Posted on 03/21/2020 12:24:30 PM PDT by Kaslin
Yup...my guess as well. The sudden upward spike in covid related admissions will be more telling then testing at large because it tells us that the disease in tested and the untested (but possibly carrying populations) is expanding in prevalence or not.
Even if we can’t get accurate numbers of the totals, we can deduce expansion by the increased admissions for severe covid symptoms in numbers that rise above the ongoing average admission numbers for more conventional...”severe” conditions(such as regular flu/pneumonia, sepsis related to bacterial infections, MI’s, strokes, trauma,ect).
Such a rapid increase has been expected over other admissions of cause but they(our government in particular) are hoping that the “boron laid down for the ants” as you put it so aptly, will tamp down the rates of admissions for covid so we can manage it without being overwhelmed.
We can’t know the true number of covid carriers as many won’t be tested.( and will have mild sx’s or no sx’s** at all). We can know if prevalence(no. of cases per million) is growing indirectly by the sudden rises in admissions for severe covid(which will be confirmed in hospital) in our hospitals where they weren’t happening before. That the prevalence of the disease is growing can be deduced from the advance of covid admissions above the noise floor of ongoing admissions’ averages for other causes.
** sx is medical shorthand for symptoms.
If it was me I would be telling people what I have been telling you guys for days. The reaction I have gotten from those who have responded is exactly why Trump isn’t doing what I would do.
“Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorffwelchevoralternwarengewissenhaftschaferswessenschafewarenwohlgepflegeundsorgfaltigkeitbeschutzenvorangreifendurchihrraubgierigfeindewelchevoralternzwolfhunderttausendjahresvorandieerscheinenvonderersteerdemenschderraumschiffgenachtmittungsteinundsiebeniridiumelektrischmotorsgebrauchlichtalsseinursprungvonkraftgestartseinlangefahrthinzwischensternartigraumaufdersuchennachbarschaftdersternwelchegehabtbewohnbarplanetenkreisedrehensichundwohinderneuerassevonverstandigmenschlichkeitkonntefortpflanzenundsicherfreuenanlebenslanglichfreudeundruhemitnichteinfurchtvorangreifenvorandererintelligentgeschopfsvonhinzwischensternartigraum, Senior.”,
https://www.rd.com/culture/26-first-names-longest-last-name-world/
I was going to add “of Ulm”, but he was born at Bergedorf, near Hamburg, Germany, on 29 Feb. 1904.”
“Sx” is “medical short hand for “Symptoms”. Anyway we don’t need to deal with actual numbers now, we can look at the slope of the curve. We are in the exponential phase, undeniably. The next landmark to look for is the Daily deaths start to decrease for several days, then we will know we have reached the asymptote. What ever the actual numbers are isn’t as important as knowing we are on the downhill slope, what we are doing is working.
Adults not given to whining may still disagree as to ongoing strategies....that’s why we put up with sucky republics which nevertheless are the best of all types of necessary evils in terms of governments. (Though I’m not ready to refute any posited notion that a Caligula might not have been better than a Obama....but if so not by much!)
Italy is starting to show more recovered than dead...though death reports are still rising. The lagging recovered numbers may be starting to come in.
Italy is at least a week ahead of us maybe more.
Agreed...can we handle the increase of COVID admissions? They may have to move some Hot spot patients to areas where critical beds are being underutilized or to move non covids but still criticals to those areas(the two hospital ships are supposed to help with that) to open up beds in covid hotspots to take the stress off there.
More red tape will have to be cut to allow that. The military may have to be tasked if the hotspots get...”hotter”. I see NYC needing a lot of help right now and non-covid but still very sick patients may need to be quickly redistributed. My unit can take 32 icu patients but they have limited our admits where they could so we have been averaging 8 empty beds a day. Our unit is trauma tasked but also is a general med surge ICU. We have had covid “investigates” but testing is still out. We are seeing a lot human metapneumo virus cases in the elderly from our local nursing homes that get put on droplet precautions because it can make one very sick if you get it. The mortality rates are low and even the elderly get over it with good support.(a few do die still of it but usually sepsis from bacterial has set in and given their ages and secondary issues, they do go on to die)
Hopefully we’ll get some of the new 45 minute tests soon that we can use in hospital that were just authorized for sale by a Trump prodded FDA. That way we can clear some of the “investigates” sooner and get them out of extreme quarantine we put them in.
So I can see some of our unused capacity to be tasked with taking in some of the sick from over tasked areas as long as our area remains with real low numbers of COVID. Positive tests are rising in our area but we haven’t seen a bloom of actual covid related very sick patient admits yet...just some suspicious but ultimately ruled out cases whose numbers don’t rise above our normal noise floors of admissions causes. We are waiting for it though and still expect a rash of covid admits. Most of the positive covids in our area have been quarantined at home and appear to be recovering well. There is another more famous medical hospital in my region that has some sick covids apparently. So we shall see!
