Florida

Covid-19 – Truth vs Lies and Misinformation

/ SupremeCmdr / 2 Comments

The strongest weapon we have against pandemic is telling the truth.

I continue rounding on my other COVID patients, recalling an article that I’d just read about how coronavirus didn’t affect the 17,000 children infected with it in Florida because coronavirus doesn’t affect children.

  “COVID doesn’t affect children.” You may want to rethink that.

Naturally I tend to focus on infection numbers where I live.  The 17,000 number in Florida shocked me so I went online to verify the number.

But these figures continue on the rise. According to state data released by the Florida Department of Health, Florida has tested 173,520 state residents under the age of 18 for COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus. Of those tests, the number has gone up from 17,000 reported last Friday to 23,170 tests that came back positive.

UPDATED: More Than 23,000 Children Have Tested Positive for COVID-19 in Florida

I was wrong.  The number of children infected with Covid-19 in Florida is higher than 17,000.  I wish I had more cheerful news on this Sunday but the truth must be told.  We all need to cut through the noise to see the truth.

After a unanimous vote at a commissioner’s meeting to make masks mandatory, residents of Palm Beach County in Florida erupted in anger, which included threatening to arrest a doctor for “crimes against humanity” for their vote. Two Twitter accounts — BadMedicalTakes and BadCOVID19Takes – a YouTube study, and Facebook posts promoting bogus COVID-19 cures highlight some of the public health misinformation being spread on social media platforms. The political nature of wearing face masks for public health safety has resulted in misinformation about their effectiveness. Those who wrongly believe face masks have detrimental respiratory effects are interfering with the ability to scale our nation’s public health response. During this unprecedented time of dealing with a viral outbreak and its economic effects on such a large scale, our nation should be experiencing strong unity in championing public health safety measures. Instead, the decision to wear a mask outside the home is influenced by gender, political party, and education level.

COVID-19 misinformation is a public health crisis

It came as a complete surprise that I would stumble upon my calling and purpose on this Sunday.  I’m not young anymore and I’ve been thinking a lot about how to structure my retirement.  I admit to reading a lot (maybe too much) and the pandemic has tightened my focus on the virus.  I never envisioned my reading/research and sharing on social media would become my calling at this stage in life.

But it’s what I do.  I hope you benefit from my work and that it helps you cut through the bullshit making this pandemic way worse than it ever should have been.

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

George Orwell – 1984

Masks are sexy.  Wear a mask.

 

Trouble in Arizona

/ SupremeCmdr / 4 Comments

There is no country in the world where confirmed coronavirus cases are growing as rapidly as they are in Arizona, Florida or South Carolina. The Sun Belt has become the global virus capital.

This chart ranks the countries with the most confirmed new cases over the past week, adjusted for population size, and treats each U.S. state as if it were a country. (Many states are larger in both landmass and population than some countries.)

The only countries with outbreaks as severe as those across the Sunbelt are Bahrain, Oman and Qatar — three Middle Eastern countries with large numbers of low-wage migrant workers who are not citizens. These workers often live in cramped quarters, with subpar social services, and many have contracted the virus.

Source: NYT Morning daily email briefing

 

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Remember to avoid the 3 C’s.  And wear a mask.

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Worried About…Florida

/ SupremeCmdr / 1 Comment

The graph below compares states’ rate of positivity to the recommended positivity rate of 5% or below. States that meet the WHO’s recommended criteria appear in green, while the states that are not testing enough to meet the positivity benchmark are in orange.  Source – Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center

Positivity rates

Oklahoma is teetering on the edge.  But Florida is over the edge.  New cases in Florida below.

FL

Meanwhile in Oklahoma…

OK

Screenshot_2020-06-17 America Is Reopening But have we flattened the curve

I learned you can grab graphs easily from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

I also heard there was a political rally on Saturday in Tulsa.

I have no intentions of being anywhere near downtown Tulsa on Saturday.

But for those of you who plan on going at least we have plenty of beds.

Screenshot_2020-06-17 Personal Protective and Hospital Equipment Dashboard

Unusual Presentations of COVID-19

/ SupremeCmdr / 1 Comment

“Even in a bad flu season, you never see something like this; it’s just unheard of,” said Harlan Krumholz, MD, a Yale cardiologist…”When they get to the ICU, we are seeing lots of people with acute kidney injuries; lots of people developing endocrine problems; people having blood sugar control issues, coagulation issues, blood clots. We are just waking up to the wide range of ways this virus can affect people. Our ignorance is profound,” but physicians “recognize that this thing has the capability of attacking almost every single organ system, and it may or may not present with respiratory symptoms.”

Read the entire Medscape article at Unusual Presentations of COVID-19

This shit is real and it is scary.

But hey, let’s go to the beach!

Floridamorons

Photo credit: as noted in the photo but stolen shamelessly from the Twitter feed #FloridaMorons