Though the 1918 pandemic is perhaps the most relevant piece of history to consult about our current common disaster, there was another epidemic in the country that might also provide some lessons. From the late 40’s until 1955, there was a polio epidemic in the US, and some of the response to that epidemic might be relevant to how we’re going to battle COVID-19 later this year.
One of the more hair-raising stories my old man told me was his work at a locum at some tiny hospitals in western South Dakota. Some of the labor and delivery rooms, and operating rooms, had almost no resuscitation equipment, and they were generally unequipped to handle a lot of medical emergencies. For most victims, polio was not serious, but for the most seriously affected victims, it was a full-blown medical crisis which included high fever and seizures, not to mention paralysis of the respiratory system. These cases could not be cared for successfully at the typical small-town hospital of the time. The solution, in western South Dakota at least, was a polio hospital. This facility provided specialist care, including iron lungs, and saved lives.
After we get through this first wave of cases, our challenge with COVID-19 is going to be resuming life as we know it while treating the inevitable cases that will crop up during the next flu season. Perhaps these cases will be segregated in a regular hospital, but my guess is that we’ll build specialty hospitals, or re-purpose some medical facilities as specialty hospitals, just to isolate and treat COVID-19 cases. Once we have a test to determine if someone has antibodies, we can staff those hospitals with people who have had the virus and developed immunity (assuming having it causes immunity). With the development of a quick reaction test to see if patients have the virus, those who are positive can be quickly moved to the specialty hospital. The regular hospitals can go back to treating the vulnerable without worrying about infecting them in the process.
This is just one scenario, and I know that the volume of polio patients was nothing like the 1918 or current pandemic, but if we can just buy ourselves some time, there are a lot of creative ways we can go back to semi-normal and still have some good outcomes for those infected.
Military Life: Avalune on Moving
pajaro
I do remember polio from my childhood. No one knew exactly how one could avoid it, so the precautions were guesswork. The steps I remember were being ordered to bundle up, even though the outbreaks were in the summer, and to be banned from swimming pools entirely, because they were believed to be places of transmission. Even though my parents avoided talking about it any time I was around, I was able to figure out that it scared the living hell out of them.
Jager
At one time there were TB Sanatoriums, one of my mother’s aunts spent some time in one in the 30s.
Marcopolo
This is pretty much what China has done. They combined their quarantine with universal symptom testing for folks still moving around & when someone showed a fever they were moved to a location where whether they were infected or not was confirmed (which took a few hours). If the infection was confirmed they were sent to a “fever hospital” and monitored with supervision. Only with the onset of the worst symptoms (needing assistance to breath) were they moved to a “regular” hospital. The whole idea was to keep infected people away from the non-infected. Theoretically with a couple month lead & a lot of effort we could have learned from their experience & used their model but the time to do it easily has probably passed with how widespread the virus is now. And implementing this would most likely require the resources of the federal govt.
Of course, having a test that gives a +\- result in under a half hour would eliminate one stage of their system.
This is probably my comment for the day so howdy everyone. I’m (not) excited to say I live in the state that had the largest week over week percentage increase in COVID cases in the US. All bow down before (red state) Missouri!
trollhattan
Agree that since it will not go away, just become less of an immediate peril, that shunting COVID-19 patients into specialized care makes sense both for a higher level of care and to free up the medical field to get back to “regular” medicine.
Since knowledge is power, and we have nowhere nearly enough knowledge, a 5-minute lab test would be a huge help.
I’m hoping we’re able to screen everybody headed back to school and work. I don’t want to return, just to infect others or be exposed.
dmsilev
The long-run solution is a vaccine. Early reports suggest that, unlike the flu, this one doesn’t mutate very quickly so a vaccine won’t have to play “guess this year’s variant” the way the flu shots do. I don’t think anyone sane is expecting a vaccine before next year though.
Jager
@pajaro:
When I was a little kid in the 50s, 2 kids in a 5 block stretch of our neighborhood had polio. I went to HS with one of them, Jimmy’s legs were semi-useless, he’d been on crutches since he was 7 years old. He had arms and shoulders like an NFL lineman. He’s a retired CPA now. Great guy.
Feathers
Yes. I was talking with a friend and we were guessing that cities would have “lying in” hospitals again, which would be exclusively maternity hospitals, with no COVID 19 patients.
