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My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

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Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Masks are considered useless unless you are infected. This is a bizarre claim that can be countered against the reality that every front-line worker is equipped with a mask. EDIT: Almost immediately I dropped to -2. Bizarre. Again, every health agency the world over equips health workers who deal with potential COVID-19 with N95+ masks. For some reason people desperately want to clutch onto the notion that it's usele…

Those paper masks do little if anything to help the wearer from taking in anything. They do not filter the air—they are far too porous and loose-fitting to filter. They do help prevent the wearer from spreading their germs and touching nose/mouth as you said, but they are not an effective air filtration device.

As mentioned by others, surgical masks don't filter, but N95 masks absolutely do and are what health care workers are being equipped with.

N95 masks just look like cheap little paper things that you stick on your face.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#32
Hmm, this is bad. A ton of people from NYC / Brooklyn also commute back to the east end of Long Island for weekends so this has a potential to spread pretty quickly.

I don't keep up with the news at all but recently I started reading some articles from major news outlets just for more info about this virus. It's mind boggling at how different each channel's reporting is (I'm in the US).

I was at the store this morning and they had a TV playing. One channel down played it like it's nothing and it's even "technically" less potent than the regular flu because they compared yearly flu deaths to covid-19's deaths and played it off like "we're no where near the number of deaths that the flu has killed this year!" and then all of the surrounding anchors all agreed with the spokesperson they had on, etc.

Others make it out to be 1 notch away from an apocalyptic event.

So I guess this is really what "fake news" is? I don't get it. You can get a life time of prison for ordering someone to kill someone else but somehow it's ok to potentially gamble with the entire human population by not giving accurate information about a virus that's killing people.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#33

So is there a way to prepare our bodies for getting sick? Me and my wife and our 8 month old live 40 hours a week in public, so it's going to happen. We already eat healthy, me and the wife workout. But the kid? Not sure how to prepare him.

It's widely recommended that babies receive vitamin D supplementation even in the best of times.. but under these circumstances, and certainly if you're in the northern hemisphere, it's worth being proactive with this in advance.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#34

China: underreports diagnosed cases. U.S.: underdiagnozes cases. Not sure which is worse.

Let's assume what you said is true. In the first case, the person being diagnosed will know if he/she was in fact infected, and will be told to stay at home if so, so less potential public harm. The second case is way worse.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#35
post #30
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Masks are considered useless unless you are infected. That's not what the guidelines said. They guidelines were referring only to "hygienic masks" a.k.a. generic surgical masks: The Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) does not recommend that people who are well wear hygienic masks (surgical masks). If you are in good health, they do not protect you effectively against an infection with respiratory viruses (i.e. se…

You can actually increase your odds of infection by different deceases by having a paper mask since they are often uncomfortable or fit poorly and people put their hands to the face to adjust them.

This seems like an invented rationalization given that the average person touches their face up to 3000 times a day already (up to. It is trivial to find details of this range). If you adjust a mask a few times, but in return it stops you from touching your nose/mouth constantly, that's an enormous win.

And just to clarify, again people are talking about surgical masks. N95 masks, which are still "cheap paper masks", indisputably work. This is way beyond debate.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#36
> This is a tough one. I'm an attending physician.

> Guidelines are there for a reason. As much as I despise our Commander in Chief, I don't think the CDC is compromised. Fear doesn't rank over guidelines, but I understand the situation. No one wants to be the doctor that discharges patient zero.

> Personally, I'd admit you for fever of unknown origin for the time being and monitor you for any signs of sepsis. If everything looks good from an observation stand point, I'd discharge you with strict droplet precautions until the fever subsides.

> I think your doctor did the right thing given the context.

Given the above comment, most replies here are arguing against CDC regulation saying it is too stringent. Its very helpful to understand comments in this lens, rather than that the CDC is just under-testing for unknown reasons.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#37
The story is rather worrying, and as there is at least one news report about it now I assume at least a basic amount of checking has been done to verify it.

From what I read, in many of the publicized cases here in Europe that started with a single person travelling there were several confirmed cases in people with close contact to the original patient.

The reports from the US are mostly about single patients with no known source of infection and about denied tests. If you don't test, you don't actually know how widespread the virus is right now. It seems plausible to me that the low number of cases in the US is mostly because of the far more limited testing, and not because there are actually that few cases.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#38
post #32

Hmm, this is bad. A ton of people from NYC / Brooklyn also commute back to the east end of Long Island for weekends so this has a potential to spread pretty quickly. I don't keep up with the news at all but recently I started reading some articles from major news outlets just for more info about this virus. It's mind boggling at how different each channel's reporting is (I'm in the US). I was at the store this mornin…

You seem to have made up your mind about which news channel was correctly reporting. Why do you think your opinion and that of many others conflicts with the WHO and CDC?

To me it feels like the experts (WHO/CDC) are 'downplaying' while nonexperts (internet commenters who read a few articles) are doing the opposite.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#39
post #3

This implies that our government is managing the propaganda around Covid-19 by simply not testing suspected cases. Is this true?

No, it does not imply that. The facts are that the CDC followed their protocol and so the person was not tested. It could imply the protocols are too stringent, or that they are successful because the user might not have the coronavirus.

Its unclear to me where 'managing the propaganda' came out in relation to the reddit post.

Re: My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

#40
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes and extend that to many governments.

It appears to be pretty much all western governments. at least 3 countries in the middle east appear to be pretty transparent, including surprisingly, Iran The level of censorship around unquestionably authentic videos coming out of China has left me in a deep state of shock

There is, unfortunately, no such thing as an unquestionably authentic video in the modern era. It’s not reasonable to assume that everything you see in a video on Twitter is true.
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