Ugh ... Actually send a worried friend (who has way too many cats and works in physical therapy so plenty close contact) a link on a small study on this that concluded it was unlikely in normal interaction ... But that now seems less certain, eh ...


Cats Can Get Coronavirus, Study Suggests--But Pet Owners Need Not Panic - Scientific American

Bit of a worrisome trend is that the UK still seems to test the bare minimun. 48% of analysed tests (5900 of 12000 roughly) came back positive after about 40% the last 5 days, indicates they are likely only able to test pretty much exclusively those with noticeable symptoms at best.
Even Italy was never much above 30% for a single day (and has been steadily dropping, onl, 13% today out of 35k tests)

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/05/tige...3cdIyqFxos__2Y

It can be passed between humans and animals back and forth now :(

Apparently has been known to happen before and not even super unique to this virus, plenty of germs you can get from a pet and vice versa. Unless it ends up happening a ton now i wouldnt loose sleep over it.

Questions and Answers on the COVID-19: OIE - World Organisation for Animal Health

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...g/animals.html

That is the dumbest shit I have seen in my life and I have seen a lot of dumb shit.

Am I the only who thought that there aren't enough tests to go around for humans, yet we have one for a tiger?

Tigers and millionaires. Gotta keep your priorities straight.

I, for one, find that socially distancing myself from tigers is a good plan so I will do my part in this one.

SI

We also have "citizen reporters" that are selectively going to hospitals, sitting outside to record, and questioning people to frame this whole thing as an overblown hoax.


EDIT: 5G cell towers are being torched because facebook claims they're spreading coronavirus. This is shining a giant spotlight on the stupid of humanity.

Pat Robertson has discovered the cause of coronavirus... cunnilingus.

Honest to God.

I know I am Captain Obvious, I am still stunned by the number of people that have these underlying issues outside of what the virus could do to people with the issues. Is it possible that people with underlying issues outnumber the people without underlying issues?

Well shit, I am immune then :D

Roughly 1/3 of adults have hypertension.
Roughly 10% are diabetic.
Roughly 40% are obese.
Roughly 8% have asthma.
Roughly 15% smoke and 4% vape.

I'm sure there's plenty of overlap, but 50% or more wouldn't surprise me at all.

Ouch. That's at least one aspect that we're behind Italy on at the moment … it was higher but we're at about 18.5% lately. We've definitely ramped up testing but at the same time clearly don't have a good handle on it yet.

Inside the epic White House blowup over hydroxychloroquine - Axios

Beginning to wonder who might have a financial stake in this drug.

(Ok, not beginning, pretty much wondered that out of the gate.)

Which Senators bought stock in the company that produces it?

I'm not sure there is a financial stake, more wanting to be the hero is my guess with the miracle drug.

Austria is going to start to gradually scale back restrictions based on current data (they also did a small but not insignificant representative test), just to show that there is indeed light at the end of that tunnel. Going to take longer for most countries that are bigger or harder hit/less equipped early, but still good to see.

Meanwhile that advertised big antibody-test campaign seems off the table as the delivered tests are not working nearly well enough (same has happened in Spain). There are no shortcuts here ..

Bottom line to me is if I'm sick, ventilators ain't working or not around, sure give it to me (or any other unproven drug that has "good" anecdotal evidence) in best guess doses/treatment. Don't have much to lose. If anything a placebo effect.

What people often don't realise is that (if i don't misunderstand the German experts!) hydroxychloroquine in theory would be most helpful in a stage where people get worse but you can't yet judge if they will need intensive care eventually or not.
Because the virus does actually stop replicating at some point anyway and that is what the medication would help along in theory.

And so this "what do you have to loose" narrative seems insane because at the point where this might (!) help you aren't at a stage yet where that thinking is even remotely apropriate considering the range of side effects including massive cardiac issues.

There is a reason the current studies (including the one from France that Trump loves) are testing it entirely outside the ICU and with relatively young and otherwise healthy patients and not 70+ year olds with a bunch of other issues.

Also, patients bad enough to be on a ventilator are not exactly going to be profitting from a Placebo effect considering they are routinely put in a medically induced coma before being hooked up to the machine.

Let me clarify and say I'm dying (vs just sick) and the ventilators are not around or not working.

Fine then give me "any other unproven drug that has "good" anecdotal evidence" for the end stages. I'm willing to be a guinea pig if I'm going downhill.

