Author: VD

This paper appears to be the primary rationale behind the nationwide lockdowns that are being gradually imposed by governments around the world:

The optimal timing of interventions differs between suppression and mitigation strategies, as well as depending on the definition of optimal. However, for mitigation, the majority of the effect of such a strategy can be achieved by targeting interventions in a three-month window around the peak of the epidemic.  For suppression, early action is important, and interventions need to be in place well before healthcare capacity is overwhelmed. Given the most systematic surveillance occurs in the hospital context, the typical delay from infection to hospitalisation means there is a 2- to 3-week lag between interventions being introduced and the impact being seen in hospitalised case numbers, depending on whether all hospital admissions are tested or only those entering critical care units. In the GB context, this means acting before COVID-19 admissions to ICUs exceed 200 per week.

Perhaps our most significant conclusion is that mitigation is unlikely to be feasible without emergency surge capacity limits of the UK and US healthcare systems being exceeded many times over. In the most effective mitigation strategy examined, which leads to a single, relatively short epidemic (case isolation, household quarantine and social distancing of the elderly), the surge limits for both general ward and ICU beds would be exceeded by at least 8-fold under the more optimistic scenario for critical care requirements that we examined. In addition, even if all patients were able to be treated, we predict there would still be in the order of 250,000 deaths in GB, and 1.1-1.2 million in the US.

In the UK, this conclusion has only been reached in the last few days, with the refinement of estimates of likely ICU demand due to COVID-19 based on experience in Italy and the UK (previous planning estimates assumed half the demand now estimated) and with the NHS providing increasing certainty around the limits of hospital surge capacity.

We therefore conclude that epidemic suppression is the only viable strategy at the current time. The social and economic effects of the measures which are needed to achieve this policy goal will be profound. Many countries have adopted such measures already, but even those countries at an earlier stage of their epidemic (such as the UK) will need to do so imminently.

Basically, the less strict the measures, the more likely it is that the number of people requiring treatment will overwhelm the available medical serves at the peak. Hence the term “flattening the curve” which refers to the peak of the bell curve. Different nations are at very different risk in this regard; Germany has 25,000 ICU beds with full respiratory support, or one for every 3,312 people, vs 4,000 for the UK, or one for every 16,610 people.

The USA has 32,000 ICU beds, which puts it right in between at one ICU bed for every 10,000 people. This means that if the mitigation calculations are correct, the medical resources would be overwhelmed by a factor of 8x, thereby leading to fatalities in excess of 2 million. The suppression measures are expected to reduce that by three orders of magnitude, which is why it is safe to expect that they will be imposed, sooner rather than later, in the US, the UK, and other countries that have not yet officially adopted them.

UPDATE: As expected, the UK announced a three-week nationwide lockdown.

If you lost your sense of smell, you may be a corona-chan carrier:

In the areas of Italy most heavily affected by the virus, doctors say they have concluded that loss of taste and smell is an indication that a person who otherwise seems healthy is in fact carrying the virus and may be spreading it to others.

“Almost everybody who is hospitalized has this same story,” said Dr. Marco Metra, chief of the cardiology department at the main hospital in Brescia, where 700 of 1,200 inpatients have the coronavirus. “You ask about the patient’s wife or husband. And the patient says, ‘My wife has just lost her smell and taste but otherwise she is well.’ So she is likely infected, and she is spreading it with a very mild form.”

It might be useful to keep in mind, anyhow. On the plus side, the latest numbers out of Italy may indicate that the peak has been passed, as new cases are down 27 percent and new deaths are down 24 percent since March 21.

Absolute idiocy is the real problem. And most people are idiots.

I just got off the phone with doctors in Bergen County, New Jersey who told me their hospitals are saying doctors & nurses will be *disciplined* for wearing protective gear, including masks. This is dangerous and may be illegal. And their stories are alarming…

Hospital physicians tell me this is happening across the state. Nurses worry they could be fired if they wear protective gear, but worry if they don’t they’re putting themselves & patients at risk. It comes as NJ has an explosion in COVID cases, particularly Bergen County. I’ve heard other hospitals nationwide are enforcing this policy, too. Who knows how rampant it is? Some internal documents we obtained suggest certain federal restrictions by the CDC may be guiding this decision.

If that’s the case, @realdonaldtrump should immediately intervene & prohibit public hospitals from being able to threaten their staff for wearing protective equipment during this crisis, including gloves and masks. This is urgent and common sense. And it will save lives.

Folks have been asking for what the “explanation” is for this decision. We’ve been told the hospital administrators are concerned patients & visitors would be unduly alarmed & fearful if they saw health care workers wearing protective clothing & masks.

I am always very skeptical of decisions that are supposedly made on the basis of “preventing panic”. In most cases, that translates as “the denial of information in order to prevent rational self-interested behavior on the part of the correctly informed”.

And no, it’s not just rumors out of New Jersey, as this case of an Oklahoma nurse fired for wearing a mask will demonstrate:

Kevin Readel worked at the Oklahoma Heart Hospital South for over five years. That was until Wednesday when he claims he was fired for wearing a droplet isolation mask.

“It was to protect myself, to protect the patient and to protect my family,” Readel said.

Readel worked in the Cardiac Care Unit, an ICU area for the heart hospital. Readel said he didn’t wear it all the time, but he was wearing it while putting an IV in a patient on Monday.

“I was trying to maintain some level of barrier,” he said when referencing himself and the patient.

