Coronavirus

[sparcs]

10 days for coronavirus test results, 160,000 backlogged tests: The struggle to keep pace with the pandemic in the US - CNN

As the US health care system has scrambled to track the spread of coronavirus, one of the nation's largest commercial labs has faced a backlog of tests that ballooned in the last two weeks, and has delayed results in some cases up to 10 days.

New Jersey-based Quest Diagnostics had about 160,000 coronavirus test orders waiting to be processed on March 25, which amounted to about half of the 320,000 total orders for the tests the company had received up to that date, according to Quest internal materials obtained by CNN.

A spokesperson for Quest, Wendy Bost, told CNN the backlog for coronavirus tests has begun to shrink in recent days as the company has expanded its capacity, which now amounts to more than 30,000 tests a day and an average turnaround time of four to five days.
"Much of the backlog was due to huge demand in the early days of testing when we were primarily offering a lab-developed test we developed at a single laboratory," Bost said. "In recent days, our capacity has exceeded our demand, allowing us to reduce the backlog."

that is about a week ago, but still not a good sign. 10 day delays on testing. Hope their PR is accurate about reducing backlog in recent days.

There were other quotes about labs processing in 5 days. Some smaller labs had temporary issues getting reagents, but are hitting around 5 day turnaround.

 

[bkp_duke]

10 days for cronavirus test results, 160,000 backlogged tests: The struggle to keep pace with the pandemic in the US - CNNPolitics



that is about a week ago, but still not a good sign

I hope that providers that saw these patients gave good follow up instructions, i.e. if symptoms worsen, see your doctor or call 911. Don't wait on the test results.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Imagine if NYC were 30% worse

Imagine 300% worse.

somewhere like the US where 40-50% or more will get it?

Ouch. I am pessimistic, but not that pessimistic. You expect 1.7 million deaths with 170 million infections? Over what timeframe?

A vaccine is coming, and it will be a GREAT help. But it is not a panacea for smarter public health behavior now and in the future.

No, it's not a panacea. I hope this incident results in broad support for a very robust public health monitoring system for ALL diseases in the United States. It seems like it could revolutionize controlling the spread of viruses and other illnesses. I don't know all of the details of what might be involved, though I think many of the good ideas circulating will have to be put in place in order for us to exit this crisis.

 

[EVNow]

Different areas can all take similar paths, but they start at different times. So on a national basis you can have things a little more spread out. That is why I would not take the NY curve and apply it to national totals.

We'll easily get to 40k deaths within 3 weeks.

I'm not using NYC curve at all.

Just saying looking at today's confirmed cases and a low CFR of 2 (current NYC CFR is much higher),we could end up with 40k fatalities in a couple of weeks.

Ofcourse large uncertainties remain as current confirmed cases may not be similar demographically to older cases.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

i.e. if symptoms worsen, see your doctor or call 911. Don't wait on the test results.

And don't go near anyone, and don't go out. And if you end up getting a negative test result, do not assume you do not have the disease, and self-isolate for at least two weeks.

 

[SageBrush]

Florida's statewide stay-at-home order still allows churches to gather followers during coronavirus outbreak

Just when you thought Florida was taking this seriously. And remember we had a discussion in this thread about how coronavirus was spreading via religious gatherings.

Hmmm.

They should be tagged with dunce caps and shot if they encroach within 2 meters and are not wearing a mask. 'Stand your Ground' is already in the books.

 

[EVNow]

If you don't get that swab 3 inches in, it's considered a bad sample - so yeah, sample collection is a PITA.

This particular test called for 1 inch in. Even that was difficult !

In other news, we now have a French study that says ...

No Evidence of Rapid Antiviral Clearance or Clinical Benefit with the Combination of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin in Patients with Severe COVID-19 Infection : COVID19

 

[Norbert]

I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of new infections are from people who are asymptomatic (either truly asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic).

Maybe some people remain in either of these states for quite a while?

