BBC: China pneumonia outbreak: COVID-19 Global Pandemic

[Larry]

8 minutes ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

The vaccines look promising but there will be some challenges regarding distribution. A small percentage of people will begin getting vaccinated by the end of the year. It will be widely available in April or May. Coronavirus will still be a thing this time next year but not nearly as devastating.

We are going to have four or five really horrible months and then things will start to get a whole lot better.

 

And Trump wants to take credit for it.  

 

And the next four or five months could see half the deaths and hospitalizations, if the Republican Party would stop advising people to ignore reality to tick off the Libs.  

 

[bcl05]

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/third-surge-breaking-healthcare-workers/617091/

 

I'm getting redeployed from my regular subspecialty clinic to the COVID front line care team.  This winter is going to be rough.  

[Springfield]

14 minutes ago, bcl05 said:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/third-surge-breaking-healthcare-workers/617091/

 

I'm getting redeployed from my regular subspecialty clinic to the COVID front line care team.  This winter is going to be rough.  

yikes. Take care

[visionary]

So I was thinking about the possible vaccine(s) and I'm somewhat worried that a lot of people will assume it's safe to go back to normal in December.  I'm also wondering if people will lie about getting vaccinated and say they don't have to follow covid rules anymore.  (assuming they are at least following the rules to get into places right now)

Edited November 14, 2020 by visionary

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

Edited November 14, 2020 by visionary

[Renegade7]

27 minutes ago, visionary said:

So I was thinking about the possible vaccine(s) and I'm somewhat worried that a lot of people will assume it's safe to go back to normal in December.  I'm also wondering if people will lie about getting vaccinated and say they don't have to follow covid rules anymore.  (assuming they are at least following the rules to get into places right now)

 

What would be "safe" once vaccinated, and I'm sure there will be some way to prove they have been vaccinated, right?

[visionary]

 

[Larry]

1 hour ago, visionary said:

So I was thinking about the possible vaccine(s) and I'm somewhat worried that a lot of people will assume it's safe to go back to normal in December.

 

You mean, as opposed to the people who think it's OK to go back to normal, for the last three months?  And who are already ignoring medical advice?  

[China]

Pinellas School Board extends mask rule indefinitely, upset parent gets arrested

 

Tensions ran high at the Pinellas County School Board meeting Tuesday resulting in an arrest. School district officials said a woman refused to wear a mask which set off a series of clashes with the board and even school police.

 

At the Pinellas County School District Headquarters in Largo Tuesday school board members ultimately voted to extend their mask ordinance. But many parents and people in the community spoke at the meeting and stood outside to protest that decision.

 

8 On Your Side is told one of the moms was arrested just outside the meeting, while her daughter watched.

 

Alea Kench said she came to the meeting with her mom, Kari Turner, to speak to school board members Tuesday in hopes of convincing them to vote to deny the extension requiring students to wear masks in school.

 

The extension of the mask mandate passed 4-1 after hours of deliberation and hearing from upset parents.

 

The mask ruling lasts indefinitely but will be reviewed every three months.

 

Meanwhile, outside the board meeting near the front of the building, Jeremy Kench said his wife was arrested and his daughters injured by Pinellas County School Board Police.

 

Kench said his daughter’s hand was hurt severely enough to have her taken to the hospital.

 

“I have to follow the ambulance to help see my daughter off to the hospital and then I got to go see what [my wife] was arrested for,” Kench said angry and upset Tuesday afternoon.

 

The Pinellas County School District told 8 on your side Kari Turner is being charged with trespassing after being warned, disorderly conduct, and battery on a law enforcement officer. They said Turner refused to wear a mask which led to the series of events and ultimately her arrest.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[FrFan]

12 hours ago, Wildbunny said:

I'm 46 years old, and there's still one thing I haven't understood about human being.

 

When they're given as much freedom as they want to do whatever they want.

 

Why do they often come with the choice of being stupid and spread stupidity around them?

 

Ignorance, lack of brains, acting like lemmings I think.

