wuhan - coronavirus

[Ausmumof3]

So it turns out the 30 year old from the fifo town didn’t have Covid at all it was a false positive... such a weird story.

[Ausmumof3]

2 minutes ago, StellaM said:

Yeah, that was so strange...haven't caught up with what happened. Sad for the young man, but I suspect the community is relieved.

The part about the nurse who had coronavirus and who drove 200km to the town to watch the sunset and didn’t share about the overseas trip is the weirdest part.  I honestly thought she must have somehow passed it on to him and then for it to turn out he was never actually infected is kind of bizarre.

[Ausmumof3]

12 minutes ago, StellaM said:

I honestly don't understand how she went to Malaysia right now. 

 

Think she went back in March/April?

[Melissa in Australia]

35 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

The part about the nurse who had coronavirus and who drove 200km to the town to watch the sunset and didn’t share about the overseas trip is the weirdest part.  I honestly thought she must have somehow passed it on to him and then for it to turn out he was never actually infected is kind of bizarre.

I heard she went to check out the town as she was going to apply for a job there, while she was driving around checking out the town she stopped to look at the sunset

[Ausmumof3]

https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN2382E6?__twitter_impression=true
 

Singapore are building additional housing and refitting unused gov buildings to improve housing situation for migrant workers.

[Ausmumof3]

Anyone know where the various countries are at with reopening?  I though Italy was beginning to open again and they still seem to have steady decline in cases which seems promising.  Iran appear to be having a second wave but their data may have been pretty wonky for the first wave so maybe not.  

[JennyD]

Israel started reopening in mid-April and reopened most things two weeks ago.  And now we are having what may be a second wave, mostly but not entirely concentrated in schools.  As I mentioned in a previous post, there was a superspreader event last week at a Jerusalem magnet high school (140+ cases, supposedly traceable to a teacher) that seeded infection all over the city.  There are other small outbreaks at schools throughout the country as well.  None of them seem to have taken off like the one at the high school, fortunately, but it's adding up to a major spike in new cases.  

The government is pretty determined not to have to shut down businesses again and is desperately trying to manage this outbreak through the test/trace/isolate system that was quickly built during the shutdown.  I can really see why countries that created this sort of infrastructure during the SARS epidemic are doing so much better right now.  

There was a study released this morning that said that based on a relatively small but representative serological survey, 10x more Israelis probably had the virus than were officially diagnosed.  This would amount to 2-3% of the population.   However, a couple of weeks ago, a separate study based on genomic tracing had a very different finding -- that less than 1% of the population, which accords with the diagnosed numbers, had the virus.  Israel did not have any excess deaths; in fact, the death rate fell in March and April.  A much bigger serological survey is being conducted now.   So I think we will see some very interesting scientific debate in the coming weeks and months.

 

 

 

 

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, JennyD said:

Israel started reopening in mid-April and reopened most things two weeks ago.  And now we are having what may be a second wave, mostly but not entirely concentrated in schools.  As I mentioned in a previous post, there was a superspreader event last week at a Jerusalem magnet high school (140+ cases, supposedly traceable to a teacher) that seeded infection all over the city.  There are other small outbreaks at schools throughout the country as well.  None of them seem to have taken off like the one at the high school, fortunately, but it's adding up to a major spike in new cases.  

The government is pretty determined not to have to shut down businesses again and is desperately trying to manage this outbreak through the test/trace/isolate system that was quickly built during the shutdown.  I can really see why countries that created this sort of infrastructure during the SARS epidemic are doing so much better right now.  

There was a study released this morning that said that based on a relatively small but representative serological survey, 10x more Israelis probably had the virus than were officially diagnosed.  This would amount to 2-3% of the population.   However, a couple of weeks ago, a separate study based on genomic tracing had a very different finding -- that less than 1% of the population, which accords with the diagnosed numbers, had the virus.  Israel did not have any excess deaths; in fact, the death rate fell in March and April.  A much bigger serological survey is being conducted now.   So I think we will see some very interesting scientific debate in the coming weeks and months.

