Covid-19 pandemic

[Patrick Thistle]

I'm bound to be an infection risk given what I found out today. I've gone from feeling weepy to deeply pissed off.

[Patrick Thistle]

The Welsh health minister is self isolating because his son has developed a cough. And they still won't close the fucking schools. I hope he doesn't get the virus but if he does, it's his government's policy that put his son, and him, at risk.

I feel so pissed off I might troll this guy on Twitter. He's my ultimate, ultimate boss so it might not be smart.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Some personal Corona Virus news.

My six year old son has been ill for the last week with a fever and flu like symptoms. The Hospital did not treat or admit him and recommended Calpol. Thankfully, he is much better.
My 49 year old sister has been ill for a week with an on/off fever and symptoms akin to a chest infection. Thankfully, she is much better now.
The same with my younger brother, who had much milder symptoms.

Both my brother and sister were not treated or tested and told to stay home and self isolate and not come to the hospital unless on deaths door.

My 80 year old mother who has numerous health issues (heart issues, asthma, diabetes, stroke) has had a cough for the last couple of weeks. She was admitted to hospital last Wednesday with an asthma attack. She was on a regular wards for three days until she was tested and diagnosed with Corona Virus after which, she was isolated and moved to ICU. The symptoms were not severe and she will be released tomorrow after the council disinfect her flat.

That's four people with potential Corona Virus and only one tested.

Unfortunately, my mother cannot self-isolate as she has limited mobility and needs assistance cooking and cleaning etc so she will have her sister and cousin coming round on a daily basis, as well as her six children and 20 odd grandchildren so she has on average 2-3 visitors per day. I'm probably glad she caught it early before the NHS is completely overwhelmed. Hopefully she has some immunity built in case a more lethal mutation comes back.

Bloody hell, TG, that's rough. Your mum must be as strong as an ox if she survived the virus with her list of ailments! Will she need to self-isolate though? I suppose that we don't yet know if re-infection is possible? I've seen it said that it's possible but unlikely.

All the best for the other family members too.

[Satchmo Distel]

Best wishes to you and your family, TG.

[Incandenza]

I'm bound to be an infection risk given what I found out today. I've gone from feeling weepy to deeply pissed off.

What has happened?

And TG, hoping for the best for your family.

[San Bernardhinault]

Best wishes,TG. I'm glad to hear that most of your clan seem to be recovering. In some ways the fact that they are recovering is actually a little reassuring.

[Janik]

Do English companies make ventilators? I was under the impression that that was more of a menlo park kind of thing. And I don't mean the one in silicon valley, or at edison's laboratory, I mean the one near the galway racecourse.

I think he wants car manufacturers to make ventilators instead. Or something. Look, this is Johnson, he could mean anything

The most famous scene in Apollo 13 is "Houston, we have a problem". Which is a bit of artistic licence as the formulation Jim Lovell actually used was the rather less panicked and drier past tense "Houston, we've had a problem". But anyway, arguably the second most famous scene in the film after that was the one where a container full of random items are dumped onto a Conference Room table and a bunch of engineers are told "we've gotta find a way to make this, fit into the hole for this, using nothing by that" with the unspoken context that the solution is needed at breakneck speed, and it has to work perfectly first time. Or people will die. After a brief pause everyone dives in. And the order for pizza and coffee goes out. Well... yeah, that is an interesting situation to be in. Stimulating.

[Hot Pepsi]

Some personal Corona Virus news.

My six year old son has been ill for the last week with a fever and flu like symptoms. The Hospital did not treat or admit him and recommended Calpol. Thankfully, he is much better.
My 49 year old sister has been ill for a week with an on/off fever and symptoms akin to a chest infection. Thankfully, she is much better now.
The same with my younger brother, who had much milder symptoms.

Both my brother and sister were not treated or tested and told to stay home and self isolate and not come to the hospital unless on deaths door.

My 80 year old mother who has numerous health issues (heart issues, asthma, diabetes, stroke) has had a cough for the last couple of weeks. She was admitted to hospital last Wednesday with an asthma attack. She was on a regular wards for three days until she was tested and diagnosed with Corona Virus after which, she was isolated and moved to ICU. The symptoms were not severe and she will be released tomorrow after the council disinfect her flat.

That's four people with potential Corona Virus and only one tested.

Unfortunately, my mother cannot self-isolate as she has limited mobility and needs assistance cooking and cleaning etc so she will have her sister and cousin coming round on a daily basis, as well as her six children and 20 odd grandchildren so she has on average 2-3 visitors per day. I'm probably glad she caught it early before the NHS is completely overwhelmed. Hopefully she has some immunity built in case a more lethal mutation comes back.

That’s rough. All the best for your family.

[Tactical Genius]

Thanks all. Everyone is on the mend so it is all good (and why i have been pretty quiet the last 7 days).

I was more worried for my mum as she is in the high risk group. However, she seems to have shaken it off surprisingly quickly. She was in the same hospital as the mother and new born baby who were diagnosed (North Middlesex).
Hopefully that would help reduce the worry for those of you with elderly parents.

