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Author Topic: COVID-19 🏴☠️ Pandemic  (Read 47076 times)

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AGelbert

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CleanTechnica
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March 20th, 2020 by Zachary Shahan


Agelbert COMMENT: Zach, here is the bottom line issue that people living in the USA MUST consider:

The PEAK of COVID-19 INFECTION in the USA will occur, according to a recent study discussed in the following video from Climate Scientist 👍 Paul Beckwith, between early May and the middle of July of this year.

At the top of that peak, the required hospital beds will be about 900% greater than the available hospital beds. IOW, the MEDICAL system WILL BE OVERWHEMLED. The moment the COVID-19 projected patient count will exceed available hospital beds is just after May 15, 2020.

The peak is roughly June 15 and the point at which the system can handle the COVID-19 patient load again is July 15, 2020. This is an approximation.

The video shows that different states will peak at different times.

Modelling the Coming Coronavirus Tsunami: Imperial College Paper
4,039 views•Mar 18, 2020

Paul Beckwith
19.7K subscribers


Quote
"This new paper from Imperial College models the expected number of cases of coronavirus and the total number of deaths that we would expect in both the UK (Great Britain) and in the USA. The modelling starts with a worst case scenario of no interventions, and projects total deaths of 510,000 in the UK (peaking early June) and 2.2 million in the USA (peaking late June) with a caveat: these are direct deaths, not accounting for spillover effects to other critical care patients without the virus). It then models the effects of so-called Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) to shift the curve to a later date, and lower the peak. These include shutting schools and universities, social distancing, self-isolation, quarantines, to shutting cities and countries."

The only quibble I have with the projected availble hospital beds count is that automobile accidents and other trauma injury causing events are now, and for the next six months or so, radically reduced 👍 due to social distancing precautions. That will make more beds available for COVID-19 victims.

I am not a doctor, but I have a scientific background in biology. You do not need to believe a word I say. Just watch the video and plan accordingly for this COVID-19 Pandemic 😱 summer.

IMHO, the economy in general, and automobile sales in particular, will TOTALLY CRATER for at least six months.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

Surly1

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Trump Gets In Bidding War With States For Face Masks. That's It, That's The Headline.



Liz Dye March 20, 2020 09:13 AM
Just when you think they can't possibly find a new way to **** it all up, the Trump administration goes and outbids state governments on sales of face masks and sterile gowns for hospital personnel dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

Oh, we wish we were kidding! But, nope. Here's Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker on a phone call with Trump yesterday.

Quote
BAKER: We took very seriously the push that you made previously on one of these calls, that we should not just rely on the stockpile and that we should go out and buy stuff and put in orders and try to create pressure on manufacturers and distributors. And I gotta tell you that on three big orders we lost to the Feds.

So, my question is, could you give some of these guys some guidance that says, the states are doing what the Feds want, trying to create their own supply chain on this, and that people should be responsive to that? Because, I got a feeling that if someone has the chance to sell to you or to sell to me, I am going to lose on every one of those.

And then Trump chuckled. FOR REAL. Because, what could ever be funnier than the federal government making it harder and more expensive for the states to get their hands on personal protective equipment (PPE) in a highly contagious viral pandemic?

We are old enough to remember when Trump told the states to get their **** together and stop relying on the Feds to supply them with everything. Because we are exactly 22 hours old.

Quote
TRUMP: The federal government is not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping. You know, we're not a shipping clerk. The governors are supposed to be — as with testing, the governors are supposed — are supposed to be doing it.

We'll help out, and we'll help out wherever we can. And we can buy in volume and, in some cases, great volume — with the masks, as an example, which were really a problem. We have helped out, and there are right now millions of masks being made. But this is really for the local governments, governors, and people within the state, depending on the way they divided it up. And they'll do that, and they're doing a very good job of it.

It was YESTERDAY, just a little while before that phone call, when Trump lectured the nation's governors to man up and quit running to Big Daddy Central government to help them keep American citizens alive. And it was SIX WEEKS AGO when virologists in Seattle tried without success to get the CDC to approve the University of Washington's coronavirus test kit. But go off, Poppy about states needing to pull their own weight!

A rational person might argue that the federal government, with its vast negotiating power, should go out and bulk purchase enough supplies for all the states, instead of making them bid against each other to see whose front line medical personnel will be spared having to tie bandanas around their faces as makeshift masks. Indeed, after Trump stopped laughing, he acknowledged as much, saying, "Prices are always a component of that also. And maybe that's why you lost to the feds, OK, that's probably why." Ya think?

A rational person might also wonder when Trump is going to get around to invoking the Defense Production Act, as he promised on Wednesday, to conscript businesses into ramping up production to meet the coming medical demand. Because there's not a huge margin in bulk PPE sales, so companies may not actually be lining up to bid on it.

