> This is a tough one. I'm an attending physician.
> Guidelines are there for a reason. As much as I despise our Commander in Chief, I don't think the CDC is compromised. Fear doesn't rank over guidelines, but I understand the situation. No one wants to be the doctor that discharges patient zero.
> Personally, I'd admit you for fever of unknown origin for the time being and monitor you for any signs of sepsis. If everything looks good from an observation stand point, I'd discharge you with strict droplet precautions until the fever subsides.
> I think your doctor did the right thing given the context.
Given the above comment, most replies here are arguing against CDC regulation saying it is too stringent. Its very helpful to understand comments in this lens, rather than that the CDC is just under-testing for unknown reasons.
The guidelines for testing were so absurdly stringent because there was almost no testing capacity in the US, despite their being hundreds of labs with RTPCR equipment, because the CDC screwed up their test kits and the FDA used emergency powers to prohibit labs from developing their own tests, and forbids the creation of commercial test kits and the importation of foreign ones. Three weeks after CDC (after an already unconscionable delay) shipped the non working tests, they have "fixed" this situation by permitting labs to use the 2 of the 3 primers in the original test that mostly work. So as of yesterday we are starting to have the ability to actually test, and the criteria are being loosened.
Apparently some kits were recalled because they were flawed and there is a shortage as a result. So it is somewhat understandable that the CDC doesn't want to test just anyone with flu like symptoms.
I keep hearing rumblings about test kits not being where they need to be, but nothing in the news. It would be so hard to make a clinical diagnosis of COVID-19 when the chief complaints are "Fever, cough, shortness of breath". Is that the common cold or is this SARS-CoV-2? Giving a massive diagnosis like and being wrong is bad.
With these kinds of things it's always better to error in the direction of caution. Controlling which way you fail is extremely important. You have to know your modes of failure
Hmm, this is bad. A ton of people from NYC / Brooklyn also commute back to the east end of Long Island for weekends so this has a potential to spread pretty quickly.
I don't keep up with the news at all but recently I started reading some articles from major news outlets just for more info about this virus. It's mind boggling at how different each channel's reporting is (I'm in the US).
I was at the store this morning and they had a TV playing. One channel down played it like it's nothing and it's even "technically" less potent than the regular flu because they compared yearly flu deaths to covid-19's deaths and played it off like "we're no where near the number of deaths that the flu has killed this year!" and then all of the surrounding anchors all agreed with the spokesperson they had on, etc.
Others make it out to be 1 notch away from an apocalyptic event.
So I guess this is really what "fake news" is? I don't get it. You can get a life time of prison for ordering someone to kill someone else but somehow it's ok to potentially gamble with the entire human population by not giving accurate information about a virus that's killing people.
I just saw a virologist give out the flu argument in addition to presenting the naive mortality rate and making an intentional arithmetic mistake (100-3.5=97, perhaps 96.5 does not feel such a big number anymore).
You seem to have made up your mind about which news channel was correctly reporting. Why do you think your opinion and that of many others conflicts with the WHO and CDC?
To me it feels like the experts (WHO/CDC) are 'downplaying' while nonexperts (internet commenters who read a few articles) are doing the opposite.
I haven't made up my mind because most media outlets have conflicting information. That was why I posted the comment.
I mean, it doesn't help when you hear stories like the one posted on Reddit too. Of course it makes you think things like "why wouldn't they test him? Is it because they want to keep the registered cases down or is it because there's not enough tests to go around or maybe it's because the tests aren't accurate?".
These are questions I have as someone who isn't working at the CDC and I'm sure other regular citizens are thinking the same. I thought the media's responsibility was to take information from experts and present that information without bias to people who are not experts in the matter.
- If you experience shortness of breath, have a cough or fever: • Stay at home. • Contact a doctor immediately by phone or call the coronavirus infoline. • Avoid contact with those around you. • Do not go directly to the doctor or to a hospital emergency room.
Masks are considered useless unless you are infected.
That's not what the guidelines said. They guidelines were referring only to "hygienic masks" a.k.a. generic surgical masks:
The Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) does not recommend that people who are well wear hygienic masks (surgical masks). If you are in good health, they do not protect you effectively against an infection with respiratory viruses (i.e. self protection). Wearing a mask therefore can give you a false sense of security.
