Maybe if therapeutics become more available, that would help? Aren’t fewer people already staying out of ICUs?
It’s sobering that the US covid stats are worse than Sweden’s, and they have never closed K-12 schools. Add in our higher rates of suicide, depression, bankruptcy, unemployment and, well, it’s all so overwhelming. With no end in sight in the US.
Holy Cow, @homerdog. I don’t want healthier people taking risks that affect all the rest of us.
Are you advocating freedom of choice? I want an all around safer approach. The concern in the Declaration is not individual rights. It’s the potential morbidity or co-moridity rising from total lockdown.
If a healthy person needs to work to put food on the table, perhaps he/she should be allowed to work, when well, or take time off when feeling ill. Or have a back up source of meals. (Yes, other countries do this.) That’s different than bmj saying “resources” would be focused primarily on older or at-risk people. Or that the rest should be left to do whatever they please.
This is part of what the declaration says:
I read both. This model assumes that low risk and high risk people are living in separate compartments without contact. Also, what about the young people who are vulnerable? Should they just be left behind?
The most vulnerable are the frontline workers, including aides, grocery clerks, cleaners and the like, and health care workers. People who live with others and have one bathroom. People who take public transportation.
So what exactly does "most vulnerable mean? Are we talking about age segregation? Are they going to provide housing? What if we older vulnerable parents are providing housing for the non-vulnerable youth?
This just way oversimplifies the way our society is structured, at least here in the US. And various social and occupational inequities are not addressed. (Sweden has more of a social safety net of course.)
That said, of course some in my family have lost their jobs or future prospects due to the virus. People are hungry and can’t pay for rent or medical care. There is a lot of suffering either way. I don’t know what the answer is.
I do agree that more testing in nursing homes, or residents, staff and visitors, is needed, and not rotating staff is a good strategy,
Basically, give up and let the virus infect everyone (but hope to keep it away from the higher risk people) to get to herd immunity.
But then what about low risk people who live or work with high risk people?
Also, we are still waiting for more and better studies on how frequent long term damage is; unfortunately, there have been too few studies on that subject (although some of the few have had worrisome results, and anecdotes appear to be worryingly common). Lots of people are understandably concerned about long term lung or heart damage even if their person risk of death is low.
No no. I’m not advocating anything. Just came across this and was curious what everyone thinks.
Maybe it’s important to acknowledge that, in many places in the states, people are not all masked up. Friend flew through Charlotte today. Tons of people with no masks. Neighbors went to SMU family weekend a couple of weeks ago. Bars and parties galore. I’m not condoning it but it’s happening.
This is a politically-motivated “Declaration” with a lot of questionable signatures, and with little actual attention to specific mechanisms to make this happen. The AIER, which is behind this “Declaration” is a libertarian group seeking to limit government intervention, across the board. They also traffic in Climate Science Denial.
I think this thread should stick to medical news, not political.
I saw a lot of critical articles in a cursory search (because the whole thing didn’t pass the smell test to begin with) and this one seems to sum it up well, with lots of evidence and sources: https://bylinetimes.com/2020/10/09/climate-science-denial-network-behind-great-barrington-declaration/
Yes let’s stick to medical. I for one didn’t realize that I was responding to an essentially political idea and am going to try to be stricter in defining for myself what is political and avoiding politics here!
Study on Remdesivir
The study above, on remdesivir, mentions that it is most effective within the first 10 days of infection. Tamiflu is given for influenza within the first 48 hours of symptoms. With other anti-virus meds, the earlier the better, I would think.
Since COVID may lack symptoms for a few days after infection, remdesivir presumably needs to be given very soon after symptoms occur, since symptomatic disease is already a few days in. I seriously wonder whether this is happening for most people.
Isn’t it possible that people are getting this medication too late in the course of their illness?
Ideally there would eventually be enough supply so earlier administration would be possible, and maybe even without triage.
The CDC has added being overweight (BMI 25-29.9) as a possible risk factor for severe COVID. Obesity and severe obesity had already been considered risk factors.
The CDC based its recommendation on a small number of studies that successfully differentiated between obesity and overweight.
‘I Feel Like I Have Dementia’: Brain Fog Plagues Covid Survivors
The condition is affecting thousands of patients, impeding their ability to work and function in daily life.
After contracting the coronavirus in March, Michael Reagan lost all memory of his 12-day vacation in Paris, even though the trip was just a few weeks earlier.
Several weeks after Erica Taylor recovered from her Covid-19 symptoms of nausea and cough, she became confused and forgetful, failing to even recognize her own car, the only Toyota Prius in her apartment complex’s parking lot.
Lisa Mizelle, a veteran nurse practitioner at an urgent care clinic who contracted the virus in July, finds herself forgetting routine treatments and lab tests, and has to ask colleagues about terminology she used to know automatically.
“I leave the room and I can’t remember what the patient just said,” she said, adding that if she hadn’t exhausted her medical leave she’d take more time off.
“It scares me to think I’m working,” Ms. Mizelle, 53, said. “I feel like I have dementia.”
It’s becoming known as Covid brain fog: troubling cognitive symptoms that can include memory loss, confusion, difficulty focusing, dizziness and grasping for everyday words. Increasingly, Covid survivors say brain fog is impairing their ability to work and function normally.
“There are thousands of people who have that,” said Dr. Igor Koralnik, chief of neuro-infectious disease at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, who has already seen hundreds of survivors at a post-Covid clinic he leads. “The impact on the work force that’s affected is going to be significant.
Rest of article here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/11/health/covid-survivors.html
“A Coronavirus Vaccine Could Kill Half A Million Sharks, Conservationists Warn”
My son tells me 60% of squalene used already comes from plant based products (don’t know his source). Hopefully this making the news via NPR and who knows where else will start switching more to plant based products. We can’t (shouldn’t) kill so much of any species on the planet while trying to save ourselves, esp when there are alternatives out there:
BBC is also reporting an Australian study showing Covid survives on some surfaces for 28 days:
"the latest research from Australian agency CSIRO found the virus was “extremely robust,” surviving for 28 days on smooth surfaces such as glass found on mobile phone screens and both plastic and paper banknotes, when kept at 20C (68F), which is about room temperature.
In comparison, the flu virus can survive in the same circumstances for 17 days.
The experiments were carried out in the dark, as UV light has already been shown to kill the virus."
This was in a lab in optimal conditions vs real life, but it seems to keep the “wash your hands” directive current. I wonder if it’s why there are outbreaks at times though.
Covid seems to be perfect constructed to take advantage of the weaknesses in overweight bodies. I have mixed feelings of prioritizing overweight people if and when a vaccine is approved.
Interesting, but haven’t there been several studies that say the viral load on surfaces is too small to have any meaningful risk of transmitting the virus via touch?
That’s what I thought, but with Australia having outbreaks pop up out of seemingly nowhere, my guess is they were checking it out again. If they’re getting “extremely robust” populations, it seems it could be a culprit in some situations. I don’t think it negates the majority of transmission being airborne.
I had read an article that said the second outbreak in New Zealand was as a result of multiple people touching an infected garbage can. How the heck can they trace it all the way back to that?! It was a good reminder to me that even though primary mode of transmission is airborne, we still need to carefully wash/sanitize our hands.
The sad part about this is that squalene used for cosmetics already results in 2.7 million sharks killed per year, according to the https://www.sharkallies.com/shark-free-products/cosmetics-what-is-squalene that the article above links to.