COVID-19 Thread

[Kinsm]

This virus makes everything abnormal. My father in Florida is dying now, not of Covid but of a kidney infection that's been recurring for more than a year. They're finally letting his wife in to see him. There won't be a service. I'm hoping they do something later, when it's safe. Nothing's right right now.

I'm sorry to hear that, I hope you are able to at least say your goodbyes.

[Fil3232]

This virus makes everything abnormal. My father in Florida is dying now, not of Covid but of a kidney infection that's been recurring for more than a year. They're finally letting his wife in to see him. There won't be a service. I'm hoping they do something later, when it's safe. Nothing's right right now.

Marc, my sincere condolences. I’m sorry.

[dougdirt]

I'm so sorry, Marc.

[Larkin Fan]

This virus makes everything abnormal. My father in Florida is dying now, not of Covid but of a kidney infection that's been recurring for more than a year. They're finally letting his wife in to see him. There won't be a service. I'm hoping they do something later, when it's safe. Nothing's right right now.

I'm very sorry to hear this. Hang in there.

[marcshoe]

Thanks everybody. He had planned to come see me pick up my doctorate in early May, just as I watched him pick up his at UT in '99, but that was postponed, and he said he'd be there whenever. I didn't meet him until I was almost 30, so it was good to have a relationship with him for a while; I visited him, and he visited me. I started work on my doctorate after he convinced me it was possible. No regrets.

[Kingspoint]

Attachment 15929

[Kingspoint]

Japan, the world's worst offender when it comes to ignoring the seriousness of Covid-19, and as a result being the least prepared to fight this virus, is near a state of collapse at Tokyo area hospitals, per this reuters report from today:
https://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/OTgyWDE2MDA=/z/zqkAAOSwdX1ec8Ei/$_57.JPG?set_id=8800005007

"The crisis has already arrived at Eiju General Hospital, a pink, 10-storey building in central Tokyo, which has reported 140 cases of COVID-19 in the past two weeks. Of those, at least 44 are doctors, nurses and other medical staff."

“There isn’t that much capacity (of hospital beds) left in Tokyo, so a (medical collapse) is no longer unforeseeable,” said Satoshi Kamayachi, an executive board member of the Japan Medical Association, which has pushed Japan to call for a state of emergency. “The number of patients is clearly rising, so the situation is becoming more urgent.”

“The other day I saw a news report that a nurse wearing a trash bag as protective gear died in New York and I wondered if that’ll be me in the future,” one nurse in her 30s told Reuters.

"Kasumi Matsuda, who works for the Japan Federation of Medical Workers’ Unions and was a nurse for 13 years, said many of its 170,000 members had also reported a lack of protective gear. “I think the system is already beginning to fall apart,” she said. As the number of cases rises in Tokyo, the Japan Medical Association and Tokyo governor Koike have asked the central government to quickly declare a state of emergency to reduce the rate of infections. Such a declaration empowers governors to close public facilities and “name and shame” companies that refuse official requests.
But it cannot force companies to comply. Media reports on Monday indicated that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was preparing to declare a state of emergency this week after days of saying such a decision would be premature."

[Kingspoint]

From Reuters: "Venezuela Elderly feel 'sentenced to euthanasia' under coronavirus quarantine"


https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...KBN21O1EE?il=0

"They are now confined to their home, living off the food they have in storage, after President Nicolas Maduro declared a quarantine. Blanco says he feels like they’ve been left to die. “Senior citizens have been sentenced to euthanasia,” said Blanco, who lives on the fourth floor of a building in the Coche neighborhood of western Caracas. In a survey published in November by non-profit groups Convite and HelpAge, 77% of Venezuelans over 55 said they did not have access to enough food and one in ten said they go to bed hungry."

[Kingspoint]

Austria, one of the most aggressive nations when it came to issuing lockdowns has reduced their infectious rate down to single digits (that's a percentage), and in response, will now try to lift some restrictions while imposing stricter ones, also. Shops will be allowed to open next Monday, but the wearing of masks wil be more required.