This is a known point. But they did not mention -- nor did they advise against the use of -- properly rated and certified masks (such as N95 masks). Which do provide some protection (albeit with caveats).
Also, just think for minute around the basic logic of what you're saying. If (properly rated and certified) masks provide "no protection" (for unprotected individuals) - then why are the health care workers using them?
They provide no /self/ protection. As I have said in multiple threads on this topic: we wear astm3 masks to protect /patients/ from /us/. A lot of hospital PPE is oriented towards /patient/ protection.
And N95s are heavy and uncomfortable. No one can wear them for long. But if anyone wants to, they’re welcome to it.
N95 masks may only be effective used with eye protection. Surgical masks may not help at all.
Looked for interventional studies testing whether face masks and eye protection work in humans to protect against airborne viral particles. A big issue with many such studies is that medical staff only use masks and/or eye protection at work, opening them to being infected outside of work.
Found a small study [1] getting around this problem by exposing subjects (n = 28, avg age 30.5 years) to monodispersed live attenuated influenza vaccine particles by placing them in front of a vibrating-orifice aerosol generator for 20 minutes, subsequently testing for infection using RT-PCR and culture in nasal washes.
RESULTS
- No precautions: 4 out of 4 infected.
- Ocular exposure only: 4 out of 4 infected.
- Surgical mask only (3M 1818): 5 out of 5 infected.
- Surgical mask with eye protection (Z87 Uvex non-vented): 5 out of 5 infected.
- N95 mask (3M 1860/1860S) only: 3 out of 5 infected.
- N95 mask with eye protection: 1 out of 5 infected.
1. Bischoff WE, Reid T, Russell GB, Peters TR. Transocular entry of seasonal influenza-attenuated virus aerosols and the efficacy of n95 respirators, surgical masks, and eye protection in humans. J Infect Dis. 2011;204(2):193–199.
You can actually increase your odds of infection by different deceases by having a paper mask since they are often uncomfortable or fit poorly and people put their hands to the face to adjust them.
>Masks are considered useless unless you are infected
Considering there are multiple papers out of china which suggest the virus is aerosolized, I think it's irresponsible for anyone to claim masks are useless PPE. Anything less than n99 or p99 might be useless, but that's a different story.
There's also one paper which claims that treating a mask with saline solution makes it substantially more effective against viruses. I'll see if I can't dig it up.
Governments the world over have already demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to properly handle this virus.
Governments have other concerns besides your individual health. They need to prevent panic as much as possible, prevent economic collapse, etc. The response to events like this can be worse than the initial problem.
What do you think happens if the CDC says everyone needs to wear masks, you go to your local store, and there are no masks? There would be violence in the streets.
Aerosolization of coronavirus seems to be mostly limited to hospital operations such as intubation?
Anyhow, here in Hong Kong the virus has been, kind of, contained. Mask wearing, along with hand washing and other measures, have been adopted by the majority population.
One of the problems with the Wuhan virus is that there are quite a few asymptomatic cases, and AFAIK at least one preprint study has confirmed that these hosts can transmit the virus to others, making mask wearing for "healthy" people an even more desirable measure in preventing the virus from spreading.
Just because masks are not 100% effective doesn’t mean they’re not effective at all. The Surgeon General also dismissed masks and is spreading misinformation.
The Surgeon General dismissed medical masks, which are useless against this virus, they were not talking about masks that are sealed to your face and actually filter germs. Your post itself is misinformation.
Masks are considered useless unless you are infected.
This is a bizarre claim that can be countered against the reality that every front-line worker is equipped with a mask.
EDIT: Almost immediately I dropped to -2. Bizarre. Again, every health agency the world over equips health workers who deal with potential COVID-19 with N95+ masks. For some reason people desperately want to clutch onto the notion that it's useless because otherwise..uncomfortable and uncool mask, right? Another poster mentioned that the source didn't even state that about masks, but instead about surgical masks which is a tiny subset.
