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

ScorpioBeauty09

Well-Known Member
Are you maybe getting the age mixed up with the name of the virus (covid 19). I ask because i just saw on nbc news that the person was in their late 50s and medically high risk
Trump said in his conference the person who died was a woman in her late 50s, medically high risk (whatever that means) but then Jake Tapper tweeted that Washington State/King county health officials said the deceased was a male.

Things are getting dangerous. WA state/King county said they were going to have a press conference at 1 pm local time, but Trump putting out false information is forcing them to put out information early. But there's so much misinformation that people don't know what to believe. :nono:

ETA: I just saw NBC news confirm the WA state government said the victim was 19 years old. I read a 19 year old tested positive but I didn't want to think someone that young died. Poor baby.
 

vevster

Well-Known Member
Trump said in his conference the person who died was a woman in her late 50s, medically high risk (whatever that means) but then Jake Tapper tweeted that Washington State/King county health officials said the deceased was a male.

Things are getting dangerous. WA state/King county said they were going to have a press conference at 1 pm local time, but Trump putting out false information is forcing them to put out information early. But there's so much misinformation that people don't know what to believe. :nono:
Well, Trump is not the person to listen to at this time.
 

ScorpioBeauty09

Well-Known Member
Uh oh. I was thinking young kids and elderly were at risk not 19 year olds.
No one under the age of 9 has died from coronavirus. Even with the 19 year old dying, most of the people who die from coronavirus are over 80 and/or have chronic health conditions.

The death rate is probably lower than reported because not everyone who has coronavirus has symptoms and not everyone with symptoms goes to the hospital. Most people have mild symptoms.
 

dancinstallion

Well-Known Member
No one under the age of 9 has died from coronavirus. Even with the 19 year old dying, most of the people who die from coronavirus are over 80 and/or have chronic health conditions.

The death rate is probably lower than reported because not everyone who has coronavirus has symptoms and not everyone with symptoms goes to the hospital. Most people have mild symptoms.

Good to know,
I know the death rate is really low. I keep calculating and I keep coming up with a 1-2% death rate. Even if 2k more people die it would still be a 2% rate.
 

winterinatl

All natural!
King County gov said it is a man in his 50’s with underlying health issues.

The child is in my own school district (Everett, WA) and we closed the high school Monday for deep cleaning. There was also an employee at Northshore schools district at a high school close to the other high school. That school was closed for extra cleaning as well.

I am going out grocery shopping. This is nerve racking. That man had no known contact with others with the virus.
 

Ivonnovi

Well-Known Member
..........

I am going out grocery shopping. This is nerve racking. That man had no known contact with others with the virus.

The bolded is the only reason I shared the posting of Folks purposely coughing on elevator buttons, and or using their tissues to wipe down the elevator buttons .
The malice behavior in the video was a clear illustration of just how nasty folks are when they think no one is looking, regardless of whether the video perps were sick or not. I actually asked my Friends and Family to take extra precautions, especially since it seems this will be at Pandemic status soon.

I don't want to scare them but it is Flu Season, and thanks to that and this extra Virus washing your hands and wearing face masks in public is not quite enough IMHO. We should all be mindful (cautious) of what all we touch in public places.
 

Black Ambrosia

Well-Known Member
Washington state investigating possible coronavirus outbreak at a nursing facility
(CNN) — Washington state health officials are investigating a possible outbreak of coronavirus at a long-term nursing facility in which two people tested positive for the disease.

More than 50 residents and staff from the Life Care Center in Kirkland are experiencing symptoms, and will be tested for coronavirus, said Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, health officer for Seattle and King County.

The news comes the same day the first US death from coronavirus was reported in Washington state, health officials said Saturday. The man in his 50s, who had underlying health conditions, was not a resident at the care facility.

The two positive tests associated with the nursing facility include a 40-year-old female health care worker who has no known travel outside the US and is in satisfactory condition at a local hospital, officials said. The second one, a woman in her 70s, is hospitalized in serious condition.

"In addition, we're aware of a number of individuals associated with the long-term care facility who are reportedly ill with respiratory symptoms or pneumonia, and we're in the process of investigating this situation as an outbreak," Duchin said. "We're in the beginning stages of our investigation and new details."


