All things Chinese CoronaVirus

[jhu72]

So Italys death rate is over 10%

Spains is around 8%

France is 6%

US is 1.6%

How can that be when we have this idiot Trump in charge?

Read the last two pages of this thread. The twitter feed from Seacoaster is particularly revealing

Trump Trump Trump Trump............

Last week it was 1.2%

As usual SFB has the wrong interpretation. What is the number in NOLA, Washington, Vermont, etc? THE PLACES THAT HAVENT BEEN TESTED while all the resource goes to NY?? Even NY testing has been deteriorating. All the 1.6% US number means is the number of infections is likely twice the official count in the US.

Which reduces the lethality percentage by even more.

What I don’t understand is our ratio of deaths vs recoveries. I haven’t tracked it daily but I believe it is getting better. I also don’t know how people that are dying but have not been tested are counted?

Agreed. All we know, with a small margin of uncertainty is positive cases....we have no clue how recovery rates are tracked and we have no clue if the death numbers are specific to those that have already had a positive CV19 test. I have been trying to correlate seasonal CDC website flu activity with CV19 to see if there is commonality of clear outliers. As you and I discussed last week.....is there a mortality test to confirm death was indeed CV19.

I am not sure if they have a surplus of testing kits to waste on undiagnosed people. Tissue samples may be collected, saved and then tested when there is time and resources. If so, you will see an upward adjustment to the mortality rate as those would all be 100%.

Point being....how do we know, with certainly, the deaths are directly attributed to CV19?

You don't. I would think in the end it will be an estimate, just like the flu.

Yes. And collecting samples from symptomatic people that died but were not tested will help in the accuracy of the forecast. Statistical sampling is away of everyday life.

So tie this together with JHU's input from earlier this morning, we are quite possibly just slightly above the seasonal flu.

Yes. If treated with modern medicine "standard of care"!!!! The cases aren't being treated very well. The best evidence now suggests the actual death rate, everywhere is in the range of .6 to 1. This is the death rate under circumstances where modern medicine can be brought to bear. This breaks down when the statistics are low and when the healthcare system is overrun. The death rate calculated by Deaths per Infection is a useless indicator for anything other than estimating how bad you are undercounting while the plague is ragging. When it is all done, it is a measure of how badly you have done. It isn't over!

So we know Seasonal flu adds measurable burden to hospitals and medical facilities each year, and then you add in one more fast moving virus that was not accounted for, and yet it is still currently far less than seasonal flu by total numbers....here we are. As JHU says in the end...it simply means our medical infrastructure has been running just below the redline. Able to manage some the daily ups and down but not consistent upward medical admissions.

This seems to be 5 to 10 times, perhaps as much as 20 times more deadly. Remember, the flu number everyone throws around is .1. It changes from year to year, depending on strain. Some years it is much less than .1. The best average I have been able to come up with is .05. You are focusing on the wrong thing. The real distinction is the transmissivity. Difference is a factor of 3 to 4. When each carrier gives it to so many others, if not density limited, that is a hell of a lot more new cases than when a flu carrier under the same circumstances gives it to 1.2 others.

[Bart]

Oh dear oh dear can't have this kind of stuff happening

https://techstartups.com/2020/03/18/bre ... dtrial-io/

March 27, 2020 Update 9: BREAKING: French researchers just completed new additional study on 80 patients, results show a combination of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin to be effective in treating COVID-19 patients. The team found that, by administering hydroxychloroquine combined with azithromycin, they were able to observe an improvement in all cases, except in one patient who arrived with an advanced form, who was over the age of 86, and in whom the evolution was irreversible.

What about iodine tablets ? Used to purify water.....would that work, it dumped tonic water. Being serious

Good question. I would think it would be worth looking into. As an antimalarial when it is changed into elemental iodine in the blood stream it is suggested it has antibacterial, antiviral properties.

I also really wonder how chloroquine is working in this treatment. Asithromycin is an antibiotic that would help with the secondary pheumonia, not the primary. But chloroquine acts by interfering with hemoglobin metabolism in the food vacuole of the parasite resulting in the build up of heme which is toxic. I have no idea why it would play a role in viral replication. I don't care either.........if it works.

