(COVID/ETC CONTENT HERE) China Locks Down 11 Million in Wuhan,

Our church is closed with services online. All clergy and staff are working from home.

Originally Posted by thopkins22

I don’t know of a single church open that isn’t run by Jerry Falwell Jr. or some other extremist. I grew up between Presbyterian and Episcopalian churches and they are ALL closed and broadcasting services on Zoom, YouTube, or in one case radio.

Having faith doesn’t mean you need to disregard science, and I wouldn’t attend a church that asked that of me even in times where there was no pandemic.

Even the hyper conservative Baptist churches here in Houston are closed and broadcasting online as they should be.

I would be interested in learning if the witnesses or Christian Scientists are out there going to church...I bet they are and I’ll bite my tongue on what I think of them.

Thanx for weighing in. I think the church I saw emptying out yesterday was Baptist, but not 100% sure. Will take a closer look next time I drive by. I suspect it's a small % that would continue to have services, but per link and such, some are pretty big and that's potentially thousands of new cases easily avoided. Not sure where the issue of religious freedoms and public safety meets/balances on that one. What could - or should be - done about a large church like an FL "mega" church that does not stop services during this time?

As for the SC types, my grandmother was advised she didn't need her BP meds, and had a stroke and died not long after that by people from CS. There was discussions of lawsuits and such at the time, but damn near impossible to win such a case and it was of her own free will she listened to them on that matter, and paid the price for it.

Originally Posted by glocktogo

The media did and some of them still do.

The media believes they are hurting Trump when vomiting Chinese propaganda they are getting spoon fed. Not that they'd ever admit it.

And the plot thickens:

Suspected SARS virus and flu samples found in luggage: FBI report describes China's 'biosecurity risk

WASHINGTON — In late November 2018, just over a year before the first coronavirus case was identified in Wuhan, China, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at Detroit Metro Airport stopped a Chinese biologist with three vials labeled “Antibodies” in his luggage.

The biologist told the agents that a colleague in China had asked him to deliver the vials to a researcher at a U.S. institute. After examining the vials, however, customs agents came to an alarming conclusion.

“Inspection of the writing on the vials and the stated recipient led inspection personnel to believe the materials contained within the vials may be viable Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) materials,” says an unclassified FBI tactical intelligence report obtained by Yahoo News.

The report, written by the Chemical and Biological Intelligence Unit of the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate (WMDD), does not give the name of the Chinese scientist carrying the suspected SARS and MERS samples, or the intended recipient in the U.S. But the FBI concluded that the incident, and two other cases cited in the report, were part of an alarming pattern.

https://news.yahoo.com/suspected-sar...144526820.html

Originally Posted by Grand58742

Did anyone ever truly believe the Chinese were telling the truth?

Unfortunately some people in our society did and still do.

For those of you in horror about the prospect of “people not being saved” and angry over people apathetic about the possible deaths of people already very sick, very old, etc. here is an older article.
In the past eight years it has become even more applicable. In the past eight weeks even more so.

THE VAULT
How Doctors Die
Aug 6, 2012• 446
By Ken Murray, MD


Years ago, Charlie, a highly respected orthopedist and a mentor of mine, found a lump in his stomach. He had a surgeon explore the area, and the diagnosis was pancreatic cancer. This surgeon was one of the best in the country. He had even invented a new procedure for this exact cancer that could triple a patient’s five-year-survival odds—from 5 percent to 15 percent—albeit with a poor quality of life. Charlie was uninterested. He went home the next day, closed his practice, and never set foot in a hospital again. He focused on spending time with family and feeling as good as possible. Several months later, he died at home. He got no chemotherapy, radiation, or surgical treatment. Medicare didn’t spend much on him.

It’s not a frequent topic of discussion, but doctors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little. For all the time they spend fending off the deaths of others, they tend to be fairly serene when faced with death themselves. They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care they could want. But they go gently.

Of course, doctors don’t want to die; they want to live. But they know enough about modern medicine to know its limits. And they know enough about death to know what all people fear most: dying in pain, and dying alone. They’ve talked about this with their families. They want to be sure, when the time comes, that no heroic measures will happen—that they will never experience, during their last moments on earth, someone breaking their ribs in an attempt to resuscitate them with CPR (that’s what happens if CPR is done right).

Almost all medical professionals have seen what we call “futile care” being performed on people. That’s when doctors bring the cutting edge of technology to bear on a grievously ill person near the end of life. The patient will get cut open, perforated with tubes, hooked up to machines, and assaulted with drugs. All of this occurs in the Intensive Care Unit at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars a day. What it buys is misery we would not inflict on a terrorist. I cannot count the number of times fellow physicians have told me, in words that vary only slightly, “Promise me if you find me like this that you’ll kill me.” They mean it. Some medical personnel wear medallions stamped “NO CODE” to tell physicians not to perform CPR on them. I have even seen it as a tattoo.

To administer medical care that makes people suffer is anguishing. Physicians are trained to gather information without revealing any of their own feelings, but in private, among fellow doctors, they’ll vent. “How can anyone do that to their family members?” they’ll ask. I suspect it’s one reason physicians have higher rates of alcohol abuse and depression than professionals in most other fields. I know it’s one reason I stopped participating in hospital care for the last 10 years of my practice.

