Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #50

[Wicked Strong]

It has changed considerably since they went on lockdown on Mar 11th.

Now the nurses call each resident in the morning and the evening. If they cannot reach them by phone, they will go to their door and knock. If no answer, they will enter the apartment.

But as long as Mom answers their calls, there is no face to face contact with nursing staff.

Her meals are dropped off at her front door, and she eats alone. Which makes me sad because she did love to eat dinner with her friends downstairs. And it gave her a reason to get dressed up and somewhere to go.

She does have a balcony and she sits to watch the birds and can see some of her neighbours on their balconies, so she does have a little bit of social contact that way.

We call her a lot and she seems OK most of the time, but kind of melancholy at some times, thinking she may never see her great grand babies again.

I agree with you on the mental effects. My mom seems confused sometimes now. She is 89 so that is logical. But she used to have a daily routine, got dressed, made herself breakfast, when to exercise class midmorning, came home and ate lunch. Then napped and got up and dressed to go down to dinner.

But now she is quarantined inside her apartment all by herself for 6 weeks already. I have noticed a slight drop in her short term memory and ability to track conversations.

We got an email that one of the staff members tested positive for CV. But so far none of the residents have been confirmed.

You are right in the mental effects on older people. I live in my home, but stay at home. I find myself bursting into tears just reading news and posts on WS, I don't have an appetite, so I just pick at anything, even then it doesn't even taste good. I find myself losing my balance a lot now, at first I thought it was my slippers, but now I don't think so, my hands are also getting very shaky, and I find typing on the keyboard results in a lot of double letters in a word. In otherwords, I'm a wreck, I know it and there is nothing I can do about it.

MOO

 

[nhmemorymaker]

It has changed considerably since they went on lockdown on Mar 11th.

Now the nurses call each resident in the morning and the evening. If they cannot reach them by phone, they will go to their door and knock. If no answer, they will enter the apartment.

But as long as Mom answers their calls, there is no face to face contact with nursing staff.

Her meals are dropped off at her front door, and she eats alone. Which makes me sad because she did love to eat dinner with her friends downstairs. And it gave her a reason to get dressed up and somewhere to go.

She does have a balcony and she sits to watch the birds and can see some of her neighbours on their balconies, so she does have a little bit of social contact that way.

We call her a lot and she seems OK most of the time, but kind of melancholy at some times, thinking she may never see her great grand babies again.

I agree with you on the mental effects. My mom seems confused sometimes now. She is 89 so that is logical. But she used to have a daily routine, got dressed, made herself breakfast, when to exercise class midmorning, came home and ate lunch. Then napped and got up and dressed to go down to dinner.

But now she is quarantined inside her apartment all by herself for 6 weeks already. I have noticed a slight drop in her short term memory and ability to track conversations.

We got an email that one of the staff members tested positive for CV. But so far none of the residents have been confirmed.

This is just so heartbreaking to hear. When I have visited friends, and relatives of friends in these active, happy senior care centers.... it is always the comradery that stood out. I just cannot imagine what people are going through without access to congregating for meals, card games, etc.

I suggest watching "In Her Shoes" with Shirley MacLaine ... a reminder of what "used to be", but also a reminder of what we have to work hard to get back for folks in these facilities. They soooo deserve more .....

 

[JaneEyre]

How would the government had convinced the entire nation to shutdown when there was only 11 deaths at that point?

It seems this article is just pointing blame, based on 20/20 hindsight. JMO

Probably through educating the public like we were educated here. The original people in this thread had become educated enough to start buying masks in January. By the first week in February we were stocking our pantries. By the end of February, many of us were avoiding as many public places as we could. I think the public could have been prepped little by little for what we might need to do. The library I work at was one of the first in our system to shut down partly because I had educated myself and had started prepping my boss for this weeks before. And the day I called him and asked if we could shut down that day he told me yes. It really was as simple as that. We shut down before the stay at home order.

I also don’t think that hindsight is a bad thing. If we had used what we learned in hindsight about the Spanish Flu epidemic, we would have been better off as well. And in this case, analyzing what could have prevented more deaths is relevant now because we will have a second wave and more. We need to know at what point action needs to be taken the second time around, especially when the second wave may be worse.

