The roosters are crowing, the husband is snoring, the fire is blazing, and the sun will rise. Eventually. But for now, the moon is up and the wild turkeys are gobbling at my penned turkeys.
(Chas accidentally left this on the News thread, so I moved it over.)
Chas | April 14, 2020 at 7:37 am Edit
I started to skip over this because the picture hadn’t changed yet. But I noticed the date.
Good morning everyone.
We have been here almost five years now. Every morning I get her up after I get breakfast fixed. the following is our routine:
I get her out of bed.
I put her socks on,
I get her up to go potty
She says “Don’t I need to put my black shoes on?”
I say, “No, it’s hard to get your new pants on over shoes. Lets go first.”
She never fails to want to put her black shoes on, after all these years.
Good morning! Miss Bosley just said “Meow” before she plopped down in my lap. I am sure she was saying hello to you all in her own way.
An unusual carjacking happened this a.m. A woman had crashed her car into the gate at a gated community. News crews went out to get a story. One of those folks left their news vehicle van and the lady who had crashed her car jumped into the news vehicle and took off in it to flee the scene. Another lady reporter happened to be in the back seat of the van editing her story so she got a joy ride unexpectedly. Just to make it more exciting, both the lady reporter and the lady suspect were pregnant. The vehicle later crashed but both ladies came out okay except it sounds like the driver suffered from a broken arm in either the first or second crash. Of course I was thinking what if that had been DJ? Be safe DJ!
Thanx AJ. I never know where I am at 6:30 a.m.
Every time I talk to myself, I get into an argument.
Then I decide that neither side is right, so I stop.
Beautiful creamy flower on the header. Looks a bit like our ornamental pear, but the ones we have usually have some black dots involved instead of brown. But with my poor vision, I may be missing an important clue about color.
I think we have around 13,000 cases of COVID-19 in Georgia now. We are at 45th of the states in testing so we probably have a lot more cases that that. We’ve had over 400 deaths. The downtown World Congress Center has been converted to a hospital facility ready to receive the less critical patients who don’t need a ventilator.
I don’t know what the header flower is, it’s from a tree growing on the walking trail or near the bank (I got similar photos those two places). Most of the flowers didn’t have that pink color, but a few did. As I’ve been photographing flowers, I’ve come to realize that a good number of flowers have a subtle bit of color that disappears after it gets pollinated, so it would seem that the color is a signal to pollinators, “Work over here, girls!” Some plants also have separate male and female flowers, and they look different. I’m not a botanist, and have only been getting decent photos of flowers for a few years (they’re harder than birds), but that’s my own comments on them.
Chas, blackberries: the long blackberry vines were male, the shorter ones that produced fruit were female. The male ones were necessary for pollination though they did not produce.
Squash: when eating squash flowers, it is important to eat the male ones and leave the female to produce the fruit, but not all the male ones or there will be no fruit.
He has been waiting for this moment his whole life. He has been drinking boilermakers since 10:00 am in his recliner and his AR is within arms reach. He has 6 months provisions in the basement and a bug out bag due west buried in the woods. Steve demands a handshake as I give him his package. He’s sizing me up as I deliver his ammo.
Steve will survive this, and he will kill you if he needs to.
2) Brad:
He is standing at his window wearing skinny jeans and a Patagonia t-shirt. He is mad because there were no organic tomatoes at Whole Foods today. He points at the ground where he has taped a 6 ft no go zone line from his porch. I leave his case of Fuji water, organic granola bites, and his new “Bernie Bro” hat at the tape.
Brad will not survive.
Steve will probably eat him.
3) Nancy:
She has sprayed everything with Thieves oil. Bought all the Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer, toilet paper, meat, and bread from the local grocery chain. She has quarantined her kids and sprays them with a mixture of thieves, lavender, & mint essential oils daily. She has posted every link known to man about “The Rona” on her social media. She will spray you if you break the 6 ft rule. I will leave her yet another case of toilet paper.
She will last longer than Brad, but not Steve.
4) Karen:
She has called everybody and read them the latest news on “The Rona”. She asked for the manager at Food Lion, Walmart, Publix, McDonalds, Chi-Fil-A, and Vons all before noon demanding more toilet paper. Karen’s kids are currently faking “The Rona” to avoid her. I’m delivering “Hello kitchen” to her.
Karen will not survive longer than Brad.
5) Mary:
Is sitting in the swing watching her kids have a water balloon fight in the front yard as she is on her fourth glass of wine. She went to the store and bought 2 cases of pop tarts, 6 boxes of cereal, 8 bags of pizza rolls, And a 6 roll pack of toilet paper. There is a playlist of Bob Marley, Pink Floyd, and Post Malone playing in the background. I’m bringing her second shipment of 15 bottles of wine in 3 days.
Mary will survive and marry Steve.
Together they will repopulate the earth.
May God have mercy on us all.
Yesterday’s discussion on pantry meals: I doubt there is any meal not represented in our pantry. Nothing new there, that has been the situation since husband started doing all of our shopping and since we built a large pantry. Kim can attest to this.
And plenty of free range chicken and eggs and turkey and sheep and goat.
QoD 1: If you ask him nicely, AJ will do what you want, or whatever he wants- it’s his blog.
QoD2: It’s Tuesday. I have to keep track of the days since I teach college classes by Zoom on Monday and Wednesday. Plus I have to be near email Monday and Wednesday afternoons and Thursday morning for the high school students. (One question in 3 weeks.) And of course there are trash day (Tuesday) and church on Sunday to keep track of.
Chas, some flowers have male and female parts within the same flower, some have them separate on the same plant, and some have some plants that are male and some that are female. For instance, when I was growing up we had a large, sprawling tree in our front yard that was a male mulberry tree. Instead of producing berries, it produced fuzzy greenish-yellow catkins. Our backyard had two or three female mulberries. (We lived there my entire childhood, and part of it we had two trees and part of it we had three.) The females produced berries, and the birds ate the berries, and the patio wore purple splotches all summer long as the birds showed their gratitude for the berries.
Some flowers are pollinated by wind, some by bees, some by butterflies, and some by birds or overnight by bats. In general, the small flowers are pollinated by bees, with too little nectar for a butterfly to bother with, or even to be able to get at it from a tiny little flower, much less a bird. Flowers that are pollinated by hummingbirds tend to have long tubes to the nectar. Some flowers are visited by two or more varieties of pollinators, for example bees and small butterflies or large butterflies and hummingbirds.
Part of God’s creative goodness is that each species arrives as its own flower types are blooming. Very few butterflies are out and about yet, but bees come early, along with the tiny little flowers and the flowers like dandelions that have lots of tiny flowers in one big flowerhead. If butterfly flowers bloomed now, their pollen would be wasted, because there is nothing around to pollinate them. Later in the season we’ll have butterflies, and also lots of asters and other flowers that butterflies like.
I know it is Tuesday because it is laundry day. Youngest two do their’s on Monday and they do eighteen’s on Wednesday. The rest of the week is for twenty three and baby.
So, if Cheryl doesn’t know what kind of flower it is, do we get a prize for guessing correctly? Oh, wait, Cheryl is a bird expert, so that’s why she can’t tell. But to me it looks like a kind of crabapple (based on a websearch).
Morning! The sky is blue today but it was -1 when I awoke!! 🥶
It is Tuesday but the trash company wants to mess with our minds…they are delaying pickup by one day this week due to the icy roads out here…see? Tomorrow will be Wednesday and I will think it is Tuesday! But tonight we have Zoom small group…because it is Tuesday!?
Oh and I am not like Nancy in Kim’s post. I haven’t purchased one single pack of TP since this started. I don’t do oils and have enough groceries to last me until next week or so. But…I just might spray you with Lysol if you come any closer!! 😂
Next I went for Mr. IT. Usually the threat gets computer equipment back into line— if only to demonstrate what a disaster I am with machines.
He was puzzled but got it to work— sort of. At least it wasn’t MY fault.
I tried to actually WORK with it. Nothing.
I admit, a total Sicilian meltdown occurred. Screaming, tears, hair on end, savage curses trying to spring from my mouth, lightening out my fingertips.
I nearly pitched the mouse through the window, stifled the urge to throw something at the computer screen and did fling my expensive glasses as I stormed down the stairs crying.
