[Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

[LawBeefaroni]

There's a hot bar at the grocery near where I work. Sometimes I go there to get groceries for the office. There always a bunch of elderly folk hanging about eating free samples. If there aren't a lot on offer they'll hit the hot bar and salad bar and steal some bites. It's not my place to combat shrinkage but if I see them with hands on food or whatever I go up to them and tell them where the plastic forks and knives are. Have never seen the ladle trick but plastic spoons, yes. Possibly double dipped, yes.

I never get food or soup from that bar.


It sucks, most of them are well below poverty so I don't begrudge them getting free food. But goddamn, don't put everyone at risk of whatever illness. I imagine the soup, literally primordial soup, sitting there slow cooking a nice science experiment.

[Smoove_B]

Update on West Coast homeless:

The homeless are among those at highest risk because they sleep together in close quarters in shelters, are less likely to see doctors and have a higher prevalence of respiratory problems and other chronic health issues that make them more vulnerable, according to public health officials and advocates for the homeless.

"All these preventive things that are being done, like washing your hands — they can't do any of those. They don't have access to that," said Nan Roman, president and CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, an advocacy group. "We need to make sure that homeless people get the services they need so it doesn't spread to everyone else."

And:

Next week, the federal government's U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness will host a webinar with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and homeless experts from King County, Washington, to help homeless shelters and other providers prepare.

"King County is a little bit ahead of everyone, for good reason, and we are trying to share what they have done," said Katy Miller, a Seattle-based regional coordinator for the homelessness council. The agency has distributed a sanitation and hygiene checklist for homeless shelters in King County, the San Francisco Bay Area and other affected areas with high homeless populations.

Homeless shelters are devising their own protocols for those who display symptoms of coronavirus or have been exposed to diagnosed patients.

"We immediately give them a mask and move them into an isolated office. We then assist the individual as they contact a triage nurse line," said Terry Pallas, chief program officer for Union Gospel Mission, a homeless shelter in Seattle. "If the medical provider recommends that the individual be seen, we will then help the individual get to the hospital or clinic."

The Seattle shelter has set up a separate space for patients released from hospitals or clinics who are homeless.

[gilraen]

HepA

Actually, that is a real concern here and probably contributed to my cutting back even further on eating out.

So get vaccinated.

[morlac]

Well, unless your food handler lands droplets surfaces known as... food....

Right, there could be cornoavirus droplets on your food if they're making you a ready-to-eat item and they sneeze on it. But unless you're rubbing the sandwich in your eyes or aspirating it into your lungs that virus is going to go into your stomach and get lit-up.

So lick every surface before I touch it? Got It!

[hepcat]

I know it's a very serious matter...but

[gameoverman]

View from south central PA among friends and people I talk to seem to be that COVID-19 isn't a big deal. China handled it. Wash your hands, stock up on goods, but if you get it, probably no worse than the common cold, so why worry? The media is creating the hype/fear.

I feel like I'm standing on a beach with locals, and they're all saying that the tide unexpectedly going out revealing a mile and a half of ocean bottom is perfectly normal and nothing to be concerned about. It's quite a stark contrast to Twitter and OO and, despite the data, makes me wonder if my reaction is warranted.

That's one way of looking at it. Imagine I'm one of those locals. The reason I might be acting as if the tide going out like that is perfectly normal is because the tide has already gone out like that before and no great calamity happened. So seeing it go out like that now is not particularly scary.

I have older relatives, I'm concerned how this might affect them. But truthfully, the flu is dangerous for them so it's not like if only this virus didn't exist they'd be safe. Every flu season is potentially deadly to them and will be for the rest of their lives.

I'm most concerned about the economic effects. Some things are easy to predict and therefore prepare for. But with economics there can be some wild ripple effects that no one realizes are coming until after it happens. That kind of thing tends to lead to painful and ugly consequences for people. Our economy is not built to withstand everyone staying home for a couple of weeks. That's an entire pay period and a lot of people can't take a hit like that.

[Exodor]

Welp, they just cancelled the ComicCon

Now to find out if my hotel will refund the cost of my stay.

