DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Contagion : COVID-19 Continued

Just a shot in the dark. Claude Harris? Any relationship to what eventually became "Harris Teeter Supermarkets"? I know they're big just up north of you.

Btw....

Those "Fresher Produce Buying Days" do come with a catch. Moreso/especially if grown and shipped from California/west coast.

Scenario/riddle for ya......

Two California Mixers(many diff types vegetables on the one load/each truck) leave from the same grower/shipper for Ohio, but 2hrs apart. They drive the speed limit all the way to Cleveland.

The one that left last from Cali gets to the same destination/warehouse 2 hrs before the other. How is that possible you ask?

Answer..... Well, the driver of the one leaving earlier, mid trip, stopped off for a few hours at one of the many "houses of Ill repute" that are widespread across the central plains of this great country we live in.

Next time your favorite Produce department is out of Calif cantaloupes before, lets say, a day or 3 before the 4th of July you'll think of this thread.

You will. I know you will.

No joke. True stuff. Happens quite a bit/moreso than one would think.

MURICA!!!

Ok. Back to the Coronavirus.........

Last night was the first time in the store I’ve seen a real shortage ... a real difference ... in what I was used to at Giant Eagle.

No milk, no eggs, no meat.

Absolutely. Grocery store workers and takeout restaraunt employees must violate the close contact precautions in order to perform their jobs. They really are heroes.

Research Groups Searching for Vaccines are Out of Funds, and are spending their time writing funding requests, rather than doing the research:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/vaccine-teams-need-cash-injection-n3jnjzdtb

That must be what that darlng young lady was trying to use to buy three items in the express checkout line. I mean we only stood in line for 30 FREAKING MINUTES with everybody packing in closer and closer together while she screwed around with her phone forever. (INsert word for female dog)

A world embarrassment.

Yep, the tech works on the phone or fob or whatever other device, but the card readers at most checkouts are antiquated junk, so everybody is just hit an miss with e-wallets, apple pay, etc. Heck half of the checkout lines have readers that struggle to take credit cards with chips.

Yeah, rule #1, be ready, like the old days of writing a check at the store..have the checkbook out and partially filled out, don't wait til everything is bagged and the total given before you start looking for your checkbook.

I don't use it often, but occasionally if I don't have time to hit the ATM first I will, and I start up the pay app when I'm next in line. if it fails the first time, I grab out by CC, pay, and move on.

Some world updates:

When viewed as a factor of total population:

Italy: 1,144 cases per 1M population
Spain: 1,028 per 1M

Switzerland: 1,217 per 1M
USA: 167 per 1M

We are absolutely still on the upswing of this, but Switzerland is heading for the hurt locker.
Spain had 443 new deaths.
80 new deaths in the Netherlands


Vatican City is up to 4 cases... it won't be long before the Pope's got the Rona.


Prince Charles has tested positive.

j/c...

Quarantine everyone on this ship.

I think the book is written, now.... allow them into port and off the ship, but move all of them immediately into a quarantine area and begin testing and monitoring.

It's not like they're the first one to face this in 2020, so there really isn't much to debate over.

https://theweek.com/speedreads/904645/ne...adults-under-45

Nearly half of New York City's coronavirus cases found in adults under 45
10:28 a.m.
A plurality of COVID-19 cases in New York City are among those aged 18 to 44, but severity rates tend to follow global trends when it comes to age and underlying conditions, data from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reveals.

Of the 15,597 confirmed as of Tuesday afternoon, 7,094, or 46 percent, were in patients below the 45. In that age group, 9 percent of people with the novel coronavirus have been hospitalized, and there have been five deaths.

All told, the data suggests the city is in line with other countries like Italy, which has reported that the majority of patients experiencing severe cases of COVID-19 are in older age groups, though that certainly doesn't mean younger people aren't at risk. In New York, more than one-fifth of fatalities have occurred in the 45 to 64 range.

Spain surpasses China in coronavirus deaths: Live updates

Spain confirms 738 more deaths from COVID-19 in past day, raising total toll to 3,434, second only to Italy.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/i...x75cglOKfKyhnn0

I think Spain waited a while to take the more drastic measures, too, so they just might escalate beyond Italy. Spain's population is only about 75% that of Italy, too.

