37 minutes ago, Smokesdawg said:

 

It's astounding to me that a situation in which 100k+ Americans die -- many times more people than died on 9/11 --- is going to be treated as "it was't so bad." Maybe if the virus had been called something like "the Muslim virus" our country would've collectively mourned the dead rather than the lost money. 

 

It's only killing the old, weak and poor.

 

F 'em - I need a shot, a beer and a hair cut.

Zoomed with some friends who are docs all around the country recently and had some interesting perspectives.  ED doc out west said that the number of Covid patients is starting to decrease where he's at, but the people that are coming on for non-covid reasons are sick AF.  Seems like a lot of people have been avoiding the hospital with everything going on and allowed issues to get really bad.  One internal med doc in rural new England says his ICU is still full and he has been "trained" to act as an ICU doc to manage the load (like a 3 hour crash course). 2 have been asked to take indefinite 25% pay cuts (1 refused without an end date and they're threatening to furlough her).  PPE has improved for most but a few groups are still using the "1 n95 per person until it literally disintegrates" strategy.  Had one surgeon essentially quit because his hospital tried to force them to open up elective cases again over a month ago because they were hemorrhaging money (before you judge he's immunocompromised with an immunocompromised kid and already planned on starting a new job anyway). Other places have just started recently to open up limited elective cases with plans of expansion in the next few weeks. Guy in California made is seem as if things are much improved out there.

Kinda emphasized the importance of a careful individual approach and testing/tracking to me. Lots of places that seem like they could get back to normal, and a few situations (even in rural areas which surprised me) that are still very high risk of being overwhelmed.  The anecdotal increase in illness severity of people who put off hospital visits worries me too. 

10 minutes ago, Toastrel said:

It's only killing the old, weak and poor.

 

F 'em - I need a shot, a beer and a hair cut.

Don't forget Applebee's!!

3 minutes ago, DEagle7 said:

Zoomed with some friends who are docs all around the country recently and had some interesting perspectives.  ED doc out west said that the number of Covid patients is starting to decrease where he's at, but the people that are coming on for non-covid reasons are sick AF.  Seems like a lot of people have been avoiding the hospital with everything going on and allowed issues to get really bad.  One internal med doc in rural new England says his ICU is still full and he has been "trained" to act as an ICU doc to manage the load (like a 3 hour crash course). 2 have been asked to take indefinite 25% pay cuts (1 refused without an end date and they're threatening to furlough her).  PPE has improved for most but a few groups are still using the "1 n95 per person until it literally disintegrates" strategy.  Had one surgeon essentially quit because his hospital tried to force them to open up elective cases again over a month ago because they were hemorrhaging money (before you judge he's immunocompromised with an immunocompromised kid and already planned on starting a new job anyway). Other places have just started recently to open up limited elective cases with plans of expansion in the next few weeks. Guy in California made is seem as if things are much improved out there.

Kinda emphasized the importance of a careful individual approach and testing/tracking to me. Lots of places that seem like they could get back to normal, and a few situations (even in rural areas which surprised me) that are still very high risk of being overwhelmed.  The anecdotal increase in illness severity of people who put off hospital visits worries me too. 

I put off going to the doctor when I was dealing with really bad headaches every single day and hearing loss in left ear for a month. When I did finally seek medical attention they made me do a video call and the doctor was effing pissed that they set me up with a video call because he couldn't probably diagnose me over video and said he was tired of people's other problems being pushed to the side for the virus.

He said it can be so many things and can be really serious. Turned out it wasn't serious but, having headaches and not being able to hear for a month sucked arse. 

The hoops I had to jump through just to even get the video call was a few hour process of questions and calling back and forth and what not. 

2 minutes ago, DBW said:

While I am on board with many PA hospitals starting to open again, I will once again point out out how dumb it is to point out percent of total hospital beds when discussing COVID (percentage of ventilators to hospital beds is even more nonsensical).  No one is worried about the general floors being overwhelmed, it's the intensive care unit that is the issue which is why it's one of the markers outlined in the CDC reopening guidelines.

It has always been about controlling the curve.  That's what all the experts have told us from day #1.

7 minutes ago, Bwestbrook36 said:

I put off going to the doctor when I was dealing with really bad headaches every single day and hearing loss in left ear for a month. When I did finally seek medical attention they made me do a video call and the doctor was effing pissed that they set me up with a video call because he couldn't probably diagnose me over video and said he was tired of people's other problems being pushed to the side for the virus.

He said it can be so many things and can be really serious. Turned out it wasn't serious but, having headaches and not being able to hear for a month sucked arse. 

