Pandemic threat? Anyone else concerned?

[Sybertiger]

I think that may be true in some areas but will change as the panic intensifies and spreads. News reports with photos like what Fenderman posted or fighting/traffic jams only add fuel to the fire, but make good ratings. I was in a corner/convenience store this afternoon, no TP, paper towels, sanitizers and the rest of the panic list. The supply chain all comes out of the same warehouses and when they get emptied from craziness like this nobody gets resupplied.

I could be wrong but in my area it appears to be no different than pre-hurricane stocking...maybe why we aren't seeing quite the panic shopping like other areas that aren't used to stocking supplies. Or maybe many of us stay stocked up most of the time anyway.

 

[Sybertiger]

Hopefully this is a wakeup call for more made in USA. Even if it costs a little more.

I hope it's a wakeup call for a lot of things we seem to have gone alarmingly dependent on like medical supplies for China...especially given the threats some boneheads in Chinese government are making. Don't kick the sleeping giant in the nads while he sleeps...you won't like it when he wakes up.

 

[Q™]

hope it's a wakeup call for a lot of things we seem to have gone alarmingly dependent on like medical supplies for China

I'm not yet convinced that Covid-19 deserves the panic which has ensued, but I am absolutely certain that Covid-19 has given America an great gift...a gift we can use to PREPARE for "The Next Time" because "The Next Time" is a certainty.

If Covid-19 fizzles will we write it off as fake news and a political hoax?...or will we learn a priceless lesson which will help us to plan, prepare, and be ready for "THE NEXT TIME" a virus threatens America?

My bet is that politics and complacency wins the day.

 

[Parley]

Yes, the top expert in China also said US death rate will be down when more testing finished, that means the infected people are bit more than the current data. China has 1% death rate in other cities except the Wuhan. Right now the North Italy will be the 2nd Wuhan, China sent some medical team to Italy this Friday. The high death rate will come if the local medical system crashed.

Good point Andy. In this country we know about the deaths and those with severe cases that would tend to skew the data. I bet a lot of the mild cases are not reported. Also testing has been limited but that should change this coming week.

 

[vcwannabe]

Not concerned at all. The mortality rate seems to be around 0.7% based on South Korea's testing.

 

[mat200]

Khan Academy has jumped into the Covid-19 video bandwagon..

 

[tng5737]

I'm not yet convinced that Covid-19 deserves the panic which has ensued, but I am absolutely certain that Covid-19 has given America an great gift...a gift we can use to PREPARE for "The Next Time" because "The Next Time" is a certainty.

If Covid-19 fizzles will we write it off as fake news and a political hoax?...or will we learn a priceless lesson which will help us to plan, prepare, and be ready for "THE NEXT TIME" a virus threatens America?

My bet is that politics and complacency wins the day.

We didn't seem to learn a great deal from the 1918 Influenza. Our local PBS ran a pgm the other night about - people were stealing wooden coffins and the older people were just left to die because the medical system was so overwhelmed.

 

[rodb]

We didn't seem to learn a great deal from the 1918 Influenza.

I think we are learning a lesson this time. Appoint incompetent people just to troll the other party, people die.

 

[guykuo]

This was easier to understand than any chart....

 

[4gvnsnr]

Why exactly won’t this just start to spread around again (say in China, or anywhere that gets over the hump) now that everyone is (basically) back to normal life?

 

[CCTVCam]

At least the US Government doesn't believe it should allow it to spread it so the population find natural immunity (those that survive!).

 

[Arjun]

Slowing the rate of spread is the best option at this point but will create unease for many not used to day-to-day adjustments,

According to the industry, "Vaccines are not a big money-maker."

Fun fact: Did you know that our flu vaccines come from chicken eggs?

Anyway, developing vaccines is a whole other bioethical issue. Many factors come into play. Accelerating development of a vaccine may lead to something called immune enhancement, where a more serious infection or disease may come about

 

[Sybertiger]

I hope it's a wakeup call for a lot of things we seem to have gone alarmingly dependent on like medical supplies for China...especially given the threats some boneheads in Chinese government are making. Don't kick the sleeping giant in the nads while he sleeps...you won't like it when he wakes up.

Sleeping giant to wipe the sleep from his eyes?

GOP senator pushing legislation to reduce pharmaceutical dependency on China: 'We are dependent on them'

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., addressed the reliance that the U.S. currently has on China when it comes to key pharmaceutical ingredients, medical professionals are hoping to stave off the coronavirus pandemic.

www.foxnews.com

 

[Q™]

At the risk of beating a dead horse let me reiterate what (I believe) I've learned regarding the "uncontrolled spread" of Covid-19 and why “flattening the curve” (of new Covid-19 infections) will benefit YOU, and all Americans....

America has limited healthcare resources (defined as the number of available hospital beds, medical ventilators, staff, medication, medical supplies, etc.). Many Americans with existing health issues (e.g. severe circulatory or respiratory conditions) are in need of these resources. If a local hospital has the capacity to handle 500 such cases -- and Covid-19 forces 2,000 additional cases upon the hospital -- then a decision must be made as to who gets care and who doesn’t. As a result, some will die who might have otherwise been saved IF required Covid-19 admissions had been reduced.

This is why we all need to work to do our part to reduce our chances of contracting Covid-19. WE MAY ALL EVENTUALLY BECOME INFECTED…but it’s far better that those infections are spread out over a full year rather than over several months, otherwise our hospitals will be overwhelmed and Sarah Palin’s “DEATH PANELS” (to determine who gets care and who doesn’t) may become reality.

IMO no one needs to be afraid; death is an end which no one escapes...it comes now, it comes later, but it will come to us all. However, the impact for Covid-19 an be mitigated and you can do your part.