But then that rational person would smack himself upside the head for thinking such dirty, socialistic thoughts. The market, in its infinite wisdom, will provide!

After New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said that her state had also been outbid on PPE by the federal government, Mike Pence jumped in to assure the callers that it wouldn't happen again. So anyway, no harm, no foul, right? This is all going GREAT.

[Press Conference Transcript / Bloomberg]

Surly1

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So what are we really talking about with Covid-19? A bad cold? Uh... no.

“It first struck me how different it was when I saw my first coronavirus patient go bad. I was like, Holy , this is not the flu. Watching this relatively young guy, gasping for air, pink frothy secretions coming out of his tube.”


A medical worker treats a COVID-19 patient in an intensive care unit in Italy. Across the globe, health care providers are using ventilators to treat COVID-19 patients. (Flavio Lo Scalzo/Reuters)

by Lizzie Presser

March 21, 5 a.m. EDT


As of Friday, Louisiana was reporting 479 confirmed cases of COVID-19, one of the highest numbers in the country. Ten people had died. The majority of cases are in New Orleans, which now has one confirmed case for every 1,000 residents. New Orleans had held Mardi Gras celebrations just two weeks before its first patient, with more than a million revelers on its streets.

I spoke to a respiratory therapist there, whose job is to ensure that patients are breathing well. He works in a medium-sized city hospital’s intensive care unit. (We are withholding his name and employer, as he fears retaliation.) Before the virus came to New Orleans, his days were pretty relaxed, nebulizing patients with asthma, adjusting oxygen tubes that run through the nose or, in the most severe cases, setting up and managing ventilators. His patients were usually older, with chronic health conditions and bad lungs.

Since last week, he’s been running ventilators for the sickest COVID-19 patients. Many are relatively young, in their 40s and 50s, and have minimal, if any, preexisting conditions in their charts. He is overwhelmed, stunned by the manifestation of the infection, both its speed and intensity. The ICU where he works has essentially become a coronavirus unit. He estimates that his hospital has admitted dozens of confirmed or presumptive coronavirus patients. About a third have ended up on ventilators.

His hospital had not prepared for this volume before the virus first appeared. One physician had tried to raise alarms, asking about negative pressure rooms and ventilators. Most staff concluded that he was overreacting. “They thought the media was overhyping it,” the respiratory therapist told me. “In retrospect, he was right to be concerned.”

He spoke to me by phone on Thursday about why, exactly, he has been so alarmed. His account has been condensed and edited for clarity.

“Reading about it in the news, I knew it was going to be bad, but we deal with the flu every year so I was thinking: Well, it’s probably not that much worse than the flu. But seeing patients with COVID-19 completely changed my perspective, and it’s a lot more frightening.”

Quote
This is knocking out what should be perfectly fit, healthy people.

“I have patients in their early 40s and, yeah, I was kind of shocked. I’m seeing people who look relatively healthy with a minimal health history, and they are completely wiped out, like they’ve been hit by a truck. This is knocking out what should be perfectly fit, healthy people. Patients will be on minimal support, on a little bit of oxygen, and then all of a sudden, they go into complete respiratory arrest, shut down and can’t breathe at all.”

“We have an observation unit in the hospital, and we have been admitting patients that had tested positive or are presumptive positive — these are patients that had been in contact with people who were positive. We go and check vitals on patients every four hours, and some are on a continuous cardiac monitor, so we see that their heart rate has a sudden increase or decrease, or someone goes in and sees that the patient is struggling to breathe or is unresponsive. That seems to be what happens to a lot of these patients: They suddenly become unresponsive or go into respiratory failure.”

Quote
The lung is filled with so much fluid, displacing where the air would normally be.

“It’s called acute respiratory distress syndrome, ARDS. That means the lungs are filled with fluid. And it’s notable for the way the X-ray looks: The entire lung is basically whited out from fluid. Patients with ARDS are extremely difficult to oxygenate. It has a really high mortality rate, about 40%. The way to manage it is to put a patient on a ventilator. The additional pressure helps the oxygen go into the bloodstream.

“Normally, ARDS is something that happens over time as the lungs get more and more inflamed. But with this virus, it seems like it happens overnight. When you’re healthy, your lung is made up of little balloons. Like a tree is made out of a bunch of little leaves, the lung is made of little air sacs that are called the alveoli. When you breathe in, all of those little air sacs inflate, and they have capillaries in the walls, little blood vessels. The oxygen gets from the air in the lung into the blood so it can be carried around the body.

“Typically with ARDS, the lungs become inflamed. It’s like inflammation anywhere: If you have a burn on your arm, the skin around it turns red from additional blood flow. The body is sending it additional nutrients to heal. The problem is, when that happens in your lungs, fluid and extra blood starts going to the lungs. Viruses can injure cells in the walls of the alveoli, so the fluid leaks into the alveoli. A telltale sign of ARDS in an X-ray is what’s called ‘ground glass opacity,’ like an old-fashioned ground glass privacy window in a shower. And lungs look that way because fluid is white on an X-ray, so the lung looks like white ground glass, or sometimes pure white, because the lung is filled with so much fluid, displacing where the air would normally be.”


