The Covid-19 Thread: News, Preparation Tips, Etc

Chicoro

5 Year Shea Anniversary: Started Dec 16th, 2016!
Looky, looky what I got here @Everything Zen : Calcium Channel blockers 101! Watch someone on LHCF come up with a solution for this virus and make a suggestion close to what they actually end up doing. I would not be surprised. It happens all the time on this board. Somebody always 'calls it'!

 
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Chicoro

5 Year Shea Anniversary: Started Dec 16th, 2016!
To view information specific to the State level in the United States:

I won't be posting links to any more trackers. This a screen shot of the John Hopkins Dashboard. If you go to the bottom right hand corner, you will see Admin 1, Admin 2, Admin 3.

Click on Admin 3.

Where the actual map of the land masses are in the middle of the tracker, drop to the bottom. You will see Cumulative Confirmed Cases and Active Cases.

Click on Active Cases.

Covid_state.png
 

Everything Zen

Well-Known Member
Our research cancer patients are in crisis. Many of them are cancelling appointments for treatments, imaging scans, outpatient appointments that they need to continue their therapy reading one life or death disease for another potentially life or death disease due to their immunocompromised state.

FDA put out guidance on how to manage clinical trials during COVID-19.

https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-info...als-medical-products-during-covid-19-pandemic

I’m leading a risk mitigation strategy in ClinOps at my company bc patients are straight up not coming in and hospitals are currently not offering the standard practices that they would to keep them going on a study. Our work is still vital to the health industry and there are whole studies going on for COVID-19 as well.

It’s about time that virtual trials became reality more than a theory. I’ve been advocating for this for years bc we talk so much about “It’s about the patient” but so much we say and do says otherwise.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ph...try-embraces-the-virtual-trial-platforms/amp/
 

Bette Davis Eyes

The "OG" Product Junkie
Im going to take a week off from work. I put in today. I have a feeling it will be approved even though I was suppose to let them know by Monday of each week.
I just wanna be home and not have to go anywhere.

Freezer is stocked and we have toilet paper that should last us two weeks. The problem Im having is when its time to replenish toilet paper. I had a pick up yesterday from the store and they called me to tell me there is no toilet paper even though I placed my order three weeks ago.

I have another order for pick up 03/31, Hopefully theres toilet paper.

My gf is going to call costco to see if they have any and if so pick me up some.
 

Chicoro

5 Year Shea Anniversary: Started Dec 16th, 2016!
Our research cancer patients are in crisis. Many of them are cancelling appointments for treatments, imaging scans, outpatient appointments that they need to continue their therapy reading one life or death disease for another potentially life or death disease due to their immunocompromised state.

FDA put out guidance on how to manage clinical trials during COVID-19.

https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-info...als-medical-products-during-covid-19-pandemic

I’m leading a risk mitigation strategy in ClinOps at my company bc patients are straight up not coming in and hospitals are currently not offering the standard practices that they would to keep them going on a study. Our work is still vital to the health industry and there are whole studies going on for COVID-19 as well.

It’s about time that virtual trials became reality more than a theory. I’ve been advocating for this for years bc we talk so much about “It’s about the patient” but so much we say and do says otherwise.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ph...try-embraces-the-virtual-trial-platforms/amp/

I think this might be your HOUR. It sounds to me like the area of your focus and expertise have stepped on center stage. Grab that mic, because this is your chance! The stage lights are focused on you, and you've captured people's rapt attention. Show them how it needs to be done @Everything Zen !
 

Chicoro

5 Year Shea Anniversary: Started Dec 16th, 2016!
Take this with a grain of salt.
https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/best-materials-make-diy-face-mask-virus/

What Are The Best Materials for Making DIY Masks?

2020-03-08 Paddy Robertson Coronavirus, Masks


With masks sold out during the coronavirus outbreak, many people will have to make do with what some scientists have called “the last resort”: the DIY mask.

Data shows that DIY and homemade masks are effective at capturing viruses. But if forced to make our own mask, what material is best suited to make a mask? As the coronavirus spread around China, netizens reported making masks with tissue paper, kitchen towels, cotton clothing fabrics, and even oranges!



The Best Material for Making a Homemade DIY Mask
Researchers at Cambridge University tested a wide range of household materials for homemade masks. To measure effectiveness, they shot Bacillus atrophaeus bacteria (0.93-1.25 microns) and Bacteriophage MS virus (0.023 microns in size) at different household materials.



They measured what percentage the materials could capture and compared them to the more common surgical mask.



Not surprisingly, the surgical mask performed best, capturing 97% of the 1-micron bacteria. Yet every single material filtered out at least 50% of particles. The top performers were the vacuum cleaner bag (95%), the dish cloth (“tea towel” in the UK! 83%), the cotton blend shirt fabric (74%), and the 100% cotton shirt (69%).

Homemade Masks vs. Viruses
The test above used bacteria that were 1 micron large, yet the coronavirus is just 0.1 microns – ten times smaller. Can homemade masks capture smaller virus particles? To answer this question, the scientists tested 0.02 micron Bacteriophage MS2 particles (5 times smaller than the coronavirus).



On average, the homemade masks captured 7% fewer virus particles than the larger bacteria particles. However, all of the homemade materials managed to capture 50% of virus particles or more (with the exception of the scarf at 49%).

Coronavirus & Mask Livestream
Wondering whether masks work to protect you against the coronavirus? Check out our livestream recap covering all the info here!

Are Two-Layered DIY Masks More Effective?
If the problem is filtration effectiveness, would the masks work better if we doubled up with two layers of fabric? The scientists tested virus-size particles against double-layered versions of the dish towel, pillow case, and 100% cotton shirt fabrics.



Overall, the double layers didn’t help much. The double-layer pillowcase captured 1% more particles, and the double-layer shirt captured just 2% more particles. Yet the extra dish cloth layer boosted performance by 14%. That boost made the tea towel as effective as the surgical mask.

Looking at the data, the dish towel and vacuum cleaner bag were the top-performing materials. However, the researchers didn’t choose these as the best materials for DIY masks:



Instead, they concluded the pillowcase and the 100% cotton t-shirt are the best materials for DIY masks. Why?

The Importance of DIY Mask Breathability
The answer lies in breathability. How easy it is to breathe through your mask is an important factor that will affect how comfortable it is. And comfort isn’t merely a luxury. Comfort will influence how long you can wear your mask.

Fortunately, in addition to particle effectiveness, the researchers tested the pressure drop across each type of fabric. This gives us a good indication of how easy it is to breathe through each material. As a benchmark, they compared breathability of each DIY mask material to the surgical mask.



Although the tea towel and the vacuum bag captured the most particles, they were also the hardest to breath through. With two layers, the tea towel was over twice as hard to breathe through as the surgical mask. In contrast, the pillow case, t-shirt, scarf, and linen were all easier to breathe through than the surgical mask.



Researchers’ Pick for Best-Performing Homemade Mask Material
Based on particle capture and breathability, the researchers concluded that cotton t-shirts and pillow cases are the best choices for DIY masks.



Are there any other materials we can use? The Cambridge researchers left out one common material: paper towel. We tested how well paper towel masks capture sub-micron particles.

Making DIY Masks with Household Materials
Bottom line: Test data shows that the best choices for DIY masks are cotton t-shirts, pillowcases, or other cotton materials.

These materials filter out approximately 50% of 0.2 micron particles, similar in size to the coronavirus. They are also as easy to breathe through as surgical masks, which makes them more comfortable enough to wear for several hours.

