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My Covid-19 Story in Brooklyn

337 points by munirusman 7y ago

kyberias 7y ago
What is this? We don't know whether this person even had the corona virus.
voidhorse 7y ago
Welp. I've been a bit wary about riding the subway while corona is bouncing around, and this pretty much confirms that I should be.
hsnewman 7y ago
This implies that our government is managing the propaganda around Covid-19 by simply not testing suspected cases. Is this true?
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  To a substantial extent, yes. UC Davis Medical Center statement on refusal of CDC to grant permissions to test suspected patient: https://health.ucdavis.edu/health-news/contenthub/novel-coronavirus-patient-and-precautions-at-uc-davis-medical-center/2020/02 https://health.ucdavis.edu/health-news/contenthub/novel-coro... "UC Davis Health does not control the testing process." Florida refusal to release testing data: https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/02/27/florida-wont-release-data-on-coronavirus-testing-1264003 https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/02/27/flo... Note that Spring Break in the US, in which about 10 million college students consume substances, exhibit poor judgement, congregate in large numbers, swap bodily fluids, and return to some 3,000+ institutions of higher education, begins today. With Florida and cruise ships as prime destinations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_outbreak_on_cruise_ships#Diamond_Princess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_outbreak_on_c... I just posted my own update on COVID-19 yesterday (after watching events overtake me for 4 days -- I'd started after listening to the US CDC press conference on Feb 25): https://joindiaspora.com/posts/bc04cb503c840138f4b8002590d8e506 https://joindiaspora.com/posts/bc04cb503c840138f4b8002590d8e... On the Media's episode this week focuses strongly on COVID-19 and if anything is rather more alarmed and alarming than my own take (I very conciously strove for verified data and sober takes): https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-media-black-swans https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-med... Audio: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/audio.wnyc.org/otm/otm022820_cms997580_pod.mp3 https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/audio.wnyc.org/otm/... Features Laurie Garrett, excellent content. Focuses to a large extent on both government mishandling and information suppression -- in the US having no information to report rather than China's suppressing avaiable information) -- as well as other forms of mis- and dis-information.
  - 101404 7y ago
    > consume substances I find this kind of euphemism use really weird. "Substances"? Water is a "substance". A carpet is too. Why not just say what one is actually referring to?
    - wolco 7y ago
      Beer, wine, rum and maybe some herbal drugs.
    - minitoar 7y ago
      I believe this usage is in reference to “controlled substances”, a legal term.
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      You might care to insert "mind altering" before the phrase. But as used, relatively common in standard English.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- wolco 7y ago
  yes and extend that to many governments.
  - slovenlyrobot 7y ago
    It appears to be pretty much all western governments. at least 3 countries in the middle east appear to be pretty transparent, including surprisingly, Iran The level of censorship around unquestionably authentic videos coming out of China has left me in a deep state of shock
    - loriverkutya 7y ago
      You must be joking about Iran, based on pure math, it’s clear they are lying about the number.
      - jacquesm 7y ago
        Or, more likely: they don't actually know the real numbers. So you can treat what you do get from them as lower bounds, that's the bits they are sure about so they report them but events have possibly overtaken the authorities there to the point that their reporting is completely botched.
        makomk 7y ago
        There's some evidence that the Iranian government knows the number of coronavirus deaths there is much higher than they're admitting to: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51673053 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51673053 Of course, even just the official number of deaths implies that coronavirus is a lot more widespread there than their numbers say.
        jacquesm 7y ago
        It's pretty easy actually: they report about 600 cases and 50 deaths, That means they are an outlier in the number of deaths or that their stats are seriously compromised. I would give them some leeway about that being malice though, I suspect they are simply totally overwhelmed by this.
- soared 7y ago
  No, it does not imply that. The facts are that the CDC followed their protocol and so the person was not tested. It could imply the protocols are too stringent, or that they are successful because the user might not have the coronavirus. Its unclear to me where 'managing the propaganda' came out in relation to the reddit post.
- dahart 7y ago
  I’d at least entertain the possibility that this means the CDC has a limited number of test kits right now and can’t yet afford to give one to every single person who has a cough. It would be a bummer for some serious cases who wouldn’t get tested, if they had to test everyone who asked as long as they had kits available. They were pretty clear yesterday that they’re ramping up test kit production and test sites as fast as possible. They didn’t answer a direction question about how many sites there were yesterday, implying to me that the number is pretty low. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0228-COVID-19-update.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0228-COVID-19-updat...
  - makomk 7y ago
    Pretty much. The CDC tried to finally roll out a test to New York City that local labs could use to carry out broader surveillance testing, after some early problems, but the local labs don't trust it and won't use it: https://www.propublica.org/article/cdc-coronavirus-covid-19-test https://www.propublica.org/article/cdc-coronavirus-covid-19-...
curiousgal 7y ago