Trivia: The women in Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston is because it was formed from mergers over time with the Boston Lying In Hospital, founded in 1832.
geg6
They also had special hospitals for tuberculosis back at the turn of the century, well before the polio epidemic. Actually, my Penn State campus originally housed the county TB hospital. I had a great aunt who was housed there for quite a while. Back when I first started my job there, my office was in that very building, which has since been torn down. PSU acquired the property from the county back in the early 60s and the hospital had been closed for years. There was even a morgue. Yes, I think this may be an option, at least until the vaccine is available.
Lapassionara
@pajaro: 1948 was a particularly bad year, and I think swimming pools were considered a potential place of transmission. There were lots of photos of children in iron lungs. The development of the vaccine against polio was a huge step, and it freed up my childhood summers considerably. One reason why I have little sympathy for anti-vaxxers.
PsiFighter37
One problem with the suggestion above is that I do not think folks who recover from COVID-19 get immunity; I’m quite sure I have read about cases where folks got reinfected.
boatboy_srq
I can’t help thinking that one reason Lord Dampnut is so all-over-the-place with ventilators is that he is confusing them with iron lungs.
It would be a lot easier for a plastics-oriented company like Creative or Logitech, or a home appliance maker like Eureka, to produce a modern ventilator. But because Lord Dampnut can’t hear one term without translating it into something entirely different, he’s got GM’s massive assembly lines getting retooled for these things. And because the US has a pResident with what remining neural circuitry thoroughly crossed the results are likely to be as inappropriate as one could expect.
Keith P
@Jager: When I was growing up in Baton Rouge, one of my friends’ mothers had polio. She had a severe limp, but at the time I had heard it was already eradicated, so I wasn’t terrified of it. But I can only imagine some disease like that spreading.
trollhattan
@Jager:
Was super-young when the polio vaccine was introduced, so never learned the dread. However, I grew up in a world where a lot of adults navigated on “professional” crutches, a living reminder of the disease’s toll. I consider anti-vaxxers to be not merely misguided, but monsters. Looking at you, RFK Jr.
ETA My spouse’s dad was injured in Korea and then contracted polio back home, convalescing. Needless to say, we never met.
Mnemosyne
There’s a dumbass meme going around saying something like, The Greatest Generation would mock us for staying home because of a virus! and I was like, Hello, polio? You historically ignorant dumbfucks.
ziggy
It looks like specialty hospitals for Covid will happen, without a doubt. Segregation of cases is already happening, for instance with the field hospitals and ship hospitals. YY Sima Qian believes that for tight control, we will need to have quarantine hospitals for ALL cases, like they do in Wuhan. Probably workable, it sounds a bit more appealing all the time–watched over by doctors in case symptoms get worse, and we can’t work or do anything anyway. At least you could hopefully socialize with other Covid patients and get a bit of support.
One of our friends was one of the last polio cases and it is still taking a huge toll on his body. Hopefully Covid has no bad long-term repercussions.
Mnemosyne
@PsiFighter37:
Last I heard, the science is VERY unclear on that. They can’t figure out if the original testing gave a false negative, or the subsequent testing gave a false positive, or what.
trollhattan
@PsiFighter37:
Blood tests of the recovered show antibodies and from all current indications, have at least temporary resistance (which, IIRC is not the same as immunity). We will not know for some time whether it lasts.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Marcopolo:
Ironic considering how well St. Louis handled Spanish Flu
e julius drivingstorm
It seems that once you’ve had the virus and recovered, you will still be a carrier at least be able to transfer it from surfaces. We need the vaccine developed and have everyone innoculated before we have a chance to get out of the woods on this one. The anti-vaxxers probably won’t help unless they begin to have a change of heart.
Renie
I remember as a kid being in the car on my way to my grandmother’s in Queens, New York and passing an old TB Center on Woodhaven Blvd. It was huge and very spooky looking especially after my mother explained what it was. At that time I had no idea what TB was. I believe it opened in the early 1900s and was torn down around 2003.
EmmaAnne
Often when someone on facebook posts antivaxxer stuff my mom starts talking about polio. Hi mom!
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Uh, right. A substantial part of “The Greatest Generation” were isolationists who wanted to stay completely out of the war. Maybe that’s the cohort gung ho to go back to the office.