[Smoove_B]

Oh boy, UW cancels in-person classes:

The University of Washington has made the decision to cancel in-person classes for its more than 50,000 students starting Monday.

...

UW sent a letter to students and faculty of their decision to minimize risk by conducting classes remotely when possible. That decision comes as students were preparing for final exams.

While the school will officially stop holding in-person classes Monday, the university stresses that its campuses and operations will remain open. That includes university-run hospitals, residence halls, dining halls and athletic facilities.

The initial plan, according to a letter from President Ana Mari Cauce, is for UW to resume normally scheduled classes at the beginning of the spring quarter starting on March 30, pending public health guidance.

[Holman]

Welp, they just cancelled the ComicCon

Now to find out if my hotel will refund the cost of my stay.

Austin just announced cancellation of SXSW. This is a big deal.

I wonder if we'll see Origins or Gen Con this year.

[Kurth]

This from Disney Cruise Lines today:

Additionally, Guests scheduled to sail between now and May 31, 2020, can now change their reservation up until the day before embarkation and receive a 100% cruise credit to be used for a future sailing within 12 months of their original sail date by calling the telephone number above. The credit is non-refundable and standard prevailing rates will apply.

Writing was just on the wall. We cancelled our flights and hotel room now. Will wait to see if they cancel the cruise and refund our money before we take the credit.

Disappointed but also relieved.

[Holman]

Seems like there's money to be made by cruise lines testing everyone before they're allowed on board.

Suddenly your ship becomes the safest place in the world to be.

[Lorini]

I'm waiting for the cruise lines to drop their damned prices myself.

[Isgrimnur]

I’d hate to be on UW’s IT staff today.

[Daehawk]

I wonder if this will kill off some of those nasty germ infected cruise lines?

[Z-Corn]

We got the word today to expect massive deployments of laptops and other devices so staff can work from home if need be.

Great, so I've gotta go in and bust ass so other people don't have to go in so they can stay safe?

Also, mandatory 15 day quarantine for anybody who goes on a cruise before they can come back to work was announced. I know of two people in one office going on cruises this week. Things were tense today.

[gilraen]

I wonder if this will kill off some of those nasty germ infected cruise lines?

Cruise ships are some of the cleanest public places on Earth.

I've been on 9 cruises, have another one coming up in June. Have absolutely no intention of canceling or rescheduling it. But several major cruise lines did just announce that they will let people cancel up to 48 hours before sailing (which is pretty unheard of) in return for future cruise credit.

[ImLawBoy]

Confirmed case with a Chicago Public School employee who works at a specialty (read: special needs) high school.

[Daehawk]

Cruise ships are some of the cleanest public places on Earth.

I dont agree with that as other coronavirus outbreaks happen routinely on those cruises among other things.

[Madmarcus]

To be clear, I don't think following CDC advice is a bad idea -- I think it's great, even if social distancing has a ways to go. What I was trying to express, and was apparently doing so poorly, was the cognitive dissonance between online reactions in terms of what Corona means -- potential deaths among seniors (I have two parents in their 80's), the stock market volatility, a potential global/U.S. economic slowdown vs. reactions in the real world about how it's not really a thing to be worried about/have that big of an impact.

Totally thinking out loud but I can think of two reasons for the dissonance. Some people are probably unwilling to act worried in person. I suppose it is part of what is now considered toxic about men but the reserved almost stoic idea. My other thought is that some of the people around you are more local in their thinking. If you don't have exposure to the stock market (that's for rich folks) and have a job that doesn't feel connected to the global economy it might not have hit yet other than the direct illness concerns.

[Archinerd]

Confirmed case with a Chicago Public School employee who works at a specialty (read: special needs) high school.

No exaggeration, I can see that school from my kitchen window.
I'm hearing the aid was on the Grand Princess that is currently quarantined in SF.
But she was on it 2 cruises ago, so it's been circulating on the ship for awhile. Not good.

[Smoove_B]

Have absolutely no intention of canceling or rescheduling it.