I sat down and finished the jigsaw puzzle in an attempt to calm down.
Ten minutes after the operatic drama ended in the living room, Mr. IT went upstairs.
When he returned, he announced it wasn’t me— we needed to buy a new mouse/keyboard.
I nodded. He went on line.
Amazon could deliver in about 7-10 days.
Fury did not erupt, though it threatened.
HP could double the price and get us one in two days.
Our boarder bought a new computer three weeks ago. Ordered and picked it up an hour later at Best Buy.
I’m leaving to pick up my new electronics in 20 minutes.
Peace is restored. I may return to writing my biography of a wise over-emotional woman this afternoon.
Working hard to act like my Puritan ancestors in the light of morning. I’ve scored some elastic, learned a few pointers about mask making, and should be a model citizen by bedtime.
I haven’t had to buy TP yet either. But I’d tried to scout out some plain (old-house plumbing friendly) Scott TP online in the past week and it’s nowhere to be found.
I don’t get it, why are people still buying out all the toilet paper? Where on earth can they be storing it all? Don’t people have enough already and why isn’t it getting restocked by now?
The Lysol bathroom foaming spray cleaner is coming in another week or so, I ordered that about a month ago.
And paper towels. I did manage to (finally) order those via Amazon, but they won’t come until after May 1. I’m just happy I was able to order it from somewhere at last.
I discovered last night that my mac desktop, which I haven’t used in a few years at least, still works. It was purchased in 2012 as a refurbished model and needed professional help a couple times after that, but it has one of those very large screens and — with my neck really starting to bother me in all my work setups at home now with the 2 laptops — I figured I needed to find some work station alternatives.
Ontario: 7,953 confirmed cases; 343 deaths. Over 600 of the confirmed cases are healthcare workers, over 40 percent of deaths were linked to nursing or retirement homes.
Same problem here Roscuro, of the 103 recent deaths in our general area, 75 are folks who were in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. And many more have tested positive. 😦
Michelle, have you tried Terro? We asked for a recommendation at Lowe’s a few years ago, bought it, and haven’t bought anything else since. We’re starting to get a few ants ourselves, but I think my husband still has some from last year.
In LA County, as of noon yesterday, we had 9,420 cases with 320 deaths. Highest # of cases have been between ages of 41 and 65.
As of yesterday, Carol’s facility was still NOT showing up on the long-term group residences with at least one confirmed case.
In the port community where I live, which is part of both the city and county of LA, we now have 50 cases confirmed (our population is a little more than 80,000).
Equal parts powdered sugar and borax. The ants love the sugar and the poor creatures don’t realize they are taking the borax back to the queen. As long as she is alive the ants will keep marching on.
Meanwhile, our Navy hospital ship, the Mercy, now has 7 sailors/crew who have tested positive, so I guess it won’t be used as a coronavirus-free “bubble” for non-virus patients. But hospitals so far seem to be faring pretty well with regard to available beds, thankfully. As Michelle reported yesterday, it appears we may not get the “surge” that was being predicted.
The debate will go on after this is all over whether this was due to (a) the fact that we sheltered often and early or (b) that it was an overreaction to begin with.
I lean strongly toward the former but am looking forward to whatever facts can be nailed down afterward with regard to both the virus spread/death rates and how it was handled afterward.
According to the terro site, you want to see more ants in ensuing hours because the foragers got back to the nest with samples while leaving a nice pheromone trail to the bait. They also recommend against using contact killers as that defeats getting back to the nest and spreading the feast.
I saw new numbers for Georgia climbing up toward 14,000 cases. I need to check the number for my county.
We bought that one package of toilet paper for home which is lasting since Art is at the office for long hours. Okay on paper towels, too.
I had told myself I would freeze the last slices of ham, but I declare I can hear it calling my name through the closed refrigerator door. That is the love/hate relationship I have with ham.
I need to mow again! I almost have all the laundry done. I have been calling a few people to see if the church can put prayer hotline signs in their yards.
I read a sensible explanation of why TP is still in short supply. It’s probably no longer hoarding. The problem is that everyone’s using way more TP at home than usual, some estimate 40% more, and the supply chain doesn’t carry that much.
You say, yes, but we’re not using TP at work, and restaurants, etc., so there still should be plenty. There is, but it doesn’t do you any good. It’s not the same as home TP. Much of it comes on huge rolls for large dispensers, and is even a different size and quality. There’s no pipeline to get it to retailers where you can buy it.
So the manufacturers have to ramp up their production of home TP, and even then it will take a little time to get through the pipeline to our stores. Hopefully they’ll catch up soon.
A friend of mine was off to Israel on a writer journey at the start of this stay at home. She texted her husband from the airport, “Get 12 TPs from Amazon.”
He, a newly retired Air Force LtCol now living in Arkansas, ordered 12 CASES. She came home to 1056 rolls in her garage and was offering them to any takers.
I guess we should be thankful the colonel is now retired . . . LOL
Here in Connecticut, as of around 4:30, we have 13,989 cases, and 671 deaths.
Here’s something I wrote on Facebook:
1.) I have seen the accusation that the CDC’s guidelines say to list COVID-19 as the cause of death if it is present, even if it is not the main cause of death. What the guidelines actually say is:
~”If COVID–19 played a role in the death, this condition should be specified on the death certificate. In many cases, it is likely that it will be the UCOD [underlying cause of death], as it can lead to various lifethreatening conditions, such as pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). In these cases, COVID–19 should be reported on the lowest line used in Part I with the other conditions to which it gave rise listed on the lines above it.”~
Despite what some people say, other causes of death are still maintaining their usual rates. (Although I would suppose that car accidents are down perhaps.)
2.) My daughter is a nurse in a nursing home. They went from one case to 19 (with others suspected but not tested yet) in two weeks. And that was with all the hyper-vigilant precautions.
So I asked her what it is like with the flu. She said that the flu does not spread this quickly, nor to as many patients, in this short period of time. And with the flu, they do take certain precautions not to spread it, but not the super-duper ones they are taking now.”
~ On deadliest day so far, 40 more coronavirus-linked deaths reported in LA County on Tuesday ~
A total of 360 people in the county have died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The total number of cases rose above 10,000 with 670 new cases confirmed Tuesday.
Mrs L always buys the 30 roll packge of TP at Aldi. She bought some just before all this hoarding and we are about half-way through it. (Oh, I shouldn’t have post this. Now we’ll have thieves breaking down the door!)
I’m not sure of the Missouri numbers, but almost every county around us has at least one COVID case, whereas ours hasn’t had one yet. We’re in the 2nd most populated county in the “Tri-State” region (Iowa/Illinois/Missouri).
Here’s what’s making folks question the numbers. It’s clear some deaths are being counted as Covid 19 related when there is no proof that it’s true.
““These new presumed cases are mostly from ERs and hospitals, which means people weren’t getting tested even in those settings. Lots more were in nursing homes or other long-term care facilities,” NY Times reporter Kristen Danis said.
New York City, already a world epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, sharply increased its death toll by more than 3,700 victims on Tuesday, after officials said they were now including people who had never tested positive for the virus but were presumed to have died of it.
The new figures, released by the city’s Health Department, drove up the number of people killed in New York City to more than 10,000, and appeared to increase the overall United States death count by 17 percent to more than 26,000.
But for weeks, the Health Department also had been recording additional deaths tied to the virus, according to two people briefed on the matter. Those cases involved people who were presumed to have been infected because of their symptoms and medical history.
They were not included in the counts given publicly by Mayor Bill de Blasio because no tests had confirmed that the victims had the disease, Covid-19.”
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Also some Drs are saying the CDC is coaching them to count deaths as Covid related when there’s no proof they were.
SHOCKING: MN Sen & Dr. @drscottjensen said that he received a 7 pg doc from @mnhealth to fill out death certificates with a diagnosis of #COVID-19 whether the person actually died from COVID-19 or not.
I buy the 24-roll Scott TP at Smart & Final; I still have 3 rolls in the bag, + 2-4 rolls in both bathrooms combined. I’m OK for now, but I just can’t figure out why one still can’t buy toilet paper. Or paper towels (those I’m now rationing, on the final 1/4 of a roll).
