Coronavirus 2020

[OH&S]

Dr Fauci praises Australia’s coronavirus response and Melbourne’s face mask rules

America’s top infectious diseases expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, has praised Melbourne’s response to the coronavirus, saying he “wished” the US could adopt the same mentality.

In an interview hosted by the University of Melbourne and the Melbourne-based Doherty Institute, Fauci said Australia was “one of the countries that has done actually quite well” in handling the virus.

“I really wish that we could transplant that kind of mentality here,” he said. “Because masks in the United States have almost become a political statement.”

Fauci, who is the most senior member of the White House’s coronavirus taskforce, said that Melbourne’s lockdown and mandatory mask-wearing had struck the right balance between public health and opening up the economy.

“A couple of hours before I came to my home here to pick up this Zoom, I was at a meeting virtually in the situation room in the White House,” he said. “If I were to use the word ‘shutdown’ the country or ‘lockdown’, I would be in serious trouble. They would probably be throwing tomatoes at me or something.”

[EroKing]

Ranked by active number of cases. Situation is far better here in India now, down from like 1 million active cases about 2 months ago to close to 600k now. Curve was supposed to flatten in November but things have been getting well since October, more recoveries than daily number of cases. 120k deaths certainly is a lot but population percentage-wise in a country with over 1.3 billion people and the kind of population density we have, things never got that bad. There were about a couple of months in-between where people weren't taking masks and social distancing seriously but that changed quickly enough as they realized it had to be done to get the numbers down and getting back to making money. Countries in Europe kinda fucked up re-opening schools. India was supposed to do the same earlier this month but was looking at the numbers from Europe and decided against it. They'll be taking a call in my city in like mid-November after looking at the situation. So again, masks work to a great extent; just gotta have sane people and not dumb enough to protest against it.

I am worried about things changing in the flu season - December to February. People everywhere will be coughing and masks are not that effective when wet. Symptoms of cold will make it hard to tell who has the virus and who just has the common cold. Now I haven't checked for this but can one be infected with both the common cold and corona? Can't find any answers on google but if so then there's also bound to be cases where people are infected with both, so yea... winter most likely is gonna be harsh.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by EroKing

Now I haven't checked for this but can one be infected with both the common cold and corona?

Indeed. We have locally at least one such cases. That is why I mentioned earlier about getting free influenza shots, the local government is trying to minimize the overlapping by reducing to a minimum the number of cases of influenza this season (in 2019 they were begging people to get vaccinated, now they can't get cope with the demand), especially among the elderly. I have not read any articles (since it is too early) about the effects of having both diseases at the same time, but it is bound to be a one two punch, how bad it might increase mortality is the only number yet to be found.

[Key Board]

“ President Donald Trump repeated an unfounded accusation at a campaign rally in Michigan on Friday, asserting U.S. doctors are misrepresenting the number of coronavirus fatalities because they receive "like $2,000 more" if they report Covid-19 as the cause of a patient's death, a baseless charge that has angered many in the medical community.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybe...inancial-gain/

This explains a lot about Trump base.

[GDB]

Given how he projects, I suspect this means he offered Doctors something like $2,000 more to understate covid deaths.

[Jaden]

Hospitals do get more money, if they diagnose patients with Covid-19. I don't think a lot of that money goes to doctors though, and even if it did, I doubt it'd be enough of an incentive to cause massive misdiagnoses.
That is a popular conspiracy theory right now though, because there definitely are incentives to downplay pandemic severity.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by Jaden

Hospitals do get more money, if they diagnose patients with Covid-19.

How does that work? I mean, patient is admitted to hospital because s/he is severely ill*, they do a covid19 test because of the symptoms but the tests comes negative. The patient is still ill and needs medical attention, how does that differ from the outcome if the test comes positive?

*at least here about 80% of covid19 patients are sent to their homes because they are "not sick enough".

[Jaden]

It is a bit weird. You'd think that whatever hospitals bill the insurer (whether it's government or private) would be directly related to costs incurred by the hospital for treating each patient.

But in reality, there is a certain range of costs that is considered acceptable for each different ailment, mostly invented by the insurance side of the market. And in addition, as I understand it, in the US you qualify for Medicare if you're hospitalized with Covid-19, and the CARES Act gave a 20% bonus payment to any patient with the infection.

I guess that in order for the hospital to get that extra money, they'd have to do more than just test me and send me home. Maybe at least give me some drugs or oxygen, if not make me stay.

[Psyco Diver]

https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comment...ral_barcelona/

Well this is happening, apparently in several countries yet I'm not seeing it in mainstream media, or at least I'm missing it

[Magin]

Originally Posted by Jaden

Hospitals do get more money, if they diagnose patients with Covid-19. I don't think a lot of that money goes to doctors though, and even if it did, I doubt it'd be enough of an incentive to cause massive misdiagnoses.
That is a popular conspiracy theory right now though, because there definitely are incentives to downplay pandemic severity.

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

How does that work? I mean, patient is admitted to hospital because s/he is severely ill*, they do a covid19 test because of the symptoms but the tests comes negative. The patient is still ill and needs medical attention, how does that differ from the outcome if the test comes positive?

