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.”
Originally Posted by Rausch:
So now it's coming out that not only was China selling defective test kits and masks but were purchasing tons of medical equipment through a real estate proxy from Canada, the US, and Australia to ship back to China.
This week the State Department has facilitated the transportation of nearly 17.8 tons of donated medical supplies to the Chinese people, including masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital materials. These donations are a testament to the generosity of the American people. [Reply]
The U.S. Tried to Build a New Fleet of Ventilators. The Mission Failed.
As the coronavirus spreads, the collapse of the project helps explain America’s acute shortage.
Thirteen years ago, a group of U.S. public health officials came up with a plan to address what they regarded as one of the medical system’s crucial vulnerabilities: a shortage of ventilators.
The breathing-assistance machines tended to be bulky, expensive and limited in number. The plan was to build a large fleet of inexpensive portable devices to deploy in a flu pandemic or another crisis.
Money was budgeted. A federal contract was signed. Work got underway.
And then things suddenly veered off course. A multibillion-dollar maker of medical devices bought the small California company that had been hired to design the new machines. The project ultimately produced zero ventilators.
That failure delayed the development of an affordable ventilator by at least half a decade, depriving hospitals, states and the federal government of the ability to stock up. The federal government started over with another company in 2014, whose ventilator was approved only last year and whose products have not yet been delivered.
Today, with the coronavirus ravaging America’s health care system, the nation’s emergency-response stockpile is still waiting on its first shipment. The scarcity of ventilators has become an emergency, forcing doctors to make life-or-death decisions about who gets to breathe and who does not.
The stalled efforts to create a new class of cheap, easy-to-use ventilators highlight the perils of outsourcing projects with critical public-health implications to private companies; their focus on maximizing profits is not always consistent with the government’s goal of preparing for a future crisis.
“We definitely saw the problem,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, who ran the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2009 to 2017. “We innovated to try and get a solution. We made really good progress, but it doesn’t appear to have resulted in the volume that we needed.”
The project — code-named Aura — came in the wake of a parade of near-miss pandemics: SARS, MERS, bird flu and swine flu.
“We definitely saw the problem,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, who ran the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2009 to 2017. “We innovated to try and get a solution. We made really good progress, but it doesn’t appear to have resulted in the volume that we needed.”
The project — code-named Aura — came in the wake of a parade of near-miss pandemics: SARS, MERS, bird flu and swine flu.
Federal officials decided to re-evaluate their strategy for the next public health emergency. They considered vaccines, antiviral drugs, protective gear and ventilators, the last line of defense for patients suffering respiratory failure. The federal government’s Strategic National Stockpile had full-service ventilators in its warehouses, but not in the quantities that would be needed to combat a major pandemic. In 2006, the Department of Health and Human Services established a new division, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, with a mandate to prepare medical responses to chemical, biological and nuclear attacks, as well as infectious diseases.
In its first year in operation, the research agency considered how to expand the number of ventilators. It estimated that an additional 70,000 machines would be required in a moderate influenza pandemic
.
The ventilators in the national stockpile were not ideal. In addition to being big and expensive, they required a lot of training to use. The research agency convened a panel of experts in November 2007 to devise a set of requirements for a new generation of mobile, easy-to-use ventilators.
In 2008, the government requested proposals from companies that were interested in designing and building the ventilators.
The goal was for the machines to be approved by regulators for mass development by 2010 or 2011, according to budget documents that the Department of Health and Human Services submitted to Congress in 2008. After that, the government would buy as many as 40,000 new ventilators and add them to the national stockpile.
Originally Posted by AustinChief:
I am going to again ask a question I asked a while back...
If by April 3rd(Friday) we have a solid trend of fewer deaths per day AND we have more significant data showing that the treatments we are applying are effective (let's say a 50% increased reduction of viral load compared to a control group or we can use cytokine storm reduction as the barometer), would you support starting to reduce government imposed restrictions?
If not, where do you draw the line? What metric would you use?
The way I see it, at some point WE need to make up our minds where the acceptable risk lies. There is NEVER going to be a world without risk. The flu kills 20-60k a year in the US and we don't bat an eye, we live with that risk every year. What is the acceptable risk for Covid-19?
Just to preempt anyone talking about number of cases... I will say right now I will never care about that figure it is fairly meaningless especially if effective treatments are an option. Deaths are really what matters to me when it comes to this discussion.
