wuhan - coronavirus

[lewelma]

28 minutes ago, Rosie_0801 said:

So *stupid* the outbreak from the quarantine centres. The security guards behaved as though they didn't understand the health measures we've had drummed into us over the past few months.

Yes. The bolded is correct, and single parents with special needs kids. They're "only" locked down for five days, so I don't really see the use at all. Particularly when we know there was one chap under hotel quarantine, who did all the right things for 14 days and tested positive after he'd got out and gone about his business.

☹️

[Rosie_0801]

2 minutes ago, CuriousMomof3 said:

It sounds like he did what he was told to do, but he also tested positive and then was told he could leave anyway?  I found that part really confusing.  

 

I think he began showing symptoms after he'd left quarantine, so went and got tested again. I'm not 100% sure though.

[lewelma]

My guess is that he caught it while in quarantine, which is why it was over 14 days later he tested positive.  This has been my concern with how NZ has been handling the isolation facilities.  Too much mixing between people, but never letting people out of their room for 14 days is not so great either. We had someone yesterday, hop the fence and do a runner. 😞   The PM was hot.  She said that 5 million NZers did not have to have a guard outside their homes to keep them in lockdown, and NZers in quarantine shouldn't need that either.  The runner was prosecuted and fined. 

[Rosie_0801]

5 minutes ago, CuriousMomof3 said:

I thought I read that he showed symptoms in quarantine, was tested, and then seemed to recover from the symptoms.  Policy is that if you have symptoms and a positive test, and those symptoms go away, you're considered "safe", so he was released after 14 days, and then symptoms returned and a new test showed he was still positive.  

Seems like they need a different set of rules about when people who test positive are released from quarantine. 

 

When there are reports from around the world with people developing or redeveloping symptoms up to, I think I've read, three months later, how do you know which rules to make? 
 

(I have dd here this week, so I'm not following the news as closely as I usually do.)

[lewelma]

8 minutes ago, CuriousMomof3 said:

I thought I read that he showed symptoms in quarantine, was tested, and then seemed to recover from the symptoms.  Policy is that if you have symptoms and a positive test, and those symptoms go away, you're considered "safe", so he was released after 14 days, and then symptoms returned and a new test showed he was still positive.  

Seems like they need a different set of rules about when people who test positive are released from quarantine. 

NZ is requiring at least 1 negative test AND no symptoms AND 14 days to be allowed out. 

[Pen]

3 minutes ago, Rosie_0801 said:

 

When there are reports from around the world with people developing or redeveloping symptoms up to, I think I've read, three months later, how do you know which rules to make? 
 

Definitely that’s a problem.

It isn’t clear yet how common that is. 

3 minutes ago, Rosie_0801 said:

(I have dd here this week, so I'm not following the news as closely as I usually do.)

 

Have fun with your daughter!!! 👍

[Pen]

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/lsm/coronavirus/coronavirus-literature-review-task-force/protease-inhibitors-virus-entry-inhibitors-and-early-stage-new-drug-candidates.pdf

 

some new potential treatments

[Wheres Toto]

2 hours ago, lewelma said:

I'm seeing the little states in New England doing quite well.  How many border crossings could they have?  The cut could be vertically down the borders between VT/CT/MA and NY.  Or include NY and make the cut at the NY border for the region. 55 crossings is a lot of crossings but my understanding is that NSW is doing all the manning of the borders with their NSW police force not a federal force. 

ETA: Australia has a federal system like the USA.

NJ is an extremely small state and a peninsula besides, but there are about 40 bridges between NJ and NY or PA, then probably about 30-40 roads passing over the land connection between NJ and NY.    It would take quite a bit to close all those down, and since there's a lot of people that live in one of those states and work in one of the others, it would be quite the project.  