Impressive post Bart!

Ha, that would be the first time anyone said that to me, ever. But don't be. A little knowledge and the googles makes one look more important than they actually are.

[Typical Lax Dad]

So Italys death rate is over 10%

Spains is around 8%

France is 6%

US is 1.6%

How can that be when we have this idiot Trump in charge?

Read the last two pages of this thread. The twitter feed from Seacoaster is particularly revealing

Trump Trump Trump Trump............

Last week it was 1.2%

As usual SFB has the wrong interpretation. What is the number in NOLA, Washington, Vermont, etc? THE PLACES THAT HAVENT BEEN TESTED while all the resource goes to NY?? Even NY testing has been deteriorating. All the 1.6% US number means is the number of infections is likely twice the official count in the US.

Which reduces the lethality percentage by even more.

What I don’t understand is our ratio of deaths vs recoveries. I haven’t tracked it daily but I believe it is getting better. I also don’t know how people that are dying but have not been tested are counted?

Agreed. All we know, with a small margin of uncertainty is positive cases....we have no clue how recovery rates are tracked and we have no clue if the death numbers are specific to those that have already had a positive CV19 test. I have been trying to correlate seasonal CDC website flu activity with CV19 to see if there is commonality of clear outliers. As you and I discussed last week.....is there a mortality test to confirm death was indeed CV19.

I am not sure if they have a surplus of testing kits to waste on undiagnosed people. Tissue samples may be collected, saved and then tested when there is time and resources. If so, you will see an upward adjustment to the mortality rate as those would all be 100%.

Point being....how do we know, with certainly, the deaths are directly attributed to CV19?

You don't. I would think in the end it will be an estimate, just like the flu.

Yes. And collecting samples from symptomatic people that died but were not tested will help in the accuracy of the forecast. Statistical sampling is away of everyday life.

So tie this together with JHU's input from earlier this morning, we are quite possibly just slightly above the seasonal flu death rate %.

Yes. If treated with modern medicine "standard of care"!!!! The cases aren't being treated very well. The best evidence now suggests the actual death rate, everywhere is in the range of .6 to 1. This is the death rate under circumstances where modern medicine can be brought to bear. This breaks down when the statistics are low and when the healthcare system is overrun. The death rate calculated by Deaths per Infection is a useless indicator for anything other than estimating how bad you are undercounting while the plague is ragging. When it is all done, it is a measure of how badly you have done. It isn't over!

So we know Seasonal flu adds measurable burden to hospitals and medical facilities each year, and then you add in one more fast moving virus that was not accounted for, and yet it is still currently far less than seasonal flu by total numbers....here we are. As JHU says in the end...it simply means our medical infrastructure has been running just below the redline. Able to manage some the daily ups and down but not consistent upward medical admissions.

You know any doctors that believe this is no more deadly than a season flu?

[tech37]

Oh dear oh dear can't have this kind of stuff happening

https://techstartups.com/2020/03/18/bre ... dtrial-io/

March 27, 2020 Update 9: BREAKING: French researchers just completed new additional study on 80 patients, results show a combination of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin to be effective in treating COVID-19 patients. The team found that, by administering hydroxychloroquine combined with azithromycin, they were able to observe an improvement in all cases, except in one patient who arrived with an advanced form, who was over the age of 86, and in whom the evolution was irreversible.

What about iodine tablets ? Used to purify water.....would that work, it dumped tonic water. Being serious

Good question. I would think it would be worth looking into. As an antimalarial when it is changed into elemental iodine in the blood stream it is suggested it has antibacterial, antiviral properties.

I also really wonder how chloroquine is working in this treatment. Asithromycin is an antibiotic that would help with the secondary pheumonia, not the primary. But chloroquine acts by interfering with hemoglobin metabolism in the food vacuole of the parasite resulting in the build up of heme which is toxic. I have no idea why it would play a role in viral replication. I don't care either.........if it works.

Impressive post Bart!

