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

Shimmie

"God is the Only Truth -- Period"
Staff member
I hear many people say why lockdown and wear masks because most of us will be infected eventually anyway. Even if that is so, that doesn’t make sense not to contain the virus. Imagine if we all get it at the same time, how will hospitals handle it? Am I missing something? Again people are thinking about themselves and not the hospital workers who have to deal with all the sick people.
Sometimes people won't learn until it 'hits' them. I don't want to see anyone have this and it's unfair for the responsible people to have their lives to be placed on hold (back into quarantine) because of the ones who don't care and continue to be 'spreaders'. The overload for the healthcare workers, and other essential persons, need a break. They've earned it and are entitled to it.
 

vevster

Well-Known Member
Some additional information from a nutritionist who is recovering: https://thechalkboardmag.com/covid-19-nutritionist
+ Supplements used to enhance my COVID recovery included: extra zinc picolinate, liposomal vitamin C (2000mg 3-4x a day), liposomal glutathione, vitamin D, NAD+, NAC, magnesium glycinate, propolis, oil of oregano, astragalus, nettle leaf with quercetin, L-lysine and an Ayurvedic immune blend.
Quercetin does the same thing Hydroxychloroquine does but naturally and safely.
DL Hughley passed out on stage then discovered he had the virus.
 

vevster

Well-Known Member
How is @CarefreeinChicago doing?

This is what is scary

I think it’s important to get tested on a regular basis so that you’re equipped with accurate knowledge for navigating your lifestyle. My sister tested positive for COVID nearly 3.5 weeks after recovery, after also testing positive for the antibodies and after nearly 7 weeks of carrying the virus. So, despite the fact that she had recovered and had not had any symptoms for weeks, she still had a high enough viral count to be contagious.
 
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BonBon

Well-Known Member
My Mum is taking the Vit D supps, but she also is obese and *just started on blood pressure meds and will be investigated for diabetes soon...

upload_2020-6-21_10-3-33.png

I asked my Mom to lose weight yesterday because I'm concerned. Not just because of covid. The people I'm worried about in my family are dealing with multiple health issues.

Anyhoo, she listened and started on Weightwatchers now and said she will exercise. I'm hoping she can stick to it.
 

OhTall1

Well-Known Member
Wow. Just wow. Instead of sending the states test tubes, the administration sent useless, unusable unsterilized mini soda bottles.

The Trump Administration Paid Millions for Test Tubes—and Got Unusable Mini Soda Bottles
The plastic tubes supplied for coronavirus testing by Fillakit, a first-time federal contractor with a sketchy owner, don’t even fit the racks used to analyze samples.


President Donald Trump holds a medical testing swab near his nose as he tours Puritan Medical Products, a medical swab manufacturer, in early June.Patrick Semansky/AP

For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones' newsletters.
This story was published in partnership with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for ProPublica’s Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published.

Since May, the Trump administration has paid a fledgling Texas company $7.3 million for test tubes needed in tracking the spread of the coronavirus nationwide. But, instead of the standard vials, Fillakit LLC has supplied plastic tubes made for bottling soda, which state health officials say are unusable.

The state officials say that these “preforms,” which are designed to be expanded with heat and pressure into 2-liter soda bottles, don’t fit the racks used in laboratory analysis of test samples. Even if the bottles were the right size, experts say, the company’s process likely contaminated the tubes and could yield false test results. Fillakit employees, some not wearing masks, gathered the miniature soda bottles with snow shovels and dumped them into plastic bins before squirting saline into them, all in the open air, according to former employees and ProPublica’s observation of the company’s operations.

“It wasn’t even clean, let alone sterile,” said Teresa Green, a retired science teacher who worked at Fillakit’s makeshift warehouse outside of Houston for two weeks before leaving out of frustration.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency signed its first deal with Fillakit on May 7, just six days after the company was formed by an ex-telemarketer repeatedly accused of fraudulent practices over the past two decades. Fillakit has supplied a total of more than 3 million tubes, which FEMA then approved and sent to all 50 states. If the company fulfills its contractual obligation to provide 4 million tubes, it will receive a total of $10.16 million.