A screenshot of chest radiographs of a man suspected to have COVID-19. (Obtained by ProPublica via the Radiological Society of North America, cited in the paper “Severe Acute Respiratory Disease in a Huanan Seafood Market Worker: Images of an Early Casualty” by Lijuan Qian, Jie Yu and Heshui Shi.)

Quote
This severity ... is usually more typical of someone who has a near drowning experience ... or people who inhale caustic gas.

“With our coronavirus patients, once they’re on ventilators, most need about the highest settings that we can do. About 90% oxygen, and 16 of PEEP, positive end-expiratory pressure, which keeps the lung inflated. This is nearly as high as I’ve ever seen. The level we’re at means we are running out of options.

“In my experience, this severity of ARDS is usually more typical of someone who has a near drowning experience — they have a bunch of dirty water in their lungs — or people who inhale caustic gas. Especially for it to have such an acute onset like that. I’ve never seen a microorganism or an infectious process cause such acute damage to the lungs so rapidly. That was what really shocked me.”

Quote
You’ll try to rip the breathing tube out because you feel it is choking you ...

“It first struck me how different it was when I saw my first coronavirus patient go bad. I was like, Holy , this is not the flu. Watching this relatively young guy, gasping for air, pink frothy secretions coming out of his tube and out of his mouth. The ventilator should have been doing the work of breathing but he was still gasping for air, moving his mouth, moving his body, struggling. We had to restrain him. With all the coronavirus patients, we’ve had to restrain them. They really hyperventilate, really struggle to breathe. When you’re in that mindstate of struggling to breathe and delirious with fever, you don’t know when someone is trying to help you, so you’ll try to rip the breathing tube out because you feel it is choking you, but you are drowning.

“When someone has an infection, I’m used to seeing the normal colors you’d associate with it: greens and yellows. The coronavirus patients with ARDS have been having a lot of secretions that are actually pink because they’re filled with blood cells that are leaking into their airways. They are essentially drowning in their own blood and fluids because their lungs are so full. So we’re constantly having to suction out the secretions every time we go into their rooms.”

Quote
I do not want to catch this.

“Before this, we were all joking. It’s grim humor. If you are exposed to the virus and test positive and go on quarantine, you get paid. We were all joking: I want to get the coronavirus because then I get a paid vacation from work. And once I saw these patients with it, I was like, Holy , I do not want to catch this and I don’t want anyone I know to catch this.

“I worked a long stretch of days last week, and I watched it go from this novelty to a serious issue. We had one or two patients at our hospital, and then five to 10 patients, and then 20 patients. Every day, the intensity kept ratcheting up. More patients, and the patients themselves are starting to get sicker and sicker. When it first started, we all had tons of equipment, tons of supplies, and as we started getting more patients, we started to run out. They had to ration supplies. At first we were trying to use one mask per patient. Then it was just: You get one mask for positive patients, another mask for everyone else. And now it’s just: You get one mask.

“I work 12-hour shifts. Right now, we are running about four times the number of ventilators than we normally have going. We have such a large volume of patients, but it’s really hard to find enough people to fill all the shifts. The caregiver-to-patient ratio has gone down, and you can’t spend as much time with each patient, you can’t adjust the vent settings as aggressively because you’re not going into the room as often. And we’re also trying to avoid going into the room as much as possible to reduce infection risk of staff and to conserve personal protective equipment.”

Quote
Even if you survive ... it can also do long-lasting damage.

“But we are trying to wean down the settings on the ventilator as much as possible, because you don’t want someone to be on the ventilator longer than they need to be. Your risk of mortality increases every day that you spend on a ventilator. The high pressures from high vent settings is pushing air into the lung and can overinflate those little balloons. They can pop. It can destroy the alveoli. Even if you survive ARDS, although some damage can heal, it can also do long-lasting damage to the lungs. They can get filled up with scar tissue. ARDS can lead to cognitive decline. Some people’s muscles waste away, and it takes them a long time to recover once they come off the ventilator.

“There is a very real possibility that we might run out of ICU beds and at that point I don’t know what happens if patients get sick and need to be intubated and put on a ventilator. Is that person going to die because we don’t have the equipment to keep them alive? What if it goes on for months and dozens of people die because we don’t have the ventilators?

“Hopefully we don’t get there, but if you only have one ventilator, and you have two patients, you’re going to have to go with the one who has a higher likelihood of surviving. And I’m afraid we’ll get to that point. I’ve heard that’s happening in Italy.”
« Last Edit: March 21, 2020, 06:27:26 pm by AGelbert »

AGelbert

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This is a list of Coronavirus dashboards that have been created with the Esri platform, the same platform as the Johns Hopkins dashboard.