Wild weather coming home today. Winter is not giving up without a fight. Thankfully, the roads were not yet covered.
Kizzie, 29 of 65 residents in one nursing home died within 2 weeks from COVID-19. The flu might cause the death of one, perhaps two, residents from secondary pneumonia in a nursing home during the flu season. As other nurses who have even more experience than I of long term care and I have been discussing, people in nursing homes may well have a couple of decades left to live. Influenza takes only the most fragile residents. COVID-19 takes everyone. One of the saddest cases of COVID-19 in that nursing home was the wife of one of the residents, who volunteered there after her husband had to be admitted. She caught it before they realized it was there, and died first in the local hospital. He heard of his wife’s death and then later died of the same virus in the nursing home.
As for the whole cause of death question, as I pointed out to someone else, those who are shot deliberately seldom die directly due to the bullet. Rather they die if hemorrhage or shock or heart failure due to the bullet wound. But the person who fired the bullet deliberately is still charged with murder. Someone with COVID-19 may die if heart failure, because of the stress of the severe symptoms. But COVID-19 is still the trigger for the death.
The absurd thing is that these people trying to diminish COVID-19 as the cause of death are often, in my observation, the same who were saying a few weeks ago that the flue kills more people. As I mentioned above, influenza generally kills by causing secondary pneumonia, or other secondary causes. So, they are trying to diminish COVID-19 now with the opposite argument that they tried to diminish it a few weeks ago.
The Real, some if those deaths in that nursing home were never tested, but are counted as having died from COVID-19 because of the sympts they had before death. The reason they were not tested is there was a policy on nursing homes, when there is an outbreak, after the first cases test positive, every subsequent case with the same symptomology is presumed to have the same case. Due to the publicity of this case, that policy was actually reversed, and subsequent cases were tested and confirmed. There were reports that nursing home deaths in New York State were not all being counted because not all were being tested, so I would presume that the addition of these new deaths are based on those nursing home and other institutional outbreaks were only a few of the cases were actually lab tested.
After all, during the Spanish influenza outbreak, lab testing for viruses was not possible, so the numbers of Spanish influenza cases on historical record are actually based on symptoms alone, not in lab confirmation. From measles and chicken pox to leprosy and TB, diseases were recognized and diagnosed long before microbiology ever was able to isolate the infectious agent in the lab.
We have what may be the largest TP plant in the country, down the road. They are working away unless they were deemed nonessential. I have not been down there in a long time.
I’m not sure of the current number of cases in our county, but the neighboring county, where my husband’s churches are, just shot up to 152 cases, many of them the result of an outbreak at a food processing plant (currently closed). With a population slightly less than 11,400 in the whole county, the paper says this puts their equivalent rate of cases (case per 100,000 residents) at a higher percent than the state of New York.
~ Quarantine has turned us all into dogs. We roam the house all day looking for food. We are told “NO’ if we get too close to strangers. And we get really excited about car rides. ~
“There were reports that nursing home deaths in New York State were not all being counted because not all were being tested, so I would presume that the addition of these new deaths are based on those nursing home and other institutional outbreaks were only a few of the cases were actually lab tested.”
——–
The NYT article clearly states….
“These new presumed cases are mostly from ERs and hospitals, which means people weren’t getting tested even in those settings. Lots more were in nursing homes or other long-term care facilities, NY Times reporter Kristen Danis said.”
While some of the numbers are from nursing home type facilities, clearly not all of them are.
By the way, death certificates often list more than one cause of death and a secondary cause of death may be just as important as the one listed as primary. The fact is, that, except for the people who are instantaneously blown to smithereens by an explosion, there are only four causes if death, and all are types of one condition, circulatory shock. The four types of shock are: cardiogenic shock – malfunctioning heart due to heart attack, etc.; hypovolemic shock due – too low blood fluid volume due to blood loss, dehydration, etc.; obstructive shock – obstruction of circulation due to blood clot in lungs, collapsed lung, infection around the heart, etc.; and distributive shock – circulatory collapse due to anaphylaxis, sepsis, spinal cord injury, poisoning, etc. Pneumonia causes a form of distributive shock. The body always ultimately dies due to a lack of oxygen reaching the body cells. So, a pedant could insist, as I saw one commenter insist in the comment section of a post reporting the death of a well known person from COVID-19, that the person died of pneumonia, not COVID-19, but that is missing the forest for the trees.
Also, the Dr above, Dr. Jensen, also a State Senator, says there’s a financial incentive for this as well.
Sadly, this would explain the loose reporting. Not blaming the medical staff, if true this would clearly be an administrative action. Some hospitals would certainly exploit this for financial gain. This is easy to believe because many of these causes of death have been edited and reclassified, even without proof of Covid 19.
There is no mention of any financial compensation. Doctors are paid a fee for filling out a death certificate, but as death certificates are necessary for all deaths from any cause, the fee for a death certificate cannot be said to be incentivizing one cause of death over another.
To go along with what Roscuro said, we say that Hubby died of cancer, but it was a pulmonary embolism that did him in. Before that, though, his organs were shutting down, and he developed a whole bunch of blood clots. But he would not have had the clots (at least I don’t think he would have) if he hadn’t been in a hospital bed for a little over a month with bleeding from his bladder caused by the prostate tumor rubbing against it and probably invading it a bit.
Here, at least, hospitals do not generally employ doctors. Rather, doctors are contract workers within the hospital. So, hospitals have to pay the doctor to write the death certificate. The care of a live patient brings in far more funding to a hospital from the provincial health insurance. The payment of a death certificate fee is, both literally and figuratively, final.
The fee for a death certificate is 15 dollars. Google says the US fee ranges from 6 to 25 dollars. By comparison, the daily cost of an ICU bed in Canada is 2,908 dollars, while in the US, it is 3,968 per day.
Well it’ doesn’t work that way here in our non-socialist system.
—-
“There is no mention of any financial compensation.”
It’s the medical institutions receiving the extra compensation. Drs may too, but I’ve not seen anything showing that yet.
The Dr. covered that above.
“Senator Dr. Scott Jensen: Right now Medicare is determining that if you have a COVID-19 admission to the hospital you get $13,000. If that COVID-19 patient goes on a ventilator you get $39,000, three times as much. Nobody can tell me after 35 years in the world of medicine that sometimes those kinds of things impact on what we do.”
There is clearly a financial incentive to attribute deaths to Covid 19.
——–
And they’re clearly changing and editing causes of death which benefits them financially with zero proof of Covid 19, and negative or no test at all. That doesn’t pass the smell test.
And it’s not like there aren’t already examples of medical testing institutions exploiting the Cares Act, which is funding hospitals responding to Covid, and testing companies as well.
“Unfortunately, this “cash price” is not a market-determined price – it is irrelevant to patients because all options have to be made free to them by law, so there is little constraint on how high this is set by testing entities. Nor is there any reason for out-of-network entities to accept any less than this amount (other than a desire to contract in the future with the insurer or fear of a public relations backlash). Moreover, in theory the patient can still be surprise balance billed if the provider’s charge is higher than this “cash price,” though it is unclear why any provider would list a “cash price” lower than their charge.
As a result, this provision can be thought of similar to a surprise billing protection that requires health plans to pay out-of-network providers full billed charges. In that context, such a provision would incentivize providers to increase their unilaterally set list price in order to drive up payment, at the expense of employers, consumers, and taxpayers.
Applied to COVID-19 testing, some unscrupulous actors will surely find ways to exploit the new CARES Act provision that could be avoided if the law is changed to instead require out-of-network payment at Medicare payment rates or even a multiple thereof (unlike most health care services, lab prices for commercial insurers are similar or lower than Medicare rates on average). However, the inflationary effects of the CARES Act provision should be relatively limited, particularly after the immediate wave of more emergent testing and once greater testing capacity becomes available. Depending on the type of test, COVID-19 testing will predominantly be billed by clinical laboratories, hospitals, and clinician offices. In each case, insurers can generally steer enrollee testing to in-network providers (discussed in more detail later). Put another way, the CARES Act provision will likely inflate costs for out-of-network COVID-19 testing, but have limited, if any, spillover effects on prices for in-network testing.”