Doubling the layers of material for your DIY mask gives a very small increase in filtration effectiveness, but makes the mask much more difficult to breathe through.



Here’s What Else You Should Know About DIY Masks
Still not sure if DIY masks really work? See the real-world test data on the effectiveness of homemade DIY masks.

Already convinced that DIY masks work? Then learn how to make a DIY mask here [coming soon!]
 

Chicoro

5 Year Shea Anniversary: Started Dec 16th, 2016!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5552930/

Microbiologyopen. 2017 Aug; 6(4): e00459.
Published online 2017 Mar 14. doi: 10.1002/mbo3.459
PMCID: PMC5552930
PMID: 28296357
Antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral effects of three essential oil blends
Amandine Brochot,
1 Angèle Guilbot, 1 Laïla Haddioui, 2 and Christine Roques 2 , 3
Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer
This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.
Associated Data
Supplementary Materials
Go to:

Abstract
New agents that are effective against common pathogens are needed particularly for those resistant to conventional antimicrobial agents. Essential oils (EOs) are known for their antimicrobial activity. Using the broth microdilution method, we showed that (1) two unique blends of Cinnamomum zeylanicum, Daucus carota, Eucalyptus globulus and Rosmarinus officinalis EOs (AB1 and AB2; cinnamon EOs from two different suppliers) were active against the fourteen Gram‐positive and ‐negative bacteria strains tested, including some antibiotic‐resistant strains. Minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) ranged from 0.01% to 3% v/v with minimal bactericidal concentrations from <0.01% to 6.00% v/v; (2) a blend of Cinnamomum zeylanicum, Daucus carota, Syzygium aromaticum, Origanum vulgare EOs was antifungal to the six Candida strains tested, with MICs ranging from 0.01% to 0.05% v/v with minimal fungicidal concentrations from 0.02% to 0.05% v/v. Blend AB1 was also effective against H1N1 and HSV1 viruses. With this dual activity, against H1N1 and against S. aureus and S. pneumoniae notably, AB1 may be interesting to treat influenza and postinfluenza bacterial pneumonia infections. These blends could be very useful in clinical practice to combat common infections including those caused by microorganisms resistant to antimicrobial drugs.

Keywords: antimicrobials, E. coli, Fungi, infection, viruses
 

B_Phlyy

Pineapple Eating Unicorn
Im going to take a week off from work. I put in today. I have a feeling it will be approved even though I was suppose to let them know by Monday of each week.
I just wanna be home and not have to go anywhere.

Freezer is stocked and we have toilet paper that should last us two weeks. The problem Im having is when its time to replenish toilet paper. I had a pick up yesterday from the store and they called me to tell me there is no toilet paper even though I placed my order three weeks ago.

I have another order for pick up 03/31, Hopefully theres toilet paper.

My gf is going to call costco to see if they have any and if so pick me up some.

Try your Dollar Tree if you have one nearby. They've never been out of stock for more than 1 day where I am but there is a limit now. My mom says the one in her town has so much TP they had to leave some in the packing boxes as the shelves are full.
 

Everything Zen

Well-Known Member
My coworker just shared exactly how he got COVID-19. But seriously- who the :censored: is out here doing oral beer pong?!!!


How an Austrian ski resort helped coronavirus spread across Europe
By Denise Hruby for CNN



Updated 3:07 AM ET, Tue March 24, 2020


https://us.cnn.com/2020/03/24/europe/austria-ski-resort-ischgl-coronavirus-intl/index.html

Vienna, Austria (CNN)Henrik Lerfeldt has fond memories of Kitzloch, a popular restaurant and bar in the Austrian ski resort town of Ischgl, where he partied several nights while on vacation three weeks ago.

The 56-year-old Dane, who spoke to CNN from self-quarantine at his home 50 miles from Copenhagen last week, said that his time in Kitzloch in the Austrian province of Tyrol was the way "after-ski" is supposed to be. "Lots of people, lots of drinks, and nice waiters happy to serve you more."
Four days after his return home, Lerfeldt tested positive for the coronavirus, or Covid-19, as did one of his friends he was traveling with. But they are just two among hundreds of people from all over Europe whose infections are traced back to Ischgl, some of them directly to Kitzloch, according to European authorities.


Authorities closed down Kitzloch in Ischgl, Austria, on March 9.
Kitzloch declined to comment when contacted by CNN for comment. Its owner, Bernhard Zangerl, told German news site t-online on March 16 that his employees must have also contracted the virus from someone, and the site reports Zangerl as saying it was audacious to try to pin this on one company.


Despite an official warning from the Icelandic government on March 4 that a group of its nationals had contracted coronavirus in Ischgl, Austrian authorities allowed ski tourism -- and the partying that goes with it -- to continue for another nine days before fully quarantining the resort on March 13. Bars in Ischgl were closed on March 10.
Even after a bartender tested positive for the virus, the medical authority of Tyrol -- where ski tourism is one of the biggest economic drivers -- reiterated in a press release on March 8 that there was "no reason to worry." CNN has reached out to Franz Katzgraber, the director of Tyrol's medical authority, for further comment and not received a response.


Swiss Alps ski resorts shut down in response to coronavirus

Ischgl and its neighboring villages draw around 500,000 visitors each winter, with high-profile celebrities and politicians such as Paris Hilton, Naomi Campbell and Bill Clinton among them in previous years.
After a string of rebuttals that the town and bar were linked to the spread of the virus, Austrian authorities have since conceded that they were.
In a statement emailed to CNN, the provincial government denied it had dragged its feet, saying it acted in a timely and efficient manner. "With the measures taken, the authorities were able to contain the continuation of the chain of infections," Bernhard Tilg, Tyrol's provincial councilor responsible for health, care facilities, science, and research, said in the statement.
Health experts, however, say otherwise.
Raising alarm bells
The assistant to the director of health at the Icelandic health directorate told CNN that the country's chief epidemiologist Thorolfur Gudnason informed Austrian authorities on March 4 that several Icelandic tourists were infected with the virus while in Ischgl. Gudnason used Europe's official Early Warning and Response System, the directorate confirmed in an email.
On March 5, the day after Iceland notified Austria that Icelandic tourists had contracted Covid-19, Reykjavik added Ischgl to its list of risk zones for Covid-19 transmission, putting the risk of infection in the village on par with China, South Korea, Italy and Iran.

Jan Pravsgaard Christensen, a professor of immunology of infectious diseases, at the University of Copenhagen, told CNN that Iceland's listing should have immediately raised alarm bells.
"Considering that it is a place where people are in close contact in bars, restaurants, and so on, once they know of ... people infected in the same area, they should have initiated a quarantine very quickly," he said.
However, regional authorities in Tyrol downplayed the risk. In a first official reaction to Iceland's listing, Katzgraber said in a March 5press release that it was "unlikely" there was contagion in Tyrol.
Based on a statement by a single traveler who said that a sick tourist who had visited Italy shared the same flight home to Iceland, Katzgraber said in the same press release that the group of Icelandic tourists likely contracted the virus after they left Austria, giving no evidence.
Oral beer pong and sharing whistles
On March 7 -- three days after Iceland's warning -- a 36-year-old bartender at Kitzloch tested positive. Twenty-two of the bartender's contacts were quarantined, 15 of whom have since tested positive for Covid-19, the provincial government confirmed in press releases.
The outbreak had spread far beyond the Tyrol.
The most recent available Danish government figures show that out of more than 1,400 cases in Denmark, 298 contracted the virus in Austria. In comparison, only 61 cases are linked to travel to Italy, so far the hardest-hit country in Europe.


