Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

security let you pass through with a can of lysol? I would assume that wouldn't be allowed.

 

seems really late or really early to be having a prom

 

not good

U.K. Eyes Sealing London, Australia Tightens Rules: Virus Update

An emergency committee of the World Health Organization said it expects the Covid-19 pandemic to be of “lengthy duration” and that it remains “a public health emergency of international concern,” the WHO said in a statement Saturday.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is considering sealing off Greater London and ordering at-risk members of the population to stay at home under a potential scenario designed to avert a second national lockdown, according to news reports.

U.S. nationwide deaths exceeded 1,000 for a fifth consecutive day. China reported 49 new cases, while Hong Kong added 125. Australia’s New South Wales state, the nation’s most populous, recorded another 12 cases today, and local media reported that its Victoria state is set to tighten lockdown measures.

Liquid lysol cleaner in 3 oz travel size spray bottles. Not aerosol

 

Was running an errand Saturday and stopped to watch some people at play on the Ocoee River. Once upon a time when I was at the peak of my canoeing prowess, I did it in a canoe.

 

Stories like this continue to baffle me in the sense that some percentage of Americans can still insist that this is all a Democrat led conspiracy to topple the president....that somehow reaches all the way around the world??? Because the people of Australia and New Zealand are willing to suck it up and have their lives completely turned upside down so the American president will lose an election.

 

Heard this story on NPR this morning. Despite the border being closed to non essential traffic, , US pleasure boats are sneaking into the island areas around Seattle.
Canadians not happy with these boaters from “the biggest Petri dish in the world”.

 

Mississippi school district reports first case of COVID-19 during first week of school

"Came into contact" was defined as someone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for 15 mins. or more

 

Melbourne Locke’s down for 6 weeks because of 671 cases that it cannot trace.
Victoria declares 'state of disaster,' locking down millions in Melbourne

 

2 states now on the first day, this will be an on going story for the rest of the year. It will be a matter of when not if and to what extent.
Schools will make mistakes in the beginning, hopefully they will get better at contact tracing and mitigation that will limit closures for extended periods of time.

 

As far as “living in fear” as an insult thrown around on these boards, if this doesn’t scare you then you’re just not a very good parent, this is about 10 minutes from my house:

Justin Hunter and his parents, Angie and Eugene, came down with the coronavirus. But, unlike him, they continued to decline.
Johns Creek teen loses both parents to COVID in mere days: 'I know they're watching me from above'

Article doesn’t go into specifics on where they believe the virus was contracted, but they do state the teen plays football. Georgia has been practicing for a couple of months now and has reported 600 cases from players and coaching staffs. Did the teen bring it into his house from football? Maybe, maybe not, but it’s certainly possible.

 

About those CDC Guidelines? Turns out some of the stronger language to keep schools closed was edited by the White House. And pediatricians who have no political connections have a lot less confidence of schools reopening and have their own guidelines.

 

Also if this doesn't cause America to wake up and start seriously losing weight then nothing will. It seems like the vast majority of these stories contain obese or morbidly obese people.

 

More than 40% of Americans are considered overweight/obese

 

So 40% obese, plus 65 yrs and up, plus everyone younger than 65 with medical conditions. Sounds like the “just isolate the sick and elderly” are actually advocating for damn near complete lockdown without even realizing it.

 

That's brutal.

 

Damn

 

I don’t have any cool panoramic shots of the woods, I am normally all up in the trail system.
2 hour ride this morning, spent some time sessioning this tricky (for me) double obstacle. First one steals all your speed so second one is tough.

 

The prom was most likely held in July because the prom originally scheduled for April or May was cancelled or postponed indefinitely.

 

Good thing they rescheduled so everyone would be safe

 

NOTE: All of this is way outside my field and would be happy for those in these fields to disagree, correct and otherwise comment on this.
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There are finally more people discussing the concepts of quick and cheap testing that can be done reliably for $1 per day that employers, stores, restaurants and more could employ to increase economic activity and get more people back, closer to normal.

There was a story in Time a few days ago about the need, and coming availability of low cost, easily accessible testing. Initially, such tests like the Abbott ID Now were derided in the media as not reliable and missing some positive results that the hyper sensitive PCR testing was missing. Further, antigen tests were even less sensitive, and thus considered less reliable. So, the US remains constrained by the much longer testing method of only using PCR tests.

However, we are now armed with far more research than just 4-5 short months ago. There are more studies and modelling and general research quantifying just how much virus makes people infectious and at what levels that they are "shedding" (pass the infection to others) and more studies are showing that these tests cheaper test methods are more than sufficiently sensitive to catch people who are infectious AND shedding virus. And, that is the key. Antigen tests are sensitive enough to capture people who need to be quarantined out of society immediately.

According to Dr. Daniel Griffin, Associate Researcher at Columbia and Head of Infectious Diseases for ProHealth, research from a team at NYU helped come up with this table for easy understanding:

• 100 RNA particles - PCR Test Senitivity - but people are not infectious
• 1000 RNA particles - Cycle Thresholds (how many thermal cycles a sample goes through in a PCR test before enough virus is amplified to be detected) (Ct) of ~ 36 - but people are not infectious
• 4000-5000 RNA particles - Ct of 34 - Abbott ID is 100% successful at this level - but people are still not infectious
• 50,000 RNA particles - Ct of 30 - Threshold of Antigen Test Sensitivity, not infectious and likely not shedding virus particles.
• 3,000,000 RNA particles - Ct of 24 - people are infectious and shedding virus particles to others.

Quidel and BD scientific were granted emergency use authorizations early in July for their Antigen Test Technology. The BD test claimed an 84% rate of catching everything caught by PCR testing.....and again, that is way below the sensitivity limit where our medical experts claim that we are infectious and shedding virus. Also, people should be revisiting the use of the Abbott ID Now test platform to help out hospitals and other testing facilities do a job that is "good enough".

We can, and should be massively ramping up testing and the Lean Principle of not letting perfect get in the way of good should be the guiding principle here. This could be done right now and within a few months we could pull tens of thousands of infected people out of society a day that are being missed right now and start the process reducing this virus in our society according to these experts.

America Needs to Radically Rethink Our COVID-19 Testing Approach