Coronavirus Thread

[Deleted member 2897]

When you realize you haven't gotten a spam unsolicited call in many weeks, so the telemarketers must have all gotten laid off:

 

[FredJacket]

Anecdotal evidence = info/data not supporting my beliefs

Solid evidence = info/data that does support my beliefs

Signed,
Part of the Problem

 

[gtchem05]

Sounds to me like the tide is turning and the pressure to re-open is building every day...I expect by May 1st that the country will slowly begin to re-open....but as yet I have no idea exactly what that means. Certainly no mass audiences yet (sporting events, concerts, etc) but perhaps to re-open retail with some restrictions on number of customers at any one time inside the shop...that sort of thing.

This is a fairly long document, but nice to know that there are others thinking about how this re-opening will happen. https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uplo...navirus-Response-a-Road-Map-to-Recovering.pdf

 

[ncjacket79]

You don’t have to be a surgeon, pediatrician, or even veterinarian to repeat the things published by scientists and, yes, even other medical professionals, which is that there is reason to believe that chloroquine,hcQ etal may, at the very least, help patients mitigate the infection's symptoms.

Even if a study isn't a clinical trial doesn't mean that it's not being done by competent professionals. It's mostly political hacks who are trashing it.
and there are countless studies out there that didn't involve the french guy.
there's no evidence patients who choose this path are being denied anything else.
You are treating this as a political issue instead of a science issue, by bashing all the positive work that indicates it is helping.
It's a good thing that this is probably saving lives NOW and that data is being collected toward the clinical trials.

It’s also pretty easy to find doctors who aren’t convinced it’s doing anything. Some still use it because they don’t know what else to do. It MAY be saving lives now but most are still looking for the right combination of drugs or other therapies.

 

[slugboy]

Saw this thread on the problems with the shift away from restaurants over to grocery stores, and the disruption it’s causing to farmers and our food supply chain:


https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1247198445611474945.html

A question we've been hearing a lot recently is "How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting food and agriculture?" The answer is complicated. But this thread provides a small snapshot of what's going on.
First - there isn't a food shortage - there's a distribution problem. Usually, ~1/2 of food is purchased at grocery/retail stores, and ~1/2 is purchased away from home at restaurants, schools, hotels, etc. But now, almost all food consumption has shifted to the first category.
But the supply chains for retail and commercial food are almost completely separate. They rely on different processors, packers, and distributors. It's a logistical headache to funnel food from one supply chain into the other.

So while grocery stores and food pantries deal with food shortages, there's a lot of food elsewhere that's going to waste.
One example is dairy - a lot of milk goes to restaurants and schools. With widespread closures, those markets have completely disappeared, but the milk can't easily be stored or redirected to consumers at home. So farmers have no choice but to dump it.


This has caused a huge drop in milk prices, which have already been low for the last several years.

There may be environmental consequences too, as the milk could pollute nearby streams, resulting in fish kills.


The shift in demand has been a problem for fishermen as well. 70% of seafood in the U.S. in consumed outside of the home. With nearly all food being consumed at home now, demand for seafood has plummeted.


For some farmers who sell to local markets, the closure of restaurants and schools has been compounded by farmers market closures. By some estimates, local and regional food markets could see a drop in sales of $688M between March and May.


Outside food consumption changes, other behavioral shifts are affecting agriculture. With fewer drivers on the road, demand for ethanol has fallen and prices have fallen a record low. Ethanol plants have halted production, eliminating 100s of rural jobs.


Similarly, with clothing stores and factories closed, demand for cotton has fallen substantially, and prices have fallen with it.


Though consumption changes are the most immediate problem, there are other disruptions along the supply chain, starting at the farm.
U.S. agriculture depends on 2.5M farm workers, most of whom are foreign born. But border closures & visa processing delays could prevent them from entering the country. Without enough farm workers to plant & harvest crops, food may rot in the field.


On top of that, there are concerns that the farm workers who are able to get to the U.S. are at an elevated risk of contracting coronavirus because they work and live in close quarters and often lack access to health care.


The workers who process and package meat experience similar risk factors. Already some meat processing plants have scaled back production or temporarily shut down because workers have gotten sick.