I wouldn't skip a cruise now because I was afraid of personally getting sick. I would skip a cruise because I don't want to be quarantined at sea when a single person out of 2000+ on the ship is diagnosed with it on my trip.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Was visiting some friends in Lexington, KY for dinner tonight and one of them couldn’t make it because he is quarantined. Got back from Italy a week ago and even though he was in southern Italy, he has been asked to self quarantine for two weeks. So didn’t get to see him but his wife still came to dinner. I’m a goner, aren’t I?

[gilraen]

Have absolutely no intention of canceling or rescheduling it.

I wouldn't skip a cruise now because I was afraid of personally getting sick. I would skip a cruise because I don't want to be quarantined at sea when a single person out of 2000+ on the ship is diagnosed with it on my trip.

Beats going to work.

[Anonymous Bosch]

Have absolutely no intention of canceling or rescheduling it.

I wouldn't skip a cruise now because I was afraid of personally getting sick. I would skip a cruise because I don't want to be quarantined at sea when a single person out of 2000+ on the ship is diagnosed with it on my trip.

Beats going to work.

You've really gotta loathe your job if spending weeks stuck in quarantine with a floating senior living community seems preferable.

[Daehawk]

Go on a cruise get 1 month of quarantine for free....most likely on board.

[gameoverman]

Confirmed case with a Chicago Public School employee who works at a specialty (read: special needs) high school.

No exaggeration, I can see that school from my kitchen window.
I'm hearing the aid was on the Grand Princess that is currently quarantined in SF.
But she was on it 2 cruises ago, so it's been circulating on the ship for awhile. Not good.

More evidence that it's been circulating not just for awhile but circulating from the start. Assuming it started at a Wuhan street market, how long before it got out of Wuhan? A day? Less than a day?

There's a popular donut shop near where I live, popular enough to be a place people from all over make a point to go there when in the area. Someone on their way to Vegas might hop off the freeway, go get donuts, then get back on the freeway to continue their trip. If one employee there was infected then people would take it from there west to the Pacific ocean, south into Orange County, and east to Nevada and Arizona at a minimum. North up the coast? Probably. That's not counting the area airports. One infected person in that one donut shop could infect the southwest portion of the US. Imagine the same in Wuhan.

[Kraken]

he has been asked to self quarantine for two weeks.

Man, I'd be "LOL nope." Not that I'd go to a doctor in the first place. If I get it, I'm taking all of you with me.

[em2nought]

I thought this video might be of use, it shows how to make a wire loop device to place over a surgical mask that will better make the mask conform to your face for a better seal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg-cwD4Edac

I think you could also just wear one of these over your mask

[Kurth]

I wonder if this will kill off some of those nasty germ infected cruise lines?

Cruise ships are some of the cleanest public places on Earth.

That all depends on the cruise line. Some are. Others, not so much.

[Holman]

I know we talk about cruise ships as Petri dishes, but are they really worse than, say, any major airport? As I understand it, it’s not like you need prolonged cruise-length exposure to the virus to catch it. One wrong touch will do it.

And speaking of airports, we’ve just hit college Spring Break season. Young people are all immortal and will take no precautions, so I figure we’re about a month out from seeing whole dormitories quarantined.

[Lorini]

At least cruise ships have Purell dispensers everywhere. They have to pass a public health inspection, unlike airports. There's hundreds of ships at sea at any given point, so the chances of being stuck on one is pretty low. I'm waiting for the discounts myself.

In other news, my son in Seattle is officially in quarantine. He's using Door Dash for food and driving around when he gets too stir crazy. 10 days to go.

[malchior]

This from Disney Cruise Lines today:

Additionally, Guests scheduled to sail between now and May 31, 2020, can now change their reservation up until the day before embarkation and receive a 100% cruise credit to be used for a future sailing within 12 months of their original sail date by calling the telephone number above. The credit is non-refundable and standard prevailing rates will apply.

Writing was just on the wall. We cancelled our flights and hotel room now. Will wait to see if they cancel the cruise and refund our money before we take the credit.

Disappointed but also relieved.

