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Almost one-third of Florida children tested are positive for the coronavirus
- quickthrowman 6y agoWhat are the teachers so scared of? Get back to work! Open the schools! /s
- phantom0308 6y agoFlorida is really thinking outside the box. Schools will have no problem opening up if children have herd immunity. This is the type of creative thinking school administrators have been looking for. /s
- slackfan 6y agoThis except completely serious. People getting herd immunity involves people, you know, actually contracting the disease.
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoProtect the vulnerable (no sending Covid positive patients into their living spaces!) while allowing low risk population to develop and overcome the virus. This seems like the most logical way to combat issue, as opposed to hiding and hoping it goes away. Of course proposing it publicly means to be smeared by the media and politicians and twitter blue checks, who always have our best interests in mind. Does this solution cause no pain and death? Of course not! It’s about causing the least amount of pain long term, including the externalities of our actions.
- phantom0308 6y agoThere isn't enough evidence of long term immunity to make herd immunity a sensible strategy. It's smeared by the media b/c it's way less preferable than the alternative of containing it like nearly every developed country in the world. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/immunity-to-covid-19-uk-study.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/immunity-to-covid-19-uk-stud...
- ashtonkem 6y ago“This strategy would kill over half a million Americans” isn’t even really a smear, it’s an accurate description of why the herd immunity strategy is bad.
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoIt's neither a smear nor an accurate description. It's fear mongering.
- ashtonkem 6y agoThey said the same about tens of thousands dying; we’re now at 141k dead Americans. If you want to dismiss it as “fear mongering” that’s your prerogative, just don’t be surprised that most people find this unconvincing.
- searine 6y ago>This seems like the most logical way to combat issue, as opposed to hiding and hoping it goes away. Logical if all that matters to you is numbers and money. Lets not hide behind words. This logic mean death. You are conducting a blood sacrifice to ensure people don't have to alter their behavior. If you're so gung-ho to get to herd immunity, how about you volunteer to be on the front lines?
- dexen 6y agoThe alternative - hiding people in homes until vaccine is widely available - means death. From alcohol & substance abuse, from increased suicides, from domestic violence, and so on. Extended period of being prevented from running your business (or out of employment) without steady income, and bottled up at home is a major stresor and silent killer. The hospitals already reported significantly elevated suicides. There is no magical strategy to stave off all the problems; balancing the risks and managing precautions as our knowledge expands is the correct, if hard to politically sell, way to go.
- Retric 6y agoVaccination is likely an option for long term COVID-19 herd immunity. The mutation rate is shockingly low, so a nationwide focus on containment was the best option early on. It’s still possible without wrecking the economy. The US seems to be using the worst off all possible options. However, several countries have succeeded and demonstrate it’s possible to succeed.
- ArkVark 6y agoAssuming we capture about 10% of COVID instances as actual cases, then the US is getting 770,000 new instances a day. Stockholm burnt itself out with 20% of the population getting immunity (determined via antibody testing). So (328,000,000 - 37,000,000) / 770,000 = 378 days until herd immunity, considering the existing cases. What is more likely is that the case numbers will ramp up significantly though, to over 100,000 per day at some point. In that case the USA will have herd immunity within the year. This is nothing new. Influenza hits about 20% of the population (60 million people) as well and then burns out for the season. We struggle yearly with keeping influenza out of nursing homes and with the surge of hospitalization that it creates. The good news is that right now there are no excess deaths in the USA and that hospitals all over the country are handling the virus and not running out of space (more beds can be always be converted to ICU, ICU capacity is not infexible, same as is done for influenza).
- maxerickson 6y ago~150 million US people get the influenza vaccine each year! You seem to be playing match the numbers up where they fit and celebrate.
- bonzini 6y agoThere are already hospitals in Texas and I think Florida that are rejecting patients because they are full, that's when fatality rate and excess mortality kicks in. What kills you isn't suboptimal care, it's the impossibility of getting any treatment.