[SoCal_Bear]

I just saw this report out of Texas that over 1,300 cases from childcare facilities. This does not inspire me to have confidence about schools reopening without simple measures like masking. I can't imagine that teachers would feel safe returning to the classroom. Twice as many adults as children are positive for Covid. 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/health/texas-coronavirus-cases-child-care-facilities/index.html

 

Edited July 7, 2020 by calbear

[EmseB]

28 minutes ago, calbear said:

I just saw this report out of Texas that over 1,300 cases from childcare facilities. This does not inspire me to have confidence about schools reopening without simple measures like masking. I can't imagine that teachers would feel safe returning to the classroom. Twice as many adults as children are positive for Covid. 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/health/texas-coronavirus-cases-child-care-facilities/index.html

 

Am I reading it right or doing the math right that it's about 1 staff member per facility and half as many kids? I mean obviously cases wouldn't be evenly distributed, and zero cases would be better, but it doesn't seem high for the amount of actual facilities having cases or the amount of facilities actually open in the state.

[lewelma]

3 hours ago, CuriousMomof3 said:

They must, eventually, be allowing people who test positive in quarantine out though?  What is that guideline?

Or are they waiting until they test negative after testing positive?  

You must have one negative test to leave -- we test day 3 and 12. So if you are positive at day 3 and negative on day 12, you can leave day 14.  If you are negative then positive that means you stay longer until you have a negative test. If you refuse to get tested, you stay 4 weeks. 

[lewelma]

2 hours ago, kdsuomi said:

 

From what happened earlier when a few states suggested doing this, the legal answer was no. States could not restrict movement into or out of the state by American citizens. It's also entirely unfeasible. Honestly, if it got to the point of entirely closing states, the states would be best to go one further and just force a crazy NZ style lockdown. Go hog or go home. 

Just because Australia has states, doesn't mean it works the same in the two places. Both countries have very different legal standing in regards to different rights and government authorities.

Just asking. 🙂   Yesterday's NSW/Vicrotia border closure was the first time the borders have ever been closed between states in Australia, so it made me think of the US. There is a first time for everything.

As for 'crazy' NZ style lockdown, it was supported by 90% of the population.  So apparently not crazy in this culture and not an over-reach of the government either.  90% is a shocking approval rating for anything in politics. 

Edited July 7, 2020 by lewelma

[lewelma]

Just now, square_25 said:

I would guess that we could have had this kind of support, if it had good messaging. After all, it did let NZ go back to normal MUCH more quickly than the US did. 

Oh, it is a size thing too. And an island thing.  But yes, we are back to normal with no masks and no social distancing, and 95% of our economy up and running.  But we are set to have a HUGE number of problems based on the border restrictions.  No country will get off lightly. 

[Melissa in Australia]

5 hours ago, lewelma said:

NZ may end up creating a quarantine free travel bubble with only certain states within Australia.  So it is good to know that they can close internal state borders. The discussion is a bubble between Australia/NZ/Pacific islands/Taiwan maybe by the end of the year.

I believe Tasmania is hoping to do this. They have stopped all travel under just about any curcimstances. My uncle lives in Tassie and could not get a special compassionate exemption to come to my grandmother's funeral this week

[Melissa in Australia]

35 minutes ago, lewelma said:

You must have one negative test to leave -- we test day 3 and 12. So if you are positive at day 3 and negative on day 12, you can leave day 14.  If you are negative then positive that means you stay longer until you have a negative test. If you refuse to get tested, you stay 4 weeks. 

There was a case in NSW today of a person who did their 14 days hotel quarantine, tested negative, went home, then 3 days got symptoms. And tested positive. 

[Terabith]

11 minutes ago, Melissa in Australia said:

There was a case in NSW today of a person who did their 14 days hotel quarantine, tested negative, went home, then 3 days got symptoms. And tested positive. 

That makes me wonder if the incubation period is longer than 14 days?

[Melissa in Australia]

4 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

 

I think he began showing symptoms after he'd left quarantine, so went and got tested again. I'm not 100% sure though.

There are 2 different cases

[Melissa in Australia]

44 minutes ago, lewelma said:

Just asking. 🙂   Yesterday's NSW/Vicrotia border closure was the first time the borders have ever been closed between states in Australia, so it made me think of the US. There is a first time for everything.

