COVID-19 Stuff

[D2Cat]

What can we take away from this virus self isolating behavior?

Maybe a few will learn the value of simply staying at home more. Spending less time and money running to eat, less on daycare, that you don't have to travel and spend time away from home to survive. One parent looks after the kids instead of paying someone else to watch and educate them. They can survive on one income. Maybe we'll learn we don't need to rush to the ER everytime we stumb our toe. Maybe we'll learn to be content within our home and hometown. Heck we might even learn we don't need those big sport arenas at the local school. Or the local school to built like a castle.....or the school at all.

 

[sparky45]

For those people who haven't fully decided that the mask issue is some kind of hoax, there is plenty of evidence out there that a good, properly fitted mask is helpful to protect the wearer as well as people around them. Here is a review article that has a reference list with live links to the full text articles so you can look at the data for yourself. Other refs previously given in the thread.



https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9/fulltext

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30134-X/fulltext

My annoyance is that after 6 months the US govt recommendations are shaped by the fact that we still do not have enough good masks to go around. What is available in surgical masks is coming from China in many cases. What the heck has been going on that local production has not ramped up?

I did find a source for N95 masks from a company in New Hampshire that seems to have switched from sleep apnea masks to these (Envo). This sounds similar to masks used by some of you for sawing logs or handling chemicals.

The logic for pushing cloth masks is that they are better than nothing, and there are papers showing that they reduce the numbers of cultures formed on petri dish cultures when a wearer breathed or coughed on them. How good a mask is depends on how well it fits, how many layers of fabric, and what fabric. From an epidemiological point of view even a 30% reduction in droplets landing on a surface or being inhaled by someone can result long term in a reduction in the numbers of infected people. Obviously the better the mask we wear the more protection.

The challenges to making a mask that is useful include air leakage around the filter material, and it seems like good old Yankee ingenuity might help here. One disadvantage to the N95 respirator with the valved exhale port is that it will not help reduce spread if the wearer is infected. The epidemiologists are concerned with community spread from presymptomatic or low symptomatic people. My thought is improvise some kind of filter to go over the exhale port? I don't have such a mask, but what do those of you that use them think? Possible? Can't provide too much resistance to exhaling or it won't work right.

Here's a little educational material for you to digest, that is if you care to be informed.

 

[bearbait]

What can we take away from this virus self isolating behavior?

Maybe a few will learn the value of simply staying at home more. Spending less time and money running to eat, less on daycare, that you don't have to travel and spend time away from home to survive. One parent looks after the kids instead of paying someone else to watch and educate them. They can survive on one income. Maybe we'll learn we don't need to rush to the ER everytime we stumb our toe. Maybe we'll learn to be content within our home and hometown. Heck we might even learn we don't need those big sport arenas at the local school. Or the local school to built like a castle.....or the school at all.

Your health is everything. I have 3 friends who are fighting cancer right now, kind of makes one a little more humble standing beside them while they are taking on the fight of their life's. July 31st it become mandatory to wear a mask out in public in inclosed spaces here in Nova Scotia. Not a big deal in my mind, the least I (we) can do to help protect others. For many years Americans and Canadians stood together when it was time to go into battle, this should be no different, let's kick some ass.

 

[twomany]

"From an epidemiological point of view even a 30% reduction in droplets landing on a surface or being inhaled by someone can result long term in a reduction in the numbers of infected people. Obviously the better the mask we wear the more protection. "

And you know this HOW?

Or are you just hoping and guessing?

 

[twomany]

Your health is everything. I have 3 friends who are fighting cancer right now, kind of makes one a little more humble standing beside them while they are taking on the fight of their life's. July 31st it become mandatory to wear a mask out in public in inclosed spaces here in Nova Scotia. Not a big deal in my mind, the least I (we) can do to help protect others. For many years Americans and Canadians stood together when it was time to go into battle, this should be no different, let's kick some ass.

You don't give credit to the video posted in the comment above yours?

 

[NHSleddog]

For those people who haven't fully decided that the mask issue is some kind of hoax, there is plenty of evidence out there that a good, properly fitted mask is helpful to protect the wearer as well as people around them. Here is a review article that has a reference list with live links to the full text articles so you can look at the data for yourself. Other refs previously given in the thread.



https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9/fulltext

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30134-X/fulltext

My annoyance is that after 6 months the US govt recommendations are shaped by the fact that we still do not have enough good masks to go around. What is available in surgical masks is coming from China in many cases. What the heck has been going on that local production has not ramped up?

I did find a source for N95 masks from a company in New Hampshire that seems to have switched from sleep apnea masks to these (Envo). This sounds similar to masks used by some of you for sawing logs or handling chemicals.

The logic for pushing cloth masks is that they are better than nothing, and there are papers showing that they reduce the numbers of cultures formed on petri dish cultures when a wearer breathed or coughed on them. How good a mask is depends on how well it fits, how many layers of fabric, and what fabric. From an epidemiological point of view even a 30% reduction in droplets landing on a surface or being inhaled by someone can result long term in a reduction in the numbers of infected people. Obviously the better the mask we wear the more protection.

The challenges to making a mask that is useful include air leakage around the filter material, and it seems like good old Yankee ingenuity might help here. One disadvantage to the N95 respirator with the valved exhale port is that it will not help reduce spread if the wearer is infected. The epidemiologists are concerned with community spread from presymptomatic or low symptomatic people. My thought is improvise some kind of filter to go over the exhale port? I don't have such a mask, but what do those of you that use them think? Possible? Can't provide too much resistance to exhaling or it won't work right.

