***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.”

[Indian Chief]

Originally Posted by BWillie

Which is really why it was so infuriating that media articles kept telling us before this outbreak that they didn't work. They work. Period. Fail proof? No. but they work.

I just hate when the media lies to us. I get that they didn't want us to go out and buy a bunch of masks, but tell us the ****ing truth and let me decide what to think and do.

I suspect this is going to be long and I apologize for that. I'm not picking on you, but this mask stuff is starting to bother me.

No one is lying to you about masks. There are two things at play here.

1) You can actually achieve somewhat of a herd immunity if everyone were to wear a mask. Asian countries have this down. I don't know that you'd actually see that in the U.S. though. We also, at this point in time, do not have enough masks to protect our healthcare workers and give masks to 300 million other people.

2) A mask is a tool. In the hands of someone trained to use it, a professional, it does its job with a high degree of success. In the hands of the average person it is a false sense of security.

a) I've seen people in stores with masks on, reach up under the mask to scratch their nose. Useless.
b) The overwhelming majority of people I've seen wearing masks have no eye protection. Not entirely, but nearly, useless.
c) Most masks are supposed to be disposable. Do you believe people are really discarding their mask after every trip out of the house? Do they have that many? It's speculation, but I'm guessing no. Again, useless if you reuse it over and over.
d) Is everyone putting it on correctly? Have they achieved a seal? Most of the people I've seen wearing one do not appear to have a good seal. Having it on over your playoff beard means it probably isn't providing much protection. I'll reserve judgment on this one.

At the end of the day, masks are not going to save us. Washing hands adequately (before and after eating, before and after using the bathroom, before and after leaving the house) will. Using hand sanitizer when you don't have immediate access to soap and water will. Not going to work or to the store when you are sick will. Not picking your nose or biting your nails will. These are simple things that we are NOT doing as a society. Even now people aren't totally onboard.

One last comment on masks. In general, they are even more effective on a person who is sick than on a person who is healthy. Preventing a sick person from spraying droplets from a cough or sneeze into the air is the best defense.

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Originally Posted by mr. tegu

There’s nothing wrong with Great Clips and it’s certainly not about being broke or cheap to go there. That said my wife just had to cut my hair and it actually didn’t come out too bad.

Isn't discuss the dude that can't get laid?

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by cdcox

Interestingly, increased testing has very minimal impact on this kind of analysis, because the increased discovery of cases affects both the x and y axis.

Wouldn't that be true only if testing were random? As it is, testing is heavily weighted towards those showing symptoms and even then it's usually reserved for those with severe symptoms. Deaths on the other hand, are not asymptomatic.

Correct me if I am thinking wrong on this.

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by eDave

Nothing is accurate. Sucks.

With deaths, I think it is close to accurate if you look at it over time as a trend. You can't try to parse it in real time with any accuracy though.

I am looking at April 3rd as a good day to see if we are trending down or at least stable in deaths/day. It looks like NYC may be hitting a plateau but we will see.

[RINGLEADER]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

With deaths, I think it is close to accurate if you look at it over time as a trend. You can't try to parse it in real time with any accuracy though.

I am looking at April 3rd as a good day to see if we are trending down or at least stable in deaths/day. It looks like NYC may be hitting a plateau but we will see.

If that site is anywhere close to accurate it will be a complete horror show in NYC. Hopefully Cuomo is able to find beds and ventilators because it’s showing them being tens of thousand of beds short.

[PAChiefsGuy]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

With deaths, I think it is close to accurate if you look at it over time as a trend. You can't try to parse it in real time with any accuracy though.

I am looking at April 3rd as a good day to see if we are trending down or at least stable in deaths/day. It looks like NYC may be hitting a plateau but we will see.

I hope you are right about NYC hitting a plateau but the President has said the virus will peak in a week or two. So I doubt it is hitting a plateau.

[Titty Meat]

Unreal. There was a kid with a fever in Gardner KS the dumb**** parents allowed their kid to play on the playground at guess what the kid ended up testing positive for?

[eDave]

Honeywell to make crucial N95 masks in Phoenix, hire 500

Honeywell International Inc. will open a new protective mask manufacturing facility in Phoenix, looking to hire up to 500 people to meet demand as the COVID-19 pandemic spreads throughout the U.S.

https://www.abc15.com/news/business/...oenix-hire-500

[Mr_Tomahawk]

Originally Posted by Mr_Tomahawk

https://m.startribune.com/u-mayo-rea...ota/569233992/

Someone will have to post the article for me...

Anyone?

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by PAChiefsGuy

I hope you are right about NYC hitting a plateau but the President has said the virus will peak in a week or two. So I doubt it is hitting a plateau.

I am just looking at the limited data over the last few days. It could easily jump tomorrow.

I haven't really made any predictions except regarding final fatality rate. I still think we are looking at .3-.6 range when all this is over.

Sent from my moto g(7) power using Tapatalk

[RedRaider56]

Originally Posted by Mr_Tomahawk

Anyone?

The University of Minnesota and Mayo Clinic are close to unveiling antibody tests that can determine if people have already been infected by the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and are no longer threats to get or spread the infection.

