COVID-19 Mega thread

[Progressive Pessimist]

CDC Mistakenly Released Texas Coronavirus Patient Who Later Tested Positive, San Antonio Mayor Says

Coronavirus may have spread undetected in US for weeks: report

As Testing Quickly Ramps Up, Expect More U.S. Coronavirus Cases

Initially, limited testing capacity meant the CDC didn't advise testing sick people unless they had a history of travel to affected countries or contact with a known COVID-19 case. And test kits sent to labs around the country had a problem with one ingredient that resulted in delays.

"I certainly do wish that the testing was available sooner. There was this very unfortunate challenge in the production process and it did put us a few weeks behind," Becker told NPR.

"My administration is the most competent in history, folks!"

Trump is preparing to declare the Coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. a hoax an emergency:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fema-prepping-possible-coronavirus-emergency-declaration-n1147016

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is planning for the possibility that President Donald Trump could make an emergency declaration to bring in extra funds and personnel to assist the administration's coronavirus response, according to internal documents obtained by NBC News.

Trump says U.S. in 'very good shape' on coronavirus. (Feb. 25th)
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1232304804820467714

Sounds like FEMA are calling Mr. Trump a stupid liar. I wonder how well that will go over with the White House?

I love how just a few posts down there is a tweet that already validated what I wrote above. Trump's projections are getting more and more predictable by the day.

[Beet]

- It has pretty much been confirmed that the virus, besides attacking the respiratory system and the digestive system, also attacks the central nervous system (CNS). This could explain some of the sudden collapses we see-- it's not a heart attack, as you don't see people clutching their chest, they just fall down. It points to sudden loss of motor control. Critically, this is also a cause of mortality, as some people have strong lungs but their nervous system cannot move those lungs.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.22.20026500v1.full.pdf

- Study on the possible effectiveness of "Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs)" for severe cases. I am not sure what that is, if someone who is specialized in biology wants to comment please do. You will have to put this into Google Translate.

http://www.chinaxiv.org/abs/202002.00080

- Huge surge of cases in Iran. It has also affected an unusual number of high ranking government officials there, suggesting that the case count is underreported. There are also rather frightening videos emerging from Qom that are similar to what we have seen in Wuhan.

Death rate.

Officially 3,117 died and 47,945 recovered. The case fatality rate dropped to 6.1%. Overall we are in a stage where more than half of the official cases have now recovered, which means that the first "wave" is slowing, however, it is likely that there will be more "waves" coming. How bad these are remains to be determined.  

The number of confirmed cases by Region:
Total overall: 90,428
Hubei Province: 67,217 (+114)
Outside Hubei, China:  12,927 (+4)
South Korea: 4,335 (+123)
Italy: 2,036 (+342)
Iran: 1,501 (+523)
Japan: 274 (+18)

[Hammy]

Two cases confirmed in Georgia in Fulton County, they just had a press conference on the news. Both from the same household, one of them had just recently been to Italy and went to the doctor for testing as a precaution.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshuaPotash/status/1234661401488052226

[GP270watch]

https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshuaPotash/status/1234661401488052226

Such an idiot who thinks everything is an episode of The Apprentice.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

China outside of Wuhan is virtually down to zero, and infection rates in Wuhan have dropped significantly.  Really, things have improved all over East Asia.  The Middle East and European waves are probably range from peak in Iran and Italy to pre-peak in the rest of the region.  The American wave is clearly coming, but is still in its infancy.

It wouldn't surprise me if, in two weeks, China has one of the lower rates of new COVID infections.

[Fritz]

I don't post here often anymore, so please forgive this slightly personal rant.  I have some things I need to say, and I don't want to do this on Facebook or Twitter.

I am really, really scared.  I'm a 55 year old insulin dependent diabetic (less importantly, I also have parkinsons disease.)  As such, I will not be one of the lucky 80% who get through this with only mild symptoms and able to stay at home.  I think the odds are that I will get severely ill, but I am more likely to survive than to die.  My roommate and best friend (people sometimes assume we are a couple, we're not) has multiple risk factors: HIV+, COPD, hypertension, and has recovered from cancer twice.  I do not expect him to survive this, if he gets it.  My father is nearing age 81 and in good health, I consider him at higher risk then myself due to his age.