 

 

 

 

Very disappointing about the new outbreak but good news that there wasn’t any excess deaths.  Did the lockdown lower rates of other deaths?  
 

were any of the school clusters elementary students or all high school?

[JennyD]

15 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Very disappointing about the new outbreak but good news that there wasn’t any excess deaths.  Did the lockdown lower rates of other deaths?  
 

were any of the school clusters elementary students or all high school?

 

Health officials attributed the lower death rates during the lockdown to reduced traffic accidents and no elective surgeries.  

The big superspreading event was at a high school, but there have been small outbreaks at every level -- daycares, kindergartens, elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools.  

The virus spread from the high school mostly through siblings and family members.  Although we know of one middle schooler who caught it by playing basketball with a student from the high school.  

Edited June 2, 2020 by JennyD

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, JennyD said:

 

Health officials attributed the lower death rates during the lockdown to reduced traffic accidents and no elective surgeries.  

The big superspreading event was at a high school, but there have been small outbreaks at every level -- daycares, kindergartens, elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools.  

The virus spread from the high school mostly through siblings and family members.  Although we know of one middle schooler who caught it by playing basketball with a student from the high school.  

How many deaths happen due to eke rice surgery i wonder?

i feel like here in Aus we might have a month of “catch-up deaths” for want of a better way of putting it.  There seems to be a lot of fatalities on the road the last few days.

[lewelma]

NZ looks like it will completely reopen next week on Wednesday. At that point we will either be at the 95% or 99% confidence interval that there are NO cases in the community (depends on the date you use as our last case). Completely reopening means: 1) no social distancing requirements, which opens restaurants, bars, businesses, and airplanes up to full capacity.  2) It also means no limit on gathering size, which opens up the weekend markets and even stadiums (although I'm not convinced they will go this far). We will continue to register at stores we go to (by paper or app) in order to help with contact tracing if there is a breach at the borders. 3) Borders remain closed but with exceptions being made if people are willing to pay for a supervised 2 week quarantine in a hotel. This means foreign university students could attend (and because NZ is safe, there is a lot of demand to come), and means people in required jobs could get in (we got the 56-person Avatar movie crew yesterday). Jacinda will make the announcement on Monday as to the details. 

Edited June 2, 2020 by lewelma

[Ausmumof3]

NSW have had a whole week of no new local cases.  
 

our economy on the other hand is officially in recession if I understand it right.  Economics is not my strong point.  

[Ausmumof3]

Another doctor from the hospital where dr li Wenliang worked has died.  He first became ill in January and drew attention when his skin developed a dark pigmentation possibly due to liver damage.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-52897017?xtor=AL-72-[partner]-[bbc.news.twitter]-[headline]-[news]-[bizdev]-[isapi]&at_custom4=5AD4ADAE-A52E-11EA-BD3B-248B4744363C&at_campaign=64&at_custom1=[post+type]&at_medium=custom7&at_custom3=%40BBCWorld&at_custom2=twitter

[Ausmumof3]

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-06-03/man-behind-sweden-s-virus-strategy-says-he-got-some-things-wrong?__twitter_impression=true
 

“If we were to encounter the same illness with the same knowledge that we have today, I think our response would land somewhere in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done,” Anders Tegnell said in an interview with Swedish Radio.

[ktgrok]

On 4/7/2020 at 12:14 AM, lovelearnandlive said:

Another data point I wish would be tracked more closely is the percentage of tests given in each area that come back positive. Like this map of New York (and wow those percentages are high...)

https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-data-map-04032020-1.pdf

I know my state does have positive test percentage by county, not sure by zipcode. 