Click on Johns Hopkins dashboard below image for update:


Quality varies but there are some interesting dashboards in different areas like a dispersion daily update and some that are focused on certain countries or areas.

The actual name of the virus is SARS-CoV-2. The name of the disease it causes is COVID-19. The "type" of virus is a Coronavirus. These terms and COVID-19 seem to be used interchangeably. The WHO (World Health Organization) named the disease.

🕯️ More info:
https://www.techsupportalert.com/content/useful-dashboards-tracking-coronavirus.htm
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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So what are we really talking about with Covid-19? A bad cold? Uh... no.


“It first struck me how different it was when I saw my first coronavirus patient go bad. I was like, Holy , this is not the flu. Watching this relatively young guy, gasping for air, pink frothy secretions coming out of his tube.”

by Lizzie Presser

March 21, 5 a.m. EDT



... “But we are trying to wean down the settings on the ventilator as much as possible, because you don’t want someone to be on the ventilator longer than they need to be. Your risk of mortality ☠️ increases every day that you spend on a ventilator. 😖

... What if it goes on for months and dozens of people die because we don’t have the ventilators? 🤔

“Hopefully we don’t get there, but if you only have one ventilator, and you have two patients, you’re going to have to go with the one who has a higher likelihood of surviving. And I’m afraid we’ll get to that point. I’ve heard that’s happening in Italy.”

The above is is an excellent, MUST READ, article. Thank you for posting it. I want to add more to the issue of health risks from ventilator use. The medical stats in the USA reveal that anyone who doctors put on a ventilator has a 30% chance of of dying within a year. That wasn't in the article above, but the author made clear how future health compromised anyone requiring a ventilator is, even if they survive COVID-19. Here is what happened at Wuhan:

SNIPPET:

The median time from dyspnoea to intubation was 10·0 days (IQR 5·0–12·5) for patients who received invasive mechanical ventilation and the time from invasive mechanical ventilation to occurrence of ventilator associated pneumonia was 8·0 days (2·0–9·0; figure 1) ... ...

The median time from illness onset to invasive mechanical ventilation was 14·5 days (12·0–19·0).

Read more: 🥺


Another VERY related issue of DEATHS from Hospital Acquired Infections in the USA is not being discussed because, uh, we've got such a "great 🙄 medical system".

I don't have the stats on hand but the number is HUGE.

I found the stats. Enjoy:

Contaminated surfaces increase cross-transmission

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated roughly 1.7 million hospital-associated infections, from all types of microorganisms, including bacteria and fungi combined, cause or contribute to 99,000 deaths each year.

Here's the 'LET"S GET REAL HERE!' Medical Profit Complex TRUTHS that you will NEVER read about from health care professionals in the USA, no matter how well intentioned:

There is NO CURE, OR EFFECTIVE THERAPY AVAILABLE to COVID-19 victims in a modern US Hospital, PERIOD. If you think they have tools that will "make it all better", you are fooling yourself. Their MAIN MOTIVE IS PROFIT, NOT CARE. I know it is real hard for all those happy Capitalists out there to wrap their brains around the fact that care, being subordinate to profit in the USA Medical Complex, has resulted in a ruinously degraded quality of the health care you get, but that is the truth.

The exception to that rule is trauma care from a car accident or broken bones from falling off the roof or something like that. Trauma care is EXCELLENT and must be used when you have a traumatic injury.

COVID-19 "care" is a VERY different story.

Even if you think I'm some "crazy reclusive paranoid commie", please look at these irrefutable facts about people who get COVID-19. The moment a person comes down with COVID-19, their immune system is SEVERELY compromised. When they are taken to a hospital, the possibility of DEATH from an acquired infection AT THE HOSPITAL is MUCH HIGHER than if they had stayed at home.

Finally, there is that "minor" issue of hospital bills when you are in critical condition. When a doctor decides you need a ventilator, THAT IS CRITICAL CONDITION. That means you go to the ICU. That means any and all insurance coverage will NOT cover within a week, at the most. If you are in an ICU for three weeks or more, that means GIGANTIC bills in the hundred of thousands of dollars. There is NOTHING more costly than ICU "care" (of course operations are hugely expensive, but normally you CAN find out in advance if they are covered by insurance).

So, unless you're extremely wealthy, a COVID-19 caused extended Hospital ICU "care" will bankrupt you on behalf of the Medical Profit Complex. 👎 You rich folks had better think about the ventilator use caused 30% chance of dying within a year...

I am in my seventies. My wife is a decade younger. I know what I am going to do if I get COVID-19. I figure my wife will do the same.

I am NOT   going to a hospital, here in Vermont, unless I am forced. And even then, I will do so screaming that I will not pay them a NICKEL for "care" beyond what Medicare (and Blue Cross, which I also have) covers.

