[Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

[LawBeefaroni]

Does it survive in frozen food?

It may but food really isn't a vector. If you eat the virus, it will most likely be destroyed in your stomach.

[noxiousdog]

Does it survive in frozen food?

It may but food really isn't a vector. If you eat the virus, it will most likely be destroyed in your stomach.

This is likely true for food/packaging deployments.

You will find cases of infection via swallowing, but most likely it is still due to respiratory delivery.

The above is inference as opposed to anything I've read, but most medical advice is that food/packaging is mostly safe, but there is still evidence of gastrointestinal infection. This would imply a different delivery system which is consistent with the viral load necessary for infection.


edit: There is currently no confirmed case of COVID-19 transmitted through food or food packaging.

[Blackhawk]

• Wearing gloves won't help if you're touching things and then touching your face. Wearing gloves only helps if you wear them, stop touching anything that may have been contaminated, and then take them off before touching yourself.

Adjustments: When you are done you have to take them off correctly without any part of the outside of the glove touching any part of your flesh (which takes training) and still have to wash your hands as if you hadn't been wearing them at all. Wearing gloves means that the outside of your gloves are now just as contaminated as your bare hands, so you can't do anything with them you wouldn't do with your hands anyway. And since you aren't likely to catch it through the skin of your hands, you aren't achieving much. And they're more likely to make people overconfident, doing stupid things with their hands that they wouldn't do otherwise.

I think the only time they'd potentially be useful is if you were going into a situation with high risk people and knew you couldn't wash your hands in advance, to prevent it from getting from your hands onto their stuff. And this situation is going to be incredibly rare, as it assumes there is zero access to hand sanitizer or soap & water, and if you are planning enough to have gloves along, you can plan enough to have a way to disinfect instead.

In other words, ze gloves, zey do nothing. At least not unless you're a medical professional who is trained in the nuances of their use.

[Paingod]

In other words, ze gloves, zey do nothing. At least not unless you're a medical professional who is trained in the nuances of their use.

I use ze gloves at ze gas pump, where I don't have easy access to a place to wash my hands and would rather not run the risk of handling the most potentially infectious item in miles with my bare hands. Just one, to save on waste. The one hand that touches the payment keypad and pump. It touches nothing else. I figure that's better than getting back in my car and hoping I don't touch anything before I get to the sanitizer bottle I keep in there.

That said, I always take them off the way I've been taught now.

[Lorini]

In other words, ze gloves, zey do nothing. At least not unless you're a medical professional who is trained in the nuances of their use.

I use ze gloves at ze gas pump, where I don't have easy access to a place to wash my hands and would rather not run the risk of handling the most potentially infectious item in miles with my bare hands. Just one, to save on waste. The one hand that touches the payment keypad and pump. It touches nothing else. I figure that's better than getting back in my car and hoping I don't touch anything before I get to the sanitizer bottle I keep in there.

That said, I always take them off the way I've been taught now.

I always have hand sanitizer with me for just those situations.

[Isgrimnur]

[Daehawk]

So Florida has almost 10,000 new cases in 24 hours. But Im sure they dont need a mandatory mask rule or anything.

[dbt1949]

All this shit was inevitable. I don't understand everyones surprise now.

[$iljanus]

All this shit was inevitable. I don't understand everyones surprise now.

It's like putting a fork in an electrical outlet...again and again and again.

[RunningMn9]

Everyone continues to talk about positives tests. I think the last week or two has shown that positive tests (on their own) aren’t the issue. Hospital capacity and deaths. Deaths are still trending down even as cases skyrocket.

I would say at this point that the spike in cases has been happening long enough that the lack of comparable spike in deaths is at least a neutral sign.

Unfortunately not everyone is being forthcoming on hospitalization rates.

[stessier]

SC's hospitalization count had been steadily increasing. We had right at 400 beds occupied by Covid patients right before Memorial Day. We are now at 1100+. For deaths we were in the low single digits per day. We now average close to 20.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Deaths are likely not increasing at the rate of infections because more young people are getting infected. But it seems inevitable that they will spread the virus to more vulnerable people and I wouldn’t be surprised if the death rate starts creeping back up, especially if schools decide to open up and young people more regularly interact with teachers and faculty.