State health officials see these tests as a key part of Minnesota’s pandemic response, because they could define the breadth of the outbreak and maybe identify previously infected individuals who could move about in public freely and volunteer in response efforts.


Identifying people with immunity to the virus “gives us the ability [to know] who wouldn’t need to be quarantined, who could be out and not infecting others,” Gov. Tim Walz said on Monday.
Antibodies are proteins produced by the immune system in response to infections and can be found through tests of blood serum — the clear liquid that separates out when blood clots. In the case of SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing the current pandemic, antibodies don’t show up in sufficient quantities for eight to 11 days.


That makes antibody testing ineffective for the purpose of early diagnosis, but a potentially powerful tool for identifying anyone who was infected, whether they had symptoms or not. “In theory, you probably want to test everybody in the country,” said Marc Jenkins, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Immunology.

Testing could be particularly important for health care workers, whose infection risks could be heightened if they run out of protective masks and face shields when working with any surge of COVID-19 patients. If they’ve already been infected, those workers could have immunity — although there is only limited evidence so far that people cannot be reinfected by this coronavirus.

Jenkins’ team used a common chemical assay test, known as ELISA, and found that it correctly distinguished samples from two people with COVID-19 from two reference samples taken from people before the pandemic.

Researchers nationwide are racing to develop antibody tests, which under current emergency pandemic conditions would not need the usual level of review and approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Exactly how much verification of tests is needed is unclear, but Jenkins said he wants to at least get successful results for 10 positive and 10 negative specimens before even considering the test for public use. He expected to have that many results in the next couple of weeks.


“It’s going to take a lot more samples … to validate the test,” he said, “but we have a pipeline to do it and the results from these early tests were so clean that I’m pretty hopeful.”

Mayo has used more than 300 samples to evaluate the accuracy of three different assay tests, and has found one ELISA-based test to be most accurate, said Elitza Theel, director of Mayo’s Infectious Diseases Serology lab.

Theel said it will be critical for doctors to understand that the current molecular tests are still the best for diagnosing symptomatic patients — and that new antibody tests won’t solve any national shortage of those. However, from a disease-detective standpoint, health officials will be able to use antibody tests to determine when a community has achieved “herd immunity” — which means that enough people have already been infected that the risk of new infections starts to diminish.

COVID-19 is a respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus that emerged earlier this winter in Wuhan, China, and spread globally. Initial reports indicated a death rate of anywhere from 1% to 3.4%, but an abundance of antibody testing would provide a more accurate picture because it would allow for testing of both sick and healthy people to find out how many of them have been infected.

“When you have an actual true denominator, you’re able to determine the true case fatality rate,” Theel said.

Local studies on antibody testing didn’t occur until recently, because researchers needed substantial samples from COVID-19 patients to do it, and because there was a more immediate need to develop diagnostic molecular tests for the illness.


Quality problems with a molecular test created by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention initially delayed states such as Minnesota from using it. Then, supply shortages prevented its broader use, even as the coronavirus was spreading nationwide.

Mayo and other private labs created their own versions of the molecular tests, and now have conducted more such tests than the state’s public health lab, which has prioritized its limited supplies for hospitalized patients, long-term care facility residents and health care workers.

Jenkins said he first started looking at antibody tests when news of testing supply shortages emerged. Knowing that antibody testing could provide invaluable public information, he said he wanted to create a pipeline for these tests on which Minnesota could rely.

Jenkins acquired a COVID-19 protein that is critical to the test from Fang Li, the U researcher whose recent Nature journal article explored the genetic origins of this coronavirus and its evolved mechanism for infecting cells.

Other coronaviruses cause the common cold and also were responsible for global SARS and MERS outbreaks. Jenkins said he will be checking to make sure the newly developed test identifies only cases of COVID-19 infections.

Whether antibody testing could be used as an all-clear system for people is based on a key assumption: that people develop at least short-term immunity to the coronavirus.

One small study in China found no reinfections in monkeys when they were exposed to the virus a second time. Researchers also believe that people develop immunity to other coronaviruses that lasts months or maybe years. Antibodies were found in patients six years after the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic.


Jenkins said it appears likely there is at least temporary immunity, but it’s unclear whether people will get lifetime immunity after only one infection from this virus — as is the case with polio and chickenpox. On the other hand, people only develop immunity one at a time to the many different types of rhinoviruses, which cause common colds, he said.

As many as 80% of people infected by this coronavirus suffer mild or no symptoms. A reliable test could be a relief to many people if they knew they now had immunity, Jenkins said. “Just for the psychological well-being of a lot of people, this could have real value.”

[Pitt Gorilla]

Originally Posted by Titty Meat

Unreal. There was a kid with a fever in Gardner KS the dumb**** parents allowed their kid to play on the playground at guess what the kid ended up testing positive for?

Kansas has handled this about as poorly as any state around here. Iowa had locked down restaurants AT LEAST a week prior to KS.

[Mr_Tomahawk]

Thank you

[Pitt Gorilla]

Perhaps this has already been posted, but this is about the best site I have found documenting the disease, including by state.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

[Titty Meat]

This is unreal