Edit: No, just tells total cases by zip code. (91 cases in my zip code). Then percent positive by county (2.8% for my county, total of a bit over 2,000 positive cases)

Edited June 3, 2020 by Ktgrok

[Ausmumof3]

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/mysterious-company-s-coronavirus-papers-top-medical-journals-may-be-unraveling
 

looks like the company that provides questionable data used in the lancet study on hydroxychloroquine also provided the data behind the invermectin study and the one on blood pressure drugs

The paper reported that taking certain blood pressure drugs including angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors didn’t appear to increase the risk of death among COVID-19 patients, as some researchers had suggested. (Several studies analyzing other groups of COVID-19 patients support the NEJMresults.) “Recently, substantive concerns have been raised about the quality of the information in that database,” an NEJM statement noted. “We have asked the authors to provide evidence that the data are reliable.”

I can’t remember who it was here who I think was interested in the blood pressure results but if anyone remembers they may want to know?  

[TracyP]

More evidence showing that close contact in enclosed spaces for extended time is the main driver of transmission. (I still worry about the protesters. I worry being outside isn't enough when you are that close for so long.)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/opinion/articles/2020-05-15/will-i-get-coronavirus-at-the-grocery-store-unlikely

The two drivers of the spread of the disease are close contact and crowding in closed spaces, says Muge Cevik, an infectious disease specialist at the University of St. Andrews in the U.K. It spread through homeless shelters and  nursing and care homes, where people were crowded with many others. It spread through people’s households, and through meat packing plants.

Cevik has been collecting and reviewing papers from around the world on disease transmission. “There are some trends emerging,” she says. “Spending time dining together, being in public transport,” might risk spreading the disease, but “going to a market briefly, for five minutes or a transient encounter while you walk or run past someone, those are low risks.”

....

Sharing a home or office does make transmission more likely, since length of exposure matters as much as distance from other people. People passing by you in a supermarket are unlikely to infect you. Outdoor environments appear much safer as well. In one study, which followed hundreds of cases, all but one transmission occurred indoors.

[Ausmumof3]

4 minutes ago, TracyP said:

More evidence showing that close contact in enclosed spaces for extended time is the main driver of transmission. (I still worry about the protesters. I worry being outside isn't enough when you are that close for so long.)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/opinion/articles/2020-05-15/will-i-get-coronavirus-at-the-grocery-store-unlikely

The two drivers of the spread of the disease are close contact and crowding in closed spaces, says Muge Cevik, an infectious disease specialist at the University of St. Andrews in the U.K. It spread through homeless shelters and  nursing and care homes, where people were crowded with many others. It spread through people’s households, and through meat packing plants.

Cevik has been collecting and reviewing papers from around the world on disease transmission. “There are some trends emerging,” she says. “Spending time dining together, being in public transport,” might risk spreading the disease, but “going to a market briefly, for five minutes or a transient encounter while you walk or run past someone, those are low risks.”

....

Sharing a home or office does make transmission more likely, since length of exposure matters as much as distance from other people. People passing by you in a supermarket are unlikely to infect you. Outdoor environments appear much safer as well. In one study, which followed hundreds of cases, all but one transmission occurred indoors.

I think there’s almost zero chance the protestors haven’t spread the infection with the hours of chanting.  I also read that one member of the national guard has been diagnosed though I don’t know if they were one who was involved in managing the protests or not.  
 

the pictures of the protests in Amsterdam and London etc were very packed as well.

Edited June 3, 2020 by Ausmumof3

[Pen]

5 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I think there’s almost zero chance the protestors haven’t spread the infection with the hours of chanting.  I also read that one member of the national guard has been diagnosed though I don’t know if they were one who was involved in managing the protests or not.  
 

the pictures of the protests in Amsterdam and London etc were very packed as well.

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/500884-minnesota-national-guard-testing-members-for

yes according to this, A NG who was dealing with protests seems to be positive, 9 others with symptoms...

 

(NG in many areas had already been helping with food and supplies and sanitation in re CV19.   Might have gotten infected doing that too. ? ) 

Edited June 3, 2020 by Pen

[Pen]

Impacting brains:

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/01/health/brain-coronavirus-delirium-kaiser/index.html

 

[Pen]

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/covid-19-drug-targets-enzymes-that-enable-virus-to-invade-cells

[Pen]

John Campbell today has updates and an interview with someone in Taiwan.  I found How Taiwan is handling things (no new cases for 55 days) very interesting.