If a hospital in the USA could cure you, make you more comfortable, or increase your longevity, then it would be rational to go to a hospital. With COVID-19 victims they can, at present, DO NONE OF THOSE THINGS. It is therefore, IMHO, not rational to go to a hospital if you are infected with COVID-19.

I will stay home if I get COVID-19. If I die in my home, at least my wife will have our savings to help her out for a while. If I die during "HAPPY CAPITALIST COVID-19 HOSPITAL HEALTH CARE IN THE USA", she will have NOTHING.
 
 
« Last Edit: March 22, 2020, 06:23:28 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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This WHO 👨‍🔬 daily report is another good source of accurate COVID-19 Pandemic information. In an easy to read chart, it shows the day's mortality numbers in each region/country/ship with COVID-19 infections, as well as cummulative numbers:

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: New Pandemic?
« Reply #81 on: March 21, 2020, 08:06:36 pm »
Bernie's Thoughts: Addressing a Global Crisis
14,137 views•Mar 21, 2020


Bernie Sanders
390K subscribers

In this extraordinary moment in American and world history, we have got to think outside the box in a way that we have never done.

Category News & Politics

Agelbert COMMENT: The 🦖🐍 DLC corporate DINO BASTARDS and the 🦀🐘 Trumptard GREEDBALLS will studiously ignore all of the wise advice that Senator Sanders is giving.

The US Economy, despite all the crooked efforts by the 👹💵🎩 empathy deficit disordered elite, is 🌠 TOAST. 🦀 Trump is the new Hoover. Bernie IS the FDR of the moment, but the  🙈🙉🙊 DLC DINO BASTARDS rigged the primaries in favor of DINO 🐍 BIDEN.

STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES. 🥵

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

Surly1

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Re: New Pandemic?
« Reply #82 on: March 22, 2020, 08:22:14 am »
Quote
Here's the 'LET"S GET REAL HERE!' Medical Profit Complex TRUTHS that you will NEVER read about from health care professionals in the USA, no matter how well intentioned:

There is NO CURE, OR EFFECTIVE THERAPY AVAILABLE to COVID-19 victims in a modern US Hospital, PERIOD. If you think they have tools that will "make it all better", you are fooling yourself. Their MAIN MOTIVE IS PROFIT, NOT CARE. I know it is real hard for all those happy Capitalists out there to wrap their brains around the fact that care, being subordinate to profit in the USA Medical Complex, has resulted in a ruinously degraded quality of the health care you get, but that is the truth.

The exception to that rule is trauma care from a car accident or broken bones from falling off the roof or something like that. Trauma care is EXCELLENT and must be used when you have a traumatic injury.

COVID-19 "care" is a VERY different story.

Even if you think I'm some "crazy reclusive paranoid commie", please look at these irrefutable facts about people who get COVID-19. The moment a person comes down with COVID-19, their immune system is SEVERELY compromised. When they are taken to a hospital, the possibility of DEATH from an acquired infection AT THE HOSPITAL is MUCH HIGHER than if they had stayed at home.

Finally, there is that "minor" issue of hospital bills when you are in critical condition. When a doctor decides you need a ventilator, THAT IS CRITICAL CONDITION. That means you go to the ICU. That means any and all insurance coverage will NOT cover within a week, at the most. If you are in an ICU for three weeks or more, that means GIGANTIC bills in the hundred of thousands of dollars. There is NOTHING more costly than ICU "care" (of course operations are hugely expensive, but normally you CAN find out in advance if they are covered by insurance).

So, unless you're extremely wealthy, a COVID-19 caused extended Hospital ICU "care" will bankrupt you on behalf of the Medical Profit Complex. 👎 You rich folks had better think about the ventilator use caused 30% chance of dying within a year...

I am in my seventies. My wife is a decade younger. I know what I am going to do if I get COVID-19. I figure my wife will do the same.

I am NOT   going to a hospital, here in Vermont, unless I am forced. And even then, I will do so screaming that I will not pay them a NICKEL for "care" beyond what Medicare (and Blue Cross, which I also have) covers. 

My wife and I are roughly in the same cohort and you and Carmen.

I just read your post to my wife as we sit here drinking morning coffee. Both of us agree with every word.
Best to not get this crap. Luckily "social isolation" is my new normal since retirement.



PS-- from my wife- new disease vector: touch screens at gas stations. Wear gloves when filling up.
« Last Edit: March 22, 2020, 06:24:04 pm by AGelbert »

AGelbert

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💐 A BIG Thank you to Surly and his wife!
« Reply #83 on: March 22, 2020, 01:02:56 pm »
Quote
Here's the 'LET"S GET REAL HERE!' Medical Profit Complex TRUTHS that you will NEVER read about from health care professionals in the USA, no matter how well intentioned:

There is NO CURE, OR EFFECTIVE THERAPY AVAILABLE to COVID-19 victims in a modern US Hospital, PERIOD. If you think they have tools that will "make it all better", you are fooling yourself. Their MAIN MOTIVE IS PROFIT, NOT CARE. I know it is real hard for all those happy Capitalists out there to wrap their brains around the fact that care, being subordinate to profit in the USA Medical Complex, has resulted in a ruinously degraded quality of the health care you get, but that is the truth.

