Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #49

[margarita25]

Rsbm

Cuomo says:
Cuomo: Millions and millions of tests needed to open economy

From the above link:

“He added: "How good are we at getting this testing up? Are we better than we've been in the past? Is it going to take us months to come to scale on rapid testing? That's the only way to get people back to work. You have to have millions and millions of tests, frankly, better and faster than we've done to date."

This isn't the first time that Cuomo has signaled that widespread testing to see who has had the virus was essential to Americans getting back to work safely.”

“"We cannot restart life as we knew it without testing," he tweeted earlier this week.”

[...]

“Cuomo's stance on testing differs from President Trump's opinion on the matter. In his daily coronavirus press briefing Thursday, Trump punted when asked about the need for widespread testing, saying that it would be nice but not required.
“We want to have it and we’re going to see if we have it. Do you need it? No. Is it a nice thing to do? Yes,” Trump said. “We’re talking about 325 million people. And that’s not going to happen, as you can imagine, and it would never happen with anyone else either.””

 

[dixiegirl1035]

If outgoing air goes directly outside, and incoming air comes directly from outside and those vents are not near one another, how does air get from one room to another through the ventilation system? I can understand that viruses can be found in the outgoing ventilation system, but shouldn't there be constant movement toward the outside?

In buildings, (not speaking to hospitals) and your home, the air does not come in and then go out. It is mostly recirculated. For most of my life, I thought that that fan outside my home was blowing and exchanging air... yet all it is doing is compressing the refrigerant etc. Who knew! Here is an article on such

Tight or sick building syndrome - ScienceDirect

 

[nhmemorymaker]

Hours of entertainment and some views I’d love ! Thanks for the alert

Thanks. A good reminder.... "we are all in this together"

 

[astheworldfallsdown]

Coronavirus: Easing lockdown too quickly could lead to second COVID-19 peak, government warns

Easing the coronavirus lockdown too quickly could lead to a second peak in the outbreak, Downing Street has said.

Asked about reports that Prime Minister Boris Johnson favours a cautious approach to lifting restrictions, his spokesman said: "The big concern is a second peak.


"That is what ultimately will do the most damage to health and the most damage to the economy.

"If you move too quickly then the virus could begin to spread exponentially again.

"The public will expect us to do everything we can to stop the spread of the virus and protect lives."

 

[dixiegirl1035]

Coronavirus: Easing lockdown too quickly could lead to second COVID-19 peak, government warns

Easing the coronavirus lockdown too quickly could lead to a second peak in the outbreak, Downing Street has said.

Asked about reports that Prime Minister Boris Johnson favours a cautious approach to lifting restrictions, his spokesman said: "The big concern is a second peak.


"That is what ultimately will do the most damage to health and the most damage to the economy.

"If you move too quickly then the virus could begin to spread exponentially again.

"The public will expect us to do everything we can to stop the spread of the virus and protect lives."

Yes, governments and scientists all over the world have this question, as the second wave for the 1918 pandemic (one which was as infectious as a model vs. SARS and MERS which were not) didn't have the global and local traveling which is now, 100 years later, prevalent and to be considered in the models. MOO

 

[Teche]

When I went to buy peppers...I just got so confused, so waited until i could research. I know I don't like "hot peppers", I am really a wimp when it comes to peppers. But I really did wonder if the tabasco ones are really that hot, and if they really have a tabascoey flavor. I would appreciate any wisdom on this. I am looking for something flavorful, but very very light on the "hot". Sortof sounds like why bother, eh? But I would appreciate some wisdom here.

I have felt that you are getting good services there in the Villages. And some research projects going on as well. Palm Beach County is what is so striking, with the death rate. I am just not so sure why it is so different than Broward and the counties to the North. I mean, there is such a heavy concentration of higher age, snow birds etc.... but why is PBC so high in overall as well as death rate? Do you hear more about this.

