Covid19 Part XV - 15,251 in ROI (610 deaths) 2,645 in NI (194 deaths) (19/04) Read OP

mandrake04

Martina1991 wrote: »

Multiply that by thousands of samples a day.

And explain to a Dr in ED that their patients Troponin is taking hours because there's a fleet of Covid antibody tests from the community ahead of it.

You would need a dedicated line of maybe 4 modules just for serology you could chew through plenty of samples, keep your usual Chem/Immunology line for routine hospital work that’s the smart way.

Ideally you would have a dedicated serology lab. Off course the Assay needs to be developed first which it will.

Nonoperational

cameramonkey wrote: »

Hope you recover quickly. Is there enough ppe coming through the system now to protect health care workers?

My honest assessment of PPE in my hospital is that:

There are plenty aprons, gloves, surgical masks and goggles we clean.

I would have preferred to have worn FFP2 masks, disposable face shields and better suits, but that wasn't the case.


Saying that when this all began I was pretty sure working in a hospital I was going to get this. I was somewhat at peace with that. I'm absolutely no hero, and I get plenty benefits from being a doctor, but I knew that if I was to work with COVID patients in close contact that the chances were I'd get it. I don't resent that fact. Thats just the way it is.

Gretas Gonna Get Ya!

KiKi III wrote: »

Even if China’s numbers are 100% true, they were able to do the above because of a fairly flexible approach to human rights.

To do what they’ve done there would involve turning the ethical system we’ve been building since WW2 upside down and governments are understandably reluctant to do that.

There's no real evidence of widespread denial of human rights throughout this process in wuhan... civil liberties yes, but not human rights abuses. People are prone to exaggerating these things!

But yes, lets go a bit old school on the civil liberties for a while... in order to save lives. Why the hell not?

We're already halfway there anyway, with the current restrictions... what's a couple of degrees more gonna do in the long term? It's not like the population is going to fall in love with this new authoritarian lifestyle and vote in a communist dictatorship in the next elections!

A big part of the power of what they did in wuhan, was the speed in which they did it... and the efficiency of how they carried it out.

People need to get past this nonsense of political ideologies, and just implement the most efficient strategy to combat this virus - if that means copying methods of a communist dictatorship - then that's what you have to do. It's about saving lives, not making ideological / political stances!

Gynoid

Nonoperational wrote: »

Guys I really think a bit of perspective is needed on some of the articles being posted and long term consequences etc.

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-10/coronavirus-infection-can-do-lasting-damage-to-the-heart-liver?_amp=true&__twitter_impression=true

I would consider the above a very poor mish mash of an article and would have many issues with it.

I am a relatively senior doctor who has treated many COVID patients in a large hospital in Ireland and have assessed at least 100 patients in the emergency department who presented to the COVID pathway. I have now been diagnosed with it myself. My experience is anecdotal but so are these opinion pieces dressed up as scientific fact about 30 patients in a particular area. I have discussed COVID with many colleagues including imminent ID physicians from Ireland and abroad. This is just my opinion.



**Doctor Talk***

.

Listen here, Doctor. I have been casually reading around this subject for, gosh I don't know, probably 11 or 12 weeks now and consider myself a reasonably well informed epidemiologist at this stage. I cannot understand what takes ye so long with all those years in college and in practise to get a handle on this kind of stuff. Bunch of messers.

Nonoperational

Gynoid wrote: »

Listen here, Doctor. I have been casually reading around this subject for, gosh I don't know, probably 11 or 12 weeks now and consider myself a reasonably well informed epidemiologist at this stage. I cannot understand what takes ye so long with all those years in college and in practise to get a handle on this kind of stuff. Bunch of messers.

My apologies, will try harder

iguana

Nonoperational wrote: »

I don't know to be honest. There is certainly the potential that this virus causes quite a long illness that appears to be resolved and then reappears in some people. it may be a case that it was never gone.