-Masks prevent aerosolized matter (e.g. a sneeze) from getting at mucous membranes (where it needs to get to yield an infection).
-Masks prevent you from touching your hands to the vulnerable areas of your face. It is effectively a check. So when you touch that door handle leaving the subway station it's far less likely you'll transfer to your mouth or nose, and we naturally touch our face thousands of times a day. Ideally one would have a mental process they follow where you clean thoroughly before taking it off.
Those alone seem like an absolutely enormous win for masks.
I'm certainly not at the point where I'm going to wear a mask in public, but the whole "Hurrr masks don't work at all" seems like either disinformation (e.g. stop buying all the masks because we want them), or people trying to comfort themselves in some bizarre way. Every bit of evidence says otherwise.
The moderation through this is absolutely cartoonish and ignorant.
There is terminological confusion. Several things are colloquially called ‘masks’. Surgical masks do not significantly protect the wearer. Filtering facepiece respirators do.¹ ² The parent comment's links refer to N95, so they mean the latter, which are protective (assuming they're worn properly and genuine³).
In addition, the permanent rubber units provide protection when fitted with suitable filters; NIOSH calls these half masks (as distinct from full facepieces, colloquially ‘gas masks’). Where I am, these are still languishing on the shelves⁴, which means that the sort of people who are willing to spend five minutes looking up that P95 ≥ N95 are not yet panicking.
Those paper masks do little if anything to help the wearer from taking in anything. They do not filter the air—they are far too porous and loose-fitting to filter. They do help prevent the wearer from spreading their germs and touching nose/mouth as you said, but they are not an effective air filtration device.
Frankly it's your tone that sucks. People initially thought you were referring to the generic medical masks, which are useless unless you're already sick. Being clear in your initial comment would have helped with the confusion.
Any post that fails to distinguish between N95 respirators and ASTM 3 surgical masks is too ignorant on this topic to make comments worthy of an upvote.
The Surgeon General, on the other hand, does understand the difference and made an appropriate comment.
I personally believe that any sort of cover or mask is likely to have an effect even if not 100%. However..:
This is a bizarre claim that can be countered against the reality that every front-line worker is equipped with a mask.
This is not necessarily to protect the front-line workers. Since the incubation period is so long, it makes sense for front-line workers to wear masks to prevent them infecting other people even if it has zero effect in preventing them being infected in the first place.
One thing I'm wondering about is "useless in what sense?"
Will they prevent you from getting sick? Unlikely unless it is N95 or even N100 PPE
But I'm been wondering if they are not useless in terms of the speed at which the human body experiences a high viral load.
If only one virus particle gets through that should be enough to infect if it takes root and multiplies, but going from one virus to tons in your body takes times since they have to multiply.
Compare that with an infected person coughing right in your face. In this situation, potentially thousands of virus particles will infect you. In this situation, the viral load your body experiences will climb high quickly.
The faster the viral load climbs the less time your immune system has to be able to develop antibodies and learn to fight off the infection.
I imagine this is not too dissimilar from how vaccines work.
If this is the case, that might explain why Li Wenliang died at 34 years of age. Being at the center of it all, it's likely he was exposed to many more virus particles than the typical person. I imagine this would be enough to trigger a cytokine storm if the viral load got high fast enough.
Disclaimer, IANAE (i am not an epidemiologist), I'm just reasoning from first principles here.
One of the key findings coming out of China is that CT scans can outperform reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) lab tests in diagnosing the Coronavirus[1].
If the CDC's current tests are flawed or too few, then the CDC should provide guidelines to health providers to quickly diagnose potential patients using CT scans.
As someone who interprets CTs, the findings described in that paper are totally nonspecific and just indicate a pulmonary infectious/inflammatory process. The takeaway I have is if the CT is totally clear, COVID is unlikely. Otherwise, you need confirmatory testing to figure out what is going on with the lungs.
A CT scan is fairly standard procedure for diagnosing many things. Why do doctors and hospitals need CDC permission to use it to test? This seems like a bad movie where the CDC is not doing much due to political pressure. Why can't doctors act in their patients' best interest on their own?
A CT has a pretty high radiation dose. As far as I understand, for every 2000 people given a chest CT we expect 1 person to get a fatal form of cancer due to the CT.