Italy has a population of about 60 million people and Spain a population of slightly less than 47 million people. Our population is about 331,000,000.

Those numbers combined with our slow response doesn't bode well.

Coronavirus: Ohio will use dorms, hotels as hospital beds

COLUMBUS —

Lacking enough hospital beds, particularly in intensive care units, Ohio will be forced to use dormitories, hotels and other facilities to house patients as the coronavirus crisis ramps up, the DeWine administration said Tuesday.

Ohio’s 236 hospitals are operating at about 60% capacity since elective procedures were stopped but they’ll still have to expand ICU capability by 50%, said Dr. Amy Acton, director of the Ohio Department of Health. Ohio has roughly 3,600 ICU beds.

“We will be having to build additional beds, just like you’re seeing in places like New York,” she said.

Gov. Mike DeWine added “We clearly do not have enough capacity as it exists today. That should surprise anyone.” The first preference is to use existing facilities for expanded hospital bed capacity, he said.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases grew to 564 across 49 counties; 145 hospitalizations, including 62 in the ICU; and eight deaths. Patients range in age from infant to 95 years old.

Dr. Acton reported that 16% of the confirmed cases are health care workers, 25.7% of the cases are hospitalized and 11% are in ICUs.

Ohio’s numbers are lagging because of lower testing capacity. Ohio is on a steep upward trajectory similar to what is being seen in Italy and New York City, Dr. Acton said.

DeWine has moved aggressively to slow the coronavirus spread, closing schools, bars, restaurants, polling places, and non-essential businesses. He has warned Ohioans to be ready for the long-haul.

But President Donald Trump has said Americans to return to work, saying in a tweet on Tuesday: “The cure cannot be worse by far than the problem.”

DeWine said he is aligned with the president.

DeWine said he shares President Trump’s frustration and urge to get this over as fast as possible but the governor added, “The truth is that protecting people and protecting the economy are not mutually exclusive. In fact, one depends upon the other. The fact is we save our economy by first saving lives and we have to do it in that order.”

The short-term consequences of slowing the economy now to stop coronavirus far outweigh the “long-term economic meltdown from a deadly virus that is left unchecked. We cannot leave this unchecked,” he said.

State lawmakers are scheduled to return to Columbus on Wednesday to vote on emergency measures related to Ohio’s response to the coronavirus crisis, including waiving state mandated standardized testing requirements for K-12 schools, extending the state income tax filing deadline and establishing a new primary election date.

State Sen. Matt Huffman, R-Lima, introduced a bill Tuesday to extend mail-in voting to April 28.

The Ohio House announced extraordinary protocols to prevent the possible spread of coronavirus among lawmakers, journalists and others.

House members feeling unwell but insisting on attending will be quarantined in a members only lounge and the clerk will record their votes through the window. Members are directed to take their temperatures before attending session.

Lawmakers will be seated at least six-feet apart on the House floor and in the gallery, which is normally reserved for the public, and other lawmakers will be staged in satellite rooms in the Statehouse. Only essential staff will attend.

The press and public will be barred from attending the session — a rule currently being contested by the Ohio Legislative Correspondents Association.

Four members of the Georgia Senate tested positive for coronavirus and the entire state legislature there was urged to self-isolate.

U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Cincinnati, authored a column in the Washington Post calling for the U.S. Senate to change its rules to allow for remote voting during a national crisis.

https://www.daytondailynews.com/news/loc...44QxheDcMPzy1aA

Our response was faster relative to the exponential expansion of Spain and Italy.

I highly doubt we will have the same death rate of Italy and Spain.

Not a trend but the US had 10,500 confirmed cases on 3/22 and 9,900 on 3/23.

More days where the growth rate slows is a positive indication.

I have no idea what you base your opinion that we moved fast compared to Italy and Spain are.

The best model to have proceeded with is that of S. Korea. Our response was far more similar to Europe than it was S. Korea.

I didn't even think that was worthy of debate.

Well, Lord knows the dorms are empty. But, there's no equipment in them. No way to hook up oxygen, other than portable tanks.

Probably not enough doctors and nurses to do much.

