COVID-19

[Tubetec]

Well what can I say ,  real life experiences relating to the medical mafia have made me cynical , touch wood Im still fully functional despite not taking the pills 

Its usual to see safety spec's and the most basic kind of mask worn by dental staff here , They may well have had to change up hygenic practises lately .

While I was never a gigging musician , the hit the live music scene has taken has directly impacted me ,but  Ive plenty scope to re-invent my work in electronic and electrical but it really isnt the same for people who have only ever known playing music to earn their living. Its like the old story about a work of art only being of value if its appreciated , likewise if our musicians dont have an outlet  do they cease to exist artistically , spiritually. Are live music performances to be reduced to 'Facebook Live' so you might as well be doing it for charity , with broken sound quality the added bonus, its not much of a future to look forward to   

Thanks Wlinart for the honest and direct account. 

 

[crazydoc]

'The smartest people in the room (medical community/drug industry)'  , smart at parting us from our cash with meds that often are no better than a placebo and on occasions have side effects which lead to people being treated with an ever growing stack of pills , ruthless profiteering Id call that ,

I'm sorry you feel that way - maybe you've had some bad experiences. The medical community is made up of humans, and like any other group - police, politicians, priests, electronics engineers - there are always going to be a few bad apples. It's up to you to avoid them when you find out who they are. By far the majority of physicians have as their guiding principle the elimination of disease and suffering, to the best of their ability.

 

[scott2000]

are always going to be a few bad apples. It's up to you to avoid them when you find out who they are.

Just stay away from the ones who have done or said anything Trump has or has been accused of should be good....

Prescribing things not needed....not prescribing things when needed.... withholding things because of money....giving things not needed because of money....

Especially those p^$ grabbing types

I would think the bigger problems come from the top administrations anyhow. I guess it could be disturbing if they had a hand in the actual distribution of the education or steering the tools our Drs have... Similar to some of the stories I hear about the public school systems or colleges....

I know it was interesting when reading up on surgical vs radiation therapy for my father to see how the studies for and against each type were highly biased depending on funding research. 

 

[JohnRoberts]

Just stay away from the ones who have done or said anything Trump has or has been accused of should be good....

shhh

Prescribing things not needed....not prescribing things when needed.... withholding things because of money....giving things not needed because of money....

Many doctors just prescribe whatever the patient asks for, if it won't harm them. Maybe that's why there are so many TV commercials for prescription drugs.

I remain critical of the medical community but I have never personally encountered bad intent AFAIK.

My biggest complaint is that medical practices do not employ expert computer technology to collate and share the combined experience of the entire medical industry but rely upon individual doctors having a good memory and judgement.  Computers are better than humans at storing data, but reducing massive amounts of data to useful intelligence is not trivial. In practice inputting the data is a weak link for small practices. I saw how ACA loaded down my local clinic practice with new bureaucracy (my not very old doctor retired, because she could). The industry has been working on this problem for years so hopefully somebody somewhere is making progress. 

Especially those p^$ grabbing types

again wha?

I would think the bigger problems come from the top administrations anyhow. I guess it could be disturbing if they had a hand in the actual distribution of the education or steering the tools our Drs have... Similar to some of the stories I hear about the public school systems or colleges....

Top down administrative policy is blamed for the differences in nursing home COVID deaths between states with better and worse nursing home experiences.

I know it was interesting when reading up on surgical vs radiation therapy for my father to see how the studies for and against each type were highly biased depending on funding research.

Peer review is supposed to weed out bad research but we have even seen political bias in some of these decisions (sorry I know wrong thread for politics.)

JR

 

[Script]

@ wlinart -- Thank you very much for sharing.

"[....] still not over after about 3,5 months [...]"
This is what I've heard from elsewhere, too.

And good to hear that you are back in the saddle 

Hope you don't mind me asking, but as a cyclist, are you more of the loitering or the racing type ? Either way, cycling is great for cardiovascular and lung training (cadence, heart rate, LTHR, FTP, 2x20s -- the whole shebang ). But I assume you know. If not, you might want to look into it. Could help improve and track improvement.

