Coronavirus outbreak

[CBH1926]

6 minutes ago, coho8888 said:

Sorry, should have been more careful to black it out.  Alicia was another friend that tried to talk some sense to her

 

No worries, I was just wondering.

[Me_]

3 hours ago, samurai said:

12.000, people not families.  They don't measure infection by family.   Obviously, more people have been infected than are reported - that is common knowledge.    Studies in the US show 50 to 85 times the actual number of infections.    Wider testing means more positive tests, but even greater negative tests - that is fact.  That is also why they have lowered the death fatality rate.  Same here in Japan.  Do you even know the infection rate here? No.  

 

Someone in another post mentions about getting paid as a teacher and you say well how can you think about that when people are dying.    And unable to really offer any proper rebuttal to me your argument now is I don't care about seniors.   You have been measured. 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Doesn’t sound like you’re too connected to what’s happening even in your own backyard...

 

Running out of beds and gear, Tokyo medical staff say Japan's 'state of emergency' already here

 

Some Japan hospitals overwhelmed as nation tops 10,000 coronavirus cases

 

Tokyo doctor fears hospitals could be overwhelmed

 

Hospitals turning away sick people as coronavirus cases surge

 

Japan virus cases surge over 10,000 with hospitals stretched

 

Coronavirus: Japan’s medical system on verge of collapse, doctors say

Edited April 25, 2020 by Me_

[coho8888]

5 minutes ago, Cerridwen said:

It's so sad when folks just won't believe those with the facts and the knowledge. It IS disturbing...and the fact that she has a child who will be exposed to her paranoia makes it even more disturbing. Hopefully she will see the light...it's difficult dealing with people who feel this way or are so dug in deep in denial. Been there, may lose a dear friend of many years because they refuse to believe any of this. I told her we have cases in my town and she thought maybe she should stop window shopping at Walmart with her pregnant daughter-in-law. To say I was aghast and livid , disappointed and then livid again is an understatement. I don't even know what to say to her anymore.

 

I don't get it.  We are not on full lockdown.  We can still go out for walks (provided we practice social distancing) still eat from some of our favorite restaurants through takeout.  Some of us are still working full time (though I have the utmost of Empathy for those that aren't and are stressed out with finances) and we are only what, 6 weeks into this?

 

I feel like sending this to her:

 

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/no-your-coronavirus-quarantine-isnt-comparable-to-anne-franks-opinion-624088

 

 

[-DLC-]

And before people get too confident about "younger people" and dying...

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/24/strokes-coronavirus-young-patients/?fbclid=IwAR1fMqcSGI-OHF2bzq64vABHu0QtceBe5RU7lRlE5URZNDQmv71QlFRgZVc

 

Quote

Young and middle-aged people, barely sick with covid-19, are dying from strokes

Doctors sound alarm about patients in their 30s and 40s left debilitated or dead. Some didn’t even know they were infected.

By 

Ariana Eunjung Cha 

April 24, 2020 at 3:36 p.m. PDT

 

Thomas Oxley wasn’t even on call the day he received the page to come to Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan. There weren’t enough doctors to treat all the emergency stroke patients, and he was needed in the operating room.

The patient’s chart appeared unremarkable at first glance. He took no medications and had no history of chronic conditions. He had been feeling fine, hanging out at home during the lockdown like the rest of the country, when suddenly, he had trouble talking and moving the right side of his body. Imaging showed a large blockage on the left side of his head.

Oxley gasped when he got to the patient’s age and covid-19 status: 44, positive.

The man was among several recent stroke patients in their 30s to 40s who were all infected with the coronavirus. The median age for that type of severe stroke is 74.

 

As Oxley, an interventional neurologist, began the procedure to remove the clot, he observed something he had never seen before. On the monitors, the brain typically shows up as a tangle of black squiggles — “like a can of spaghetti,” he said — that provide a map of blood vessels. A clot shows up as a blank spot. As he used a needlelike device to pull out the clot, he saw new clots forming in real-time around it.