The metric is and always has been hospital capacity and reasonable testing. We are slow to the tick. But I'm hopeful we're finally catching on. Very recently Battelle got FDA approval on a sanitization system that can sterilize 80k masks a day. Abbott labs has systems that can do 15 minute testing that hopefully get fast tracked. And while it should have been done sooner, the president has basically invoked the defense production act which is crucial because we badly need a lot of ventilators. I think the national guard will soon have basically medics to help increase capacity.
Keep in mind this isn't just about the elderly or the lowly immune getting sick. If anyone gets sick in the next few months. It also means anyone who gets sick or hurt will struggle to get care. Part of it is flattening the curve, a huge part of it is making sure we have enough medical care to take care of everyone. That's why I think may is a realistic target and why we probably won't need this for wave 2. Wave 2 should be significantly smaller, we will have widespread testing, and our hospitals will be very prepared. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Hammock Parties:
There seems to be some discrepancy on # of deaths reported yesterday.
CNN has it as 376, worldmeters as 264
either way a sharp drop from 525
Looking across other countries, it seems most are levelling off in terms of new cases reported. Some are trending down. Hopefully it continues. [Reply]
Point of the story, driving their Springfield to my office, it was surreal. Ghost town and nothing is open and highways are dead. Weird feeling ===================================================
My brother who lives in Rogersville. was stopped on the James River Freeway by a cop and asked to prove he was essential. He has a letter given to him by the business that he is indeed essential. Showed him the papers and went on his way. [Reply]
Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, reopened the school's campus last week. By Friday, nearly a dozen Liberty students were sick with symptoms that suggest Covid-19. https://t.co/dmgBQ27pdZ
Originally Posted by BigRedChief: Who could have seen this coming? :-)
Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, reopened the school's campus last week. By Friday, nearly a dozen Liberty students were sick with symptoms that suggest Covid-19. https://t.co/dmgBQ27pdZ
It's like that La. based cult leader.... i mean Christian revivalist. "God will protect us"
This crap is how the epicenter in South Korea started. [Reply]
Originally Posted by AustinChief:
I am going to again ask a question I asked a while back...
If by April 3rd(Friday) we have a solid trend of fewer deaths per day AND we have more significant data showing that the treatments we are applying are effective (let's say a 50% increased reduction of viral load compared to a control group or we can use cytokine storm reduction as the barometer), would you support starting to reduce government imposed restrictions?
If not, where do you draw the line? What metric would you use?
The way I see it, at some point WE need to make up our minds where the acceptable risk lies. There is NEVER going to be a world without risk. The flu kills 20-60k a year in the US and we don't bat an eye, we live with that risk every year. What is the acceptable risk for Covid-19?
Just to preempt anyone talking about number of cases... I will say right now I will never care about that figure it is fairly meaningless especially if effective treatments are an option. Deaths are really what matters to me when it comes to this discussion.
Nobody will want to be the first to lift restrictions and they certainly won’t want to do it at any point that could be considered early. I think it won’t happen until it’s been two or three weeks of it being obvious to almost everyone it should happen. [Reply]
SPRINGFIELD, Ill (NEXSTAR) — Hospitals across the state are lacking proper equipment to deal with the Coronavirus.
Personal protective equipment and ventilators are few and far between. But the University of Illinois College of Engineering might have a breakthrough that could fix the problem.
They are calling it their Apollo 13 moment. A new emergency ventilator prototype that could soon be in hospitals across the state.
“This is a device that could be rapidly deployed,” Bill King, a University of Illinois engineering professor on the project said. “It is a simple device. It’s suitable for emergency situations where a regular hospital ventilator is not available.”
A team of 40 University of Illinois professors and medical professionals and physicians from Carle Hospital did what they thought was impossible.
They were able to build an emergency ventilator in just a week.
The prototype works very well,” King said. “So far it has run for 75 hours straight, and more than 125 thousand breathing cycles. It is staggering what this group of individuals has been able to do.”
The team has only been working on the product for a couple of weeks, but if all goes as planned, the emergency ventilator could be mass-produced sooner rather than later. All it needs now is FDA approval.
The IMA is now working with the University of Illinois and some of our medical device manufacturers to see if this can be produced in Illinois and be used in hospitals across Illinois and across the United States,” Mark Denzler, President of the Illinois Manufacturers Association said.
The University is partnered with the Illinois Manufacturers Association.
Factories across Illinois are already committed to building the supplies to keep hospitals running, and if that happens, it could change the game for hospitals moving forward against COVID-19.
“At that moment where we all saw it worked, it was such a moment of joy and excitement and shared experience for our team,” King said. “It was really amazing.”
The group now will take the prototype to clinical trials.
If it makes it through clinical trials, then it can get FDA approval and be ready for production. [Reply]
