Fake web news reports on the coronavirus (OT)

Good point. Rural hospitals have been closing down for a long time, less and less beds available for people living in rural areas. Already, in 2019, this was causing more death. As you said Hal, imagine now.

"More than 100 rural hospitals have closed in the United States since 2010 and another 430 are at risk of closing... University of Washington researchers examined 92 rural hospital closings in California from 1995 to 2011. They found that while the closings of urban hospitals had no impact on their surrounding communities, rural closings caused their populations — which have limited access to health care and other services — to see mortality rates rise 5.9 percent... The states that have experienced the most rural hospital closures over the last 10 years (Texas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Georgia, Alabama, and Missouri)..."

url]https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/2/18/21142650/rural-hospitals-closing-medicaid-expansion-states

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rural-hospital-closings-cause-mortality-rates-rise-study-finds-n1048046

https://www.nber.org/papers/w26182?utm_campaign=ntwh&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ntwg12

Great map, and stats, of rural hospital closings https://www.shepscenter.unc.edu/programs-projects/rural-health/rural-hospital-closures/[

This pandemic has really exposed the myth of U.S. economic recovery, and of our health care system's horrible state. Hopefully, we will learn, and change.

Please keep all the political comments out of the discussion

You're dead on the money Vince about the lack of rural hospitals. Whenever I would go to my hospital, and I live in a decent sized city, I'd meet people from hundreds of miles away. They'd come and stay for a day, or a few days. It's a crisis, and sad as hell.

There is a growing concern that ventilators are causing more problems than they are solving based on the terrible survival rates of those that are “ventilated”. The plot thickens...

Glad to hear Australia is doing well.

Mumbo said...
There is a growing concern that ventilators are causing more problems than they are solving based on the terrible survival rates of those that are “ventilated”. The plot thickens...

That is interesting indeed. The only thing is, something they will have to adjust for: by definition, whoever they have to intubate and place on a ventilator is allready in much worse condition than the person who does not need that. Most probably, this would be a person that they were afraid was going to die unless they did intubate them. So, that group would be prone to much worse outcomes either way. But hopefully they can figure it out.

It might be interesting to ask how the virus situation has affected our daily lives, aside from the obvious (being shut ins).

For me, i sit here, in Florida where i spend winters, when i should have been back home in NYC 3 weeks ago. Aside from missing medical appointments, onco follow ups for both my wife and I, I miss my kids terribly. Even if i was in back in NY, i probably couldn't hug or even see them for now, but i'd feel better being in closer proximity. Maks nosense but it is what it is
The toughest part is missing my grandson, who turns 1 year on May 5th. I haven't seen him since early February when i went up north for a weekend, specifically to see him. He's growing so fast, we facetime but its not the same, and i feel like i am missing so much. I feel like i'm being robbed of that. But we are all being robbed in one way or another, and as sad as it is to say, as long as the above are my biggest problems
through this crapshow, i'm one of the lucky ones.
I was doing ok mentally, but for whatever reason, the last few days it has gotten to me.

Anyway, lets all hope this sh!tshow ends sooner than the experts seem to expect it to.

Well, last night I was watching World on Fire on PBS. And I got to remind myself once again about how lucky I am to have not been living in Poland during the Blitzkrieg and surprise invasion by the ****s ( HA! I knew that word I was taught in junior high history class would be censored, LOL! ) in Sept, 1939. I'm thinking that really put a kink in every one's normal routine. So I have won the lottery to have missed that one. This one has kind of sucked, but compared to so many things that happen, not too bad, SO FAR. Of course, the economic ramifications might still be ahead of us, and that could be really bad for a lot of people, world wide. But still beats waking up to the Blitzkrieg and all that followed it, I try to remember. Try.

In the mean time, I have been doing a lot of pressure washing, and TV watching.

Post Edited (BillyBob@388) : 4/16/2020 7:53:52 PM (GMT-6)

My flip phone expired yesterday so I fired up my new iphone with Consumers Cellular and got the AARP discount for the base plan. I hope to be texting my son, DIL and friends as I have not seen them in a while. Also have never sent a text. (I am pc based)

Downloaded plans and fabricated a mask 2 days ago (my 1919 Singer portable still works quite well!) so I could wear it at the grocery stores yesterday, along with my disposable gloves. Only 1 in 10 shoppers didn't have one on. Most of the clientele were hired shoppers with clipboards and multiple carts. (for some reason none of them wore a mask???). I wrote down my selections on paper before I left home so I could show those to the appropriate counter persons. Last week I was able to score a 12 pack of TP.....good thing as there were only single rolls this week and a limit of 1 per customer. No floss at all. I have never had a problem getting disposable rubber gloves, now that is an issue. Guess I could always pick them up off the ground in the parking lot. (*rolls eyes*)

I am still puzzling over how folks would think that getting real close in crowds, waving off-topic signs and AR-15s while blocking ambulances from getting patients to hospital is somehow going to help us all get through this mess. (I like the 'zombie' pix from Ohio.) I have been encountering an increasing number of large, belligerent men out on the big trails looking for a fight (seriously!) and failing to exercise 'social distancing'. They are obvious trail newb's who likely are out there because they are not at work. I suspect that some wives have kicked them out the house (go walk the dog and let me do this stuff!) I have been called more names in the last week than I have in the last year. Gratefully there has been no follow through from any of these idiots yet.

