Well… just got a call from the pharmacy and my vaccination appt scheduled for tomorrow has been canceled.
We previously discussed the seroprevalence study from Santa Clara County. I was skeptical of the result, because the sampling strategy was in my view flawed and because it implied what I thought was an implausibly low infection fatality rate.
Now a similar study has been released for Los Angeles County, with a better sampling strategy, and with similarly large seroprevalence. This makes the first study look more valid than I thought. It looks like we’re testing only a small percentage of all cases, and the 2-4% prevalence is correct.
Unfortunately, it also looks like the infection fatality rate might be going up in Santa Clara County, as long term care facilities start to have outbreaks. Previously, the ages of the people who died here were surprisingly (for this disease) young, and detected cases were also surprisingly young. But the average age has been going up, which I attribute to the new outbreaks in nursing homes and care facilities.
California is releasing the numbers of cases in long term care facilities, but not deaths. (There are two places within a mile of me, places I normally walk and bike past, with cases, yikes.) New Jersey is releasing cases and deaths, and it’s more horrible than you could imagine.
My DH is a physician in private practice in central NJ so I’ve been following this thread to see how our situation compares to other areas. It is very interesting to get a glimpse of how different the impact has been around the country. We’ve been a hot zone since day 1.
@“Cardinal Fang” is right - the NJ numbers are wild compared to other states.
As of 4/20, NJ has tested about 2% of the population, with 50% of those (89k) testing positive. I’m sure there are many more untested positives as, at least early in the cycle, they were only testing healthcare workers, first responders and others who were very sick. Those with milder symptoms were not tested at all. Many people are still not bothering to get tested.
The death rate is almost 5% of those who tested positive. As with everything else, that is based on the knowns. There are probably others who’ve passed from Covid-19 and its complications without ever knowing it.
Full disclosure - the raw data used above are from official state reporting but I did the percentage calculations. I’ve always been a numbers person so slicing and dicing numbers helps me see through the clutter.
Do you plan to check other pharmacies for availability?
The other thing is, the currently known fatalities may not include those who died at home without diagnosis of COVID-19, so the fatality numbers may also be understated from the true fatality numbers. Some fire departments have recently been getting a greatly increased volume of calls for cardiac arrests that turn out to be unrevivable.
My Dad lives in a large retirement community. They have everything from big beautiful houses, to duplexes, to townhomes, to high rise independent living apartments, to rehab facilities, to short term care, to full nursing home care to Alzheimer units, etc.
Most of the residents are retired military. They are good at “taking orders.” This community was aggressive early on with respect to visitors, stopping big events, changing the dining room into a “to go” facility, restricting any activities to less than 10 with extreme (more than 6 feet) social distancing, etc.
No one is complaining (again the military mentality amongst veterans who have experienced extreme deprivation, which makes today’s interventions pale in comparison).
They have not had even ONE Covid illness. I’m praying this holds out. These people are taking this very seriously. And hopefully they will reap the benefits.
Bravo to your dad’s retirement community. For such facilities, rigorous infection control is vital.
I find the different states’ reporting data interesting. This is the breakdown of #s we can see for the state and individual counties, plus data on deaths, and data on ages, race, etc.
(copying and pasting one small data sample)
CLNICU 260
CLNVENT 157
HCW 797
LTCFEmployee 261
LTCFResident 303
LTCF_Visitor 30
They could also include some people who were at long term care facilities and died of, let’s say, pneumonia. In the first outbreak in Washington, at first the care facility didn’t realize the deaths were covid. How surprising is it, after all, if a 92-year-old dies of pneumonia? Not surprising at all; if you’re not testing, you might not recognize an outbreak until it ramps up, and then it’s too late.
Yay, our island had ZERO cases today. I think it’s the first day! My MD relative is thrilled his supplier gave him hand sanitizer today! It was a mistake but the supplier let him keep the order, which is great, since he still sees patients (lots of urgent cases in his specialty).
What was their infection rate of the tested? Experts consider the optimal testing is when about 10% come back positive. Anything more considered waste for some reason. I am guessing that is enough to get the big picture to plan the course of action.
No offense to anyone commenting, but personally I come to this thread specifically to see what the OP asked for: Inside med, meaning from Inside hospitals and doctors offices, scientist labs etc. There are plenty of other threads for statistics of other countries etc. Can we maybe stick to the intent of the OP? Again, no offense.
My D has to go for a pre employment physical at a small health care center/urgent care this week. We looked up their policies and basically they aren’t seeing any sick patients if they have c19 symptoms. They are screening people in their cars, socially distancing, and keeping urgent care visitors separate from those with employment appointments. Still makes me nervous and we are sending her with lots of purell, wipes, and a mask.
It might be helpful to remember statistics never apply to the individual. This can mean the individual person or the individual city, etc.
One can have some sort of “big picture,” but one also needs to consider that not everyone falls under the center of the bell curve. When one is dealing with an exponential function, it only takes one to restart something. To most people (including experts from many countries and organizations), more testing makes perfect sense.
I don’t think so. Negative tests don’t tell you anything. Positive cases will remain positive tomorrow and thereafter but negative results won’t. It just tells you it is negative at that moment and only at that moment not in the future. I don’t think they are shooting for even 1 in 100 let alone everyone.
double post
I definitely like reading what other people are personally experiencing, but I’ll admit I had a bit of a shock myself yesterday after talking to my neighbor (an ER nurse) and hearing “there aren’t any cases around us” and then looking at my state’s data to find there are positive cases in my zip code, all the zip codes surrounding me, and in the zip code of the hospital where he works.
One person’s anecdote is interesting, but definitely isn’t the totality of reality. It’s what they see - nothing more. I like solid data.
FWIW, to figure out the “puzzle” in my mind I realized they are likely sending the covid cases to a nearby larger hospital (where the state data even shows they have covid cases on ventilators). Where my lad goes to med school they are trying to keep all covid cases in one hospital. It makes sense that they would do that here too - and choose a hospital that can handle larger amounts of people with more in depth equipment (like ECMO machines).
Being right next to PA, NJ’s numbers are also sobering. As of this typing your state has lost one out of every 2028 citizens to this. NY has lost twice that, but both states on their own would be first and third in the world if counted on their own in the “Most Deadly per Capita” category. (Belgium tucks in 2nd - and this assumes one eliminates San Marino which leads overall, but is just a 34,000 pop city/state with a horrid death count.)
Listening to the news now this morning (taped it while I did chores), I now see where the testing “argument” is coming in (sigh). It definitely needs to stay off this thread. No minds will be changed once it’s been put into politics as has happened nationally.
I have not read most of this but in the foot /ankle world from Spain /Italy and China they are noticing bruising to the foot and toes in the younger sect like high school to college age with no other symptoms. On the bottom of the foot, toe and finger tips getting red or discolored. Almost looking like raynauds disease. Some of this is just a big bruise without injury
All are coming back positive when tested. Some have gone on to gangrene. They think it’s the clotting system in overdrive which matches CV clotting in the lungs. Doctors are starting to report seeing this more in the United States BTW.