Corona Virus

[E_T]

Speaker Pelosi was on Colbet tonight and she briefly talked about [Sleezebag] adding a signing Statement to the 2.3 Trillion Bill.  Something about how he was going to ignore the Oversite Stipulations of the bill.
Anyone know about this?

[Rusty Edge]

Speaker Pelosi was on Colbet tonight and she briefly talked about [Sleezebag] adding a signing Statement to the 2.3 Trillion Bill.  Something about how he was going to ignore the Oversite Stipulations of the bill.
Anyone know about this?

Well, he said he was going to ignore oversight, then he said he would provide oversight himself. [Sleezebag]'s statements have a pretty short half-life these days, so who knows what he'll actually do? I think he intends to use the money to 1) enrich those who fund his re-election, 2) bail himself out.


Adam Schiff is introducing a bill for a committee/commission to investigate the pandemic response, much like investigating Pearl Harbor and 9/11. The idea is that we can learn from our mistakes. They named a chairman today and will also provide oversight for the emergency spending with subpoena powers.

Today he complained about it at his press conference, saying that it was a witch hunt that would only boost his popularity.

[Unorthodox]

Haven't really read up on your lockdown situation, but FL does seem to be a dollar late and a day short in implementing their shutdowns to where it MAY have already been too late.  And maybe even too sparse.  I not in particular you are accessing a library, where ours here in Utah have been shuttered for weeks.  Part of this is TEH CHURCH at least seems to be taking it seriously (to a degree, I could rattle on with that), which puts pressure on our officials to do the same. 

In perhaps a twist of irony, TEH CHURCH taking things seriously might have just exacerbated the problem a hundred fold. 

Weeks ago, just after the big panic, they closed the churches and temples and rolled out essentially worship from home orders.  (though given the fragmented organizational structure, this latter was left up to bishops and stake presidents, so I'm sure it's inconsistent from area to area)  These actions very much drove home to the members that this was to be taken SERIOUSLY and was going to be long term, and people really settled in for the most part.

HOWEVER, TEH CHURCH was not yet done, and more recently they recalled their missionaries.  So, we've had HUNDREDS of kids returning home.  But that's not in itself what's going to cause the problem, and it will be hard for those outside Utah to understand, but these kids are pretty much played hail the conquering hero and paraded around when they return under normal situations. 

And the idiot members are still trying to do that.  HUGE crowds waiting for these kids at the airport.  Parties once their home.  Utah's probably going to blow up in the next 2 weeks. 

[Rusty Edge]

Here's an NPR transcript about the (in)effectiveness of ventilators-
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/02/826105278/ventilators-are-no-panacea-for-critically-ill-covid-19-patients?fbclid=IwAR1-woRPyLH4gzXW_UPtqLuhkWuTrG3xRfRz-wdZQlAZcQhDtQjWDsdNHaU

[The largest study so far to look at mortality among coronavirus patients on ventilators was done by the Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre in London. It found that among 98 ventilated patients in the U.K., just 33 were discharged alive.

The numbers from a study of Wuhan, China, are even grimmer. Only 3 of 22 ventilated patients survived.
And a study of 18 ventilated patients in Washington state found that nine were still alive when the study ended, but only six had recovered enough to breathe on their own.
All the early research suggests that once coronavirus patients are placed on a ventilator, they will probably need to stay on it for weeks. And the longer patients remain on a breathing machine, the more likely they are to die.]

[Unorthodox]

OK captain obvious? 

Is there a comparison to other situations in which someone is placed on a ventilator?  You're on the ventilator as your body has lost the ability to breath.  It's sole purpose is to buy a little time in the hopes your body re-learns or repairs itself enough to breath on it's own.  How many influenza patients that progress to the point of needing a ventilator recover? 

[Unorthodox]

https://www.aast.org/GeneralInformation/mechanicalventilation.aspx

-In hospital mortality of ventilated patients was 34.5% and only 30.8% of patients were discharged home from the hospital.

Looks like covid is about standard for ventilator use, with only 31% of people put on ventilators ever getting a discharge. 

[Geo]

What happened with the other 34.7% patients? Still in hospital but not in IC anymore?

[Unorthodox]

What happened with the other 34.7% patients? Still in hospital but not in IC anymore?

Unclear how pulling the plug factors into 'died on ventilator' in the study.  So, perhaps someone wanted off to mutter some last words, so they aren't "on the ventilator' when they die? 