 

[AZRI11]

Interesting. Take hydroxychloroquine before severe symptoms. Efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in patients with COVID-19: results of a randomized clinical trial Elon tweets Elon Musk on Twitter

 

[SageBrush]

Looks like BC may be starting to level off. Second day in a row of around 5 percent growth.

More releases than admissions.

That is very impressive at this point in the epidemic. I'm not really sure it makes sense kinetics wise unless the hospitals were being used for quarantine purposes rather than severity of illness.

 

[bkp_duke]

This particular test called for 1 inch in. Even that was difficult !

In other news, we now have a French study that says ...

No Evidence of Rapid Antiviral Clearance or Clinical Benefit with the Combination of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin in Patients with Severe COVID-19 Infection : COVID19

I had the test performed on myself last night. The nurse, appropriately, went a lot deeper than 1 inch. LoL. Was having dry cough, conjunctivitis (that resolved), shortness of breath (I am an asthmatic), and sub-sternal chest tightness, but no fever. Chest X-Ray, fortunately, was clear.

Now begins the wait to see if this was the real deal, or a false alarm.

 

[bkp_duke]

In other news, we now have a French study that says ...

No Evidence of Rapid Antiviral Clearance or Clinical Benefit with the Combination of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin in Patients with Severe COVID-19 Infection : COVID19

Typical, French cannot make up their minds.

Direct link to paper for those that want to read it:
No Evidence of Rapid Antiviral Clearance or Clinical Benefit with the Combination of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin in Patients with Severe COVID-19 Infection - ScienceDirect

My typical complaints:
1) prospective study (not an RCT)
2) small sample size (11 patients)

It adds to the body of evidence, but no conclusions can be made from this article.

 

[EVNow]

10 days for coronavirus test results, 160,000 backlogged tests: The struggle to keep pace with the pandemic in the US - CNN




that is about a week ago, but still not a good sign. 10 day delays on testing. Hope their PR is accurate about reducing backlog in recent days.

There were other quotes about labs processing in 5 days. Some smaller labs had temporary issues getting reagents, but are hitting around 5 day turnaround.

CA has some ~60k pending. They don't have a current pending count for NJ.

BTW, NJ shows 22k +ve out of 52k total for ~40% positive rate. Not good.

Most recent data

 

[Norbert]

CA has some ~60k pending. They don't have a current pending count for NJ.

BTW, NJ shows 22k +ve out of 52k total for ~40% positive rate. Not good.

Most recent data

That number has been "pending" for quite a while. I'm not sure that is valid data.

 

[SageBrush]

I've mentioned that the healthdata.org website is fantastic. It took me 2 days to finally grasp this type of picture though.
It is 3 curves, superimposed on each other. The white curve is in front.

They do this to show the low, mid and less favorable outcomes.

 

[EVNow]

About that projection of when we could reach 30k fatalities in US.

IHME | COVID-19 Projections

Their projections say 32k by Apr 15th. BTW, they have changed their website a bit - check it out. 93k total fatalities assuming social distancing till end of May.

 

[byeLT4]

Now begins the wait to see if this was the real deal, or a false alarm.

Best of luck.

My county is up 5 more to 20 cases and and county judge has issued 'stay at home' orders.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Of course deaths can trail infection by 2 weeks as well.

The mean onset-to-death used in the Imperial College study was 18.8 days (gamma distribution, coefficient of variation of 0.45). That means, of people who die, 34% die after 21 days and 14% die after 28 days. There should be much better data on this now somewhere, their confidence in these numbers was very low.

For MATLAB users (it took me a while to figure this out, I'm not a statistician)
mean = 18.8
CV = 0.45
SD = 18.8*.45
variance = SD^2
alpha=mean^2/variance
beta=variance/mean
gamcdf(21,alpha,beta)
gamcdf(28,alpha,beta)
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033357v1.full.pdf

 

[eevee-fan]

Passed 1k deaths/day
View attachment 528430

Meanwhile, at the ...

 

[EVNow]

That number has been "pending" for quite a while. I'm not sure that is valid data.

The pending has gone up and down- but nobody knows what’s happening. The covidtracking team has been tweeting about it for a while.