Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #86

[dixiegirl1035]

I was getting ready to paraphrase jus this. Obviously the actual links are better. It was balm to my soul to hear our most likely President Elect actually care about the biggest crisis our county has seen in a very long while. 115,00 daily infections is horrific!

I had hoped that he would use his bully pulpit to speak of Corona virus, and he did! Good for him!

(For those not in the US, it may not mean what you think it does I just realized..... per google- bully pulpit is a North American term that means
a public office or position of authority that provides its occupant with an outstanding opportunity to speak out on any issue.
"he could use the presidency as a bully pulpit to bring out the best in civic life")

 

[nhmemorymaker]

I think it is important to attach fines to non-mask wearing.

If we don't wear a seatbelt, we can be fined. If we litter, we can be fined.

Along with PSAs, fines can be very encouraging.

I do too. It is often the case that the only thing that "gets through" is the almighty dollar.

It just cannot be a "freedom" to willingly spread a virus that hurts so many.

 

[dixiegirl1035]

I was getting ready to paraphrase jus this. Obviously the actual links are better. It was balm to my soul to hear our most likely President Elect actually care about the biggest crisis our county has seen in a very long while. 115,00 daily infections is horrific!

Glad that MSM has a shot from last night to do contact tracing as they did with the Rose Garden.Can you count how many masks last night?I only clearly see ONE.
View attachment 270553

https://twitter.com/HowardMortman/status/1323947095930404864

I posted this on election night..... So, USA today can get on it as they did previously? Where's Waldo/Meadows?

Meadows, 61, told people after Tuesday's election that he had contracted Covid, but it wasn't clear when he first tested positive, according to the sources. In the past, he has appeared skeptical of coronavirus mitigation measures and has not often been seen wearing a mask.
He traveled with Trump aboard Air Force One during his final campaign swing on Sunday and Monday, accompanied the President on a visit to his campaign headquarters on Tuesday and attended a White House election night party where he came into close contact with members of the President's family. He was not seen wearing a mask during any of those engagements.

Mark Meadows, White House chief of staff, tests positive for coronavirus - CNNPolitics

 

[beatrixpotter]

Please, everyone here get a pulse oximeter. Perhaps buy one for a friend. Pretty please as it would make some of us feel better that you have one. This "stay at home" until you are sick enough to be in the hospital....we know it just doesn't cut it as a large percentage who were 90% or less had no idea. Reports come in of people that were in low 80's and high 70's saying they didn't realize they were low nor having that much problems breathing.

Yes, I know a pregnant woman who wouldn't wake up one morning. Her boyfriend said she just wouldn't rouse. He called 911. Her oxygen levels were terrible. The baby was in serious distress. How much better off would she have been if she'd been able to know her own oxygen sats at home?

And fwiw it turns out COVID seriously damaged her placenta. She's 4-5 weeks out from when she got sick and apparently baby hasn't grown since then and placenta and umbilical cord blood flow is really bad. She's getting steroids and they are taking baby soon.

It reminds me of the articles on here about covid damaging arteries and blood vessels. How frightening to think that COVID could just damage that irreparably. I just read through a thread last night of pregnant women who can't get their bosses or their OB's to exempt them from working with covid positive patients or in super high risk for covid situations. How screwed up is that? Life long damage or death to a baby because it interferes with the job. Nurses are in such demand they will force pregnant nurses to treat covid patients. It sickens me.

 

[nhmemorymaker]

White House Chief if Staff has coronavirus.

Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, Infected By Coronavirus

Who is surprised?

The Article States:
More than three dozen people associated with the president or the White House have been infected by the virus, including the president, his wife, Melania, and his youngest son, Barron. Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, and other aides tested positive for the virus late last month, shortly before the election.

IT seems so unfair to throw this arrogance in the face of American families. All of these people can demand the best healthcare in the world, and yet make it appear that we ALL can "just live with it".



