Wow, it’s getting really scary in Texas - and everywhere else!

[timo2]

My post #513 didn't get much traction, but it basically says that based on autopsy data, the virus wreaks havoc with a number of your organs and even those that live may have more lasting damage than is initially realized. To me, it just reinforces the idea that the virus is more dangerous than it might seem otherwise.

Yes. And I've seen reports on studies that are now looking at the possibility that even asymptomatic people could have some of these effects on their organs. Then there are the 'long-haulers' whose symptoms never end, sometimes morphing into something possibly similar to the probably misnamed 'Chronic Fatigue Syndrome'. I have read that there is some (pre-COVID-19) research that points to viruses causing 'Chronic Fatigue Syndrome'.

There are more facets here than just cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.

 

[timo2]

FWIW, an interview with disease experts asked many interesting questions that I believe many laypeople have. Such as:


Would you go to the dentist?
Would you get a haircut?
Do you go to friend's home for dinner or have friend to your house?
Do you take precautions with mail and packages?

While they differ, I found this article to be more practical and easy to understand that those covering various studies.

One expert has a bottle of light scent he squirts into the air every day to test if he can smell it. Lack of smell is an early warning sign of Covid.



(https://www.washingtonpost.com/heal...665ed6-b6fb-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html )

A friend from Texas shared this graphic

 

[Aerides]

^
Always irks me to see "the beach" as any risk when not qualified - as other activities are - as "with others" or something.

I can go to the beach, park, walk and plonk myself down, swim in the ocean, etc., and even on a busy florida beach do all that staying easily 15-20 feet away from anyone. Vs. the grocery store where I come within 6 feet of a dozen people who can't figure out that aisles are one-way despite markers being down for 2 months...

 

[audreyh1]

It is definitely better to focus on hospitalizations. Also the positivity rate spike in Houston is a large concern, going from 15 pct to 25 pct in a month.

Not sure I have heard a rate that high or one that grew that much. That is definitely not a good sign. They need to do a lot more testing. Texas near the bottom in testing.

Testing bottleneck again - commercial testing labs say they are swamped and it’s starting to take days to get results in many cases.

 

[Chuckanut]

Wow, it’s getting really scary in Texas!

A friend from Texas shared this graphic

Thanks.

The graph suggest a strategy of minimizing any activity of 3 or greater with a strong emphasis on completely avoiding levels 8 and 9, while keeping the body count and distances in mind at all times.

 

[garyt]

I'm curious. Does she still live with her older and more vulnerable parents?
Do they let her back into the house?

Yes,and her 84 year old grandfather! And her mother is a nurse. She's always railing about how serious the virus is, but was also going to allow her other daughter to go to a "prom" one of the parents was going to put on. It seems lots of people are about everybody being safe until it's something they really want to do.

 

[timo2]

^
Always irks me to see "the beach" as any risk when not qualified - as other activities are - as "with others" or something.

I can go to the beach, park, walk and plonk myself down, swim in the ocean, etc., and even on a busy florida beach do all that staying easily 15-20 feet away from anyone. Vs. the grocery store where I come within 6 feet of a dozen people who can't figure out that aisles are one-way despite markers being down for 2 months...

The one I was pondering was the Dentist. The dentists are doing a massive amount of mitigation, but I'm presuming this chart is pre-mitigation activities?

but generally speaking charts like this provide a ballpark estimate for the extent of personal mitigation actions one might need to partake in an activity. So for the public movie theatre, I would have to buy every seat in the theatre for me to be able to go in and watch a movie. Or not.

 

[Corporateburnout]

A friend from Texas shared this graphic

Thanks for posting.

We have avoided all 4 and above risk factors with the exception of getting a haircut which is number 7 on the list. DW had a haircut last Monday and I'm getting mine cut tomorrow.

If the virus is spreading as it was back in April and May in our state, we would have avoided getting a haircut but with a positive infection rate of 2% statewide and with no new confirmed cases in our town in the last 3 weeks we feel our risk of exposure is lower.

 

[gerntz]

I think many here wouldn’t be so concerned if it was just cases increasing so rapidly. It is the corresponding rapid increase in hospitalizations that is so concerning.

Are hospitalizations increasing at the same, or higher, or lower rate than infections? I don't know. I would expect as cases increase, hospitalizations would increase, but don't know the comparable rates.

 

[gerntz]

A friend from Texas shared this graphic

I went & sat in doctor's office today. I felt no more risk than being at home. Net, that rating seems ridiculously high.

Nothing on going to dentist that I see.

 

[REWahoo]

I think many here wouldn’t be so concerned if it was just cases increasing so rapidly. It is the corresponding rapid increase in hospitalizations that is so concerning.

Are hospitalizations increasing at the same, or higher, or lower rate than infections? I don't know. I would expect as cases increase, hospitalizations would increase, but don't know the comparable rates.

As audrey1 pointed out, there is a corresponding increase in hospitalizations. Large increases in admissions are keeping pace with the huge spike in new cases.

The mayor of San Antonio said today that at the current rate, SA hospitals would be at full capacity next week. Might be a good idea to look at your schedule and put off any auto accidents, heart attacks, strokes, appendectomies, or other health emergencies until further notice.

 

[brewer12345]

As audrey1 pointed out, there is a corresponding increase in hospitalizations. Large increases in admissions are keeping pace with the huge spike in new cases.

The mayor of San Antonio said today that at the current rate, SA hospitals would be at full capacity next week.