Cities deserted, families separated and social life on hold in Italy's first day of lockdown

As of March 20, Icelandic authorities are aware of eight people who got infected with coronavirus in Ischgl specifically, the health authority told CNN.
"At first, we didn't understand how this many cases could have happened," Christensen, who had been briefed by experts working on Iceland's response to the pandemic, said. But a clearer picture emerged when officials worked out what was going on in some of Ischgl's tightly packed bars and clubs.
"We realized that they exchanged saliva because they were playing beer pong," using their mouths, he said, although he did not single out any specific bars where the game took place. The game involved spitting ping pong balls out of their mouths into beer glasses, and those balls were then reused by other people.
Lerfeldt reported that Kitzloch bartenders, including the 36-year-old who later tested positive for coronavirus, blew on a brass whistle to get people to move out of their way as they took shots to customers. Several customers also blew the whistle for fun, Lerfeldt said. "I can see why people would want to whistle it -- and nobody knew he was sick," Lerfeldt said.
Monika Redlberger-Fritz, head of the influenza department at the Medical University of Vienna, told CNN that the way the virus spread in Ischgl means there was likely at least one person who infected a large number of other people.
"That means that there was at least one patient who had a very high viral load, and while most people will infect two to three others on average, these people can transmit the disease to 40, 50, or 80 people." Redlberger-Fritz said that this may have cut the lead time for authorities to react by several days.


The lessons of living in the coronavirus crisis

Anita Luckner-Hornischer, an official with Tyrol's medical authority, said in a press release on March 8 that "a transmission of the virus onto the guests of the bar is, from a medical point of view, rather unlikely." She gave no evidence.
Authorities closed down Kitzloch on March 9 and said there was no increased risk of transmission.
By March 10, Günther Platter, the provincial governor of Tyrol, said at a press conference that all new cases confirmed in the province that day -- 16 in total -- were tied to a single bar and one of its barkeepers. Local authorities later confirmed the bar to be Kitzloch, the small but bustling bar where Lerfeldt said he and his friends partied for five nights.
"We have found that the risk of infection is very high in the bars. All cases go back to one bar," Platter said at the press conference.
Hundreds of cases traced back to Ischgl
At least four countries have now reported links to Ischgl, showing how the tiny village, home to no more than 1,600 permanent residents, became a major vector in spreading Covid-19.
Alongside Denmark and Iceland, Germany has traced about 300 cases back to Ischgl, more than 80 of them in Hamburg and 200 in the small city of Aalen, according to German media. CNN has been unable to independently verify these figures.


The moral quagmire of coronavirus and 'Big Brother'

The count is so high that Aalen set up a new email address specifically for people who have visited Ischgl to get in touch with authorities. In a virtual press conference on March 17, the health minister of the German state Baden-Württemberg said, according to German state news agency DPA: "Our problem isn't called Iran, it's Ischgl."
Norway also confirmed that, as of March 20, 862 out of its 1,742 cases were contracted abroad, and said it traced 549 of them back to Austria, according to the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.
Kitzloch has a capacity for 100 people and, when Lerfeldt was there, was packed with patrons from Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Germany, he said.
When the national government announced a lockdown of the area on the afternoon of March 13 -- nine days after Iceland's notification -- the remaining tourists were asked to leave the village and return home without stopping.
Most returned straight to their respective home countries, Tilg, the provincial councilor responsible for health, care facilities and research, told Austrian public broadcaster ORF, but hotel owners in the provincial capital of Innsbruck confirmed to local media that hundreds of Ischgl tourists who were stranded that Friday afternoon checked into their establishments to wait for flights Saturday.
"The authorities acted correctly in every aspect," Tilg reiterated several times in the ORF interview on March 16, and rejected all criticisms in an email to CNN.


Postponing 2020 Olympic Games is a 'realistic option,' say organizers as pressure builds

Tilg blamed the spread of the virus in Tyrol -- which accounts for about a quarter of Austria's more than 4,400 coronavirus cases as of March 23 -- on tourists who either carried it into the province or did not follow regional authorities' advice to return home immediately.


Europe is now the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak and the European Union has closed its borders to all non-essential travel as it attempts to slow its spread. The Austrian government put Ischgl under full quarantine on March 13. Five days later, on March 18, local officials extended these measures and ordered all 279 communities in Tyrol to isolate themselves.
While Lerfeldt and his friends say they have fully recovered, Christensen said that it is impossible to determine the number of people who were infected by Ischgl's ski tourists once they returned home, to countries all over Europe.
 

Jmartjrmd

Well-Known Member
This is a good article from the New York times on how a party spread the virus far and wide:

Party Zero

About 50 guests gathered on March 5 at a home in the stately suburb of Westport, Connecticut, to toast the hostess on her 40th birthday and greet old friends, including one visiting from South Africa. They shared reminiscences, a lavish buffet and, unknown to anyone, the coronavirus.

Then they scattered.

The Westport soirée — Party Zero in southwestern Connecticut and beyond — is a story of how, in the Gilded Age of money, social connectedness and air travel, a pandemic has spread at lightning speed. The partygoers — more than half of whom are now infected — left that evening for Johannesburg, New York City, and other parts of Connecticut and the United States, all seeding infections on the way.

Westport, a town of 28,000 on the Long Island Sound, did not have a single known case of the coronavirus on the day of the party. It had 85 on Monday, up more than 40-fold in 11 days. At a news conference Monday afternoon, Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut said that 415 people in the state were infected, up from 327 on Sunday night. Ten people have died. Westport, with less than 1% of the state’s population, now makes up more than one-fifth of its COVID-19 infections with its 85 cases. Fairfield County, where Westport is, has 270 cases, 65% of the total.

Lamont pleaded with federal officials for hospital capacity and protective gear. “I urge them: Don’t think in terms of New York, think in terms of the hot spots,” he said. “And that’s New York City, Westchester County — and Fairfield County.”

Science cannot definitively link those escalating numbers to New York, which now accounts for about half of the coronavirus infections in the United States. But the Westport soirée “may be an example of the kind of thing we call a super-spreading event,” said William Hanage, an associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard, especially since some of the partygoers later attended large social events in the New York metropolitan area.

“Some of the early cases in northern Italy were associated with small towns, and people thought, ‘Oh, it’s just in the small towns.’ But then you suddenly find cases emerging from Milan Fashion Week and spreading internationally,” Hanage said. “Everywhere you think the virus is, it’s ahead of you."

The visitor from Johannesburg — a 43-year-old businessman, according to a report from South Africa — fell ill on his flight home, spreading the virus not only in the country but possibly to fellow passengers. The party guests attended other gatherings. They went to work at jobs throughout the New York metropolitan area. Their children went to school and day care, soccer games and after-school sports.

On the morning of March 8, three days after the party, Julie Endich, one of the guests, woke up in Westport with a fever that spiked to 104 degrees and “pain, tightness and heaviness like someone was standing on my chest,” she later wrote on Facebook. She knew her symptoms suggested COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, but it would be four days before she could get test results confirming that she had it.

At noon that day, town and county health officials convened a coronavirus forum at the Westport Library. About 60 people attended, and many others watched on Facebook. When asked whether people, especially Westport’s many older residents, should follow federal government guidance and avoid large gatherings, officials were sanguine.

“It is not out in our community that we’re aware of yet,” said Mark A.R. Cooper, the director of the Westport Weston Health District. “Give it some thought, but again, your risk is low.”