Read more at: Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows Infected With Coronavirus
Copyright © BloombergQuint

 

[GRT]

Don't be too hard on your FDA. They really do a lot of good work to keep untested and unproven drugs from wrecking havoc. Remember Thalidomide? If it's any consolation to you, the Canadian Food and Drug Administration is usually still testing, long after the FDA has approved a drug.

Good points!

What bothers me the most is the cost of the drugs, especially because the drug companies receive federal funding to develop the drugs. To me, that should mean that Americans "own" a portion of the medications and the cost shouldn't be so high. We have a real problem with the cost of insulin:

The average price per standard unit of insulin in the United States was $98.70 in 2018 for all types of insulin, compared with $6.94 in Australia, $7.52 in the United Kingdom, $12 in Canada, and $8.81 in all the other affluent countries combined, according to the study. U.S. prices in 2018 were highest for rapid-acting insulin ($119.36) compared with $8.19 in the other countries in the intergovernmental group. The prices were lowest for intermediate-acting insulin, at $73.56 in the United States, compared with $5.98 in the other countries.

Insulin in U.S. costs up to 10 times more than in other wealthy countries, study says

It's a racket, it really is. Between Big Pharma, the insurance industry, and the FDA, many Americans just go without the medications they need.

I do agree with you about testing products and drugs for safety, which is why these faulty tests really bother me.

 

[nhmemorymaker]

I don't get it. Why was there a need to develop a test? A faulty one at that.

Hasn't the rest of the world been using the PCR test? Why couldn't the US use what we all use?

Maybe I am missing something?

I am hoping, that if we can revive both the CDC and the FDA, we will get much better answers. But, as drastic as the falling of the CDC, the revival will take much longer.

"When the next history of the CDC is written, 2020 will emerge as perhaps the darkest chapter in its 74 years, rivaled only by its involvement in the infamous Tuskegee experiment, in which federal doctors withheld medicine from poor Black men with syphilis, then tracked their descent into blindness, insanity and death.

With more than 216,000 people dead this year, most Americans know the low points of the current chapter already. A vaunted agency that was once the global gold standard of public health has, with breathtaking speed, become a target of anger, scorn and even pity."

https://wallstreetwindow.com/2020/1...ebastian-rotella-and-kirsten-berg-10-19-2020/

 

[mickey2942]

Sounds like a potential superspreader.

What is with these folks? They have huge parties? While the rest of us hunker down in our homes, seeing no one, because Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci have stated that any type of gathering is a potential for spreading Covid.

The hubris is shocking in the denial of the long term effects of the virus, and the very real possibility of spreading Covid to more vulnerable people. Is the ultimate goal/plan at this point in the United States to just ignore Covid, party on, and embrace herd immunity?

 

[nhmemorymaker]

I am hoping, that if we can revive both the CDC and the FDA, we will get much better answers. But, as drastic as the falling of the CDC, the revival will take much longer.

"When the next history of the CDC is written, 2020 will emerge as perhaps the darkest chapter in its 74 years, rivaled only by its involvement in the infamous Tuskegee experiment, in which federal doctors withheld medicine from poor Black men with syphilis, then tracked their descent into blindness, insanity and death.

With more than 216,000 people dead this year, most Americans know the low points of the current chapter already. A vaunted agency that was once the global gold standard of public health has, with breathtaking speed, become a target of anger, scorn and even pity."

https://wallstreetwindow.com/2020/1...ebastian-rotella-and-kirsten-berg-10-19-2020/

The article I posted in the post above, is really really good. It really goes into the dilemmas at the CDC, making it so clear that it is going to take so much time to clean it up, and get it stronger.

The article also discusses Stephen Lindstrom, who was essentially the scientist in charge of that ill-fated test. He will definitely be the fall-guy, the scapegoat.......... However, we will be getting at least a dozen Netflix mini-series about the Covid debacle.


