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Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

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Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#71
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Numbers don't mean much. You don't have confirmed cases if you don't test. The same is true pretty much everywhere however, not only the US. You'd have thought we would systematically test people from at-risk region, but apparently not.

> Numbers don't mean much. Really? > You don't have confirmed cases if you don't test. There's appropriate testing. You and some media outlets are just fear mongering. There's less testing overall because there's less risk because the US government quarantined it so well. Other countries did and have not. Yes there have been some blunders, but that's human. I don't think blanket statements politicizing the situation…

> there's less risk because the US government quarantined it so well.

Can you elaborate on that? Up to now everything shows that US government did not quarantine it very well, the chances for early testing and isolation of early cases were missed because of too restricted testing, and now we're getting severe patients who did not have any travel history, so they've been infected somewhere on US soil a week or two ago from sources who haven't been identified (possibly because they themselves have only mild symptoms and don't need hospitalization) and presumably have infected others. These "surprise patients" are evidence that community spread in USA has started some time ago already.

From what I see, countries like Singapore and South Korea are some examples of implementing somewhat effective quarantine measures, and USA has quarantined it much worse than other countries, it's just that it's been hidden due to lack of testing and the time delay of severe symptoms, so we're just starting to see the consequences of that.

Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#72
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Numbers don't mean much. You don't have confirmed cases if you don't test. The same is true pretty much everywhere however, not only the US. You'd have thought we would systematically test people from at-risk region, but apparently not.

> Numbers don't mean much. Really? > You don't have confirmed cases if you don't test. There's appropriate testing. You and some media outlets are just fear mongering. There's less testing overall because there's less risk because the US government quarantined it so well. Other countries did and have not. Yes there have been some blunders, but that's human. I don't think blanket statements politicizing the situation…

I don't think it's been quarantined well. In fact, I'd say the quarantine here in the US was handled very badly. Workers were exposed to quarantined individuals without proper equipment or training[0]. The virus has a long period before people show symptoms so the current number of people infected is probably larger and more widespread than we know.

[0] https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-02-29/...

Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#73
post #27

From another story on the nursing home outbreak: > "If we had the ability to test earlier, I'm sure we would have identified patients earlier," he [a Washington State health official] said. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/485302-officials-annou... This is a pattern playing out with striking regularity: 1. Local authorities can't test for themselves. 2. CDC adjudicates testing requests, rejects many (most) of th…

I think you hit the nail on the head. This seems like a testing issue, the real numbers are not known yet.

Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Numbers don't mean much. Really? > You don't have confirmed cases if you don't test. There's appropriate testing. You and some media outlets are just fear mongering. There's less testing overall because there's less risk because the US government quarantined it so well. Other countries did and have not. Yes there have been some blunders, but that's human. I don't think blanket statements politicizing the situation…

> there's less risk because the US government quarantined it so well. Can you elaborate on that? Up to now everything shows that US government did not quarantine it very well, the chances for early testing and isolation of early cases were missed because of too restricted testing, and now we're getting severe patients who did not have any travel history, so they've been infected somewhere on US soil a week or two ago…

The total number of cases in each country indicates otherwise.

Currently compared to every other country on Earth, we have quarantined it the best.

Even if you assume there are some undetected cases in the US (which is likely), it's still not even close.

It WILL spread across America, it's just a matter of time.

You are speculating that the CDC will not be able to handle it.

Take a step back and calm down. Maybe evaluate where you get your news and why they are trying to fear monger.

Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#75
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Numbers don't mean much. You don't have confirmed cases if you don't test. The same is true pretty much everywhere however, not only the US. You'd have thought we would systematically test people from at-risk region, but apparently not.

> Numbers don't mean much. Really? > You don't have confirmed cases if you don't test. There's appropriate testing. You and some media outlets are just fear mongering. There's less testing overall because there's less risk because the US government quarantined it so well. Other countries did and have not. Yes there have been some blunders, but that's human. I don't think blanket statements politicizing the situation…

You assert that numbers mean a lot. You also state that appropriate testing is being done. What number of tests need to be administered to attain an appropriately sized population for statistical analysis? The answer to this is a LOT MORE than the ~3500 tests that have been conducted in the US over the last month.

We already have people testing positive who have not travelled overseas and have not come into contact with known carriers. The CDC has labeled those cases as community acquired cases. That means we KNOW that we don't have accurate numbers, and we KNOW that there are more people sick than our data suggests. It also means that some population of carriers are both not in quarantine, and are activity transmitting to others.