[Pen]

https://youtu.be/hRDCMwDIcvI

 

More questions about Wuhan lab

[EmseB]

https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/covid-19-hydroxychloroquine-the-lancet-observational-study-surgisphere/

 

This is an interesting article about the lancet retrospective on Hydroxy. I don’t knownthe source or veracity of the claims so, block of salt and all that.

[Pen]

9 minutes ago, EmseB said:

https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/covid-19-hydroxychloroquine-the-lancet-observational-study-surgisphere/

 

This is an interesting article about the lancet retrospective on Hydroxy. I don’t knownthe source or veracity of the claims so, block of salt and all that.

 

I think all 4 authors of the study and their various affiliates need to be looked into. 

(Only having 4 authors for such a supposedly huge investigation and analysis is itself fishy.)

Edited June 3, 2020 by Pen

[lewelma]

11 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

NSW have had a whole week of no new local cases.  

Sounds like the Trans Tasman bubble might end up between NZ and only certain states in Australia. We are at day 12 no cases. They were saying on our news that Australians in certain states might be in the strange situation of being allowed to travel to NZ while their borders are still closed to other Australian states. I can't wait to travel.  NSW and Tasmania are on my list!

[Melissa in Australia]

1 hour ago, lewelma said:

Sounds like the Trans Tasman bubble might end up between NZ and only certain states in Australia. We are at day 12 no cases. They were saying on our news that Australians in certain states might be in the strange situation of being allowed to travel to NZ while their borders are still closed to other Australian states. I can't wait to travel.  NSW and Tasmania are on my list!

Well the border between NSW and Vic was never closed. Vic is still having new numbers every day

[Corraleno]

The results of University of Minnesota's random, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of the prophylactic use of hydroxychloroquine in patients with known exposure was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study, which included 821 participants, did not show a statistically significant difference between the treatment and control groups. 40% of the treatment group experienced side effects, vs 16% given folic acid as a placebo, but there were no serious adverse affects. Summary below; the full study is here: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2016638

 

BACKGROUND

Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) occurs after exposure to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). For persons who are exposed, the standard of care is observation and quarantine. Whether hydroxychloroquine can prevent symptomatic infection after SARS-CoV-2 exposure is unknown.

METHODS

We conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial across the United States and parts of Canada testing hydroxychloroquine as postexposure prophylaxis. We enrolled adults who had household or occupational exposure to someone with confirmed Covid-19 at a distance of less than 6 ft for more than 10 minutes while wearing neither a face mask nor an eye shield (high-risk exposure) or while wearing a face mask but no eye shield (moderate-risk exposure). Within 4 days after exposure, we randomly assigned participants to receive either placebo or hydroxychloroquine (800 mg once, followed by 600 mg in 6 to 8 hours, then 600 mg daily for 4 additional days). The primary outcome was the incidence of either laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 or illness compatible with Covid-19 within 14 days.

RESULTS

We enrolled 821 asymptomatic participants. Overall, 87.6% of the participants (719 of 821) reported a high-risk exposure to a confirmed Covid-19 contact. The incidence of new illness compatible with Covid-19 did not differ significantly between participants receiving hydroxychloroquine (49 of 414 [11.8%]) and those receiving placebo (58 of 407 [14.3%]); the absolute difference was −2.4 percentage points (95% confidence interval, −7.0 to 2.2; P=0.35). Side effects were more common with hydroxychloroquine than with placebo (40.1% vs. 16.8%), but no serious adverse reactions were reported.

CONCLUSIONS

After high-risk or moderate-risk exposure to Covid-19, hydroxychloroquine did not prevent illness compatible with Covid-19 or confirmed infection when used as postexposure prophylaxis within 4 days after exposure.

[RootAnn]

Except, I read this about that study:

There are some big caveats: The study enrolled people through the Internet and social media, relying on them to report their own symptoms rather than having them tracked in a formal way by doctors. Participants were not all tested for the coronavirus but were diagnosed as COVID-19 cases based on symptoms in many cases. And not all took their medicines as directed.

