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 Donger:
The bump in coronavirus cases is most pronounced in states without stay at home orders. Oklahoma saw a 53% increase in cases over the past week, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Over same time, cases jumped 60% in Arkansas, 74% in Nebraska, and 82% in Iowa. South Dakota saw a whopping 205% spike.
The remaining states, North Dakota, Utah and Wyoming each saw an increase in cases, but more in line with other places that have stay-at-home orders. And all of those numbers may very well undercount the total cases, given a persistent lack of testing across the US.
What is the population of South Dakota 27 people? [Reply]
Originally Posted by KCChiefsFan88:
It seems selfish that everyone has to social distance and shut down the economy to preserve hospital capacity mostly for people who don't take personal responsibility for their health with proper diet, not smoking, etc.
I take good care of myself, have never smoked, but have asthma. This is concerning for me and Coronavirus.
Originally Posted by lewdog:
I take good care of myself, have never smoked, but have asthma. This is concerning for me and Coronavirus.
**** me though right?!
No, but you should be extremely careful, which I'm sure you will, when it does open back up and they should have policy in place to make sure you are accommodated as needed in the interim. [Reply]
Just had a thought: over 17,000 people have died in New York state alone. The population of the state is 20 million. If 3000 more die and everyone is infected, the fatality rate would be 0.1. If 50 percent were infected, it is 0.2.
I don't see a scenario wherein the fatality rate is less than 0.3. [Reply]
Originally Posted by kgrund:
Quite honestly, until you know the answer to that your first point lacks any context IMO. To be more specific you would want to know how many in NYC died of the flu on average each season in NYC.
New York City probably has fewer than 100 people under the age of 45 die of the flu annually, which I'm guessing is hamas's point.
Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins:
It's not 347 out of the total population that age, it's 347 out of the total population that age infected with COVID, and you know it.
I'd be interested to know how many people that age died of flu on average each season.
Well no, because you were off responding to the random appearance by a Mike Maslowski fan's post concerning the number of NYC deaths as a percentage of the NYC population.
If NYC reported ~118,000 cases as of yesterday and the under 45 population is 56% of the total, then confirmed cases in the under 45 population "should" be about 65,900 and I say "should" as in "that's understating by a huge amount."
If that's the accurate count of cases, then 0.5% of people infected by C-19 have died. I'd bet no other commonly communicable disease gets to the point of killing 1 out of every 200 people under the age of 45. If that death rate were extrapolated to the entire USA, then it's a few tenths of a percent higher than the annual car crash mortality rate for that same age group.
Odds are though there aren't 65,900 people under the age of 45 infected by C-19 in New York. It's probably triple that and then the 347 of that tripled amount of cases is about 0.18%. Does that match any other easily communicable disease? I'll go ahead and assume the answer is no.
But making sure it's fewer than 1 out of every 200 or 550 people in any particular age demographic dying from C-19 hasn't been main motivation as has been said from public health officials. The motivation is to prevent an overload of health care resources (particularly intensive care) by C-19 patients to the detriment of health care providers themselves and other patients needing those same resources. Ideally, more lives are saved with the efforts taken than they would have without since the broader health care system remains able to operate, yes, but not people specifically with C-19.
Have we succeeded at this? I say no. At the moment, most areas have prevented an overload of C-19 cases in their local health care systems. Key phrase being "at the moment." If C-19 is as easily transmissibleand yields X amount of deaths for every N of cases, then there has been no appreciable effort to ready the resources to accommodate an influx of cases. Manufacturers pivoted to create ventilators, but in this layman's opinion, I'd wager (if I didn't have such bad luck in that regard lately) that we're going to find out that intubating people makes as much sense as trepanating someone with a sinus headache but whatever. The medical conventional wisdom says ventilators are the last line of defense so I'll give us that so far.
But have we made efforts in many densely populated areas to isolate and treat C-19 cases outside of typical hospitals, meaning there's still a risk that a spike of cases will overload that area's health system? No. And to me, again as someone who isn't bearing a MPH degree and definitely isn't paid to be in a role with that type of competency, that should have been the top-down goal across the country. Testing and tracing? As a layman, it doesn't seem like testing matters barring some sort of miracle device that tells if one within 15 minutes of being test that they are infected with better than 68% certainty of a positive read AND HAS A negligible amount of false negatives.. and such a test must be used for that one person multiple times per day. Tracing? That seems more feasible but will necessitate an abrogation of civil liberties somewhere along the line, which means there isn't a point of me discussing this further in this thread.
So given we are still, at this moment, are perpetually 14 days away from a cascade failure of our health care systems across the country, the question then becomes "how long will 'shelter in place' mandates stay in effect?" Seems to me that the answer is "until there is a vaccine" and to me, that's not an answer since there isn't a guarantee a vaccine will even be effective in the first place. [Reply]