A moderator next passed the microphone to an older man.

“How many test kits do we have in Westport now?” he asked.

“Zero,” Cooper replied. “None. They’re not available.”

Three days later, on March 11, Cooper got a phone call: A South African businessman who had stopped in Westport for a party had fallen ill on the plane home to Johannesburg.

“I thought it was good old man flu,” the businessman told The Sunday Times in South Africa, speaking anonymously in a March 15 article. Unlike in the United States, where tests remain in short supply and results come slowly, the man was tested and received word in a day. He was positive.

Cooper and his staff of nine dusted off their pandemic response plan and began calling party guests, identified by the Westport hosts. A number of the guests had children. Several hours later, Westport closed its schools and most public buildings. Jim Marpe, the Westport first selectman — the equivalent of a mayor — convened a hasty news conference on the steps of the Westport Town Hall.

“We’ll assess the health of those individuals and try to give them some helpful advice in terms of protecting themselves and family and helping prevent further spread,” Cooper told the crowd.

But, he warned, “The reality is, once it starts to spread in a community, it’s beyond trying to stop it.”

The Health District worked with a private company to conduct drive-through testing for party guests only on March 12. About 38 guests showed up, and more than half their tests came back positive. Endich, after days of rejected attempts, was tested at Stamford Hospital and received her positive result on March 12.

“What we were trying to do was put our arms around it quickly and snuff it out,” Cooper said. “Never did we dream that in a week’s time we were going to be in the middle of an epidemic.”

The number of sick people in Fairfield County then soared. On March 16, Lamont closed restaurants and public buildings statewide. Even in a well-connected, affluent town like Westport, contact tracing quickly overwhelmed health officials. Beyond the 50 attendees, “there were another 120 on our dance list,” some of whom probably were not at the party, Cooper said. One of the party guests later acknowledged attending an event with 420 other people, he said. The officials gave up.

“They think at least 100 times as many people are infected as what the tests are showing,” Arpad Krizsan, who owns a financial advisory firm in Westport and lives in the community, said Saturday. “And everybody goes to the same four shops.”

Worry, rumors and recriminations engulfed the town. Political leaders fielded hundreds of emails and phone calls from residents terrified that their children or vulnerable family members had been exposed. Who threw the party, and who attended? They wanted to know. Rumors flew that some residents were telling health officials they had attended the party so they could obtain a scarce test.

Officials refused to disclose the names of the hosts or any guests, citing federal and state privacy rules. Marpe posted a videotaped statement to the town website on March 20. “The fact of the matter is that this could have been any one of us, and rumor-mongering and vilification of individuals is not who we are as a civil community,” he said.

As the disease spread, many residents kept mum, worried about being ostracized by their neighbors and that their children would be kicked off coveted sports teams or miss school events.

One local woman compared going public with a COVID-19 diagnosis to “having an STD.”

“I don’t think that’s a crazy comparison,” said Will Haskell, the state senator who represents Westport. He has been fielding frantic phone calls from constituents.

Most residents were exercising recommended vigilance, Haskell said, but one call that stuck out to him was from a woman awaiting test results whose entire family had been exposed to the virus. “She wanted to know whether or not to tell her friends and social network,” he said, because she was worried about “social stigma.”

Haskell, who has been delivering his grandparents’ medication to their Westport doorstep and leaving it outside, was incredulous. “This is life or death,” he said in an interview. “Westport really is a cautionary tale of what we’re soon to see.”

The party hosts remain unknown to most, though speculation is rife. Two of the guests, Endich and Cheryl Chutter, an attendee who lives in Stamford, have identified themselves.

Though she said she was “relentless” in demanding a test, Chutter was not diagnosed until March 17. She notified her son’s private school, and “they sent him home in an Uber and closed the school three hours later,” she said. His youth soccer league scrapped the rest of the season for 1,500 players after she informed team leaders that she had stood with other parents cheering on the sidelines before she got sick.

Chutter and Endich both emphasized the kindness of their neighbors, who spontaneously delivered food, water and encouragement. Chutter said health officials called daily to check on her. She is also aware of blaming and efforts to out the party attendees.

“It’s no use pointing fingers,” she said in an interview. “It’s not like you’re going to lock that one person up when there are millions of people in the world who have it. We’re so past that.”

The first partygoer to be diagnosed passed word from Johannesburg to Westport that he had fully recovered and even planned to go for a jog.

“I don’t believe I’m the problem anymore,” he told The Sunday Times. “It seems that the real problem is now the people who are too scared to say anything. The problem is the ignorance of the public.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2020 The New York Times Company
 

Jmartjrmd

Well-Known Member
Saw this on news. People need to be careful and use some sense when it comes to things like this. Especially not taking advice from Trump. When he talked about this Dr. Fauci (spelling?) was quick to say it needed more studies.

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The Guardian - Back to home
Show caption
Coronavirus outbreak
Arizona man dies after taking coronavirus ‘cure’ Trump touted with false claims
Wife survives after couple in their 60s ingested chloroquine phosphate, which Trump falsely claimed was approved to treat coronavirus

Associated Press in Phoenix, Arizona
Tue 24 Mar 2020 08.28 EDT
A Phoenix-area man has died and his wife was in critical condition after the couple took chloroquine phosphate, an additive used to clean fish tanks that is also found in an anti-malaria medication touted by Donald Trump as a treatment for Covid-19.

Older people would rather die than let Covid-19 harm US economy – Texas official
Banner Health said on Monday the couple in their 60s got sick within half an hour of ingesting the additive. The man could not be resuscitated at hospital but the woman was able to throw up much of the chemical.

“Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure,” the woman told NBC.

She said her advice would be: “Don’t take anything. Don’t believe anything. Don’t believe anything that the president says and his people … call your doctor.”

It’s unclear if the couple took chloroquine phosphate specifically because of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

“Given the uncertainty around Covid-19, we understand that people are trying to find new ways to prevent or treat this virus, but self-medicating is not the way to do so,” said Dr Daniel Brooks, Banner Poison and Drug Information Center medical director.

“The last thing that we want right now is to inundate our emergency departments with patients who believe they found a vague and risky solution that could potentially jeopardize their health.”

At a news conference last week, Trump falsely stated that the Food and Drug Administration had just approved the use of an anti-malaria medication called chloroquine to treat patients infected with coronavirus.

Even after the FDA chief clarified that the drug still needs to be tested for that use, Trump overstated the drug’s potential upside in containing the virus.

Chloroquine is obtained by prescription, and Banner Health is urging medical providers against prescribing it to people who are not hospitalised.

The difference between the fish tank cleaning additive the couple took and the drug used to treat malaria is the way they are formulated.

The man’s death came as the number of Covid-19 cases in Arizona spiked more than 50% in one day, from 152 on Sunday to 235 on Monday, according to the state health department.

Pima county reported its first coronavirus death: a woman in her 50s with an underlying health condition. It was the third Covid-19 death in Arizona. Two men, one in his 70s and one in his 50s, both had underlying conditions.

People have tested positive in 11 of Arizona’s 15 counties, including 139 cases in Maricopa county, the state’s most populous.

For most people, the virus causes only mild or moderate symptoms such as fever and cough. For some, older adults and people with health problems, it can cause more severe illness including pneumonia. The vast majority recover.


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Ganjababy

Well-Known Member
Someone in Nigeria died of the same thing. Trump is so irresponsible. I still cannot believe he is the president of the USA. An idiot.
Saw this on news. People need to be careful and use some sense when it comes to things like this. Especially not taking advice from Trump. When he talked about this Dr. Fauci (spelling?) was quick to say it needed more studies.

