COVID-19 Megathread 3: Third time's a charm

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Or Pangolin, maybe.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

The 1,000-Bed Comfort Was Supposed to Aid New York. It Has 3 Patients.
“It’s a joke,” said a top hospital executive, whose facilities are packed with coronavirus patients.

Such were the expectations for the Navy hospital ship U.S.N.S. Comfort that when it chugged into New York Harbor this week, throngs of people, momentarily forgetting the strictures of social distancing, crammed together along Manhattan’s west side to catch a glimpse.

On Thursday, though, the huge white vessel, which officials had promised would bring succor to a city on the brink, sat mostly empty, infuriating local hospital executives. The ship’s 1,000 beds are largely unused, its 1,200-member crew mostly idle.

Only three patients had been transferred to the ship, officials said, even as New York hospitals struggled to find space for the thousands infected with the coronavirus. Another Navy hospital ship, the U.S.N.S. Mercy, docked in Los Angeles, has had a total of 15 patients, officials said.

“If I’m blunt about it, it’s a joke,” said Michael Dowling, the head of Northwell Health, New York’s largest hospital system. “Everyone can say, ‘Thank you for putting up these wonderful places and opening up these cavernous halls.’ But we’re in a crisis here, we’re in a battlefield.”

The Comfort was sent to New York to relieve pressure on city hospitals by treating people with ailments other than Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.

Maybe they should, you know... use the hospital ship as a hospital to treat patients. Just an idea.

[brucejoel99]

The 1,000-Bed Comfort Was Supposed to Aid New York. It Has 3 Patients.
“It’s a joke,” said a top hospital executive, whose facilities are packed with coronavirus patients.

Such were the expectations for the Navy hospital ship U.S.N.S. Comfort that when it chugged into New York Harbor this week, throngs of people, momentarily forgetting the strictures of social distancing, crammed together along Manhattan’s west side to catch a glimpse.

On Thursday, though, the huge white vessel, which officials had promised would bring succor to a city on the brink, sat mostly empty, infuriating local hospital executives. The ship’s 1,000 beds are largely unused, its 1,200-member crew mostly idle.

Only three patients had been transferred to the ship, officials said, even as New York hospitals struggled to find space for the thousands infected with the coronavirus. Another Navy hospital ship, the U.S.N.S. Mercy, docked in Los Angeles, has had a total of 15 patients, officials said.

“If I’m blunt about it, it’s a joke,” said Michael Dowling, the head of Northwell Health, New York’s largest hospital system. “Everyone can say, ‘Thank you for putting up these wonderful places and opening up these cavernous halls.’ But we’re in a crisis here, we’re in a battlefield.”

The Comfort was sent to New York to relieve pressure on city hospitals by treating people with ailments other than Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/04/02/nyregion/02nyvirus-comfort/merlin_171121110_17454629-1859-42ea-9e8e-095b0dab240e-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp


Maybe they should, you know... use the hospital ship as a hospital to treat patients. Just an idea.

This article is unfair & horribly timed, & it's sad seeing the NY Times put this out; it kinda shows their lack of actually looking into this. For one, the boat was just approved late yesterday to accept patients. What's more, it has only been taking non-COVID patients who first need to be identified & tested (which takes a while). Moreover, once the patients are identified, they need to actually be moved there, which takes time & coordination & scarcely allocated resources to bring said patient, which would likely require a team of medical staff. And they literally just started! Things like this, even in emergencies, just don't happen instantly. Do people really expect this boat to be crammed full of 1,000 patients overnight? Give the men & women of that ship a break & let them do their extremely stressful & difficult jobs.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The 1,000-Bed Comfort Was Supposed to Aid New York. It Has 3 Patients.
“It’s a joke,” said a top hospital executive, whose facilities are packed with coronavirus patients.

Such were the expectations for the Navy hospital ship U.S.N.S. Comfort that when it chugged into New York Harbor this week, throngs of people, momentarily forgetting the strictures of social distancing, crammed together along Manhattan’s west side to catch a glimpse.

On Thursday, though, the huge white vessel, which officials had promised would bring succor to a city on the brink, sat mostly empty, infuriating local hospital executives. The ship’s 1,000 beds are largely unused, its 1,200-member crew mostly idle.