Ha, that would be the first time anyone said that to me, ever. But don't be. A little knowledge and the googles makes one look more important than they actually are.

OK, so you're not a biochemist...yeoman's work on the Google, none-the-less

[MDlaxfan76]

How much of a jerk does someone need to be to over and over again claim that caring about this reality is just some derangement about taking down Trump?

Yet the very first post by Trinity above is just more of Trump is a drumpf idiocy.

I understand perfectly well why Old Salt and others thinks TDS wrecks people's minds and makes them incapable of rational dialogue. You know why? Because it does.

This thread should be about the disease, cures, updates, information.... What is it instead? Too often a monotonous Trump-bashing wreck of uselessness. If some of your fellow travelers in the anti-Trump Fanlax world would spend more time discussing the virus and less time raising the Trump is drumpf idiocy, I doubt Old Salt would need to raise TDS at all. Look in the mirror, stare back at yourself and if you can't honestly say that you're perfect, then you have a right to judge the person standing beside you.

Sorry, he's the POTUS and is making decisions that impact lives...daily.

We can wish he wasn't in charge and wish he wasn't such a "drumpf" (never used that word before) but that's what we have. No avoiding it.

Very thankfully there are lots and lots on non-idiots and a huge # of actual heroes in this crisis.

But Trump inserts himself, loudly, into every aspect of this.

[MDlaxfan76]

So Italys death rate is over 10%

Spains is around 8%

France is 6%

US is 1.6%

How can that be when we have this idiot Trump in charge?

Read the last two pages of this thread. The twitter feed from Seacoaster is particularly revealing

Trump Trump Trump Trump............

Last week it was 1.2%

As usual SFB has the wrong interpretation. What is the number in NOLA, Washington, Vermont, etc? THE PLACES THAT HAVENT BEEN TESTED while all the resource goes to NY?? Even NY testing has been deteriorating. All the 1.6% US number means is the number of infections is likely twice the official count in the US.

Which reduces the lethality percentage by even more.

What I don’t understand is our ratio of deaths vs recoveries. I haven’t tracked it daily but I believe it is getting better. I also don’t know how people that are dying but have not been tested are counted?

Agreed. All we know, with a small margin of uncertainty is positive cases....we have no clue how recovery rates are tracked and we have no clue if the death numbers are specific to those that have already had a positive CV19 test. I have been trying to correlate seasonal CDC website flu activity with CV19 to see if there is commonality of clear outliers. As you and I discussed last week.....is there a mortality test to confirm death was indeed CV19.

I am not sure if they have a surplus of testing kits to waste on undiagnosed people. Tissue samples may be collected, saved and then tested when there is time and resources. If so, you will see an upward adjustment to the mortality rate as those would all be 100%.

Point being....how do we know, with certainly, the deaths are directly attributed to CV19?

You don't. I would think in the end it will be an estimate, just like the flu.

Yes. And collecting samples from symptomatic people that died but were not tested will help in the accuracy of the forecast. Statistical sampling is away of everyday life.

So tie this together with JHU's input from earlier this morning, we are quite possibly just slightly above the seasonal flu death rate %.

Yes. If treated with modern medicine "standard of care"!!!! The cases aren't being treated very well. The best evidence now suggests the actual death rate, everywhere is in the range of .6 to 1. This is the death rate under circumstances where modern medicine can be brought to bear. This breaks down when the statistics are low and when the healthcare system is overrun. The death rate calculated by Deaths per Infection is a useless indicator for anything other than estimating how bad you are undercounting while the plague is ragging. When it is all done, it is a measure of how badly you have done. It isn't over!

So we know Seasonal flu adds measurable burden to hospitals and medical facilities each year, and then you add in one more fast moving virus that was not accounted for, and yet it is still currently far less than seasonal flu by total numbers....here we are. As JHU says in the end...it simply means our medical infrastructure has been running just below the redline. Able to manage some the daily ups and down but not consistent upward medical admissions.

You know any doctors that believe this is no more deadly than a season flu?

Yikes, been away from the thread for a few hours, tune in and find more really bad math. "just slightly above"

If CV-19 has a 0.6% mortality rate (the lowest anyone has suggested is possible, and assuming good care), that's at a minimum 6X greater than seasonal flu.