Subscribe
The Guardian - Back to home
Show caption
Coronavirus outbreak
Arizona man dies after taking coronavirus ‘cure’ Trump touted with false claims
Wife survives after couple in their 60s ingested chloroquine phosphate, which Trump falsely claimed was approved to treat coronavirus


Associated Press in Phoenix, Arizona
Tue 24 Mar 2020 08.28 EDT

A Phoenix-area man has died and his wife was in critical condition after the couple took chloroquine phosphate, an additive used to clean fish tanks that is also found in an anti-malaria medication touted by Donald Trump as a treatment for Covid-19.

Older people would rather die than let Covid-19 harm US economy – Texas official
Banner Health said on Monday the couple in their 60s got sick within half an hour of ingesting the additive. The man could not be resuscitated at hospital but the woman was able to throw up much of the chemical.

“Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure,” the woman told NBC.

She said her advice would be: “Don’t take anything. Don’t believe anything. Don’t believe anything that the president says and his people … call your doctor.”

It’s unclear if the couple took chloroquine phosphate specifically because of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

“Given the uncertainty around Covid-19, we understand that people are trying to find new ways to prevent or treat this virus, but self-medicating is not the way to do so,” said Dr Daniel Brooks, Banner Poison and Drug Information Center medical director.

“The last thing that we want right now is to inundate our emergency departments with patients who believe they found a vague and risky solution that could potentially jeopardize their health.”

At a news conference last week, Trump falsely stated that the Food and Drug Administration had just approved the use of an anti-malaria medication called chloroquine to treat patients infected with coronavirus.

Even after the FDA chief clarified that the drug still needs to be tested for that use, Trump overstated the drug’s potential upside in containing the virus.

Chloroquine is obtained by prescription, and Banner Health is urging medical providers against prescribing it to people who are not hospitalised.

The difference between the fish tank cleaning additive the couple took and the drug used to treat malaria is the way they are formulated.

The man’s death came as the number of Covid-19 cases in Arizona spiked more than 50% in one day, from 152 on Sunday to 235 on Monday, according to the state health department.

Pima county reported its first coronavirus death: a woman in her 50s with an underlying health condition. It was the third Covid-19 death in Arizona. Two men, one in his 70s and one in his 50s, both had underlying conditions.

People have tested positive in 11 of Arizona’s 15 counties, including 139 cases in Maricopa county, the state’s most populous.

For most people, the virus causes only mild or moderate symptoms such as fever and cough. For some, older adults and people with health problems, it can cause more severe illness including pneumonia. The vast majority recover.


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Chicoro

5 Year Shea Anniversary: Started Dec 16th, 2016!
Video Cliff Notes: "R Naught or R=1.5" - Understanding the Rate of Infection in Numbers
  • Rn = (Called R Naught) It's a rate that addresses how many people are infected by one person. The time period being used here is 30 days in total, with the infection rate doubling every five (5) days.
  • The current Rn of the virus average is 2.6, which would result in 244 being infected over a 30 day period.
  • The expected Rn in England should go down with isolation and lock down. For example, even if it goes down to an Rn =1.5, the rate the infection rate would produce 11.4 infected people instead of 244!
Key: Virus can't live without a human host. Deprive the virus of its opportunity to "jump" from one person to another. Maintain social distance, stay at home, get tested so the enemy becomes visual. Flatten the curve with government measures from the top down and flatten the curve with your individual actions from the bottom up.



Article not associated directly to video, but explains topic of video in written form:

What Is R0?: Gauging Contagious Infections


Understanding the possibilities
R0 is pronounced “R naught.” It’s a mathematical term that indicates how contagious an infectious disease is. It’s also referred to as the reproduction number. As an infection spreads to new people, it reproduces itself.

R0 tells you the average number of people who will catch a disease from one contagious person. It specifically applies to a population of people who were previously free of infection and haven’t been vaccinated. If a disease has an R0 of 18, a person who has the disease will transmit it to an average of 18 other people, as long as no one has been vaccinated against it or is already immune to it in their community.

What do R0 values mean?
Three possibilities exist for the potential spread or decline of a disease, depending on its R0 value:

  • If R0 is less than 1, each existing infection causes less than one new infection. In this case, the disease will decline and eventually die out.
  • If R0 equals 1, each existing infection causes one new infection. The disease will stay alive and stable, but there won’t be an outbreak or an epidemic.
  • If R0 is more than 1, each existing infection causes more than one new infection. The disease will spread between people, and there may be an outbreak or epidemic.
Importantly, a disease’s R0 value only applies when everyone in a population is completely vulnerable to the disease. This means:

  • no one has been vaccinated
  • no one has had the disease before
  • there’s no way to control the spread of the disease
This combination of conditions is rare nowadays thanks to advances in medicine. Many diseases that were deadly in the past can now be contained and sometimes cured. For example, in 1918 there was a worldwide outbreak of the swine flu that killed 50 million people. According to a review article published in BMC Medicine, the R0 value of the 1918 pandemic was estimated to be between 1.4 and 2.8. But when the swine flu, or H1N1 virus, came back in 2009, its R0 value was between 1.4 and 1.6, report researchers in the journal Science. The existence of vaccines and antiviral drugs made the 2009 outbreak much less deadly.


How is the R0 of a disease calculated?
The following factors are taken into account to calculate the R0 of a disease:

Infectious period
Some diseases are contagious for longer periods than others. For example, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, adults with the flu are typically contagious for up to eight days, while children can be contagious for up to two weeks. The longer the infectious period of a disease, the more likely an infected person is to spread the disease to other people. A long period of infectiousness will contribute to a higher R0 value.

Contact rate
If a person who’s infected with a contagious disease comes into contact with many people who aren’t infected or vaccinated, the disease will spread more quickly. If that person remains at home, in a hospital, or otherwise quarantined while they’re contagious, the disease will spread more slowly. A high contact rate will contribute to a higher R0 value.

Mode of transmission
The diseases that spread most quickly and easily are the ones that can travel through the air, such as the flu or measles. Physical contact with an infected person isn’t necessary for the transmission of such conditions. You can catch the flu from breathing near someone who has the flu, even if you never touch them.

In contrast, diseases that are transmitted through bodily fluids, such as Ebola or HIV, aren’t as easy to catch or spread. This is because you need to come into contact with infected blood, saliva, or other bodily fluids to contract them. Airborne illnesses tend to have a higher R0 value than those spread through contact.

What conditions are measured by R0?
R0 can be used to measure any contagious disease that may spread in a susceptible population. Some of the most highly contagious conditions are measles and the common flu. More serious conditions, such as Ebola and HIV, spread less easily between people.

This illustration shows some commonly known diseases and their estimated R0 values.

Tips for prevention
R0 is a useful calculation for predicting and controlling the spread of disease. Medical science continues to advance. Researchers are discovering new cures for different conditions, but contagious diseases aren’t going to disappear anytime soon.

Take these steps to help prevent contagious diseases:

  • Learn how different contagious diseases are transmitted.
  • Ask your doctor about steps you can take to stop the spread of infection. For example, wash your hands regularly with soap and water, especially before you prepare or eat food.
  • Stay up to date on routine vaccinations.
  • Ask your doctor what diseases you should get vaccinated against.

https://www.healthline.com/health/r-nought-reproduction-number#prevention
 

NijaG

Well-Known Member
Regarding: chloroquine issue

I wish people would research a little before following certain advice.
Malaria is caused by a parasite that mosquitoes carry. Parasites are not viruses.