I have an illness that I suspect may be Covid 19. It's reminding me in some ways of the glandular fever my son had last year. In that he'd get sick, seem to recover, do something physical and get sick again. After he was diagnosed I was told to keep his physical activity to a minimum for a month or two to avoid triggering a relapse. With my current illness I keep feeling better, stepping up my physical activity and then my symptoms come back. I thought this week that I was completely better. Had 3 days without symptoms, really good energy level, felt totally fit and heathy. Then completely and totally overdid it on Thursday (I really should have had more cop on) and have had symptoms again. They are mild, I suspect they'll be gone again completely in a few days, but I'll (hopefully) know to carefully phase in physical activity from here on.

Gynoid

Nonoperational wrote: »

My apologies, will try harder

Best of luck in your recovery.

techdiver

Away With The Fairies wrote: »

And yet everyone else have to have two symptoms.

In fact 2 symptoms is not enough on it's own to get a test. You need to be either in a high risk group or have come in contact with a confirmed case along with having at least 2 symptoms.

Cork Boy 53

flanna01 wrote: »

What part don't you get about transmitting the disease..???

Being near a person (within six feet) for approx 15 minutes!

Now, unless it's a 90yr old medically obese jogger passing you by, he'd surely pass you by in under three seconds..??

Quit moaning ffs...

Most joggers I see are solitary runners, they run past you with without hassle, with the majority of them bidding you a good day...

Have one look around the Supermarket the next time you are shopping, you will see many, many more virus spreading potential risks...

This was something that was stated by the authorities as being a fact in the early days of the outbreak here. It has since been discredited and you seem to be one of the very very few who still take it seriously.

KiKi III

Gretas Gonna Get Ya! wrote: »

There's no real evidence of widespread denial of human rights throughout this process in wuhan... civil liberties yes, but not human rights abuses. People are prone to exaggerating these things!

But yes, lets go a bit old school on the civil liberties for a while... in order to save lives. Why the hell not?

We're already halfway there anyway, with the current restrictions... what's a couple of degrees more gonna do in the long term? It's not like the population is going to fall in love with this new authoritarian lifestyle and vote in a communist dictatorship in the next elections!

A big part of the power of what they did in wuhan, was the speed in which they did it... and the efficiency of how they carried it out.

People need to get past this nonsense of political ideologies, and just implement the most efficient strategy to combat this virus - if that means copying methods of a communist dictatorship - then that's what you have to do. It's about saving lives, not making ideological / political stances!

Do you have children, and if so would you be comfortable having them taken away from you with zero contact for two weeks if they are diagnosed?

Popeleo

flanna01 wrote: »

What part don't you get about transmitting the disease..???

Being near a person (within six feet) for approx 15 minutes!

Now, unless it's a 90yr old medically obese jogger passing you by, he'd surely pass you by in under three seconds..??

Quit moaning ffs...

Most joggers I see are solitary runners, they run past you with without hassle, with the majority of them bidding you a good day...

Have one look around the Supermarket the next time you are shopping, you will see many, many more virus spreading potential risks...

As much as I usually disagree with the poster you replied to, I call bullsh1t on your post.

That 15 minutes thing was just a rough guide to help with contact tracing and I have ignored it since the start. Don't want to infect someone or be infected by them? Then stay the hell away from them. And if anyone thinks that being 2.01 metres away from someone is a magic barrier, it's not. It's just an acceptable risk, depending on the situation.

Do you think the virus wears a stopwatch and waits 15 minutes until it infects someone? The harder someone exhales, the farther the virus can spread. France have just implemented a ban on daytime jogging. We should too.

DaveCliftonAP

Wibbs wrote: »

Varadkar is a "soft" leader, grand for the platitudes and reading of poetry for the chumps in the cheap seats in the leafy suburbia where his support base tends to be. For a nation known for oratory and some of the best writers on the planet, we get him.

What are you on about W?

Shelle1234.

My missus cut mine....i may look like an extra out of Mad Max but at least my hair is short


So far ive cut my sons, the dogs, the daughters and only for my husbandbeing practically bald he eould be in there too....thank feck for the lock down,my poor 13 year old is looking a bit like a bad mug shot hahah

coastwatch

Nonoperational wrote: »

Guys I really think a bit of perspective is needed on some of the articles being posted and long term consequences etc.

