Corona virus - Covid 19 discussion

[ladyhawke]

A lot of countries are implementing similar things, as with Iceland mentioned earlier. If coming into contact with a Covid-carrier they insta-quarantine you

But actually (probably) a good idea I would have thought. Only issues are Android compatibility problems and the classic security vulnerabilities where people can nab all your phone's information.

Those teething problems aside, it's tickety-boo

Our COVIDSafe app is now live, and works in a similar way - tracking people you come into contact with in any way, shape or form, as long as that contact is for 15 mins or longer, through smartphones with the app installed and Bluetooth active. The data is then stored in encrypted form on your phone.

So if you do happen to get COVID-19, the data from your phone can be analysed to provide info on two fronts:
- To try to identify the source of your infection
- To ask the other people you have come in contact with to be tested.

As in the link @mina1929 has provided, the take-up rate has been quite phenomenal. The ABC reported that over 1 million people downloaded the app in 5 hours, whereas the government thought it would take at least 5 days to reach that level.

I am not one of them. Firstly I do not have a smart phone, and secondly, Australia is virtually a nannified police state as it is, so I do not want to give the government any more power over me.

Sky News penned a piece on Iceland earlier and their relative successes in trampling the curve

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They've also opted to quarantine any travellers upon arrival. Imagine for one moment our Government having the sense to do that!

Much smaller population of course, but also many more people tested, many coming forward 'just to be sure'

One gets the sense they have a more societal-based mindset than......some of our compatriots

After the Ruby Princess fiasco, all passengers arriving in Australia, irrespective of nationality (although as our borders are effectively closed, it is mainly Australian residents returning home) are quarantined for 14 days. In five star hotels paid for by the taxpayer.

And many of these involuntary "quarantinees" have not stopped bitching and moaning, frequently referring to their hotels as similar to Stalag-13 prisons.

Some people really need to get a grip!

 

[goatwack]

Ah, England's warm embrace

Here we have country bumpkins determining who can/ can't use their fair lands to stroll on. Because apparently it all belongs to them

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"Get off our land, we don't like your sort round 'ere! what's that Mary moi love? No I haven't milked the chickens yet! Oooh aarrrr!

pricks

 

[ladyhawke]

IMO whether the daily death toll rises or falls should have no bearing on restrictions being lifted (unless there is solid proof the virus has weakened significantly).

The only figure you need to look at is the daily number of “new cases”...

This is why my posts always refer to new infections/deaths, as there is a definite corollary between the two. Only when zero/nearly zero new infections are the norm, will it be possible to gauge when the lifting of restrictions could realistically begin.

cute

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Sparkle is lovely, and this is an uplifting story.

But once more it has a downside, in that it has created another falsehood that is rapidly becoming established as fact: "Hand sanitizer can be lethal to animals. If you put on your hands and pet or hold an animal and it vets on their coat or skin and then they lick it. Also will burn eyes if you touch their face."

Which is simply untrue, as per the following rebuttal:

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But of course, the damage has now been done. A little like the "Boris Johnson never had COVID-19" article by the Dorset Eye, who did not identify it as satire. Therefore many people who did not recognise the spoof for what it was now firmly believe that Boris did not indeed have the virus.

You really can't fix stupid.

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[mina1929]

After the Ruby Princess fiasco

I need spec savers, I was reading ( After the Rugby Princess fiasco)

 

[sufferinsilence]

People who pass away now reflect on the number of admissions to the hospital and ICU 2 to 4 weeks ago and they were probably infected 3 to 6 weeks ago.

Or that's atleast the theory.

Practically speaking those that pass away usually don't have that much time, they'll get very sick very quickly and their health deteriorates within days to the point that moving them to an ICU is of no use anymore. I've heard stories of nurses talking about patients who seemed to be doing pretty good and when they come back for their next shift a day later the patient has already passed away and didn't even make it to the ICU.

And then there's the number of deaths in elderly care homes where they make a conscious choice not to move people who are "end of life" or have dementia to the hospital but keep them comfortable. Most of them are expected to pass away within a year and that's why they aren't admitted to the hospital but rather kept in their familiar surroundings. Might sound harsh at first but when you think about it: it isn't.