Now maybe they are testing it and it could have some sort of multi-functional use for various disease carriers, but until some reputable medical company gives their stamp of approval, people need to stop listening to 45.
 

dancinstallion

Well-Known Member
Saw this on news. People need to be careful and use some sense when it comes to things like this. Especially not taking advice from Trump. When he talked about this Dr. Fauci (spelling?) was quick to say it needed more studies.

Subscribe
The Guardian - Back to home
Show caption
Coronavirus outbreak
Arizona man dies after taking coronavirus ‘cure’ Trump touted with false claims
Wife survives after couple in their 60s ingested chloroquine phosphate, which Trump falsely claimed was approved to treat coronavirus


Associated Press in Phoenix, Arizona
Tue 24 Mar 2020 08.28 EDT

A Phoenix-area man has died and his wife was in critical condition after the couple took chloroquine phosphate, an additive used to clean fish tanks that is also found in an anti-malaria medication touted by Donald Trump as a treatment for Covid-19.

Older people would rather die than let Covid-19 harm US economy – Texas official
Banner Health said on Monday the couple in their 60s got sick within half an hour of ingesting the additive. The man could not be resuscitated at hospital but the woman was able to throw up much of the chemical.

“Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure,” the woman told NBC.

She said her advice would be: “Don’t take anything. Don’t believe anything. Don’t believe anything that the president says and his people … call your doctor.”

It’s unclear if the couple took chloroquine phosphate specifically because of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

“Given the uncertainty around Covid-19, we understand that people are trying to find new ways to prevent or treat this virus, but self-medicating is not the way to do so,” said Dr Daniel Brooks, Banner Poison and Drug Information Center medical director.

“The last thing that we want right now is to inundate our emergency departments with patients who believe they found a vague and risky solution that could potentially jeopardize their health.”

At a news conference last week, Trump falsely stated that the Food and Drug Administration had just approved the use of an anti-malaria medication called chloroquine to treat patients infected with coronavirus.

Even after the FDA chief clarified that the drug still needs to be tested for that use, Trump overstated the drug’s potential upside in containing the virus.

Chloroquine is obtained by prescription, and Banner Health is urging medical providers against prescribing it to people who are not hospitalised.

The difference between the fish tank cleaning additive the couple took and the drug used to treat malaria is the way they are formulated.

The man’s death came as the number of Covid-19 cases in Arizona spiked more than 50% in one day, from 152 on Sunday to 235 on Monday, according to the state health department.

Pima county reported its first coronavirus death: a woman in her 50s with an underlying health condition. It was the third Covid-19 death in Arizona. Two men, one in his 70s and one in his 50s, both had underlying conditions.

People have tested positive in 11 of Arizona’s 15 counties, including 139 cases in Maricopa county, the state’s most populous.

For most people, the virus causes only mild or moderate symptoms such as fever and cough. For some, older adults and people with health problems, it can cause more severe illness including pneumonia. The vast majority recover.


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I understand your point. But Trump is just repeating what others news outlets have said. China has reports that this is what they used. Plus a few Africans said this is what they used too. That poor couple just bought the wrong kind.

This reminds me of how this hair board had a lot of us buying Diatomaceous earth and eating it. If someone bought the wrong one that's for pool cleaning then they would die. Their mistake doesn't negate the effects of the right product.
 
Last edited:

CurlyNiquee

Well-Known Member
Im going to take a week off from work. I put in today. I have a feeling it will be approved even though I was suppose to let them know by Monday of each week.
I just wanna be home and not have to go anywhere.

Freezer is stocked and we have toilet paper that should last us two weeks. The problem Im having is when its time to replenish toilet paper. I had a pick up yesterday from the store and they called me to tell me there is no toilet paper even though I placed my order three weeks ago.

I have another order for pick up 03/31, Hopefully theres toilet paper.

My gf is going to call costco to see if they have any and if so pick me up some.

Do you have Wegmans near you? My mom was able to get toilet paper a couple of days ago via delivery...they are limiting it to 1 pack per family.
 

TrulyBlessed

Well-Known Member
Saw this on news. People need to be careful and use some sense when it comes to things like this. Especially not taking advice from Trump. When he talked about this Dr. Fauci (spelling?) was quick to say it needed more studies.

Subscribe
The Guardian - Back to home
Show caption
Coronavirus outbreak
Arizona man dies after taking coronavirus ‘cure’ Trump touted with false claims
Wife survives after couple in their 60s ingested chloroquine phosphate, which Trump falsely claimed was approved to treat coronavirus


Associated Press in Phoenix, Arizona
Tue 24 Mar 2020 08.28 EDT

A Phoenix-area man has died and his wife was in critical condition after the couple took chloroquine phosphate, an additive used to clean fish tanks that is also found in an anti-malaria medication touted by Donald Trump as a treatment for Covid-19.

Older people would rather die than let Covid-19 harm US economy – Texas official
Banner Health said on Monday the couple in their 60s got sick within half an hour of ingesting the additive. The man could not be resuscitated at hospital but the woman was able to throw up much of the chemical.

“Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure,” the woman told NBC.

She said her advice would be: “Don’t take anything. Don’t believe anything. Don’t believe anything that the president says and his people … call your doctor.”

It’s unclear if the couple took chloroquine phosphate specifically because of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

“Given the uncertainty around Covid-19, we understand that people are trying to find new ways to prevent or treat this virus, but self-medicating is not the way to do so,” said Dr Daniel Brooks, Banner Poison and Drug Information Center medical director.

“The last thing that we want right now is to inundate our emergency departments with patients who believe they found a vague and risky solution that could potentially jeopardize their health.”

At a news conference last week, Trump falsely stated that the Food and Drug Administration had just approved the use of an anti-malaria medication called chloroquine to treat patients infected with coronavirus.

Even after the FDA chief clarified that the drug still needs to be tested for that use, Trump overstated the drug’s potential upside in containing the virus.

Chloroquine is obtained by prescription, and Banner Health is urging medical providers against prescribing it to people who are not hospitalised.

The difference between the fish tank cleaning additive the couple took and the drug used to treat malaria is the way they are formulated.

The man’s death came as the number of Covid-19 cases in Arizona spiked more than 50% in one day, from 152 on Sunday to 235 on Monday, according to the state health department.

Pima county reported its first coronavirus death: a woman in her 50s with an underlying health condition. It was the third Covid-19 death in Arizona. Two men, one in his 70s and one in his 50s, both had underlying conditions.

People have tested positive in 11 of Arizona’s 15 counties, including 139 cases in Maricopa county, the state’s most populous.

For most people, the virus causes only mild or moderate symptoms such as fever and cough. For some, older adults and people with health problems, it can cause more severe illness including pneumonia. The vast majority recover.


Topics




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Support The Guardian
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© 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

They actually drank fish tank cleaner that was in their house because it had Chloroquine as an additive. They weren’t even sick but wanted to drink it to prevent the virus. Fish tank cleaner, smh.

Man dies after self-medicating with chloroquine phosphate to treat coronavirus
By Tamar Lapin

A man died after ingesting an additive used to clean fish tanks — which included a pharmaceutical drug touted by President Trump and others as a potential coronavirus cure.

Within 30 minutes of taking chloroquine phosphate, the man in his 60s experienced “immediate effects” and had to be admitted to a nearby Banner Health hospital, the medical system in Arizona said in a press release Monday.

His wife, also in her 60s, is in critical condition after taking the additive, which is used in aquariums to kill some organisms, like algae, that may harm fish.

