Bolded I am starting to agree with. The scary death numbers I have a dose of skepticism about.

:cert:

Nobody will ever pay off this debt - it's physically impossible.

Symptoms are extremely similar to what I had just before Christmas and up to New Years. Still took a few weeks after to feel "normal".

It's my opinion this started much earlier than what china let on to. :yesnod:

If you want to go all "tin foil hat", did they do this on purpose to crash the world economy? With all their billions of population, they could lose a percentage of their population and still function quite well.

Been lied to many times and for too long to take govt "warnings" at face value. Am I keeping distances and washing with hot soapy water, absolutely.

It's here whether you believe all the projections or not. Better to be safe by following precautions than a blind fool acting like nothing is really going on.

That estimate comes from the same White House that said churches would be packed on Easter Sunday - how could you ever doubt it? ;)

Trust me man, I would be THRILLED that this thing peaks in 2 weeks and numbers are far below those esimates. However, when I spend literally hours every day in incident command meetings and monitoring reliable data and information coming in from "TRUSTWORTHY" resources, I am skeptical that will be the case.

Yes, this is a novel virus, but we know enough about the high transmission rates, duration of illness and lack of successful treatments at this time for the experts to give us fairly good estimates on future numbers. I take the word of experts that have been in infectious disease for their entire professional career, and we should believe they are accurate with their predictions.

I remember in the 80's, when AIDS was just being discovered. Even then, there was not this worldwide hysteria, with Ebola, SARS, MARS etc, there has NEVER been this level of dire concern.

Not sure how we watch the entire WORLD come to a halt, yet still fail to realize the tide that is coming. I get that no one wants to "accept" it, but it will be here regardless.

I can understand why you, as a professional in healthcare, must believe what the experts are saying. I, as a layman, am free to look at it with skepticism. And I do.....

:cert:

Also, something I am not sure they are talking about on the news, since I am not watching it much, but this virus is unlike anything many of us in medicine have ever seen. Patients do not stay in the CCU on life support for 14 days with influenza. So you not only have all the current COVID (and other) patients, but new cases pouring in daily. Many in Oklahoma have to come to OKC or Tulsa because our rural hospitals do not have the knowledge/specialist/resources to handle these patients.

COVID is causing damage to multiple organ systems. Liver enzymes are elevating to extreme levels, cardiac enzymes are also shooting up, some patients are having bizarre rashes and of course the severe respiratory symptoms. We do not have any long term data to show what the long term health consequences of this virus are yet. We are learning so much every day, but the cases are coming in so rapidly, we are just doing our best to deal with treating the acute issue at hand.

As long as you are safe and protecting yourself and others, wear whatever rose colored glasses you want.

:hurray:

Are you giving out the 'Trump cocktail' to your patients, and if so, what are the results? If not, why not?

We keep hearing 'anecdotal' evidence that the cocktail works, and works fast, for those it is effective on. We also know that the malaria med part is contraindicated for heart patients, but I haven't heard any reasons why people without heart issues shouldn't take it, and even those that do, heck, if I was facing fairly certain death, I'd insist you give me the Trump cocktail, even if it killed me. I'd want the chance; I'd take the risk.

I appreciate your sarcasm. NOT!

Where did you get the idea I was being careless about this. I am following every recommended precaution with the exception of wearing a mask on the few occasions I have had to go to the grocery store or pharmacy.

Also, curiously enough, I am not looking through any rose-colored glasses about this disease or anything else. Being skeptical doesn't mean I am stupid, it means I have learned over the years to think for myself and not blindly trust "the experts" be it science, medicine, business or anything else. That doesn't mean that I ignore them.

We are using a myriad of medications, and yes, you are correct, those meds all have special circumstances to consider before use. With this virus causing multiple organ failure, the patient care is complex. Also those meds can interact with other meds, so to say it is a balancing act is putting it lightly.

We ARE using the Hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin and a long list of various antivirals that have shown some effectiveness.

There is definitely no silver bullet at this point in time. We are currently at 30 deaths and 219 (confirmed) hospitalized patients.

I think you are unable to interpret my words via the web. Never said you were being careless, nor implied it. I was simply pointing out that as a "lay" person, you have the luxury of choosing to be skeptical and view this differently than those in the medical field do. That is what I was saying when I say "rose colored glasses", because your view is going to be different than mine.

No implication intended that you are not being careful.

My bad.....

I should have said patronizing instead of sarcasm.....:leaving:



.....yeah, yeah, in case there is any doubt, I am a little testy these days....

:cert:

OK, did the 30 who didn't make it get the Trump cocktail, and still died? Did they present in such bad shape that they were already pretty much gone by the time they rolled in the gate? Did they not get the cocktail because of medical contraindications and other treatments weren't successful?

You should have enough anecdotal observations to formulate some kind of opinion of the cocktail's efficacy by this point. So, does it work on those that can tolerate it or not? Does it work on a certain percentage, but not others?

I was actually referring to the state level all the way around. Governors and mayors are absolutely clueless and making ridiculous decisions.

In what UNIVERSE do you...

Close gun shops
Tell people to keep cash handy
Tell people to stay home
Release criminals

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Good call :seasix:

Some died that were getting the cocktail, yes. Some deteriorated quickly, others did not. MOST were older and had comorbid conditions, but not all.

Fair to say it may help some, but clearly not all.

Getting true data points on successful treatment is very difficult as there are SO many factors that play into each individual case.

Men do seem to be doing more poorly than women although both seem to be be equally infected.

Double blind studies have strict protocols. With this virus, there are so many fast moving parts, as you indicated, most current evidence of efficacy is anecdotal. Health metrics are being collected as we go. We have changed our protocols several times since this started, hence our daily incident command meetings. As of today, we are experiencing a major shortage of Azithromycin so not using that unless patients are critical.

To sum it up, this is a REAL chit show. :thomas:

https://media.giphy.com/media/26FeVn...30Jy/giphy.gif

Here let me help:

1) Close gun shops- Already have a sufficient stash:banana1:
2) Tell people to keep cash handy - See above, have guns, don't need cash
3) Tell people to stay home No problem, come to my house unwelcome, get to see my stash.
4) Release criminals - Got no cash, so see #1 and #3


:nutkick::monkeybutt:

:c3c7nic:

Works for you but not all. Imagine living in Virginia right now.

ICNLT