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gardenmom5

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I read Trump's twitter, the transcripts of his speeches.   I'm sorry but these are things he's been saying in his own words.  If you go back through his twitter or through official records, he was downplaying this in February and most of March, he flip flops on what he says about who should be in charge, who should be responsible, who has authority.  It's insane.   I also think it's mainly due to who is writing his speeches and whether he goes off-script or not.   

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Well, less political, the governer was supposed to announce his plan for opening up today, but really he mostly just promised that he'd give us more information in the future. 🙄

He said retail could open for curbside pickup only (it seems like most of our retail is already kind of open anyway), and state parks could reopen (they have been open this whole time and only closed before the Easter holiday, likely to thwart a holiday crush.) And a few medical things like cancer diagnostic tests can start going forward again. And they're announcing their phased plan in 10 days and it will be incremental and rely on fairly flat or downward trending cases. 

And the headlines everywhere are "Texas is the first state to reopen" and I can't handle the idiotic comments based off the headline. Almost nothing is changing. Our hospitals are half empty and he claimed we have a decent supply of PPE. He said if things keep trending down we might get back to allowing gatherings on 10 or less in May. We are hardly reopening. I hate people who think they're experts based off reading headlines. 😡

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https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/telecom/wireless/facebook-google-data-publics-movement-covid19
“To help researchers combat the COVID-19 pandemic, Facebook and Google have made their troves of GPS-based mobility data available. The data comes from users who opt in to location services on the companies’ platforms and is provided for public health use in an aggregated, anonymized way.”

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3 minutes ago, Where's Toto? said:

I'm confused about something.  All the rural states that they are talking about "re-opening", have they actually peaked and are in recovery, or have they just not been hit yet?   Cause the second seems more likely to me.

 

I don’t think they were much hit, but If very  careful, they could keep it that way.  At least in theory.  The outbreaks in meat packing plants might be a heads up of it being hard to stay unhit even in a state like a South Dakota. 

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Much of the $350 billion in the stimulus package that was intended for small businesses has been taken by huge corporations instead. 😡 

From the Orlando Sentinel:

The Pennsylvania investment firm that owns the Ritz-Carlton Coconut Grove in Miami has applied for as many as 48 taxpayer-backed loans under an emergency program meant to help the nation’s smallest businesses hang on to their employees through the coronavirus pandemic.

A Maryland hotel company that did more than $1.5 billion in revenue last year has applied for more than 50 loans — and been approved for about 10 so far.

And Winter Park’s Ruth’s Hospitality Group Inc. — the parent company of Ruth’s Chris Steak House that made $42 million in profits last year and spent $41 million buying back stock and paying dividends to shareholders — revealed Monday that it has received $20 million through two small business loans.

Across the country, hotel and restaurant companies of all sizes are tapping into the “Paycheck Protection Program,” the $350 billion fund that Congress set up specifically for small businesses as part of an overall $2.2 trillion economic rescue plan.
....

And now — as congressional leaders negotiate another spending bill that would add $250 billion or more into the PPP program, which officially ran out of money by Thursday morning — hotels and restaurants are pressing lawmakers to loosen the rules around how they are supposed to spend that money. They have asked to spend less of their PPP loan proceeds on wages for workers and more on other expenses, such as mortgage principal or franchise fees that get paid to larger companies like Marriott International Inc. and McDonald’s Corp. They want to wait longer before they must rehire employees who have already been furloughed or laid off.

The lobbying blitz has infuriated some unions and other advocates for front-line workers, who say some big companies are attempting to twist a program meant to keep people employed into a pure corporate bailout. “They want to make changes so that hotel owners can pay their debt off and pay their banks and their investors rather than actually put that money into the paychecks of workers,” said Wendi Walsh, the secretary-treasurer of Unite Here Local 355, which represents hotel and casino workers in South Florida. “We are going to push back very hard on the industry to stop them making these kinds of changes and to push them to implement the program the way it was intended.”
.......

Under the Paycheck Protection Program, businesses can take out loans of up to $10 million to be repaid over two years at 1 percent interest rates, while providing little documentation and putting up no collateral. Borrowers don’t have to make any repayments for the first six months.

But what makes the program especially appealing is companies don’t have to repay the loans if they meet certain conditions. To get the entire debt forgiven, they must spend at least 75 percent of the loan proceeds paying workers, and they can’t reduce wages by more than 25 percent. They can’t cut their total number of jobs, either. Companies that already laid off or furloughed workers must rehire them by June 30.

