Coronavirus: What questions do you have?

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I spend a couple of hours last night. I share your concerns. I posted one article that illustrates the concern. Antigen tests are widely variable. What test equipment and test are you looking to purchase or do you own?

I will ask my SMEs today so see if there is an answer. The incubation period is 4-7 days so that is when people should get symptomatic. What you are asking for is a rule-out test and I am not aware of a good one. I would insist on a PCR. You want specificity to confirm infections. The bottom line is that the best rule out infection is 14 days of quarantine. Even that misses the asymptomatic.

If you are looking for an option, there is one antigen test that may soon be readily available that gets to 80% sensitivity: Sofia 2 SARS Antigen FIA. It was announced in May. I am not sure on availability.

Really appreciate you digging into this. We aren’t planning to run the test, just trying to evaluate the options available. We are a research lab, not a diagnostic lab.
 
Update:

4400 infections GA. This thing is going exponential. I work at the COVID line this weekend. God help us all.
 
Isn't an antibody a type of antigen along with some molecules and polysaccharides?

Nevermind, I'll go back to ignoring this thread along with the entire other forum.

Be safe everyone and enjoy flying rockets.
 
Chuck, certain news outlets are reporting the flat or decreasing daily death rates as encouraging news despite the increasing daily infections.

Are you expecting the death rates to rise sharply following the reported infections?
 
Update:
4400 infections GA. This thing is going exponential. I work at the COVID line this weekend. God help us all.

Chuck, not to worry, help is on the way. Masks and social distancing will be optional:
https://www.ajc.com/blog/politics/t...transportation-agenda/qLxdh5Zla5bgbPnxRowkXJ/
In other news, some are disputing our dear leader's claim that 99% of the Covid-19 infections "are totally harmless”.
FDA commissioner is not one of them.
Others counter-claim that "15% to 20% of infected people end up in hospital"

What's been your experience?
How many confirmed positive folks end up admitted to the hospital, across all age groups?

a

P.S.: FWIW, US cv19 death rate / confirmed positive = 136,671 / 3,291,786 = 4.2% as of today, 7/10/20.
 
Chuck, not to worry, help is on the way. Masks and social distancing will be optional:
https://www.ajc.com/blog/politics/t...transportation-agenda/qLxdh5Zla5bgbPnxRowkXJ/
In other news, some are disputing our dear leader's claim that 99% of the Covid-19 infections "are totally harmless”.
FDA commissioner is not one of them.
Others counter-claim that "15% to 20% of infected people end up in hospital"

What's been your experience?
How many confirmed positive folks end up admitted to the hospital, across all age groups?

a

P.S.: FWIW, US cv19 death rate / confirmed positive = 136,671 / 3,291,786 = 4.2% as of today, 7/10/20.

Try not to make offhanded implied political comments (bold above). They are not needed.

I am not sure on the claims of death rates and hospitalizations because they are a moving target.
 
Update:

4400 infections GA. This thing is going exponential. I work at the COVID line this weekend. God help us all.
Hit nearly 3,000 yesterday in LA. Testing can’t keep up anymore due to lack of material needed. The 18-29 age bracket is still the main driver of numbers, but I think it is filtering up now with increase in hospitalizations. We have a local mask mandate, so mask usage is pretty good. Just too much socializing. Unfortunately, I think things will have to get much worse before people will pull back.
 
Hi Chuck,

I could use a practical gut check. My wife almost certainly has COVID-19. Major sore throat, persistent headaches, body aches, severe fatigue started Monday. No Fever, some upper cough, no appetite. She was swabbed on Tuesday; CVS-Quest testing takes about 7-8 days here. She stayed home from work, resting most of the days, and last night started feeling a little better and even had a little bit of appetite. In retrospect she says she had minor symptoms before Monday (maybe a week before) but didn't think much of them.

AT 4 am this morning she got me up with shortness of breath; I dropped her at the ER. They did another swab, and hospital COVID tests are prioritized so we should have results tomorrow or Monday. Her lungs are clear (no pneumonia), and her O2 levels were fine. Apparently shortness of breath was caused by congestion/drainage/CPAP interaction. Diagnosis provisionally COVID-19, pending test results. Got same diagnosis from MDLive appointment yesterday by televisit before the shortness of breath started. Hospital discharged her after two hours with an O2 meter to keep an eye on that, and told her to quarantine in the guest room (we have not isolated from each other up to this point). She seems perkier today than yesterday, even after the toradol shot wore off. They also gave her fluids and potassium (she was low on K).

Anyway, a concern of ours has been our upcoming (Saturday 7/18) flight to Maryland to visit my ailing (dying of cancer) father. I had assumed that if the COVID-19 test came back positive, the trip was absolutely off due to risks of transmission. The doctor however said that if Anne improves and is symptom free for three days leading up to the trip, we're clear to fly and not worry about me or the boys having picked it up and transmitting it either on the plane or to my father.