According to Readel, his supervisor approached him and allegedly told him he needed to take it off, stating that it could cause fear and panic among the patients and staff.

Fear and panic are not the problems. Infectious disease and a failure to take basic precautions are. What are they going to do for an encore, ban surgeons from washing their hands prior to an operation for fear that impious ablutions could cause the surgery gods to frown upon the surgery?

We literally had an anesthesiologist WALK OUT because our Chief of nursing refused him having a mask.  

He did the right thing. All medical workers should refuse to work under unnecessarily unsafe conditions. They are on the front lines and their health should be the absolute top priority of everyone involved.

UPDATE: It should not be surprising to learn that the CDC’s policies are insanely counterproductive. It’s being run by corrupt Deep State clowns:

As the coronavirus spread to all fifty states over the last two months, the Trump administration faced mounting criticism for the lack of reliable, widely accessible test kits. Now, a former senior federal health official nominated to his post by President Trump, alleges that the delays in testing occurred because leaders at the Centers for Disease Control “lied” to the president, and to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, about the center’s ability to produce the kits.

In making the allegation, Chris Meekins, a former assistant secretary of Health and Human Services for preparedness and response, cited private discussions he has held in recent weeks with top federal officials and physicians and scientists employed in private-sector industries that are active in the anti-coronavirus effort. Meekins described his contacts on the White House Coronavirus Task Force as “friends,” some of whom he has known for many years.

“From my conversations with members of the task force, both inside and outside the administration,” Meekins told Sinclair in an exclusive interview, “The U.S. government, from Secretary Azar to the president relied on the Centers for Disease Control to produce a test; they failed….CDC said they would handle it….What we have found out is that these leaders at the CDC lied to both the HHS secretary and, by extension, the president. And as a result the nation got weeks behind.”

This is yet another reason why the Swamp must be drained.

Spacebunny transcribed some translated advice from Spanish medical professionals who are fighting Corona-chan and are up on the latest protocols. Keep in mind this is advice for the medical personnel who are in regular contact with the infected; no need to be paranoid or apply the “every 20 minutes” advice. It’s also consistent with other information that is being passed around by informed European sources.

The Chinese now understand the behaviour of the covid19 virus thanks to autopsies that have carried out. This virus is characterized by obstructing respiratory pathways with thick mucus that solidifies and blocks the airways and lungs. They have discovered that in order to apply a medicine and unblock these airways so that the treatment can be used to take affect. However, all of this takes a number of days.

Their recommendations for what you can do to safeguard yourself are

1. Drink lots of hot liquids. Coffees, soups, teas, warm water. In addition take a sip of warm water every 20 minutes because this keeps your mouth moist and washes any virus that’s entered your mouth into your stomach where gastric juices will neutralize it before it can get to the lungs.
2. Gargle with an antiseptic in warm water, like vinegar, or salt, or lemon, every day if possible.
3. The virus attaches itself to hair and clothes, any detergent or soap kills it, but you must take a bath or shower when you get in from the street. Avoid sitting down anywhere and go straight to the bathroom and shower. If you cannot wash your clothes daily, hang them in direct sunlight which also neutralizes the virus.
4. Wash metallic surfaces very carefully because the virus can remain viable for up to nine days. Take note and be vigilant about touching handrails and door handles, etc. I guess within your own houses you can keep those clean by wiping them down regularly.
5. Don’t smoke.
6. Wash your hands every 20 minutes using any soap that foams, do this for 20 seconds and wash your hands thoroughly.
7. Eat fruits and vegetables. Try to elevate your zinc level not just vitamin C levels.
8. Animals do not spread the virus to people. It is person-to-person transmission.
9. Try to avoid getting the common flu, I guess because this just already weakens your system. And try avoid eating and drinking cold things.
10. If you feel any discomfort in your throat, or a sore throat coming on, attack it immediately using the above methods. The virus enters the system this way and remains for 3 or 4 days within the throat before it passes into the lungs.

Spacebunny passed on a translated warning concerning several common over-the-counter medications from the French government. TL;DR: do not take aspirin or Advil or other forms of ibuprofin for headaches, flu, or fever at this time. Tylenol is to be preferred.

The virus has just been shown to enter the lung alveolus cell through the ECAII receptor. When it binds to it it overexpresses it and kills the alveolar cell. Hence everything it produces. Men have more receptors than women, Asians more than Caucasians and people who take anti-hypertensive drugs such as antiECAs and especially Anti-ECAII have a brutal overexpression of the receptor and therefore are more susceptible to infection and infection is more serious.

The serious cases of young people are patients who have taken anti-inflammatory drugs at the beginning of the disease. Aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen, voltarene (diclofenac), etc. must be avoided, because they favor the grave forms. You should only take Paracetamol.

Do not take ibuprofen or anti-inflammatory if you suspect Covid. In France, four serious cases of young people without previous pathology have in common the taking of ibuprofen. Apparently it makes the infection develop much faster.

They are reminded that they should NOT take Ibuprofen, Motrin, Advil, or aspirin for flu or fever symptoms. In Italy and France they have discovered that people who have died from Covid-19 have taken ibuprofen and causes the virus to be potentiated five or more times.

Anyone who has symptoms should take only and exclusively PARACETAMOL  (except, of course, medical prescription), drink plenty of water, and very often (if possible sips every 15 minutes). We also have natural antivirals such as Garlic, Ginger, Propolis, and almost all aromatic plants (Mint, Melissa (Torongil), Rosemary …) Cinnamon, Curcuma, Fruits with Vitamin C … in direct infusion.