Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

[El Guapo]

Today in this country is bonkers news. If you hoped to see the 'My Pillow' guy at a WH Covid-19 briefing...your wish has been granted!

I didn't even know that My Pillow existed.

[El Guapo]

Interesting discussion about the CDC's reluctance to recommend wearing face masks generally. I haven't been wearing a mask but I think I will going forward on my grocery runs. Not because I think it'll protect me. Due to the pervasive lack of testing, I don't have any level of confidence about whether I'm spreading it or not.

I have seen some stuff online suggesting that people should all be making homemade masks and wearing them. Not sure what to make of that.

Smoove, your thoughts?

[LawBeefaroni]

Today in this country is bonkers news. If you hoped to see the 'My Pillow' guy at a WH Covid-19 briefing...your wish has been granted!

I didn't even know that My Pillow existed.

You do now, so it worked.

[Daehawk]

My doctor place is closed when it should be open. no way to get meds. Guess Im out.

[Smoove_B]

I have seen some stuff online suggesting that people should all be making homemade masks and wearing them. Not sure what to make of that.
Smoove, your thoughts?

I've been seeing rumors of it since the weekend - I mentioned it here but there's like a 30 minute window of relevance before something insane happens or is said and things get shuffled off.

The administration and CDC has said they are not going to recommend it, but i keep seeing reports they will. I think the CDC has painted itself into a corner and wants to recommend it, but doesn't know how to message it to the public. Because of shortages and the general communication of "get any masks you have to the medical front lines" it's hard then to tell the people that just donated everything they had to then wear a surgical mask. And to be clear, that would be the recommendation - a cloth/paper mask to stop droplets from being ejected. The recommendation wouldn't be for a n95 mask.

Having everyone wear masks makes sense from a communicable disease theory -however- it's not something (I think) Americans are comfortable seeing en masse and worse, the idea behind the mask isn't something I think has a universal sell. More to the point, wearing a surgical mask isn't about protecting you. Instead, it's mostly about protecting others. There are some benefits to wearing it, but the greater benefit it to everyone else you're around. Given vaccination hesitancy, the idea that wearing a mask isn't about me and instead confers a greater benefit to other people seems like it's going to be a hard sell, culturally. Above and beyond that, I don't know how we magically make masks appear for people given the shortages we have for medical and medical support staff. Telling people to make their own is great, but is it realistic?

I would also want to make sure we're giving medical staff adequate masks before we're providing any to the public. Until that happens, social distancing is the answer. If we can ramp up supplies and there are people/companies that can crank out cloth masks, it will not surprise me to hear the CDC recommend wearing one in public. I think Americans are going to freak the hell out, particularly if random people just start wearing them. I don't know what the magic number is either for how many people need to be wearing them before there is a benefit. I can also imagine if you're in a store and there's 40 people with masks and 10 without, everyone is going to be giving hard looks at those 10 people. Here, social pressure to conform would be severe and it's where I fear Americans are going to push back.

Not having people wear masks in public might go down as one of the larger failures of the response, here in the US. It's hard to say. Its so far outside what we would normally do, I can understand why it happened - particularly coupled with the shortage. I've seen some online reports suggesting infection curves are flatter for countries that instituted mask use or culturally accept wearing masks when you're sick. Doesn't explain Germany's slow rise, but it might help explain why places like Singapore and Japan.

[Zaxxon]

[Smoove_B]

My doctor place is closed when it should be open. no way to get meds. Guess Im out.

So for the last ~3 weeks where we've all been saying call your doctor, call the bank, etc... and figure stuff out you did not?

[LawBeefaroni]

My doctor place is closed when it should be open. no way to get meds. Guess Im out.

Can you to do telemed? If your doctor is truly closed, find another one.

Pharmacies are open.

[Jeff V]

I would also want to make sure we're giving medical staff adequate masks before we're providing any to the public.

My wife ordered a box of 100 masks from Singapore, they should arrive this week. Her nursing home has been without for 3 weeks now, apparently the administrators have a stash but concluded the clinical staff doesn't need them.

