April 30, 20205 yr 1 hour ago, wyote said: Anybody understand why Maryland's governor is having the National Guard prevent feds from seizing COVID-19 tests that have been flown in from South Korea? What are the feds supposedly doing, and why? I was just about to post about this. When I talk about the risk of the union not surviving Trump, this is what I’m talking about. States are making their own deals with foreign governments and using their own armies to protect themselves from an incompetent and corrupt federal government.
April 30, 20205 yr https://www.nothingbutthetruthmd.com/2020/04/43020-covid-19-update.html Good evening: Tonight I would like to discuss economics, informed consent, personal choices and bias. Bias - I am well aware of my personal bias toward preservation of life and it has certainly been reflected in some of my previous posts. I think it a beneficial trait to have a predilection toward saving lives if you are going to embark on a career in clinical medicine. Mine has possibly been stronger than others. (not a good or bad thing) It has always made me feel uncomfortable to lose a patient. I started my career as a Pediatrician, intending to practice Critical Care Pediatric Medicine, but losing a child that was my own child's age was so emotionally difficult for me that I changed course. In the things that I will discuss tonight, I will attempt to divorce myself from my bias. Economics #1 In March of this year, CMS (the department that runs Medicare and Medicaid and does lots of other things) predicted that healthcare expenditures, as a percentage of GDP would increase from the current level of 17.7% to approximately 19.7% in the next decade. My goodness where they wrong!! Last year, healthcare expenditures were about $3 Trillion and Real GDP was about $18 Trillion. At current levels, each 0,1% increase in health care expenditures equals $18 Billion. (we need some perspective here lest people think this is free money like insurance coverage) That is the equivalent of the total income of 325,000 making $55,320, the average national income. At a yearly income of $200,000 we are talking about 90,000 individuals. Current modest estimates are that healthcare expenditures will go up about 20% and GDP will decrease by about 8% (primarily due to lost productivity, which will be a worldwide phenomena) this year. Healthcare expenditures will therefore increase to $3.6 Trillion, GDP will decrease to about $15.64 Trillion. In one year healthcare expenditures will go from 17% of GDP to 23 % of the GDP. That is the total income of about 19,500,000 individuals making the average yearly income. For the more fortunate, that will equal the total income of 5,400,000 individuals making $200,000 per year. These are real numbers. If you make a pie chart for national expenditures, some other slice or slices are going to be reduced. This is not like the invisible hand that traditional economist love to talk about, or like having a secret money printing press buried under the White House, maybe near the tunnels that Marilyn may have roamed or hidden away out in Area 51 with God knows what. Commercial Insurance premiums will probably go up somewhere between 20% and 40% next year. Hospital expenditures, which represent about 35% of total healthcare expenditures, will go way up. Some of this will be beneficial. Buying more ventilators and other equipment needed to care for this wave of patients will be useful for the next wave of patients, which will lessen expenditures when that happens. Creating more ICU beds and more trained critical care nurses and physicians will be necessary, so that a potential second wave does not distress the healthcare system as much as this first wave did. If you think of the economic stimulus packages as bridge loans (which were almost free because interest rates are so low) it made and makes perfect sense to me. It is so much easier to restart the economy with fewer failed businesses, you don't have to rebuild most of the infrastructure. The more businesses that failed, the harder and longer coming back would take. Choices #1 Anyone wonder why the United States is second only to Switzerland in leading the world in the number of covid-19 cases per capita? There is no doubt that politics informed decision making during this crisis, (not democrat vs. republican but the perceived will of the people) This is in keeping with the history of our country. It influenced our entry into the War of 1812, the abolition of slavery, suffrage, anti-lynching laws, entry into World War II, integration of the armed services, Civil Rights, and integration of Society. (not an all inclusive list) So why should this have been different, history tends to be repetitive. Certainly there may be those fortunate individuals with crystal balls and the Monday morning quarterback who would have made better decisions. In discussing decisions, there are so many options, I want to just compare what we did, with doing nothing but caring for the sick. We can see what the consequences are of what we did and we can extrapolate, now with some knowledge of the disease, what would have happened if we just took care of those affected by the virus.