Seems like social distancing and a recommendation from the CDC of cancelling mass gatherings of > 5000 would be a great measure to slow the waves of infection that are likely to hit and overwhelm healthcare systems if such measures are not taken. HIMSS 2020, a conference of ~45000 attendees from 90+ countries is still scheduled to go forward at Orange County Convention Center Orlando March 9-13 - even as major partic…
Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary
61–70 of 140 posts
Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know where you live but here in UK if you ring 111 and say you suspect you might have the virus they will send someone to drop a testing kit through your letterbox and take it back for testing. No need to go anywhere.
EDIT: Updated my bad currency exchange math. Thanks, mprev. In the US, you have to go to a doctor or hospital, hope your insurances covers it, or else you’re out $3000 (£2300).
Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary
#63So calling the CDC incompetent doesn't seem to describe the complete story.
Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary
#64If anyone is curious, it's now officially in NYC. Someone came off a plane from Iran. She was officially tested but since she wasn't dying the hospital sent her home for self-quarantine. Feel free to Google it to read it on whatever site you prefer, but here's a snippet from the Weather channel's site (I saw it when checking the weather today): > A woman in her late 30s contracted the virus while traveling in Iran, G…
First tested and confirmed case in NYC. There have been numerous reports from NYC residents who returned from areas with community spread, got sick, tested negative for the flu, and the CDC wouldn’t test them. I think in a few weeks we’ll find out that Coronavirus has actually been spreading in NYC for 3+ weeks. The CDC is incompetent.
Please bear in mind that CDC funding for international coordination on pandemic control was cut by 80% a few years ago, and since 2018 they have not had a representative on the National Security Council, and had their senior Pandemic response positions eliminated.
Reports that their overall funding was cut are not accurate, Congress fortunately re-instated their basic funding in the budgets before it came to that, but they have taken a severe political beating and been very much sidelined in recent years, which has not set them up to do their best work.
The problem seems to be one of political perception. Most epidemic and pandemic threats originate outside the US and so significant parts of the CDC are oriented towards detecting, isolating and eliminating threats outside the US borders. They also work closely with international health agencies. The current US administration confuses this with 'aid for foreigners', when it's actually vital national defence.
Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, this is more serious than the flu, but not as serious as MERS or SARS. Like the seasonal flu, the main worry is older people and/or people who are already respiratory compromised. I don't want to catch this much like I don't want to catch the flu, but my main worry is for my parents and grandparents.
This is way more serious than the flu in multiple ways. First of all, estimates show that the case fatality ratio (CFR) is around 2%, which is 20x higher than the flu. This number is likely to rise when ICUs are becoming over-constrained and cannot take new patients. This is already happening in the north of Italy as we speak. Second, the transmissibility of the SARS-nCov-2019 (the virus causing COVID-19) is much hig…
Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary
#66the data posted to the CDC website seems all over the place. e.g. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html right above the table the report says: Updated February 29, 2020 Looking at their editing history on archive you can see how their numbers evolved over time: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.cdc.gov/coronaviru... inconsistencies/errors in the report (e.g. 21st Feb they claimed 479 tota…
.. Trump didn’t succeed in slashing the budget, however. > Trump’s budgets have proposed cuts to public health, only to be overruled by Congress, where there’s strong bipartisan support for agencies such as the CDC and NIH. Instead, financing has increased. https://apnews.com/d36d6c4de29f4d04beda3db00cb46104
Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then stay at home. If you're sick, refusing to get tested and continue to live like everything is fine you're actively and willingly spreading a deadly virus.
Be calm, I'm all better.
Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary
#68For those who want constant updates about the international situation, this is the best source I found so far: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ By the way , I'm wondering how much the high cost of the test in the US is responsible for a number which looks (to me at least) suspiciously low.
Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary
#69> An important part of CDC’s role during a public health emergency is to develop a test for the pathogen and equip state and local public health labs with testing capacity. Testing for COVID-19 has been an unmitigated failure in the US. Whatever advantage may have accrued from closing travel routes has been fritted away by preventing local authorities from testing. Without testing, there's no way to say anything abou…
Same in Germany. Authorities have tracked and followed infection paths of several 10k people in China to contain the spread and reach a massive slowing in disease spread (confirmed by WHO) due to drastic containment measures.
In Germany 35 (without the "k") people were infected in the state of NRW and authorities gave up following infection paths. They're barely testing despite crazy rising numbers and nationally we have discussions about containment measures.
The conclusion is that we will likely not contain any communities or cancel events just yet. Because it would impede on individual freedom which is regarded as more important than preventing the spread of a dangerous pandemic.
Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary
#70I find it interesting to compare what's CDC is doing right now ( messed up tests, not enough testing, protecting markets but not people) to what we can see CDC doing in movies like Contagion where they are on top of everything before anyone else even knows that the there is a new virus in the wild.