COVID-19

Saliha

Well-known member
Hi all!

Good news from Finland - today here was no new cases of covid-19 infections, the first time since February.

:bb:
 

Sass Muffin

Coffee Queen ☕
Gold Site Supporter
Hi all!

Good news from Finland - today here was no new cases of covid-19 infections, the first time since February.

:bb:
That's fabulous, Saliha!
This is where it stands in the county where I live.
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Sass Muffin

Coffee Queen ☕
Gold Site Supporter
4 of my nurse aides recently graduated despite not being able to actually finish their Senior year out physically at school.
Work had special tshirts made for them.
:D
I ❤ them all.

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Cooksie

Well-known member
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Good for them, Sass :)

It seems that you have a very appreciative and caring employer :thumb:.
 

Cooksie

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Once again, I just watched Dr. Ed on a live question/answer segment. He's the infectious disease dr at a major hospital in Dallas. He seems to be very intelligent and down to earth. He's also easy on the eyes :).

What I learned today

If I heard correctly, he said: A positive nasal swab test doesn't always mean that you have the virus. Those nasal swab tests detect the virus, but sometimes it's a dead virus.
 

Jim_S

Resident Curmudgeon
Gold Site Supporter
JAG posted on ForumsForums:

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien
 
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Jim_S

Resident Curmudgeon
Gold Site Supporter
We have 5 total cases in our County.

First 3 are members of the same family, diagnosed several weeks ago, infected and treated out of county, and are fully recovered.

The newest 2 are husband and wife just returned from a trip out of the country.
 

Cooksie

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Some of you are just really lucky. A lot of it may depend on total population of the county...more people, more cases...less people, less cases.

We have 5 total cases in our County.

First 3 are members of the same family, diagnosed several weeks ago, infected and treated out of county, and are fully recovered.

The newest 2 are husband and wife just returned from a trip out of the country.

You must live in the boondocks or out in the sticks where only the animals roam :biggrin:. Good for you.
 

Jim_S

Resident Curmudgeon
Gold Site Supporter
Some of you are just really lucky. A lot of it may depend on total population of the county...more people, more cases...less people, less cases.



You must live in the boondocks or out in the sticks where only the animals roam :biggrin:. Good for you.

Small town about 3,000 folks. Maybe 7,000 in County. NW of Ft Worth about 100 miles. County borders on the Red River.

I spent most of my life in big cities. Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Reston, VA. I didn’t realize how nice it was to live in a small place until I left.
 
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Cooksie

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Small town about 3,000 folks. Maybe 7,000 in County. NW of Ft Worth about 100 miles. County borders on the Red River.

I spent most of my life in big cities. Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Reston, VA. I didn’t realize how nice it was to live in a small place until I left.

I'm certainly seeing the value of that now.

I would never move back to the Houston area. I hate the traffic, I hate all the crazy drivers, I hate the hurricanes, I hate the flooding, and I hate the smell of Stinkadena.

Plus that, look at Harris County's covid case count, just worse than pitiful. It's just too congested for me.
 

Jim_S

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I'm certainly seeing the value of that now.

I would never move back to the Houston area. I hate the traffic, I hate all the crazy drivers, I hate the hurricanes, I hate the flooding, and I hate the smell of Stinkadena.

In 1993 or 1994 late in the year Harris County had several days of heavy rain from a hurricane in South Texas. Very early one morning I picked up a guy I worked with to go to a meeting in Brenham with a vender. We had the radio on and the announcer broke in and announced the San Jacinto River was on fire! Turns out the flood waters ruptured one on those large gasoline pipelines that cross under the river in Stinkadena. Big fire burned a bunch of houses and cars :(
 

Cooksie

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In 1993 or 1994 late in the year Harris County had several days of heavy rain from a hurricane in South Texas. Very early one morning I picked up a guy I worked with to go to a meeting in Brenham with a vender. We had the radio on and the announcer broke in and announced the San Jacinto River was on fire! Turns out the flood waters ruptured one on those large gasoline pipelines that cross under the river in Stinkadena. Big fire burned a bunch of houses and cars :(

That was quite an ordeal.
 

Cooksie

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I put my mask on first. Then put my glasses on over the top edge of mask to "anchor" it down. Helps with the fog issue.

You are so right about this. I had to go do some errands this morning and no fog :thumb:. It really makes more sense too. Before all this stuff (stuff is putting it mildly), I have never had the occasion to wear a mask.
 

Cooksie

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I just watched a live segment of Tx Gov Abbott speaking about available hospital capacity in Tx. I like him. He seems to be going about all this methodically and sanely.

He said that there were other facilities available if the hospitals had a surge and ran out of room. I like that they are planning ahead, but it's still kind of scary that it may come down to that.

If they have to expand the hospital bed capacity into facilities other than hospitals, who are they going to use to treat the extended number of patients? The doctors and nurses in the hospitals are probably already overworked. The staffing part wasn't addressed.
 

Jim_S

Resident Curmudgeon
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New Coronavirus Cases Have Reached Record Highs in 12 States; Here’s Why It Doesn’t Matter
Posted at 12:30 pm on June 23, 2020 by Elizabeth Vaughn

https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-...ighs-in-12-states-heres-why-it-doesnt-matter/

The media has been issuing ominous warnings about the resurgence of new cases of COVID-19 in many states. In fact, new cases are at record highs in at least a dozen states.

NPR published a list of states where new cases (as of Monday 11:59 pm, June 22) were higher than they’d been two weeks ago. Topping the list was Oklahoma, which has seen a 268% jump in new cases. Next up are Florida and Texas with increases of 184% and 154%, respectively. The list can be viewed here.

