Covfefe-19 The 12th Part: The Only Thing Worse Than This New Board Is TrumpVirus2020

[dxmnkd316]

Making a truly redundant system is incredibly expensive. It does no good to have backup generators or batteries if the single motor in the freezer itself fails, or the single door seal gets damaged so the cooling system can't keep up. Every component in the chain has to be redundant, possibly multiply redundant depending on the failure rate of the individual components and the probability of success that you are targeting. If you set the bar as, say, it being acceptable to see only one freezer failure at only one hospital (out of 10,000+ hospitals) every 10 years, you will be stunned by how many layers of redundancy will be required.

The FAA mandates that we design commercial aircraft to have catastrophic incidents due to equipment failures less than once per every billion flight hours for a given aircraft type, so aircraft end up carrying around a *lot* of equipment that might only get used once in the life of the fleet, just to backstop that one really, really bad day when 3 other things failed first. Plus, of course, we had to pay a bunch of engineers for several years to sort through all the possible permutations of failure scenarios to KNOW that that one extra backup might be needed in that bizarre case.

That's a level of expenditure that typically would not have a positive ROI for a hospital, so it does not surprise me at all that they encounter failures on a relatively frequent basis (compared with truly redundant systems like aircraft).

Can confirm in the chemical world. It’s not as crazy as aircraft, but LOPA and SIS systems are incredibly expensive to install and maintain. It’s a complete culture shock to go from no SIS to even a little SIS.

The discussions I’ve been in when someone says we need a “safety-rated redundant protection” usually don’t go well. “What’s fully redundant? Let’s start with the second control system. Now, do we need a secondary room for this redundant control system? Should it be in a separate building? I assume we also need to run the conduit and wiring separately with backup power. Do we need an instrument located in a separate place on the pipe if the failure mode is clogging? Can we even use the same technology? Ok, you’ve answered those, now we need to get funding; double the controls budget. Now, let’s talk maintenance requirements. If you can’t guarantee to me that Maintenance won’t inspect this correctly - oh, and someone has to sign off on the craftsperson being competent to maintain this - and at or more often than the required frequency, then we can’t claim the protection credits the system is rated for.”

and so on

 

[Slap Shot]

Just like the flu:

Six-month "long COVID" study reveals 76% suffer lasting symptoms

In the largest and longest follow-up study conducted to date investigating the lingering effects of COVID-19, researchers have found more than two-thirds of hospitalized patients report at least one ongoing symptom six months after contracting the disease.

Across much of 2020, doctors noted they were seeing some COVID-19 patients display enduring symptoms beyond the few weeks of acute disease. This condition is informally known as long COVID.

As 2020 progressed, a number of studies began to appear exploring the phenomenon of long COVID. But considering how fundamentally new this disease was, there was no clinical data to offer insights into how many people could experience persistent symptoms.

A new study, published recently in The Lancet, presents the largest and longest insight into long COVID published to date. The study encompasses 1,733 hospitalized COVID-19 patients from Wuhan, China. Each patient was followed for at least six months.

"Because COVID-19 is such a new disease, we are only beginning to understand some of its long-term effects on patients' health,” says Bin Cao, corresponding author on the new study. “Our analysis indicates that most patients continue to live with at least some of the effects of the virus after leaving hospital, and highlights a need for post-discharge care, particularly for those who experience severe infections.”

A striking 76 percent of all patients reported at least one continuing symptom six months later. The most common lasting problem was fatigue or muscle weakness, reported by 63 percent of all patients. Around a quarter of the cohort also reported sleep difficulties and anxiety or depression.

A Mild COVID-19 Case May Still Result in Long-Term Symptoms

Providers at the clinic thought most of the patients would be people who’d been seriously ill and hospitalized with the disease, Navis said.

However, they’ve found that many people who need post-COVID-19 care had only mild initial symptoms and were never admitted to the hospital.
“I would say that that’s the vast majority of the patients that I’m seeing. They did not require hospitalization, and they may have had very minimal symptoms,” Navis said.

“Objective evidence on diagnostic imaging — something that would explain the symptoms — is showing up in a very small number of patients that we’re looking at,” Navis said.

“We’re doing all these workups, and very little is coming back with positive findings,” she said.
The authors of the new study also found that few patients who reported lingering symptoms showed signs of damage on imaging tests, including chest X-rays and CT scans.

Over 60 percent of the study participants said they had not yet returned to full health an average of 75 days after their diagnosis. However, only 4 percent showed signs of lung scarring on CT scans.

Although many questions remain about the cause of long-haul symptoms, Navis emphasized that patients aren’t simply imagining them.
“We have enough people with very similar symptoms to know that something’s occurring,” she said.

“It can be very challenging trying to figure out what’s causing these issues, but it does seem that there may be a bigger process going on that’s contributing to them,” she added.

 

[Kepler]

So it's gonna be like battle casualties. We forked up and saved too many people. Used to be we could knock off 50k at Ypres but now everybody lives and comes home sans limbs and sanity and we spend a billion each to wheel them around in grocery carts for the next 60 years.