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“Unfortunately, some areas for concern remain. Analyzing Medicare data, Emergency physicians billed for 6% of antigen detection flu tests and 7% of PCR flu tests given to Medicare patients in 2017, suggesting they may end up a modest source of billing for COVID-19 testing. Roughly one-in-five emergency physician services is delivered out-of-network, potentially allowing them to name their price for COVID-19 tests, which employers and insurers would be legally required to pay. Some patients also end up at out-of-network emergency rooms, in which case the hospital or freestanding emergency department would similarly be able to extract a high price for testing. While I have not been able to locate many entities listing a “cash price” for COVID-19 testing, the three hospitals I found listed prices around $150-$200, roughly three times the Medicare rate or what they likely are getting paid in-network from private insurers (lab tests tend to be similarly priced in Medicare and private insurance, unlike most other services). There may also be reason for concern with drive-through testing centers or any widespread testing encouraged other than from a patient’s known sources of care, depending on who is carrying out the testing.”
Kizzie, I remember (eons ago, 1970) when my dad’s death certificate came through saying he’d died of heart failure … He’d battled cancer for years, but our family physician explained to my mom that that the heart “stopping” was essentially the “cause” of death, but (not really).
The heart giving out was the actual “cause” of death, in the end, but it was the cancer that could not be stopped that caused the heart to fail, ultimately.
The Real, those compensations would only be concerning if Medicare did not also cover critcially ill patients who are under Medicare for other conditions which require admission to ICU. What Medicare is doing is covering medically necessary hospitalizations for COVID-19 patients: https://www.medicare.gov/medicare-coronavirus. In other words Medicare is covering the whole cost of hospitalizing and ventilating those with COVID-19 who are under Medicare. It is not special compensation but covering real costs. There is various figures, but this study confirms that the fees incurred by a ventilated patient could well reach $39,000: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15942342/
‘Daily costs were greatest on intensive care unit day 1 (mechanical ventilation, 10,794 dollars; no mechanical ventilation, 6,667 dollars), decreased on day 2 (mechanical ventilation:, 4,796 dollars; no mechanical ventilation, 3,496 dollars), and became stable after day 3 (mechanical ventilation, 3,968 dollars; no mechanical ventilation, 3,184 dollars). Adjusting for patient and hospital characteristics, the mean incremental cost of mechanical ventilation in intensive care unit patients was 1,522 dollars per day (p < .001)'
Note the study was done in 2005, so inflation will have increased the fees, and the first day high costs (over 10,000 with ventilation) are due to patient instability with the costs decreasing as the patient stabilizes. Yet, we know that COVID-19 increasingly destabilizes patients on ventilation, thus further increasing the projected fees. Even at the 2005 costs, given the length of time COVID-19 patients may be on a ventilator, 39,000 seems a logical figure needed to cover the cost of ventilation.
New York only added presumptive cases today, so up to this point, those numbers have only been of lab confirmed cases. New York had already exceeded the case numbers if any other country, and the US death toll for today without those presumed cases was over 2,200: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa/new-york-city-records-sharp-jump-in-coronavirus-deaths-as-presumed-cases-added-idUSKCN21W20G. The accusations of inflating the death toll have been circulating for several days now – according to the FB feed I get from skeptics, FOX news did a segment questioning the fatality figures on the weekend. That was before New York added these presumed cases. So, the skeptics did not then have any such grounds for their speculation.
Peter, the purpose of a death certificate, is first and foremost, to ensure that suspicious deaths are investigated before the corpse is conveniently buried or cremated. Statistical collection of causes of death are an afterthought, although they are useful in gathering epidemiological data.
Roscuro, thank you for adding your experienced voice to the discussion. It helps us understand it.
I had another conversation with two siblings today–two was all I could handle, though only one was because of a COVID-19 discussion. The COVID discussion did turn to inflating numbers (though the specific incidences on here weren’t mentioned). That brother said that death rates of this year’s flu, including COVID, didn’t reach the rates of last season, and thus the government is proved to be overreacting. There was a lot I could have said to that, including pointing out that COVID is not a subset of the flu, that the “season” isn’t over yet, and that the numbers could well be much, much higher without the social distancing measures. But I had already decided that he had made up his mind and wouldn’t be persuaded otherwise by anything I said, so I mostly just listened to what he said and got off the phone as soon as it was polite to do so.
I also could have said I have a daughter who is a nurse in a nursing home, and these numbers are far more “real” when you know what is going on in nursing homes.
N.B. The death toll of NYC on Johns Hopkins CSSE site, which is one site my nursing association refers to, does not include the presumed cases from today, as the death toll for NYC sits at 7,905 on Johns Hopkins, and the media report above states that the presumed cases put it above 10,000 for NYC. Johns Hopkins site is the one I see sourced by quite a few media outlets around here and it uses confirmed cases.
Boise-Cascade? Paper has supported me most of my life.
I only buy Scottissue. If was formulated to disintegrate in septic systems. I works with low-flow toilets and grinder pumps.
Kevin, excellent explanation about the shortage on toilet tissue. JRT’s (Jumbo Roll Tissue) isn’t exactly going to fit a regular bathroom holder.
cheryl, there’s a former elder from my previous church who continually remarks on any of my story links regarding coronavirus (these are stories I or my colleagues have written) something about how this is all an overreaction by a hysterical media, etc. (He always was a rather difficult personality, overbearing, and I see that he’s now since been divorced.)
Those folks will never be convinced otherwise or even consider they may be at least partially mistaken or even that the truth may be a bit more nuanced once all the dust has settled and we have a better view of things from the other side. They’ve dug in on their position that this is all entirely unnecessary and has been a manufactured crisis carried out by various sectors in society, whether government and/or the media.
Wandering Views 
Good morning.
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Today looks like a good day to talk with myself. Then check the news to see if you all don’t have power or something.
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The roosters are crowing, the husband is snoring, the fire is blazing, and the sun will rise. Eventually. But for now, the moon is up and the wild turkeys are gobbling at my penned turkeys.
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Every day is a good day to talk to yourself. I’ve found that on some days, it’s the most intelligent conversation I get. 🙂
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(Chas accidentally left this on the News thread, so I moved it over.)
Chas | April 14, 2020 at 7:37 am Edit
I started to skip over this because the picture hadn’t changed yet. But I noticed the date.
Good morning everyone.
We have been here almost five years now. Every morning I get her up after I get breakfast fixed. the following is our routine:
I get her out of bed.
I put her socks on,
I get her up to go potty
She says “Don’t I need to put my black shoes on?”
I say, “No, it’s hard to get your new pants on over shoes. Lets go first.”
She never fails to want to put her black shoes on, after all these years.
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Good morning, the real, Chas. Good to see you up and about.
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Good morning! Miss Bosley just said “Meow” before she plopped down in my lap. I am sure she was saying hello to you all in her own way.
An unusual carjacking happened this a.m. A woman had crashed her car into the gate at a gated community. News crews went out to get a story. One of those folks left their news vehicle van and the lady who had crashed her car jumped into the news vehicle and took off in it to flee the scene. Another lady reporter happened to be in the back seat of the van editing her story so she got a joy ride unexpectedly. Just to make it more exciting, both the lady reporter and the lady suspect were pregnant. The vehicle later crashed but both ladies came out okay except it sounds like the driver suffered from a broken arm in either the first or second crash. Of course I was thinking what if that had been DJ? Be safe DJ!
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Thanx AJ. I never know where I am at 6:30 a.m.
Every time I talk to myself, I get into an argument.
Then I decide that neither side is right, so I stop.
.
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Kim,
You need to copy and paste that Facebook post from the UPS man you posted this AM. That was funny. 🙂
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Beautiful creamy flower on the header. Looks a bit like our ornamental pear, but the ones we have usually have some black dots involved instead of brown. But with my poor vision, I may be missing an important clue about color.
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I think we have around 13,000 cases of COVID-19 in Georgia now. We are at 45th of the states in testing so we probably have a lot more cases that that. We’ve had over 400 deaths. The downtown World Congress Center has been converted to a hospital facility ready to receive the less critical patients who don’t need a ventilator.