As for 'crazy' NZ style lockdown, it was supported by 90% of the population.  So apparently not crazy in this culture and not an over-reach of the government either.  90% is a shocking approval rating for anything in politics. 

Not the first time. The rest of the country has had closed borders for a few weeks. 

Plus the Vic NSW border was closed 100 years ago because of the Spanish flue 

[Melissa in Australia]

2 minutes ago, Terabith said:

That makes me wonder if the incubation period is longer than 14 days?

Think it is well documented worldwide that there are a few cases that had a longer than 14 day incubation time 

[Terabith]

2 minutes ago, Melissa in Australia said:

There are 2 different cases

Right.  The only two possibilities I see are 1) incubation period is longer than 14 days, or 2) they got infected while IN quarantine.  Which, if they're allowed to interact with other people in quarantine, and some of them are actually positive (even if they've had a negative test, because we know there's a significant false negative rate), seems like a completely legitimate possibility.

[Melissa in Australia]

5 minutes ago, Terabith said:

Right.  The only two possibilities I see are 1) incubation period is longer than 14 days, or 2) they got infected while IN quarantine.  Which, if they're allowed to interact with other people in quarantine, and some of them are actually positive (even if they've had a negative test, because we know there's a significant false negative rate), seems like a completely legitimate possibility.

I believe that in NSW there was no interaction between other quarintine peoples. They were kept in their rooms. This was one of the faults identified in the security failing in Vic. The guards were allowing adjoining rooms to go play cards. 

Edited July 7, 2020 by Melissa in Australia

[lewelma]

1 hour ago, Melissa in Australia said:

There was a case in NSW today of a person who did their 14 days hotel quarantine, tested negative, went home, then 3 days got symptoms. And tested positive. 

My guess is that they got it while in a quarantine facility.  Here we have managed isolation which is for people who test negative and quarantine in a different hotel for people who test positive. In contrast to quarantine where people are required to stay in their rooms at all times, in managed isolation people are allowed a bit more freedom, like going for walks or enjoying some sunshine.  But if someone has a negative day 3 test, it could be a false negative.  So I'm sure there are positive people circulating in the managed isolation facility here in NZ.  Not many, but I'm sure there are a few who have not been moved to the full quarantine facility, and these few could infect a few more. We have no evidence of this, and our Medical person says it is not likely.

ETA: I see I'm repeating Terabith

Edited July 7, 2020 by lewelma

[Ausmumof3]

7 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

 

She's still active on FB.

 

So *stupid* the outbreak from the quarantine centres. The security guards behaved as though they didn't understand the health measures we've had drummed into us over the past few months.

Yes. The bolded is correct, and single parents with special needs kids. They're "only" locked down for five days, so I don't really see the use at all. Particularly when we know there was one chap under hotel quarantine, who did all the right things for 14 days and tested positive after he'd got out and gone about his business.

Thank you.  Not on the Facebook group for now.  May venture over in time ...

I think they said the lockdown would be extended if needed but the plan was to lockdown for five days and try to get everyone tested in that time frame.  I can’t imagine how stressful it would be being there right now.

[Ausmumof3]

2 hours ago, Terabith said:

That makes me wonder if the incubation period is longer than 14 days?

There are documented cases with longer than fourteen days.  The fourteen is just meant to catch the bulk of cases without undue hardship.  Remember we were never Supposed to go for elimination here.  

[Melissa in Australia]

Greater Melbourne is going back into lockdown

[Ausmumof3]

8 hours ago, lewelma said:

I've been very interested in what is going on in Australia as it is a warning for us here in NZ.  

NSW/Victoria border has been closed.  The police are manning the 55 border crossings between the 2 states.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/nsw-victoria-border-closed-by-coronavirus-with-police-on-frontline-20200706-p559jb.html

Is it possible for certain US states to do the same? 