China: underreports diagnosed cases. U.S.: underdiagnozes cases. Not sure which is worse.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  At least in China, somebody knew the ground truth. As much as I criticised China's initial response, their eventual containment has proved highly effective. The US (and numerous other countries) are point-by-point repeating China's initial failures. This will delay control by days. Growth is presently doubling every 3 or so days, increasing by an order of magnitude every week. Delays will increase consequences directly proportionate to those rates, both infections and deaths. As it is, if Rest-of-World (RoW) response is where China was ~22 January, we can expect to see 100x present cases (~2 orders of magnitude) and ~500x present deaths (~2.5x OOM). Very roughly.
  - drclau 7y ago
    What was your critique of China's measures? To me the extreme measures were just an indication that they understood better than they let the rest of the world know what they are dealing with. I mean, they locked down entire cities at who knows what costs, and they were _disinfecting the streets_. Or maybe they did let everyone know via official channels. Frankly, I was surprised that WHO didn't treat this as an emergency much earlier.
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      I criticised the initial response, largely from ~mid December 2019 - ~21 January 2020, specifically attempts to shut down any and all discussion of the outbreak initially, as well as downplaying reports. See from three weeks ago this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22274827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22274827 In terms of the actual epidemiological response, most especially since ~22 January, limiting travel, events, large congregations of people, and shutting down workplaces and schools, has been absolutely appropriate. Those measures have received some criticism, including by Chinese citizens. I don't feel those criticisms are at all warranted. The information environment is difficult to navigate. I'd argue that China's erred on the side of too much control, as it tends to do, but in general, after 22 January, the process as a whole has worked, judging by results. The challenges are certainly staggering, particularly at China's scale. The avoiding of mass panic and protest is commendable. The fact that other governments -- Japan, Korea, Iran, and the United States, notably, and all but certainly North Korea, are repeating many of the same mistakes (or multiplying them several-fold, in the case of Iran and PRK) -- shows that this is highly typical. I'm also quite disappointed by the international response, and that of the United States quite specifically. One of the first references I posted to HN following news of the Wuhan outbreak was Albert Camus' 1948 novel, The Plague. The story it tells, of society, government, and individuals, in the face of pestilence, is timeless. And contains valuable lessons: https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/the-plague.pdf https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/the-pl... (PDF) HN submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22150237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22150237
marshallant 7y ago
Maybe, just maybe, this virus is really not as bad as people want it to be.
sschueller 7y ago
The Swiss government issued the following guidelines [1] to prevent further spread of the virus. Masks are considered useless unless you are infected. - Wash your hands thoroughly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvcvvRp3lsY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvcvvRp3lsY - Cough and sneeze into a paper tissue/handerchief or the crook of your arm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3_rFPtQgKE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3_rFPtQgKE - 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. [1] https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/en/home/krankheiten/ausbrueche-epidemien-pandemien/aktuelle-ausbrueche-epidemien/novel-cov.html https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/en/home/krankheiten/ausbrueche-...
- allovernow 7y ago
  >Masks are considered useless unless you are infected Considering there are multiple papers out of china which suggest the virus is aerosolized, I think it's irresponsible for anyone to claim masks are useless PPE. Anything less than n99 or p99 might be useless, but that's a different story. There's also one paper which claims that treating a mask with saline solution makes it substantially more effective against viruses. I'll see if I can't dig it up. Governments the world over have already demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to properly handle this virus.
  - Consultant32452 7y ago
    Governments have other concerns besides your individual health. They need to prevent panic as much as possible, prevent economic collapse, etc. The response to events like this can be worse than the initial problem. What do you think happens if the CDC says everyone needs to wear masks, you go to your local store, and there are no masks? There would be violence in the streets.
    - SteveNuts 7y ago
      Then why don't they have millions of masks stockpiled for an event like this?
use-net 7y ago
who cares about that guy... click bait. 101.6 ?? no one knows what this retard is talking about. Learn SI units!
76543210 7y ago
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. We already eat healthy, me and the wife workout. But the kid? Not sure how to prepare him.
- sjg007 7y ago
  Young kids appear to be unaffected currently. Not sure if this will change but also if your kid is breastfeeding then he be protected by mom's immune system. I would minimize people holding him that aren't you or your wife and obviously wash hands frequently.
- wyck 7y ago
  Protein is vital for your immue system and to fight viral and bacterial infections. Chicken soup with lots of potein and vitamins is a not just an old wives tale. But unless your kid has an underlying health issue or vitamin deficiency, then not really. Eat well, get some sunlight if you can, wash your hands often, don't touch your face, follow the guidlines doctors are mentioning at your state/local or federal level.
- petercooper 7y ago
  It's widely recommended that babies receive vitamin D supplementation even in the best of times.. but under these circumstances, and certainly if you're in the northern hemisphere, it's worth being proactive with this in advance.
- dghughes 7y ago
  I'd say you're doing the only thing a person can. You see many people speak of "boosting your immune system" but it's pure quackery. A person's immune system is many layers and types, a system, it's not a single thing that can be adjusted at will. The way I see my immune system is a 100 liter tank of water. You can't overfill it but it can be low. At most it can only be 100 liters. Your immune system can only be as good as normal there's no turbo button to over-boost it.
  - redwood 7y ago