The back country trails have an increasing number of newb's as well - absolutely no clue at all. The difference is that the local river has killed a few idiots in the last few years and they do not know how to pass another person on the trail (trail etiquette). All of us regulars are getting a bit tired of them, as a group.

It is really odd to have to suit up to check my PO box or go to the grocery store. My customers are all laying low, work is frozen, finished work is sitting on my bench, no phone calls (from real people) or emails. A bit more traffic on my web site though.

Most of our investments are on the stock market..........*sighs deeply*

Change of lifestyle since covid lockdown, not a lot of fun when you are used to getting out on the local trails for hours every day and all of the local parks are closed. Plenty of places up higher but unless you are willing to wear mini crampons because of the freeze thaw in the snow, its not fun. My wife and I have been doing more road riding since MTB trails are either closed or limited by snow. Went for a nice hilly 60 mile ride the other day, the longest yet. There is a small 300 ft hill behind our house with lots of trees and trails which if you are creative can hike for 2 hours but that gets pretty stale after awhile.

We live in a health region with 750,000 people and an area a little bigger than Idaho. 146 cases so far with 1 death(just a few days ago). Lots of old people, me included. Businesses are practicing safe customer practices and social distancing is going well. In our housing area which is a small subdivision 15 minutes to the ski hill high above the valley with good views of the snowy mountains, although we have only been in our house for a year, have never seen so many people walking the sidewalks. Nice to see so many folks out.

Just bought a good digital piano( sold my acoustic one last year) so during these stay at home more often times, I will get back to tinkling the ivories.

My wife does the shopping early once a week(seniors hour) which lets me off the hook.

Life is good, health is good, frisky is good, summer Europe plans still on hold, investments are crape.

Off for a 2 hour hike/jog with poles.

Dave

An38 said...
What strikes me about the epidemic is how people find it so hard to internalise how something happening so far away could also happen to them. Maybe the distancing effect of listening to the news and not believing it’s real - I don’t know.

I live in Australia where the government seems to have got this thing much more under control than we had expected, there is pretty widespread testing (we are asked to get tested at any sign of a sniffle) and yesterday’s new case count countrywide was 46. This has been achieved by draconian restrictions around staying at home and closing borders. There is tentative talk of eradication within Australia, the lockdown has been extended 4 weeks.

My sister runs the infection diseases dept in a teaching hospital in the Bronx and it’s a war zone. Very high death rates in the Bronx and people are dying sad isolated deaths. Four of her colleagues have died. The sorrow of not having enough PPE and not being able to save medical workers who put their lives on the line breaks her heart.

So I am astonished when people in Australia, who are tremendously lucky to be in a situation where there is light at the end of the tunnel see the whole thing as a beat up. They don’t seem to see the linkage between the lockdown and the low numbers of death and new cases. What’s happening in Italy and NY is far away. They minimise the virus as a flu and don’t value the glimmer of hope that a month or two of lockdown may bring the situation under control and bring us back to increasingly normal lives.

I am also astonished by the people online who listen to interviews from doctors on the frontline and call them drama queens and say that there are no overwhelmed hospitals and that no medical people have died. I feel sad that the people who put their lives on the line are treated with such contempt.

These are unusual times and I worry for the world and for the people that cannot see that without getting a handle on this virus economic recovery gains will be fleeting. There is so much suffering both medical and economic and it’s the time to come together as a community and get a good handle on today’s reality.

An

AN -- great post. i know your questions are rhetorical. the covid divide is like global warming and its an election year. sad but true.

"I am also astonished by the people online who listen to interviews from doctors on the frontline and call them drama queens and say that there are no overwhelmed hospitals and that no medical people have died. I feel sad that the people who put their lives on the line are treated with such contempt."

I feel the same, it makes my blood boil to be honest. I won't ever forget those who've played this pandemic down. After this is over, there will be a reckoning. No person, or business, that downplayed will ever get anything but scorn from me.

Let's hope this is wrong: Don't count on a COVID-19 vaccine for at least 5 years, says AI-based forecast https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/don-t-count-a-covid-19-vaccine-for-at-least-five-years-says-ai-based-forecast