Another friend is getting some from China, but there is an export ban on n95 masks. The vendor my wife is going through posted a May 15 availability on n95 masks. Meanwhile, neighbors are cranking out the cloth ones.

Also, there's a simple way to avoid nasty looks for not wearing a mask in public. It's known as the hepcat method. It involves leaving ones pants at home.

[Kraken]

Today in this country is bonkers news. If you hoped to see the 'My Pillow' guy at a WH Covid-19 briefing...your wish has been granted!

I didn't even know that My Pillow existed.

I hear their radio ads on WBZ. I need new pillows. When I mentioned that to Wife, she explained that the My Pillow guys is a shyster. I hadn't known that.

[Defiant]

https://twitter.com/DavidLarter/status/ ... 6619198465

[Holman]

The Corona Truther movement is gaining steam.

https://twitter.com/MattGertz/status/12 ... 90304?s=20

https://twitter.com/JasonSCampbell/stat ... 68321?s=20

[LawBeefaroni]

I would also want to make sure we're giving medical staff adequate masks before we're providing any to the public.

My wife ordered a box of 100 masks from Singapore, they should arrive this week. Her nursing home has been without for 3 weeks now, apparently the administrators have a stash but concluded the clinical staff doesn't need them.

Another friend is getting some from China, but there is an export ban on n95 masks. The vendor my wife is going through posted a May 15 availability on n95 masks. Meanwhile, neighbors are cranking out the cloth ones.

Also, there's a simple way to avoid nasty looks for not wearing a mask in public. It's known as the hepcat method. It involves leaving ones pants at home.

Is she union?

A union representing health care workers has found a supplier to provide 39 million masks for desperately under-resourced hospitals in New York and California as medical staff struggle to treat the influx of people who have COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

The Service Employees International Union's United Healthcare Workers West started looking for vendors who could supply masks and other protective equipment five days ago, after "pleas from frontline health care workers that they need more protection and feel unsafe on the job," they said in a statement on Thursday. Union staff tracked down the supplier with 39 million masks available, along with another who they say can make 20 million masks per week.

[LawBeefaroni]

Don't like JB but I believe him. Plus he has handled all this surprisingly well.

Illinois

Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Monday that the federal government sent the wrong type of medical masks

in a shipment that his state recently received.
...

"My team is sorting through the shipment of 300,000 N95 masks the White House personally told me would be sent to our state, and while we do not have a final count on this yet, I can say with certainty that what they sent were not the N95 masks that were promised but instead were surgical masks, which is not what we asked for," he said at the news conference.

[Defiant]

The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency approval Tuesday for a testing kit produced by Bodysphere Inc. that can detect a positive or negative result for COVID-19 in two minutes.

https://www.axios.com/fda-coronavirus-t ... 06e4c.html

[Skinypupy]

Trying to decide if this is the typical Trump petty bullshit, or simply bureaucratic incompetence. Likely a bit of both, I suspect.

Regardless, it will ultimately cost more lives.

Senator Elizabeth Warren is pressing federal officials for answers on why they seized at least two of Massachusetts’s recent orders for protective equipment, charging that it appears they are still interfering with states’ efforts to track down medical supplies amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In a five-page letter Monday, Warren asked Peter Gaynor, the Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator, to outline how the agency is ensuring states aren’t outbid for supplies by the federal government, which she called a “new and inexplicable obstacle.”

Warren also pointed to at least two instances in which Massachusetts lost orders for ventilators and hundreds of respirators after the federal government stepped in — a situation Marylou Sudders, the state’s health and human service secretary, described as: "They take what we order.”

[LawBeefaroni]

The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency approval Tuesday for a testing kit produced by Bodysphere Inc. that can detect a positive or negative result for COVID-19 in two minutes.

https://www.axios.com/fda-coronavirus-t ... 06e4c.html

All the rapid tests are antibody tests. They don't detect COVID-19,they detect antibodies used to fight it. This is useful information but not the same as a rapid test that could detect the virus before the patient produces enough antibodies.

