Covid-19, Your health and that of your community

Quote from Alan Smith

Me too - back in 1962 when I started working in a forensic pathology lab as a bacteriology technician

Me also back in 1962,

when I started 1st grade in CPS

showing my age..... taught microbiology lab as a grad student back in 1976

Quote from oldguy

showing my age..... taught microbiology lab as a grad student back in 1976

Great physics professor in college 75/76.

8:00 class, but liked him so much I got up

@7:30 MWF for both semesters, difficult for a college freshman I’ll have you know.

Quote from Roseland67

Great physics professor

I was lucky enough take a course under a nobel prize physics teacher. You would recognize his name but then it would give away who I am.

We all had the BCG vaccine in the sixties in the UK, so given the present terrible rate of infections here it doesn't seem to be very protective against this SARS Cov-2. Italy and the US without an extensive BCG programme have similar rates so this line of research may well not be very worthwhile persuing. What really is needed is to focus on developing a specific vaccine based on the molecular structure of surface viral proteins which the host immune system reacts to to form specific antibodies. It's being done but will take time which we are rapidly running out of.The

Pretty good interview here with the head of the Association of American Medical Colleges. She said she expects the peak to happen in mid April and then for there to be a steady stream of cases for the next 7 weeks, and then life may return to semi-normal at the end of May.

Unfortunately she also expects the virus will hit the U.S. in much the same way it is now in late November or early December, and everyone will be back to staying at home again because a vaccine will not be developed by then.

https://www.politico.com/news/…expert-health-care-172005

Quote from oldguy

I was lucky enough take a course under a nobel prize physics teacher. You would recognize his name but then it would give away who I am.

Understood,

I enjoy my anonymity

Quote from oldguy

I was lucky enough take a course under a nobel prize physics teacher. You would recognize his name but then it would give away who I am.

RICHARD FEYNMAN!!!!???

(joking)

I tried to PM you my guess, and explain my deduction, although your settings don't allow private conversations.

Don't worry, your secret is safe.

Quote from Deleo

Unfortunately she also expects the virus will hit the U.S. in much the same way it is now in late November or early December, and everyone will be back to staying at home again because a vaccine will not be developed by then.

I hope that she is wrong about that, because I hope that improved testing, monitoring and case tracking will be in place by then, so we can control further outbreaks using the Korean methods, rather than a complete shutdown.

If Trump gets his way he will have everyone back to work tomorrow issued with a five-day course of anti bat virus combo - could it actually work and restore the economy? Well just look at China. Is this what the anti Trump press is so afraid of, that he might actually be right and so be stuck with him for another term?

I have not seen much in the media about one dire aspect of the pandemic: the direct cost of medical care to the patients. U.S. hospitals charge outrageous sums of money compared to other countries. Those thousands of patients being crammed into overcrowded wards will have to pay a lot of money. People with health insurance will be charged $22,000 to $39,000. People without insurance will be billed $74,000:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/0…mericans-up-to-75000.html

I think that is the cost if you avoid the ICU and respirators. With a respirator for a few weeks, you will be looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars. Hospitals are ruthless when it comes to collecting money. They sic collection agencies on patients, and they take away your house, your truck, and pretty much anything not nailed down. I know a few people who went through that, after running up bills of tens of thousands of dollars. A Vietnam war vet I know was taken to the wrong hospital when he went into a coma with a service related injury. They didn't know he was a vet, so they did not take him to the veteran's hospital. He woke up a few days later $90,000 in debt. They took his truck when I last heard from him, and they were set to take his house. The notion that emergency room treatment is "free" is completely false. They charge the patient. Unless you are indigent with no fixed address and no assets, they charge you.

Healthcare costs are largest cause of personal bankruptcy in the U.S.

I cannot estimate how many patients there will be, but I suppose the cost will be hundreds of billions of dollars. Nurses will get overtime pay, but doctors are on salary. So most of the windfall will go to the hospital directors, who make millions or tens of millions per year, and the stockholders, who are the 1%. The U.S. healthcare system is a gigantic vacuum cleaner set up to suck money out of the pockets of the middle class into the pockets of people who pay way less percent of taxes than I do, with hocus-pocus methods. So, basically, we might as well wire transfer $500 billion to Cayman Islands.

There are roughly 44 million Americans with no health insurance. Most of them are in southern Red states that did not expand Medicare, and that have the highest poverty rates and the worst hospitals, such as Alabama and Mississippi. They are expected to have the largest per capita number of coronavirus patients before the pandemic ends. So, poor people living in these states who have no health insurance and get seriously ill and are hospitalized will likely lose all of their savings and their houses.

For some reason, you can only sign up for Obamacare at the end of the year. When the pandemic began, some members of Congress suggested that the administration should open up admissions now, instead of at the end of the year. Trump refused to do that.

This is how Our Canadian Medicare

started.Sure is nice not to get that

Big Bill.

https://canadiandimension.com/…iew/the-birth-of-medicare

Bernie is out of it.

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1721816131801

Quote from JedRothwell

There are roughly 44 million Americans with no health insurance. Most of them are in southern Red states that did not expand Medicare, and that have the highest poverty rates and the worst hospitals, such as Alabama and Mississippi. They are expected to have the largest per capita number of coronavirus patients before the pandemic ends. So, poor people living in these states who have no health insurance and get seriously ill and are hospitalized will likely lose all of their savings and their houses.

People that stay/live close together will transmit an infection much more deeply with a 100x initial load than people living in a large apartment. The figures of Detroit or Queens New York are speaking for themselves.

But who will do the "slaves works" in the USA if they need to keep them locked in??

I hope some US brick-heads start to understand that the term social has nothing to do with socialism and just replaces something religion tried to teach for centuries. Thinking social means that you support/try to improve the "health" of your community. Here health has the meaning of resilience.

Peak

France April 1

Germany April 14

Italy March 28

Spain March 31

US April 11

UK April 17

Deaths [projected by August 4]

France 15058

Germany 8802

Italy 20300

Spain 19209

US 60415

UK 66314

http://www.healthdata.org/covid/data-downloads

Similarly 'too little too late' about refusing to use or at least making HCQ available for use earlier. We can surely tolerate one of two heart attacks which would probably have occurred sooner or later in patients with cardiac problems. This is acknowledged as an extremely rare complication, occurring in one in 100, 000 cases. For normal healthy individuals our anti bat virus combo would enable fast recovery from COVID19, prevent hospitalization as Zelenko has demonstrated, and allow immunity to it to build up in the population without the millions of deaths that will occur if this strategy is not followed. We already have the clinical data....widespread chlorquine use population in malarial regions total deaths vs no chloroquine use population in non-malarial regions total deaths? Total decline of corona virus cases in China following widespread use since the Bayer donation of Feb 20. Look at the graphs. They are not advertising the facts. Why not? Politics. Publishing negative reports only? Suppressing the true number of deaths etc.? I have no need to go any further because I'm becoming too political.

Ahlfors - agreed this is the nightmare scenario without treatment with our anti bat virus combo. Trump could mass prescribe it across the planet to be taken on acquiring the first symptoms of COVIC19. How much would it cost? Zilch compared to the economic loss of this pandemic continuing. Testing and modelling the pandemic statistics does not actually do any good - a distraction from treatment and diversion of molecular biological resources from finding better anti-virus drugs (all the quinine analogues have not as yet been tested, for example) and vaccine development. As I have said before the modellers are probably better off modelling for Vogue for all the good they are doing, the pandemic measures of social distancing, hand sanitizing etc were all obvious common sense precautions. Now we're checking the numbers to see if it has 'worked'. A resounding NO. Get the treatment out Trump!