 

[dixiegirl1035]

You aren't wrong at all. It's not known, and won't be for a while. That's usually the case for emerging diseases. This one is carries political baggage. As the research comes in, we'll know more. JMO.

It took decades for scientists to try to figure out patient zero/where HIV came from and when started to grow in the population.

As with HIV, the most we may be able to EVER determine is through genetic investigations retrospectively. There is a man who was considered "patient zero" for HIV for years.. yet was not... (he was a Canadian flight attendant) For a long time he was mentioned in books and in the media as patient zero as they could not trace before him (he kept diaries of his sexual contacts which was a pot of gold for the epidemiologists)... yet in 1999 they showed the virus went waaaaaaay back... but I digress.

Genomic tracing, for those who have been following @Henry2326 posts, the twitter/website nextstrain ( Nextstrain (@nextstrain) | Twitter - who is following the genomic footprint as the pandemic goes on, and where each clade is from etc) has pointed to Wuhan as the origination area, and zoonotic transmission beginning with bats at this time.

Subject to change of course tomorrow All above - MOO

 

[SuziQ]

He was thinking of what made sense to him....clean the virus out with the things that are proven to destroy the virus.

But, as he said, he's not a doctor so he didn't realise that those things that work well for surface disinfection can't be used to 'wash out the virus from the lungs' and cure the patient....at least not without killing the patient in the process.

Exactly! Talking about how UV and disinfectants work, he said could we do something like that for the human body. He was spitballing. He didn't literally say use bleach and UV in the human body. But that is what the media is running with. I hate the media. They are driving me nuts over Covid reporting. They are pitting theory against theory. Scientist against scientist. Doctors against doctors. Journalism is dead.

 

[CSIDreamer]

You are right in the mental effects on older people. I live in my home, but stay at home. I find myself bursting into tears just reading news and posts on WS, I don't have an appetite, so I just pick at anything, even then it doesn't even taste good. I find myself losing my balance a lot now, at first I thought it was my slippers, but now I don't think so, my hands are also getting very shaky, and I find typing on the keyboard results in a lot of double letters in a word. In otherwords, I'm a wreck, I know it and there is nothing I can do about it.

MOO

Hey you, hang in there. If you're nibbling try to make sure you have nutritious food made up and "grazeable". My eating habits have tanked. I've told people I'm not okay. Jmo

Did get a door visit with the grands the other day. That was all fun until it was time to leave.

 

[SouthAussie]

This is just so heartbreaking to hear. When I have visited friends, and relatives of friends in these active, happy senior care centers.... it is always the comradery that stood out. I just cannot imagine what people are going through without access to congregating for meals, card games, etc.

I suggest watching "In Her Shoes" with Shirley MacLaine ... a reminder of what "used to be", but also a reminder of what we have to work hard to get back for folks in these facilities. They soooo deserve more .....

Our Prime Minister - today - has ordered our aged care facilities to ease up and allow families to visit their relatives (social distancing to be observed) otherwise he will step in and put some regulations in place.

We are fortunate enough for our numbers to be fairly low, with relatively few aged care facility deaths, and our PM seems to be acutely aware of the continued negative effects on the aged care population.

Scott Morrison has laid down the gauntlet to aged care providers over what he sees as excessive restrictions, warning that the Australian government will step in if elderly residents are locked in their rooms without access to visitors.
Scott Morrison warns aged care homes to end strict coronavirus lockdowns or face new rules

 

[Amonet]

"There's no confusion about the source of the virus amongst scientists."

Oh, I did not hear that. Is there a source for that? Is the source of the virus the wet markets. I have not heard that confirmed.

So far everything I've read strongly points to the bats, and possibly an unknown animal intermediary. Natural not designed.

Did the leap into humans happen in the animal market? Or was it a person who was infected in another province by contact with a bat (or the bat's body fluids) who traveled to Wuhan and unknowingly brought the virus with them and started off the community spread? Maybe that person worked at the market, or shopped there daily and it started spreading amongst the vendors in the market, making it appear that the market was the source? I think that part is the unknown, along with the specifics of, if there was an intermediary animal vector, what/where was that animal. Was that intermediary animal transported to the wet market where the leap into humans happened? The specifics of this aren't known, and might take years to work out, but the general picture is known.