nickjj 7y ago
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. 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). 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. Others make it out to be 1 notch away from an apocalyptic event. 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.
- soared 7y ago
  You seem to have made up your mind about which news channel was correctly reporting. Why do you think your opinion and that of many others conflicts with the WHO and CDC? To me it feels like the experts (WHO/CDC) are 'downplaying' while nonexperts (internet commenters who read a few articles) are doing the opposite.
  - nickjj 7y ago
    I haven't made up my mind because most media outlets have conflicting information. That was why I posted the comment. I mean, it doesn't help when you hear stories like the one posted on Reddit too. Of course it makes you think things like "why wouldn't they test him? Is it because they want to keep the registered cases down or is it because there's not enough tests to go around or maybe it's because the tests aren't accurate?". These are questions I have as someone who isn't working at the CDC and I'm sure other regular citizens are thinking the same. I thought the media's responsibility was to take information from experts and present that information without bias to people who are not experts in the matter.
soared 7y ago
> This is a tough one. I'm an attending physician. > 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. > 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. > I think your doctor did the right thing given the context. 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.
- Medicalidiot 7y ago
  I keep hearing rumblings about test kits not being where they need to be, but nothing in the news. It would be so hard to make a clinical diagnosis of COVID-19 when the chief complaints are "Fever, cough, shortness of breath". Is that the common cold or is this SARS-CoV-2? Giving a massive diagnosis like and being wrong is bad.
- partiallypro 7y ago
  Apparently some kits were recalled because they were flawed and there is a shortage as a result. So it is somewhat understandable that the CDC doesn't want to test just anyone with flu like symptoms.
  - prostheticvamp 7y ago
    During flu season. That line is always left out of this: the CDC doesn’t want to test just anyone with cold and flu symptoms ... during flu season. The false positives are basically guaranteed to absolutely swamp the true positives at this time, and demolish any attempt to target the sick.
    - empath75 7y ago
      They are supposed to only test people with flu like symptoms that test negative for flu. Which this person did.
fabian2k 7y ago
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. 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. 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.
- xbmcuser 7y ago
  Korea had few confirmed infections. Then a few people got very sick they started testing everyone those people were in contact with now they have thousands of confirmed infections why because they tested thousands of people not because thousands of people are very sick. So I agree not just the US many other countries probably have larger number of infected but few severe cases so not much testing.
ropiwqefjnpoa 7y ago
It's going to spread here, I'd rather have it and get immunity sooner than later when it's full swing and treatment might be limited.
- AznHisoka 7y ago
  Easier said than done :)
- volkk 7y ago
  you dont get immunity to it. you can re-catch it, at least according to certain sources. woman in japan got it again, or at least it seemed to have gone away entirely, and then came back.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
tejohnso 7y ago
> 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 Two questions: 1. Why would the hospital require permission to run a test? 2. Why would the CDC not want to test suspicious cases before severe symptoms present? From what I've read, the virus is contageous whether severe symptoms are present or not.
- dgacmu 7y ago
  Because it's a CDC test in limited supply, and they're doing their best to try to balance the available supply with detecting as many cases as possible. The challenge is that the spread is changing rapidly enough that the guidelines will inevitably be a day or two behind periodically.
  - takeda 7y ago
    They are also banning hospitals from doing their own tests. All hospitals have equipment to test for virus presence. In fact we learned about first case of local virus spread, because a hospital ignored CDC and tested the suspected patient anyway.
- seraphsf 7y ago
  The core problem is that the CDC (and country) has had the capacity to test only a few hundred samples per day. Meaning, they don’t have the ability to test everyone with flu-like symptoms. Nobody thinks it’s right to NOT test every potential case. It just wasn’t possible. Good news: Just today, they released new rules that should increase testing capacity by 400x.
  - garmaine 7y ago
    The CDC doesn't run the tests. The hospitals and independent labs do. There has been some issues with the test kits distributed by the CDC, but since the virus genome has been sequenced you don't actually need a test kit (it's just a faster process if you have one). However the CDC has enacted emergency powers to make it illegal for hospitals to use their own testing equipment, which they have in-house, to test their own patients unless they first get CDC approval. And the CDC has ridiculously stringent requirements for approving these tests. As a result, the only confirmed case of community-spread COVID-19 in the US is in Northern California, because the UC Davis hospital basically said "go fuck yourself" to the CDC and tested anyway. This is not because COVID-19 is not spreading throughout the community--it is!--but rather because the CDC's stringent testing requirements prevent testing of any case that cannot be rationalized away as having been caught elsewhere. If you don't test for the virus, then you don't confirm the presence of the virus, so there is no virus, amirite?
rkagerer 7y ago
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. 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. 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).
- partiallypro 7y ago
  The CDC has undoubtedly pushed massive amounts of funds into test kits...but that has to be manufactured. It doesn't just appear instantly and out of thin air. Then you have to distribute it to clinics/ERs. Testing will gradually expand, and the requirements for testing will be loosened once supply can finally meet demand.
  - baq 7y ago
