13 ms·

Not an ER doc, but a doc in long term care facilities which have been hit particularly hard. Fortunately things have slowed down considerably now, but at its pe

by dr_ 6y ago

Not an ER doc, but a doc in long term care facilities which have been hit particularly hard. Fortunately things have slowed down considerably now, but at its peak it was absolutely nerve racking. There’s an element to this pandemic which many people working in healthcare have felt. We see patients fall sick often, and we see them die often, although this was at an near overwhelming scale. But what we don’t see often is our own colleagues falling sick and, in some cases, dying. This adds a level of despair that I personally had never experienced before, and adds to the stress of the job. Which is why when it is written off by some as nothing more than a bad flu season, I get upset. This is something worse, and despite all the research that’s been done in a short time, still something we don’t fully understand - and something that is not over.

joering2 6y ago
> Fortunately things have slowed down considerably now, I don't get that tho. Supposedly accordingly to all stats, its as bad as its been before. We have 800 to 1,000 death per day and are on record to hit 200k death by September. How come I heard that the pandemic has slowed down yet... according to numbers its been the same.
- felipemnoa 6y ago
  Slowed down in his region? It certainly has slowed down considerably in NYC.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- flatline 6y ago
  The number of daily cases nationwide, as well as the number of deaths, has been steadily dropping since the peak: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/coronavirus-us-cases-deaths/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/corona... That being said we know practically nothing actionable about the spread of the disease, little more than we did when it started. Clearly the combination of masks and social distancing has slowed the spread but we don’t know how much good if any the masks really do, and we can’t never go outside again. It’s a waiting game, and a game of seeing just how much isolation we can collectively stomach. Unpleasant, and the end is certainly not yet in sight.
  - felipemnoa 6y ago
    >>we can’t never go outside again Somebody needs to tell that to Brooklyn residents. Streets are crowded.
    - GuiA 6y ago
      Streets were crowded in SF's mission tonight too, with many people 1) not wearing masks (or wearing the mask on their chin (!?!)) 2) being in close knit groups. Fingers crossed I guess, but given that 1) the virus is still around AND 2) we do not have a vaccine AND 3) we do not have herd immunity, I can't say I feel very optimistic about the next month or so.
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      It seems clear that flatline meant what he wrote, "we can't never go outside again", and not the opposite, "we can't ever go outside again". Brooklyn residents crowding the streets are agreeing with that sentiment.
      - felipemnoa 6y ago
        My bad. I honestly thought it was just a typo and he actually meant the second quote. Double negatives are really bad.
- newacct583 6y ago
  It's not as bad as it's been. The US new case rate is down to about 65% of peak now. It's not dropping fast, but it's dropping. But a medical professional's subjective experience is local, and the US is a big place. Some regions are still (sigh) growing, and are indeed "as bad as it's been". But New York is now recording new cases at less than 10% of its peak from April. Broadly: much of the country, and all of the worst hit areas, have this beaten now, as long as we don't lose control when relaxing lockdown rules. That's good news. And the areas that don't have it handled well are, at the very least, not growing in an out of control exponential mode. That's good news too. Stay home. This is the home stretch.
  - HarryHirsch 6y ago