- ModernMech 6y ago> hospitals all over the country are handling the virus and not running out of space If true, what do you make of the following reports? 7/16 - "Manatee County's hospitals hit capacity as COVID-19 cases continue to surge" https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/manatee-countys-hospitals-hit-capacity-as-covid-19-cases-continue-to-surge/ar-BB16N919 https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/manatee-countys-hos... 7/16 - "ICU fills up at St. Luke's Nampa hospital, meaning patients must be diverted to Boise" https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/icu-fills-up-at-st-lukes-nampa-hospital-meaning-patients-must-be-diverted-to-boise/ar-BB16PYd1 https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/icu-fills-up-at-st-... 7/6 - "Four Tampa-area hospitals at maximum ICU capacity" https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/four-tampa-area-hospitals-at-maximum-icu-capacity/ar-BB16oom0 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/four-tampa-area-hospitals-... 7/6 - "Hospitals in Florida, Texas and Arizona Are Almost at Capacity as Coronavirus Cases Surge" https://time.com/5863564/hospitals-capacity-coronavirus-surge/ https://time.com/5863564/hospitals-capacity-coronavirus-surg...
- BLKNSLVR 6y agoI'd be guessing that very early in the quest towards herd immunity the medical institutions would be overrun and the end result of that would be a whole lot more dead people than the lockdown scenario. From what it appears we know about the virus so far, a vaccine is the only sane way to possibly hope to reach herd immunity.
- phantom0308 6y agoWhy would any country want herd immunity from infection when nearly every developed country has demonstrated the virus can be contained without such a large loss of life? It's not as if the specter of maxed out hospitals on the news for months on end is going to help the economy.
- MereInterest 6y agoExactly. Absent a vaccine, herd immunity is the failure condition that occurs when a virus has infected as many people as it can within a population. It is the default baseline against which all interventions should be compared.
- claudeganon 6y agoIf immunity to the disease is not long-lasting (> 3 months), herd immunity is likely impossible. There are plenty of viruses that can reinfect people who have recovered from them (Coronaviruses being a common example of these) for which we have no herd immunity.
- gridlockd 6y agoImmunity isn't a binary, neither is herd immunity. While there are reports of reinfection, those cases are quite rare. Even a modest degree of immunity can significantly lower spread. In France, Spain, Germany, you still have hundreds of cases every day, but they don't grow to thousands of cases anymore.
- claudeganon 6y ago> While there are reports of reinfection, those cases are quite rare. The disease hasn’t been around long enough to make this claim. > Even a modest degree of immunity can significantly lower spread. In France, Spain, Germany, you still have hundreds of cases every day, but they don't grow to thousands of cases anymore. This is true, but depends on the duration of immunity and a more uniform global response (or very tight border and quarantine adherence). Ongoing, sporadic COVID crises would still be pretty disruptive unless we have highly effective therapeutics.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- claudeganon 6y agoThere’s already evidence of reinfection with COVID, so herd immunity for the disease is unlikely. https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting-covid-19-twice-reinfection-antibody-herd-immunity https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting-covid-19-twic...
- tux1968 6y agoDon't vaccines require that mechanism in order to be effective?
- claudeganon 6y agoVaccines can either reduce the severity of disease or grant immunity for a period roughly comparable to the window of reinfection. Depending on the duration of immunity, a successful vaccine may require multiple doses per year.
- toast0 6y agoThe problem with this plan is that it's very hard to do safely. Let's say I don't care about deaths from COVID-19 that were untreatable; I still care about excess deaths tyat were treatable, but don't get treated because hospitals are overwelmed by patients or overwelmed because medical staff is sick. To avoid that, you basically have to limit the number of beds COVID patients are using and modulate the infection rate to keep the beds in use close to the limit without going over. Of course, modulating the rate is difficult, because people's behavior is hard to modulate. Also the demand for new beds shows up about 2 weeks after infection, so you have to modulate today based on what your bed capacity looks like then.
