Coronavirus thread

[RoyGBiv]

Really appreciate the hard work you are doing. Please take care of yourself!

For what it's worth, I have someone in the Colo Dept. of Public Health you could get in touch with re: PPE, but as a disclaimer I only have this person's info because I tried helping another friend to sell PPE to our system. They haven't heard back yet. A little frustrated.

Thinking about this a bit more... I think if we get our sources qualified by Feds, there may be some wiggle room for State gov to buy, if we can move enough supply. I think we'll be more help to the smaller consumers who are not getting supplied currently... Nursing homes, etc.

I drove up to the Kroger Pharmacy window last night and asked to talk with the Pharmacist. Asked her if they were being provided any extra PPE from Kroger. When she said no I held up a bag of masks. She slid the drawer open pretty quick. She thanked me and I thanked her for taking the risk for her customers, but I feel like I'm failing for not being able to offer more. Been trying to help my everyday contacts in vulnerable positions as much as I can. Shed a few tears on the way home. Motivated to do more.

[Nephrology]

Was reading this morning about a union call for distributors to "locate" stock. Someone (one distributor) admitted to having 39 million on hand. "Duh, where did these come from?" At least they were selling at a reasonable $5/each instead of the blood-money $9/each I'm hearing from my contacts. I'm hopeful we'll get domestic production ramped up before $9 isn't price gouging.

ETA: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article...oronavirus-ppe

My friend was quoted $7/ea by a reseller in LA who had a warehouse of 500k.

How much were they before all this happened? Our lab bought a bunch for the work we do with MRSA. I want to say they were about $1 or $0.50 each...?

Thinking about this a bit more... I think if we get our sources qualified by Feds, there may be some wiggle room for State gov to buy, if we can move enough supply. I think we'll be more help to the smaller consumers who are not getting supplied currently... Nursing homes, etc.

I drove up to the Kroger Pharmacy window last night and asked to talk with the Pharmacist. Asked her if they were being provided any extra PPE from Kroger. When she said no I held up a bag of masks. She slid the drawer open pretty quick. She thanked me and I thanked her for taking the risk for her customers, but I feel like I'm failing for not being able to offer more. Been trying to help my everyday contacts in vulnerable positions as much as I can. Shed a few tears on the way home. Motivated to do more.

Yeah, the woman I know at CDPHE mentioned that FDA certification would be very helpful, but not necessarily a deal breaker if not. I don't know her/the process well at all however.

Don't feel badly that you "aren't doing enough" - you're doing way more than most, myself included. I totally understand how it feels, particularly given that I am sitting this out while my MD classmates are all in their intern year, but every little bit counts. It matters that you care.

[willie]

Our local hospitals (owned by the same company) have banned staff from wearing masks, including their own personally purchased masks, unless they are with a patient because wearing masks "will scare patients and staff."

Needless to say the staff is livid. Extra livid because staff has been exposed to what turned out to be Covid patients with no PPE on two separate occasions.

Remedy for this silliness is reporting it to the local news stations and then to the various medical societies in the region and then to the many associations that give and take and control accreditation of said hospitals.

So what if masks scare people. If they ain't scared, they need to be. I understand stupidity. Once I was carrying a school desk from one room to another. The principal stopped me and asked, "Who's running this place, me or you?"

[ccmdfd]

Nobody said NYS was out of ventilators.... but NYC is getting close. that was a stupid article.



Re: Columbia doing the human ventipede, per my friend they only did that to test and see if it was feasible. They are not out of vents last time I heard.

However, the problem with "2 patients 1 vent" is that you basically need both of them to be of similar size/weight and to have similar/identical ventilator requirements. This isn't easy, especially because ventilation requirements can change over time. @ccmdfd can comment more specifically than I can.

You'd have to start off with two patients whose ideal body weight (based on age and gender and height) is the same.
You then have to hope that the effects on each patient's lungs are the same (how hard are they hit, how stiff are they), and they both have to improve or worsen at the same time and rate.
Then you have to hope that one of them doesn't get a superinfection with MRSA or other nasties.
All the while you are completely guessing what the ventilator is doing to each particular patient. That is unless they have invented some new whizbang gizmo which can monitor each patient separately.

cc

[Redhat]

You'd have to start off with two patients whose ideal body weight (based on age and gender and height) is the same.
You then have to hope that the effects on each patient's lungs are the same (how hard are they hit, how stiff are they), and they both have to improve or worsen at the same time and rate.
Then you have to hope that one of them doesn't get a superinfection with MRSA or other nasties.
All the while you are completely guessing what the ventilator is doing to each particular patient. That is unless they have invented some new whizbang gizmo which can monitor each patient separately.

cc

Thanks for the explanation. That sounds like a no-go to me...as a layman

[blues]

I've already told my wife that if it comes down to me being one of the unlucky ones in a hospital bed alongside a young person who has their whole life ahead of them, it'll be time to make the doctor's decision easier for them. (Unless it's obvious that the young person is an unrepentant miscreant.)

I don't wanna go...but under that set of circumstances it would be a choice I feel obligated to make.

[LittleLebowski]

Just passed 100k infected in the US.

[TC215]

I've already told my wife that if it comes down to me being one of the unlucky ones in a hospital bed alongside a young person who has their whole life ahead of them, it'll be time to make the doctor's decision easier for them. (Unless it's obvious that the young person is an unrepentant miscreant.)

I don't wanna go...but under that set of circumstances it would be a choice I feel obligated to make.

Looks like you all just got a stay at home order. I think it will happen here too.

[Grey]

My friend was quoted $7/ea by a reseller in LA who had a warehouse of 500k.

How much were they before all this happened? Our lab bought a bunch for the work we do with MRSA. I want to say they were about $1 or $0.50 each...?

Pretty sure it was like 10-12 bucks for a box of 20 so it was well under 75 cents each.

[blues]

Looks like you all just got a stay at home order. I think it will happen here too.

I'm unaware. I just came from town a while ago where we can get curbside pickup of take-out. But we're pretty much living a quiet life as has been our practice for quite some time, (years), since we stopped shutting bars down on the weekend.