Apparently, if the boys and I have no symptoms by then, either we are unlikely to have caught it from my wife, or if we had asymptomatic case(s) the risk that we would still be infectious by then is in the background noise, given the timing of things.

Does this sound consistent with the standards you are seeing and recommending?

Thanks and I wish you well in the COVID-19 screening line today.
 
Chuck, certain news outlets are reporting the flat or decreasing daily death rates as encouraging news despite the increasing daily infections.

Are you expecting the death rates to rise sharply following the reported infections?

I’d like to see Chuck’s answer to the question, but I’d dispute the premise in the first statement. Daily deaths in the US have been up around 900-1000 for the past few days, up from lows below 500.
 
Hi Chuck,

I could use a practical gut check. My wife almost certainly has COVID-19. Major sore throat, persistent headaches, body aches, severe fatigue started Monday. No Fever, some upper cough, no appetite. She was swabbed on Tuesday; CVS-Quest testing takes about 7-8 days here. She stayed home from work, resting most of the days, and last night started feeling a little better and even had a little bit of appetite. In retrospect she says she had minor symptoms before Monday (maybe a week before) but didn't think much of them.

AT 4 am this morning she got me up with shortness of breath; I dropped her at the ER. They did another swab, and hospital COVID tests are prioritized so we should have results tomorrow or Monday. Her lungs are clear (no pneumonia), and her O2 levels were fine. Apparently shortness of breath was caused by congestion/drainage/CPAP interaction. Diagnosis provisionally COVID-19, pending test results. Got same diagnosis from MDLive appointment yesterday by televisit before the shortness of breath started. Hospital discharged her after two hours with an O2 meter to keep an eye on that, and told her to quarantine in the guest room (we have not isolated from each other up to this point). She seems perkier today than yesterday, even after the toradol shot wore off. They also gave her fluids and potassium (she was low on K).

Anyway, a concern of ours has been our upcoming (Saturday 7/18) flight to Maryland to visit my ailing (dying of cancer) father. I had assumed that if the COVID-19 test came back positive, the trip was absolutely off due to risks of transmission. The doctor however said that if Anne improves and is symptom free for three days leading up to the trip, we're clear to fly and not worry about me or the boys having picked it up and transmitting it either on the plane or to my father.

Apparently, if the boys and I have no symptoms by then, either we are unlikely to have caught it from my wife, or if we had asymptomatic case(s) the risk that we would still be infectious by then is in the background noise, given the timing of things.

Does this sound consistent with the standards you are seeing and recommending?

Thanks and I wish you well in the COVID-19 screening line today.
Oh my you have a lot going on there. Good luck to you and your family!
 
Hi Chuck,

I could use a practical gut check. My wife almost certainly has COVID-19. Major sore throat, persistent headaches, body aches, severe fatigue started Monday. No Fever, some upper cough, no appetite. She was swabbed on Tuesday; CVS-Quest testing takes about 7-8 days here. She stayed home from work, resting most of the days, and last night started feeling a little better and even had a little bit of appetite. In retrospect she says she had minor symptoms before Monday (maybe a week before) but didn't think much of them.

AT 4 am this morning she got me up with shortness of breath; I dropped her at the ER. They did another swab, and hospital COVID tests are prioritized so we should have results tomorrow or Monday. Her lungs are clear (no pneumonia), and her O2 levels were fine. Apparently shortness of breath was caused by congestion/drainage/CPAP interaction. Diagnosis provisionally COVID-19, pending test results. Got same diagnosis from MDLive appointment yesterday by televisit before the shortness of breath started. Hospital discharged her after two hours with an O2 meter to keep an eye on that, and told her to quarantine in the guest room (we have not isolated from each other up to this point). She seems perkier today than yesterday, even after the toradol shot wore off. They also gave her fluids and potassium (she was low on K).

Anyway, a concern of ours has been our upcoming (Saturday 7/18) flight to Maryland to visit my ailing (dying of cancer) father. I had assumed that if the COVID-19 test came back positive, the trip was absolutely off due to risks of transmission. The doctor however said that if Anne improves and is symptom free for three days leading up to the trip, we're clear to fly and not worry about me or the boys having picked it up and transmitting it either on the plane or to my father.

Apparently, if the boys and I have no symptoms by then, either we are unlikely to have caught it from my wife, or if we had asymptomatic case(s) the risk that we would still be infectious by then is in the background noise, given the timing of things.

Does this sound consistent with the standards you are seeing and recommending?

Thanks and I wish you well in the COVID-19 screening line today.

I am sorry to hear about the gut check. This is fairly consistent. It varies from 3 days asymptomatic to 10. I go with more because I am more conservative. I would probably let you wife travel considering the circumstances. She should maintain standard precautions not to pass the virus but it is less likely she is infectious.
 