Bloody hell, TG, that's rough. Your mum must be as strong as an ox if she survived the virus with her list of ailments! Will she need to self-isolate though? I suppose that we don't yet know if re-infection is possible? I've seen it said that it's possible but unlikely.

As I said above, self-isolation for her is not really an option as she requires a fair bit of help to cook and clean due to her stroke a decade ago. I read somewhere of a story of one of the people from the cruise liner in Japan being re-infected. I think we should accept that fact we would all be infected in the near future and just hope the mortality rate is alot lower than the initial projections.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Fuck, yeah, Vole, of course.

I thought maybe pregnancy. But yeah. Of course.

[Femme Folle]

Tactical Genius Glad your family are on the mend. It's encouraging to me that your mum is doing so well. I have asthma and HBP (controlled with meds) and although I'm trying to be calm and use common sense, part of me is very anxious about it. The memory of what my last asthma flare-up was like is too fresh and I don't want to go through that or worse ever again.

Best to you and your family. x

[jefe]

Since they bought Guidant about 15 years ago, Boston Scientific also has more employees in Minnesota than near Boston. They take out prominent ad space on the dasher boards of hockey games in Minnesota just to remind people they're there.

Minnesota is the hotbed of medtech, especially cardiovascular tech. Indiana is the main place for orthopedics. New Jersey and PA is big on biotech. Boston has a lot of it as does Southern California. The Bay Area has a lot too, but I get annoyed when the media or, more often, the self-aggrandizing capitalists themselves refer to Silicon Valley as the home of the "tech industry." It's the home of a lot of genuinely innovative technology development, yes, but a lot of what are referred to as "tech companies" would be more accurately be described as software companies or maybe just e-commerce companies. And there's an awful lot of innovative beneficial technology that is infinitely more useful that Facebook that is not made or developed there.

Baltimore is working on being a biotech hub, unsurprisingly surrounding Hopkins and UMaryland hospitals.

HP, is Penn State's med school attached to the massive hospital in Hershey?

FAO Ursus-if your firm is doing anything in Maryland, the state courts are now shut to anything non-emergent, basically.

[Uncle Ethan]

All the best to TG - and indeed others who will face difficult times. It is understandable people are critical of various government responses. The problem is nobody knows the correct answers. You can point to various countries as having done things "right". However there are so many variables involved that such action may not work in the same way in a different nation.

The people engaged in managing this at all levels face extraordinarily tough decisions which will have enormous consequences, whatever they do.

There is also a tremendous sense of responsibility attached to such decisions. I wouldn't be them for quids.

[Lurgee]

Ho-hum. Unscheduled staff meeting called at skool for tomorrow morning. Either we're all going to be given a bollocking for talking about C19 or were going to be told we're shutting down.

Might have to think about how to administer eddjermukation remotely to my recalcitrant charges.

[ursus arctos]

jefe, yes, that complex (the Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and Penn State Children's Hospital) includes the PSU medical school

[Hot Pepsi]

Baltimore is working on being a biotech hub, unsurprisingly surrounding Hopkins and UMaryland hospitals.

HP, is Penn State's med school attached to the massive hospital in Hershey?

FAO Ursus-if your firm is doing anything in Maryland, the state courts are now shut to anything non-emergent, basically.

Yes, PSU’s med school is in Hershey. It was founded in 1963 with money from the Hershey Trust, which also owns most of the candy company and Hersheypark. A condition of the gift was that the teaching hospital be built in Hershey.

[ursus arctos]

USD 14 billion endowment at the Hershey Trust (maybe a bit less after recent market losses).

I've done work with the candy company and they take the Trust and its mission quite seriously.

[Hot Pepsi]

Yes. It’s a fairly unique company. And they make twizzlers.

[ursus arctos]

Of the hundred or so companies from all over the world that I worked with, they were the only ones who discussed their social mission as a matter of course.

It was quite striking.

[San Bernardhinault]

I had a bit of a downer-response on reading an Ursus retweet earlier, which suggests that we're basically fucked unless we're on lockdown forever. It makes logical sense to me - unless the virus is eliminated, or there's a treatment or vaccine, I don't see how this finishes without most people getting infected. And I'm pretty sure that western people are not willing to go on lockdown for such an extended period. We might be able to suck up 2 months, but not an indeterminate period. I guess I should think of the current lockdown as being analogous to the Munich Accords - shitty, but perhaps giving us time to at least begin to ramp up our ability to respond, to create field hospitals, to build or acquire ventilators.

After 2 months, though, I'm pretty sure Americans (and Brits) will be out and about again. That will be the limit of the sacrifice they'll be willing to make for their elderly.

[ursus arctos]

I didn't put that on here for exactly that reason. It is beyond grim.

[San Bernardhinault]

On a more positive note, my instincts tell me that death rates are well below those quoted in the stats because there have to be tens, probably hundreds of thousands infected but not tested and possibly even asymptomatic. Also on a more positive note are the anecdata from various places on treatment with anti retrovirals and anti-malarials. A moderately effective treatment would make all the difference.

[Muukalainen]

What the others have said TG, good luck mate and good to hear that the worst is now behind you.

[Arturo]

Take care TG. Hope the worst is over for you.

[Felicity, I guess so]

All the best, TG and all power to your Mum.