Congress meant the loans mainly for businesses with 500 or fewer employees. But they agreed to make a handful of exceptions to that limit, including allowing individual hotels and restaurants to be counted as if they were separate companies, even if they are ultimately controlled by the same owner.

Choice Hotels International Inc., the lodging industry giant that has franchised more than 7,000 hotels under brands like Clarion and Comfort Inn, has said it was one of the companies that lobbied lawmakers for that provision.

That exception is how a business such as Dave & Buster’s Entertainment Inc. has been able to apply for a PPP loan. The restaurant and arcade operator — which spent more than $300 million last year on stock buybacks and dividends — said in investor filings that it has applied for $10 million, the maximum amount for any single loan.

Other companies have applied for more than one loan, including Condor Hospitality Trust, which owns 15 hotels, including a Hampton Inn & Suites in Lake Mary. All of Condor’s hotels are affiliated with Marriott, Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. or InterContinental Hotels Group Plc., according to regulatory filings.

Then there’s Hersha Hospitality Trust, a Pennsylvania-based real-estate investor that owns 48 hotels around the country — including the Ritz-Carlton Coconut Grove, the Cadillac Hotel & Beach Club in Miami Beach and four others in and around Miami. The company disclosed in investor filings that it has applied for loans for each of its hotels.

 

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8 hours ago, ElizabethB said:

I am worse when I drink local water, as well.  I use a Berkey at home and have also had people deride me for my use of water bottles.  

We have super hard water here and one of the highest rates of kidney stones, if not the highest.  So many people I know have gotten them and our cat got one and when I heard about this, we switched to non local water.

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8 hours ago, square_25 said:

Looking over the Santa Clara now. Here's a paragraph that interests me: 

"The total number of positive cases by either IgG or IgM in our unadjusted sample was 50, a crude prevalence rate of 1.50% (exact binomial 95% CI 1.11-1.97%). After weighting our sample to match Santa Clara County by zip, race, and sex, the prevalence was 2.81% (95% CI 2.24-3.37 without clustering the standard errors for members of the same household, and 1.45-4.16 with clustering). We further improved our estimation using the available data on test kit sensitivity and specificity, using the three scenarios noted above. The estimated prevalence was 2.49% (95CI 1.80%-3.17%) under the S1 scenario, 4.16% (95CI 2.58%-5.70%) under the S2 scenario, and 2.75% (95CI 2.01%-3.49%) under the S3 scenario. Notably, the uncertainty bounds around each of these population prevalence estimates propagates the uncertainty in each of the three component parameters: sample prevalence, test sensitivity, and test specificity."

I am a little curious how much they fiddled with the exact characteristics to adjust here. For example, you could do socioeconomic status instead of race. You could do general area instead of zip code. There are a lot of things you could fiddle with here, and I'm a little nervous that their adjustments literally DOUBLED their raw number. 

Yes, I know that's how studies are normally done, but again, there's wide latitude about what parameters to use, and that is exactly the kind of thing that leads to results that cannot be replicated. 

Of course, even without that adjustment they get a very low IFR. That does make one wonder if they have a somewhat self-selected sample as well (which would invalidate all the monkeying around with matching for other parameters.) 

Perhaps the next such study needs to ASK participants whether they had a cold in February? Then that should be matched to overall prevalence of colds in the general population. Other parameters should be matched as well, of course. 

Either these people are not writing properly worded papers or I would test positive and never had it .  IgG and IgM are not specific antibodies to any specific thing.  My dh thought that the lose use of those terms was because the reporters didn't know science.  But it seems that in this scientific paper they either also don't know or more likely, very sloppy work.

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3 minutes ago, square_25 said:

Well, that makes me feel even more dubious if possible. I knew they weren’t good with statistics and now I know they aren’t good with biology. What could go wrong??

I think there’s a lot of papers being rushed because of the desperate need for information. 

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8 hours ago, lewelma said:

Also, we have only had 1 death that was someone who died *of* rather than *with* covid.  He was 70 years old and the father of the groom for our biggest cluster which was a wedding. 😞 All the others, were either in hospice already, or over 90, or with major underlying conditions. 

In my opinion, just about everyone who dies with COVID19 dies of COVID19 regardless of underlying conditions.  Type 2 diabetics, high blood pressure people, asthmatics, etc all live for years and years and there is no reason to think they would be dead except for COVID19.  Now if someone was already dying in the hospital with cancer for example- they were in their last few days- and they got COVID19  in that hospital- I don't think that kind of death should be counted.  But this is how it is being counted here.   Because it really is COVID19 that caused the death

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5 hours ago, square_25 said:

I think there's decent support for this hypothesis, unfortunately. I don't think they thought this one through if that was the plan, though... (It's possible it was just a gut reaction, like we all have, though: "I don't want this to be true, so I'm going to pretend it's not!!") 