Feathers
If you watch The Great British Baking show and have noticed Mary Berry’s limp and weak left hand and arm, it is because she had polio as a child.
wvng
@PsiFighter37: It seems to be an open question. Clearly some people who were infected and released “became reinfected.” The question is did they actually fully recover in the first place. But it is an open question, and a big one. If most or all don’t gain immunity after having this monster then that might well mean that a vaccine would not be effective. I prefer not to consider that possibility. Also, is it now conventional wisdom that this disease will slow down in the summer like the flu does? Is there actually evidence for that or is it another assumption?
NotMax
Polio is never “not serious.” Less severe, perhaps, but never not serious.
Because of means of transmission, tuberculosis outbreaks would seem a better parallel. It’s been estimated that prior to effective treatment, TB was responsible for as much as 1/3 of the deaths of humans throughout history.
SFBayAreaGal
There is some research that indicate the 1918 pandemic started around 1917, died down, and came back with a vengeance in 1918
trollhattan
Sheltering and distancing are working.
germy
trollhattan
@NotMax:
IIUC polio also causes myriad medical issues as one ages.
Barbara
@e julius drivingstorm: I have a feeling that the reaction to anti-vaxxers for a disease that has turned into an actual and not just hypothetical risk will not be the bemused tolerance they have become accustomed to.
Ruckus
I remember the polio epic as a child. I remember standing in line with the family one evening, getting my sugar cube. I also remember my friends with polio and friends moms with it. One had an iron lung in their front room. I remember that it was scary because it was bad and unknown why to most. Healthcare was the family doctor who didn’t actually do a lot but could set bones and dispense medication, along with a concept of better. Hospitals were for when you went past what the family doc had ability to do. I was given ether for my tonsillectomy, both of which are rare now.
The range of medical knowledge currently is far, far ahead of what was known 3/4 of century ago. Like a lot – all of scientific knowledge. Political knowledge has changed less than that and we are now in the area of political knowledge that we were in scientific knowledge that 3/4 of a century ago. Maybe, possibly it will also evolve, rather than hold back progress in healthy human activity.
Charluckles
I thought we had some information that this virus wasn’t mutating very much? If so, do we have any examples of viral diseases with similar properties not causing some immunity? I seems unlikely but it’s been far too long since I studied any virology. I would be more suspicious of testing irregularities.
germy
Don “Creesh” Hornsby got polio and died soon after. He was a wild comedian who had just signed a contract with NBC.
I think he would have been a major TV star if he’d survived.
McConnell lived and Creesh died. The universe is mysterious that way.
Mike in NC
Just got out of the hospital following prostate surgery. Lots of commercials on TV with parasite Franklin Graham pushing a “24 Hour Prayer Hotline” for the pandemic. Wonder what the fee is? Grifters gotta grift!
trollhattan
Elect a monster, be treated monstrously.
As we ponder how many needless lives Trump has already cost and are yet to be lost here, Bolsonaro’s path will cost many times more. Slums of Rio and Sao Paolo come to mind.
germy
NotMax
@trollhattan
You betcha. Post-polio syndrome is real.
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
Conversation that did not occur even once in the 1950s:
“Honey, I just heard Tommy Green on Maple Avenue got polio.”
“Great, let’s load up the kids and head right over.”
“Kids, polio party!”
“Yay!!!”
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Currently knowing someone my age with polio and seeing the long term effects brings my early experience of polio into stark reality.
The only thing that really stuns me is that I’ve only known women with polio. Four of them, all I’ve know first hand, two of them my same age, all within a five mile radius.
germy
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Maybe the slums of Rio and San Palo also came to his mind……
Barbara
@NotMax: I have certainly heard that was the case in 19th century England, that one out of three deaths was due to TB. But I also understood that TB became more prevalent as urbanization, and population more generally, exploded. There is no doubt TB was a scourge until the discovery of antibiotics. John Keats and Anton Chekhov both died young of TB, as did both of Keats’ brothers. There is a very good book called “Everyone Was So Young” about the circle of friends that surrounded Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald in France in the 1920s, centered on an affluent ex-pat American couple, Gerald and Sarah Murphy. One of their two sons died of measles, and the other died of TB. (I might be off on the title a bit, but it was something like that and it was a fascinating glimpse of a certain period in Europe snd the U.S.)
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
Point taken. “Those people” are not his people.
Another Scott
BlueVirginia.us – UofW model predicts VA peak on May 2:
http://www.healthdata.org/data-visualization/covid-19-us-state-state-projections
:-(
I had to go into work for an hour today to check on some equipment. I was disheartened to see so many cars on the road (maybe 20% of normal, but still far too many).