Compared to the natural incidence of getting a fatal cancer in your lifetime (about 400 in 2000), this is a very low. And for serious conditions, a CT can literally be a life saver.
But if you apply chest CTs to screen for a disease with (let's say) a 0.1% fatality rate, the side effects of your screening increases the fatality rate by 50%.
CT changes did not occur before disease progression. In one study it occurs after 3-5 days after being admitted to hospital.(I could not find the link right now sorry.) Therefore cannot be use for 'quickly diagnosing'
I’d at least entertain the possibility that this means the CDC has a limited number of test kits right now and can’t yet afford to give one to every single person who has a cough. It would be a bummer for some serious cases who wouldn’t get tested, if they had to test everyone who asked as long as they had kits available.
They were pretty clear yesterday that they’re ramping up test kit production and test sites as fast as possible. They didn’t answer a direction question about how many sites there were yesterday, implying to me that the number is pretty low.
Pretty much. The CDC tried to finally roll out a test to New York City that local labs could use to carry out broader surveillance testing, after some early problems, but the local labs don't trust it and won't use it: https://www.propublica.org/article/cdc-coronavirus-covid-19-...
No, it does not imply that. The facts are that the CDC followed their protocol and so the person was not tested. It could imply the protocols are too stringent, or that they are successful because the user might not have the coronavirus.
Its unclear to me where 'managing the propaganda' came out in relation to the reddit post.
Note that Spring Break in the US, in which about 10 million college students consume substances, exhibit poor judgement, congregate in large numbers, swap bodily fluids, and return to some 3,000+ institutions of higher education, begins today. With Florida and cruise ships as prime destinations.
I just posted my own update on COVID-19 yesterday (after watching events overtake me for 4 days -- I'd started after listening to the US CDC press conference on Feb 25):
On the Media's episode this week focuses strongly on COVID-19 and if anything is rather more alarmed and alarming than my own take (I very conciously strove for verified data and sober takes):
Features Laurie Garrett, excellent content. Focuses to a large extent on both government mishandling and information suppression -- in the US having no information to report rather than China's suppressing avaiable information) -- as well as other forms of mis- and dis-information.
I find this kind of euphemism use really weird. "Substances"? Water is a "substance". A carpet is too. Why not just say what one is actually referring to?
It appears to be pretty much all western governments. at least 3 countries in the middle east appear to be pretty transparent, including surprisingly, Iran
The level of censorship around unquestionably authentic videos coming out of China has left me in a deep state of shock
> At this point, the hospital called the CDC requesting permission to perform the COVID-19 testing. The CDC denied the request on the ground that I did not have the most life-threatening symptoms
Two questions:
1. Why would the hospital require permission to run a test?
2. Why would the CDC not want to test suspicious cases before severe symptoms present? From what I've read, the virus is contageous whether severe symptoms are present or not.
The core problem is that the CDC (and country) has had the capacity to test only a few hundred samples per day. Meaning, they don’t have the ability to test everyone with flu-like symptoms.
Nobody thinks it’s right to NOT test every potential case. It just wasn’t possible.
Good news: Just today, they released new rules that should increase testing capacity by 400x.
The CDC doesn't run the tests. The hospitals and independent labs do. There has been some issues with the test kits distributed by the CDC, but since the virus genome has been sequenced you don't actually need a test kit (it's just a faster process if you have one).
However the CDC has enacted emergency powers to make it illegal for hospitals to use their own testing equipment, which they have in-house, to test their own patients unless they first get CDC approval. And the CDC has ridiculously stringent requirements for approving these tests.
As a result, the only confirmed case of community-spread COVID-19 in the US is in Northern California, because the UC Davis hospital basically said "go fuck yourself" to the CDC and tested anyway.
This is not because COVID-19 is not spreading throughout the community--it is!--but rather because the CDC's stringent testing requirements prevent testing of any case that cannot be rationalized away as having been caught elsewhere. If you don't test for the virus, then you don't confirm the presence of the virus, so there is no virus, amirite?
