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10 Jun 2020, 11:50 pm

What about this?
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/facemask ... b09fc4e9fc
Personally I'm mor than OK to wearing mask and keep the social distancing.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/police-m ... debfdd565b
That's a nother interesting question



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11 Jun 2020, 12:31 am

wow. i haven't seen one of those purple inhalers in a long time. not since i was a kid and used it for...something

anyway i am perfectly fine with mask wearing now, it's gonna be weird seeing the bottom of people's faces again.

IsabellaLinton wrote:
kraftiekortie wrote:
Greta had a relatively mild case.


She was never even tested.

I don't think she had it at all.


what tipped you off :lol:

i think i had it in late april, and we probably all did. even you reading this.


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11 Jun 2020, 2:43 am

jimmy m wrote:
[
Image

This is a photo of Adair, which I used to treat my Asthma. It is an example of this type of dry powder inhaler delivery system.

Source: Will Inhaled Remdesivir Make You Breathe Easy? Maybe


It's the same inhaler delivery system for most asthma prophylactics, I use the same device for dispensing 250mg dose of Serotide



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11 Jun 2020, 3:21 am

Coronavirus is making a comeback in Arizona three weeks after governor lifted stay-at-home order

Quote:
hree weeks after Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey lifted his stay-at-home order, the state has seen a big spike in the number of coronavirus cases.

With nearly 1,100 dead and hospitalizations spiking rapidly, lawmakers and medical professionals are warning there might not be enough emergency room beds to handle what could be a big influx of new cases.

More than 1,500 new cases were reported along with 25 new deaths in the past 24 hours, officials said.

While Ducey has insisted this “is not a crisis situation” and suggested the rise in the number of cases is due to an increase in testing, critics say otherwise and accuse the Republican governor of setting a bad example by not wearing a mask while out in public.

They say that Arizona residents, who initially took the coronavirus threat seriously, have grown lax about social distancing and face coverings, and that the result is a rise in new cases.

“Arizona is not ready for this,” said State Rep. Kelli Butler, the Democrats’ ranking member of the state’s House Health Committee. “Our hospitals are sounding the alarm. We’re hearing that the hospitals lack the ICU capacity needed to deal with this and key equipment needed to treat people.”

Marcy Flanagan, director of the Maricopa County Department of Public Health, echoed Butler’s concern during a press conference last week.

“We’re starting to see some indicators that the number of COVID-19 cases is increasing in Maricopa County and we have enough information to know these increases are not due to just an increase in testing that is occurring,” said Flanagan, whose county includes Phoenix, the fifth most populous city in the country.

During a June 4 press conference, Ducey was asked why Arizona was not making changes as the coronavirus case numbers were rising in the state.

"We are not in a crisis situation,” he said. “If that were to happen, we have available field hospital capacity ... if something were to go in a dramatically elevated position, we'd be prepared in Arizona."

Ducey's spokesman, Patrick Ptak, said Wednesday they had been anticipating "increased cases in June based on various modeling."

“Alternate care sites are ready for activation if and when we need additional capacity, something that is not necessary at this time," he said. "We've continued to focus on protecting our most vulnerable, including those in nursing homes and long-term care settings.”

Three days ago, though, state Department of Health Director Dr. Cara Christ sent out a letter telling hospitals to prepare for crisis care and to suspend elective surgeries if they start running short of beds. She cited an executive order from Ducey that calls for adding hospital beds first by 25 percent, then by 50 percent.

To date, some 500 patients have already been transferred out of hospitals likeliest to see the biggest influx of coronavirus patients and the state has set up a “surge line” to help balance the patient load at hospitals around the state, state Health Department spokesman Chris Minnick said.

Already, 11 Arizona hospitals have hit ICU capacity, Ann-Marie Alameddin, the president of the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association, said.

“Three weeks ago, the stay-at-home order was lifted and since then, if you look at the streets of Arizona, people are conducting themselves as business-as-usual at times,” she said. “They are not taking the precautions that we are, being socially distanced, wearing masks, making sure they are staying at home when they are sick.”

The result?

“Correspondingly, we’ve seen an increase in cases,” Alameddin said. “We are concerned that this will be an increasing trend in the wrong direction, so we need to make sure Arizonans are doing everything that they can to stop the spread and really mitigate what’s going on in our communities.”

