General Coronavirus chit chat thread - non-travel specific

[amaroo]

But you know you are not well either. That's the dilemma. What to do?

The doctor himself thought he as well enough to work. Who do we trust? The doctors or the government ministers?

Best to keep these things simple, it works best if everyone just stays home, particularly if you've just arrived from OS!

 

[Pushka]

But you know you are not well either. That's the dilemma. What to do?



The doctor himself thought he was well enough to work. Who do we trust? The doctors or the government minister? The health profession seems pretty angry with the minister.

I know. It's hard. But he had enough doubt to be tested.

 

[amaroo]

If you sound the alarm bells of an outbreak and an outbreak occurs, you'll be hailed a hero for predicting a catastrophe. If the outbreak doesn't occur, you'll be hailed a hero for preventing the outbreak.

If you try to quell the public's fears and an outbreak occurs, you'll be criticised for not taking the threat seriously. If the outbreak doesn't occur, you'll be criticised for just being lucky.

There's literally no upside to being realistic and no downside to appealing to fear. The last election here in AU, the last election in the US, the last election in the UK...etc. all came down to an appeal to fear.

Sounds like the climate change wars - election results were very different to the outcome expressed above.

 

[oirets]

The doctor himself thought he was well enough to work. Who do we trust? The doctors or the government minister? The health profession seems pretty angry with the minister.

The health profession are not angry with the minister for saying the doctor should have stayed at home, but rather, for the very unprofessional (and potentially dangerous) way they have conducted themselves.

They have basically identified the doctor and reported where his clinic is. If you've been following the comments section on social media, people are threatening to attack him and his family, vandalising his clinic...etc. This sets an extremely dangerous precedent. It's basically a witch-hunt. Luckily it's only been online threats so far and no real actual violence has occurred.

Rather than use this opportunity to point out what we should do if we're sick, the minister used it as a chance to personally attack a private citizen publicly. This undermines the public's trust in the healthcare system and the medical community is rightly angry.

 

[amaroo]

The health profession are not angry with the minister for saying the doctor should have stayed at home, but rather, for the very unprofessional (and potentially dangerous) way they have conducted themselves.

They have basically identified the doctor and reported where his clinic is. If you've been following the comments section on social media, people are threatening to attack him and his family, vandalising his clinic...etc. This sets an extremely dangerous precedent. It's basically a witch-hunt. Luckily it's only been online threats so far and no real actual violence has occurred.

Rather than use this opportunity to point out what we should do if we're sick, the minister used it as a chance to personally attack a private citizen publicly. This undermines the public's trust in the healthcare system and the medical community is rightly angry.

On this topic, what's a better example to the masses than a doctor being chastised .... that's all it is. IMHO, he deserved it.

 

[Pushka]

The health profession are not angry with the minister for saying the doctor should have stayed at home, but rather, for the very unprofessional (and potentially dangerous) way they have conducted themselves.

They have basically identified the doctor and reported where his clinic is. If you've been following the comments section on social media, people are threatening to attack him and his family, vandalising his clinic...etc. This sets an extremely dangerous precedent. It's basically a witch-hunt. Luckily it's only been online threats so far and no real actual violence has occurred.

Rather than use this opportunity to point out what we should do if we're sick, the minister used it as a chance to personally attack a private citizen publicly. This undermines the public's trust in the healthcare system and the medical community is rightly angry.

But who did actually leak his name? Was it the Minister? I thought it was the Media putting two and two together. As far as social media goes, when you use it which I believe they have, in the past, sometimes it may become your worst enemy. And that is not the fault of the Minister.

 

[Austman]

The health profession are not angry with the minister for saying the doctor should have stayed at home,

Oh yes they were. Some of the reports are not in the latest news offerings but earlier today were all about doctors that routinely worked even if mildly unwell themselves. And that here is probably not a doctor in Australia that hasn't done that. They basically said that if this doctor is guilty then all doctors are likely guilty. Prosecute us all!

 

[juddles]

...... the overwhelming majority of the world is okay, people are not going to drop dead around us and I wouldn't suggest stopping your life over this.
.....

oirets, I agree with most of your comments, and I understand the others.

I have spent much of my life working in situations where fear and panic was something that had to be fought as hard or harder than the underlying sources of same - essentially I now DETEST knee-jerk reactions and panic. Hence I also detest the new age where "reporting" relies on clicks - which drives the hype and nauseating extremism that modern journalism has become.

As the days pass, and more becomes known about SARS-Cov-2, and its effect in humans as labelled COVID19, I do see that this is a serious thing. Not in an over-all sense - as you and others have correctly pointed out, people die in the thousands every day from all sorts of other perils.....