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I don’t know what the header flower is, it’s from a tree growing on the walking trail or near the bank (I got similar photos those two places). Most of the flowers didn’t have that pink color, but a few did. As I’ve been photographing flowers, I’ve come to realize that a good number of flowers have a subtle bit of color that disappears after it gets pollinated, so it would seem that the color is a signal to pollinators, “Work over here, girls!” Some plants also have separate male and female flowers, and they look different. I’m not a botanist, and have only been getting decent photos of flowers for a few years (they’re harder than birds), but that’s my own comments on them.
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I’ve never heard of male and female flowers before.
I thought birds and bees pollinated the flowers.
AT 89+ you still learn things.
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Idaho cases: 1,453. Deaths: 33
Chas, blackberries: the long blackberry vines were male, the shorter ones that produced fruit were female. The male ones were necessary for pollination though they did not produce.
Squash: when eating squash flowers, it is important to eat the male ones and leave the female to produce the fruit, but not all the male ones or there will be no fruit.
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From an anonymous UPS delivery driver…
5 types of customers since the “rona”:
1) Steve:
He has been waiting for this moment his whole life. He has been drinking boilermakers since 10:00 am in his recliner and his AR is within arms reach. He has 6 months provisions in the basement and a bug out bag due west buried in the woods. Steve demands a handshake as I give him his package. He’s sizing me up as I deliver his ammo.
Steve will survive this, and he will kill you if he needs to.
2) Brad:
He is standing at his window wearing skinny jeans and a Patagonia t-shirt. He is mad because there were no organic tomatoes at Whole Foods today. He points at the ground where he has taped a 6 ft no go zone line from his porch. I leave his case of Fuji water, organic granola bites, and his new “Bernie Bro” hat at the tape.
Brad will not survive.
Steve will probably eat him.
3) Nancy:
She has sprayed everything with Thieves oil. Bought all the Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer, toilet paper, meat, and bread from the local grocery chain. She has quarantined her kids and sprays them with a mixture of thieves, lavender, & mint essential oils daily. She has posted every link known to man about “The Rona” on her social media. She will spray you if you break the 6 ft rule. I will leave her yet another case of toilet paper.
She will last longer than Brad, but not Steve.
4) Karen:
She has called everybody and read them the latest news on “The Rona”. She asked for the manager at Food Lion, Walmart, Publix, McDonalds, Chi-Fil-A, and Vons all before noon demanding more toilet paper. Karen’s kids are currently faking “The Rona” to avoid her. I’m delivering “Hello kitchen” to her.
Karen will not survive longer than Brad.
5) Mary:
Is sitting in the swing watching her kids have a water balloon fight in the front yard as she is on her fourth glass of wine. She went to the store and bought 2 cases of pop tarts, 6 boxes of cereal, 8 bags of pizza rolls, And a 6 roll pack of toilet paper. There is a playlist of Bob Marley, Pink Floyd, and Post Malone playing in the background. I’m bringing her second shipment of 15 bottles of wine in 3 days.
Mary will survive and marry Steve.
Together they will repopulate the earth.
May God have mercy on us all.
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Dogwoods are male and female. I don’t know how you tel the difference but I do know you need both or you won’t get blooms
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Yesterday’s discussion on pantry meals: I doubt there is any meal not represented in our pantry. Nothing new there, that has been the situation since husband started doing all of our shopping and since we built a large pantry. Kim can attest to this.
And plenty of free range chicken and eggs and turkey and sheep and goat.
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Avocados, too.
QOD: Can AJ include the actual day of the week, along with the date, on the header?
QOD: is it Tuesday?
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Today is Tuesday. The way I know is that nobody is here yet.
Every dogwood in our community (that I know of) has flowers. If there is a male dogwood around, he has a great time. Doing a good job.
Now? You made me forget what I came here for. ????????????
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QoD 1: If you ask him nicely, AJ will do what you want, or whatever he wants- it’s his blog.
QoD2: It’s Tuesday. I have to keep track of the days since I teach college classes by Zoom on Monday and Wednesday. Plus I have to be near email Monday and Wednesday afternoons and Thursday morning for the high school students. (One question in 3 weeks.) And of course there are trash day (Tuesday) and church on Sunday to keep track of.
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If I could think of a menu I could cook it out of that pantry
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Chas, some flowers have male and female parts within the same flower, some have them separate on the same plant, and some have some plants that are male and some that are female. For instance, when I was growing up we had a large, sprawling tree in our front yard that was a male mulberry tree. Instead of producing berries, it produced fuzzy greenish-yellow catkins. Our backyard had two or three female mulberries. (We lived there my entire childhood, and part of it we had two trees and part of it we had three.) The females produced berries, and the birds ate the berries, and the patio wore purple splotches all summer long as the birds showed their gratitude for the berries.
Some flowers are pollinated by wind, some by bees, some by butterflies, and some by birds or overnight by bats. In general, the small flowers are pollinated by bees, with too little nectar for a butterfly to bother with, or even to be able to get at it from a tiny little flower, much less a bird. Flowers that are pollinated by hummingbirds tend to have long tubes to the nectar. Some flowers are visited by two or more varieties of pollinators, for example bees and small butterflies or large butterflies and hummingbirds.
Part of God’s creative goodness is that each species arrives as its own flower types are blooming. Very few butterflies are out and about yet, but bees come early, along with the tiny little flowers and the flowers like dandelions that have lots of tiny flowers in one big flowerhead. If butterfly flowers bloomed now, their pollen would be wasted, because there is nothing around to pollinate them. Later in the season we’ll have butterflies, and also lots of asters and other flowers that butterflies like.
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Michelle,
AJ could do so. If he remembers. 🙂
But you do run the risk that he uses this to mess with you as well. 🙂
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I think I have a male and a female holly tree/bush. One gets flowers and the other gets the red berries. I should look that up.
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I put something on the political thread that AJ will appreciate (about that Shifty character).
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I know it is Tuesday because it is laundry day. Youngest two do their’s on Monday and they do eighteen’s on Wednesday. The rest of the week is for twenty three and baby.
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Saskatchewan: 300 cases, 4 deaths. I think we’re doing pretty good. Population is just over 1 million, so lower than most states/provinces.
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It’s only Tuesday?
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I had to get up and get ready for a zoom Bible study. I hope we get in to the study and don’t just visit.
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So, if Cheryl doesn’t know what kind of flower it is, do we get a prize for guessing correctly? Oh, wait, Cheryl is a bird expert, so that’s why she can’t tell. But to me it looks like a kind of crabapple (based on a websearch).
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Morning! The sky is blue today but it was -1 when I awoke!! 🥶
It is Tuesday but the trash company wants to mess with our minds…they are delaying pickup by one day this week due to the icy roads out here…see? Tomorrow will be Wednesday and I will think it is Tuesday! But tonight we have Zoom small group…because it is Tuesday!?
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Oh and I am not like Nancy in Kim’s post. I haven’t purchased one single pack of TP since this started. I don’t do oils and have enough groceries to last me until next week or so. But…I just might spray you with Lysol if you come any closer!! 😂
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My computer mouse went haywire yesterday.
First I tried praying for healing.
No dice.
Next I went for Mr. IT. Usually the threat gets computer equipment back into line— if only to demonstrate what a disaster I am with machines.
He was puzzled but got it to work— sort of. At least it wasn’t MY fault.
I tried to actually WORK with it. Nothing.
I admit, a total Sicilian meltdown occurred. Screaming, tears, hair on end, savage curses trying to spring from my mouth, lightening out my fingertips.
I nearly pitched the mouse through the window, stifled the urge to throw something at the computer screen and did fling my expensive glasses as I stormed down the stairs crying.
I sat down and finished the jigsaw puzzle in an attempt to calm down.
Ten minutes after the operatic drama ended in the living room, Mr. IT went upstairs.
When he returned, he announced it wasn’t me— we needed to buy a new mouse/keyboard.
I nodded. He went on line.
Amazon could deliver in about 7-10 days.
Fury did not erupt, though it threatened.
HP could double the price and get us one in two days.
Our boarder bought a new computer three weeks ago. Ordered and picked it up an hour later at Best Buy.
I’m leaving to pick up my new electronics in 20 minutes.
Peace is restored. I may return to writing my biography of a wise over-emotional woman this afternoon.
Working hard to act like my Puritan ancestors in the light of morning. I’ve scored some elastic, learned a few pointers about mask making, and should be a model citizen by bedtime.
