Coronavirus thread for June

Parent Cafe
1681

The point of locking the parks wasn’t to control the children. It was because the adults who were supposed to be supervising them weren’t following the social distancing rules and we were in the middle of a raging pandemic.

It seems NY will never do anything right in some people’s eyes. Your precautions aren’t enough. You’re stealing all the PPE and ventilators out from under the rest of us and leaving us to die. You did too little, and everything you did do was too late. No, wait, your rules are too restrictive. You’re welding park gates closed to keep little children at bay, holding raves in the middle of public streets, and manipulating data so you can close gyms and keep little old ladies from attending church. Why bother with facts when assumptions and openly stated bias against a state and all its residents works just as well? I suppose it drives up the number of posts anyway…

1682

For one, children don’t go to playgrounds by themselves. And they don’t live by themselves in isolation. :slight_smile:

1683

^Not to mention all these rules brought our Rt rate to the lowest in the nation from the absolute worst in the nation and in the worst in every other metric, too.

We have to be just as smart with our reopening as we were in getting the cases and deaths down.

I get that people in other states don’t care if the virus runs rampant where they live. But we do, so we will keep doing what is necessary to avoid a resurgence.

1684

I don’t have a problem with NY, having grown up there. I have a problem with anyplace that imposes irrational rules. I expect parents of young children can socially distance at least as well as bar patrons.

1685

Bars/Restaurants aren’t open in NYC in phase one either - except for takeout.

The problem in Manhattan were people just hanging out and drinking on the streets.

The problems in the Hamptons - which is in Phase Two - was at bars/restaurants that are allowed to have outside dining and they weren’t complying with masks/SD requirements. Playgrounds in the Hamptons are open, too.

1686

When the Andrew Cuomo’s team came up with the phased rules 4-6 weeks ago, there was not much data on surfaces being a low source of spread. They will reopen soon, in Phase 2.

1687
  1. It's NYC playgrounds. This is not the quiet, quaint little village playground. I imagine most playground have the potential to have high volume usage.
  2. Preschooler needs help climbing the slide - can a parent do that from six feet away?
  3. Toddler falls down and scrapes knee and can't get up. You're on your own kid, dad has to SD from all the other kids/parents. There are situations GALORE that might make it difficult for parents to NOT interact on a playground.

It will be a fine day when things in any city are safe enough for the local playground to be a gathering place. It is not a good decision for many places YET.

1688

Do people think the reason there’s bashing, sides, armchair quarterbacking, and competition using numbers to see who’s “better” with the virus because most sports aren’t going on and people are using this to sooth their competitive nature instead? States or red vs blue have become the new “teams?” Politicians the coaches? Everyday people the players?

It’s something we Creeklanders have been musing. We’re not sure, but it seems to fit.

1689

Seems only some people are trying to show things are better. Many others are trying to show things are worse. I guess it depends upon the narrative/side you’re trying to support?

1690

No, its because we live in an extremely decisive, partisan time where everyone is in their corners and won’t budge. Everything is a fight and political - blame the “other side” is de rigueur. Now that the initial shock and fear of Covid are over, its time to rile up ‘both sides’ and change re-frame history and blame the other side. We are not Americans, we are red and blue states, and its leaked into every single part of society. It doesn’t help that there is not a lot to do - and everyone is hyper-focused on what happened and what will happen. Sad.

Can we stick to talking about Covid and keep the pot shots at bay? Its exhausting.

1691

IMO, some are just discussing and sharing data points on the progression of the pandemic and some people read into that as having an agenda that things are better or worse. Hackles seem to get raised on multiple sides for some reason. I think most people just want Covid to go away but the thread is for discussion.

A pandemic shouldn’t be political. Wearing masks shouldn’t be political.

1692

“A scientist who was fired from overseeing Florida’s Covid-19 database has created her own coronavirus dashboard” www.theguardian.com/

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/7572b118dc3c48d885d1c643c195314e/

1693

Just a reminder that children aren’t immune to repercussions of Covid-19.

Childhood syndrome linked to coronavirus may take weeks to show up, study indicates
From CNN’s Maggie Fox

A baffling condition called Multi-Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) started showing up in kids about three weeks after the peak of the coronavirus pandemic passed through, a team at a large New York health system reported Monday.

The team at Northwell Health reported on 33 cases of the syndrome, which many doctors believe is some sort of delayed response to a coronavirus infection.

All 33 children recovered with treatment, the team reported in the Journal of Pediatrics. Dr. Charles Schleien, who chairs the pediatrics department at Northwell’s Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New Hyde Park, said doctors were at first mystified by what was happening.