    In the mean time, why not import test kits from Italy or South Korea? Those countries test hundreds daily, if not thousands.
    - partiallypro 7y ago
      I would assume because Italy and South Korea need those kits since they actually have massive outbreaks where in the US it has been very muted.
ssutch3 7y ago
Doctors give out the "unknown virus" diagnosis literally all the time. It's extremely common.
cnst 7y ago
They don't post anything about the costs, but that would likely be the defining vector in this whole situation. 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). 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.
Leary 7y ago
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]. [1]https://www.itnonline.com/content/ct-provides-best-diagnosis-novel-coronavirus-covid-19 https://www.itnonline.com/content/ct-provides-best-diagnosis... 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.
- mnm1 7y ago
  A CT scan is fairly standard procedure for diagnosing many things. Why do doctors and hospitals need CDC permission to use it to test? This seems like a bad movie where the CDC is not doing much due to political pressure. Why can't doctors act in their patients' best interest on their own?
  - eganist 7y ago
    If you want to see the outcome of a country's health department ignoring this outbreak for political purposes, look no further than Iran. https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-iran-became-a-new-epicenter-of-the-coronavirus-outbreak https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-iran-becam...
  - semi-extrinsic 7y ago
    A CT has a pretty high radiation dose. As far as I understand, for every 2000 people given a chest CT we expect 1 person to get a fatal form of cancer due to the CT. Compared to the natural incidence of getting a fatal cancer in your lifetime (about 400 in 2000), this is a very low. And for serious conditions, a CT can literally be a life saver. But if you apply chest CTs to screen for a disease with (let's say) a 0.1% fatality rate, the side effects of your screening increases the fatality rate by 50%.
    - eganist 7y ago
      From what we can tell, SARS-CoV-2 has a 2% mortality rate among those diagnosed. That seems like a pretty decent trade in odds if it accelerates early stage treatment.
themagician 7y ago
This helps highlight just how much of this is nothing more than FUD. 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. 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. This is just a reality of the post-fact based world we now live in. Everything is bonkers.
- mlyle 7y ago
  Medical statisticians are not tards, and the math used to estimate CFRs is reasonable. Yes, there's uncertainty, because when something is massively growing, it's not meaningful to test the population at large and ordinary surveillance mechanisms are not effective yet. We also don't really have serological testing (allegedly Singapore has a good serological assay?) which doesn't help. It's worth noting that the real issue is that CFR skyrockets when the medical system saturates. With good medical care available, the CFR is still much higher than the flu but less crazy. The problem is, COVID-19 can create enough severely ill cases to saturate medical systems with uncontrolled spread.
  - bobcostas55 7y ago
    >Medical statisticians are not tards This paper has 4000 citations: https://journals.lww.com/epidem/Abstract/1990/01000/No_Adjustments_Are_Needed_for_Multiple_Comparisons.10.aspx https://journals.lww.com/epidem/Abstract/1990/01000/No_Adjus...
    - mlyle 7y ago
      So? It has a point. I disagree with a lot of it, but... * The fundamental point: A study with 100 comparisons will erroneously reject the null hypothesis at p<0.05 for 5 of them, which is a good part of why we adjust for multiple comparisons. But the same issue holds if we do 100 studies, and reject null for 5 of them. One of the fundamental problems with p values is that we don't really know the baseline number of things being compared in unpublished and preliminary research, which in turn makes the p value somewhat meaningless. In effect, we've unfairly penalized the study with multiple comparisons vs. the same findings showing up from studies with individual comparisons. * Studies with multiple comparisons are great engines of hypothesis generation. Setting too high a bar for rejecting associations means that we'll possibly discard too much. * Most of our tests for multiple comparisons assume a degree of statistical independence which just isn't present. The abstract is particularly horribly written, but those three points are reasonable points. (At the same time, there's circumstances where obviously we need to adjust appropriately or get absolutely stupid, irreproducible results-- e.g. fMRI data.
outside1234 7y ago
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? 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.
- gdubs 7y ago
  Either way you should call first — speak to a doctor on the phone and get their recommendations.
  - rrss 7y ago
    stupid, mostly-unrelated question: how does 'call a doctor' usually work? do most people have a doctor that they can just call? If I had a need to call a doctor (fortunately I don't at the moment), but don't know any doctors, what should I do?
    - gdubs 7y ago
      Assuming you’re in the US and have insurance you can usually go on your insurance company’s website and find a local provider (doctor). You can then just call them up and say you’re looking for a new primary care physician. Also, many areas have urgent care centers for things that are serious but maybe not emergency room serious. Unfortunately, cost is a variable in the US and I can’t give any good guidance on that. (Not a doctor, standard disclaimer.)
      - dillonmckay 7y ago
        Good luck with using the insurance company’s website. The doctors they list in my area seem to either be deceased or not accepting new patients.
- csar 7y ago
  It doesn't seem like CA has a well publicized number you can call for advice (yet?) but you should call your hospital and ask them for guidance instead of going in. I'm currently traveling in Europe and that's been the MO here - you call a hotline and until recently they then told you whether to go in or not and they now come and test you at your home if it's deemed necessary. CA might not have a number or clear process yet but your hospital should at least have some guidance.
throwGuardian 7y ago
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. 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.
lubujackson 7y ago
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. 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.

