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The General [Coronavirus] Discussion Thread: Vaccines!
I'm sure there's a very reasonable explanation to everything, but it's one thing to hear pointed alarms about the potential for US medical infrastructure to snap in the near future.
It's another thing to glance at the worldometers page and see that 2 days ago the US had 19,261 Serious/Critical cases, and then have that jump to 32,297 yesterday.
Maybe some tabulation thing was fixed... or maybe an absolute fuckload of people are in a bad way abruptly, and I imagine it's only going to get a lot worse from here.
I get the whole 'one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic', but their lost lives all the same. Grieving families.
And the recognition that idiots (in the US especially, but around the world) have politicized the matter in ways that include weaponized stupidity.
Anyone who claims it's 'only a bad flu' needs to be figuratively tapped on the nose with a rolled up newspaper. The US has literally passed a quarter of a million deaths this year alone, and even if a vaccine starts rolling out in the weeks and months to come, those already losing the battle to the virus won't benefit much (or at all) from it, aside from perhaps beginning to stem the tide that is overwhelming medical facilities and crushing the souls of health care personnel.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
+4
ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
I'm sure there's a very reasonable explanation to everything, but it's one thing to hear pointed alarms about the potential for US medical infrastructure to snap in the near future.
It's another thing to glance at the worldometers page and see that 2 days ago the US had 19,261 Serious/Critical cases, and then have that jump to 32,297 yesterday.
Maybe some tabulation thing was fixed... or maybe an absolute fuckload of people are in a bad way abruptly, and I imagine it's only going to get a lot worse from here.
We've gone back and forth across the middle of the exponential-growth chessboard a couple of times this year, and now we're well past it. While heading into a season marked by staying indoors, out of the cold, and getting together in family groups. With no real relief or leadership coming from the top until January, and half the country positioned to deny and ignore it.
It's going to be an absolute disaster. :bigfrown:
Commander Zoom on
+4
ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
I'm so glad I don't work in a store, but man.. the number of assholes coming to their ski homes and getting immediate installations without quarantining is infuriating.
I'm sure there's a very reasonable explanation to everything, but it's one thing to hear pointed alarms about the potential for US medical infrastructure to snap in the near future.
It's another thing to glance at the worldometers page and see that 2 days ago the US had 19,261 Serious/Critical cases, and then have that jump to 32,297 yesterday.
Maybe some tabulation thing was fixed... or maybe an absolute fuckload of people are in a bad way abruptly, and I imagine it's only going to get a lot worse from here.
We've gone back and forth across the middle of the exponential-growth chessboard a couple of times this year, and now we're well past it. While heading into a season marked by staying indoors, out of the cold, and getting together in family groups. With no real relief or leadership coming from the top until January, and half the country positioned to deny and ignore it.
It's going to be an absolute disaster. :bigfrown:
Remember of course, that it absolutely doesn't HAVE to be. Rt is probably something like 1.3. Basic national measures, and strict travel controls would provide immense relief starting 7 days from the day they were implemented. Even with only 50% compliance, the benefits would be immense.
In addition, every day we can hold back the tide has immense value now. If we can vaccinage healthcare personnel in early December, their ability to care for patients safely and the NUMBER of patients they can properly care for will rise.
Passive controls and fear have cut R in half. We have a little bit more to do. We absolutely COULD do it. Its not impossible. But, we won't bother because we are led by a madman.
I'm sure there's a very reasonable explanation to everything, but it's one thing to hear pointed alarms about the potential for US medical infrastructure to snap in the near future.
It's another thing to glance at the worldometers page and see that 2 days ago the US had 19,261 Serious/Critical cases, and then have that jump to 32,297 yesterday.
Maybe some tabulation thing was fixed... or maybe an absolute fuckload of people are in a bad way abruptly, and I imagine it's only going to get a lot worse from here.
We've gone back and forth across the middle of the exponential-growth chessboard a couple of times this year, and now we're well past it. While heading into a season marked by staying indoors, out of the cold, and getting together in family groups. With no real relief or leadership coming from the top until January, and half the country positioned to deny and ignore it.