“This is crazy,” he remembers telling his boss.

 

Stroke surge

Reports of strokes in the young and middle-aged — not just at Mount Sinai, but also in many other hospitals in communities hit hard by the novel coronavirus — are the latest twist in our evolving understanding of its connected disease, covid-19. Even as the virus has infected nearly 2.8 million people worldwide and killed about 195,000 as of Friday, its biological mechanisms continue to elude top scientific minds. Once thought to be a pathogen that primarily attacks the lungs, it has turned out to be a much more formidable foe — impacting nearly every major organ system in the body.

 

Until recently, there was little hard data on strokes and covid-19.

There was one report out of Wuhan, China, that showed that some hospitalized patients had experienced strokes, with many being seriously ill and elderly. But the linkage was considered more of “a clinical hunch by a lot of really smart people,” said Sherry H-Y Chou, a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center neurologist and critical care doctor.

Now for the first time, three large U.S. medical centers are preparing to publish data on the stroke phenomenon. The numbers are small, only a few dozen per location, but they provide new insights into what the virus does to our bodies.

Coronavirus destroys lungs. But doctors are finding its damage in kidneys, hearts and elsewhere.

A stroke, which is a sudden interruption the blood supply, is a complex problem with numerous causes and presentations. It can be caused by heart problems, clogged arteries due to cholesterol, even substance abuse. Mini-strokes often don’t cause permanent damage and can resolve on their own within 24 hours. But bigger ones can be catastrophic.

 

The analyses suggest coronavirus patients are mostly experiencing the deadliest type of stroke. Known as large vessel occlusions, or LVOs, they can obliterate large parts of the brain responsible for movement, speech and decision-making in one blow because they are in the main blood-supplying arteries.

Many researchers suspect strokes in covid-19 patients may be a direct consequence of blood problems that are producing clots all over some people’s bodies.

Clots that form on vessel walls fly upward. One that started in the calves might migrate to the lungs, causing a blockage called a pulmonary embolism that arrests breathing — a known cause of death in covid-19 patients. Clots in or near the heart might lead to a heart attack, another common cause of death. Anything above that would probably go to the brain, leading to a stroke.

 

Robert Stevens, a critical care doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, called strokes “one of the most dramatic manifestations” of the blood-clotting issues. “We’ve also taken care of patients in their 30s with stroke and covid, and this was extremely surprising,” he said.

Many doctors expressed worry that as the New York City Fire Department was picking up four times as many people who died at home as normal during the peak of infection that some of the dead had suffered sudden strokes. The truth may never be known because few autopsies were conducted.

Chou said one question is whether the clotting is because of a direct attack on the blood vessels, or a “a friendly-fire problem” caused by the patient’s immune response.

“In your body’s attempt to fight off the virus, does the immune response end up hurting your brain?” she asked. Chou is hoping to answer such questions through a review of strokes and other neurological complications in thousands of covid-19 patients treated at 68 medical centers in 17 countries.

David Reich, the president of the Mount Sinai Hospital, J Mocco, director of Mount Sinai's Cerebrovascular Center and Hooman Poor, an ICU doctor, are among those who are looking at the link between young covid-19 patients and strokes. (Jeenah Moon/Reuters)

Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, which operates 14 medical centers in Philadelphia, and NYU Langone Health in New York City, found that 12 of their patients treated for large blood blockages in their brains during a three-week period had the virus. Forty percent were under 50, and they had few or no risk factors. Their paper is under review by a medical journal, said Pascal Jabbour, a neurosurgeon at Thomas Jefferson.

 

Jabbour and his co-author Eytan Raz, an assistant professor of neuroradiology at NYU Langone, said that strokes in covid-19 patients challenge conventional thinking. “We are used to thinking of 60 as a young patient when it comes to large vessel occlusions,” Raz said of the deadliest strokes. “We have never seen so many in their 50s, 40s and late 30s.”

Raz wondered whether they are seeing more young patients because they are more resistant than the elderly to the respiratory distress caused by covid-19: “So they survive the lung side, and in time develop other issues.”

