El Paso hospitals are stretched to their limit. City has asked a local military hospital to allow civilian patients in, and also a civic center is / might be turned into an overflow facility. Also 595 deaths so far. https://kvia.com/coronavirus/2020/1...ts-will-die-due-to-lack-of-hospital-capacity/
From this recent report from the BBC antibodies in people who have had the virus at once and quickly die out. This being true vaccines will not work apart from on a very, very temporary basis. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54696873 St Paul tells us that, the Spiritual person judges all things spiritually. Our Lord also told us to read the Signs of the Times. My own Judgement is that this is a truly terrible Chastisement for our manifold sins, especially those at the highest levels in the Church. We won't get out from under unless we do the whole sackcloth and ashes deal. None of this is going away. None of it. There is only the one door out and our Bishops have to lead us through it. But when the blind are leading the blind....
I notice at work what short fuses people have. Truly furious arguments and a terrible atmosphere. I think this is a Sign of the Times too. People at some level are realising that the candle on this thing is fast burning out. They are beginning to look for something or someone to blame. Anything and anyone but themselves.
I continue to go back and forth over COVID. I detest the lockdowns, masks, and social distancing, it makes me sick to think about the the economic fall out from all of this. The US was hit very hard, terrible job loss, thousands facing eviction, shuttered businesses. Restaurants are scrambling to buy heaters to extend outdoor dinning into the winter. It is a terrible mess. I have to keep reminding myself that a pandemic is a pandemic, and history does repeat itself. Like the Spanish flu of 1918 there will be surges, and this ugly virus will just have to run it’s course. We have better healthcare in 2020, but people are still getting very sick and dying, and some areas of the country are getting pretty hit hard. It seems to me we are in this for the long haul because a vaccine will not provide 100 % protection, and there will be moral issues to consider with some vaccines. Lockdowns and closures do minimize the spread of this virus, this was true in 1918, and it is true in 2020. However if we continue down this lockdown path our economy will crash, and we will be dealing with another Great Depression. President Trump is right, we need to reopen the country. What good are lockdowns when you are unemployed, evicted, and your business, and your country is in ruins. We need to move forward.
Especially if there is no such thing as a Vaccine. The whole point of a lock down is to buy time. Buy time for what? Thee is no magic bullet.
Yes, this has happened where my daughter works. The environment became so hostile and abusive, she is leaving her job of 16 years. No, no magic bullet. A COVID vaccine will be no better than your average flu shot, and may even be more harmful to us further down the road. You can see where this is going, if you choose not to be vaccinated you will face restrictions.
I think that the majority of deaths in many countries were mostly elderly people, often in nursing homes, so Ireland wasn't unique. As far as I know, all care homes are required to have qualified nurses on duty at all times because regular care staff wouldn't be qualified to administer medication. I have seen elderly relatives treated with saline drips and oxygen in nursing homes. The problem with Sweden, if you read Andree's link, is that they gave elderly patients morphine and some other drug which was almost guaranteed to kill them. No nursing home would have been equipped with the type of ventilators or have the staff trained and qualified to work with patients requiring such treatment. Neither would all the staff in hospitals be trained or qualified to work with ventilators. That probably explains why our hospitals were like deserted villages during the first lockdown. With elective surgery curtailed as well as all the other regular hospital services discontinued, there must have been very many hospital staff under employed. Also, I read or heard that as medics learned more about the virus it transpired that ventilators are not always the best treatment and in some cases could do more harm than good. I have no medical knowledge and am merely repeating what I have read or heard. I heard that one of the problems in Ireland was that elderly patients were moved from hospitals to nursing homes without having had a covid test. In New York, the Mayor went a step further and had covid positive patients transferred into nursing homes. I heard that the UK has issued a directive forbidding nursing home staff working in more than one facility. That should help and I hope our Government has done the same because having staff work one day here, another night there, is potentially a way of spreading the virus among different care homes.
Same here in Masachusetts. The majority of deaths have sadly been nursing home patients. Good to hear that the UK has taken action to minimize the spread.
It seems to me that this entire mess is down to mismanagement in China and either incompetence or compliance from the WHO, leading governments across the world woefully ill prepared to deal with it. Greed also played a part. There were flights from China to Italy when China had curtailed internal flight services from infected areas. But the Italians didn't want to cancel Milan fashion week and left it far too late to stop the Venice carnival. Signs on, Northern Italy was hardest hit. In fairness to the Italians, the WHO were a day late and a dollar short with their advice. Then we had the nonsense about it being racist or xenophobic to close borders and restrict international travel until countries had measures in place to handle the pressure on health services. It's almost as though powerful forces knew what would happen and wanted it to happen. I think that the conflicting information about masks was about governments not having enough supplies for health workers. Easier to say that masks don't work than to say we don't want the public storing up supplies when we need them for hospitals. Now that masks are plentiful, they can appear to be caring about the common Good by mandating the wearing of masks regardless of the quality or effectiveness of the masks. I believe that we were given misinformation, but I also believe that big gatherings of protesters are irresponsible. The real problems will come with the aftermath when it all has to be paid for. Then the people demanding that everything be shut down and everyone compensated for loss of income will expect someone else to pick up the tab. That's when we will see dyed in the wool Communists coming into power.