So the quarantine in the US has failed, and we have no idea how badly. Paranoia is warranted at this point.

Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are 70+ or severely ill this IS pretty bad because, unlike the flu, their is literally no defense. If you don’t fit that profile it’s just a bunch of FUD. The 34 year old Chinese doctor who spoke up about the virus died. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51403795

I’ve heard symptoms relate less with age and more with viral load. The sicker other people are and the more frequently you come in contact with them, the more lethal it becomes. I’m checking reddit r/COVID19, which is a science based discussion forum with cited academic papers and flaired scientists. It started turning into a prepper forum but I think the mods are shutting that down pretty quickly. I go there for my…

I'm an active poster there.

It's worth noting this is only a hypothesis. Yes, in general, across viral illnesses, people have a worse course of disease with high viral load. Whether that's a primary cause of differences in prognosis-- who knows. It would help explain why medical practitioners seem to do so badly.

Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#77
post #46
post #20

HN is really buying into the media hysteria on this one. I would have expected more.

don't know why you got downvoted. I have yet to see the opinion of a doctor explaining why this virus requires specific measures compared to other types of flu-like viruses ( hint: friend working in a hospital recently told me doctors there are amazed by the frenzy on this topic, that looks to them exactly the same as other kinds of flu). It seems politics are forced to take the same kind of exceptional measures as i…

Let's just say that doctors and nurses treating flu patients during the flu epidemic are generally not dying from flu, and quite a few doctors and nurses treating Covid-19 patients have died from Covid-19.

Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Numbers don't mean much. Really? > You don't have confirmed cases if you don't test. There's appropriate testing. You and some media outlets are just fear mongering. There's less testing overall because there's less risk because the US government quarantined it so well. Other countries did and have not. Yes there have been some blunders, but that's human. I don't think blanket statements politicizing the situation…

You assert that numbers mean a lot. You also state that appropriate testing is being done. What number of tests need to be administered to attain an appropriately sized population for statistical analysis? The answer to this is a LOT MORE than the ~3500 tests that have been conducted in the US over the last month. We already have people testing positive who have not travelled overseas and have not come into contact w…

> So the quarantine in the US has failed, and we have no idea how badly.

No one ever suggested it was never going to spread in America. The quarantine was to TRY to prevent it from getting here, but you can only do so much.

Once it is here we will treat it. There are plenty procedures in place since 9/11 to handle these things properly.

The longer we held the quarantine the more time we had to prepare. We've done really well thanks to the early travel bans that the media was against.

> Paranoia is warranted at this point.

Stop fear mongering.

Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are 70+ or severely ill this IS pretty bad because, unlike the flu, their is literally no defense. If you don’t fit that profile it’s just a bunch of FUD. The 34 year old Chinese doctor who spoke up about the virus died. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51403795

I’ve heard symptoms relate less with age and more with viral load. The sicker other people are and the more frequently you come in contact with them, the more lethal it becomes. I’m checking reddit r/COVID19, which is a science based discussion forum with cited academic papers and flaired scientists. It started turning into a prepper forum but I think the mods are shutting that down pretty quickly. I go there for my…

>> I’ve heard symptoms relate less with age and more with viral load. The sicker other people are and the more frequently you come in contact with them, the more lethal it becomes.

Are you sure that's accurate? I'm not disputing that as viral load increases, so do symptoms, and ability to infect others.

However, I'm finding it hard to model a scenario in which a virus is already replicating in one's system and external exposure to comparitively infinitesimal amounts of the same virus has an impact. Do you have any actual evidence to present which backs up your claims?

Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#80
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve heard symptoms relate less with age and more with viral load. The sicker other people are and the more frequently you come in contact with them, the more lethal it becomes. I’m checking reddit r/COVID19, which is a science based discussion forum with cited academic papers and flaired scientists. It started turning into a prepper forum but I think the mods are shutting that down pretty quickly. I go there for my…

I'm an active poster there. It's worth noting this is only a hypothesis. Yes, in general, across viral illnesses, people have a worse course of disease with high viral load. Whether that's a primary cause of differences in prognosis-- who knows. It would help explain why medical practitioners seem to do so badly.

Thank you very much for the clarification and for posting there! Yes, it is but one explanation and one possible reason out of many. I think others there have mentioned stress (I believe I read one 27 y/o doctor sadly dropped dead after working 10 days straight) and contexts such as existing immune system health (I've read a good number of stories of outbreaks in hospitals in addition to this nursing home story).
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