It’s easier to move doctors and ventilators than to move patients around the country. Resources will have to be relocated which may be why Trump told the Governors to get their own vents so they would have control of that.
Thankfully, checks are so 20th century.
Just like we are at least a week behind Italy so are parts of our country behind other parts. Like Washington State, for instance, is probably ahead. I did read they are struggling to get enough vents yesterday.
We as Americans have been lied to repeatedly by our media industry for many years. I have always thought that someday, there would be a real crisis such as a pandemic. And now here we are and we have a media that we cannot trust and we can’t tell who is telling the truth or not. Right now, the only person I believe is President Trump.
Even so, their prevalance rate a week ago was much higher then than ours is now with us being a week behind them . Of course their social conditions are different. Because of our country’s size I could see areas that show great disparities in illness.(and those hotspot areas may need to be isolated more from the rest of us) This might be a medical ‘Storm Sandy” for the northeast and like that storm, the rest of us “icky flyover people” will probably want to respond with help and get no thank you’s or gratitude for it...or the unions will tell some to bugger off.
Ha ! yep, apparently so, even though I have aobut 300 of ‘em left
Data is not the problem.
Weighing the available data with a heavy thumb on the scale is the problem
I was speaking of non covids. Our hospital system has done some of that already in the past....moved patients from storm ravaged areas.
You can move equipment around but not all vent brands are the same so you are moving Rt’s as well who know the equipment. Locum Tenens regulations can be relaxed for physicians if you can “make them go”(I did note Cuomo requesting retired nurses and doctors in NY to “volunteer” their services if they were in well enough condition)
Italy has moved non covids, non criticals to hospitals in its south. The army could move MASH units in and set up in say Central park in the case of NYC.
Also there is still the normal “noise floor” of critical patients even a less affected region has, so you can’t just take all their “excess” resources to use in Hotspots but they might be able to take a few extras from a really bad area off their hands.
Distances traveled would be regional....no more than a few hundred miles.
I see a combination of methods being used.
To staff MASH units you have to take the doctors from the hospitals where they are. The Medical Corps staffs those hospitals for deployment by activating reserves.
To staff MASH units you have to take the doctors from the hospitals where they are
= = = = = = = = = =
There you go again, bringing some common sense to the table.
Do you mean that the MASH units and Hospital Ships and Cruise lines all have thousands of personnel - in the wings - just for an ‘emergency’???? (Sarc)
The ONLY one that have that capability are MSM...NO MATTER what the crisis may be, they are guaranteed to dig up some EXPERTS to carry their ‘agenda’.
I always wondered what an ‘....fill in the blank...’ expert does when there is no ‘emergency’???
A few years back local governments paid an ‘expert’ bookoo bucks to formulate a disaster evacuation plan out of DC
He had all the roads blocked coming in, CITY owned buses transporting people - crammed to the hilt - to be deposited in the hills and dales of West Virginia..
Perfect plan until the ‘wise guys’ started asking questions.
How does a town of 50 all of a sudden absorb 20 thousand people?
Where do you stockpile food and other essentials, how about personal gear for the evacuated?
The questions got ‘harder’ and reached the peak when the flustered ‘expert’ was asked how many buses would be needed to move a few million people and he ACTUALLY stated that the bus drivers would be sent back to pick up more passengers...
With the roads blocked, HOW do they get back to the city?
What person in their right mind would take the bus back to ground zero.
Of course, many blank looks and looks of sheer terror from the presenter but he did suggest that since it was the bus drivers ‘job’ the return trip would not be a problem.
Area would have been better taking all the money doled out to the ‘expert’ and had a bonfire and marshmallow roast..
OTOH, in todays ‘world’ the questions asked of the ‘expert’ would be wondering where he stood and how was Trumps mishandling the crisis factoring in...
OR how many of the buses did Trump OWN....etc....etc....
I was a resident for years at a hospital that was failing. They had an “admin wing” with 2 inch deep velvet carpet, 12 foot wide hallways, 20 foot ceilings, 5 foot tall gilt framed paintings of all the “Elite” that had run the place for decades. Secretaries had their won 1,000 sq ft offices with large oak desks.
The hospital I did my internship in was a “for profit”. It had one suite of small offices where the Hospital administrators shared a secretary.
Durning my Residency the failing hospital put out a “newsletter” where they admitted the poor performance but they never seemed to be able to put their finger on why. So they would hire consultants to come in one Million Dollar contract that was always announced with great fanfare and we would be deluged with a battalion of clipboard bearing “experts” who would come ask us stupid questions and nod their head knowingly. Then the next year they had lost another million dollars and they again couldn’t figure out why. It was hilarious until the place went under and we all had to find new jobs.
Ha, ha, now that is impressive in a bad way!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.