(without mitigation) Through the month of March, before much was done in the way of mitigation, the number of infected individuals was doubling every 2.5 days. By the beginning of April the effects of mitigation practices were beginning to make themselves evident, in the decrease in the daily new cases reported. If the doubling every 2.5 days had continued, by April 23, we would have had 103,000,000 covid-19 positive patients. I stopped there, because if we assume that the number of asymptomatic carriers is about 50%, that would have given us about 206,000,000 infected individuals, the number needed to reach Herd Immunity, IF antibodies are protective. At the current case fatality rate of 5.8% that would mean that 5,974,000 people would have died. Actually, it would have been much greater than that ,because the massive increase in cases in so short a period would have imploded the healthcare system. With that many infected individuals we would have needed close to 1,500,000 ICU beds. We had no more than 20,000. The ventilator shortage would have been inconsequential because there would not have been the trained staff or the specialized beds that the ventilators would have been auxiliary to. When an elevator is packed to the last inch, despite the fact that many are waiting to ride, there is just NO room for another person. So forget about the tough decisions that the press loves to talk about in rationing or triaging care. There is no room in the Inn, the toughest decision a triage officer would have to make is whether to let them die in the waiting room or go out into the parking lot and wait to be picked up by whatever truck and crew is assigned that grisly task. The age group over 65 would be most affected. We could expect that 4,361,020 people over the age of 65 would die, and we can assume that those with comorbidities such as hypertension,diabetes and obesity would be way over represented in this group. Going forward, this would be a tremendous savings to the healthcare system because this subset of the population consumes such a disproportionately large part of healthcare dollars, that healthcare premiums in 2021 would most likely go down due to their deaths. Other winners? Ventilator makers, casket makers, funeral directors, men (more men died proportionally, so surviving men would become a rarer commodity for a woman who is looking for a companion). Under current strategies, for this wave of the disease, we have probably saved 5,874,000 lives. (assuming we lose 100,000 in this wave) It is difficult to determine how much of the decrease in GDP can be attributed to the "shut downs" as opposed to what might have occurred without them. We can look at meatpacking plants and mass transit and other industries which would have been compromised or closed due to illness or death in the workforce. The productivity would have been affected to some significant degree without "shut downs." Informed Consent Watching the carnage going on about them, how many citizens would have gone to games, restaurants, movies,bars, actually any public gatherings? This is another reason I could not factor the effect of "shut downs" on GDP. Informed people would have made decisions with their feet. Economics #2 When we look at the costs of saving lives, let us just assume that the total increase in healthcare expenditures was due to what we actually did, because, very quickly we would have been doing nothing, once the Hospitals were full. A $600 billion dollar increase in healthcare expenditures would result in a $102,000 cost per life saved. To save a life using annual PAP smears beginning at age 30 appears to be about $331,837/life saved. For mammography beginning at age 50, if there is a number, it is very large and the same could be said for prostate cancer screening. There is much latitude between what we did and what successful countries such as Japan, Iceland, Taiwan and South Korea did. Don't delude yourself, we could NOT have emulated them. Our society is chaffing at safe living practices. Our society would never permit the use of our personal cell phone data, credit card information, ankle bracelets or living in government housing units to enforce isolation, which is so critical to minimizing transmission and the success experienced by these countries. Choices #2 What number of daily new cases will allow you to resume life as it was in October? If there were 100 new cases per day in Pennsylvania, (or your state), and assuming there were no pharmacologic interventions, would you go to a; Sixer's game (pick you favorite sport and team) where nobody has a mask? 50% have a mask? 100% have a mask they take off every time they want to eat popcorn, a hotdog or drink a beer? Movie where no one is wearing a mask? 50% are wearing masks? 