61 thoughts on “C-19 Chat Post – April 19 2020”

      2. Unfortunately it would all be guesswork. Some areas it might be double or triple and some it might be far more. Our understanding of this virus is still evolving and some places are mysteriously more of a hotbed of infection. The age old saying “your guess is as good as mine.” applies here.

  2. Just catching you all up for anyone who didn’t know and to update the rest…

    I’m an essential worker and I am there 5 days a week. We have one positive C-19 at my work place (as of Thursday and that has not changed since). Everybody who enters that building has now been tested as of this morning . I had my test about 9:15AM. The entire process from walking in to walking out was under 15 minutes, including paperwork, waiting in line, and the test itself, a nasal swab, which took about 7 seconds and was a piece of cake. A lot of people worry that this test will hurt. It does not hurt at all. Is it a little uncomfortable? Yes, because who wants something put in their nose as far as it will go? It actually isn’t bad at all. They enter the lower part of your sinus cavity where the sneeze reflex will not be triggered. You do not feel it going in at all. You do feel when it reaches the back wall and they have to turn it a few times to collect the sample. It tickles. I’ve actually felt more discomfort when I accidentally had water go up my nose during a shower. This was nothing. 1 second to put it in, 5 seconds to collect, 1 second to pull it out. It was a little surrealistic walking by guys in National Guard uniforms and into a room of people in hazmat suits, like a movie, which in itself was kind of cool. Results will be known within a few days. So far, there is nobody there with symptoms of C-19. But the tests were done to make sure we are all in the clear and isolate anybody who is not. Let’s hope it’s nobody else beyond that one positive from last week.

    1. That is good, but a word of caution. Even if everyone checks out negative now,
      they could end up with the virus next week sometime. I hope they
      are scheduling a 2nd round of tests. I hope that Arod can chime in here.

      Stay safe.

          1. I believe that those tests up the nose were quite painful early on, and that the results took forever.

            This is a new type of test since, correct?

    2. Hi all. First time I’ve connected in a while and first ever on the C-19 chat. I have been reading a lot on C 19 and some sources report up to 30% inaccuracies with the tests. I wonder what others have learned on this. Stay healthy all 🙂

      1. Hey MassBay. I hope you and your family are all right. Arod commented on this a few days ago. He did say 30% ..this is the second discussion. But he did comment a day before this as I recall

        Vicki says:
        April 16, 2020 at 1:15 PM
        Question for arod…..you may have answered if yesterday and I apologize if I missed it. Is the 70 percent accuracy for negative on rapid test or long-term test?

        alisonarod says:
        April 16, 2020 at 5:53 PM
        The Rapid test is approximately 70% sensitive. . The accuracy of antibody testing to date is very discouraging. None of them are FDA approved and could prove catastrophic if we relied upon them presently given the high degree of false negatives and false positives associated with the test. This is why we won’t be able to rely on the antibody tests until one exists with greater sensitivity and specificity. Scientists are working around the clock to remedy this but we need more time just as we do for the creation of curative and preventive medicinals.

      2. I’m not sure what kind of a test I had. I was an oral swab test given at the Union Point setup (SSH and SSMC) in Weymouth. From what I heard previously a rapid test (like the ones that were promoted by CVS) were supposed to give results within an hour (hence waiting in your car for that time period).

        https://www.cvs.com/minuteclinic/covid-19-testing

        My test result did not come back until 3 days later. So it didn’t seem like mine was a rapid test.

          1. Oh..yes..sorry. Thank you! But I am concerned about the type of test I had and its reliability.

              1. Yes I am. I’m almost 100% convinced (as is my PCP) that I had a Sinus infection along with allergies. I never had a fever or a dry cough. Had a bad sinus headache along with a wet cough and some chest congestion and tightness along with the chills. Feeling better now after the Z pack about 10 days ago. So that combined with the test being negative leads to me think I’m good but I will double check about the testing reliability, etc.