Only three patients had been transferred to the ship, officials said, even as New York hospitals struggled to find space for the thousands infected with the coronavirus. Another Navy hospital ship, the U.S.N.S. Mercy, docked in Los Angeles, has had a total of 15 patients, officials said.

“If I’m blunt about it, it’s a joke,” said Michael Dowling, the head of Northwell Health, New York’s largest hospital system. “Everyone can say, ‘Thank you for putting up these wonderful places and opening up these cavernous halls.’ But we’re in a crisis here, we’re in a battlefield.”

The Comfort was sent to New York to relieve pressure on city hospitals by treating people with ailments other than Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/04/02/nyregion/02nyvirus-comfort/merlin_171121110_17454629-1859-42ea-9e8e-095b0dab240e-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp


Maybe they should, you know... use the hospital ship as a hospital to treat patients. Just an idea.

This article is unfair & horribly timed, & it's sad seeing the NY Times put this out; it kinda shows their lack of actually looking into this. For one, the boat was just approved late yesterday to accept patients. What's more, it has only been taking non-COVID patients who first need to be identified & tested (which takes a while). Moreover, once the patients are identified, they need to actually be moved there, which takes time & coordination & scarcely allocated resources to bring said patient, which would likely require a team of medical staff. And they literally just started! Things like this, even in emergencies, just don't happen instantly. Do people really expect this boat to be crammed full of 1,000 patients overnight? Give the men & women of that ship a break & let them do their extremely stressful & difficult jobs.

You've got to wonder what the people who put that article out would feel if they, for just one day, had to do the jobs of the people on board that ship.
I bet they would be adopting a different tune.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

This article is unfair & horribly timed, & it's sad seeing the NY Times put this out; it kinda shows their lack of actually looking into this. For one, the boat was just approved late yesterday to accept patients. What's more, it has only been taking non-COVID patients who first need to be identified & tested (which takes a while). Moreover, once the patients are identified, they need to actually be moved there, which takes time & coordination & scarcely allocated resources to bring said patient, which would likely require a team of medical staff. And they literally just started! Things like this, even in emergencies, just don't happen instantly. Do people really expect this boat to be crammed full of 1,000 patients overnight? Give the men & women of that ship a break & let them do their extremely stressful & difficult jobs.

If the Comfort was only approved late on April 1 to accept patients, I would say that raises more questions. It apparently arrived in NYC on March 30. Why did it take 2 full days to get approved to start seeing patients? Did it really need to take that long? If approval was a holdup, is there some reason it could not be pre-approved so that it would be ready when it got there? If stuff needed to be set up on the ship, could it not have been set up while the ship was sailing on the way there?

Suppose that there were a shooting war on, and the ship had been needed to treat military casualties. Would it have needed 2 days after arriving in the war zone to start treating soldiers? If so, that seems like a problem.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

You've got to wonder what the people who put that article out would feel if they, for just one day, had to do the jobs of the people on board that ship.
I bet they would be adopting a different tune.

I would think the criticism is more directed to whoever is responsible for administrative holdups than to the actual people on the ship. On that note, one might wonder why the Trump administration did not have the ship ready to deploy sooner. After all, there have been literally months to prepare, and it is not exactly a surprise that this might be needed. Is there a reason it could not have been ready and arrived a week (or more) before?

[The Dowager Mod]

So the idiot president got rid of his pandemic response team and replaced them with his idiot son in law?
#MAGA!

[brucejoel99]

This article is unfair & horribly timed, & it's sad seeing the NY Times put this out; it kinda shows their lack of actually looking into this. For one, the boat was just approved late yesterday to accept patients. What's more, it has only been taking non-COVID patients who first need to be identified & tested (which takes a while). Moreover, once the patients are identified, they need to actually be moved there, which takes time & coordination & scarcely allocated resources to bring said patient, which would likely require a team of medical staff. And they literally just started! Things like this, even in emergencies, just don't happen instantly. Do people really expect this boat to be crammed full of 1,000 patients overnight? Give the men & women of that ship a break & let them do their extremely stressful & difficult jobs.