The exception to that rule is trauma care from a car accident or broken bones from falling off the roof or something like that. Trauma care is EXCELLENT and must be used when you have a traumatic injury.

COVID-19 "care" is a VERY different story.

Even if you think I'm some "crazy reclusive paranoid commie", please look at these irrefutable facts about people who get COVID-19. The moment a person comes down with COVID-19, their immune system is SEVERELY compromised. When they are taken to a hospital, the possibility of DEATH from an acquired infection AT THE HOSPITAL is MUCH HIGHER than if they had stayed at home.

Finally, there is that "minor" issue of hospital bills when you are in critical condition. When a doctor decides you need a ventilator, THAT IS CRITICAL CONDITION. That means you go to the ICU. That means any and all insurance coverage will NOT cover within a week, at the most. If you are in an ICU for three weeks or more, that means GIGANTIC bills in the hundred of thousands of dollars. There is NOTHING more costly than ICU "care" (of course operations are hugely expensive, but normally you CAN find out in advance if they are covered by insurance).

So, unless you're extremely wealthy, a COVID-19 caused extended Hospital ICU "care" will bankrupt you on behalf of the Medical Profit Complex. 👎 You rich folks had better think about the ventilator use caused 30% chance of dying within a year...

I am in my seventies. My wife is a decade younger. I know what I am going to do if I get COVID-19. I figure my wife will do the same.

I am NOT   going to a hospital, here in Vermont, unless I am forced. And even then, I will do so screaming that I will not pay them a NICKEL for "care" beyond what Medicare (and Blue Cross, which I also have) covers. 

My wife and I are roughly in the same cohort and you and Carmen.

I just read your post to my wife as we sit here drinking morning coffee. Both of us agree with every word.
Best to not get this crap. Luckily "social isolation" is my new normal since retirement.



PS-- from my wife- new disease vector: touch screens at gas stations. Wear gloves when filling up.


Thank you both. May God help all people of good will to get through this COVID-19 Pandemic with our health intact and a reasonably non-poverty stricken livelihood. I'll keep that gas station touch screen disease vector in mind. I wish I had an EV.
« Last Edit: March 22, 2020, 06:24:52 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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The world is looking at Italy's coronavirus outbreak as if it is the worst case scenario. It's not.
By Mihai Andrei on Mar 22, 2020 11:38 am 😵



Click on Johns Hopkins dashboard below image for update:


Agelbert NOTE: To give you an idea of what is going on in the world in general, and the USA in particular, here's the graphic from March 13, 2020. That was only NINE DAYS AGO.


He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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COVID-19 US MAP NOW MORE 🤧🤒🤢 LOCATION SPECIFIC. Check out cases near 😷 you.

Click on Johns Hopkins image below for update:



« Last Edit: March 23, 2020, 02:27:56 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

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US Surgeon General advises all 😷 Americans to stay home — “this week, it’s gonna get 😖 bad 😬😵🤧🤒🤮🤢

US 👨‍🔬 Surgeon General Jerome Adams

By Alexandru Micu on Mar 23, 2020 01:18 pm

Earlier today, US Surgeon General Jerome Adams gave a telling warning of how the coronavirus outbreak is going in the US: “I want America to understand — this week, it’s gonna get bad.” “As the nation’s doctor, I’m here to help America understand where we need to respond to this,” Adams told the Today show, […] Like US Surgeon General advises all Americans to stay home — “this week, it’s gonna get bad”

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He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Agelbert NOTE: Italian 👨‍🔬 Doctors have come to the same conclusion that I did: Hospitals are the WRONG PLACE to treat COVID-19 patients. Your HOME is the RIGHT PLACE.




A plea from Italian doctors: to avoid disaster, treat more patients at home

Quote
“This approach would limit hospitalization to a focused target of disease severity, thereby decreasing contagion, protecting patients and health care workers, and minimizing consumption of protective equipment,” the researchers explain.

By Mihai Andrei on Mar 23, 2020 11:02 am

The lessons from Italy are vital for the rest of the world, as we brace for an influx of COVID-19 infections.

Full article:
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

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Can 🦀 Trump Get Away With Two Million Dead Americans⁉️
3,096 views•Mar 23, 2020


Thom Hartmann Program
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Donald Trump's response to COVID-19 will get Americas killed, can he get away with it?
 