Arizona can do it, she added.

“We flattened the curve and we can do it again,” she said.

Meanwhile, Banner Health, the state’s largest hospital provider, has quadrupled its ventilator use for COVID-19 patients since the state ended its stay-at-home policy May 15.

The rise in coronavirus cases comes as thousands of Arizonans shed their COVID-19 concerns and took part in massive George Floyd protests against police violence where there was virtually no social distancing.

But even before that, Arizona residents had largely abandoned their masks and stopped social distancing, setting the stage for a resurgence of the deadly virus.

“Everywhere you go, people are not wearing masks, not social distancing,” Butler said. “Over Memorial Day, we saw packed bars, packed resorts. People were not taking this seriously.”

And neither is the governor, she added.

“His social media is full of pictures of him meeting people without masks, without social distancing,” Butler said. “I do think that message has to come from the top. And it’s not.”


Texas Shatters Record For New Coronavirus Cases
Quote:
Texas reported over 2,500 new coronavirus cases Wednesday—the highest reported in a single day by far since the pandemic started—as the number of Texans currently admitted to hospitals for coronavirus climbed to a new record for the third straight day, as the state, which had one of the fastest and most aggressive reopening timelines in the nation, has seen a surge in infections about two weeks after Memorial Day.

The 2,504 cases reported by the Texas Department of Health Wednesday is more than 28% higher than any other day since the pandemic began, far surpassing the old record of 1,949 on May 31.

According to the Texas Department of Health, there were 2,153 patients hospitalized with coronavirus on Wednesday, surpassing records set each of the past two days and well ahead of the old record of 1,888 recorded on May 5.

The positive test rate, which state officials have used as a key figure in moving forward with reopening, has also gradually risen over the past two weeks.

The 7-day average for tests coming back positive reached its highest rate since mid-April this week, and is now above 6%—a threshold public health officials there have said they’d like the state to remain below.

Texas entered Phase 3 of its reopening last week, and restaurants will be able to operate at 75% capacity starting Friday, as the state continues its aggressive reopening while seeming to ignore White House guidance that says states need to see a downward trend either in new cases or the infection rate to move forward with reopening efforts.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has said several times in the past that the state should expect to see an increase in infections as testing ramps up, but that would not explain why there’s been a rise in hospitalizations or the percentage of tests coming back positive.

CRITICAL QUOTE
"In terms of new infections, we are seeing a surge ... in part attributed to activities surrounding Memorial Day weekend, such as gatherings where protective behaviors may have been lax,” Rebecca Fischer, an epidemiologist at the Texas A&M School of Public Health, told the Texas Tribune.

Abbott has said in the past that if the state appeared to be going in the wrong direction, there might be some delay to reopenings, but that doesn’t seem to be the case so far with the rise in hospitalizations. A spokesman for the governor told the Texas Tribune that the state is far from a health capacity crisis, saying “every Texan who needs access to a hospital bed will have access to a hospital bed."

New cases in the state have gone up sharply, though, with the 7-day average for new cases rising from under 1,000 new cases reported per day in late May to now over 1,500 cases per day. The number of deaths from coronavirus in the state has been relatively stable since mid-May, staying in the low- to mid-20s per day.

BIG NUMBER
42%—That’s about how much hospitalizations have increased in Texas since Memorial Day.


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11 Jun 2020, 10:55 am




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11 Jun 2020, 11:32 am

All the new cases may not be so bad right now if the infrastructure can handle them and protocols are in place to prevent exponential growth. It is unfortunate that people are still dying and suffering possibly permanent disability but there is only so much the government can do. Doctors may be able to test new treatments with these patients.



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11 Jun 2020, 11:43 am

SYMPTOMS CLUE TO SEVERITY

Doctors in South Korea have determined several predictors of severe disease in hospitalized coronavirus patients, according to a recent study.

The study, published on June 2 in the Journal of Korean Medical Science, concluded that diabetes, body temperature over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, cardiac injury and lower oxygen saturation at admission were prognostic factors for severe cases of COVID-19.

Source: South Korea study finds coronavirus risk factors for severe disease

Everyone should have a pulse oximeter at home to allow you to track and measure your oxygen saturation level.