I don’t think it’s logistically really possible here.  People are using backroads through farms etc.  but the real goal is to reduce travel and connection between places.  This is achieved because many people will comply with the law either because they want to do the right thing, because they aren’t willing to risk a fine.  Even if some get through it’s better.  Cars have state specific license plates which help.

500 police have been tasked with maintaining state borders here.  Others are responsible for managing quarantine.  Borders here in south Australia are a little over 3000km.

some towns are right on the border which makes things especially interesting.

[Ausmumof3]

191 cases for vic today.  😬

[Ausmumof3]

https://floridacovidvictims.com/2020/07/05/carsyn-leigh-davis/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
 

don’t read if you’re feeling fragile.  This story comes from the Florida scientist that got fired - I’m not sure if she’s reliable but if this is true it’s pretty horrifying.

[Ausmumof3]

Covid and air conditioning in hospitals.  Keeping in mind that we don’t know if it’s viable virus or not

http://m.digitaljournal.com/life/health/prevelance-of-coronavirus-in-hospital-air-handling-settings/article/574049

[Ausmumof3]

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/07/06/health/texas-coronavirus-cases-child-care-facilities/index.html?__twitter_impression=true
 

according to CNN 1300 cases from Texas come from childcare settings!

[Pawz4me]

Maybe an interesting tidbit regarding US states locking down -- Back in March, even before North Carolina's stay-at-home order was issued, there was one rural, conservative county up in the mountains that locked itself down. There are only two roads in/out of the county, and they posted deputies on those roads to enforce the lock down. But it only lasted three weeks. In their case it was due to lack of funding--a rural, poor county that relies on tourism couldn't afford to pay the deputies to enforce the lock down. But according to the article no one seriously disputed their right to do it. Although obviously one county in one state locking down is different than a lock down between states in many ways (including legality and, at least in this case, feasibility of enforcing it due to very limited points of entry):

Quote

Norma Houston, a University of North Carolina expert on legal issues that affect local governments, says a 2019 state law made clear that “cities and counties [can] declare a local state of emergency and impose restrictions and prohibitions, including restricting the movement of people in public places, and limiting ingress and egress coming into or leaving an emergency area,” as Houston puts it. “There is also specific authority to close roads.”

 

[73349]

There was also a coastal NC county that declared Residents Only at one point. But that's a very different proposition than declaring that, say, Pennsylvania is Closed, and enforcing it.

[vonfirmath]

4 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/07/06/health/texas-coronavirus-cases-child-care-facilities/index.html?__twitter_impression=true
 

according to CNN 1300 cases from Texas come from childcare settings!

That sounds horrendously big until you compare it to the number of child care facilities in Texas -- over 12000.

[73349]

1 minute ago, vonfirmath said:

That sounds horrendously big until you compare it to the number of child care facilities in Texas -- over 12000.

Except we don't know how many are actually open, right? The preschools closed in March and haven't reopened yet. Day cares reopened but are not being used by parents who have not gone back to work yet (such as K-12 and university teachers).

Does somebody know how many are open and at what capacity?

[vonfirmath]

5 minutes ago, whitehawk said:

Except we don't know how many are actually open, right? The preschools closed in March and haven't reopened yet. Day cares reopened but are not being used by parents who have not gone back to work yet (such as K-12 and university teachers).

Does somebody know how many are open and at what capacity?

Many never closed. The Troop Coordinator I work with in AHG is also on the board of a preschool and when coronavirus came and I was worried, etc. She was working with her board to revise the way they operated  so they could stay open for essential employees.  Neither of the centers I took my daughter to when she was younger have closed even throughout the lockdown, so far as I can tell (Ie I can't say much about the time I worked from home. But everytime I drove past there were kids there)

 

Some closed and have since re-opened.  My daughter's childcare reopened the second week of June.

Smaller capacity, yes. Stricter requirements (masks required at my daughter's from day 1 -- though they only wear them in the common areas. They treat their individual rooms as "families".) But open.