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 A joke floating around on the Internet says, “How do you know if you have coronavirus? Just cough in a rich person‘s face and wait for the results to come back.“ The joke highlights the fact that rich and powerful people all across the country are easily and quickly getting themselves tested, but people who may have been exposed – and in most of the country who may even have symptoms but not severe symptoms – can’t get tested.
The United States and South Korea diagnosed their first cases on the same day back toward the end of January. South Korea activated their pandemic response teams, had a test approved and deployed within a week, and have now tested over 300,000. They have this thing under control, and their hospitals are not melting down.

Trump, instead, chose not to put back into place the pandemic response teams that he had fired back two years ago, and gave responsibility for the coronavirus to Jared and Pence. Jared had his brother-in-law ask for advice on Facebook, producing a computer print out page of suggestions for people that Trump passed out last week. Mike Pence chose to basically do nothing. And so the world is watching as American hospitals are begging people to sew masks and protective clothing in their homes and donate them to the hospitals.

Over at the Senate, Mitch McConnell is trying to come up with a $500 billion slush fund that “Foreclosure King” Steve Mnuchin can give to anyone he wants with absolutely no oversight, no accountability, and no ability for the public to ever know how the money was used. 

And now the media is reporting the Trump is getting “tired of social distancing.“ He’s refused to even model it in his press conferences, demanding that his people cluster close to him, while Axios is reporting that Trump wants to encourage Americans to forget about the quarantine and go back to work so the market will go back up and he’ll get reelected. And he wants his hotels bailed out as soon as possible.

Epidemiologists tell us the worst case scenario is 2 million dead Americans if we don't engage in massive social distancing right now. 😈 Trump is willing to let Americans die and to let this virus rage out of control, as long as there’s a bail out for his own businesses and the Fed can get the stock market back up.



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He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

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Re: New Pandemic?
« Reply #89 on: March 24, 2020, 08:15:52 am »
Coronavirus Exposes the Virulence of American Conservatism
Eric Levitz@EricLevitzMar. 23, 2020
 

Sick, sad Mitch. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images


Last week, the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party unveiled a plan to keep British workers paid and employed for the duration of the coronavirus crisis. The Tory proposal would effectively cover 80 percent of sidelined workers’ salaries, while forbidding employers who accept the government’s help from laying off staff. The policy closely resembles one implemented by Denmark’s Social Democrats, except that Boris Johnson’s wage-replacement rate is slightly more generous than the Danish left’s. Although the Conservatives have a well-earned reputation for sacrificing Britain’s vulnerable on the altar of deficit reduction, even they recognize that social welfare must take precedence over budgetary concerns in the context of a historically sudden and deep economic crisis. On Friday, Tory chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that there would be no limit on the funding available for covering workers’ wages.

“We are starting a great national effort to protect jobs,” Sunak said. “We want to look back on this time and remember how in the face of a generation-defining moment we undertook a collective national effort and we stood together.”

America’s conservatives see things differently.

U.S. workers are every bit as exposed to the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic side effects as their peers across the pond. Unlike their British counterparts, however, American laborers aren’t guaranteed affordable health care if they lose their jobs, nor any amount of paid sick leave should they take ill. And yet, despite our workers’ unique vulnerability to the harms of illness and unemployment, congressional Republicans are not only unwilling to support universal paid leave or make an open-ended commitment to covering 80 percent of workers’ salaries but are also fighting to protect the right of bailed-out corporations to fire as many workers as they see fit.

On Sunday, the Senate failed to reach an agreement on an already belated economic relief package, a development that’s left small-business owners and laid-off workers reeling and financial markets tumbling. The mainstream press has attributed the Senate’s inaction to “Washington infighting,” or else to Democratic intransigence. But Chuck Schumer’s caucus didn’t vote down the Republican bill over some minor detail, or because it insisted on dictating the left’s preference on an issue that genuinely divides blue and red America. Rather, the key sticking point is that the GOP bill would empower the Trump administration to dole out $500 billion in bailout money to corporations of its own choosing — without forbidding bailed-out firms from laying off their workers. This arrangement would not only allow the hotelier-in-chief to plow public money into his companies and those of his cronies but also enable those firms to spend our government’s dollars on maintaining outsize executive compensation instead of retaining employees.

Senate Democrats have other conditions they would like to attach to the corporate bailouts, and some quibbles with other sections of the existing bill. But the GOP’s insistence on subsidizing corporations that fire workers in the middle of a pandemic appears to be the Democrats’ paramount concern.

Critically, the Republican Party’s opposition to requiring bailed-out firms to retain at least 90 percent of their workers does not reflect the uniquely pro-management bent of public opinion in the U.S. The disparity between the Tory and GOP stances has approximately nothing to do with any ideological divergence between their mass constituencies.

