Community Chat

[dooBdoo]

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@Stray wrote:

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@gardenman - I'm in the hotspot for New Jersey.  Read the study out of LA after doing baseline testing.  There are more infections than we thought but the good news is that the death toll is lower comparatively.  

For those of us compromised that is relevant because there are more silent carriers.  

I worked in NYC most of my career and my area is very densely populated so for us it's very difficult to remain well.  This is the worst since 1918.  

I had friends die and family.  This is a very painful virus; your lungs look like cracked ice on X-ray....you can't breathe on your own with incredible chest pain & the fear in a loved ones eyes is something ill never forget.  

You die alone, your family can't have a funeral and you are mass cremated and ashes are thrown in a communal mass grave.  There is no closure.  

This is how it is for us here....so don't minimize this deadly virus.  I'm a nurse and have been through all the major outbreaks  since polio.  I've never seen anything ravage one so quickly and brutally.  

Every death is bad...the poor helpless souls in nursing homes are scared to death and the threat is real to them.  

There is a death toll with influenza but it is preventable but influenza is not as contagious and you do have a fighting chance....this is nothing like influenza 

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             @Stray,   For a number of reasons, I tapered back to reading these COVID-19 threads only sparingly, or slowly, maybe a couple of pages at a time and then leaving...  but I saw your post and felt that I had to respond.  Your words are passionate, informed, and wise, yet heartbreaking and tragic.    Thank you for writing this, for sharing this personal part of your life.   My heart goes out to you.   I am profoundly sorry for the deaths of your beloved family and friends.   Sending you love across the miles. (((❤️)))

[Isobel Archer]

I keep seeing the ad that where health workers say they are there for us and we should stay home for them.

OK - I also see that many of them ride the NYC subways - which have apparently become home to the homeless during this crisis - and that social distancing is not being practiced - making the subways almost as much an incubator for the virus as cruise ships.

So why don't we close the subways?  I mean if it's really about saving lives - why not?  The hospitals could provide transportation for their personnel.

[Isobel Archer]

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@JaneMarple wrote:

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@Isobel Archer wrote:

I keep seeing the ad that where health workers say they are there for us and we should stay home for them.

OK - I also see that many of them ride the NYC subways - which have apparently become home to the homeless during this crisis - and that social distancing is not being practiced - making the subways almost as much an incubator for the virus as cruise ships.

S

So why don't we close the subways?  I mean if it's really about saving lives - why not?  The hospitals could provide transportation for their personnel.

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Have you ever been to NYC? You do know that it's more than just Manhattan right? The city and it's thousands and thousands of police and transit workers are doing their best to remove the homeless from the trains. The homeless are not everywhere in the city of millions.

Meanwhile the subway is more convenient and easier to move around from place to place.  

If you don't believe the city of five boroughs  subway system is clean enough then feel free to go and volunteer to help keep them clean!

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So then you agree that there are considerations beyond saving lives by shutting down.

And this one is just a matter of convenience.  Yet when we talk about people suffering from job loss, loss of businesses, deferral of needed medical treatment, domestic violence etc. etc. as a result of the shutdown - much more important than "convenience" - why aren't these issues worth considering?

We can do more than one thing at once - and we have to or the suffering will be well beyond what is currently envisioned.

[ptagirl]

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@gardenman wrote:

The virus is clearly not as easily spread as initially feared. If the virus was easily spread and each infected person spread it to just one other person each day, in 34-35 days the whole world would have it. Day one, one person has it. Day two, two people have it and spread it to two others. Day three, four people then have it and spread it to four others. Day four, eight people now have it and spread it to eight others. Day five sixteen people have it and spread it to sixteen others. Keep doing the math and when you hit day 34-35, over eight billion people have it.

At this point about one in five hundred people have been infected that we know of in the US and probably half of them are no longer infectious which makes the odds of you even coming into contact with someone with the active virus one in about a thousand. What are the odds that you'd then catch the virus from them? Pretty slim if you're wearing a mask, washing your hands, not touching your face, avoiding unnecessary social gatherings, etc. Even if you did, nationally about 95% of the people recover.

The hardest-hit area is New York City where we cram 8.398 million people into just 302.6 square miles for a population density of 27,755.3 per square mile. Then we add in a few million commuters and tourists each day just to spice things up a bit. And don't forget that 7.6 million New Yorkers (and visitors) ride the subway each day where they're essentially packed in like sardines in a can, touching the same surfaces and breathing the same air. Workers tend to spend their days not in open fields with fresh air and sunshine, but in office buildings with recycled air and shared facilities.

Now, New York State (not just NYC) has a total of just 236,732 confirmed cases despite all of that. If this was as infectious as many like to think, that number would be much, much higher. NYC on a daily basis probably has over ten million people (commuters and residents) crammed into those 302.6 square miles.

Some will argue that we don't really know how many people were infected because we haven't tested everyone. That's true. But we do know the number of people who have died or been in the hospital. If the number of infected is higher than we know then the severity or risk posed by the virus is lower. New York's 236,732 confirmed cases with 17,671 dead is a death rate of 7.4% for those with confirmed infections. If the number of infected is ten times higher, the death rate drops by ten times to 0.74%. That's a much better number. If the number of infected is a hundred times higher then the death rate drops to 0.074%. Not too scary a number. Give me a 99.926% survival rate any old day and I'll be pretty happy.