 

[Sarahlou]

Exactly! Talking about how UV and disinfectants work, he said could we do something like that for the human body. He was spitballing. He didn't literally say use bleach and UV in the human body. But that is what the media is running with. I hate the media. They are driving me nuts over Covid reporting. They are pitting theory against theory. Scientist against scientist. Doctors against doctors. Journalism is dead.

He literally said is there anyway they can do something with the disinfectant "by injection inside or almost a cleaning?"

 

[rodneymullenmg]

Exactly! Talking about how UV and disinfectants work, he said could we do something like that for the human body. He was spitballing. He didn't literally say use bleach and UV in the human body. But that is what the media is running with. I hate the media. They are driving me nuts over Covid reporting. They are pitting theory against theory. Scientist against scientist. Doctors against doctors. Journalism is dead.

Except that’s literally what was said...

 

[TMAN2014]

You aren't wrong at all. It's not known, and won't be for a while. That's usually the case for emerging diseases. This one carries political baggage. As the research comes in, we'll know more. JMO.

Are Scientists even capable of tracking this to an exact time/place/animal/mistake or is this just more of a rely on a percentage (eg 99 percent probably with some error range) of most likely scenario?

 

[dixiegirl1035]

Lysol felt the need to put out a statement, just in case.
Lysol manufacturer warns against internal use after Trump comments

I saw that too. As we know, in other countries, folks drank disinfectants and Clorox last month - and WHO and other scientists tried to stop such!

 

[Tillicum]

I hope as summer is on it's way that nursing homes, senior and assisted living centers are working on plans for outdoor activities with social distancing in place. Even if it's just sitting 10 feet apart from their friends and family members.

 

[nhmemorymaker]

Probably through educating the public like we were educated here. The original people in this thread had become educated enough to start buying masks in January. By the first week in February we were stocking our pantries. By the end of February, many of us were avoiding as many public places as we could. I think the public could have been prepped little by little for what we might need to do. The library I work at was one of the first in our system to shut down partly because I had educated myself and had started prepping my boss for this weeks before. And the day I called him and asked if we could shut down that day he told me yes. It really was as simple as that. We shut down before the stay at home order.

I also don’t think that hindsight is a bad thing. If we had used what we learned in hindsight about the Spanish Flu epidemic, we would have been better off as well. And in this case, analyzing what could have prevented more deaths is relevant now because we will have a second wave and more. We need to know at what point action needs to be taken the second time around, especially when the second wave may be worse.

Some excellent points here. You are right... we, here, were learning the reality early on. I did check back, and I DID buy a couple of masks in Jan, and still have my original larger-than-normal purchase of toilet paper.

If the American public had just heard an earnest level of seriousness and sincerity from leaders from the get-go... I am certain that a much larger percentage of our population would have gotten on board earlier.
As mentioned already, I believe the American people will now insist upon serious plans to be put in place for the future. Even plans for volunteer armies must be part of that plan. So many of us know we must stay-in-place but we still want to do more. I can easily see getting into a telephone process of track and trace... it can be done.

 

[Amonet]

Are Scientists even capable of tracking this to an exact time/place/animal/mistake or is this just more of a rely on a percentage (eg 99 percent probably with some error range) of most likely scenario?

Have you watched the movie Contagion? If you have, that gives a pretty good illustration of the backtracking work that happens to try and find the first infection and all the vectors in the chain that set off the very start of the outbreak. Like in the movie, there might be some links in the chain that remain missing, but they can still figure out the general picture. In real life you might not have the final scene from the movie that tells the viewer exactly what the missing link in the chain was...but they can still get that general picture even if they can't narrow down that exact moment shown in the final scene of Contagion.

Even now, they already know that bats carry coronaviruses very closely related to this one. I've heard (I think on Dr Campbell's videos) that there have also been study that many of those bat coronaviruses that live in the bat populations already have mutations that allow them to jump into humans....but as they live in isolated villages it doesn't cause massive outbreaks like this one. This one managed to get into a huge, globally connected city. The specifics of how that happened are currently unknown, but there will be a lot of scientific inquiry trying to answer those questions, because that's what science does.

