Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Second rate reporter says what?

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

The way to stop violence is to stop manufacturing the hatred that fuels it.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

Decision time: keep arguing about the last election, or try to win the next one?

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

A fool as well as an oath-breaker.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Wednesday / Thursday, Oct. 13-14

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Wednesday / Thursday, Oct. 13-14

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A Brazilian healthcare provider is accused of giving unproven drugs to Covid-19 patients and conducting experiments on elderly people without their relatives’ consent. The allegations have been linked to deaths that, families say, could have been prevented.

Katia Castilho’s grief keeps her awake at night. In March, Norberto, her father, was admitted to a public hospital in São Paulo with Covid-19. Brazil, which has been hit hard by the pandemic, was then at the height of its second wave, with daily deaths numbering 4,000.

Days later, Ms Castilho’s mother, too, began to show symptoms of the disease. Irene, unlike Norberto, had access to a private healthcare provider, Prevent Senior, one of the country’s largest, with more than half a million customers.

The Castilho family contacted the company, and were sent a so-called “Covid Kit”, which included hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and ivermectin, despite there being no scientific evidence that those drugs are beneficial in the treatment of the virus…

Meanwhile at the hospital, Irene was kept in a small ward, where staff rarely came to check on her, Ms Castilho says. The sisters took turns to make sure the oxygen mask stayed on.

One day, Ms Castilho noticed that nurses were giving Irene a thick solution. She says she was told it was flutamide, a type of hormone used in prostate cancer. Flutamide can potentially lead to liver failure in certain patients, and Irene was a liver cancer survivor. The sisters say they had expressly told the hospital not to give her this drug…

A Senate inquiry into the government’s handling of the pandemic heard allegations that the company was trying to endorse unproven treatments associated with President Jair Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly dismissed Covid-19…

The inquiry also heard the Bolsonaro administration had ignored repeated offers by drug firm Pfizer to sell it 70 million doses of its vaccine. Next Tuesday, the investigation’s final report will be made public, and it could accuse the president of serious misconduct in his response to the pandemic, which has resulted in more than 600,000 deaths…

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Irving’s defenders say, hold our beers… (h/t Defector)

… Irving has made more than $160 million over his NBA contracts and has a massive Nike shoe endorsement deal, so those who know Irving understand he is not driven right now by money, nor cares for inheriting more, but rather the stand for larger issues in his mind that need his support. He’s a seven-time All-Star, two-time All-NBA member and former Rookie of the Year who now stands to lose over $200 million by deciding to use his platform to stand up for his stance of each and every person being able to decide for themselves on whether they should take the vaccine without impacts on job statuses. However, the fact of the matter is there are consequences for being unvaccinated in some industries and municipalities. Just as Irving wants to stick with his principle belief on the matter, policies and requirements are subject to local and federal governments…

Reader Interactions

52Comments

  1. 1.

    NeenerNeener

    Monroe County, NY:

    The Monroe County web site says 215 new cases yesterday, NYSDOH says 222 new cases.
    We obviously don’t have a handle on this yet.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    Here is where being a Democrat is frustrating.  We can’t crow about how we got 100% of decent adults vaccinated long ago because we believe government is supposed to represent everyone.

  3. 3.

    debbie

    I’m glad they won’t be wasting a liver on that woman in the top tweet. Reminds me of David Crosby’s disregard for his new liver.

  4. 4.

    Shalimar

    @Baud: Unfortunately, there is still some resistance in minority communities.  It’s not all MAGA assholes who won’t get vaccinated.

  6. 6.

    debbie

    Seems like a questionable time for Kaiser to screw their employees in salary negotiations. I hope the strike accomplishes something quickly because the healthcare workers are very much needed.

  7. 7.

    YY_Sima Qian

    On 10/13 China reported 1 new domestic confirmed & 0 new domestic asymptomatic cases.

    At Fujian Province 14 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 103 active domestic confirmed cases.

    • At Putian 6 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 22 active domestic confirmed cases in the city.
    • At Quanzhou 1 domestic confirmed case recovered. There currently is 1 active domestic confirmed case remaining.
    • At Xiamen 7 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 80 active domestic confirmed cases in the city.

    At Heilongjiang Province 4 domestic confirmed cases recovered & 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. There currently are 29 active domestic confirmed & 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.

