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18 minutes ago, schoeppeya said:

I did word that poorly for sure. There are people who just don’t end up with a large viral load for whatever reason that is. 
 

I agree. The newer quick result tests will hopefully go a long ways in getting us on a faster trajectory back to normal. 

That's fair. I'm sure there's some natural variation in viral load from person to person just because of biological variations. The super spreading seems mostly venue dependent (large, indoor gatherings with poor air circulation), but there could be some people who just have a bit more virus in the upper respiratory tract than others. 

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This may have been posted already but this was interesting from the CDC - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm?fbclid=lwAR2PcFrRYmWibcz886GrQnZPmJqSswslIV9mXkhTkip14YaTRC-8qSfGLxpw

Wonder what this situation would look like if we had a healthier population in the US. 

Comorbidities

Table 3 shows the types of health conditions and contributing causes mentioned in conjunction with deaths involving coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death. The number of deaths with each condition or cause is shown for all deaths and by age groups.

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On 8/30/2020 at 5:45 AM, Hoosier said:

Hopefully the mask wearing keeps the cold and flu rate lower.  The less confusion we can have between what illness somebody has, the better.

I can speak from first hand experience, the confusion is a pain in the ass. As many know, I'm a physician. My daughter is 18 months old and in daycare, she caught some sort of a URI virus and brought it home and gave it to me. I had the typical viral sore throat and developed some body aches and chills. Under any other circumstances I would easily work through something like this and just take a Tylenol and she throat lozenges.  With covid circulating that's a no go. It would be the wrong answer to go in mildly sick and be wrong that is just a regular cold and accidentally spread covid to the staff and patients.

So I got tested and it was negative thankfully but I couldn't just go back to work because our policy is 7 days from symptom onset even if the covid test is negative. Not the end of the world but it wasn't an easy call to go get tested knowing that is have to take off for 7 days. Really disruptive to my patients and colleagues. Worse if I had a job that is hourly and would lose income from going to get tested.

If we have a meaningful flu and other respiratory virus season, it's going to be a mess.

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11 hours ago, WestMichigan said:

I am not an anti-masker so don't go off on that but is this a case where correlation does not imply causation? Is it the natural cycle of ramp up peak and then go down or is it due to mask wearing?  I don't know but you state this as fact.  I'd be curious how much is attributable to each source.

There is a correlation with those places where mask wearing is more prevalent having better numbers, but it also a function of how much is open and yes there could be weakening of the virus itself, but that last factor is a bit more unknown.

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On 8/30/2020 at 12:48 PM, schoeppeya said:

Narratives matter.

 

On 8/30/2020 at 12:36 PM, RyanDe680 said:

The above article states this:

 


 

Interesting article, thanks for sharing it. I think both of your take aways miss the point though. Those positive tests are still positive cases and we cannot infer one way or another whether or not they were infectious at some point in their infection. The authors imply from study of other viruses that they probably aren't infectious at highly amplified/very sensitive(40 cycle) thresholds for test positivity rates. This is probably true and they are probably right that these people aren't the best targets for testing in terms of isolation and contact tracing efforts. Keep in mind, these are not false positives but if the test threshold were lowered then they would be false negatives. So the total number of true cases are still out there but just not recognized.

The authors of the article make the more important point that non PCR based testing and fast preferable home based results that identify all the people with high levels of virus is the best way to utilize testing to accomplish the goal of isolating highly infectious individuals. We've been waiting on the testing technology to give us this tool. Hopefully it's used wisely. A competent federally coordinated response with transparency and end points communicated openly would be preferred.

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5 hours ago, Jonger said:

This thing is wrapping up in Michigan.

Virtually everything is opening up again this week or next in Michigan.

We were there two months ago, hopefully you're right and things go well. Cases here exploded after about a month of being fully open. Had to take multiple steps backwards because the hospitals got under stress from the surge in sick people.

Just opening everything doesn't mean it's "wrapping up".

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1 hour ago, mattb65 said:

We were there two months ago, hopefully you're right and things go well. Cases here exploded after about a month of being fully open. Had to take multiple steps backwards because the hospitals got under stress from the surge in sick people.

Just opposing everything doesn't mean it's "wrapping up".

It isn't wrapping up, numbers are going down in the state but schools just opened up and some will be in person. So it is very early to spike the ball.

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6 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

New York City is delaying in person school.  With how they have contained the virus around there, if they can't go back, that's a real problem.

Actually, pushed to September 21

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/deal-or-no-deal-threat-of-1st-nyc-teachers-strike-in-45-years-looms-over-school-safety/2595536/?amp

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Had a scare with the virus. Got tested because of a 104F fever, terrible body pain, very bad sore throat, etc. Luckily no chest or breathing problems. The test came back negative yesterday evening luckily. Whatever I have though has worn me down to dirt. I've been doing my best with mask wearing and avoiding high risk areas. This whole situation is serious.

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2 hours ago, MIstorm97 said:

Had a scare with the virus. Got tested because of a 104F fever, terrible body pain, very bad sore throat, etc. Luckily no chest or breathing problems. The test came back negative yesterday evening luckily. Whatever I have though has worn me down to dirt. I've been doing my best with mask wearing and avoiding high risk areas. This whole situation is serious.

Strep throat? I’ve had those symptoms with strep throat before. One way to tell the difference between a sore throat from strep throat and from other illnesses such as a cold is with strep you won’t get any kind of congestion in your nose/lungs. I learned that tidbit from a doctor one time when I had it about 20 years ago.

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Just thought I'd chime in with an update on my fiancee and I. We are both pretty well recovered. I had an occasional dry cough and near-total loss of taste and smell that persisted for about two weeks, but otherwise felt mostly fine except for one day where I felt not even really sick, just kind of "bleh." If I had somehow not been aware of the pandemic, I would have thought nothing about continuing to go to work.

My fiancee's case was certainly much worse than mine but far from among the worst.  She had a few days where she barely had the energy to move, eat or drink. She actually had become severely dehydrated by the time I took her to the hospital because as she said, "it hurt to drink water." A chest X-ray found she did have pneumonia in both lungs, but she never had severe respiratory distress (thankfully). She also reported some GI issues.

Her cough was more intense than mine, but really only showed up when she laid down (and made it impossible for both of us to sleep). In our experience and in descriptions from others I've read, the COVID cough has a distinctive "barking" quality to it as you reflexively try to suck air in after each one. People who are having severe cases/going into respiratory distress reportedly can barely get a sentence out between fits.

It took her about a week after coming home from the hospital before she got her appetite back, and she still gets winded more easily than before when we go for walks.

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12 hours ago, roardog said:

Strep throat? I’ve had those symptoms with strep throat before. One way to tell the difference between a sore throat from strep throat and from other illnesses such as a cold is with strep you won’t get any kind of congestion in your nose/lungs. I learned that tidbit from a doctor one time when I had it about 20 years ago.

The strep tests came back negative, but both my primary doctor and Beaumont hospital urgent care suspected it was probably still strep or a similar bacterial infection. I was tested for strep on Friday, and told that if I didn't improve in a couple days to start antibiotics. Long story short, I only got worse, so I started the antibiotics on Monday. They seem to have really helped, so I assume it did end up being strep or a similar bacterial infection. I'm not 100% better, but I'm way improved over how I was on Monday. 

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