[Ausmumof3]

Re Hydroxychloroquine I have seen that there were concerns with methodology in the latest study mentioned above 

re Sweden - they seem to have had a massive increase in new cases yesterday.  I’m assuming there was some kind of testing backlog that cleared or something because the graph makes no sense.

re border closures and nz travel border closures here are quite soft really.  Dh had to go interstate for essential work and he needed a letter from his employer and to keep a two week log of contacts.  He knows that at some of the checkpoints trucks are using the backroad to avoid the hassle of doing the paperwork and checks.

[hopeallgoeswell]

On 5/27/2020 at 7:21 PM, Jean in Newcastle said:

24 counties in Washington state are already in phase 2.  More have been given the green light to apply for phase 2.  You are misrepresenting the situation. 

Apologies for the late response; I had family visiting.  WA was under stay-home orders until May 31.  The phased reopenings that were happening in some counties were still under those orders with very limited allowances.  

I did find it refreshing to get off here and away from the doom and gloom, so I will not be coming back to the chat board 🙂.
 

https://www.seattletimes.com/life/which-phase-is-your-county-in-and-what-can-you-do-under-the-modified-phase-1-of-washingtons-reopening/

[Corraleno]

6 hours ago, RootAnn said:

Except, I read this about that study:

There are some big caveats: The study enrolled people through the Internet and social media, relying on them to report their own symptoms rather than having them tracked in a formal way by doctors. Participants were not all tested for the coronavirus but were diagnosed as COVID-19 cases based on symptoms in many cases. And not all took their medicines as directed.

Well, to be fair, two-thirds of the participants were doctors, PAs, or nurses. Some of the treatment group discontinued medication due to side effects but 75% completed the full trial. The report said that due to the lack of testing availability, many diagnoses were based on a combination of symptoms + knowledge of confirmed exposure, and I would hope that the large number of medical professionals involved would have a fairly objective/professional approach to self-diagnosis. It's not perfect, but it's certainly the best study we have so far.

The same researchers are doing a study on HCQ as a post-symptom treatment as well, but I believe the methodology is similar (at least in terms of recruitment — people who wanted to sign up for this trial but already had symptoms were told they could enroll in the other one instead).

Edited June 4, 2020 by Corraleno

[TracyP]

@Pen

I'm not sure if it was this thread or another that you brought up the possibility of George Floyd having coronavirus. He did test positive during autopsy. It is not believed to have any bearing on his death.

I do think it is noteworthy for this thread that he first tested positive on April 3 and was still positive on May 26. It would be interesting to find out more about how common it is to test positive for this long.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.kstp.com/articles/george-floyd-autopsy-report-shows-george-floyd-died-from-cardiopulmonary-arrest-was-positive-for-covid-19-5750262.html

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, TracyP said:

@Pen

I'm not sure if it was this thread or another that you brought up the possibility of George Floyd having coronavirus. He did test positive during autopsy. It is not believed to have any bearing on his death.

I do think it is noteworthy for this thread that he first tested positive on April 3 and was still positive on May 26. It would be interesting to find out more about how common it is to test positive for this long.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.kstp.com/articles/george-floyd-autopsy-report-shows-george-floyd-died-from-cardiopulmonary-arrest-was-positive-for-covid-19-5750262.html

Typically with the South Korea cases etc where they continue testing positive they haven’t been able to culture the virus to grow so at this point they think it’s just shedding dead virus for a long time:  there was also a story in Aus and one in Italy at least of long periods.  Two studies have come out in the last week suggesting that people don’t seem to be infectious after a few days - I think one had eight and one had eleven.  They were fairly small studies so obviously needs more data.

i believe those involved in doing the autopsy now have to be tested etc out of caution because they weren’t told and probably should have been.

[Ausmumof3]

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-3012
 

study (actually an overview of all the studies to date) on asymptomatic carriers etc.  