Because it's a CDC test in limited supply, and they're doing their best to try to balance the available supply with detecting as many cases as possible. The challenge is that the spread is changing rapidly enough that the guidelines will inevitably be a day or two behind periodically.
They are also banning hospitals from doing their own tests. All hospitals have equipment to test for virus presence. In fact we learned about first case of local virus spread, because a hospital ignored CDC and tested the suspected patient anyway.
Because all test samples are sent to the CDC headquarters in Atlanta for testing. They only have a certain number of people available to analyze the test results. And the number of test kits is limited so the CDC is trying to triage cases until the supply opens up.
They don't post anything about the costs, but that would likely be the defining vector in this whole situation.
I mean, let's face it — noone's going to go get tested if it means you'll have to pay 5k+ out of pocket for the experience (even if it's a negative test and you require no further treatment), plus would have to be fired from your job for missing work and doing a self-quarantine for 2 weeks (if it's positive yet mild enough to not require hospitalisation), plus be evicted from your apartment for failing to pay rent due to the loss of the income (possibly having to cut the self-quarantine short in the first place due to any such pending evictions or the prospect thereof).
For this whole thing to work, testing has to be free, workers have to have protections, housing has to be affordable and plentiful, and Andrew Yang's UBI (Universal Basic Income) suddenly sounds like it might be a pretty good idea, after all.
Young kids appear to be unaffected currently. Not sure if this will change but also if your kid is breastfeeding then he be protected by mom's immune system. I would minimize people holding him that aren't you or your wife and obviously wash hands frequently.
Protein is vital for your immue system and to fight viral and bacterial infections. Chicken soup with lots of potein and vitamins is a not just an old wives tale.
But unless your kid has an underlying health issue or vitamin deficiency, then not really. Eat well, get some sunlight if you can, wash your hands often, don't touch your face, follow the guidlines doctors are mentioning at your state/local or federal level.
You see many people speak of "boosting your immune system" but it's pure quackery. A person's immune system is many layers and types, a system, it's not a single thing that can be adjusted at will.
The way I see my immune system is a 100 liter tank of water. You can't overfill it but it can be low. At most it can only be 100 liters. Your immune system can only be as good as normal there's no turbo button to over-boost it.
There is a potential risk with having a very healthy immune system in cases like this. It's called 'Cytokine release syndrome' and happens in healthier and younger individuals and it is far deadlier than the viral infection itself.
I don't believe that applies here. I remember seeing on another thread that you would expect to see lots of 20-50 year old deaths with CRS, like the Spanish flu. From what I've seen, COVID mortality seems to be proportional to age, with a lot of very old people succumbing.
Based on the statistics so far the most vulnerable people are the elderly, the lower the age the easier the recovery seems. Many people had mild symptoms and you might even think you just had regular flu, unless you are one of the unlucky ones.
It's widely recommended that babies receive vitamin D supplementation even in the best of times.. but under these circumstances, and certainly if you're in the northern hemisphere, it's worth being proactive with this in advance.
Readit News
> Guidelines are there for a reason. As much as I despise our Commander in Chief, I don't think the CDC is compromised. Fear doesn't rank over guidelines, but I understand the situation. No one wants to be the doctor that discharges patient zero.
> Personally, I'd admit you for fever of unknown origin for the time being and monitor you for any signs of sepsis. If everything looks good from an observation stand point, I'd discharge you with strict droplet precautions until the fever subsides.
> I think your doctor did the right thing given the context.
Given the above comment, most replies here are arguing against CDC regulation saying it is too stringent. Its very helpful to understand comments in this lens, rather than that the CDC is just under-testing for unknown reasons.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/united-states-badly-...
I was wondering about this... Very hard to justify that in my opinion.
That line is always left out of this: the CDC doesn’t want to test just anyone with cold and flu symptoms ... during flu season.
The false positives are basically guaranteed to absolutely swamp the true positives at this time, and demolish any attempt to target the sick.
I don't keep up with the news at all but recently I started reading some articles from major news outlets just for more info about this virus. It's mind boggling at how different each channel's reporting is (I'm in the US).