Usually the people who are actually admitted to the ICU are younger (read: 65 and below) people who have a fighting chance of making it with the help of a ventilator or ECMO. But make no mistake, their quality of life will be severely impacted due to the procedures. We don't even know yet what the long term damage on their body will be.

Anyway, I just wanted to write this down as there has been alot of talk recently about exit strategies in several countries. We've had a steady stream of about 200 hospital admissions a day over here for the past week to 10 days now which is still way too much and it can easily explode again if we start lifting measures in a rather fast pace. Ideally we'd want to be under 100 by May 4th when the first measures are being lifted, that's a week from now.

 

[slotplayer]

After 3 weeks of lock down.

 

[dionysus]

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[dionysus]

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[News Hound]

Where's @News Hound for Las Vegas news?

I was watching and reading up last night, The possibilities are every 2nd slot machine will be turned off or slots removed, Like %50 of tables in restaurants or some will be removed, buffets will be more full service and they desperately want to re open as they are the most profitable some of them, Their should be deals and maybe some removal of fees but don't be surprised of resort fees are still charged. It could be a year for everything to be fully open again as they are looking at a slow reopening with shows being the last to reopen.

Covered here I believe: Nevada Gaming Control Board List Procedures needed to Re-Open Casinos

 

[shadow123]

Usually the people who are actually admitted to the ICU are younger (read: 65 and below) people who have a fighting chance of making it with the help of a ventilator or ECMO.

Cheers ... nice start to the week ,66 last month,was going to clean the fish pond but might as well jump in it

 

[slotplayer]

The only expert I listen to is Dr. Birx.

 

[Slottery]

After "no new cases reported on Sunday" and recovery of people looks good at the moment:

"The number of recoveries had increased sharply (282) and now 162 active cases remained."

Next time to think if some restrictions could be lifted, (i'm personally even sure what everything is counted to be "essential" that they have been allowed to be open, loads of small electronic and other kind of shops have been open, of course restaurants and pubs only do pickup/delivery, cloth stores have been closed but been mostly at home and walking quite near by so not the best picture of situation) amount of people walking outside is increasing when weather start to be very nice and people already have spen quite a lot time inside, still it seem to be very easy to keep distances as all tourists are missing (which for this pandemia was hell of luck, don't know how many tourists come to Malta every year but loads of planes every day anyway from quite many countries).

The government is this week expected to announce the first easing of the COVID-19 restrictive measures, but sources say ministers and government advisers are still split on when and how to reopen businesses.

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Malta is in quite good position at the moment, probably thank for timing before island is crowded and being island who stopped flights quite early. People here (what i see and read) seem to be quite happy to follow restrictions and listening what they are told, which i guess always makes things easier.

With tourism at a standstill due to the pandemic, vibrant five-star hotels have been reduced to ghost towns as general managers try to put staff to good use and forecast a long wait mired in uncertainty until a revival.

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Loss of tourism is huge hit to Maltas economy but i really think that this feels right approach at the moment

The report says tourism would be the last to recover

, bit too early for that and not many countries let people travel atm (and guess many are not thinking to have holiday abroad within next few weeks even allowed). Igaming is estimated to be bit over 12% of Maltas GDB, other luck for country that it exist at the moment and haven't been affected that strongly than many other businesses. People work from home, ordering loads of delivery food (and booze) not making miracles for restaurants but help some to pay their running expenses.

Not huge panic here, health care is not running out of capacity (think there are not many people in intensive care, 1-4, without checking current numbers, capacity made for over hundred). No idea what's gonna happen all over world and what's the future but not huge chaos in isolated island and no need to create it right now when big part of world is short from health care resources.

Have a good week everyone, hope all are good as can atm and that this pandemia would end one day (which still probaly is quite way ahead unfortunately)

 

[shadow123]

Not sure what to make of pinnits wow comment about me revealing my age, sure there was no offence intended and none taken,,One thing you young whippersnappers dont realise is that you age in the blink of an eye,One day you will wake up and think where the fuck did that go.Make the most of every day as it will
be over before you realise it. On the plus side your brain stays young only the mirror tells the truth.

 

[shadow123]

Good speech by Boris this morning,such a contrast to Trump, but think he is not 100% recovered yet as he scuttled back inside downing street very fast when he finished the address and ignored the reporter asking how he was feeling.

