There are a few quieter trials going on which are more promising than this ever was. Yes Remdivisir is the earliest of them, hopefully. Proper results expected next week-ish.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
There are a few quieter trials going on which are more promising than this ever was. Yes Remdivisir is the earliest of them, hopefully. Proper results expected next week-ish.
But then the conclusions in the article are quite different to what the headline suggests
A senior official at a London trust said: “It’s a white elephant. When it was conceived a month ago we were facing the prospect of hospitals in London being overrun and mass burial sites like in New York. We thought that London would be Italy and there would be more patients needing level 3 intensive care treatment by this stage.
“But the expected doubling every three days in the number of patients needing to be admitted to ICU didn’t happen. London hospitals doubled, tripled and in some cases quadrupled the capacity of their ICUs, so still have spare capacity, which means the Nightingale hasn’t been needed.”
An NHS London spokesperson said: “The most important point about staff at the Nightingale is that thanks to their care and expertise, patients in that hospital are being successfully treated, discharged and ultimately having their life saved.
“There remains spare capacity in the critical care network across the capital to look after all coronavirus patients and others who need our care, and while it is incredibly reassuring for both staff and patients to have backup capacity at the Nightingale to alleviate pressure on ICU departments where needed, patients can be transferred to other hospitals in the city if they are better placed to receive them at that time – as is always the case.”
Its a weird article but I think what it’s trying to say ultimately is that while there is a nurse shortage at the nightingale the hospital infrastructure in London has been able to cope.
The South African prez just addressed the nation. He's seemingly reading from the same script. All over the world leaders are moving towards re-opening economies. We just don't have the stomachs for 90-day lockdowns.
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Bit confused by this. I thought the deterioration from covid19 was gradual, even if it can very quick. So surely as a doctor, he would have known he was rapidly descending into the danger zone, and could have messaged a medical colleague or ambulance for help?
Or can covid19 also disable you very quickly, like a stroke or heart attack can?
Brilliant news, man. Fingers crossed for you all in Italy.
Great breakdown, cheers. The graph is encouraging. Although seeing figures leaping to 800+ today demoralises, it's good to see that in minute detail things are slowly improving.
There's a bit of everything man. Some mongrel types are bred specifically for the meat trade, sometimes its random strays. Especially in poor areas, people catch and eat something that crosses their path. When I lived in China it was quite common to see some old fisherman sitting next to the river in the city centre with a big, fecking mean looking alligator snapping type turtle on a 'leash' made of string, looking to flog it. Basically, an accidental fishing catch, and a chance for a quick buck.
Great news. It still amazes me how infectious this disease is. 95% + of those ~3000 cases were clearly caught during lockdown.
So, lockdowns work, but all hell will break loose once they end? Doesn't sound good to me at all.
I see. Considering we activated the private hospitals AND built the Nightingale hospitals, it sounds like a hell of an overestimation. To be fair, it was probably the right thing to do. Lives come first.
However, this level of emergency spending will probably impact on healthcare budget in the long-term. I think we are likely to see a reduction in the approval of new orphan drugs and it will be a lot harder for these novel drugs to get market access approval from NICE (with the exception of COVID-19 treatments of course). That said, I do expect the budget to improve emergency infrastructure to increase, and some experts also think we will have a refocus on budget on anti-viral medications. I'm personally not sure how useful anti-virals are though, they are rather expensive and we could potentially wipe out our entire budget on that considering the scale of Covid-19. But let's see how Gilead's Remdesivir performs in the PIII trials.
Hopefully when a new vaccine arrives, the government will have enough money to buy/manufacture the required amount to immunise the UK population. Rishi Sunak seems to have a money tree though, so fingers crossed.
Anyway, thanks very much again!
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Those people would have died wherever they were, they were all hospitalised and in ICUs.
The Nightingale hospital is there in case it gets worse and to allow hospitals to resume normal activities and get Covid wards back to other uses, with a place to send any overflows.
Actually wouldn't be shocked if the UK extended again after this current extension, with a view of studying how other nations coped with loosened restrictions.
Whoa, this is like information gold dust. Cheers!
Bit confused by this. I thought the deterioration from covid19 was gradual, even if it can very quick. So surely as a doctor, he would have known he was rapidly descending into the danger zone, and could have messaged a medical colleague or ambulance for help?
Or can covid19 also disable you very quickly, like a stroke or heart attack can?
Its difficult to say because there are different phases during infection but there definitely is a fairly dramatic subjective experience of worsening symptoms which some patients unfortunately don't know if to act on or not thinking it might get better.
We know from our colleagues in the Netherlands that we should be advising our patients to not just look for breathlessness but mainly extreme fatigue which corresponds most to being unwell with the disease. I've seen some young patients with incredibly low saturations of oxygen which I didn't think human beings could function on.
There are aspects of this disease that can be quite disabling, myocarditis for example. But the message is clear, this disease affects young people, middle aged people and old people in different ways. There are more young people with severe versions of the disease than any other viral illness I've experienced. Makes the idea of "herd immunity" really dangerous still in my opinion when you consider the loss of life and the morbidity.