A mysterious blood-clotting complication is killing coronavirus patients

Jabbour said many cases he has treated have unusual characteristics. Brain clots usually appear in the arteries, which carry blood away from the heart. But in covid-19 patients, he is also seeing them in the veins, which carry blood in the opposite direction and are trickier to treat. Some patients are also developing more than one large clot in their heads, which is highly unusual.

 

“We’ll be treating a blood vessel and it will go fine, but then the patient will have a major stroke” because of a clot in another part of the brain, he said.

 

At Mount Sinai, the largest medical system in New York City, physician-researcher J Mocco said the number of patients coming in with large blood blockages in their brains doubled during the three weeks of the covid-19 surge to more than 32, even as the number of other emergencies fell. More than half of were covid-19 positive.

It isn’t just the number of patients that was unusual. The first wave of the pandemic has hit the elderly and those with heart disease, diabetes, obesity or other preexisting conditions disproportionately. The covid-19 patients treated for stroke at Mount Sinai were younger and mostly without risk factors.

 

On average, the covid-19 stroke patients were 15 years younger than stroke patients without the virus.

“These are people among the least likely statistically to have a stroke,” Mocco said.

Mocco, who has spent his career studying strokes and how to treat them, said he was “completely shocked” by the analysis. He noted the link between covid-19 and stroke “is one of the clearest and most profound correlations I’ve come across.”

“This is much too powerful of a signal to be chance or happenstance,” he said.

In a letter to be published in the New England Journal of Medicine next week, the Mount Sinai team details five case studies of young patients who had strokes at home from March 23 to April 7. They make for difficult reading: The victims’ ages are 33, 37, 39, 44 and 49, and they were all home when they began to experience sudden symptoms, including slurred speech, confusion, drooping on one side of the face and a dead feeling in one arm.

 

One died, two are still hospitalized, one was released to rehabilitation, and one was released home to the care of his brother. Only one of the five, a 33-year-old woman, is able to speak.

Oxley, the interventional neurologist, said one striking aspect of the cases is how long many waited before seeking emergency care.

The 33-year-old woman was previously healthy but had a cough and headache for about a week. Over the course of 28 hours, she noticed her speech was slurred and that she was going numb and weak on her left side but, the researchers wrote, “delayed seeking emergency care due to fear of the covid-19 outbreak.”

It turned out she was already infected.

By the time she arrived at the hospital, a CT scan showed she had two clots in her brain and patchy “ground glass” in her lungs — the opacity in CT scans that is a hallmark of covid-19 infection. She was given two different types of therapy to try to break up the clots and by Day 10, she was well enough to be discharged.

Oxley said the most important thing for people to understand is that large strokes are very treatable. Doctors are often able to reopen blocked blood vessels through techniques such as pulling out clots or inserting stents. But it has to be done quickly, ideally within six hours, but no longer than 24 hours: “The message we are trying to get out is if you have symptoms of stroke, you need to call the ambulance urgently. ”

As for the 44-year-old man Oxley was treating, doctors were able to remove the large clot that day in late March, but the patient is still struggling. As of this week, a little over a month after he arrived in the emergency room, he is still hospitalized.

 

[spur1]

4 hours ago, Kanukfanatic said:

You need a mental health check, and then a reading comprehension check little man.  

 

My wife's parents are almost 80 and doing fine. They are smart and stay home and we get them what is needed. Meanwhile, I work on the front lines every day and am not in panic mode like you are.  Sad...

 

Edit: ...but please, continue to fear monger and make up meaning on what others post. I won't bother reading your uninspired silliness any longer. Enjoy your fear. 

 

2nd Edit: ... and before I purge you...your post below is still my favorite hahaha....It is so ridiculous it is funny...or sad!!

 

gurn replied to CBH1926's topic in Off-Topic General

I was talking to a friend last night and he had a thought regarding a potential treatment: If alcohol kills the COVID, why not try inhaling alcohol through a vaporizer. Might keep the lungs clearer, help kill the virus. I though about it, and on the surface it seems logical. But how and where do you get a hold of somebody that would actually know if it has a chance or not?