Talk to any epidemiologist in the world and they'll tell you that the more people you cram into a tighter space the more likely the spread of disease is. That's what we're seeing in NYC. Despite cramming people in like sardines in a can, the number of infected and the death rate is not nearly as bad as many had presumed it would be. It's not good, but it could be, maybe should be, a lot worse. The fact that it isn't, indicates that either the virus isn't nearly as easily spread as many had presumed, or that the virus isn't nearly as deadly as many had presumed. If it's spread is wider, then the death and complications rate is lower. The two numbers are linked.

Assuming no one's hiding tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dead and hospitalized patients, the numbers right now are kind of encouraging. People are still going to get sick and people are still going to die, but if you take the right precautions and aren't horribly unlucky, you should come through this just fine. The numbers right now, when put into perspective, aren't so bad. Do the right things, take care of yourself, and you should be fine. This really isn't the Mother of all Pandemics that many had forecast. It's bad, but not nearly as bad as it had looked like it might be.

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I totally agree with you... I, myself, have stopped watching the news... I already know the precautions and the 'numbers'.. I will continue to be cautious and respectful of others, but I plan on living as able and as safely as possible... I refuse to live under a rock for the remainder of my life...

[Buffalogal47]

@ptagirl

I totally agree with you and @gardenman. I go out for a walk every day, go to the grocery store twice a week and do my Meals on Wheels route once a week. I do take all the recommended precautions; social distancing, constant hand washing, and using a mask in the store and when delivering meals to my MOW clients. The virus is probably everywhere; including the air. We can take all the precautions in the world, but we're not really safe anywhere from anything, not just from the virus. Life has to go on, regardless of circumstances. 

[gardenman]

Some people are making a big deal of the LA coronavirus test results, but those were antibody tests and I'm a little bit suspicious of any of the antibody tests that are out so far. There are four very common coronaviruses in humans (229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1) along with three less common ones in SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and Sars-CoV-2 (the current coronavirus.) I'm worried that some of the antibody testing may be detecting antibodies to "a" coronavirus, but not the specific one (SARS-CoV-2) that's causing the deaths and illness now. Most of us have run into one of the common coronaviruses in the past, so we'd have antibodies to them.

It's easy to forget we're only three months into dealing with this virus and developing tests/treatments for it. It came here in January, so we've had February, March, and now April to develop the tests. That's a pretty quick turnaround for testing. In comparison, HIV was here and detected in 1981, but arrived in 1976. We didn't have a reliable HIV test until 1985. Four years after we knew it was here and eight years after it hit our shores.

The PCR testing that looks for the virus itself is fairly reliable with a relatively low number of false positives and false negatives, but the antibody testing is a bit iffier at this point. It pays to view any antibody testing results with a bit of skepticism until they've been proven reliable. I strongly suspect some, if not many of them, are reporting any coronavirus antibodies and not the specific antibodies for SARS-CoV-2. That's kind of an important issue that should be kept in mind when you see antibody test results.

Most of those getting the PCR testing are testing negative. (Just 19.33 % tested positive in the latest numbers I've seen.) Most of those getting the PCR testing are people with symptoms (fever, cough, etc.) Despite the symptoms and some likelihood they have the virus, the majority (80+%) are testing negative and the virus isn't in them. That makes me a bit suspicious that the antibody tests we're seeing from LA are a bit off. If 80% of those with symptoms don't have it, why would such a high percentage of those without symptoms have it? I understand there will be some asymptomatic carriers, but the numbers just feel off to me.

If I was given an antibody test and tested positive for the antibodies, I'd still follow the same precautions as those without the antibodies until I was more confident in the antibody testing. I'm very suspicious that some of the early antibody testing is not especially specific to the virus in question. 

[Lipstickdiva]

What is in this article are all things that have been asked and answered by other experts a number of times already.  

[Deree]

Very Well Said  @Stray!

[suzyQ3]

@dooBdoo, I too, am finding that I have to ration my reading here. I was okay before the recent "protests" began. I think that triggered my feeling that we are facing bigger problems to come. I will read and post, but I've begun to block out those posts that will just unduly get to me. What's the point of such aggravation?

I do, however, always appreciate those who share my feelings. Yes, I said it. I need the comfort of knowing that I'm not alone.

[lovescats]

The reliability of the tests is also unknown, creating a marketplace where buyers should beware, with questions of balancing need with uncertainty.

To avoid the seething criticism it faced on red tape and mishaps involving diagnostic testing, the Food and Drug Administration removed many rules for the approval of serology tests. The result has been more than 90 tests from manufacturers worldwide hitting U.S. shores with little data to back up their claims.

The problems with the tests range from high percentages of false results to a lack of scientific certainty about what antibodies mean when they are present in accurate tests.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-21/coronavirus-antibody-blood-serology-tests-state-...