The CDC had bad tests and then very little of them.  What caused the testing to really ramp up was that Trump overruled the CDC and FDA rules that tests have to come from the government and allowed outside agencies and companies to make the tests and to test people too.

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5 hours ago, lewelma said:

True, but we are at 91% of deaths were people who lived in nursing homes, which is way higher than in the USA. I think it is a small sample size problem, but it just means that NZ's numbers aren't going to inform anyone. 

It may be higher than the US average in states with low death rates compared to NY.  

Nursing home deaths in the US overall are at least 5,500, that is with only 29 states reporting nursing home deaths separately.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/coronavirus-deaths-u-s-nursing-homes-soar-more-5-500-n1184536

So, some of the ratios from a few states with higher percentage of nursing home deaths: WA 221/603, UT 10/23, ID 12/41, MT 3/8, OK 31/136, MN 41/111, IA 15/64 (NY is 3,060/17,000)

Edited by ElizabethB
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1 hour ago, TravelingChris said:

In my opinion, just about everyone who dies with COVID19 dies of COVID19 regardless of underlying conditions.  Type 2 diabetics, high blood pressure people, asthmatics, etc all live for years and years and there is no reason to think they would be dead except for COVID19.  Now if someone was already dying in the hospital with cancer for example- they were in their last few days- and they got COVID19  in that hospital- I don't think that kind of death should be counted.  But this is how it is being counted here.   Because it really is COVID19 that caused the death

I heard there was a guy who died in an accident (blunt force) and they categorized it as a COVID19 death.

I don't agree with the way they are counting deaths right now.  I don't think it's helpful at all.  No way to follow trends because they keep changing the way it's counted and adjusting on whatever day they changed their mind.

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FYI https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/passwords-email-addresses-thousands-zoom-accounts-are-sale-dark-web-n1183796
“Passwords and email addresses for thousands of Zoom accounts are for sale on the dark web

Personal account information including email addresses, passwords and the web addresses for Zoom meetings are both being posted freely and sold for pennies. One dataset for sale on a dark web marketplace, discovered by an independent security firm and verified by NBC News, includes about 530,000 accounts.

The accounts were first reported by tech news website BleepingComputer.

Zoom declined to share specifics about how the information could get out, but many of the email addresses listed had been part of previous data breaches, which are often sold and repacked on hacker forums.

“Zoom takes user security seriously," a Zoom spokesperson said in an email. “We continue to investigate, are locking accounts we have found to be compromised, asking users to change their passwords to something more secure, and are looking at implementing additional technology solutions to bolster our efforts.”

Using the posted data, someone could access a person’s personal meeting room and launch that room. They could invite others to join while impersonating the host. That opens the door to hackers exploiting a user's contacts, like by sending them malware through Zoom invites or creating scenarios to extort them.

One hacker forum, seen by NBC News, discussed using a tool called OpenBullet — which lets users feed large sets of existing usernames and passwords to try to log into different sites — successfully on Zoom. This is a common strategy known as credential stuffing and takes advantage of people who reuse passwords and usernames.”

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7 hours ago, square_25 said:

And for a less comforting take, we probably already have a million cases. At this point, we will not see exponential growth in cases even if it's there, because we're constrained by the linear numbers of tests. Of course, social distancing is probably helping enough that things are doubling quite slowly... but they might very well still be doubling. We can't tell. 

Even if the number of tests given each day is the same, so that there is a linear increase in tests given, couldn't we still see an exponential growth in cases?  If only about 10% of tests are positive now, but then 15% of the tests every day become positive, and then 20% of the tests each day become positive because of increased spread.  then the increases in cases each day would not be linear.  

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7 hours ago, TravelingChris said:

Either these people are not writing properly worded papers or I would test positive and never had it .  IgG and IgM are not specific antibodies to any specific thing.  My dh thought that the lose use of those terms was because the reporters didn't know science.  But it seems that in this scientific paper they either also don't know or more likely, very sloppy work.

I'm pretty sure the antibody is SARS-CoV2 specific or at least attempts to be. https://www.medicinenet.com/how_do_the_covid-19_coronavirus_tests_work/article.htm#what_are_immunoglobulin_detection-based_tests_for_covid-19_coronavirus

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10 minutes ago, square_25 said:

The percent of positive cases is affected by lots of stuff, only one of which is spread. If we were doing random sampling, yes, that could show it, but we're not. 

