Almost half of Mass 900+ deaths (444) in the last two weeks have been from nursing homes. That is from like 4% of the general population.

I don't see any way you can stop the spread to facilities like this, which unfortunately means that many of these people will die. That's a pretty difficult really to accept, particularly as I know someone in a nursing home, but it seems to be inevitable.

wilmwolf80 said:

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I don't see any way you can stop the spread to facilities like this, which unfortunately means that many of these people will die. That's a pretty difficult really to accept, particularly as I know someone in a nursing home, but it seems to be inevitable.

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NYC just added 3700 deaths to their Corona death totals, just because (no positive tests). States just making up stuff as we go along. You would think with the amount if testing NY is doing they could at least be legit.

Hopefully this is just a France like cleanup and not a long term fudging.

I saw that too. Just insane. If we're including unconfirmed COVID deaths in our death totals, shouldn't we also include unconfirmed recoveries? At what point are we just making up numbers?

So total new cases seem to be down today and new deaths went through the roof. This has got to end at some point. People are going crazy being stuck and not getting any real answers from the morons in government

4 more in Clayton nursing home dead. DHHS needs to be pressed on reporting in and out of congregate facility cases separately.

Wayland said:

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wilmwolf80 said:

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I don't see any way you can stop the spread to facilities like this, which unfortunately means that many of these people will die. That's a pretty difficult really to accept, particularly as I know someone in a nursing home, but it seems to be inevitable.

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NYC just added 3700 deaths to their Corona death totals, just because (no positive tests). States just making up stuff as we go along. You would think with the amount if testing NY is doing they could at least be legit.

Hopefully this is just a France like cleanup and not a long term fudging.

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PackBacker07 said:

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Wayland said:

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wilmwolf80 said:

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I don't see any way you can stop the spread to facilities like this, which unfortunately means that many of these people will die. That's a pretty difficult really to accept, particularly as I know someone in a nursing home, but it seems to be inevitable.

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NYC just added 3700 deaths to their Corona death totals, just because (no positive tests). States just making up stuff as we go along. You would think with the amount if testing NY is doing they could at least be legit.

Hopefully this is just a France like cleanup and not a long term fudging.

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I'm not very smart but am I reading this right? They are saying they are counting people who die as COVID19 deaths even when they have NOT tested positive for COVID19?!?!?!

Juking the stats. Why?

This is the way I read it as well? Although I wanted to present without comment. The only thing I can assume is they know the background of said victims, were in proximity of known diseased, and they could not get tests? That is a lot of assumptions, however.

On this note, here is what NYC Health states in regards to their data:

"A death is classified as probable when the person did not have a positive COVID-19 laboratory test, but their death certificate lists as the cause of death "COVID-19" or an equivalent."

PackBacker07 said:

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On this note, here is what NYC Health states in regards to their data:

"A death is classified as probable when the person did not have a positive COVID-19 laboratory test, but their death certificate lists as the cause of death "COVID-19" or an equivalent."

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Well I may die of a heart attack but I'm still stupid so will my cause of death be listed as stupid? Haven't has a positive test for being stupid but I'm dead. This is not attacking you in anyway. Simply drawing a comparison.

Yeah I have no clue and don't understand it myself.

The question was asked in the Charlotte briefing why they were using the UPenn model over the UWash model and the answer was they felt like the UWash model was "too favorable" and they wanted something more middle of the road. Too favorable? How about simply look at the FACTS of positive case and hospitalization trends?! HALF of the 900 and some positive cases in mecklenburg county have already recovered?!?

I've come to expect Roy to just follow the leader on whatever larger infected states are doing, but I don't at all understand why NY is juking the stats. I certainly hope there is major coverage of this and an appropriate explanation given.

PossumJenkins said:

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The question was asked in the Charlotte briefing why they were using the UPenn model over the UWash model and the answer was they felt like the UWash model was "too favorable" and they wanted something more middle of the road. Too favorable? How about simply look at the FACTS of positive case and hospitalization trends?! HALF of the 900 and some positive cases in mecklenburg county have already recovered?!?