 

[pinnit2014]

Not sure what to make of pinnits wow comment about me revealing my age, sure there was no offence intended and none taken,,One thing you young whippersnappers dont realise is that you age in the blink of an eye,One day you will wake up and think where the fuck did that go.Make the most of every day as it will
be over before you realise it. On the plus side your brain stays young only the mirror tells the truth.

More about going head first into the pond ;-)

 

[shadow123]

I wasnt sure if it was that, Might still happen as I am cleaning it out today and the old legs might give way
or the dog might pounce on me from behind to say hello (as he does)

 

[mack341]

I read about a new medicine that may be useful a protease inhibitor called "camostat mesylate"

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from vanity fair april 24:

In New Haven, meanwhile, Dr. Joseph Vinetz, an infectious disease doctor at Yale School of Medicine, is seeking to launch a clinical study of the drug camostat mesylate, a generic medication approved in Japan to treat chronic pancreatitis that he hopes can be approved and marketed to treat COVID-19. If the trial succeeds, he said, this could be ”a total game changer.” But the process is proving fraught. Within hours of registering his trial on a National Institutes of Health website on April 20, he received an email from a large U.S. pharmaceutical company. “They are trying to take my project and engulf it for their proprietary [financial] gain,” Vinetz told me. “I take that email as a threat.”

Unlike hydroxychloroquine, camostat is a drug researchers believe may have promising effects on COVID-19. It’s also being studied in countries including Germany and Denmark. “The virus that causes COVID-19 requires a protein to get inside of the cells that line the respiratory tract,” Vinetz explained. In test tubes and in mice, he said, camostat has been shown to inhibit an enzyme that allows the virus to enter those cells. Another published experiment showed that camostat prevented mice from dying of the SARS virus. As of yet, there’s no data that shows how it could impact the novel coronavirus in humans. But if Vinetz’s study is successful, he hopes camostat can be administered both to infected COVID-19 patients and as a preventative.

...Regardless of the hurdles, Vinetz said he’s willing to go to the mat to protect the camostat trial. “Maybe they thought I was naive,” he said. “I have the entire clinical trial regulatory machine of Yale behind me.”

-----------
It seems a big pharmaceutical company is trying to control or stop his trial and do their own.

edit: I think with 20,000 people dying so far in the uk we need to be a bit more willing to try things and think outside of the narrow nhs govt box, just waiting for the patient to recover with oxygen help.

 

[dionysus]

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[goatwack]

"The only one to survive lockdown was Brandon, a mean-spirited art-lover with a blonde goatee, who wandered the house in soiled pyjamas for 18 more days, occasionally visited by the mischievous ghosts of his housemates."

So any series of Big Brother circa mid-2000s

 

[dionysus]

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[sufferinsilence]

Usually the people who are actually admitted to the ICU are younger (read: 65 and below) people who have a fighting chance of making it with the help of a ventilator or ECMO.

Cheers ... nice start to the week ,66 last month,was going to clean the fish pond but might as well jump in it

I wish you a long and healthy life!

Now I feel bad.

 

[sufferinsilence]

I read about a new medicine that may be useful a protease inhibitor called "camostat mesylate"

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from vanity fair april 24:

In New Haven, meanwhile, Dr. Joseph Vinetz, an infectious disease doctor at Yale School of Medicine, is seeking to launch a clinical study of the drug camostat mesylate, a generic medication approved in Japan to treat chronic pancreatitis that he hopes can be approved and marketed to treat COVID-19. If the trial succeeds, he said, this could be ”a total game changer.” But the process is proving fraught. Within hours of registering his trial on a National Institutes of Health website on April 20, he received an email from a large U.S. pharmaceutical company. “They are trying to take my project and engulf it for their proprietary [financial] gain,” Vinetz told me. “I take that email as a threat.”

Unlike hydroxychloroquine, camostat is a drug researchers believe may have promising effects on COVID-19. It’s also being studied in countries including Germany and Denmark. “The virus that causes COVID-19 requires a protein to get inside of the cells that line the respiratory tract,” Vinetz explained. In test tubes and in mice, he said, camostat has been shown to inhibit an enzyme that allows the virus to enter those cells. Another published experiment showed that camostat prevented mice from dying of the SARS virus. As of yet, there’s no data that shows how it could impact the novel coronavirus in humans. But if Vinetz’s study is successful, he hopes camostat can be administered both to infected COVID-19 patients and as a preventative.