Glad you spell your handle the way you do otherwise you would be doing a great disservice to the Canucks. 

[CBH1926]

1 minute ago, coho8888 said:

I don't get it.  We are not on full lockdown.  We can still go out for walks (provided we practice social distancing) still eat from some of our favorite restaurants through takeout.  Some of us are still working full time (though I have the utmost of Empathy for those that aren't and are stressed out with finances) and we are only what, 6 weeks into this?

 

I feel like sending this to her:

 

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/no-your-coronavirus-quarantine-isnt-comparable-to-anne-franks-opinion-624088

 

 

People that believe their experience is comparable to Anne Frank are out to lunch.

I am just waiting for someone to ask me if this experience compares to my “stay at home” during the war so I can bust out laughing.

[coho8888]

3 minutes ago, debluvscanucks said:

And before people get too confident about "younger people" and dying...

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/24/strokes-coronavirus-young-patients/?fbclid=IwAR1fMqcSGI-OHF2bzq64vABHu0QtceBe5RU7lRlE5URZNDQmv71QlFRgZVc

 

 

I read that as well.  Scary.  Hopefully its not that common.  

[coho8888]

1 minute ago, CBH1926 said:

People that believe their experience is comparable to Anne Frank are out to lunch.

I am just waiting for someone to ask me if this experience compares to my “stay at home” during the war so I can bust out laughing.

A couple of years ago, I visited the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam.  It was a very sobering visit.  Can't imagine what she went through.

[-DLC-]

2 minutes ago, coho8888 said:

I read that as well.  Scary.  Hopefully its not that common.  

People don't realize that this virus is still "new" and unknown.

 

Those who call it fear mongering aren't really showing bravery as much as a false sense of bravado.

[Me_]

The hardest part of this virus is it seems to be acting out in so many different ways that unless testing becomes as available as dental floss, it will continue to be extremely difficult to come up with remedies that cater to the general population.

 

I have a feeling that many seemingly asymptomatic people dying have previously undetected pre-conditions.
 

By all medical accounts they are healthy enough not to show symptoms, perfectly functioning until that one last bite.

 

Have a weak liver? done. Have a weak immune system? Done. Have a weak heart? Done. Have a weak digestive system? Done. Have a weak brain? Done. Lungs? Its favorite.

 

Edited April 25, 2020 by Me_

[Lancaster]

33 minutes ago, coho8888 said:

She's posted something like that every couple of days.  Quoting random blogs on Facebook from people that think Covid is not serious and is less harmful than the common flu.  Maybe she has Cabin Fever.  Sadly she's not the only one that thinks that way.  There is a lot of bad crap posted on Social media.  What I find disturbing is that she would rather believe those people whom she doesn't know than qualified medical professionals who tell us to take this thing seriously.

The problem was there was a disinformation campaign during the early stages of the outbreak (perhaps even CCP-funded/directed).  
So many charts, stats, whatever were plastered across social media talking about how the Wuhan virus threat was blown way out of proportion.  That the annual flu season has consistently killed more people than this new virus and how mortality rate isn't really that different from the regular run-of-the-mill influenza.  

Then suddenly more mentions about how masks aren't useful in preventing the spread, that maybe only N95 rated masks would be sort-of useful, but only paranoid people are getting them.  

Once it started getting more serious... then the whole "OMG... that's racist!" crowd came out in full force.  

 

So now it's not surprising how so many people are overloaded and skeptical of whatever "Experts" are putting out there (including the WHO).  

 

Now retroactively looking back.... it just seems more like the CCP were just buying/stalling for more time while they hoard up global supplies. 

