No sport is going to playing any games until a vaccine for this is found and readily available. Just my guess.
My Covid-19 hot take
- Thread starter Alvious
- Start date
My hot take: Sports will happen once testing is widely available (test kits are widely available and medical staff are trained to administer tests correctly, currently both are lacking) and free (for uninsured and insured folks), and flu season is over.
My hot take: I got a fever. And the only prescription is more coronavirus vaccine!
Well, I'm hot blooded, check it and see
I got a fever of a hundred and three
Come on baby, do you do more than dance?
I'm hot blooded, I'm hot blooded
Erik
I wanted to add some thoughts to this interesting thread.
First, a disclaimer: I am an internist. I am, however, certainly NO expert on infectious disease, microbiology, virology, or immunology.
While I'd like to think I have a decent amount of intelligence and experience, it has also been 25 years since I graduated medical school, so I am probably not up to date on the latest knowledge in the field of immunology and vaccines.
With that being said, I think it will be a while, if and when, a vaccine to Covid-19 is available, and I am hopeful that sports (and the rest of society) will be able to resume long before then.
As far as a vaccine goes, I would think it would take at least a year, if not several, for a vaccine to be developed. It is probably a far more complex process than how it is portrayed in entertainment, science fiction, and by the President (although I have mostly ignored what he has had to say). Then again, advances in molecular biology, genetics, and engineering have progressed so rapidly over the past couple of decades, that perhaps the process is speedier than I recall. In any case, I also believe that it is not always possible to create vaccines to every or any type of virus that is out there. While medicine certainly has made advances against a number of infectious diseases, such as measles, mumps , and Hepatitis B, for example, there are many more viruses out there that plague humanity, for which we currently do not have preventative vaccines, such as HIV, hepatitis C, and numerous respiratory viruses. I don't know the factors that make it feasible to create or produce vaccines for some viruses and not others, but it's not clear to me that a vaccine absolutely could be produced against this particular virus.
So while we wait and hope for a vaccine to help reduce the risk that this new virus brings, I am hopeful that the level of activity of this virus will diminish throughout the world over the next several months. Between containment efforts, warmer weather (which tends to see a drop-off in activity of these types of respiratory viruses), and the passage of time, I anticipate that the risk will drop, and society can resume its normal functioning. I would certainly like to think that, by the fall, we will all be enjoying Wildcat football again (but that will mostly depend on the offense).
Thank you to those who chose to read my long-winded post.
First, a disclaimer: I am an internist. I am, however, certainly NO expert on infectious disease, microbiology, virology, or immunology.
While I'd like to think I have a decent amount of intelligence and experience, it has also been 25 years since I graduated medical school, so I am probably not up to date on the latest knowledge in the field of immunology and vaccines.
With that being said, I think it will be a while, if and when, a vaccine to Covid-19 is available, and I am hopeful that sports (and the rest of society) will be able to resume long before then.
As far as a vaccine goes, I would think it would take at least a year, if not several, for a vaccine to be developed. It is probably a far more complex process than how it is portrayed in entertainment, science fiction, and by the President (although I have mostly ignored what he has had to say). Then again, advances in molecular biology, genetics, and engineering have progressed so rapidly over the past couple of decades, that perhaps the process is speedier than I recall. In any case, I also believe that it is not always possible to create vaccines to every or any type of virus that is out there. While medicine certainly has made advances against a number of infectious diseases, such as measles, mumps , and Hepatitis B, for example, there are many more viruses out there that plague humanity, for which we currently do not have preventative vaccines, such as HIV, hepatitis C, and numerous respiratory viruses. I don't know the factors that make it feasible to create or produce vaccines for some viruses and not others, but it's not clear to me that a vaccine absolutely could be produced against this particular virus.
