You really don’t understand how physical transmission works, do you.
Thanks, but the rest of us are going to go with the science on this one.
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Those folks are the absolute bane of my existence. Interacting with them is bad for my blood pressure and for my patient care. Remind me of the Preventer of Information Technology from Dilbert.
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I think we just do not know enough to say really. But at the moment, my understanding is, we would have already be seeing different transmission patterns if it was airborne in China and we have the information from the previous Corona viruses. This seems to be a close quarters spreading thing.
I also am not sure how the evacuees were processed, I read it was a shit show that one would expect to lead to other infections, not because the virus was so competent, but human incompetence.
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what do you think about the reports of re-infection by some individuals, that implies the body cannot build antibodies strong enough?
I’m not in panic over it but I am pretty sure virtually everyone is going to catch this sooner or later it’s unavoidable and vax is a year away at best.
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Between our existing healthcare gaps from insurers and the administration pulling an ostrich maneuver to avoid stock market jitters, I very much see us in a Hot Zone/Outbreak meets Idiocracy vibe.
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I have to wait until there is more information about that. They are reports at the moment, I have to keep them in that context until the scientists I trust have had a chance to review any actual science that comes out on that topic. It is also possible it is related the 70% effective rate of the tests, they do report false negatives approx 30% of the time at the moment.
Generally, if you get the sober, informed analysis, it is never as bad as random “reports” make it out to be, intentionally or accidentally.
It is not always going to be as fast as the “OMG” reports, but it is the best course of action I think. Most of these reports are getting proper follow up in a day or two.
This. Aerosolized =/= airborne. I challenge anybody to remember everything they’ve touched today, how many times they’ve touched their face without having washed their hands, and whether everything they’ve touched touched something else.
There are very real risks. The overwhelming of medical services is absolutely one. But jumping straight into misinformation is dangerous during a pandemic.
Droplet spread can still spread fast. Droplets are also tiny. Unless they brought those sick passengers through some super-secret trans-dimensional portal somehow straight into the quarantine area of the plane, they passed by people or surfaces where droplet transfer could occur.
Things are bad enough. We don’t need misinformation fueled panic to make it worse.
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The major limiting factor in a Spanish-Flu type situation would probably be that there isn’t even close to enough reserve capacity built into the system to keep delivering either the ‘modern’ or the ‘medicine’ components of modern medicine in the face of a caseload like that. The initial round of patients would likely do a fair bit better than their historical counterparts; but it’s not as though anyone specs hospitals to run at 50% empty under normal conditions just to be prepared, so I’d be nervous about ability to keep delivering modern standards of care as demand increased.
I suppose if things got bad one place where we might actually be able to expand capacity in a hurry would be reclassifying veterinary antibiotics as better-than-nothing for human use. We’ve got a decent stock of those.
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I’m avoiding healthcare right now
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Not a joke; it’s eatable, right? My kiddos have a hamster and a snake. The actual joke is that if things got really bad, we can still feed the snake and we’d see how hamster food tastes.
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BTW, speaking of handwashing, I guarantee you that most people are not doing it right to prevent disease transmission.
Minimum of 30 seconds with soap. 30 seconds is a long-ass time. Most people I see do 10 at most, then shake those wet, still-dirty hands all over the place. 30 seconds of lathering, BTW, not the whole process. That takes longer. And between your fingers.
Seriously, most folks, quite possibly even most here? Nasty.
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We’ve got a housemate who a) works retail, and b) is basically feral. I was already sanitizing doorknobs and common touch points on a daily basis. He turns everybody who knows him long enough into a germophobe.
We are so screwed.
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I honestly don’t know if I’m being obtuse, but I’m disturbed by how committed everyone is to maximizing the fear around this.
It seems like we’re focusing on the worst-case scenario, to the exclusion of even remembering that that’s not the only scenario.
If there’s, say, a 10% chance that 40% of people get a virus that kills 2% of them in the next year, then that’s a one-in-a-thousand chance that a given person will die (depending on age). That’s a bad flu year, and not a good thing, but not a clear reason to start panic buying either.
Also, if we’re freaking out to this degree now, it does not bode well for how we’d cope should it become a real-life emergency.
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I certainly don’t like those odds.
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we’re “freaking out” (not really but nervous) because there’s zero herd-immunity
think about how many people still get the flu (and what it’s like if you’ve ever had it) despite all the vax and herd-immunity
now realize this seems to pass far more easy than the flu and there is zero immunity, if you breathe (the droplets apparently) you will 100% get it
almost everyone working in a hospital will get it
it will spread like wildfire through college campuses (remember there are no symptoms for many days even while you can spread it)
then to every big business and retail store
in a year well over half the population will have caught it
and if the 2% figure is right, that means 3 million deaths in the USA if half the population catches it
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This is a topic of discussion over at Ongoing Coronavirus Happenings. You are absolutely correct. On most days there is essentially no excess capacity, especially in ICU beds. Hospitals do not keep banks of spare ventilators. Of even more concern is that most hospitals run very very lean on staffing, and when things get hectic we can burn through staff at a remarkable rate. Not a pretty set up.
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Especially if they’re first in line for infection risk.
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We seriously have to consider how much risk to take, both with ourselves and our families. Really hope it doesn’t come to that, but the family and I are starting conversations around this and we are at the office as well.
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A friend who is hospital admin called me tonight to try to put the fear of god into me about all this. She’s not worried about my kids, but me and one of her kids have medical issues that make us more susceptible. So, I asked her about what spare capacity they had at her hospital, and she claims 97 ICU spots available. Is this a case of there being a difference between states, or cities, or what?
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