Good on them for this policy. I also get not doing refunds. The last thing we need is a defacto run on the bank across every industry. We'll see a recession out of this almost certainly but it'll hopefully be a sharp v as demand effectively shifts to the right.

[malchior]

To be clear, I don't think following CDC advice is a bad idea -- I think it's great, even if social distancing has a ways to go. What I was trying to express, and was apparently doing so poorly, was the cognitive dissonance between online reactions in terms of what Corona means -- potential deaths among seniors (I have two parents in their 80's), the stock market volatility, a potential global/U.S. economic slowdown vs. reactions in the real world about how it's not really a thing to be worried about/have that big of an impact.

Totally thinking out loud but I can think of two reasons for the dissonance. Some people are probably unwilling to act worried in person. I suppose it is part of what is now considered toxic about men but the reserved almost stoic idea. My other thought is that some of the people around you are more local in their thinking. If you don't have exposure to the stock market (that's for rich folks) and have a job that doesn't feel connected to the global economy it might not have hit yet other than the direct illness concerns.

Honestly it is because people don't understand the risk. At least, until the risk is already punching them in the face. And because it is a risk and not a certainty, the predicted risks may not actualize and we'll just hear the grumbling. And they'll take the next one less seriously. As an example, the case where many people think Y2K was a fraud and waste of time. However, Y2K wasn't a mess because it was taken seriously and prepared for. There were real issues that could have occurred if it happened without anyone preparing for it. I worked a medical system during Y2K and they had many systems that required updating or the processes would break. We fixed them early and most people have no idea about the mess they missed.

Anyway, the big risk here is that the health system in the next month or two might become completely overwhelmed across multiple fronts. In Italy 10% of cases involved hospitalization. That is *20* times the rate of the flu. Cancelling events like this is driven by a need to slow the exponential growth to help the system make it through the critical period. Even then it might won't work since the response has been uncoordinated and delayed too long. In the end, most people simply don't understand the scale of systemic risks here. Mostly because they don't understand how risk works in the first place.

[Daehawk]

I wonder when this starts hurting sporting events and concerts?

[Blackhawk]

I wonder when this starts hurting sporting events and concerts?

They already have. In Italy, soccer matches aren't allowed to have spectators. US organizations have prepared for the possibility of the same thing.

[Smoove_B]

At some point I suspect many American communities are going to decide to either be like Philadelphia or St.Louis during the 1918 influenza pandemic. Hope your community is like St. Louis.

To quote one of the greats: history doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes.

[LawBeefaroni]

I wonder when this starts hurting sporting events and concerts?

They already have. In Italy, soccer matches aren't allowed to have spectators. US organizations have prepared for the possibility of the same thing.

Spectators will be banned at NCAA Division III basketball tournament games at Johns Hopkins due to coronavirus

Johns Hopkins has made a major decision about Division III basketball's upcoming postseason tournament games on its campus in Baltimore, Maryland: there will be no spectators. It announced Thursday that in response to recently confirmed cases of CO-VID19 (the strain of coronavirus that has made its way across the world in recent months) in the area, the games will move forward without fans.

[Blackhawk]

Woo! Indiana is now in Coronavirus Club! A man Indianapolis who recently traveled to Boston has turned out to be our first case.

[Kasey Chang]

As every news source is reminding us, we now have over 100K confirmed cases.

China's new case by day continues to fall. 102 new cases in past 24 hours.

Iran's case count is now getting REALLY scary... 1234 new cases in past 24 hours, that's 33% gain from yesterday.

Korea is holding steady at under 500. Italy went up by over 700 cases per day.

US gained 65 new cases, right now 11 deaths out of 213 confirmed cases means death rate is over 5%. But that just suggests that US has vast number of undiagnosed cases. Given that CDC only tested like 1500 or so cases virtually confirmed it. Now that CDC is trusting individual states trusted labs to run more tests, expect the confirmed cases to double or triple daily for the next week or two. I am expecting 700-1500 cases of COVID in the US at the minimum.

[Daehawk]

The way the DOW is going we'll all be able to buy KFC at under $5 a bucket again soon.