Coronavirus Special Coverage

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COVID-19: key developments for Thursday, April 2, 2020

2 Comments on COVID-19: key developments for Thursday, April 2, 2020

World-wide cases have doubled in a week. There are now more than a million cumulative cases. NY, Italy, and Spain are hot spots.

The Pentagon is seeking to supply 100,000 body bags to FEMA. The body bags are intended for civilian use amidst the growing pandemic crisis. The Pentagon maintains an extant stockpile of 50,000. The federal government projects 200,000 deaths from COVID-19 based on disease modeling.

A quarantine food calculator! It’s excellent. It recommended over 60 eggs for a family of 5 for two weeks. My family of 5 ate 46 eggs in the last two weeks. It calls for a little more bell pepper than I’d like, but in general it’s very useful and it illustrates just how much food your family needs for whatever period of time you choose. You’ll need more food than you think…

More than half of a large group of Spring-breakers got sick and brought home the pandemic virus with them. There have been many reports of teens and twenty-somethings refusing to practice social distancing during the pandemic. Recalcitrant churchgoers around the world are also driving viral spread.

US unemployment claims have doubled since last week and are now at 6.6 million for the week, bringing the two-week total to over 10 million. The numbers are worse than expected.

Lessons from Italy: the biggest mistake was mixing COVID-19 patients with non-COVID patients in the same hospitals—it facilitated nosocomial spread and the infection of clinicians. Separate structures, COVID hospitals, are needed. Another mistake was sending the overflow of sick patients to assisted-living facilities for the aged. Large hospitals were also a point of failure—the use of smaller, more nodal facilities would have helped contain the spread.

France is going to pay businesses to keep them from going under. Will the US bailouts keep business afloat, or will that money get off-shored while millions are laid off? Is either method sustainable?

Folks in the South are still traveling a lot for work and for essential business. Rural expanse is responsible for much of this, but ideology may be at play, as well.

Play with epidemic forecasting models. It’s fun and morbid.

There are case reports of brain ailments with COVID-19, and some of them are catastrophic. Acute necrotizing encephalopathy, anyone? Reminds a few of us of the movie Contagion…

Antibiotic-resistant organisms can stymie effective treatment for COVID-19 and result in worse outcomes and more deaths. Secondary bacterial infections are common.

Duterte says those who violate lockdown could be shot: “My orders are to the police and military, as well as village officials, if there is any trouble, or occasions where there’s violence and your lives are in danger, shoot them dead.”

Navy Commander relieved from carrier command after requesting evacuation for stuck, sick sailors. Navy leadership feels his broad discussion of concerns was “poor judgment.” Protecting intelligence on operational readiness is certainly important, but so is keeping your sailors alive when preventive measures will do the trick.

Huge numbers of health care workers are getting sick in the US:

COVID-19 testing in the US is stalling, and this is major problem.

NY and LA Mayors call for face-covering; Iran and Italy show improvement, Turkey gets worse; lots of interesting data to sift through:

 

NY has 45 mobile morgues:

Stephanie Arnold | cosmicpixle

Stephanie Arnold is an advanced practice psychiatric nurse and a doctoral candidate in UA Tuscaloosa’s DNP program. Stephanie moonlights from time to time at UCLA teaching mental health nursing. She also likes making cold-process soap.

  • 2 Comments
    • Bad Karma April 2, 2020

      Any church leader who is still holding services should be immediately arrested for attempted murder. The virus clearly takes precedence over freedom of religion. Oh hey, Texas – churches are essential businesses now? Good, tax them. Gotta keep that collection plate circulating.

      Some interesting photos here: https://web.archive.org/web/20200403012552/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8181893/Bodies-flow-Brooklyn-hospital-like-conveyor-belt-NYC-expects-reach-16-000-deaths.html

       

       

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    • Vaylon April 2, 2020

      There’s soon going to be a wave of healthcare workers incapacitated by COVID-19. What’s going to happen in those hospitals at that point? I don’t mean to be an alarmist, but this is all truly worrying.

      The best thing — the most helpful thing — we can do right now is to avoid getting sick, and I don’t mean just from COVID-19. I mean sick at all. That means not only do we have to practice good hygiene and observe social distancing, but we also have to eat right, exercise, and keep mentally healthy.

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