100% are wearing masks? Sports bar? Sip your beer through a straw? Drink under a hood made just for the purpose? Who is sending their child back to elementary school despite the chance of a heart breaking outcome being truly rare? Who would spend $150/head on a wedding reception for their child? I need Survey Monkey. There are so many unknowns between what we did do (and are doing) and what we might have done, as to invite many comments. I picked a known and did the least amount of manipulation (doing nothing) to present some ideas. Far from precisely scientific but it is in a reasonable ballpark of possibilities. Sources: Potential Effects of Coronavirus on National Health Expenditures, Sherry Glied PhD 4/2020 JAMA Network Author Interview; Covid-19 and Healthcare Spending Sherry Glied, PhD Dean and Professor of Public Service at New York University Bid Debt Crisis, Ray Dileo The Intelligent Investor, Benjamin Graham Numbers: 1800 From the Hopkins website Testing - 6,231,182 (205,102 tests performed in the last 24 hours.) USA - 1,056,466 ( up 2.08%, down from 2.39%, 5292 fewer new cases than the day before) New York - 304372 (up 1.56%, up from 1.52% the day before) New Jersey - 118652 (up 2.00%, down from 2.16%, 142 fewer new cases than the day before) Pennsylvania - 47971 (up 3.54%, up from 2.63% the day before) Maryland - 21,742 (up 4.28%, up from 3.65% from the day before) California - 49,841 (up 7.16%, up from 2.21%from the day before ) South Carolina - 6095 (up 6.2% up from 4.22% from the day before) Texas -28,313 (up 5.17%, up from 2.70% from the day before) World - 3,260,964 (up 2.56%, up from 2.22% from the day before) Projections Bed utilization is coming down slower than projected for all states reporting data. Fatalities are lower for Texas and New York than projected for this day, all the rest were up. Live Safely Be Well Thank you to all those who have been sending this message out to others.
May 1, 20205 yr Author LINK WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (AP) — This year's Little League World Series and the championship tournaments in six other Little League divisions have been canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. Little League President Stephen Keener announced the cancellations in a Facebook Live broadcast Thursday afternoon from league headquarters in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, saying it would be "impossible” to hold the events amid ongoing restrictions on large gatherings and travel. The Little League World Series has been held every August since 1947 and had never been canceled before. Next year was to be the 75th playing of the tournament; that milestone has been pushed back to 2022. "Let me tell the folks in all those communities and all the sites where we have regional qualifying tournaments how disappointed we are to have to do this, but it was inevitable,” Keener said. "It would be irresponsible and impossible to bring teams and thousands of people from all over the world into the community of Williamsport as well as those six other communities that have been such great friends and supporters of ours over the years.” He added that travel restrictions would make it equally impossible to hold qualifying tournaments for international teams and to bring those teams safely to the United States. Little League has not, however, called off the 2020 regular season. Keener said there was reason for optimism that teams could play this spring and summer, depending on restrictions in states and localities. The annual major league game in Williamsport, which this year was to feature the Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles on Aug. 23, has been canceled, MLB said. "While the cancellation of the 2020 Little League World Series is extremely disappointing, the health and safety of all of the people involved must be the paramount consideration. We look forward to our return to Williamsport for the 2021 MLB Little League Classic,” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. Little League announced in March that the season was on hold until at least May 11 because of guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention against gatherings of 50 people or more. After that date, Keener said, districts and leagues should look to states and localities for guidance on when or if the season can resume. He also urged districts to hold all-star tournaments to give kids at least a taste of the competition they'll be missing with World Series qualifying scrapped. "We will be very amenable to (changing) eligibility requirements and be very flexible to allow as many kids the opportunity to play as possible for whatever can remain of the 2020 Little League season,” he said. Along with the Little League World Series, which is held in South Williamsport, the other events canceled were the World Series of Little League Softball in Greenville, North Carolina; Junior League Baseball in Taylor, Michigan; Junior League Softball in Kirkland, Washington; Senior League Baseball in Easley, South Carolina; and Senior League Softball in Sussex County, Delaware.