It's going to be an absolute disaster. :bigfrown:
Remember of course, that it absolutely doesn't HAVE to be. Rt is probably something like 1.3. Basic national measures, and strict travel controls would provide immense relief starting 7 days from the day they were implemented. Even with only 50% compliance, the benefits would be immense.
In addition, every day we can hold back the tide has immense value now. If we can vaccinage healthcare personnel in early December, their ability to care for patients safely and the NUMBER of patients they can properly care for will rise.
Passive controls and fear have cut R in half. We have a little bit more to do. We absolutely COULD do it. Its not impossible. But, we won't bother because we are led by a madman.
"This is a FREE COUNTRY," gasps the man proudly struggling for his next breath.
I'm sure there's a very reasonable explanation to everything, but it's one thing to hear pointed alarms about the potential for US medical infrastructure to snap in the near future.
It's another thing to glance at the worldometers page and see that 2 days ago the US had 19,261 Serious/Critical cases, and then have that jump to 32,297 yesterday.
Maybe some tabulation thing was fixed... or maybe an absolute fuckload of people are in a bad way abruptly, and I imagine it's only going to get a lot worse from here.
We've gone back and forth across the middle of the exponential-growth chessboard a couple of times this year, and now we're well past it. While heading into a season marked by staying indoors, out of the cold, and getting together in family groups. With no real relief or leadership coming from the top until January, and half the country positioned to deny and ignore it.
It's going to be an absolute disaster. :bigfrown:
Remember of course, that it absolutely doesn't HAVE to be. Rt is probably something like 1.3. Basic national measures, and strict travel controls would provide immense relief starting 7 days from the day they were implemented. Even with only 50% compliance, the benefits would be immense.
In addition, every day we can hold back the tide has immense value now. If we can vaccinage healthcare personnel in early December, their ability to care for patients safely and the NUMBER of patients they can properly care for will rise.
Passive controls and fear have cut R in half. We have a little bit more to do. We absolutely COULD do it. Its not impossible. But, we won't bother because we are led by a madman.
"This is a FREE COUNTRY," gasps the man proudly struggling for his next breath.
But the thing is that before we had high hopes for both effective treatments and a vaccine that the non-compliant and their actions, informing the long term sustainability of any approach, was an enormous deal which needed to be considered. Now that there is every reason to believe that there are both effective treatments and a vaccine 3-6 months away, we dont need to worry about how sustainable things are. We just need to batter things down once or twice more and we can be in a much better spot.
"That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
0
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Nah. That'd require the populace understanding that the deathis in early January are the result of something that happened 4-6 weeks earlier.
And there's no evidence of that. People as a whole just don't seem to grasp the incubation/hospitalization/fatality timeframe that's been relatively consistent when also factoring the exponential spread.
If it's not direct cause and effect, it doesn't seem to sink in.
I mean, fuck, even people who should be able to figure out cause and effect because they watched their loved ones die are often still in denial of it. People who had it themselves but didn't actually die are often still in denial of it. There was a shag party* in Myrtle Beach, SC that ended up killing five people and despite five of their friends dying from it, attendees were still all like "it was great and I have no regrets and I'd do it again." It's not that people can't be reached, but that they won't be reached. They refuse to be reached. Herman Cain's Twitter account kept spreading denialist and minimalist lies after he died of COVID-19. Nothing short of actually physically dying will change many people's minds, not even seeing the world end around them, not even when the face-eating leopards start tearing chunks out of their cheeks.
*Not nearly as cool as it sounds. I went to the article thinking it was like some ultra-mega-orgy worthy of dying for, or something, but it's an old people dance.
Why were these people so incensed when we lost 3,000 people to 911 if human life means nothing to them? Most people didn't know anyone killed there.
I've been thinking about this for months. The entire country lost its damn mind after 9/11, it felt like you couldn't point your eyes anywhere without seeing several flags, and we passed sweeping horrible legislation like the Patriot Act in under 2 months. Now we're very nearly at a 9/11 of people dying every 2 days and it's like ... save our restaurants?
I see it (stupidity, selfishness, costing money vs profiting from it) but it's still surreally idiotic.
Why were these people so incensed when we lost 3,000 people to 911 if human life means nothing to them? Most people didn't know anyone killed there.