But, on a side note, when we were checking out the U.of Toledo's new medical campus, in the nursing building (which is fairly new - don't know how many years) they made mention of their "real life e.r. rooms/labs, and how each of the 10 rooms or so was set up and equipped to be basically mini e.r.'s. - basically all the equipment you'd find in most e.r.'s.

But, that's only 10 or so rooms.

I am talking about how the virus progressed from China --> Europe --> US.

We were lucky in the sense that it didn't expand exponentially as quickly here.

I think there will be a large portion of hospitalizations that may not require all of that equipment. At least that's the only conclusion I can come to. That or they may be able to adapt the outlets to cater to the equipment. I'm not sure.

I think it's because we have large population densities that are separated by far less dense populations. Hot spots continue to spike in areas where they weren't before. The latest reports I've seen now see Louisiana as the next hot spot.

Yes. That's probably why there was a delay in exponential spread here relative to Europe.

It's all about population density. Given how long the virus can survive on surfaces and even in the air... the shelter in place orders make me nervous.

Look at New York, they have 50% of all the US cases.

Everyone in NYC lives in an apartment. They all still have to use the same elevators, stairs, grocery stores.

Where I think you and I disagree is that I feel it's those largely populated areas will see the spread of the virus first. In the end it will be pretty much the same percentages everywhere. People travel and goods are shipped. As such I don't see any real safe zone in the end.

My phone stopped working yesterday and today I had to go to the mall to go to the phone fixing store. Otherwise I have no phone.

Oh the horror!!!!!

The mall was mostly empty and most stores were closed. But weirdly the phone fixing store was open.

That gave me so much anxiety.

j/c...

Such a low number of tests still performed.

Over exposure seems to be a big issue.

My heart goes out to all those on the front lines combatting this thing.

j/c...

DeWine has been such a rockstar through all of this.

I have a suggestion for what to do to help the economy keep working during this time of shutdown.

Get necessary, outside maintenance done in this country. Get roads and bridges fixed. Start work on upgrading the electrical grid. It seems to me that these are things that can be done at a reasonable "social distance" on the job, and being outside should provide a bit more help, as the air is not held in a confined area. There have to be things that could be done right now, that would employ people, with minimal risk.

We are still working on all of our jobsites except some commercial projects in Pa. All hospital jobs (especially 2 that have to do with patient rooms), roadways, power grid, water and waste treatment, oil and gas...etc
they are all working-

We have daily instruction on changes from the CDC and we have to really be on our game but we are still working and we are still getting opportunities to bid other work. Of course, we are doing it from home and all meetings are by phone/go to and any visits to any project site has to be cleared

You listen to Dewine and his team and they do a very good job-I try to catch some or all every day. I also listen to Gov. Cuomo and I think his team is really up against it and also telling the people what they need to know and laying out the facts and doing a great job.

Then you watch the WH team and it is just a kiss the bosses ass followed with about 30 minutes of a rally with no real meaningful info other than a little from the medical people

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/24/health/coronavirus-gender-mortality-intl/index.html


Here's why the coronavirus may be killing more men than women. The US should take note

By Katie Polglase, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Max Foster, CNN

Updated 5:32 PM ET, Tue March 24, 2020

(CNN)Smoking, drinking, general poor health: Researchers say these are some of the factors that could explain why more men seem to be dying from coronavirus than women.

In countries such as Italy, men represent nearly 60% of people who tested positive for the virus and more than 70% of those who have died, according to the country's National Health Institute (ISS). Even in countries like South Korea, where the proportion of women who have tested positive for the virus is higher than that of men, about 54% of the reported deaths are among men.

But while health officials are starting to take note of these staggering numbers, the United States is not releasing the basic nationwide data that is crucial to understanding who is most vulnerable to the virus, according to a CNN analysis.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House's coronavirus response coordinator, said at a White House press briefing on Friday: "From Italy we're seeing another concerning trend. That the mortality in males seems to be twice in every age group of females."


Regarding this data on Italy, Birx said in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer: "Just having the knowledge of that helps us in the United States so we can be very specific in talking to the American people about who to protect and how to protect them."
CNN has reached out to Birx for additional comment.