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11 Jun 2020, 12:15 pm

jimmy m wrote:
Everyone should have a pulse oximeter at home to allow you to track and measure your oxygen saturation level.
I can see the need if you have risk factors or socialize with appropriate social distancing, but I don't see the need for an Aspie that lives alone, works from home, and only goes out to buy groceries. Stores around here are pretty empty if you go when they first open to non-seniors. Doctor and dentist visits are likey to be low risk as well.



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11 Jun 2020, 3:52 pm

jimmy m wrote:
Boy, that was quick!

A few minutes ago I quoted a WHO official that said asymptomatic transmissions were "very rare". Now that official is walking back her statements.

A World Health Organization [WHO] official on Tuesday attempted to clarify a previous statement about coronavirus transmission by asymptomatic individuals being “very rare.” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO infectious disease epidemiologist, said there had been "misunderstandings" about her comments made on Monday.

"In that I used the phrase 'very rare,' and I think that's a misunderstanding to state that asymptomatic transmission globally is very rare," she said. "What I was referring to is a subset of studies." Some modeling groups estimate about 40 percent of virus transmission may be due to asymptomatic people.

Source: CORONAVIRUSPublished 11 mins ago WHO official walks back statement that asymptomatic transmission is 'very rare'



Anthony Fauci slams WHO over coronavirus transmission claim
Quote:
Dr. Anthony Fauci blasted the World Health Organization Wednesday, saying an official at the international health agency was dead wrong when she claimed it was “very rare” for an infected person to transmit the deadly bug to a healthy person.

“What happened the other day is that a member of the WHO was saying that transmission from an asymptomatic person to an infected person was very rare,” Fauci said on “Good Morning America.” “They walked that back because there’s no evidence to indicate that’s the case.”

“And in fact, the evidence that we have, given the percentage of people, which is about 25, 45 percent of the totality of infected people, likely are without symptom,” he said. “And we know from epidemiological studies that they can transmit to someone who is uninfected, even when they’re without symptoms.”

“So, to make a statement, to say that’s a rare event, was not correct, and that’s the reason why the WHO walked that back.”

Fauci, President Trump’s infectious disease expert, told “GMA” that the coronavirus is “a very unusual infection” that remained dangerous as areas around the country and the world begin to ease lockdown restrictions.

“The range of manifestations are extraordinary,” he said. “You can have people who are infected and have no symptoms. You can have people who are infected and have mild symptoms they barely notice. Others have more severe symptoms.”

He said a vaccine for the virus could be available by the end of this year or early next year.


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12 Jun 2020, 8:15 am

CORONAVIRUS FATIGUE

In some parts of the U.S. the coronavirus infections are still going up.

Now in June, cellphone data suggests people are moving around in the U.S. at a level that's roughly 61 percent of what was considered normal behavior before the pandemic.

"It seems that we, the U.S., has given up and accepted this disease as a facet of life," Jeffrey Shaman of the Columbia University School of Public Health told NPR. "It didn't have to be this way, and it still doesn't going forward."

Health officials also fear the nationwide protests that saw thousands of people within close contact of each other could contribute to the spread of COVID-19 -- even if they're wearing masks.

"Masks can help, but it's masks plus physical separation," Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an interview on "Good Morning America" Wednesday. "And when you get congregations like we saw with the demonstrations ... that's taking a risk."

Others worry that after months of quarantine and believing the worst has passed -- fatigue regarding the virus has already set in.

“The worrisome thing for me is that there’s a lot of fatigue in the population overall,” Wafaa El-Sadr, professor of epidemiology at Columbia University, told The Guardian.

“People feel they have done distancing and they are thirsting to get outside and connect with each other. If this surge requires us taking a step back, how do we convince people to do that? I feel we’ve made five steps forward and now maybe one step back.”

Source: Florida, South Carolina coronavirus figures are the states' highest yet for a single day


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12 Jun 2020, 9:28 am

WHAT WILL THE POST-COVID WORLD LOOK LIKE!

I read an interesting article by Alex Berezow this morning that seem fairly spot-on.

As I mentioned previously, I've been marooned in Poland for a few months due to the coronavirus pandemic. Poland, along with several other Eastern European countries, implemented a very severe lockdown. In large part, it's because their healthcare system sucks, they know it, and they didn't want to tempt fate by letting the virus run wild.