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As right or wrong as UW IHME model is, at least the inputs are managed by experts. The UPenn model lets any moron fill in whatever blanks they want into a graphmaker, and even has a massive warning at the top about using caution.

The fact you have some county layperson trying to use the UPenn model is comical. Play with the model, the UPenn model can be completely manipulated using arbitrary social distancing percentages. I linked the model in a previous post.
https://penn-chime.phl.io/
Edit for UPenn link.

Press arrow at top to get input parameters on mobile.

I'm with you...i just have no idea how you can say with a straight face the IMHE model is too favorable when even it has overshot almost every meaningful data point

PossumJenkins said:

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The question was asked in the Charlotte briefing why they were using the UPenn model over the UWash model and the answer was they felt like the UWash model was "too favorable" and they wanted something more middle of the road. Too favorable? How about simply look at the FACTS of positive case and hospitalization trends?! HALF of the 900 and some positive cases in mecklenburg county have already recovered?!?

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Well if this thing is not going to peak in Charlotte until June ( which is preposterous), then the RNC will not occur there. That will make a whole lot of Charlotte leaders happy. It saying there is a cause-effect, but when the mode you are using isnorders of magnitude out of whack....

I just learned the following while watching the news tonight. A nursing home administrator said that CDC guidelines allow someone who is asymptomatic with Covid-19 to work with any patients that may also be positive for Covid-19. So, in nursing homes they can have people who are asymptomatic working in the facilities.

Anyone see a problem with this policy?

I know I am not a doctor or a healthcare expert, but this policy seems wrong. I personally believe anyone who tests positive (symptomatic or asymptomatic) should be immediately quarantined until they are fully clear of the virus. They should definitely not be in any facility where there are high-risk patients.

Daviewolf83 said:

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I just learned the following while watching the news tonight. A nursing home administrator said that CDC guidelines allow someone who is asymptomatic with Covid-19 to work with any patients that may also be positive for Covid-19. So, in nursing homes they can have people who are asymptomatic working in the facilities.

Anyone see a problem with this policy?

I know I am not a doctor or a healthcare expert, but this policy seems wrong. I personally believe anyone who tests positive (symptomatic or asymptomatic) should be immediately quarantined until they are fully clear of the virus. They should definitely not be in any facility where there are high-risk patients.

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Seems like an odd guideline, considering you are talking about the most susceptible (and voluminous, confined) group of people possible. Seems like it would be more stringent guidelines.

Packchem91 said:

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Daviewolf83 said:

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I just learned the following while watching the news tonight. A nursing home administrator said that CDC guidelines allow someone who is asymptomatic with Covid-19 to work with any patients that may also be positive for Covid-19. So, in nursing homes they can have people who are asymptomatic working in the facilities.

Anyone see a problem with this policy?

I know I am not a doctor or a healthcare expert, but this policy seems wrong. I personally believe anyone who tests positive (symptomatic or asymptomatic) should be immediately quarantined until they are fully clear of the virus. They should definitely not be in any facility where there are high-risk patients.

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Seems like an odd guideline, considering you are talking about the most susceptible (and voluminous, confined) group of people possible. Seems like it would be more stringent guidelines.

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True story - I have a friend who is a doctor with the local health department. Ended up having a serious exposure to someone with Coronavirus at work. She was tested but of course it take a week or two for the test to come back. In the mean time she was told to keep working as normal and then take off if she started feeling sick.

It was the damnedest thing

Packchem91 said:

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Daviewolf83 said:

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I just learned the following while watching the news tonight. A nursing home administrator said that CDC guidelines allow someone who is asymptomatic with Covid-19 to work with any patients that may also be positive for Covid-19. So, in nursing homes they can have people who are asymptomatic working in the facilities.

Anyone see a problem with this policy?

I know I am not a doctor or a healthcare expert, but this policy seems wrong. I personally believe anyone who tests positive (symptomatic or asymptomatic) should be immediately quarantined until they are fully clear of the virus. They should definitely not be in any facility where there are high-risk patients.