The hoops I had to jump through just to even get the video call was a few hour process of questions and calling back and forth and what not. 

Keep in mind most places are just figuring out telephone/video messages on the fly.  In a lot of places it wasn't even compensated until all this sheet hit the fan.

It's frustrating that people put off stuff but I get it.  The big example they mentioned were diabetics who let things get really out of hand, but those people are also immunocompromised soooo...who knows?  It's a sheet situation all around.

8 minutes ago, DEagle7 said:

While I am on board with many PA hospitals starting to open again, I will once again point out out how dumb it is to point out percent of total hospital beds when discussing COVID (percentage of ventilators to hospital beds is even more nonsensical).  No one is worried about the general floors being overwhelmed, it's the intensive care unit that is the issue which is why it's one of the markers outlined in the CDC reopening guidelines.

Hospitals can add makeshift icu rooms or convert regular floors to icu, provided they have enough equipment . I don’t know the numbers for how many ventilators are available in pa hospitals.  Nobody has shared that info and it probably wouldn’t be a true number anyway.  

21 minutes ago, Bwestbrook36 said:

Don't forget Applebee's!!

One thing that is amazing about lock down is no traffic.  LA isn't so big when fwys are wide open.  I get so much more done in a day its crazy. 

I think one of the main issues with this virus is the public isn't getting consistent information about it.  It seems there are different reports coming from sources all over.  For instance, the idea that it's mostly only a problem for people 65+ and who have an already existing health condition (and then really only certain ones make them more vulnerable to it, like heart disease, obesity, diabetes, etc.).  Then you have people saying there are instances of younger people dying from it, but you rarely hear if they had an already existing medical condition.  I understand this is a new virus and the doctors are still learning new things about it all the time, but if there was a more organized way of presenting a more unified version of info to the public I think that would help people get on the same page about what to do.  Seems people are too divided over how to live life right now.  You have people who want to try and stay at home as much as possible and always wear a mask/gloves and you have people who think it's not a big deal and we need to open up the country again.

The woman who is the Flyers' in-house reporter has it and has been blogging about in the hopes to help others understand what they're dealing with if they have it or think they do.  She said it started with a sore throat then really bad debilitating headaches for 4-5 days then loss of taste/smell and constantly feeling fatigued.  One of my former co-workers at our other store has been out of work since January with a broken shoulder she needs surgery for which was postponed in mid March.  She is 61 and only has 1 lung due to being a lung cancer survivor 15 years ago.  I was worried for her thinking she would be a very high risk to the virus, but she is certain she's had it (and says he doctor also thinks she had it) and is looking into getting the antibody test for it.  When I told her about the Flyers' in-house reported and described the symptoms, she said she had all of them except the sore throat.  I asked her how her breathing was and she said 'wheezy', like she was constantly smoking a cigarette.  

So it sounds like nobody really knows that much about this virus, how it could affect anyone except if you're senior citizen age and/or have a pre-existing medical condition then you're most at risk.  Otherwise, it's a crap shoot.  

1 minute ago, Green_Guinness said:

I think one of the main issues with this virus is the public isn't getting consistent information about it.  It seems there are different reports coming from sources all over.  For instance, the idea that it's mostly only a problem for people 65+ and who have an already existing health condition (and then really only certain ones make them more vulnerable to it, like heart disease, obesity, diabetes, etc.).  Then you have people saying there are instances of younger people dying from it, but you rarely hear if they had an already existing medical condition.  I understand this is a new virus and the doctors are still learning new things about it all the time, but if there was a more organized way of presenting a more unified version of info to the public I think that would help people get on the same page about what to do.  Seems people are too divided over how to live life right now.  You have people who want to try and stay at home as much as possible and always wear a mask/gloves and you have people who think it's not a big deal and we need to open up the country again.

The woman who is the Flyers' in-house reporter has it and has been blogging about in the hopes to help others understand what they're dealing with if they have it or think they do.  She said it started with a sore throat then really bad debilitating headaches for 4-5 days then loss of taste/smell and constantly feeling fatigued.  One of my former co-workers at our other store has been out of work since January with a broken shoulder she needs surgery for which was postponed in mid March.  She is 61 and only has 1 lung due to being a lung cancer survivor 15 years ago.  I was worried for her thinking she would be a very high risk to the virus, but she is certain she's had it (and says he doctor also thinks she had it) and is looking into getting the antibody test for it.  When I told her about the Flyers' in-house reported and described the symptoms, she said she had all of them except the sore throat.  I asked her how her breathing was and she said 'wheezy', like she was constantly smoking a cigarette.  