The trick would have been people not getting sick in the first place but that would have required closing businesses and wearing masks and that was "too expensive."

 

[wolverineTrumpet]

Not to downplay anyone suffering from "long covid", but I'd be interested to see a study of those suffering long term effects of Covid vs. a control group.

As far as I know, I haven't had covid-19 (last time I gave blood, antibodies came up negative), but I'm suffering from fatigue, sleep difficulties, anxiety, and depression all of which are likely related to living during a pandemic and having a toddler at home.

 

[Wayuphere]

Blue Lives Matter....
Unless the death is from covid. Almost 300 died last year in the line of duty, except almost 2/3rds of the deaths were from covid.
Crickets......

 

[leswp1]

Not to downplay anyone suffering from "long covid", but I'd be interested to see a study of those suffering long term effects of Covid vs. a control group.

As far as I know, I haven't had covid-19 (last time I gave blood, antibodies came up negative), but I'm suffering from fatigue, sleep difficulties, anxiety, and depression all of which are likely related to living during a pandemic and having a toddler at home.

This is a bit different from what I understand- waxing and waning sx that are exacerbated by activity or other triggers. So not just your run of the mill stuff but things that are sig different from the usual. I now know a few people who have this. They compare describing it to when you try to describe pregnancy fatigue to a guy. OK if they do nothing but sig sx if they exert. Not responsive to any treatment. Not improving despite being uber careful with their lifestyle.

So MA finally admitted they 'forgot' a sig number of physicians and NPs when they rolled out. Whoops? they are now trying to figure out what to do about it. I still have not been contacted by MA. mr les, who would be instantly eligible in NH is still not on a priority list despite his profession being about as hi risk as you can get. Same with the dental folk. Hi-est risk but not here. Not sure what happened with all that except this is what comes from having poor funding and decimating the Public Health system to a skeleton of what it once was.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Muh freedumbs!

 

[leswp1]

Muh freedumbs!

Hmm. I wonder who pays all the medical bills for the bozos who end up needing care and most likely the freedumbs extend to not having health insurance.

 

[Handyman]

Looks like today's number (according to Twitter) will be 4250. (currently 4036)

12 states with over 100 (Mississippi with 98)
6 with over 200
3 with over 300

California with 513

 

[Jeb2020]

Hmm. I wonder who pays all the medical bills for the bozos who end up needing care and most likely the freedumbs extend to not having health insurance.

Who pays it in CA with all those mandates, the most in the Country. Yet still so much Covid.

Twits.

 

[dxmnkd316]

4,500 according to JHU

 

[MichVandal]

Seeing that the deniers are trying to travel more- there are at least 2,000 more people on the corporate "no-fly" list thanks to people refusing to wear masks on flights. In theory, they are supposedly specific to one airline- but I do wonder if the airlines share the list.

 

[Kepler]

Muh freedumbs!

I'm reconsidering my lifelong ambition to visit the UP.

 

[St. Clown]

Blue Lives Matter....
Unless the death is from covid. Almost 300 died last year in the line of duty, except almost 2/3rds of the deaths were from covid.
Crickets......

My BIL is a LEO with Hennepin Country (Minneapolis and its western suburbs, more or less), and this fact is NOT lost on the LEOs on the street. On one hand they accept it as part of their job. On the other hand, they are really unimpressed with teachers' complaints about increased exposed when working in-person with their classes. I don't bother arguing with him about that point because it just won't get anywhere. And I'm quite certain that most LEOs share his same opinion.

 

[Handyman]

I go back and forth on that...as does my GF who is a teacher in the burbs. The whole thing sucks...

 

[dxmnkd316]

Yeah, teachers have it nice. Enclosed rooms with 30 kids who probably don't wear masks right and rotate rooms every hour. Yeah, that's the easy life!

 

[Handyman]

Yeah, teachers have it nice. Enclosed rooms with 30 kids who probably don't wear masks right and rotate rooms every hour. Yeah, that's the easy life!

Yeah but that doesnt mean they should get to jump the line either. We think the union is going about it the wrong way. (especially based on the guidelines Walz put in place)

Then again I think the State totally botched this whole thing so I am not sure I am in the right mind yet to decide what is right and wrong.

 

[jerphisch]

Teacher's shouldn't be in the classroom at all, if they are forced to be they should get priority for vaccination.

 

[Handyman]

Teacher's shouldn't be in the classroom at all, if they are forced to be they should get priority for vaccination.

Well yeah that is why we go back and forth on it. Though at best schools around here are hybrid and I am not sure how many even do that.

 

[Swansong]

MA has not adopted the new CDC guidelines on vaccinations. They haven't said they won't - just that they have not yet.

I think the "stop splitting hairs and put it in people's arms immediately" is a good philosophy. We spend so much time making sure we don't give it to people we don't (yet) want to give it to, when we could just be giving it to everyone, much faster.

One of my partner hospitals is spending insane amounts of time making sure specific co-morbidities are included but others aren't that they're delaying the vaccination. I think that's bonkers. Just put it in people.