    • At Harbin 4 domestic confirmed cases recovered. There currently are 29 active domestic confirmed cases remaining in the city. All areas in the city are now at Low Risk.
    • At Suihua 1 domestic asymptomatic case was released from isolation. there currently are 2 active domestic asymptomatic cases in the city (all at Beilin District).

    Erenhot in Inner Mongolia “Autonomous” Region reported 1 new domestic confirmed case, a worker at a logistics park, found via regular screening. The city has commenced mass screening of all residents.

    Yili Prefecture in Xinjiang “Autonomous” Region did not report any new domestic positive cases. There currently are 1 active domestic confirmed (at Horgos) & 4 active domestic asymptomatic cases (2 each at Cocodala & Horgos) at the prefecture.

    At Yunnan Province there currently are 4 domestic asymptomatic cases remaining t, all at Ruili in Dehong Prefecture.

    At Henan Province there currently are 6 active domestic confirmed cases remaining, all at Shangqiu.

    Imported Cases

        

    On 10/13, China reported 20 new imported confirmed cases (2 previously asymptomatic), 22 imported asymptomatic cases:

    • Yunnan Province (location not specified) – 6 confirmed & 1 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Tianjin Municipality – 3 confirmed & 2 asymptomatic cases, all crew members off a cargo ship
    • Qingdao in Shandong Province – 2 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Nigeria (via Frankfurt) & South Korea
    • Guangxi Province (location not specified) – 2 confirmed & 4 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Foshan in Guangdong Province – 1 confirmed case, coming from the US, off a flight that landed at Guangzhou
    • Dongguan in Guangdong Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Singapore, off a flight that landed at Guangzhou
    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Singapore
    • Shenzhen in Guangdong Province – 1 asymptomatic cases, a Chinese national returning from Indonesia
    • Shanghai Municipality – 1 confirmed case, a Russian national coming from Israel
    • Dalian in Liaoning Province – 1 confirmed & 1 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province – 1 confirmed (previously asymptomatic), coming from Niger; 8 asymptomatic cases, 2 each coming from Germany & Tanzania, & 1 each from Japan, Lebanon, Cameroon & Rwanda
    • Wuhan in Hubei Province – 1 confirmed case, coming from Singapore
    • Zhengzhou in Henan Province – 1 confirmed (previously asymptomatic) & 3 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Changchun in Jilin Province – 1 asymptomatic case, coming from South Korea

    Overall in China, 36 confirmed cases recovered (18 imported), 9 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation (7 imported) & 2 were reclassified as confirmed cases, & 960 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 630 active confirmed cases in the country (489 imported), none in serious condition, 370 active asymptomatic cases (358 imported), 2 suspect cases (both imported). 22,561 traced contacts are currently under centralized quarantine.

    As of 10/13, 2,225.504M vaccine doses have been injected in Mainland China, an increase of 1.423M doses in the past 24 hrs.

    On 10/14 Hong Kong reported 1 new positive case, imported (from Indonesia).

  9. 9.

    Dr. Omed

    Wait a minute. What’s the daughter doing for a liver after donating hers to her mother?—We each have one, and we can’t live without a liver. Liver donors don’t need their liver, or a vaccine, because they’re dead.

  10. 10.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reports 8,084 new Covid-19 cases today in its media statement, for a cumulative reported total of 2,369,613 cases. It also reports 68 new deaths as of midnight, for a cumulative total of 27,593 deaths – 1.17% of the cumulative reported total, 1.22% of resolved cases.

    Based on cases reported yesterday, Malaysia’s nationwide Rt is at 0.88.

    683 confirmed cases are in ICU,286 of them on ventilators. Meanwhile, 12,456 more patients have recovered, for a cumulative total of 2,249,845 patients recovered – 94.5% of the cumulative reported total.

    17 new clusters were reported today, for a cumulative total of 5,641 clusters. 744 clusters are currently active; 4,897 clusters are now inactive.

    8,063 new cases today are local infections. 21 new cases today are imported.

    The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 207,520 doses of vaccine on 13th October: 51,631 first doses and 153,750 second doses. As of midnight yesterday, the cumulative total is 46,252,254 doses administered: 24,620,890 first doses and 21,744,866 second doses. 75.4% of the population have received their first dose, while 66.6% are now fully vaccinated.

