outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

Hey everyone. Not sure if anyone will remember me, but I used to post on ILX years back, including at length on the Jenny McCarthy / autism thread.

I'm still a neurologist, in Canada (Saskatoon). We're bracing for Covid, but it hasn't hit hard here yet. I'll eventually be working in the hospitals taking care of pneumonia patients, but that's still a few weeks off. In the meantime, I've been writing online about medicine again, on our local subreddit, trying to get outside the bubble of my mostly doctor friends and reach people in the community to discuss this crisis.

It's a legitimately terrifying situation. I hope everyone is staying safe, wherever you are.

Sorry to be too emotional about it (not much sleep these days), but these boards and the people who write here have meant a lot to me. Wanted to stop by and say hello again.

I'll check in here from time to time and contribute what I can.

good luck usa

thank you Plasmon, and best to you in your work and life

we really need an alternative to "fluid process"

totally remember you! good to hear from you. Great work that you're doing.

infuriating video from Florida from a city council meeting.

the male getting the most upset is Omari Hardy, and I tend to agree with him here.

This is why the beaches haven't closed in Florida, and why they've had minimal COVID-19 prevention. Absolute dysfunction. pic.twitter.com/8x2tcQeg21

— Farbod Esnaashari (@Farbod_E) March 21, 2020

Please check in lots. Any information you have will be infinitely more reliable than trying to stitch together a thousand moving parts by the minute.

The Washington Post reports:

The FDA late Friday approved the first coronavirus test that can be conducted entirely at the point of care for a patient — and deliver results in 45 minutes. The FDA granted “emergency use authorization” to Cepheid, a California company that makes a rapid molecular test for the coronavirus. Getting results in 45 minutes would be far quicker than the current situation in which tests typically are sent to central reference labs that can take days to deliver results.

The FDA authorization covers “patient care settings,” including doctors’ offices, but initially will be used primarily by hospitals and emergency departments, the company said. The specimen can be collected either by a nasal swab or by a saline wash using a small catheter. Neither is particularly comfortable, but the advantage of the wash is that it doesn’t require swabs, which are in short supply.

xpost co-sign

45 minute tests sound good.

Dr Shitstain gets results

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-21/nigeria-reports-chloroquine-poisonings-after-trump-praised-drug

Watch CBS, asswipe

― Chief Kyiv, Saturday, March 21, 2020 2:21 PM

Whatever your problem is, moderator patience is probably thinner than usual so rein it in plz.

rein it in plz

Chief Kyiv is almost certainly one of those perma-banned past ilxors who just can't stay away from ilx. Chances are they won't figure out how to meet ilx community standards any more this time around than the previous x number of times they've been kicked out. We'll see.

apologies if Atlantic article has been posted

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/how-we-beat-coronavirus/608389/

The "autumn lull" factor is scariest of all. I can foresee a premature victory party with great clarity.

Rein In Plz is my favorite Zleyer album.

Chief Kyiv is almost certainly one of those perma-banned past ilxors who just can't stay away from ilx. Chances are they won't figure out how to meet ilx community standards any more this time around than the previous x number of times they've been kicked out. We'll see.

I'm sure they are -- just conscientiously offering them a chance to succeed instead of fuck up.

If there is an "autumn lull" it's the easiest prediction in the world that Trump and Company will claim triumphal honors and hold a tickertape parade for themselves in the month before the election.

inevitably

mission accomplished

i swear, they should just send out mobile vehicles to "test" everyone and tell them they have to isolate until they hear the results in 21 days.

As I predicted in one of these threads, I'm sure Asshole will boast of "only" 10k deaths or whatever.

Anyway, the real advantage of a fall "lull" is it would allow hospitals to reset, resupply and so on, while letting others recover, plus should it come back not only will doctors et al. be more ready for it (one hopes) but we'd be much closer to a potential vaccine. And I do keep noting that the reason for the high death rate during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 was lack of antibiotics; more people reportedly died of bacterial pneumonia than of anything else. Better comparisons could be the '58 and '68 pandemics. The latter of which killed 100k in the U.S. and a million worldwide, but similar to potential Spanish flu-ish impact, I'd take medicine and hospitals today over those 50 years ago.

CBS is showing the Kentucky-Duke game right now
THE kentucky-Duke game right now
I just thought we should watch it together as we shelter in place
so sue me, iguess

^ still doesn't get it

fp xp

maybe if you'd have said what was ON CBS, just a thought.

then I could have said "no" a lot more rudely.

similar to potential Spanish flu-ish impact

Funny, she doesn't look flu-ish

borders closed in AUS and NZ? apologies if noted upthread

Funny, she doesn't look flu-ish

king

For those who like morbid toys: Steven De Keninck's Epidemic Calculator.

