***NON-POLITICAL COVID-19 Discussion Thread***

[JakeF]

A couple of reminders...

Originally Posted by Bwana

Once again, don't come in this thread with some kind of political agenda, or you will be shown the door. If you want to go that route, there is a thread about this in DC.

Originally Posted by Dartgod

People, there is a lot of good information in this thread, let's try to keep the petty bickering to a minimum.

We all have varying opinions about the impact of this, the numbers, etc. We will all never agree with each other. But we can all keep it civil.

Thanks!

Click here for the original OP:

Spoiler!

Apparently the CoronaVirus can survive on a inanimate objects, such as door knobs, for 9 days.

California coronavirus case could be first spread within U.S. community, CDC says
By SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA, JACLYN COSGROVE
FEB. 26, 2020 8:04 PM

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating what could be the first case of novel coronavirus in the United States involving a patient in California who neither recently traveled out of the country nor was in contact with someone who did.

“At this time, the patient’s exposure is unknown. It’s possible this could be an instance of community spread of COVID-19, which would be the first time this has happened in the United States,” the CDC said in a statement. “Community spread means spread of an illness for which the source of infection is unknown. It’s also possible, however, that the patient may have been exposed to a returned traveler who was infected.”

The individual is a resident of Solano County and is receiving medical care in Sacramento County, according to the state Department of Public Health.

The CDC said the “case was detected through the U.S. public health system — picked up by astute clinicians.”

Officials at UC Davis Medical Center expanded on what the federal agency might have meant by that in an email sent Wednesday, as reported by the Davis Enterprise newspaper.

The patient arrived at UC Davis Medical Center from another hospital Feb. 19 and “had already been intubated, was on a ventilator, and given droplet protection orders because of an undiagnosed and suspected viral condition,” according to an email sent by UC Davis officials that was obtained by the Davis Enterprise.

The staff at UC Davis requested COVID-19 testing by the CDC, but because the patient didn’t fit the CDC’s existing criteria for the virus, a test wasn’t immediately administered, according to the email. The CDC then ordered the test Sunday, and results were announced Wednesday. Hospital administrators reportedly said in the email that despite these issues, there has been minimal exposure at the hospital because of safety protocols they have in place.

A UC Davis Health spokesperson declined Wednesday evening to share the email with The Times.

Since Feb. 2, more than 8,400 returning travelers from China have entered California, according to the state health department. They have been advised to self-quarantine for 14 days and limit interactions with others as much as possible, officials said.

“This is a new virus, and while we are still learning about it, there is a lot we already know,” Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “We have been anticipating the potential for such a case in the U.S., and given our close familial, social and business relationships with China, it is not unexpected that the first case in the U.S. would be in California.”

It is not clear how the person became infected, but public health workers could not identify any contacts with people who had traveled to China or other areas where the virus is widespread. That raises concern that the virus is spreading in the United States, creating a challenge for public health officials, experts say.

“It’s the first signal that we could be having silent transmission in the community,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. “It probably means there are many more cases out there, and it probably means this individual has infected others, and now it’s a race to try to find out who that person has infected.”

On Tuesday, the CDC offered its most serious warning to date that the United States should expect and prepare for the coronavirus to become a more widespread health issue.

“Ultimately, we expect we will see coronavirus spread in this country,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “It’s not so much a question of if, but a question of when.”

According to the CDC’s latest count Wednesday morning, 59 U.S. residents have tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus — 42 of whom are repatriated citizens from a Diamond Princess cruise. That number has grown by two since Messonnier’s last count Tuesday, although the CDC was not immediately available to offer details on the additional cases.

More than 82,000 cases of coronavirus have been reported globally, and more than 2,700 people have died, with the majority in mainland China, the epicenter of the outbreak.

But public health leaders have repeatedly reminded residents that the health risk from the novel coronavirus to the general public remains low.

“While COVID-19 has a high transmission rate, it has a low mortality rate,” the state Department of Public Health said in a statement Wednesday. “From the international data we have, of those who have tested positive for COVID-19, approximately 80% do not exhibit symptoms that would require hospitalization. There have been no confirmed deaths related to COVID-19 in the United States to date.”

CDC officials have also warned that although the virus is likely to spread in U.S. communities, the flu still poses a greater risk.

Gostin said the news of potential silent transmission does not eliminate the possibility of containing the virus in the U.S. and preventing an outbreak.

“There are few enough cases that we should at least try,” he said. “Most of us are not optimistic that that will be successful, but we’re still in the position to try.”