    1. Thank you for this article, Vicki. I expect to be teaching online the rest of this year, but next year I am concerned we will go back into the buildings and then have to retreat to online again, at a high cost to health. We need a massive highly reliable testing and tracking regime and I am not sure we can arrange it very soon.
      Hope you and yours are okay. 🙂

    1. Thanks JPD. I don’t do texting anyway. I’ll still keep on the lookout for emails and phone calls though. I always do anyway, especially those in my “junk” folder. Of course I’ve received many scams in my regular inbox over the years as well.

  5. Not sure, but I think 145 deaths were recorded in MA and I think the NY number went up. Super Ugh!!

      1. Why is NY and MA so high? These two states continue to be the “hotspots” of the nation, if not the world it seems. 🙁

  6. A few things kind of irked me on the way home from work this afternoon:

    This male passenger on the T (Green Line) sitting across from me yawning his head off, not wearing a mask and never covering his (big) mouth. As far back as I can remember, my parents always told me to ALWAYS cover my mouth when yawning.

    Besides discarded gloves on the sidewalk, now (perfectly good) discarded face masks on the sidewalk on my street.

    Still a good number of folks not wearing masks, not to mention joggers. I have yet to see a “masked” jogger yet. I am not a particular fan of them either, but I do wear one in public now just the same.

    Some good news: no one huddling in any groups that I could tell. Social distancing seems to be happening. 🙂

    End of my “mini”rant. 🙂

    1. Governor has not mandated masks in public I think he should . Quincy & Brookline ordered all masks in public

    2. Was at the dump today and at the recycling area all the women that were there had masks on. Only about half of the men did…can’t figure that out at all.

      1. Same town dump (obviously) can confirm about 20% of the men had masks on. About 60% women had them on. Some stopped to chat with each other. Two workers had their masks on but down around their neck.

        Then there was the grocery store (also in hingham) called “The Fresh Market”. At TFM you are REQUIRED to wear a mask and they have a limit of 75 people to go inside the store. A family of five tried to enter with no masks. They were stopped and given those blue medical masks. But how oblivious do you have to be to bring the whole family along and then ignore the signs saying you must wear a mask and then when you are stopped and told decide to grab a mask for all five of your party? Insanity. (And a few people were going in while the lady monitoring the people had her back turned to sanitize carts.) one of the butchers wasn’t wearing a mask. A lot of people had their masks pulled down underneath their nose. It’s really an exercise on who would survive an apocalypse and the answer to me is “not many people.”

        1. Agree. My wife has been doing the shopping for the last 3 weeks or so and she’s fully geared up everytime she goes in. I did the same early on too and got some weird looks back in mid and late March. Don’t shop at TFM (probably only once or twice in the past 5 years. Mostly Trader Joes and Stop n Shop down on 3A. For a lot of items (TP, etc) I loaded up back in Dec and Jan…mainly due to the fact I was on Amazon Subscribe n Save. Got a couple of cases of TP and Paper Towels back then. Food wise if it came down to it we are set for maybe 3-4 weeks then we would be hurting. I’ve also been (and will continue to utilize Wholefoods for delivery of some items as well as Amazon Pantry).

          1. TFM is generally overlooked but the stuff they have in place: sanitizing carts, making people wear masks and handing out masks to those that don’t… Are ahead of the pack. I like that TJ’s and Fruit center limit the amounts inside but it can feel like you are in communist russia waiting in a bread line (and just like that era – you can get in and there is no bread or not the bread you’re looking for.)

            I recently paid for a BJ’s wholesale membership recently. Well worth it because they are very well stocked and it’s easy to socially distance in a giant warehouse (but they also do home delivery iirc).

    1. Thanks for sharing. This is important. It should be required reading for the president and all the people who want to liberate states from social distancing measures.

      Someone in the UK said:

      Living in the UK through this. There’s plenty of polarization, but Britons are not gathering in crowds to protest lockdowns that save lives; there’s no media outlet calling thousands of deaths a “hoax”; no leader encouraging insurrection.

