OT: Coronavirus

[Guest]

Update on the update on the... you get the idea.

First I was told that we'd be closing Tuesday. Walk into work and see schedules up on the wall for Wednesday.  Then I'm told we're working until Thursday.  Wish these guys would get their story straight.  Looks like they've shut down the kill line and are just processing what's already been slaughtered. 


But hey, at least we're famous! (facepalm)


https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/minnesota-pork-plant-shuts-down-after-outbreak-among-workers/ar-BB12VZpe?ocid=spartandhp  

Interesting here is the possibility that Smithfield and JBS could now be passing the virus back and forth because of the large number of family members working at both plants :#

[Guest]

https://twitter.com/i/status/1252396227297021960

[Guest]

I assume at some point they'll get this testing better, but as of April???

FDA warns against use of unproven COVID-19 antibody tests
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends that health care providers continue to use serological tests intended to detect antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 to help identify people who may have been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus or have recovered from the COVID-19 infection. Health care providers should also be aware of the limitations of these tests and the risks to patients and the community if the test results are used as the sole basis to diagnose COVID-19.The FDA is not aware of an antibody test that has been validated for diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection. While the FDA remains open to receiving submissions for these tests for such uses, based on the underlying scientific principles of antibody tests, the FDA does not expect that an antibody test can be shown to definitively diagnose or exclude SARS-CoV-2 infection
https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/lett...20COVID-19&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua

[Guest]

[Guest]

[Guest]

The above is a popular meme making the rounds...It can certainly get nit-picked, but I thought interesting how these are occurring around the same time, every century or close to it...

• Beginning in 1720, an outbreak of bubonic plague in Marseille, France (known as The Great Plague of Marseille) killed an estimated 100,000 people in that city and surrounding provinces and towns. However, that particular outbreak was far from the first, last, or most severe instance of bubonic plague in history. In particular, the Black Death — a bubonic plague epidemic that hit Eurasia in the 14th century — is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe’s human population (up to 50 million people), primarily from 1347 to 1351.

• The first of several cholera pandemics recorded in modern history spread from India to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Eastern Africa in the early 19th century. However, that pandemic did not begin in 1820. It persisted from 1817 until 1824, and six more cholera pandemics were charted over the following 150 years.

• The so-called “Spanish flu” or 1918 flu pandemic (influenza caused by an H1N1 virus) spread in the early 20th century, killing upwards of 50 million people worldwide. (Despite the name, most modern scholarship suggests the pandemic did not actually originate in Spain.) Once again, although that pandemic did encompass the year 1920, it began much earlier, continuing roughly from January 1918 to December 1920.

• The COVID-19 coronavirus disease outbreak that made this image of interest in 2020 was initially reported at the end of 2019, but it was not officially characterized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization until March 2020.

[Guest]

https://apnews.com/a5077c7227b8eb8b0dc23423c0bbe2b2

[Guest]

@RS Express said:
https://apnews.com/a5077c7227b8eb8b0dc23423c0bbe2b2

Yah, I saw that too.

386 is a still a relatively small sample size and VA hospital patients are representative of what I'm not sure. 

But its a reminder that this med could have harmful effects and supports doing the research right and rapidly with a large, controlled sample size.

I think there are larger, controlled,  more representative tests underway by US Dr's and researchers that should be definitive. Not sure the FDA will approve this for Covid-19 treatment until that testing is done in our borders?"

An association of increased overall mortality was identified in patients treated with hydroxychloroquine alone. These findings highlight the importance of awaiting the results of ongoing prospective, randomized, controlled studies before widespread adoption of these drugs," wrote the authors, who work at the Columbia VA Health Care System in South Carolina, the University of South Carolina and the University of Virginia. 

Researchers also looked at whether taking hydroxychloroquine or a combination of hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin, had an effect on whether a patient needed to go on a ventilator. 

"In this study, we found no evidence that use of hydroxychloroquine, either with or without azithromycin, reduced the risk of mechanical ventilation in patients hospitalized with Covid-19," the authors wrote. 

There are currently no products approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to prevent or treat Covid-19, although research is underway on many drugs.

[Guest]

This stuff is blowing up in my county. These aren't huge numbers but this is a rural community. The biggest town in the county is only 2,800 people. Everybody is related to everybody.

[Guest]

Population of my county is like 22,000 and we've gone from 0 confirmed cases to 101 in 11 days.  No deaths yet probably because it hasn't had time to finish them off. 

2 coworkers in the cafeteria tested positive so now I have to get tested as well. At least I haven't been around them since Saturday.