I've been thinking about this for months. The entire country lost its damn mind after 9/11, it felt like you couldn't point your eyes anywhere without seeing several flags, and we passed sweeping horrible legislation like the Patriot Act in under 2 months. Now we're very nearly at a 9/11 of people dying every 2 days and it's like ... save our restaurants?
I see it (stupidity, selfishness, costing money vs profiting from it) but it's still surreally idiotic.
With 9/11 they could blame brown people for the deaths and then justify sending out the military to kick ass. With COVID you're asking them to accept that they are partly at fault for the deaths for not wearing masks or distancing or whatever. An attempt was made to blame Chinese people, but that's not as fashionable as blaming brown or black people for things.
+15
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
They were angry because it was easy, because they had an enemy that they could hate, who they could watch suffer and die...and from a safe distance where they wouldn't be threatened. They got to fantasize about being cool and tough and threatening and scary while it was basically (to them) watching deadlier sports on TV.
Here? There's nothing really to hate. They tried to hate China, but when China and other places got their shit together except the US didn't, there was no one to hate but themselves. It's not easy because it's not a fantasy and not distant. The coronavirus is not scared of them; it's replicating proteins that are incapable of fear and cannot be intimidated. You can try to wave a gun at a virus and it'll still go into your lungs unseen.
I am reminded of this quote by SF author John Scalzi:
The difference is that in the fantasy they are asked to kill, and in the reality they are asked to be kind.
People who don't value human life cannot be kind, and they have no empathy towards others. The cruelty is the point, and when they can't be cruel, they don't care.
+44
ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
Nah. That'd require the populace understanding that the deathis in early January are the result of something that happened 4-6 weeks earlier.
And there's no evidence of that. People as a whole just don't seem to grasp the incubation/hospitalization/fatality timeframe that's been relatively consistent when also factoring the exponential spread.
If it's not direct cause and effect, it doesn't seem to sink in.
I mean, fuck, even people who should be able to figure out cause and effect because they watched their loved ones die are often still in denial of it. People who had it themselves but didn't actually die are often still in denial of it. There was a shag party* in Myrtle Beach, SC that ended up killing five people and despite five of their friends dying from it, attendees were still all like "it was great and I have no regrets and I'd do it again." It's not that people can't be reached, but that they won't be reached. They refuse to be reached. Herman Cain's Twitter account kept spreading denialist and minimalist lies after he died of COVID-19. Nothing short of actually physically dying will change many people's minds, not even seeing the world end around them, not even when the face-eating leopards start tearing chunks out of their cheeks.
*Not nearly as cool as it sounds. I went to the article thinking it was like some ultra-mega-orgy worthy of dying for, or something, but it's an old people dance.
I've had recovered covid patients, with long term potentially permanent damage, literally tell me it's not that bad.
edit: like, in a dismissive, fuck you for taking preventative measures kind of way
Elldren on
fuck gendered marketing
+1
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
*reads, and despite having just ranted about it, still has to step away from feeling just awful about it*
*posts elsewhere, unloads and reloads the dishwasher, posts some more elsewhere, then returns, hopefully calmed down*
*sees the edit and now it's worse*
That's not just this year in a nutshell, but also why I've basically lost all hope in humanity's survival. We as a species are too stupid to live. Everything happening now with this virus is just going to be a million times worse, on a much longer and slower timescale, with the climate catastrophe.
Just want to say fuck Pelosi and the Dems for that dinner.
I'll make sure to keep it in mind when I'm intubating another fucking 20 year old for COVID while our elected representatives can't be helped to demonstrate proper pandemic behavior.
I am in the business of saving lives.
+3
TetraNitroCubaneNot Angry...Just VERY Disappointed...Registered Userregular
From the department of "Things everyone already knew":
*reads, and despite having just ranted about it, still has to step away from feeling just awful about it*
*posts elsewhere, unloads and reloads the dishwasher, posts some more elsewhere, then returns, hopefully calmed down*
*sees the edit and now it's worse*
That's not just this year in a nutshell, but also why I've basically lost all hope in humanity's survival. We as a species are too stupid to live. Everything happening now with this virus is just going to be a million times worse, on a much longer and slower timescale, with the climate catastrophe.