May 1, 20205 yr 7 hours ago, VaBeach_Eagle said: Has anyone else noticed a significant drop in the amount of junk mail that they're getting since all of this has been going on? My neighbor works for one of those junk mail sorting facilities. They cut their hours back to only like 3 days a week of sorting stupid junk mail. Seems like an awful job
May 1, 20205 yr 7 hours ago, VaBeach_Eagle said: Has anyone else noticed a significant drop in the amount of junk mail that they're getting since all of this has been going on? Mail volume has been extremely low. We haven't been getting much in the way of 3rd class since this all started. Parcels are booming though.
May 1, 20205 yr 14 hours ago, wyote said: Anybody understand why Maryland's governor is having the National Guard prevent feds from seizing COVID-19 tests that have been flown in from South Korea? What are the feds supposedly doing, and why? Just Lockdown Larry doing his thing. He's become quite the attention seeker in this crisis.
May 1, 20205 yr https://www.nothingbutthetruthmd.com/2020/05/5120-covid-19-update.html Good evening, American Airline is mandating wearing face masks to fly as of today Florida Governor halts State Medical Examiner from publishing daily covid-19 fatality data???? Wanted: A few good men and women, leaders to make consensus, influence the will of the people and help make reopening the country possible and successful before the bridge loans run out and the infrastructure of the Country begins to crumble. Our leadership should be wearing masks when in public! Do they fear upsetting the public? Is there really anybody left to upset? Sometime ago I read an interesting book entitled "The Lost Peace", by Robert Dallek. It was a retrospective look at the years after World War II and the opportunities that may have been squandered to achieve world peace. The author wisely acknowledges that opportunities may not really have existed due to the intransient nature of some of the World leaders. I look now at what some experts refer to as squandered time in this pandemic and ask, was it really squandered time, or was it the time necessary for the will of the people to change and accept draconian strategies required to combat the virus. Time has also offered us the opportunity to look in detail at what was done to achieve success in some countries such as South Korea, that never would have been accepted here. Our society would never allow the government to use our cell phones to track our travels or our credit cards and bank accounts to track the locations of purchases, in an effort to enforce isolation. The role of extracorporeal life support with Covid-19: Preliminary results from a statewide experience. Journal of Cardiac Surgery, April 2020 ECMO is a high technology modality and may be viewed as the ultimate, in the preservation of life. It is a machine that can oxygenate and remove carbon dioxide from the blood outside of the body. It has limited clinical applicability since there are only 11 ECMO centers in the entire State of Pennsylvania, where this investigation took place. I was able to find actual numbers for Minnesota, a State with a population of 5,000,000. Minnesota has five centers and the ability to treat 40 patients simultaneously. During the first 11 days of April, 52 patients died from Covid-19 in Minnesota. If each of Pennsylvania's centers has eight machines, Pennsylvania would have the ability to treat 88 patients simultaneously. In the first 11 days of April, 420 patients died in the state. One may assume that patients that are placed on ECMO for the treatment of lung disease secondary to Covid-19 are failing all attempts at ventilator support. There were 10 patients included in this investigation. Ages ranged from 31-62, 70% were male, 70% had comorbidities. The interval from symptoms to hospitalization was four days, symptoms to intubation, eight days, symptoms to ECMO 11 days. 100% of the patients were on hydroxychloroquine 40% were on remdesivir One patient was taken off ECMO after 7 days and one after 10 days. At the time of writing a third was being weaned. One patient died during the study period. Six patients remain on ECMO as of 4/11/20 time of writing. The authors state that "our results offer hope." I am not sure that I would view