I was at the store this morning and they had a TV playing. One channel down played it like it's nothing and it's even "technically" less potent than the regular flu because they compared yearly flu deaths to covid-19's deaths and played it off like "we're no where near the number of deaths that the flu has killed this year!" and then all of the surrounding anchors all agreed with the spokesperson they had on, etc.
Others make it out to be 1 notch away from an apocalyptic event.
So I guess this is really what "fake news" is? I don't get it. You can get a life time of prison for ordering someone to kill someone else but somehow it's ok to potentially gamble with the entire human population by not giving accurate information about a virus that's killing people.
I would recommend to study this site https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ if you want to be more informed.
To me it feels like the experts (WHO/CDC) are 'downplaying' while nonexperts (internet commenters who read a few articles) are doing the opposite.
I mean, it doesn't help when you hear stories like the one posted on Reddit too. Of course it makes you think things like "why wouldn't they test him? Is it because they want to keep the registered cases down or is it because there's not enough tests to go around or maybe it's because the tests aren't accurate?".
These are questions I have as someone who isn't working at the CDC and I'm sure other regular citizens are thinking the same. I thought the media's responsibility was to take information from experts and present that information without bias to people who are not experts in the matter.
- Wash your hands thoroughly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvcvvRp3lsY
- Cough and sneeze into a paper tissue/handerchief or the crook of your arm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3_rFPtQgKE
- If you experience shortness of breath, have a cough or fever: • Stay at home. • Contact a doctor immediately by phone or call the coronavirus infoline. • Avoid contact with those around you. • Do not go directly to the doctor or to a hospital emergency room.
[1] https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/en/home/krankheiten/ausbrueche-...
That's not what the guidelines said. They guidelines were referring only to "hygienic masks" a.k.a. generic surgical masks:
The Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) does not recommend that people who are well wear hygienic masks (surgical masks). If you are in good health, they do not protect you effectively against an infection with respiratory viruses (i.e. self protection). Wearing a mask therefore can give you a false sense of security.
This is a known point. But they did not mention -- nor did they advise against the use of -- properly rated and certified masks (such as N95 masks). Which do provide some protection (albeit with caveats).
Also, just think for minute around the basic logic of what you're saying. If (properly rated and certified) masks provide "no protection" (for unprotected individuals) - then why are the health care workers using them?
And N95s are heavy and uncomfortable. No one can wear them for long. But if anyone wants to, they’re welcome to it.
Looked for interventional studies testing whether face masks and eye protection work in humans to protect against airborne viral particles. A big issue with many such studies is that medical staff only use masks and/or eye protection at work, opening them to being infected outside of work.
Found a small study [1] getting around this problem by exposing subjects (n = 28, avg age 30.5 years) to monodispersed live attenuated influenza vaccine particles by placing them in front of a vibrating-orifice aerosol generator for 20 minutes, subsequently testing for infection using RT-PCR and culture in nasal washes.
RESULTS
- No precautions: 4 out of 4 infected.
- Ocular exposure only: 4 out of 4 infected.
- Surgical mask only (3M 1818): 5 out of 5 infected.
- Surgical mask with eye protection (Z87 Uvex non-vented): 5 out of 5 infected.
- N95 mask (3M 1860/1860S) only: 3 out of 5 infected.
- N95 mask with eye protection: 1 out of 5 infected.
1. Bischoff WE, Reid T, Russell GB, Peters TR. Transocular entry of seasonal influenza-attenuated virus aerosols and the efficacy of n95 respirators, surgical masks, and eye protection in humans. J Infect Dis. 2011;204(2):193–199.
Considering there are multiple papers out of china which suggest the virus is aerosolized, I think it's irresponsible for anyone to claim masks are useless PPE. Anything less than n99 or p99 might be useless, but that's a different story.
There's also one paper which claims that treating a mask with saline solution makes it substantially more effective against viruses. I'll see if I can't dig it up.
Governments the world over have already demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to properly handle this virus.
What do you think happens if the CDC says everyone needs to wear masks, you go to your local store, and there are no masks? There would be violence in the streets.
Anyhow, here in Hong Kong the virus has been, kind of, contained. Mask wearing, along with hand washing and other measures, have been adopted by the majority population.