...Regardless of the hurdles, Vinetz said he’s willing to go to the mat to protect the camostat trial. “Maybe they thought I was naive,” he said. “I have the entire clinical trial regulatory machine of Yale behind me.”

-----------
It seems a big pharmaceutical company is trying to control or stop his trial and do their own.

edit: I think with 20,000 people dying so far in the uk we need to be a bit more willing to try things and think outside of the narrow nhs govt box, just waiting for the patient to recover with oxygen help.

They're definitely doing all kinds of tests. In NY they're doing a test with heartburn medicine.

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[nutnut]

Will say fiancially much better off atm with this lockdown. So torn with whats best.

That said longer it goes on the more job cuts exist when it opens back up.

 

[goatwack]

Well 'it has been said' that the economy won't have growth (understandably) until 2021 at the earliest, projected to be around 4.6%

To get to where we were, pre-Covid levels December '19, would be 2023

 

[Slottery]

Well 'it has been said' that the economy won't have growth (understandably) until 2021 at the earliest, projected to be around 4.6%

To get to where we were, pre-Covid levels December '19, would be 2023

Finland didn't yet reach pre-2008 before Covid kicked in, probably take some years to get there now again...

 

[ternur]

Finland didn't yet reach pre-2008 before Covid kicked in, probably take some years to get there now again...

Yep, looking forward to 2030's.

 

[sufferinsilence]

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Oped from about a week ago but an interesting read no less.

 

[paul7388]

Guessing next week there will be another 3 week extension to the Lockdown.

But since Saturday there seems to be a lot more people starting to get out and about more often.

Think another 3 weeks will get a lot more just going sod it and going to friends and family.

 

[dionysus]

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[dionysus]

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[dionysus]

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[goatwack]

".....parties attending showings at movie theaters will need to be seated at least six feet apart, and no party can be larger than six people"

 

[slotplayer]

Will say fiancially much better off atm with this lockdown. So torn with whats best.

That said longer it goes on the more job cuts exist when it opens back up.

Remember when you brought up the economy a couple weeks ago, attacked by those programmed with a predetermined response. (lol)

In reality it was your timing that could have been questioned not the subject matter.

 

[ladyhawke]

I need spec savers, I was reading ( After the Rugby Princess fiasco)

Well, we all know that Rugby players are a load of little Princesses, so you are not far wrong...

 

[shadow123]

Sky news are saying 4000 covid deaths have occurred in care homes in the last 2 weeks. I reckon the true total UK death figure including deaths occurring in peoples own homes (i know for a fact there
are a lot of those ,I know someone who transports the bodies) must be well over 30000.
Really is not right trying to keep down the numbers by selective recording,we are all tryng to do our bit
as least they could be honest about it.

 

[mack341]

The association of american physicians and surgeons have written to the governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, about his ban on using Hydroxychloroquine.

Hydroxychloroquine Has about 90 Percent Chance of Helping COVID-19 Patients, States Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) [yahoo]

April 27, 2020

The Honorable Doug Ducey
1700 West Washington St.
Phoenix, AZ 85007

Dear Governor Ducey:

This concerns your Executive Order forbidding prophylactic use of chloroquine (CQ) or hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) unless peer-reviewed evidence becomes available.

Attached and posted here (

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) is a summary of peer-reviewed evidence, indexed in PubMed, concerning the use of CQ and HCQ against coronavirus. We believe that there is clear and convincing evidence of benefit both pre-exposure and post-exposure.

In addition, Michael J. A. Robb, M.D., of Phoenix is compiling all reports as they come in. As of this date, the total number of reported patients treated with HCQ, with or without azithromycin and zinc, is 2,333. Of these, 2,137 or 91.6 percent improved clinically. There were 63 deaths, all but 11 in a single retrospective report from the Veterans Administration where the patients were severely ill.

Most of the data concerns use of HCQ for treatment, but one study included used the medication as prophylaxis with excellent results. Many nations, including Turkey and India, are protecting medical workers and contacts of infected persons prophylactically. According to

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, deaths per million persons from COVID-19 as of Apr 27 are 167 in the U.S., 33 in Turkey, and 0.6 in India.