337 points by munirusman 7y ago

What is this? We don't know whether this person even had the corona virus.

Welp. I've been a bit wary about riding the subway while corona is bouncing around, and this pretty much confirms that I should be.

hsnewman 7y ago

This implies that our government is managing the propaganda around Covid-19 by simply not testing suspected cases. Is this true?

dredmorbius 7y ago
To a substantial extent, yes. UC Davis Medical Center statement on refusal of CDC to grant permissions to test suspected patient: https://health.ucdavis.edu/health-news/contenthub/novel-coronavirus-patient-and-precautions-at-uc-davis-medical-center/2020/02 https://health.ucdavis.edu/health-news/contenthub/novel-coro... "UC Davis Health does not control the testing process." Florida refusal to release testing data: https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/02/27/florida-wont-release-data-on-coronavirus-testing-1264003 https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/02/27/flo... Note that Spring Break in the US, in which about 10 million college students consume substances, exhibit poor judgement, congregate in large numbers, swap bodily fluids, and return to some 3,000+ institutions of higher education, begins today. With Florida and cruise ships as prime destinations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_outbreak_on_cruise_ships#Diamond_Princess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_outbreak_on_c... I just posted my own update on COVID-19 yesterday (after watching events overtake me for 4 days -- I'd started after listening to the US CDC press conference on Feb 25): https://joindiaspora.com/posts/bc04cb503c840138f4b8002590d8e506 https://joindiaspora.com/posts/bc04cb503c840138f4b8002590d8e... On the Media's episode this week focuses strongly on COVID-19 and if anything is rather more alarmed and alarming than my own take (I very conciously strove for verified data and sober takes): https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-media-black-swans https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-med... Audio: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/audio.wnyc.org/otm/otm022820_cms997580_pod.mp3 https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/audio.wnyc.org/otm/... Features Laurie Garrett, excellent content. Focuses to a large extent on both government mishandling and information suppression -- in the US having no information to report rather than China's suppressing avaiable information) -- as well as other forms of mis- and dis-information.
- 101404 7y ago
  > consume substances I find this kind of euphemism use really weird. "Substances"? Water is a "substance". A carpet is too. Why not just say what one is actually referring to?
  - wolco 7y ago
    Beer, wine, rum and maybe some herbal drugs.
  - minitoar 7y ago
    I believe this usage is in reference to “controlled substances”, a legal term.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    You might care to insert "mind altering" before the phrase. But as used, relatively common in standard English.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
wolco 7y ago
yes and extend that to many governments.
- slovenlyrobot 7y ago
  It appears to be pretty much all western governments. at least 3 countries in the middle east appear to be pretty transparent, including surprisingly, Iran The level of censorship around unquestionably authentic videos coming out of China has left me in a deep state of shock
  - loriverkutya 7y ago
    You must be joking about Iran, based on pure math, it’s clear they are lying about the number.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      Or, more likely: they don't actually know the real numbers. So you can treat what you do get from them as lower bounds, that's the bits they are sure about so they report them but events have possibly overtaken the authorities there to the point that their reporting is completely botched.
      - makomk 7y ago
        There's some evidence that the Iranian government knows the number of coronavirus deaths there is much higher than they're admitting to: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51673053 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51673053 Of course, even just the official number of deaths implies that coronavirus is a lot more widespread there than their numbers say.
        jacquesm 7y ago
        It's pretty easy actually: they report about 600 cases and 50 deaths, That means they are an outlier in the number of deaths or that their stats are seriously compromised. I would give them some leeway about that being malice though, I suspect they are simply totally overwhelmed by this.
soared 7y ago
No, it does not imply that. The facts are that the CDC followed their protocol and so the person was not tested. It could imply the protocols are too stringent, or that they are successful because the user might not have the coronavirus. Its unclear to me where 'managing the propaganda' came out in relation to the reddit post.
dahart 7y ago
I’d at least entertain the possibility that this means the CDC has a limited number of test kits right now and can’t yet afford to give one to every single person who has a cough. It would be a bummer for some serious cases who wouldn’t get tested, if they had to test everyone who asked as long as they had kits available. They were pretty clear yesterday that they’re ramping up test kit production and test sites as fast as possible. They didn’t answer a direction question about how many sites there were yesterday, implying to me that the number is pretty low. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0228-COVID-19-update.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0228-COVID-19-updat...
- makomk 7y ago
  Pretty much. The CDC tried to finally roll out a test to New York City that local labs could use to carry out broader surveillance testing, after some early problems, but the local labs don't trust it and won't use it: https://www.propublica.org/article/cdc-coronavirus-covid-19-test https://www.propublica.org/article/cdc-coronavirus-covid-19-...

curiousgal 7y ago

China: underreports diagnosed cases. U.S.: underdiagnozes cases. Not sure which is worse.