Oh, come on, you worry too much. Look how low the mortality rate is. This whole thing is just blown out of proportion. Go back to worrying about rattlesnakes...

 

[Dtail]

4 hospitals in Pinellas county in FLA are out of ICU beds.

 

[MichaelB]

New hospitalizations in Florida have gone from less than 100 per day in early June to 250 per day now. CDC shows the state is above 70% of total hospital capacity, and this website shows 70 hospitals are at full capacity. https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/patient-flow/44-florida-hospitals-at-icu-capacity.html

This is not a good to get sick.

 

[timo2]

I went & sat in doctor's office today. I felt no more risk than being at home. Net, that rating seems ridiculously high.

Nothing on going to dentist that I see.

Yes, there is not dentist on this list. I must have been confused by looking at a similar list elsewhere.

 

[audreyh1]

Are hospitalizations increasing at the same, or higher, or lower rate than infections? I don't know. I would expect as cases increase, hospitalizations would increase, but don't know the comparable rates.

Hospitalizations in TX due to COVID-19 have about doubled since Memorial Day. I believe that in the hardest hit counties/municipalities they have gone up even more.* ReWahoo had some pretty impressive statistics for his county. I don't know that there is some fixed ratio. But it's obviously going to be related.
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/06/18/texas-coronavirus-hospitalizations/

*In the Rio Grande Valley, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 has more than tripled over the past two weeks, from 253 people on June 22 to 820 on July 4.
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/04/texas-coronavirus-rio-grande-valley-hospitals/

 

[REWahoo]

Oh, come on, you worry too much. Look how low the mortality rate is. This whole thing is just blown out of proportion. Go back to worrying about rattlesnakes...

Good point. My priorities are obviously all out of whack...

 

[candrew]

When various states report out on their percentage of occupied inpatient hospital and ICU beds, this is absent the context of available, qualified nurse and ICU staff/bed. Hospital beds do not provide care.

Regardless of surge plans for increasing hospital inpatient capacity, without enough available staff the quality of patient care suffers and worse outcomes will result.

 

[brewer12345]

When various states report out on their percentage of occupied inpatient hospital and ICU beds, this is absent the context of available, qualified nurse and ICU staff/bed. Hospital beds do not provide care.

Regardless of surge plans for increasing hospital inpatient capacity, without enough available staff the quality of patient care suffers and worse outcomes will result.

But our board cheerleader says we can just fly them in. No?

 

[Aerides]

Are hospitalizations increasing at the same, or higher, or lower rate than infections? I don't know. I would expect as cases increase, hospitalizations would increase, but don't know the comparable rates.

Unlike cases or deaths, data and reporting on hospitalization is inconsistent and varies from state to state. We also don't know what the average "incubation" time is from:

A) infection event
B) testing/diagnosis
C) onset of illness (this seems to be 2-14, average 5, from event A)
D) hospitalization

Data from the past few months would indicate the average from A to D is at least 2 weeks, but it may be longer with younger folks. Deaths seem to average 4-6 weeks from diagnosis, but that might be longer now with more treatment options? Also have inconsistent days on each data point, by county and state, from event to reporting at the national level.

 

[candrew]

But our board cheerleader says we can just fly them in. No?

Suuurrre.............. There's an entire legion of qualified nurses and other acute care clinicians sitting in the bullpen just itching to get in the game.

Having retired after 35 years w*rking in an acute care hospital in the Phoenix area, the news that inpatient/ICU beds are nearing capacity in July is stunning. Typically, inpatient census would average around 60% from mid-May through September. The hospital I retired from has been experiencing daily code purple surge alerts over the past several weeks.

Should this rate of hospitalizations continue into the fall when the annual flu season begins, I can't even begin to imagine what that will look like in a typical acute care hospital.

 

[pj.mask]

Several houses (~10%) on our walk had extra cars out front over the weekend. One had +5

I knew several of those with guests have retuned to work. Some of the others believe the virus ‘is a hoax’ (overblown by the media, not that risky - like the flu).

One neighbor works an office job for a state wide sports retail shop - said many of their older coworkers refuse/don’t wear masks around the office (stop by your desk, etc). They have to sent their kids to daycare so at that point, how much more incremental risk is having friends over (assuming friends are in the same spot, maybe even your coworkers)?

Someone else may be able to get a job easy but if you work retail (lots of businesses closing/laying off) or oil - you can go back to the office when they call you or resign without unemployment. Not many people in their 20-30s have the savings to quit with no job in sight for the next 6 months.

 

[brewer12345]

Candrew, flu season is what worries me. If the hospitals are already full with covid patients and the annual flu donkey show starts, it will not be pretty.

 

[candrew]

Candrew, flu season is what worries me. If the hospitals are already full with covid patients and the annual flu donkey show starts, it will not be pretty.

I can recall during even moderately severe flu seasons that lasted over several months time being an absolute nightmare in an acute care hospital. It was not uncommon to queue up patients on gurneys in the E.D. hallways waiting for available beds. Nurse/patient ratios would rise to levels that at times resembled crowd control rather than patient care. It's a "treat 'em and street 'em" scenario.

And to further compound matters, invariably, staff would end up getting sick with the flu.

Add what appears to be an out of control pandemic to an average season of influenza, and E.D. triage will end up looking something like an army field hospital.

 

[Montecfo]

There are 94,120 estimated active cases of Covid-19 in Texas as of now, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services dashboard.

The same source reports that there are 8698 Covid-19 patients in Texas hospitals as of now.

https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/3f048ced32804271aafe8b9640bcb4a7