[O.city]

Originally Posted by TLO

Where is this quote from?

Straight from Dr O.city DDS

[OnTheWarpath15]

Originally Posted by OnTheWarpath15

Update: Tomorrow will mark 2 weeks since being admitted to the ICU. It's felt like months, and it's been a rollercoaster. Ventilation is imminent, though they did tell us that last week and he's avoided it so far.

But his chest x-ray is terrifying - just lit up white where things should be dark. He's been moved to BiPap full time, as his stats plummet when he's on Optiflow. SpO2 is staying in the mid 90's with BiPap, but decreases dramatically when removed to eat/drink.

Trying to stay positive, as he seems to have bounce back days after we get bad news - but sure seems like things are trending in the wrong direction.

The rollercoaster ride continues - he's avoided the vent again, and they've been able to get him back on the optiflow for several hours the last two days.

Chest x-ray looks *the slightest bit* better than the one before.

This is the 3rd time they've told us the ventilator is imminent, only for him to make some progress in the 36-48 hours after. Dude is fighting his ass off, for sure.

[dirk digler]

Latest @UKHSA risk assessment pic.twitter.com/jf3JL3cz6f

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) December 17, 2021

[dirk digler]

Hadn't been paying much attention to Omicron until the last couple of days. Just hope the vaccines\boosters prevent major illness and death which early reports sound like it might.

The change of expert opinion was sudden. Researchers at Harvard Medical School now say the omicron variant, not delta, is likely fueling the current surge in Covid-19 cases in the northeastern U.S. That’s cause for alarm, because they still don’t know much about the variant, and it’s unclear how well vaccines will protect people. Harvard’s labs are optimized for speed but omicron is spreading faster than they can track it.

“I think we are in the omicron surge,” Bronwyn MacInnis, director of pathogen genomic surveillance at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, said at a press event on Tuesday afternoon. “There’s no system on the planet that could keep up with the pace of this doubling time.”

Though the Centers for Disease Control had reported just a few days earlier that omicron probably made up just 3% of U.S. infections, she said that’s probably a big underestimate as cases grow by the day. In New York and New Jersey, the percentage that are from omicron was estimated at 13% as of Wednesday.

“We know it’s the most transmissible variant of SARS-CoV-2 we’ve ever seen before, and the most immune-evasive variant of SARS-CoV0-2,” said Jake Lemieux, an infectious disease specialist at Harvard Medical School and Mass General Hospital who is also involved in tracking variants.

Omicron appears to be doubling around every four days. “It’s spread around the globe in under two weeks,” Lemieux said. “It’s a likelihood it will come to your holiday gathering.”

[Fish]

New info today on hospital bed availability in the area. Certainly doesn't sound like it's simply business as usual.

https://www.kcur.org/news/2021-12-17...-for-your-help

As COVID cases surge, local hospitals are getting calls from as far away as Michigan and Texas seeking beds for patients. But Kansas City has its own crisis to deal with.

Doctors across Kansas City, Lawrence and Topeka banded together Friday to offer a sobering public message: They’ve seen COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations double, triple and continue to get worse in a matter of weeks.

Some hospitals are once again postponing non-emergency, non-coronavirus care to free up beds and health care workers for the region’s second dramatic surge in hospitalizations since the delta variant arrived last summer.

Hospitals are struggling daily to find enough nurses and scrambling to recruit health care workers from other countries.

Chief medical officers said the vast majority of the patients in local hospitals have not gotten the COVID-19 vaccine.

“For the past couple of weeks, all 100% (of people) in ICU, all 100% on ventilators have been unvaccinated people,” Raghu Adiga, chief medical officer at Liberty Hospital in Missouri, said of the situation at his facility. “We just want people to help us take better care of them.”

[...]

The KU Health System is so strained, it’s now turning down 70% to 80% of transfer requests.

And other local health systems described similar situations.

“We currently have 43 patients … in our ERs waiting for inpatient beds,” said Kim Megow, chief medical officer for HCA Midwest Health. “No beds available. And only 12 ICU beds across the market are available this morning.”

[...]

“We are definitely in a dire situation,” Long said. “We’re trying to even get foreign nurses in” but face immigration hurdles.

Megow at HCA Midwest Health called the situation more than a daily struggle – it’s an “hourly struggle.”

“We have gone outside of the country to hire nurses. We have pulled nurses in from other areas,” she said. “We have hired temporary and contract nurses.”