Just wanted to share my personal experience with covid-19. I'm one of the many people who actually had the virus.
It started in march, very early in the lockdown here in Belgium (probably got it from a close collegue on the last day before lockdown).

Started with a mild cough, which then got way worse. And then some very heavy chest pains, like nothing i experienced before. Also felt feverish. The fever only lasted for 2 days, the coughing and chest pains about 2 weeks. But the worst 2 things were actually the shortness of breath and the extreme fatigue. That is still not over after about 3,5 months.

In the beginning everything was exhausting. At some point i went to brush my teeth. Not a very heavy effort. But 10 mins after i was done, i was still gasping for breath, laying down in my sofa. Very scary feeling. After a few weeks i could do some minimal efforts. I started with cooking for myself, but my roommate had to take over, because it was too much. At some point (i think after 4-5 weeks) i decided to go do some grocerie shopping. That wasn't a very good idea, because i was completely exhausted afterwards for a few days.

By the beginning of june, i had to go back to work after the lockdown. I'm a teacher and the schools partly re-opened. So i had to go back. It meant that i had to ride my bike to school (about 7 km), teach for 1,5hours, and after some resting, back to my home on my  bike. When i arrived at home, i went to bed. For the rest of the day. (i arrived at home at noon).

Now the school are closed for holidays, until the first of september. And i'm using my time off to recover. I'm riding my bike every other day, slowly rebuilding my condition. But again, i have to recover from those trips for a day. (at the moment i can ride about 10km in one trip, which is ok, but before covid, i had days of 70km).

And just to be clear: i'm not an old, unhealthy guy. I'm 24 years old, cycle a lot, have a healthy bmi, eat semi-healthy,...

Just adding some experience. I hope this all will be over soon (and i'm also talking about the lockdown and other inconveniences).

 

[scott2000]

My biggest complaint is that medical practices do not employ expert computer technology to collate and share the combined experience of the entire medical industry but rely upon individual doctors having a good memory and judgement.  Computers are better than humans at storing data, but reducing massive amounts of data to useful intelligence is not trivial. In practice inputting the data is a weak link for small practices.

Sometimes can be a bit eerie some of the things they track and for what reasons..... Those studies from the WHO and other places on ageing populations are really in depth... just a bit weird how it's portrayed as such a problem...but I guess it's like that old tire commercial we had here in FL......"tires ain't pretty"

but necessary....

This is neat

"Pamela Peele knows that people who subscribe to cooking magazines have a much higher risk of going to the emergency room. But how she knows that is a whole other story. "

https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/analyze-health-systems-health-plans-get-core-big-data

 

[Script]

At some point (i think after 4-5 weeks) i decided to go do some grocerie shopping. That wasn't a very good idea, because i was completely exhausted afterwards for a few days.

Sounds like COPD Gold Stage IV, if you asked me.

Again, thanks for sharing.

 

[fazer]

funny Scott.    Substitute

Old people ain’t pretty.
But necessary. . 
Or Not.

 

[wlinart]

Thank you all for the responses.

@ wlinart -- Thank you very much for sharing.

"[....] still not over after about 3,5 months [...]"
This is what I've heard from elsewhere, too.

And good to hear that you are back in the saddle 

Hope you don't mind me asking, but as a cyclist, are you more of the loitering or the racing type ? Either way, cycling is great for cardiovascular and lung training (cadence, heart rate, LTHR, FTP, 2x20s -- the whole shebang ). But I assume you know. If not, you might want to look into it. Could help improve and track improvement.

I'm mostly cycling to go to my work, music school, shops,... I don't own a car, and i do everything by bike. (actually did, at the moment i'm not able to do everything that way). Most days i cycled more than 25 km's, but there were days of 70+ km's too. My average speed was normally between 20-25km/h. So i think that would make me more the loitering type? (English isn't my native language, so i think i interpreted that right). Right now i'm slowly rebuilding it. In the beginning once a week a trip of 5-10km, right now it's every other day a trip of 10+km.