We also know that CV-19 is vastly disproportionately requiring extended hospitalizations than flu, overwhelming capacity.
And we're seeing deep illness and deaths among health care workers, without underlying issues, in a way not seen with seasonal flu.

Unless someone is willing to have a "die in place" policy towards CV-19 and the seasonal flu (unless can identify not CV-19) then I just don't see any reason why all the whining that we have go through these extreme measures on behalf of our health care system.

It's also very, very clear that the mortality rate is way higher if the health system breaks down as has already happened in Italy and now Spain and France, and initially happened in Wuhan. So, unless you're gonna tell all the CV-19 patients to just stay home and what happens, happens, we have no choice.

[jhu72]

Don’t be a cutie pie. The buck stops in Trump’s pocket. Blame goes everywhere else. Trump doesn’t need Michigan this election. Put that woman in her place.

“General Motors MUST immediately open their stupidly abandoned Lordstown plant in Ohio, or some other plant, and START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!!!!!! FORD, GET GOING ON VENTILATORS, FAST!!!!!! @GeneralMotors @Ford”. DJT tweet.

Small problem. GM sold Lordstown. And they make cars. 140 parts from 14 countries in a ventilator.

It’s great to see the hospital ships arrive so quickly. BZ to the US Navy.

The GM effort will be too late to have much if any effect on first wave. I have not heard where they are getting the design from. The news that someone has put together a "printed part" design is not likely to help. GM and Ford need an existing design that works and is reliable, currently tested and in production. They know how to manufacture things. THEY ARE NOT IN THE MEDICAL ELECTRONICS BUSINESS.

Another pet peeve of mine, with this whole ventilator issue. We now have a lot of hype about a single ventilator supporting multiple patients. This is not some great new innovation. This is pure desperation!!! Ventilators are not simple machines. They were never designed for this type of usage. It is possible to design such, but that is not what is going on. This is a Rube Goldberg situation that if not used carefully could end up killing more people than it saves. I am sure the best docs know this. The press does not.

A modern ventilator, the type in ICUs, have at least 3 modes of operation (more generally). The most useful and safest is the so called Automatic Mode. THIS MODE WILL NOT WORK WITH MULTIPLEXED PATIENTS. The doctors are looking at using what is known as Volume Mode. This can work but will be much more nurse / technician / doctor intensive. It needs to be watched. Set and forgot is not an option (with two patients attached). Because patients are unique, they have unique blood gas chemistry. Basically they will have to match patients with similar blood gas profiles for this to work. While on the ventilator, if the blood gas profiles begin to diverge, you need to address this immediately, or someone dies. It is not clear to me how they would do this. This raises another issue. Weening a patient from a ventilator is a sometimes very tricky proposition. Blood gas mixtures tend to change during the process. What do you do with the second patient when trying to ween the first? You could end up killing one or both in this process. All of this is why Automatic Mode will not work. In Volume Mode you have the same problem that has to be solved by the doctor / nurse technician, without any automation. This is going to require really really good people performing in a chaotic situation and environment. There aren't that many really really good people who I think could pull this off. The stress on anyone trying to do this is going to be incredible.

[Peter Brown]

Don’t be a cutie pie. The buck stops in Trump’s pocket. Blame goes everywhere else. Trump doesn’t need Michigan this election. Put that woman in her place.

“General Motors MUST immediately open their stupidly abandoned Lordstown plant in Ohio, or some other plant, and START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!!!!!! FORD, GET GOING ON VENTILATORS, FAST!!!!!! @GeneralMotors @Ford”. DJT tweet.

Small problem. GM sold Lordstown. And they make cars. 140 parts from 14 countries in a ventilator.

It’s great to see the hospital ships arrive so quickly. BZ to the US Navy.

The GM effort will be too late to have much if any effect on first wave. I have not heard where they are getting the design from. The news that someone has put together a "printed part" design is not likely to help. GM and Ford need an existing design that works and is reliable, currently tested and in production. They know how to manufacture things. THEY ARE NOT IN THE MEDICAL ELECTRONICS BUSINESS.