Cheers,
Scott.
germy
Whistling in the dark…
The Dangerman
Things are being repurposed all over; mostly for the short term needs and I have no idea how they plan to manage the long term needs with new building or whatever. Cal Poly’s gym (which is fucking massive) is on the list. They are placing RV’s at Dockweiler in LA (campgrounds are closed, but they will put patients in the RV to isolate them, and maybe the hospital staff). I don’t know who is running the show other than it’s probably not FEMA (has anyone heard FEMA mentioned once? I haven’t, but I turn off the TV mostly).
I heard they had a signing ceremony or something in DC today. What staggeringly stupid fuck wanted to congregate people for a bill signing today? Oh. Nevermind.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
How right you are. Mass stupidity has never had a higher insurgence than right now. And from people that mostly shouldn’t be that stupid. I guess that stupid really is as stupid does.
trollhattan
@Barbara:
Was surprised to find myself captivated by Burns’ “Country Music” and one of many compelling stories was Jimmy Rodgers. He contracted TB and toured relentlessly between bouts, to a degree that surely shortened his life. He played at sanatoriums and was a favorite, because “He’s a lunger, just like us.”
L85NJGT
Urban based multi-hospital systems were starting to focus locations on specialties (heart, ortho, etc). Most of them would like to shed the emergency room. Trauma is expensive, and less critical issues are better handled via immediate care providers.
Initial contact shouldn’t be a street queue, waiting for access to hospital emergency rooms. Set up off site screening locations, as well as video & phone access with practitioners.
Keeping the level of fear down has benefit for staff and patients.
Barbara
@germy: The only response I have to anyone who says something like this: “You first. Show us how it’s done.”
moops
There is a good chance that recovered COVID-19 victims will have immunity. Previous trials where we deliberately infected people with a different, mostly benign, coronavirus have shown that 1 and 2 years out they had good immune responses. something like 15% would get re-infected but would not have symptoms and would clear the virus over a week or so.
So, you would probably still need testing of the staff at a COVID-19 facility, since the staff would be members of the community and could re-introduce the pathogen. But the staff would not be turning around as new patients.
A low mutation rate has good and bad aspects. Good in that we can likely make a good vaccine. Bad in that it will likely never become less harmful. In ancient times a virus that had this high of a transmission rate would infect everyone, thin our herd, and they go dormant as all the survivors would be immune until we bump into a naive population and ruin their lives. With each dormancy the newly unleashed illness would tend to be less damaging. You just get local disasters over decades. Now, we better get a vaccine.
germy
@trollhattan:
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Barbara:
Hell, even that tolerance has started to fade away if the recent legislation in California and Maine closing vaccination exceptions are any evidence.
I also have a feeling that a lot of anti-vaxxers will get the vaccine for the COVID-19 coronavirus because it’s not a hypothetical disease they (or their children) could get but usually don’t because they’re protected by herd immunity
Matt McIrvin
@boatboy_srq: I was going to say that makers of CPAP machines could manufacture them, but it appears that’s who already makes them.
Renie
OT: Sorry if this has already been discussed but does trump really have the authority to do a signing statement saying he will ignore a key oversight provision in the relief bill and not allow the IG to give any info to Congress about who gets money. Why do I fear he will figure out a way to get a ton of money for himself and his business?
germy
The NY Post has reported that a cat in Belgium caught coronavirus from its owner.
It’s the NY Post, so I suspect they got the story wrong.
Barbara
@trollhattan: Some if the older Vermont ski lodges were originally built as TB sanatoria. They were no longer necessary by the early 50s. Walker Percy contracted TB in the late 50s as a resident in a NYC hospital, after participating in an autopsy from someone who died from it.
moops
GM is a dumb choice, but it is personal for Trump. He has an old grudge with them, so they are getting the boot on their necks.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@L85NJGT:
Are you saying hospitals should get rid of the emergency room entirely???
feebog
When I was a kid of about 8 our neighbor died of polio. Went on vacation to Mexico, caught it there and died. He was a fireman, big guy who was never sick. My cousin also had it as a child. She recovered but had a permanently weakened leg. It was a frightening disease in my childhood.