- matz1 6y agoHospital are frequently overwhelmed in the past, nothing new, at least at current situation is no more overwhelmed than what has frequently happen in the past.
- __blockcipher__ 6y agoAnd worth noting that there is not a whole lot hospitals can do anyway. The overwhelming majority have COVID-19 that is so mild that they never would go to a hospital. Of those that have more serious symptoms, some will be benefit from being given oxygen. There are very few people who warrant invasive ventilation, and those that do have very bad odds anyway. The meme around hospital overrun is just that, a meme. Especially given everywhere having at least a small percentage of positive serology tests. I doubt anywhere in the US would get truly overrun with uninhibited spread at this point.
- TheCuckedKing 6y agoOnly 20 people under the age of 18 have died from covid19 in the U.S. In the state of California there isn't a even a single one! We know the flu is far deadlier for children...
- wyldfire 6y agoI know you're joking, but I was surprised to learn [1] that there are cases pointing to the likelihood that recovery from infection will not necessarily lead to immunity from subsequent infection. [1] https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting-covid-19-twice-reinfection-antibody-herd-immunity https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting-covid-19-twic...
- jimmaswell 6y agoThe Health Ministry of Switzerland has said children cannot transmit covid at all. Along with the fact that children being affected by the virus is extremely rare, it would seem like the only concern is for adult staff to maintain precautions with each other, which seems much safer than e.g. working in a close quarters kitchen line, which we've been allowing all along.
- swsieber 6y agoAn article terribly light on details - what's their testing strategy? If it's completely random statewide, then it's very alarming. If not... it's less alarming. I have to wonder if children a) are better at catching it (but not better at spreading it) than adults b) have a larger window in which they "test positive" or c) parents are the ones infecting children - that is to say that parents and children both test positive for the same duration of time, but parents get it and get over it first.
- wtvanhest 6y agoAnother explanation, if I am sick, I will get tested first before making my kid go through that. If I test positive, only then will I test my child. If I test negative and we are both sick, I will presume we caught something else.
- saint_abroad 6y ago> I will get tested first before making my kid go through that. If I test positive, only then will I test my child. If I test negative and we are both sick, I will presume we caught something else. If you test positive, why make your kid go through that? If you test positive and you are both sick, you can presume you've caught the same thing.
- wtvanhest 6y agoI haven't been there, (maybe someone who has can comment?), but I would expect you need the positive diagnosis for evaluating COVID19 treatment options for your kid. Or, at the minimum, I would expect the DR. to push you to have them tested. In any case, I would expect kids to be tested after adults in most cases during the shelter in place
- catalogia 6y ago> I would expect you need the positive diagnosis for evaluating COVID19 treatment options for your kid. From what I understand, the overwhelming majority of kids with covid do not require any treatment whatsoever, with only a small handful of anecdotes of kids having bad symptoms. Just don't let junior visit grandma.
- drtillberg 6y agoFlorida's positive test rates are in dispute due to large irregularities, specifically, failure to report negative results.[1]. Chalk up The Hill report to more goalseeked nonsense. [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/07/15/florida-coronavirus-tests-hospital-disputes-100-positive-report/5445139002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/07/15/florid...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- meow1032 6y agoAccording to Nate Silver, these data come from smaller labs and in total account for a low proportion of tests: https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1283144803476283392 https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1283144803476283392
- newacct583 6y agoThere's no contention that the overall data is bad. The discovery was that some specific labs had dropped their negative numbers, presumably accidentally. Stuff happens, there's a pandemic, labs are crushed. We're never going to get good data. There's no "goalseeking" going on here. If you think the numbers are clearly wrong, what's your source on better ones, or what's your analysis showing what the proper infection rate is among tested children?
- s1artibartfast 6y agoIt would be great if this was true for the entire population, but the 31% is not from a random sampling.