The man’s wife told NBC News she’d watched press briefings where Trump talked about the potential benefits of chloroquine — and she recalled the name from the treatment she used on her koi fish.

“I saw it sitting on the back shelf and thought, ‘Hey, isn’t that the stuff they’re talking about on TV?,'” she told the outlet on the condition of anonymity.

The couple mixed a small amount of their fish treatment with a liquid and drank it as a way to prevent the coronavirus, she said.

“We were afraid of getting sick.”

Within 20 minutes, both became ill, at first feeling “dizzy and hot.”

Then “I started vomiting,” the woman told the outlet. “My husband started developing respiratory problems and wanted to hold my hand.”

Her husband died shortly after arriving at the hospital.

The cleaning agent ingested by the couple has the same active ingredient as the anti-malaria medicine chloroquine but is formulated differently.

Prices of the product on eBay skyrocketed after some studies foundthat the pharmaceutical version, the anti-malaria drug chloroquine, and a derivative called hydroxychloroquine, were effective in killing the virus in laboratory experiments.

Trump said last week the drug would soon begin to be distributed to treat some coronavirus patients. FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn clarified that the drug would be made available as part of a clinical trial.

Officials warned people not to take the drugs to treat coronavirus symptoms unless it has been specifically prescribed by their doctor.

“The last thing that we want right now is to inundate our emergency departments with patients who believe they found a vague and risky solution that could potentially jeopardize their health,” said Dr. Daniel Brooks, medical director of the Banner Poison and Drug Information Center.

Chloroquine is especially not recommended for use by non-hospitalized patients.

“We are strongly urging the medical community to not prescribe this medication to any non-hospitalized patients,” Brooks said.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/23/man-d...h-chloroquine-phosphate-to-treat-coronavirus/
 

Layluh

Well-Known Member
Interesting. The captain called me yesterday after work to make sure i had shipped everything to the site because whoever at the testing site called us to say we were "holding equipment." He didn't have specifics on what but I told them i shipped everything out. The problem is the government is sending stuff sporadically and we never receive advanced notice of what's coming. I didn't have to work today so I'm sure ill get an update tomorrow.

Harris County testing sites in danger of closing due to low number of coronavirus test kits


Nicole Hensley
March 24, 2020 Updated: March 24, 2020 12:10 p.m.

Comments
85

1of85Medical personnel at a COVID-19 testing site, interview first responders and medical staff who have symptoms and have been pre-authorized Photo: Steve Gonzales, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

2of85People run on the Seymour Lieberman Trail, Tuesday, March 24, 2020, at Memorial Park in Houston.Photo: Mark Mulligan, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

3of85Harris County Executive Lina Hidalgo prepares to start a press conference announcing that the county will adopt a "Stay Home, Work Safe" Photo: Mark Mulligan, Staff photographer

Harris County may have no other choice but to close its testing sites this week if the federal government does not send another shipment of testing kits and other medical supplies, officials warned Tuesday.

About 500 test kits — received Friday — are being split between two sites and that supply is expected to last through Wednesday night, officials said. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo initially said at a news conference that they had only enough supplies for Tuesday. The county started testing community members on Monday and 500 people were referred to the site, she said.

More than 2,400 people visited a pre-screening website to obtain a testing referral, Hidalgo said.
 

Layluh

Well-Known Member
Information on the government's strategic national stockpile that sends medical equipment during times of crises

Health
Inside the secret U.S. stockpile meant to save us all in a bioterror attack



(Monica Akhtar)
By Lena H. Sun
April 24, 2018 at 6:00 AM EDT
A SECRET LOCATION OUTSIDE WASHINGTON, D.C. — From the outside, it looks like an ordinary commercial warehouse, only much bigger, about the size of two super Walmarts. Inside it’s dark except when motion sensors are triggered. When the lights come on, hundreds of thousands of shrink-wrapped boxes of medicines emerge from the gloom, stacked on shelves nearly five stories high.

This is quite a different kind of warehouse. It and several others across the country are part of the $7 billion Strategic National Stockpile, a government repository of drugs and supplies ready for deployment in a bioterrorism or nuclear attack, or against an infectious disease outbreak — of either a known pathogen or some unknown threat with pandemic potential, which global health officials dub “Disease X” — or other major public health emergency. There are antibiotics, including the powerful medication Ciprofloxacin, vaccines for smallpox and anthrax and antivirals for a deadly influenza pandemic.

The need for biodefense has become more clear in the wake of outbreaks of Ebola in West Africa, Zika in the Americas, devastating wildfires and hurricanes, and the poisonings of the North Korean leader's half brother in Malaysia and former Russian spies in England with nerve and radiological agents. Last year, the federal government added three new chemicals to its list of high-priority threats, including chlorine and blister agents, such as mustard gas, that have been used in deadly chemical weapons attacks in Syria. On Monday, officials announced plans to add more anthrax antitoxin.


For nearly two decades, the repository has been almost exclusively managed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That will change under a Trump administration plan to shift oversight of the $575 million program to a different part of the Department of Health and Human Services. Doing so, proponents say, will keep the program intact but streamline decision-making and create “efficiencies.”

But some public health officials and members of Congress in both parties worry the move will disrupt a complex process that relies on long-standing relationships between the federal program and the state and local agencies responsible for distributing the medicine. During a congressional hearing last week, lawmakers expressed concern that a change could risk the government’s ability to deliver lifesaving medical supplies to what public health officials call “the last mile” — to people in need during a disaster.

“You have spent years planning and exercising and training because you need to know what to do if 100,000 doses of Cipro showed up in your state,” said Ali Khan, who used to oversee the program and now is dean at the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s College of Public Health. “How would you get it out? Who would dispense it? These parts are as critical as maintaining the medicines in pristine condition.”


He and other public health experts also question whether the administration’s plan will politicize decision-making about products bought for the stockpile. The office of the assistant secretary for preparedness and response (ASPR) oversees the process by which the government awards contracts to private biotechnology companies that develop and manufacture medicines such as anthrax vaccine. The CDC then is responsible for buying and replenishing the materials. Eligible medicines are tested by the Food and Drug Administration to check if, and for how long, the expiration date can be extended.

Come October, however, the ASPR will be in charge of choosing the products and then purchasing them for the stockpile. Proponents say the shift makes sense operationally to place key decisions about the repository under one office.

“I think this is a very good move,” said Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University. “It will help coordinate and organize the delivery of vital medical responses.”


But critics say it will allow biotech companies to lobby for more of their specialized, and often more expensive, drugs to be included because the federal government is often the only purchaser. Just because the government can buy these products, they say, doesn’t mean it should do so given the parallel need for medications, like antibiotics, that have much broader use.

And it’s not clear, they caution, whether the new structure will make Americans safer.

The stockpile should contain “the stuff we need for the disasters we know we’re going to have — like gloves, syringes, Cipro, penicillin, antibiotics, and influenza vaccines — versus the newest, sexiest version of the anthrax vaccine,” said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, who was Maryland’s health secretary during the 2001 terrorist and anthrax attacks.

Officials won't say how many stockpile warehouses exist. But there are at least six, according to a 2016 independent report. All the locations are secret, including this one in an industrial complex off a busy highway. A reporter allowed to tour the facility had to agree not to disclose the location. No camera, video equipment or cellphone is permitted inside.