dredmorbius 7y ago
At least in China, somebody knew the ground truth. As much as I criticised China's initial response, their eventual containment has proved highly effective. The US (and numerous other countries) are point-by-point repeating China's initial failures. This will delay control by days. Growth is presently doubling every 3 or so days, increasing by an order of magnitude every week. Delays will increase consequences directly proportionate to those rates, both infections and deaths. As it is, if Rest-of-World (RoW) response is where China was ~22 January, we can expect to see 100x present cases (~2 orders of magnitude) and ~500x present deaths (~2.5x OOM). Very roughly.
- drclau 7y ago
  What was your critique of China's measures? To me the extreme measures were just an indication that they understood better than they let the rest of the world know what they are dealing with. I mean, they locked down entire cities at who knows what costs, and they were _disinfecting the streets_. Or maybe they did let everyone know via official channels. Frankly, I was surprised that WHO didn't treat this as an emergency much earlier.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    I criticised the initial response, largely from ~mid December 2019 - ~21 January 2020, specifically attempts to shut down any and all discussion of the outbreak initially, as well as downplaying reports. See from three weeks ago this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22274827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22274827 In terms of the actual epidemiological response, most especially since ~22 January, limiting travel, events, large congregations of people, and shutting down workplaces and schools, has been absolutely appropriate. Those measures have received some criticism, including by Chinese citizens. I don't feel those criticisms are at all warranted. The information environment is difficult to navigate. I'd argue that China's erred on the side of too much control, as it tends to do, but in general, after 22 January, the process as a whole has worked, judging by results. The challenges are certainly staggering, particularly at China's scale. The avoiding of mass panic and protest is commendable. The fact that other governments -- Japan, Korea, Iran, and the United States, notably, and all but certainly North Korea, are repeating many of the same mistakes (or multiplying them several-fold, in the case of Iran and PRK) -- shows that this is highly typical. I'm also quite disappointed by the international response, and that of the United States quite specifically. One of the first references I posted to HN following news of the Wuhan outbreak was Albert Camus' 1948 novel, The Plague. The story it tells, of society, government, and individuals, in the face of pestilence, is timeless. And contains valuable lessons: https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/the-plague.pdf https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/the-pl... (PDF) HN submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22150237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22150237

marshallant 7y ago

Maybe, just maybe, this virus is really not as bad as people want it to be.

sschueller 7y ago

The Swiss government issued the following guidelines [1] to prevent further spread of the virus. Masks are considered useless unless you are infected. - Wash your hands thoroughly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvcvvRp3lsY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvcvvRp3lsY - Cough and sneeze into a paper tissue/handerchief or the crook of your arm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3_rFPtQgKE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3_rFPtQgKE - 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. [1] https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/en/home/krankheiten/ausbrueche-epidemien-pandemien/aktuelle-ausbrueche-epidemien/novel-cov.html https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/en/home/krankheiten/ausbrueche-...

allovernow 7y ago
>Masks are considered useless unless you are infected Considering there are multiple papers out of china which suggest the virus is aerosolized, I think it's irresponsible for anyone to claim masks are useless PPE. Anything less than n99 or p99 might be useless, but that's a different story. There's also one paper which claims that treating a mask with saline solution makes it substantially more effective against viruses. I'll see if I can't dig it up. Governments the world over have already demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to properly handle this virus.
- Consultant32452 7y ago
  Governments have other concerns besides your individual health. They need to prevent panic as much as possible, prevent economic collapse, etc. The response to events like this can be worse than the initial problem. What do you think happens if the CDC says everyone needs to wear masks, you go to your local store, and there are no masks? There would be violence in the streets.
  - SteveNuts 7y ago
    Then why don't they have millions of masks stockpiled for an event like this?

use-net 7y ago

who cares about that guy... click bait. 101.6 ?? no one knows what this retard is talking about. Learn SI units!

76543210 7y ago

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. We already eat healthy, me and the wife workout. But the kid? Not sure how to prepare him.

sjg007 7y ago
Young kids appear to be unaffected currently. Not sure if this will change but also if your kid is breastfeeding then he be protected by mom's immune system. I would minimize people holding him that aren't you or your wife and obviously wash hands frequently.
wyck 7y ago
Protein is vital for your immue system and to fight viral and bacterial infections. Chicken soup with lots of potein and vitamins is a not just an old wives tale. But unless your kid has an underlying health issue or vitamin deficiency, then not really. Eat well, get some sunlight if you can, wash your hands often, don't touch your face, follow the guidlines doctors are mentioning at your state/local or federal level.
petercooper 7y ago
It's widely recommended that babies receive vitamin D supplementation even in the best of times.. but under these circumstances, and certainly if you're in the northern hemisphere, it's worth being proactive with this in advance.
dghughes 7y ago
I'd say you're doing the only thing a person can. You see many people speak of "boosting your immune system" but it's pure quackery. A person's immune system is many layers and types, a system, it's not a single thing that can be adjusted at will. The way I see my immune system is a 100 liter tank of water. You can't overfill it but it can be low. At most it can only be 100 liters. Your immune system can only be as good as normal there's no turbo button to over-boost it.
- redwood 7y ago

nickjj 7y ago

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. 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). 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. Others make it out to be 1 notch away from an apocalyptic event. 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.