I've not completely lost hope. We've seen vast swathes of the population undergo enormous sacrifice for the greater good, and whole nations buckle down to get the job done. We've seen science and technology answer the call, even as our government has frantically denied the problem.
The advantage of climate change is that its not infectious. If 80% of people and businesses do their part, then they can outweigh the rest. I can work extra hard, be extra dilligent and so on. The problem with this is that there's a limit to what I can do, and that no matter how hard I work, if a few people break the rules, it takes a hundred times as long to get the same results. Climate change isn't like that. If you persuaded the same fraction of people to take severe action as have against the coronavirus we would start seeing the narrative change in six months.
This is, in a very strange way, harder than climate change. Climate change is not somehow selected to be hard to deal with. Viruses are. They aren't smart, but they do want to endure. Climate change is uncaring. It doesn't have any clever tricks to pull to save itself. If we stop doing it, it will end.
"That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
0
ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
Study: COVID temperature checks not very effective
ABC13 is a local ABC affiliate news station in Houston
Eh, I still like them because they at least make you remember the damn virus still exists. Also, they work for flu etc.
The interesting thing about that article to me is how high the true asymptomatic rate was with good distancing and routine masking. 40 infections, all but 4 asymptomatic. Possibly strong evidence for the initial viral load theory.
I mean, they can work in the sense that, when used properly, they can detect temperature.
But as a way of detecting covid? It's barely better than doing nothing at all. And that's when it's not just theater and the people doing the checks ignore the readings or miscalibrate them, or keep doing the checks until the person passes.
+14
TetraNitroCubaneNot Angry...Just VERY Disappointed...Registered Userregular
Those forehead thermometer things just don't seem to work.
In what way do you mean this?
If the forehead thermometers were accurate for determining body temperature, according to my workplace, I've been suffering from hypothermia for the last five months.
(Literally been returning readings <95 °F every day)
TetraNitroCubane on
+3
ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
Those forehead thermometer things just don't seem to work.
In what way do you mean this?
If the forehead thermometers were accurate for determining body temperature, according to my workplace, I've been suffering from hypothermia for the last five months.
(Literally been returning readings <95 °F every day)
Sounds like those thermometers are miscalibrated.
A properly functioning and operated non-contact thermometer is not nearly as accurate as a contact thermometer (which isn’t as accurate as a traditional in-mouth thermometer which isn’t as accurate as etc etc)
It is still going to give you a body temperature +-0.5 °F under good conditions (room temperature, not been in direct sunlight, not immediately entering from a drastically warmer/colder area)
They aren’t useless but they are definitely finicky and they require more training to use than most people operating them right now have probably received.
That of course isn’t to say that they’re much use for detecting COVID-19 though
Needing to be calibrated makes them useless. Some random security guard doesn't have nurse training.
some random security guard probably shouldn’t be doing medical screening
fuck gendered marketing
+9
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited November 2020
Your forehead reading a temp of 95-96 F is perfectly normal. 98.6 is the average internal body temp; the skin is where most of our cooling happens and, generally, is always cooler than than internal body temp by several degrees. A surface temp reading from your forehead being in the upper 90s would be indicative of a fever and, depending on which skin surface is targeted, you might get temp readings way down in the lower 90s while being 100% healthy.
That's why proper readings are done in various orifices. Without getting the temp probe somewhere internal, you're getting the temp reading of the heat exchange interface of the body, not the running temperature.
Ninja Snarl P on
+8
ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
Your forehead reading a temp of 95-96 F is perfectly normal. 98.6 is the average internal body temp; the skin is where most of our cooling happens and, generally, is always cooler than than internal body temp by several degrees. A surface temp reading from your forehead being in the upper 90s would be indicative of a fever and, depending on which skin surface is targeted, you might get temp readings way down in the lower 90s while being 100% healthy.
That's why proper readings are done in various orifices. Without getting the temp probe somewhere internal, you're getting the temp reading of the heat exchange interface of the body, not the running temperature.
Right which is why surface thermometers in medical use usually have a set of algorithms to convert surface temperature readings into an estimated body temperature.