  14. 14.

    Audrey

    @Dr. Omed: A person can donate just a portion of their liver.  Theirs will then regenerate the removed portion and the segment that was transplanted into the recipient will also grow up to normal liver size.  The process takes approximately 18 months.  I don’t know why livers can do that, but it’s a nice feature!

  15. 15.

    Jeffro

    @debbie:  I read that and was like, “wow, tribalism is a helluva drug”

    Like, seriously? You’re willing to forgo a liver transplant? Ok then…

  17. 17.

    Jeffro

    Also, per that long Covid tweet: this is the main reason why Team Fro has been, and will continue to be, keeping as safe as possible.

  18. 18.

    New Deal democrat

    According to 91-Divoc, CA is only 3rd best for new infections. CT is #1, and HI is #2. But PR beats them all. On the negative side, FL is #5, so expect to hear some serious bullish!t from DeSantis.

    Good news: only 3 States have rising trends: CO, MI, and VT. Bad news: VT’s vaccination rate is still not enough to prevent it from being in the top 15 for news infections. And overall, the decline in cases may be slowing down, although it’s tough to tell because holiday reporting issues look like they are still being sorted out.

  20. 20.

    Nicole

    @Baud:

    We can’t crow about how we got 100% of decent adults vaccinated long ago because we believe government is supposed to represent everyone.

    “Well, we got all the good folks protected from Covid, now we gotta move on to save the assholes”?

    “Even assholes usually have someone who will miss them when they’re gone”?

    I see your point.

  21. 21.

    Ohio Mom

    @Dr. Omed: On the other hand, if your liver gets scarred from too much drinking or being too overweight (“fatty liver disease” is the nonscientific term), it does not heal itself.

    You’d think that if it can regenerate itself it could also heal itself but it doesn’t.

    And how does one small transplanted piece growing into a full-sized liver “know” when to stop growing? The human body is a marvel and a mystery.

  22. 22.

    Dr. Omed

    @Audrey: Thanks for the correction, guys. I knew the liver can heal itself if you just stop abusing it, but I didn’t know it could grow back.

  23. 23.

    MattF

    Derek Lowe explains how that new anti-viral medication works. It alters the virus’s RNA synthesis by putting in a bad residue. And does it in a way that doesn’t harm the host. Quite spectacular.

  25. 25.

    Peale

    As a Bucks fan, I’m all in favor of Kyrie’s crusade and hope he gets James Harden and Russell Westbrook to sign on.

  26. 26.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Jeffro: CDC has recognized the issue and is throwing money at figuring it out.  Leading candidates are immune system dysregulation and micro-aneurisms.  The former gives random symptoms but generally shrinks your body’s resiliency (think: gas tank) and recovery.  The latter are hard-as-nails to detect, cause problems when they settle and can move on before you can get the gear in place to try to find them or remove them.  Needles in a haystack that got sucked up into a twister.

  27. 27.

    Soprano2

    I am extremely skeptical of the finding that “half” of people who have had Covid still have symptoms 6 months later. The link in the tweet doesn’t go to the study they cite, but I found it with Google, and here’s the pertinent information:

    Among those studied, 79% were hospitalized, and most patients (79%) lived in high-income countries. Patients’ median age was 54, and the majority of individuals (56%) were male.

    They mostly studied people who had Covid that was severe enough to be hospitalized! I think it’s irresponsible to extrapolate that to the whole population. It seems to me that to show the true incidence of “long Covid” you’d have to have a statistically balanced sample of people who have had covid, from asymptomatic to severe. How about all the people who had asymptomatic or extremely mild cases – what percentage of the population who had Covid are they as opposed to the part that had to be hospitalized? I think it’s irresponsible to scare people like that by making them think that even if they had an extremely mild or asymptomatic case of Covid there is a 1 in 2 chance that they will have effects 6 months later. My unscientific guess is that the more severe the case of Covid you had, the more likely you will be to get long Covid. I don’t feel that I had any symptoms after I got better, but my boss said he had a kind of “brain fog” for about 6 months afterward – trouble concentrating, that kind of thing.

