PlagueWatch 2020-23 - Coronavirus

[BD80]

And then when you turn 30, your life clock crystal starts to glow and you know it's time for Carousel.

I knew I wouldn't be able to spork for this, but had to try.

Great piece of fiction, great movie, and Jenny Agutter.

[OldPhiKap]

I knew I wouldn't be able to spork for this, but had to try.

Great piece of fiction, great movie, and Jenny Agutter.

(can’t spork back either, but glad I wasn’t left out there all alone on this one!)

[camion]

The Constitution will not allow such system to be put in place.

Wait, I thought Google, Facebook, Amazon already had such systems.

Oops, I'm late to the game. I see someone already mentioned cell phones.




You know I'm kidding, right.

[camion]

And then when you turn 30, your life clock crystal starts to glow and you know it's time for Carousel.

I tried for Carousel, but I overslept. Now I'm growing old and I'm sure all of my friends were renewed.





I have to laugh sometimes. And sometimes, like now, I need to laugh.

[OldPhiKap]

Wait, I thought Google, Facebook, Amazon already had such systems.

Oops, I'm late to the game. I see someone already mentioned cell phones.




You know I'm kidding, right.

This is both interesting and scary:

https://twitter.com/tectonixgeo/stat...034767361?s=21

[fidel]

And then when you turn 30, your life clock crystal starts to glow and you know it's time for Carousel.

Oh man. Great reference. Ankh.

[Jeffrey]

Ugh! Does the rapidly increasing New Orleans outbreak mean this virus will not slow down with hot temperatures?

[Devilwin]

Oh man. Great reference. Ankh.

Logan's Run blasts on DBR...Never thought I'd see the day.. I wanna be a Sandman...

[JStuart]

Nobody knows the true denominator in any respiratory virus that spreads efficiently and causes a lot of infections. Most influenza infections are symptomatic, but certainly not all. The early symptoms of influenza virus infection are essentially indistinguishable from those of infection with SARS-CoV2.

Clinicians have used the term "influenza-like illness" to refer to a respiratory tract illness that has a lot of fever, shaking chills, and myalgia, but studies have shown that this clinical definition doesn't correlate very well with actual proven diagnoses of influenza.

We do know that no influenza virus outbreak in the past 35 years has ever caused health systems to run out of ventilators, PPE, or rooms to house the ill. This would at least give a suggestion that the severity of COVID 19 is greater than that of influenza; on the other hand, it could possibly be explained by other means, such as the lack of any pre-existing immunity in the population.


We can think of a pandemic coronavirus as being similar to taking a match to a field entirely filled with completely dry tall grasses. With influenza, because of pre-existing immunity from many years of circulation plus what is provided by vaccination, the same field has large areas wherein the grass is green, interspersed by patches of dry grass. As the flames spread from one end of the field to the other, they ignite those patches, but the fire doesn't consume the entire field very rapidly.

What I'm postulating is that it is within the realm of possibility that SARS-CoV2 and, say, the novel H1N1 that came around in 2009 could have the same mortality rate and yet SARS-CoV2 could overrun our supply of ventilators while the 2009 H1N1 did not, solely based upon the timing/pace of pandemic spread. Although young people in 2009 had virtually no protection from the novel H1N1 virus and the vaccine was close to useless, the people at the highest risk of death from influenza virus infection had some measure of protection, presumably from exposure to similar H1N1 viruses earlier in their lives. This also undoubtedly slowed down the disease considerably and led to their being fewer deaths (estimated at about 18K in the U.S.).

All of this is purely speculative, of course, and it will be a long time before we know with any kind of precision what the true case fatality rate will be (at least as close as we are able to estimate). It is impossible for any agency to track any disease process with the precision that people would like to have.