Side effects, cardiac arrest etc. So what is there to lose?

Why not give you horse semen, you got nothing to lose!!

Most drugs have side effects. If the benefit is negligible and the potential side effects could make you worse, then you have lots to lose. If you are to the point where you really have nothing to lose, chloroquine ain't doing squat.

I'm not opposed to it if there good anecdotal evidence it'll work? Maybe you missed that qualifier?

Quote:

... give me "any other unproven drug that has "good" anecdotal evidence" for the end stages. I'm willing to be a guinea pig if I'm going downhil

Some people will believe Donald Trump/right leaning news no matter what he/they say regardless of it there is are any facts or information to back it up.

And some people will argue against any attempts to try something if Donald Trump's name is attached to it. Hydroxychloroquine seems to have a shown at least a little more promise among the scientific/medical community than horse semen.

Gov. Cuomo is clearing med students to help with the response. I think it's a great idea but obviously during normal times there is a reason they don't do it. Had Trump proposed this I'm sure we would hear endless reasons why it's a bad idea. Why not promote my housekeeper Trump? Blood is on your hands!!!!

I am no longer skeptical.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/06/polit...dly/index.html

To quote your own words, SECNAV


So which is it SECNAV, are you stupid, naive or did you leak this on purpose?

There is no good anecdotal evidence it helps once you are to the last stages where you need a ventilator.
And prior to that it is tough to predict if you get there or not (reason No. 123 why this virus/illness is so problematic) so just blindly adding medication willy nilly is ethically suspect and potentially more harmful than helpful.

Again, it is thought to be potentially helpful in a stage where a patient still has an above average chance to get better regardless.

In the french study they found viral load to reduce, yes. BUT: of 22 patients 3 people got bad and transfered to ICU, 2 stopped treatment due to side effects and 1 died before he could get to ICU. NONE of the 16 people in the Control group ended up even needing ICU care throughout the study.

Yeah, anecdotal is how i'd describe that. Evidence ? Ehh ... Even if you look past side effects or sample size, just reducing viral load is proof of exactly that. You still have not proven you reduced it enough (if you miss by a yard or 10 on a fieldgoal, you still miss) or in enough cases it makes up for the side effects.

That speech was entirely for the benefit of Trump. The attacks on the media were ridiculous.

Just a reminder ... use the other thread for your Trump bashing.

First person semi-close to us that sounds like a strong possibility, and frightening. A kid in my oldest daughter's grade (5th). He has been in the same homeroom as her several times. The mom (who wrote the post) has become a friend over the years, and this year she is our youngest daughter's reading teacher.





He's 11.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is closed, first time it's been closed since 1349:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1246785553900724224

That is heartbreakingly terrible. I still see groups of 6-8 kids playing in my neighborhood.

Because acting on the best advice of medical professionals and acting against the best advice of medical professionals are the exact same things.

Copy/paste. Even now!

Except, it's also an antiviral that is in short supply for people with lupus and malaria, too. So we ok with killing lupus and malaria patients on a lark?


SI

Sacrifices have to be made.

Sure, but those sacrifices should not be made until we actually have more definitive evidence that it helps with coronavirus. Until then, we're treating something fairly speculatively instead of treating something that we know it works on. Until we get more specifics from clinical trials, we should only be using it to the extent that there's a surplus for coronavirus treatments.

I don't know for certain that the boy has an underlying condition, but I *think* I recall that he has asthma. (We haven't told our daughter yet, but she would probably know. I think we're going to wait for a diagnosis to tell her.) His mom has been one of the most outspoken folks on my FB feed pushing folks to stay home, take it seriously, social distance, etc. I just checked her wall, and this started well before her son's fever. Point being, that could well have pushed her to advocacy.





I walk my dog a couple of miles or so at least once a day, and from what I've seen, kids under 15ish in this neighborhood have not been intermingling. I have seen groups of what appear to be high school kids skateboarding, walking, and generally hanging out.

Wrong thread.

I just drove to drop off something at my in-laws. Shocking number of people having gatherings on their driveways. Kids playing. Etc. Just because it’s a beautiful day out doesn’t mean it’s ok to congregate.

Friday was the first day up here that felt like Spring. I didn't see any issues with any of the kids I saw outside, but all weekend there were way more cars parked on the street than usual, my next door neighbor and a house across the street both had people over and were outside grilling, chatting and hanging out close to either other as though nothing were happening.