Inside one of the warehouses of the Strategic National Stockpile are containers of medical supplies ready for shipment in the event of a large-scale public health incident. These supplies can be sent out within 12 hours of a federal decision to deploy. (CDC)
In the early hours of a crisis, the warehouse can send an affected city or region a “12-hour push package,” a pre-configured cache of 130 containers of antibiotics, syringes and oxygen tubing, enough to fill the belly of a widebody plane. “About 50 tons of materiel,” said Shirley Mabry, the stockpile’s chief logistics officer.


In the section of the warehouse where biologic drugs such as botulism antitoxins are stored at minus-4 degrees Fahrenheit, workers wear full-body insulated suits. Because of the intense cold they are limited to 20 minutes inside the two enormous freezers, just enough time to drive a forklift in and retrieve a pallet of medicine. An intensely loud vibrating sound makes conversation impossible.

Nationwide, the repository contains enough medical countermeasures to add up to more than 133,995 pallets. Laid flat, they’d cover more than 31 football fields — or 41 acres of land. They contain enough vaccine to protect every person in America from smallpox.

The stockpile program was created in 1999 under President Bill Clinton to respond to terrorist events, including the first World Trade Center bombing, the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway and the Oklahoma City bombing. The original goal was to be ready for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats. The repository includes nearly 2,000 caches of nerve agent antidotes, known as Chempacks, that are stored and maintained separately from the warehouses at more than 1,300 locations around the country where they can be accessed quickly.


Over time, the stockpile’s mission has expanded to include natural disasters and emerging infectious disease threats. The stockpile deployed antiviral medicine during the 2009-2010 swine flu pandemic, and vaccines, portable cots and other supplies during the hurricanes that devastated Houston and Puerto Rico last year. As the only source of botulism antitoxin in the United States, it also sends medicine for about 100 cases a year of severe food poisoning.

The inventory exceeds 1,000 categories of drugs and other items, but CDC’s budget hasn’t always been able to keep up with the program’s ever-growing list of needs.

Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center became a shelter for those displaced by Hurricane Harvey. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
“It’s a mission among many pressing missions among the CDC,” said Tara O’Toole, who was undersecretary for science and technology under President Barack Obama and chaired a National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine committee in 2016 that reviewed the challenges facing the program. “Bottom line, it's a good idea to lay the responsibility of the cost of maintaining it on the same people who decide what to put in the stockpile.”


The group of federal agencies making decisions about what goes in the repository is led by the ASPR office, which is headed by former Air Force physician Robert Kadlec. He is a former special assistant to President George W. Bush on biodefense and former deputy staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Kadlec stresses that the impending change has nothing to do with CDC’s performance. “The question here is whether we can get better efficiencies,” he said in an interview. At the same time, he said he will be able to advocate most effectively for the program to give it greater visibility, which could lead to more funding.

“Quite frankly, by the back of the envelope, they need more money,” he said.

When the stockpile was established, CDC was the only major public health agency in the federal government. The ASPR office, created in 2006 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to manage emergency responses across the government, was historically focused on natural disasters and threats from dirty bombs or crude biological or chemical weapons, he said. But since then, the world has changed, with many more unpredictable threats. The ASPR office needs to change to meet these threats. “The decision to move the stockpile, I think, was just a natural one,” Kadlec said.


Yet Congress has some bipartisan concerns about the stockpile’s future. Republican and Democratic appropriators, who just gave the program budget a slight boost for this year, signaled their unease as part of the recently passed spending bill. They specifically highlighted CDC’s “unique expertise in public health preparedness and response, science-based policy and decision-making, public health communication, and coordination with state and local groups.” Lawmakers also “strongly urged” HHS Secretary Alex Azar to “maintain a strong and central role for CDC” in the program.

Kadlec testified April 18 at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on next year's HHS biodefense budget. Rep. Tom Cole, (R-Okla.), who chairs the health subcommittee, told Kadlec his main concern is “that we make this organizational change in a way that makes [the stockpile] stronger, not one that's duplicative, let alone something that might disrupt the relationships we have.”

Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), ranking Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, faults the administration for failing to get “any input from Congress” despite the fact that lawmakers are in the process of reauthorizing the law that includes the Strategic National Stockpile.


“We have yet to see proof this large-scale public health program with complex state, local and federal partnerships would be better served at ASPR than at CDC,” Murray wrote in a letter in February to Mick Mulvaney, President Trump’s budget director. At the CDC, she said, the program “may be better protected from politicization and therefore better able to be scientifically driven.”

Mulvaney defended the plan in his response, saying it will “streamline operational decisions during responses to public health and other emergencies and improve responsiveness.” It is unlikely Congress could derail the move, but appropriators have to fund it and still can provide direction and oversight.

At CDC, the program’s current director is hoping its planned move this fall will provide new ways to improve the stockpile’s capability. Regardless of where it is located within HHS, Greg Burel said, in an emergency “we will not change the way we respond.”

Read more:

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Lena Sun
Lena H. Sun is a national reporter for The Washington Post covering health with a special focus on public health and infectious disease. A longtime reporter at The Post, she has covered the Metro transit system, immigration, education and was a Beijing



 

Leeda.the.Paladin

Well-Known Member
They actually drank fish tank cleaner that was in their house because it had Chloroquine as an additive. They weren’t even sick but wanted to drink it to prevent the virus. Fish tank cleaner, smh.

Man dies after self-medicating with chloroquine phosphate to treat coronavirus
By Tamar Lapin

A man died after ingesting an additive used to clean fish tanks — which included a pharmaceutical drug touted by President Trump and others as a potential coronavirus cure.

Within 30 minutes of taking chloroquine phosphate, the man in his 60s experienced “immediate effects” and had to be admitted to a nearby Banner Health hospital, the medical system in Arizona said in a press release Monday.

His wife, also in her 60s, is in critical condition after taking the additive, which is used in aquariums to kill some organisms, like algae, that may harm fish.

The man’s wife told NBC News she’d watched press briefings where Trump talked about the potential benefits of chloroquine — and she recalled the name from the treatment she used on her koi fish.
Welp...
“I saw it sitting on the back shelf and thought, ‘Hey, isn’t that the stuff they’re talking about on TV?,'” she told the outlet on the condition of anonymity.

The couple mixed a small amount of their fish treatment with a liquid and drank it as a way to prevent the coronavirus, she said.

“We were afraid of getting sick.”

Within 20 minutes, both became ill, at first feeling “dizzy and hot.”

Then “I started vomiting,” the woman told the outlet. “My husband started developing respiratory problems and wanted to hold my hand.”

Her husband died shortly after arriving at the hospital.

The cleaning agent ingested by the couple has the same active ingredient as the anti-malaria medicine chloroquine but is formulated differently.

Prices of the product on eBay skyrocketed after some studies foundthat the pharmaceutical version, the anti-malaria drug chloroquine, and a derivative called hydroxychloroquine, were effective in killing the virus in laboratory experiments.

Trump said last week the drug would soon begin to be distributed to treat some coronavirus patients. FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn clarified that the drug would be made available as part of a clinical trial.

Officials warned people not to take the drugs to treat coronavirus symptoms unless it has been specifically prescribed by their doctor.

“The last thing that we want right now is to inundate our emergency departments with patients who believe they found a vague and risky solution that could potentially jeopardize their health,” said Dr. Daniel Brooks, medical director of the Banner Poison and Drug Information Center.

Chloroquine is especially not recommended for use by non-hospitalized patients.

“We are strongly urging the medical community to not prescribe this medication to any non-hospitalized patients,” Brooks said.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/23/man-d...h-chloroquine-phosphate-to-treat-coronavirus/
 
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