Coronavirus thread

[Nephrology]

Attachment 50855

LOL. If only.

[Mark D]

University of Washington has developed a model looking at when the virus hospitalizations will peak in various parts of the country, and overall.

USA: Peak resource use (hospital beds and venilators) on April 14

New York: Peak on April 6

California Peak on April 24

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

[critter]

Great post, was about to do the same. Hopefully this is just due to the insane demand for masks right now and not due to some profiteering fuckery and cutting QC corners.

Wherever there's a buck to be made there will undoubtedly be fuckery afoot. It would be insult to injury to be required also to do QA on incoming items/medications etc. What a shitshow that would become.

[SeriousStudent]

So all these years, I have been contributing to public health!

Who knew?

[UNK]

Rapid response test and deployment

https://abbott.mediaroom.com/2020-03...s-Five-Minutes

[Sensei]

NYC is spiraling out of control. Not just the medical infrastructure, either...4000 of New York's finest are either sick or quarantined, from what I'm hearing.

I don't think I'm an alarmist sort of dude and I try to not pass speculation in these sort of things, but I think it's entirely possible that martial law could be declared in NYC within the next two weeks; at the very least, some sort of "enhanced military presence", if you will.

ETA: It blows my mind that anyone could possibly still think this is an over-hyped virus, or "it's just the flu."

NYC has become a giant roadblock to a quick, seasonal resolution in the US. By quick I mean it was very possible that we could see a peak in new cases in roughly 4 weeks followed by a gradual decline over 4-8 weeks to the point where social distances could be relaxed in certain regions. That would have meant a 2-3 month curve predicated on a little luck from seasonal variation and extreme social isolation. Of course, the virus would likely return in the Winter, but at least our mitigation strategies would be strengthened by then.

Unfortunately, NYC is not on board with this program and is still half-assing the necessary social distancing to allow a quick seasonal resolution. Making matters worse, the region has become a virtual shipping center for infection around the country. Every hour this continues the likelihood of a quick, 2-3 month return toward some semblance of normalcy goes down.

Thus, I think the real danger (and irony) of this virus is its variable clinical course and relatively low mortality. This has caused us to avoid and delay acting on the difficult Constitutional and societal questions regarding the liabilities of an open, heterogeneous society in the face of extreme danger that would be forced upon us if this was SAR-CoV-1 or MERS (both have roughly 20% case fatality rate).

[RoyGBiv]

There have been more and more reports of bogus med supplies out of China lately, hopefully you have some QC guys in country that can verify quality before you start buying. (The Netherlands just had to recall some 600,000 n95s that were defective)

This is a HUGE concern, indeed. We've been dealing with this same concern over basic things made from metals and plastics (our normal business) for 15 years.It reaches a new level of shallow breathing when you're talking about life-critical gear.
-- We're being careful with sourcing from brand names. Some Chinese brands, some global.
-- We're avoiding any sources that have popped up in response to the China infections, although we are hearing about some of those being good quality. Until i see them on the .Gov list, we're just reviewing samples. Does that guarantee anything? No.... but.. we're trying.
-- There's a .Gov list somewhere (will try to find) of approved part numbers by vendor and we can send our suppliers to .Gov for boots on the ground review. LINK

Actually the .Gov folks are getting some great work done. Their reps seem to be everywhere we go. I'd be happy to take a back seat to FED purchases, except that:
-- I think we can pick up incremental supply, US is not popular there, even after a very good call (scuttlebutt from China side) between Xi and DJT. I see some progress being made already.
-- We'd like to provide something for folks further down the food chain. Hospices, Senior Centers, etc. I don't know how far down the allocation list those folks are. These folks are working hands on with the infected and have even less access to PPE.

As a guy whose PPE stash gets just a little bit smaller with each shift, thanks for you efforts to bring more material in country. I’m sure the Docs, RNs and other personnel feel the same way.

Just got off the phone with my China warehouse owner friend. I told him I had him covered for $$ if he could get commitments for supply. I hope the folks that made cash promises to me follow though, but this is a time for considered action, not hesitation. I have no way to know whether our supply will get gobbled up by .Gov or we'll be able to add incrementally to what .Gov gets directly. I'm happy to have wasted time trying if that turns out to be the case.

Unlike the CDC, I'm ok with someone beating me to a better solution.

[Nephrology]

NYC has become a giant roadblock to a quick, seasonal resolution in the US. By quick I mean it was very possible that we could see a peak in new cases in roughly 4 weeks followed by a gradual decline over 4-8 weeks to the point where social distances could be relaxed in certain regions. That would have meant a 2-3 month curve predicated on a little luck from seasonal variation and extreme social isolation. Of course, the virus would likely return in the Winter, but at list our mitigation strategies would be strengthened by then.

Unfortunately, NYC is not on board with this program and is still half-assing the necessary social distancing to allow a quick seasonal resolution. Making matters worse, the region has become a virtual shipping center for infection around the country. Every hour this continues the likelihood of a quick, 2-3 month return toward some semblance of normalcy goes down.

Thus, I think the real danger (and irony) of this virus is its variable clinical course and relatively low mortality. This has caused us to avoid and delay acting on the difficult Constitutional and societal questions regarding the liabilities of an open, heterogeneous society in the face of extreme danger that would be forced upon us if this was SAR-CoV-1 or MERS (both have roughly 20% case fatality rate).

Do we have more evidence for/against COVID seasonality yet? That seems like an open question and I haven't come across much in the way of an answer.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

We need some Joy and celebrate the human spirit.

https://www.classicfm.com/composers/...o-joy-concert/

[RoyGBiv]

Do we have any journalists here?

TX AG recently shut down a mask auction where the price per mask hit $5. LINK.

Cold fact: While masks in distribution did cost way less than that, NEW production will soon exceed that cost, given normal distribution industry margins. I think it would be an interesting story to start to get the word out. Full disclosure, I'd prefer to no go to prison for selling masks at a small profit. Way less margin than any traditional distributor.

Hopefully 3M and more get production ramped up, but, IMO, we're heading to a time when everyone will be wearing masks in public for a while. Do you know for sure you're not a spreader? Until you know, you should be wearing a mask. I hear the Dr's on TV say otherwise. That social distance is sufficient. Regular hospital masks would do a lot if everyone wore them. But in a world of asymptomatic shedders without masks, I'm wearing a respirator (N95 type).