Covid 19 Sci/med discussions only

[ramairthree]

I don't like it but if it was an Italy-type situation you do what you have to do. I do not think it should apply in pre or post emergent society.

As a taxpayer I end up contributing $$$ for a LOT of stuff I wouldn't if given my druthers, as do you. You are also aware that we don't live in a "perfect" world. As long as I (and all of us) have to shell out tax funds for Shaniqua in the 'hood or Methie Sue in the trailer park I'd be okay with a terminal patient who discovers at the last minute he's afraid to die being put on a vent. Wanna take that choice away with a "Death Panel" checklist? Better damn sure start with yanking Shaniqua's and Methie Sue's cornucopia of government bennies. But we all know that'll never happen so it is what it is.

I have seen patients themselves revoke DNR orders. It more often than not is the family doing it, but sometimes the patient does it. Who am I to second-guess those on Death's doorstep, especially since it their ass on the line and not mine. Always easy to do until it's you on the precipice (not you specifically, trying to choose words carefully to not get threads locked). A mile in someone else's shoes, yada yada.

You and I agree that if it is a SHTF situation you triage accordingly. I just do not feel it should be standard, non-emergent medical policy. Someone who "checks boxes" may not mean squat to many people, but they do to someone else and surely themselves, and we don't live in Zimbabwe.....resources are aplenty in the richest nation on this planet.

I am fully on board with freedom and letting the patients and family choose. Concept wise. Just like I am all for people choosing to drive a 300K car, wear a rare vintage 50K Seadweller variant, and live in a 2 Million dollar mansion instead of driving a 30K car, wearing a $50 Casio, and living in a 200K home. The difference is, neither I nor my fellow taxpayers are expected to pay for that fancy car, house, and watch. Which have a similar total to futile, end of life care expenditures.

When you add up non actual service related expenditures, self inflicted SSDI, Medicaid, end of life, etc. we approach about two trillion a year in the USA. Literally half the annual budget.

We don’t really have those resources. We just deficit spend like we do. I am of the opinion one human being does not have the right to demand another must take on the burden of caring for them unless they want to. Others have a different opinion. Our current political system has about half of the population bearing their own expenses plus the expenses of the other half of the population. Millions more people were just introduced to the concept they might be better off to sit home and get money from the government. My opinion does not matter. This does not trend well.

Part of the issue with the Doomer position vs the Flubro position is they each think the other side are idiots. There are smart people and geniuses on both sides, Just like the moderates, which I consider myself, have both idiots and geniuses. And booth Doomer and Flubros think all the moderates are idiots.

I am by objective measures a 99.6th to 99.99th percentile guy smarts wise. A friend that is a 99.9999th percentile type smart guy with a similar applicable background and education came up with a similar model as mine. With nothing done potentially 200K deaths in the first six months and 400k a year into it. Virtually all the same people that were already going to die this year and next year. With plenty of resources for outliers if we stopped trying to stop the inevitable. Without potentially crippling our emergency and critical care system by repeated high risk codes with potential massive viral loads. Without destroying millions of jobs, retirements, and businesses. My opinion was it was not worth it. His was it is.
We don’t hate each other and are not calling each other idiots.
The averting and delaying of death even transiently he holds as the highest virtue and goal despite all practicality, no matter how miserable or short it is. And he feels bad for the adverse effects this has for millions of others.
I feel bad some 99 year old with pneumonia, a 95 year old with a massive stroke, a 50 year old end stage ALS hospice patient, or a 40 with a ton of medical problems dies, but don’t feel buying them a few more weeks or months should bring real hardship to lots of other people.

[ramairthree]

So how does this corona virus ever end? Supposedly patient zero spread it right? So as long as there is one single person that has it does it just continue to spread? Forever?

That is a possibility.

[ramairthree]

They have much higher rates of all the known co morbidity to complications with covid, so none of it is really unexpected here. Whether there's also some genetic race component, has yet to be determined, but if it exists at all, my WAG is the effect is minimal at best. Diseases unique to African Americans, such as sickle cell may be an example of a African American specific example of a co morbidity, but I don't know what exists for evidence on that one.