Right now, our rate of positives is about 20%. I'm sure the actual rate in the US is much, much smaller -- in the single percents, almost certainly. I don't know what it would mean if the 20% jumped to 40%, but that's almost all the doubling we can do with that statistic, whereas the number of cases can certainly double quite a few more times. 

I agree that the "percent positive" is a useful indicator, but while the tests aren't random, it's only suggestive. 

As a comparison, the percentage of tests coming back positive in my state has consistently stayed at about 5%. We have sufficient test capacity to test anyone with symptoms, and our governor has been begging for anyone with possible covid-19 symptoms to get tested. 

5% of symptomatic folks testing positive of course doesn't capture asymptomatic carriers, we would have to do widespread sampling of the population at large to figure out actual rates of infection. It does seem that our overall rates are still very low.

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Also - this is just a comment to the general thread - I think one reason people go off on “sides” and factionalize is that it’s really difficult to stay on top of direct-from-the-horse’s-mouth information; there’s not enough time or emotional stamina. I try to always listen to my governor's briefings Live, because I feel much better informed if I get the complete information directly as it happens. Same is true for You Know Who. I prefer to hear directly as much as possible, but it’s time-consuming and draining and I’ve got masks to sew. But  I’m sure that is part of the problem, because people (all across the political spectrum) frequently do not have time and then they form an opinion from the opinion news they consume - or worse - from memes and nonsense on Facebook. 

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30 minutes ago, square_25 said:

The percent of positive cases is affected by lots of stuff, only one of which is spread. If we were doing random sampling, yes, that could show it, but we're not. 

Right now, our rate of positives is about 20%. I'm sure the actual rate in the US is much, much smaller -- in the single percents, almost certainly. I don't know what it would mean if the 20% jumped to 40%, but that's almost all the doubling we can do with that statistic, whereas the number of cases can certainly double quite a few more times. 

I agree that the "percent positive" is a useful indicator, but while the tests aren't random, it's only suggestive. 

My state is at about 20% positive too and we are a much smaller state than you. We are doing so little testing (just over 54000 tested with just over 10000 positive and over 500 deaths). Our numbers aren't great because we just aren't testing. 

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8 hours ago, TravelingChris said:

Either these people are not writing properly worded papers or I would test positive and never had it .  IgG and IgM are not specific antibodies to any specific thing.  My dh thought that the lose use of those terms was because the reporters didn't know science.  But it seems that in this scientific paper they either also don't know or more likely, very sloppy work.

They were testing covid-19 specific IgG and IgM. 

While it is true that we all have a variety of antibodies in our blood, they are always specific to some antigen--that's in the basic definition of an antibody. These tests aren't just looking for any and all antibodies--they're looking for covid-19 specific antibodies. Just as, when pregnant women are tested for rubella antibodies, that test only measures rubella virus specific IgG; it's not going to come back positive because I happen to have influenza-specific IgG circulating.

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18 minutes ago, square_25 said:

I've definitely been using the "percent positive" as a rough indicator of how in trouble a place is, but it's not perfect. For a while, New York was at 50% positive, for example, and now it's lower... but that doesn't mean that we have fewer infections than we used to, lol. It does show that we were and are in trouble, though. 

 Yeah, that has a lot to do with the availability of tests; when testing capacity is low, they only test serious cases.

You've definitely got a serious situation going in New York 😞

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22 minutes ago, square_25 said:

 

Yeah, no debate about that, lol. 

I'm curious what the antibody testing comes up with around here. I think it'll at the very least be relatively reliable here if they don't decide to go with a self-selected sample... the numbers are high enough that false positive rates are at least unlikely to affect things much. 

 

50 minutes ago, square_25 said:

OK, that seems reasonable. I've been hoping you'd come comment! 

Do you have any idea how easy it'd be to make a test that's COVID-19 specific as opposed to just coronavirus-specific? That's one of the concerns with these tests, I believe....

Not maize but this article describes one set of researchers process.  I think it relates to the spike protein that’s specific to Covid 19.  I reckon at least SARS1 and MERS use a different infection method (partly what makes this more contagious).  I’m not a biologist and it’s a while since I read about that so might be getting that wrong.  
 

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/new-blood-tests-antibodies-could-show-true-scale-coronavirus-pandemic#

Edited by Ausmumof3
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47 minutes ago, square_25 said:

OK, that seems reasonable. I've been hoping you'd come comment! 