      — — —

      I must say, it is shameful behavior. It’s great to be unique and exceptional in some ways as a nation. But, it’s not good for us to be uniquely and exceptionally ignorant.

  8. So glad you were able to get tested TK. To JPDave’s point, the test is just a snapshot of that moment. Assuming your test comes back negative, that means you were negative for the virus the moment the swab was performed (exclusive of a false negative at a rate of roughly 30%). This means you could be infected with the virus today. I’m sure you’re not and I wish you continued good health. This is just a reminder that some folks who are negative today will be infected tomorrow. Consider this cardiology example since you have a history of afib. A holster monitor provides you with ongoing details regarding the rhythm and rate of the heart, yet an EKG is a mere snap shot of that moment in time.

    1. Arod what is your thinking of how long for the peak to last maybe another 2-3 weeks . Should the Governor call school for the rest of the year & extend the emergency order past May 4th to say all of May to start .

      1. The peak will last many weeks. There will be an eventual slow decline in the number of infected cases and an even slower later decline in the number of deaths. We have a long way to go. We are closing in on 40,000 deaths in the US and unfortunately we may eclipse 80,000 before a resurgence of cases in the late fall/winter. For these reasons, school will be called off for the remainder of the year and the stay at home order extended through May. Best case scenario for children who wish to go back to school will be a return to school for a week or two not necessarily for learning but perhaps for closure and goodbyes. There will be no more meaningful learning for the remainder of the year with the exception of remote learning.

        1. I agree with all of what you said Arod I just wanted you to share that with us all here . Most of us here get it . Thank you again Arod for all that your doing . Please keep posting here we need you .

          1. Thanks SSK. Fortunately, “most” are educated enough to understand the magnitude of this pandemic. And, it is my pleasure John.

  9. Philip, your question on why NY and MA is an excellent one. We don’t have answer. But, I’ve speculated on it. Two main reasons: 1. Densely populated areas, more densely populated than the vast majority of American cities; 2. Boston and NYC are the country’s most international cities, with a large influx of Chinese, Italian, and others as visitors, but also residents (students, faculty, people on H1 visas). Flights from Europe weren’t restricted at all until March 19th. Flights from China were restricted on January 30th, but not entirely eliminated. 400k Chinese flew into the U.S. after January 30th. So, contagion levels by February were probably pretty high here in Massachusetts, and also in New York.

    1. All great points. But I’m wondering what California did that neither Ma or NY did. 150,000 folks from Asia came through CA airports in January.

      My guess is they shuttered under ORDER sooner. No one there goes out without a mask. Etc. But not sure. Clearly they did something right. Washington needs to pay attention but with the war on so called liberal states….it will not

  10. Numbers of dead are NOT going to come down in steep fashion for a while. They’ll decrease in small increments every week. But. it’ll take many weeks, perhaps months for them to decrease to minimal numbers. I do wish public health officials would emphasize this. As I’ve said the tail is long and fat. Just look at Europe. We’re no different. In fact, because our lockdown was and is half-hearted in many respects, our tail will be longer and fatter.

    1. Hey Joshua. You and I wholeheartedly concur with one another. See above. The number of infected cases will decline first followed by the fatality rate, albeit quite slowly. Let’s not forget that by the time rates fall to “acceptable “ levels, there more than likely will be a resurgence of cases as the summer and fall come
      to a close.

  11. I have felt for a few weeks that ghoulish vampiric marketing has been used to sell products by tugging on the heartstrings at a higher rate lately. This video has put some of my particular rantings into a succinct light https://youtu.be/vM3J9jDoaTA

    2. I cannot even imagine. These folks are putting their lives ..and that of their families…on the line each and every day. I am beyond proud. God Bless them.

    1. Yet there are some people (including some I know) that think those are made up by the media. Still a whole segment of the population that is in complete denial.

  15. British researchers are attempting to train dogs to sniff out coronavirus in people. It seems that dogs have been used for malaria and other diseases.

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