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Update: 2500 new infection in GA.

I worked the COVID Line and I am tired. 3 providers each day. I screened and or tested over 100 patients. Just wow!
 
And my sister let me know that FL hit a new record today, was it 15K confirmed in one day? She and my mother are there, my mother hits 92 next month and my sister is immune-compromised with lupus, working a public contact job. And how many people have I seen wearing masks under their noses, and so on. Ok, they aren't foolproof by any means, but it's something at least. There's no reason to make them less effective deliberately! She said she's had people wearing their masks come in to her optical shop, approach her, and pull down their mask to speak!

Hang in there, Chuck. We're pulling for you and your compatriots, and praying for people to get some sense. As you said long ago, tests are yesterday's news, the only way we stop this is good hygiene and deliberate steps to not pass it around.
 
Today, we are gonna talk vaccines. A growing number of skeptics have said they doubt a vaccine is coming. I will tell you that this argument is a false narrative. We will get one, but I cannot tell you how often you will need to get the vaccine or how effective it will be. There are at least 5 vaccines in trials and the government is funding an accelerated pace. Even if it reduces the infection rate and symptom severity by 50%, it might be superior to many yearly flu shots.

What does the current evidence show? It is very encouraging. Those who receive the vaccinations in trials have reduced infections and much fewer symptoms.

We will get through this. It is only a matter of time.
 
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Looks like they draw data from here. We'll see if their encouraging outlook lasts
It's too early to say, but it appears there might be a ~3 week delay between the uptick in confirmed cases and an uptick in deaths. Other countries with notable second peaks, like Israel, Serbia and Australia seem to show similar behavior.
91-DIVOC-countries-UnitedStates.png
Note: The higher plateau at the end of June is a data artifact caused by the 7 day averaging of data. In the raw data, it is a single day spike, that was probably caused by retroactively adding data that wasn't reported earlier.

The plot source, with up to date date and the the settings shown above, can be found here
https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-vi...s-daily-7&extraDataScale=separately#countries
Reinhard
 
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Today, we are gonna talk vaccines. A growing number of skeptics have said they doubt a vaccine is coming. I will tell you that this argument is a false narrative. We will get one, but I cannot tell you how often you will need to get the vaccine or how effective it will be. There are at least 5 vaccines in trials and the government is funding an accelerated pace. Even if it reduces the infection rate and symptom severity by 50%, it might be superior to many yearly flu shots.

What does the current evidence show? It is very encouraging. Those who receive the vaccinations in trials have reduced infections and much fewer symptoms.

We will get through this. It is only a matter of time.
Chuck,

Thanks for all the info, and maintaining a positive attitude and atmosphere.
 
<raises hand>

These findings underscore the fact we must not limit our focus merely to death counts and mortality rates. This is apparently a very damaging disease even for many of those who survive it.

It is not universally damaging. There is a significant variablity from patient to patient.
 
It is not universally damaging. There is a significant variablity from patient to patient.

I only see follow up notes for the patients our department treats, but the only consistent pattern I have seen is smokers have a worse outcome with their hospitalization and recovery.
 
Say it isn’t so!
Sorry, even as a non-medical type (Me) that almost begs for WELL DUH! 😀

I just learned today that something like 20% of my brother in laws basic training command has tested positive for COVID-19. He is a unit commander and you and I have spoken of his base before, as they are in your medical district I believe.
 
Sorry, even as a non-medical type (Me) that almost begs for WELL DUH! 😀
We had a running joke during medic school because just about every disease process we studied was further complicated or partially caused by smoking.
I just learned today that something like 20% of my brother in laws basic training command has tested positive for COVID-19. He is a unit commander and you and I have spoken of his base before, as they are in your medical district I believe.
I have 2 separate coworkers each with children who are now in quarantine after basic training. One had just finished jump school at Fort Benning and the other recently enlisted in the USAF.
 
We had a running joke during medic school because just about every disease process we studied was further complicated or partially caused by smoking.

I have 2 separate coworkers each with children who are now in quarantine after basic training. One had just finished jump school at Fort Benning and the other recently enlisted in the USAF.
I remember members of the Army I served with who would bust their butts on the 2 mile run portion of the PT test and then still struggling to catch their breath immediately after crossing the finish line light up a cigarette. The smokers were definitely dedicated!
I wonder what issue can come out of my wife's bout with what we suspect was CoV-19s, she still has lingering issues from the pneumonia that followed and that was clear back mid February before CoV-19 testing was being done.
 
I remember members of the Army I served with who would bust their butts on the 2 mile run portion of the PT test and then still struggling to catch their breath immediately after crossing the finish line light up a cigarette. The smokers were definitely dedicated!
I wonder what issue can come out of my wife's bout with what we suspect was CoV-19s, she still has lingering issues from the pneumonia that followed and that was clear back mid February before CoV-19 testing was being done.

Still happens today.
 
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