Big state daily confirmed cases are starting to roll over for CA, TX, and FL. Fatalities remain high with the seven day average staying above 1,000. Thankfully, the 2,000 + daily fatalities I thought would materialize by now haven’t. Several factors, such as changes in patient profile from the earlier surge and improvements in treatment seem to be keeping the fatalities relative lower than the previous peak in case counts, which was half what we are now experiencing. Fatalities are a lagging indicator and they have not rolled over yet, so the worst daily fatalities may still be ahead of us.
Children can catch and transmit this disease. Opening schools when case counts are this high (>60,000 per day) is murderous.
Some good news is that in the UK a placebo-controlled study of beta interferon showed great promise. A wider study is being started to confirm but it has recently been learned that this Corona virus has the peculiar ability to shut off the cells’ production of beta interferon. Replenishing it showed dramatic effect in this limited study.
COVID 19 came home this week as my elderly mother has tested positive. She has been holed up in her retirement home and almost never leaves her apartment. Meals are delivered to her door and she hasn’t been socializing with other residents.We suspect an exterminator may be the vector. My sister was exposed so she is waiting one to two weeks for her test results.
When I hear “So I told my people to slow the testing down, please.” I want to spit in his face before I punch it.
I was stunned. She kept her exposure to almost zero. So far, she has had very mild symptoms and they are monitoring her temperature and blood oxygen. She will likely be out of the woods for serious symptoms early next week. So far, my sister, a school teacher, has no symptoms but must isolate at least until her results get back.
Bummer about your Mom, I hope she recovers well and quickly. My heart aches for people who live in independent and assisted living facilities, as well as nursing homes. I have a friend whose sister is imprisoned at Gatesville, it is so sad hearing him talk about their treatment and conditions.
Well wishes for your mom. The “we’ve all been exposed already” arguments are starting to come out. That just means you’ve been lucky so far. Such callousness is what leads to someone like your mom taking every precaution and still catching it. I truly hope she gets better! Soon!
Thank you all for your kind wishes. Today’s report is good on her temperature, blood oxygen level, and general health. In a few more day I think we will be “out of the woods”. Her general health is good, although she lost her husband six weeks ago after a long illness and she’s more isolated than she’s ever been in her >90 years. We take it one day at a time.
Unfortunately, today’s early numbers don’t look good. Tuesday is usually a “spike day” as the backlog of reporting from the weekend makes its way through, but it looks like we may see the highest daily fatalities since May.
Compliance with mask-wearing requirements has been much better locally, although there are still too many “dick-nosers”. It seems that the case numbers may really be plateauing not just here in CA but overall. However, that plateau is very high and schools are being forced to re-open soon. That could super-charge the spread and cause severe damage to the country.
I heard on the radio that the head of one of the FED banks (St. Louis, I think), says we should shut everything down completely. Everything except food. For six weeks, to break the back of this spread. Then open only with an army of trackers and testers and do it very slowly. He said it was the only path to economic recovery. He is right.
Dude, I’m glad to hear that your mom seems to be improving. My own mother is at very high risk of complications from this. If she were ever to contract the virus it would almost certainly kill her. Fortunately, she takes this whole thing very seriously, and more fortunately, she lives with my crazy ass brother who is a paranoid lunatic at the best of times. The guy that swabs down the seat with some weird wipe or another before he sits down next to you on the airplane? Yeah, that’s him. Once we went on a cruise together, which was a questionable decision on my part for any number of reasons. Here I thought he’d brought on board a small carry on. Well, we get into the cabin and he pops it open and it contains an array of cleaning supplies. As he begins his work I ask, Did you happen to see that Filipino dude down the end of the hallway? What you reckon he’s been up to all morning?
I need to get Mom to take a surreptitious picture of him as he’s leaving the house to go grocery shopping. He probably heads out to Smith’s looking like he’s about to perform a space walk. Which is, you know, maybe not the very worst thing you might do.