We grew up using peppers in our cooking. For us, Tabasco peppers are hot yet flavorful. It’s not the type of pepper that you’d necessarily slice and eat although I know quite a few people who do. A couple of plants will yield enough to make a year or two supply of chow chow. We keep a few jars and give a few. My husband washes the peppers and chops a couple of onions. The onions and peppers go into a food processor. He then cooks the onions and peppers with vinegar. He cooks the mixture in an old pot outside. The flumes will knock you out. The chow chow Can be added to your serving of gumbo, beans, rice and gravy, etc.

 

[JaneEyre]

I was so lucky living on a farm in NH for so long with free range chickens who had two big covered pens on different parts of the property...and they became "self trained" to go back at night. So all we had to do was lock the gates, to protect them from the many predators that did take a lot of them over the years. I tried to research having chickens here in north FL.... but it was just too hard, and now our county forbids in my part of the county. People were so angry about the new laws a few years back...and they are rumbling very loudly again.... And such loud pro and con about opening the beaches as well. What feels so hard to accept right now is this breaking down of "we are all in this together".. Lots of "old arguments" are re-brewing. New stories in many parts of the world are showing this.... I hope we can just try harder to get back to "we are all in this together"

Oh, mine go up at night on their own. They just can’t lock themselves in!

 

[Henry2326]

PETER COLLIGNON- PROFESSOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE AT AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

"Australia's epidemic curve. Better than flattened - a major fall from around Mar 27. But we are now seeing a low level lingering tail. This is why at least till the end of our winter we will need to limit crowd numbers and keep physical distancing rules."

Peter Collignon on Twitter

 

[MimosaMornings]

Waited for the first case before shutting it down.
Officials Knew Coronavirus Could Spread at the Houston Rodeo and Proceeded With the Event Anyway — ProPublica

 

[Henry2326]

Waited for the first case before shutting it down.
Officials Knew Coronavirus Could Spread at the Houston Rodeo and Proceeded With the Event Anyway — ProPublica

How do they sleep at night? With their money under their pillow I guess....

 

[imstilla.grandma]

The country's burgeoning marijuana industry is working swiftly to adapt to its customers' needs as the coronavirus outbreak wreaks havoc on the U.S. economy. With business owners unable to access federal bailouts because the drug remains illegally nationally and popular 4/20 events cancelled because of stay-at-home orders, sellers are pushing for new ways to reach customers and persuade lawmakers that legal weed has become a crucial industry for many Americans.
Coronavirus, 4/20, smoking weed: Pandemic may shift views on legal pot

 

[Gardener1850]

There was an article about Sweden a few threads back. Made me really want to keep up with Sweden over the long haul to see how their more open approach works.
One of the statistics in that article still has me curious, and am hoping someone can address. The statement said "over 40% of the population lives alone". I can see how this does, in fact, influence lower infection rates. But how does Swedish culture explain this. Minimal multi-generational families? Divorce? Low birth rates? Knowledge welcome.

Here's an article from 2019 on why more Swedish young people live alone: Why so many young Swedes live alone

Despite the cultural isolation of their young people, I fear Sweden will be quite a tragic situation. We are already starting to see hints of it. Some recent links and quotes on Sweden:

Sweden is seeing an unsettling rise in coronavirus deaths, as comparatively lax restrictions across the country are coming under scrutiny.

The Nordic country had reported 1,540 deaths tied to the coronavirus pandemic, an increase of 29 from Saturday. Last week, the Public Health Agency of Sweden said 1,333 people had died of COVID-19.

Sweden’s figures are considerably more than in the rest of Scandinavia. While its population of over 10 million nearly doubles those of Denmark, Norway and Finland individually, its COVID-19 death toll was up to 17 times higher than those countries, according to reports.

Sweden sees jump in coronavirus deaths with less restrictive guidelines under scrutiny

Sounds tempting – keep your economy going whilst limiting the spread of the disease. Sweden has been the darling of the calls in the west to re-open economies and get back to work. At best, it’s been a risky policy, in contrast to the recommendations of the World Health Organisation and other science published on the spread of Covid-19. But has the bold health gamble worked?

No.

