cases totaling 1,187.
In an apparent show of force on Saturday, South Africa’s military raided a large workers’ hostel in the Alexandra township where some residents had defied the lockdown.

*INDONESIA - 109 new cases totaling 1,155 and 15 new deaths totaling 102.

*PHILIPPINES - 272 new cases totaling 1,075 and 14 new deaths totaling 68.

*INDIA - 100 new cases totaling 987 and 4 new deaths totaling 24.

ICELAND - 73 new cases totaling 963 and no new deaths totaling 2.

PANAMA - 115 new cases totaling 901 and 3 new deaths totaling 17.

SINGAPORE - 70 new cases totaling 802.

ARGENTINA - 156 new cases totaling 745 and 6 new deaths totaling 19.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - 138 new cases totaling 719 and 8 new deaths totaling 28.

MEXICO - 132 new cases totaling 717 and 4 new deaths totaling 12.

SERBIA - 131 new cases totaling 659 and 2 new deaths totaling 10.

NEW ZEALAND - 146 new cases totaling 514 and 1st death.

UAE - 63 new cases totaling 468.

KENYA - 7 new cases totaling 38.
Police fired tear gas at a crowd of ferry commuters as the country’s first day of a coronavirus curfew slid into chaos. “We were horrified by excessive use of police force ahead of the curfew that began Friday night,” Amnesty International Kenya and 19 other human rights groups said in a statement issued Saturday. The tear gas caused hundreds of people trying to reach a ferry in the port city of Mombasa ahead of the overnight curfew to touch their faces as they vomited, spat and wiped away tears, increasing the chance of the virus spread, the rights groups said. (Guardian)

EGYPT - 41 new cases totaling 536 and 6 new deaths totaling 30.

SERBIA - 71 new cases totaling 528 and 1 new death totaling 8.

HONG KONG - 65 new cases totaling 519 and no new deaths totaling 4.

IRAQ - 76 new cases totaling 458 and 4 new deaths totaling 40.

ALGERIA - 42 new cases totaling 409 and 1 new death totaling 26.

UAE - 72 new cases totaling 405.

LITHUANIA - 59 new cases totaling 358 and 1 new death totaling 5.

MOROCCO - 70 new cases totaling 345 and 12 new deaths totaling 23.

*UKRAINE - 114 new cases totaling 310 and no new deaths totaling 5.

11130

Please if you are providing links (especially youtube videos where the link tells you nothing) give some inkling about what the content is.

Thanks.

11131

This WHO EUROPE data dashboard enables by-country drilldown - you can see starting dates, trends - https://who.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/ead3c6475654481ca51c248d52ab9c61

11132

Why we are not like South Korea

"The reasons: the American regulatory system, cumbersome even in emergency settings; and the specific choices made by regulators that proved to be tragic misjudgments. As Alec Stapp of the left-leaning Progressive Policy Institute has documented, after Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar declared a public-health emergency on January 31, private laboratories had to obtain an Emergency Use Authorization to conduct their own testing. On February 4, the FDA approved an authorization for the CDC—and only the CDC. This created a testing bottleneck, with all testing in the nation routed through the government agency. By February 28, the CDC had processed only 4,000 tests. The next day, the FDA finally invoked the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments to permit testing at some 5,000 highly specialized virology labs (among more than a quarter-million laboratories nationwide with some testing capability). The first Emergency Use Authorization granted to any entity other than the CDC was issued on March 12, to Roche. Throughout this period, the rollout of mass testing was limited by privacy rules in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA); they were not waived until March 15.

Some of the holdups in the critical early U.S. testing effort read like paradigmatic illustrations of bureaucratic bloat. In Emergency Use Authorization applications in the face of an epidemic, the government was actually requiring labs to mail in CD-ROMs for agency review, rather than permitting online submission, owing to outdated rules. (Thankfully, they’ve since dropped that particular rule.)
The botched regulatory response in the United States owed little to the choices of political actors. The individuals running the FDA and CDC are experts in their field, not hacks. FDA Commissioner Hahn is a distinguished oncologist who has authored hundreds of peer-reviewed articles and has executive experience running one of America’s largest hospitals. He’s not a virologist, but the FDA is staffed with them; and Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, is one of the nation’s foremost researchers and clinicians specializing in viruses

Thus, if the current pandemic crisis highlights the need for experts, the American response also shows the limits of relying on centralized expert command. Doctors and scientists who are the best in their field don’t understand all fields; they are more than capable of designing a test that works (even if they sometimes err), but less capable of figuring out mass-production constraints and the necessary processes for large-scale manufacturing and distribution. We should always be careful not to succumb to hindsight bias, but it’s hard not to believe that the U.S. agencies’ decision to micromanage all national testing for Covid-19 was fatally flawed…"

No matter how one stretches one confirmation bias, THIS did not come about in the last three years … and it wasn’t something that could simply be ‘fixed’ in a matter of days.

https://www.city-journal.org/government-regulation-exacerbated-covid-19-crisis

11133

Yes, my school did this. Ethanol also.

11134

@Knowsstuff of course, I understand. I think $1,000 definitely sounds too high for the test (Standard Q COVID-19 IgM/IgG Rapid Test).

I don’t want to post anything I’m not supposed to either, but as soon as they start offering it to healthcare workers in our area (word is this week), I will report the system of distribution, costs etc.

11135

I just listened to a pandemic podcast. The Doctor discussing the current treatments being used and other issues mentioned a colleague of his has used the hydrochlorinique and z pak with a zinc supplement (?) on over 800 patients off label in nyc to date and has had terrific results. Whatever that means.

They also mentioned the original French research team was enhanced and did another trial with 80 hospitalized patients in marseille. 1 severely ill man with multiple comorbidities of 84 passed away. One woman in her 70s is still hospitalized. The remaining 78 patients have fully recovered and have been released to go home.

Perhaps there is something there?

If anyone finds something on this newer study or understands these things please let us know.

I would really like it to work but I want to make sure the people who need it day to day don’t get shut out with a run on it. Maybe they are slow rolling the public info to let production ramp up.

And thanks to everyone asking about d. Texted me a while ago that things haven’t escalated. I’m watching for any indication of breathing involvement.

@snowballcity virtual socially Distance appropriate hug from
Our family. To you.

@snowball thanks. Mwolf. I’ll email you

11136

I know it would be tough to give birth alone but…the doctors and nurses are being exposed to another person in close quarters who is not medically necessary.

From the mother of an OB who is dreadfully worried.

Doctors should decide this. Not politicians.

11137

@privatebanker I hope your D condition is stable and back to her normal self after a few days.

I can’t wait for the antibody test to be readily available. I think it’s even more important than the covid test. It’s the key to get our lives back to some sort of normalcy.

11138

@Nhatrang thx. I agree. The antibody test will really let us how many people have been infected with some random sampling. if round two happens in the fall without mutation. Perhaps the r0 numbers will be reduced if it’s much more wide spread and undetected in many.

This all based on my new expertise in epidemiology gained in about two weeks of course. Lol. I may have it all wrong. I

11139

There is no reason a woman must have someone in addition to the medical team with her when giving birth. Desperate times call for desperate measures. If a hospital determined presence of even the SO increases the risk for everyone else, safety comes first. Just saying. People are being buried without their loved ones present. It is sad, but life goes on.

11140

Another local co on the spotlight:

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/local-business/gm-and-ventec-relying-on-woodinville-supplier-in-venture-to-rapidly-make-more-ventilators-for-coronavirus-patients/