Last night I tried to trawl through all the stats on the bug. To get an updated idea about mortality rates, etc. One thing I did notice is that, mathematically, the numbers from China have become an absolute farce - it appears that since about 1st March they have a policy to not confirm new cases, not advise of any further deaths, but continue to update just the numbers of "recovered" people. Miraculously they have managed to stop the bug, and now with each resolved case their official mortality rate is plummeting! Absolute nonsense......

So I really want to suggest that true mortality rates will never be known for China, and it will take at least six or so months (or years?) for more accurate numbers to come out of more trustworthy nations.

But if you look at the status quo, or what is published today, the mortality rate is somewhere in the 1 - 5 % range. Again, very hard to get an accurate number. But if you delve into the published figures, once you get to people around 80 this is at about 25%. Being of the age I am, I have two parents in that bracket, plus my inlaws. So, statistically at least, if they all get it (which I suspect they will) then the pure mathematics says that one of them will die. That brings the whole thing very close to home....

 

[oirets]

On this topic, what's a better example to the masses than a doctor being chastised .... that's all it is. IMHO, he deserved it.

Suppose that tonight you get a runny nose but are otherwise feeling fine. You decide to go to work tomorrow morning with your runny nose as you have done many times in the past. You go home and you feel worse so you decide to get tested.

Next minute, the minister is talking about how irresponsible you are, you have the media reporting on where you work, people dig up dirt on who you are and where you live. Online vigilantes threaten to kill you and vandalise your workplace and/or property.

Do you really think that this is "deserved"?

 

[drron]

So tell me:

If I have a runny nose, but nothing much more (no fever, no sore throat, no cough and no shortness of breath).

What in the hell am I supposed to do???

Well you very likely don't have Covid-19.The cough is dry and rare to have a runny nose.

 

[amaroo]

Suppose that tonight you get a runny nose but are otherwise feeling fine. You decide to go to work tomorrow morning with your runny nose as you have done many times in the past. You go home and you feel worse so you decide to get tested.

Next minute, the minister is talking about how irresponsible you are, you have the media reporting on where you work, people dig up dirt on who you are and where you live. Online vigilantes threaten to kill you and vandalise your workplace and/or property.

Do you really think that this is "deserved"?

But it's not normal times ... things are different. They've been different for over a month. Don't forget to add international travel to the runny nose hypothetical.

 

[k_sheep]

@teammongo has covered a lot of the testing stuff.

In the next couple days a lot of the middle sized private labs will be rolling out testing, and the public system is introducing more sites for testing. Rapid turnaround time point of care devices are also being developed and tested.

The problem being who collects the specimens - see my very long posts previously about this topic. Also, it's a risk to the collector - hence GPs, with inadequate PPE (and experience, commonly), are reluctant to do it. Some of the larger pathology companies have testing available - but as previously said, there's no medicare rebate, so there's certainly no financial incentive to do so - and again, that PPE isn't cheap, or even available!. The private lab I'm currently locuming at (gee wasn't that amazing timing on my behalf!) is testing all day, every day, for not a cent. Just as a community service. But we are STILL getting abused when people can't come in and get tested immediately.

 

[rainbowgirl]

Ultimately, I think what's most worrying about this is simply the lack of honest reporting and the lack of common sense from everyone around us (though common sense seems increasingly less common).

It might be worth just putting the risks in perspective first of all. Did you know that the flu killed over 3,000 people in Australia last year? Are we all panicking and acting like children when it comes to the flu? What about something most of us do daily - driving. Last year there were 1,146 road fatalities in Australia. So to all the people fearful about dying from COVID-19, perhaps you shouldn't drive.

I'm not being facetious, but rather, just pointing out that the general public does not assess danger by the probabilistic risks, but rather, by how much they know about something. People aren't afraid of driving or the flu because they've been driving for 30 years and have caught the flu every year. People get used to these risks and write them off as "it's never going to happen to me because it's never happened to me".

Ultimately, I think we need to strike a balance between protecting ourselves and being rational. Yes, I would say it's a good idea to sanitise your hands regularly and I think it's probably not the worst idea to avoid travelling to areas where there are huge outbreaks. However, the overwhelming majority of the world is okay, people are not going to drop dead around us and I wouldn't suggest stopping your life over this.

What I find increasingly worrying is that the reporting on COVID-19 is extremely vengeful. Details have been released about various individuals who are reported to have COVID-19, leading to mass defamation, online attacks. Thank god we haven't had any real-world attacks yet. Given the vitriol I've seen from some people towards others who simply may have COVID-19 (which is through no fault of their own, mind you), I'm genuinely more worried about what's happening to society than I am about the virus itself.