“So what,” says the Issues & Insights editorial board.

In early March, when various plans of dealing with the coronavirus were being debated, the choices were shown to us via a curve. Two extremes were presented to us. In the first scenario, we could go on with business as usual and the curve would nearly immediately turn upward and would peak quickly. It would also fall as fast as it rose. The obvious disadvantage to this choice is that the hospitals would be crushed trying to provide care for such a huge influx of patients at one time.

The second option, and the one the U.S. ultimately chose, was to shut down the economy and self-quarantine, the goal being to flatten the curve. The benefit to this plan was that our hospitals and health care professionals would not be overwhelmed.

And, as we moved through it, we were told that scientists would have more time to find an effective therapy to fight the virus and to ramp up testing.

The number of lives lost was said to be approximately the same under the two plans, but the deaths would be accelerated under the first scenario.

We were also told that once we began to reopen the economy, the number of cases would increase.

The I & I editors looked at the situation in Georgia, a state which began to reopen in late April. Gov. Brian Kemp was widely criticized for opening his state too early. At the time, WRCB TV reported that one epidemiological model predicted: “the number of COVID-19 deaths per day in Georgia will jump from 32 people dying on May 1 to a projected 63 people dying per day by August 4.”

As it turned out:

The number of daily deaths in the state had already peaked on April 16 at 57 and has been steadily declining ever since. The state recorded a total of 37 deaths all last week, and zero on Sunday.

The same trend is happening nationally, which has seen the growth rate in the total number of cases steadily outstrip the growth in COVID-19 deaths for many weeks now.

So far this month, in fact, the number of new cases on June 21 was 16% higher than on June 1, but the daily number of deaths was 63% lower.

Here’s the interesting part. One of the site’s editors, Michael Fumento, explains why the spike in new cases won’t lead to a subsequent spike in deaths.

“Death rates are higher at the start of an outbreak for the simple reason that the disease claims the low-hanging fruit first. This, he says, is known as Farr’s Law,” says Fumento. (Please scroll down for a description of Farr’s Law.)

Fumento continues:

The latest CDC data show that those aged 65 and older account for 80% of all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. But that age group makes up only 16% of the population. At the other end of the spectrum, those under age 35 comprise 45% of the population but account for a tiny0.8% of COVID-19 deaths.

Not only has the disease already claimed many of the most vulnerable in this country, there are also millions who now have antibodies.

The combination means that even if there are lots of new cases going forward, the death toll is likely to be far less severe than it has been.

Why don’t we hear explanations like this from the mainstream media? Because if they had their way, the economy would remain shut down through Election Day.

Wikipedia:

Farr’s law was formulated by Dr. William Farr when he made the observation that epidemic events rise and fall in a roughly symmetrical pattern. The time-evolution behavior could be captured by a single mathematical formula that could be approximated by a bell-shaped curve.

In 1840, Farr submitted a letter to the Annual Report of the Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages in England. In that letter, he applied mathematics to the records of deaths during a recent smallpox epidemic, proposing that:

“If the latent cause of epidemics cannot be discovered, the mode in which it operates may be investigated. The laws of its action may be determined by observation, as well as the circumstances in which epidemics arise, or by which they may be controlled.”

He showed that during the smallpox epidemic, a plot of the number of deaths per quarter followed a roughly bell-shaped or “normal curve”, and that recent epidemics of other diseases had followed a similar pattern.
 

Cooksie

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Great post, JS, very informative :)

I understand that Texarkana is getting some kind of new vaccine that is supposed to help those with the virus recover more quickly. Sure hope it works for them and other areas of the US will also benefit from the drug.

Nothing like being called a "low-hanging fruit" :glare:

......
I finally found some hand sanitizer. My container was getting low. It's a spray, but gel is almost non-existent.
 

Cooksie

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Covid parties at the University of Alabama :bonk:

I wonder who the little genius is who came up with that idea.
 

Jim_S

Resident Curmudgeon
Gold Site Supporter
Covid parties at the University of Alabama :bonk:

I wonder who the little genius is who came up with that idea.

:furious: :bonk:

We all know that it’s not as bad as originally predicted but thats no reason to do something stupid. It remains a serious problem.
 
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Sass Muffin

Coffee Queen ☕
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We're all getting tested this coming Thursday.
All staff members, all residents, all rehab patients.
The National Guard medics and others in the field will be present to conduct the testing.
We are to be given a two hour heads up that day.
I'm actually looking forward to it.
Not everyone is.
 

Cooksie

Well-known member
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We're all getting tested this coming Thursday.
All staff members, all residents, all rehab patients.
The National Guard medics and others in the field will be present to conduct the testing.
We are to be given a two hour heads up that day.
I'm actually looking forward to it.
Not everyone is.

I'm interested to hear about your experience. From what I've read, it's a tad uncomfortable.
 

Sass Muffin

Coffee Queen ☕
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I'm interested to hear about your experience. From what I've read, it's a tad uncomfortable.

I'll let you know all about it.
So far we do know it's going to be the swab.
Just how far up they're going to go with the swab, we do not know.
 

Sass Muffin

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I got this text (which I edited; name/phone number).
Some are probably breathing a sigh of relief.


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Sass Muffin

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I've got 3 of my young STNA's who've asked me to hang around while they get tested because they are frightened.
I told them there is nothing to be afraid of.
And yes, I'll be there for them.
I'm going in a.m. pronto on Thursday.
 
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