PepRock01

Not sure of exact numbers but I know many pharmacists are not happy about the proclamation of it as a treatment without clinical trials. Largely because of the number of patients that will go with out. That and I know a number of pharmacists I have spoken to have indicated that many doctors are calling in scripts for family (which is ethically questionable most of the time anyway) for Plaquenil and Zithromax to hoard it just in case they need it.

 

I am hoping that it does prove effective long term, but the evidence seems anecdotal thus far.

 

I do know many pharmacies that have been running out because of this though, which is very unfortunate for lupus patients.

To supplement this the KY Board of Pharmacy has issued the following guidance:

https://pharmacy.ky.gov/Documents/Kentucky%20Board%20of%20Pharmacy%20COVID-19%20FAQs.pdf

Pages 7-9 cover it, but essentially the doctor has to provide the diagnosis to fill the RX, the pharmacist has the right to use their professional judgement when it comes to filling the medications. They can refuse the fill if they feel it violates dispensing guidelines. More detail plus the Q&A is listed in the link on the pages noted.

Wasn’t the early CDC test faulty?

 

Also some labs are having some transfer issues. I know that was mentioned in Kentucky’s daily press conference one day this week.

 

The lab system is more than likely unbelievably strained. Mistakes will happen.

The CDC decided to create its own test as opposed to taking the one offered by the WHO but it turned out the CDC one didn't produce consistent results. So they had to scrap it and start again. Not entirely sure why they decided against the WHO one, but we are where we are.

How many in Kentucky are now getting hydroxychloroquine as a treatment?

Not sure of exact numbers but I know many pharmacists are not happy about the proclamation of it as a treatment without clinical trials. Largely because of the number of patients that will go with out. That and I know a number of pharmacists I have spoken to have indicated that many doctors are calling in scripts for family (which is ethically questionable most of the time anyway) for Plaquenil and Zithromax to hoard it just in case they need it.

I am hoping that it does prove effective long term, but the evidence seems anecdotal thus far.

I do know many pharmacies that have been running out because of this though, which is very unfortunate for lupus patients.

Honestly, I think this is what western Kentucky had from Thanksgiving to Christmas. People flooded the doctor's office and took flu tests only for them to come back negative. People hacked and coughed a felt bad for a month and a little into January when some schools closed due to low attendance. Maybe that's why there are fewer cases in WKY than the rest of the state. It's run its course through the house and left. From what I've read, most of the cases in WKY involve people who traveled and returned or older people with underlying conditions.

 

Cases are up because testing has increased and people now know what the fever and cough are. They didn't know in December because there was no testing.

 

I'm just shocked that we didn't have a vaccine for this. It makes me question the millions of dollars used on studies to measure the amount of methane gas produced with farts or whether you can catch the flu by licking doorknobs.

 

This whole pandemic proves we as Americans aren't remotely close to being prepared for the insurgence of a contagious virus.

No vaccine because this strain of the virus didn't make the jump from animal to human until last November. Then it was just a mystery illness until it was identified, then work can start on a vaccine but that takes time and trials.

Sigh

Is it possible COVID-19 could mutate like that at some point? I understand this is a new phenomenon but I haven’t yet read any studies that give detail on possible COVID-19 mutations.

It had to mutate at least twice already to be transmissible between humans. Once to go from original host species to human and then again to eventual transfer from human to human. Even so from what I have read there have been no other mutations detected that I have found.

It is worth noting that not all viruses mutate at the same rate. Bear in mind that smallpox has been fully eradicated outside of the lab and polio would be gone as well were it not for the Taliban Karens (antivaxxers) in Afghanistan.

Good deal. So then in 14-18 months we should be able to cut COVID-19 deaths in half, correct?

A Covid-19 vaccine would likely be more effective since it doesn't seem to be mutating as rapidly as influenza does. That is one of the reasons why that vaccine is problematic, they are going after a moving target perpetually.

I pray we stay under that flu number, but mathematically I can’t see it.

 

1 month ago we were at 2500 or so deaths. Now 25k and not expected to peak until May.

I honestly hope that guru is right and this is a complete overreaction and we did this all needlessly. The big concern with this disease is the the fact that since it came from an animal we don't have any natural immunity to it compared to the flu (which is still very deadly) also we have nothing resembling a vaccine or truly effective treatments short of supporting the body until it manages to fight it off. Also how many people who end up dying from the flu each year don't ever get the shot thinking "I don't need it." Something I probably ought to look into at some point in the future considering the number of times I have argued with people about the value of a flu shot.

Also the rate of transmission with this one seems to be much higher than other the comparable diseases at the moment. The more people it infects the higher the chance that people with immunodeficiency or other serious health issues will catch it. As the only person in my house who was not born prematurely I would rather not see their systems put to the test.

I posted this in one of the other threads but I think it is worth mentioning here too:

 

Since many of us are posting some statistics I thought this was a good one to share, so far the amount of deaths worldwide attributed to COVID-19 is just over 23,000.

 

According to the the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) they estimate that the amount of deaths worldwide attributed to influenza each year is approximately 389,000.

My condolences to your 401K.

I wish I got out to shoot that much. I've got a couple really nice indoor ranges within 20 minutes of me, I just don't make it that often.

Indoor ranges are too pricey for me, i have to buy their ammo to shoot my rifles. Not gonna do that.

I have a few friends around my age (45-55) that are still hold the belief that we shouldn't be shutting down because this is just a cold, and the flu kills way more people. At this point if people don't believe, I'm not sure what can be done to make them believe.

Personal loss is the only thing that will change their mind.

Older people refusing to social distance? I have not heard that.

I had read it in a few places, here we go.

