Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Agelastus]

I keep thinking about one student nurse who was absolutely lovely, but also very new. I thought student nurses were like junior doctors - so you some years of studying and then you get put into a hospital to start the practical training. Turns out that was wrong. She was 18 and had done about 3 months worth of studying - aside from that it's just rotating between different hospitals and teams with some lectures every six weeks. I find it kind of mind-blowing when I think of her and all the other student nurses that young working through this time.

She'll be on a nursing degree apprenticeship course; they introduced (more like reintroduced) this in 2017 when they finally realised that making entering nursing via a degree route the only method wasn't working. It wasn't producing enough nurses; in fact, it had placed significant barriers for many people who wished to become nurses.

I say "reintroduced" because as I understand it the modern scheme is very similar to the way nurses were trained in the Fifties and Sixties (from a discussion I had with my Aunt, a retired Ward Sister.) My Aunt also implied that nurses trained this way were getting a lower level entry into nursing once they'd completed the course than those coming through the full degree route but, as I pointed out, once they were in the profession they could get further training to raise their skills.

Getting in to the profession in the first place being the key thing.

[DGuller]

Mrs B went on a supply run to a few places, including Canadian Tire.

She came back with 2 boxed of 25 disposable paper masks - for $25 each.  No not N95.

That's about the going rate in NYC among Russian black marketeers (?), for those Chinese blue surgical masks.  If they're being sold at Canadian Tire now for this price, then I guess the price gouging concerns have been slowly eroded, and the powers that be have recognized that this is just the price of these goods under today's conditions.

[Monoriu]

50 regular surgical masks cost around US$30-35 these days. 

[11B4V]

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2020-04-09/military-warns-of-coronavirus-breakouts-aboard-uss-nimitz-aircraft-carrier

[Grey Fox]

I have 4 N95 masks. I bought them for sanding.

[jimmy olsen]

US seems to have stagnated in the 30-35k cases a day zone which is a pretty horrible place to stagnate in. Any loosening of restrictions will lead to an overwhelming explosion of cases.

https://mobile.twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1248466697452830720

Over the past 24 hours, the U.S. reported 35,147 new cases of coronavirus and 1,863 new deaths, raising total to 467,846 cases and 16,632 dead

[viper37]

Coronavirus: Europe failed the test

Long read, worth it.

Clueless about preparedness

n hindsight, Lenarčič and others admit there were critical gaps in the readiness of EU countries and that Brussels had virtually no sense of just how badly unprepared national governments were. Neither the EU nor the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control maintain statistics on national stockpiles of medical equipment. Even worse, many EU countries had no clue either.

The day after the WHO declared a public health emergency, technocrats from European capitals and EU agencies called into a Health Security Committee meeting to discuss the threat. Only four countries reported they might be short of personal protective equipment in an emergency.

Likewise, China's unveiling of a 1,000-bed, pop-up hospital on February 4 — built in less than two weeks to deal with the overflow of patients needing intensive care — seemed not to make an impression on EU leaders.

A member of the Spanish military carries out general disinfection at Malaga airport in Spain | Jorge Guerrero/AFP via Getty Images

"When we watched the image of the Chinese building 1,000-bed hospitals, it took time to understand that this was an important organizational measure to take as soon as possible," said Walter Ricciardi, a public health expert advising the Italian government's coronavirus response. "We realized that when we started seeing the people in our intensive care units and doctors overwhelmed."

The Commission offered to help national systems get emergency supplies, but officials in Europe's national capitals struggled to understand what they already had and what was needed.

"We never had, in fact, the clearest picture of the national level, because I think the member states didn't have those figures," said John Ryan, director of public health and crisis management at the European Commission's health and food safety department, DG SANTE. "We had a moment of truth when we suddenly realized there was a huge problem."

"The smaller member countries probably would have had a better idea of what supplies they had on hand: How many intensive care beds, how many staff and how much equipment and so on."

Big countries faced a tougher counting challenge, especially if their public health care systems were controlled at the regional level. Ryan scrupulously avoided mentioning specific countries during an interview, but the decentralized health systems in Germany, Italy and Spain have clearly complicated those countries' responses to COVID-19.

[bogh]

Sweden reported 109 deaths. Denmark 19.

Good spirited Nordic competition.

Today saw 77 and 10 respectively.

[MadImmortalMan]

I saw some footage of that Chinese popup hospital they built in two weeks. It was full of water from the roof leaking and shitty construction.

[Sheilbh]

UK numbers - another 980 fatalities (rate = 12%). I imagine the numbers will fall over the Easter long weekend - hopefully there won't be a huge bounce-back on Wednesday/Thursday next.

On the leading indicators the slides look promising:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/879112/COVID-19_Press_Conference_Slides_-_10_04_2020__3_.pdf

Hospital and ICU admissions on slides 4 and 5. The Deputy Chief Medical Officer did say it looked like the curve on hospitalisations was starting to bend down and the curve on ICU is flattening, but it's too early to say those have peaked.

Edit: Incidentally I find the Chief Nursing Officer, Ruth May, very, very effective at these briefings.

[mongers]

Grim footage out of New York, mass burials of as yet unclaimed coronavirus victims.

[Legbiter]

27 new cases, most were in quarantine, 1 person died. Around 40 people are hospitalized, 11 are in ICU. We seem to be plateauing so the peak should hit the health service in a week or so. Then it's a long grind back down again. There'll be a tentative plan on easing control measures after Easter.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I saw some footage of that Chinese popup hospital they built in two weeks. It was full of water from the roof leaking and shitty construction.

Maybe it was isolated with their junk facemasks... :-/

[DGuller]

It seems like in Jersey City the mandate came in to limit the number of people in the stores, because I see all the stores now with lines of people in front of it.  I get the thought process, but I have a suspicion it may prove to be counterproductive.  What this measure winds up doing is extending the amount of time people spend outside.  In theory they should spend that increased amount of time outside at proper social distance, as opposed to a shorter amount of time at occasionally improper social distance, but I think it hurts more than it helps.  My solution was to drive to another town where a thing didn't exist, and wear a mask.

[DGuller]

It seems like in Jersey City the mandate came in to limit the number of people in the stores, because I see all the stores now with lines of people in front of it.  I get the thought process, but I have a suspicion it may prove to be counterproductive.  What this measure winds up doing is extending the amount of time people spend outside.  In theory they should spend that increased amount of time outside at proper social distance, as opposed to a shorter amount of time at occasionally improper social distance, but I think it hurts more than it helps.  My solution was to drive to another town where a thing didn't exist, and wear a mask.

Hmm, turns out that's a New Jersey law, starting today.  I guess my Plan B store didn't get the memo.