Yikes!
Maybe this should have been a prayer request! 🙂
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I’m also buying more ant bait. The neighborhood ants have been sheltering with us the entire 5 weeks, despite our efforts to eradicate them. 😦
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I haven’t had to buy TP yet either. But I’d tried to scout out some plain (old-house plumbing friendly) Scott TP online in the past week and it’s nowhere to be found.
I don’t get it, why are people still buying out all the toilet paper? Where on earth can they be storing it all? Don’t people have enough already and why isn’t it getting restocked by now?
The Lysol bathroom foaming spray cleaner is coming in another week or so, I ordered that about a month ago.
And paper towels. I did manage to (finally) order those via Amazon, but they won’t come until after May 1. I’m just happy I was able to order it from somewhere at last.
I’m craving spaghetti for breakfast.
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I discovered last night that my mac desktop, which I haven’t used in a few years at least, still works. It was purchased in 2012 as a refurbished model and needed professional help a couple times after that, but it has one of those very large screens and — with my neck really starting to bother me in all my work setups at home now with the 2 laptops — I figured I needed to find some work station alternatives.
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We are at 1,345 cases out of 31,970 tested with 31 deaths. The big outbreak right now is on the Navajo reservation.
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Ontario: 7,953 confirmed cases; 343 deaths. Over 600 of the confirmed cases are healthcare workers, over 40 percent of deaths were linked to nursing or retirement homes.
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Same problem here Roscuro, of the 103 recent deaths in our general area, 75 are folks who were in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. And many more have tested positive. 😦
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Michelle, have you tried Terro? We asked for a recommendation at Lowe’s a few years ago, bought it, and haven’t bought anything else since. We’re starting to get a few ants ourselves, but I think my husband still has some from last year.
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No luck with the zoom meeting. The email that I got was from two weeks ago and the password did not work. I emailed the leader.
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In LA County, as of noon yesterday, we had 9,420 cases with 320 deaths. Highest # of cases have been between ages of 41 and 65.
As of yesterday, Carol’s facility was still NOT showing up on the long-term group residences with at least one confirmed case.
In the port community where I live, which is part of both the city and county of LA, we now have 50 cases confirmed (our population is a little more than 80,000).
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Equal parts powdered sugar and borax. The ants love the sugar and the poor creatures don’t realize they are taking the borax back to the queen. As long as she is alive the ants will keep marching on.
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I have also used borax to kill fleas when I have missed treating the dogs
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Indiana: 8,236 cases, 350 deaths. Half or more in Indianapolis and the surrounding counties, I believe.
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Meanwhile, our Navy hospital ship, the Mercy, now has 7 sailors/crew who have tested positive, so I guess it won’t be used as a coronavirus-free “bubble” for non-virus patients. But hospitals so far seem to be faring pretty well with regard to available beds, thankfully. As Michelle reported yesterday, it appears we may not get the “surge” that was being predicted.
The debate will go on after this is all over whether this was due to (a) the fact that we sheltered often and early or (b) that it was an overreaction to begin with.
I lean strongly toward the former but am looking forward to whatever facts can be nailed down afterward with regard to both the virus spread/death rates and how it was handled afterward.
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ignore that last “afterward.”
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Terro, I believe, is borax in a syrup. A single drop is effective.
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According to the terro site, you want to see more ants in ensuing hours because the foragers got back to the nest with samples while leaving a nice pheromone trail to the bait. They also recommend against using contact killers as that defeats getting back to the nest and spreading the feast.
We have used terro successfully for twenty years.
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Nobody paid me to tell you that.
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I saw new numbers for Georgia climbing up toward 14,000 cases. I need to check the number for my county.
We bought that one package of toilet paper for home which is lasting since Art is at the office for long hours. Okay on paper towels, too.
I had told myself I would freeze the last slices of ham, but I declare I can hear it calling my name through the closed refrigerator door. That is the love/hate relationship I have with ham.
I need to mow again! I almost have all the laundry done. I have been calling a few people to see if the church can put prayer hotline signs in their yards.
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This is pretty funny…
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Now you understand the nightmare. We’ve nearly emptied a bottle of Terro over the last month. 😦
http://bit.ly/2TTMz4v
Everything went well on my outing: meds, new keyboard, Adorable sighting with lemons, elastic and banana bread.
R can go to the hardware store— after he sets up my new keyboard/mouse combo!
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Michelle, you could make a movie.
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After reading Michelle’s blog, now I’m going to have nightmares too.
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Michelles ants might be grease eaters instaed of sweet eaters. But Terro is supposed to get both.
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Oh, look! 57!
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I read a sensible explanation of why TP is still in short supply. It’s probably no longer hoarding. The problem is that everyone’s using way more TP at home than usual, some estimate 40% more, and the supply chain doesn’t carry that much.
You say, yes, but we’re not using TP at work, and restaurants, etc., so there still should be plenty. There is, but it doesn’t do you any good. It’s not the same as home TP. Much of it comes on huge rolls for large dispensers, and is even a different size and quality. There’s no pipeline to get it to retailers where you can buy it.
So the manufacturers have to ramp up their production of home TP, and even then it will take a little time to get through the pipeline to our stores. Hopefully they’ll catch up soon.
https://www.inquirer.com/business/retail/toilet-paper-shortage-coronavirus-temple-wharton-professors-20200413.html
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Darn, just missed.
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Oh look.
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I could show you the photo of the greedy creatures pushing up to the circle of Terro, but why terrify you?
New keyboard feels different but all is working. I have a hero at my house, too!
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Here’s my fangirl post about the Bible Project–which Hillary is using successfully in Italy.
https://www.michelleule.com/2020/04/14/bible-project/
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Thanks, Kevin. I had been wondering if termites in peoples homes had found toilet paper stashes.
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A friend of mine was off to Israel on a writer journey at the start of this stay at home. She texted her husband from the airport, “Get 12 TPs from Amazon.”
He, a newly retired Air Force LtCol now living in Arkansas, ordered 12 CASES. She came home to 1056 rolls in her garage and was offering them to any takers.
I guess we should be thankful the colonel is now retired . . . LOL
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Here in Connecticut, as of around 4:30, we have 13,989 cases, and 671 deaths.
Here’s something I wrote on Facebook:
1.) I have seen the accusation that the CDC’s guidelines say to list COVID-19 as the cause of death if it is present, even if it is not the main cause of death. What the guidelines actually say is:
~”If COVID–19 played a role in the death, this condition should be specified on the death certificate. In many cases, it is likely that it will be the UCOD [underlying cause of death], as it can lead to various lifethreatening conditions, such as pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). In these cases, COVID–19 should be reported on the lowest line used in Part I with the other conditions to which it gave rise listed on the lines above it.”~
Despite what some people say, other causes of death are still maintaining their usual rates. (Although I would suppose that car accidents are down perhaps.)
2.) My daughter is a nurse in a nursing home. They went from one case to 19 (with others suspected but not tested yet) in two weeks. And that was with all the hyper-vigilant precautions.
So I asked her what it is like with the flu. She said that the flu does not spread this quickly, nor to as many patients, in this short period of time. And with the flu, they do take certain precautions not to spread it, but not the super-duper ones they are taking now.”
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I just searched for toilet paper on the Walmart free pickup option online.
But this is what came up:
~ Reynolds Kitchens® Cookie Baking Sheets Pre-Cut Parchment Paper 25 ct Box ~
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I guess that’s because all the rest of the country’s TP is now stored in that Lt. Col.’s Arkansas garage.
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Ugh, LA County’s update just now:
~ On deadliest day so far, 40 more coronavirus-linked deaths reported in LA County on Tuesday ~
A total of 360 people in the county have died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The total number of cases rose above 10,000 with 670 new cases confirmed Tuesday.
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Mrs L always buys the 30 roll packge of TP at Aldi. She bought some just before all this hoarding and we are about half-way through it. (Oh, I shouldn’t have post this. Now we’ll have thieves breaking down the door!)
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I’m not sure of the Missouri numbers, but almost every county around us has at least one COVID case, whereas ours hasn’t had one yet. We’re in the 2nd most populated county in the “Tri-State” region (Iowa/Illinois/Missouri).