Another pet peeve of mine, with this whole ventilator issue. We now have a lot of hype about a single ventilator supporting multiple patients. This is not some great new innovation. This is pure desperation!!! Ventilators are not simple machines. They were never designed for this type of usage. It is possible to design such, but that is not what is going on. This is a Rube Goldberg situation that if not used carefully could end up killing more people than it saves. I am sure the best docs know this. The press does not.

A modern ventilator, the type in ICUs, have at least 3 modes of operation (more generally). The most useful and safest is the so called Automatic Mode. THIS MODE WILL NOT WORK WITH MULTIPLEXED PATIENTS. The doctors are looking at using what is known as Volume Mode. This can work but will be much more nurse / technician / doctor intensive. It needs to be watched. Set and forgot is not an option (with two patients attached). Because patients are unique, they have unique blood gas chemistry. Basically they will have to match patients with similar blood gas profiles for this to work. While on the ventilator, if the blood gas profiles begin to diverge, you need to address this immediately, or someone dies. It is not clear to me how they would do this. This raises another issue. Weening a patient from a ventilator is a sometimes very tricky proposition. Blood gas mixtures tend to change during the process. What do you do with the second patient when trying to ween the first? You could end up killing one or both in this process. All of this is why Automatic Mode will not work. In Volume Mode you have the same problem that has to be solved by the doctor / nurse technician, without any automation. This is going to require really really good people performing in a chaotic situation and environment. There aren't that many really really good people who I think could pull this off. The stress on anyone trying to do this is going to be incredible.

The University of Florida put out a request to provide an open source diagram (no royalties; anyone can use) to create an effective and safe ventilator. The winning diagram will post Monday. This team of excellent doctors, mechanical engineers, and anesthesiologists built a very good very effective one for $125 with materials from Home Depot.

https://m.ufhealth.org/news/2020/uf-res ... ventilator

Game changer. Read it if you’re sincerely interested in solving issues rather than posting fear.

[jhu72]

Feb 5 meeting.

[Trinity]

Southern Gop Governors are staying open and bragging that they are not California. Irony is dead.

[DocBarrister]

So Italys death rate is over 10%

Spains is around 8%

France is 6%

US is 1.6%

How can that be when we have this idiot Trump in charge?

Read the last two pages of this thread. The twitter feed from Seacoaster is particularly revealing

Trump Trump Trump Trump............

What you don’t seem to understand is:

(1) 1.6% is very high;

(2) the death rates are higher in some places because of the demographics (more elderly);

(3) we are behind Italy and Spain in the curve and deaths in the United States are accelerating; and

(4) Italy and Spain’s health care system became overwhelmed, something that is only beginning here.

Florida is surging right now, over 3,700 cases, only behind NY, NJ, and CA. Florida is disproportionately elderly and with relatively fewer hospital beds. Plus, Governor DeSantis has been incompetent in his response to the coronavirus crisis.

DocBarrister

[jhu72]

Don’t be a cutie pie. The buck stops in Trump’s pocket. Blame goes everywhere else. Trump doesn’t need Michigan this election. Put that woman in her place.

“General Motors MUST immediately open their stupidly abandoned Lordstown plant in Ohio, or some other plant, and START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!!!!!! FORD, GET GOING ON VENTILATORS, FAST!!!!!! @GeneralMotors @Ford”. DJT tweet.

Small problem. GM sold Lordstown. And they make cars. 140 parts from 14 countries in a ventilator.

It’s great to see the hospital ships arrive so quickly. BZ to the US Navy.

The GM effort will be too late to have much if any effect on first wave. I have not heard where they are getting the design from. The news that someone has put together a "printed part" design is not likely to help. GM and Ford need an existing design that works and is reliable, currently tested and in production. They know how to manufacture things. THEY ARE NOT IN THE MEDICAL ELECTRONICS BUSINESS.