This is also one reason why the error bars on those readings are so wide
And because skin temperature varies so much over the body it’s important that the person operating the thermometer knows exactly where to position it
fuck gendered marketing
+1
TetraNitroCubaneNot Angry...Just VERY Disappointed...Registered Userregular
Regardless, the point stands that temperature screenings are useless theater.
You can easily have, and spread, the SARS-CoV-2 virus without having a fever.
The screenings do nothing. People don't seem to understand this, or if they do, they don't seem to care. Which really bothers me.
+5
ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
Regardless, the point stands that temperature screenings are useless theater.
You can easily have, and spread, the SARS-CoV-2 virus without having a fever.
The screenings do nothing. People don't seem to understand this, or if they do, they don't seem to care. Which really bothers me.
Temperature checking is mostly theater yeah. It’s easily the least important bit of screening. What’s important are the screening questionnaires and supporting contact tracing and ensuring anyone coming into a facility are using proper PPE
Study: COVID temperature checks not very effective
ABC13 is a local ABC affiliate news station in Houston
A study of Marine recruits found that despite these measures and strict quarantines before they started training, the recruits spread the virus to others even though hardly any of them had symptoms. None of the infections were caught through symptom screening.
...
"We spent a lot of time putting measures like that in place and they're probably not worth the time as we had hoped," said Jodie Guest, a public health researcher at Atlanta's Emory University who had no role in the research. "Routine testing seems to be better in this age group" because younger adults often have no symptoms, she said.
It's not useless theater, because someone coming back 101.3 probably needs to hit a hard 'nope, gtfo and call your doctor'.
But in most cases if the regular screening questions about exposure and symptoms are answered honestly in good faith and people are masked / distanced it makes very little difference.
"We spent a lot of time putting measures like that in place and they're probably not worth the time as we had hoped," said Jodie Guest, a public health researcher at Atlanta's Emory University who had no role in the research. "Routine testing seems to be better in this age group" because younger adults often have no symptoms, she said.
Routine testing is better in every age group.
That, vaccines, and social distancing are the only solutions that have any hope of success.
The rest is nibbling around the edges.
+3
TetraNitroCubaneNot Angry...Just VERY Disappointed...Registered Userregular
It's not useless theater, because someone coming back 101.3 probably needs to hit a hard 'nope, gtfo and call your doctor'.
But in most cases if the regular screening questions about exposure and symptoms are answered honestly in good faith and people are masked / distanced it makes very little difference.
Problem is, someone running a 101.3 fever either (A) won't register as that due to miscalibrated sensors, or (B) will just get scanned again until they pass.
Literally. Most of the people doing these screenings aren't medical professionals. If they scan someone and it comes back outside of acceptable range, they'll move to scan something else until it passes.
It's not useless theater, because someone coming back 101.3 probably needs to hit a hard 'nope, gtfo and call your doctor'.
But in most cases if the regular screening questions about exposure and symptoms are answered honestly in good faith and people are masked / distanced it makes very little difference.
Problem is, someone running a 101.3 fever either (A) won't register as that due to miscalibrated sensors, or (B) will just get scanned again until they pass.
Literally. Most of the people doing these screenings aren't medical professionals. If they scan someone and it comes back outside of acceptable range, they'll move to scan something else until it passes.
Agreed, but 'hey, you are 101' makes the whole 'yeah I've had a scratchy throat and cough' become something more than just the allergies I always get and an 'oh shit, time to get tested'.
And the plus is that now that you report symptoms you get your tests charged to insurance or they go to the federal.program but you don't have to pay a dime.
It's nothing big but it's not theater. It's an extra layer of protection that is not entirely worthless and at this point I'll take anything we can get.
Posts
It's another thing to glance at the worldometers page and see that 2 days ago the US had 19,261 Serious/Critical cases, and then have that jump to 32,297 yesterday.
Maybe some tabulation thing was fixed... or maybe an absolute fuckload of people are in a bad way abruptly, and I imagine it's only going to get a lot worse from here.
I get the whole 'one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic', but their lost lives all the same. Grieving families.
And the recognition that idiots (in the US especially, but around the world) have politicized the matter in ways that include weaponized stupidity.