"Inside a small lab on the CDC’s Atlanta campus, microbiologist Stephen Lindstrom was put in charge. A Saskatchewan native who speaks at a breakneck clip, Lindstrom had studied in Tokyo and defended his Ph.D. dissertation in Japanese. During the H1N1 flu pandemic, his team had invented a test, jumped through regulatory hurdles and shipped it around the world in just two weeks’ time.

“Frankly, he kind of lives for the pressure,” said one of his colleagues.

But this time around, just about everything that could go wrong did. Calculated decisions went sideways, and Lindstrom couldn’t find a quick way to right them. Mystifying contamination appeared at every turn, relegating tests to the trash heap. Precious weeks were lost."

"The air was filled with tension. At one point, a manager on the CDC coronavirus response team banged on the door to Lindstrom’s lab and demanded test results from his staff rather than waiting for them to be entered in the agency’s database, according to a scientist who was present. During a meeting, Lindstrom yelled at his colleagues for going around him and browbeating his people, according to an official who was present."

"In July, the acting director of Lindstrom’s division summoned him. He was reassigned to a new job with no official title and few responsibilities."

https://wallstreetwindow.com/2020/1...ebastian-rotella-and-kirsten-berg-10-19-2020/

 

[mickey2942]

Please, everyone here get a pulse oximeter. Perhaps buy one for a friend. Pretty please as it would make some of us feel better that you have one. This "stay at home" until you are sick enough to be in the hospital....we know it just doesn't cut it as a large percentage who were 90% or less had no idea. Reports come in of people that were in low 80's and high 70's saying they didn't realize they were low nor having that much problems breathing.

Dixiegirl1035, that is EXACTLY what people who have been diagnosed with Covid are told to do, "Just go home, see ya'.".

My daughter and her college friends are all young, Covid spread rapidly once school started. When my daughter was diagnosed, they didn't even offer her cough syrup! She has a deep, hacking cough, and had a very high fever. Nothing?!

Yet, some people who have Covid are admitted to the hospital and given "miracle" treatments.

The inequity is shocking.

 

[nhmemorymaker]

There is another version of the plan here, and I am really happy to read it.
Understandably, there will be stumbling blocks. But it is so good to see a plan.


- Dr Fauci will have unfettered aceess to speak directly with the American people
- Creation of a Pandemic Testing Board (just as FDR created a War Production Board to massively scale up the production and allocation of equipment and supplies needed for World War II)
- Increase testing sites, until there is no/little waiting
- Hiring (at least) 100,000 people for a national contact tracing force
- Establish a sustainable supply chain for PPE, suppplies and other medical help
- Pay healthcare workers suitably for being pandemic workers
- Emergency paid leave for people who catch the virus, or need to care for a loved one who caught the virus
- Housing to enable healthcare workers to quarantine away from loved ones, if needed
- Strengthen healthcare peer-to-peer learning
- Ramp up vaccine manufacturing, of a variety of covid vaccines

..... and more

BEAT COVID-19

(Hopefully this is allowed, as it is from an official website - and voting is over)

What a great start!! Well, not January of 2020, but still a good start.

 

[MimosaMornings]

Good points!

What bothers me the most is the cost of the drugs, especially because the drug companies receive federal funding to develop the drugs. To me, that should mean that Americans "own" a portion of the medications and the cost shouldn't be so high. We have a real problem with the cost of insulin:


Insulin in U.S. costs up to 10 times more than in other wealthy countries, study says

It's a racket, it really is. Between Big Pharma, the insurance industry, and the FDA, many Americans just go without the medications they need.

I do agree with you about testing products and drugs for safety, which is why these faulty tests really bother me.

One vial of Novolog insulin $350-$400.
That is the cost WITH insurance.
Average 3 vials for month.

$1340 a vial without insurance at CVS.

 

[MimosaMornings]

Dixiegirl1035, that is EXACTLY what people who have been diagnosed with Covid are told to do, "Just go home, see ya'.".

My daughter and her college friends are all young, Covid spread rapidly once school started. When my daughter was diagnosed, they didn't even offer her cough syrup! She has a deep, hacking cough, and had a very high fever. Nothing?!