Plug in your favorite values for population, initial infected, Ro, CFR, Rt, lengths of incubation, infectious periods and hospital stays, and just how effective you expect a lockdown to be (Rt), and it spits out graphs of horror.

worst computer game ever

can't wait to see you on Twitch playing that xpost

Half of all coronavirus cases in New York state are in patients under 50 years old, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said as he pleaded with young people to stop socializing and to increase their social distancing. Of the state’s 10,356 cases, 54 percent were in people aged 18 to 49, Cuomo said on Saturday.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/half-of-all-coronavirus-cases-in-new-york-are-people-under-50-years-old-gov-cuomo-says?ref=home

Interesting thread on what might happen in China/world post-corona.

This is what I wrote on “Life post COVID” on my Weibo 10 days ago when most Chinese are back to work

If you want to fast forward and time travel after the quarantine period, here is what I saw pic.twitter.com/Aau0gns1Oq

— Dovey 以德服人 Wan 🪐🦖 (@DoveyWan) March 21, 2020

38-minute interview with Dr Fauci on FB is worth watching if you can tolerate somnambulant Zuckerberg

i'm always down for Fauci

.@deanbaker13's been patiently trying to explain that our system of patents could be a disastrous hindrance to discovering a coronavirus vaccine, because we need scientists sharing information. Here a Columbia University biologist makes the point for him. https://t.co/wBbMYmSCTV pic.twitter.com/AFQ9GpQnQV

— Jon Schwarz (@schwarz) March 21, 2020

Hey everyone. Not sure if anyone will remember me, but I used to post on ILX years back, including at length on the Jenny McCarthy / autism thread.

Glad you're still reading the site, Plasmon. I'll always be grateful for you calmly talking me down off the panic-ledge a few years ago when my wife had her bout with lithium toxicity.

I appreciate the participation of any and all nurses , MDs and healthcare providers on ILX.

They're mostly kinda busy right now I think.

Not plastic surgeons, let's hear from them!

good to see you, Plasmon!

Maybe we didn't need those scarce RNA extraction kits, after all.

WA, SA, NT and TAS now all requiring quarantine to interstate travellers entering. I’m sure it’s not long before interstate travel is completely prohibited except for freight. WA has gone as far to say that if you drive in you have to do your quarantine at the border which means the Eucla Roadhouse which is a desolate spot to stay banged up for 2 week.

Non essential domestic travel is banned in the other states and that might not last till tomorrow the rate things are going. As ever the states are way ahead of Scotty from Marketing on this.

Been listening to the BBC World Service, where a witness in Italy says younger people get it and it often takes the form of bad pneumonialike symptoms. So youth is not a shield, as other numbers are starting to show.

via HOOS

Not sure we've communicated well enough that social distancing interventions will pay dividends in 1-3 weeks. Anything that happens in the next 10 days was already baked in prior to that. A surge in cases now would NOT mean that social distancing isn't working.

— Kate Allen (@katecallen) March 20, 2020

Australia may run out of shit beer brewed by a company that shafts its workers.

Carlton and United Breweries are worried about brewery jobs and beer supplies. ⁦@abcmelbourne⁩ pic.twitter.com/69gJxiWQvb

— Richard Willingham (@rwillingham) March 22, 2020

I mentioned upthread that my country Malaysia went into partial lockdown a few days ago, shortly after a huge outbreak was reported from one mass gathering.

We're into our fifth day now and this graph basically shows what happens when an entire country stays at home:

Bila 🇲🇾 duduk dalam rumah.#KitaBoleh pic.twitter.com/UnVHUJNugE

— Beni Rusani (@DrBeniRusani) March 22, 2020

Good lord, that earthquake in Zagreb. Thousands of people forced out of their homes at the worst possible time.

Hello Plasmon! Always been a fan, don’t be a stranger.

^ Plasmon's posts on the Jenny McCarthy thread were the source of a considerable area of development of learning and understanding for me – sent me to Ian Hacking's Mad Travellers as well as his very good stuff on the DSM etc.

Very welcome to see you back, especially at this time: please do post when you can and good luck!

NY Times email blast lede is "1 in 4 Americans is being told to stay home." Why the hell it isn't 4/4 I don't know.

It's hard to keep all these threads apart, but I recall seeing here, there or somewhere that the key data to look for is not a reduction in the number of new cases, necessarily, but a reduction in the number of deaths to doubling only ("only") every three days or more, iirc. That is to say, in places like, say, America, there is every reason to believe that the number of cases will ramp up and stay up as testing increases, so number of cases is not a really helpful metric, at least at first, since a lot of those cases could be mild or manageable.

Speaking of which, I did see a post about NYC specifically, and breakdown of cases was totally consistent with the stats ratios reported elsewhere. I can't find it right now, but it was something like (and this is all rounded): 8000 cases, 1400 of those requiring hospital, 300 of those requiring ICU, and 60 of those leading to deaths.

And as far as light at the end of the tunnel, just saw a post from someone in Chicago who knows three confirmed cases, and all three (one 8 months pregnant) are already past the "feeling terrible" stage and recovering well.

yes, welcome back Plasmon, hope you and yours are staying well

also did I see long-ago ilxor RickyT on one of these threads? all the best to RickyT also