Anyone who claims it's 'only a bad flu' needs to be figuratively tapped on the nose with a rolled up newspaper. The US has literally passed a quarter of a million deaths this year alone, and even if a vaccine starts rolling out in the weeks and months to come, those already losing the battle to the virus won't benefit much (or at all) from it, aside from perhaps beginning to stem the tide that is overwhelming medical facilities and crushing the souls of health care personnel.
it's now super extra triple terrible
We've gone back and forth across the middle of the exponential-growth chessboard a couple of times this year, and now we're well past it. While heading into a season marked by staying indoors, out of the cold, and getting together in family groups. With no real relief or leadership coming from the top until January, and half the country positioned to deny and ignore it.
It's going to be an absolute disaster. :bigfrown:
I'm so glad I don't work in a store, but man.. the number of assholes coming to their ski homes and getting immediate installations without quarantining is infuriating.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
Remember of course, that it absolutely doesn't HAVE to be. Rt is probably something like 1.3. Basic national measures, and strict travel controls would provide immense relief starting 7 days from the day they were implemented. Even with only 50% compliance, the benefits would be immense.
In addition, every day we can hold back the tide has immense value now. If we can vaccinage healthcare personnel in early December, their ability to care for patients safely and the NUMBER of patients they can properly care for will rise.
Passive controls and fear have cut R in half. We have a little bit more to do. We absolutely COULD do it. Its not impossible. But, we won't bother because we are led by a madman.
"This is a FREE COUNTRY," gasps the man proudly struggling for his next breath.
But the thing is that before we had high hopes for both effective treatments and a vaccine that the non-compliant and their actions, informing the long term sustainability of any approach, was an enormous deal which needed to be considered. Now that there is every reason to believe that there are both effective treatments and a vaccine 3-6 months away, we dont need to worry about how sustainable things are. We just need to batter things down once or twice more and we can be in a much better spot.
I mean, fuck, even people who should be able to figure out cause and effect because they watched their loved ones die are often still in denial of it. People who had it themselves but didn't actually die are often still in denial of it. There was a shag party* in Myrtle Beach, SC that ended up killing five people and despite five of their friends dying from it, attendees were still all like "it was great and I have no regrets and I'd do it again." It's not that people can't be reached, but that they won't be reached. They refuse to be reached. Herman Cain's Twitter account kept spreading denialist and minimalist lies after he died of COVID-19. Nothing short of actually physically dying will change many people's minds, not even seeing the world end around them, not even when the face-eating leopards start tearing chunks out of their cheeks.
*Not nearly as cool as it sounds. I went to the article thinking it was like some ultra-mega-orgy worthy of dying for, or something, but it's an old people dance.
Brown people scared them.
Brown people are scarier than death?
I see it (stupidity, selfishness, costing money vs profiting from it) but it's still surreally idiotic.
With 9/11 they could blame brown people for the deaths and then justify sending out the military to kick ass. With COVID you're asking them to accept that they are partly at fault for the deaths for not wearing masks or distancing or whatever. An attempt was made to blame Chinese people, but that's not as fashionable as blaming brown or black people for things.
Here? There's nothing really to hate. They tried to hate China, but when China and other places got their shit together except the US didn't, there was no one to hate but themselves. It's not easy because it's not a fantasy and not distant. The coronavirus is not scared of them; it's replicating proteins that are incapable of fear and cannot be intimidated. You can try to wave a gun at a virus and it'll still go into your lungs unseen.
I am reminded of this quote by SF author John Scalzi:
People who don't value human life cannot be kind, and they have no empathy towards others. The cruelty is the point, and when they can't be cruel, they don't care.
I've had recovered covid patients, with long term potentially permanent damage, literally tell me it's not that bad.
edit: like, in a dismissive, fuck you for taking preventative measures kind of way
*posts elsewhere, unloads and reloads the dishwasher, posts some more elsewhere, then returns, hopefully calmed down*
*sees the edit and now it's worse*
That's not just this year in a nutshell, but also why I've basically lost all hope in humanity's survival. We as a species are too stupid to live. Everything happening now with this virus is just going to be a million times worse, on a much longer and slower timescale, with the climate catastrophe.
