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Side note: if you suspect a COVID-19 infection, DO NOT GO TO THE ER. Contact a physician by phone, get instructions. By going to the ER you put a lot of people

Side note: if you suspect a COVID-19 infection, DO NOT GO TO THE ER. Contact a physician by phone, get instructions. By going to the ER you put a lot of people at risk.

skeletal88 7y ago
This is the most important thing here. The testing should be done at home.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure testing not available at home. But you're right, testing should be available at home. We're simply in a lot of trouble.
joe_the_user 7y ago
At some point, the people who suspect COVID-19 infection are going to be people who have full-on pneumonia. They would need to go to ER under normal circumstance but indeed, that will have a bad result. Basically, we desperately need a special COVID-19 program, not simply a person's regular physician giving instructions. How many physicians are going to be getting calls soon and how much time does that take important activity on their part? Etc. Note that Korea has ER wards set-up with pre-entry tents allowing COVID patients to be routed elsewhere. Some multi-track system like this is going to be necessary or more desirable than Italy, which has shut down the part of its health care system not treating COVID patients and is still mostly watching them die.
- lultimouomo 7y ago
  > Some multi-track system like this is going to be necessary or more desirable than Italy, which has shut down the part of its health care system not treating COVID patients and is still mostly watching them die. Please don't spread disinformation, this absolutely not what is happening in Italy. ERs are working, hospitals are working. Planned and elective procedures have been delayed, to spare personnel and rooms and to avoid creating new emergency cases in case the procedure goes wrong. Italy has less than 7000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Dealing with those is not a problem. Even the 1000 people in ICU are not a problem themselves, the 600 in Lombardy are. Lombardy had around 900 ICU beds before the crisis (they now have more but the extra ones are makeshift); this means that 2/3rds of the bed are needed for COVID-19 patients only, which is obviously a huge problem. In Bergamo, the city with the worst situation, some people cannot be tubed because of lack of equipment will get will get a NIV instead, which is very very bad, but it's not "wathich people die". BTW, Italy has enforced the dual track system for suspect COVID-19 cases since at least two weeks ago.
  - joe_the_user 7y ago
    References? I'd love to believe this is the case but I haven't seen any mainstream news to this effect and I have indeed seen desperate shared tweet. I mean, I'm happy if this is true but if you want to reassure people, give a reference. Edit: ERs are working, hospitals are working. Press I read says: ER isn't working for non-COVID cases and isn't able to deal with a substantial number of COVID cases. The term would be overwhelmed. And I know Italian hospitals are better than a lot of American hospitals, which certainly couldn't be called "top notch".
    - lultimouomo 7y ago
      My direct source is Italian newspapers and personal conversation with ER doctors. You can use google translate to read this local newspaper from Bergamo that quotes the Lombardy ministry of health about how this Monday they closed day hospitals (clinics? not sure how it translates) and scheduled surgeries are reduced to a minimum: https://www.ecodibergamo.it/stories/bergamo-citta/gallera-stop-attivita-ambulatori-da-lunediterapia-intensiva-corsa-contro-il-t_1343804_11/ https://www.ecodibergamo.it/stories/bergamo-citta/gallera-st... Don't get me wrong - the situation is bad, and it will get much worse. We can probably help Bergamo by shifting people around, if we reverse the trend and the rest of the country stays in a better situation, but if left unmanaged the epidemic would definitely bring the healthcare system to its knees. But we're not there yet and hopefully we'll be able to avoid it. And again, because this is very important: COVID patients do not go through ER. Please tell everyone around you that if they suspect COVID they must NOT GO TO THE ER. In the beginning of the epidemic, before this information was understood by people, infections in the ER have been a major factor of the virus spread.

Side note: if you suspect a COVID-19 infection, DO NOT GO TO THE ER. Contact a physician by phone, get instructions. By going to the ER you put a lot of people at risk.

skeletal88 7y ago

This is the most important thing here. The testing should be done at home.

joe_the_user 7y ago
I'm pretty sure testing not available at home. But you're right, testing should be available at home. We're simply in a lot of trouble.

joe_the_user 7y ago

At some point, the people who suspect COVID-19 infection are going to be people who have full-on pneumonia. They would need to go to ER under normal circumstance but indeed, that will have a bad result. Basically, we desperately need a special COVID-19 program, not simply a person's regular physician giving instructions. How many physicians are going to be getting calls soon and how much time does that take important activity on their part? Etc. Note that Korea has ER wards set-up with pre-entry tents allowing COVID patients to be routed elsewhere. Some multi-track system like this is going to be necessary or more desirable than Italy, which has shut down the part of its health care system not treating COVID patients and is still mostly watching them die.

lultimouomo 7y ago
> Some multi-track system like this is going to be necessary or more desirable than Italy, which has shut down the part of its health care system not treating COVID patients and is still mostly watching them die. Please don't spread disinformation, this absolutely not what is happening in Italy. ERs are working, hospitals are working. Planned and elective procedures have been delayed, to spare personnel and rooms and to avoid creating new emergency cases in case the procedure goes wrong. Italy has less than 7000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Dealing with those is not a problem. Even the 1000 people in ICU are not a problem themselves, the 600 in Lombardy are. Lombardy had around 900 ICU beds before the crisis (they now have more but the extra ones are makeshift); this means that 2/3rds of the bed are needed for COVID-19 patients only, which is obviously a huge problem. In Bergamo, the city with the worst situation, some people cannot be tubed because of lack of equipment will get will get a NIV instead, which is very very bad, but it's not "wathich people die". BTW, Italy has enforced the dual track system for suspect COVID-19 cases since at least two weeks ago.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  References? I'd love to believe this is the case but I haven't seen any mainstream news to this effect and I have indeed seen desperate shared tweet. I mean, I'm happy if this is true but if you want to reassure people, give a reference. Edit: ERs are working, hospitals are working. Press I read says: ER isn't working for non-COVID cases and isn't able to deal with a substantial number of COVID cases. The term would be overwhelmed. And I know Italian hospitals are better than a lot of American hospitals, which certainly couldn't be called "top notch".
  - lultimouomo 7y ago
    My direct source is Italian newspapers and personal conversation with ER doctors. You can use google translate to read this local newspaper from Bergamo that quotes the Lombardy ministry of health about how this Monday they closed day hospitals (clinics? not sure how it translates) and scheduled surgeries are reduced to a minimum: https://www.ecodibergamo.it/stories/bergamo-citta/gallera-stop-attivita-ambulatori-da-lunediterapia-intensiva-corsa-contro-il-t_1343804_11/ https://www.ecodibergamo.it/stories/bergamo-citta/gallera-st... Don't get me wrong - the situation is bad, and it will get much worse. We can probably help Bergamo by shifting people around, if we reverse the trend and the rest of the country stays in a better situation, but if left unmanaged the epidemic would definitely bring the healthcare system to its knees. But we're not there yet and hopefully we'll be able to avoid it. And again, because this is very important: COVID patients do not go through ER. Please tell everyone around you that if they suspect COVID they must NOT GO TO THE ER. In the beginning of the epidemic, before this information was understood by people, infections in the ER have been a major factor of the virus spread.