There is already enough data to suggest that a widespread laissez-faire is just a dangerous gamble with human life. Sweden is experiencing a higher death toll than its neighbouring countries. While the Scandinavian countries reported their first fatalities at roughly the same time, at the start of April Sweden had 239 fatalities, now they have 1,540, a 6-fold increase in just under 3 weeks. Meanwhile Denmark has had a 3-fold increase in deaths during they time and Norway 2-fold. In pure per capita terms, the three countries have around the same rate of total infections but Sweden’s mortality rate is much higher, and higher again compared to neighbouring Finland.

And whilst the curve of new infections is starting to flatten in Norway, Finland and Denmark, Sweden’s new infection rate is still rising at a faster rate than its neighbours.

There are now alarming reports, including in the Washington Post, that the virus has spread to one-third of nursing homes in the capital Stockholm, resulting in rising fatalities. There is also little indication that the Swedish economy has weathered the coronavirus economic storm any better than comparable countries.

Read more: Sweden's massive public health gamble is failing | The Thaiger


Like Australia, the country [Sweden] had banned non-essential visitors to its aged care homes.

However, the Government’s advice to aged care homes was that staff should not wear masks or use Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) unless they are dealing with a resident in the home, they suspect is infected – and that staff should stay home if they detect any symptoms in themselves.

“The worst thing is that it is us, the staff, who are taking the infection in to the elderly,” one nurse told Swedish public broadcaster SVT. “It’s unbelievable that more of them haven’t been infected. It’s a scandal.”

Lena Einhorn, a virologist who has criticised Sweden’s coronavirus policy, said the Government and its Health agency has failed to acknowledged that staff are the likely route.

“They say it’s very unfortunate, that they are investigating, and that it’s a matter of the training personnel, but they will not acknowledge that pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic spread is a factor,” she said.

Read more: Sweden’s COVID-19 strategy sees 500 residents die in its aged care homes - The Weekly SOURCE

Einhorn was one of 22 researchers who on Tuesday called for Sweden’s politicians to break with the country’s tradition of entrusting policy to its expert agencies, and to seize control of Sweden’s coronavirus strategy from the agency.

She argues that the reason why Sweden has a much higher number of cases in care homes than in Norway and Finland is not because of the homes themselves, but because of Sweden’s decision to keep schools and kindergartens open, and not to shut restaurants or bars.

“It’s not like it goes from one old age home to another. It comes in separately to all of these old age homes, so there’s no way it can be all be attributed to the personnel going in and working when they are sick. There’s a basic system fault in their recommendations. There’s no other explanation for it.”

Tegnell’s colleague AnnaSara Carnahan on Friday told Sveriges Radio that the number of deaths reported from old people’s homes was “probably an underestimate”, as regional health infectious diseases units were reporting that many elderly who died were not being tested.

Anger in Sweden as elderly pay price for coronavirus strategy

 

[Sundog]

I think if that's what's being suggested that it doesn't sound a very great plan. The standard for something that's contagious/communicable in this way is normally ring containment, which would mean much more targeted testing around confirmed cases, rather than testing every single person in the population.

If it was done during a lockdown with rapid testing, then the testing could focus on healthcare workers, key/essential workers, and anyone entering a hospital or other healthcare setting. Any positive tests can have the 'containment ring' placed around them using quarantine/isolation/testing...and if the people in the contact list for the positive cases obey the quarantine/isolation they don't necessarily need testing.

After that, you just need to test anyone with symptoms and combine that with strict contact tracing. An app would be very useful. I think that during the lockdown period (of my 'plan' that I am developing in my mind) then anyone working should be using a contact tracing app at least during work hours and travel to/from work hours...outside those hours the main risk would be to people in the same living quarters and it would be easy enough to find out who they are, so I think it might suffice to make it voluntary outside of the working/travel hours.