[Smoove_B]

Deaths are a difficult indicator because they're always going to lag ~30 days behind new cases. Until we reach some unknown number of circulating cases, the deaths are likely going to look like peaks and valleys in any given area. Watching for new cases is important, but hospital admissions / capacity is the best thing to be monitoring right now.

[RunningMn9]

SC's hospitalization count had been steadily increasing. We had right at 400 beds occupied by Covid patients right before Memorial Day. We are now at 1100+. For deaths we were in the low single digits per day. We now average close to 20.

What’s the situation in the Fort Mill area? My daughter wants me to drive her down there in two weeks to visit her friend. Scale of 1-10, how insane is that?

[stessier]

SC's hospitalization count had been steadily increasing. We had right at 400 beds occupied by Covid patients right before Memorial Day. We are now at 1100+. For deaths we were in the low single digits per day. We now average close to 20.

What’s the situation in the Fort Mill area? My daughter wants me to drive her down there in two weeks to visit her friend. Scale of 1-10, how insane is that?

That's just south of Charlotte. I'm on mobile so will link to a map later so you can judge. York county is lower than where i live, but not zero and Charlotte is significantly worse than Fort Mill. I'd say at least an 8, but you can judge from the map.

[RunningMn9]

She’s not going to be happy to hear that.

[Smoove_B]

Have you considered evacuating her friend to your house?

[em2nought]

Deaths should start to go up in Florida because "old people". Supposedly most of the ICU beds are filled with people that didn't go to the hospital for other medical reasons during the lockdown.

Pumping gas is what I use ze plastic bag that I bring my bananas home from ze grocery store in.

[Daehawk]

I posted earlier about it..Florida's infections were just about 10,000 in the last 24 hours. Ill look on deaths.

EDIT: The state also added 68 deaths, bringing the seven-day average up to about 42 deaths each day, the highest it has been since May 9. Statewide, 3,718 people have died from the virus.

[Isgrimnur]

I posted earlier about it..Florida's deaths were just about 10,000 in the last 24 hours.

Cases, not deaths.

[Daehawk]

I posted earlier about it..Florida's deaths were just about 10,000 in the last 24 hours.

Cases, not deaths.

Ya caught it right as I hit my browser to leave. ...42 a day average. Around here theres a total of ...

Hamilton County - 47,882 infected 626 deaths
Bradley County - around 620 infected 5 deaths
Polk County - 41 infected 0 deaths

A big difference in these country and suburban counties compared to Florida places and such. Of course Hamilton County holds Chattanooga which is the 4th largest city in TN and right on the line with Georgia..

[stessier]

She’s not going to be happy to hear that.

York county had 128 reported Friday against a population of 290k. Here is a link to an article with more details. Scroll down and there is a color coded map. York county is on the northern border to the west of Union county, NC. You can move a slider under the picture to see what cases were on different days. As a state, we were at 20.7% positive test rate on Friday, but I believe we are still in the bottom 5 for tests per capita.

A lot of people from York work in Charlotte. Here is a link to the NC data. Charlotte is in Mecklenburg county - that little notch in the middle of the state on the southern border.

[Kraken]

Neanderthal DNA makes some of us more susceptible to Covid-19.

Tony Capra, a geneticist at Vanderbilt University who was not involved in the study, thought it was plausible that the Neanderthal chunk of DNA originally provided a benefit — perhaps even against other viruses. “But that was 40,000 years ago, and here we are now,” he said.

It’s possible that an immune response that worked against ancient viruses has ended up overreacting against the new coronavirus. People who develop severe cases of Covid-19 typically do so because their immune systems launch uncontrolled attacks that end up scarring their lungs and causing inflammation.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I wish the media would stop reporting on studies that have not yet been peer reviewed. It’s already happened multiple times since the outbreak that studies with impressive claims are widely disseminated before people realize serious flaws in the methodology or interpretation. I’m not saying this will be one of those studies, but we can’t say for certain until it’s been critically analyzed.

[Kraken]

Myself, I enjoy seeing science with its pants down. But I realize 99% of readers don't get the "well...maybe" aspect.

[Daehawk]

Its too late for Florida. Time to saw it off at the state line and watch it float away.