Do you have any idea how easy it'd be to make a test that's COVID-19 specific as opposed to just coronavirus-specific? That's one of the concerns with these tests, I believe....

In antibody testing, this is called specificity--a test with high specificity will produce few false positives.

It is certainly possible to develop an antibody test that differentiates between different coronaviruses and is sensitive only to the one you are looking for; according to this article for example Stanford University's test showed very high specificity in initial testing.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/15/834497497/antibody-tests-for-coronavirus-can-miss-the-mark

In general I would trust tests developed by major research institutions to meet high specificity standards. Given that there are a ton of companies trying to develop and produce antibody tests very quickly right now I am sure many of those tests will have less reliable specificity.

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2 hours ago, Joker said:

My state is at about 20% positive too and we are a much smaller state than you. We are doing so little testing (just over 54000 tested with just over 10000 positive and over 500 deaths). Our numbers aren't great because we just aren't testing. 

Yeah, my county is at 32%, with barely over 1% of the Population tested.

My state is 20% with just over 1% of the population tested.

The comparison does tell me a *little bit, but not much!

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18 minutes ago, square_25 said:

Thank you. Do you know if they tested against people who were known to have other coronaviruses or just random blood samples?

 

I haven't been able to discover this.

I did look into the different coronavirus types known to infect humans. Aside from the original SARS virus, which while quite closely related to the covid-19 virus was never widespread in the US so not really relevant to antibody test specificity concerns, other human coronaviruses are different enough from the covid-19 virus that I think a decent antibody test should be able to differentiate between them. The viruses known to cause some common colds, for example, are not in the same sub-genus and differ in significant ways from SARS-COV-2.

I've had a hard time finding specific information though. 

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12 hours ago, Where's Toto? said:

I'm confused about something.  All the rural states that they are talking about "re-opening", have they actually peaked and are in recovery, or have they just not been hit yet?   Cause the second seems more likely to me.

I'm confused, too. Do any states really have declining cases? From what I see, most states go up and down with new daily cases. Plus, when testing is ramped up, numbers are going to skyrocket.

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3 hours ago, square_25 said:

And what would you like them to do, given that lots of people are never tested? Either way, your numbers are off. 

If they feel a need to adjust, they should show both adjusted and unadjusted numbers in the trend analyses (two separate analyses) so people could follow trends.  Also they need to be very transparent about what the adjustments are so that people can apply their own intelligence to what they see.

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7 minutes ago, Mainer said:

I'm confused, too. Do any states really have declining cases? From what I see, most states go up and down with new daily cases. Plus, when testing is ramped up, numbers are going to skyrocket.

I know my state is opening up *slowly* without declining cases. For one, we know our cases are going to go up as we test more widely. Secondly, our state thinks we have pushed the "peak" out to July. I put peak in quotes because they also think that it will be more of a slow curve than a peak if we do this right. (Big if, right...) So yeah, I'm not sure declining cases is the best marker for how/when a state can open up.

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10 hours ago, square_25 said:

It really only works with very very robust testing. So yes, that'll work if you are extremely vigilant. It doesn't work if you let it walk around until tons of people are infected and don't know it. 

It's not clear to me we're organized enough for that. But I guess we may see. 

 

Even if we lived in an era when testing weren’t possible at all, if we kept the most likely things to cause lots of (especially asymptomatic) spread shut  yet longer still (such as schools, cruise ships, packed audiences, choirs ...) the ones where they cannot be totally shut as restricted as possible preferably even more restrictive than now (such as nursing homes), and if we used as much of physical hygiene, physical distance, physical barriers (masks, face shields, gloves, nowadays plexiglass etc ...), PPE for people in vulnerable jobs, it would help a great deal.  

Also if there were a potential   ...   interruption and don’t recall my thoughts now...

Because spread from fecal matter is possible, I think some system of, perhaps self cleaning and self closing, public toilet lidding needs to be figured out as well. Or maybe it could be simpler than a self cleaning and self lowering lid.  Something so that they don’t get flushed and send droplet spume everywhere.  

It would use up a lot of paper, but a seat protector like sheet of over top of bowl before flushing might help — though they don’t stay in place well, and person flushing would have to push it down into bowl before leaving 

Aerosolized or spume of fecal matter seems to be a problem area for CV19 transmission somewhat like contaminated water is a problem for cholera.  

It’s my new area for writing letters to whatever I can think of may be useful entities for that. 

