I’m probably talking out my ass, but I think that covid might have been in the US before the first “official case”
This is pretty likely to be true for essentially any country it spread to.
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I don’t think anyone would deny that. It’s a question of how long it was here before the first person tested positive.
Yeah, was just semantics on my part, you worded it fine, haha. I get what you were saying.
@anna_5588 mid January, I had what I thought was the flu, but I distinctly remember it being different- when I coughed, it felt like somebody had put broken glass in my throat. It was followed by 2-3 weeks of hearing a gurgling, bubbling sound in my chest while breathing. My wife and kids got it soon afterwards.
Could have been the flu, could have been pneumonia, but yes, we have discussed the possibility that it was CV. I hope it was (provided we can develop a proper immunity to it).
I take back what I said earlier
I’d like to do an antibody test to find out.
I had something severe that landed me in the ER in early February that aligned fairly well with this. Test for flu said not flu, and doc. described it as viral syndrome. Felt exactly like heart failure and pulmonary edema, extreme (like call the coroner) fatigue, etc.
My wife and father-in-law had something similar going on in the early part of the year. I bet this has been making the rounds since late fall.
please refer to my latest post
And therein lies your error. Deaths are a significantly lagging indicator. They’re not a reflection of current conditions, they’re are reflection of how things were 2+ weeks earlier. The models are showing we’ve past peak deaths in most places because we’re now at the point on the curve where quarantining, social distancing, and hand washing will have an effect on the numbers.
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You’re misunderstanding what I’m saying.
We knew that deaths would level off after extreme quarantine measures were taken. That’s exactly WHY those measures were taken. I’m arguing that those measures were necessary. Deaths leveling off is not proof that something isn’t that bad, or that we didn’t need those measures. Hospitalizations have been declining, which is what you would look for to indicate that you’re past the peak, and I’m aware New York is headed that way. But this virus was bad enough to merit the extreme measures that were taken, and it took those measures to level off the amount of deaths.
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Then we agree.
I don’t know that I disagreed with you, more that I was disagreeing with @anon50325502’s feelings that we’ve gone overboard, and I was against the idea of using deaths leveling off as proof of this being not too big of a deal. I think SOME people are going to take things overboard, but I don’t think we’re seeing a forceful takeover from a totalitarian regime. My point was, when the dust settles, and we see the final death toll from this in NY - when the numbers dip below, say, 100 per day, we can take into account that those were the numbers we got hit with while implementing extreme quarantine measures which are obviously effective against the spread of a virus, and while we can’t say “[exact number] would have died WITHOUT these measures” (although I’m well aware some media outlet is going to report a theoretical figure possibly based on nothing), we can obviously say it would have been worse without them. When you’re dealing with hospitals at capacity, you also don’t just apply the regular fatality rates to the virus either, it’s much higher, as we saw in Italy.
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We’ve had 2 employees test positive at my job currently, and I’m absolutely disappointed in how co-workers and management have treated them.
Word spread like wildfire, and now there’s poster plastered everywhere in the break areas (which is just prompting more panic).
I spent the majority of today talking to two of them, since I have their numbers, and they spoke about how they just felt demonized, no one would talk to them, and they just felt whittled down to nothing but this virus.
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How does your job know they tested positive? I wonder if there might be some HIPAA violations going on.
We all have to report any possible symptoms. Even if it’s not COVID-19 related. My job is quick to send you home if they feel you’ve been coughing/sneezing one too many times. And we have to return with a doctors note saying we are fine/tested negative, or we aren’t fine/tested positive. Those employees, I’m assuming, actually did what was required. My whole thing is, how many other employees haven’t? How many are too afraid to? How many don’t even know they may have come into contact with this virus?
They’ve now made it “mandatory” for us to get testing done that our job does. Or as they call it “screening”. That’s what my GM has told me. I quoted those words because Its more or less a dumbass questionnaire which I straight up refused because I’ve honestly had it with this bullshit. However I’ve had no choice but to go on leave in doing so. It’s either screening, or go on leave. But my whole thing is, how many times are we gonna have to be tested? Are they not aware that one test isn’t enough? And that merely asking questions doesn’t do shit? We’ve had so many issues going on not just at our store, but across the entire Texas region, and other warehouses in the country.
Concerning HIPPA, it’s a damned if you do damned if you don’t thing, because it’s clashing with our OSHA policies concerning what management and regionals are now having to consider dangers for others’ health. Either keep stuff private, or have hundreds of employees and staff freaking out over “potential hazards”. And by hazards I mean other co-workers, who just last week we were laughing, talking, and sitting with on our lunch breaks. At this point in time, it’s just been everyone painstakingly watching everyone’s moves. Sneeze? Oh my gosh! Cough? OMGGFF!!! Which is why I’m really disgusted in how management has handled this.
They didn’t put the names of the individuals on the posters, but management just made it extremely well known that we’ve had employees test positive. Only reason I know who two of them are, by name, is because both told me, and I genuinely care about them, and built a friendship with them well before this whole thing happened. Only reason my entire store now knows is because whoever was management over that certain department that day decided to handle this in, my opinion, the stupidest way possible.
With all that being said, I couldn’t give a shit less about hipaa or osha, or the asshat who decided to blast it to the universe. I care about my co-workers. The ones who I sat with at lunch, invited to my birthday party, bought snacks for, or laughed with on my breaks. Because I can only imagine how lonely and cast aside they feel right now. It’s one thing to at least call and talk to them, but once I hang up I can’t physically be there to comfort them, and once this thing ends, they will NEVER look at anyone the same at our job, because the people they thought the could trust straight up ostracized them almost immediately when word got out.
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If your management cared about HIPAA, as they should have, then this wouldn’t have been an issue. And if they did violate any laws, they should suffer the consequences.
Where I work they made a point to tell us not to tell them if you tested positive with or without symptoms.
It’s one of those tricky situations where the Co. has to cover its ass from liability, but by trusting a moron, created a new one.
It would be nice to be able to trust people to do the right thing (stay home) but self interest rules. They gotta get theirs. Their bills need paid too. Boss wants us in on time.
It’s a real pinch at the individual/granular level, but your co-workers can’t be trusted.
How could they have felt and been ostracized by everybody there after having tested positive if they weren’t there after testing positive?
Were they past the time frame for having been sick, sequestered, and returned to work Then were ostracized?
Or were they there, sick, carrying and possibly spreading it to virtually anybody, completely unaware of other people’s medical conditions?
I’m not sure how anyone can be angry at an employer for asking that sick or test-positive people stay home during a pandemic, and notifying employees that there are people who’ve tested positive. By process of elimination can people suss out who it was? Of course.
This doesn’t strike me as HIPAA-compliant, but rather irresponsible. What could possibly motivate this? Greed or stupidity are the only things that makes sense.
Yeah, I wonder the same thing. It’s not ostracizing to say “go home and return when you’ve recovered.” That’s corporate responsibility. I think it’s their friends’ responsibility to think “okay, do they have what they need? how can I help? drop groceries by, maybe make some chicken soup?” If the coworkers live alone it may be a friend’s choice to risk infection (and then time out of work) to stay with the sick person.
It’s a pandemic. They’re looking for places to warehouse bodies in hot spots. The goal is to not have everywhere be a hot spot. That’s reasonable.
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Or like my wife did when she managed a couple hundred people:
Have them call it in and bring the results when they can return to work. Or take a picture of the docs. note and freakin text it to her (informally).
Took her about 5 minutes of typing and 10 minutes at the printer to get that dispersed company wide.
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