soared 7y ago
You seem to have made up your mind about which news channel was correctly reporting. Why do you think your opinion and that of many others conflicts with the WHO and CDC? To me it feels like the experts (WHO/CDC) are 'downplaying' while nonexperts (internet commenters who read a few articles) are doing the opposite.
- nickjj 7y ago
  I haven't made up my mind because most media outlets have conflicting information. That was why I posted the comment. I mean, it doesn't help when you hear stories like the one posted on Reddit too. Of course it makes you think things like "why wouldn't they test him? Is it because they want to keep the registered cases down or is it because there's not enough tests to go around or maybe it's because the tests aren't accurate?". These are questions I have as someone who isn't working at the CDC and I'm sure other regular citizens are thinking the same. I thought the media's responsibility was to take information from experts and present that information without bias to people who are not experts in the matter.

soared 7y ago

> This is a tough one. I'm an attending physician. > 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. > 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. > I think your doctor did the right thing given the context. 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.

Medicalidiot 7y ago
I keep hearing rumblings about test kits not being where they need to be, but nothing in the news. It would be so hard to make a clinical diagnosis of COVID-19 when the chief complaints are "Fever, cough, shortness of breath". Is that the common cold or is this SARS-CoV-2? Giving a massive diagnosis like and being wrong is bad.
partiallypro 7y ago
Apparently some kits were recalled because they were flawed and there is a shortage as a result. So it is somewhat understandable that the CDC doesn't want to test just anyone with flu like symptoms.
- prostheticvamp 7y ago
  During flu season. That line is always left out of this: the CDC doesn’t want to test just anyone with cold and flu symptoms ... during flu season. The false positives are basically guaranteed to absolutely swamp the true positives at this time, and demolish any attempt to target the sick.
  - empath75 7y ago
    They are supposed to only test people with flu like symptoms that test negative for flu. Which this person did.

fabian2k 7y ago

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. 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. 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.

xbmcuser 7y ago
Korea had few confirmed infections. Then a few people got very sick they started testing everyone those people were in contact with now they have thousands of confirmed infections why because they tested thousands of people not because thousands of people are very sick. So I agree not just the US many other countries probably have larger number of infected but few severe cases so not much testing.

ropiwqefjnpoa 7y ago

It's going to spread here, I'd rather have it and get immunity sooner than later when it's full swing and treatment might be limited.

AznHisoka 7y ago
Easier said than done :)
volkk 7y ago
you dont get immunity to it. you can re-catch it, at least according to certain sources. woman in japan got it again, or at least it seemed to have gone away entirely, and then came back.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

tejohnso 7y ago

> 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 Two questions: 1. Why would the hospital require permission to run a test? 2. Why would the CDC not want to test suspicious cases before severe symptoms present? From what I've read, the virus is contageous whether severe symptoms are present or not.

dgacmu 7y ago
Because it's a CDC test in limited supply, and they're doing their best to try to balance the available supply with detecting as many cases as possible. The challenge is that the spread is changing rapidly enough that the guidelines will inevitably be a day or two behind periodically.
- takeda 7y ago
  They are also banning hospitals from doing their own tests. All hospitals have equipment to test for virus presence. In fact we learned about first case of local virus spread, because a hospital ignored CDC and tested the suspected patient anyway.
seraphsf 7y ago
The core problem is that the CDC (and country) has had the capacity to test only a few hundred samples per day. Meaning, they don’t have the ability to test everyone with flu-like symptoms. Nobody thinks it’s right to NOT test every potential case. It just wasn’t possible. Good news: Just today, they released new rules that should increase testing capacity by 400x.
- garmaine 7y ago
  The CDC doesn't run the tests. The hospitals and independent labs do. There has been some issues with the test kits distributed by the CDC, but since the virus genome has been sequenced you don't actually need a test kit (it's just a faster process if you have one). However the CDC has enacted emergency powers to make it illegal for hospitals to use their own testing equipment, which they have in-house, to test their own patients unless they first get CDC approval. And the CDC has ridiculously stringent requirements for approving these tests. As a result, the only confirmed case of community-spread COVID-19 in the US is in Northern California, because the UC Davis hospital basically said "go fuck yourself" to the CDC and tested anyway. This is not because COVID-19 is not spreading throughout the community--it is!--but rather because the CDC's stringent testing requirements prevent testing of any case that cannot be rationalized away as having been caught elsewhere. If you don't test for the virus, then you don't confirm the presence of the virus, so there is no virus, amirite?

rkagerer 7y ago

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. 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. 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).

partiallypro 7y ago
The CDC has undoubtedly pushed massive amounts of funds into test kits...but that has to be manufactured. It doesn't just appear instantly and out of thin air. Then you have to distribute it to clinics/ERs. Testing will gradually expand, and the requirements for testing will be loosened once supply can finally meet demand.
- baq 7y ago
  In the mean time, why not import test kits from Italy or South Korea? Those countries test hundreds daily, if not thousands.
  - partiallypro 7y ago
    I would assume because Italy and South Korea need those kits since they actually have massive outbreaks where in the US it has been very muted.

ssutch3 7y ago

Doctors give out the "unknown virus" diagnosis literally all the time. It's extremely common.

cnst 7y ago

They don't post anything about the costs, but that would likely be the defining vector in this whole situation. 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). 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.