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-10/coronavirus-infection-can-do-lasting-damage-to-the-heart-liver?_amp=true&__twitter_impression=true

I would consider the above a very poor mish mash of an article and would have many issues with it.

I am a relatively senior doctor who has treated many COVID patients in a large hospital in Ireland and have assessed at least 100 patients in the emergency department who presented to the COVID pathway. I have now been diagnosed with it myself. My experience is anecdotal but so are these opinion pieces dressed up as scientific fact about 30 patients in a particular area. I have discussed COVID with many colleagues including imminent ID physicians from Ireland and abroad. This is just my opinion.

The human race has likely being battling coronaviruses since day dot along with influenza viruses and likely viruses we never heard of or identified. This is a novel virus but at the end of the day most of us are equipped to deal with it. Our immune system is the most remarkable thing I've ever seen described and for a large part of the population it will see them through this.

The vast majority of 'healthy' young people we see in the COVID ED who think they may have COVID or have been diagnosed in the community we discharge back home to self isolate and they do not require hospitalisation. Their bloods are essentially normal, their chest x-rays are normal. Their troponin and NT-BNP are normal and they do not have cardiac involvement. Their liver function is normal. These people make up the majority of cases in the under 50 years age group. This is important to emphasise. These people still carry it and give it to more vulnerable but the clinical syndrome they get is usually mild. The likelihood of these people having long term issues is very very minimal because they don't really have any significant issues to begin with.

On the other side I have seen many patients some with risk factors as 'benign' as obesity get very sick with bilateral interstitial pneumonia. They do have a characteristic blood pattern of raised LDH and ferritin, raised CRP, and lymphopenia. Depending on the risk profile some of these recover and bloods etc normalise pre discharge and some get sick and require protracted hospital admissions or sadly don't make it.

The issue is when this virus causes pneumonia (the most common complication by miles), myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and other anomalies like raised liver function tests. If anyone gets a severe pneumonia they are likely to scar an area of lung. COVID may or may not make this more likely. We don't know. These are the group that may have long term sequela in my opinion.

Articles that post gripping headlines about how COVID causes long term effects etc are aimed to shock. We don't know yet the full course of the disease. The point is that many critical illnesses (of which COVID pneumonia is) can cause long term issues.

Although there are always a long line of people wanting to criticise and throw stones, we are doing ok as a health service so far. One more big push and get the R0 below 1 and we can hopefully consider a life beyond this.

Thanks for the informative and reassuring post.

And a big thank you to you, your collegues and all front line Health Care workers who are treating and caring for covid patients, in addition to all the other non-covid patients needing treatment at this time.
We owe you all a huge debt of gratitude.

Get well soon.

2Mad2BeMad

Shelle1234. wrote: »

My missus cut mine....i may look like an extra out of Mad Max but at least my hair is short


So far ive cut my sons, the dogs, the daughters and only for my husbandbeing practically bald he eould be in there too....thank feck for the lock down,my poor 13 year old is looking a bit like a bad mug shot hahah

My partner cut mine
and by cut I mean she gave me a "1" all over shave
and still somehow managed to mess that up :pac:

Xertz

China is China. I think to be quite honest if you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s easy to assume that it’s a normal country, because in the surface of it it is. However when it comes to something like this you’re talking about a state that can, without discussion, rollout measures that even in a state of emergency would be unconstitutional here or would cause serious backlash if tried.

It also has a large element of a command economy and absolutely vast military resources that were put into policing and civil defence.

Couple that with an ability to directly censor the internet, social media, block foreign media, arrest anyone who stirs dissent and so on. You would also have enormous legal consequences during and after attempting stuff like that.

To compare the Chinese response to an EU or US response is just not possible.

We have to bring people on board and deal with it in that way. It’s a completely different type of society and system of government.

I’m not saying this as a critique of China (and there’s a lot to critique but it’s another thread) or a critique of “The West”. They’re entirely different systems.