the results this way. This is a highly specialized form of treatment with limited access and very expensive. The costs just for ECMO are between five and ten thousand dollars per day. There is no mention of the morbidity of these patients after coming off of the ECMO treatment. The limited access to this treatment would involve the rationing of care. How would that be decided? Just because we can, I am not sure we should. Coronavirus Q&A - Predicting Pandemics JAMA Network 4/2020 Dr. Marc Lipsitch Professor of Epidemiology Chan School of Epidemiology Harvard University Take home points: SARS is virologically and biologically similar to Covid-19, but Covid-19 has a wider spectrum of disease. The people who were transmitting SARS were much more identifiable. SARS was controlled by extraordinary public health measures, not because it died out, but because you could figure out who was transmitting the disease and isolate them. SARS was a ten thousand disease epidemic, that was ten times more deadly. than Covid-19 Flu can be looked at as a seasonal disease or as a pandemic disease. The pandemic version occurs in weird times of the year as we are seeing with Covid-19, not primarily in the winter as seen with seasonal flu. Covid-19 is worse than most recent flu pandemics because it is more deadly and there are people at risk. The summer may make it less transmissible, maybe 20%, not enough to stop it. It is premature to talk about serology until we know whether it is protective. The sensitivity and specificity of the tests need to be worked out If antibodies are protective, at what level? Are we testing prevalence or protection. Talk of herd immunity and serosurveys are premature thoughts at this time until more is known. Numbers: 1800 from the Hopkins website Testing - 6,551,628 (320,628 tests in the last 24 hours) USA - 1,094,640 ( up 3.61% up from 2.08% the day before) New York -308,314 (up 1.29%, down from 1.56% the day before, down 739 new cases from the day before) New Jersey - 121,190 (up 2.13%, up from 2.00% from the day before) Pennsylvania - 4p,579 ( up 3.35%, down from 3.54%, down 36 new cases from the day before) Maryland - 23,472 (up 7.90% , up from 4.28%) California - 50,526 (up 1.37%, down from 7.16%, down 2649 new cases from the day before) South Carolina Texas - 29,272 (up 3.38%, down from 5.17% the day before, down 434 new cases from yesterday) World - 3,329,740 ( up 2.10%, down from 2.56% the day before, down 12,694 new cases from the day before) Projections Projected fatalities for this day were higher than projected across the board. Bed Utilization projected for this day was higher than expected across the board, HOWEVER, everybodies numbers were lower than yesterday, which is important in being able to return to normal function. The reverse slope of the recovery curve is just much flatter than was projected. Thanks to everyone who is helping to spread this very important message. You are helping to save lives!! Live Safely Be Well
May 1, 20205 yr 7 hours ago, Dave Moss said: I can’t wait for Black Friday when they try to enforce social distancing in the tv aisle.
May 2, 20205 yr 12 minutes ago, Abracadabra said: The Numbers K, Rip Van Winkle. Death toll is almost up to 65,000 now and Covid-19 is by far the number 1 killer in the USA
May 2, 20205 yr My advice to all of you who are scared sheetless is to go to the Alternative News outlets and hear what they're saying, here are a couple of links to get you informed. Dr. Shiva https://safeyoutube.net/w/ewy5 Lies, Damned Lies and Coronavirus Statistics https://www.activistpost.com/2020/04/lies-damned-lies-and-coronavirus-statistics.html Henry Kissinger & Bill Gates Call For Mass Vaccination & Global Governance https://www.activistpost.com/2020/04/henry-kissinger-bill-gates-call-for-mass-vaccination-global-governance.html Second Wave https://www.activistpost.com/2020/04/the-propaganda-report-dissects-the-second-wave.html
May 2, 20205 yr On 4/30/2020 at 4:15 PM, Mike030270 said: Where'd that one come from? Nope. Mine still gets a bunch I had a wicked cold or something back in January before the virus reached US. I was tested for flu and strep and both were negative. It was really bad over a weekend where I had a temp of 103.6. The worst of it was the weekend. I felt better the next week but still had a cough for maybe a week or 2. The family joked I was patient zero for bit. Same boat late February. Couldn’t get tested so they just said must be RSV