Sounds like COPD Gold Stage IV, if you asked me.

Again, thanks for sharing.

It could be a lot, but according to my docters it's probably covid-19, and it will become better over time. Back when it started with me, they didn't test me. There weren't enough tests. But when it didn't become better after a longer time, i had a lot of tests. My lungs and heart were both tested, and my blood was tested. My lungs aren't in perfect health at the moment, but it's ok. After some very heavy excersize my oxygen level was still in the higher 90's, which is good. So That part is a lot better. Right now it's mostly the fatigue which bothers me.

 

[scott2000]

Was reading this one Atlantic article and it mentions Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS

(https://www.nap.edu/read/19012/chapter/2)

.... I can't find it atm...but interesting....Similar things happened with SARS..


I Highly recommend the Wim Hof breathing exercises referred by another member here. They're really good.  Takes a bit to get used to but , one thing I've noticed is how easy it becomes to take deep breaths at will.. Kind of like when you get those nice deep breaths that really get into the lungs when you yawn. Usually those are more difficult to get just randomly for me but it has become easy.

Nothing bad to say about them at all...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzCaZQqAs9I

 

[Script]

Sorry, my bad. Didn't mean to imply you had COPD. Just that it sounded very similar to what people who have it say -- the purely physical fatigue.

If your SpO2 is above at least 95 at all time (and you are not  a smoker !), you should be good -- as far as I know.

Do you enjoy cycling?  If so, you could google 'endurance training' for cyclists. Or look on YouTube. Don't shy away from real pro cycling advice for inspiration (cos it's been proven to be the most effective).

Anyway, there's really a lot more one can do that benefits overall health  (combination of various things in short intervals) in one hour of pedalling than just aiming to get from A to B and back.

 

[wlinart]

Sorry, my bad. Didn't mean to imply you had COPD. Just that it sounded very similar to what people who have it say -- the purely physical fatigue.

Nono, that's ok. I understand that it's something to think about, which is what the doctors here did

If your SpO2 is above at least 95 at all time (and you are not  a smoker !), you should be good -- as far as I know.

I'm also not a smoker, and apparantly it is good (now, a few weeks ago it wasn't)

Do you enjoy cycling?  If so, you could google 'endurance training' for cyclists. Or look on YouTube. Don't shy away from real pro cycling advice for inspiration (cos it's been proven to be the most effective).

Anyway, there's really a lot more one can do that benefits overall health  (combination of various things in short intervals) in one hour of pedalling than just aiming to get from A to B and back.

Yes, i enjoy it, and at the moment i'm cycling more for fun (i have holidays now). It's a good tip, i'm gonna look it up. Thanks!

I Highly recommend the Wim Hof breathing exercises referred by another member here. They're really good.  Takes a bit to get used to but , one thing I've noticed is how easy it becomes to take deep breaths at will.. Kind of like when you get those nice deep breaths that really get into the lungs when you yawn. Usually those are more difficult to get just randomly for me but it has become easy.

Nothing bad to say about them at all...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzCaZQqAs9I

Sounds interesting too!
Thanks for the tips guys! I'm gonna research a bit, and see if i can get these symptoms down.

 

[Winston OBoogie]

Thanks for sharing your experience wlinart.

I'm glad you now have a few weeks off to recuperate more,  take care.

 

[Scodiddly]

I've lost track of whether we were talking about UV-C disinfection in a different thread, but I just got an email from LEDSupply.com advertising UV-C LEDs they now sell.
https://www.ledsupply.com/leds/uv-c-275nm-seoul-viosys-led

This is a pretty reputable company I've bought from quite a bit, so I'm sure not a scam.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I've lost track of whether we were talking about UV-C disinfection in a different thread, but I just got an email from LEDSupply.com advertising UV-C LEDs they now sell.
https://www.ledsupply.com/leds/uv-c-275nm-seoul-viosys-led

This is a pretty reputable company I've bought from quite a bit, so I'm sure not a scam.

not a scam but not far UVc.... 275nm is actually longer wavelength than typical UVc (circa 250nm).