 

I know the home childcare on our block is also open now though I don't know if they stayed open throughout the lockdown or not.

Edited July 7, 2020 by vonfirmath

[Ausmumof3]

17 minutes ago, vonfirmath said:

That sounds horrendously big until you compare it to the number of child care facilities in Texas -- over 12000.

Yes.  I was posting less due the numbers but more because it relates to the discussion about whether infection will travel through elementary schools and child care or not.  It’s hard to make out for sure whether these were simply individual cases in people who attended childcare or indicative of spread through childcare settings.

[vonfirmath]

9 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Yes.  I was posting less due the numbers but more because it relates to the discussion about whether infection will travel through elementary schools and child care or not.  It’s hard to make out for sure whether these were simply individual cases in people who attended childcare or indicative of spread through childcare settings.

It says 1300 cases in 883 facilities -- that isn't even 2 cases per facility so in a lot of those facilities they have only 1 case.  1300-883=417 (less than half).  So at least more than half of those facilities have only 1 case.  There may be a lot of spread in a very few facilities. Or not much spread and 1 or 2 cases per faciliy

 

And actually the article itself says there are 12,200 facilities currently open in Texas.

[ktgrok]

 

10 hours ago, CuriousMomof3 said:

Actually, reading the article, it's even better than that.  Because 883 isn't the number of centers in all, it's just the number that have cases.  There are 12,200 childcare centers open in Texas.

So, those are tiny numbers.  Also if the number 883 is the number of centers who have at least one case, then at least 1/2 of the centers must have just one case.  Which is an indication that the virus isn't spreading in Texas childcare centers, if 1/2 of the centers that had the virus had no spread.

Now, of courses, this is only people who showed symptoms and got tested, but that still seems like really good news for both the theory that little kids don't spread, and for the idea that, at least in schools serving younger kids, we can prevent spread between teachers in schools.  

Here is my issue though. We know kids are less likely to have symptoms severe enough to prompt testing. So there could be bunches of kids infected, who are not tested. They give it to their parents. Their parents don't realize it came from the daycare center, because parent has been to stores, work, etc. Or they have no or mild symptoms, and spread it to people at their work. Then the positive cases get reported as being associated with that workplace, not with the daycare. 

I mean, I don't know about texas, but almost all our cases are "community spread" with "no known contact" - in other words we have pretty much NO contact tracing. So asymptomatic kids spreading it to parents would likely never, here at least, be tied back to the daycare. Unless they test all hte kids and staff, not just the symptomatic ones, we just don't know. And I haven't seen that done large scale yet. 

9 hours ago, Terabith said:

That makes me wonder if the incubation period is longer than 14 days?

Or they caught it while in isolation. 

[ktgrok]

Just now, vonfirmath said:

It says 1300 cases in 883 facilities -- that isn't even 2 cases per facility so in a lot of those facilities they have only 1 case.  1300-883=417 (less than half).  So at least more than half of those facilities have only 1 case.  There may be a lot of spread in a very few facilities. Or not much spread and 1 or 2 cases per faciliy

 

And actually the article itself says there are 12,200 facilities currently open in Texas.

Known cases. My understanding was not that all kids and staff were tested. We have ZERO idea if the rest of the kids have it and are spreading it. 

[vonfirmath]

Just now, Ktgrok said:

Known cases. My understanding was not that all kids and staff were tested. We have ZERO idea if the rest of the kids have it and are spreading it. 

You aren't going to 100% know that. Even when testing happens, the rate of negatives is far too high to know for sure. (30% false negatives is what we're being told on the ground. If you have symptoms, stay home even if you get a negative)  And our tests are so stretched wiht the crisis we dont have capacity to test people that aren't showing symptoms.

 

[Ausmumof3]

4 minutes ago, vonfirmath said:

It says 1300 cases in 883 facilities -- that isn't even 2 cases per facility so in a lot of those facilities they have only 1 case.  1300-883=417 (less than half).  So at least more than half of those facilities have only 1 case.  There may be a lot of spread in a very few facilities. Or not much spread and 1 or 2 cases per faciliy

 

And actually the article itself says there are 12,200 facilities currently open in Texas.