My grandma for instance was off the ventilator for about 2 hours before she officially died, but we all knew what pulling the vent meant, not sure which way the study would 'call it' from the summary given.  I can't be arsed to go read the thing in it's entirety. 
   

[Geo]

In short, one can pull these kind of statistics any way they want.

[E_T]

[Sleezebag] at New Conferance today, just before he Handed off to VP, "This was artificially induced"...  WTF!!!

[Rusty Edge]

My sense of it is that the odds are better in cases of normal pneumonia, and that's why it's a standard treatment that hospitals call for.  But people who are on ventilators for brain and spine diseases, trauma,  strokes, etc. pulled down the stats pre-Covid-19. 

I've also heard that there is now a shortage of the drugs they use to tranquilize patients with ventilators, so machines alone won't solve the problem, even if there were enough techs to operate them. So that's part of my conclusion that ventilator issues are fighting over crumbs.

[Elok]

OK captain obvious? 

Is there a comparison to other situations in which someone is placed on a ventilator?  You're on the ventilator as your body has lost the ability to breath.  It's sole purpose is to buy a little time in the hopes your body re-learns or repairs itself enough to breath on it's own.  How many influenza patients that progress to the point of needing a ventilator recover?

That's not really how you're supposed to use a ventilator.  I bought a ventilators for dummies type book (written by a hospital doctor) and one of his "eleven commandments" at the front of the book is that the ventilator has no therapeutic value of its own.  Its purpose is to buy time, not for the body to heal itself--if you're tubed, you've degraded past the point where that's plausible--but for the staff to solve whatever the underlying issue is.  A lot of vent patients die, because they're very sick patients, and because once you get sick enough it often turns out that healing you one way will only kill you another way.  For example, getting a diuretic to address your edema might finish off your ailing kidneys.

[Rusty Edge]

[Sleezebag] at New Conferance today, just before he Handed off to VP, "This was artificially induced"...  WTF!!!

There are conspiracy theories that Corvid-19 escaped from a bio weapons lab in China. [Sleezebag] probably caught that conspiracy theory from FOX or Q Anon or Breitbart or some such.

I read an article this week which discredited the theory. Corvid is less contagious than the SARS virus because it's "hooks" are less effective. If someone were weaponizing a virus they wouldn't make it less contagious. Corvid-19 is similar to viruses found in bats and pangolins.

[Rusty Edge]

Anecdotal -

Took the dog on the mile walk today.  There was one younger person trying to net frogs, and another that was riding a mountain bike. The rest were geezers. They tended to travel in clusters and socialize with everyone they saw, and didn't maintain distance. I was the only one wearing gloves and face covering.

I've seen pictures of the city that look vacant, so that seems to be working. I only hear trucks and ambulances on the expressway.

We're low on some foods, and the Mrs. wants to restock. I think we'll venture out to Costco or SAM's tomorrow.

[Unorthodox]

My sense of it is that the odds are better in cases of normal pneumonia, and that's why it's a standard treatment that hospitals call for.  But people who are on ventilators for brain and spine diseases, trauma,  strokes, etc. pulled down the stats pre-Covid-19.

Cursory attempts to look that up lead to too many studies on how being hooked to a ventilator can CAUSE pneumonia and increase morbidity, thus strengthening my view of ventilators as last resort only situations to begin with.   

I've also heard that there is now a shortage of the drugs they use to tranquilize patients with ventilators, so machines alone won't solve the problem, even if there were enough techs to operate them. So that's part of my conclusion that ventilator issues are fighting over crumbs.

The problem really is the hap-hazard way we're going about this.  I don't think there's a shortage, per se, but a shortage at points of need.  The blatant lack of leadership at the national level along with complete ignorance on how to actually USE the tools he DOES have is nothing short of astonishing and leaves the states duke it out amongst themselves for supplies.

Utah pulled a general out of retirement to handle our response, and he's treating it like a war.  His first briefing today was reminiscent of the first gulf war briefings.  No nonsense here's where we are, here's where we need to be, here's how we get there.  While we are making field hospitals to help deal with the influx, we're taking a different tac than others I've seen, and routing non-covid patients to the field hospitals, while essentially turning the permanent hospitals into covid only centers.  Ventilators aren't going to be the problem HERE by the sounds of it.  PPE might be.  There's a little bit of ambiguity for our expected numbers though, since the regional medical system is DESIGNED for surrounding states to fly patients into Utah for critical care as a general course of action.  Not sure how that's going to play out with covid.