After a few weeks of that, then you could mop up smaller outbreaks with more ring containment for each case/outbreak and the rest of the country could go back to work, preferably maintaining some kind of contact records for a while, but if people are bothered by an app, that could probably be people signing in and out of the workplace or areas within the workplace, maintaining social distancing within the workplace as much as possible, and limiting the number of workers who come into close contact with each other, say by having groups of workers who work together each day and trying to maintain that group through the working week.

My thoughts on developing this 'plan' in my head are based more on the UK, and would have to involve testing anyone entering the country, possibly having anyone entering the country stay isolated for x number of days so that they can have a second test after the first in case there isn't enough antigen to trigger a positive in the first test but that builds up in the next few days. With increased testing protocols they could work out optimum times for those two tests before a person gets the all clear.

I don't know how much of this 'plan' is wishful thinking but it's based on established procedures for overcoming outbreaks. Things like Ebola didn't used to have a vaccine, so these kind of practices were the only thing that could stop outbreaks in their tracks. The major difference here is that we'd have to do this on a national level rather than isolating a few villages and towns in a single region of a nation that doesn't have a lot of national travel, let alone international travel. Even so, they achieved it in the Ebola outbreak a few years ago that was centred in several west African countries. Yes, Ebola's a totally different disease, but it's still the same general principles at work to combat an outbreak of a disease that's communicable by being in close proximity to other people.

So it can be done without vaccines, at least to reduce the size and spread of outbreaks until we get vaccines. And when vaccines do come, if they are also rolled out first to priority groups and then using ring vaccination, then you don't need as much initial supplies of vaccine in order to have a massive effect, so we could roll vaccination out over the globe without needing 7 billion+ doses right at the outset or in the first year. I don't think it's as much about reinventing the wheel but applying these principles in modern nations that aren't used to using contact tracing apps, and never before considered they could have a three-week or longer 'lockdown'. We also need human contact tracing (done by humans) on a scale we aren't used to, but that doesn't mean it can't be built up and achieved.

Regarding most of the above, I think this is the process that Dr. Birx described at the White House's briefing on the reopening of the U.S. last week. I will have to look up the transcript, but this is the process I recall. Dr. Birx is an expert in this area.

 

[Gardener1850]

When I went to buy peppers...I just got so confused, so waited until i could research. I know I don't like "hot peppers", I am really a wimp when it comes to peppers. But I really did wonder if the tabasco ones are really that hot, and if they really have a tabascoey flavor. I would appreciate any wisdom on this. I am looking for something flavorful, but very very light on the "hot". Sortof sounds like why bother, eh? But I would appreciate some wisdom here.

Just plant sweet peppers. If you want a little spice to make homemade salsa, plant jalapenos. I'm not super tolerant of spicy peppers but with jalapeno if you remove the seeds (use gloves!) it's not very spicy at all. Jalapenos are perfect for a mild to medium salsa. We have an heirloom variety of Kung Pao peppers we grow every year that are super spicy that we use to make hot sauce. I make Kung Pao chicken with them a couple times when I have them fresh but the peppers are way too hot to eat-- we remove them after cooking them whole in the sauce.

MOO.

 

[Sundog]

Thank you @dixiegirl (and my apologies many strings ago calling you DixieQueen). But, I really do love to listen to Dr. Campbell every day. He is spending more and more time on the asymptomatic and presymptomatic, and he is using excellent studies to discuss. This big question does remain however---how long one stays asymtomatic. We have to get closer and closer to understanding that. I could see efforts "to open up more" with an age-stepped approach with constant temperature measuring, and hopefully testing. That would certainly be a first in the US, and would touch some real civil liberties. It could easily be called "age discrimination" instead of "age protection". But if "older" became a protected class for a while, I could see it happening. As long as they did not get discriminated against, when they came back into the workforce... I do shudder to think about this, but am thinking about this none the less.