There's still a multi-day window between getting it (and possibly being contagious) and being able to tell you have it.

[El Guapo]

The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency approval Tuesday for a testing kit produced by Bodysphere Inc. that can detect a positive or negative result for COVID-19 in two minutes.

https://www.axios.com/fda-coronavirus-t ... 06e4c.html

All the rapid tests are antibody tests. They don't detect COVID-19,they detect antibodies used to fight it. This is useful information but not the same as a rapid test that could detect the virus before the patient produces enough antibodies.

There's still a multi-day window between getting it (and possibly being contagious) and being able to tell you have it.

If it's detecting antibodies, isn't it just confirming that you're sick, as opposed to confirming that you have coronavirus? Or are there coronavirus-specific antibodies?

Speaking as a liberal arts major.

[LawBeefaroni]

The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency approval Tuesday for a testing kit produced by Bodysphere Inc. that can detect a positive or negative result for COVID-19 in two minutes.

https://www.axios.com/fda-coronavirus-t ... 06e4c.html

All the rapid tests are antibody tests. They don't detect COVID-19,they detect antibodies used to fight it. This is useful information but not the same as a rapid test that could detect the virus before the patient produces enough antibodies.

There's still a multi-day window between getting it (and possibly being contagious) and being able to tell you have it.

If it's detecting antibodies, isn't it just confirming that you're sick, as opposed to confirming that you have coronavirus? Or are there coronavirus-specific antibodies?

Speaking as a liberal arts major.

They're specific to the virus.

[stessier]

The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency approval Tuesday for a testing kit produced by Bodysphere Inc. that can detect a positive or negative result for COVID-19 in two minutes.

https://www.axios.com/fda-coronavirus-t ... 06e4c.html

All the rapid tests are antibody tests. They don't detect COVID-19,they detect antibodies used to fight it. This is useful information but not the same as a rapid test that could detect the virus before the patient produces enough antibodies.

There's still a multi-day window between getting it (and possibly being contagious) and being able to tell you have it.

It could be very useful in determining who can go back to work, too.

[Defiant]

Hospitals are threatening to fire health-care workers who publicize their working conditions during the coronavirus pandemic -- and have in some cases followed through.

Ming Lin, an emergency room physician in Washington state, said he was told Friday he was out of a job because he’d given an interview to a newspaper about a Facebook post detailing what he believed to be inadequate protective equipment and testing. In Chicago, a nurse was fired after emailing colleagues that she wanted to wear a more protective mask while on duty. In New York, the NYU Langone Health system has warned employees they could be terminated if they talk to the media without authorization.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... k-to-press

[gilraen]

The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency approval Tuesday for a testing kit produced by Bodysphere Inc. that can detect a positive or negative result for COVID-19 in two minutes.

https://www.axios.com/fda-coronavirus-t ... 06e4c.html

All the rapid tests are antibody tests. They don't detect COVID-19,they detect antibodies used to fight it. This is useful information but not the same as a rapid test that could detect the virus before the patient produces enough antibodies.

There's still a multi-day window between getting it (and possibly being contagious) and being able to tell you have it.

If it's detecting antibodies, isn't it just confirming that you're sick, as opposed to confirming that you have coronavirus? Or are there coronavirus-specific antibodies?

Speaking as a liberal arts major.

This is not an antibody test. They specifically spell out that it's an NAA (nucleic acid amplification) molecular test. NAA tests are disease-specific and are used to detect an active infection.

[Jeff V]

Antibodies would presumably stay in your system forever...isn't that what makes you immune to repeat infection? I wouldn't think it'd be a good indicator of active infection, only past exposure.

[LawBeefaroni]

The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency approval Tuesday for a testing kit produced by Bodysphere Inc. that can detect a positive or negative result for COVID-19 in two minutes.

https://www.axios.com/fda-coronavirus-t ... 06e4c.html

All the rapid tests are antibody tests. They don't detect COVID-19,they detect antibodies used to fight it. This is useful information but not the same as a rapid test that could detect the virus before the patient produces enough antibodies.