- theseadroid 6y agountil you realize the antibody wont last more than a couple months. https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/studies-report-rapid-loss-of-covid-19-antibodies-67650 https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/studies-report-ra...
- beervirus 6y agoArticle's a month old, an eternity in covid world. Are there any more recent studies?
- brink 6y agoSomething that suggests that immunity does stick (in monkeys). https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/07/14/study-in-primates-finds-acquired-immunity-prevents-covid-19-reinfections/ https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/07/14/study-in-primates-f...
- s1artibartfast 6y agoI’m skeptical of the data presentation. It is not surprising that asymptomatic patients have a minimal or low long term IgG antibody count if they didn’t need it to fend off the virus in the first place.
- yetanta 6y agoThe only thing you can say for sure is that 1/3 of the population that have children also probably have it. If that is true I do not think you can 'contain' it. You can speculate on the long term effects and what not. But you will probably get it. People always ask me what is my zombie plan. I usually reply with 'brrrraaaaains'.
- 6y ago
- eiji 6y agoAnd we still only have 31 confirmed death by Covid19 on children under 14 years. > https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-by-Sex-Age-and-S/9bhg-hcku https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-...
- Krasnol 6y agoWhat do you want to imply by that? "Only" is quite cruel btw considering that those kids will never grow up to have a life and how many other people sick kids infect and probably kill.
- ApolloFortyNine 6y ago>What do you want to imply by that? That the death rate for children is incredibly low.
- Krasnol 6y agoThis is not what he/she wanted to imply. This is what was written there.
- VikingCoder 6y agoAnd we have no idea what the long-term impacts of Covid-19 might be. Just as a for-instance, I had the Chickenpox, like most people my age. No biggie. Then I later developed Shingles, because the Chickenpox virus can be dormant in your body for decades. Shingles can be debilitating. I highly doubt that Covid-19 will have long-term health impacts like that for children. But we absolutely don't know for sure, yet.
- at_a_remove 6y agoChickenpox is a retrovirus, which is why it can linger in your body for decades, as it transcribes itself into selected portions of your genome to hide and then later re-emerge. SARS-CoV-2 is not a retrovirus.
- lokl 6y agoWe are tracking cases, hospitalizations, ICU beds, deaths, but it is too early to track long-term health problems. I think it would be beneficial if there were more public discussion by experts about the implications of not knowing the long-term consequences of infection.
- blhack 6y agoOkay a serious question for the people who saw this news and thought it was a bad thing: what do you think should happen? Everybody HAS to have antibodies for this eventually. There is no way around that at this point. If Florida truly has 30% infection among children, that is FANTASTIC news. To those who think they can wait it out until a vaccine, how long will you wait? All of the measures we are taking: masks, distancing, WFH, these are meant to slow down the rate of infection, not end it. If this statistic can be extrapolated to the entire population: GREAT. We need to study what Florida is doing and replicate it.
- whymauri 6y ago>All of the measures we are taking: masks, distancing, WFH, these are meant to slow down the rate of infection, not end it. That's just not true. There are safety measures than can absolutely stop the spread of infection and given the chronology of a vaccine or treatment, even a slowdown of infections will save lives and prevent more infections. This is much is glaringly obvious. Also, "what Florida is doing" is literally nothing. That's the problem.
- ummonk 6y agoGiven that immunity disappears in a significant proportion of exposed people after a few months, natural herd immunity might be impossible.
- gdubs 6y agoThe more logical explanation is that these numbers reflect a dramatic deficit in testing, rather than 1/3 of kids actually having it. We also have no idea what the long term effects are for asymptomatic patients, not a good sense of how effectively the disease transmits asymptomatically. Nor a sense of how long immunity lasts. An abundance of caution is warranted.