Officials in New York, New Jersey, Texas and New Mexico confirmed they can’t use the Fillakit tubes. Three other states told ProPublica that they received Fillakit supplies and have not distributed them to testing sites. FEMA has asked health officials in several states to find an alternative use for the unfinished soda bottles.

“We are still trying to identify an alternative use,” said Janelle Fleming, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Health.

Fillakit owner Paul Wexler acknowledged that the tubes are normally used for soda bottles but otherwise declined to comment.


The Fillakit deal shows the perils of the Trump administration’s frantic hiring of first-time federal contractors with little scrutiny during the pandemic. The federal government has awarded more than $2 billion to first-time contractors for work related to the coronavirus, a ProPublica analysis of purchasing data shows. Many of those companies, like Fillakit, had no experience with medical supplies.

The U.S. has lagged behind many European countries in its rate of testing people for the coronavirus, partly because of supply shortages or inadequacies. Epidemiologists say testing is vital to tracking the virus and slowing transmission. In at least one state, the shipment of unusable Fillakit tubes contributed to delays in rolling out widespread testing.

“They’re the most unusable tubes I’ve ever seen,” said a top public health scientist in that state, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his job. “They’re going to sit in a warehouse and no one can use them. We won’t be able to do our full plan.”

In a written response to questions, FEMA said it inspects testing products “to ensure packaging is intact to maintain sterility; that the packing slip matches the requested product ordered, and that the vials are not leaking.” It said that “product validation” that medical supplies are effective “is reinforced at the state laboratories.”

The agency did not answer questions about the size and lack of sterilization of Fillakit’s tubes or about why it sought an alternative use for them.

Fillakit is one of more than 300 new federal contractors providing supplies related to COVID-19. A ProPublica analysis last month found about 13% of total federal government spending on pandemic-related contracts went to first-time vendors. FEMA said last month that it only pays for products once they have been delivered, minimizing the risk of wasting taxpayer dollars.

“FEMA does not enter into contracts unless it has reason to believe they will be successfully executed,” it said.

Preforms, the small tubes also known in the plastics industry as “baby soda bottles” or “blanks,” have a following among elementary school science teachers and amateur scientists, but they don’t meet rigorous laboratory standards. They’re much cheaper than glass vials and can be sealed off with a soda bottle cap. When inflated with high-pressure air, the soft plastic expands to the size of a 2-liter soda bottle.


The preforms arrive at Fillakit’s warehouse in a huge shipping container. The tubes are then shoveled into smaller bins. Workers add the saline solution and screw on caps. The tubes are then loosely piled in bags and sent to FEMA, which forwards them to the states. Typically, test tubes are individually packaged to guard against contamination.

Washington state, an epicenter of the first outbreak of the virus, got more than 76,000 Fillakit vials from FEMA. None can be used.

“They were packaged unusually,” said Frank Ameduri, a spokesman for the state Health Department. “Not in a way we’re used to seeing, and they were not labeled. Some of them have been sent to our lab for quality control. None of the vials will be used until we’ve identified what’s in them and that they are safe for use.”

About 140,000 Fillakit tubes are also shelved in Texas, where officials were slow to roll out testing. The number of confirmed cases in Texas has increased by more than one-third in the past two weeks, according to data gathered by The COVID Tracking Project.

“There were issues with the labeling, and they use saline rather than viral transport medium, so we have not used them for our testing efforts,” said Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the Texas health department.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has only validated one solution, known as viral transport medium, as reliable in preserving the coronavirus RNA from decay or destruction by substances in the container. However, because that medium is in short supply, the FDA has also granted an emergency authorization for other products it believes can keep the virus intact for up to three days.

Fillakit has been squirting one of the alternatives into its tubes, phosphate buffered saline, which the FDA says should be placed into “a sterile glass or plastic vial.”