“We were pretty shocked as it was playing out,” Schleien told CNN on Monday. “The whole syndrome came out of the blue. We had been comfortable for months [in the belief] that kids weren’t affected all these months by coronavirus.”

The flow of affected children peaked about five weeks after Covid-19 hit New York City and the surrounding areas hard, Schleien and colleagues reported in the Journal of Pediatrics. “These are families I am sure thought they were off the hook,” Schleien said.

Many showed up in shock, with plummeting blood pressure that required immediate treatment.

“We treated these kids as they were coming in having no idea what it was,” Schleien added. As many other medical centers have reported, the symptoms at first looked like Kawasaki Disease, a rare syndrome that usually affects very young children.

“We treated them as though they had Kawasaki Disease despite the age range,” Schleien said. The children with MIS-C ranged in age from 2 to 17. Almost all had gastrointestinal pain and diarrhea, the team reported.

They also had clear evidence of inflammation as shown on blood tests, and 79% of them required intensive care. All tested positive for coronavirus. Schleien said the team excluded a handful of other children who did not test positive. Other teams have reported that MIS-C patients had no symptoms of infection before, but that most of them later tested positive for antibodies to coronavirus, indicating a past infection.

All got treatment of some sort, including aspirin and intravenous immune globulin (IVIG), a standard Kawasaki treatment. Some also got the antiviral remdesivir or strong anti-inflammatory medications normally used to treat conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis.

All recovered and Schleien said he does not know which treatments helped or hurt. Some may have heart damage.

“They are all going to be seeing cardiologists for a while yet,” Schleien said.

He said parents and pediatricians need to make sure that any children with lasting fevers and diarrhea get examined right away.

1694

Good idea, surprised it’s just happening now.

NIH launches national database to collect medical information from Covid-19 patients
From CNN’s Shelby Lin Erdman

The National Institutes of Health has launched a national database to collect medical information on coronavirus patients in the United States.

“This effort aims to transform clinical information into knowledge urgently needed to study COVID-19, including health risk factors that indicate better or worse outcomes of the disease, and identify potentially effective treatments,” the agency said in a statement Monday.

The NIH said the platform data will include clinical, laboratory and diagnostic information from hospitals, labs and other health care providers

The database will help researchers and health care providers answer critical questions relating to Covid-19 illness — for example who might need kidney dialysis, who may need a ventilator or what kinds of therapies a particular patient may need.

“By leveraging our collective data resources, unparalleled analytics expertise, and medical insights from expert clinicians, we can catalyze discoveries that address this pandemic that none of us could enable alone,” said Melissa Haendel, the director of the National Center for Data to Health (CD2H) at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine.

The NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, which is paying for the new database, said it should help address future pandemics, too.

The agency said that the only identifying data on the platform will include the zip code of the health care group providing the information and the dates of service. No other personal patient information will appear on the site. Only approved users will be able to access the site and they can only study the information while on the platform and only for Covid-19 research and public health surveillance, the NIH said.

1695

United Airlines will temporarily ban passengers not wearing masks
From CNN’s Pete Muntean and Greg Wallace

United Airlines says that starting Thursday, passengers who do not wear a mask in flight will be banned — at least temporarily — from flying with the carrier, pending a “comprehensive incident review” and subject to some exceptions.

Flight attendants will warn passengers who don’t comply and offer them a mask. If further de-escalation is unsuccessful, the flight attendant will file a report after the flight reaches its destination. After a review, the passenger could be placed on an “internal travel restriction list” and unable to fly “for a duration of time to be determined.”

United sent out an internal memo to employees on Monday evening laying out the new guidelines, ratcheted up from an initial pandemic policy of keeping passengers who refuse masks from boarding and flight attendants “strongly encouraging” passengers to wear masks in flight.

The world’s third largest airline says passengers who are eating or drinking do not need to wear a mask as well as those with certain medical conditions or small children.

Airlines to step up enforcement on passengers not wearing masks
From CNN’s Greg Wallace and Pete Muntean

Major US airlines announced they intend to more strictly enforce mask wearing aboard their planes, including potentially banning passengers who refuse to wear a mask.

The announcement comes in lieu of a federal regulation requiring all passengers to wear masks – the sort of enforceable measure that governs requirements to wear seatbelts and not smoke.

Seven major airlines – including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines – pledged to roll out new policies requiring masks, enforced with a penalty as severe as a ban on flying with that particular airline.