Another pet peeve of mine, with this whole ventilator issue. We now have a lot of hype about a single ventilator supporting multiple patients. This is not some great new innovation. This is pure desperation!!! Ventilators are not simple machines. They were never designed for this type of usage. It is possible to design such, but that is not what is going on. This is a Rube Goldberg situation that if not used carefully could end up killing more people than it saves. I am sure the best docs know this. The press does not.

A modern ventilator, the type in ICUs, have at least 3 modes of operation (more generally). The most useful and safest is the so called Automatic Mode. THIS MODE WILL NOT WORK WITH MULTIPLEXED PATIENTS. The doctors are looking at using what is known as Volume Mode. This can work but will be much more nurse / technician / doctor intensive. It needs to be watched. Set and forgot is not an option (with two patients attached). Because patients are unique, they have unique blood gas chemistry. Basically they will have to match patients with similar blood gas profiles for this to work. While on the ventilator, if the blood gas profiles begin to diverge, you need to address this immediately, or someone dies. It is not clear to me how they would do this. This raises another issue. Weening a patient from a ventilator is a sometimes very tricky proposition. Blood gas mixtures tend to change during the process. What do you do with the second patient when trying to ween the first? You could end up killing one or both in this process. All of this is why Automatic Mode will not work. In Volume Mode you have the same problem that has to be solved by the doctor / nurse technician, without any automation. This is going to require really really good people performing in a chaotic situation and environment. There aren't that many really really good people who I think could pull this off. The stress on anyone trying to do this is going to be incredible.

The University of Florida put out a request to provide an open source diagram (no royalties; anyone can use) to create an effective and safe ventilator. The winning diagram will post Monday. This team of excellent doctors, mechanical engineers, and anesthesiologists built a very good very effective one for $125 with materials from Home Depot.

https://m.ufhealth.org/news/2020/uf-res ... ventilator

Game changer. Read it if you’re sincerely interested in solving issues rather than posting fear.

Well, there we have it. Problem solved. I hadn't considered that there are people in Universities that know how ventilators work. Especially the University of Florida. How silly of me.

Has it been tested? Clinical trials? Has the FDA passed on it? How many can they build in the next 2 months??

Sorry, the best case is taking a currently manufactured unit and produce it. Trump and company need to be twisting GE's arm to license to the car manufacturers at a reasonable price.

PS - they don't need to go to just GE. There are lots of companies who could meet the specifications - current unit with regulatory approvals, well tested and reliable. Most are oversees. I would go with the Philips Light Bulb Factory in Eindhoven, Netherlands if prices were the same.

[DocBarrister]

Over 17,000 new cases, and over 300 new deaths (a new U.S. record, I believe).

The pandemic isn’t even close to slowing down in Trump’s catastrophic America.

DocBarrister

Trump lives rent free in your head.

No, I live in yours.

Plenty of space ... open floor plan ... but lots of outdated fixtures.

DocBarrister

Have you ever been decent to anyone in your life?

Yes, every time I hold back my true opinions about people who try to minimize the seriousness of this crisis.

The problem with ignorance is that ignorance hides the dangers of ignorance from the ignorant, and it is then everyone who suffers.

DocBarrister

[DocBarrister]

I will take my own advice.

Abbott has in a matter of one month created a (so far) 100% reliable, 5-minute test for Coronavirus, and they will roll it out by April 1 with 50,000 units.

Private enterprise always wins. This thing will be beaten back quicker than the worry warts are posting.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... t-anywhere

Thing is, we needed 100 times as many tests about six weeks ago.

DocBarrister

[DocBarrister]

Apparently, even Trump may be beginning to grasp the seriousness of it all.

He is considering a formal quarantine of NY state and parts of NJ and CT.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/28/politics ... index.html

Quarantine ... not shelter in place. Not social distancing. A quarantine.

Quarantine of entire cities is literally an ancient, Biblical-era public health measure.

We may be about to see it in the 21st century in the most powerful nation on Earth.



DocBarrister

[runrussellrun]

So Italys death rate is over 10%

Spains is around 8%

France is 6%

US is 1.6%

How can that be when we have this idiot Trump in charge?