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Kizzie,
Here’s what’s making folks question the numbers. It’s clear some deaths are being counted as Covid 19 related when there is no proof that it’s true.
““These new presumed cases are mostly from ERs and hospitals, which means people weren’t getting tested even in those settings. Lots more were in nursing homes or other long-term care facilities,” NY Times reporter Kristen Danis said.
New York City, already a world epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, sharply increased its death toll by more than 3,700 victims on Tuesday, after officials said they were now including people who had never tested positive for the virus but were presumed to have died of it.
The new figures, released by the city’s Health Department, drove up the number of people killed in New York City to more than 10,000, and appeared to increase the overall United States death count by 17 percent to more than 26,000.
But for weeks, the Health Department also had been recording additional deaths tied to the virus, according to two people briefed on the matter. Those cases involved people who were presumed to have been infected because of their symptoms and medical history.
They were not included in the counts given publicly by Mayor Bill de Blasio because no tests had confirmed that the victims had the disease, Covid-19.”
———-
Also some Drs are saying the CDC is coaching them to count deaths as Covid related when there’s no proof they were.
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I buy the 24-roll Scott TP at Smart & Final; I still have 3 rolls in the bag, + 2-4 rolls in both bathrooms combined. I’m OK for now, but I just can’t figure out why one still can’t buy toilet paper. Or paper towels (those I’m now rationing, on the final 1/4 of a roll).
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Wild weather coming home today. Winter is not giving up without a fight. Thankfully, the roads were not yet covered.
Kizzie, 29 of 65 residents in one nursing home died within 2 weeks from COVID-19. The flu might cause the death of one, perhaps two, residents from secondary pneumonia in a nursing home during the flu season. As other nurses who have even more experience than I of long term care and I have been discussing, people in nursing homes may well have a couple of decades left to live. Influenza takes only the most fragile residents. COVID-19 takes everyone. One of the saddest cases of COVID-19 in that nursing home was the wife of one of the residents, who volunteered there after her husband had to be admitted. She caught it before they realized it was there, and died first in the local hospital. He heard of his wife’s death and then later died of the same virus in the nursing home.
As for the whole cause of death question, as I pointed out to someone else, those who are shot deliberately seldom die directly due to the bullet. Rather they die if hemorrhage or shock or heart failure due to the bullet wound. But the person who fired the bullet deliberately is still charged with murder. Someone with COVID-19 may die if heart failure, because of the stress of the severe symptoms. But COVID-19 is still the trigger for the death.
The absurd thing is that these people trying to diminish COVID-19 as the cause of death are often, in my observation, the same who were saying a few weeks ago that the flue kills more people. As I mentioned above, influenza generally kills by causing secondary pneumonia, or other secondary causes. So, they are trying to diminish COVID-19 now with the opposite argument that they tried to diminish it a few weeks ago.
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The Real, some if those deaths in that nursing home were never tested, but are counted as having died from COVID-19 because of the sympts they had before death. The reason they were not tested is there was a policy on nursing homes, when there is an outbreak, after the first cases test positive, every subsequent case with the same symptomology is presumed to have the same case. Due to the publicity of this case, that policy was actually reversed, and subsequent cases were tested and confirmed. There were reports that nursing home deaths in New York State were not all being counted because not all were being tested, so I would presume that the addition of these new deaths are based on those nursing home and other institutional outbreaks were only a few of the cases were actually lab tested.
After all, during the Spanish influenza outbreak, lab testing for viruses was not possible, so the numbers of Spanish influenza cases on historical record are actually based on symptoms alone, not in lab confirmation. From measles and chicken pox to leprosy and TB, diseases were recognized and diagnosed long before microbiology ever was able to isolate the infectious agent in the lab.
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We have what may be the largest TP plant in the country, down the road. They are working away unless they were deemed nonessential. I have not been down there in a long time.
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I’m not sure of the current number of cases in our county, but the neighboring county, where my husband’s churches are, just shot up to 152 cases, many of them the result of an outbreak at a food processing plant (currently closed). With a population slightly less than 11,400 in the whole county, the paper says this puts their equivalent rate of cases (case per 100,000 residents) at a higher percent than the state of New York.
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Hi mumsee.
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~ Quarantine has turned us all into dogs. We roam the house all day looking for food. We are told “NO’ if we get too close to strangers. And we get really excited about car rides. ~
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“There were reports that nursing home deaths in New York State were not all being counted because not all were being tested, so I would presume that the addition of these new deaths are based on those nursing home and other institutional outbreaks were only a few of the cases were actually lab tested.”
——–
The NYT article clearly states….
“These new presumed cases are mostly from ERs and hospitals, which means people weren’t getting tested even in those settings. Lots more were in nursing homes or other long-term care facilities, NY Times reporter Kristen Danis said.”
While some of the numbers are from nursing home type facilities, clearly not all of them are.
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By the way, death certificates often list more than one cause of death and a secondary cause of death may be just as important as the one listed as primary. The fact is, that, except for the people who are instantaneously blown to smithereens by an explosion, there are only four causes if death, and all are types of one condition, circulatory shock. The four types of shock are: cardiogenic shock – malfunctioning heart due to heart attack, etc.; hypovolemic shock due – too low blood fluid volume due to blood loss, dehydration, etc.; obstructive shock – obstruction of circulation due to blood clot in lungs, collapsed lung, infection around the heart, etc.; and distributive shock – circulatory collapse due to anaphylaxis, sepsis, spinal cord injury, poisoning, etc. Pneumonia causes a form of distributive shock. The body always ultimately dies due to a lack of oxygen reaching the body cells. So, a pedant could insist, as I saw one commenter insist in the comment section of a post reporting the death of a well known person from COVID-19, that the person died of pneumonia, not COVID-19, but that is missing the forest for the trees.
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Also, the Dr above, Dr. Jensen, also a State Senator, says there’s a financial incentive for this as well.
Sadly, this would explain the loose reporting. Not blaming the medical staff, if true this would clearly be an administrative action. Some hospitals would certainly exploit this for financial gain. This is easy to believe because many of these causes of death have been edited and reclassified, even without proof of Covid 19.
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Keyboard is now malfunctioning. Mr. IT is stumped. I’m resigned and neither crying or screaming. I think I’ll make dinner.
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The Real, here are the CDC guidelines: https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/vsrg/vsrg03-508.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjypqvvk-noAhVIZ80KHVOtAL0QFjAAegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw23x8Gs6cuxyIsL3o8KWGTc
There is no mention of any financial compensation. Doctors are paid a fee for filling out a death certificate, but as death certificates are necessary for all deaths from any cause, the fee for a death certificate cannot be said to be incentivizing one cause of death over another.
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I had my temper tantrum for the day, as well. Michelle, the batteries in the mouse? Sorry, keyboards don’t have batteries.
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To go along with what Roscuro said, we say that Hubby died of cancer, but it was a pulmonary embolism that did him in. Before that, though, his organs were shutting down, and he developed a whole bunch of blood clots. But he would not have had the clots (at least I don’t think he would have) if he hadn’t been in a hospital bed for a little over a month with bleeding from his bladder caused by the prostate tumor rubbing against it and probably invading it a bit.
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Here, at least, hospitals do not generally employ doctors. Rather, doctors are contract workers within the hospital. So, hospitals have to pay the doctor to write the death certificate. The care of a live patient brings in far more funding to a hospital from the provincial health insurance. The payment of a death certificate fee is, both literally and figuratively, final.
The fee for a death certificate is 15 dollars. Google says the US fee ranges from 6 to 25 dollars. By comparison, the daily cost of an ICU bed in Canada is 2,908 dollars, while in the US, it is 3,968 per day.
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Roscuro,
Well it’ doesn’t work that way here in our non-socialist system.
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“There is no mention of any financial compensation.”
It’s the medical institutions receiving the extra compensation. Drs may too, but I’ve not seen anything showing that yet.
The Dr. covered that above.
“Senator Dr. Scott Jensen: Right now Medicare is determining that if you have a COVID-19 admission to the hospital you get $13,000. If that COVID-19 patient goes on a ventilator you get $39,000, three times as much. Nobody can tell me after 35 years in the world of medicine that sometimes those kinds of things impact on what we do.”