“Each carrier will determine the appropriate consequences for passengers who are found to be in noncompliance of the airline’s face covering policy up to and including suspension of flying privileges on that airline,” said Airlines for America, the carriers’ industry group.
The lack of federal action has driven the airlines to act, according to a source familiar with the discussions. The airlines are expected to lay out specific policies as well as enforcement procedures for crewmembers to follow in the coming days, the source said.

1696

So, in an attempt to steer the thread back . . .

I am most interested in medical things we’ve learned/are learning. I’m a devoted listener to TWIV :slight_smile:

What things give you hope?

For me, it is that something like giving the oral polio vaccine may stimulate the immune system so that if you get COVID within a few months after the polio booster you would get a mild case (goes the hypothesis). I believe the study is starting now.

I’m also encouraged by the monoclonal antibody therapies being studied. If they work, they would be given early and might also make COVID much less severe.

I’m also hopeful of course that a safe vaccine is developed, but right now I think our best hope is some new therapies that lessen the disease’s severity. Another reason to delay getting sick if possible – before long COVID could be much more treatable.

(If you make me get cites for the studies I mentioned I will, but right now I’m kind of too lazy)

1697

Speaking of medical things…

FDA warns against giving malaria drugs with coronavirus drug
From CNN’s Maggie Fox

The US Food and Drug Administration warned against giving a controversial drug to patients who are also getting the one drug that has any authorization for use in treating coronavirus.

Mixing remdesivir and either chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine could reduce the effectiveness of remdesivir, the FDA warned. Earlier on Monday, the FDA removed the emergency use authorization it had given the two malaria drugs, leaving remdesivir as the only drug that has the authorization for Covid-19.

“The agency is not aware of instances of this reduced activity occurring in the clinical setting but is continuing to evaluate all data related to remdesivir,” the FDA said.

More on this: Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine were touted by President Trump as good drugs to take to treat coronavirus, and he said last month that he himself was taking hydroxychloroquine to prevent coronavirus infection.

Several studies have shown not only that the drugs do not help patients with Covid-19, but they might raise the risk of serious side-effects.

On Monday, the FDA said the drugs do not meet “the statutory criteria” for emergency use authorization as they are unlikely to be effective in treating Covid-19 based on the latest scientific evidence.

Remdesivir is an infused antiviral drug made by Gilead Sciences Inc.

1698

Imperial College London begins human trials of UK government-funded Covid-19 vaccine
From CNN’s Lauren Kent

Researchers at Imperial College London will begin human trials of a UK government-funded Covid-19 vaccine this week, the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said in a statement.

Beginning this week, 300 healthy human participants between the ages of 18 and 70 will receive two doses of the vaccine. The vaccine was already shown to be safe and effective in animal trials and “has undergone rigorous pre-clinical safety tests,” according to the government statement.

“If the vaccine shows a promising immune response, then larger Phase III trials would be planned to begin later in the year with around 6,000 healthy volunteers to test its effectiveness,” the statement said. “Ultimately, the researchers hope that if clinical trials are successful, the vaccine could provide protection against COVID-19 both in the UK and around the world.”
The vaccine involves a “new approach” that uses synthetic strands of genetic code, called RNA, which are based on the virus’ genetic material. When injected, the vaccine prompts a person’s muscle cells to produce virus proteins.

“The trials will be the first test of a new self-amplifying RNA technology, which has the potential to revolutionise vaccine development and enable scientists to respond more quickly to emerging diseases,” the statement said.

The UK government has contributed $51.4 million (41 million pounds) towards the Imperial College London vaccine development, and another $6.3 million (5 million pounds) has been donated by members of the public.

Oxford University is also working on a vaccine in partnership with UK-based global biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. In May, Oxford University announced that their vaccine research moved to the second phase of human trials, which involves 10,260 participants, including a small number of older adults and children.

1699

These things give me hope to.

People can search by city/state for ongoing (or soon to be recruiting) covid19 vaccine and treatment trials here: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=COVID-19&term=&cntry=US&state=&city=&dist=&Search=Search

1700

We’ve had many discussion re: church attendance and clusters related to religious groups.

At least 28 coronavirus cases linked to West Virginia church
From CNN’s Shawn Nottingham

Officials in West Virginia are monitoring a Covid-19 cluster tied to a Lewisburg-area church, according to Gov. Jim Justice.

Justice said at least 28 people associated with Graystone Baptist Church have tested positive.

The National Guard arrived to decontaminate the church on Sunday, and additional testing has also been added in the area, according to Justice.