If the Comfort was only approved late on April 1 to accept patients, I would say that raises more questions. It apparently arrived in NYC on March 30. Why did it take 2 full days to get approved to start seeing patients? Did it really need to take that long? If approval was a holdup, is there some reason it could not be pre-approved so that it would be ready when it got there? If stuff needed to be set up on the ship, could it not have been set up while the ship was sailing on the way there?

Suppose that there were a shooting war on, and the ship had been needed to treat military casualties. Would it have needed 2 days after arriving in the war zone to start treating soldiers? If so, that seems like a problem.

I mean, it's literally ahead of schedule as it is. IIRC I'd originally heard that it wasn't gonna be able to take patients 'til Friday (so, tomorrow).

Remember, though, the point of the ship is overflow, & NYC isn't even close to its peak yet. And again, every patient they take has to be evaluated for coronavirus & test negative at another hospital, so keep in mind that people are still waiting days (24-72 hours) for results. And the ship is a military ship; as I described above, it's not exactly easy to get seen by a Navy doctor.

The ship is basically just there on standby. Expecting it to already have a lot of patients is just totally impractical.

[PSOL]

After 10 Workers Get COVID-19, 1,000 Meatpackers Walk Off the Job in Colorado

On Monday, JBS announced that ten workers at its Greeley, Colorado plant tested positive for COVID-19.

In response to this, on Tuesday, nearly 1,000 meatpacking workers, members of UFCW Local 7, walked off the job at JBS’s mega 4,000 person processing plant in Greely, Colorado, where workers speak more than 27 languages.

Despite language barriers, the workers at the plant say that they have been denied sick pay to self-quarantine when working at the plant.

Connecticut Workers Put Forward Plan of Action

Gotta love the rising bravery of the working class during this time of crisis. I think it’s clear that we the working class are more powerful then we think in getting what’s right.

Meanwhile...

The US navy has dismissed the commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, who had raised the alarm about an outbreak of coronavirus on his ship.

Thomas Modly, the acting secretary of the navy, said that Captain Brett Crozier had been relieved of his command of the nuclear-powered carrier because he had copied in too many people on an internal memo on Monday, in which he urgently appealed for members of his crew who had fallen ill to be allowed to disembark for medical care in Guam.

By Thursday, 114 of the more than 4,000 crew had tested positive for Covid-19. Modly did not accuse Crozier of leaking the memo, but suggested he made it more likely that the letter would be leaked. He also accused Crozier of raising unnecessary alarm among the sailors’ families, and exaggerating the threat to their lives.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1245852517474295809

This is outrageous for a number of reasons but this is probably the type of stuff WH advisors have been saying the entire time and Kushner is the only one there dumb enough to say it in front of cameras.

[Meclazine for Israel]

This is outrageous for a number of reasons but this is probably the type of stuff WH advisors have been saying the entire time and Kushner is the only one there dumb enough to say it in front of cameras.

What Jared Kushner said was there were examples where the individual States had no idea about their requirements or inventory levels in relation to other states, and that he had asked them to have their data on:

1. Inventory of Respirators/Ventilators.
2. Current patient use.
3. Anticipated patient use.

before requesting these items.

He went on to say that some states who had very few COVID-19 patients were asking for 100 ventilators just to be on the safe side.

Whereas other states had a direct need right now with 1,000 patients, and the Federal Government would send the ventilators where required based on a ranking process.

That was something each state could not determine on their own.

And after that conversation, your comment came out.

He is an awkward speaker, and that came out wrong, but if you watched the entire briefing, you would have understood the context.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

This is outrageous for a number of reasons but this is probably the type of stuff WH advisors have been saying the entire time and Kushner is the only one there dumb enough to say it in front of cameras.

What Jared said was there were examples where the States had no idea about their inventory levels, and that he had asked them to have their data on:

1. Inventory of Respirators/Ventilators.
2. Current patient use.
3. Anticipated patient use.

before requesting these items.

He went on to say that some states who had very few COVID-19 patients were asking for 100 ventilators just to be safe.