There is clearly a financial incentive to attribute deaths to Covid 19.
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And they’re clearly changing and editing causes of death which benefits them financially with zero proof of Covid 19, and negative or no test at all. That doesn’t pass the smell test.
https://dailycaller.com/2020/04/14/nyc-numbers-coronavirus-death-toll/
“NYC Adds Nearly 4,000 People Who Never Tested Positive To Coronavirus Death Tolls”
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And it’s not like there aren’t already examples of medical testing institutions exploiting the Cares Act, which is funding hospitals responding to Covid, and testing companies as well.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/usc-brookings-schaeffer-on-health-policy/2020/04/09/how-the-cares-act-affects-covid-19-test-pricing/
“Unfortunately, this “cash price” is not a market-determined price – it is irrelevant to patients because all options have to be made free to them by law, so there is little constraint on how high this is set by testing entities. Nor is there any reason for out-of-network entities to accept any less than this amount (other than a desire to contract in the future with the insurer or fear of a public relations backlash). Moreover, in theory the patient can still be surprise balance billed if the provider’s charge is higher than this “cash price,” though it is unclear why any provider would list a “cash price” lower than their charge.
As a result, this provision can be thought of similar to a surprise billing protection that requires health plans to pay out-of-network providers full billed charges. In that context, such a provision would incentivize providers to increase their unilaterally set list price in order to drive up payment, at the expense of employers, consumers, and taxpayers.
Applied to COVID-19 testing, some unscrupulous actors will surely find ways to exploit the new CARES Act provision that could be avoided if the law is changed to instead require out-of-network payment at Medicare payment rates or even a multiple thereof (unlike most health care services, lab prices for commercial insurers are similar or lower than Medicare rates on average). However, the inflationary effects of the CARES Act provision should be relatively limited, particularly after the immediate wave of more emergent testing and once greater testing capacity becomes available. Depending on the type of test, COVID-19 testing will predominantly be billed by clinical laboratories, hospitals, and clinician offices. In each case, insurers can generally steer enrollee testing to in-network providers (discussed in more detail later). Put another way, the CARES Act provision will likely inflate costs for out-of-network COVID-19 testing, but have limited, if any, spillover effects on prices for in-network testing.”
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“Unfortunately, some areas for concern remain. Analyzing Medicare data, Emergency physicians billed for 6% of antigen detection flu tests and 7% of PCR flu tests given to Medicare patients in 2017, suggesting they may end up a modest source of billing for COVID-19 testing. Roughly one-in-five emergency physician services is delivered out-of-network, potentially allowing them to name their price for COVID-19 tests, which employers and insurers would be legally required to pay. Some patients also end up at out-of-network emergency rooms, in which case the hospital or freestanding emergency department would similarly be able to extract a high price for testing. While I have not been able to locate many entities listing a “cash price” for COVID-19 testing, the three hospitals I found listed prices around $150-$200, roughly three times the Medicare rate or what they likely are getting paid in-network from private insurers (lab tests tend to be similarly priced in Medicare and private insurance, unlike most other services). There may also be reason for concern with drive-through testing centers or any widespread testing encouraged other than from a patient’s known sources of care, depending on who is carrying out the testing.”
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Kizzie, I remember (eons ago, 1970) when my dad’s death certificate came through saying he’d died of heart failure … He’d battled cancer for years, but our family physician explained to my mom that that the heart “stopping” was essentially the “cause” of death, but (not really).
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The heart giving out was the actual “cause” of death, in the end, but it was the cancer that could not be stopped that caused the heart to fail, ultimately.
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The Real, those compensations would only be concerning if Medicare did not also cover critcially ill patients who are under Medicare for other conditions which require admission to ICU. What Medicare is doing is covering medically necessary hospitalizations for COVID-19 patients: https://www.medicare.gov/medicare-coronavirus. In other words Medicare is covering the whole cost of hospitalizing and ventilating those with COVID-19 who are under Medicare. It is not special compensation but covering real costs. There is various figures, but this study confirms that the fees incurred by a ventilated patient could well reach $39,000: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15942342/
‘Daily costs were greatest on intensive care unit day 1 (mechanical ventilation, 10,794 dollars; no mechanical ventilation, 6,667 dollars), decreased on day 2 (mechanical ventilation:, 4,796 dollars; no mechanical ventilation, 3,496 dollars), and became stable after day 3 (mechanical ventilation, 3,968 dollars; no mechanical ventilation, 3,184 dollars). Adjusting for patient and hospital characteristics, the mean incremental cost of mechanical ventilation in intensive care unit patients was 1,522 dollars per day (p < .001)'
Note the study was done in 2005, so inflation will have increased the fees, and the first day high costs (over 10,000 with ventilation) are due to patient instability with the costs decreasing as the patient stabilizes. Yet, we know that COVID-19 increasingly destabilizes patients on ventilation, thus further increasing the projected fees. Even at the 2005 costs, given the length of time COVID-19 patients may be on a ventilator, 39,000 seems a logical figure needed to cover the cost of ventilation.
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New York only added presumptive cases today, so up to this point, those numbers have only been of lab confirmed cases. New York had already exceeded the case numbers if any other country, and the US death toll for today without those presumed cases was over 2,200: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa/new-york-city-records-sharp-jump-in-coronavirus-deaths-as-presumed-cases-added-idUSKCN21W20G. The accusations of inflating the death toll have been circulating for several days now – according to the FB feed I get from skeptics, FOX news did a segment questioning the fatality figures on the weekend. That was before New York added these presumed cases. So, the skeptics did not then have any such grounds for their speculation.
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I wonder if I can concince a doctor to prewrite my death certificate to say: “It was God’s time to take him.”
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Peter, the purpose of a death certificate, is first and foremost, to ensure that suspicious deaths are investigated before the corpse is conveniently buried or cremated. Statistical collection of causes of death are an afterthought, although they are useful in gathering epidemiological data.
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Roscuro, thank you for adding your experienced voice to the discussion. It helps us understand it.
I had another conversation with two siblings today–two was all I could handle, though only one was because of a COVID-19 discussion. The COVID discussion did turn to inflating numbers (though the specific incidences on here weren’t mentioned). That brother said that death rates of this year’s flu, including COVID, didn’t reach the rates of last season, and thus the government is proved to be overreacting. There was a lot I could have said to that, including pointing out that COVID is not a subset of the flu, that the “season” isn’t over yet, and that the numbers could well be much, much higher without the social distancing measures. But I had already decided that he had made up his mind and wouldn’t be persuaded otherwise by anything I said, so I mostly just listened to what he said and got off the phone as soon as it was polite to do so.
I also could have said I have a daughter who is a nurse in a nursing home, and these numbers are far more “real” when you know what is going on in nursing homes.
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N.B. The death toll of NYC on Johns Hopkins CSSE site, which is one site my nursing association refers to, does not include the presumed cases from today, as the death toll for NYC sits at 7,905 on Johns Hopkins, and the media report above states that the presumed cases put it above 10,000 for NYC. Johns Hopkins site is the one I see sourced by quite a few media outlets around here and it uses confirmed cases.
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I have a healthcare portal, but I believe this link to Johns Hopkins is open to the public: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
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Boise-Cascade? Paper has supported me most of my life.
I only buy Scottissue. If was formulated to disintegrate in septic systems. I works with low-flow toilets and grinder pumps.
Kevin, excellent explanation about the shortage on toilet tissue. JRT’s (Jumbo Roll Tissue) isn’t exactly going to fit a regular bathroom holder.
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Scott, me too, Kim — I have an almost 100-year-old House here, sensitive plumbing
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26 COVID-19 cases in our county, population around 120,000; 0 deaths.
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cheryl, there’s a former elder from my previous church who continually remarks on any of my story links regarding coronavirus (these are stories I or my colleagues have written) something about how this is all an overreaction by a hysterical media, etc. (He always was a rather difficult personality, overbearing, and I see that he’s now since been divorced.)
Those folks will never be convinced otherwise or even consider they may be at least partially mistaken or even that the truth may be a bit more nuanced once all the dust has settled and we have a better view of things from the other side. They’ve dug in on their position that this is all entirely unnecessary and has been a manufactured crisis carried out by various sectors in society, whether government and/or the media.
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