PrinceFrederickWx

Hogan should spend less time puffing his chest about MARYLAND STRONG and more time fixing the broken unemployment system. My brother waited online for 6 hours to refile, then got an automated form in the mail saying he had to call- and the line has been busy for days, you can never get through. Meanwhile he didn't get paid, his career has been destroyed, and he's running out of money... The snarky comments on here about "awww Karen can't get her nails done!" -no, it's a lot worse than that.

MD will be the last state in the country to being reopening- and when we do, it will likely involve mandatory rectal temperature-taking before entering any store.

It’ll be for the modeled cat 5 up the bay this summer that whiffs us and hits Newfoundland. Remember this post.

The IHME has been about as accurate as the GFS was for Joaquin IMBY

Won’t get into politics but this is an important turn obviously: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-pompeo-idUSKBN22F0SC

There’s a LOT of ICU docs talking about this, but this NY Times video is a good start: Dr. Cameron Kyle-Sidell’s videos are all worth watching as he’s an ICU Doc in NYC. I didn’t care for the video of the two CA Docs that went viral FYI

I wasn’t even referring to the viral video of the two Doctors in CA...

This was carefully worded with "in the US", because you know the WHO did indeed say that, which is what the CDC, Fauci et. al. based their opinions on months ago.

That's the current thinking, yes, but who knows if that's correct. Those same "trusted health agencies" told us there was no human-to-human transmission, and there was no evidence masks were needed, the fatality rate was 3.4%, etc. I tend to weigh the opinions of actual Doctors with experience treating patients.more than academics.

This is argumentum ad populum though. There was time when a consensus of experts thought asbestos and lead paint were ok too. I doubt the current knowledge of COVID-19 is the correct answer across the board.

I would also add to my previous post (and I’m seeing this with people I know too), that some cardiologists are cancelling non-emergency visits, so a lot of people are not getting proper heart checkups... you can’t run an EKG in a telehealth visit.

In my opinion I think most of these at home deaths are simply people too afraid to go to the ER for fear of catching the virus. They’ll probably ignore that lingering chest pain rather than get it checked out in normal circumstances. Though I’ve read more and more anecdotal reports from ER Doctors saying ventilators don’t help, it seems like more of a blood disorder rather than a respiratory one, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get another about-face from public health officials on that, just like we did with masks and many other things. It would be interesting if we started seeing excess deaths from home in December through February, months before the panic- if so, it may be a clue as when the virus really arrived here. I don’t know if that data exists though.

I think you're downplaying the mental health aspect. For many people I know personally, this has been absolutely devastating mentally. Loneliness and isolation is associated with higher mortality. People who suffer from depression and anxiety have been told all their lives to mingle with others and get out in the world, now they're being locked away in their homes with nothing but media doomsayers telling them every day that there's no hope for years until a vaccine.

I don’t really understand the logic behind the “14 days of declining hospital admissions” as a metric to reopen in MD. Shouldn’t it be more about the actual percentage of hospital capacity rather than the trend? For example, if we decline from 90% capacity to 80% over two weeks, it’s ok to open, but if we’re at 3% and increase to 5%, we have to stay locked down? Doesn’t make much sense to me. (Those numbers are just made up- I have no idea what our capacity is right now. I can’t find that data)

Did MD start the new policy of testing all the nursing home residents and staff yet? I'm wondering if that's why there's such a big jump in cases (and still a high positive rate).

Regarding dental- most dental offices have closed entirely under the advice of the ADA. My one son has a complex dental problem that was being re-evaluated every 3 months (he’s going to need surgery at some point). Those followups aren’t being done now as the office has been closed since March. And whenever they reopen, they’ll be backlogged for months with missed cleanings. We were told if he starts with pain, we’re just gonna have to drive to Children’s National which is 2.5 hours away and try to find a dentist there.

Hospitals that aren’t being overwhelmed should start bringing back elective procedures. There’s a pretty wide range of what’s being considered “elective” now... I know someone who currently can’t walk and needs a knee replacement, whose surgery was cancelled last month until further notice. I think it’s ridiculous tbh

So is mine... we’re not sure what to do. I think the office itself is probably ok but we have to go through a crowded lobby, an elevator, etc. with a baby that likes to grab everything (especially people’s faces lol). But I’m not sure what delaying will do to help. He’s gonna need 15 month shots in September too and this certainly isn’t going away by then.

I bet a car ride with you sounds something like this

Thanks for sharing this. This was the concern I was trying to discuss last night, I’m just not as articulate as this guy.

Yeah, I edited my post to put in that it was an expert vs a study and not two actual studies. Point still remains though- two different qualified experts telling us different information.

This is a hilarious example of why I said I feel dumber now than two months ago. One study says kids spread it, another expert says they don't. The CDC tells us masks aren't necessary, then they tell us they are. Experts say don't worry about shortages, now shortages are happening. The average person doesn't know what to believe anymore, that's why they panic and hoard toilet paper.

We hadn't done any traveling- it originated at my son's school, he was sent home sick. My kids all had it first- that was the weird part, our infant son was barely sick and for my other two kids it was mild. But it was by far the sickest my wife and I had ever been. I was acutely sick for about two weeks- on day 10 I woke up unable to breathe and almost went to the ER. The weird thing too was I had pink eye in addition to the sore throat, fever and cough. Now I've been reading more and more that pink eye is becoming a known symptom of COVID-19. I get a flu shot every year so I don't think it was the flu. My grandmother got sick in January (probably from us...) and was very ill with fever, dry cough, etc. She also had a flu shot and tested negative for flu when sick- her X-rays showed spots on her lungs (which have now disappeared). She and I both had an unexplained chronic cough for over two months! Fortunately we're all in good health now. I should note that we are all living our lives as if we have NOT had the virus though. Honestly when I look around, it seems like we're one of the few families that is actually still following the guidelines... You mentioned the mutations- I wonder if there's multiple strains, some of which are more aggressive than others. Like what if Italy, Spain and NYC/NJ have a more aggressive strain and CA, Germany, South Korea, etc. have a milder strain? I'm not sure if that's even possible. If there's multiple strains though I would assume the milder one would win through natural selection: i.e. no one knows they have the mild COVID-19 so it spreads faster and crowds out the severe version, while the severe one makes people too sick to get out of bed and spread it (and also provokes strict lockdowns which limit spread). Definitely not an expert on this, so anyone can correct me if I'm wrong. I haven't seen much discussion on this, so maybe it's not possible. I wish we knew how, where and (most importantly) when this virus originated!

One more thing- how plausible do you all think it is that perhaps the virus was actually here in the US earlier than thought? Community spread was first assumed to be late February, then we found out a woman died on Feb. 6 from community spread, which moved it back to January. What if we find someone who died even earlier? We weren’t testing back then so what if we missed it? I never understand how COVID-19 was already widespread in all 50 states when we started rigorous testing everywhere. Seems like it had to have been here earlier to become so widespread so fast. I still wonder if that’s what my family and I had at the end of December (and what my grandmother had in mid-January). Yes, I know with the current data we have, that’s not possible, but I’ll always wonder about it. I don’t even think an antibody test would solve it, as a positive result doesn’t prove *when* you were infected.

@jaydreb Yes I’m very thankful the impact on children seems to be mild; I am very concerned for my grandparents though. I don’t have any political ideology- I just like asking questions. I could probably fill this whole page with things I don’t understand. I feel like I understand less than I did two months ago. It still feels to me like we’re missing huge pieces of the puzzle, or some large underlying assumption about COVID-19 must be wrong.