My cousin was one of the first patients in Birmingham to be admitted with COVID19 into ITU, he is in his 30s and a marathon runner with no previous medical issues, he was admitted in March and was only recently discharged after three failed extubations and reintubations with a tracheotomy inserted to prevent retubing. Even all of his blood gases and organs being fine, it was just so hard to wean him off the ventilation, and was without any of the many complications that patient get with this disease. He is finding it impossible to sleep due to the sedation withdrawal, has PTSD symptoms but is gradually getting back together.
I appreciate all of those who have had worries regarding the economy of our country and the future implications but erring on the side of lockdown, gradual relaxation of measures, strict contact tracing, mass testing, isolation, shielding. I know its difficult but it more and more people knew how much of monster this thing was in terms of its potential to create so much suffering for so many people they would err on the side of minimising its spread at least for the forseeable future till we can figure out the long game a bit better.
Interesting to read that the state of Missouri has launched a legal action against China for loss of life and economic damages.
Good luck to them and hopefully they will be successful.
Then the fun will begin.
Good luck to them and hopefully they will be successful.
Then the fun will begin.
I believe a phased re-opening of the economy is on the cards. It seems to be all the rage now.
It was always the plan in my opinion. I'm expected us to release measures around May 20-25th. Personally I think the plan was always a 2month lockdown but if he'd come and said that straight off the bat people would have lost their heads - 50% through mental breakdowns and depression and 50% through thinking 'sod THAT' and defying the rules from day one.
3 + 3 + 2 was always the most likely for me, anyway.
I dare you to go down this rabbit hole thread
Bit confused by this. I thought the deterioration from covid19 was gradual, even if it can very quick. So surely as a doctor, he would have known he was rapidly descending into the danger zone, and could have messaged a medical colleague or ambulance for help?
Or can covid19 also disable you very quickly, like a stroke or heart attack can?
Apparently people can get very hypoxic without realising it. So it’s possible he went to sleep in extreme oxygen deficit and didn’t wake up. Being a medic, he would probably be less inclined to seek medical help than a lay-man anyway. I guess it’s also possible he had a heart attack or stroke.
These Oxford scientists might have saved hundreds of thousands of lives by keeping their research open after the SARS outbreak
It’s not good, no. Nothing about this pandemic is good. It’s a fecking nightmare. The only positive you can take from this publication is proof that lockdowns are effective.
As of today, there have be more UK civilians directly killed by Covid-19 than were directly killed in World War 1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
Gotcha. Is that why you bought that machine off eBay that you wrote about a few posts ago?
What do you mean by open? Most universities have access to the relevant journals for each faculty and at least in my university we can also request access through the British Library for free if we did not have access and/or the publication was not available online.
Exactly. Got it on Amazon actually.
iProven Pulse Oximeter Fingertip... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07CL1TM4D?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
Perspective
Who here has an oximeter? I'm in two minds whether I should buy one for my family... Winter is coming where I live. And Westeros ain't got nothing on SA.
Actually, I think that that is a rather pointless stat, given that there were not that many civilian WWI casualties in England. Combat casualties, different matter.
According to worldometer 9k recovered today in Ireland
I have two, one paediatric and one adult for family use. They are essential with this disease. If there are loads of elderly folks then I'd recommend a good BP monitor too.
There was some talk of Samsung Health App on their phones providing sats readings but they are considered unreliable.
Early on when this was progressing GPs thought there was a way to get an idea of how hypoxic someone was called the Roth score but that too has been found to be unreliable, low Sats reading <92% (or <88% if known severe COPD) especially at rest then pretty much a shoe in for being seen in hospital for me especially if coexistant COVID symptoms
Ebay and amazon have quite a few.
Urgh it's 'unavailable'.
I've started getting a bit obsessive about checking my vitals in the last few weeks.
Currently my BP is 120/68, my SpO2 is 98% with a PI% of 28, my body temperature is 36.1 degrees Celsius, and my heart rate is around 58 bpm.
I don't know why I keep checking myself so often when I hardly ever leave the flat.
Currently my BP is 120/68, my SpO2 is 98% with a PI% of 28, my body temperature is 36.1 degrees Celsius, and my heart rate is around 58 bpm.
I don't know why I keep checking myself so often when I hardly ever leave the flat.
Those are suspiciously normal. All your equipment must be faulty.
Thanks! I have two kids (5 and 4). Won't the adult one give accurate readings for them too?
Look at Dante with good health.
I panic bought one of these https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B06ZY1N4K5/ref=ya_aw_od_pi?ie=UTF8&psc=1
after pogue's post and the follow-up article that someone else posted (on how covid-infected people aren't necessarily breathless, even if they're low on oxygen) last night.
No idea if it's good, bad or indifferent but it's reviews looked ok. Maybe someone who knows better could suggest a few models that look right. Please.
Crazy. Over here oximeters are on discount in pharmacies.
Will doctors really take any notice of a DIY test though?
Don't let it stress you out. I was the same with my temperature when this all started...there is no reason to be overly concerned. Your baseline vitals certainly look good to me! So even if you did have the bad fortune to contract the virus your odds are very very good!
To be fair, this is also the longest I've gone without alcohol in the last decade.
I'm a social drinker; so without the social part of the equation to tempt me, I've been completely teetotal for the last couple of months. I'm sure that helps.
Thanks- has reviews seem decent. I'm sure I read somewhere about a doctor worried he was going to catch coronavirus citing the oximeter as a crucial bit of kit.