 

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25 minutes ago, Pen said:

Because spread from fecal matter is possible, I think some system of, perhaps self cleaning and self closing, public toilet lidding needs to be figured out as well. Or maybe it could be simpler than a self cleaning and self lowering lid.  Something so that they don’t get flushed and send droplet spume everywhere.  

It would use up a lot of paper, but a seat protector like sheet of over top of bowl before flushing might help — though they don’t stay in place well, and person flushing would have to push it down into bowl before leaving 

Aerosolized or spume of fecal matter seems to be a problem area for CV19 transmission somewhat like contaminated water is a problem for cholera.  

It’s my new area for writing letters to whatever I can think of may be useful entities for that. 

 

Has anyone in a stay-at-home state had their septic pumped? Any concerns?

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44 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

Even if we lived in an era when testing weren’t possible at all, if we kept the most likely things to cause lots of (especially asymptomatic) spread shut  yet longer still (such as schools, cruise ships, packed audiences, choirs ...) the ones where they cannot be totally shut as restricted as possible preferably even more restrictive than now (such as nursing homes), and if we used as much of physical hygiene, physical distance, physical barriers (masks, face shields, gloves, nowadays plexiglass etc ...), PPE for people in vulnerable jobs, it would help a great deal.  

Also if there were a potential   ...   interruption and don’t recall my thoughts now...

Because spread from fecal matter is possible, I think some system of, perhaps self cleaning and self closing, public toilet lidding needs to be figured out as well. Or maybe it could be simpler than a self cleaning and self lowering lid.  Something so that they don’t get flushed and send droplet spume everywhere.  

It would use up a lot of paper, but a seat protector like sheet of over top of bowl before flushing might help — though they don’t stay in place well, and person flushing would have to push it down into bowl before leaving 

Aerosolized or spume of fecal matter seems to be a problem area for CV19 transmission somewhat like contaminated water is a problem for cholera.  

It’s my new area for writing letters to whatever I can think of may be useful entities for that. 

 

Add in to get all employees vitamin D levels up!  Good idea.

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Just now, amyx4 said:

Has anyone in a stay-at-home state had their septic pumped? Any concerns?

 

I have not since this CV19 thing started.  But I am sure someone in all the Stay Home states must have needed that.

Ours is due this summer. 

I think it is a concern, but much less so than with public toilets where numerous people use them and they flush without lids multiple times daily possibly sending bits all over room.  And in situations that don’t lend themselves to wearing protection clothes etc or being able to change outerwear and launder it after using a public toilet. . Which beyond the initial droplets and aerosols can probably dry out and join flying invisible dust with still infectious virus.  Really there’s microscopic germ stuff around us all the time, and it’s just because most of it is either not pathogenic for us, or not novel to our immune systems, that we handle it.

I think septic clean out is mostly a situation with a strong suction tube that is less likely to spread bits in the air than flushing.   I think the tube ends that go into the tank should be sprayed with a disinfectant before being washed down back into the tank. Then suck up the disinfection cleaning water which would help some with inside of tube, then spray disinfectant again.  H2O2 at 0.5 % for example.  The workers should have protection gear just in case.  Masks, gloves, face shields, maybe clothes and shoe covers too.   I expect that the workers already have systems for getting very cleaned up when they get home, or better yet at place of work before leaving to go home.  If not, they need them. 

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16 minutes ago, ElizabethB said:

Add in to get all employees vitamin D levels up!  Good idea.

 

👍

and to get non employees like nursing home residents’ levels up too!!!

Preferably to a good level IMO, not just barely better than deficiency level. 

😊 I was an early Vitamin D proponent on this big thread! I think when I saw you took that on,  I relaxed about rementioning it every so often for newcomers.   It is also probably a great idea to put in on other threads where people who don’t read or have not noticed it on big thread would see it! 😊

To the extent it would help reduce incidence or severity of illness it is extremely inexpensive compared to hospitalization etc.  

And there are a lot of sheep out there who probably aren’t having their D3 rich lanolin oils gathered and D3 extracted as their wool gets sheared at this time of year.  And it should be done so we don’t get low on D3! (Time for More letters maybe!)  

Plus D3 can help with immunity in general, and even mood.  

Unless someone has a specific reason not to use it, it seems like a clear thing to do. 