*at least here about 80% of covid19 patients are sent to their homes because they are "not sick enough".

I think there's one more piece to this conspiracy theory... it's not the diagnosis that's supposedly being ramped up, it's "cause of death"

Basically, someone ends up dying from some other disease than Covid- let's just make it easy and say it's something more common, like a heart attack or old age or any number of other things. In normal cases, no extra money because it's something that happens in regular situations. Well, by now changing "cause of death" to Covid, the person still passes away, but the hospital gets more government money to "fight Covid"... which is then usually abused and put into someones' pockets. There's an old Adam Ruins Everything video that basically says hospitals have a secret book (or probably database) of what the actual price of medication is vs. what they charge people... because everyone is a greedy bastard.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Magin

I think there's one more piece to this conspiracy theory... it's not the diagnosis that's supposedly being ramped up, it's "cause of death"

Basically, someone ends up dying from some other disease than Covid- let's just make it easy and say it's something more common, like a heart attack or old age or any number of other things. In normal cases, no extra money because it's something that happens in regular situations. Well, by now changing "cause of death" to Covid, the person still passes away, but the hospital gets more government money to "fight Covid"... which is then usually abused and put into someones' pockets. There's an old Adam Ruins Everything video that basically says hospitals have a secret book (or probably database) of what the actual price of medication is vs. what they charge people... because everyone is a greedy bastard.

According to that video, it's not even that the hospitals are greedy, exactly. It's that the insurances must be able to say they've got an 80% discount or whatever, while the hospitals must sill be paid a reasonable price. The "solution" is to massively overcharge the uninsured.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by Magin

I think there's one more piece to this conspiracy theory... it's not the diagnosis that's supposedly being ramped up, it's "cause of death"

Basically, someone ends up dying from some other disease than Covid- let's just make it easy and say it's something more common, like a heart attack or old age or any number of other things.

Which is nonsense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TECf3xSFbU

TL;DW Covid19 will exacerbate many other underlying health conditions and cause death, specially if someone gets ill enough to be hospitalized. Bottom line, there are many persons with not a perfect bill of health that would be alive today if they didn't caught this damn disease.

If you mean to say hospitals are writing in death certificates "covid19" as cause of death even if they got a negative covid19 result, that is a conspiracy theory on par with "lunar landings were faked".

[Magin]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

If you mean to say hospitals are writing in death certificates "covid19" as cause of death even if they got a negative covid19 result, that is a conspiracy theory on par with "lunar landings were faked".

This is precisely the conspiracy theory (and again, the reasoning behind it is a combination of people saying either it's scare tactics for "sheeple", or for people to profit off others' deaths). I've heard some say the the real death total is as low as 12,000... which is still damned high- followed by "But it's definitely not this huge scary number, aka I can live with 12,000 people being dead"

[mangamuscle]

One local phenomenon that might happen elsewhere and I have yet to see some info is late hospitalization. In short, last couple of weeks the number of patients (in my city) that has been incubated has risen and our local version of Dr. Fauci has said many people are "waiting until the last minute" to go to a hospital. I have already seen on tv that in the capital many people were buying oxygen tanks and even ventilators to threat their family at home. This might be caused by hospitals not accepting patients (it has happen) or fears of never seeing your loved ones, since once they are admitted to a hospital you can no longer see them until they recover or die.

This surge will probably mean that in a week or two we will see an increase in daily deaths, but I wonder if it is only a regional phenomenon or this is like an iceberg that is far bigger than it seems.

[cyberdemon]

People aren’t waiting till the last minute. Hospitals are rejecting all but the worst cases. My sister in law had a bad case of COVID and her doctor just kept telling her to wait it out and only go if it gets even worse

[mangamuscle]

https://www.theguardian.com/science/...tic-variations

Research is also focusing on a gene known as TYK2. Some variants of this gene are involved in triggering some auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and also seems to be involved in causing severe Covid.

So, if you know someone with an autoimmune disease, now is the time to bang into their skulls they have to be extra careful to follow established guidelines to not get covid.

[mangamuscle]

https://www.livescience.com/woman-sh...s-70-days.html

Woman sheds coronavirus for 70 days without symptoms

The woman was immunocompromised but never developed symptoms of COVID-19.

Super spreaders are real, coming to a theater near you this winter!

[EroKing]

Denmark to cull up to 17 million mink amid coronavirus fears.

Ms Frederiksen cited a government report which said the mutated virus had been found to weaken the body's ability to form antibodies, potentially making the current vaccines under development for Covid-19 ineffective.

Just great...

[Key Board]

BBC makes it sound like the mink strain targets your immune system?

what the hell

//

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by Key Board

BBC makes it sound like the mink strain targets your immune system?

what the hell

//

It seems to me it weakens the response, which is different from targeting the immune system.

But cluster-5 (the name of this variant) is scary for a simple reason.

https://www.thelocal.dk/20201105/how...n-and-outbreak

"The worst case scenario is that we have a pandemic that starts from the beginning with its origin point in Denmark," Kåre Mølbak, technical director with the State Serum Institute (SSI), the country's infectious disease agency, said during Wednesday's briefing.