Coronavirus All-Purpose Thread: The Second Wave

[V]

My wife was tested 51 hours ago and still doesn’t have results. That’s surprising considering other numbers I’ve seen in this thread.

Kinda hoping it is Covid. It’s a pretty bad cold with coughing and sneezing, but that’s it.

[Ryan Coke]

My wife tested Tuesday got results Friday, roughly 68 hours. Negative FWIW.

[cupofjoe]

Originally Posted by V

My wife was tested 51 hours ago and still doesn’t have results. That’s surprising considering other numbers I’ve seen in this thread.

Kinda hoping it is Covid. It’s a pretty bad cold with coughing and sneezing, but that’s it.

Maybe I don't understand what you are trying to say, but under no circumstance would I ever willingly want my wife to be diagnosed with Covid.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Just because someone isn't classified as "healthy" doesn't mean there wasn't an expectation that they had many years remaining in their lives. We are being too binary in some of these important definitional elements.

It’s kind of concerning to me how many people, especially those touting themselves as critical thinkers, are making binary arguments.

There seems to be a lot of suggestion that people are panicking, or not taking it seriously at all.
That some things are given facts with a straightforward response, or simple anecdotes that mean nothing.
That there is this group, and that group, and “I” am in the good group, other people are in the bad group.

None of this is helpful and none of it is interesting. The vast majority of people here are falling into grey areas between these things, as is the information we have at hand which should dictate our reactions. The more people try to fit information and other posters into binary “blanket” categories, the further the discussion deteriorates, honestly.

Combat misinformation with factual information, consider the context of things, and realise that things are complex and that some cannot be made simple. Some of the people who say the way they’re looking at the pandemic in a measured, critical way, can’t even seem to interpret other posters in that way, or concepts like “health.” It makes me very much doubt that they have the ability to look at something much more complex in that way, or perhaps they’re just picking and choosing, which isn’t that helpful either.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Joborule

I'm confused about the messaging of ICU capacity right now. Currently we're at 58, but there's messaging that we're almost at our limit, not really saying we can add more if necessary.

I thought that since April, that Alberta Health has been prepared to expand ICU considerably since based on their projections, they were expecting a lot of cases for the spring, which we didn't get anywhere close to?

Based on this article from September, there's currently 272 ICU beds in the province in total. And there's the ability to improve capacity to more than 1000. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...care-1.5723342

So where's the ICU limit being reached coming from? Am I'm misunderstanding things? Is this hospitalization limits that's being talked about instead?

Global News this morning talked about ICU capacity in their Covid reporting. They mentioned that currently 70 ICU beds have been designated as Covid ICUs so the concern with reaching capacity is with respect to that number of 70. However, they are readily available to convert an additional ~100 adult ICU beds to Covid if necessary.

[kirant]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Global News this morning talked about ICU capacity in their Covid reporting. They mentioned that currently 70 ICU beds have been designated as Covid ICUs so the concern with reaching capacity is with respect to that number of 70. However, they are readily available to convert an additional ~100 adult ICU beds to Covid if necessary.

I'm curious at what cost those 100 beds would come at. "Converting" ICU beds to open them for Covid patients would mean taking away from other roles. Similar sacrifices would occur to transfer staff to care for the ICU Covid patients.

Would it be another cut into elective surgeries (like Edmonton Zone is seeing)? That seems like AHS' primary target for reductions when the Covid situation has gotten dangerous.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by kirant

I'm curious at what cost those 100 beds would come at. "Converting" ICU beds to open them for Covid patients would mean taking away from other roles. Similar sacrifices would occur to transfer staff to care for the ICU Covid patients.

Would it be another cut into elective surgeries (like Edmonton Zone is seeing)? That seems like AHS' primary target for reductions when the Covid situation has gotten dangerous.

Here is a recent Global article about the ICU capacity. Sounds like they already added capacity in Edmonton. https://globalnews.ca/news/7476892/a...v-21-covid-19/

[DiracSpike]

Originally Posted by V

My wife was tested 51 hours ago and still doesn’t have results. That’s surprising considering other numbers I’ve seen in this thread.

Kinda hoping it is Covid. It’s a pretty bad cold with coughing and sneezing, but that’s it.

My positive result being returned to me seemed take longer than the people I know that ended up testing negative. 2 days was how long it took for me.

Originally Posted by cupofjoe

Maybe I don't understand what you are trying to say, but under no circumstance would I ever willingly want my wife to be diagnosed with Covid.

He means that if this is as bad as her illness is going to get it might as well be COVID to get it over with. I felt the same way.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Ryan Coke

My wife tested Tuesday got results Friday, roughly 68 hours. Negative FWIW.

Where was her test?

I've heard at work that the AHS drive-thru / greyhound special testing locations are very fast, and pharmacy locations have been taking 5+ days.