Ksmiami
@Renie: Hang them all… now back to the interesting thread-
JoyceH
My mom always told us that she missed a year of school and had to stay home because she had pleurisy. After she died, we were sorting through her things and found a certificate from the Terre Haute Tuberculosis Sanitarium certified that (Mom’s name) now tested free of tuberculosis and was cleared to return to work. She never told us! TB was considered something shameful back then. (This was the 1930s.) And I recall from my childhood that “cancer” wasn’t something you said out loud. Weird.
Matt McIrvin
@trollhattan: The curve isn’t bending in Massachusetts so far–cases are exploding in Boston particularly. I think Baker may have to put some teeth in the lockdown, which he’s resisted doing so far.
NotMax
@Ruckus
Don’t have to go back very far to see examples of things which might seem astonishing to us now. President Coolidge’s younger son quickly dying from an infected blister, for example. There are still people living today who were alive then.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Renie:
Wait, WTF? Has he done that or is that speculation?
NVM: he’s claiming he can. Sounds like the lefty purity ponies may have been right about the IG and oversight committee being worthless concessions if Trump just ignores them and the GOP courts back him up, but not for the reasons they thought
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
And the reality is that it is a huge problem that has no easy answer. We have, not just here, but most places, an economic war of the halves and the have nots. We have massively visible signs of this in LA. I see their encampments/tents, under freeways, in places of reasonable and unreasonable wealth in many places. There has to be an answer in a reasonable time frame or we will cease to be anything like an effective society if we ignore the wealth divide and what is causing it in this country. Brazil has looked the other way and what has it gotten them? We have poked around the edges ineffectively and what has it gotten us? Politics as normal doesn’t work, the concept of equality isn’t true and it is not a simple or easy problem to solve. Take what we are currently going through. Conservatives want it all for them, as the old guard, the last line of defense, but that hasn’t worked, ever, for an entire society. Even much of our liberal side doesn’t see, or want to see, the issue either. But we could be Brazil very easily.
Steeplejack (phone)
@germy:
Thanks. Very interesting. What might have been . . .
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
Welcome to my world. Traffic is less but it is still there. Some of that is that people just do not walk much here in socal. Sure, I see more people walking now. But it is still rare and I walk 2-3 miles a day. And yes I see fewer cars, but still a lot. And CA is supposed to be shut down. It isn’t.
Jackie
@geg6: My paternal grandmother died from TB – my Dad was five, my uncles were four and one yrs old. My Dad missed his mom to the day he passed – at 99. I resemble her and Dad said he always saw her through me.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@trollhattan:
Why hasn’t this fuck died from this virus yet? Didn’t he test positive awhile back but lied about it?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ruckus:
“It can’t happen here. This is America.”
So it has always been said and believed
cain
@Barbara:
Seems like a pandemic is a good way to refresh memories of why we have vaccines in the first place. These anti-vaxxers are going to have a tough time going forward given all the death that has happening. I suspect that the govt/society are going to take harsh steps with laws enforcing vaccinations.
mrmoshpotato
cain
@Mike in NC:
I was watching Rain Man last night and there was an old lady there that wanted to give her entire savings to some preacher on TV because his jet was old. That movie was pretty awesome in its social message about healthcare – worth watching again!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ruckus:
To be fair, just because you see people driving around doesn’t mean they aren’t practicing social distancing. Some people just like to ride around to get out. There’s no risk if you just stay in your car
cain
I think this was deliberate to attack the slums and reduce the population of poor people in benefit for the rich. I think he’s thinking this thing is going to solve the problem for him. I’m hoping that he falls victim to his own hubris whatever that may be.
oldgold
S. Korea had their first confirmed case of Coronavirus on January 20. The very same day we did.
S. Korea has 1/6 of our population.
The S. Korean government took it seriously and immediately started surveillance testing and locking down. Korea new case numbers are now falling . Yesterday, they reported only 91 new cases. We had over 15000 new cases. And, our numbers are rocketing up.
mrmoshpotato
@Mike in NC: 9.95 a minute?
Ruckus
@boatboy_srq:
As someone who has build plastics molds for most of my life, I’ve tried to explain some of this to people. But they are used to seeing reports of how fast something has come to market, not realizing actually how long it was in the process, because they have zero idea what the process is. No concept whatsoever. They see, they like, they buy. Everything in life takes longer than we’d like, except sex, the only thing most everyone knows and cares about.
NotMax
@cain
Also too, plenty of places still open have switched to offering curbside pick-up.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@mrmoshpotato:
“Stay the fuck at home”
I like the cut of his jib!