  28. 28.

    lowtechcyclist

    @New Deal democrat:

    According to 91-Divoc, CA is only 3rd best for new infections. CT is #1, and HI is #2. But PR beats them all. On the negative side, FL is #5, so expect to hear some serious bullish!t from DeSantis.

    How trustworthy are these FL numbers?  I’m assuming DeSantis is screwing with any numbers he can possibly screw with.

  29. 29.

    Robert Sneddon

    Scotland — 2,639 new COVID-19 cases reported today. The test positivity rate is 7.0%. There were 29 new deaths reported. ICU bed occupancy numbers are 50, down one from yesterday while hospitalisations are 908, down 10.

    There were approximately 7,900 vaccinations carried out in Scotland yesterday (Wednesday) with about 60% of these being first vaccinations. 91.7% of 16+ adults are now vaccinated with their first dose and 85.1% are fully vaccinated. 73.5% of 16 and 17-year-olds have now received their first vaccination, up 0.1% from yesterday. 43.2% of 12-15 year olds have now received their first vaccination, up 1.2% from yesterday.

    Booster vaccination numbers are being reported for the first time with 240,456 boosters having been carried out since the programme started a few weeks ago.

  30. 30.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I was just thinking how much the whole anti-vaccination thing sounds like the same kind of drama smokers were making over smoking restrictions and just being simply told smoking will give them cancer. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find the resistance to masks and vaccinations matches up to how prevalent smoking is in a community.

  31. 31.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Soprano2: The tweet you referring to is pretty oddly worded – are they claiming “about half” of people had covid get the listed symptoms or they claiming “about half” of those infected with covid, get long covid?  I guess  writing is something else we have to add to the list of things reportors aren’t good at, like history and math.

    “Those who can’t do, teach. Those who can’t do or teach, they become a media pundit”

  32. 32.

    Jojo

    @Soprano2: I work as a contact tracer in Wisconsin, and am on  a Long COVID project right now. We are basically doing exactly what you said, with the added feature of also interviewing people who never tested positive for COVID-19. This will hopefully give us a more complete picture.

  33. 33.

    New Deal democrat

    @lowtechcyclist: I think your skepticism is justified. On the other hand, FL’s infection numbers have been more trustworthy than their death numbers (a low bar, I know).

  34. 34.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @New Deal democrat: I was under the impression places like John Hopkins don’t bother with the state level claims in Florida and go by the county heath board reports.

  35. 35.

    The Moar You Know

    Reminds me of David Crosby’s disregard for his new liver.

    @debbie:  I had the very dubious “pleasure” of meeting that asshole about a month before he got his new one.  Dying from liver failure is fucking ugly.  He was ambulatory, but a fine shade of bright yellow,  had zero idea of where he was, who he was talking to or what he was doing.  He never should have been allowed to get a transplant in the first place; his damage was 100% self-inflicted and the only reason he got one was because he had money.  And he’s gone on to try and blow out liver #2.

    Steve Jobs was another guy who falls into that club of transplants for cash.  He should never have been allowed to get one either.

  36. 36.

    The Moar You Know

     

     What’s the daughter doing for a liver after donating hers to her mother?—We each have one, and we can’t live without a liver. Liver donors don’t need their liver, or a vaccine, because they’re dead.

    @Dr. Omed:  I’m not sure what you’re a doctor of but it’s obviously not medicine.  “Partial liver transplant” is a real thing, and very effective.

  37. 37.

    VOR

    @lowtechcyclist: How trustworthy are these FL numbers?  I’m assuming DeSantis is screwing with any numbers he can possibly screw with.

    Oh, absolutely. Earlier in the pandemic FL was only counting cases from residents. All those snowbirds, who spend months per year in FL but are officially residents of other states, were probably not counted. But since the cases happened in FL I wonder whether their state of residency counted them? Someone ought to look at excess deaths in FL over the last 2 years.

  38. 38.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2: One of the big open questions for a long time was whether vaccination was protective against long COVID at all, since the “mild cases” that often had lingering symptoms were certainly not eradicated by vaccination, particularly with Delta.

    Studies actually addressing this are only starting to appear. The best I can tell is that the answer is “it is protective, somewhat, though maybe not as much as we’d like.” I saw one saying that full vaccination with the major vaccines cut the chance of detectable infection over the study period down by a factor of ~3 and the chance of lingering long-term symptoms if infected by another factor of ~2 beyond that. But they cast a pretty wide net when identifying the long-term symptoms, and they’re things that are common in the general population so it is a bit hard to gauge.