Data for Progress, a progressive think tank, released a poll Monday gauging public support for Elizabeth Warren’s list of conditions for corporate bailouts. Many of the senator’s stipulations attracted mere plurality or only narrow majority support. But when asked whether companies that accept government aid should be required to maintain their payrolls, 74 percent of respondents said yes. The requirement was nearly as popular with GOP voters as it was among Democratic ones, with 70 percent of self-identified Republicans approving.

Photo: Data for Progress

Photo: Data for Progress

Senate Republicans have also insisted on (1) limiting an increase in unemployment benefits to three months, (2) making the bill’s cash-assistance provision a onetime payment instead of a subsidy guaranteed to recur for the duration of the crisis, and (3) capping relief funds for small business at a fraction of the level recommended by conservative economists like Glenn Hubbard and Michael Strain.

What makes Mitch McConnell’s principled stance in favor of subsidizing corporate layoffs and penny-pinching on aid to workers and small businesses most remarkable is that it runs directly counter to his party’s political interests. Donald Trump’s reelection is quite likely to hinge on whether economic growth resumes by midsummer. The bulk of the Democratic demands that McConnell is rejecting — more expansive aid to workers, consumers, state governments, and small businesses (that agree to retain their staff) — would increase the probability of a “V-shaped recovery,” and thus, of Trump renewing his lease on the White House.

Therefore, the gulf between the GOP’s response to the crisis and that of Britain’s Tories is not a product of public opinion or crass electoral concerns. Rather, it reflects the fact that the Republicans are not a normal conservative party, but a uniquely reactionary political formation. No other major party in the Western world rejects the concept of universal health care or disputes the reality of man-made climate change. The GOP is more adamantly opposed to the downward redistribution of resources, or any measure that tips the balance of power between workers and bosses in the former’s direction, than any center-right party in the developed world.

Republicans’ uniquely virulent strain of conservatism is undermining not only their response to COVID-19’s economic consequences but also to the public-health crisis itself. Even as U.S. hospitals and health-care workers are suffering from a shortage of masks and ventilators, President Trump has refused to invoke his authority under the Defense Production Act to force the mass production of those critical materials. Instead of conscripting domestic manufacturers into the figurative war on the coronavirus, the White House has attempted to arrange a voluntary consortium of firms interested in aiding with mask and ventilator production. According to the New York Times, this decision came at the behest of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Trump defended his approach Sunday on the grounds that “we’re a country not based on nationalizing our business.” Of course, invoking the DPA to temporarily commandeer a firm’s productive capacity is not tantamount to the nationalization of industry. Meanwhile, the voluntarist approach mandated by the GOP’s devotion to corporate prerogatives is not delivering the goods:

[I]t is far from clear that the effort to enlist companies like General Motors, Apple and Hanes, just a few of the firms that have promised to free up existing supplies of masks or repurpose 3-D printers to produce ventilator parts, constitutes an effective strategy.

In interviews with participants in the process, from business executives to government officials, there is still widespread confusion about how much and what exactly each firm is supposed to produce. Corporate executives say they face a bewildering number of requests from dozens of nations around the world, along with governors and mayors around the country, for scarce supplies. The White House has not said who will set the priority list for deliveries. And it is not clear that any of it will arrive in time for the cities and the states that are hit the hardest, including New York.

… By Saturday, Parkdale Mills joined Hanes, Fruit of the Loom and other companies in announcing a coalition to produce masks. But they are not the kind hospitals most need. The new masks will be made of a three-ply underwear fabric, and do not provide the level of protection given by the N95 masks that health care workers need for intubation and other procedures.

The president’s laissez-faire approach to redressing potentially lethal shortages of critical medical equipment would be alarming enough in isolation. But it is especially disconcerting when combined with Trump’s recent signals that he intends to relax his administration’s social-distancing advisories in the near-term future. If the president is going to encourage businesses to reopen and public life to resume in a manner of days, the least he could do is use every authority at his disposal to expand treatment capacity at America’s hospitals.

But the ideological hang-ups (and/or fiduciary duties) of the American conservative movement won’t let him.

For this reason, the wealthiest nation in human history appears to be on the cusp of allowing mass business failures and layoffs — and then attempting to redress those preventable economic harms by prematurely suspending social-distancing measures, thereby condemning many of its people to death by suffocation in hospital hallways.

This outcome can still be averted. Senate Republicans have evinced somecapacity for subordinating their ideological convictions to political and economic necessity. And Democrats certainly have their own responsibility not to let the perfect be the enemy of the “good enough for now.” Given the urgent necessity of getting cash in the hands of beleaguered workers and businesses, if the GOP is willing to table the debate over corporate bailouts — and immediately pass a bill dispensing cash assistance to households and aid to small businesses (that commit to retaining workers) — Democrats should play ball.

But, as of this writing, McConnell is not offering such a deal. And so long as that’s the case, mainstream news outlets must not attribute the relief package’s delay to small-minded partisanship or Democratic intransigence, but rather to the Republican Party’s singular commitment to the prerogatives of plutocrats.


 

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