CNN: 'Hunker down': The fall Covid-19 surge is here

[SheltieLover]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/13/health/us-coronavirus-tuesday/index.html

(CNN)As predicted, the US is now grappling with a new Covid-19 surge -- one that could overwhelm hospitals, kill thousands of Americans a day by January and leave even young survivors with long-term complications.

"We went down to the lowest point lately in early September, around 30,000-35,000 new cases a day. Now we're back up to (about) 50,000 new cases a day. And it's going to continue to rise," Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said Tuesday.

"This is the fall/winter surge that everyone was worried about. And now it's happening. And it's happening especially in the northern Midwest, and the Northern states are getting hit very hard -- Wisconsin, Montana, the Dakotas. But it's going to be nationally soon enough."

More at link.

[JoeOtterbein]

1. Please, everyone. As much as you can please....

...stay home!

[Hekate]

2. There goes Thanksgiving

[DFW]

4. Already went poof for us

Usually, we get a 15 kilo turkey and have 20 people over. This year, it MAY be 5 to 8, and all but two will be family.

[Hekate]

5. I wasn't planning on it anyway, but it bums me out to see family members carry on this year...

Gathering, hugging, eating buffet potlucks, BBQ. This is only part of the family, but it’s the numerous branch.

All the best to them, but personally hubby and I can’t risk it.

[DFW]

8. We are scattered to the four winds anyway

Our NY based daughter always spends it with our housemates in Dallas. Our Frankfurt based daughter may or may not be able to spare the time. Our neighbors may come, but that’s about it.

Our friends in Holland just tested positive for Covid-19, so they are out, too. We do not need 8 kilograms of leftover turkey meat.

[herding cats]

6. Same here.

This year it's 8 close family (and 2 toddlers), all social distancing for 14 days. For some of us at a large financial cost due to employment. Only our tightest and most trusted allowed this year.

We're sacrificing and doing it because we have elders who quite possibly won't make it to the next Thanksgiving (high 80's and low 90's with burgeoning dementia in one). Honestly, if not for them I'd not even have this event.

If one can reasonably pass, I think they should. I know I would.

[wnylib]

10. I live in a senior apartment complex.

At Easter, during the spring lockdown, a neighbor down the hall from me had had her extended family coming and going all day long for a big family dinner. I dread what she will do over Thanksgiving and Christmas.

[DFW]

3. Oh, great

I'm not in North America, but even so, I have to be in two of western Europe's hottest hotspots (France and Belgium) for work today and tomorrow. I am being super-careful, and not going to anything other than my essential meetings, but even so. I know I'd go stir crazy if I had to spend another 5 weeks at home like I did in the spring, but that may yet be in the cards. I'll do it if I have to, of course.

[qazplm135]

7. might as well just call a mulligan on the holidays this year

unless you live with your family, send a zoom and some mailed gifts.

This thing will get worse before it does get better next summer.

[dalton99a]

9. Kick

And Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, sounded an alarm about certain states' test-positivity rates, saying they may be a good indicator that steeper climbs in case rates are ahead.

For the whole country, test positivity averaged 5.1% over the past week as of Tuesday. But in at least 13 states, the figure was above 10%: in Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

"You'd like to see (the rates) less than 3%, optimally 1% or less," Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at an event hosted by the College of American Pathologists.

"We're starting to see a number of states well above that, which is often -- in fact, invariably -- highly predictive of a resurgence of cases, which historically we know leads to an increase in hospitalizations and then ultimately an increase in deaths," he said.

[JCMach1]

11. Let me beg and plead everyone to stay safe and let me bracket

That by saying whatever you have heard, or read being in a Covid Ward with respiratory failure is an experience you would not wish on your worst enemy.

It's many x worse than you have imagined.

The long term effects? I have a dead zone in each lung and a huge list of stuff I will have to overcome to even approach getting my life back.

Nothing is worth that.


Stay safe

[Hugin]

12. +1

There's nothing like hearing a warning first hand.

[moonscape]

13. Did you make a post with

your covid story? If so, I’d love a link to it. Have read some comments but interested in more if it is somewhere.

I can say, every time I am tempted to do something (am high risk so been self-isolating since 1st week in March), I always ask myself ... is it worth my life or increased disability? Even so, not easy to hold the course but I have.

[JCMach1]

14. I promise to soon. Taking things one day at a time with healing

Cliche but true.

Your body betrays you with Covid. That's part of the process and it is so heavily idiosyncratic I also always beg people to not listen to advice beyond their Dr.

One universal safety measure... Everyone in the country needs a finger, pulse oximeter. More than anything else this saved my life.

So yeah, a lot to say. It's the horror, hallucinations, and experimental drug part that will be hard to get down. Probably a good Halloween tale.

[moonscape]

15. Thanks. Look forward to hearing/reading

when it comes together, about all of it, including your drug therapy. Glad if you had to get a bad case of covid that it was more recently and not at the beginning before there were some therapies to try. We might have lost you.

Hope your recovery will be complete. I can’t imagine.

[DeminPennswoods]

16. Heard some actual straight talk

from Vin Gupta, the MSNBC medical go-to doc, the other day. He said that room air purifiers with HEPA filters will capture 90% of particles in 30 minutes. It was refreshing to hear someone finally talk about the importance of good ventilation now that more people will be indoors more often.

[JCMach1]

17. Gupta is legit. Covid wards us negative air HEPA

To keep Covid inside hospital rooms.