It's important for China to know the answer to this as well, because it's led to them having egg on their face, people saying that they allowed this to happen. It's cost their nation lives and money. They need to know how they can prevent more novel viruses from making that leap and causing outbreaks like this.

Not only China needs to know, but it's quite likely that there are viruses in animal populations in other parts of the world that also have the potential to cause localised outbreaks of novel viruses in humans, and perhaps the potential for pandemics like this one.

 

[dixiegirl1035]

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health (Same place the original site that we followed from early threads) does regular feeds... here is today's as so many here on threads are discussing so thought I would share as so many "scams" , and she says it's wild west as to accuracy, what antibody level is needed for protection etc.

"The market is suddenly flooded with antibody tests claiming to prove whether or not people have already been exposed to COVID-19. But two critical questions are yet unanswered: Are any of these tests accurate and does past exposure mean immunity? Immunologist Dr. Gigi Gronvall of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security talks to Dr. Josh Sharfstein about a new report outlining the potential and pitfalls of antibody testing. They discuss how long it might be before we understand more about antibodies and immunity to COVID-19 and how widespread testing could help capture the true footprint of the coronavirus’s spread."

Everything You Need to Know About Antibody Testing for COVID-19

 

[Inthedetails]

He literally said is there anyway they can do something with the disinfectant "by injection inside or almost a cleaning?"

I went back to listen and that is exactly what he said.

jmo

 

[Amonet]

Probably through educating the public like we were educated here. The original people in this thread had become educated enough to start buying masks in January. By the first week in February we were stocking our pantries. By the end of February, many of us were avoiding as many public places as we could. I think the public could have been prepped little by little for what we might need to do. The library I work at was one of the first in our system to shut down partly because I had educated myself and had started prepping my boss for this weeks before. And the day I called him and asked if we could shut down that day he told me yes. It really was as simple as that. We shut down before the stay at home order.

I also don’t think that hindsight is a bad thing. If we had used what we learned in hindsight about the Spanish Flu epidemic, we would have been better off as well. And in this case, analyzing what could have prevented more deaths is relevant now because we will have a second wave and more. We need to know at what point action needs to be taken the second time around, especially when the second wave may be worse.

I think it is true, though, that just because epidemiologists can model the spread, especially with hindsight, that the ideal point at which the outbreak could have been stopped is generally at a point where it would be an extremely hard sell on populations to have lockdown when there are only ten cases or 'only' ten deaths in a country of tens of millions of people. Add on top of that, that at that point you'd have a government (of any country, not naming any specific country) reassuring the population that they're doing everything they can and don't panic!

Even now with thousands of deaths, there are a lot of people chomping on the bit wanting lockdowns ended asap, and wondering if they were even the right thing to do in the first place.

 

[MimosaMornings]

Smithfield Foods workers say they aren't allowed to cover mouths to sneeze — New York Post

 

[JaneEyre]

With all of you talking about the elderly, I want to mention that I am just tortured by thoughts of our elderly patrons who rely on the library. I go to bed trying to think of safe ways to serve those without devices they can download books on. The library is a bright spot in their day. They look forward to those trips, to browsing.

It is always on my mind, and I’ve filled a notebook with thoughts and ideas on how we could possibly do more now, and how we can phase our reopening. But for every seemingly good idea, there is also the devil’s advocate in my ear regarding their safety.

If not for them, I would not be at all eager to leave quarantine. But I want solutions for them.

Libraries having to be closed now, when people in lockdown need us the most, is just a terrible thing. Every day I’m aware that we have a building full of free movies, audios, books, puzzles, and magazines that could ease the discomfort people are feeling, yet we cannot allow them to come get these things.

The village next to me has filled Rubbermaid tubs set out on the church steps with books, puzzles, and games, and another one with cleaning supplies they are willing to share. It has its risks, but this is how they are dealing with lack of access to libraries. Essentially, they have a library in a tub created by the residents there.