So while we wait and hope for a vaccine to help reduce the risk that this new virus brings, I am hopeful that the level of activity of this virus will diminish throughout the world over the next several months. Between containment efforts, warmer weather (which tends to see a drop-off in activity of these types of respiratory viruses), and the passage of time, I anticipate that the risk will drop, and society can resume its normal functioning. I would certainly like to think that, by the fall, we will all be enjoying Wildcat football again (but that will mostly depend on the offense).
Thank you to those who chose to read my long-winded post.
From the CDC.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html
1629 cases in US.
41 deaths attributed to Coronavirus in the US in 2020 thru 3/13/2020.
Less than 50% of the homicides in the city of Chicago in 2020 thru 3/8/2020.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html
1629 cases in US.
41 deaths attributed to Coronavirus in the US in 2020 thru 3/13/2020.
Less than 50% of the homicides in the city of Chicago in 2020 thru 3/8/2020.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html
But are homicides contagious?
Just for a little perspective, here is a first-hand account posted on the local town Facebook group. The local schools are shut down now. I have edited out some personal details.
It's sobering to hear a first-hand account. No matter what the statistics are, we must take this seriously and take the right actions.
Subject: Note from [School] mom
I am [Student]'s mom. I am experiencing symptoms of coronavirus. Diarrhea, chills, loss of appetite, low grade fever, dryness in throat, pressure on chest. Like nothing I've ever experienced. This is not a drill. Please stay home and urge everyone else to do the same. It is already out there in numbers we cannot even imagine. Community spread is happening now and testing is not. [Student] was in school Mon, Tues, and Wed. I kept him home yesterday [Thursday] because his brother was sick with congestion, cough, and some fever, and I felt it was wise to be cautious. I started experiencing symptoms yesterday.
Wednesday I naively called the doctor's office to see if we could get [Student]'s brother [E] (5th grade) tested. They told us they were not testing and we should call Mass Dept of Public Health. Over 5 hours later, Dept of public health called back and told us to coordinate with our provider. Yesterday our provider (Atrius) was swamped but after a few hours called me back to let me know that the state is only testing people who have had direct contact with other positive tests or were in China, Korea, Italy. Even in these cases it is extremely hard to get a test. I heard from an ED doc they are only allowing 200 tests a day in the entire state of Massachusetts. The numbers in the news and on the charts online are meaningless. Now is the time to try to slow this down so our healthcare system has a chance to save more lives. Actually I think it was last week or the week before but here we are. If your kids are experiencing any symptoms even just a runny nose - that is what [E] started with - please be on the safe side and assume it is coronavirus. I have read scientific studies that show this is contagious even without symptoms.
Regardless, I urge you to stay home and tell everyone else you know to do the same. Please keep your kids away from older people.
Thanks and sorry for needing to share this news with you. Yes, you have my permission to forward and I encourage you to do so.
I am [Student]'s mom. I am experiencing symptoms of coronavirus. Diarrhea, chills, loss of appetite, low grade fever, dryness in throat, pressure on chest. Like nothing I've ever experienced. This is not a drill. Please stay home and urge everyone else to do the same. It is already out there in numbers we cannot even imagine. Community spread is happening now and testing is not. [Student] was in school Mon, Tues, and Wed. I kept him home yesterday [Thursday] because his brother was sick with congestion, cough, and some fever, and I felt it was wise to be cautious. I started experiencing symptoms yesterday.
Wednesday I naively called the doctor's office to see if we could get [Student]'s brother [E] (5th grade) tested. They told us they were not testing and we should call Mass Dept of Public Health. Over 5 hours later, Dept of public health called back and told us to coordinate with our provider. Yesterday our provider (Atrius) was swamped but after a few hours called me back to let me know that the state is only testing people who have had direct contact with other positive tests or were in China, Korea, Italy. Even in these cases it is extremely hard to get a test. I heard from an ED doc they are only allowing 200 tests a day in the entire state of Massachusetts. The numbers in the news and on the charts online are meaningless. Now is the time to try to slow this down so our healthcare system has a chance to save more lives. Actually I think it was last week or the week before but here we are. If your kids are experiencing any symptoms even just a runny nose - that is what [E] started with - please be on the safe side and assume it is coronavirus. I have read scientific studies that show this is contagious even without symptoms.