A staff member blocks the view as a person is taken by a stretcher to a waiting ambulance from a nursing facility where dozens of people are being tested for coronavirus.

In a statement, the facility said it's not allowing visits from families, volunteers or vendors, and is also placing admissions on hold for the time being.

"We are now in the process of working with the long-term care facility, with the support of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," Duchin said. "And we're in a process of providing support to that facility to care for the infected patients, to protect the uninfected patients, and to provide infection control."

There are now 71 confirmed and presumptive positive cases of coronavirus in the United States. They include 44 people who were aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, three people repatriated from China and 24 cases that occurred in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The two dozen cases across the US are in Arizona, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington state and Wisconsin.

A presumptive case is a patient who has tested positive at a state, county or city lab, but whose results have not yet been confirmed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee declared a state of emergency Saturday, directing state agencies to use all resources necessary to respond to the outbreak.

"This will allow us to get the resources we need," Inslee said. "This is a time to take common-sense, proactive measures to ensure the health and safety of those who live in Washington state."
 

Black Ambrosia

Well-Known Member
Coronavirus rumors and chaos in Alabama point to big problems as U.S. seeks to contain virus
Rumor mill, lack of communication by federal officials undermines trust in plan to relocate quarantined patients
Todd Frankel


A dormitory, front center, in Anniston, Ala., where the federal government intended to house coronavirus patients.

ANNISTON, Ala. — Not long before local leaders decided, in the words of one of them, that federal health officials “didn’t know what they were doing" with their plan to quarantine novel coronavirus patients in town, a doctor here set out in a biohazard suit to stage a one-man protest along the highway with a sign. “The virus has arrived. Are you ready?” it asked.

The town didn’t think it was. Residents already were unnerved by strange stories posted on Facebook and shared via text messages about helicopters secretly flying in sick patients, that the virus was grown in a Chinese lab, that someone — either the media or the government — was lying to them about what was really going on.

The quarantine plan hastily hatched by the federal Department of Health and Human Services was soon scrapped by President Trump, who faced intense pushback from Alabama’s congressional delegation, led by Republican Rep. Mike D. Rogers. Americans evacuated after falling ill aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan would not be coming to Anniston, a town of 22,000 people in north-central Alabama, after all. They would remain in the same Texas and California sites where they were taken after leaving the cruise ship.

What happened here over the past week illustrates how poor planning by federal health officials and a rumor mill fueled by social media, polarized politics and a lack of clear communication can undermine public confidence in the response to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease named covid-19. The rapidly spreading virus has rattled economies worldwide in recent weeks and caused the deaths of more than 2,900 people, mostly in China.

The panic and problems that burned through Anniston also provided a preview of what could unfold in other communities, as the spread of the virus is considered by health experts to be inevitable.

“Their little plan sketched out in D.C. was not thought out,” said Michael Barton, director of the emergency management agency in Calhoun County, where Anniston is located.

As local officials learned more, Barton added, “We knew then —”

“We were in trouble,” said Tim Hodges, chairman of the county commission.

In Anniston, local leaders were stunned to discover serious problems with the federal government’s plan for dealing with patients infected with the virus — starting with how the patients would get to Alabama, according to interviews with county and city officials, along with business leaders who dealt with the federal response.

“I was shocked,” Anniston Mayor Jack Draper said. “I was shocked by the lack of planning. I was shocked by the manner in which it was presented to us.”

Two HHS officials — Darcie Johnston, director of intergovernmental affairs, and Kevin Yeskey, principal deputy assistant secretary for preparedness and response — said in a Feb. 23 meeting with local officials that the patients would be flown from California to the Fort McClellan Army Airfield in Anniston, according to multiple local officials.

The airfield was closed when the Army base was shuttered in 1999. Local officials said they told the HHS officials during the meeting the runway was in bad shape.

“The more we talked,” Hodges said, “the more holes we found.”

The HHS plan also called for housing coronavirus patients at the Center for Domestic Preparedness, a FEMA facility on the old Army base and one of several redevelopment projects at the sprawling outpost.


The center has several brick dormitory buildings — behind tall black fencing — where federal officials planned for the patients to live. Federal officials even picked out the building they wanted to use for the first arrivals: Dorm No. 28, local officials said. A team of federal health workers would care for the patients and U.S. marshals would keep them from leaving the quarantine, local officials said they were told.

