Covid-19

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Originally Posted by SemajParlor

Serious question - is anyone actually concerned about the status of the NCAAT ?

I have gone back and forth some days thinking this will get uncontrollably bad, some days thinking this is the twitter / freakout generation.

I will humbly say , I don't know what is going to happen in the next 1-2 months, which I think for a lot of people adds to the panic.

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Yes, I'm concerned about the status of the NCAAT. I don't think it will be cancelled. I do think that it may be altered.

They have a "task force," or whatever they're calling it. It consists almost exclusively of health care professionals, and they meet twice a day. After every meeting so far, they say that their plan is to proceed as scheduled. But, that could change.

But, if they need to postpone it because actual healthcare professionals recommend it and it isn't just some knee jerk reaction, the it's probably the right call if that's what they decide to do.

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Originally Posted by xubrew

Really appreciate your insight and all this information.

I know these are loaded questions, but do you feel there are things that aren’t being done that should be done? And do you feel that there is anything being done that really doesn’t matter or help?

Are we better prepared now than we were for the swine flu/H1N1 outbreak ten years ago that I think ended up killing over 12,000 Americans?

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I think the first thing I'd tackle is about the H1N1 outbreak. So the swine flu outbreak was actually an Influenza virus, which is the same as seasonal flu, the letters of H and N stand for hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, these are basically found on the surface of the virus, hemagglutinin binds the virus to the host cell (so for humans, think cells in your airways) to allow for it to get inside the cell, and then neuraminidase think of like scissors that cuts the virus up to allow for it to be replicated. The numbers stand for the particular strain, and those vary, which is why there's no flu vaccine. A company was working on a universal flu vaccine that covered a whole lot of the strains, but only had it at 7 shots (and who wants to get 7 injections in a sitting, nobody,) but I never followed up with that to see where they are with it. There was an interesting documentary on Netflix called "Pandemic" that I heard talks about this company and the people on the forefront trying to prevent another pandemic, but quite frankly we've basically reached one already. I'm in my 20s, so for the H1N1 problem 11 years ago, I'll be 100% honest and say that I did not care about what the government was doing or what not during it, because I didn't find that it was relevant to my day to day life (as a typical teenager would) lol. So I think it'd be a little unfair to compare the level of preparation, but for what it's worth everyone I've talked to in health care say that we were definitely more prepared in 2009.

Now, I don't want to get too political or anything, but the government really dropped the ball on this one. China bought us a month to prepare for this, knowing it was a respiratory transmitted illness. I think some countries did really well with this, South Korea had a significant outbreak, and they did very well by testing over 140,000 people for it and relatively containing it. I think they have a pretty low mortality rate reported as well. We knew for a month. The CDC didn't have enough testing kits, the government refused WHO testing kits, and then basically told places "don't go using up all of the kits since it's so limited." The State Department, over objections from the CDC, allowed 14 people infected to fly on a plane full of people who underwent quarantine and were deemed as "safe" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/healt...74f_story.html) Not to mention they also want to cut funding to the CDC. The decisions being made make no sense to me currently.

It's slightly strange that we're not having experts in Public Health and outbreaks really leading the response to this, my biggest issue about it is the fact that we knew for a month and STILL didn't properly have things in place. I'm not sure why the government isn't listening to the advice of the CDC and other things. We could be and should be doing better and containing this thing, however I'm afraid that it's basically too late at this point. The outbreak is going to continue to grow over the next few weeks, and unfortunately health care workers aren't fully prepared for that. I think my underlying point is that I don't think we should have panic attacks about Coronavirus because it is relatively mild, and as such don't let your daily activities be effected if you practice good sanitation and don't have risk factors, however the fact that this thing was not properly prepared for was an astronomical fuck up, and probably could have saved numerous lives for the people who are at risk.

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Originally Posted by Lloyd Braun

My opinion: we are not better prepared for this because we do not have adequate testing in the community. Every state has testing but it is a complicated process to have an individual tested. I believe there are only 75 or so labs currently able to test. Symptoms are fairly mild for most people, so they will not likely go to the ER for this, they will end up at their doctors office or urgent care/minute clinic. This will lead to more rapid transmission in the community. The screening questions for identifying someone at risk (recent travel or contact with someone who traveled) are essentially out of date everyday as more communities have diagnosed illness. If you have any question on whether we are prepared or not, call your local doctor’s office and ask if they can test for it. The answer is likely no, which is frankly unacceptable at this point.

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Yup, honestly 100% agree with this. I would also add that cost concerns probably factor in as well to the people that are mildly sick, let's face it, insurance and hospital costs are expensive. People do their best to avoid ambulance rides even, if they feel relatively okay with a mild infection, they're definitely not going to want to pay a crap ton for Coronavirus testing, etc.

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Originally Posted by scoscox

Everything I've heard about the outbreak so far reports that children have been uniquely unaffected by this

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I would say this is the case with children for the most part. Unlike the swine and this year’s flu (140 kids have died this year), the Coronavirus does not seem to be virulent to kids. However, haven’t seen any data on how a kid with asthma or certain autoimmune diseases would respond.

If X was playing in Dayton I was going to go but I have decided as someone who is immune-deficient I can't do that. I work in healthcare too with geriatric population so I have made some adjustments to that that I have been lucky enough to be able to make. I am going to try and limit my exposure to big crowds but at the same time I can't not leave my house and wouldnt do that. I am a relatively healthy immune-deficient person luckily, there are people who have what I have who have a lot of other things too and comorbidities etc. I do not have those.

The hardest thing for me is not to touch my face, I am so bad at that!

Hey GIMMFD,

Thank you for the information - I've found it actually very helpful. Speaking for myself, I think the panic a lot of people are facing (living in NYC) would be helpful if we had real doctors and politicians telling us real facts. Not getting political in this thread, but certain leaders calling it the flu doesn't seem to instill much confidence that this country has this under control.