So it sounds like nobody really knows that much about this virus, how it could affect anyone except if you're senior citizen age and/or have a pre-existing medical condition then you're most at risk.  Otherwise, it's a crap shoot.  

cheeto's daily briefings weren't doing it for ya?  

You mean POTUS saying something while the expert doctor behind him rolls his eyes?  Yeah, kind of a red flag for me.

 

11 hours ago, Dawkins 20 said:

I don't care who wins your pissing contest with each other, but this is an interesting angle to take considering the conversation was about excess deaths. To bring proper context to an analysis of excess deaths, it would be incredibly important to know roughly "how many would've died anyways." If a few months from now we suddenly have a situation where the expected excess was well below expectations or even in a death deficit position, you can then lean on the "woulda died" statistics for context.

It doesn't mean they don't count and I don't want to speak for DrPhilly, but it really didn't seem like that's the direction he was taking. Of course they count, but it's also extremely valuable data to have. 

I don't know why dr philly avoided the question but this was what I was getting at.  He claimed we needed a year for this data to be relevant.  I think the 6 month window is perfect to really gauge the death toll by total deaths and not just the covid deaths.  I also believe the total death variance is going to be HIGHER than the official COVID #'s.

The adults acting like children and then screeching "freedom" in their own defense has to be the new "autistic screeching" meme of 2020.  

15 minutes ago, Smokesdawg said:

The adults acting like children and then screeching "freedom" in their own defense has to be the new "autistic screeching" meme of 2020.  

I got chided by a lot of people for using the autistic screeching meme on the old boards. Let's see how this plays out.

2 minutes ago, Kz! said:

 

1 minute ago, DBW said:

Hospitals can add makeshift icu rooms or convert regular floors to icu, provided they have enough equipment . I don’t know the numbers for how many ventilators are available in pa hospitals.  Nobody has shared that info and it probably wouldn’t be a true number anyway.  

They can and they have because in many places they needed to.  That doesn't mean they can turn all of the beds into ICU beds.  Hell you can even turn the vast majority into ICU beds. You need certain monitoring systems, gas hookups and most importantly appropriately trained staff (my friend in New England got a 3 hour training course on ventilator/pressor management in order to manage ICU patients which I think we can all agree is far from ideal).  The larger academic institutions are much better equipped to pull that off than rural hospitals but even their abilities are limited.

As far as numbers, the Society of Critical Care Medicine released the pre-COVID US critical care resources data once all this was starting up. Before this started there were about 68,500 adult ICU beds.  About 42,500 total rooms that potentially have negative pressure capabilities that are strongly recommended for COVID patients.  On average adult ICUs operated at about 66% capacity before all this hit (higher in larger centers, lower in smaller ones). Also of note 94% of ICU beds are located in metropolitan areas, 5% in "micropolitan" areas (10,000-49,999), and only 1% in rural areas.

Again I think many places are in a position where they can (and are) starting to open up again.  But the raw hospitalizations numbers need a huge amount of context that you consistently refuse to give them.

Still waiting for the piles of dead bodies that are supposedly going to start piling up as a result of the economy being shut down. When do all the economy shut down deaths start happening? So far almost 100k have died from coronavirus and people say the shutdown will kill more but everytime I look outside I don't see any piles.

2 minutes ago, BirdsFanBill said:

Still waiting for the piles of dead bodies that are supposedly going to start piling up as a result of the economy being shut down. When do all the economy shut down deaths start happening? So far almost 100k have died from coronavirus and people say the shutdown will kill more but everytime I look outside I don't see any piles.

haven't you seen the bread lines?  man, this is some dark stuff. 

 

4 minutes ago, mr_hunt said:

haven't you seen the bread lines?  man, this is some dark stuff. 

 

My goodness. Can't tell if that is Venezuela or the US.....

1 hour ago, wyote said:

It's astounding to me that a situation in which 100k+ Americans die -- many times more people than died on 9/11 --- is going to be treated as "it was't so bad." Maybe if the virus had been called something like "the Muslim virus" our country would've collectively mourned the dead rather than the lost money. 

 

Over 600K die each year - and we consider it a "woman's health issue."  Maybe we should call that something different as well?

9 minutes ago, BirdsFanBill said:

Still waiting for the piles of dead bodies that are supposedly going to start piling up as a result of the economy being shut down. When do all the economy shut down deaths start happening? So far almost 100k have died from coronavirus and people say the shutdown will kill more but everytime I look outside I don't see any piles.

Until we see piles of bodies dead from joblessness, we shouldn't worry about the economic consequences of a perpetual lockdown. Very solid post.