“We reacted faster and more restrictively than in other countries and could therefore avoid the worst. But this fast and restrictive reaction now also gives us the possibility to come out of this crisis more quickly,” Kurz told a news conference. He added, however, that his plan was tentative and would happen “only if we all continue to stick to the (lockdown) measures and stand together as well as we have until now”. That plan is for non-essential shops of 400 square metres (4,300 square feet) or less and DIY shops to reopen on April 14, the day after Easter Monday. They would then be followed by all shops, shopping malls and hairdressers on May 1, he said. However, only one shopper per 20 square metres of shop space will be allowed. Restaurants and hotels, meanwhile, will have to wait until mid-May at the earliest and no events will be held until at least late June, the conservative chancellor said.
Austria has since Monday required shoppers to wear face masks at supermarkets and drugstores of more than 400 square metres. While the public has been generally supportive of the lockdown, wrinkles have appeared, with some supermarkets either having run out of masks or charging shoppers for them. Kurz said the government would check that masks are not sold for profit. A scarf or shawl can also be worn instead of a mask."


https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...KBN21O0X6?il=0

[Tuff Nut]

This virus makes everything abnormal. My father in Florida is dying now, not of Covid but of a kidney infection that's been recurring for more than a year. They're finally letting his wife in to see him. There won't be a service. I'm hoping they do something later, when it's safe. Nothing's right right now.

Wow...heart felt thought and prayers to you and your family.

[WrongVerb]

This virus makes everything abnormal. My father in Florida is dying now, not of Covid but of a kidney infection that's been recurring for more than a year. They're finally letting his wife in to see him. There won't be a service. I'm hoping they do something later, when it's safe. Nothing's right right now.

Hearts out to you and your family Marc.

[North]

NOTE: I am under a migraine attack which started 2 days ago, so I should NOT be on any social media. So I will post things of possible interest, and LOG OFF.



The FDA-approved Drug Ivermectin inhibits the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro

Highlights

Ivermectin is an inhibitor of the COVID-19 causative virus (SARS-CoV-2) in vitro.

A single treatment able to effect ∼5000-fold reduction in virus at 48h in cell culture.

Ivermectin is FDA-approved for parasitic infections, and therefore has a potential for repurposing.

Ivermectin is widely available, due to its inclusion on the WHO model list of essential medicines.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...66354220302011


Description of Ivemectin for anti-parasitic use:

https://www.drugs.com/mtm/ivermectin.html

- - - Updated - - -



U.S. coronavirus supply spree sparks outrage among allies
Richard Lough, Andreas Rinke


PARIS/BERLIN (Reuters) - From Europe to South America, U.S. allies are complaining about the superpower’s “Wild West” tactics in outbidding or blocking shipments to buyers who have already signed deals for vital medical supplies.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN21L253

[North]

covid3



NOTE: I am under a migraine attack which started 2 days ago, so I should NOT be on any social media. So I will post things of possible interest and LOG OFF.


Coronavirus: Why death and mortality rates differ

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...y-rates-differ


This BBC article is a good read. Here is an excerpt:


..."First, there is confusion about what people mean by “death rate”. This confusion can make countries’ numbers look vastly different, even if their populations are dying at the same rate.

There are, in fact, two kinds of fatality rate. The first is the proportion of people who die who have tested positive for the disease. This is called the “case fatality rate”. The second kind is the proportion of people who die after having the infection overall; as many of these will never be picked up, this figure has to be an estimate. This is the “infection fatality rate”.

In other words, the case fatality rate describes how many people doctors can be sure are killed by the infection, versus how many people the virus kills overall, says Carl Heneghan, an epidemiologist and director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford; he is also a GP in recovery from a suspected Covid-19 infection.

To see what a difference this makes, consider 100 people who have been infected with Covid-19. Ten of them have it so severely that they go into hospital, where they test positive for Covid-19. The other 90 are not tested at all. One of the hospital patients then dies from the virus. The other 99 people survive.

That would give a case fatality rate of one in 10, or 10%. But the infection fatality rate would be just one in 100, or 1%.

So if some countries only test patients ill enough to go to hospital – and don’t test the less-ill (or even asymptomatic) Covid-19 patients who don’t get to hospital (which is what the UK is currently doing) – the death rate can appear higher than in countries where testing is widespread (such as Germany or South Korea."

[RFS62]

This virus makes everything abnormal. My father in Florida is dying now, not of Covid but of a kidney infection that's been recurring for more than a year. They're finally letting his wife in to see him. There won't be a service. I'm hoping they do something later, when it's safe. Nothing's right right now.

So sorry to hear this Marc.

[jup]

Serious changes taking place on the modeling front as all the experts are starting to realize that their models and what is actually happening on the ground just aren't matching up.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020...-s-deaths.html