    It's bad. Try this graph to see how bad it really is: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/new-covid-cases-per-million?tab=chart&yScale=log&time=2020-01-25..&country=USA~DEU https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/new-covid-cases-per-milli... New infections per capita in the US are not falling and are an order of magnitude higher than in Western Europe. Israel brought new infections down to a few cases/million until they opened schools back up, now they are in line with Western Europe. The trouble is that there are superspreading events, someone brings the virus to church or university, and everyone present gets it. There are reports of outbreaks in farmworker accomodation and consequent failures of the vegetable harvest. This isn't over at all and only getting worse when cash-strapped universities insist that their students come back on campus in August.
    - unishark 6y ago
      Models such as this one are estimating the number of actual infections is many times higher than the confirmed tests... and falling. Though this is projected to turn around again as social distancing ends. https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america
  - zzzeek 6y ago
    this is nowhere near any kind of "home stretch", this is the second inning at best. it is rocketing off in many states now, just not the ones in which it initially took off [1]. it will continue to rocket in various regions of the country, over and over again until a vaccine can be distributed to much of the population or when the government is changed to one that can orchestrate contact tracing, isolation and testing at the national level. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/09/coronavirus-cases-uptick-detected-some-us-states https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/09/coronavirus-ca...
- rcthompson 6y ago
  Severity varies greatly by region. Compare NYC and the surrounding areas to the USA as a whole: https://outbreak.info/epidemiology?location=USA%3BMETRO_35620%3BCITY_US-NY_NYC&log=false&variable=confirmed_numIncrease&xVariable=date&fixedY=false https://outbreak.info/epidemiology?location=USA%3BMETRO_3562... You can see that NYC is way down from the mid-April peak, but the USA as a whole is tailing off much more slowly as new outbreaks elsewhere offset the declines in areas that were initially hit hard. (But still, note that "way down" for NYC is still around 500 new cases per day.)
m4rtink 6y ago
This is what I thin many forget when they speak against lockdown and for "heard immunity" - that this would not only result in a huge ammount of unnecessary deaths, but also pretty much wear out if not outright kill a signifficant part of medical personel. It's basically condemning them to working nonstop for months if not years, watching people die all day long & being in infection danger at all times while at work. And you can't replace all the people that burn out, get ill or die quickly - training medical professionals takes many years.
- musha68k 6y ago
  Completely agree, we have to think of others not ourselves when we diligently put on our masks.
  - briandear 6y ago
    We diligently put on our masks out of a sense of theater and emotion rather than actual effectiveness. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/new-study-questions-the-effectiveness-of-masks-against-sars-cov-2#More-virus-on-outer-mask-surfaces https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/new-study-question... And the WHO continues to maintain that healthy people do not need to wear masks. And asymptomatic spread of the virus is “very rare” according to the WHO: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/08/asymptomatic-coronavirus-patients-arent-spreading-new-infections-who-says.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/08/asymptomatic-coronavirus-pat... Masks in the general public is just a placebo. A way to make people feel like they are “doing their part.”
    - majormajor 6y ago
      > This study did not aim to verify whether surgical or cloth masks are able to shorten the trajectory of droplets emitted through coughing. This seems like a very limited study, since so much of the discussion about masks as a way of preventing spread has resolved around the known cases of one person spreading the virus to a big crowd of others in a confined indoor space.
    - 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
sanchostache 6y ago
How do you feel about doctors out cheering on massive crowds of protesters?

