Cozumel COVID-19 updates

[JamesBon92007]

@Christi Please send our condolences to Pedro.

 

[BRT]

I don't see why you call it an answer. If it's a choice between staying at home or risking exposure to a disease that has a good chance of killing me, then I'll stay home as long as the level of risk is unquantifiable. I know that risk is inevitable as long as one is alive, and diving (for example) is all about risk management, but at this point in the pandemic it isn't possible to know the level of risk out there. For now I'll stay home.

By the way, RIP John Prine, a casualty of COVID-19.

"Other than that, all we can do, once someone is infected, is treat the symptoms and hope their immune system can win the fight."

The answer. You came up with it.

 

[ReefHound]

I bet a factor in how long one is willing to hole up in lockdown and wait it out is whether one has a cozy place to hole away in and whether or not one has a reliable income to keep paying the bills. A lot of people need to work to eat. And the longer the economy is shut down, the harder it's going to be to restart.

 

[ggunn]

"Other than that, all we can do, once someone is infected, is treat the symptoms and hope their immune system can win the fight."

The answer. You came up with it.

Ha. Some answer, that.

 

[DandyDon]

If 40 million people lose their jobs in the United States, the damage from the virus itself will be the least of our society's problem

It's unfortunate that more of the survivors of the Great Depression aren't with us. My parents loved black-eyed peas (cowpeas) as they survived that and living in the heart of the Dust Bowl simultaneously on those. I guess I got turned off by them by having to shell those suckers by hand as a kid, but they were an effective survival food 70-80 years ago. They're really not bad with onion and maybe jalapeno added. Self-sufficiency was the key. Nowadays with urbanization, the service industry, and so few still on the farms, it's a different world. Low unemployment sounds great but it seems to require extreme costs in other ways. Some nice benefits are being enjoyed by keeping people at home like cleaner urban air, fewer vehicle wrecks, wildlife coming out of hiding, and so on. Maybe we need to stop paving over so much and send kids to work on farms this summer?

"Other than that, all we can do, once someone is infected, is treat the symptoms and hope their immune system can win the fight."

The answer. You came up with it.

Sadly a true possibility. Us old geezers will be the biggest losers but younger ones have been lost that way too. We may just have to accept that in time, but I am glad we have smarter people than I working on it.

And the longer the economy is shut down, the harder it's going to be to restart.

A minor problem compared to the problems we have created ourselves.

An in-law died last week of an apparent heart attack, but her sis and my brother are at high risk so they are having to deal with that remotely. Services can wait for better days to come if we can.

 

[scuba5150]

Let's remember also that the presence of antibodies does not necessarily guarantee immunity. For example, antibodies produced in HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C infections confer very little immunity to the infection itself. They serve to demonstrate merely that an immune response has occurred to prior infection.

Actually according to the CDC hep B surface antibodies do indicate immunity to hepatitis B:
"Hepatitis B surface antibody (anti-HBs): The presence of anti-HBs is generally interpreted as indicating recovery and immunity from hepatitis B virus infection. Anti-HBs also develops in a person who has been successfully vaccinated against hepatitis B." (Ref: https://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/hbv/pdfs/serologicchartv8.pdf)

 

[Jcp2]

But anti hepatitis core antigen doesn’t mean that.

 

[Saxonjd]

I don't think the stay at home orders are to hide out and hope the virus goes away. To the contrary, the whole point of this is to 1) flatten the curve so we don't overwhelm our health care system and 2) buy time until we can develop effective treatments for those infected and until we have a vaccine.

Yes, the effect on the economy is pretty damaging, but so would be a collapse of the health care system. Just because we are fighting this virus doesn't mean the rest of our ailments are on hold. People still are getting cancer, having heart attacks, etc. If our health care system collapses or is strained so much that it's functionality is greatly reduced, then we will not be able to deal with treatable conditions and more deaths would occur from those....not just from Covid-19.

My hope is in the short-term (next 3-6 months) we can get some effective treatment options that make the need for such intensive treatments like ventilators less needed and options that also reduce the lethality of this with with at-risk populations. If we can reduce the impact on the medical system and the mortality rate, we can start loosening the restrictions and slowly get back to normal. Just my two cents.

 

[BRT]

I don't think the stay at home orders are to hide out and hope the virus goes away. To the contrary, the whole point of this is to 1) flatten the curve so we don't overwhelm our health care system and 2) buy time until we can develop effective treatments for those infected and until we have a vaccine.

Yes, the effect on the economy is pretty damaging, but so would be a collapse of the health care system. Just because we are fighting this virus doesn't mean the rest of our ailments are on hold. People still are getting cancer, having heart attacks, etc. If our health care system collapses or is strained so much that it's functionality is greatly reduced, then we will not be able to deal with treatable conditions and more deaths would occur from those....not just from Covid-19.

My hope is in the short-term (next 3-6 months) we can get some effective treatment options that make the need for such intensive treatments like ventilators less needed and options that also reduce the lethality of this with with at-risk populations. If we can reduce the impact on the medical system and the mortality rate, we can start loosening the restrictions and slowly get back to normal. Just my two cents.

At this point most of our health care system is cutting hours and pay because they have nothing to do. One of our local hospitals is losing $500,000 this last month due to no elective surgeries.

 

[DandyDon]

At this point most of our health care system is cutting hours and pay because they have nothing to do. One of our local hospitals is losing $500,000 this last month due to no elective surgeries.

I'm sure that's temporary.