Florida breaks coronavirus record with over 11K new cases reported in one day

Florida reported 11,458 new coronavirus cases on Independence Day, shattering its record for daily reported cases in the state since the pandemic began.

The positivity rate for new cases was 14%, slightly lower than the highest reported rate during the past two weeks. That came June 23, when 16% of new cases tested positive.

The single-day record for new cases was last broken on Thursday with over 10,000 testing positive. To date, the state health department has reported a total of 190,052 cases.

Thursday and Saturday’s record-breaking reports are followed by June 27′s report with 9,585 cases, Friday’s report of 9,488 cases, and 8,942 cases posted on June 26, according to the department’s data.

The death toll is now 3,702, which includes 18 new fatalities reported Saturday. With 101 additional deaths from non-Florida residents, the toll is 3,803.

[em2nought]

Its too late for Florida.

Just making some room for the folks who will be fleeing from big cities up north.

[Defiant]

Bubonic Plague: Chinese city issues black death level three plague warning

BUBONIC plague has broken out in a Chinese city with authorities issuing an epidemic warning after a local farmer contracted the virus that caused the infamous Black Death

Not as scary as the headline makes it, since it can be treated provided it's identified early enough (which is the rub, since it's not easy to identify when you're not expecting it). And we still get a few cases of plague here in the US.

[Combustible Lemur]

Bubonic Plague: Chinese city issues black death level three plague warning

BUBONIC plague has broken out in a Chinese city with authorities issuing an epidemic warning after a local farmer contracted the virus that caused the infamous Black Death

Not as scary as the headline makes it, since it can be treated provided it's identified early enough (which is the rub, since it's not easy to identify when you're not expecting it). And we still get a few cases of plague here in the US.

As long as it's not disguised as the Spanish inquisition we should be okay. Everybody expects the bubonic plague.

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk

[Daehawk]

Time to space China and Africa. Who designated them the disease creators of this planet anyways?

[Isgrimnur]

[gilraen]

On average, there are more bubonic plague cases annually in the U.S. than there are in China. Although I think it's been several years since someone died from it here.

[dbt1949]

Bubonic Plague: Chinese city issues black death level three plague warning

BUBONIC plague has broken out in a Chinese city with authorities issuing an epidemic warning after a local farmer contracted the virus that caused the infamous Black Death

Not as scary as the headline makes it, since it can be treated provided it's identified early enough (which is the rub, since it's not easy to identify when you're not expecting it). And we still get a few cases of plague here in the US.

I wonder how long my shots are good for.

[Isgrimnur]

Bubonic Plague: Chinese city issues black death level three plague warning

BUBONIC plague has broken out in a Chinese city with authorities issuing an epidemic warning after a local farmer contracted the virus that caused the infamous Black Death

Not as scary as the headline makes it, since it can be treated provided it's identified early enough (which is the rub, since it's not easy to identify when you're not expecting it). And we still get a few cases of plague here in the US.

I wonder how long my shots are good for.

Guaranteed for life!

[Daehawk]

If not you can ask for a refund.

[Jeff V]

""

[dbt1949]

[Daehawk]

The "He aint got shit all over him" line gets me every time.

[Daehawk]

So far 130,000 Americans have died from COVID in a bit over 3 months.

416,000 Americans died in all of World War 2.

So we are over 1/4 the total. Crazy.

[hitbyambulance]

I am having questions about the effiectiveness of the covid 19 test as administered by the ZoomCare clinic I went to tonight (one of those 'urgent care' kinda setups). i was brought into the exam room and handed what looked like a normal double-ended cotton swab (the kind that you [don't] clean your ears with) and was told I would be 'self-administering' the collection. at no point was I told to sanitize my hands for this procedure. i was told to insert the swab about an inch into each nostril and swirl it two or three times. i stuck it up my nose about that much and asked if that really was far enough (i have had nasal subsection surgery twice and the upper inside of my left nostril is very raw and sensitive to this day) and i was assured it was.

my question is, is this really effective? if so, why were the procurement of the longer (six inch) swabs such a big deal in the early days of the covid 19 pandemic? it was mentioned in many news outlets that normal sized cotton swabs would _not_ work.