There's still a multi-day window between getting it (and possibly being contagious) and being able to tell you have it.

If it's detecting antibodies, isn't it just confirming that you're sick, as opposed to confirming that you have coronavirus? Or are there coronavirus-specific antibodies?

Speaking as a liberal arts major.

This is not an antibody test. They specifically spell out that it's an NAA (nucleic acid amplification) molecular test. NAA tests are disease-specific and are used to detect an active infection.

So the article got it wrong?

FDA authorizes two-minute antibody testing kit to detect coronavirus

These antibody tests could help people know if they are able to go back to work, as well as aid researchers in tracking the scale and death rate of the disease — key data for current and future pandemic policies.

Their own press release got it wrong?

The COVID-19 IgG/IgM Rapid Test Cassette is a lateral flow chromatographic immunoassay for the qualitative detection of antibodies (IgG and IgM) for the Novel coronavirus in human whole blood/serum/plasma.

[LordMortis]

Don't like JB but I believe him. Plus he has handled all this surprisingly well.

Illinois

Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Monday that the federal government sent the wrong type of medical masks

in a shipment that his state recently received.
...

"My team is sorting through the shipment of 300,000 N95 masks the White House personally told me would be sent to our state, and while we do not have a final count on this yet, I can say with certainty that what they sent were not the N95 masks that were promised but instead were surgical masks, which is not what we asked for," he said at the news conference.

This is the stuff that gets people killed and not by the virus but rather as a reaction to loved ones dying from incompetence or malice. Revolutions have happened over this sort of thing. How can the executive office actually believe this is in the same solar system as a good idea?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s ... Versailles

[gilraen]

The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency approval Tuesday for a testing kit produced by Bodysphere Inc. that can detect a positive or negative result for COVID-19 in two minutes.

https://www.axios.com/fda-coronavirus-t ... 06e4c.html

All the rapid tests are antibody tests. They don't detect COVID-19,they detect antibodies used to fight it. This is useful information but not the same as a rapid test that could detect the virus before the patient produces enough antibodies.

There's still a multi-day window between getting it (and possibly being contagious) and being able to tell you have it.

If it's detecting antibodies, isn't it just confirming that you're sick, as opposed to confirming that you have coronavirus? Or are there coronavirus-specific antibodies?

Speaking as a liberal arts major.

This is not an antibody test. They specifically spell out that it's an NAA (nucleic acid amplification) molecular test. NAA tests are disease-specific and are used to detect an active infection.

So the article got it wrong?

FDA authorizes two-minute antibody testing kit to detect coronavirus

These antibody tests could help people know if they are able to go back to work, as well as aid researchers in tracking the scale and death rate of the disease — key data for current and future pandemic policies.

Their own press release got it wrong?

The COVID-19 IgG/IgM Rapid Test Cassette is a lateral flow chromatographic immunoassay for the qualitative detection of antibodies (IgG and IgM) for the Novel coronavirus in human whole blood/serum/plasma.

Sorry, somehow I followed a link to the Abbott NAA RNA rapid test, not the Bodysphere IgG/IgM test.

[LawBeefaroni]

Antibodies would presumably stay in your system forever...isn't that what makes you immune to repeat infection? I wouldn't think it'd be a good indicator of active infection, only past exposure.

Which is still useful. Just not the same thing. Which is why it's important to differentiate.

[stessier]

The South Carolina governor just closed all close contact services - like bars, concert venues, barber shops, and athletic activities with shared equipment. I'm pretty sure all of that was already closed.

If one were cynical, one might note that it's much easier to lead from the back once you know where everyone is going.

[LawBeefaroni]

Sorry, somehow I followed a link to the Abbott NAA RNA rapid test, not the Bodysphere IgG/IgM test.

Keeping me on my toes. Not a problem.