 

[guntrix]

49 minutes ago, skategal said:

Not sure I can agree with your statement.  They may not be as likely to die from COVID as an older person, but certainly at least some of them will have long lasting effects that will take a year or more to completely recover from if they recover at all.  Even younger people who get COVID suffer significant lung and potentially other organ damage.  For sure some have very few symptoms and it's nothing more than a flu or cold level illness, but not sure I'd want to roll the dice on which way it would affect me.  

I don't know if there are any stats yet that identify what the frequency of severe symptoms is.  I'd rather avoid the illness entirely and not put that level of reliance on lady luck to the test.  Nor do I want to infect anyone else that I might come in contact with.  

Am I panicked about it, absolutely not.  I do however have a healthy respect for the potential outcomes and prefer to lean towards the best outcome if I can.  

Except most don’t. The number of younger people who experience these extreme conditions are in the vast minority, especially taking into account that the number of reported cases that you see on the news are only the tip of the iceberg - most young people are asymptomatic and never even realize they’re infected, much less check themselves into a hospital. 

[Me_]

22 minutes ago, guntrix said:

Except most don’t. The number of younger people who experience these extreme conditions are in the vast minority, especially taking into account that the number of reported cases that you see on the news are only the tip of the iceberg - most young people are asymptomatic and never even realize they’re infected, much less check themselves into a hospital. 

...said the young lad in full confidence, and in full innocence, then the second wave came.

 

Merkel warns coronavirus crisis 'still just the beginning'

 

Edited April 25, 2020 by Me_

[Kanukfanatic]

22 minutes ago, guntrix said:

Except most don’t. The number of younger people who experience these extreme conditions are in the vast minority, especially taking into account that the number of reported cases that you see on the news are only the tip of the iceberg - most young people are asymptomatic and never even realize they’re infected, much less check themselves into a hospital. 

Great post. 

 

Most people here won't let evidence get in the way of their own fear. Whatever lol.

[kingofsurrey]

37 minutes ago, Me_ said:

The hardest part of this virus is it seems to be acting out in so many different ways that unless testing becomes as available as dental floss, it will continue to be extremely difficult to come up with remedies that cater to the general population.

 

I have a feeling that many seemingly asymptomatic people dying have previously undetected pre-conditions.
 

By all medical accounts they are healthy enough not to show symptoms, perfectly functioning until that one last bite.

 

Have a weak liver? done. Have a weak immune system? Done. Have a weak heart? Done. Have a weak digestive system? Done. Have a weak brain? Done. Lungs? Its favorite.

 

My old friend is in critical.  In his 50's .  Non smoker. Athtletic.  Very fit and light weight.

 

This virus can take anyone.

 

I am a risk taker by nature. Took risks my whole life.  Lived on the edge.  I always went by the premise try anything once... and then twice if if went OK....

Never thought i would make it to 30 yrs old..... 

 

This virus is different... it can get any of us. 

 

Take caution everyone.  This virus can finish any of us. 

[guntrix]

1 hour ago, coho8888 said:

I think part of it is that people here in BC have not really had anything like a pandemic before.  This generation in BC has never had a major disaster affect them.  No Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Tsunamis.  No World or Civil Wars.  The big one has not hit yet.  Save for some really bad fire seasons in the interior, the occasional wind or snow storm or some flooding,  nothing has tested us quite like Covid has.  Many do not know how to cope.  Many are stressed out at the uncertainty.  Some (especially older folks) are scared for their lives.  Some are scared that things won't be the same again.  I try not to think too far ahead.  Take one day at a time.  I know that if everyone does their part that things will be better in time.  The only thing that scares me is if people do not listen and do not follow the rules and we go right back to where we started.

I agree. I feel like living in BC has a LOT of privileges. So much so that people are shielded from many of the world's problems and thus overreact when finally faced with something that disrupts daily life.

 

BC not only has a small amount of cases, but it also has a well-run hospital system and has the added advantage of being pretty geographically isolated and very low in population density. Honestly, it's one of the better places to be during this pandemic. BCers don't have to worry about facing hours-long line ups to get into hospitals, nor do they have to worry about being treated in makeshift war hospitals because the regular hospitals have run out of beds. BCers don't have to worry about their own head of state sabotaging local efforts to get the virus under control, nor have they had to endure radical far-right groups protesting their "right" to go back to work at the expense of the vulnerable. 

