Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[The Minsky Moment]

Per the CDC labs, they don't have the capacity to run more tests than that. Whatever the testing entails, it takes more resources than they can provide. The goal is to up the amount to 1000 tests per day by some time next month.

CDC ordered test kits that turned out to have a manufacturing defect. Private and state labs weren't approved to use their own tests until a few days ago.

[dps]

Not just the tests. I'm baffled that you have to go to the doctor/hospital to get tested. They should come to you so as not to risk spread. Don't you guys have hotlines provided by your insurer/network/government?

We don't have a government at the moment, perhaps try back in early 2021?

You can call an insurance company, wait about 30 minutes, spend another five minutes entering codes, and then finally get a person who will say your aren't covered regardless of the question or what your coverage is.

If you're lucky, they'll tell you that you're not covered.  More likely they just leave it vague.

A couple of years ago, my wife's doctor wanted her to get a complete physical, but wasn't sure that our insurance would pay for it and wanted my wife to check with them to see if it would, because she didn't want my wife to pay for it our of pocket.  Well, I knew that it would, but my wife did what the doctor asked and called the insurance company.  She went through 3 different layers of customer service people and the answer all 3 of them gave her was that there was no way to tell if it would be covered or not other than to go ahead and get the physical, have the doctor bill it to the insurance, and then see if it got paid or not.  A completely unacceptable answer.

But, as I alluded to, I knew that our insurance would pay for one preventative wellness visit a year.  My wife took the physical, and after the doctor assured the insurance company that annual complete physical is the same thing as a yearly preventative wellness visit, they paid without any problem.

Not so much greed on the part of the insurance company, but total incompetence on the part of their customer service reps, IMO.  This can't have been the first time the same question came up.

[Syt]

The Coronavirus news archive of the Austrian health ministry ....



https://www.sozialministerium.at/Informationen-zum-Coronavirus/Archiv/Meine-Neuigkeiten.html

[DGuller]

  Can you translate what it says?

[Syt]

Can you translate what it says?

From Google Translate:

My news
lalalalalalal

, hnmdmn + md
 
b, pfm

[Habbaku]

 

[HisMajestyBOB]

Shit, the virus has crossed from the physical to digital. We really are fucked. 

[The Minsky Moment]

Can you translate what it says?

It looks like an attempt to transcribe a Schoenberg score.

[PDH]

I like the lalalalal part.  Very festive.

[Habbaku]

I assumed it was an EU II reference.

[FunkMonk]

 

[Valmy]

I assumed it was an EU II reference.

[merithyn]

Do we think the fact that there are only three known cases in Oregon might have something to do with the fact that they aren't actually testing anyone?

Willamette Week: The Pandemic Hits Portland—and a Few Key Numbers Will Determine What Damage It Can Do.
Link

3: The number of COVID-19 cases so far in the state of Oregon. The first is a Washington County resident who is an employee of Forest Hill Elementary School in Lake Oswego. Two more positive cases have been announced: one March 1 in Washington County, and another March 2 in Umatilla County—more than 250 miles away from the first two cases. That distance matters because it suggests the illness is spreading widely.

1,500: The number of coronavirus test kits the state has received from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the state's lab is capable of testing only 80 of those kits per day, meaning health officials need to be selective about whom they administer tests to—the elderly and those with weakened immune systems, the two groups most likely to develop life-threatening symptoms should they acquire the virus.

[Tamas]

Sounds like the UK is moving from "contain" to "delay" whatever that means.

Also, the health authority has relented from doing only weekly updates on the location of new infections. They'll do daily updates as demanded, but with a 24 hours delay, to make sure the information value of this remains zero.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah, Chris Whitty's giving evidence to Parliament. On the "contain" to "delay" stages:

Q: Are you anticipating moving from the 'contain' phase of the plan to the 'delay' phase in the next few days?

Whitty says the government has had four aims.

First, containing the outbreak. That is now an "extraordinary unlikely" long-term outcome, he says. He says "containing looks pretty optimistic" now.

Second, delaying the outbreak. Whitty says this approach overlaps in many ways with contain. He says if you can push back the peak of the outbreak, you get at least two, and possibly three benefits.

He says you delay the peak until the NHS is in a better to respond.

He says you also get more time to deal with the disease, either by managing it or developing drugs.

And he says there may be a seasonal element to this; if you move into spring and the summer, the rate of infection may go down. That is the case with flu, he says.

Q: So are you going to move from contain to delay within the next few days?

Whitty says there won't be a "step move'" to delay.

He says it is a matter of putting more emphasis on the delay elements.

In the early stage the contain and delay strategies are similar.

But later other measures will be needed.

Q: So there won't be a moment where you move from stage one to stage two.

That's correct, Whitty says.

But he says the UK has move from the "mainly contain" stage to the "mainly delay" stage.