When CNN asked the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for data split by sex for US cases of coronavirus and deaths by coronavirus, known as sex-disaggregated data, the CDC did not respond.
Comprehensive data about those who have gotten sick could help inform more effective responses to the crisis. But public health researchers say that when governments such as the United States either don't collect, or don't publish their data, it's impossible for experts to gain an accurate sense of what's going on.
Data divided by sex
In collaboration with Global Health 50/50, a research institute examining gender inequality in global health, CNN analyzed the publicly available data from 20 countries with the highest number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 at the time of data collection -- March 20.

The aim was to see why men seem to be dying more than women.
From these 20 countries, only six provided data broken down by sex for both confirmed cases and deaths - China, France, Germany, Iran, Italy and South Korea. A further seven provided such data for the number of confirmed cases only. No sex-disaggregated data could be located for the remaining countries. The research has been submitted for publication and has not yet been peer-reviewed.

The data is not comprehensive in all cases: For example, the figures for China only cover the period through the end of February, well before community spread approached zero. And no reliable data exists on the proportion of tests administered to men versus women in any country. Furthermore, there are undoubtedly cases of the virus that are not reflected in the national data for any country.

But across the countries for which we have data - spanning nearly a quarter of the world's population - we found that men were 50% more likely than women to die after being diagnosed with Covid-19.

While necessarily partial and incomplete, the results highlight what public health experts have been warning for some time, theorizing that it is not only biology but also gendered behaviors -- the different ways in which men and women conduct their lives -- which may play a significant role in the different mortality rate for respiratory diseases.

"When we look at the data what we're seeing is that in every country with sex-disaggregated data ... there is between a 10% and 90% higher rate of mortality amongst people diagnosed with Covid if they are men compared to if they are women," says Sarah Hawkes, professor of global public health at University College London (UCL) and co-director of Global Health 50/50.

"If I was designing clinical guidelines, I would very much want to understand why some people seem to have a much higher risk of mortality than others. It might for example lead to a difference in the way in which we administer clinical guidelines amongst people who have pre-existing health conditions that lead to risk of death along with those with chronic lung disease, who are more likely to be men."
Hawkes also noted that reporting sex-disaggregated data on epidemics has been requested by the World Health Organization since 2007, but many countries fail to do so.

As the US data was not publicly available on a national level, CNN went state by state to request the data, but many did not release it. Even states such as New York and California, where the outbreak is particularly severe, did not provide CNN with the requested data, despite several attempts. In some cases, CNN located the data in press releases from local counties, care homes and hospitals.
"I'm pretty sure that in a country with the sophistication of the health system and the surveillance system that the United States has, that it's not that there's an absence of data," says Hawkes.
"I am fairly sure that down to the smallest districts across the US, people have the data. What we've not seeing happening it seems is a collation, a collection of that data at state and national level with the speed which one might hope to see from the perspective of global health research."
Historically, coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS tended to affect men disproportionately, according to Dr. Luis Ostrosky-Zeichner, infectious disease specialist at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth in Texas.
During previous epidemics, males were reported to have a worse clinical outcome due to SARS in Hong Kong. They also had a higher risk of dying from MERS, in a study conducted in Saudi Arabia and South Korea.
From an evolutionary perspective, some research suggests that women have a stronger immune response against viral infections than men because they spend part of their lives with a foreign body inside -- their offspring -- thus granting them a survival advantage.

"It might have to do with hormonal changes," Ostrosky-Zeichner said. "There is actual research in animals that has shown there may be a biological basis for the sort of increasing susceptibility in the male gender and not only that but also an increased severity and response to the virus."
Pre-existing conditions
Initial reports of people with severe Covid-19 disease have found that they were likely to have underlying health conditions such as hypertension, cardiovascular disease and chronic lung disease, according to Global Health 50/50. These conditions tend to be more common among men in the six countries analyzed as well as globally, the institute said, possibly because of riskier lifestyle choices.
"If Covid-19 is following the same kind of patterns that we see across a range of other diseases, what we know is that men tend to have across their life courses ... greater risks of exposure to behaviors that will lead to adverse health outcomes in the long term," says Hawkes.
"So in most countries, for example, what we see is that men smoke tobacco and drink alcohol at far greater rates than women do," she said.
Smoking is a clear example of how such behavior differs between men and women.
China has the largest smoking population in the world, with around 316 million adult smokers. But while over 50% of Chinese men smoke, less than 3% of women do, according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Italy, 7 million men smoke as opposed to the 4.5 million women, according to 2020 data released by the National Health Institute (ISS)
The institute reported that, upon admission to hospital, "a third more Covid-19-positive smokers had a more serious clinical situation than non-smokers."
For these smokers, the risk of needing intensive care and mechanical ventilation is "more than double.

