2019–20 Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) Thread

[yumeaki]

The countries with coronavirus cases since early January are finally seeing some light at the end of the tunnel but now have to fear for a second wave of infection due to spread in Europe and US. I can't believe I now call the days when Singapore has the highest cases outside China in early Feb as "the good old days". Our testing and quarantine measures are considered strict and we maintain the numbers at 100+ until March. For the past few days we are seeing daily increases at an average of 40 cases per day. Most are imported cases and they are local citizens returning home so we can't really reject them. I feel like I'm looking at fake GOE inflation. Unbelievable... 

 

I don't know how anyone can expect the virus will be gone by summer. Just look at South East Asian countries. Well, i hope SEA is an anomaly. May the virus really be gone by Summer. I really don't want the next skating season to be affected. 

 

[yude]

One thing I've kept thinking Yuzuru might be in Japan now is that Rika came to the studio of Fuji TV on March 19 and said she tried to continue training in Canada but didn't have anywhere to skate, so she came back to Japan. But of course, she and Yuzuru have different environment in Japan and I do think traveling itself is not safe. But at the same time, I've heard Ice Rink Sendai is open and he might be able to train there at midnight as he did before. I hope he is safe and healthy wherever he is.

 

Most schools here have been closed but are scheduled to be opened soon under certain conditions given by the experts. Yuzuru's father is a school teacher (is he retired?), so I think he has been working following those flows. I don't know his sister's occupation, but I am pretty sure she is working as usual because we adults have been working almost normally (and I am scared of it honestly ).  

[SitTwizzle]

32 minutes ago, yude said:

Yuzuru's father is a school teacher (is he retired?), so I think he has been working following those flows.

I don't know his age but, considering he might have married between 24 and 28 and had his daughter soon after (from his being a teacher, so with a reliable income; from Yuzuru Hanyu's stating at 20 that he would like to marry around 25-26, so rather young; and from the 4-year gap between his daughter and his son, maybe due to still limited means; that is, as we say in French, "l'âge du capitaine" — the captain's age, "calculated" by adding the height of the waves, the beam of the ship, the depth of the sea... ;-) ), he may then have been born between 1960 and 1964, and if Japanese teachers have normal retirement age, in this bracket he would get to pension age at 64 or 65, depending of his year of birth (65 from 2026 on)? Then normally retiring between 2024 and 2029, unless he prefers to go on, as some do.

There may be real info somewhere but I tend to doubt it because his real age, and project of retirement, is their private life.

I just tend to think he is not retired yet.

[monchan]

5 hours ago, rockstaryuzu said:

@monchan I assume from what you've told me that the 80% rate was in place before all this? Still doesn't seem fair though, although I'm not a teacher I'm sure you still have to do the same amount of lesson-planning and prep work. 

There's no online teaching in my school before this, it all started due to the virus. Even much more work, I need to prepare slides, document on computer, things like graph etc. are so hard to do online. And the students... you don't even know if they're listening or playing games lol.

 

Well the rate is understandable, imagine u register for a course, will you pay more for an online course or in-class course? It won't be time-consuming if you got everything prepared from the start, but now I have to do each lesson one-by-one:(

[Sukigirl]

It’s so disheartening for countries like Singapore, Taiwan and HK who are experiencing a new wave of infections from our citizens and PRs returning from abroad. We took measures early on and were largely successful in containing the spread. Now there’s a surge of new cases primarily from U.K. and US. All it takes now is for one of them to break quarantine and spread it. I feel for our team of contact tracers who race against time to call every single positive case to trace and investigate and isolate contacts. They have a two hour deadline from the time a case is identified to trace and alert contacts. It’s a mammoth undertaking. And we are hospitalising every single positive case to prevent community spread. My daily prayer is for our healthcare system to withstand the surge 🙏🏼
 

Stay safe and healthy, everyone.

[mercedes]

my work collegue basically stay in the same room with her 2 children while they follow school trough google classroom ,if not go figure how two 13/15 y.o. boys would follow it LOL

 

I work from home and a couple of days a week Ii go to work because I need medical documents that  we decided not to carry outside the office so it's strange ...and scary very scary.

they are talking about keeping things this way until july and i honestly don't know how our economy will survive this.

[rockstaryuzu]

6 hours ago, Sombreuil said:

My father can still read and his tabloid of choice has the most lurid headlines which at the moment fully support a lockdown - of course as soon as that gets boring they could easily switch track but at the moment that’s a real help - every time he wants to go to the pub I just tell him to look at the paper.  My father in law can no longer read and thinks we’re all talking rubbish, and says so loudly and is extremely resentful of anyone trying to tell him what to do 

Unfortunately all my mother reads these days are far-right 'news' websites that appeal to her underlying prejudices. She used to read the newspaper, which was at least a little more neutral, but as she gets older she spends most of her time looking for bias confirmation. And unfortunately all those websites are mainly Trump echo chambers. 