Medical problems are brutally politically incorrect.
It’s not impossible there are some genetically distinct population issues.
Many others exist.
But the rate of significant comorbidites is a major factor.
If 13% of the population accounts for 40% of the dialysis patients, 40% of the HIV patients, 25% of the heart attacks, twice as many strokes, more diabetes, etc., The hand has been dealt.

[VARIABLE9]

That is a possibility.

I logged in today just for such an uplifting message.

[ramairthree]

I logged in today just for such an uplifting message.

Overall, with regards to the virus itself, the message is uplifting.

Expecting this to have been something that was going to disappear in a few weeks, have a vaccine in a month, or some magic antidote/treatment -no matter how many people thought so- was never a realistic concept. You can check the closed threads where I am on record over a month ago.

If the virus was truly off the charts severe, it would have been a much more pronounced burning through of vulnerable populations with crowds dropping as the pale horse passed. It was spun up like this, but it was not really doing this.

We are at about 50k deaths.
Illinois, Indiana, NYC and likely others are listed any COVID + death as a COVID death. People with end stage terminal issues about to die. And also calling non tested but symptoms that could possibly be COVID as counted.

The uplifting message should be,
Out of millions of people exposed to and infected with COVID,
In a country that would have expected about 250K deaths a month this year anyway,
We have racked up 50K deaths attributed to COVID, even if they were about to die from something else or were not even tested.

When all is said and done, this virus was potentially worse than a bad flu season bad, and poised to kill a few hundred thousand people already on the schedule a few months later, some outliers we could have focused resources on, and a hit we needed to take and get it over with. Not the big one that was going to rip through and kill ten or thirty million people indiscriminately. As the weeks have gone by, it keeps bearing this out.

More people that had years of life left in them have probably died at home with heart attacks or other issues because they were afraid to go to the hospital and get the virus, have had biopsies and other things delayed for months and will be too late to address, and will be committing suicide over issues caused by our response to the virus.


So it’s a mixed bag.

There was some probing fire.
Then there were a couple of sappers in the wire.
Someone said the Mongolian horde was about to come over the hill.

Everyone got all spun up over a Mongolian horde and demanded to hole up and call in danger close CAS followed by danger close arty.
Nobody wanted to listen that, OK, it’s not just probing fire, there are a couple of sappers in the wire and we needed to blow a few claymores then repair the damaged section of wire.
Blowing a couple of claymores and having to deal with a section of damaged wire was too much to ask, not when we could hole up and call in danger close fire on a Mongolian horde.

So now the whole camp, wire, and bunkers are far more collateral damage for a non existent Mongolian horde than being a little more focused on the sappers would have been.

[jsbhike]

Not purely sci/med, but this does seem pertinent.

https://www.zerohedge.com/health/twi...at-coronavirus

[titsonritz]

While these docs should not be viewed as authorities on the topic per se, some docs are starting to strongly push back on the lock downs:

Here is the full version. I have seen several other link to this video deleted by Youtube. If you have not seen it I suggest watching it quick before Big Brother deletes this too.

[ZGXtreme]

Well worth watching before it disappears.

[WillBrink]

Here is the full version. I have seen several other link to this video deleted by Youtube. If you have not seen it I suggest watching it quick before Big Brother deletes this too.

That YT would be removing a vid from qualified people who have a different view using the data that exists is irresponsible too. That's very different than some conspiracy wack job ranting about hoe the virus was created by Gates and the illumanate to control the population, yada yada. This is discourse by med pros and they have every right and reason to be heard. Some of what they say may not be 100% accurate, but censorship of this is bad science. They are getting some kickbck as expected:

https://calmatters.org/health/2020/0...d-conclusions/

[chuckman]

Our institution's Big Hat ID doc Cameron Wolfe is not a doomsdayer or alarmist, and his (with our internal epidemiologists) models have been the most accurate for my area. So I take what he says with a high degree of fidelity. On young people getting it, he is seeing a lot of young people with clotting disorders. He does not know if these disorders will be time-limited, or part of their life. But they are bad enough whereby these folks get exertional SOB. He also thinks until there is a vaccine, which won't be anytime soon, we will continue to see variations of social distancing and a resurgence of COVID. He thinks this is a long-haul scenario and we'll be dealing with it for many months.