As Poles emerge from lockdown, I'm struck by what I observe in the small city in which I currently live: Most people aren't wearing masks, using plastic gloves, or applying hand sanitizer like fiends. Though life certainly isn't back to normal -- economic activity here is way down -- those who have decided to go about their daily lives seem to be behaving normally. The only social distancing I notice is that people tend to stand further apart from each other.

This has made me wonder about our post-COVID world. Media outlets all tell us the same thing: Life will never "go back to normal." This piece in The Atlantic tells us that restaurants will never be the same, full-capacity stadiums are a thing of the past, and there will be no more conferences or parties. If that's what life really will become in the United States, then I'll just stay here in Poland.

My skepticism of these dire predictions comes down to one thing: Human nature. And, for our purposes here, two specific features of human nature are most relevant: (1) We're social animals, and we want to socialize; and (2) We're lazy, and we want to do whatever is easiest or most convenient. Those two facts, far more than the coronavirus, will shape our future. So, here is where I believe our society is headed after the coronavirus:

Restaurants, bars, sporting venues, and other sources of entertainment will go back to normal relatively soon. People like going out to eat or having drinks with friends. Single folks want to mingle. So, this feature of life will return, even though we may see more hand sanitizer stations than usual. And, for a nice change, restaurants will be forced to clean their tables. However, it's not all good news for the entertainment industry. Movie theaters, which were suffering before the pandemic, may be finished. It's easier, cheaper, and more comfortable to watch movies at home.

The "sharing economy" will hurt for a while but will bounce back. How many of you feel like riding a bicycle that some other sweaty dude was just riding a few moments ago? Yeah, I didn't think so. Our collective awareness of germs means that the "sharing economy" -- typified by companies like Uber and Airbnb -- is in trouble in the short term. Longer term, I think the sharing economy will bounce back because, at the end of the day, Uber is cleaner and more convenient than a taxi.

Brick-and-mortar retail is toast. The coronavirus has simply accelerated a pre-existing trend. It's far easier to have Jeff Bezos deliver toilet paper and goat cheese to my doorstep than for me to drag my lazy rear end to Target. COVID-19 may prove to be the coup de grâce for this struggling sector.

More of us will work from home. Having had a taste of the telecommuting life, many employees will demand more of it. And since it's cheaper not to pay for an office, many companies may decide to downsize or forgo them entirely. Now is not a particularly good time to become a commercial real estate agent.

Over the medium- to long-term, people will start moving out of cities again. For several years, people were moving into the downtown area of major cities. The appeal is obvious: Downtowns had been revitalized, there are plenty of things to do, and crucially, jobs were located there. However, that caused a problem: Soaring rents. Now, if people are no longer required to show up to the office, there is far less incentive to live downtown. The large amount of money that would be blown on outrageously high rent could serve as a down payment on a home in the suburbs. So, people will live there instead.

The bottom line is that life mostly will return to normal, especially if and when the virus is "tamed" and becomes just another seasonal virus. The stuff we don't like (e.g., going to the office) will disappear, and we can use the coronavirus and other germs as a convenient scapegoat.

Source: Post-COVID World: What Will Life Be Like After Coronavirus?


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12 Jun 2020, 3:44 pm

A cult has moved to Hawaii and flaunted coronavirus quarantine rules.

The leader of a cult that doesn't believe in wearing clothes or bathing and has been kicked out of multiple countries was arrested along with 20 members in Hawaii this week, according to reports.

Eligio Lee Bishop, leader of the Carbon Nation Cult, and his followers were nabbed on Hawaii’s big island Wednesday and Thursday for violating the state’s emergency orders, Hawaii News Now reported.

Image
In this photo, the cult leader Eligio Lee Bishop also known as 'Nature Boy' is pictured in the center with cult members.

Bishop, who refers to himself as “Christ” and “God," arrived with his followers earlier this month, but ignored the state's 14-day Coronavirus quarantine order. Most of the members are from out of state, but those arrested included a 42-year-old woman who lives on the island where police charged under Hawaii's “prohibited acts emergency management,” the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported.

Bishop and members of the cult have been booted from Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama, according to The Costa Rica Star.