Regardless, I urge you to stay home and tell everyone else you know to do the same. Please keep your kids away from older people.
Thanks and sorry for needing to share this news with you. Yes, you have my permission to forward and I encourage you to do so.
It's sobering to hear a first-hand account. No matter what the statistics are, we must take this seriously and take the right actions.
The inability to get tested is the primary reason this virus will spread rapidly.
Today trump said he has been tested for COVID-19. When asked if it was negative, he said he hadn't received the results which would take a day or two. Well, certain of these tests yield a result in 15 minutes. This is the President we are talking about--if he wanted, he could get the result immediately. Lying again. The only reason I can come up with for continued obfuscation on this is he wants to perpetuate that this is not as serious as it is or might be. Oh, and his tax returns will be available in a day or two also.
Sorry, brother — I’m fresh out of “cool guy” points. Won’t be able to give you any for that post, sadly.
Whew. And the fewer people we test, the lower we can keep those numbers! I also suggest the Chicago Police stop checking to see if crime victims are alive. Keep the totals down, you know.
I'm a bit more bullish on vaccine prospects. It will still take at least a year, but I think the groundwork has been done.
First, since most people recover, there is clearly a neutralizing antibody that the human immune system can make. That's proof positive that we can make a successful vaccine. (Same with Ebola). While the human immune system makes many antibodies against HIV, none are neutralizing, making vaccine prospects much more bleak....
Second, the technology has advanced at an incredible pace. As soon as the Chinese isolated the virus, it's entire genome was sequenced. We now know the structure, genomic makeup, proteins and enzymes the virus uses. Many biotech companies have launched phase I trials of candidate vaccines produced from messenger RNA strands from Covid 19. It's now simply a matter of determining safety (since it's a single RNA strand, it can't cause the disease and should be quite safe) and finding which mRNA strand elicits neutralizing antibody response.
As an aside, this is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better. As a practicing ED physician for 25 years, this is the most disorganized, chaotic response to an emerging infectious threat I've ever seen. Usually, the CDC has its act together, but for some reason, not this time.... Did Trump cut their budget? They seem completely discombobulated this time around and it's very alarming to me. What the heck happened to them?
We knew about this threat a long time ago. We needed to block travel, rapidly ramp up testing capability (still can't test for this in my hospital or in most US hospitals), impose social quarantining and home isolation MUCH earlier than we did... The fact that we are just starting to do these things this late in the game is completely appalling. And I still see people congregating in bars, fitness clubs, and going about their daily routine like nothing is happening. China and South Korea started flattening their curves by rapidly ramping up testing capability and socially isolating. We need to learn from them and do a much better job of these things.
First, since most people recover, there is clearly a neutralizing antibody that the human immune system can make. That's proof positive that we can make a successful vaccine. (Same with Ebola). While the human immune system makes many antibodies against HIV, none are neutralizing, making vaccine prospects much more bleak....
Second, the technology has advanced at an incredible pace. As soon as the Chinese isolated the virus, it's entire genome was sequenced. We now know the structure, genomic makeup, proteins and enzymes the virus uses. Many biotech companies have launched phase I trials of candidate vaccines produced from messenger RNA strands from Covid 19. It's now simply a matter of determining safety (since it's a single RNA strand, it can't cause the disease and should be quite safe) and finding which mRNA strand elicits neutralizing antibody response.
As an aside, this is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better. As a practicing ED physician for 25 years, this is the most disorganized, chaotic response to an emerging infectious threat I've ever seen. Usually, the CDC has its act together, but for some reason, not this time.... Did Trump cut their budget? They seem completely discombobulated this time around and it's very alarming to me. What the heck happened to them?