Whereas other states had a direct need right now, and the Federal Government would send the ventilators were required based on ranking of requirement. That was something each state could not determine.

And after that conversation, your comment came out.

Ventilator shortages are imminent in a number of states, and the number of cases is going to increase (possibly dramatically) in all fifty states. Of course states are going to be requesting extras in a case of extreme shortages.

Even still the statement in the tweet shows Kushner's sentiment as well as prior statements by Trump make it clear they think it's not their responsibility to grant states the rights to use federal hospital resources, which is... crazy. The federal stockpile exists for a reason. It's much easier (and wieldy in a smaller-scale crisis) for the federal government to have a stockpile which distributes supplies to the states than it is for each individual state to have its own stockpile; this is why the federal stockpile exists in the first place.

[AGA]

1 million worldwide cases have been reached.

[brucejoel99]

1 million worldwide cases have been reached.

Doubling in less than a week.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

1 million worldwide cases have been reached.

Realistically, there are probably 100 million cases out there, but with a much lower death rate- which is a good thing.  Another piece of good news is that most European countries are now clearly past peak and hopefully aren't too far from some semblance of society returning.  The US is probably still 1-2 weeks away from peak, but the percentage increase in new infections continued to slow today, despite an increase in testing.  On top of all of that, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh said that they believe they have a vaccine and are asking the FDA to fast-track the approvals to have it ready "soon" (probably still a couple months, but way better than the year timeline that seems to be everyone's mantra).  There has been so much promising work into treatments, and that, combined with better contact tracing, should blunt any second wave without the need for major disruption to everyday life.

This thread needs way more positivity and way less doom and gloom (I can barely read it anymore with all of the hysteria and pessimism).  We'll get past this- and we will sooner than y'all think.  By Memorial Day weekend, we will be grilling out with our friends and swimming in our pools.

[T'Chenka]

I'm so f__king disgusted. Local gas station worker that I briefly chat with sometimes told me that today was one of the steadiest days they've had in months (always one customer or more, rarely zero at all). These apathetic dumbasses are going to get my parents killed.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I'm so f__king disgusted. Local gas station worker that I briefly chat with sometimes told me that today was one of the steadiest days they've had in months (always one customer or more, rarely zero at all). These apathetic dumbasses are going to get my parents killed.

People are taking advantage of the fact that gas prices are at a low point to fill up their tanks now.  Hard to blame them, given the challenging economic times ahead.

[T'Chenka]

I'm so f__king disgusted. Local gas station worker that I briefly chat with sometimes told me that today was one of the steadiest days they've had in months (always one customer or more, rarely zero at all). These apathetic dumbasses are going to get my parents killed.

People are taking advantage of the fact that gas prices are at a low point to fill up their tanks now.  Hard to blame them, given the challenging economic times ahead.

I could be wrong, but I don't think it was  because of the gas price. They have at that station gas, snacks, cigarettes, public washrooms, an ATM for cash withdrawl and a miniaturized Tim Hortons coffee and donut shop inside with it's own seperate staff. Also, they sell lottery tickets, and the twice-weekly Canadian version of Powerball has been maxed out at $70 million for two weeks. I suspect it was more "people are out and about" than "the gas is only 73 centers per liter".

[brucejoel99]

1 million worldwide cases have been reached.

We'll get past this- and we will sooner than y'all think.  By Memorial Day weekend, we will be grilling out with our friends and swimming in our pools.

'People talking about that which they don't know' example #225,799.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

1 million worldwide cases have been reached.

We'll get past this- and we will sooner than y'all think.  By Memorial Day weekend, we will be grilling out with our friends and swimming in our pools.

'People talking about that which they don't know' example #225,799.

I think a solid slice of America will think this way. Our chief competitor announced plans to reopen May 1, which sounds even more insane than ER's expectation. I don't think people will obey anything past the first week of June with good weather though thankfully New Yorkers consider themselves the center of the universe so it could depend on them. Memorial Day activities will decline and be more sparsely attended, but I think plenty will go on away from the coasts.

