6 minutes ago, DBW said:

The two hospitals in lancaster county - Lancaster general and ephrata, are at less than 2% capacity and have plenty of PPE, etc.  this overrunning of hospitals is not happening.  And some counties are still seeing 125-150 cases per 100,000 after two months of lockdown so to get to the 50per 100k is unrealistic.  It’s never gonna happen.    

Listing general hospital capacity is kind of silly.  Almost every aspect of healthcare has slowed massively and largely that's by design.  It's all about ventilators and intensivist services, because as soon as that capacity is surpassed mortality skyrockets. And not just from COVID, any other patient requiring a vent including anyone requiring surgery all of a sudden is SOL. Penn health tracks that data and they list 49 COVID patients at Lancaster general, 15 in the ICU and 9 vented, all of which are (in ascending order of severity) well above "2% capacity".

Now would Lancaster General surpass their ICU capacity without the control measures put in place? Such a rural place if I had to bet I would say no, but pretending that the overrunning of essential hospital services is/was not a genuine and potentially devastating risk is pretty ignorant.

34 minutes ago, DEagle7 said:

Listing general hospital capacity is kind of silly.  Almost every aspect of healthcare has slowed massively and largely that's by design.  It's all about ventilators and intensivist services, because as soon as that capacity is surpassed mortality skyrockets. And not just from COVID, any other patient requiring a vent including anyone requiring surgery all of a sudden is SOL. Penn health tracks that data and they list 49 COVID patients at Lancaster general, 15 in the ICU and 9 vented, all of which are (in ascending order of severity) well above "2% capacity".

Now would Lancaster General surpass their ICU capacity without the control measures put in place? Such a rural place if I had to bet I would say no, but pretending that the overrunning of essential hospital services is/was not a genuine and potentially devastating risk is pretty ignorant.

Overrun hospitals was a risk when they weren’t sure how quickly and wildly this would spread and not kuch was known on treating it.  Well the vast majority of hospitals are not in danger and were never really in danger of being overrun.  Nationally there are less than 20,000 serious/critical hospitalized covid patients.  There are over 1 MILLION hospital beds on any given day.  I’m not dismissing that the threat and potential was there.  But now that we are seeing that projections were way off and hospitals are able to handle the load, it’s time to get back to life.  Safely of course.  

On Sunday, the crazed Democrat governor told CNN’s "State of the Union” host Jake Tapper that the citizens of Illinois could be ordered to socially distance and wear masks indefinitely.

Those citizens need to rope him over a park bench and kick his ***. 

2 hours ago, Gannan said:

There were conditions everyone thought were a good idea, then when that took too long everyone said F it. Wolf is trying to stick to the plan. The plan that came from the CDC and the Trump administration btw.

Blame Trump for rushing to open. Blame trump for dragging it out. 

I say let people pay for their decisions. You want to hide indoors fine. Figure out how to pay for it.
They rest of us with jobs and insurance that aren't willing to cower in fear will carry on with less traffic and shorter lines.

The Freedom of choice!

BTW F Wolf right in the *****!

8 hours ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

That news is bogus or misrepresenting.

Oregon has issued guidance for places like salons and tattoo parlors to reopen as soon as May 15th.

https://www.opb.org/news/article/oregon-coronavirus-covid-19-reopening-plan-may-15/

Metro areas are likely than need to wait a while longer. But there's no "stay at home until July 15th" order.

What is the difference, then, between what Oregon is doing, and what Georgia is doing?  Or what Michigan is doing?  Or what Rhode Island is doing?  Why say that there is a stay-at-home order or the stay-at-home order is lifted if salons and tattoo parlors are opening, or that non-essential retail is doing curbside pick-up?

35 minutes ago, DBW said:

Overrun hospitals was a risk when they weren’t sure how quickly and wildly this would spread and not kuch was known on treating it.  Well the vast majority of hospitals are not in danger and were never really in danger of being overrun.  Nationally there are less than 20,000 serious/critical hospitalized covid patients.  There are over 1 MILLION hospital beds on any given day.  I’m not dismissing that the threat and potential was there.  But now that we are seeing that projections were way off and hospitals are able to handle the load, it’s time to get back to life.  Safely of course.  

There are not, however, even remotely close to a million ICU beds or ventilators which again is the biggest concern with a disease like COVID.  Latest data out of the society of critical care medicine has about 68,500 adult ICU beds (total numbers of critical care beds are hugely skewed by NICUs and adults make up almost the entirety of COVID patients so that's the best demographic to focus on).  Still seems like plenty right?  Well now consider that they also predict that the average occupancy rate of the those ICUs before COVID hit was about 66%. If we do the math that's about 22,800 beds available nationally on average before COVID.  Margin of error keeps on shrinking and the number of free beds is getting awfully close to the number of serious/critical hospitalized COVID patients you quoted.

