South Korea has been touted as a best case scenario for the response and outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic so I’ve been following COVID-19 events there pretty closely at Worldometer. Two of the graphs there concern me. The first is this:
If that can be believed, it suggests that almost half of the people with COVID-19 may remain chronically ill.
That’s augmented by this graph:
New cases seem to have stabilized but there’s been a sharp decline in new recoveries that is very concerning. If the new cases exceed new recoveries in coming weeks, the South Koreans may have succeeded in making their health care system collapse in slow motion.
IMO this supports what I have been saying for some time. We are not just in desperate need of more testing we really need an effective treatment.
That’s not very encouraging as best case scenarios go and we’re unlikely to equal even that.
“If that can be believed, it suggests that almost half of the people with COVID-19 may remain chronically ill.”
Yes, but what does that really mean? If I lacerate my thumb and on day 3 I’m starting to heal I still have a lacerated thumb. On day seven if I don’t have infection and healing is progressing I may still be chronic, but there is a clear path. No worries.
Covid19 may have a long tail, but the question is when can recovering people get off of support equipment or regimens needed by incoming cases. The data is so shoddy I don’t think we know. But in any event its just an observation on the potency of the virus.
As you point out, we need treatment protocols. That’s the Holy Grail.
Absolute quarantine is not in American’s DNA. See NYC, Mardi Gras or spring break. It has failed miserably, as predicted.
We should also stop this one size fits all crap. What’s good for Miami or NYC is not necessarily good for Wyoming, or even most of IL, IN or WI. This will only breed urban vs rural animosity.
Once again: focus, not uniformity.
The beatings continue.
An issue that bedeviled doctors in Wuhan is showing up in the US.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/questions-about-accuracy-of-coronavirus-tests-sow-worry-11585836001
If it is true that tests are having a 30% false negative rate — a back of the envelope calculation says 5 negative test results are needed to have 99% confidence a person does not have coronavirus.
In general — they should advise everyone to self isolate even after a negative test result.
CuriousOnlooker: That wouldn’t work once there are enough test kits out there to test non-symptomatic people. If you start quarantining based on not enough negative tests under those circumstances, the ‘lockdown’ we’re enduring now would look like pre-Kung Flu America.
” The data is so shoddy I don’t think we know. ”
Actually we do. They invented this thing called the “telephone” and the “internet”. We have talked with the ICU guys in Italy. The people in NYC and Washington. Our own experience a bit over a week into this. Once on a vent they stay on it a long time. The average time on a vent for an ICU pt in the US is about 4 days. With Covid 2-3 weeks. Prolonged ventilation and intubations always have long term sequela for some patients. I was assuming this would be more like ARDS but my ICU guys say not quite so much.
We really are shotgunning crazy stuff at them. They are planning on running epoprostenol (Flolan as I used to know it) and I wasn’t even aware that right sided pressures were a major issue. I spent part of the day teaching respiratory therapists how to use OR ventilators. They really aren’t designed for long term ventilation of difficult pulmonary patients. We are going to need a lot of stuff I am not sure we have enough of. We are going to have to make trade offs like adequately humidifying the circuit vs extracting CO2. W will just have to monitor and adapt. But heck, we ran our our machines off of liquid oxygen boxes in Saudi Arabia so we can probably figure this out, if our supplies hold up.
Steve
From “The Hour.com”
Peter Gaynor, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s administrator, told members of Connecticut’s congressional delegation in a telephone call Wednesday night that the Strategic National Stockpile had been completely emptied of the vital supplies like masks and gloves needed by doctors and nurses to protect themselves as they treat patients sickened with covid-19.
He said virtually no such personal protective equipment, or PPE, is produced in the United States, but he emphasized that the administration is working to fly in shipments of the equipment from around the world.
“Competition is off the charts,” Gaynor said, according to participants on the call.
He administrates the WHAT?
That must change. It’s a matter of national defense. As I’ve pointed out before, there’s a relatively simple way of accomplishing that: federal procurement must deal only with companies with exclusively U. S. supply lines.
I’ve come to believe the public would have been advised to mask up by now but authorities are waffling because there are none. They don’t want to make hospital shortages worse.
Fauci admitted in Feb that the advice on masks was not so much they wouldn’t work but to preserve PPE gear for medical workers.
Note the evidence on masks like procedure masks and homemade masks is nuanced; they are more effective against infecting others then preventing you from getting infected — for masks to work everyone has to wear them.
In another case of the bullets keep coming; Singapore is now locking down because there is increasing spread. Hong Kong caseload gone up significantly as well. Japan expects a surge of cases once they lift a bureaucratic limit against testing.
At this point I believe only Taiwan has managed to avoid lockdowns.
In my opinion until there is a superfluity of masks it would be gravely immoral for me to wear one. I’ll remain indoors first.
With “globalism†being hotly pursued by prior administrations, allowing supply chains to be strung out across the world (mostly China), going hand-in-hand in crushing manufacturing jobs here in the US, it’s made us feeble in supplying ourselves with products needed for our own survival. This myopic trend has adversely effected us in so many ways, including weakening our ability to independently meet medical and pharmacological needs. Even our strategic national stockpiles of medical goods were insufficient, since being depleted by the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, left under-stocked for the next pandemic another administration could draw from. When these vulnerabilities are combined with the enhanced vitriol churning around in our hyper politicized climate, I feel we are between the proverbial “rock and hard place,†in being able to provide unity of purpose aimed solely at what’s good for the people, rather than engaging in what has become constant partisan brinkmanship.
I will use a scarf, not a mask, when out and about, should facial protection be warranted.
It depends; I doubt medical workers would want a homemade mask made of a cotton shirt. Yet there are studies that masks that crude can lower the risk of transmission.
An action everyone can take for all those times one has to leave the house.
The data stink, steve. Give it up.
Ah, yes. Data.
https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2020/04/02/analyst-discovers-a-major-flaw-in-imhe-coronavirus-model-used-by-white-house-heres-why/
Garbage in, garbage out. If I understood exponential models I’d understand that small input errors result in huge output errors because, uh, er, exponential. But I’ve been informed by a doctor that I don’t understand. And you know doctors…….
The model predictions look like global warming predictions, but I digress.
“The data stink, steve. Give it up.”
The data on length of intubation is the same for China, Italy, Washington state, NYC and our own ICUs. So parts of the data are incredibly good. But then I dont read medical sites like Red State so maybe i missed something.
Steve