Kirk Spencer
@Ruckus: In part it’s the very large loopholes. The 16 ‘essential’ industries plus the long list of other essential businesses turns out to be a lot of people everywhere.
NotMax
Whoops. #80 was meant to be @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka).
trollhattan
As a PSA, remember: freedom isn’t free, it costs billable lawyer hours.
This concludes the PSA.
# # #
Mary G
I was born prematurely and with a nonexistent immune system. The hospital at UCLA was my home for the equivalent of two of my first five years and I managed to catch both polio and meningitis there, and had to be put into isolation. Being alone in a room with an empty second room where doctors and nurses put on all kinds of protective gear to come in and only able to see my parents waving at me from the hall was awful for a two or three year old. One night they couldn’t get my fever below 106 or 7 and sent my mother home on the bus to Adams and Hoover expecting I wouldn’t be alive in the morning. She got there and a crowd of doctors and nurses were all out in the hall laughing. She was outraged until they had her look in. My fever had broken and I had managed to turn the TV on and was jumping up and down on the bed exercising with Jack LaLanne, or tryiing to anyway.
zhena gogolia
@Mary G:
How are you doing today?
Brachiator
@JoyceH:
A very sobering story. And I think that talking about cancer has become more acceptable within or lifetime.
I had not really much thought about this until now, and these times.
trollhattan
@Mary G:
Equal parts harrowing and hilarious!
cain
@Mary G:
What a great story! Thank you for sharing that with us.
mrmoshpotato
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’s a good song, and stay the fuck at home!
moops
@Ruckus: SoCal has not been on lockdown, but here in the Bay Area most people have complied. Those that haven’t piss me off, but compliance is high enough that we appear to have flattened the curve in the last few days.
https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2020/coronavirus-map/
And that is including the spike in positive cases when we rolled out drive-up testing.
I don’t think any SF Bay Area facility is going to be overwhelmed. I think LA is going to go like NYC. We will likely end up sending staff and supplies to SoCal in a few weeks.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@trollhattan:
The PA Supreme Court has already ordered the governor to allow gun stores to reopen.
These assholes have big brass ones to accusing Newsome of having a partisan agenda when they want stores to be open so they sell guns based on fears of societal collapse
NotMax
@Brachiator
Was not uncommon practice for doctors to avoid uttering the C word when speaking to their patients.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
“So how much Purell do I put inside the barrel? Wouldn’t want to shoot someone with an infected bullet.”
//
DropKicker1
When I was 6, my father was transferred to an airforce base in the Yukon. One day, the Polio Police ( 2 nurses and a doctor) came to town to vaccinate everyone. Us kids were lined up to get our shots. Being a Braveheart, I stood in line 14th of 15 kids (the 15th was obviously a bit braver than me). We stood at the back of the line, getting tortured by the sounds of the kids in front of us, yowling and screaming as they got the shots.
When the line neared me, I did what any Brave, Canadian kid would do…I ran. Fast as my little legs would carry me, into the woods (luckily it was a short run, and the woods – other than the odd scary bear) were close and dense. I stayed hidden until supper; the nurses and doctor were long gone by then.
Needless to say, my parents were PISSED. The weekend 300 mile drive to the hospital in Whitehorse was pretty quiet. Luckily, they brought my dog along, and he still loved me!
Mike
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
Yeah that too. And a lot of essential businesses are open as well
There was a plant nearby that had 3 employees test positive for COVID-19 , but the plant is still open and deemed “essential”
3 employees at Giant Eagle have also tested positive in Pittsburgh.
A Walgreens a few miles from where I live has closed because a few employees are positive
I’m glad I was able to get a personal leave from work for a month. The peak should be around that time so I’ll probably have to request another 30 days once my current leave is nearly up
Mary G
@zhena gogolia: I’m good. The housemates are home more on the weekends. They get breakfast from McDonald’s as a reward for the teen’s cooperation and had a big fight this morning over whether or not to throw the extra six pats of butter for the pancakes away. (I sided with keeping it and fished it out of the trash for my toast after they left to go buy groceries for an aunt in Palm Springs.) A bit of company that isn’t cats is nice even at a distance.
NotMax
@Mary G
“What did you do in the Great Butter War, Daddy?”
:)
germy
hueyplong
Just received in the mail a postcard entitled “PRESIDENT TRUMP’S CORONAVIRUS GUIDELINES FOR AMERICA” (yes, it’s in all caps).