Convincing Boomer Parents to Take the Coronavirus Seriously | The New Yorker

The frustration millennials have with older people not taking coronavirus precautions seriously - ABC News

Boomers Worry Least About COVID-19, Driving Millennial Children Mad - Rolling Stone

That's just the first page of results on google. I had seen it a few other places and on social media before googling it.

Older population is high death risk. Florida has a lot of older people. Italy has the oldest population in Europe.

I would say that plus the combination of many older people refusing to social distance plus the Gen Z kids thinking they are invincible and congregating in great numbers that the death toll would be higher there too. That would be my thoughts, especially given the condo and retirement communities down there that put them in relatively close contact with each other.

Use your imaginations and think about where we would be today if we had done nothing two weeks ago: NCAA, NBA, schools, gatherings...etc.

But you know, we were overreacting.

I remember that and I did not realize you put him up to it. :lol2:

Agree with these exceptions.

 

What other businesses should be exempt from shutdown?

Well the supply chain that keeps them stocked would need to keep up and running. There is probably little need for much of what a mall would supply as of now. Although I would say that if you go into full lockdown every business would have to justify staying open as opposed to justifying why they would need to close down.

I think where we are in KY at the moment is probably a decent place.

When you say non-essential how do you define it, which stores specifically do you mean?

Groceries, pharmacies, and gas stations are obviously going to fall into the essential category.

Agreed to an extent. But those conditions aren't anything new to China.

Not only that but their refusal to abandon some of their superstitious treatment is infuriating because it leads to a ton of poaching of endangered species.

Delta passenger load is only 20 percent of normal load today it seems, was told Allegiant air is offering $14.48 flights to Florida today.

WOW

I read it, but that is the thing this is setting a precedent. At the end of the day the Swine Flu was still bad and lots of deaths. So even something not as bad as this, is probably going to cause people to want to be extra safe and lead to panic. It just is how things work, especially with social media. Especially if something new hits our country first and not another country before us? We had time to prepare for this and still didn’t prepare for this. So if something new comes, and literally know nothing about. It very well could cause people to want to take this drastic step, because as they say better safe than sorry.

Quarantine is nothing new. This has happened before in the past and there are even court cases that hold it up, that said I think the biggest issue for most of us is that on account of the vaccines and treatments out there this is the first real instance of it since 1918. This was quite common at a local level in the 19th century and before.

Make no mistake though if we suddenly stopped vaccinating en masse this would become the norm.

That is the thing people may truly believe things like that is truly needed. Just think about the Swine Flu for example. Say that hadn’t happened yet, and it came up two years from now. The World Health Organization also called than a pandemic. Over 61 million Americans for the swine flu and ended up having 12 thousand American deaths. The country did not shut down for that, even though it definitely was a bad virus.

 

However, if that exact same scenario didn’t happen back then but happened two or three years after this. Chances are people would be using this as a precedent and saying it is needed. That is the point, where this may be a precedent set, to where people will start believing it is needed when things like this, the swine flu, etc come around.

You really need to read the report posted earlier. I think it outlines certain things that make this a different animal than that.

Italy had 475 die today, nearing 3000 there.

Here is the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team report. It is a collaborative report done by doctors/scholars/scientists. It has been said it was used to by the United States to help us combat the Coronavirus/COVID-19.

 

People much smarter than myself and more educated on this manner have written some great summaries about it. I figured I would pass this on because it seems like useful information and we all get our information from different places.

 

 

 

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

 

 

Summary

 

 

“The global impact of COVID-19 has been profound, and the public health threat it represents is the most serious seen in a respiratory virus since the 1918 H1N1 influenza pandemic. Here we present the results of epidemiological modelling which has informed policymaking in the UK and other countries in recent weeks. In the absence of a COVID-19 vaccine, we assess the potential role of a number of public health measures – so-called non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) – aimed at reducing contact rates in the population and thereby reducing transmission of the virus. In the results presented here, we apply a previously published microsimulation model to two countries: the UK (Great Britain specifically) and the US. We conclude that the effectiveness of any one intervention in isolation is likely to be limited, requiring multiple interventions to be combined to have a substantial impact on transmission.

Two fundamental strategies are possible: (a) mitigation, which focuses on slowing but not necessarily stopping epidemic spread – reducing peak healthcare demand while protecting those most at risk of severe disease from infection, and (b) suppression, which aims to reverse epidemic growth, reducing case numbers to low levels and maintaining that situation indefinitely. Each policy has major challenges. We find that that optimal mitigation policies (combining home isolation of suspect cases, home quarantine of those living in the same household as suspect cases, and social distancing of the elderly and others at most risk of severe disease) might reduce peak healthcare demand by 2/3 and deaths by half. However, the resulting mitigated epidemic would still likely result in hundreds of thousands of deaths and health systems (most notably intensive care units) being overwhelmed many times over. For countries able to achieve it, this leaves suppression as the preferred policy option.”

That is a good read for just about anyone right now.

One other big difference is medical care is way better now than it was 100 years ago. As is the ability for people to get information quickly (even though some are still choosing to question the validity). Both of these give us a much better chance today than society had Back in 1918.

I agree 100% that the odds are better. I also think that because our lives are more interconnected than ever before that people are going to be more willing to flaunt the recommendations.

The Spanish Flu caused your lungs to fill with fluid within 48 hours.

This C-19 has no such symptoms.

My comparison is rate of contagion, I have repeatedly stated that this will not be nearly as deadly. The comparison has entirely to do with rate of transmission, which this looks to transfer at least twice as rapidly as the flu.

My family is not directly at risk, but we have parents that we would rather protect. I mean for what it's worth I wouldn't care if people who aren't worried got sick and died if it weren't for the fact that they can spread it to others who may actually care. In the end I hope this whole thing ends up as an overreaction because I would rather keep the eventual death toll lower. If not, well I guess I will keep an eye on good real estate deals after it's over.