One of the problems with the Wuhan virus is that there are quite a few asymptomatic cases, and AFAIK at least one preprint study has confirmed that these hosts can transmit the virus to others, making mask wearing for "healthy" people an even more desirable measure in preventing the virus from spreading.
Deleted Comment
This is a bizarre claim that can be countered against the reality that every front-line worker is equipped with a mask.
EDIT: Almost immediately I dropped to -2. Bizarre. Again, every health agency the world over equips health workers who deal with potential COVID-19 with N95+ masks. For some reason people desperately want to clutch onto the notion that it's useless because otherwise..uncomfortable and uncool mask, right? Another poster mentioned that the source didn't even state that about masks, but instead about surgical masks which is a tiny subset.
-Masks prevent aerosolized matter (e.g. a sneeze) from getting at mucous membranes (where it needs to get to yield an infection).
-Masks prevent you from touching your hands to the vulnerable areas of your face. It is effectively a check. So when you touch that door handle leaving the subway station it's far less likely you'll transfer to your mouth or nose, and we naturally touch our face thousands of times a day. Ideally one would have a mental process they follow where you clean thoroughly before taking it off.
Those alone seem like an absolutely enormous win for masks.
https://time.com/5785223/medical-masks-coronavirus-covid-19/
https://www.livescience.com/respirators-prevent-coronavirus-...
I'm certainly not at the point where I'm going to wear a mask in public, but the whole "Hurrr masks don't work at all" seems like either disinformation (e.g. stop buying all the masks because we want them), or people trying to comfort themselves in some bizarre way. Every bit of evidence says otherwise.
The moderation through this is absolutely cartoonish and ignorant.
In addition, the permanent rubber units provide protection when fitted with suitable filters; NIOSH calls these half masks (as distinct from full facepieces, colloquially ‘gas masks’). Where I am, these are still languishing on the shelves⁴, which means that the sort of people who are willing to spend five minutes looking up that P95 ≥ N95 are not yet panicking.
¹ https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/pdfs/UnderstandDifferenceInf...
² https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equi...
³ https://knowits.niosh.gov/
⁴ https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/3m-performance-reusable-p...
The Surgeon General, on the other hand, does understand the difference and made an appropriate comment.
This is a bizarre claim that can be countered against the reality that every front-line worker is equipped with a mask.
This is not necessarily to protect the front-line workers. Since the incubation period is so long, it makes sense for front-line workers to wear masks to prevent them infecting other people even if it has zero effect in preventing them being infected in the first place.
Deleted Comment
I downvoted you because you talked about your downvotes.
If you're keeping track of scoring, HN is perhaps not the right community for you.
Will they prevent you from getting sick? Unlikely unless it is N95 or even N100 PPE
But I'm been wondering if they are not useless in terms of the speed at which the human body experiences a high viral load.
If only one virus particle gets through that should be enough to infect if it takes root and multiplies, but going from one virus to tons in your body takes times since they have to multiply.
Compare that with an infected person coughing right in your face. In this situation, potentially thousands of virus particles will infect you. In this situation, the viral load your body experiences will climb high quickly.
The faster the viral load climbs the less time your immune system has to be able to develop antibodies and learn to fight off the infection.
I imagine this is not too dissimilar from how vaccines work.
If this is the case, that might explain why Li Wenliang died at 34 years of age. Being at the center of it all, it's likely he was exposed to many more virus particles than the typical person. I imagine this would be enough to trigger a cytokine storm if the viral load got high fast enough.
Disclaimer, IANAE (i am not an epidemiologist), I'm just reasoning from first principles here.
[1]https://www.itnonline.com/content/ct-provides-best-diagnosis...
If the CDC's current tests are flawed or too few, then the CDC should provide guidelines to health providers to quickly diagnose potential patients using CT scans.
Compared to the natural incidence of getting a fatal cancer in your lifetime (about 400 in 2000), this is a very low. And for serious conditions, a CT can literally be a life saver.
But if you apply chest CTs to screen for a disease with (let's say) a 0.1% fatality rate, the side effects of your screening increases the fatality rate by 50%.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-iran-becam...