I just wish I could stop dwelling on this!   I keep going through the stages of grief (denial, bargaining, etc.)  Whatever will be will be, right? Anyway, I'm not going to drag this on.  I'm washing my hands many times a day, and going about my life.  Tjanks for reading, and thanks for any advice.

[T'Chenka]

I don't post here often anymore, so please forgive this slightly personal rant.  I have some things I need to say, and I don't want to do this on Facebook or Twitter.

I am really, really scared.  I'm a 55 year old insulin dependent diabetic (less importantly, I also have parkinsons disease.)  As such, I will not be one of the lucky 80% who get through this with only mild symptoms and able to stay at home.  I think the odds are that I will get severely ill, but I am more likely to survive than to die.  My roommate and best friend (people sometimes assume we are a couple, we're not) has multiple risk factors: HIV+, COPD, hypertension, and has recovered from cancer twice.  I do not expect him to survive this, if he gets it.  My father is nearing age 81 and in good health, I consider him at higher risk then myself due to his age.

I just wish I could stop dwelling on this!   I keep going through the stages of grief (denial, bargaining, etc.)  Whatever will be will be, right? Anyway, I'm not going to drag this on.  I'm washing my hands many times a day, and going about my life.  Tjanks for reading, and thanks for any advice.

I will ask the old gods and the new to watch out for you. Gods bless.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Lot more people washing their hands is a good thing for the general flu season.

History records the previous pandemic of the Spanish Flu having little to no effect in Gunnison, CO,  and Hobart in Tasmania in Australia because of strict isolation procedures.

http://chm.med.umich.edu/research/1918-influenza-escape-communities/gunnison/

Whilst people living in Denmark had a high level of base immunity to the Spanish Flu viral pandemic of 1918.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181023-the-places-that-escaped-the-spanish-flu

Two locations in Fiji and Alaska were never touched by the Spanish Flu.

As for mainland USA in 2020, with people interacting with the general populous, you are looking at a 10-12 week period of a higher risk of viral infection, and thus, my threat level has been increased accordingly:

[Torrain]

- Study on the possible effectiveness of "Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs)" for severe cases. I am not sure what that is, if someone who is specialized in biology wants to comment please do. You will have to put this into Google Translate.

MSCs are an early precursor to a host of cell types, include bone, fat and muscle cells. They can be used similarly to a blood transfusion (where a biological product taken from a healthy individual is used in place of a poorer quality version in a sick patient).

MSCs are of great clinical interest, with their use implicated in mitigating the effects of MS, lupus and Crohns, just to name a few.

I should warn you though, their implementation as a therapy remains a complex issue. https://www.hindawi.com/journals/sci/2019/9628536/

We use some limited stem cell transplants to deal with blood and bone cancers already, (a stem cell transplant allowed my grandfather to undergo radical chemotherapy and survive another nine years) but new therapies have been slow to roll out.

Given how expensive and time-consuming new techniques can be, I wouldn’t expect this to come into play in 2020, but if we’re still fighting COVID-19 in four or five years, I imagine we could reasonably end up cracking MSCs.

[A final note - MSCs are adult stem cells, extracted from a natural supply in the marrow or bloodstream. Thankfully, this prevents the need to extract embryonic stem cells, which remain controversial]

[T'Chenka]

Why is everyone continuing to make fun of Beet? Have conditions grown desperate enough that you can only reassure yourselves by ritualistically mocking his comments long after ridicule is warranted?

I interpret it differently. People are very anxious about caronavirus, even if they don't want to openly admit it. A gopd way to relieve tension about serious things is to crack jokes.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Why is everyone continuing to make fun of Beet?

Love the Beet. He does deserve credit for predicting a larger scale.

As for the panic, it is laughable.

It is actually the media which is causing more harm.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/dr-drew-media-panic-about-coronavirus-is-more-problematic-than-the-contagion

Addiction specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky panned the media's response to the coronavirus outbreak, telling "The Ingraham Angle" on Monday that the root of the larger problem domestically has been the panic being spread by the mainstream media.

"Essentially the entire problem we are having is due to panic, not the virus," he said. "I was saying this six weeks ago. We have six deaths from the coronavirus, 18,000 from the flu. Why isn't the message, 'Get your flu vaccine'"?