 

 

[The 12th Commandment]

Back in lockdown in NM starting Monday.  Turkey day is a bust.  Feel really bad for my mom.  She misses my sister's kids a lot and was looking forward to it in a big way.  Oh well, she'll be stuck having turkey on the patio with me instead.  Being close to el paso has been our down fall, here at least, I believe.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

22 hours ago, Wildbunny said:

I'm 46 years old, and there's still one thing I haven't understood about human being.

 

When they're given as much freedom as they want to do whatever they want.

 

Why do they often come with the choice of being stupid and spread stupidity around them?

 

come on guys. It’s not that hard. Doing stupid things and acting stupid is fun!  Making smart decisions involves work a lot of the time and isn’t fun....

[China]

Freeze, Oregon: Gov. Kate Brown restricts businesses again as COVID-19 cases surge

 

Alarmed by a dramatic and sustained uptick in new cases of COVID-19, Gov. Kate Brown on Friday announced strict regulations meant to decrease interactions among Oregonians.

 

The two-week “freeze” harkens back to many of the restrictions of the “stay home, save lives” order Brown issued in March. It will take effect on Wednesday, Nov. 18, and extend to at least Dec. 2.

 

The governor’s order will last at least two weeks, and also restricts the size of private gatherings and worship services. Some businesses and schools will be allowed to continue operations.
 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Burgum announces new requirements for businesses, gatherings and masks, delays winter activities

 

BISMARCK, N.D. – Gov. Doug Burgum tonight announced several mitigation measures aimed at slowing the accelerating spread of COVID-19 in North Dakota in order to protect the vulnerable, ensure hospital capacity and keep schools and the economy open.

 

Capacity is strained across the state’s health care system, jeopardizing the ability of hospitals to provide the first-rate treatment North Dakotans are accustomed to – not only for COVID-19 patients, but also for those seeking care for heart attacks, cancer, trauma and other urgent needs, Burgum noted.

 

“Our doctors and nurses heroically working on the front lines need our help, and they need it now. Since the beginning, we’ve taken a data-driven approach to our pandemic response, focusing on saving lives and livelihoods. Right now, the data demands a higher level of mitigation efforts to reverse these dangerous trends, to slow the spread of this virus and to avoid the need for economic shutdowns,” Burgum said in a video message announcing the measures. “Our situation has changed, and we must change with it. Tonight, we’re announcing four measures designed to reduce the spread of infections in our communities to protect our most vulnerable and to ensure hospital capacity.”

 

The measures include a State Health Officer order requiring face coverings to be worn in indoor businesses and indoor public settings as well as outdoor public settings where physical distancing isn’t possible. The order, signed by interim State Health Officer Dirk Wilke, is effective from Nov. 14 through Dec. 13. It includes exceptions for children under age 5, individuals with a medical or mental health condition or disability that makes it unreasonable to wear a mask, and religious services.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

So are they actively trying to cull the population of religious people by exempting them from wearing masks?

[visionary]

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

That's 40% admitting it now. Probably going to be higher when the people on the fence get guilted to going.

[China]

‘No One Is Listening to Us’

 

On Saturday morning, Megan Ranney was about to put on her scrubs when she heard that Joe Biden had won the presidential election. That day, she treated people with COVID-19 while street parties erupted around the country. She was still in the ER in the late evening when Biden and Vice President–elect Kamala Harris made their victory speeches. These days, her shifts at Rhode Island Hospital are long, and they “are not going to change in the next 73 days,” before Biden becomes president, she told me on Monday. Every time Ranney returns to the hospital, there are more COVID-19 patients.

 

In the months since March, many Americans have habituated to the horrors of the pandemic. They process the election’s ramifications. They plan for the holidays. But health-care workers do not have the luxury of looking away: They’re facing a third pandemic surge that is bigger and broader than the previous two. In the U.S., states now report more people in the hospital with COVID-19 than at any other point this year—and 40 percent more than just two weeks ago.

 

Emergency rooms are starting to fill again with COVID-19 patients. Utah, where Nathan Hatton is a pulmonary specialist at the University of Utah Hospital, is currently reporting 2,500 confirmed cases a day, roughly four times its summer peak. Hatton says that his intensive-care unit is housing twice as many patients as it normally does. His shifts usually last 12 to 24 hours, but can stretch to 36. “There are times I’ll come in in the morning, see patients, work that night, work all the next day, and then go home,” he told me. I asked him how many such shifts he has had to do. “Too many,” he said.

