Coronavirus

[unclevlad]

Had a response to Lawnmower but thought better after posting it.

Guys, this is the coronavirus thread, not the political thread, and we all need to be careful.

[Starlord]

23 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

Guys, this is the coronavirus thread, not the political thread, and we all need to be careful.

 

Don't worry, I'm wearing a mask and I'm 6 feet away from the screen.

[death tribble]

100 million cases worldwide and Indonesia is through 1 million cases as predicted.

[unclevlad]

UK just passed 100,000 deaths...25,000 of which have been this month.  Their death rate has unfortunately passed Italy and Czechia, and among countries with at least 5 million people, their death rate is now 3rd highest.

 

Their daily new case numbers are showing a decent decline, at least, as are the US's.  Long ways to go but hopefully it's the start of a maintainable trend.

[death tribble]

Here's hoping

[archer]

Biden reportedly is going to announce a travel ban from South Africa, Brazil, and most of the EU due to the spread of the South African strain of COVID. I forget the exact number of countries but is was something like 26.

 

Germany is seriously considering ceasing all international flights. They're concerned about the UK strain and the South African strain.

 

The South African strain is more easily transmitted than the European/East Coast US strain which has been prevalent.

 

Moderna says that its vaccine is effective against the South African strain but that there's only 1/6th of the amount of response antibodies (or whatever they call the stuff that makes someone immune, I'm more than a little bit groggy at the moment) as shows up with other strains. But that's still enough to provide complete protection, according to them. But that news didn't make me feel particularly good about all these mutations.

 

I've been hopping around to AP, MSN, The Hill, Politico, The Daily Beast, a couple of British newspapers, and several other sites. I honestly can't remember where I got what information. The Biden part was repeated in several places.

[Duke Bushido]

Ten minutes ago, my wife tested positive.  She has a patient who has been off of isolation precautions for a week and a half who apparently was positive when he transferred in.  There is no chance that we haven't all been exposed.  Wife got tested because she developed symptoms yesterday.   I called work: I'm in quarantine, too, apparently.  Waiting till morning to contact the school to find out about the kids.

 

 

[Hugh Neilson]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Ten minutes ago, my wife tested positive.  She has a patient who has been off of isolation precautions for a week and a half who apparently was positive when he transferred in.  There is no chance that we haven't all been exposed.  Wife got tested because she developed symptoms yesterday.   I called work: I'm in quarantine, too, apparently.  Waiting till morning to contact the school to find out about the kids.

 

 

Our prayers are with you.

[Matt the Bruins]

Good luck man. Hopefully any symptoms your wife suffers will be minor and short-lived.

[Pattern Ghost]

Wishing your wife and your family a speedy recovery, and the mildest case possible, Duke.

[Duke Bushido]

Thanks, folks

[tkdguy]

Sorry to hear that, Duke. Here's to hoping and praying your wife gets better soon.

[Old Man]

3 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Ten minutes ago, my wife tested positive.  She has a patient who has been off of isolation precautions for a week and a half who apparently was positive when he transferred in.  There is no chance that we haven't all been exposed.  Wife got tested because she developed symptoms yesterday.   I called work: I'm in quarantine, too, apparently.  Waiting till morning to contact the school to find out about the kids.

 

 

 

Fwiw you can load up on vitamins C and D.  Keep us posted, we'll worry otherwise.

[BarretWallace]

13 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Ten minutes ago, my wife tested positive.  She has a patient who has been off of isolation precautions for a week and a half who apparently was positive when he transferred in.  There is no chance that we haven't all been exposed.  Wife got tested because she developed symptoms yesterday.   I called work: I'm in quarantine, too, apparently.  Waiting till morning to contact the school to find out about the kids.

 

 

Somehow issues always mean more to me when they affect someone I know.  Admittedly, I have never met any of you in person and likely never will, but despite a rough edge here and there, the denizens of this board are a crew I'd want to hang out with.  Duke, I am sorry to hear the news, and I pray/hope/best-wish that your family makes it through this with minimal issues.

[archer]

14 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Ten minutes ago, my wife tested positive.  She has a patient who has been off of isolation precautions for a week and a half who apparently was positive when he transferred in.  There is no chance that we haven't all been exposed.  Wife got tested because she developed symptoms yesterday.   I called work: I'm in quarantine, too, apparently.  Waiting till morning to contact the school to find out about the kids.

 

 

 

I know it's not your top priority, but don't forget to isolate yourself from your cat. Dogs and cats can get COVID as well.

 

I went through this with each of my daughters, not at the same time, last spring. And had been sick myself before COVID tests were available.

 

I'll keep your family in my thoughts.

[Duke Bushido]

Thanks, folks.

 

By the numbers: wife is isolated downstairs.  The downstairs is large, with it's own bathroom.  Kids are upstairs until we can get them tested this afternoon.  I'm in the middle.  Pooper and Ollie (our cats) are on the tiles.  Monte- the cat that is _not_ my cat, but runs to our yard every time he hears activity-- is very unhappy, as no one has massaged his brain today.  I have to figure out what to do about Pooper and Ollie, however, as they typically don't stay out over night.  The kids-- if they test negative-- will stay with my wife's aunt as-- and this is painful-- my father's mind is starting to go-- to the point where the man who taught me to question and evaluate, research and confirm-- now uses such 'who-the-hell-are-you words as "plandemic" and "masks are for criminals", and I just can't trust him to take care of them more than a few hours without completely losing his mind or leaving them at a grocery store by accident. 