"If you've got a group of men who have been smokers in their lifetime and then get it [Covid-19] and now have chronic lung disease as a result of the smoking, and then get exposed to corona infection, it seems as if they are more likely to suffer from severe corona infection, and be at risk of death," Hawkes said.

Other studies have shown that Italian men also have higher rates of hypertension than age-matched females, while Chinese men tend to have higher blood pressure and are more likely to have Type 2 diabetes.

All these factors contribute to possible complications if they get the coronavirus, researchers say.
But the lack of data on how many men died of novel coronavirus as opposed to women, Global Health 50/50 researchers say, feels like a missed opportunity for governments to implement public health policies that target certain groups of people who are significantly more vulnerable than the rest of the population.

"What Covid-19 reveals is a classic case of failing to use data for decision making. For every patient there is a record of their sex. But that data is not collated and analyzed with a gender lens," Dr. Kent Buse, co-founder of GH5050 and chief of strategic policy directions at UNAIDS told CNN.
The same view is shared by Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at New York University,

"All data establishing risk, ability to recover, infectivity is crucial in a pandemic," he told CNN. "Data ought to be collected, transparent as to methods, and disseminated promptly."

For as long as this data is not made publicly available, it cannot be analyzed by outside experts, like Global Health 50/50, for clues on why men seem to be dying more from Covid-19.

Hospitals across U.S. consider universal do-not-resuscitate orders for coronavirus patients

https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2020/03...virus-patients/

Coronavirus in Ohio: Patients exhibiting new symptoms
NEWS
by: NBC4 Staff

Posted: Mar 24, 2020 / 04:23 PM EDT / Updated: Mar 25, 2020 / 12:24 PM EDT

COLUMBUS (WCMH) – According to Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton, patients who contract the COVID-19 coronavirus are showing new symptoms.

Acton said some of the data, particularly out of Cuyahoga County, show patients exhibiting GI upset, more fatigue, and sometimes not showing a fever, in addition to the previous flu-like symptoms.

“My best advice to everyone is if you don’t feel well in any way, stay home and make that call,” she said.

Previously, symptoms of viral infection were thought to be limited to those similar to the flu – fever, tiredness, and a dry cough, with difficulty breathing in more severe cases. Patients continue to show those symptoms as well.

Previously, symptoms of viral infection were thought to be limited to those similar to the flu – fever, tiredness, and a dry cough, with difficulty breathing in more severe cases. Patients continue to show those symptoms as well.

A small study from China published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology found that forms of GI upset – not previously considered to be a common coronavirus symptom – were the “chief complaint” in almost half of the COVID-19 cases studied, CNN reports. Symptoms ranged from loss of appetite to diarrhea and vomiting.

The study involved 204 confirmed COVID-19 patients in Hubei Province, China.

Researchers warned, “if clinicians solely monitor for respiratory symptoms to establish case definitions for COVID-19, they may miss cases initially presenting with extra-pulmonary symptoms, or the disease may not be diagnosed later until respiratory symptoms emerge.”

They went on to suggest that missing early GI symptoms could have contributed to the early spread of the virus among health care workers in China.

This is an opinion piece.

I think a lot of folks dismissed the virus in its early stages. I think some folks even made light of the possible dangers. I think reality has set-in. I think that most folks now recognize that the virus is a huge concern.

Thus, I think it is time to move beyond the scary articles and concentrate on the following:

--What is actually being done to combat the virus?

--What new advances have we made in regards to treatments and vaccines?

--How can we best protect ourselves and others?

--Strategies on how to survive if things get really ugly.

I know a lot of those things are already being discussed. I just think that the world finally knows this blank is real and there isn't much of a need to scare people to their senses anymore.

I think the focus should be on how we can win this battle. I believe almost all of us know we're in a war. How can we win that war?