[LawBeefaroni]

Hospitals are threatening to fire health-care workers who publicize their working conditions during the coronavirus pandemic -- and have in some cases followed through.

Ming Lin, an emergency room physician in Washington state, said he was told Friday he was out of a job because he’d given an interview to a newspaper about a Facebook post detailing what he believed to be inadequate protective equipment and testing. In Chicago, a nurse was fired after emailing colleagues that she wanted to wear a more protective mask while on duty. In New York, the NYU Langone Health system has warned employees they could be terminated if they talk to the media without authorization.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... k-to-press

Both hospitals I've worked at have had strict media policies for anything job related. A reporter or other media rep contacts you, you send it to PR or marketing. No questions, no answers, just a nice, "Here's the number you have to call". They'll sort it out.


I think NM fired like 15 nurses for looking up Smolett's chart when he tried to hang himself.

The thing above about the nurse emailing colleagues...were they outside the organization? That one is weird if it was an internal email. Outside, yeah, no bueno.

[Smoove_B]

More on masks - note the pivot from the CDC:

But in an interview with NPR Monday, CDC director Robert Redfield said that the agency is taking another look at the data around mask use by the general public.

"I can tell you that the data and this issue of whether it's going to contribute [to prevention] is being aggressively reviewed as we speak," Redfield told NPR.

Other prominent public health experts have been raising this issue in recent days. Wearing a mask is "an additional layer of protection for those who have to go out," former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told NPR in an interview. It's a step you can take – on top of washing your hands and avoiding gatherings.

Again, why masks now?

"Face masks will be most effective at slowing the spread of SARS-CoV-2 if they are widely used, because they may help prevent people who are asymptomatically infected from transmitting the disease unknowingly," Gottieb wrote. Gottlieb points to South Korea and Hong Kong – two places that were shown to manage their outbreaks successfully, where face masks are used widely.

[Skinypupy]

Oh, just fuck off Mitch.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says President Donald Trump's impeachment trial distracted the federal government from the novel coronavirus as it reached the United States in January, despite warnings at the time from public health experts and members of Congress about the spread of the virus.

McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday that the deadly virus "came up while we were tied down on the impeachment trial. And I think it diverted the attention of the government, because everything every day was all about impeachment.''

[Yojimbo]

More on masks - note the pivot from the CDC:

But in an interview with NPR Monday, CDC director Robert Redfield said that the agency is taking another look at the data around mask use by the general public.

"I can tell you that the data and this issue of whether it's going to contribute [to prevention] is being aggressively reviewed as we speak," Redfield told NPR.

Other prominent public health experts have been raising this issue in recent days. Wearing a mask is "an additional layer of protection for those who have to go out," former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told NPR in an interview. It's a step you can take – on top of washing your hands and avoiding gatherings.

Again, why masks now?

"Face masks will be most effective at slowing the spread of SARS-CoV-2 if they are widely used, because they may help prevent people who are asymptomatically infected from transmitting the disease unknowingly," Gottieb wrote. Gottlieb points to South Korea and Hong Kong – two places that were shown to manage their outbreaks successfully, where face masks are used widely.

I dislike the "public won't need masks" talk that we saw in the early days. It was untrue, I think the people parroting it knew that it was untrue.

I suspect the earlier lies about masks were to keep supplies in the warehouses until the medicos and elites could get a hold of them (good for the medicos, bad for the elites). The media almost blindly parroted the "you don't need masks" talk to our national shame.

Now I just hope this same thing is not happening with hydroxychloroquine currently. If they want to freeze and seize supplies for medical workers tell us that. If they want to downplay the effectiveness until all the Senators get some in their fridge - horrid.

[Smoove_B]

Distracted him from his perfect response? Which is it - because I'm having trouble keeping this new message straight.

[Daveman]

So our "we don't know anyone with Covid" bubble just got popped. Our 80 year old neighbors called just now to let us know they had it and it was all I could do to bite my tongue.