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Seems like an odd guideline, considering you are talking about the most susceptible (and voluminous, confined) group of people possible. Seems like it would be more stringent guidelines.

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This was my reaction. I rewound the recording and listened to it three times to make sure I heard it correctly. I was definitely amazed, but it helps to explain why cases in nursing homes are increasing when cases in general population appear to be decreasing. Also, not all staff in the nursing homes are wearing PPE. I mentioned this in a post last night.

I wonder if that's a worry about manpower or something. You said an asymptomatic covid carrier can work with those infected with covid. That's not unreasonable I guess if the facility can keep all the covids together, and not expose those not infected, but that seems unlikely. I wouldn't do it, but it doesn't make me right.

CDC reports that as of 4/9 9000 healthcare workers infected, with 27 deaths. As with all cases, they predict that's grossly under reported. In states with more complete reporting, healthcare workers make up about 11% of those positive.

Don't know how to post a link, but this was sent by the ama as reported by the CDC and published in the Washington Post and USA Today. TIFWIW.

Seems some of the earliest reports of transmission to HC workers happened when 3 were infected in Feb. Interestingly, they identified 121 workers exposed to the one covid pt, and only 3 converted. Amazing how many staff are exposed to a single inpatient (doctors, nurses, resp therapists, nutritionists, pharmacists, etc.) And amazing how few converted despite no PPE use, including 38 contacts considered high risk.

Mormad said:

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I wonder if that's a worry about manpower or something. You said an asymptomatic covid carrier can work with those infected with covid. That's not unreasonable I guess if the facility can keep all the covids together, and not expose those not infected, but that seems unlikely. I wouldn't do it, but it doesn't make me right.

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I was thinking the same thing. Many facilities like these are understaffed during normal times. They may not have enough CV19 free people to keep the place running.

If the info in the tweet below becomes more prevalent, and I suspect it most probably will, many of these nursing homes will soon find themselves with plenty of staff.....


[url=https://twitter.com/DavidWhisenant][/url]
[url=https://twitter.com/DavidWhisenant][/url]David Whisenant WBTV

@DavidWhisenant

Breaking: Citadel Salisbury, a congregative care facility, issued statement, acknowledges 75 confirmed positive cases of #COVID19 #coronavirus. Rowan now with 208 cases, 7 deaths, 12 hospitalized, 44 recovered, 145 follow ups. Average up to 62.7.
[url=https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=1250220952316710913][/url]
8:34 PM - Apr 14, 2020
[url=https://support.twitter.com/articles/20175256][/url]

Belgium had like 65% of their deaths today come out of nursing homes and they have been in hard lockdown for a month.

Mormad said:

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I wonder if that's a worry about manpower or something. You said an asymptomatic covid carrier can work with those infected with covid. That's not unreasonable I guess if the facility can keep all the covids together, and not expose those not infected, but that seems unlikely. I wouldn't do it, but it doesn't make me right.

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The policy is has to be about manpower. It is the only explanation I can think of that would justify this type of policy. The tricky thing with having the Covid-positive worker working with known infected Covid patients is what happens with those workers the rest of their day. Are they isolated in the facility or do they sometimes come in contact with workers inside the facility who are not infected? Do they come and go through an entrance that is only setup for Covid-positive people or do they enter/exit through an exit used by other people? Do they have families at home who they are infecting? Do they fill their car with gas on their way to or from work and leave traces of the virus on the gas pump? Do they purchase food on their way to or from work?

This is why I believe if someone is infected, they must be quarantined, in their house, separated from others inside of their house and not released for at least 14 days or until they test negative. With the growth of the virus in the nursing homes, well into the shut-down, something in the policies with regards to the nursing homes is definitely wrong.

I am beginning to think now that we may be locked down through the month of May and possibly into June, primarily due to the nursing home issue. It will likely take another four weeks before we start to see cases and deaths in nursing homes begin to decline.