 

 

[rockstaryuzu]

6 hours ago, Salior said:

 

True, that's what I thought too. 

 

Also, this is crazy. Poor Javi

 

I saw that. So sad. My uncle's gf is an ER doctor in Seville. She told us last week that she's never seen anything as a aggressive and fast as this virus when it takes hold on people. 

[Sombreuil]

6 minutes ago, rockstaryuzu said:

Unfortunately all my mother reads these days are far-right 'news' websites that appeal to her underlying prejudices. She used to read the newspaper, which was at least a little more neutral, but as she gets older she spends most of her time looking for bias confirmation. And unfortunately all those websites are mainly Trump echo chambers. 

 

 

Thankfully mine aren’t computer literate which makes it harder to stay in touch but means they rely on terrestrial tv and newspapers - the Daily Mail is bad enough, I shudder to think what my dad would be like with all his filters gone ( not that he had many to start with) and a daily diet of some of the stuff you can access online - you have my profoundest sympathy.  

[rockstaryuzu]

1 minute ago, Sombreuil said:

Thankfully mine aren’t computer literate which makes it harder to stay in touch but means they rely on terrestrial tv and newspapers - the Daily Mail is bad enough, I shudder to think what my dad would be like with all his filters gone ( not that he had many to start with) and a daily diet of some of the stuff you can access online - you have my profoundest sympathy.  

Thanks. It has turned me into a much more pious person than I used to be, as I spend all my time praying that she'll stop...the Lord works in mysterious ways I guess. 

[SitTwizzle]

Five French professors, among whom one the greatest infectiologists, have decided to disobey the French official line (virtually no test; no chloroquine, and letting people struggle as they can, hence longer stays and higher death rates in overwhelmed intensive care beds and severe cases let out to die) in one of the great university hospitals, Marseille.

https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/epidemie-a-coronavirus-covid-19/

I don't know elsewhere, but in France nowadays, it takes a great political courage to tell some truths. Particularly against "Big Pharma".

[memae]

8 hours ago, yumeaki said:

 I can't believe I now call the days when Singapore has the highest cases outside China in early Feb as "the good old days". Our testing and quarantine measures are considered strict and we maintain the numbers at 100+ until March. For the past few days we are seeing daily increases at an average of 40 cases per day. Most are imported cases and they are local citizens returning home so we can't really reject them. I feel like I'm looking at fake GOE inflation. Unbelievable... 

 

It took us about 10 hours to drive from JB into SGP on the 17th (it's usually about 40-60 minutes, for anyone who wants some context for comparison). There were a lot of people trying to get through. I'm not at all surprised there's been a spike in cases in so many places in the last week or so just because so many people were all trying to get home (or to where they work) at once. Hopefully we see the number of new cases drop once the time has passed for all the travellers to have developed symptoms or not. It seems like most people are taking the social distancing seriously. 

[Figure_Frenzy]

5 hours ago, SitTwizzle said:

virtually no test; no chloroquine

 

I'm sure the doctors, pharmacists, and (public) health experts of the Planet™ would explain this better than I do but let me reiterate, there has been no conclusive evidence that chloroquine can help alleviate the condition of a corona patient, let alone completely heal them. That minister of health's recovery from coronavirus? That might not necessarily be due to chloroquine itself! All alleged recovery cases from coronavirus by giving them chloroquine are anecdotal at most — it still has not been conclusively determined that chloroquine does have an effect that could positively contribute to the recovery in coronavirus patients.

Besides, chloroquine is a really strong medicine with a strong side effect — it has to be prescribed properly by doctors, otherwise you could easily risk overdosing/poisoning if you just acquire it over the counter and use it without knowing the proper dosage. Until the experts conclusively determine that (hydro)chloroquine is effective for coronavirus treatment I still believe that withholding (over the counter) chloroquine from the public is the good step to take at the moment.

 

Otherwise, what would the alternative be, letting the public have access to chloroquine, especially without prescription?? Do you really want to see the alternative scenario happen where the whole public is now the guinea pigs, and it results in unnecessary deaths due to chloroquine overdosing?? I definitely don't want to see that unfold.

(Also yes I limit the response only to usage of chloroquine in relation to coronavirus, I don't comment on its usage in relation to lupus — I don't quite grasp the situation on it)

[Salior]

2 hours ago, Figure_Frenzy said:

 

I'm sure the doctors, pharmacists, and (public) health experts of the Planet™ would explain this better than I do but let me reiterate, there has been no conclusive evidence that chloroquine can help alleviate the condition of a corona patient, let alone completely heal them. That minister of health's recovery from coronavirus? That might not necessarily be due to chloroquine itself! All alleged recovery cases from coronavirus by giving them chloroquine are anecdotal at most — it still has not been conclusively determined that chloroquine does have an effect that could positively contribute to the recovery in coronavirus patients.