So maybe they are isolated infection rather than spread within the centres?  That would be a more positive outcome.  

[ktgrok]

1 minute ago, vonfirmath said:

You aren't going to 100% know that. Even when testing happens, the rate of negatives is far too high to know for sure. (30% false negatives is what we're being told on the ground. If you have symptoms, stay home even if you get a negative)  And our tests are so stretched wiht the crisis we dont have capacity to test people that aren't showing symptoms.

 

Right. I'm just saying, we do not have evidence to say it isn't spreading in daycares, or that kids are not taking it home and spreading it, etc. We just don't have that data yet. So we shouldn't say "only X number of kids have it, it isn't spreading" unless we at least attempted to find out, via testing. People are using this info as proof it doesn't spread in kids, to make major life and death decisions. 

My state department of health yesterday ordered all schools K-12 to open full time, 5 days a week, in August, despite us averaging about 10,000 cases a day. The only exception is if the local department of health says it isn't safe - but there is no understanding on if and how they would make that determination, It's a mess. And so yeah, with a sister working full time as an admin in a public school here, with risk factors, I'm a bit sensitive to decisions like that being made because "see! It isn't spreading between kids!" when we don't know that yet. (not saying you are saying that)

[Pawz4me]

34 minutes ago, kdsuomi said:

People have wanted our country to seal up for many reasons and were point blank that's illegal. 

What country are you in? I can't imagine any country not being able to shut its borders.

[Matryoshka]

9 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

What country are you in? I can't imagine any country not being able to shut its borders.

Maybe she means county?  

[Melissa in Australia]

5 hours ago, whitehawk said:

Except we don't know how many are actually open, right? The preschools closed in March and haven't reopened yet. Day cares reopened but are not being used by parents who have not gone back to work yet (such as K-12 and university teachers).

Does somebody know how many are open and at what capacity?

The article said 882 were opened

Edited July 7, 2020 by Melissa in Australia
spelling

[Kanin]

5 hours ago, vonfirmath said:

You aren't going to 100% know that. Even when testing happens, the rate of negatives is far too high to know for sure. (30% false negatives is what we're being told on the ground. If you have symptoms, stay home even if you get a negative)  And our tests are so stretched wiht the crisis we dont have capacity to test people that aren't showing symptoms.

If 30% of the positive tests are falsely showing negative, shouldn't we just increase our assumed positive cases, then? 

[Bootsie]

20 minutes ago, Melissa in Australia said:

The article said 882 were opened

It is my understanding that the cases were reported at 883 individual child care locations, but that there are over 12,000 child care centers currently open in Texas.  There were 441 cases reported in children and almost 900 reported of workers.  

[Melissa in Australia]

18 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

It is my understanding that the cases were reported at 883 individual child care locations, but that there are over 12,000 child care centers currently open in Texas.  There were 441 cases reported in children and almost 900 reported of workers.  

Ah, sorry I probably misread. 

Edited July 7, 2020 by Melissa in Australia

[RootAnn]

@KtgrokDid Florida release hospitalization data finally? I'm seeing a lot of chatter on how low bed availability is. https://www.wesh.com/amp/article/florida-sees-second-highest-jump-in-covid-19-hospitalizations-since-beginning-of-pandemic/33239920

[ktgrok]

1 minute ago, RootAnn said:

@KtgrokDid Florida release hospitalization data finally? I'm seeing a lot of chatter on how low bed availability is. https://www.wesh.com/amp/article/florida-sees-second-highest-jump-in-covid-19-hospitalizations-since-beginning-of-pandemic/33239920

They don't report it as a separate stat on their main dashboard or reports, but other agencies are somewhat tracking it. I posted over on the Florida Covid thread that the county next to mine is at 97% ICU capacity, my county is at 85%, several counties are at 100 percent. The Sun Sentinel has a map showing it.