Novel Coronavirus COVID-19

[BC1980]

We're definitely hurting as far as hospitalizations in my state. Our staffing is worse than I've ever seen it in my 10 years at this hospital. We closed down 15 cardiac beds due to no staff last weekend, and we're already working on bare bones as it is. We can stop doing elective procedures, but the hospitals have already lost so much money that it's hard to do that and stay financially solvent. 

[gaius]

If hospital finances are that dependent on elective procedures it's a little frightening to think about how many unnecessary surgeries go on just to keep the money flowing.

My grandmother who was a nurse had a knuckle replaced and always regretted it, said her hand worked way worse than before. They were always after her to get a small aneurysm tied off even though the procedure could cause brain damage or kill her. She refused and ended up dying of dementia instead.

Oh well, conversation for another thread. At least I don't have to worry about her catching Covid and suffocating to death from pneumonia. Infections are starting to become commonplace in my county now. Although deaths and hospitalizations are still very low.

[QuietRiot]

10 hours ago, BC1980 said:

We're definitely hurting as far as hospitalizations in my state. Our staffing is worse than I've ever seen it in my 10 years at this hospital. We closed down 15 cardiac beds due to no staff last weekend, and we're already working on bare bones as it is. We can stop doing elective procedures, but the hospitals have already lost so much money that it's hard to do that and stay financially solvent. 

What are you doing without staff during a situation where you need staff the most?

[carhill]

Prior to Covid-19 when I heard 'elective' from friends it was generally non-life preserving/essential procedures, usually they were describing things like plastic surgery, gastric bypass when otherwise healthy, stuff like that. Listening to health care people during the pandemic, 'elective' appeared to expand to all procedures not deemed emergency and/or life-threatening related. If something could be put off, it was. Organ stuff, orthopedic stuff, brain stuff, you name it. The bread and butter of the medical profession, save for Covid cases and emergency procedures, got shut off, hence so many staff furloughed or laid off. One friend who works in surgery at Kaiser had the opposite experience, they kept him on as a floater, alternatively working at the hospital and at home depending on workload, but no typical overtime or comp time add-ons. I learned something about Kaiser, that apparently they did quite well during the pandemic because they get paid in advance for everything and the actuarial numbers behind the premiums they charge are based on the typical care model, severely degraded during Covid, so they potentially profited from reduced care rather than losing money. They lose money, well, their profit is reduced, every time they perform a service, hence the focus on preventative care. Less people coming in, using services, more profits.

Locally, I've noticed more traffic, hear more beach buggies in the dunes, still pretty quiet though. I get my periodic dose of exposure from the mail carrier delivering packages, no doubt they interact with hundreds of people daily in multiple counties considering their routes, and occasional jaunts into town, where no obvious prophylactics are used. So far, death toll is zero, cases are up two from seven days ago, to 34, with 28 recovered and 6 active.

This underscores a point I made in another thread, that protocols should be local. If things are a hot spot, OK, deal with that. If a nothingburger, now for months, move on with life. I'm watching a caravan of people circulating through three states over seven days, so far no masks that I could see and plenty of outdoor and some indoor exposure. Main change from past tours is little to no inside restaurant videos, hard to tell if that's a choice or eateries are closed, the ones they stop at for checkpoints appear to be open. Anyway, small sample, maybe 1000-1500 people who converged from numerous parts of the country on Colorado for a week of touring and racing. I noted cars from my native state of CA there, as well as Oregon. One team shipped their cars all the way from Florida and there's maybe 15-20 of them there, flew in. One racer flew in from Canada to Texas to pick up his car (can't currently drive over the border so he's the only Canadian) and drove it to Colorado. Etc, etc.

IMO, presuming we humans are all in this together, we can come together to help those most afflicted but otherwise go on with our lives as we inevitably do when natural disasters occur. When going through the H3N2 influenza in the late 60's it severely affected some areas and in others zippo. As a young person I only knew it was going on due to the TV news. Locally, we were out doing things young people do, school was as normal, no loss of work for anyone to my knowledge.  I was interacting with hundreds of people a month delivering and collecting for my paper route and socializing as normal young people do, including traveling the state for rocketry competitions.. No precautions out of the norm for flu season, stay at home if sick, wash hands, don't touch ones face. I happened to live in an area that wasn't affected markedly, similar to Covid now. Others were affected and many died. That's how it goes.