Besides, chloroquine is a really strong medicine with a strong side effect — it has to be prescribed properly by doctors, otherwise you could easily risk overdosing/poisoning if you just acquire it over the counter and use it without knowing the proper dosage. Until the experts conclusively determine that (hydro)chloroquine is effective for coronavirus treatment I still believe that withholding (over the counter) chloroquine from the public is the good step to take at the moment.

 

Otherwise, what would the alternative be, letting the public have access to chloroquine, especially without prescription?? Do you really want to see the alternative scenario happen where the whole public is now the guinea pigs, and it results in unnecessary deaths due to chloroquine overdosing?? I definitely don't want to see that unfold.

(Also yes I limit the response only to usage of chloroquine in relation to coronavirus, I don't comment on its usage in relation to lupus — I don't quite grasp the situation on it)

 

There are already studies with the preliminary effects of some medication on helping the condition, like some antivirals, arthritis medication?, etc. Those are peer reviewed studies so I'd trust them, but yea don't take it without prescription because it can kill you (someone died doing this) 

[SitTwizzle]

7 hours ago, Figure_Frenzy said:

 

I'm sure the doctors, pharmacists, and (public) health experts of the Planet™ would explain this better than I do but let me reiterate, there has been no conclusive evidence that chloroquine can help alleviate the condition of a corona patient, let alone completely heal them. That minister of health's recovery from coronavirus? That might not necessarily be due to chloroquine itself! All alleged recovery cases from coronavirus by giving them chloroquine are anecdotal at most — it still has not been conclusively determined that chloroquine does have an effect that could positively contribute to the recovery in coronavirus patients.

Besides, chloroquine is a really strong medicine with a strong side effect — it has to be prescribed properly by doctors, otherwise you could easily risk overdosing/poisoning if you just acquire it over the counter and use it without knowing the proper dosage. Until the experts conclusively determine that (hydro)chloroquine is effective for coronavirus treatment I still believe that withholding (over the counter) chloroquine from the public is the good step to take at the moment.

 

Otherwise, what would the alternative be, letting the public have access to chloroquine, especially without prescription?? Do you really want to see the alternative scenario happen where the whole public is now the guinea pigs, and it results in unnecessary deaths due to chloroquine overdosing?? I definitely don't want to see that unfold.

(Also yes I limit the response only to usage of chloroquine in relation to coronavirus, I don't comment on its usage in relation to lupus — I don't quite grasp the situation on it)

Over-the-counter chloroquine would just help (for coronavirus) treating people under medical supervision until marketing authorisation for this particular use, because the prescribing doctors couldn't get or officially prescribe due to lacking MA for this use.

I never do self-medication for internal things, except a very, very rare (last was more than 10 years ago) 500mg paracetamol (and some vitamins and "food complement").

But also, patients with a known condition needing chloroquine, such as lupus, were used to buy it over-the-counter, following a more ancient medical prescription (in France, you cannot have a prescription for more than 6 months, and this is for recurrent ones, most patients seeing their doctor every year or even every other year, with the MD severe shortage we have). As everything was stopped, even medical "ordinary" appointments, without any warning, and the forbidding of over-the-counter chloroquine was not publicized, some people are already short of (medically prescribed but too old to buy some in a pharmacy) chloroquine for their lupus.

 

And YES, there IS now evidence of how useful chloroquine is against coronavirus, it IS being peer-reviewed, and the Professor who led the last trial is the most quoted infectiologist in the world.

I translate his message, I used DeepL and fixed.

https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/epidemie-a-coronavirus-covid-19/

Marseille, March 22d 2020

 

Covid-19 coronavirus epidemic

In the current context of the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus epidemic on French territory and throughout the world.
In accordance with the Hippocratic oath we have taken, we are obeying our duty as doctors. We provide our patients with the best possible care for the diagnosis and treatment of a disease. We respect the professional standards and the most recently acquired data of medical science.

We have decided:
- For all febrile patients who come to us, to perform the tests for the diagnosis of Covid 19 infection;
- For all infected patients, many of whom, who have only mild symptoms, show lung damage on CT scans, to offer the earliest in the disease, as soon as the diagnosis :
- treatment with a combination of hydroxychloroquine (200 mg x 3 per day for 10 days) + Azithromycin (500 mg on the first day then 250 mg per day for 5 more days), as part of the precautions for use of this combination (with in particular an electrocardiogram on D0 and D2), and outside the MA. In cases of severe pneumonia, a broad-spectrum antibiotic is also associated.

We believe that it is unethical that this association is not systematically included in therapeutic trials concerning the treatment of Covid-19 infection in France.