There are a lot of words, but no mention of a “hoax.” Have the libs gotten to him? I haven’t seen the news for 20 days and am very concerned. Surely the card itself is yet another hoax by those awful Democrats, replete as it is with nagging threats to stay home and keep clean. Those bastards will do anything to shut down America and then blame The Bestest President evah for the reduced value of 401(k) accounts.
I’m complaining to Sen Paul. He’ll get to the bottom of this.
germy
zhena gogolia
@DropKicker1:
Great story!
germy
ThresherK
Once upon a time when you could only breathe indoors in certain coastal elite cities I remember a blurb on the Evening News about a Montana city.
They’d passed a no-smoking law in bars and restaurants, and in a year were considering something (legislation? referendum?) to overturn it. However, the
dang old government bureaucratshealth professionals (whatever MT’s CDC is) publicized the result: The drop in heart attack ambulance calls and hospital admissions was immediate and pronounced.What does this have to do with Covid 19? It illustrates health effects of what turn out to be behavior test cases in small isolated pockets of population.
Just something to think about when some places of realAmerica Libertarianism surpass the per-capita infection rate of Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco.
John Revolta
The only lesson Republicans learned from the polio story was how much money that chump Salk left on the table.
Brachiator
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I hope this was a good and reasonable resolution of the issue that you were having with your employer.
Miki
This week in St Paul a rehab hospital was turned into a Covid-19 Specialty Hospital
Testing is still a big problem here, so our state wide numbers are most likely off by a factor of 10. As of today, 441 infections confirmed, 5 deaths. 20 outbreaks in long-term care facilities, split pretty equally between staff and residents.
Our gov is great – honest about where we’re at and that it’s too late to flatten the curve, and ordered stay at home so the health care world can get what it needs to treat the severely ill that will arrive sooner rather than later.
It’s all about staying safe, at home, and waiting ….
Mnemosyne
@ThresherK:
It’s funny, but it turns out that in every locality where smoking in banned in bars and restaurants, the biggest proponents of keeping the ban turn out to be bar and restaurant owners. They find out pretty quickly that absenteeism and sick days for their employees go WAY down and their business goes up because the people who used to avoid their smoke-filled bar or restaurant are willing to give them a try.
ThresherK
@Mnemosyne: Fascinating how close to the ground bidnessmen/women notice this kind of thing, but the high and mighties usually don’t think of it as their issue.
The shift manager notices, but isn’t the proverbial 30,000-foot view more like “we can just replace the sick ones”*?
(*Yeah, this axiom goes back to before Covid-19. Pretend I replaced it with something appropriate.)
Sloane Ranger
Did anyone else hear the story from Italy about the 103 year old woman who not only survived coronavirus but, based on her blood tests, had also had the Spanish flu back in 1918/9?
It’s stories like this that give you hope and perspective.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Sloane Ranger: You mean this guy? (The 103-yr-old woman is Iranian.)
The Miraculous ‘Mr. P’: 101-Year-Old Italian Man Beats Coronavirus
Mnemosyne
@ThresherK:
I feel very lucky that the high-n-mighties at the Giant Evil Corporation were pretty much on the ball and shut things down relatively early. I’ve been working from home since 3/13, and they just confirmed that they’re going to keep Parks employees on the payroll through the end of April — phew!
Mnemosyne
Way back to the beginning of the thread, I’ve ordered myself a couple of cloth surgical-style masks. One was from a company that usually does roller derby gear and the other was from MochiThings, which is an online store that sells stationary and bags from Japan and South Korea. We’ll see which one gets here first.
There is no possible way for them to be mistaken for an N95 mask since one is bright yellow and the other has a pattern of little emojis wearing surgical masks.
Sloane Ranger
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Could have sworn it was a woman but it was late.
leeleeFL
@Lapassionara: I have zero patience with anti-vaxxers because I had friends and family who had polio and I remember the braces and crutches and twisted faces like it was yesterday.
And, even though he died before I arrived in 1951, my admiration and affection for FDR was unquestionable. Still is, Imperfect vessel, but his strength and determination impresses me to this day.
I also remember measles blindness and deafness, and babies damaged by Rubella.. Fuck those people with a rusty pitchfork
Ruckus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I understand. Also you do have to go out every so often for supplies. But I also have lived here a long time and when I see the level of traffic that I have been seeing, I know that a lot more people are ignoring what they should be doing. I also see people working that shouldn’t be. My work is still open. And yes we do work on tooling for the medical industry so there is that. But a lot of people are working that should not be, that are not essential. They just don’t see the necessity. And that is an issue.
