Agreed…wfh is the worst. The brilliant combo of closing all schools and also expecting everyone to get as much done as normal is stressful!
3 Likes
Jesus. Every Trump conference is the same:
3 Likes
Where do you see that they’re expecting the ICU to be empty? That would be a huge oversight. I felt like they went out of their way to be pessimistic and not even mention stuff like the possibility of a summer pause, new treatments or better spread suppression methods coming online.
A student at our campus finally tested positive too. Glad they shut down classes a week and a half ago.
US ICUs are close to that utilization in flu season, which is at the tail end right now, so the numbers are a problem here too.
They mention “surge capacity” in the report. I don’t get where people think they’re assuming the ICUs are going to be empty to start. I think they’re assuming a surge capacity will come online as needed.
Trump activating Defense Production Act so the federal government can force businesses to ramp up and produce medical supplies. I think this should have already been done a couple weeks ago but better late than never.
1 Like
In all their graphs they show a UK based ICU rate of 8 per 100k people (5000 odd units). That is the entire supply of ICUs the UK currently has, and that’s the line they’re trying to find ways not to breach. Also, there is no mention elsewhere in the study that any of these 5000 beds are currently occupied. Hopefully they’ve taken it into account, but it seems very strange to omit any mention of it at all if they did.
I have no doubt Trump delayed action on purpose. If the CV never became an issue outside of China, Trump would have railed all summer long about the liberal hoax and MSM out to get him.
Now he gets to “fix” the issue and hand out checks to rubes that love him.
I don’t know, was just going off what was brought up.
You did get me to look up surge capacity and I found this on the NIH site.
I don’t get this. We are currently in the process of dismantling the world economy to fight coronavirus. We’re going to shovel hundreds of billions of dollars in emergency relief to vaguely specified recipients to partially mitigate the economic destruction. Then we’re going to have debt crisis or blow up the EU or cut benefits or all of the above to manage the bailouts, and so on. If that’s what we need to do to save 100 million lives around the world, and it’s going to work, then OK. But if the risk is that 100k people die in the U.S., and it’s not clear that the measures that are being pursued will even work, then it’s not OK.
You’re absolutely right that there are lots of measures that should be taken for any potentially serious illness: extensive testing, voluntary social distancing measures like avoiding big events and trying not to go to work when you’re sick, maybe wearing surgical procedure masks to contain asymptomatic spread. Those things are auto-recommends because they don’t impose enormous costs on the world at large. But there is a much weightier cost-benefit analysis required for shutting down society. Flu is likely not as deadly as coronavirus, but it is very deadly and we don’t even mandatorily vaccinate for it.
2 Likes
Some reports coming out on malaria drugs being effective. My wife heard someone on the radio that took all the gray out of the info. The guy on radio said 100% of cases virus free in 6 days when I saw the actual data as 25% of cases still infectious. Sample size 28? In France.
But still it seems like a potential positive.
Regardless another big reason to flatten the curve. We are not defensesless as a world like we were in 1918. There will be treatments that at least blunt this thing even before a vaccine is ready.
2 Likes
This is interesting as we haven’t had any decisions on this yet. I’m on the college’s P&B and the provost has been sending emails about the meetings continuing virtually. Not sure how practical this is going to be since none of us have read the materials (although everyone will pretend they have) and the voting is to be anonymous. The faculty coming up for promotion may get really screwed in the end.
The number of beds are the number of beds, surge capacity is just the amount of beds typically empty in summer that fill up during flu season. Right now there is very little excess capacity. We are trying to create excess capacity by switching surgical ICU beds into medical ICU beds. Hospitals are also planning on using PACU (post-anesthesia care unit) beds for medical ICU beds. The problem is there isn’t some magical excess of ICU nurses, intensivists, respiratory therapists, and full function ventilators. (There are cheap single use ventilators out there tbh, easy to use and can sustain life, but we’ve basically never used them in US hospitals before).
Do you consider a 3-guard skinhead? That’s the shortest I go aside from fading in from the bottom. I’ve been long enough to use 8 on top before scissor work.
lol - Georgia just had the required monthly test of the emergency broadcast system. Nothing like freaking people out during a pandemic!
5 Likes
4D chess! Except there is little to no chance of “fixing” anything right now to the point of staving off a devastating recession/depression.
I would hesitate to even say he “delayed” action. That would imply some type of decision-making process. He is dumb and doesn’t know what action needs to be taken, then or now.
In Florida all the TV’s and cellphones go nuts every time there’s a silver alert. It happens like once a week.
2 Likes
Supposedly, their system is so overburdened that their count of the number of cases may be way behind the actual number.
Can’t speak for Germany but there was some left at the express mart I go to. Was barely a line. Hopefully it’s cool by you.
Has anybody had a fall from grace as brutal as Aung San Suu Kyi? She was once the darling of the world and is now a puppet of the military junta in Myanmar.
When I kept my hair short I would I use a three guard on back and sides. I would say it is one step above skinhead.