Inside Medicine. What Are You Seeing? [COVID-19 medical news]

Yea, lots of old information still persisting in healthcare. I first learned about this from Paul Offit in a ZDoggMD podcast. Here’s a blurb from him.

Here’s a Covid specific opinion:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0141076820951544

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This happened during Delta, but a friend of a friend kind of deal relayed the story of a Covid patient in Texas occupying a bed in ER for 9 days before getting their ICU bed!!!

Evidently Delta is still quite prevalent, as CDC today significantly decreased their estimate of the proportion of cases that are Omicron. Current estimate is 58.6% of cases, and they adjusted the prior week’s estimate (remember the 73%?) to 22%.

The Omicron variant was estimated to be 58.6% of the coronavirus variants circulating in the United States as of Dec. 25, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday.
The agency also revised down the Omicron proportion of cases for the week ending Dec. 18 to 22% from 73%, citing additional data and the rapid spread of the variant that in part caused the discrepancy.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/omicron-estimated-be-586-coronavirus-variants-us-cdc-2021-12-28/

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BIL sent a link to this study yesterday. My problem with it is that the analysis is from autopsies from a small sample of patients who died from covid or with covid. Attacking organs is one way viruses, not just covid, kill. I don’t find the suggested conclusion surprising or especially alarming (at least from this study).

I’m certainly not dismissing long covid’s harm on organs, but a post-mortem study at this point of the pandemic doesn’t raise my blood pressure.

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I’ve seen multiple studies on living people showing Covid attacks their organs too. For obvious reasons, one can’t do complete autopsies on them. Here’s one, but Google can provide plenty and not just kidneys:

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@Creekland my reply was to this study only. My heart goes out to all those with long covid. And of course there are many questions about what happens in the body after infection, symptomatic or not.

BIL sends daily emails on why we’re all going to die from covid. He’s a smart guy, and actually sent an email saying this was coming back in January 2020 – maybe even late 2019. But he’s gone off the deep end. He’s a fan of Ivermectin and sends copious studies on why we should all have that at the ready with an Rx. H asked if he had a prescription and he said he couldn’t get
one.

At this point, I read his emails to find validity, flaws or bias. In this study I think that they are saying a virus does what a virus does.

The doctor who banged the drum the loudest for Ivermectin (Kory), who claimed it was a miracle, and would absolutely prevent Covid, got Covid…while on Ivermectin! :exploding_head:

Post viral syndrome has been on my radar for a while after a good friend was diagnosed after a rather mild bout of influenza. She has received so many diagnosis and has been dismissed by many doctors as suffering from psychiatric rather than organic causes. It has been very frustrating for her and her family and after five years I’m optimistic that she is starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel after being aggressively treated by a very compassionate doctor with allergy meds of all things. She has tested negative for allergies.

Listening to a program on NPR about Long COVID I could not help but think of my friend. Many doctors started talking about the cultural and societal causes of long COVID. To my ears in sounded like the classic, it’s just stress, have you tried yoga? We still have a lot to learn and I’m sure our emotional state is an integral part of our health but just because you can’t find an organic cause it doesn’t mean there is none.

There are many viruses that can cause lingering problems post infection. I’m hoping that more research into the causes will happen with long COVID in the spotlight.

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Agree, but isn’t 104 the point where one should seek medical care? (103.8 was very close to that limit.)

And from the article this:
“Also complicating the picture: Alarming hospitalization figures can be misleading because they sometimes include all children who have tested positive for the coronavirus upon admission.

Some hospitals around the country have reported positivity rates as high as 20 percent among children. But the vast majority were asymptomatic and arrived at the hospital with other health problems, officials say.”

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I just ordered Ivermectin online today actually. Of course, it’s for deworming my ponies rather than anything Covid related… but I still consider myself a fan of the drug. :sunglasses:

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This is the same problem with reporting Covid numbers for adults. At least at hospitals I know about, all incoming folks are tested for Covid. They aren’t all there because of Covid though.

I wish they would just report those in the hospital because of Covid (vaxxed and unvaxxed) rather than “everyone.” It gives us misleading info about numbers of serious cases.

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I agree completely. My daughter is a nurse on a non ICU Covid unit. She has several positive patients who are fully vaxxed and there for reasons other than COVID. They have no or only the most minimal of symptoms.

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I’d probably call at 105, or 103 more than 48h, but it’s contextual. This assumes the cause is known. Most of the “see a doctor” recommendations are in the presence of an unknown diagnosis. He was known to have Covid.

It’s awesome for onchocerciasis! It essentially eliminated river blindness from the world!

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Yup. And became a case study used in business ethics courses of many MBA programs.

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My Dean at the time founded the River Blindness Foundation and, with a little serendipity, procured the funds to solve that problem.

https://www.chron.com/life/article/Houstonians-deserve-a-footnote-in-the-battle-3428029.php

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I have never treated fevers unless they become dangerous: I get concerned with 103-104 degrees plus. Of course kids run higher than adults. The biggest concern is an undiagnosed bacterial infection, in which case antibiotics are needed asap for a high fever. For viral illness, I have always viewed a fever as helpful, not only because the body generates heat to combat the virus, but also because it enforces rest!

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Thank you so much for sharing this. It’s an excellent counter to the cry, “Oh, but Omicron is just a mild cold!”