Read the last two pages of this thread. The twitter feed from Seacoaster is particularly revealing

Trump Trump Trump Trump............

Last week it was 1.2%. Everyone is hoping it is as low as possible.

so CONfused.....

What information do we trust? 
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/heal ... eaths.html 
A new study reports that people who became sick from the coronavirus in the Chinese city where the outbreak began likely had a lower death rate than previously thought.The study, published Thursday in the journal Nature Medicine, calculated that people with coronavirus symptoms in Wuhan, China, had a 1.4 percent likelihood of dying. Some previous estimates have ranged from 2 percent to 3.4 percent. 

[holmes435]

Yet the very first post by Trinity above is just more of Trump is a drumpf idiocy.

I understand perfectly well why Old Salt and others thinks TDS wrecks people's minds and makes them incapable of rational dialogue. You know why? Because it does.

This thread should be about the disease, cures, updates, information.... What is it instead? Too often a monotonous Trump-bashing wreck of uselessness. If some of your fellow travelers in the anti-Trump Fanlax world would spend more time discussing the virus and less time raising the Trump is drumpf idiocy, I doubt Old Salt would need to raise TDS at all. Look in the mirror, stare back at yourself and if you can't honestly say that you're perfect, then you have a right to judge the person standing beside you.

Sorry, he's the POTUS and is making decisions that impact lives...daily.

We can wish he wasn't in charge and wish he wasn't such a "drumpf" (never used that word before) but that's what we have. No avoiding it.

Very thankfully there are lots and lots on non-idiots and a huge # of actual heroes in this crisis.

But Trump inserts himself, loudly, into every aspect of this.

Trump hasn't inserted himself into every aspect of this. I got these helpful guidelines in the mail the other day. Oh wait...

[RedFromMI]

On the issue of what GM is doing - it is helping another ventilator manufacturer scale up by using a GM factory to do the production. Not a new ventilator, but an already approved one.

[jhu72]

So Italys death rate is over 10%

Spains is around 8%

France is 6%

US is 1.6%

How can that be when we have this idiot Trump in charge?

Read the last two pages of this thread. The twitter feed from Seacoaster is particularly revealing

Trump Trump Trump Trump............

Last week it was 1.2%. Everyone is hoping it is as low as possible.

so CONfused.....

What information do we trust? 
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/heal ... eaths.html 
A new study reports that people who became sick from the coronavirus in the Chinese city where the outbreak began likely had a lower death rate than previously thought.The study, published Thursday in the journal Nature Medicine, calculated that people with coronavirus symptoms in Wuhan, China, had a 1.4 percent likelihood of dying. Some previous estimates have ranged from 2 percent to 3.4 percent. 

Totally believable. This is because the Chinese testing was also understating the number of infections.

[runrussellrun]

Oh dear oh dear can't have this kind of stuff happening

https://techstartups.com/2020/03/18/bre ... dtrial-io/

March 27, 2020 Update 9: BREAKING: French researchers just completed new additional study on 80 patients, results show a combination of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin to be effective in treating COVID-19 patients. The team found that, by administering hydroxychloroquine combined with azithromycin, they were able to observe an improvement in all cases, except in one patient who arrived with an advanced form, who was over the age of 86, and in whom the evolution was irreversible.

What about iodine tablets ? Used to purify water.....would that work, it dumped tonic water. Being serious

Good question. I would think it would be worth looking into. As an antimalarial when it is changed into elemental iodine in the blood stream it is suggested it has antibacterial, antiviral properties.

I also really wonder how chloroquine is working in this treatment. Asithromycin is an antibiotic that would help with the secondary pheumonia, not the primary. But chloroquine acts by interfering with hemoglobin metabolism in the food vacuole of the parasite resulting in the build up of heme which is toxic. I have no idea why it would play a role in viral replication. I don't care either.........if it works.

Impressive post Bart!

Ha, that would be the first time anyone said that to me, ever. But don't be. A little knowledge and the googles makes one look more important than they actually are.

SO asking questions produces good answers
Thank you Bart for the adult response.

Is it too early for a gin & tonic. (oh....the tonic matters, especially in THIS case )