No lockdowns in Alabama. We have a mask mandate, some people wear them in the stores, some don't. We keep a distance from the marks on the floors in the stores. In Church we can sit every other pew, and wear masks. Our choir can sing. Kids are back in school, football games are ok. Halloween is going to happen. People that are getting it are getting over it. We still have some deaths, but have flattened the curve. So . . .if another wave hits maybe we will have a vaccine by then. I have noticed liberal states are much more locked down than conservative states. But, I am taking quercetin every day plus zinc, so is my husband. It's not expensive and is available on amazon. I also heard people with o positive blood don't get it, or don't get it as bad. Maybe that is why some people get it and some don't, or varying degrees of intensity. I think we will have another scourge though of something else. Just a feeling I have. Right now I am more worried about the tropical storm moving in tomorrow afternoon than I am covid!
I am so sorry you have to face another storm. I will keep you in my prayers these next few days. Poor Alabama. And poor Gulf Coast. You have had a horrible hurricane season.
1,390 additional cases reported for October 27. A lot of the problem is year-round warm and dry weather. People born and raised here (I'm not) are on the go-go-go. They don't know "stay put at home." Also people crossing the National Border, either El Pasoans going to Juarez, Mexico or vice versa. Daily. To shop, visit relatives, work (Mexicans with Green Cards), or whatnot. My sister-in-law DOES stay home when not working. She is beyond exasperated with this situation. This is also a triple whammy for El Paso: They experienced a sudden and dramatic influx of migrants in 2018, after Pres Trump unwisely pointed out El Paso as being (it was then!) a very safe city with strong Border Patrol enforcement. Then in August 2019, a White Supremacist (for real) shot up a Walmart; 23 people killed, another 23 wounded. That Walmart within 3 miles of sister-in-law. Now this.
I think you've put your finger on the problem. Comings and goings like that are bound to expose people. Im glad your SIL is staying put.
yesterday Italy recorded the highest number of deaths since May 15 I believe that this will bring an atypical Christmas celebration like Easter
Related information. Is a genetic mutation causing more infections in the US also? Coronavirus mutation spread across Europe: report A new wave of lockdowns and business closings swept across Europe Researchers studying the coronavirus and its genetic mutations revealed in a study a genetic mutation that originated in farmworkers in Spain may have contributed to the second wave in Europe, a report said. The Financial Times reported scientists are working to determine what role, if any, variant 20A.EU1 could play in disease's transmission or lethality. Scientists are looking at the mutation's possible effect on the virus' “spike protein." The variant was found in cases across the continent, including more than 80 percent in Spain, the paper reported. The report pointed out the study has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Dr. Emma Hodcroft, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Basel, said there is no evidence the mutation “increases transmission or impacts the clinical outcome,” according to the paper. A new wave of lockdowns and business closings swept across France, Germany and other places in Europe as surging coronavirus infections there and in the U.S. wipe out months of progress against the scourge on two continents. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, “We are deep in the second wave. I think that this year’s Christmas will be a different Christmas.” https://www.foxnews.com/health/gene...ave-contributed-to-europes-second-wave-report
It seems that the virus might be more infectious but with less morbidity. In the UK official figures reveal fewer than 20 deaths in people under 40 in the supposedly even-more-deadly ‘second wave’. The latest NHS update published yesterday showed that just one person under the age of 20, and another 13 under 40, have died with coronavirus in English hospitals since the start of September. By contrast, 1,425 patients over 80 have died over the same period, along with another 1,093 aged between 60 and 79. It means the elderly account for a staggering 94 per cent of hospital deaths this time round. Wider figures from the Office for National Statistics covering all deaths across the UK tell the same story, with just 247 deaths among working-age people since the end of summer compared with 2,026 among pensioners. They cover a slightly shorter period than the NHS figures. It will put fresh pressure on ministers to avoid a new nationwide lockdown that could lead to other deadly diseases such as cancer and heart disease going untreated, and further damage young people’s mental health and job prospects. Last night cancer consultant Prof Karol Sikora said: “On the whole, it is not a young person’s illness, healthy young people especially. “But they are playing the societal price in terms of education, university and social activities, and they will be paying the bill one day because the old people won’t be there. It’s a matter of balance and we’ve not got it right. It’s really important we don’t throw all the resources at Covid.”
Yes you are right. Example:: Maybe 10 people are wearing a mask but they see the one who isn’t and flip out. Just how fragile Some people are now .