I agree with your idea of striking a balance between protecting ourselves and being rational.

It's tragic that we lost 1146 people on the road and 3000 people to the flu last year. I think the reaction to the new virus is because of the percentages involved and the spread of the condition over the world in a short period of time. If I've read things correctly I believe the fatality rate for COVID-19 is in the vicinity of 3%. What's the fatality rate for the usual flu that goes around each year? I'm guessing it's a lot less than 3% overall and much less than that if you exclude the highest hit demographic which I'm guessing is the elderly or people with other medical conditions. Yes, most of us choose to drive, but the percentage of road deaths compared to the number of actual drivers in Australia is much less than 3% I'm guessing. I'm sorry I don't have the correct numbers in these instances but I'm just trying to explore a theory. 3% sounds fairly low but if you think of a school of 1000 students, that's 30 students who would die from the condition which would be a huge impact on the school community and the area as a whole. I think that's one of the reasons there is panic about the condition and people are stockpiling unrealistic amounts of goods.

I confess, my husband and I have stocked up on certain items. We haven't cleared the shelves but we've tried to get enough supplies to last us 2 weeks at home so we wouldn't have to go out for groceries.

 

[burmans]

Oh yes they were. Some of the reports are not in the latest news offerings but earlier today were all about doctors that routined worked even if mildly unwell themselves. And that here is probably not a doctor in Australia that hasn't done that. They basically said that if this doctor is guilty then all doctors are likely guilty.

There are plenty of people who take every opportunity to skive off work at every opportunity. And then there are those who continue to work even if a bit sick. In general I probably feel the later deserve support and thanks. While today's situation adds a different dimension I'm not about to abandon my support for those hard and dedicated workers.

 

[oirets]

But it's not normal times ... things are different. They've been different for over a month.

I understand, but I'm just simply saying that we should not let this sort of vile anger and vitriol override basic humanity.

At the end of the day, you have someone who is sick, let's help him get better. Rather than seeing him as some sort of "walking virus", perhaps see him as a human who was just unlucky to be sick, who made decisions which might not have been the best, but were generally understandable in context.

He's been treated worse than a criminal.

 

[k_sheep]

In regards to doctors working when sick - the health system runs short staffed as a rule. If you don't go in, then sick people don't get care. Simple as that. Since most are in it because they genuinely care - they work. The system would fall to a heap in a week otherwise.

I remember a particularly interesting night shift where I inserted an arterial line, threw up in the clinical waste bin, scoffed an ondansetron, and took my turn at CPR. All in less than 2 mins. Irresponsible? Yes. But what's the alternative? There was no one else.

 

[Pushka]

Oh yes they were. Some of the reports are not in the latest news offerings but earlier today were all about doctors that routinely worked even if mildly unwell themselves. And that here is probably not a doctor in Australia that hasn't done that. They basically said that if this doctor is guilty then all doctors are likely guilty. Prosecute us all!

There is being unwell and being infectious.

 

[Pushka]

I agree with your idea of striking a balance between protecting ourselves and being rational.

It's tragic that we lost 1146 people on the road and 3000 people to the flu last year. I think the reaction to the new virus is because of the percentages involved and the spread of the condition over the world in a short period of time. If I've read things correctly I believe the fatality rate for COVID-19 is in the vicinity of 3%. What's the fatality rate for the usual flu that goes around each year? I'm guessing it's a lot less than 3% overall and much less than that if you exclude the highest hit demographic which I'm guessing is the elderly or people with other medical conditions. Yes, most of us choose to drive, but the percentage of road deaths compared to the number of actual drivers in Australia is much less than 3% I'm guessing. I'm sorry I don't have the correct numbers in these instances but I'm just trying to explore a theory. 3% sounds fairly low but if you think of a school of 1000 students, that's 30 students who would die from the condition which would be a huge impact on the school community and the area as a whole. I think that's one of the reasons there is panic about the condition and people are stockpiling unrealistic amounts of goods.

I confess, my husband and I have stocked up on certain items. We haven't cleared the shelves but we've tried to get enough supplies to last us 2 weeks at home so we wouldn't have to go out for groceries.

Our health system would be completely overwhelmed if this virus hit our shores with full impact. And we haven't even hit flu season. That is why the current thought is to contain it for as long as possible.

 

[Austman]

There is being unwell and being infectious.

This is a doctor (a GP) we are talking about. I suspect they'd know about that.

 

[Pushka]

This is a doctor we are talking about. I suspect they'd know about that.

Well, he went to work when he was likely infectious didn't he! What does that say?