Hospitals have put their pandemic plans into action, adding more beds and creating makeshift COVID-19 wards. But in the hardest-hit areas, there are simply not enough doctors, nurses, and other specialists to staff those beds. Some health-care workers told me that COVID-19 patients are the sickest people they’ve ever cared for: They require twice as much attention as a typical intensive-care-unit patient, for three times the normal length of stay. “It was doable over the summer, but now it’s just too much,” says Whitney Neville, a nurse based in Iowa. “Last Monday we had 25 patients waiting in the emergency department. They had been admitted but there was no one to take care of them.” I asked her how much slack the system has left. “There is none,” she said.

 

The entire state of Iowa is now out of staffed beds, Eli Perencevich, an infectious-disease doctor at the University of Iowa, told me. Worse is coming. Iowa is accumulating more than 3,600 confirmed cases every day; relative to its population, that’s more than twice the rate Arizona experienced during its summer peak, “when their system was near collapse,” Perencevich said. With only lax policies in place, those cases will continue to rise. Hospitalizations lag behind cases by about two weeks; by Thanksgiving, today’s soaring cases will be overwhelming hospitals that already cannot cope. “The wave hasn’t even crashed down on us yet,” Perencevich said. “It keeps rising and rising, and we’re all running on fear. The health-care system in Iowa is going to collapse, no question.”

 

In the imminent future, patients will start to die because there simply aren’t enough people to care for them. Doctors and nurses will burn out. The most precious resource the U.S. health-care system has in the struggle against COVID-19 isn’t some miracle drug. It’s the expertise of its health-care workers—and they are exhausted.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[skinsmarydu]

I saw his interview on MSNBC last night.  This thing is crippling our entire healthcare system. 

[Metalhead]

December is going to be bad for a lot of families once the Thanksgiving positive cases start rolling in. I hope it doesn't happen but at this point it is inevitable - many people are going to have an awful and tragic Christmas.

[Mr. Sinister]

I remember listening to the spiel as a kid about "Good, kind hearted, non judgmental people."

 

Glad others are finally finding out just how much of that was a lie, and how many folks are just in it for themselves and don't give a damn about anybody else.

[visionary]

 

[visionary]

 

[China]

50 minutes ago, visionary said:

 

 

Anyone who finds this surprising is an idiot.

[China]

 

[China]

The Dakotas are 'as bad as it gets anywhere in the world' for COVID-19

 

South Dakota welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors to a massive motorcycle rally this summer, declined to cancel the state fair and still doesn't require masks. Now its hospitals are filling up and the state's current COVID-19 death rate is among the worst in the world.

 

The situation is similarly dire in North Dakota, with the state's governor recently moving to allow health care workers who have tested positive for COVID-19 to continue working if they don't show symptoms. It's a controversial policy recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a crisis situation where hospitals are short-staffed.

 

And now — after months of resisting a statewide mask mandate — North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum changed course late Friday, ordering masks to be worn statewide and imposing several business restrictions.

 

“Our situation has changed, and we must change with it,” Burgum said in a video message posted at 10 p.m. Friday. Doctors and nurses “need our help, and they need it now,” he said.

 

Both North and South Dakota now face a predictably tragic reality that health experts tell USA TODAY could have been largely prevented with earlier public health actions.

 

Pandemics require people to give up some of their freedoms for the greater good, University of British Columbia psychiatry professor Steven Taylor told USA TODAY. In conservative regions like the Dakotas and elsewhere in the world, it's common to see push back like an “allergic reaction to being told what to do,” said Taylor, author of "The Psychology of Pandemics". 

 

But months of lax regulations have contributed to a growing public health crisis in the Dakotas.

 

And there's currently nowhere in the U.S. where COVID-19 deaths are more common than in the Dakotas, according to data published by The COVID Tracking Project.

 

It's a situation “as bad as it gets anywhere in the world," Dr. William Haseltine told USA TODAY.

 

Click on the link for the full article