14 Replies to "CORONAVIRUS: Wednesday 4/8 roundup"

• Resident April 8, 2020 (9:46 pm)

  Thanks WS blog.

• Kalo April 8, 2020 (10:46 pm)

  What if we’re to walk on the right hand side, walk like we drive. That way, walkers would  not have to pass each other head on, face-to-face. Seattle sidewalks aren’t made for social distancing!

  • Greg April 9, 2020 (9:31 am)

    Yes.  I have been thinking the same thing.  Driving on the right side is a social convention that began in response to social need.  Walking on either side of street is a need now too.  Kids who live in rural areas are taught to walk facing traffic in order to easily see oncoming traffic.  Bicyclists are taught to ride with traffic.  For pedestrians on sidewalks, it would make more sense to walk facing traffic in order to properly interface with areas without sidewalk.  Joggers, however, create a slipstream which seems to focus their droplets behind them.  Makes sense for them to run on the road inside a fog line and facing traffic allowing the sidewalk to walkers.

  • newnative April 9, 2020 (9:32 am)

    that doesn’t solve the problem of walking into someone’s  “slipstream”. the best solution is to avoid people altogether-maintaining much more distance than the recommended 6 feet. It’s why you might see me walk in the street to avoid people blocking the sidewalk. this is why runners and bikers need to stop coming up behind people and/or cover their nose and face. Last Saturday I was the only runner at Hiawatha that had a face mask on. I had to leave earlier than planned because there were too many people, not physically distancing and not wearing masks. 

  • Kersti April 9, 2020 (10:52 am)

    Viruss move in all directions.The wind is also moving them around. I have joggers, and bikers going up and down my hill at Lowman all day. Not distancing, not wearing masks, spitting. I’m keeping my windows closed now as well.I was even struck from begind by a woman’s shoulder, who refused to let me get to the top of the stairs off Lincoln Park way. It’s about a three foot wide stairway. She was running and despite me even turning around and asking her to slow down and give me twenty seconds to get to the top she ignores me and runs into me and panting everywhere.Air pods make people think they are invincible or in some Nike commercial. Joggers and bikers right now are the worst group I see everyday. 

• J April 9, 2020 (6:33 am)

  Can we start including deaths COVID deaths from nursing homes and other facilities in the numbers? How is the coroner testing and counting facility deaths? Are we starting to use clinical diagnoses when patients haven’t had access to testing? Are we retesting those who die with pneumonia or pneumonia like illness, but tested negative at some point?  (Since the PCR has such a low sensitivity)  It seems like we are missing something in our numbers.

• Brian Feusagach April 9, 2020 (6:35 am)

  A plea to those who are not in the at risk groups yet must do their grocery shopping during the hour set aside for us: Please mask up and wear gloves! This is to protect those around you as much as it is yourselves. According to the state data, people aged 59 and under are 65% of the positive cases yet are only 7% of the deaths! Thank you for doing your part so that us in the at risk groups have a fighting chance. 

  • JCW April 9, 2020 (8:25 am)

    A friendly reminder that not all of us “look” immunocompromised, and we aren’t super interested in sharing our medical history with strangers to get a week’s worth of groceries. :)

    Masks and gloves are a great help, when used properly. I’m grateful that these earliest hours of the day are when stores are also hopefully the cleanest and present a lower risk. 

• anonyme April 9, 2020 (9:52 am)

  Other cities have tracked the sources of their outbreak.  Is this information available for Seattle?  It also seems likely that some kind of home health worker was responsible for the initial outbreak here as it was restricted at first to nursing homes.  It would be interesting to know the etiology of Covid-19 in our area.

  • J April 9, 2020 (10:08 am)

    As well as healthcare workers being likely vectors, it has been common practice for hospitals to discharge pneumonia patients to care facilities after antibiotic treatment, whether or not they had improved. The funding and rating systems set up by Medicare encourage these discharges, once IV treatment is ended… but hospitals are the only facilities equipped to contain respiratory pathogens. These discharges early and mid February likely spread disease to care facilities as well. Would be interesting to see some tracing.  So much of our medical system needs to be rethought with transmission dynamics in mind, including funding models. It really is time to have some deeper studies.

    • J April 9, 2020 (10:20 am)

      *mid and late February especially, and early March… before COVID testing was widely used.

  • newnative April 9, 2020 (10:18 am)

    It was in the news some time ago that it was sick workers that were going back and forth between skilled nursing facilities  owned by Life Care that spread it there. That was before it seemed known that one could transmit the virus without symptoms. So, I’m not sure they know how it got into the facilities in the first place. I thought it was a visitor. I think it would be nearly impossible to trace every source though, with the exception of the infamous patient zero from Everett. 

    • J April 9, 2020 (11:18 am)

      We could throw up our hands and stay sheltered forever… or we could work diligently to break chains of transmission up and down our healthcare systems… for the health of our community, our economy, our democracy, and our world. The health department had access to hospital discharge records and care facility intake records. Now is the time… this is the reason we pay taxes, for public health.

      • Go gull April 9, 2020 (3:56 pm)

        Sounds like you would like to see the development of a contact tracing system.  This petition (link below) just launched, requesting that such a system be developed:

        https://www.change.org/p/national-governors-association-covid-19-we-need-contact-tracing

        After the the transmission ‘curve’ is successfully flattened here and the stay at home order is lifted, there will need to be strategies to contain the virus going forward…

        What do people think about the ideas of contact tracing and smart quarantining? Any other thoughts about how we manage this going forward?

        Here’s an article about smart quarantining:

        https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/opinion/coronavirus-smart-quarantine.html

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