“The likelihood that approximately 40% to 45% of those infected with SARS-CoV-2 will remain asymptomatic suggests that the virus might have greater potential than previously estimated to spread silently and deeply through human populations.

Asymptomatic persons can transmit SARS-CoV-2 to others for an extended period, perhaps longer than 14 days.

The absence of COVID-19 symptoms in persons infected with SARS-CoV-2 might not necessarily imply an absence of harm. More research is needed to determine the significance of subclinical lung changes visible on computed tomography scans.

The focus of testing programs for SARS-CoV-2 should be substantially broadened to include persons who do not have symptoms of COVID-19.”

[Pen]

1 hour ago, TracyP said:

@Pen

I'm not sure if it was this thread or another that you brought up the possibility of George Floyd having coronavirus. He did test positive during autopsy. It is not believed to have any bearing on his death.

I do think it is noteworthy for this thread that he first tested positive on April 3 and was still positive on May 26. It would be interesting to find out more about how common it is to test positive for this long.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.kstp.com/articles/george-floyd-autopsy-report-shows-george-floyd-died-from-cardiopulmonary-arrest-was-positive-for-covid-19-5750262.html

 

Yes. I was wondering.

He looked/seemed sick.

I was wondering if feeling claustrophobic in police car could have had to do with impairment from CV19–   Or if what might have seemed like being resistant and combative could have been Air hunger and distress.   Plus the accumulation of evidence of brain effects sometimes.  

 

Anyway, I do think police should have Pulse oximeters to check people - not that that would help if an officer wants to murder someone - but for officers of good will, someone might look like they were high on drugs or combative when it could actually be sick with CV19.

 

 

[Ausmumof3]

I’m finding it interesting that on the worldwide graph while daily cases are still going up daily deaths have been decreasing since about the last week in April.  I’m not sure if that means anything.  Maybe that we are getting better at detecting it or maybe better at helping people actually survive it or both.  Or maybe it just relates to which areas were peaking at the time.

[TracyP]

3 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

Anyway, I do think police should have Pulse oximeters to check people - not that that would help if an officer wants to murder someone - but for officers of good will, someone might look like they were high on drugs or combative when it could actually be sick with CV19.

 

 

This is a great point. With all the stories of people walking around oxygen deprived and not even realizing it... this is something officers should definitely be looking out for.

[freesia]

18 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I’m finding it interesting that on the worldwide graph while daily cases are still going up daily deaths have been decreasing since about the last week in April.  I’m not sure if that means anything.  Maybe that we are getting better at detecting it or maybe better at helping people actually survive it or both.  Or maybe it just relates to which areas were peaking at the time.

That’s what I would like to know about. Are more people surviving because treatment is better.

[The Governess]

31 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I’m finding it interesting that on the worldwide graph while daily cases are still going up daily deaths have been decreasing since about the last week in April.  I’m not sure if that means anything.  Maybe that we are getting better at detecting it or maybe better at helping people actually survive it or both.  Or maybe it just relates to which areas were peaking at the time.

 

Maybe it’s due to more and more testing availability?

[Joker]

33 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I’m finding it interesting that on the worldwide graph while daily cases are still going up daily deaths have been decreasing since about the last week in April.  I’m not sure if that means anything.  Maybe that we are getting better at detecting it or maybe better at helping people actually survive it or both.  Or maybe it just relates to which areas were peaking at the time.

We’ve been discussing this in our home too. Cases continue to rise and part of that is increased testing capability and looser restrictions on who can get a test, but deaths are definitely declining as well. It’s interesting for sure, especially with so many places opened back up now.

Edited June 4, 2020 by Joker

[Pen]

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/06/covid-19-coronavirus-longterm-symptoms-months/612679/

 

Quotes:

“

It “has been like nothing else on Earth,” said Paul Garner, who has previously endured dengue fever and malaria, and is currently on day 77 of COVID-19. Garner, an infectious-diseases professor at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, leads a renowned organization that reviews scientific evidence on preventing and treating infections. 