Masks are just going to prolong it. Feel good knowing that everytime you put one on, you are prolonging it for everyone.

This isn't about a mask.

 

[D2Cat]

Death from flu statistics for Texas.

 

[D2Cat]

Was buying a bag of dog food at the pet supply store. You had to be wearing a mask to get in the door.

Got the bag of dog food and at the checkout there is this big plexiglass with a little covey hole to place your bag. There is a line of carts in front of the counter so you can't get close. Had to throw the 35 pound bag toward the opening of the plexiglass. The girl asked me something 3 times and I could never understand her. Then she stepped beyond the plexiglass and pulled her mask down a little and I was able to understand what she was saying.

Don't mind wearing a mask, but some of this is a little much.

 

[sparky45]

Roughly 15 times more CV19 tests than ran for seasonal 2019. Does that mean that if there were 15 times more tests run for seasonal 2019, there would have been 15 times more positive tests, or 469,000 positives? Appears the CV19 "bug" is less than a third as lethal as seasonal Flu.
Yet we never ever shut the country down for that!

 

[sheepfarmer]

When this all started the only data we had on mortality came from the population of Wuhan, and I have heard it said (no supporting data) that some of the high mortality came from the fact that a large part of the population was living in a highly polluted environment. In the beginning of the epidemic in the US the old were targeted. As the situation evolves in the US, where we have had inadequate testing to see who really has been exposed and infected, it looks like the young and healthy have a relatively lower risk of dying. There isn't a good control for that in the sense that treatment has improved at the same time as the number of infections has increased among the young and foolish as they leave lockdown, but it still seems likely that the survival rate is very high.

However as the virus is increasingly taken home by the young adults to middle aged parents and coworkers, other risk factors are becoming more important. Two things make me concerned as the virus burns its way through our population: comorbidities in the US population associated with obesity which affects an awful lot of that age group, and which really is the bulk of our useful work force, will up the mortality rate, and second, the number of people reporting lingering symptoms from covid months after "recovery" (that will undermine the effectiveness of those workers long term) is just now being assessed. Lingering chronic symptoms are not uncommon. I'll add links below as I run across them.

The effect of cancer on covid mortality rates. https://www.medpagetoday.com/hematologyoncology/othercancers/87750

Lingering chronic effects in young and healthy
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6930e1.htm

 

[NHSleddog]

When this all started the only data we had on mortality came from the population of Wuhan, and I have heard it said (no supporting data) that some of the high mortality came from the fact that a large part of the population was living in a highly polluted environment. In the beginning of the epidemic in the US the old were targeted. As the situation evolves in the US, where we have had inadequate testing to see who really has been exposed and infected, it looks like the young and healthy have a relatively lower risk of dying. There isn't a good control for that in the sense that treatment has improved at the same time as the number of infections has increased among the young and foolish as they leave lockdown, but it still seems likely that the survival rate is very high.

However as the virus is increasingly taken home by the young adults to middle aged parents and coworkers, other risk factors are becoming more important. Two things make me concerned as the virus burns its way through our population: comorbidities in the US population associated with obesity which affects an awful lot of that age group, and which really is the bulk of our useful work force, will up the mortality rate, and second, the number of people reporting lingering symptoms from covid months after "recovery" (that will undermine the effectiveness of those workers long term) is just now being assessed. Lingering chronic symptoms are not uncommon. I'll add links below as I run across them.

The effect of cancer on covid mortality rates. https://www.medpagetoday.com/hematologyoncology/othercancers/87750

So, lets stay shut down and prolong this outbreak as long as possible for a possible future boogeyman? The end result will be the same, it is just going to take a lot longer to get there.

The only difference is that the longer it goes on, the more people will die or become destitute due to the impact of all the unnecessary restrictions. The same number of sick will be with us.

 

[NHSleddog]

Death from flu statistics for Texas.

View attachment 46453

Hey don't come in here with your facts and figures. We are trying to scare people here. You can't scare them as easy if you just give them the actual numbers.

 

[NHSleddog]

Do you think anyone "gets" this or does it escape most people.

 

[twomany]

Don't be mean to Fauci, He knows exactly as much about this flu as you do.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Don't be mean to Fauci, He knows exactly as much about this flu as you do.

That is tongue in cheek bs. He knows more, he's a medically licensed doctor. All you (and I know) is what we read and the propaganda generated by the media, most of which is just that.

 

[SidecarFlip]

I see the CDC has come out now saying the masks should even be worn at home. I find that pretty far fetched and I'm not gonna do that.

Smells of political motivation.

 

[RCW]

My daughter is a Clinical Research person at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in their Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

She’s not a medical person; does more documentation of treatment responses in premature infants. She has NICU experience, being a 34 week premie herself with her identical twin.

She was part of a team that did maternal serology research related to COVID in their system, and the research will be published nationally in a medical-type journal!

 

[sheepfarmer]

The hot spot generated in Michigan by a bar (Harpers) and some college students raises some issues. While initially it sounded like the problem arose while the kids were congregating on the sidewalk, ignoring the signs to stay 6 feet apart, the bar owners were foolish as well. Having a dj and allowing patrons on a dance floor does not sound like common sense to me even if not specifically forbidden by law.

https://eastlansinginfo.news/harper...trol-commission-what-happened-and-whats-next/

 

[D2Cat]

Do you think anyone "gets" this or does it escape most people.

View attachment 46458

Don't be picking on that doctor! Did you happen to see where that pitch went?

 

[sparky45]

I see the CDC has come out now saying the masks should even be worn at home. I find that pretty far fetched and I'm not gonna do that.

Smells of political motivation.

About time you joined the party.