They were pretty clear yesterday that they’re ramping up test kit production and test sites as fast as possible. They didn’t answer a direction question about how many sites there were yesterday, implying to me that the number is pretty low.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0228-COVID-19-updat...
Its unclear to me where 'managing the propaganda' came out in relation to the reddit post.
UC Davis Medical Center statement on refusal of CDC to grant permissions to test suspected patient:
https://health.ucdavis.edu/health-news/contenthub/novel-coro...
"UC Davis Health does not control the testing process."
Florida refusal to release testing data:
https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/02/27/flo...
Note that Spring Break in the US, in which about 10 million college students consume substances, exhibit poor judgement, congregate in large numbers, swap bodily fluids, and return to some 3,000+ institutions of higher education, begins today. With Florida and cruise ships as prime destinations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_outbreak_on_c...
I just posted my own update on COVID-19 yesterday (after watching events overtake me for 4 days -- I'd started after listening to the US CDC press conference on Feb 25):
https://joindiaspora.com/posts/bc04cb503c840138f4b8002590d8e...
On the Media's episode this week focuses strongly on COVID-19 and if anything is rather more alarmed and alarming than my own take (I very conciously strove for verified data and sober takes):
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-med...
Audio: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/audio.wnyc.org/otm/...
Features Laurie Garrett, excellent content. Focuses to a large extent on both government mishandling and information suppression -- in the US having no information to report rather than China's suppressing avaiable information) -- as well as other forms of mis- and dis-information.
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I find this kind of euphemism use really weird. "Substances"? Water is a "substance". A carpet is too. Why not just say what one is actually referring to?
The level of censorship around unquestionably authentic videos coming out of China has left me in a deep state of shock
Two questions:
1. Why would the hospital require permission to run a test?
2. Why would the CDC not want to test suspicious cases before severe symptoms present? From what I've read, the virus is contageous whether severe symptoms are present or not.
Nobody thinks it’s right to NOT test every potential case. It just wasn’t possible.
Good news: Just today, they released new rules that should increase testing capacity by 400x.
However the CDC has enacted emergency powers to make it illegal for hospitals to use their own testing equipment, which they have in-house, to test their own patients unless they first get CDC approval. And the CDC has ridiculously stringent requirements for approving these tests.
As a result, the only confirmed case of community-spread COVID-19 in the US is in Northern California, because the UC Davis hospital basically said "go fuck yourself" to the CDC and tested anyway.
This is not because COVID-19 is not spreading throughout the community--it is!--but rather because the CDC's stringent testing requirements prevent testing of any case that cannot be rationalized away as having been caught elsewhere. If you don't test for the virus, then you don't confirm the presence of the virus, so there is no virus, amirite?
How can new rules increase testing capacity? All you can do, is adjust the rules to the existing capacities ...
I mean, let's face it — noone's going to go get tested if it means you'll have to pay 5k+ out of pocket for the experience (even if it's a negative test and you require no further treatment), plus would have to be fired from your job for missing work and doing a self-quarantine for 2 weeks (if it's positive yet mild enough to not require hospitalisation), plus be evicted from your apartment for failing to pay rent due to the loss of the income (possibly having to cut the self-quarantine short in the first place due to any such pending evictions or the prospect thereof).
For this whole thing to work, testing has to be free, workers have to have protections, housing has to be affordable and plentiful, and Andrew Yang's UBI (Universal Basic Income) suddenly sounds like it might be a pretty good idea, after all.
We already eat healthy, me and the wife workout. But the kid? Not sure how to prepare him.
But unless your kid has an underlying health issue or vitamin deficiency, then not really. Eat well, get some sunlight if you can, wash your hands often, don't touch your face, follow the guidlines doctors are mentioning at your state/local or federal level.
You see many people speak of "boosting your immune system" but it's pure quackery. A person's immune system is many layers and types, a system, it's not a single thing that can be adjusted at will.
The way I see my immune system is a 100 liter tank of water. You can't overfill it but it can be low. At most it can only be 100 liters. Your immune system can only be as good as normal there's no turbo button to over-boost it.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-se...
Also you can read about SARS which is similar.
Seems like what kills most people is the immune system overreacting.