[BC1980]

12 hours ago, QuietRiot said:

What are you doing without staff during a situation where you need staff the most?

Close down beds and divert patients to to different hospitals. 

[BC1980]

5 hours ago, carhill said:

Prior to Covid-19 when I heard 'elective' from friends it was generally non-life preserving/essential procedures, usually they were describing things like plastic surgery, gastric bypass when otherwise healthy, stuff like that. Listening to health care people during the pandemic, 'elective' appeared to expand to all procedures not deemed emergency and/or life-threatening related. If something could be put off, it was. Organ stuff, orthopedic stuff, brain stuff, you name it. The bread and butter of the medical profession, save for Covid cases and emergency procedures, got shut off, hence so many staff furloughed or laid off. One friend who works in surgery at Kaiser had the opposite experience, they kept him on as a floater, alternatively working at the hospital and at home depending on workload, but no typical overtime or comp time add-ons. I learned something about Kaiser, that apparently they did quite well during the pandemic because they get paid in advance for everything and the actuarial numbers behind the premiums they charge are based on the typical care model, severely degraded during Covid, so they potentially profited from reduced care rather than losing money. They lose money, well, their profit is reduced, every time they perform a service, hence the focus on preventative care. Less people coming in, using services, more profits.

Locally, I've noticed more traffic, hear more beach buggies in the dunes, still pretty quiet though. I get my periodic dose of exposure from the mail carrier delivering packages, no doubt they interact with hundreds of people daily in multiple counties considering their routes, and occasional jaunts into town, where no obvious prophylactics are used. So far, death toll is zero, cases are up two from seven days ago, to 34, with 28 recovered and 6 active.

This underscores a point I made in another thread, that protocols should be local. If things are a hot spot, OK, deal with that. If a nothingburger, now for months, move on with life. I'm watching a caravan of people circulating through three states over seven days, so far no masks that I could see and plenty of outdoor and some indoor exposure. Main change from past tours is little to no inside restaurant videos, hard to tell if that's a choice or eateries are closed, the ones they stop at for checkpoints appear to be open. Anyway, small sample, maybe 1000-1500 people who converged from numerous parts of the country on Colorado for a week of touring and racing. I noted cars from my native state of CA there, as well as Oregon. One team shipped their cars all the way from Florida and there's maybe 15-20 of them there, flew in. One racer flew in from Canada to Texas to pick up his car (can't currently drive over the border so he's the only Canadian) and drove it to Colorado. Etc, etc.

IMO, presuming we humans are all in this together, we can come together to help those most afflicted but otherwise go on with our lives as we inevitably do when natural disasters occur. When going through the H3N2 influenza in the late 60's it severely affected some areas and in others zippo. As a young person I only knew it was going on due to the TV news. Locally, we were out doing things young people do, school was as normal, no loss of work for anyone to my knowledge.  I was interacting with hundreds of people a month delivering and collecting for my paper route and socializing as normal young people do, including traveling the state for rocketry competitions.. No precautions out of the norm for flu season, stay at home if sick, wash hands, don't touch ones face. I happened to live in an area that wasn't affected markedly, similar to Covid now. Others were affected and many died. That's how it goes.

It's kind of weird, but elective only means a non-emergency. Most open heart surgeries are elective for instance.

[SincereOnlineGuy]

At the risk of running afowl of Loveshack's standards, 

 

Here is raw numerical data from mine and surrounding zip codes through June 22.

 

93,000 total residents

301 positive tests

19 total deaths

 

1 person out of 310 among those residents has at some point tested positive for Covid.

(those would lean heavily toward persons at home and not at the local grocery store)

 

In the entire county the rate is 1 person of 240 residents having at some point tested positive for Covid.

 

That all sounds like approximately nothing.

 

(Yet 120 miles away is a town where more than 10% of everyone has tested positive for Covid.) (and another tiny place with 292 residents and 57 positive cases)

 

Soooooooooooooooooooooo...   it's probably easier in that light to comprehend the idea of tossing-off protective gear, or any caution at all, and running out to find an all-night dance club.

