News Worldwide impact of the novel coronavirus (covid-19)

[Friday]

And people who would ordinarily survive the treatable illnesses and injuries we acquire in the ordinary course of living, also have worst-case outcomes, because medical treatment is no longer available.

Cha. I almost bit it last weekend, from a dinky little UTI. :banghead:

Spoiler: Does anyone reeeeeeally wanna hear about Friday taking a piss? Didn’t think so ;) I love this spoiler feature

((Turned into a bladder infection within hours, with 103-105F 39.5-41C Fever (even on fever reducers), and started hitting my kidneys -come to find, I thought I got to it in time, but no visible blood in the urine isn’t no blood. Testing 3 days later still found blood in my urine & a few other things spelling unhappy kidney infection.))

It’s the kind of thing that I’d usually have just gone to Urgent Care for... but urgent care won’t see anyone with a fever and cough (I also have pneumonia, no big deal, I get it every year), they redirect or transfer directly to the ER; and the ER sticks everyone with a fever and cough in their Covid wing, straight from your car. Which all but guarantees catching Cov19, if you didn’t have it, before. With asthma & pneumonia? I’d most likely just be one more bad outcome. So my pulmonologist has ordered me to not even THINK about going to the ER, unless I’ve cut my leg off, or something.

Death by dinky little UTI :rolleyes: How ignoble.

If I hadn’t had a handful of mixed antibiotics left over from other things? (I usually have whole bottles in my med kit, for various infections, but it’s been a strange couple years. My med kit is as bare as old Mrs. Hubbard’s cupboards.) I’d have had to go to the ER. As it was, the antibiotics had me peeing within the hour, and fever broken in a couple hours.

My doctor was a little pissed off at me, for not calling the on-call physician... to zap the RIGHT treatment (instead of pleeeeeease work! Crossed fingers, it’s the closest thing I’ve got) to an all night pharmacy for me.

What he didn’t know? The deluge of calls they’ve had, have fried their phone systems. It was glitched / stuck on the automated message WITHOUT the on call transfer option at the end of it. They’re working on fixing that, now, but the system keeps reverting, because it’s overloaded & reboots itself. The best workaround they’ve found is to have the on call physician call in once an hour, to see if it’s working, and when it isn’t, to call IT. Fortunately my doc is with one of the five biggest hospitals in the area, so their IT dept. is staffed 24/7. I can’t imagine how hard it is for practices who aren’t aligned with Big Money to stay on top of their tech problems.

 

[Chris-duck]

We were discussing NHS staff being tested the other day. They'd only be testing the symptomatic staff (who are stuck at home) not all staff. N it's really just with the hope to end people's quarantine. They're too worried they'll test us all and we'll all have it so we'll all have to take our week off at the same time :laugh:

 

[ms spock]

You are correct @Chris-duck!

I am so glad you got there and I hope that you are okay and safe.

I posted it because someone wrote maybe we let this run it's course. Possibly not wise seeing we are looking at 25 million to 700 million dead from Covid19. I am a bit tired so not functioning as well as I could.

 

[siniang]

Just thinking out loud... but.... if a significantly larger proportion of the population is actually asymptomatic, as preliminary tests in some countries indicate, the models predicting infection curves and number of deaths are incorrect because they go by the current assumption of fatality rates. It would also mean we might be much farther along in the curve than assumed?

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I think local suburban testing tents should be setup and people allowed to come for testing.

I was just writing that we have one of these at the Orange County Convention center in Orlando. Many pop up tents that you drive through and get tested and then there are some huge closed tents. Treatment areas I assume. They've been there about a week or so. But the local news was reporting that they can now test anyone with a fever when before people had to have more symptoms. I think that is due to having more tests?

It would be nice, since they already have self testing kits, to make one for everyone in each country and mail them to everyone and require that each person test and mail it back in. Maybe make it that if you don't, they come to you and test you. That would find all asymptomatic people and those with mild symptoms and would allow the countries to quarnitine those needed and allow those that don't have it to carry on with life.

Am I thinking wrong here? I mean, the President keeps saying how many tests are being created so why not create enough for everyone? Test everyone.

ETA: Oops, cross post

 

[anthony]

It would also mean we might be much farther along in the curve than assumed?

Yep. A super bunch of stuff that nobody knows because we aren't even testing for it. Instead, IMO, countries are working primarily on the back foot and only just now are a few European countries taking the initiative to get on the front foot and start mandatory testing of every citizen to see the true numbers of infected / have had it.

 

[siniang]

It would be nice, since they already have self testing kits, to make one for everyone in each country and mail them to everyone and require that each person test and mail it back in. Maybe make it that if you don't, they come to you and test you. That would find all asymptomatic people and those with mild symptoms and would allow the countries to quarnitine those needed and allow those that don't have it to carry on with life.

Am I thinking wrong here? I mean, the President keeps saying how many tests are being created so why not create enough for everyone? Test everyone.

The "problem" with this approach, while HIGHLY desirable, is that you won't identify people who are still in the incubation period or who have recovered. For the former group you'd need to test multiple times over the course of 2 weeks. For the latter you won't find them. And we're already severely short on available tests.

From my understanding, the current RNA test is not as straight forward (from my lab days, RNA extraction SUUUUUUUCKS) and requires quite some delicate handling. From what I read so far, the antibody tests they're working on would be much easier - and potentially cheaper?

 

[Chris-duck]

Plus people don't test themselves properly. We tested it out. People don't want to cause themselves discomfort, cos they're normal n all that. So instead of the back of their nose n back of their throat being swabbed, we end up with entrance to nostrils and tips of tongues being swabbed. So my trust in home testing kits is low.. at best.

 

[siniang]

Plus people don't test themselves properly. We tested it out. People don't want to cause themselves discomfort, cos they're normal n all that. So instead of the back of their nose n back of their throat being swabbed, we end up with entrance to nostrils and tips of tongues being swabbed. So my trust in home testing kits is low.. at best.

Yep, and that!

 

[anthony]

Plus people don't test themselves properly. We tested it out. People don't want to cause themselves discomfort

Back to humans are selfish and crap, in essence. Dumb as shit and smart as f*ck, all wrapped in the one package.

Seems like all countries need to be throwing a crap load of cash at their economies to be capable of recovering from this: Dead Link Removed

 

[anthony]

It's a never ending issue with this virus. Everyone is locked down, yet you can go outside to exercise. Due to the overwhelming people now home, working from home, those who run are choosing to do so multiple times in the day for their outside time. As such, they are skirting our laws and running by people too close. Medical experts have determined that runners are a huge risk for spreading the virus as their sweat and laboured breathing when running past people is basically capable of infecting others, defeating the current distance rules.

f*ckkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

Queensland is already on the brink of locking down further. WA and NSW are locked down tight with heavy movement restrictions. We in Victoria here have minor limits to keep our sanity, yet runners are going to f*ck that up for us, along with the remaining few who keep flaunting laws thinking this doesn't affect them.

f*ckkkkkkkkkkkkkk

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Per US stimulus checks:

I am not typically required to file a tax return. Can I still receive my payment?

Yes. People who typically do not file a tax return will need to file a simple tax return to receive an economic impact payment. Low-income taxpayers, senior citizens, Social Security recipients, some veterans and individuals with disabilities who are otherwise not required to file a tax return will not owe tax.

Economic impact payments: What you need to know | Internal Revenue Service

Make sure you fill out that form if you didn't file a tax return to ensure you get your stimulus money.