Fake web news reports on the coronavirus (OT)

I talked to my primary care doctor about Lisinopril yesterday. He pointed out that the results are all speculative at this point and even if they are real the expected benefit for those very few people who catch the virus and wind up in intensive care is tiny compared to the large number of people who might stroke out and die is they switched to a blood pressure drug that doesn't work as well. If you catch the virus and wind up in the hospital it might be worth having the conversation again since your chances of needing that small benefit might be larger.

Sorry
This "shutdown" of the US economy is insanity. If it goes beyond 15 days, I can't imagine the suffering of the working folks, in the prime of their lives, just to protect those health compromised and older folks. If this is a "World War", lets look at our sacrifices done in the past. To save the economies/countries in Europe and SE Asia, we were willing to sacrifice upwards of a half million of our citizens. Now we are told we must "flush" the backbone of our economy and society, the small and medium businesses, to protect some weak and old?

If citizens in their prime were so easily sacrificed for saving other countries' economies in WW2, why can't we allow those not in their prime to step up and make the sacrifice. I am 73, I will take that chance of having to make that sacrifice if it means keeping my kids and grand-kids employed/working with paychecks coming in.

If this "shutdown" continues into the Summer and Fall, it is just unimaginable.

We need more direction and commitment from the president. A day or two ago he mentioned that W. Virginia was the only state with zero identified cases and said "Wow, they must be doing something right!". No, they were doing something wrong: not testing. Only a few dozen were done (one sick W.V. nurse couldn't get tested). As of this morning only about 140 have been tested in that state because of the paucity of tests. Yes, we have to put politics aside, but so does the president.

When all this is history, we'll learn more about the several reasons we got behind in testing, some of which were choices, plain and simple.

Clearly we need the federal government to take over/direct production in factories so they make essential products. BTW, most of our protective gear is made in China. The military in Spain has begun to produce hand sanitizer.

Post Edited (DjinTonic) : 3/18/2020 8:37:04 AM (GMT-6)

manich,
I agree whole heartedly!!
I'm almost 61, I'm willing to risk it to help save this great nation from economic ruin.

I'm sure many of you remember that before herd protection (or whatever the heck it's called), Flu shots were recommended only for the elderly, sick, and infirm.

Are some of the actions being taken extreme? Maybe. Are they based on incomplete and 'bad' statistical analysis? Probably. The problem is that if we wait till we're sure about the numbers--then it's too late to take the extreme actions.

mattam said...

PS, I don't like seeing anyone die if it can be be avoided. 🙂

Me either, so thank you, and this septuagenarian is only volunteering to take a bullet for a loved one.

It's gonna get much worse before it gets better, and our souls will be tested. Hope we're up to the test.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hopNAI8Pefg

Well I know that covid19 is not the seasonal flu, but a death is a death. What should we say to the families of the 80,000 who died of flu in the 2017-18 season, as to why we didn't shut things down to save their loved ones?

Post Edited (manich) : 3/18/2020 11:10:43 AM (GMT-6)

The issue here is the undeniable math on added deaths associated with not taking action.

I also take Lisinopril. There is lots of detailed information in this video: MedCram Medical Lectures Watch it to the end. The bottom line is that this presenter feels it is probably better to take Lisinopril than not.

...Jerry

Buddy Blank said...
What does seasonal flu have to do with COVID-19? That is like comparing it to PCa deaths, or those from smoking cigarettes. Not closing things down = more people will die. It isn't even a choice. Business comes back, human life doesn't.

Plus, we have a vaccine for influenza.

a death is a death. If we shut down our country during the 2017-18 flu season it could have saved up to 80,000 lives maybe. Are those souls worthless in your mind? Cigs are a lifestyle choice. Getting exposed to the flu in a society that hasn't shut down, is the choice of the government.

More Lisinopril info. Seems like Dr. Anthony Fauci is a bit more concerned about Lisinopril but is making a lot of assumptions which may or may not be true. Here: JAMA Network The video is queued up to the relevant segment.

...Jerry

Since I work at a funeral home, let me add a bit of perspective in regard to a comment that said if we don't shut down effectively, "the funeral business will have a boom." Let's hope not. If so, it'll be a boom no one in the industry wants.

Here's what's already happening at the funeral home where I work. We have four retirees (including myself) who work part-time, helping out with funerals and visitations. We're all over 70, and all fall into several other high risk categories, and so the funeral home cannot use us now. I suspect most funeral homes rely on older part-timers like us to do a lot of tasks, from supervising visitations to moving flowers, setting up chairs, driving the hearse, making coffee, and so forth. The funeral directors are already working long, long hours (not from Covid-19 deaths, just the normal work load), but I don't see how they're going to be able to cover all the tasks that the four of us normally do, and if we start seeing a lot of people dying from this virus, the job is going to become impossible..

The owner of the funeral home has no spleen and really shouldn't be working, but really has no choice but to continue. She has a husband and toddler at home. Another director just had a hysterectomy. None of the five funeral directors are perfectly healthy.

They're wondering how they will even make funeral arrangements if or when Covid-19 deaths start showing up. The immediate family will likely have been exposed and may be quarantined. If any of the funeral directors meets with these families, they may need to quarantine themself. So, will they have to do the arrangements using FaceTime or Skype? Don't know.

Visitations normally bring together people from all over the country, many of them well over 60 years old, and they're together for hours in the funeral home chapel and maybe at church. These gatherings have become inadvisable and so they're looking at ways of streaming the services or postponing them, or finding other ways of dealing with complex and potentially dangerous situations.

It's been said that preparing the bodies of Covid-19 casualties poses no threat to the embalmer, but who knows for sure. Obviously, the funeral directors have protocols for dealing with the preparation of those who have died from infectious diseases, but this is a new situation.

I'm just a part-timer, so I don't have a complete grasp of the challenges that will be facing the funeral industry and the families of those who will become casualties, but this is the kind of "booming business" that no one wants to see.

It's hard to think of any line of work that isn't going to facing serious challenges in the coming months. My how the world has changed.

Post Edited (clocknut) : 3/18/2020 4:36:38 PM (GMT-6)