“Every hour, we are constantly monitoring how many nurses we need,” she said. “How many can we get? When can they get here? How long can they stay? What do we need to pay them?”

The KU Health System’s St. Francis hospital in Topeka was forced to push back several inpatient surgeries this month. LMH Health in Lawrence said it can’t accept any patients from outside of Douglas County.

[TLO]

Omicron symptoms tend to mimic the common cold is what I keep hearing. Was the cold from hell I had during Thanksgiving week teh Omicron?

[Donger]

Confirmed influenza cases have already exceeded all cases from 2020/2021 flu season:

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm#whomap

Yay...

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Donger

Confirmed influenza cases have already exceeded all cases from 2020/2021 flu season:

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm#whomap

Yay...

Things are getting back to normal?

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Things are getting back to normal?

I'm not touching that in this thread. But, I wanted to provide the information here in case anyone was wondering.

[TLO]

For nearly 2 years, I've closely tracked infections

Because infections invariably led to hospitalizations and deaths

But I expect that in this upcoming wave

That link will finally break

Cases will spike

But among vaccinated/boosted people, it won't lead to serious illness

— Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH (@ashishkjha) December 17, 2021

[Pitt Gorilla]

Really good news.

https://fox8.com/news/coronavirus/br...tudy-suggests/

Breakthrough infections may create ‘super immunity’ to COVID-19, study suggests

(NEXSTAR) – Researchers at Oregon Health and Science University say they’ve found evidence to suggest that breakthrough infections create “super immunity” to the virus that causes COVID-19.

“You can’t get a better immune response than this,” senior author Fikadu Tafesse, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the OHSU School of Medicine, said in a news release. “These vaccines are very effective against severe disease. Our study suggests that individuals who are vaccinated and then exposed to a breakthrough infection have super immunity.”

Specifically, Tafesse and his team of researchers found that antibodies in the blood of a vaccinated person who experienced a breakthrough case could be 1,000% more effective than those found in some fully vaccinated individuals who did not get infected.

They further believe the antibodies generated from breakthrough cases are “likely” to be more effective against SARS-CoV-2 variants, though the researchers did not specifically examine their effectiveness against the omicron variant.

The study, however, examined blood samples from only 26 people with breakthrough cases — all of whom were OHSU employees, and all of whom had been fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine. Still, when compared to a sample of 26 vaccinated employees who had not experienced breakthrough cases, the antibodies from the infected group were found to be in larger numbers, and “more effective at neutralizing the live virus.”

Study co-author Marcel Curlin, M.D., said the results may indicate an “eventual end game” for the pandemic.

“It doesn’t mean we’re at the end of the pandemic, but it points to where we’re likely to land: Once you’re vaccinated and then exposed to the virus, you’re probably going to be reasonably well-protected from future variants,” Curlin said.

Health officials, meanwhile, continue to encourage vaccination and booster shots as the best protection against COVID-19, especially in the face of the omicron variant’s expected dominance.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Thursday that booster shots are especially important to “reconstitute” protections among the fully vaccinated, even if they may not prevent omicron infection.

“It may not protect much against infection, but it will go a long way to protect against severe disease,” he said Thursday at an event for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation.

Fauci also said omicron will likely become the dominant variant within “a few weeks,” but stressed that unvaccinated individuals are still very vulnerable to the delta variant, which is currently resurging in the U.S.

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Time to end the lunacy of covid protocols in the country or having to mask anywhere at all
Get the Vax and move the **** on. If you don't, that's on you. It's ****ing over...done. Your choice.

[jdubya]

Originally Posted by Pasta Little Brother

Time to end the lunacy of covid protocols in the country or having to mask anywhere at all
Get the Vax and move the **** on. If you don't, that's on you. It's ****ing over...done. Your choice.

Been saying this for months

[prhom]

Originally Posted by Pitt Gorilla

Really good news.

https://fox8.com/news/coronavirus/br...tudy-suggests/

Breakthrough infections may create ‘super immunity’ to COVID-19, study suggests

With as fast and as easily as omicron seems to spread, it looks like we will all get it and maybe that will be the key. The previous variants didn’t spread quickly enough or widely enough that we all get it despite any preventive controls that might be implemented. If that creates super immunity for vaccinated people then maybe it’ll finally be “over” as a lingering issue.

[TLO]

Looking at data from London.

Hospitalizations due to covid are going up. However about half of them weren't admitted for covid. They were found to be infected when they were brought in to the hospital.

This is consistent with the South Africa data.