Based on this evidence, we request that you rescind your Executive Orders impeding the use of CQ and HCQ and further order that administrative agencies not impose any requirements on the prescription of CQ, HCQ, azithromycin, or other drugs intended to treat or prevent coronavirus illness that do not apply equally to all approved medications that may be used off-label for any purpose.

Respectfully,

Michael J. A. Robb, M.D.
President, Arizona State Chapter of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons

Jane M. Orient, M.D.
Executive Director, Association of American Physicians and Surgeons

CC Speaker Rusty Bowers, Rep. Warren Petersen, Rep. Nancy Barto, Sen. Karen Fann, Sen. Rick Gray, and Sen. Kate Brophy-McGee

 

[sufferinsilence]

I was touting this idea to my brother and a friend the other day, I think "they" might be spying on me...

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[mina1929]

NSW are easing restrictions this Friday so we can visit family and friends but only two adults can go at a time and their children can go as well.

Its to resume socialisation and for mental health.

Schools are also going back on the 11th of May

I hope its not too early for all this even though our daily new cases of the virus are low, I am still a bit worried.

 

[mina1929]

Is this for real

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[goatwack]

They suffered from psychiatric problems, it is stated

 

[mina1929]

They suffered from psychiatric problems, it is stated

Yeah I read that and its sad but how many more with mental health problems will get the idea that disinfectants are good to prevent COVID-19

 

[goatwack]

Yeah I read that and its sad but how many more with mental health problems will get the idea that disinfectants are good to prevent COVID-19

I guess it depends on the severity and type of mental illness, as it's a pretty broad term/ spectrum

 

[sufferinsilence]

They suffered from psychiatric problems, it is stated

Who wouldn't with Trump as your president?

I'll get my coat once again.

 

[goatwack]

 

[shadow123]

I cant make head or tail of todays UK death figures which are supposed to be transparent and include all
deaths in hospital, care homes and elsewhere,report says

The new method of reporting deaths showed an additional 3,811 fatalities since the start of the

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outbreak, about 70% of which were "outside hospital settings", Public Health England (PHE) said.

further down it states

It was revealed on Tuesday there were

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reported by care home providers in England over a two-week period up to 24 April.

and to confuse things even further

Of the deaths announced by NRS, 39% took place in care homes, with 52% in hospitals and 9% in homes or non-institutional settings.

if the NRS figures are correct it means we can almost double the death figures as the only ones reported prior to today have been hospital deaths

 

[shadow123]

Get the feeling they are trying to stay below the Italy figure.They have already said the figures will probably
go up when everything is properly taken into account and as we are very close to Italy,s number it
will give us the largest death figure in Europe.Not good, hope there is a breakthrough with treatment or a
vaccine soon.

 

[sufferinsilence]

Some good news, the Koreans concluded their research on the "reinfected" cases they saw earlier and it turns out it's because of dead virus fragments left behind.

Outdated Link Removed

 

[sufferinsilence]

I cant make head or tail of todays UK death figures which are supposed to be transparent and include all
deaths in hospital, care homes and elsewhere,report says

The new method of reporting deaths showed an additional 3,811 fatalities since the start of the

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outbreak, about 70% of which were "outside hospital settings", Public Health England (PHE) said.

further down it states

It was revealed on Tuesday there were

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

reported by care home providers in England over a two-week period up to 24 April.

and to confuse things even further

Of the deaths announced by NRS, 39% took place in care homes, with 52% in hospitals and 9% in homes or non-institutional settings.

if the NRS figures are correct it means we can almost double the death figures as the only ones reported prior to today have been hospital deaths

Same kinda numbers in Belgium today:

In the past 24 hours 174 people were admitted to hospital, 340 left. There were 69 people that passed away in the hospitals.

So far so good, right? Seems like the numbers of people in the hospitals went down.

Nope! Turns out there's still 4050 patients in the hospitals which is 74 more than the day before.

I didn't go to university but even my simple calculations say something's not right here...

 

[goatwack]

Belgium? Weren't you told to eat more fries?

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[sufferinsilence]

Belgium? Weren't you told to eat more fries?

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No worries, I'm on it!