COVID-19 (f/k/a "the Coronavirus")

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

Rocket, wtf are you talking about?

Outside of the first few months, which undoubtedly had bad science attached to it, it's been pretty obvious since about May how to minimize the spread of the disease AND how to treat it.  Sure there have been small breakthroughs here and there but how this is being treated now is largely how its been treated for the past six months.

And Fauci is a public health guy.  You don't have to treat patients to disseminate the best practices to prevent and treat the disease.

Anyway, I find this whole thing ironic since you were still touting hydroxy last month since about 99.9% of practicing doctors moved on from it LONG ago.

[4everwarriors]

Rocket, you just might be on to something there with the cat piss, hey?

[Hards Alumni]

  but gooo, there are a number of well respected doctors who believed in "the science" as well.  there was a method to other procedures that if followed, were very successful  fauci was not a "hands on " doc" and therefore was not privy to first hand efficacy of these treatments.  understand, when we were in the intial and secondary phases of treating this virus as we were getting to know more and more about it's wide ranging effects on different people.  some of these epidemiologists were using different approaches as they made sense and were showing success for them.  now remember the context were were in. we didn't have the luxury of time and double blinds to follow all of these.  but there are docs who had successes with some "non traditional" approaches. nope, toe the line and keep your mouth shut, you will be cancelled.  who does that?

  let's just say doc warrior and i came up with a "non traditional' way to treat toothaches. toothaches have become a sudden, mysterious, "pandemic-like" issue with some people with compromised immune systems, etc and actually dying as a result.   let's just imagine that doc and i found that cat piss was a very effective medicament when used with a certain type of tooth ache with patients in a specific age group at a certain stage of the tooth ache.  if it was not harmful, it was effective in most cases and its main ingredient was readily available and cheap, he and i are going to talk about it.  others may or may not use it on some of their patients.  word gets out and of course there is no science and/or double blind studies supporting it, but we felt comfortable using it in "certain" situations because it was bring people relief.  well, the higher ups get word of it and you know it's going to be critiqued and downplayed, with doc and i getting a letter from the "guru's" warning us of straying from the "standards of care"  but we saw with our own eyes, up front the efficacy.  now, more docs and patients want this treatment.  remember, we are in a crisis NOW and don't have time for double blinds.  the vaccines we are getting right now, we are the phase 3 studies. of course you know, phase 3 studies are normally done under more controlled circumstances. 

how many covid patients did fauci actually treat?  how many influenza patients has he treated within the past, oh, 5 years?  how many tummy aches has he treated?  most of dentistry's most well respected are still hands on guys.  they are apolitical and you won't see them on tv   if i had covid, i would not want dr fauci as my treating doc.  i'd much rather have dr harvey risch(top epidemiologist at yale) dr steven smith(smith center for infectious diseases) these guys had actual patients lives in their hands

   much of the "science" of treating covid that we were initially going by has been debunked, but guys like fauci continue to adhere to it-which science?  masks? lockdowns? there have been many dissenting opinions from the beginning about these 2 basic things, but they were strongly admonished and chastised with some being strongly reprimanded.  today, the studies are showing that those who were minimized are showing to be right...the science.  all depended on who your "expert" voted for and that's the science unfortunately.     

The most frustrating thing about you is that you are able to go for stretches of normality, and then I see this sort of thing... and I think to myself, "hold up, he wasn't as close as I thought, he is still dug in".

Someday I hope you see the light, brother.

[Frenns Liquor Depot]

The concept or fascination of seeing patients has always baffled me as it relates to public health.

Isn’t that like calling for a food truck vendor to run the Fed. Or conversely giving the public health reigns to a radiologist?

[Galway Eagle]

The concept or fascination of seeing patients has always baffled me as it relates to public health.

Isn’t that like calling for a food truck vendor to run the Fed. Or conversely giving the public health reigns to a radiologist?

Hah nice.

[rocky_warrior]

Or even worse, referring to a Dentist as  a "doctor".