[dead0man]

I keep hearing about the panicking.  I've still not seen anyone wearing a mask, the stores are still full of paper towels and batteries.  I know people have stupidly bought up all the face masks so they must be somewhere, but I ain't seen 'em.  There certainly are people online being idiots with the fearmongering, but I have not seen any of it in person.

Is Omaha, as usual, just better than every place else?  Or are people not really panicking?

[GeorgiaModerate]

I keep hearing about the panicking.  I've still not seen anyone wearing a mask, the stores are still full of paper towels and batteries.  I know people have stupidly bought up all the face masks so they must be somewhere, but I ain't seen 'em.  There certainly are people online being idiots with the fearmongering, but I have not seen any of it in person.

Is Omaha, as usual, just better than every place else?  Or are people not really panicking?

I haven't seen any here either, although that might change now that a couple of cases have been reported in Atlanta.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

I keep hearing about the panicking.  I've still not seen anyone wearing a mask, the stores are still full of paper towels and batteries.  I know people have stupidly bought up all the face masks so they must be somewhere, but I ain't seen 'em.  There certainly are people online being idiots with the fearmongering, but I have not seen any of it in person.

Is Omaha, as usual, just better than every place else?  Or are people not really panicking?

Only bit of prep I've seen here in University City is a few hospitals just going over their outbreak/biohazard protocols. 

[It’s so Joever]

- It has pretty much been confirmed that the virus, besides attacking the respiratory system and the digestive system, also attacks the central nervous system (CNS). This could explain some of the sudden collapses we see-- it's not a heart attack, as you don't see people clutching their chest, they just fall down. It points to sudden loss of motor control. Critically, this is also a cause of mortality, as some people have strong lungs but their nervous system cannot move those lungs.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.22.20026500v1.full.pdf

- Study on the possible effectiveness of "Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs)" for severe cases. I am not sure what that is, if someone who is specialized in biology wants to comment please do. You will have to put this into Google Translate.

http://www.chinaxiv.org/abs/202002.00080

- Huge surge of cases in Iran. It has also affected an unusual number of high ranking government officials there, suggesting that the case count is underreported. There are also rather frightening videos emerging from Qom that are similar to what we have seen in Wuhan.

Death rate.

Officially 3,117 died and 47,945 recovered. The case fatality rate dropped to 6.1%. Overall we are in a stage where more than half of the official cases have now recovered, which means that the first "wave" is slowing, however, it is likely that there will be more "waves" coming. How bad these are remains to be determined.  

The number of confirmed cases by Region:
Total overall: 90,428
Hubei Province: 67,217 (+114)
Outside Hubei, China:  12,927 (+4)
South Korea: 4,335 (+123)
Italy: 2,036 (+342)
Iran: 1,501 (+523)
Japan: 274 (+18)

****.
Will having epilepsy (even if well controlled) significantly increase my chances of dying?
 (For context I am an otherwise healthy 18 year old male)

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

- It has pretty much been confirmed that the virus, besides attacking the respiratory system and the digestive system, also attacks the central nervous system (CNS). This could explain some of the sudden collapses we see-- it's not a heart attack, as you don't see people clutching their chest, they just fall down. It points to sudden loss of motor control. Critically, this is also a cause of mortality, as some people have strong lungs but their nervous system cannot move those lungs.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.22.20026500v1.full.pdf

- Study on the possible effectiveness of "Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs)" for severe cases. I am not sure what that is, if someone who is specialized in biology wants to comment please do. You will have to put this into Google Translate.

http://www.chinaxiv.org/abs/202002.00080

- Huge surge of cases in Iran. It has also affected an unusual number of high ranking government officials there, suggesting that the case count is underreported. There are also rather frightening videos emerging from Qom that are similar to what we have seen in Wuhan.

Death rate.

Officially 3,117 died and 47,945 recovered. The case fatality rate dropped to 6.1%. Overall we are in a stage where more than half of the official cases have now recovered, which means that the first "wave" is slowing, however, it is likely that there will be more "waves" coming. How bad these are remains to be determined.  

The number of confirmed cases by Region:
Total overall: 90,428
Hubei Province: 67,217 (+114)
Outside Hubei, China:  12,927 (+4)
South Korea: 4,335 (+123)
Italy: 2,036 (+342)
Iran: 1,501 (+523)
Japan: 274 (+18)

****.
Will having epilepsy (even if well controlled) significantly increase my chances of dying?
 (For context I am an otherwise healthy 18 year old male)

DISCLAIMER: Med student, not a doctor.  Always consult your PCP or a trusted healthcare professional.  