How has it come to this—that doctors administer so much care that they wouldn’t want for themselves? The simple, or not-so-simple, answer is this: patients, doctors, and the system.

To see how patients play a role, imagine a scenario in which someone has lost consciousness and been admitted to an emergency room. As is so often the case, no one has made a plan for this situation, and shocked and scared family members find themselves caught up in a maze of choices. They’re overwhelmed. When doctors ask if they want “everything” done, they answer yes. Then the nightmare begins. Sometimes, a family really means “do everything,” but often they just mean “do everything that’s reasonable.” The problem is that they may not know what’s reasonable, nor, in their confusion and sorrow, will they ask about it or hear what a physician may be telling them. For their part, doctors told to do “everything” will do it, whether it is reasonable or not.

The above scenario is a common one. Feeding into the problem are unrealistic expectations of what doctors can accomplish. Many people think of CPR as a reliable lifesaver when, in fact, the results are usually poor. I’ve had hundreds of people brought to me in the emergency room after getting CPR. Exactly one, a healthy man who’d had no heart troubles (for those who want specifics, he had a “tension pneumothorax”), walked out of the hospital. If a patient suffers from severe illness, old age, or a terminal disease, the odds of a good outcome from CPR are infinitesimal, while the odds of suffering are overwhelming. Poor knowledge and misguided expectations lead to a lot of bad decisions.

But of course it’s not just patients making these things happen. Doctors play an enabling role, too. The trouble is that even doctors who hate to administer futile care must find a way to address the wishes of patients and families. Imagine, once again, the emergency room with those grieving, possibly hysterical, family members. They do not know the doctor. Establishing trust and confidence under such circumstances is a very delicate thing. People are prepared to think the doctor is acting out of base motives, trying to save time, or money, or effort, especially if the doctor is advising against further treatment.

Some doctors are stronger communicators than others, and some doctors are more adamant, but the pressures they all face are similar. When I faced circumstances involving end-of-life choices, I adopted the approach of laying out only the options that I thought were reasonable (as I would in any situation) as early in the process as possible. When patients or families brought up unreasonable choices, I would discuss the issue in layman’s terms that portrayed the downsides clearly. If patients or families still insisted on treatments I considered pointless or harmful, I would offer to transfer their care to another doctor or hospital.

Should I have been more forceful at times? I know that some of those transfers still haunt me. One of the patients of whom I was most fond was an attorney from a famous political family. She had severe diabetes and terrible circulation, and, at one point, she developed a painful sore on her foot. Knowing the hazards of hospitals, I did everything I could to keep her from resorting to surgery. Still, she sought out outside experts with whom I had no relationship. Not knowing as much about her as I did, they decided to perform bypass surgery on her chronically clogged blood vessels in both legs. This didn’t restore her circulation, and the surgical wounds wouldn’t heal. Her feet became gangrenous, and she endured bilateral leg amputations. Two weeks later, in the famous medical center in which all this had occurred, she died.

It’s easy to find fault with both doctors and patients in such stories, but in many ways all the parties are simply victims of a larger system that encourages excessive treatment. In some unfortunate cases, doctors use the fee-for-service model to do everything they can, no matter how pointless, to make money. More commonly, though, doctors are fearful of litigation and do whatever they’re asked, with little feedback, to avoid getting in trouble.

Even when the right preparations have been made, the system can still swallow people up. One of my patients was a man named Jack, a 78-year-old who had been ill for years and undergone about 15 major surgical procedures. He explained to me that he never, under any circumstances, wanted to be placed on life support machines again. One Saturday, however, Jack suffered a massive stroke and got admitted to the emergency room unconscious, without his wife. Doctors did everything possible to resuscitate him and put him on life support in the ICU. This was Jack’s worst nightmare. When I arrived at the hospital and took over Jack’s care, I spoke to his wife and to hospital staff, bringing in my office notes with his care preferences. Then I turned off the life support machines and sat with him. He died two hours later.

Even with all his wishes documented, Jack hadn’t died as he’d hoped. The system had intervened. One of the nurses, I later found out, even reported my unplugging of Jack to the authorities as a possible homicide. Nothing came of it, of course; Jack’s wishes had been spelled out explicitly, and he’d left the paperwork to prove it. But the prospect of a police investigation is terrifying for any physician. I could far more easily have left Jack on life support against his stated wishes, prolonging his life, and his suffering, a few more weeks. I would even have made a little more money, and Medicare would have ended up with an additional $500,000 bill. It’s no wonder many doctors err on the side of overtreatment.

But doctors still don’t over-treat themselves. They see the consequences of this constantly. Almost anyone can find a way to die in peace at home, and pain can be managed better than ever. Hospice care, which focuses on providing terminally ill patients with comfort and dignity rather than on futile cures, provides most people with much better final days. Amazingly, studies have found that people placed in hospice care often live longer than people with the same disease who are seeking active cures. I was struck to hear on the radio recently that the famous reporter Tom Wicker had “died peacefully at home, surrounded by his family.” Such stories are, thankfully, increasingly common.