Even after food has been grown, processed, and packaged, there's the issue of distribution. As grocery stores scramble to quickly restock shelves, there aren't enough truck drivers or refrigerated trucks to transport food to keep up with demand:

Entire thread starts at


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[RonJohn]

HOLY ****!

Anybody who dies who has tested positive for COVID-19 is being listed as a COVID-19 death, regardless of the reason they actually died. In other words, if someone is largely asymptomatic, but dies in the hospital from anything, they are still listed as a COVID-19 death. This is ridiculously horrible.

https://nypost.com/2020/04/07/feds-classify-all-coronavirus-patient-deaths-as-covid-19-deaths/

From the article you linked:

Dr. Michael Baden, a Fox News contributor, said it’s reasonable to include the death of someone infected with the virus, who also had other health issues, in the COVID-19 body count.

and:

“Then you will include in those numbers some people who did have a pre-existing condition that would have caused death anyway, but that’s probably a small number,” Baden said.

I am trying to figure out your objection. If a person has asthma. They enter the hospital because of COVID-19. COVID-19 messes with their respiratory system and causes an asthma attack that kills them. Should they not be counted as a COVID-19 death? If a person with severe heart disease enters the hospital because of COVID-19 and later dies from a heart attack, should they not be counted as a COVID-19 death?

It has been widely reported that people with underlying health issues are at greater risk of dying from COVID-19. It shouldn't be a surprise that people with underlying health issues often die because COVID-19 causes issues that cause their underlying health issue to kill them. Does COVID-19 even kill people without causing things like pneumonia that are the actual cause of death?

 

[wrmathis]

Saw this thread on the problems with the shift away from restaurants over to grocery stores, and the disruption it’s causing to farmers and our food supply chain:


https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1247198445611474945.html

A question we've been hearing a lot recently is "How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting food and agriculture?" The answer is complicated. But this thread provides a small snapshot of what's going on.
First - there isn't a food shortage - there's a distribution problem. Usually, ~1/2 of food is purchased at grocery/retail stores, and ~1/2 is purchased away from home at restaurants, schools, hotels, etc. But now, almost all food consumption has shifted to the first category.
But the supply chains for retail and commercial food are almost completely separate. They rely on different processors, packers, and distributors. It's a logistical headache to funnel food from one supply chain into the other.

So while grocery stores and food pantries deal with food shortages, there's a lot of food elsewhere that's going to waste.
One example is dairy - a lot of milk goes to restaurants and schools. With widespread closures, those markets have completely disappeared, but the milk can't easily be stored or redirected to consumers at home. So farmers have no choice but to dump it.


This has caused a huge drop in milk prices, which have already been low for the last several years.

There may be environmental consequences too, as the milk could pollute nearby streams, resulting in fish kills.


The shift in demand has been a problem for fishermen as well. 70% of seafood in the U.S. in consumed outside of the home. With nearly all food being consumed at home now, demand for seafood has plummeted.


For some farmers who sell to local markets, the closure of restaurants and schools has been compounded by farmers market closures. By some estimates, local and regional food markets could see a drop in sales of $688M between March and May.


Outside food consumption changes, other behavioral shifts are affecting agriculture. With fewer drivers on the road, demand for ethanol has fallen and prices have fallen a record low. Ethanol plants have halted production, eliminating 100s of rural jobs.


Similarly, with clothing stores and factories closed, demand for cotton has fallen substantially, and prices have fallen with it.


Though consumption changes are the most immediate problem, there are other disruptions along the supply chain, starting at the farm.
U.S. agriculture depends on 2.5M farm workers, most of whom are foreign born. But border closures & visa processing delays could prevent them from entering the country. Without enough farm workers to plant & harvest crops, food may rot in the field.


On top of that, there are concerns that the farm workers who are able to get to the U.S. are at an elevated risk of contracting coronavirus because they work and live in close quarters and often lack access to health care.


The workers who process and package meat experience similar risk factors. Already some meat processing plants have scaled back production or temporarily shut down because workers have gotten sick.