You can do your part THIS TIME and you can do your part NEXT TIME, as the NEXT TIME is undoubtedly inevitable.

 

[Q™]

At least the US Government doesn't believe it should allow it to spread it so the population find natural immunity (those that survive!).

I’m an epidemiologist. When I heard about Britain’s ‘herd immunity’ coronavirus plan, I thought it was satire | William Hanage

Vulnerable people should not be exposed to Covid-19 right now in the service of a hypothetical future, says William Hanage, a professor of the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease at Harvard

www.theguardian.com

 

[spencnor]

At the risk of beating a dead horse let me reiterate what (I believe) I've learned regarding the "uncontrolled spread" of Covid-19 and why “flattening the curve” (of new Covid-19 infections) will benefit YOU, and all Americans....

America has limited healthcare resources (defined as the number of available hospital beds, medical ventilators, staff, medication, medical supplies, etc.). Many Americans with existing health issues (e.g. severe circulatory or respiratory conditions) are in need of these resources. If a local hospital has the capacity to handle 500 such cases -- and Covid-19 forces 2,000 additional cases upon the hospital -- then a decision must be made as to who gets care and who doesn’t. As a result, some will die who might have otherwise been saved IF required Covid-19 admissions had been reduced.

This is why we all need to work to do our part to reduce our chances of contracting Covid-19. WE MAY ALL EVENTUALLY BECOME INFECTED…but it’s far better that those infections are spread out over a full year rather than over several months, otherwise our hospitals will be overwhelmed and Sarah Palin’s “DEATH PANELS” (to determine who gets care and who doesn’t) may become reality.

IMO no one needs to be afraid; death is an end which no one escapes...it comes now, it comes later, but it will come to us all. However, the impact for Covid-19 an be mitigated and you can do your part.

You can do your part THIS TIME and you can do your part NEXT TIME, as the NEXT TIME is undoubtedly inevitable.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the US has 2.8 hospital beds per 1,000 people. By contrast, other countries with serious coronavirus outbreaks have more on average: China has 4.3, South Korea has 12.3, and Italy has 3.2 per 1,000 people.

Hospital beds per 1,000 people, via the OECD:
South Korea: 12.3
Germany: 8.0
France: 6.0
China: 4.3
Italy: 3.2
United States: 2.8

https://data.oecd.org/healtheqt/hospital-beds.htm … https://twitter.com/NaveedAJamali/status/1237744941415063552 …

Despite this, all have had difficulties handling their respective influxes of infected people at hospitals. In Italy, which has been hit particularly hard, doctors and hospitals have become so overwhelmed that the Italian College of Anesthesia, Analgesia, Resuscitation and Intensive Care has published guidelines calling for doctors to approach patients with a wartime triage sensibility; and it has discussed a potential age limit for access to care.
One advantage the US has over the Italian health care system is a greater number of intensive care unit (ICU) beds. But while the US has more ICU beds than European countries do on average, the availability of those beds is still deeply concerning. “It’s estimated that we have about 45,000 intensive care unit beds in the United States. In a moderate outbreak, about 200,000 Americans would need one,” Aaron Carroll, a professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine and analyst for the New York Times, recently wrote.

 

[Q™]

Sleeping giant to wipe the sleep from his eyes?

GOP senator pushing legislation to reduce pharmaceutical dependency on China: 'We are dependent on them'

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., addressed the reliance that the U.S. currently has on China when it comes to key pharmaceutical ingredients, medical professionals are hoping to stave off the coronavirus pandemic.

www.foxnews.com

Or disrupt a supply-line at a critical juncture? I'm with you brother...I applaud this idea...we must ramp up American production as soon as possible...but let's be careful not to inhibit the flow of critical medical materiel when it is most needed. I'd also be curious as to who's really behind Marsha Blackburn's election financing.

 

[Q™]

More on "Flattening The Curve"...

Why ‘flattening the curve’ may be the world’s best bet to slow the coronavirus

For many countries staring down fast-rising #coronavirus case counts, the race is on to “flatten the curve.”

www.statnews.com

Hospital beds

This indicator provides a measure of the resources available for delivering services to inpatients in hospitals in terms of number of beds that are maintained, staffed and immediately available for use.

data.oecd.org

 

[guykuo]

Most of our ICU and CCU beds are already full where I work. We HAVE to slow the initial infection rate now. Failure means soon needing to decide how to triage critical care. There simply are not that many ventilators. Remember that a majority of those ICU beds were already occupied before adding Covid patients. Capacity available is a fraction of that 45k figure. Makes the Italy scenario much closer than general public may think when they read 45k.

 

[Q™]

Failure means soon needing to decide how to triage critical care

If Covid-19 gets bad, triage will be needed. Are we ready for that?

Because scarcity situations continually arise, all clinicians should understand triage principles and processes so they are prepared to make ethically and medically defensible decisions in very difficult situations.

www.statnews.com

In the midst of a summer lull in H1N1 cases, the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) convened a committee to come up with guidance for clinicians and hospital administrators who might need to make difficult choices during this — and future — overwhelming pandemics. Choices like these: If there aren’t enough masks or ventilation machines available, what is an ethically defensible way to allocate them? Might it be ethically acceptable to remove one patient from a ventilator so another could use it? Should clinicians who are forced to make such choices be legally protected? And who should get priority access to vaccines if they become available?

There's an overwhelming amount of information to sort through. I believe the most important concept for Americans to acquire is that of available ICU beds and the benefit of lowering the number of new Covid-19 infections as doing so will, in turn, lower new Covid-19 hospital admissions.

"Flatted the curve" and more old folks live.