Coronavirus (non political)

[CRedskinsRule]

Just lock the country down for 14 days. Universal income checks to every household for 3 weeks. Nuke china.(with neutron bombs. No need to screw up the environment) . Take out korea and iran while we are at it. Problem solved.

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[MTK]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[sdskinsfan2001]

^^^

I'd rather shit my pants than have that stuff anywhere near me.

[SunnySide]

As coronavirus continues to spread across the United States, the quest to combat the global pandemic is being hampered by testing kit shortages and a fear that the materials needed to make more may soon run dry.

Officials estimate that only around 8,500 people in the U.S. have thus far been tested for the pathogen, sparking fear that the numbers who have contracted it – and are continuing the spread – may be drastically higher. Meanwhile, other countries encountering a severe outbreak, such as South Korea, are said to be testing upward of 10,000 people per day.

Yet, as of Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) simply stopped publicly tabulating the number of tests conducted.

“With viral infections, there will be a period when the agent is not yet detectable but may be transmissible. There will also be a period when persons are asymptomatic or not yet severely ill. The initial tests were in short supply, and had sensitivity problems,” Dr. Stanley H. Weiss, a professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, told Fox News. “The initial case definition used for surveillance and testing was strict; perhaps that was necessary due to logistical issues, such as lack of tests. In any case, the number of actual infections was grossly misestimated and the magnitude of spread, and the existence of community spread, was missed.”

Laboratories nationwide have this week lamented the dwindling of supplies necessary to run tests. The American Society for Microbiologists voiced worry this week that increased demand is draining testing supplies. And medical professionals have expressed concerns over the escalating demand and anxieties surrounding the novel condition.

Dr. Damon Raskin, a Los Angeles-based internal medicine specialist, concurred that the chaos surrounding the unfurling crisis is nothing short of “overwhelming.”

“There is a shortage of testing kits because there are limited supplies of the reagents used for the tests,” he underscored. “There are many patients walking around with this virus who do not know it. They may have mild common cold symptoms and just get over it without needing medical attention. But they can spread to others unknowingly.”

Earlier this year, in the initial phase of the virus morphing from its origins in Wuhan, China, diagnostic testing was restricted to just 100 public-health labs, and testing needed to be run through the CDC. The FDA eventually expanded the number of approved labs, but reports of inconclusive results and even testing refusals quickly proliferated, as only those who had traveled from China were given the approval to be examined.

Weiss said it isn’t entirely clear why the CDC chose to develop its own tests, but the reason likely stems from the complex regulatory issues which are not designed for such a crisis. Indeed, much of the delay in rollout has been obstructed by age-old, draconian regulations and red-tape that has long instituted federal and state governments. This includes stringent restrictions on re-purposing existing tests for other uses. The FDA nonetheless has pushed back on accusations of not moving fast enough, stating that its emergency authorization for laboratory testing was immediately brought to bear.

Yet given the distress over possible shortages required for the kits as demand escalates, many medical facilities are still limiting testing to patients considered to be high-risk or with verified close contact with a person known to be infected. Rather, official guidelines are urging those with mild symptoms to self-quarantine or avoid public places until their condition returns to normal. But in some cases, a transmitter will have no notable symptoms at all.

Based on a rough estimate, Eve Walter, an epidemiologist and associate professor at New York’s Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, surmised that for every person who tests positive there is likely 2.5 persons infected by them, and walking around asymptomatic.

Moreover, the issue of testing availability has been further complicated by the insistence from the administration that kits are available for anyone who needs them.

“Anybody that needs a test, gets a test. They’re there. They have the tests,” President Trump said during a recent visit to the CDC in Atlanta. “They’re there. They have the tests. And they’re beautiful.”

https://www.foxnews.com/health/fears...ting-materials

Good, concise article

We need to have pharmaceutical and vaccine developments, as well as protect what rare minerals when can mine here, in the US. The last pharma vaccine lab in the US closed in 2004?

These world wide viruses and strains will only continue.

CDC should have its own fed funded dept exclusively for this purpose (as well as subsidized private labs). Yes, that would mean "scientists" and "doctors" would be on the payroll for years when there is no pandemic but we cant just bring them back and not expect delays .. like someone in power said a few months ago that "why are we paying doctors for when they are not needed, well just bring them back when needed".

I know we arent supposed to get political ... but the test kits are "beautiful" .. wtf? what does that even mean

[MTK]

SARS was the warning shot that should have woke us up, it didn't. And now it's painfully obvious how unprepared our health care system is to deal with a pandemic. Not only the health care system but how about 25% of the workforce with no paid sick leave.

[MTK]

Singapore Was Ready for Covid-19—Other Countries, Take Note

[Chico23231]

Originally Posted by MTK

SARS was the warning shot that should have woke us up, it didn't. And now it's painfully obvious how unprepared our health care system is to deal with a pandemic. Not only the health care system but how about 25% of the workforce with no paid sick leave.