The mood seemed to shift significantly today if people can't believe we are at the 20 percent point rather than the 80 percent point and that they feel they've sacrificed all they can. Two more months is definitely pushing it.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Big news and a major thing to keep an eye on ---

We have our first serological test results from San Miguel County, Colorado. That is the county that is in the process of testing everyone in the county (about 7000 people) with an antibody test. This is important because it is the only real way to get a better idea how many asymptomatic or mild cases.

In the case of 2009 H1N1, serological tests revealed that the virus way far more widespread, and consequently less deadly, than initially feared. So if the serological tests from CO showed a large # of people with antibodies, that would probably be good news, because it would show that the virus is significantly less deadly than feared. Though on the other hand, a bad aspect of that is it would seemingly mean the virus is more difficult to contain/suppress than is the current general consensus.


Now, to the results...

https://www.sanmiguelcountyco.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=511

(April 1, 2020) -- San Miguel County, CO --  San Miguel County Public Health officials announced today that less than 1 percent of the COVID-19 blood tests done last Thursday and Friday were positive for antibodies and 97% of these groups tested negative.

Positive results on the first test indicate the presence of COVID-19 antibodies in the blood. This means that the individual has been exposed to COVID-19 and may or may not have ever experienced symptoms.

Another 2%, although technically considered negative, were “indeterminate,” showing a high-signal flash meaning they have an increased chance of converting to positive.

County Public Health received the results this morning. All of the individuals who tested positive or indeterminate were called by Public Health Officials today, advised of the results, and given direction.

Positive and borderline results are told to self-isolate and household members to quarantine for 14 days from the date of testing.

Dr. Sharon Grundy, County Medical Officer said, “These results should alert people that this virus is here. We need to take our public health directives seriously and shelter in place and practice physical distancing.”

Combining the 645 first responders, healthcare providers, and their families who were tested earlier with these new results, less than 2% are positive or indeterminate and 98% are negative.

Dr. Diana Koelliker, Deputy Medical Officer said, “The course of this pandemic is very much in the hands of our community. Your behavior will steer its trajectory.”

Since these are still only partial results, it is difficult to interpret what exactly this means with certainty. However, I would say it generally probably doesn't support the idea that there are huge numbers of asymptomatic cases more than is currently thought (i.e. doesn't support the idea that it is only as deadly/less deadly than the flu), though it is also not clear enough to rule out yet the possibility that there are somewhat/significantly more asymptomatic/mild cases than currently thought. It also seems consistent with current general consensus estimates.

Another thing that makes it hard to interpret is that the county only has a small # of confirmed cases in the first place, so one would only expect to find relatively small #s of additional cases through these tests. That also means that if there is even a small false positive rate, that might skew the results.

In any case though, this is something to keep an eye on to see how it develops. It will hopefully be possible to say more with greater confidence over the coming days as they conduct more tests and release more data.

There is some discussion of this on reddit, including some comments from an epidemiologist:

https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/ftp2lm/san_miguel_county_co_first_results_of_covid19/fm9awrb/

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1245888121000116230

[Frodo]

Indian Health Service, rural areas to have priority access to rapid coronavirus tests
“These are new tests, and we have prioritized the groups that we think have the least access to testing now,” Deborah Birx said.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Big news and a major thing to keep an eye on ---

Now, to the results...

https://www.sanmiguelcountyco.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=511

When you get some large scale numbers, can you send me a message.

We are doing the same thing in Australia right now. With the Spanish Flu, 500 Million people fell ill out of a population of 1.8 Billion.

So what was going on with the 1.3 Billion? Did they miss the infection altogether?

They were most probably 'lightly' exposed and quickly developed antibodies and never had symptoms. So this was 66% of the population who were mildly infected or not infected and developed anti-bodies.

In Australia, there is some talk from economists about getting an antibody certificate, which means you are free to go back to work once you have antibodies as you can no longer carry the virus. I am not sure whether that works in reality, but antibody testing offers a fast way out of this pandemic for many.

It would be interesting to see what the proportion of antibody development is in a population like New York as the pandemic hits.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I wish we had data on the patterns of specific behavior of newly infected people. I.e. what % were quarantining and got infected from someone they were quarantining with, and what % were infected because they weren’t following social distancing guidelines?