- II2II 6y ago> All of the measures we are taking: masks, distancing, WFH, these are meant to slow down the rate of infection, not end it. They are meant to slow down the rate of infection for two reasons: 1. A certain portion of the infected population will need treatment in order to recover. The health care system will be unable to provide that treatment if they have to deal with a large number of cases in a short period of time. 2. To buy time until a vaccine is available. Even with better treatments and a manageable rate of infection, the mortality rate is relatively high. Vaccination is the only effective way to reduce that. Also consider this: even if the virus is permitted to run wild, the infection rate will eventually slow (assuming that people retain immunity and the virus does not mutate). It will be a prolonged problem no matter how you look at it.
- woeirua 6y agoFlorida's covid data shows that they're testing far fewer kids then the rest of the population [1]. The 30% figure apparently comes from [2] which shows that of the kids that are getting tested, a significantly larger proportion are covid positive than the normal population. To be blunt, I don't think this is anything new or surprising. Kids are staying home more this summer than ever before, and with limited social interaction they're less exposed to other respiratory illnesses that are circulating in the general population. Hence, those that are coming down ill right now are more likely to have covid than not. [1] http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partners/covid19_report_archive/state_reports_latest.pdf http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partners/covid19_report_ar... [2] http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partners/covid19_report_archive/pediatric_report_latest.pdf http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partners/covid19_report_ar...
- koheripbal 6y agoI think with the drastically increasing number of cases, they are prioritizing testing for those that are vulnerable to severe disease.
- simonebrunozzi 6y agoYou nailed it. Random testing would give a much better idea of how common Covid is at the moment.
- baldfat 6y agoMy son have to have testing at the hospital. He had to get tested (It was negative). I think this is a large portion of kids who get tested. You can't get a kid under 12 tested where I live except for these situations.
- jshaqaw 6y agoWe had our children tested at a Quest Diagnostics facility.
- listenallyall 6y ago>> a significantly larger proportion are covid positive Florida's positivity rate is flawed because many labs were reporting only positive results to the state database. "Lab24 in Miami is listed as reporting 457 results — all positive." "Lee Memorial, a large health system in Fort Myers, is listed as having three of its sites reporting only positive results." https://www.sun-sentinel.com/coronavirus/fl-ne-lab-results-20200715-r535ae72zjdwfekudu3poiy34e-story.html https://www.sun-sentinel.com/coronavirus/fl-ne-lab-results-2...
- alex_young 6y agoFlorida is now showing a large spike in daily deaths following the case spike 3 weeks ago: https://cv19.report/?state=FL https://cv19.report/?state=FL
- gdubs 6y agoNot my field, but my understanding is that a high positivity rate means you’re not testing enough. That’s been my concern with the rush to say that children don’t spread coronavirus. It seems more likely that children are asymptomatic, and therefore not tested as much. If you’ve had the test, you can understand why parents are probably not rushing to have their asymptomatic kids tested for the sake of having better data.
- croutonwagon 6y agoI think its probably hard to draw much from this, other than it seems to substantiate the theory that a LOT of the transmission has been asymptomatic. And kids are the least vulnerable here. I dont think it would be a stretch to say most kids are asymptomatic. But, at least here in Florida, there still not a lot of "show up and test" style facilities available. Most have to be registered with your employer or healthcare provider. So you have to have some symptom or otherwise ASK to be tested.
- throwaway5752 6y agoThere is a lot of argument about the quality of the numbers. Bottom line is the much higher all-cause mortality rates (on top of lower non-natural rates from homicide and automobile accidents). https://www.centerforhealthjournalism.org/2020/06/06/what-s-true-toll-epidemic-here-s-how-we-estimated-it-florida https://www.centerforhealthjournalism.org/2020/06/06/what-s-... There is an uncontrolled covid outbreak in Florida that has killed thousands and at this rate, will get much worse. This is after state leadership had the opportunity to see the exact same thing play out in Hubei province, northern Italy, and the NYC metro area. This is no surprise, the means of preventing it are well know, and it happened anyway.