 

My mother-in-law will remain entrenched in the suite we built on the back of the house for her some years ago when she was no longer able to one-hundred-percent take care of herself.  She has her own seating area, bathroom, her own porch, her own kitchenette, and should be fine.  More importantly, owing to budgetary needs at the time, her HVAC is separate from that of the main house; it's as isolated as is living in an entirely different building.  If it wasn't for the door, it'd be a duplex.

 

I'll be couching it-- better than garaging it, like a few months ago when I had been exposed-- but still: not my bed.    The wife will be in our room which, owing to my need for very cold sleeping conditions, I refitted for a wall-mounted heat an air unit to supplement the HVAC.  I've already sealed off the return and vent from that room, and she is using the wall unit exclusively.  We've stuck box fans in two windows on remote-control switches (raided from the Christmas decorations) so that I can briefly create a "negative pressure" in that room to the outside when I have to open that door to check on her, deliver food, etc.

 

Other than Pooper and Ollie, we've got things in hand, I think.

[rravenwood]

Definitely wishing and hoping for the best for you and your family, Duke!

[Duke Bushido]

Okay, all preparations are completed and wife has moved upstairs to our room.  Jury-rigged negative pressure system seems to work, but the electric bill is going to really hurt, owing to the need to keep the windows at least half-open for the entire thing to work.  Fortunately, this is an ideal time of the year, since the outside temperature during the rainy season isn't too-far off from her preferred comfort zone anyway.  Did a quick test:  I can throw the breaker that kills the wall unit (in case she is not able to turn it off) and wait about 90 seconds for the air to stop moving, and a press of the remote for the outlet / remote switch combos.  Let the fans run for about a minute (also tested this concurrently, to see how much we could minimize the time), and we get enough negative pressure that the two little ribbons taped to the edge of the door are visibly pulled inward toward the room as the door opens.

 

Thus, I can open the door to the room with absolute minimal risk of "letting the virus out."  Obviously, to keep the risk down, this will not be done more than necessary.  I have moved the bookcase that was near the door (temporarily) and replaced it with a small folding table we use when camping so that no one has to enter the room more than a step or so (because of the walk-in closet, there is a sort of "entry alcove" to the bedroom.  It's a "dead air" space, even with the ceiling fans running, hence my desire to create negative pressure here).  She has two spray bottles of disinfectant and a gallon bottle to refill them: anything going out she puts on the table and hoses down.  I have a five-gallon bucket half-full of bleach in the landing outside the door (owing to the design of the third floor, there's not really a hallway upstairs, but a large twelve-by-twelve "foyer" at the top of the stairs)  Anything I take out goes directly into the bleach and stays for five minutes before being removed and transported (via plastic tub: dripping bleach is rough on carpet) to the kitchen for full cleaning.

 

I believe we can make this work.  The house phone doubles as an intercom, and what with everyone having pads and tablets, etc, we should be able to minimize any cabin fever or loneliness issues, at least in the short term (which this will hopefully be).

 

I confess that I am a _bit_ annoyed:  I spent three weeks living in the garage without one complaint (at least, not to them), and with far less precaution or comfort.  (Honestly, I'm glad of that: it was like a "dry run" to get ideas of what to plan for should the "real thing" come along.  Now that the real thing is here, I'm quite appreciative of those three weeks).   She's done a considerable amount of complaining already-- I don't think any of it is heart-felt, mind you, and has come from just being miserably sick.

 

So far, so good.

 

I guess.

[Old Man]

Why are we getting all these coronavirus variants now?

 

Quote

 

The convergent evolution of wilier versions of the virus might just be a consequence of so many poorly managed government pandemic responses, which didn’t marshal sufficient resources or inspire the kind of collective action required to not just crush the initial curve, but keep it crushed. “The fact that we lost control in so many places in the fall allowed for the ballooning of this incredibly huge viral population size,” says Goldstein. That created the opportunity for that many more mutations to happen, and in some places, the right circumstances for some particularly insidious ones to get selected.

(...)

Quote

“I am quite convinced that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of variants with similar mutations emerging around the world right now,” de Oliveira says. He believes that the only reason that South Africa and the UK picked them up first is because their governments invested in comprehensive surveillance networks.

 

 

[Old Man]

The relationship between covid lockdown measures and economic damage

 

Quote

If the U.K. had implemented similar controls to South Korea, the nation's GDP would have contracted by 0.5% rather than by 11% in 2020 -- the worst decline in more than three centuries.  The U.K. would have also had fewer than 600 deaths by October 2020, in comparison to the more than 65,000 deaths the country actually sustained over the same period of time.

 

And they'd have been far less likely to have generated their own hypercontagious variant of the disease.

[Starlord]

China rolls out anal swab coronavirus test, saying it’s more accurate than throat method

[Duke Bushido]

Well I reckon I will just be stayin indoors,for the next,couple decades, then....

[BoloOfEarth]

4 hours ago, Starlord said:

China rolls out anal swab coronavirus test, saying it’s more accurate than throat method

 

I'll bet that makes things interesting at the drive-up COVID testing.

[death tribble]

Brazil hits 9 million cases.

Czechia has more cases than the Netherlands but has just over half the population.

[Cygnia]