RunsWithWolves26 said:

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PackBacker07 said:

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This is the way I read it as well? Although I wanted to present without comment. The only thing I can assume is they know the background of said victims, were in proximity of known diseased, and they could not get tests? That is a lot of assumptions, however.

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That's total bull***** Just like last week when I believe it was Dr. Birx who said if you die and test positive for COVID19, you're counted as a COVID19 death even if that's not the ultimate cause of your death. What type of bull**** is this??? The damn government and I mean ALL politicians, are so damn crooked and the media is right up their ass as well. Complete and total joke.

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I'm not well informed on how they're documenting deaths, but death certificates and determinations aren't typically exposed to political pressure.

If the cause of death is MI, but the pt has covid, I can imagine the cause of death is covid if the physician feels the MI occurred because of the covid infection. It's like when an HIV pt used to die of opportunistic infections, the infection killed the pt but the pt wouldn't have been at risk without HIV, so it's an HIV death ultimately. Death certificates have lines listing cause of death, with "secondary to" between the lines, ie "pt died of sepsis secondary to bacteremia secondary to wound infection secondary to surgery." Again, won't argue the specifics because I don't read every post of this thread nor am I well versed on the specifics of covid death reporting and its inherent issues, but just offering a perspective.

Mormad said:

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RunsWithWolves26 said:

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PackBacker07 said:

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This is the way I read it as well? Although I wanted to present without comment. The only thing I can assume is they know the background of said victims, were in proximity of known diseased, and they could not get tests? That is a lot of assumptions, however.

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That's total bull***** Just like last week when I believe it was Dr. Birx who said if you die and test positive for COVID19, you're counted as a COVID19 death even if that's not the ultimate cause of your death. What type of bull**** is this??? The damn government and I mean ALL politicians, are so damn crooked and the media is right up their ass as well. Complete and total joke.

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I'm not well informed on how they're documenting deaths, but death certificates and determinations aren't typically exposed to political pressure.

If the cause of death is MI, but the pt has covid, I can imagine the cause of death is covid if the physician feels the MI occurred because of the covid infection. It's like when an HIV pt used to die of opportunistic infections, the infection killed the pt but the pt wouldn't have been at risk without HIV, so it's an HIV death ultimately. Death certificates have lines listing cause of death, with "secondary to" between the lines, ie "pt died of sepsis secondary to bacteremia secondary to wound infection secondary to surgery." Again, won't argue the specifics because I don't read every post of this thread nor am I well versed on the specifics of covid death reporting and its inherent issues, but just offering a perspective.

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According to Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci last week, if a patient dies from a heart attack or from some other ailment and the patient also tested positive of Covid, they are to be listed as a Covid death. They said they did not believe this would lead to the over-counting of Covid deaths and they were doing this to try and not under report deaths. They did not mention how to count deaths for people who are suspected of having Covid at the time of death, but it is possible these are also part of the guidelines. There is an article today claiming the actual death toll in NY is much worse then the official numbers and this may explain why NY is using a more broad policy to count the number of deaths. You can read the article referenced in this tweet.

That's just crazy. The issue is the nursing homes, not the general public. Lockdown for another month or 2 for the general public does nothing to fix the problem.

packgrad said:

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That's just crazy. The issue is the nursing homes, not the general public. Lockdown for another month or 2 for the general public does nothing to fix the problem.

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Since they are not separating out the numbers in NC, we have limited information on how much nursing homes are contributing to the increase. I have recently made an attempt to track the growing nursing home cases, but the state of NC's reporting of numbers does not make it easy. Currently, I believe there are more than 400 cases (likely closer to 500) in NC.

It may be crazy, but I think in this case, crazy will become reality. The state of NC will not open up until daily new case rates decline substantially (currently averaging around 250 per day) and deaths per day decline substantially. With case rate mortality for people who are 65+ on age being in the 17% range (I am still trying to nail this number down further), you will continue to see large numbers of deaths coming from the nursing homes.

I think people in NC should plan for lock-down restrictions to be in place through the month of May. NC was making good progress in stabilizing deaths and daily cases until the nursing homes became a big issue, starting late last week.