- smallgovt 6y agoI really don’t understand why the govt isn’t doing regular testing of a random sample of the population. All it takes is ~500 tests in each state per week to get a significant sample size. And, it would definitively answer what the population infection rate is, and how it’s trending.
- grecy 6y agoIt's so blatantly clear they want to cover it up, and lie about the real number of infections.
- apexalpha 6y agoIn my country they check bloodbanks periodically in combination with sewage I think to get a sample of Covid and traces of it.
- amluto 6y agoI suspect their are two reasons. The first is incompetence. The second is that the President does not want to know how many cases their are. (He has explicitly stated the latter.)
- quux 6y agoI think they were doing this in New York back in may, and it did yield some surprising results that influenced policy. Not sure if it was just antibody testing or PCR as well.
- twblalock 6y agoEven California, which was praised for locking down first and longest, is behind on testing and contract tracing. You can blame ignorance or anti-science beliefs for the problems in some states, but the California state government clearly takes the virus seriously, is following expert advice, and still can't meet testing and tracing goals. Something else is going on here. Dysfunction of government is the answer. The Federal government is pushing responsibility onto states, and states are pushing responsibility onto county governments. Most county governments are not equipped to deal with pandemics. There is just no way this is going to go well. The countries that did a good job testing and tracing had a central coordinated effort from the top.
- rapnie 6y agoGenerally speaking, at least what's tested negative in this whole terrible pandemic is how everyone is creatively applying statistics to fit their narrative. Of course this has always been the case in the media, but now it becomes abundantly apparent.
- draw_down 6y agoIndeed, but it is also possible to lob this accusation of "creativity in statistics" in order to avoid dealing with a figure one finds inconvenient. We're all eating from the trashcan.
- chadash 6y agoI have a theory. My wife and I had COVID recently and we both tested positive. My child also had a fever for about a day but otherwise was symptom free. Given that we were quarantined and not exposed to anyone else for about a week before my child's fever, it's hard to imagine that it was anything except for COVID. However, most testing sites that you can just sign up for on your own only test 18+, so getting her tested would be a PITA. Most likely we'd have to take them to the doctor and maybe they would order a test, but more likely, they'd just say go home and get some rest, call us if it gets worse. And even if I got my child tested, what would I gain from it? At best it would tell me what I already know. Given that most cases in children are mild (I wouldn't have suspected COVID nor bothered to have taken my child's temp if I hadn't tested positive myself), I imagine it's only the children who doctors suspect have it that are getting tested in Florida, for the most part. And among that group, the positive rate is gonna be high.
- noja 6y agoAre the long term effects for children known yet?
- conception 6y agoThey are not. Certainly not any lifetime effects.
- scruple 6y agoAny longitudinal studies done would only have 6 months of data to go by. I recall reading that permanent lung damage from hypoxia is the most common problem with covid-19 but I don't remember where I read that or when. I'm trying my best to not be too alarmed, too fearful, of the unknown / uncertainty around this thing, especially when it comes to young children (I have twins that are 13 months...) but it's very, very hard not to.
- tchaffee 6y agoI'm astounded by the number of attempts at persuasion in this thread. Around claims that deserve hard evidence. Just wait for the evidence and say "I don't know" in the meantime. I see nonsense like "because other Sars viruses act like this we can assume blah blah blah". No we can't. Nature is full of bizarre surprises and scientific consensus changes often enough thanks to research and hard evidence. If you have meta studies on Coronavirus, please cite them. Otherwise stop with the "educated" guesses. You're better than this HN.
- ransom1538 6y agoYes. Don't make any assumptions about a pandemic sweeping the world until you have done triple blind studies for 4 years. Obviously.
- tchaffee 6y agoThat's a strawman along with an exaggeration. I never said to not make assumptions. If you are a doctor or scientist specializing in disease then I'd love to hear your assumptions. It's the layman persuasive arguments in here that are a waste of everyone's time. If doctors don't know - and plenty of doctors are willing to say "we just don't know that yet" - then you don't know either.