[4everwarriors]

What year were you rejected when applying to dental school?

[rocky_warrior]

What year were you rejected when applying to dental school?

All of them.

[Frenns Liquor Depot]

[Marquette Fan]

The Miami Heat are using coronavirus sniffing dogs for fans coming to their games:

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/30770833/heat-use-coronavirus-sniffing-dogs-screen-fans

I hadn't heard of this being done before and found it interesting - from the article - "A German study last year found that dogs there were right 94% of the time when it came to coronavirus detection."

[Warriors4ever]

https://www.radio.com/wbbm780/news/person-dies-hours-after-getting-covid-19-vaccine-report

I read this story and my first thought was, why and how was someone who got diagnosed with Covid in late December getting a vaccine three weeks later? Everything I have heard says to wait a while afterwards.
I have no idea what happened, or if there is a link, I am curious to see what they find out.

[GooooMarquette]

https://www.radio.com/wbbm780/news/person-dies-hours-after-getting-covid-19-vaccine-report

I read this story and my first thought was, why and how was someone who got diagnosed with Covid in late December getting a vaccine three weeks later? Everything I have heard says to wait a while afterwards.
I have no idea what happened, or if there is a link, I am curious to see what they find out.

It will be interesting what comes out of this. If there is a link, the relatively short ('within hours') timeframe suggests an allergic reaction, but I suspect we'll see.

[GooooMarquette]

Epidemiologists at Columbia University estimate that even with a successful vaccine rollout, we will need to maintain our current level of social distancing, masking and other measures until late July to avoid a huge new wave of Covid infections and deaths. And he says late July "may be optimistic."

Lifting the restrictions in February instead of keeping them in place until late July could cause approximately 29 million additional infections. For comparison, that difference is more than the total number of reported cases in the US to date.

I hope y'all have comfy masks....

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/24/us/covid-vaccine-rollout.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Social distancing, masking and other measures should remain in place until late July, “and that may be optimistic,” said Dr. Shaman. Otherwise, yet another resurgence of the virus is possible.

“There are people who are going to want to relax the controls we have in place,” Dr. Shaman said. “If we start thinking, ‘We’ve got a vaccine, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, we can stop in a couple of months’ — that’s way too soon.”

[forgetful]

https://www.radio.com/wbbm780/news/person-dies-hours-after-getting-covid-19-vaccine-report

I read this story and my first thought was, why and how was someone who got diagnosed with Covid in late December getting a vaccine three weeks later? Everything I have heard says to wait a while afterwards.
I have no idea what happened, or if there is a link, I am curious to see what they find out.

I need to see some more data on what transpired. Wonder if this could be a case of an elderly patient with pre-existing conditions being given the vaccine in short duration after the primary infection.

If so, one would expect a more severe immune reaction and side effects. In a person already compromised that could result in an unfortunate death.

But the bottom line would be that individual should never have been given the vaccine under those circumstances.

[Warriors4ever]

They’re looking into it. But I thought one of the questions is whether you have had a positive test recently.

[Frenns Liquor Depot]

Sounds like herd immunity needs a pretty high level of immunity.  Bad for Scoot Atlas fans and everyone else as we vaccinate. 

https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2021/01/23/a-brazilian-city-thought-it-had-herd-immunity-it-was-wrong

[forgetful]

Sounds like herd immunity needs a pretty high level of immunity.  Bad for Scoot Atlas fans and everyone else as we vaccinate. 

https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2021/01/23/a-brazilian-city-thought-it-had-herd-immunity-it-was-wrong

I can't see that entire article, so don't know if they commented on it or not, but people are looking into a new strain that emerged there similar to the South African strain. There is concern that the 2nd wave is due to the new strain being resistant to neutralizing antibodies from the first round of spread.

I think it is more likely, that the people estimating the degree of infection from the first wave were way off.