When my son needed a test we made sure we went to Greyhound because of what I had heard, and it was pretty much exactly 1 day for results.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

I believe we can ramp up to 1,000 if we have to. The issue isn't beds. It's people. They don't have enough trained nurses or physicians to deal with it. They can get family docs and surgeons to jump in but they don't really know how to deal with this type of trauma. We want to avoid going over 70 because we are getting non experts to Band-Aid our response. In the spring we thought this was going to be a lot worse than it actually has turned out to be.

There was a good cartoon on this thread late in the spring, don't really want to look for it, but basically the point of it was;

If we do nothing it will get really bad,

If we do something it won't be as bad and people will accuse us of doing too much.

Given the wildly extreme reaction we have put into this compared to what anyone would have believed a year ago, I don' think its possible to know how bad it could have gotten, or gauge the efficacy of the actions, but by looking at the results in Spain / Italy / NE US during the spring we can be pretty sure they had an impact.

[the-rasta-masta]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Just because someone isn't classified as "healthy" doesn't mean there wasn't an expectation that they had many years remaining in their lives. We are being too binary in some of these important definitional elements.

My response is that it’s pretty easy to not get COVID if you are high risk. As a 30 year old, you probably can live a pretty much guaranteed COVID free life if you stay home and take precautions.

[Knut]

Originally Posted by kirant

I'm curious at what cost those 100 beds would come at. "Converting" ICU beds to open them for Covid patients would mean taking away from other roles. Similar sacrifices would occur to transfer staff to care for the ICU Covid patients.

Would it be another cut into elective surgeries (like Edmonton Zone is seeing)? That seems like AHS' primary target for reductions when the Covid situation has gotten dangerous.

They have “pop up” hospitals built in both cities. Basically heated tents outdoors. I think one is near Peter Loughheed. It’s being held in reserve.

Staffing would be the biggest bottle beck.

[RedHot25]

I think we also have to be careful with pre-existing conditions, comorbidity, etc.

For e.g. I believe high blood pressure is included in this - and that takes a significant portion of, well, otherwise "healthy" people.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1329917720725372928

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by the-rasta-masta

My response is that it’s pretty easy to not get COVID if you are high risk. As a 30 year old, you probably can live a pretty much guaranteed COVID free life if you stay home and take precautions.

Each situation is different
What if they have to work? What if a family member does?
What if they need to leave the home for treatment
Broad generalizations such as this are well...too broad

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by #-3

There was a good cartoon on this thread late in the spring, don't really want to look for it, but basically the point of it was;

If we do nothing it will get really bad,

If we do something it won't be as bad and people will accuse us of doing too much.

Given the wildly extreme reaction we have put into this compared to what anyone would have believed a year ago, I don' think its possible to know how bad it could have gotten, or gauge the efficacy of the actions, but by looking at the results in Spain / Italy / NE US during the spring we can be pretty sure they had an impact.

I'm not criticizing anything we did in the spring. We ordered 41,000 ventilators. We thought you could get Covid from groceries and surfaces. We didn't know that the number of people under 50 that require hospitalization is pretty immaterial. We were preparing for a situation where we would have 41,000 people on ventilators at a time. We aren't even close to that.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by the-rasta-masta

My response is that it’s pretty easy to not get COVID if you are high risk. As a 30 year old, you probably can live a pretty much guaranteed COVID free life if you stay home and take precautions.

Not necessarily. If you need to go for any appointments or lab tests you are thrown into some pretty sketchy situations, surrounded by morons who can't keep a mask over their nose for 15 minutes. You probably still need to occasionally go to some high risk places. The less community spread, the better.

[RedHot25]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

I'm not criticizing anything we did in the spring. We ordered 41,000 ventilators. We thought you could get Covid from groceries and surfaces. We didn't know that the number of people under 50 that require hospitalization is pretty immaterial. We were preparing for a situation where we would have 41,000 people on ventilators at a time. We aren't even close to that.

True - to some of this idea. But I think you discount the idea of why we weren't close to that - a chunk is because we took action to work towards flattering the curve. Just because something didn't happen doesn't mean it wasn't going to.

[the-rasta-masta]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Each situation is different
What if they have to work? What if a family member does?
What if they need to leave the home for treatment
Broad generalizations such as this are well...too broad

Then they stay home and collect the government support. Are they not supposed to take the financial hit that each and every one of us has just because they are high risk? I’m a business owner that has not been able to pay myself since March and it’s because of higher capacity reductions to my fitness business and additional closures to protect the high risk. Shouldn’t they be protecting themselves too?

My dad is 74 and has pulmonary fibrosis and pulmonary hypertension and is on home oxygen. He goes to multiple appointments each week. He masks up, he makes sure to sanitize consistently, and he goes about his life carefully. He is quite literally amongst the highest of risks.

[the-rasta-masta]

https://youtu.be/uEo3rnU12jw

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by RedHot25

True - to some of this idea. But I think you discount the idea of why we weren't close to that - a chunk is because we took action to work towards flattering the curve. Just because something didn't happen doesn't mean it wasn't going to.

You are literally supporting my position. My comment was that we prepared for 1,000 ICU beds because we thought this was going to be way worse than it is. We got it under control. What about what I'm saying is controversial?