Now we've managed to remain under that threshold almost everywhere but we've also as a country largely been on lockdown, been wearing masks in public and distancing.  You also have to keep in mind that we have precedent of a pandemic having a significantly worse "second wave" after easing of safety regulations with the 1918 flu. Starting to see why pretty much every medical society and national organisation was and remains a tad concerned?

Here's the kicker: I'm not against (gradually and selectively) opening up again.  But making cavalier claims like " the vast majority of hospitals are not in danger and never really were in danger" is dangerously ignorant.  

58 minutes ago, lynched1 said:

On Sunday, the crazed Democrat governor told CNN’s "State of the Union” host Jake Tapper that the citizens of Illinois could be ordered to socially distance and wear masks indefinitely.

Those citizens need to rope him over a park bench and kick his ***. 

The "masks are Communism" people were a little overboard with that, but the governor saying something like that gives credibility to the insane protestors.  That is exactly the reason that they have been protesting, because some politicians would use the pandemic as an excuse to permanently change society.

The idea of everyone wearing masks is unprecedented.  This is what doctors / medical experts think is best for the time being.  
 

Are you gonna listen to the guy who went to medical school and has actually studied pandemics or the guy who flunked high school biology that says you don’t need to wear a mask?  Personally, I don’t find it a hard decision.

15 minutes ago, Dave Moss said:

The idea of everyone wearing masks is unprecedented.  This is what doctors / medical experts think is best for the time being.  
 

Are you gonna listen to the guy who went to medical school and has actually studied pandemics or the guy who flunked high school biology that says you don’t need to wear a mask?  Personally, I don’t find it a hard decision.

I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed to learn that just because they are opening the country back up they still are going to have to wear masks. 

Our government is such a joke and a sham over here. 

Daily update from the doc

https://www.nothingbutthetruthmd.com/2020/05/51020-covid-19-update.html

Good evening,

What is wrong with this picture?

 

Katie Miller, press secretary for Vice President Pence has tested positive for Covid-19

Three key members of the coronavirus task force, including Dr. Fauci, are self quarantining after coming into contact with a covid+ patient

A military valet to the President has tested positive for Covid-19

Eleven Secret Service employees have tested positive for Covid-19 

 

Have these people entertained wearing masks in the public domain? They have almost as many covid positives as Nicaragua!!

 

 

Observational Study of Hydroxychloroquine in Hospitalized Patients with Covid-19

NEJM

May 7, 2020

 

This was an observational study that investigated the association between intubation and death and the use of hydroxychloroquine.

1376 patients were studied with a median follow up time of 22.5 days

811 patients received hydroxychloroquine (58.9%) in a dose of 600 mg twice a day the first day and then 400 mg daily for five days

Patients were treated within 24 hours of admission

Overall 346 patients had a primary endpoint (death or intubation) during the study period

186 patients were intubated, 66 of these patients died

166 patients died without intubation

 

Neither benefit nor harm was demonstrated in this observation study.

 

It is becoming increasingly hard to ignore accumulating evidence and potentially valuable observational data that this drug lacks efficacy. 

 

It is disappointing at this juncture, four months into this pandemic, that there is a dearth of quality evidence related to the pharmacologic intervention in this viral disease.  In part, this is related to dwindling case numbers in China, and South Korea which have led to the cancellation of randomized controlled trials due to insufficient power (the inability to enroll sufficient numbers of patients).  In this country, the lack of discipline and rush to treat (with compassion) patients with the disease, has compromised the ability to construct such trials.  The harm, despite over a million infected patients, 80,000 deaths and nearing 10,000,000 tests, is the lack of definitive knowledge of how best to optimize the treatment of our patients.  We are still only guessing. The  paucity of controlled trials exemplifies a flaw in our investigative process. Care, not based on evidence, is not always good care.

 

 

Demographics from Georgia

 

A  retrospective review of 305 Covid positive patients from eight hospitals during the month of March in the State of Georgia.

Median Age 60

62% of the patients were less than 65 years old

26% had no high risk comorbidities for the Covid-19 infection

39% received intensive care treatment

17% died, including 5% without high risk conditions for covid-19.

 

The case fatality rate is NOT 17%.  17% represents the fatality rate of patients who required hospitalization.  These numbers from Georgia present a severer picture than I have seen in other demographic presentations from other areas.  During the month of March, Georgia had a total of 2800 positive tests.  This sample of hospitalized patients represent over 10% of the total covid positive patients for that month. 

 

 

Numbers:  1800 From the Hopkins website

 

Tests - no new data tonight

 

USA - 1,326,138 (up 1.57%, down from 1.89%, 3704 fewer new cases than the day before)

 

New York - 335,395 (up 0.68%, down from 0.82%, 442 fewer new cases than the day before) third day in a row below 1%

 

New Jersey - 138,754 (up 0.98%, down from 1.14%, 200 fewer new cases than the day before) 

 

Pennsylvania - 59,939 ( up 2.35%, up from 2.07% the day before)

 

Maryland - 32,587 (up 3.39%, down from 3.44%, actually 4 more new cases than the day before)

 

California - 67,539 (up 4.04%, up from 3.78% the day before)

 

South Carolina -7655 ( up 1.63%)

 

Texas - 38,958 (up 2.77%, up from 2.62% the day before)

 

World - 4,091,297 (up 2.06%, down from 2.08%, but up 1027 new cases than the day before)

 

 

Please continue to forward this message to others.  More people in California, Maryland and Texas need to practice living safely.