[Frenns Liquor Depot]

I can't see that entire article, so don't know if they commented on it or not, but people are looking into a new strain that emerged there similar to the South African strain. There is concern that the 2nd wave is due to the new strain being resistant to neutralizing antibodies from the first round of spread.

I think it is more likely, that the people estimating the degree of infection from the first wave were way off.

It’s a pretty short article but essentially it said that the people of Manaus were hit so hard early and immunity estimates were that about two thirds of the population had the disease through serology studies.  The people felt like it was over and no second wave could happen and let their guard down.  We all know it’s been a second tragedy there. 

[forgetful]

It’s a pretty short article but essentially it said that the people of Manaus were hit so hard early and immunity estimates were that about two thirds of the population had the disease through serology studies.  The people felt like it was over and no second wave could happen and let their guard down.  We all know it’s been a second tragedy there.

Brazil and Manaus specifically have been devastated.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/new-coronavirus-variants-could-cause-more-reinfections-require-updated-vaccines

This is some the ideas I had seen about the possibility that this 2nd wave in Manaus could be due to a new variant avoiding immunity from the previous round of infections.

Let's hope that is not the case.

[GooooMarquette]

Brazil and Manaus specifically have been devastated.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/new-coronavirus-variants-could-cause-more-reinfections-require-updated-vaccines

This is some the ideas I had seen about the possibility that this 2nd wave in Manaus could be due to a new variant avoiding immunity from the previous round of infections.

Let's hope that is not the case.

Agreed; let’s hope that isn’t the case. Because if it is, this could go from bad to a lot worse in a hurry.

[MU82]

Not great news from the AP:

Straining to handle record numbers of COVID-19 patients, hundreds of the nation’s intensive care units are running out of space and supplies and competing to hire temporary traveling nurses at soaring rates. Many of the facilities are clustered in the South and the West.

An Associated Press analysis of federal hospital data shows that since November, the share of U.S. hospitals nearing the breaking point has doubled. More than 40% of Americans now live in areas running out of ICU space, with only 15% of beds still available.

Intensive care units are the final defense for the sickest of the sick, patients who are nearly suffocating or facing organ failure. Nurses who work in the most stressed ICUs are exhausted.

“You can’t push great people forever. Right? I mean, it just isn’t possible,” said Houston Methodist CEO Dr. Marc Boom, who is among many hospital leaders hoping that the numbers of critically ill COVID-19 patients have begun to plateau.

There’s an average of 20,000 new cases a day in Texas, which has the third-highest death count in the country and more than 13,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19-related symptoms.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

New cases and new hospitalizations are going down, which intuitively makes sense since we are a month out from Christmas.  Hopefully we will see the strain on hospitals ease in the coming weeks as they clear out (mostly from recovered patients.)

[tower912]

CDC says that they don't know how many doses are actually available or in the pipeline.   That has to change

[MUBurrow]

New cases and new hospitalizations are going down, which intuitively makes sense since we are a month out from Christmas.  Hopefully we will see the strain on hospitals ease in the coming weeks as they clear out (mostly from recovered patients.)

It will be interesting to see what happens with cases vs hospitalizations as the vaccine is rolled out to more and more high risk groups, too.  Intuitively, it would make sense that as higher risk populations are vaccinated, we may see hospitalizations and deaths decrease even with steady case rates.  Even just nursing home vaccinations could have an impact.  Then again, if any of these new strains are more severe, that would probably be more than enough to offset any gains :/

[GooooMarquette]

It will be interesting to see what happens with cases vs hospitalizations as the vaccine is rolled out to more and more high risk groups, too.  Intuitively, it would make sense that as higher risk populations are vaccinated, we may see hospitalizations and deaths decrease even with steady case rates.  Even just nursing home vaccinations could have an impact.  Then again, if any of these new strains are more severe, that would probably be more than enough to offset any gains :/

Agreed. Masks, social distancing and strategic vaccinations could get us out of this in a few months, if there were/are no clinically-significant mutations. But the mutations are beginning to become concerning...