- jmull 6y agoIt's correct to say "We're not sure". However, if you demand hard proof before taking any significant action, that's the same thing as demanding that no significant action be taken. That's a very difficult position to sustain. Not to mention, doing nothing in the face of a huge and deadly pandemic is a very significant action, which you'd be taking without hard evidence. The reality is, we have to take action and don't have the luxury of time to ensure our decisions are absolutely correct. We need to marshal the evidence we have, have our best experts extrapolate what we don't know and take our best guess as to the most effective course of actions. Of course, one set of actions we can take is to initiate research to gather more evidence and change course in response -- prioritizing things based on level of impact and time/resources it takes to gather the information. > You're better than this HN. Making decent decisions in the face of imperfect information is something everyone should try to learn, though it is hard to do well.
- bearjaws 6y agoWhile these numbers might be inaccurate, what is actually going on right now is starting to look very grim. Every nurse & Dr I know is getting massive bonuses (200-400 a DAY + hazard pay) to pick up 1-2 extra shifts. Recruiters are offering contract jobs at smaller hospitals north of $100 an hour for 12 weeks, with housing. We are weeks away from Doctors & Nurses working 48+ hours a week. (Do you really want to be treated by someone on their last 12 hour shift on overtime?) There is not much staff left to deploy to help with the rising case load. Florida hospitals will soon be overwhelmed. I hope we peak here soon and learn a valuable lesson going into winter, where we will have to deal with both corona virus and influenza.
- eiji 6y agoIs there any indication that all these locations have stopped all elective surgeries and procedures? Most early states did that, which hurt the bottom line tremendously, but enabled all hospitals to stay below capacity. From what you are writing, this doesn't seem to be the case. Covid19 doesn't cause a shortage in medical staff. It causes a shortage in capacity and beds.
- trianglesphere 6y agoIt's looking grim for plenty of reasons, but nurses and doctors working 50+ hours is not new. Some docs do that their entire career. Also, if you've ever been treated by a resident, they were almost certainly over worked, they move to cap their hours at 80 per week received pushback from docs saying that residents needed 80-100hrs/wk for training.
- slg 6y agoTo further build off this point, shift changes are incredibly dangerous at hospitals because there is usually specific patient knowledge that isn't sufficiently passed from the outgoing workers to the incoming workers. So if we are optimizing for patient health, it isn't as simple as just having them work less hours.
- watwut 6y ago
- ummonk 6y agoTo be clear, this is not about a random sample of children, but about normal testing of children suspected to have COVID-19. Rising test positive rates are a strong indicator of rising infection rates in the overall population (because increased testing won’t show a false rise in this metric). But the title reads as if a third of children in Florida are infected, which is absolutely not the case.
- js2 6y agoThis is anecdotal, but younger patients are also now showing up at the ICU: > They're younger patients. [Their] age, last time, was probably around 65. Now, our average age is between 25 to 35, 45 years old. That's one big change. Much younger patients, pretty much healthy. Not really major past medical history. > We are not seeing that much obesity. I know there are some reports about obesity, but at least in the ICU, I would guess maybe 20% of patients are obese. Most of them are pretty young and healthy patients. > And also they get sicker than the previous [wave]. Mortality has not been a major issue because they are younger patients. But I think as the days go on, we might also see a change in mortality. > The delivery of oxygen is much higher, that's one. Second is the blood pressure has been low. So we have to use a lot of medications to actually bring the blood pressure to a normal level. So it's one, the use of medications to keep the blood pressure high, and second, the amount of oxygen these patients are required, which is more than last time. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/07/13/890403682/miami-hospital-icu-doctor-new-influx-of-patients-is-younger-than-before https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...
- itnAAnti 6y agoI'm confused... clicking on the PDF source data (Data through Jul 16, 2020 verified as of Jul 17, 2020 at 09:25 AM), it clearly shows a 13.4% overall positivity rate. Where is the 31.1% coming from?