 

Thank you

 

Live Safely

Be Well

8 hours ago, xzmattzx said:

What is the difference, then, between what Oregon is doing, and what Georgia is doing?  Or what Michigan is doing?  Or what Rhode Island is doing?  Why say that there is a stay-at-home order or the stay-at-home order is lifted if salons and tattoo parlors are opening, or that non-essential retail is doing curbside pick-up?

There isn't a lot of difference between what Oregon is doing and what PA is doing from what I can tell.

Extending a state of emergency gives governors the authority to issue orders such as stay at home. 

But I also think there is a broad definition of what "stay at home" means. It's pretty situational.

And now we're getting to where certain counties are able to open up to some degree because the volume of cases is low. Other counties, particularly metro areas, aren't there yet.

I have no idea why the initial post here was "stay at home extended to july". The state of emergency was extended. But that's a separate order.

9 hours ago, DBW said:

Overrun hospitals was a risk when they weren’t sure how quickly and wildly this would spread and not kuch was known on treating it.  Well the vast majority of hospitals are not in danger and were never really in danger of being overrun.  Nationally there are less than 20,000 serious/critical hospitalized covid patients.  There are over 1 MILLION hospital beds on any given day.  I’m not dismissing that the threat and potential was there.  But now that we are seeing that projections were way off and hospitals are able to handle the load, it’s time to get back to life.  Safely of course.  

Not sure how you can assert this when the fact is we don't know.  Plus beds isn't the only resource that is relevant.  You need beds, personnel, equipment, etc.

Maybe all is cool and I agree that things should go back toward normal life in a controlled manner.  All good there.

7 hours ago, Bwestbrook36 said:

I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed to learn that just because they are opening the country back up they still are going to have to wear masks. 

Yeah well we can all agree that @mr_hunt most certainly needs to continue wearing one

Our government has released a COVID-19 alert levels gauge... That looks an awful lot like the Nando's hotness scale.

16 minutes ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

Our government has released a COVID-19 alert levels gauge... That looks an awful lot like the Nando's hotness scale.

A national gauge or something that goes down the region or even neighborhood level?

42 minutes ago, DrPhilly said:

A national gauge or something that goes down the region or even neighborhood level?

We already have one, and the government is free to use it:

2 hours ago, Phillyterp85 said:

In this country, the lack of discipline and rush to treat (with compassion) patients with the disease, has compromised the ability to construct such trials.  The harm, despite over a million infected patients, 80,000 deaths and nearing 10,000,000 tests, is the lack of definitive knowledge of how best to optimize the treatment of our patients.  We are still only guessing. The  paucity of controlled trials exemplifies a flaw in our investigative process. Care, not based on evidence, is not always good care.

Interesting observation.

49 minutes ago, DrPhilly said:

A national gauge or something that goes down the region or even neighborhood level?

National gauge. We are all being treated as one rather than going be regions.

10 minutes ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

National gauge. We are all being treated as one rather than going be regions.

Seems like it won't be worth that much then.

Seems like things are going well. People are getting their life sustaining haircuts and tans on the beaches, the white house cant even stop themselves from getting coronavirus. I feel so much freer already.

3 minutes ago, BirdsFanBill said:

Seems like things are going well. People are getting their life sustaining haircuts and tans on the beaches, the white house cant even stop themselves from getting coronavirus. I feel so much freer already.

I need a haircut so bad, the top doesn't grow as much anymore as the sides, and the weight is causing my head to lean one way or the other causing my spine to be mis-aligned and I fear I'm getting back/neck issues.  I'm thinking of taking the clippers to my head and just shaving it all off!! LMAO

23 minutes ago, BirdsFanBill said:

Seems like things are going well. People are getting their life sustaining haircuts and tans on the beaches, the white house cant even stop themselves from getting coronavirus. I feel so much freer already.

You are free to not get a hair cut, and no one is forcing you to go to the beach. 

2 minutes ago, Tnt4philly said:

You are free to not get a hair cut, and no one is forcing you to go to the beach. 

Oh ok thanks. I must have misread the taskforce guidelines. I'll leave the line outside my local barbershop now then and change out of my swim trunks.

24 minutes ago, NYEagle said:

I need a haircut so bad, the top doesn't grow as much anymore as the sides, and the weight is causing my head to lean one way or the other causing my spine to be mis-aligned and I fear I'm getting back/neck issues.  I'm thinking of taking the clippers to my head and just shaving it all off!! LMAO

I’d advise shaving it off rather than doing what I did and try to give yourself an actual haircut.   It is soooo much harder than I thought it would be.