A spokeswoman for the Maryland-based Association of Public Health Laboratories, a membership organization that writes best practices and helps connect public health labs with government agencies, said it has heard rumblings about Fillakit’s tubes but “nothing deadly.”
 

mochalocks

Well-Known Member
My brother is crazy. I don’t think he watches the news or not, he wanted to come here last night- he’s from North Carolina. When I told him no, he got upset and I hung up the phone.

I value my life, and the rest of my family who lives here with me. Sorry not trying to get infected.
 

ThirdEyeBeauty

Well-Known Member
My Mum is taking the Vit D supps, but she also is obese and *just started on blood pressure meds and will be investigated for diabetes soon...

View attachment 460495

I asked my Mom to lose weight yesterday because I'm concerned. Not just because of covid. The people I'm worried about in my family are dealing with multiple health issues.

Anyhoo, she listened and started on Weightwatchers now and said she will exercise. I'm hoping she can stick to it.
Hypertension and diabetes are associated with low vitamin d levels. Anyone with obesity would need two to three times the amount of vitamin d than a person with a normal body mass index (BMI).

So after some time with insufficient vitamin d, diabetes developed. Obesity reduces the chance of absorbing the vitamin d in each cell because, instead, it stays in adipose tissue not being used. A ketogenic diet would highly likely release the vitamin d from adipose tissue but I would not recommend that now that she has diabetes. The recommendation would be to increase vitamin d times three. That would be well over 10,000 IU a day if it is vitamin d3. With the condition listed, maybe even higher for a couple of months. She would need to drink plenty of water. Maybe she would need to reduce her calorie intake or have regular checks of blood and urine calcium levels. If you can find a nutritionist or naturopathic physician or even chiropractor who is truly up-to-date on vitamin d, I recommend. It can be done without them but I would recommend reading many articles on pubmed due to the high dose she would need. Anything lower than 10,000 probably would not do much for body's need right now. Research k2 also.
 

ThirdEyeBeauty

Well-Known Member
Not sure if this was posted Here already.
Scandalous!!!
The video is probably from March and April. Now that it is June, with all that we know, it would be scandalous to die of C19 primarily. I believe the deaths occurring now are from bad hospitals and medical professionals refusing or made to not use the latest treatments found to work even in developing countries--in other words they are politicize treatment areas. The other group dying of C19 are those who refused to seek help until the very end and they also have other comorbidities. The other group did not have c19 but did not seek medical attention for whatever was going on with them until it was too late and may have acquired hospital c19 when they finally went but they died of their medical conditions not c19. Medical professionals have to write death certificate with c19 on it even if acquired later in the hospital.
 

Everything Zen

Well-Known Member
Wow. Just wow. Instead of sending the states test tubes, the administration sent useless, unusable unsterilized mini soda bottles.

The Trump Administration Paid Millions for Test Tubes—and Got Unusable Mini Soda Bottles
The plastic tubes supplied for coronavirus testing by Fillakit, a first-time federal contractor with a sketchy owner, don’t even fit the racks used to analyze samples.


President Donald Trump holds a medical testing swab near his nose as he tours Puritan Medical Products, a medical swab manufacturer, in early June.Patrick Semansky/AP

For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones' newsletters.
This story was published in partnership with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for ProPublica’s Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published.

Since May, the Trump administration has paid a fledgling Texas company $7.3 million for test tubes needed in tracking the spread of the coronavirus nationwide. But, instead of the standard vials, Fillakit LLC has supplied plastic tubes made for bottling soda, which state health officials say are unusable.

The state officials say that these “preforms,” which are designed to be expanded with heat and pressure into 2-liter soda bottles, don’t fit the racks used in laboratory analysis of test samples. Even if the bottles were the right size, experts say, the company’s process likely contaminated the tubes and could yield false test results. Fillakit employees, some not wearing masks, gathered the miniature soda bottles with snow shovels and dumped them into plastic bins before squirting saline into them, all in the open air, according to former employees and ProPublica’s observation of the company’s operations.