As far as I know, there has been little data concerning epileptics who contract COVID-19.  And pre-existing conditions often play a factor in how dangerous a particular affliction may be.  But in my view, though, you have little to worry about if you are young and healthy.  Be vigilant, manage your medication (stay on top of your prescriptions, any instructions given to you by your doctor, etc.), and follow common sense prevention measures. 

[Meclazine for Israel]

Good tips before you catch Corona Virus

Build your immune system and get your lungs healthy.

1. Give up smoking
2. Drink plenty of water
3. Dont stress
4. Spicy food, green tea and lemon juice are good for the immune system
5. Swimming opens up your lungs and clears the bronchioles
6. Stay really warm. Flu viruses prefer cold weather and sticky lung tissue
7. Get 8-9 hours sleep per night
8. Dont shake hands with people until summer
9. Dont touch your face
10. Wash your hands with soap regularly

My secret tip for avoiding the flu and chest infections.

As soon as you sense a sneeze or a sinus issue, knock back some anti-histamines at double the recommended dose.

That dries out your sinuses and prevents them from dripping mucus into your upper respiratory tract whilst sleeping.

DISCLAIMER - I have an advanced doctorate degree in personal sinus management.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Not sure if this belongs in the dOW thread or here, but:

https://mobile.twitter.com/CNBC/status/1234856355527352325

DOW jumped about 500 pts. between 9:56 and 10:00 EST following the announcement. 

[GP270watch]

Not sure if this belongs in the dOW thread or here, but:

https://mobile.twitter.com/CNBC/status/1234856355527352325

 This does absolutely nothing to fight coronavirus but okay.

[PSOL]

Not sure if this belongs in the dOW thread or here, but:

https://mobile.twitter.com/CNBC/status/1234856355527352325

 This does absolutely nothing to fight coronavirus but okay.

It’s probably from the Federal Reserve slashing interest rates by like .5%

[Middle-aged Europe]

Politico did a profile on Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the challenges in managing a national health crisis in the era of Trumpism:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/03/anthony-fauci-trump-coronavirus-crisis-118961

[Florida Man for Crime]

I don't post here often anymore, so please forgive this slightly personal rant.  I have some things I need to say, and I don't want to do this on Facebook or Twitter.

I am really, really scared.  I'm a 55 year old insulin dependent diabetic (less importantly, I also have parkinsons disease.)  As such, I will not be one of the lucky 80% who get through this with only mild symptoms and able to stay at home.  I think the odds are that I will get severely ill, but I am more likely to survive than to die.  My roommate and best friend (people sometimes assume we are a couple, we're not) has multiple risk factors: HIV+, COPD, hypertension, and has recovered from cancer twice.  I do not expect him to survive this, if he gets it.  My father is nearing age 81 and in good health, I consider him at higher risk then myself due to his age.

I just wish I could stop dwelling on this!   I keep going through the stages of grief (denial, bargaining, etc.)  Whatever will be will be, right? Anyway, I'm not going to drag this on.  I'm washing my hands many times a day, and going about my life.  Tjanks for reading, and thanks for any advice.

In terms of "advice," I think the only thing anyone can say on an individual level is to try to do things to avoid getting infected.

If possible, stock up on cheap long-lasting food (preferably that you would eventually use anyway) and prepare to self-isolate for an extended period of time, preferably in a relatively remote location. If that is not possible, try to figure out ways to make it more possible. This is not necessarily an easy thing in our society, but is the main thing that might make a difference on the individual level.

[Florida Man for Crime]

This does absolutely nothing to fight coronavirus but okay.

The bankers have all become microbiologists/virologists/etc and are hard at work in the labs developing treatments a vaccine.

[Comrade Funk]

I keep hearing about the panicking.  I've still not seen anyone wearing a mask, the stores are still full of paper towels and batteries.  I know people have stupidly bought up all the face masks so they must be somewhere, but I ain't seen 'em.  There certainly are people online being idiots with the fearmongering, but I have not seen any of it in person.

Is Omaha, as usual, just better than every place else?  Or are people not really panicking?

Only bit of prep I've seen here in University City is a few hospitals just going over their outbreak/biohazard protocols. 

University City as in Penn/Drexel? Welcome if so.