Even after food has been grown, processed, and packaged, there's the issue of distribution. As grocery stores scramble to quickly restock shelves, there aren't enough truck drivers or refrigerated trucks to transport food to keep up with demand:

Entire thread starts at


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

one thing I saw on the news was a farmer in Tifton Ga talking about how they might not be able to harvest all the crops that are planted because of the lack of seasonal workers. Personally, id try to get people that don't have jobs to come out and do it. Getting some money is better than none

 

[Deleted member 2897]

From the article you linked:
and:

I am trying to figure out your objection. If a person has asthma. They enter the hospital because of COVID-19. COVID-19 messes with their respiratory system and causes an asthma attack that kills them. Should they not be counted as a COVID-19 death? If a person with severe heart disease enters the hospital because of COVID-19 and later dies from a heart attack, should they not be counted as a COVID-19 death?

It has been widely reported that people with underlying health issues are at greater risk of dying from COVID-19. It shouldn't be a surprise that people with underlying health issues often die because COVID-19 causes issues that cause their underlying health issue to kill them. Does COVID-19 even kill people without causing things like pneumonia that are the actual cause of death?

My problem starts right with your assumption. It doesn’t have to be someone hospitalized for COVID-19. A lady posted this article in our blneighborhood page. Her father in law fell and broke his hip and had to be hospitalized. Apparently he had some internal bleeding problem and then an embolism. They had checked him when he was there I guess for PPE reasons and due to his age to know which ICU to put him in. He had tested positive, but his death had nothing direct to do with it. He wasn’t being treated for it, wasn’t on a ventilator, etc. but he’s in the COVID-19 death count.

 

[Nook Su Kow]

My problem starts right with your assumption. It doesn’t have to be someone hospitalized for COVID-19. A lady posted this article in our blneighborhood page. Her father in law fell and broke his hip and had to be hospitalized. Apparently he had some internal bleeding problem and then an embolism. They had checked him when he was there I guess for PPE reasons and due to his age to know which ICU to put him in. He had tested positive, but his death had nothing direct to do with it. He wasn’t being treated for it, wasn’t on a ventilator, etc. but he’s in the COVID-19 death count.

U da ant, belwbo!

 

[RonJohn]

My problem starts right with your assumption. It doesn’t have to be someone hospitalized for COVID-19. A lady posted this article in our blneighborhood page. Her father in law fell and broke his hip and had to be hospitalized. Apparently he had some internal bleeding problem and then an embolism. They had checked him when he was there I guess for PPE reasons and due to his age to know which ICU to put him in. He had tested positive, but his death had nothing direct to do with it. He wasn’t being treated for it, wasn’t on a ventilator, etc. but he’s in the COVID-19 death count.

I would still ask similar questions. Is it certain that if he didn't have COVID-19 that he would still have died? Did his bodies immune system's reaction to the coronavirus impact his ability to repair the internal bleeding and prevent the embolism? I honestly have no idea if it could potentially or not. But if it is possible that he would have survived if he didn't have the virus, then the virus would at least be somewhat responsible for his death.

I have said, and I still believe that too many people have been treating this like an end of the world type disease. It is not that. Even if it were to kill tens of millions of people in the US, it wouldn't be the end of life on the planet. However, I think to only count a death as a COVID-19 death if it is the only issue the person has is too far in the other direction.

Overall, people should be clear that no immediate data is useful in understanding the disease. People could look at April 7 deaths in Georgia and believe that it is a huge spike that indicates deaths per day in Georgia are rising at a rate of X5 per day, so April 8 will end up at 500 deaths. As long as people don't try to use the numbers to either scare people or downplay the situation, it will all work out in the end.

 

[LibertyTurns]

U da ant, belwbo!

What in the world does this even mean? I’m too old to speak millenial.

 

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

Dr. Marc Siegel, a prolific writer, a Professor of Medicine at New York University School of Medicine, and a Medical Director of Doctor Radio at NYU and SiriusXM says that his 90-something year old father, suffering from the virus and under quarantine at home, had resigned himself to the fact that he was going to die. But his cardiologist prescribed hydroxychloroquine and antibiotics, and now he shows no evidence of the presence of the virus in his body.