May 2, 20205 yr 1 hour ago, EagleVA said: My advice to all of you who are scared sheetless is to go to the Alternative News outlets and hear what they're saying, here are a couple of links to get you informed. Dr. Shiva https://safeyoutube.net/w/ewy5 Lies, Damned Lies and Coronavirus Statistics https://www.activistpost.com/2020/04/lies-damned-lies-and-coronavirus-statistics.html Henry Kissinger & Bill Gates Call For Mass Vaccination & Global Governance https://www.activistpost.com/2020/04/henry-kissinger-bill-gates-call-for-mass-vaccination-global-governance.html Second Wave https://www.activistpost.com/2020/04/the-propaganda-report-dissects-the-second-wave.html Not even reading all of that but I’m Gonna just say I’m ready to take my chances. F all this F-ery. Let’s just go. Feel scared? Wear a hazmat suit to the macdonalds. I don’t give a damn. Just let me go. Wolf said I can’t ride In a damn golf cart with my daughter but his transsexual F mate says I can stay at home and be safe sitting in the couch with the family for a month. Just don’t share any open dam air with them. I’m done. F all this political Fing crap and all the scares tactics from every dam side of the cube and get back to life.
May 2, 20205 yr 1 hour ago, DBW said: Not even reading all of that but I’m Gonna just say I’m ready to take my chances. I'm not much of a reader either, they're all videos, you really should listen to what others outside of the mainstream media are saying. Bottom line, Bill Gates is trying to eliminate us through population reduction via vaccines.
May 2, 20205 yr 30 minutes ago, EagleVA said: I'm not much of a reader either, they're all videos, you really should listen to what others outside of the mainstream media are saying. Bottom line, Bill Gates is trying to eliminate us through population reduction via vaccines. Can’t wait until you get banned again, Tinfoil.
May 2, 20205 yr 2 hours ago, EagleVA said: I'm not much of a reader either, they're all videos, you really should listen to what others outside of the mainstream media are saying. Bottom line, Bill Gates is trying to eliminate us through population reduction via vaccines. Oh sweet! I can’t wait to get my own Sci fi show about it.
May 2, 20205 yr Welcome back VA! Looking forward to more thoughts on the Rona and Bill Gates plan to commit mass genocide through vaccinations
May 2, 20205 yr 6 hours ago, EagleVA said: I'm not much of a reader either, they're all videos, you really should listen to what others outside of the mainstream media are saying. Bottom line, Bill Gates is trying to eliminate us through population reduction via vaccines. Sounds legit.
May 2, 20205 yr 30 minutes ago, dawkins4prez said: Sounds legit. If you check out the links you'll hear Gates say it himself. His mother and father was all about eugenics, they both ran Planned Parenthood during their time on Earth, I hope you know that Planned Parenthood is all about eugenics and population reduction. Bottom line, if you're raised in a household of racist you're likely to be a racist, ditto for eugenicists.
May 2, 20205 yr 23 minutes ago, EagleVA said: If you check out the links you'll hear Gates say it himself. His mother and father was all about eugenics, they both ran Planned Parenthood during their time on Earth, I hope you know that Planned Parenthood is all about eugenics and population reduction. Bottom line, if you're raised in a household of racist you're likely to be a racist, ditto for eugenicists. Please, go on.
May 2, 20205 yr 3 hours ago, devpool said: Welcome back VA! Looking forward to more thoughts on the Rona and Bill Gates plan to commit mass genocide through vaccinations It's not my thoughts per se, it's information I've found after refusing to listen to the lies spewed via the mainstream new networks and hearing what others have to say. Here's a link that you should check out. I included in my original links but when clicking on it from this site I received a message that it's been taken down but when I click on it outside of this site I can still view it.
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