> This is a tough one. I'm an attending physician.<p>> Guidelines are there for a reason. As much as I despise our Commander in Chief, I don't think the CDC is compromised. Fear doesn't rank over guidelines, but I understand the situation. No one wants to be the doctor that discharges patient zero.<p>> Personally, I'd admit you for fever of unknown origin for the time being and monitor you for any signs of sepsis. If everything looks good from an observation stand point, I'd discharge you with strict droplet precautions until the fever subsides.<p>> I think your doctor did the right thing given the context.<p>Given the above comment, most replies here are arguing against CDC regulation saying it is too stringent. Its very helpful to understand comments in this lens, rather than that the CDC is just under-testing for unknown reasons.
Hmm, this is bad. A ton of people from NYC / Brooklyn also commute back to the east end of Long Island for weekends so this has a potential to spread pretty quickly.<p>I don't keep up with the news at all but recently I started reading some articles from major news outlets just for more info about this virus. It's mind boggling at how different each channel's reporting is (I'm in the US).<p>I was at the store this morning and they had a TV playing. One channel down played it like it's nothing and it's even "technically" less potent than the regular flu because they compared yearly flu deaths to covid-19's deaths and played it off like "we're no where near the number of deaths that the flu has killed this year!" and then all of the surrounding anchors all agreed with the spokesperson they had on, etc.<p>Others make it out to be 1 notch away from an apocalyptic event.<p>So I guess this is really what "fake news" is? I don't get it. You can get a life time of prison for ordering someone to kill someone else but somehow it's ok to potentially gamble with the entire human population by not giving accurate information about a virus that's killing people.
The Swiss government issued the following guidelines [1] to prevent further spread of the virus. Masks are considered useless unless you are infected.<p>- Wash your hands thoroughly. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvcvvRp3lsY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvcvvRp3lsY</a><p>- Cough and sneeze into a paper tissue/handerchief or the crook of your arm. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3_rFPtQgKE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3_rFPtQgKE</a><p>- If you experience shortness of breath, have a cough or fever: • Stay at home. • Contact a doctor immediately by phone or call the coronavirus infoline. • Avoid contact with those around you. • Do not go directly to the doctor or to a hospital emergency room.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/en/home/krankheiten/ausbrueche-epidemien-pandemien/aktuelle-ausbrueche-epidemien/novel-cov.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/en/home/krankheiten/ausbrueche-...</a>
One of the key findings coming out of China is that CT scans can outperform reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) lab tests in diagnosing the Coronavirus[1].<p>[1]<a href="https://www.itnonline.com/content/ct-provides-best-diagnosis-novel-coronavirus-covid-19" rel="nofollow">https://www.itnonline.com/content/ct-provides-best-diagnosis...</a><p>If the CDC's current tests are flawed or too few, then the CDC should provide guidelines to health providers to quickly diagnose potential patients using CT scans.
> At this point, the hospital called the CDC requesting permission to perform the COVID-19 testing. The CDC denied the request on the ground that I did not have the most life-threatening symptoms<p>Two questions:<p>1. Why would the hospital require <i>permission</i> to run a test?<p>2. Why would the CDC not want to test suspicious cases <i>before</i> severe symptoms present? From what I've read, the virus is contageous whether severe symptoms are present or not.
They don't post anything about the costs, but that would likely be the defining vector in this whole situation.<p>I mean, let's face it — noone's going to go get tested if it means you'll have to pay 5k+ out of pocket for the experience (even if it's a negative test and you require no further treatment), plus would have to be fired from your job for missing work and doing a self-quarantine for 2 weeks (if it's positive yet mild enough to not require hospitalisation), plus be evicted from your apartment for failing to pay rent due to the loss of the income (possibly having to cut the self-quarantine short in the first place due to any such pending evictions or the prospect thereof).<p>For this whole thing to work, testing has to be free, workers have to have protections, housing has to be affordable and plentiful, and Andrew Yang's UBI (Universal Basic Income) suddenly sounds like it might be a pretty good idea, after all.
So is there a way to prepare our bodies for getting sick? Me and my wife and our 8 month old live 40 hours a week in public, so it's going to happen.<p>We already eat healthy, me and the wife workout. But the kid? Not sure how to prepare him.
I have a brutal cold right now with a ton of congestion and a fever. I am trying decide on if I should go to the hospital here in California - has anyone read anything that helps you make that decision?<p>I am a Caltrain rider daily and I feel like it is not fair to subject other folks to this if it is a COVID-19 - but I don't also want to overload the health system unnecessary if there are folks with Acute symptoms.
The reality is that containment has long been off the table, which should be obvious to anyone who understands the jist of R0, the long incubation, the reality of global travel and the lack of tests.<p>It is time to switch modes from quarantine to containment and stop pointing fingers. Openly tracking potential cases in realtime can help communities slow the spread so we don't get crushed with huge spikes of critical cases all at the same time.
Not to state the obvious, but there's not been a diagnosis of covid-19 yet, so let's keep that in mind before concluding this person has it.<p>Also, otherwise healthy 30-year olds need to do exactly what this person is doing: quarantine & treat it with the same meds as the flu.
The story is rather worrying, and as there is at least one news report about it now I assume at least a basic amount of checking has been done to verify it.<p>From what I read, in many of the publicized cases here in Europe that started with a single person travelling there were several confirmed cases in people with close contact to the original patient.<p>The reports from the US are mostly about single patients with no known source of infection and about denied tests. If you don't test, you don't actually know how widespread the virus is right now. It seems plausible to me that the low number of cases in the US is mostly because of the far more limited testing, and not because there are actually that few cases.
On the face of it, seems stupid you didn't get tested. But I don't know the other side of the story. If there really is a limited supply of these tests, it makes sense for CDC to assign them accordingly. Frankly, if you don't end up with COVID-19, this is a bit of a non-story.<p>Regardless, it sounds like a bigger budget should be set aside for for testing. If I was in charge and had the resources, EVERYONE coming back from an infected country would be tested; symptoms or not.<p>If it turns out you do have it, my thoughts and best wishes go out to you. (I'm sure the media coverage will explode; shame these things don't get the attention until after the fact).
This helps highlight just how much of this is nothing more than FUD.<p>The CDC counts real flu deaths and estimates infections. It doesn’t test for them. As a result you get a relatively low fatality rate.<p>But for COVID-19 we are using only confirmed deaths and confirmed tested infections to come up with a fatality rate that seems much higher than it actually is because most infections go unreported.<p>This is just a reality of the post-fact based world we now live in. Everything is bonkers.