The Covid-19 virus

Introversion · Feb 25, 2020

MaeZe said:
And the Republicans are just as pissed off as the Democrats.

Why? “Government is incompetent” is their jam. They should be happy to be validated.

Brightdreamer · Feb 25, 2020

Introversion said:
Why? “Government is incompetent” is their jam. They should be happy to be validated.

Yep - they're making noise right now, but push come to shove watch them line up and shut down any Democrat attempts to actually do something that goes against the regime (and benefits the greater public instead of the few.)

Roxxsmom · Feb 25, 2020

Introversion said:
Why? “Government is incompetent” is their jam. They should be happy to be validated.

What ever happened to "the government never helps anyone with anything" and all that stuff about people taking care of themselves? Our country may be in for another hard lesson, and I am guessing some states and communities will be far less prepared than others, based on how they allocate resources and on their health care infrastructure and availability of doctors.

Sadly, we're seeing what happens when an administration picks "yes men" based on their unflinching loyalty, rather than on expertise and competence. The complacency with this stems, in part, from the attitude that nothing these agencies do is that important anyway. You think we'd have learned from some of the inadequate responses to past natural disasters, like Katrina, but noooo. I guess it's a human tendency to shrug off the need to spend money on preparedness for crises that occur unpredictably. Still, it's scary when we can't even count on the people heading the agencies having any meaningful background in relevant science, nor in their having any kind of agenda that isn't purely political.

Stytch · Feb 25, 2020

Can't wait for us to all bootstrap ourselves out of a pandemic. 'MERICA!

MaeZe · Feb 25, 2020

Introversion said:
Why? “Government is incompetent” is their jam. They should be happy to be validated.

I've been watching these hearings for years and usually the GOP gushes praise on anyone appointed by other Republicans.

Germs scare them.

Roxxsmom · Feb 25, 2020

Stytch said:
Can't wait for us to all bootstrap ourselves out of a pandemic. 'MERICA!

Sadly, this will just be used as another argument against letting them "icky foreign people" come here, never mind that most of those people in quarantine are well-to-do US citizens who were traveling for business or pleasure.

cbenoi1 · Feb 25, 2020

Introversion said:
Tmurp’s germophobe nature (he just doan wanna hear abouddit, okay?).

He can't bully a virus or twitter it out of the news cycle. Bummer.

-cb

Roxxsmom · Feb 26, 2020

cbenoi1 said:
He can't bully a virus or twitter it out of the news cycle. Bummer.

-cb

It would be supremely ironic if he catches it. Unlikely, though. I'm sure they have some kind of germ-proof bunker for the POTUS and his most essential staff.

cbenoi1 · Feb 26, 2020

Roxxsmom said:
It would be supremely ironic if he catches it.

He's back from a Trump rally in India this morning. He will meet the NIH later today. Expect a tweet storm when the NIH tells him no more rallies for him for a long while...

-cb

Introversion · Feb 26, 2020

cbenoi1 said:
Expect a tweet storm when the NIH tells him no more rallies for him for a long while...

Do you think he’d heed such advice?

Roxxsmom · Feb 26, 2020

Introversion said:
Do you think he’d heed such advice?

He's allegedly a germaphobe, so he might be more inclined to follow this kind of advice. Or maybe they'll just erect a plexiglass "sneeze guard" between the stage and the audience.

I suspect it's probably a pain in the ass to be one of his personal aids, especially right now. He's probably being extra obsessive about drink containers, pens, surfaces, touching things, hand shaking etc. Will probably require the people around him to wear masks and gloves before this is all over.

There are some studies that suggest germaphobes in general fear immigrants more than the average person. Part of that whole bodily purity thing.

MaeZe · Feb 26, 2020

The way Trump will get infected is by one of the staff around him from Secret Service to his kids and their staff. The virus is almost certainly contagious before symptoms appear. The people around Trump are probably vulnerable even if he tries not to be.