  40. 40.

    smith

    @Matt McIrvin: Without extremely well-controlled studies it will be hard to tease out the psychiatric effects of long covid especially, since just living through a pandemic will cause a lot of those, and going through a stint in the ICU for any reason can cause them as well.

  41. 41.

    Matt McIrvin

    @VOR: I think that FL’s numbers are serious undercounts but the trends in them are probably believable (adjusted for the artifacts of practices like backdating cases to when they were found, which causes an illusory decline in recent days from incomplete data).

  42. 42.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I think that FL’s numbers are serious undercounts but the trends in them are probably believable (adjusted for the artifacts of practices like backdating cases to when they were found, which causes an illusory decline in recent days from incomplete data).

    So believe the trend, but don’t use the numbers themselves for inter-state comparisons.

    Kinda like Russia these days.

  43. 43.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    I was just thinking how much the whole anti-vaccination thing sounds like the same kind of drama smokers were making over smoking restrictions and just being simply told smoking will give them cancer.

    I have more sympathy for the smokers back then. Nicotine is highly addictive, after all, and after going a lifetime of being able to smoke pretty much wherever and whenever they wanted to, they were being told they couldn’t do that anymore: they had to go outside their workplace to smoke, they couldn’t smoke on plane flights of <2 hours, then <6 hours, then on any flights at all, etc.

    It had to be quite hard for them – and it made it impossible for them to dodge the reality that they were addicts.

    The anti-vaxxers have no such excuse.  Their bodies aren’t going to rebel anymore than anyone else’s if they get the shot, or if they have to wear a mask at the grocery store.  Fuck ’em.

  45. 45.

    Matt McIrvin

    The situation in New Hampshire is frustrating, because… well, let’s just say that while I don’t live in New Hampshire I have a high level of exposure to New Hampshire.

  46. 46.

    Matt McIrvin

    @smith: Being on a ventilator can’t be good for your mental health.

    Hell, the lingering psychological effects of just getting unproblematic knee surgery were a lot more than I expected.

  47. 47.

    J R in WV

    people can criticize kyrie irving all they want. all i’ll say is this: after i got the vaccine i found i was completely unable to play basketball at the nba level

    Not only was I unable to play basketball~!! I didn’t even grow the new prehensile tail I was promised !!!

    SO SAD!!!!!!!

  48. 48.

    J R in WV

    @Dr. Omed:

    Wait a minute. What’s the daughter doing for a liver after donating hers to her mother?—We each have one, and we can’t live without a liver. Liver donors don’t need their liver, or a vaccine, because they’re dead.

    Actually, they can take a small portion of the live donor’s liver to install in the recipient. Then both portions of liver regrow to support the liver needs of both people. Amazing but true.

    ETA: I see I am the 42nd person to repeat this amazing factoid. Oh well, just a few characters wasted. Next time read the thread, right? !

  50. 50.

    Gravenstone

    @Audrey: I don’t know why livers can do that, but it’s a nice feature!

    Livers take a lot of abuse in regular use (they’re basically the body’s garbage disposal). So regeneration lets them recover from that and continue their basic function over the life of the owner – under normal circumstances.

  52. 52.

    Chris T.

    @Audrey:

    I don’t know why livers can do that, but it’s a nice feature!

    All body tissues ought to be able to do that, because it’s a trick cells learned a long, long time ago in evolutionary terms.  But most can’t because they got too clever, or for other complicating reasons (e.g., you can’t live with 3/4ths of a heart in the first place so there’s no way to last long enough to regrow the missing 1/4th).

    In particular, many body tissues will form scar tissue quickly (via inflammation). This scar tissue grows fast, which repairs large holes that might otherwise make you leak to death, or be unable to escape from a lion that wants to eat you, or whatever. So that’s good. But … the scar tissue is undifferentiated and doesn’t work as well as, say, skin or ligament. If you knock out the DNA sequence that knows how to do the scar tissue, or prevent inflammation, and can keep the organism alive long enough otherwise, it turns out that some injured tissues do grow back.

    Because this is biology, everything is terribly messy. Here’s a good overview article.

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