I'm someone whos in their 30s and and relatively healthy. As much as I'd love to cheer X on, in your opinion would you not recommend going to MSG tomorrow and (hopefully) throughout the weekend? I would 1000% go if the risks of catching the flu were the same (abiding best sanitary practices, etc).

Lastly, does taking any sort of Zinc, Vitamin C doses, one a day vitamins etc have potential to do anything at all to boost your immune system, other than normal health benefits? Obviously this is not going to prevent anything, but in terms of anything in the meantime for an edge at a quicker recovery? (living in NYC sort of anticipating things getting crazy here in short time).

This may seem like panic / overreaction questions but it's tough to decipher between real information and what's being spread. Appreciate your time!

UC, Miami and Ohio State are moving to online classes for the next 30 days. Dean's are making the call to continue the labs, music, etc or close them. This is what I'm hearing and do not wish to be spreading rumors. Please let me know if this is incorrect.

No problem answering questions, because quite frankly we as healthcare professionals are TERRIBLE at communicating. I agree that doctors/scientists/etc. in the know about this would help erase a lot of fears, but I also think a lot of us get too impatient. Or we use medical jargon that someone doesn't understand, and it gets a bit frightening, and a lot of people don't ask questions, or get put down by it. I think that's where a lot it plays out, is that there's a problem in healthcare about communicating, listening, and being empathetic. A lot of physicians just get immediately flustered and frustrated, and find it beneath them to explain things, it's quite silly in my opinion.

I also get the feeling of it definitely not seeming like a typical "flu," especially when we're saying we have it under control when I would say it's not "under-control." A little preparation would have went a long way, honestly with all of the "vaccines cause autism," and "these crystals will heal your cancer," crowd gaining traction, would have been nice for health care to get a win, but that's a separate topic lol.

I'll address the Zinc, Vitamin C, One A Day question first. So the main anti-oxidant in your GI tract (mouth --> esophagus --> stomach --> intestines --> anus) is Vitamin C, and the main one in your blood stream is Vitamin E. So basically what happens is when you have something like a virus, bacteria, radiation etc. is that it produces "reactive oxygen species," right, this is basically a super-charged oxygen molecule, that causes a break in your DNA strand. Think of it like a highway, and one lane getting closed off, things don't run smoothly, there's a traffic congestion, and it becomes a nightmare. For the human body, the cell when this happens, has two choices: A. Die, or B. Mutate. Reactive oxygen species are kind of like a pin-ball, they go through and just slam into a bunch of things to cause these DNA breaks. So anti-oxidants go through your body and bind up these reactive oxygen species to stop them from acting on various cells through your body. This helps you by preventing cells from dying or mutating. These mutations and deaths are very normal and occur regularily every day, such as your skin being dry and shedding, etc., so think of it as a small scale thing, nothing large enough to cause cancer, but anti-oxidants do help boost your immune system by preventing some levels of damage. Zinc is important for structure of collagen, aka keeping your hair healthy, skin not wrinkly, etc. The one a day, I could get into, but you'd end up having to read more of an essay than I'm already typing throughout this thread, so I'll spare you haha. You got to be careful though, because Vitamin A, D, E, K are fat soluble vitamins, which mean they hang out in your fats, muscles, etc. and an excess can lead to toxicities (you'd have to be ingesting a ridiculous amount, but still mentioning it just in case). I would say the packets of Emergen-C or even the anti-oxidant waters that they sell would be beneficial to giving a little boost to your immune system, but nothing that'd be insanely beneficial. Basically, viruses do cause reactive oxygen species to form, but it also causes all kinds of other problems too, anti-oxidants would probably help in you not feeling as terrible, but you're probably going to still feel terrible lol.

As for going to MSG, this here has a chart of the average age of the patients who have died: https://www.kxan.com/news/coronaviru...hs-in-the-u-s/, as you can see it's more so the older population. For someone in their 30s that's pretty healthy, I'd say the risk is exactly the same as catching the common winter flu. The reason I say that is the common winter flu and coronavirus are both transmitted through respiratory droplets, and both have relatively similar presentation. Influenza is also an RNA virus just like coronavirus, differs slightly, but ultimately relatively the same. At the end of the day, there will be a lot of people at MSG, and you could very well catch coronavirus from someone who doesn't know they have it, etc. but from my opinion if you were going to go to MSG with the same risk of catching the normal winter Influenza, then I would definitely go. Sanitation is your best bet of course, wash your hands with soap and water, at least for 20 seconds, try not to touch your face, etc.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw

I haven't listened to all of this podcast, but the first 15 minutes were pretty startling, if this guy is correct. GIFFMD, do you know if this guy is legit? He says washing and santitizing your hands is always a good idea, but it won't stop the spread of the virus because it's respiratory. He also said trying to stop the spread of a respiratory virus is like trying to stop the wind. Predicts 480,000 deaths in the US.

X is going to online until after Easter....


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First and foremost, we should take any virus seriously. However, it is truly amazing how much the media can still drive a narrative. Hats off! Obviously this is antidotal, but to see how the reactions of democratic leaning vs republican leaning individuals on this message board has been impressive.

Not to put anyone into a box, the Democrats are changing their daily lifestyles (not a bad thing) while having major concerns and Republicans are not...interesting. With any disease, precautions should always be considered, but don’t overreact.

Being in the medical profession over 20 years , I too thought medical stuff would transcend politics, but I’ve since been corrected. Man I wish I could rewind the clock and bring back the optimism in medicine GIMMFD has...

Sorry this post has been political, but thread already is. On a positive, this will have a positive effect on the flu season and reduce the mortality rates.