Just had my daughter's 11th birthday via Zoom and a nice drive-by parade. Kind of sad, but she is having a good day so that is good. I saw Ben had one as well (drive-by Bday) so it must be the new thing for the kids.

Kids around my neighborhood seem to be sticking to their own families with the exception of next door neighbor whose twin sister is over everyday with her 2 kids.

And the husbands Dad and Mon are both heavy smokers. Dumb.

My grandmother was confirmed to be COVID-19 positive this morning. She's 83. She had a 3 month long battle with some kind of cold/flu over the winter. Something that she had and it took her a long time to get over. Now this.

She lives with my cousin. About 9 days ago my cousin started to get sick, cough, respiratory issues but no fever. The doctor told him since there was no fever, COVID was unlikely. He sent my grandmother to stay with my aunt anyway. Her second day there she starts to develop a cough.

After 4 days, she felt bad enough to go to the doc. They thought she had a cold. 2 days later she felt 10 times worse and went back to the doctor. They tested her and she got the results today. Positive.

We think she got it from my cousin who thinks he got it from his boss who traveled to NY about 2-3 weeks ago. My cousin started feeling sick the day after a meeting with his boss. 4-5 other people who work for this boss and the boss are various stages of sick as well.

I was there, in my cousins house 3 weeks ago today. This was before the meeting with the boss. I haven't been sick at all. I'm pretty sure I don't have it.

This is not good though. My grandmother is high risk I would say given her age and how long it took her to recover from being sick over the winter.

My cousin says she hasn't gotten worse over the last few days, so well see.

Praying for her, Spleen

It was a great surprise to both of them. Not sure my wife's 92-year-old aunt should have come out, but at least she wore a mask! *shurg*

Prayers to you and yours, Spleen.

Prayers, spleen!

Thanks, man.

Ben, that was pretty cool!

Thanks, guys.

Not sure what to really think. My mom is freaking out. My sister is freaking out.

Thinking about you and your grandmother Spleen. I might go ahead and get tested given the situation.

Marvel Comics gets into the "things to help you get through all your free time" with 12 free comics available through their app and may be more next month:


Marvel Is Giving Away 12 Free Comics To Help You Pass The Time At Home - GameSpot

So sorry Spleen. Hope everything works out for the best.

Boris Johnson is in the ICU in England

Smallish piece of good news: a couple of different models now have North Carolina not exceeding the capacity of both hospital beds and ICU beds at the projected peak. Our social distancing measures are working.

This has been the most disruptive event of my life, so it is good to see that it is almost certainly saving lives.

For those that love comics and don't have it. The marvel unlimited yearly subscription and a large tablet is well worth it. That and the DC equivalent have kept me sane during these times.

Sending good thoughts your grandmother's way, Spleen. What a scary time. Hang in there.

I was looking at my TV bill and realized I am paying $25/month for sports related services. Cancelling those now

The model on healthdata.org has been relatively positive overall & looked even better with an update yesterday (I think the projected deaths in the US went from ~100-180k to ~80-140K from the previous model 4 days ago).

COVID-19

I've been following that and it's nice to see they moved Washington's peak up to the 2nd, which means we're 4 days past the peak here.

I think Inslee has handled this as well as anyone could have. The only mistake he made was made irrelevant one day later. He initially only canceled school for King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties rather than the entire state. That was naive thinking, but he reversed course the next day.

He has a press conference scheduled for 2:30 with the State Superintendent of Schools and I'm guessing schools are going to be closed for the rest of the year.

It was also announced this morning that UW is starting trials on hydroxychloroquine.

EDIT: and, as expected, all in school learning for the year has been canceled.

If anybody wants to follow the developments at a glance and what the process is re: medications and trials

COVID-19 drug development - Wikipedia

I did the same canceled my youtubetv and Dazn until this is over.

Thanks.

FWIW

I read a lot of promising stuff about Hydroxychloroquine well before the president ever mentioned it, in research papers. Still very early to know for sure but a lot of doctors are positive on its use. I will say the stuff I read makes it seem like it should be used at earlier stages than what we are pushing. Still too early to know anything for sure yet though.

Good for you Bill.