We knew about this threat a long time ago. We needed to block travel, rapidly ramp up testing capability (still can't test for this in my hospital or in most US hospitals), impose social quarantining and home isolation MUCH earlier than we did... The fact that we are just starting to do these things this late in the game is completely appalling. And I still see people congregating in bars, fitness clubs, and going about their daily routine like nothing is happening. China and South Korea started flattening their curves by rapidly ramping up testing capability and socially isolating. We need to learn from them and do a much better job of these things.
CDC is asking for bans of groups of 50 or more for 8 weeks, which is now until the end of May. So I think the absolute earliest sports could start again is mid-June or July.
This is nothing more than a bunch of political garbage. I’m supposed to stay in isolation so I don’t get the sniffles?
Can’t I just go to work, live my life, and stay away from old people?
Can’t I just go to work, live my life, and stay away from old people?
Move this to the rant board. Looks like there are already 253 threads out there on it.
Thanks for the feedback, but I think I will get my info from the professionals.
Thanks for the feedback, but I think I will get my info from the professionals.
Not hard to imagine many another mom with an access to a Facebook account posting a similar account when anyone in the family gets a cold. Definitely unfortunate to have the uncertainty of not knowing one way or the other.
Except when a family member gets a cold, no one thinks it's a big enough of a deal to post a warning to FB, and also it usually is not the tipping point to shut down an entire school system.
Good point as schools are being shut down across the country when not a single diagnosed case has been confirmed in the respective schools so it probably wouldn’t make any difference.
The next town over does have at least one student who is a confirmed case. There are likely many more. The lack of testing capabilities prevents others from being diagnosed.
I think they are pretty proficient and putting out flu vaccines. The issue seems to be whether they have chosen the right strains for that particular year as they generally have to prepare a year in advance. Chose right and about 70% effective. Choose wrong (like they did last year) and only about 10%. Everything I see says 1 to 1.5 years to get it to market. Hopefully not many mutations
As I see it there are really two problems that exacerbate this particular situation.
1) Lack of enough test kits to do broad amounts of testing to catch cases early and inform us if we are asymptomatic carriers.
2 Lack of adequate numbers of ventilators in the US to accommodate not just the victims of the virus but also the people who typically need ventilators for flu or accidents or what ever people usually need ventilators for what ever reason. If we run out of ventilators people will die because of the virus but not of the virus.
Our medical system is in no way ready to combat an epidemic. We don't have anywhere near enough hospitals, hospital beds, ICU's or ventilators. In a full blown epidemic of a very virulent pathogen, millions would die.
I'm not sure how we got this way. It seems to me that someone, somewhere along the way would say "Hey! We could have an epidemic one day and we should probably have more capability than we have now..." but no one ever got that message out....
We also don't have anywhere near enough protective equipment. My hospital is already dangerously low on masks, gloves, and we are out of hand sanitizer, and the surge hasn't even hit yet...
I'm not sure the lack of testing is necessarily going to doom us. What would be wrong with ASSUMING everyone has this disease and locking everyone in their house for 4 weeks? Yes, that would wreak havoc on business and the economy. Yes, we'd all get serious cabin fever. But we might just be able to stop this thing from blowing up....
I'm not sure how we got this way. It seems to me that someone, somewhere along the way would say "Hey! We could have an epidemic one day and we should probably have more capability than we have now..." but no one ever got that message out....
We also don't have anywhere near enough protective equipment. My hospital is already dangerously low on masks, gloves, and we are out of hand sanitizer, and the surge hasn't even hit yet...
I'm not sure the lack of testing is necessarily going to doom us. What would be wrong with ASSUMING everyone has this disease and locking everyone in their house for 4 weeks? Yes, that would wreak havoc on business and the economy. Yes, we'd all get serious cabin fever. But we might just be able to stop this thing from blowing up....
Maybe they can put the bodies on a Great Lakes ore boat and dump them in Georgian Bay to keep them out of the US body count. It would make our president look better.
Won't work. Bodies will wash up on rich people's islands. Been there, seen them.
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