RSVman; had wanted to attach this to one of your posts on plaquenil, but am too lazy to look further back. Saw this summary just now, and thought it appropriate, especially as my own pharmacy folks are *already* taking hydroxychloroquine as prophylaxis -as suggested by their head PharmD!!!
The NC Medical Board issued a 'don't do it' recommendation yesterday.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-...irus-treatment

Oh, and thanks so very much for continuing to add good, thoughtful, and truthful advice and information.
JStuart

[Devilwin]

Heard that they are closing NC beaches..This includes surf fishing..ugh

[fisheyes]

There was a question upthread regarding the effects of COVID 19 on the heart.

Here is an article from today's NY Times reviewing this issue:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/h...sultPosition=1

[cspan37421]

You see the high number because "death" cases resolve much faster than "recover" cases (both in actual fact and in reporting, as follow up testing to prove recovery is not a priority for most cases). In China, where 90+% of cases are now resolved, this rate is 4.34%, not 11%. It will take time for it to settle into a steady state number. In the USA, for example, that number is 35%, but only about 400 cases are resolved out of 20,000. In Italy, it's 44%. The 11% isn't getting attention because it's not a meaningful number at this point.

Just an update. Globally the death rate for cases with a known outcome (165,569 cases) is now up to 17%.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

While we all want and need good data, I hope that this figure is high simply because of bad data, such as too many deaths attributed to covid-19, or too few actual recoveries still being treated like active cases.

But including active cases in the denominator of the death rate makes no sense to me. I get that deaths may occur faster than recoveries. As long as this thing is still in its early stages, we may see this pattern. One hopes a big recovery "tail" sweeps through the data as the pandemic fades away or goes quiet in the northern hemisphere for the summer (if it will).

[JStuart]

There was a question upthread regarding the effects of COVID 19 on the heart.

Here is an article from today's NY Times reviewing this issue:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/h...sultPosition=1

This will keep DevilDeac in business. Long ago one of my Med School professors said 'All the chapters in the textbooks haven't been written yet'.
Covid-19 is smarter than the average virus, it seems. Well, better adapted, maybe.

[fisheyes]

This will keep DevilDeac in business. Long ago one of my Med School professors said 'All the chapters in the textbooks haven't been written yet'.
Covid-19 is smarter than the average virus, it seems. Well, better adapted, maybe.

Which brings to mind what one of my infectious disease docs said to me in medical school: "Viruses are God's way of communicating with all forms of life." What's being said?

[devildeac]

There was a question upthread regarding the effects of COVID 19 on the heart.

Here is an article from today's NY Times reviewing this issue:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/h...sultPosition=1

I knew myocarditis/myopericarditis/pericarditis were unusual possibilities with COVID 19 but I would've thought the ST elevation (term for the ST segment portion of the ECG that is above the baseline) would have been widespread, not localized to a specific "area" of the heart like the ECG from that article.

[budwom]

Vermont schools closed for the remainder of the school year (ends here around June 15). Maybe I can find a kid to mow my lawn.

[Bob Green]

Maybe I can find a kid to mow my lawn.

Is the snow gone?

[devildeac]

This will keep DevilDeac in business. Long ago one of my Med School professors said 'All the chapters in the textbooks haven't been written yet'.
Covid-19 is smarter than the average virus, it seems. Well, better adapted, maybe.

I stopped performing heart caths in the summer of 2018, but, based on my early knowledge of COVID 19 and this supporting article, there may be a consult or two more than I anticipated.

[devildeac]

Vermont schools closed for the remainder of the school year (ends here around June 15). Maybe I can find a kid to mow my lawn.

Let the elk, moose and deer graze it to perfection.

[budwom]

Is the snow gone?

snow is almost gone, except for piles left by Plow Man, and from sliding off the metal roof...big rain sunday should do away with it. Been able to do some yard work early this year, e.g. raking, repairing the gravel driveway, all good mindless exercise.
One thing we are seriously grateful for (among other things like have a home, enough money, food, etc, thank you Dr Maslow) is that it's almost April, not November. It would be psychologically way more grim to be entering our cold, dark phase, so we're thrilled it's not November...pretty soon we can sit on the deck, sip cocktails, hope for the best (I bet some of you are well into that time of year now). And maybe the increased warmth will temporarily, at least, slow down the virus