Several years ago, my older cousin Torch (born at home by the light of a flashlight—or torch) had a seizure that turned out to be the result of lung cancer that had gone to his brain. I arranged for him to see various specialists, and we learned that with aggressive treatment of his condition, including three to five hospital visits a week for chemotherapy, he would live perhaps four months. Ultimately, Torch decided against any treatment and simply took pills for brain swelling. He moved in with me.

We spent the next eight months doing a bunch of things that he enjoyed, having fun together like we hadn’t had in decades. We went to Disneyland, his first time. We’d hang out at home. Torch was a sports nut, and he was very happy to watch sports and eat my cooking. He even gained a bit of weight, eating his favorite foods rather than hospital foods. He had no serious pain, and he remained high-spirited. One day, he didn’t wake up. He spent the next three days in a coma-like sleep and then died. The cost of his medical care for those eight months, for the one drug he was taking, was about $20.

Torch was no doctor, but he knew he wanted a life of quality, not just quantity. Don’t most of us? If there is a state of the art of end-of-life care, it is this: death with dignity. As for me, my physician has my choices. They were easy to make, as they are for most physicians. There will be no heroics, and I will go gentle into that good night. Like my mentor Charlie. Like my cousin Torch. Like my fellow doctors.

Ken Murray, MD, is Clinical Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at USC. This post was originally published at Zócalo Public Square, a non-profit ideas exchange that blends live events and humanities journalism.

Some things just don't age well...even a week and a half later.

https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/...-their-arrival

You have to wonder why people watch Rachel Maddow’s show on MSNBC.

“In terms of the happy talk we've had on this front from the federal government, there is no sign that the Navy hospital ships that the president made such a big deal of, the Comfort and the Mercy, there`s no sign that they`ll be anywhere on-site helping out anywhere in the country for weeks yet. The president said when he announced that those ships would be put into action against the COVID-19 epidemic. He said one of those ships would be operational in New York harbor by next week. That`s nonsense. It will not be there next week.”

According to the transcript, she continues to make the claim later in the show.

President Trump announced this week that the navy was sending two medical ships, one to New York City, one to the West Coast to help treat patients. He said the ships would be launched over the next week or so depending on need. Wrong. That was also wrong as NBC`s Courtney Kube puts it. Quote, it`s anybody`s guess when those ships will come in. One of those ships is currently undergoing maintenance. It has no medical personnel on board. The other one is also undergoing maintenance and it lacks a medical crew all together. Remember the president said it will be there next week. It won`t be there next week.

Ramairthree, great post.

I wish more families were better at respecting their loved ones wishes.

Originally Posted by 1168

Ramairthree, great post.

I wish more families were better at respecting their loved ones wishes.

True, even when it is a a hard thing to do. My FIL was diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer and liver cancer. Prognosis with chemotherapy would not guarantee but maybe a few extra weeks of life, but no quality of life. He chose to spend his last few weeks at home with his family. I spent the last 4 days of his life with him doing my best to keep him comfortable. It was a difficult thing to do and watch but it is what he wanted and I completely respected that. If it ever comes down to it I hope I have the same courage.

S. Korea. For those following the science, nothing new per se, but interesting to get the S Korean med POV.

Why have they had so few cases and deaths? Here's their head Covid expert discussing the topic, and it's well worth the watch. That people may re catch it is scary to be sure. He does not seem to put much stock the airborne route it appears, and the 6' rule applies well, so really a concern where there's people in enclosed spaces too dang close to each other, but not outdoors.

Note in the US, masks are a big debate, this doc says they're absolutely of value (min 16) and he's giving the real reasons why the US, WHO, etc does not recommend them: fear of hording masks making them scarce for medical professionals. That's a legit concern, but telling people masks don't work only makes them lose faith in other recs...

Very telling, doc thinks a key reason S Korea has much fewer cases of this virus is due to the fact most Koreans where masks.

Note, they actually learned something from the last few viral outbreaks and actually (wait for it!) were pro active about how to be prepared for the next outbreak. What a crazy idea no?! That's sarcasm all. There's reasons the US may not be able to replicate the S Koreans being different countries in size, demographics, culture, etc, , but the US et al should probably view the S Korean approach as the model to aim for as best we can. Not sure that self quarantine tracking app would go over too well in the US however, we 'Muricans are very sensitive about that type of thing. According to the doc, China is controlling it well but many, yours truly included, would prefer to take our chances with Covid 19 and dangerous Liberty over being "saved" by draconian approaches employed by that, or any other, communist government. Doc refers to it as a "cultural difference" but ya, no. That's a "culture" you can have.

Best case? If the world actually works together, July/Aug we may have this under solid control, if we don't, it will be back around typical flu season and be added to the other viruses we have to deal with, unless a vaccine is developed. Remember, only about 50% of people in the US get their flu shot cuz they're watching too much Infowars and other crap vs using their brains and such. Even if one is developed, will be used for those at high risk for a long time.