We already have various laws about age discrimination in the work place, such as layoffs in a workplace can't have an adverse impact on people over 50 years old, special terms for buyout contracts for people over 50, age discrimination in hiring, etc. In the case of COVID-19, perhaps we could expand these protections for those over 60. Or some have suggested expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to allow those over 60 or whatever age the CDC, federal government, or state government determine to be the age for high-risk. This would only apply to businesses that are required to offer FMLA, but the older people could take FMLA for three months and use their vacation and/or sick leave and if they have not sick leave or vacation accumulated, the federal government should pass an Elder CARES Act to provide stimulus money to fund this, or something like this.

 

[Anance]

During Mardi Gras, we were actually watching the live cams in New Orleans here in these threads, shaking our heads.

Ugh. And Mardi Gras is different than a football game, lots of personal interaction - dancing, hugging, kissing, drinking. It's a great environment for the virus.

 

[bluedivergirl]

RSBM

. . . .
I have felt that you are getting good services there in the Villages. And some research projects going on as well. Palm Beach County is what is so striking, with the death rate. I am just not so sure why it is so different than Broward and the counties to the North. I mean, there is such a heavy concentration of higher age, snow birds etc.... but why is PBC so high in overall as well as death rate? Do you hear more about this.

The first difference I see is housing density. There is only one apartment complex in The Villages proper, and it isn't finished yet. The vast majority are single family homes. There are a number of assisted living and memory care facilities. A few cases there. Almost all buildings are single floor. No elevators.

I also suspect social behavior. The Villages is very social during normal times, but for the most part we roll up the golf cart path at 9:30 PM, after the squares close. The last time I was in Palm Beach (a few years ago) bars were elbow to elbow. I had to leave. I need space.

 

[Anance]

This isn't the first time that Cuomo has signaled that widespread testing to see who has had the virus was essential to Americans getting back to work safely.”

Because that is the issue.

Here are Corona tests per day - see how they plateaued

And here are confirmed cases, which have also plateaued

Weekend #s always go down and then spike up on Tuesday.

 

[margarita25]

Ugh. And Mardi Gras is different than a football game, lots of personal interaction - dancing, hugging, kissing, drinking. It's a great environment for the virus.

Indeed.

Some quick references:

““I think it all boils down to Mardi Gras,” said Dr. F. Brobson Lutz Jr., a former health director of New Orleans and a specialist in infectious disease. “The greatest free party in the world was a perfect incubator at the perfect time.””

New Orleans Faces a Virus Nightmare, and Mardi Gras May Be Why

—-

“Doctors and residents think Carnival, which ran from Jan. 6 to Fat Tuesday on Feb. 25 this year and draws about 1.4 million revelers from around the world, could have contributed to the outbreak in New Orleans and all of Louisiana's parishes.”

[...]

“"I think it came during Mardi Gras, given the timing of it. Someone brought it here and then it starts spreading slowly," Dr. Joshua Denson, a pulmonary and critical care physician at Tulane Medical Center in New Orleans, told NBC News.

"I diagnosed the second case, the first critically ill patient, here last weekend," he said. "Her timing was about two weeks post-Mardi Gras."”

[...]

“Dr. Richard Oberhelman, chairman of the Department of Global Community Health and Behavioral Sciences at Tulane University's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, also thinks Carnival crowds provided a perfect breeding ground for the highly contagious coronavirus to spread.”

New Orleans is a center of coronavirus. Mardi Gras could be to blame, doctors say.
Mar 24

 

[Rocco]

That does seem like quite a rapid rise in just one week. Did they give any stats on asymptomatic?

Good question!

There's an independent reporter who runs a site called iNews.TV. He interviewed an attorney who's been looking into the outbreak. What he found when talking to an employee of L & M Windpower, was that on March 23rd, the employee had contacted the City Health Dept. and complained of employees who had fevers and were coughing at work. The Health Dept apparently had received a number of similar complaints and these complaints were on the desk of the Mayor. On March 27th, an employee contacted the OSHA office in Bismarck, the state capital. A supervisor at the plant was contacted regarding the matter and his response was 'If people want to work, we can't make them stay home'. OSHA then opened up an investigation. So yes, employees had symptoms, although I don't know exactly how many.
Local News Videos From Grand Forks County, ND | iNewZ.TV