Where is all this shit coming from? Its obvious China doesn't give a flying fuck about anything...shit hole country

[MTK]

Originally Posted by Chico23231

Where is all this shit coming from? Its obvious China doesn't give a flying fuck about anything...shit hole country

Why They're Called 'Wet Markets' — And What Health Risks They Might Pose

[SunnySide]

At least 10 people were killed in the collapse of Chinese hotel that was being used to isolate people who had arrived from other parts of China hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak, authorities said Sunday.

The sudden collapse of the building in the southeastern city of Quanzhou on Saturday evening trapped 71 people, China’s Ministry of Emergency Management said.

The ministry said that 38 had been rescued and 23 were still missing. Most of the rescued were taken to hospitals for treatment, some with serious injuries

The cause of the collapse was under investigation, and the owner of the building was put under police control, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/trave...ng/4999110002/


At first I thought China took it down ... now that im thinking about it, Im guessing the hotel owner did. Perhaps get insurance money .... but no one would stay at his hotel after this so the hotel was going to be a total loss and he had to figure out a way to make the best of it .. financially for him.

[Chico23231]

man....Italy is in bad shape

Also supported my local Chinese food place for lunch today. They weren’t busy.

Also, can confirm all TP out at local store.

[Back2RFK]

Originally Posted by MTK

Singapore Was Ready for Covid-19—Other Countries, Take Note

They have a population about 3/4 of NY City very hard to compare.

[MTK]

Originally Posted by Back2RFK

They have a population about 3/4 of NY City very hard to compare.

bottom line is they had a plan and were able to get ahead of things vs scrambling as we've done along with others

[Chico23231]

I agree testing has been an issue...here and well everywhere. Federal government, red tape, bureaucracy, etc...its really not shocking. My problem is from the NYT article where Seattle clinics had the data it was here but was denied to escalate the issue based on regulation. Regs will bite you in the ass.

[Giantone]

The stores are fucking crazy ,.................people need to calm the fuck down!

[SunnySide]

The U.S. government's response to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak has been "much, much worse than almost any other country that's been affected," Ashish Jha, who runs the Harvard Global Health Institute, told NPR on Thursday. "I still don't understand why we don't have extensive testing. Vietnam! Vietnam has tested more people than America has." Without testing, he added, "you have no idea how extensive the infection is," and "we have to shut schools, events, and everything down, because that's the only tool available to us until we get testing back up. It's been stunning to me how bad the federal response has been."

There are a lot of reasons why the U.S. lags other countries in testing for the new coronavirus — defective early tests by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the decision not to adopt an effective German test adopted by the World Health Organization — but Politico's Dan Diamond told Fresh Air's Terry Gross on Thursday that politics also seems to have played a role, along with mismanagement and infighting between, for example, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Seema Verma, the Medicare chief.

In January, Azar "did push past resistance from the president's political aides to warn the president the new coronavirus could be a major problem," Diamond said, but he "has not always given the president the worst-case scenario of what could happen. My understanding is [Trump] did not push to do aggressive additional testing in recent weeks, and that's partly because more testing might have led to more cases being discovered of coronavirus outbreak, and the president had made clear — the lower the numbers on coronavirus, the better for the president, the better for his potential re-election this fall."

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta discussed America's "sad" testing failure, the "provincial" decision not to use the WHO test, and other missteps and positive moves with Stephen Colbert on Thursday's Late Show. You can watch that below.

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-reporte...121835790.html

To be fair .... I read that the US also turned down WHO's test kit offers for 2 prior epidemics and the CDC was able to produce their own testing kits for those.

Of course, that was with a fully funded and staffed CDC .....

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The cuts started in 2018, as the White House focused on eliminating funding to Obama-era disease security programs. In March of that year, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, whose job it was to lead the U.S. response in the event of a pandemic, abruptly left the administration and his global health security team was disbanded.

That same year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was forced to slash its efforts to prevent global disease outbreak by 80% as its funding for the program began to run out. The agency, at the time, opted to focus on 10 priority countries and scale back in others, including China.

Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.

Also cut was the Complex Crises Fund, a $30 million emergency response pool that was at the secretary of state’s disposal to deploy disease experts and others in the event of a crisis. (The fund was created by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.)

Overall in 2018, Trump called for $15 billion in reduced health spending that had previously been approved, as he looked at increasing budget deficits, cutting the global disease-fighting budgets of the CDC, National Security Council (NSC), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Health and Human Services (HHS) in the process.

The effects of those cuts are being felt today. While the CDC announced plans to test people with flu-like symptoms for COVID-19, those have been delayed and only three of the country’s 100 public-health labs have been able to test for coronavirus. The administration’s request for additional funding came roughly two weeks after officials said HHS was almost out of funding for its response to the virus.

https://fortune.com/2020/02/26/coron...cuts-us-trump/