 

 

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@ElizabethB There is a study I saw currently being done on D3 which I am afraid is going to turn out suggesting Vitamin D is not useful because they are using 1) a bolus 25,000IU dose on people already sick when it has already been shown that consistently regular dosing is what makes a significant difference in other respiratory illnesses; and 2) 25,000iu is probably too low to bring levels up to helpful with an infection already present (when I had low levels I needed more than one 50,000iu bolus just to get out of deficient range—and I was still far from what I would later learn is more optimal) and 3) iirc the comparable controls seem to be getting other treatments like hydroxychloroquine; etc

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1 minute ago, Pen said:

@ElizabethB There is a study I saw currently being done on D3 which I am afraid is going to turn out suggesting Vitamin D is not useful because they are using 1) a bolus 25,000IU dose on people already sick when it has already been shown that consistently regular dosing is what makes a significant difference in other respiratory illnesses; and 2) 25,000iu is probably too low to bring levels up to helpful with an infection already present (when I had low levels I needed more than one 50,000iu bolus just to get out of deficient range—and I was still far from what I would later learn is more optimal) and 3) iirc the comparable controls seem to be getting other treatments like hydroxychloroquine; etc

Yes, the respiratory study found that only daily or weekly doses were helpful, not bolus doses.  But, what to do with people who need D levels up fast?  I don't know.  

Normally, better weather leads to people outside more, with people staying inside more there is even more need for vitamin D awareness.

The most important D data point currently that I know of:

Dr. Erik Hermstad has found an interesting correlation with Vitamin D levels and case severity with his patients. He tweeted (@EHermstad) 

"Does an adequate vitamin D level protect against some of the cytokine storm we're seeing with COVID-19?  I don't know.  I just haven't seen any vitamin D levels in the 40's or higher yet on ANY patient I've admitted with it.  I'd be interested to see if others are seeing the same."

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20 minutes ago, ElizabethB said:

Yes, the respiratory study found that only daily or weekly doses were helpful, not bolus doses.  But, what to do with people who need D levels up fast?  I don't know.  

 

It might need to be bolus or several bolus to get it up fast, then regular to maintain it. But I am afraid the study was set up very badly.  If it shows a positive result for the D that will be extra promising for the D because it almost looks like it was deliberately set up to give a negative result.  If they are only giving one 25k iu bolus they at least need testing to show that brought the D level up to normal— at least in blood, though it may not have time to get well distributed to lung etc when someone is already sick 

ETA: each 1000k brings the D level up ~ 10 units on the UK / most of Europe type measurement system (nmols, I think, my brain not working well right now ) where I think good level  is at least above 60(nmol ?)  and up to 100 certainly seems safe in studies I have read. So it might be more like at least 3 25Kiu boluses needed in close succession, and then maintenance dose. They aren’t doing either what seems to be high enough bolus nor maintenance thereafter.  

 I can sometimes knock out a cold that is just starting with a bolus, but then need to be sure to go to a high maintenance dose for awhile or it just seems to stave off the cold briefly. And I think some people who take C for immunity help have said if they stop suddenly they become more vulnerable . 

 

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I think trying to assess people for basic nutrients, vitamins and minerals status would be helpful.  Not just Vitamin D.  We know that runs low in many people in modern society.  

But also perhaps some people seem to be helped by zinc because they are low in zinc.

etc. 

I think nursing home populations, inner city populations, jails, etc are likely to have people especially low on various nutrients, vitamins, minerals etc. 

 

Which may play a big role in immune functioning as well as cognitive, mood, behavior etc. 

 

https://thehammockllc.com/how-food-affects-behavior/

 

Food and Behavior - A Natural Connection https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00875H66Q/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_55ZMEbH54V6FD

 

The low low levels of nutrition found to affect behavior almost certainly would also affect immunity, whether amongst school kids, prisoners, nursing home residents, or the population at large

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re declining rates of growth in new cases, vs declining cases:

2 hours ago, square_25 said:

I've been watching the COVID tracking project. I think about the only states whose case load is going down are the states that are honest-to-goodness hunkered down for a while now. So Washington and a few of the Northeastern states, I think. Maybe Michigan? Everyone else is having the death numbers sloowly tick up. So, a small R0, but one that's greater than 1. 

 

Definitions and de facto vs de jure hunker-downs vary a bit... but... I believe my CT county (Fairfield) is the largest hot spot in the NE outside of NYC, and we've been substantively hunkered down for just about as long/ intensively as NYC.  

And though thanks to that hunkered-down our rate of growth has definitely peaked; and we're now cautiously optimistic now that CT hospitals / ventilators / PPE / medical personnel will *not* be as overwhelmed as NYC has been and we earlier feared we would be...

... the absolute number of cases still rises every day. New cases > recovered cases every.single.day.

And we're six weeks in, the same basic timetable as NYC (to which many people in the county used to commute daily).  

Other regions to which the virus came later could not possibly have peaked yet.