 

Those who stoke the fear mongering don't write realize how easy BC's got it in comparison to other places, and part of that's down to the fact that BCers have never really had to live through anything more than a forest fire.

[guntrix]

9 minutes ago, Me_ said:

...said the young lad in full confidence, and in full innocence, then the second wave came.

 

Merkel warns coronavirus crisis 'still just the beginning'

 

Of course. There will probably be a third wave too. And maybe a fourth.

 

Until we can develop and distribute a vaccine. 

 

edit. For clarity. I've recovered from Covid-19 and have stuck through this whole pandemic in NYC. You're probably more innocent than I am.

Edited April 25, 2020 by guntrix

[NewbieCanuckFan]

10 minutes ago, Kanukfanatic said:

Great post. 

 

Most people here won't let evidence get in the way of their own fear. Whatever lol.

You also have to consider that the good number of those not in that "elderly" category are hardly what I call "in good shape/healthy".  Just look at all the fast food restaurants (not just in the US but our country).  XXX+ sizes in abundance.  Course, that's just my opinion/observation.

 

How many restaurants like THIS:

 

 

Do you really see outside North America?

Edited April 25, 2020 by NewbieCanuckFan

[Me_]

The link is in French but here is the translation:

 

Grandparents won’t be able to hug their children this summer

 

“

Despite the gradual reopening of society, the start of a return to school, and the resumption of the economy, the grandparents will not be able to hold their grandchildren in their arms this summer.

 

“Unfortunately, I don't advise people over the age of 60 to hug their grandchildren for a while. I know it's hard, it's sad. Will we be able in the next few weeks to see each other two meters apart? It may be more conceivable,” said François Legault during the press briefing on Friday.

 

The Prime Minister feared that the children would contaminate their ancestors, especially with a view to reopening schools.

 

"The biggest fear I have in reopening schools is that the children will not see their parents but their grandparents and infect them," added the Prime Minister. “We have to protect people over 60-70 years old. There is a real risk of death. ”

 

Public Health Director Horacio Arruda added that he understood the sacrifice that this could represent for seniors.

 

A difficult but necessary sacrifice.

 

“There is a natural impulse to take them in our arms. But at the same time, what we want is that they can take them in their arms as long as possible. If this haste turns into a death, it will become a drama and the child will no longer be able to enjoy this love for a few more years, "he said.

 

Quebecers are invited to "deprogram"

 

After hammering for weeks that COVID-19 posed a danger and that to protect yourself from it, citizens had to remain confined, François Legault must now convince them to adhere to his plan for the gradual reopening of Quebec.

 

To achieve this, the Prime Minister invited Quebecers to "deprogram" themselves.

 

"I am really proud to see how Quebeckers respected the instructions, but there, it takes a little to deprogram - not just me first, but you too - to be able to change again approach and attitude", has he declared.

 

The government is due to table plans for a gradual reopening of schools and businesses next week. This reopening will not happen, however, without preserving the public health measures that have prevailed since the start of the crisis, such as the physical distancing of two months.

 

Quebec also strongly recommends wearing a mask or face mask when distance is difficult such as in public transportation, at work or at the grocery store.

 

Recognizing that there are risks involved in resuming certain activities in society, the Prime Minister raised other problems that can arise from prolonged confinement, such as mental health or domestic violence.

 

In addition to collective immunity, it is necessary to warn against the "perverse effects of confinement", explained on this subject Dr Horacio Arruda to justify the importance of the reopening.“

 

 

[Me_]

1 hour ago, Kanukfanatic said:

Great post. 

 

Most people here won't let evidence get in the way of their own fear. Whatever lol.

Not bud. It ain’t a great post. 
 

It’s a naive post.

 

But the reply to the naive post in question; I wonder if there is a more sinister bend to it.

 

Edited April 25, 2020 by Me_