Leary 7y ago

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]. [1]https://www.itnonline.com/content/ct-provides-best-diagnosis-novel-coronavirus-covid-19 https://www.itnonline.com/content/ct-provides-best-diagnosis... 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.

mnm1 7y ago
A CT scan is fairly standard procedure for diagnosing many things. Why do doctors and hospitals need CDC permission to use it to test? This seems like a bad movie where the CDC is not doing much due to political pressure. Why can't doctors act in their patients' best interest on their own?
- eganist 7y ago
  If you want to see the outcome of a country's health department ignoring this outbreak for political purposes, look no further than Iran. https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-iran-became-a-new-epicenter-of-the-coronavirus-outbreak https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-iran-becam...
- semi-extrinsic 7y ago
  A CT has a pretty high radiation dose. As far as I understand, for every 2000 people given a chest CT we expect 1 person to get a fatal form of cancer due to the CT. Compared to the natural incidence of getting a fatal cancer in your lifetime (about 400 in 2000), this is a very low. And for serious conditions, a CT can literally be a life saver. But if you apply chest CTs to screen for a disease with (let's say) a 0.1% fatality rate, the side effects of your screening increases the fatality rate by 50%.
  - eganist 7y ago
    From what we can tell, SARS-CoV-2 has a 2% mortality rate among those diagnosed. That seems like a pretty decent trade in odds if it accelerates early stage treatment.

themagician 7y ago

This helps highlight just how much of this is nothing more than FUD. 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. 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. This is just a reality of the post-fact based world we now live in. Everything is bonkers.

mlyle 7y ago
Medical statisticians are not tards, and the math used to estimate CFRs is reasonable. Yes, there's uncertainty, because when something is massively growing, it's not meaningful to test the population at large and ordinary surveillance mechanisms are not effective yet. We also don't really have serological testing (allegedly Singapore has a good serological assay?) which doesn't help. It's worth noting that the real issue is that CFR skyrockets when the medical system saturates. With good medical care available, the CFR is still much higher than the flu but less crazy. The problem is, COVID-19 can create enough severely ill cases to saturate medical systems with uncontrolled spread.
- bobcostas55 7y ago
  >Medical statisticians are not tards This paper has 4000 citations: https://journals.lww.com/epidem/Abstract/1990/01000/No_Adjustments_Are_Needed_for_Multiple_Comparisons.10.aspx https://journals.lww.com/epidem/Abstract/1990/01000/No_Adjus...
  - mlyle 7y ago
    So? It has a point. I disagree with a lot of it, but... * The fundamental point: A study with 100 comparisons will erroneously reject the null hypothesis at p<0.05 for 5 of them, which is a good part of why we adjust for multiple comparisons. But the same issue holds if we do 100 studies, and reject null for 5 of them. One of the fundamental problems with p values is that we don't really know the baseline number of things being compared in unpublished and preliminary research, which in turn makes the p value somewhat meaningless. In effect, we've unfairly penalized the study with multiple comparisons vs. the same findings showing up from studies with individual comparisons. * Studies with multiple comparisons are great engines of hypothesis generation. Setting too high a bar for rejecting associations means that we'll possibly discard too much. * Most of our tests for multiple comparisons assume a degree of statistical independence which just isn't present. The abstract is particularly horribly written, but those three points are reasonable points. (At the same time, there's circumstances where obviously we need to adjust appropriately or get absolutely stupid, irreproducible results-- e.g. fMRI data.

outside1234 7y ago

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? 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.

gdubs 7y ago
Either way you should call first — speak to a doctor on the phone and get their recommendations.
- rrss 7y ago
  stupid, mostly-unrelated question: how does 'call a doctor' usually work? do most people have a doctor that they can just call? If I had a need to call a doctor (fortunately I don't at the moment), but don't know any doctors, what should I do?
  - gdubs 7y ago
    Assuming you’re in the US and have insurance you can usually go on your insurance company’s website and find a local provider (doctor). You can then just call them up and say you’re looking for a new primary care physician. Also, many areas have urgent care centers for things that are serious but maybe not emergency room serious. Unfortunately, cost is a variable in the US and I can’t give any good guidance on that. (Not a doctor, standard disclaimer.)
    - dillonmckay 7y ago
      Good luck with using the insurance company’s website. The doctors they list in my area seem to either be deceased or not accepting new patients.
csar 7y ago
It doesn't seem like CA has a well publicized number you can call for advice (yet?) but you should call your hospital and ask them for guidance instead of going in. I'm currently traveling in Europe and that's been the MO here - you call a hotline and until recently they then told you whether to go in or not and they now come and test you at your home if it's deemed necessary. CA might not have a number or clear process yet but your hospital should at least have some guidance.

throwGuardian 7y ago

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. 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.

lubujackson 7y ago

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. 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.