Far UVc is 220nm or shorter (safer). I read several months about experimental LEDs operating around 210nm.

JR

 

[cyrano]

Serious questions if COVID is a natural occurring or man-made virus arise again:

https://www.minervanett.no/files/2020/07/13/TheEvidenceNoNaturalEvol.pdf

 

[JohnRoberts]

Serious questions if COVID is a natural occurring or man-made virus arise again:

https://www.minervanett.no/files/2020/07/13/TheEvidenceNoNaturalEvol.pdf

That suspicion is out there along with many other more specific ones.

At this point our effort should be on slowing the r0 (transmission coefficient), pedaling as fast as we can on an effective vaccine development, and preventing death in the infected patients. We appear to making progress on all fronts while measuring r0 accurately is conflicted by test availability.

One possible way to mitigate shortages (and time delays) of testing is to pool group samples together. For example testing a pool of an entire class of students (or office workers) every day could insure no community spread in class. If the pooled sample tests positive, then individual testing of the entire pool can ID the infected individual.

Mask wearing has turned into a political point of contention (not sure which side is which), perhaps because of how partisan modern culture has become. At least more effective masks are now cheaper and more widely available than they were a few months ago. I just saw an article about 3M dramatically increasing their domestic production and still not keeping up with sales. 

Before this drama the majority of PPE we used domestically was manufactured in China, probably still is.

After we defeat this particular virus we can assign blame where appropriate. I expect lessons we learned this time to help us better manage such threats in the future. I find it hard to imagine this is the last one ever.

JR

 

[Winston OBoogie]

Mask wearing has turned into a political point of contention (not sure which side is which)

Just a hunch, but it's possible this type of message might have had something to do with it?

https://youtu.be/QiN-wANjTrc

 

[living sounds]

I just had an idea: One factor that might make the empidemic worse in the US in the summer is the prevalence of air conditioning. The high incidence of the virus in meat processing plants worldwide appears to be related to closed-loop air cooling, and to a lesser degree (litereally) this is what happens with indoor air conditioning in residential, communal and commercial buildings...

On the other hand... there's exponential growth in Alaska, too...

 

[JohnRoberts]

I just had an idea: One factor that might make the empidemic worse in the US in the summer is the prevalence of air conditioning.

Some localities are requiring hepa filters and UV disinfecting for air handling systems in shopping malls and shared public spaces. Not cheap or trivial so will delay already struggling malls. 

The high incidence of the virus in meat processing plants worldwide appears to be related to closed-loop air cooling, and to a lesser degree (litereally) this is what happens with indoor air conditioning in residential, communal and commercial buildings...

That is news....  ( I am not going to turn off my air conditioner without compelling justification.)

The high incidence in meat processing plants has been blamed on, not shutting them down when pandemic arose because they are considered a vital industry for food supply.  Workers packed in too close together without cough shields or other personal protection between work spaces, is an ideal scenario for community spread.

I was pleased to learn about efforts toward developing robotic meat processing technology. But this is more difficult than it first appears to do cost effectively. Experienced meat cutters can maximize the size/weight of valuable roasts/steaks sold for higher prices while minimizing waste or low price scrap meat better than robots. It may take a leapfrog technology that ignores the old school sharp metal knives to cut meat away from bone, and instead develops a new alternate way to separate meat from bone.  (I can imagine heating just the bone, but that would cook nearby meat. Another possible trick is vibrating just the bone fast and hard enough to break bond to the meat. 

I wonder if they could use remote control robotic meat cutters (not unlike the robotic micro surgery rigs, but not micro and cheaper). Perhaps humans operating robotic cutters could do so from a safe distance, better than AI robotic cutters.

JR

On the other hand... there's exponential growth in Alaska, too...