 

But the catch is... that the data I just presented is where it is AF-ter months of everybody sheltering at home to minimize it.  And after a giant clamp-down on international travel.

 

Had we opted for the popular impulses of the clueless, we could all have Covid before the end of 2020, and be up in the 50-70% range everywhere, perhaps by now.

Edited June 27, 2020 by SincereOnlineGuy

[SincereOnlineGuy]

On 6/25/2020 at 2:08 PM, Piddy said:

The CDC says that actual cases could be 10 times what's been reported.  That would put it at 24 million.

Yeah, and guess what that might mean for a town in which 10% of residents have already tested positive at some point?

[LivingWaterPlease]

A Facebook friend who lives near Dallas posted today that he knows ten people (friends and acquaintances) who have tested positive for it and all have no symptoms. Another FB friend said her husband (over 65 years old) had it with no symptoms. She, also over 65,  never got tested and hasn't had symptoms. 

A different FB friend who is quite obese and around 35 years-old posted he had it and had a low grade fever for two weeks with the sniffles. Another FB friend's cousin, who is around 40-45 had it and was hospitalized but is fine now.

Seems a lot of people must be having it with very mild symptoms or none. If I were in a high risk category I'd definitely stay home but being as I'm not, other than being 70, I'm out and about. I may have had it by now, who knows? 

[Ellener]

Mile long line for testing @LivingWaterPlease by me today. I guess we're getting ours....

 

[sothereiwas]

Florida reopens May 4th. Riots start Memorial day. COVID comes back hard mid-June. Do the math. 

[carhill]

See, the riots are a good thing, a Covid canary, plus a profit center for certain citizen factions, not just the criminals, notwithstanding the usual profit center in health care. Is that 40K per vent hookup still good?

Proving that my state of residence isn't immune from insanity, then later apparently finding a moment of clarity, Lincoln County apparently rescinded their prior order that non-white people were exempt from the order to wear masks. ....

Quote

A week after issuing an order that required only white people to wear masks, leaders in Lincoln County, Oregon, have reversed the policy because of “horrifically racist commentary,” according to the county’s website.

The initial order, issued on June 17 in an effort to curtail the spread of the coronavirus, stated: “The following individuals do not need to comply with this Directive: ... People of color who have heightened concerns about racial profiling and harassment due to wearing face coverings in public.”

https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/coronavirus/article243773412.html

[sothereiwas]

California DOESN'T open up. Riots start Memorial day. COVID comes back hard mid-June. What a coincidence. 

[Ellener]

1 hour ago, carhill said:

a Covid canary, plus a profit center for certain citizen factions, not just the criminals, notwithstanding the usual profit center in health care.

Cynical.

I hope, since 42% of US deaths come from the senior population/nursing homes/accepted profit center, people will treat the situation with dignity and compassion.

It's human life. Across the board.

[Libby1]

On 6/24/2020 at 1:08 PM, QuietRiot said:

Also, the death rate is consistently going down (as of the past 7 to 8 weeks), likely due in part in being able to manage the virus with the ever common Dexamethasone (I think I spelled that righ,t, lol). 

There is also talks of having a vaccine by the end if this year, as opposed to the predicted 18 months back in March.

The number of new cases in the US has rocketed in the last couple of days - with almost 45,000 positive cases diagnosed yesterday.  Have testing rates been bumped up in the US?  I know that they were urging people to get tested after the protests.

Edited June 27, 2020 by Libby1

[QuietRiot]

4 minutes ago, Libby1 said:

The number of new cases in the US has rocketed in the last couple of days - with almost 45,000 positive cases diagnosed yesterday.  Have testing rates been bumped up in the US?  I know that they were urging people to get tested after the protests.

RIght, and the amount of younger people (thought barely symptomatic or asymptomatic) cases had shot the case count up! I read somewhere after the protests, the cases didnt go up much, whereas at the bars...it did....and thusly shutting the bars down, with one having its booze licence taken away.