Lyv · Feb 26, 2020

Hey, everyone, the guy who "enab[led] an HIV outbreak" is in charge of the US response.

Trump announced at a news conference that Vice President Pence will take over the White House’s coronavirus task force.

Sorry to be the bearer of exactly the bad news you expected.

MaeZe · Feb 26, 2020

More ignorance on masks on the local news: a beard will block the exhalation valve. Where does this crap come from, rumors in the news room?

What idiots, it's so basic. Facial hair interferes with a tight seal on your face.

Putputt · Feb 26, 2020

Man gets slapped with $3,500 bill for Coronavirus test in the US. I just can't with the US and its twisted, broken healthcare system. Do they not understand that shit like this scares people from getting tested if they have Covid-19 symptoms??

Introversion · Feb 26, 2020

Putputt said:
Do they not understand that shit like this scares people from getting tested if they have Covid-19 symptoms??

I don't believe there's many deep thinkers in this administration. Between the fact that many people can't afford either the cost or time to get checked or be quarantined, that many immigrants will almost certainly not be getting checked for fear of being ICEd if they do, and that idiots like Rush "Isn't He Dead Yet, and Why Not?" Limbaugh are telling people this is just the common cold, we have all the conditions for handling this much worse than China did if it takes hold and starts to spread here.

Introversion · Feb 26, 2020

You’re Likely to Get the Coronavirus

The Atlantic said:
...

Severe illness caused by viruses such as H5N1 also means that infected people can be identified and isolated, or that they died quickly. They do not walk around feeling just a little under the weather, seeding the virus. The new coronavirus (known technically as SARS-CoV-2) that has been spreading around the world can cause a respiratory illness that can be severe. The disease (known as COVID-19) seems to have a fatality rate of less than 2 percent—exponentially lower than most outbreaks that make global news. The virus has raised alarm not despite that low fatality rate, but because of it.

Coronaviruses are similar to influenza viruses in that they both contain single strands of RNA.* Four coronaviruses commonly infect humans, causing colds. These are believed to have evolved in humans to maximize their own spread—which means sickening, but not killing, people. By contrast, the two prior novel coronavirus outbreaks—SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome, named for where the first outbreak occurred)—were picked up from animals, as was H5N1. These diseases were highly fatal to humans. If there were mild or asymptomatic cases, they were extremely few. Had there been more of them, the disease would have spread widely. Ultimately, SARS and MERS each killed fewer than 1,000 people.

COVID-19 is already reported to have killed more than twice that number. With its potent mix of characteristics, this virus is unlike most that capture popular attention: It is deadly, but not too deadly. It makes people sick, but not in predictable, uniquely identifiable ways. Last week, 14 Americans tested positive on a cruise ship in Japan despite feeling fine—the new virus may be most dangerous because, it seems, it may sometimes cause no symptoms at all.

...

cornflake · Feb 26, 2020

Also, wash your phones, people. Er, not in water, but with a clorox/lysol/alcohol-based wipe; doesn't harm anything and it should be at least somewhat effective.

It amazes me that people carry their phones around all day, wash their hands, and pick the same phone back up and never wipe it down.

MaeZe · Feb 26, 2020

cornflake said:
Also, wash your phones, people. Er, not in water, but with a clorox/lysol/alcohol-based wipe; doesn't harm anything and it should be at least somewhat effective.

It amazes me that people carry their phones around all day, wash their hands, and pick the same phone back up and never wipe it down.

Good point but it can be overwhelming if you know too much like I do.

My car key fob, the car door handles, the steering wheel, the house doorknob, petting my dogs who insist on attention before I get to the sink, whatever I touch going to the bathroom before I wash my hands if I can't wait, all the groceries people touched (the risk with those varies depending on the surfaces), the light switch, ...

It's impossible if perfection is needed. I am using the hand sanitizer I keep in the car and in my purse.

On the positive side, a vaccine and effective antivirals will probably be available before the end of the year.