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Pen said:

@ElizabethB in case u missed this, or for anyone else interested:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5402701/

 

will return to add another link I posted upthread later

 

The video/slide show https://www.vitamindservice.de/coronavirus-e

also can’t find them now, but info on other fat soluble vitamins to go with the D3 for safety 

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1 hour ago, Pen said:

 

It might need to be bolus or several bolus to get it up fast, then regular to maintain it. But I am afraid the study was set up very badly.  If it shows a positive result for the D that will be extra promising for the D because it almost looks like it was deliberately set up to give a negative result.  If they are only giving one 25k iu bolus they at least need testing to show that brought the D level up to normal— at least in blood, though it may not have time to get well distributed to lung etc when someone is already sick 

ETA: each 1000k brings the D level up ~ 10 units on the UK / most of Europe type measurement system (nmols, I think, my brain not working well right now ) where I think good level  is at least above 60(nmol ?)  and up to 100 certainly seems safe in studies I have read. So it might be more like at least 3 25Kiu boluses needed in close succession, and then maintenance dose. They aren’t doing either what seems to be high enough bolus nor maintenance thereafter.  

 I can sometimes knock out a cold that is just starting with a bolus, but then need to be sure to go to a high maintenance dose for awhile or it just seems to stave off the cold briefly. And I think some people who take C for immunity help have said if they stop suddenly they become more vulnerable . 

So can someone who understands D dosing help out a bit? I have no idea what my or dh's D levels were or are, and no way at this point to figure it out. I figured it was probably lowish, because winter and northern latitudes.

So since around the beginning of March, we've been taking a vitD3 with 2000iu, plus a multi that has another 400.  We were also taking a packet a day of Emergen-C, till now the ones without added D. But we've now switched over to the immune support kind that has 1000iu of D, so I've discontinued the extra D pill. Do you think that we should have been brought up to healthier levels enough by now, and this is fine for maintenance,  or should we still add a 2000iu pill some days? I know it's possible too take too much D, so I didn't want to overdo, either.

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This interactive map with graphs from NYT is pretty useful. You can look at countries. For US, you can look at state and drill down to county. The state level has that critical new cases reported bar graph with a line graph overlay of 7 day average which is really helpful if you are looking at the trend line which is one of the gating criteria for the US reopening plan. This is not available for county level data though.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-maps.html

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8 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

So can someone who understands D dosing help out a bit? I have no idea what my or dh's D levels were or are, and no way at this point to figure it out. I figured it was probably lowish, because winter and northern latitudes.

So since around the beginning of March, we've been taking a vitD3 with 2000iu, plus a multi that has another 400.  We were also taking a packet a day of Emergen-C, till now the ones without added D. But we've now switched over to the immune support kind that has 1000iu of D, so I've discontinued the extra D pill. Do you think that we should have been brought up to healthier levels enough by now, and this is fine for maintenance,  or should we still add a 2000iu pill some days? I know it's possible too take too much D, so I didn't want to overdo, either.

2000 a day is winter maintenance for most, not a build up dose, and you lose D during the winter if not taking D, so if he was low before March, 2000 a day is maintaining that low dose for most people.  I need 30,000 a week for maintenance, 50,000 a week for fast build up, 40,000 a week for slower build up, it varies how much people need.  He is probably low enough to take 4,000 a day for a week or two, get the levels tested during that period.  If you get your D from the sun, your body adjusts better to prevent overdose.

How to get D from sun safely, sun angle must be 50 degrees or higher to work:

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vitamin-d-from-sun

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15 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

So can someone who understands D dosing help out a bit? I have no idea what my or dh's D levels were or are, and no way at this point to figure it out. I figured it was probably lowish, because winter and northern latitudes.

So since around the beginning of March, we've been taking a vitD3 with 2000iu, plus a multi that has another 400.  We were also taking a packet a day of Emergen-C, till now the ones without added D. But we've now switched over to the immune support kind that has 1000iu of D, so I've discontinued the extra D pill. Do you think that we should have been brought up to healthier levels enough by now, and this is fine for maintenance,  or should we still add a 2000iu pill some days? I know it's possible too take too much D, so I didn't want to overdo, either.

 

I cannot advise anyone else what to do, obviously.  Probably there should be an “ask your own  pcp” proviso.

 I can’t do it now but will later tell you my own logic. If I haven’t by mid day tomorrow tag me to remind me.  I have a bunch of stuff happening on home front to try to juggle! 

 

If I remember and can fit it in while watering plays or something like that, I will!!!

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