[Libby1]

2 minutes ago, QuietRiot said:

RIght, and the amount of younger people (thought barely symptomatic or asymptomatic) cases had shot the case count up! I read somewhere after the protests, the cases didnt go up much, whereas at the bars...it did....and thusly shutting the bars down, with one having its booze licence taken away.

Bars would be a definite spreading environment, with booze making people less careful about trying to take any sort of social distancing measures.  My favourite bar is opening up again soon, but only the beer garden.

[Redhead14]

9 hours ago, Ellener said:

Cynical.

I hope, since 42% of US deaths come from the senior population/nursing homes/accepted profit center, people will treat the situation with dignity and compassion.

It's human life. Across the board.

They don't care about the seniors and/or high risk people.  They are disposable and just a "casualty of war"/collateral damage. 

[sothereiwas]

6 hours ago, QuietRiot said:

 I read somewhere after the protests, the cases didnt go up much, whereas at the bars...it did....

California begs to differ. 

[Azincourt]

1 hour ago, Redhead14 said:

They don't care about the seniors and/or high risk people.  They are disposable and just a "casualty of war"/collateral damage. 

True, but the fact is that many old people don't care about themselves. I see it all the time. They don't wear a mask, they get all up in people's personal space, they touch everything and don't wash their hands, they're out and about in this stiffling heat.

[QuietRiot]

Just now, Azincourt said:

True, but the fact is that many old people don't care about themselves. I see it all the time. They don't wear a mask, they get all up in people's personal space, they touch everything and don't wash their hands, they're out and about in this stiffling heat.

Agreed on the older people. I live in an area that's a sea of retirees. Their attitude is that they are at the tail end of their lives, and they aren't going to let a virus ruin their Golden Years. If anything, they are the worse about it. 

Even in PRE-Covid days, old people could care less about anything or what others thought. 

[Azincourt]

15 minutes ago, QuietRiot said:

Agreed on the older people. I live in an area that's a sea of retirees. Their attitude is that they are at the tail end of their lives, and they aren't going to let a virus ruin their Golden Years. If anything, they are the worse about it. 

Even in PRE-Covid days, old people could care less about anything or what others thought. 

Same. I live in a town that is made up mostly of people in their 70s and 80's and even up to their 90s. They moved to this place when they were 20, got married, and bought a house and remained still. The amount of elderly folks who lack any sense of self-preservation is insane.  Even before the corona virus problem they would spend hours under the hot sun talking to their friends, instead of going home and taking care of themselves. It baffles me how elderly these folks are and how they live alone, after their partner died, or they live together with their very aged partner that needs personal healthcare and they act like their nurses.

[Inflikted]

I'm very nervous about the next couple of weeks, because this past week, two of my coworkers had some degree of contact with Florida. My one coworker had close family visiting down there while she stayed here. And my boss (who borderline thinks coronavirus is a hoax) and her family went down there on vacation all this past week. Beforehand, she was even talking about stuff like going to Myrtle Beach and stuff...

So, now I'm going to be a nervous wreck the two weeks, because who knows if either of my coworkers have been exposed and are now carrying the disease? I, of course, do what I can to stay safe in the work place, but we work in close enough proximity and they refuse to follow proper guidelines, so it likely won't matter. If they got it, chances are I'll end up getting it from them. All I can do now is pray that they both somehow avoided exposure despite what's happening in Florida right now...

[serial muse]

On 6/27/2020 at 1:30 AM, sothereiwas said:

Florida reopens May 4th. Riots start Memorial day. COVID comes back hard mid-June. Do the math. 

I'm sure you'll be relieved to hear that people have, in fact, done the math. This analysis of 315 large US cities, 281 of which had protests (not riots, that's a dog whistle), suggests that they were not responsible for the spikes. No such spike observed in NYC, for example.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w27408.pdf

It's well documented in FL, meanwhile, that clusters of people at bars and parties are driving the spike. Even Gov De Santis,  agrees with this assessment. That's why FL and TX are closing back up. They reopened too early and they know it, too.

Let it go. This is disinformation and it's deadly. Just stop. 

Wear a mask, everyone.

 

Edited June 28, 2020 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[serial muse]

Another data-driven assessment of the impact of social distancing on new cases in FL thru time: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/state-timeline/new-confirmed-cases/florida