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.”
But more and more people are asking for the drug and recovering. How long are people going to drag their feet on this issue. The treatment exists, its right there.......
They ARE working on it. I know people like to think that you can just snap your fingers and magically start doing this stuff for everyone, but these are extremely complex systems, and the goal is to prove that it works so that it can save millions - not just start throwing it out there to every patient without any consideration of how it's done. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BleedingRed:
we dont have time for official trials
Hypothetically, what if people "cured" by this end up still being contagious and don't develop any sort of immunity? We'd all be celebrating how great the drug is, and a couple months later we'd be in an even worse spot.
I hope that's not the case, but there are reasons why there are processes for these things. [Reply]
Don't let 'em shout you down, Clay (but maybe stop calling it a wonder-drug for another week or two...)
A clinically confirmed effective therapeutic treatment combined w/ robust testing protocols would truly flip this entire script. It would change everything, up to and including the need to seriously consider 'pre-emptive exposure' for low risk groups.
I will say the potential for this thing to change EVERYTHING and yet the continued heightened reactions from healthcare and government leaders tells me that this isn't quite the panacea it's being made out to be. If initial results were that this think yields marginally better outcomes in 25% of cases, I'd understand a slow reaction to it. But these initial results are effectively saying "yeah, this will cut capacity issues by 75% and all but eliminate mortality apart from those who are exceptionally high risk..." and yet reactions are tepid at best.
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
I think it's fair to remain optimistic.
Don't let 'em shout you down, Clay (but maybe stop calling it a wonder-drug for another week or two...)
A clinically confirmed effective therapeutic treatment combined w/ robust testing protocols would truly flip this entire script. It would change everything, up to and including the need to seriously consider 'pre-emptive exposure' for low risk groups.
I will say the potential for this thing to change EVERYTHING and yet the continued heightened reactions from healthcare and government leaders tells me that this isn't quite the panacea it's being made out to be. If initial results were that this think yields marginally better outcomes in 25% of cases, I'd understand a slow reaction to it. But these initial results are effectively saying "yeah, this will cut capacity issues by 75% and all but eliminate mortality apart from those who are exceptionally high risk..." and yet reactions are tepid at best.
If something looks too good to be true...
Yep, I'm optimistic and hopeful that it will be a wonder drug and will deliver us from this mess. It's just that there are tons of weird things that happen with drugs, and I'm sure most of the experts are well aware of past cases when a wonder drug has ended up being...not. Hell, if you follow reddit at all, there's a promising cure for cancer on there a few times a year. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BleedingRed:
we dont have time for official trials
Can't just bypass clinical trials before you put it into wholesale use. Not for a disease that's killing 1-2% of people it infects and those deaths are heavily weighted within a very constrained demographic. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BleedingRed:
I dont think thats right
But more and more people are asking for the drug and recovering. How long are people going to drag their feet on this issue.The treatment exists, its right there.......
It's sold out everywhere, what are you even talking about? Seriously. Call your local pharmacy and ask for plaquenil. they'll tell you it's out. people with existing prescriptions for lupus could die because hydroxychloroquine is the new toilet paper. [Reply]
But more and more people are asking for the drug and recovering. How long are people going to drag their feet on this issue. The treatment exists, its right there.......
Anecdotal cases are fine, but you can just as easily find anecdotal cases where doctors have stopped administering Z-Paks and hydroxychloroquine because there were no readily observable benefits in a given patient. See, for example, this guy who is still ventilated and in critical condition:
Originally Posted by :
After Lat was moved to the ICU, intubated and put on a ventilator, his doctors began giving him both a Z-Pak (azithromycin) and the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine in an effort to knock down his COVID-19 infection, Shemtob has said. They also started administering an IL 6-inhibitor to help fight the extreme inflammation of Lat’s lungs caused by the virus.
By about Monday, after what Shemtob believes was two IL 6-inhibitor treatments, the physicians decided not to give him more, at least for now, said Shemtob. By Wednesday, they stopped the Z-Pak (azithromycin) and hydroxychloroquine therapy.
“They are no longer giving him the drugs, even though they may still be in his system,” said Shemtob, who has a 2-year-old son with Lat. “I think they’re [the doctors] just looking to see if and how he improves before taking their next steps.”
Shemtob said that what the next treatment steps may be is unclear. Depending on how Lat, 44, does in the next few days, the doctors could return to using the same drug therapies or perhaps try, or add on, another treatment.
“Just because this [coronavirus] is so new,” said Shemtob, “the doctors are taking it day by day,” and they haven’t tried to predict what may come next as far as treatments, or how Lat will do.
“There is no timeline” for Lat’s hoped-for progress, he added, because “there’s not a lot of good comparator” cases.
Shemtob, a former clerk for Judge Robert Sack of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and a former associate at Cooley, has said that the drug therapies being used on Lat, in his view, are experimental.
“These drugs have been around a while,” he said Thursday, “but they are experimental in the sense that they are now starting to be used for this,” the coronavirus.
A small, recent study from France has indicated using a Z-pak and hydroxychloroquine may help people fight off COVID-19. But experts have cautioned that the French study was too small to know about the true safety and efficacy of the drug therapy. Hydroxychloroquine is a derivative of chloroquine, which was discovered in 1934 and later used on malaria patients.