I'll make sure to keep it in mind when I'm intubating another fucking 20 year old for COVID while our elected representatives can't be helped to demonstrate proper pandemic behavior.
ABC13 is a local ABC affiliate news station in Houston
I've not completely lost hope. We've seen vast swathes of the population undergo enormous sacrifice for the greater good, and whole nations buckle down to get the job done. We've seen science and technology answer the call, even as our government has frantically denied the problem.
The advantage of climate change is that its not infectious. If 80% of people and businesses do their part, then they can outweigh the rest. I can work extra hard, be extra dilligent and so on. The problem with this is that there's a limit to what I can do, and that no matter how hard I work, if a few people break the rules, it takes a hundred times as long to get the same results. Climate change isn't like that. If you persuaded the same fraction of people to take severe action as have against the coronavirus we would start seeing the narrative change in six months.
This is, in a very strange way, harder than climate change. Climate change is not somehow selected to be hard to deal with. Viruses are. They aren't smart, but they do want to endure. Climate change is uncaring. It doesn't have any clever tricks to pull to save itself. If we stop doing it, it will end.
In what way do you mean this?
Eh, I still like them because they at least make you remember the damn virus still exists. Also, they work for flu etc.
The interesting thing about that article to me is how high the true asymptomatic rate was with good distancing and routine masking. 40 infections, all but 4 asymptomatic. Possibly strong evidence for the initial viral load theory.
But as a way of detecting covid? It's barely better than doing nothing at all. And that's when it's not just theater and the people doing the checks ignore the readings or miscalibrate them, or keep doing the checks until the person passes.
If the forehead thermometers were accurate for determining body temperature, according to my workplace, I've been suffering from hypothermia for the last five months.
(Literally been returning readings <95 °F every day)
Sounds like those thermometers are miscalibrated.
A properly functioning and operated non-contact thermometer is not nearly as accurate as a contact thermometer (which isn’t as accurate as a traditional in-mouth thermometer which isn’t as accurate as etc etc)
It is still going to give you a body temperature +-0.5 °F under good conditions (room temperature, not been in direct sunlight, not immediately entering from a drastically warmer/colder area)
They aren’t useless but they are definitely finicky and they require more training to use than most people operating them right now have probably received.
That of course isn’t to say that they’re much use for detecting COVID-19 though
some random security guard probably shouldn’t be doing medical screening
That's why proper readings are done in various orifices. Without getting the temp probe somewhere internal, you're getting the temp reading of the heat exchange interface of the body, not the running temperature.
Right which is why surface thermometers in medical use usually have a set of algorithms to convert surface temperature readings into an estimated body temperature.
This is also one reason why the error bars on those readings are so wide
And because skin temperature varies so much over the body it’s important that the person operating the thermometer knows exactly where to position it
You can easily have, and spread, the SARS-CoV-2 virus without having a fever.
The screenings do nothing. People don't seem to understand this, or if they do, they don't seem to care. Which really bothers me.
Temperature checking is mostly theater yeah. It’s easily the least important bit of screening. What’s important are the screening questionnaires and supporting contact tracing and ensuring anyone coming into a facility are using proper PPE
I don't think its useless theater. Its one component of a complete package of countermeasures. Its useless alone i think is correct to say.
But in most cases if the regular screening questions about exposure and symptoms are answered honestly in good faith and people are masked / distanced it makes very little difference.
Routine testing is better in every age group.
That, vaccines, and social distancing are the only solutions that have any hope of success.
The rest is nibbling around the edges.
Problem is, someone running a 101.3 fever either (A) won't register as that due to miscalibrated sensors, or (B) will just get scanned again until they pass.
Literally. Most of the people doing these screenings aren't medical professionals. If they scan someone and it comes back outside of acceptable range, they'll move to scan something else until it passes.
Agreed, but 'hey, you are 101' makes the whole 'yeah I've had a scratchy throat and cough' become something more than just the allergies I always get and an 'oh shit, time to get tested'.
And the plus is that now that you report symptoms you get your tests charged to insurance or they go to the federal.program but you don't have to pay a dime.
It's nothing big but it's not theater. It's an extra layer of protection that is not entirely worthless and at this point I'll take anything we can get.