Bmaccnm
@Feathers: Pregnant women get Covid-19, also. There were three of these women in my L&D unit on the last night I worked there.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I lived in the Columbus OH area when the county passed a no smoking ordinance for all restaurants. Most were pissed off that this would cause their business to nose dive. From the first day restaurants were packed. Turns out that even in a state with a high percentage of smokers, the non-smokers outnumbered them, a lot. I think that’s been the case everywhere no smoking has been instituted.
Alex
We may well need special hospitals like the one for polio or the tuberculosis sanatoria before that. But we should be careful about segregated facilities that are generally out of sight. Polio hospitals were terrifying and traumatic for children separated from their families and subjected to painful medical procedures of unproven efficacy.
Ruckus
@leeleeFL:
I’ve said on other posts that I’ve known personally 4 (it’s now 5) people with polio. The first 4 all grew up within 5 miles of me and the last was not much farther. I had encephalitis due to the measles and I spent 5 years taking meds, EEGs and hearing tests and I believe that it is part of my current issues. And I’m not alone in this, everyone I grew up with had some issues. Because we had no protection from almost all debilitating/deadly diseases. We aren’t a lot better now, because so many people have no or very limited access to healthcare. The ACA made that a lot better, but it’s still not the answer. It’s a bandaid for a major bleed. And of course republicans have made it worse. That’s why they like trump, he’s their god of making things worse.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
My mother-in-law, who is a few years older than you, has had several weird cancers in her head and mouth that are usually related to smoking, but she’s never smoked a day in her life. I still suspect that she got some kind of x-ray treatments on her head as a child and that’s why these things keep popping up (fortunately, they’ve all been caught VERY early by diligent doctors and dentists). If she did, they either happened when she was too young to remember them or they were so routine that she’s forgotten about them.
J R in WV
Back before Salk’s first vaccine, wife was very young. Nest door neighbor’s wife was a teacher and had gone back to school for a year to complete a master’s degree, so he was invited over for dinner quite often. One evening he wasn’t as hungry and was leaving some that was wife’s favorite, so she asked and was allowed to finish his portion.
The next morning he was taken to the hospital where he promptly died of polio. Wife had a long and painful series of gamma globulin shots, which were believed to contain antibodies in patients who survived the illness, much like what is being talked about for Covid-19 victims. Obviously, she survived without being stricken.
Her grandfather was active in the Easter Seal program, and she taught swimming to severely disabled kids at the summer camp, in a very cold trout stream dammed up for the camp. Long ago now.
J R in WV
@PsiFighter37:
Interesting!
I am quite sure I have read that President Obama was born and raised in Kenya, perhaps you have read that novel theory also.
My point is that you should perhaps be skeptical of scientific things you read if there are no foot notes, listed authors with degrees in the topic being discussed, peer review, etc. Better luck next time!
J R in WV
@wvng:
I personally doubt it will slow, as it appear to be spreading well in tropical nations where it is always hot, and in Australia where it is mid summer south of the equator.
We don’t know why flu subsides in the summer, do we?
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Emergency departments don’t have to be tied directly to hospitals. In some states, including mine, there are freestanding EDs that maintain a limited number of inpatient beds onsite under a common license. And health systems don’t have to build them. It has to do with the business case and overall strategy, trauma level designation, etc.
NotMax
@J R in WV
One reason is that exposure to more hours of sunlight is effective in zapping the flu virus when airborne, so there’s just less of it around to cause infection.
NotMax
@NotMax
For clarity:
It’s the UV in sunlight which does the job.
emjayay
@The Dangerman: Since bills getting out of Congress by definition are the work/voting of both parties, normally at an important presidential signing some of both sides are invited. Trump of course only had Republicans there. So, not to worry.
ballerat
My mother grew up in a very small town in the Upper Peninsula during that time period, the 40s – early 50s. One of her childhood friends died from polio. The polio vaccine was a Big Deal. They knew and saw what polio could do. She thinks anti-vaxxers are criminally reckless fools who should be in jail.
ballerat
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I think the antivaxxers will be hypocrites like the abortion protesters. They’ll get one on the sly, then go right back to decrying and denying.