“COVID-19 affects many different organs—that much is now clear. But in March, when many long-haulers were first falling sick with gut, heart, and brain problems, the disease was still regarded as a mainly respiratory one. To date, the only neurological symptom that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists in its COVID-19 description is a loss of taste or smell. But other neurological symptoms are common among the long-haulers who answered the Body Politic survey.

As many people reported “brain fogs” and concentration challenges as coughs or fevers. Some have experienced hallucinations, delirium, short-term memory loss, or strange vibrating sensations when they touch surfaces. Others are likely having problems with their sympathetic nervous system, which controls unconscious processes like heartbeats and breathing: They’ll be out of breath even when their oxygen level is normal, or experience what feel like heart attacks even though EKG readings and chest X-rays are clear. These symptoms wax, wane, and warp o...”

 

Edited June 5, 2020 by Pen

[Shoeless]

11 hours ago, Joker said:

We’ve been discussing this in our home too. Cases continue to rise and part of that is increased testing capability and looser restrictions on who can get a test, but deaths are definitely declining as well. It’s interesting for sure, especially with so many places opened back up now.

 

I read something recently where Italian doctors felt that the version of the virus they see now is less "potent" than earlier versions. This would be a very good thing if it turned out to be true.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-losing-potency-top-italian-184358113.html

[73349]

On 6/4/2020 at 11:20 PM, Pen said:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/06/covid-19-coronavirus-longterm-symptoms-months/612679/

Others are likely having problems with their sympathetic nervous system, which controls unconscious processes like heartbeats and breathing: They’ll be out of breath even when their oxygen level is normal, or experience what feel like heart attacks even though EKG readings and chest X-rays are clear. These symptoms wax, wane...”

 

😕

Edited October 2, 2020 by Carolina Wren

[Ausmumof3]

 

[TCB]

I have a friend who lives in Sweden. I just read a post she shared on FB from an ICU nurse there begging people to follow the social distancing guidelines because the ICUs have many patients and the staff are exhausted. She also mentioned how concerned they are about not having ICU beds for patients injured in traffic accidents etc that apparently increase in summer.

edited to fix typo

Edited June 5, 2020 by TCB

[Joker]

1 hour ago, whitehawk said:

Yup, that was me. Heart rate 100+ BPM lying in bed at night sometimes; temperature up and down but never over 99.9F; only my pulse ox telling me I was fine to assure me that I was breathing enough and didn't need to go to the ER; probably four or five times thinking I was getting better after a couple of good days in a row, only to relapse, until finally getting real improvement only after about 11 weeks, and even now (at approaching 3 months) stuck at about 98% better. And hey, glad to be here, but it absolutely feels like this virus is gaslighting people.

It’s weird reading this. I didn’t have a test for Covid but I did have an antibody test, which was negative. At the 11 week mark, I also thought I finally was over whatever I had but a week later the cough and chest weirdness was back. Now, it’s off and on. I go in for an actual appointment in two weeks. My antibody test was negative but it sure is something weird.

[73349]

If you haven't looked, Dr. Campbell's video interviewing an American living in Tokyo is quite interesting. Japan is doing an abysmal job with testing--you have to have a fever for four days before you can call the hotline to ask for a test! unless you're 65+, in which case it's 2 days--but does not appear to be having a lot of deaths. They have locked down and are reopening, but it seems that the Japanese customs of non-contact greeting, excellent hygiene, mask-wearing, bicycle use, and general concern for others are doing a lot to minimize the spread. The government doesn't really do mandates, but they strongly recommend or urgently request practices and people normally choose to do their part.

The interviewee had also lived in China previously and suggested that there's similar conduct in China, though apparently with different motives (complying with government directives/restrictions vs. watching out for fellow citizens). China's experience with big projects in short time frames helps with mass testing, etc.--there's a will to get things done.

[Ausmumof3]

129,000 new cases worldwide yesterday.

[Teaching3bears]

I read that the Swedish health official who made the decision says now that it was a mistake.  They have more cases and deaths than their neighbours and the economy is doing badly despite not closing.