 

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

What in the world does this even mean? I’m too old to speak millenial.

He posted the same to me a few nights ago, and I asked him what it meant. No response.

 

[takethepoints]

Anecdotal evidence = info/data not supporting my beliefs

Solid evidence = info/data that does support my beliefs

Signed,
Part of the Problem

If only it was this easy to distinguish between solid and specious evidence! It isn't, of course; that's why doing rigorous research takes so long and why replication is a necessary step, especially in the health sciences. There are legitimate critics - mostly from the humanities - that think this is true, but they are wrong and so are you.

Here's some reading on the question:

http://bactra.org/reviews/error/

This is Cosma Shalizi's review of Deborah Mayo's great book Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge. Short of reading Mayo herself, this is the best summary of this great piece of philosophy of science. Mayo's idea of severe testing is central to the way science approaches data.

 

[MountainBuzzMan]

I feel like we have adequately beating this hydroxychloroquine thing to death. Can we all agree that now that there is significant ongoing usage of the medicine on a large scale that we will end up with more than enough studies to statically determine its effectiveness? So lets all take a wait and see because we will know for certain in the next few months just how effective it is.

 

[LibertyTurns]

If only it was this easy to distinguish between solid and specious evidence! It isn't, of course; that's why doing rigorous research takes so long and why replication is a necessary step, especially in the health sciences. There are legitimate critics - mostly from the humanities - that think this is true, but they are wrong and so are you.

Here's some reading on the question:

http://bactra.org/reviews/error/

This is Cosma Shalizi's review of Deborah Mayo's great book Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge. Short of reading Mayo herself, this is the best summary of this great piece of philosophy of science. Mayo's idea of severe testing is central to the way science approaches data.

If a room in my house is on fire I don’t need to wait until a million tests are run to verify that water will likely put it out but will damage some of the house in the process. Give me the hose & I’ll put the fire out, then deal with the water damage to the room. I don’t need to wait until 6 months after the house is burned to the slab for you to return the report that I should have used water.

These so called expert doctor scientists are taught a protocol & they almost never deviate from it for fear of lawsuits. There’s lot of discussions about these protocols the experts love are negatively affecting infected patient’s immune response putting those patients bodies in severe risk of destroying themselves as their systems warp into hyperdrive.

You’d think after waiting failure after failure these experts would take a step back & realize they’ve been wrong all along, then consider the symptoms and responses to treatments as they are learning how to best combat this virus. Reality is they cannot because they’re more fearful of a lawsuit & being ostracized by their employers/insurance companies than they are prescribing improper protocols for their patients. This weakness among medical professionals & these big bloated medical “drive thru McDonalds” type megabusinesses are now on display for all the world to see & it ain’t a pretty sight.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

If only the global warming people would be this concerned about scientific accuracy. In that world, there are no double blind studies. The people doing the studies get their livelihood from getting the conclusions that they like and know what they need to be. It’s bunk science. If only we could get some consistency.

Dr Fauci said we shouldn’t ever shake hands again. If you’re a germophobe, I could see this anyway. But man, what kind of a statement is that? He also said it’s a conspiracy that we’re over counting deaths because every person with a positive test is listed as a COVID-19 death. I’m losing respect for this guy. That’s not the answer of a scientist. A scientist would say he doesn’t think that’s a material issue because x% is probably a reasonable estimate or something like that. It’s not a conspiracy theory to simply repeat a policy. Nobody’s out there asserting our deaths are 2x as high as they should be or something like that. They’re merely stating the policy is questionable and leads to questionable results. You have to wonder what he’s really about if he gets mad discussing that.

 

[dtm1997]

Dr Fauci said we shouldn’t ever shake hands again.

I'm on board with a permanent move to bowing or elbow bumps or something else.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I'm on board with a permanent move to bowing or elbow bumps or something else.

No more face kissing in Europe or Latin America.

Maybe our new greeting should be to each film a short 10 second TikTok video.

 

[jwsavhGT]

Supply chain issue or food choice/life style issue? I went to Kroger yesterday for my drive-thru grocery pickup and could only get diet sodas, milk & carrots. They were out of Cheetos, ice cream, grape jelly, and Spam.