MaeZe · Feb 26, 2020

This looks helpful and has a section on keeping surfaces in your house clean:

NPR: A Guide: How To Prepare Your Home For Coronavirus

We still don't know exactly how long the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 can survive on surfaces. But Stephen Morse, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center, says what we know from other coronaviruses is that most household cleansers — such as bleach wipes or alcohol — will kill them.

Even wiping down surfaces with soap and water should do the trick, he says, because this coronavirus has a lipid envelope around it — like a coat that keeps the RNA inside the viral particle. And soap is a detergent that can break down lipids. "We use them to take grease and oil, which is a lipid, off our dishes," he notes.

If COVID-19 does start circulating in your community or there's someone sick at home, plan on cleaning surfaces that get touched frequently — such as kitchen counters and bathroom faucets — several times a day, says Dr. Trish Perl, chief of the infectious disease division at UT Southwestern Medical Center. That advice, she says, comes from studies on other diseases "where they've shown that if you do clean up the environment, you can actually decrease the amount of virus that is on hard surfaces significantly."

MaeZe · Feb 26, 2020

Putputt said:
Man gets slapped with $3,500 bill for Coronavirus test in the US. I just can't with the US and its twisted, broken healthcare system. Do they not understand that shit like this scares people from getting tested if they have Covid-19 symptoms??

Something's not right with this story.

I just checked with my lab to see if they had the test available yet.
https://www.questdiagnostics.com/home/Coronavirus/

Only the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other public health labs are authorized to provide testing for COVID-19 in the U.S.

When public health provides vaccines or testing, the provider is only allowed to charge a set amount for administering the test or vaccine.

I'll see if I can find out more about the claim.

Okay, I see what's going on there.

Testing revealed Mr Azcue had the flu, not the coronavirus. But his limited health insurance left him with a bill of $3,270 two weeks after his test. He will be responsible for $1,400 of that bill.

"How can they expect normal citizens to contribute to eliminating the potential risk of person-to-person spread if hospitals are waiting to charge us $3,270 for a simple blood test and a nasal swab?" Mr Azcue told the newspaper.

The bill was for his medical visit to an ED. And the article goes on to describe the piece of shit insurance he had after the GOP took back as much of the ACA as they could get away with given they never had a replacement plan.

It looks like he chose one of those cheap, doesn't-cover-anything plans that were initially outlawed by the ACA for just this very reason.

Alpha Echo · Feb 27, 2020

We watched 45's (why do I hate to even type his name?) news conference last night, and frankly it pissed me off. He went on about Dems vs. GOP, further dividing us when we should be united against this common enemy (for lack of a better word). He went on about how the flu kills so many people a year, completely missing the point and purposely distracting and misleading those that would believe him.

Then CNN broke off the conference right as the scientist, the one we wanted to listen to who actually knows what he's talking about, started to tell us what we were tuned into hear. I think he was saying it will be at least a year before we have a proven vaccine.

Auteur · Feb 27, 2020

How do they know how long it will take before there's a vaccine? It usually comes down to trying a bunch of different things until they find one that works.

It's like asking a software developer how long it will take to fix a bug. Usually the fix only takes a few minutes; it's finding the bug that's difficult and time consuming.

Prozyan · Feb 27, 2020

Auteur said:
How do they know how long it will take before there's a vaccine?

Testing and safety protocols have a set time frame.

cornflake · Feb 27, 2020

I don't quite understand how a vaccine would work -- maybe Rox can help? -- if people can be reinfected (by coronviruses generally, and this specifically), even within a month of having had and apparently cleared this... what would a vaccine do?

The Covid-19 virus

Pie aren't squared, pie are round!

Just Another Lazy Perfectionist

Beastly Fido

Beastly Fido

Beastly Fido

Pie aren't squared, pie are round!

Beastly Fido

I meant to do that.

permanently suctioned to Buz's leg

Pie aren't squared, pie are round!

Pie aren't squared, pie are round!

practical experience, FTW

I should be writing.

Redacted

Are you one, Herbert?

practical experience, FTW