Yet, some people who have Covid are admitted to the hospital and given "miracle" treatments.

The inequity is shocking.

Heck, they give me an inhaler and steroids when I get bronchitis every year.
And nothing for Covid?
Sheesh

 

[nhmemorymaker]

Dixiegirl1035, that is EXACTLY what people who have been diagnosed with Covid are told to do, "Just go home, see ya'.".

My daughter and her college friends are all young, Covid spread rapidly once school started. When my daughter was diagnosed, they didn't even offer her cough syrup! She has a deep, hacking cough, and had a very high fever. Nothing?!

Yet, some people who have Covid are admitted to the hospital and given "miracle" treatments.

The inequity is shocking.

Exactly!! These White HOuse superspreaders are among people who can demand the most and the best.


When are people going to see the arrogance and hypocrisy of "let them eat cake".

 

[nhmemorymaker]

One vial of Novolog insulin $350-$400.
That is the cost WITH insurance.
Average 3 vials for month.

$1340 a vial without insurance at CVS.

When I was irate at the $500 for an inhaler, I made calls to Humana's top pharmacies... The pharmacist told me that the biggest rip-off to Americans is for diabetes drugs and inhalers. (Ok, so he may not have used the word "rip-off")

Super expensive drugs for super rare things is more unique (like Covid treatments for the select few)...

but these diabetes and inhaler drugs that cost sooo much are just for regular normal folk who happened to have diabetes and breathing problems.
duhhhhhhh... like millions of us.

 

[nightowl1975]

My daughter and her college friends are all young, Covid spread rapidly once school started. When my daughter was diagnosed, they didn't even offer her cough syrup! She has a deep, hacking cough, and had a very high fever. Nothing?!

FYI, From a medical standpoint, IMO, the last thing you want to do in this situation is suppress a cough with cough syrup. It is also in general a terrible idea to suppress a fever unless it is dangerously high (105+). Both cough and fever are ways our body naturally reacts to help protect us.

 

[mickey2942]

Heck, they give me an inhaler and steroids when I get bronchitis every year.
And nothing for Covid?
Sheesh

I know. I am not sure what the reasoning was behind that. My daughter was so miserable. She couldn't sleep. Her ribs hurt from coughing so much. She was alternatively hot and chilled.

Well, no one ever died from a hot Toddy, I told her what to make, and she slept well. Is Covid going back to "Grandma's cures"? Are doctors afraid to prescribe anything? I don't get it.

Classic Hot Toddy Recipe - Cookie and Kate

Best with Jameson, but I am partial to Irish whiskey.

 

[Deleted member 158085]

FYI, From a medical standpoint, IMO, the last thing you want to do in this situation is suppress a cough with cough syrup. It is also in general a terrible idea to suppress a fever unless it is dangerously high (105+). Both cough and fever are ways our body naturally reacts to help protect us.

I disagree. Coughing too much or too hard can cause other medical issues. Been there. I don’t even want to contemplate my last bout of pneumonia and that kind of coughing.

 

[BUF]

https://twitter.com/Santucci/status/1325084300472176641

It’s now 7.
@ABC
News has learned a 5th White House staffer positive. That’s 5 WH + Meadows + 1 campaign = 7 in Trump orbit.

 

[nightowl1975]

I disagree. Coughing too much or too hard can cause other medical issues. Been there. I don’t even want to contemplate my last bout of pneumonia and that kind of coughing.

Of course there are some exceptions, but an otherwise healthy college kid with covid and no pneumonia wouldn’t be one of them. If the coughing (or fever) are at the point of causing true medical harm, then obviously interventions should be put in place. But the post I was commenting on seemed to me to suggest that it was appalling that a college kid with covid wasn’t immediately offered cough syrup. No way would I suppress the cough in that situation (and didn’t, when it was my own college daughter with covid). We did, however, use antibiotics for mild pneumonia, an inhaler, and a steroid.