The dorms normally house emergency responders from around the country.

But the center doesn’t have any special capabilities for handling infectious diseases, local officials said. The center is used for training. It has isolation hospital rooms — located in a former Army hospital building — but they are mostly just props, with fake equipment and light switches that exist only as paint on walls.

Meanwhile, federal officials never contacted the town’s hospital, Regional Medical Center, about handling covid-19 patients, said Louis Bass, the hospital’s chief executive.


Yet HHS officials said in a statement released to the public Feb. 22 that patients who become seriously ill would be sent to “pre-identified hospitals for medical care.”

“We were surprised,” Bass said.

The hospital does have eight negative-pressure isolation rooms, but patients with serious complications would need to be sent to a larger institution, such as Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, 90 miles away, Bass said.


The Center for Domestic Preparedness is near a dormitory where the federal government intended to house quarantined passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship.
Emory University Hospital did not respond to a question about whether it was told about the HHS plan.

A federal contract for a local ambulance service was secured at the last moment, after HHS had already issued a statement about its plan for Anniston. Details on how to handle other tasks — including patients’ laundry and food — seemed unfinished.

The preparations for bringing patients to Anniston were handled partly by Caliburn International, a government contractor that previously provided emergency medical services to federal agencies, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Washington Post.


Former Trump chief of staff John F. Kelly joined the firm based in Reston, Va., as a board member last year. Caliburn is the parent company of Comprehensive Health Services, which has come under scrutiny for its operation of medical services at a detention site for migrant children.

John Kelly joins board of company whose subsidiary runs shelter for migrant teens

A Caliburn spokeswoman referred questions about the Anniston operations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

HHS, through its Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, responded to The Post’s questions about its Anniston operations with a statement noting the office’s staff members “have a long-standing relationship” with the disaster preparedness center and were familiar with its capabilities. The statement also said the federal agency “was considering the facility as a contingency location” and decided during discussions with local officials that “the site would not actually be needed.”

It was Trump who finally canceled the planned quarantine in Anniston on Feb. 23, according to tweets from Rogers and Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) that referred to their conversations with the president.


The news arrived as people attended an emergency meeting of the Calhoun County Commission. Cheers broke out.

“I guess in our culture today a tweet is considered official,” Barton said.

Anniston has plenty of experience dealing with unwelcome threats — and learning to live with them.

It was for years home to the nation’s chemical weapons stockpile, including sarin and mustard gas. Later, it was the location of a chemical weapons incinerator, where those munitions were carefully destroyed.

The town also deals with the toxic legacy of a former Monsanto plant that for decades polluted the soil and water with PCBs, which were banned in the 1970s amid health concerns. The pollution resulted in a $700 million settlement for 20,000 residents in 2003.

But the novel coronavirus posed a different kind of challenge.

Fear that the HHS plan was flawed gave new energy to already circulating rumors and wild theories about the virus.

Residents didn’t know whom to believe. Trump had said without evidence that CNN and MSNBC were exaggerating the threat. Rush Limbaugh was on the radio saying it was no worse than the regular flu. Facebook posts claimed the outbreak had been foreshadowed by a 1981 Dean Koontz book. And the idea the virus could have been created in a Chinese biochemical lab was floatedwidely, including by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).

The whirlwind caught the attention of Michael Kline, a urologist in Anniston.

“I don’t think anyone knows what’s going on,” he said.

So on the weekend of Feb. 22-23, Kline dressed up in a blue biohazard suit with his “the virus has arrived” sign. He stood along the highway and waved to passing vehicles. He wanted to drum up opposition to allowing infected patients in Anniston. But even the plan was abandoned, Kline said he still wasn’t certain patients weren’t being housed at the old Army base.


Urologist Michael Kline protests a plan to quarantine patients infected with covid-19 at a facility in Anniston. (Todd Frankel/The Washington Post)
Rumors of black helicopters ferrying infected patients to the training center at night were rampant. The local Home Depot sold out of painting and sanding face masks. Hodges, the commissioner, said he heard often from worried residents. But helicopters were common in the area because of a nearby Army depot and National Guard training center. Only now they were nefarious. Other people talked about mysterious vans driving along county roads.