by dr_ 6y ago

joering2 6y ago

> Fortunately things have slowed down considerably now, I don't get that tho. Supposedly accordingly to all stats, its as bad as its been before. We have 800 to 1,000 death per day and are on record to hit 200k death by September. How come I heard that the pandemic has slowed down yet... according to numbers its been the same.

felipemnoa 6y ago
Slowed down in his region? It certainly has slowed down considerably in NYC.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
flatline 6y ago
The number of daily cases nationwide, as well as the number of deaths, has been steadily dropping since the peak: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/coronavirus-us-cases-deaths/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/corona... That being said we know practically nothing actionable about the spread of the disease, little more than we did when it started. Clearly the combination of masks and social distancing has slowed the spread but we don’t know how much good if any the masks really do, and we can’t never go outside again. It’s a waiting game, and a game of seeing just how much isolation we can collectively stomach. Unpleasant, and the end is certainly not yet in sight.
- felipemnoa 6y ago
  >>we can’t never go outside again Somebody needs to tell that to Brooklyn residents. Streets are crowded.
  - GuiA 6y ago
    Streets were crowded in SF's mission tonight too, with many people 1) not wearing masks (or wearing the mask on their chin (!?!)) 2) being in close knit groups. Fingers crossed I guess, but given that 1) the virus is still around AND 2) we do not have a vaccine AND 3) we do not have herd immunity, I can't say I feel very optimistic about the next month or so.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    It seems clear that flatline meant what he wrote, "we can't never go outside again", and not the opposite, "we can't ever go outside again". Brooklyn residents crowding the streets are agreeing with that sentiment.
    - felipemnoa 6y ago
      My bad. I honestly thought it was just a typo and he actually meant the second quote. Double negatives are really bad.
newacct583 6y ago
It's not as bad as it's been. The US new case rate is down to about 65% of peak now. It's not dropping fast, but it's dropping. But a medical professional's subjective experience is local, and the US is a big place. Some regions are still (sigh) growing, and are indeed "as bad as it's been". But New York is now recording new cases at less than 10% of its peak from April. Broadly: much of the country, and all of the worst hit areas, have this beaten now, as long as we don't lose control when relaxing lockdown rules. That's good news. And the areas that don't have it handled well are, at the very least, not growing in an out of control exponential mode. That's good news too. Stay home. This is the home stretch.
- HarryHirsch 6y ago
  It's bad. Try this graph to see how bad it really is: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/new-covid-cases-per-million?tab=chart&yScale=log&time=2020-01-25..&country=USA~DEU https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/new-covid-cases-per-milli... New infections per capita in the US are not falling and are an order of magnitude higher than in Western Europe. Israel brought new infections down to a few cases/million until they opened schools back up, now they are in line with Western Europe. The trouble is that there are superspreading events, someone brings the virus to church or university, and everyone present gets it. There are reports of outbreaks in farmworker accomodation and consequent failures of the vegetable harvest. This isn't over at all and only getting worse when cash-strapped universities insist that their students come back on campus in August.
  - unishark 6y ago
    Models such as this one are estimating the number of actual infections is many times higher than the confirmed tests... and falling. Though this is projected to turn around again as social distancing ends. https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america
- zzzeek 6y ago
  this is nowhere near any kind of "home stretch", this is the second inning at best. it is rocketing off in many states now, just not the ones in which it initially took off [1]. it will continue to rocket in various regions of the country, over and over again until a vaccine can be distributed to much of the population or when the government is changed to one that can orchestrate contact tracing, isolation and testing at the national level. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/09/coronavirus-cases-uptick-detected-some-us-states https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/09/coronavirus-ca...
rcthompson 6y ago
Severity varies greatly by region. Compare NYC and the surrounding areas to the USA as a whole: https://outbreak.info/epidemiology?location=USA%3BMETRO_35620%3BCITY_US-NY_NYC&log=false&variable=confirmed_numIncrease&xVariable=date&fixedY=false https://outbreak.info/epidemiology?location=USA%3BMETRO_3562... You can see that NYC is way down from the mid-April peak, but the USA as a whole is tailing off much more slowly as new outbreaks elsewhere offset the declines in areas that were initially hit hard. (But still, note that "way down" for NYC is still around 500 new cases per day.)

m4rtink 6y ago

This is what I thin many forget when they speak against lockdown and for "heard immunity" - that this would not only result in a huge ammount of unnecessary deaths, but also pretty much wear out if not outright kill a signifficant part of medical personel. It's basically condemning them to working nonstop for months if not years, watching people die all day long & being in infection danger at all times while at work. And you can't replace all the people that burn out, get ill or die quickly - training medical professionals takes many years.

musha68k 6y ago
Completely agree, we have to think of others not ourselves when we diligently put on our masks.
- briandear 6y ago
  We diligently put on our masks out of a sense of theater and emotion rather than actual effectiveness. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/new-study-questions-the-effectiveness-of-masks-against-sars-cov-2#More-virus-on-outer-mask-surfaces https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/new-study-question... And the WHO continues to maintain that healthy people do not need to wear masks. And asymptomatic spread of the virus is “very rare” according to the WHO: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/08/asymptomatic-coronavirus-patients-arent-spreading-new-infections-who-says.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/08/asymptomatic-coronavirus-pat... Masks in the general public is just a placebo. A way to make people feel like they are “doing their part.”
  - majormajor 6y ago
    > This study did not aim to verify whether surgical or cloth masks are able to shorten the trajectory of droplets emitted through coughing. This seems like a very limited study, since so much of the discussion about masks as a way of preventing spread has resolved around the known cases of one person spreading the virus to a big crowd of others in a confined indoor space.
  - 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago

sanchostache 6y ago

How do you feel about doctors out cheering on massive crowds of protesters?