What’s going on in the US worries me though be because this crisis has been intensely politicised by Trump and the fact it’s right on top of upcoming presidential elections but also just by the backdrop of the last few years of American politics which has tended to castigate science and experts. There initial UK response had elements of politics of a sort of arrogant exceptionalism and imagining they could come up with a clever solution that involved not locking things down, but reality dawned rather harshly and it righted itself more rapidly. I think the situation in the US is still far more dangerous because of the way the political system is and because of widespread uptake of conspiracy theories and a weakened social support and health infrastructure. It may ultimately end up causing the US to have a deep rethink of where it has been headed and short circuit a lot of stupid, but I don’t see it happening without chaos.

What may be very problematic for the West is the restart of economies needs a huge cash injection and if we stick rigidly to the rules of market economies, and don’t do a massive state fiscal intervention through all and any means necessary, the EU, US, UK and others may well be left dragging along for years while China and others that follow that model of state financial intervention may well recover far more rapidly.

otnomart

Yet another striking video from Italy.
A convoy of ambulances, each carrying one patient from a nursing home to be treated in a hospital nearby.
Good to see that they are not left to die in the nursing home, and that they get to be treated in hospital like everyone else.
A follow up report states that the majority of them are doing well now.

Martina1991

mandrake04 wrote: »

You would need a dedicated line of maybe 4 modules just for serology you could chew through plenty of samples, keep your usual Chem/Immunology line for routine hospital work that’s the smart way.

Ideally you would have a dedicated serology lab. Off course the Assay needs to be developed first which it will.

You would. Quite expensive, and getting in a new line or even a module would take time to validate it for operation.

I know when our serology department come in with their HIV/Hep samples the line gets clogged for hours.

Depends on how many lines ya have and if an entire module could be dedicated to it. Would be a bigger problem for the smaller hospitals.

podgeandrodge

Jinglejangle69 wrote: »

Seems people have had enough of the current setup.

Looks like patience is running out.

Where do we go from here?

Just give up, obviously. No point. :rolleyes:

podgeandrodge

Beasty wrote: »

A bar chart this time:

And so the stats, no medians, or means, just raw data:
Since this forum opened up

346 threads currently visible
Another 171 threads merged out of existence
16 threads deleted
60 threads locked
212 cards and bans (plus all the ones we've revoked)
Across the 14 "main" threads to date we've seen around 125,000 posts and over 14 million page views

Hold on now. Are the revoked ones included in those cards and bans or excluded? Were the bans recent, or do they represent bans from weeks ago and which are no longer relevant, in which case you should exclude them. Or include them, but clearly point out that they are irrelevant.

bodhrandude

Hobgoblin11 wrote: »

Germany are testing 116k per day , the UK are hoping to be testing 100k a day by the end of this month , Ireland tests how many a day?

Far bigger fecking countries tho, aye!

Seamie12345

KiKi III wrote: »

Do you have children, and if so would you be comfortable having them taken away from you with zero contact for two weeks if they are diagnosed?

You don't have to think China, think proper enforcement of what has been put in place for those who refuse to comply voluntarily, think New Zealand and at a very minimum, surely to God we could close our borders to everything bar freight.
When we have this under some kind of control (could have been nearly there already if we hadn't been so half baked about our measures), we know as restrictions are relaxed, there will be imported cases (just like in Wuhan) but we shouldn't be trying to deal with imported cases before we have even managed our own "internal" crisis.

Hobgoblin11

Death rate per number of cases in NI are 2% higher than in Roi

podgeandrodge

Like an artists impression of what O'Connell Street should look like...

davemckenna25

Hobgoblin11 wrote: »

Germany are testing 116k per day , the UK are hoping to be testing 100k a day by the end of this month , Ireland tests how many a day?

Ireland hopes to be testing a lot more by the end of next week and even more by the end of the month.

Lets compare hopes with hopes...

Snow Garden

Gorgeous weather.

Phoebas

podgeandrodge wrote: »

Like an artists impression of what O'Connell Street should look like...

One day I plan to visit that place.

Gretas Gonna Get Ya!

Xertz wrote: »

China is China. I think to be quite honest if you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s easy to assume that it’s a normal country, because in the surface of it it is. However when it comes to something like this you’re talking about a state that can, without discussion, rollout measures that even in a state of emergency would be unconstitutional here or would cause serious backlash if tried.

It also has a large element of a command economy and absolutely vast military resources that were put into policing and civil defence.