On March 8th they asked for some help. They wanted a ride to the local library where they were meeting a tour bus that was taking them to the airport for a week long river cruise up the Mississippi. Things hadn't ramped up so much at that point but I did ask if they were concerned... they weren't.

Seems somewhere between the Philly airport, New Orleans, a tour of the French Quarter, sailing up the Mississippi on a cruise ship then a return flight through Chicago they got it. Imagine that.

The good news is that they're seemingly in the clear. No temperature, difficulty breathing or coughing. But 3 days after getting home on the 16th (I dropped their car off at the library for them that night as they got home after 11pm and haven't interacted with them, thank goodness) they both experienced extreme fatigue and lack of appetite. After 4 days of that they went to the hospital, were treated with Z-pack, got the positive Covid test results today. Not bad for 80 year olds with health conditions.

Her tongue biting comment to me was, "it just wasn't a thing to have been worried about 3 weeks ago".

[LawBeefaroni]

Oh, just fuck off Mitch.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says President Donald Trump's impeachment trial distracted the federal government from the novel coronavirus as it reached the United States in January, despite warnings at the time from public health experts and members of Congress about the spread of the virus.

McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday that the deadly virus "came up while we were tied down on the impeachment trial. And I think it diverted the attention of the government, because everything every day was all about impeachment.''

That explains China and Europe too. Go get 'em, Cochese.

You know that whiny fuck that is always conniving and moving goalposts as if to appear correct rather than actually being correct? Like on everything? From foreign policy to the difference between large and extra large eggs? That's McConnell.

[Smoove_B]

I dislike the "public won't need masks" talk that we saw in the early days. It was untrue, I think the people parroting it knew that it was untrue.

I suspect the earlier lies about masks were to keep supplies in the warehouses until the medicos and elites could get a hold of them (good for the medicos, bad for the elites). The media almost blindly parroted the "you don't need masks" talk to our national shame.

I won't defend the administration in any capacity - quite the opposite. I will tell you the messaging early on was consistent with what I was taught and the policies/plans I worked on and trained under. The wrinkle this time was the insane shortage and being caught flat-footed.

As I said earlier today, wearing masks is primarily about protecting others, not yourself. There is some benefit to wearing surgical masks, but free-floating viral particles would sail through the cotton fabrics as if they didn't exist. Instead, these masks do give some protection then against inhaling larger balls of mucous and saliva that (in theory) are impregnated with the virus. When this first emerged (January-ish) having everyone wear surgery masks didn't make sense because we had no data to suggest it was wide spread. To further clarify, the general public should not be wearing n95 masks - not back in January and not now in April. But the evidence is mounting that having everyone wear surgical masks might be a good idea and if we had testing data back in January (if only), recommending widespread mask use might have made sense. However, given the shortages, that's also a tough sell. The other thing is that culturally it's not accepted here in the US to see people just freely wearing masks. I suspect there's going to be an uptick in violence in parts of the country if people are seen wearing them with the idea that they either don't trust 'Mericans or they are sick foreigners.

Anyway, I don't necessarily believe there was evil-intent up front with the masks. I do believe we were under-prepared and when the administration had advanced information, they did nothing - making it much worse. In short, so much of this could have been avoided if we had competent people running a national response. Instead, we have a reality show President and we're all on Survivor.

[Isgrimnur]

CNN

Back on February 7, the World Health Organization sounded alarm bells about "the limited stock of PPE," noting demand was 100 times higher than normal for this equipment.

Yet the same day as the WHO warning, the Trump administration announced that it was transporting to China nearly 17.8 tons (more than 35,000 pounds) of "masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital materials." As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo noted in the press release announcing this shipment, "These donations are a testament to the generosity of the American people."

[gameoverman]

Does wearing a mask help people impede the spread of this virus or do people who are better at impeding the spread of this virus also tend to wear masks?

People in certain countries were wearing masks before this pandemic started, so I wouldn't rush to say the masks do or don't help. They might just be a reflection of culture more than anything else.

[Zaxxon]

https://twitter.com/DavidLarter/status/ ... 98465?s=19