The cult practices nudism and polygamy and does not wash. Bishop’s followers reportedly turn over their bank accounts to him, according to the newspaper.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reports Bishop was a “model, stripper, prostitute and barber” before becoming a cult leader.

Source: Nudist, anti-bathing cult leader and followers arrested for violating Hawaii quarantine rule


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12 Jun 2020, 4:25 pm

Hi um can someone explain to me exactly how to message people in the forums directly or point me to were I can find out? Sometimes i like to get the story straight from people who seem to have an angle on it that I can understand



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12 Jun 2020, 7:10 pm

jimmy m wrote:
CORONAVIRUS FATIGUE

In some parts of the U.S. the coronavirus infections are still going up.

Now in June, cellphone data suggests people are moving around in the U.S. at a level that's roughly 61 percent of what was considered normal behavior before the pandemic.

"It seems that we, the U.S., has given up and accepted this disease as a facet of life," Jeffrey Shaman of the Columbia University School of Public Health told NPR. "It didn't have to be this way, and it still doesn't going forward."

Health officials also fear the nationwide protests that saw thousands of people within close contact of each other could contribute to the spread of COVID-19 -- even if they're wearing masks.

"Masks can help, but it's masks plus physical separation," Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an interview on "Good Morning America" Wednesday. "And when you get congregations like we saw with the demonstrations ... that's taking a risk."

Others worry that after months of quarantine and believing the worst has passed -- fatigue regarding the virus has already set in.

“The worrisome thing for me is that there’s a lot of fatigue in the population overall,” Wafaa El-Sadr, professor of epidemiology at Columbia University, told The Guardian.

“People feel they have done distancing and they are thirsting to get outside and connect with each other. If this surge requires us taking a step back, how do we convince people to do that? I feel we’ve made five steps forward and now maybe one step back.”

Source: Florida, South Carolina coronavirus figures are the states' highest yet for a single day


I agree that is a lot of what is happening. Also a lot of the protesters have stated that the cause is more important then the risk to their health. These people either do not care or did not think about the risk to my and other peoples health who are more at risk then they are.


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13 Jun 2020, 7:41 am

Hokieman7 wrote:
Hi um can someone explain to me exactly how to message people in the forums directly or point me to were I can find out? Sometimes i like to get the story straight from people who seem to have an angle on it that I can understand


Every thread has the Avatar name of the person posting the thread. It is highlighted in blue. [At least I think it is blue - I am color blind.] Click on that and it will pull up the viewing profile for that person. On the page just underneath E-mail address: is a box labeled PM. This stands for "private message". Click on the "pm" box and it will pull up the compose message page.


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13 Jun 2020, 9:29 am

THE REASON WHY NEW YORK CITY WAS HIT SO HARD!

New York’s death toll reached over 30,500 by Friday, and accounts for 7 percent of the world’s death toll and 27 percent of the U.S. mortality rate, according to Johns Hopkins data as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The answer IMHO is key decision making at the city and state levels. It made the crisis significantly worse than what it needed to be.
-----------------------------------
Mayor Bill de Blasio initially took a blasé approach to the coronavirus pandemic, tweeting that people should go out to see a movie in early-March.

But by the end of the month, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and de Blasio were calling for complete shutdowns and extreme social distancing measures because hospitals were becoming overwhelmed.

Reports of infected patients being mixed with uninfected patients, inappropriate hospital transfers, a lack of hospital staff and mixed directives from the state and city officials were amongst the most egregious mistakes the Wall Street Journal investigation uncovered.

Hospital officials pointed to the wartime-like conditions and said the crisis took them to the “breaking point,” Kenneth Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospital Association, told the Wall Street Journal.

One of the inadequate planning strategies uncovered in the report points to at least 1,600 coronavirus-positive patients that were transferred from large overcrowded state hospitals, and placed in less crowded facilities elsewhere. But according to doctors and nurses in these facilities, patients often arrived without names or medical history.

The state had reportedly also ignored yearslong claims of understaffing and a lack of nurses for the size of hospitals in the New York City area.

Warning signs were also largely ignored as a rise in patients with flu-like systems in early March went uninvestigated, and only travelers from China received testing – following the guidance of the federal government.

New York acted slower than other states in enforcing coronavirus lockdown measures.