Hodges and Draper held emergency news conferences and meetings to try to lessen the panic. But those meetings also allowed for additional rumors to flourish during public comment periods. A commission meeting included one resident tying the coronavirus to a 1992 United Nations document about climate change.

“That’s how long this has been going on,” he said.

“The public is going crazy,” said Bobby Foster, a business owner who spoke at the meeting and asked the commissioners to try harder to distribute accurate information.

Glen Ray, president of the local NAACP, talked about the virus at a Sunday service at Rising Star United Methodist Church on Feb. 23 to try to calm people’s worries. But he was also dismayed that one of the county commissioners wore a red “Make America Great Again” hat to an emergency meeting about the virus.

“It’s not about Donald Trump,” Ray said later. “A virus is not going to just jump on a Democrat. So at times like this, we need to be coming together. No time for politics.”

Anniston’s flirtation with the dreaded virus did have one positive effect, officials said. It made them realize they need to prepare — that the virus could come without warning and they shouldn’t rely on outsiders alone for expertise.

Barton, the emergency management director, helped create a county infectious disease task force. It has already had its first meeting. The focus is not solely on the coronavirus. It will handle the flu and whatever other viruses pop up in the future.

The public’s interest in the virus hasn’t faded, either.

Barton gave a talk Thursday to a lunchtime meeting of a civic organization, the Exchange Club. It had been planned months ago but he decided to talk about the aborted plan to bring infected patients to town.

People peppered Barton with questions about why federal health officials had ever considered the disaster training facility and how much emergency food they should keep at home. They wanted to know how to avoid getting sick.

Barton suggested hand-washing and keeping a safe distance from sick people.

As he talked, a lady reached into her purse, squeezed some alcohol sanitizer on her hands and passed the bottle around the table.
 

ShortyDooWhop

Well-Known Member
Saw this article and was both perplexed and dismayed-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ver-NOT-effective-preventing-coronavirus.html
I’m seriously questioning how the advice of the surgeon general. Granted, not many of the health experts offering information about the virus have addressed the efficacy of wearing masks, but isn’t some degree of proactivity beneficial?
Also, If surgical masks provide no benefit to the general public, why do medical professionals wear them? And, isn’t some protection better than none?

Edited to add - are you all taking any precautions? Purchasing masks, medication, food, etc?
 
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Black Ambrosia

Well-Known Member
Wondering if there will be a tipping point here at which people will start to panic.
I'm not sure about panic but I think there will be a tipping point where there's a run on groceries and supplies. Idk if I want to stock up so I won't be in a bind if there's a shortage on something I need or if I should keep calm and carry on because people stocking up will contribute to shortages.

If I lived in California or Washington near the confirmed cases then I'd probably be stocking up on all the sanitizer, bleach, and canned goods I could find. I was just reading about how this could be worse here than in Europe because we don't have universal healthcare and mandatory sick days. With the gig economy there'll be people who have to work to make ends meet. They won't be able to limit their exposure or keep others from coming in contact with them if they're exposed.
 
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intellectualuva

Well-Known Member
Edited to add - are you all taking any precautions? Purchasing masks, medication, food, etc?

I have masks, sent some extras to my BFF and her family, force of nature cleaner + regular cleaners and grabbed lots of purell the other day. I usually always have some or some wipes with me when I travel, but I bought sone extra to have on hand. I got lots of dried food last week too. I make quarterly Costco and fresh seafood runs so I was fine there, but just in case I have some extras. With power, I'm good for 6-7 weeks. Without power, maybe 2- 3.5 weeks

I've been into prepping, minimally, for a while. I've been into it in general since I read Parable of the Sower. :look: So I keep a go-bag with random emergency supplies anyway. I'm not worried, but I do like to be prepared and I'd been slipping on the food end lately. It's hard finding keto friendly dried food.

I honestly don't think anything will happen or at least I hope not. There are already vulnerable people out there without this. They don't need anything else.

I also hate what its doing to the market. :drunk:
 

UmSumayyah

Well-Known Member
Considering folk are spraying the streets with disinfectant and issuing travel advisories/shutting down flights, I think it's foolish not to stock up a bit.

No you don't need 2 years of food but doubling your usual grocery shop of nonperishables and having a case or two of water is simply good sense.
 
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