Wonder what all the multi-billionaires are doing for the cause. Chip in $50M here and there and it'll add up.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bi...?mod=home-page

A Pharma-funded group tied to a top Trump donor has been pushing Trump to approve the use of hydroxychloroquine for treating COVID-19. https://t.co/nwyd0hYEWR

— Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) April 6, 2020

Colorado is maybe past its peak as well, last three days have been lower than the previous highs for deaths and hospitalizations. Glad I'm not the one who has to decide upon the next steps if the trend continues though.

This is good and it's the kind of thing a coordinated global response should have committed to. Maybe some billionaires will save us, but we the collapse of the democratic global order is a potential catastrophe.

Missouri is 2-3 weeks away from its peak. Going to be a long month.

PA has had about the same number of new cases the last three days.

I wonder how that compares, tho, to the testing rate.



SI

Doctors Say Hospitals Are Stopping Them From Wearing Masks : NPR

Doctors lacking PPE 'bullied' into treating Covid-19 patients | Coronavirus outbreak | The Guardian

The lack if ressources sucks but is ultimately semi-understandable. But people in power bullying others into 'sucking it up' ? Nah.

Testing rate isn't fast enough, pretty much only testing the sickest and who they've exposed at this point.

Stay at home extended to April 26

I mean, we've seen some raw numbers drop in places where they went from trying to test everyone to "oh crap, we're overwhelmed and can only test the sickest in the hospitals for triage".


SI

It does seem like the shelter in place orders are working. Went from scary growth to maybe this thing flattening.

It's a generic drug. Dont get me wrong Trump wants to be the guy that brought us the miracle drug for sure but the conspiracy is a little out there for his top donor making all this money off a generic.

Pretty stark report from the Chair of New York City Council health committee.

Mark D. Levine on Twitter: "NYC’s healthcare system is being pushed to the limit.

And sadly, now so is the city’s system for managing our dead. And it, too, needs more resources.

This has big implications for grieving families. And for all of us. 1/"



(The 2nd quote abSummary of the tweets via worldometer for those not fans of twitter)

I saw an interview with that doctor in New York that was prescribing that with Azithromycin and zinc and he was prescribing it early on and said it was preventing hospitalizations. Other drs have posted that they were having success as well, but it seems the zinc is important with it. Hopefully as the clinical trials keep going something will emerge or prove all of this works. I think there are 102 different trails going on at the moment for various drugs

The problem as far as 'knowing' is that this implies the doctor knew they would have otherwise would have needed to be hospitalised. Which the consensus simply is that you can't tell, not by physical examination or based on symptoms anyway. Many if not the majority of patients seem to be doing ok right up to the point where they aren't anymore.

And the vast majority never needs a hospital, even among those with symptoms

It's worth trying every drug that shows promise, but concentrating on one on such flimsy evidence just isn't good practice. But yeah, like you said the process of figuring out all the contenders thankfully is not something Trump can decide and thus is happening anyway.

That early studies with Limited sample size reduce conflicting results is entirely normal of course, but there are multiple studies on Hydroxychloroquine that concluded it does not work, too.

Good old Z-Pak. That's what I ask my doctor & dentist for when they try to prescribe me amoxicillin.

The Dr. here in Orange County that Hannity relies on was making that claim, but he was giving it to patients with no symptoms and then if they weren't hospitalized within a couple of weeks he was counting that as success. In Orange County, though, we still have less than one percent of the population confirmed positive and of those positive the hospitalization rate is under twenty percent.

Trials are happening all over the globe. By May we'll have some answers, but even if it has some benefit, it isn't likely to be a miracle cure. It will be another tool in the arsenal.

Zinc is known to have natural antiviral properties. I've been taking it.

Day 23 of lockdown. The Philippine government has extended it by two more weeks, until April 30. Hope you guys are keeping safe!

Thanks, same to you.

I guess there are a lot of layoffs also for retail stores, restaurants etc.? How's the food supply situation?

He also owns a financial stake in the company that makes it. I have a feeling so do most of the people advising him.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/u....co/k6WemZU7tN

Sen. David Perdue bought stock in company producing PPE after briefing - Business Insider

Another Senator. Foreign intelligence services should just follow trading patterns of our politicians.

Sky over here have been pretty good TBH - they’ve allowed you to opt out of paying but retain all the channels until live sport comes back.

There’s not that much on obviously, mostly reruns, occasional virtual event, but it’s good PR to get something for nothing for a short time.