“It wasn’t even clean, let alone sterile,” said Teresa Green, a retired science teacher who worked at Fillakit’s makeshift warehouse outside of Houston for two weeks before leaving out of frustration.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency signed its first deal with Fillakit on May 7, just six days after the company was formed by an ex-telemarketer repeatedly accused of fraudulent practices over the past two decades. Fillakit has supplied a total of more than 3 million tubes, which FEMA then approved and sent to all 50 states. If the company fulfills its contractual obligation to provide 4 million tubes, it will receive a total of $10.16 million.

Officials in New York, New Jersey, Texas and New Mexico confirmed they can’t use the Fillakit tubes. Three other states told ProPublica that they received Fillakit supplies and have not distributed them to testing sites. FEMA has asked health officials in several states to find an alternative use for the unfinished soda bottles.

“We are still trying to identify an alternative use,” said Janelle Fleming, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Health.

Fillakit owner Paul Wexler acknowledged that the tubes are normally used for soda bottles but otherwise declined to comment.


The Fillakit deal shows the perils of the Trump administration’s frantic hiring of first-time federal contractors with little scrutiny during the pandemic. The federal government has awarded more than $2 billion to first-time contractors for work related to the coronavirus, a ProPublica analysis of purchasing data shows. Many of those companies, like Fillakit, had no experience with medical supplies.

The U.S. has lagged behind many European countries in its rate of testing people for the coronavirus, partly because of supply shortages or inadequacies. Epidemiologists say testing is vital to tracking the virus and slowing transmission. In at least one state, the shipment of unusable Fillakit tubes contributed to delays in rolling out widespread testing.

“They’re the most unusable tubes I’ve ever seen,” said a top public health scientist in that state, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his job. “They’re going to sit in a warehouse and no one can use them. We won’t be able to do our full plan.”

In a written response to questions, FEMA said it inspects testing products “to ensure packaging is intact to maintain sterility; that the packing slip matches the requested product ordered, and that the vials are not leaking.” It said that “product validation” that medical supplies are effective “is reinforced at the state laboratories.”

The agency did not answer questions about the size and lack of sterilization of Fillakit’s tubes or about why it sought an alternative use for them.

Fillakit is one of more than 300 new federal contractors providing supplies related to COVID-19. A ProPublica analysis last month found about 13% of total federal government spending on pandemic-related contracts went to first-time vendors. FEMA said last month that it only pays for products once they have been delivered, minimizing the risk of wasting taxpayer dollars.

“FEMA does not enter into contracts unless it has reason to believe they will be successfully executed,” it said.

Preforms, the small tubes also known in the plastics industry as “baby soda bottles” or “blanks,” have a following among elementary school science teachers and amateur scientists, but they don’t meet rigorous laboratory standards. They’re much cheaper than glass vials and can be sealed off with a soda bottle cap. When inflated with high-pressure air, the soft plastic expands to the size of a 2-liter soda bottle.


The preforms arrive at Fillakit’s warehouse in a huge shipping container. The tubes are then shoveled into smaller bins. Workers add the saline solution and screw on caps. The tubes are then loosely piled in bags and sent to FEMA, which forwards them to the states. Typically, test tubes are individually packaged to guard against contamination.

Washington state, an epicenter of the first outbreak of the virus, got more than 76,000 Fillakit vials from FEMA. None can be used.

“They were packaged unusually,” said Frank Ameduri, a spokesman for the state Health Department. “Not in a way we’re used to seeing, and they were not labeled. Some of them have been sent to our lab for quality control. None of the vials will be used until we’ve identified what’s in them and that they are safe for use.”

About 140,000 Fillakit tubes are also shelved in Texas, where officials were slow to roll out testing. The number of confirmed cases in Texas has increased by more than one-third in the past two weeks, according to data gathered by The COVID Tracking Project.

“There were issues with the labeling, and they use saline rather than viral transport medium, so we have not used them for our testing efforts,” said Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the Texas health department.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has only validated one solution, known as viral transport medium, as reliable in preserving the coronavirus RNA from decay or destruction by substances in the container. However, because that medium is in short supply, the FDA has also granted an emergency authorization for other products it believes can keep the virus intact for up to three days.

