The boy says they are trying to figure out telemedicine for his clinic at Stanford so they can do remote “visits.” Challenging. He said it was starting to get pretty busy there.
The local hospital doing testing is now triaging tests on patients due to lack of tests and materials and equipment. Yesterday there were only 30-40 cases in the state but supplies are already getting stretched. Interesting I have heard nothing at all about conditions south of the southern border. Canada has locked down their border but I haven’t seen anything about spread there. A guy I know in Peru posted pics of Cusco, normally a bustling city, now deserted streets, no one out and about. They seem to be taking it seriously. That’s good I guess. Stay safe y’all --FT Sent from iPhone > On Mar 20, 2020, at 12:00 AM, Karl Wittnebel via Mercedes > <mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: > > Every medical center treating these patients, including ours, is using > hydroxychloroquine. It is an old and well known drug. Not a cure by any > means. We hope it helps. > > The epideliologic evidence is extremely poor quality; I will give him > that. But the lack of high quality evidence applies to his position also. > > As is so often the case, this situation boils down to what to do in the > absence of evidence. If everybody taking it easy for a week or three gives > us some time to get better data, I am all for it. The testing is ramping up > by the day and it will not be long until we have on demand testing for > everyone at drive throughs. That will give us a clear picture of true case > fatality and how contagious it is. Those numbers can then drive policy. > > If he is wrong, we could be the next Italy. If the feds and states and > cities are being overly cautious, things will be back to normal pretty > soon. > > Garcetti put everyone in lockdown tonight, and then Newsom did the same for > the entire state of CA, or something like 37 million people. Interesting > times. > > Still waiting for the wave to break at work. We have a few cases, all > elective surgery is cancelled, all staff who can telecommute are doing so, > all meetings that can be done by phone are being done by phone. Lots of > contingency planning because Italy has lots of healthcare workers out with > infection. We remain very short of N95 masks. Not sure when that situation > will improve. Trump approved all the industrial n95 masks for sale to > hospitals, but I think many of them had already been hoarded by > individuals. Basically you need a bunny suit, an N95 and a face shield to > stay healthy if dealing with large numbers of infected patients. > > I dont have a problem with doing simple things to slow this down while we > get a better handle on it. Most of us believe it is out there multiplying, > because that is what contagious viruses do. Even if distancing only gives > us some time to get n95 masks to hospitals to protect doctors, nurses and > other staff, it will have been worth doing. > > The hospitalized are pretty every divided age group wise. Young people are > dying in this thing. Not as often as old people, but often enough for > everyone to think seriously about it on a personal level. Not too many > contagious things put 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 year olds in the hospital at > similar rates. That is what is happening. Old people are recovering less, > but lots of young people are being hospitalized with viral pneumonia. > > Let's all hope the true prevalence of asymptomatic infection is much higher > than suspected and that the case fatality rates are wild overestimates. > > Karl > > > >> On Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 1:43 PM Meade Dillon via Mercedes < >> mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: >> >> First the good new: Cure? >> >> >> https://nypost.com/2020/03/19/old-malaria-drug-hydroxychloroquine-may-help-cure-coronavirus-study/ >> >> Next the contrarian. >> >> >> https://www.thecollegefix.com/stanford-epidemiologist-warns-that-coronavirus-crackdown-is-based-on-bad-data/ >> >> "A population-wide case fatality rate of 0.05% is lower than seasonal >> influenza. If that is the true rate, locking down the world with >> potentially tremendous social and financial consequences may be totally >> irrational. It’s like an elephant being attacked by a house cat. Frustrated >> and trying to avoid the cat, the elephant accidentally jumps off a cliff >> and dies." >> ------------- >> Max >> Charleston SC >> _______________________________________ >> http://www.okiebenz.com >> >> To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ >> >> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: >> http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com >> >> > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