California enforced a statewide lockdown with just over 1,000 cases on March 19, whereas New York remained open with nearly 6,000 cases until March 22, according to Johns Hopkins data as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Hospital equipment, face masks, ventilators, oxygen supply tanks and personal protective equipment for hospital staff became in short supply as over 19,000 hospitalizations were reached.

Due to a lack in equipment and the overloading of patients, hospital staff fell ill. But the state and city guidelines kept shifting on cross infection protocols -- likely resulting in increased contact with COVID-19-positive patients, therefore increasing the infection rate.

Hospital workers who tested positive were originally told to rely on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines and to quarantine for 14 days.

But by March 17, the city changed its guidelines to say that hospital staff could remain working so long as they did not exhibit symptoms.

The state of New York then announced on March 28, that workers who did test positive could return to work within seven days as long as they had been fever-free for 72 hours.

Source: WSJ report highlights how New York's coronavirus response made pandemic 'worse'
-----------------------------------
I think another element is the mismanagement at the nursing homes.

Governor Cuomo ordered nursing home to accept COVID-19 patients, mixing infected with non-infected patients.

More than 4,500 recovering coronavirus patients were sent to New York’s already vulnerable nursing homes under a controversial state directive that was ultimately scrapped amid criticisms it was accelerating the nation’s deadliest outbreaks, according to a count by The Associated Press.

AP compiled its own tally to find out how many COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospitals to nursing homes under the March 25 directive after New York’s Health Department declined to release its internal survey conducted two weeks ago. It says it is still verifying data that was incomplete.

Whatever the full number, nursing home administrators, residents’ advocates and relatives say it has added up to a big and indefensible problem for facilities that even Gov. Andrew Cuomo — the main proponent of the policy — called “the optimum feeding ground for this virus.”

“It was the single dumbest decision anyone could make if they wanted to kill people,” Daniel Arbeeny said of the directive, which prompted him to pull his 88-year-old father out of a Brooklyn nursing home where more than 50 people have died. His father later died of COVID-19 at home.

“This isn’t rocket science,” Arbeeny said. “We knew the most vulnerable -- the elderly and compromised -- are in nursing homes and rehab centers.”

Told of the AP's tally, the Health Department said late Thursday it “can't comment on data we haven't had a chance to review, particularly while we’re still validating our own comprehensive survey of nursing homes admission and re-admission data in the middle of responding to this global pandemic."

Cuomo, a Democrat, on May 10 reversed the directive, which had been intended to help free up hospital beds for the sickest patients as cases surged. But he continued to defend it this week, saying he didn't believe it contributed to the more than 5,800 nursing and adult care facility deaths in New York — more than in any other state — and that homes should have spoken up if it was a problem.

“Any nursing home could just say, ‘I can’t handle a COVID person in my facility,'" he said, although the March 25 order didn’t specify how homes could refuse, saying that ”no resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the (nursing home) solely based" on confirmed or suspected COVID-19.

Over a month later, on April 29, the Health Department clarified that homes should not take any new residents if they were unable to meet their needs, including a checklist of standards for coronavirus care and prevention.

In the meantime, some nursing homes felt obligated and overwhelmed.

Gurwin Jewish, a 460-bed home on Long Island, seemed well-prepared for the coronavirus in early March, with movable walls to seal off hallways for the infected. But after the state order, a trickle of recovering COVID-19 patients from local hospitals turned into a flood of 58 people.

More walls were put up, but other residents nonetheless began falling sick and dying. In the end, 47 Gurwin residents died of confirmed or suspected COVID-19.

The state order “put staff and residents at great risk,” CEO Stuart Almer said. “We can’t draw a straight line from bringing in someone positive to someone catching the disease, but we’re talking about elderly, fragile and vulnerable residents.”

The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine, known as AMDA, had warned from the beginning that Cuomo’s order admitting infected patients posed a “clear and present danger” to nursing home residents. Now, Jeffrey N. Nichols, who serves on the executive committee of the group, said “the effect of that order was to contribute to 5,000 deaths.”

Nationally, over 35,500 people have died from coronavirus outbreaks at nursing homes and long-term care facilities, about a third of the overall death toll, according to the AP's running tally.