Fillakit has been squirting one of the alternatives into its tubes, phosphate buffered saline, which the FDA says should be placed into “a sterile glass or plastic vial.”

A spokeswoman for the Maryland-based Association of Public Health Laboratories, a membership organization that writes best practices and helps connect public health labs with government agencies, said it has heard rumblings about Fillakit’s tubes but “nothing deadly.”



I’M TELLIN’ Y’ALL- DON’T GET THE VACCINE UNDER THIS ADMINISTRATION.I’m not an anti-vaxxer by any means. I would probably say this with any administration for the first rollout but this one right here?! :nono:

It’s gonna be a solid decade for the CDC and FDA to recover their reputations. I desperately wanted to work for both of them at one different points in my employment history. Doing so now could quite possibly be career suicide.
 

ThirdEyeBeauty

Well-Known Member
^^^Right! Working for the NIH would be a dream job. I cannot say what I want to say about any of those well know abbreviations without getting banned. The CDC, FDA, NIH, WHO, FEMA and the likes have all lost their reputation. I will not use them for any decision I have to make for my personal life going forward.
 

mochalocks

Well-Known Member
Scandalous!!!
The video is probably from March and April. Now that it is June, with all that we know, it would be scandalous to die of C19 primarily. I believe the deaths occurring now are from bad hospitals and medical professionals refusing or made to not use the latest treatments found to work even in developing countries--in other words they are politicize treatment areas. The other group dying of C19 are those who refused to seek help until the very end and they also have other comorbidities. The other group did not have c19 but did not seek medical attention for whatever was going on with them until it was too late and may have acquired hospital c19 when they finally went but they died of their medical conditions not c19. Medical professionals have to write death certificate with c19 on it even if acquired later in the hospital.

yes it is from May. Sorry I forgot to put it in the original post.
 
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CarefreeinChicago

Well-Known Member
I must’ve missed your post about being positive for C19. I’m sorry to hear that end hope that you make a complete recovery. Do you have family/friends around who can help?

my test came back negative but I have just been sick as a dog since the last week of April. It’s very strange. Every time I cough my chest hurts you can almost hear my cough is weird.
 

Ganjababy

Well-Known Member
On Saturday dh told me some of his family members told him they were coming over to visit us on Sunday to see our house and go to the beach. I was in disbelief. I asked him if they forgot about COVID-19? I told him to uninvite them stat.

in February over 200 farm workers from Mexico came over to work in my county. They now all have COVID-19 and 3 died.
 

Crackers Phinn

Either A Blessing Or A Lesson.
What the heck? What is so difficult about wearing a mask? Those are Walmart's rules. I'm so sick of some people.
It's not the difficulty, they just don't want to do it. The kind of people who won't wear masks are in the same vein as the ones who won't wear condoms then act suprised when they end up at the doctor or friend of the court with a situation on their hands.
 

vevster

Well-Known Member
I had a facial yesterday. It was fine.... if you what a great facialist in Staten Island -- black owned and operated hit me up....
 

vevster

Well-Known Member
@CarefreeinChicago Saw a related post of yours yesterday; wouldn’t hurt to get tested again. Saw you said that you have taken everything; garlic is supposed to help respiratory (eat couple cloves day). Hope you feel better soon.
If she wants the confirmation, sure. She needs treatment she has had symptoms for too long. I hope she finds a proper doctor.......
 

Evolving78

Well-Known Member


I’M TELLIN’ Y’ALL- DON’T GET THE VACCINE UNDER THIS ADMINISTRATION.I’m not an anti-vaxxer by any means. I would probably say this with any administration for the first rollout but this one right here?! :nono:

It’s gonna be a solid decade for the CDC and FDA to recover their reputations. I desperately wanted to work for both of them at one different points in my employment history. Doing so now could quite possibly be career suicide.
I feel you. I had aspirations to work for the CDC. Maybe we could be the ones to bring back some integrity? Lol smh ..
 
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