It seems that is the case in a number of places, so following death numbers seems to be the best indicator - if they have dropped for three days in an area as per the OP, that can only be a good sign.

UK deaths have been relatively significantly lower than the trend on each of the last three Mondays, including yesterday. I can’t think of any reason why that would be the case, must just be a statistical quirk?

With how little the UK stll tests, there is bound to be quirks and not even everybody dying in hospital might been actually tested (if a patient was not tested but assumed two weeks ago and had to be put on a ventilator , there is little reason to diagnose him)
Interestingly last week Sa/Sun/Mon also saw a downward trend, Italy 2 weeks ago went from 800 to 600 only to them go to 900.

Just to early to tell, even putting aside not even bothering to test/count those dying at home or in facilities, which is a significant portion if you consider numbers and stories coming out of NYC, Bergamo or France (who started at least trying to count them and been retroactively beemnadding 3-500 for days now). Here we also have been getting higher death counts as more people get infected and die in homes and fully expect that to continue as long as there are PPE shortages for those homes :(

Strangely enough the BBC have explained this in an article this morning - it takes more time for weekend deaths to be registered and counted, so Monday figures are essentially artificially low.

Coronavirus: Warning over daily death figures - BBC News

meanwhile in Ohio asshat fucktubes are still attending megachurch events saying they are covered in blood.

uh huh...
that's right.

I'm not coming out till fricking December

Just want to thank everyone again for their thoughts and prayers. I appreciate you guys.

Can be seen in the dutch and swedish numbers as well today.

Also, Belgium accumulated at least a partial count of deaths in retirement homes today.

All 3 are up there with France or Spain/Italy anyway adjusting for population, just not talked about as much because less 'interesting'. Not that anybody could really help them now, but still ...

I would argue that you may as well. From what I've read, Trump's ownership in Sanofi is through a mutual fund. Sanofi is a major pharmaceutical company (they make Allegra, Maalox, Nasacort, and a lot of major vaccines).

I look at the numbers every day and for the past 7 or so, they've actually shown the actual date of 'positive tested', 'hospitalization' and 'date of death'. It gives a slightly better picture of what's going on. As a result, I've been mostly ignoring the today minus 2 or 3 figures and just looking at what it was before the last 3 or so days.

Looks like there's enough data now to say NYC is on a downward slope. Deaths, though, are up and may stay up for a while.

Apparently, according to a german expert, another shortage coming into play in some countries now is actually getting enough oxygen to run the ventilators because of how many have to be operated continously ... Sedatives, too ... Seriously, when it rains it pours ...


True, :) was more referring to the 'collection sites' most here will look (like worldometer) and wanted to point out that in the 'fineprint' todays extremely high number can be explained because the official dutch source (RIVM) points out that


(As an aside, when did google translate get so good/coherent ? Totally missed that development :D )

731 confirmed deaths with Covid19 yesterday in New York city + state), the daily average of all causes in 2017 was 425 unless i read/calculated wrong ... Add the 175+ the chair of the health commision reports as excess deaths at home and that's comfortably twice as many from/with one disease :(

So we did an online order with Publix today to try to cover some of the stuff we didn't get from Walmart's curbside pickup order and let me tell you what a difference it was.



Walmart tried to substitute things, but you couldn't reject them until you went to get your order. Still a few out-of-stock stuff, though they did do a good job of letting you know when you checked out online what was not available. I'm certainly not going to complain given the situation we are all in. I had to wait until the next day to get it



Publix on the other hand, not 5 mins after I had finalized the order was texted me letting me know they were starting the order and who was doing it. I got a chance when I sent the order in to say what I would accept for a substiution. She texted me as she gathered the order to let me know what was out of stock and tried to offer me substiutions with pictures from her phone or a online link.



Delivery was for that same day and got a text soon saying the order was done and on the way, it included a picture of her and directions from us on where to put the bags. A delivery tip was part of the checkout and a delivery fee ($4) added. She was here very quickly with the order.



So much less hassle and stress involved than with Walmart-I would go with Publix if you have that option in your area.

This might be a YMMV thing.

We got Publix delivery, and there were a fair amount of substitutions that we would not have approved had they asked us (non-dairy ice cream when they were out of regular ice cream, etc.).

We've been much happier with the Harris Teeter pickup system.

With all the crazy going on, it probably has to do with the competence/dedication of the person doing it for them. I can't imagine stores are in a position to train people, etc. right now.