Source: AP count: Over 4,500 virus patients sent to NY nursing homes
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Thousands died in these facilities. Remember the refrigerated trucks parked outside nursing homes.

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At least 5,500 residents died in NYC nursing homes. Many experts say the true number is probably higher. Most states and countries that count aggressively find at least 50% of Covid-19 deaths occur in nursing homes.

As hundreds of people died from the coronavirus in March and April in nursing homes, New York state health officials scrambled to respond.

But state officials didn’t have some vital information: They didn’t know how many people had died in nursing homes.

They didn’t know because they didn’t ask.

Despite the heightened risk at nursing homes — Gov. Andrew Cuomo said they could provide “a feeding frenzy for this virus’’— state officials did not track the number of daily Covid-19 fatalities in them for the first month of the state’s crisis.

Each day before April 16, they surveyed all 613 nursing homes to ask how much hand sanitizer they had, but not how many people died in their facilities.

After families of nursing home residents and news organizations raised alarms about the number of deaths in Downstate nursing homes, the state hastily devised a new survey to gather more complete information.

"It was stunning to realize that the (department of health) had not been gathering information about nursing home deaths before that time,’’ said Dr. Elaine Healy, vice president of the New York Medical Directors Association. “It was as if the issue hadn’t been on their radar screen until then.”

Source: NY didn’t count nursing home coronavirus victims for weeks; then, a stumbling rush for a death toll
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This didn't need to happen. Help was offered and help was given. But the governor and mayor IMHO choose not to take advantage of it, probably for political reasons.

The Navy hospital ship U.S.N.S. Comfort was rushed to NYC and docked at New York Harbor with 1,000 beds but the asset went largely unused. The federal government also set up a field hospital at Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, another alternative site operated by the military, with 2,500 hospital beds. And there were other sites.

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As of April 29, gleaming new tent hospitals sit empty on two suburban New York college campuses, never having treated a single coronavirus patient. Convention centers that were turned into temporary hospitals in other cities went mostly unused. And a Navy hospital ship that offered help in Manhattan is soon to depart.

Source: Many field hospitals went largely unused, will be shut down
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As Governor Andrew Cuomo faced a spirited challenge in his bid to win New York’s 2018 Democratic primary, his political apparatus got a last-minute boost: a powerful health care industry group suddenly poured more than $1 million into a Democratic committee backing his campaign.

Less than two years after that flood of cash from the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA), Cuomo signed legislation last month quietly shielding hospital and nursing-home executives from the threat of lawsuits stemming from the coronavirus outbreak. The provision, inserted into an annual budget bill by Cuomo’s aides, created one of the nation’s most explicit immunity protections for health care industry officials, according to legal experts.

Critics say Cuomo removed a key deterrent against nursing home and hospital corporations cutting corners in ways that jeopardize lives. As those critics now try to repeal the provision during this final week of Albany’s legislative session, they assert that data prove such immunity is correlating to higher nursing-home death rates during the pandemic — both in New York and in other states enacting similar immunity policies.

Source: Andrew Cuomo Gave Immunity to Nursing-Home Execs After Big Campaign Donations — Now People Are Dying
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And then the federal government identified a potential cure for the coronavirus a malaria drug called hydroxychloroquine. But like most coronavirus cures the drug must be administered early near the time of infection. It is least effective than an individual is at death's door.

Israeli generic drug giant Teva announced in March that it will provide ten million doses of its anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, which could potentially prove effective in fighting the coronavirus pandemic, to U.S. hospitals free of charge. Other drug manufacturers also volunteered to step in.

The federal government directed a million tablets [if I recall the number correctly] straight to New York. But then the governor mandated that these should only be used in clinical trials, which meant in hospitals only, which meant those that are at death's door. If I recall correctly he also mandated that they should not be used off-label. So IMHO, they were effectively never really used for those who were following the quarantine orders of sheltering at home if one develops the symptoms where they would have been the most effective or nursing home residents. Again this endorsement became wrapped up in politics. If one person, Trump, recommends something the entire mop attacks it, buried it, and tried to use it as a tool for humiliation.


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Author of Practical Preparations for a Coronavirus Pandemic.
A very unique plan. As Dr. Paul Thompson wrote, "This is the very best paper on the virus I have ever seen."