Couple that with an ability to directly censor the internet, social media, block foreign media, arrest anyone who stirs dissent and so on. You would also have enormous legal consequences during and after attempting stuff like that.

To compare the Chinese response to an EU or US response is just not possible.

We have to bring people on board and deal with it in that way. It’s a completely different type of society and system of government.

I’m not saying this as a critique of China (and there’s a lot to critique but it’s another thread) or a critique of “The West”. They’re entirely different systems.

What’s going on in the US worries me though be because this crisis has been intensely politicised by Trump and the fact it’s right on top of upcoming presidential elections but also just by the backdrop of the last few years of American politics which has tended to castigate science and experts. There initial UK response had elements of politics of a sort of arrogant exceptionalism and imagining they could come up with a clever solution that involved not locking things down, but reality dawned rather harshly and it righted itself more rapidly.

What may be very problematic for the West is the restart of economies needs a huge cash injection and if we stick rigidly to the rules of market economies, and don’t do a massive state fiscal intervention through all and any means necessary, the EU, US, UK and others may well be left dragging along for years while China and others that follow that model of state financial intervention may well recover far more rapidly.

Excuses!

Something you notice about many Asian countries (regardless of the political system), is that rather than seeing all the obstacles to tackling something, they seem to see all the solutions.

When you look at the Chinese response to this, rather than seeing all the excellent solutions they came up with, you can only see potential problems!

This is what stops us from being as proactive as these countries. Too many here, just have the wrong mindset. You need a problem solving mindset - not a problem creating mindset!

mandrake04

Martina1991 wrote: »

You would. Quite expensive, and getting in a new line or even a module would take time to validate it for operation.

I know when our serology department come in with their HIV/Hep samples the line gets clogged for hours.

Depends on how many lines ya have and if an entire module could be dedicated to it. Would be a bigger problem for the smaller hospitals.

In this situation money should not be a problem.

If the government was smart they should already be considering this, 3 lines of 4 modules in 3 strategic area core labs around the country. By the time the serology tests are available you are good to go straight away, you have capability of probably 15,000 tests per day at reasonable test cost.

But I bet they probably haven’t thought of it.

Xertz

New Zealand is in quite an unusually remote location. Take a look at flight statistics. In an average year 1.3 million Irish people visit Spain. That’s just Spain.

The Irish cities to London airports route alone is one of the busiest international routes on the planet. You’re talking seriously huge volumes of passengers and Ireland is also very heavily connected to most of Europe.

We also have extensive connections to North America with direct flights and indirectly we are rapidly linked to Asia via London, Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt etc

Ireland is also within a very short flight of London, Paris, and several other European mégapole cities as well as the entire dense population and economic centre that sits between southeast England, Benelux, northeastern France and the northwest of Germany.

Add to that we think nothing of hopping on a plane and going skiing in the alps, and plenty were in areas that included that were directly impacted by this in northern Italy.

In comparison NZ is very remote and has a far more limited network of short haul flights. To get to and from NZ is generally a long haul flight and if you look at international travel statistics New Zealanders simply do not travel as frequently because destinations are far more expensive to reach due to geography.

Being an island in modern terms is more about being remote and having limited air connectivity. On a global scale, Ireland is about as well connected as it gets.

Irish and NZ populations and some of the climate and lifestyle may be similar but in terms of location, one is a remote place in the South Pacific / Oceana and the other is on the edge of Western Europe and extremely connected and within a few hours of the US east coast.

There’s a reason a lot of Silicon Valley loaded “tech preppers” were buying property in NZ - because it’s a highly developed, democratic country with a lifestyle comparable to North America or Western Europe, but very safely remote and unlikely to be impacted by global events like wars and pandemics. Although, it does have a bit of a risk of earthquakes and volcanoes, but that doesn’t seem to worry Californians.

That’s the upside of being very remote. The downside is that during normal times, it’s very remote and hoping on a flight to anywhere big and interesting is very expensive - something a lot of Irish and British people who relocated to NZ will tell you. Hopping on a short haul, cheap flight for a weekend break in Berlin, Rome or a quick trip to Alacante or popping over to New York is something that just isn’t possible.