Novel Coronavirus

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Probably the most dangerous of people is me. I'm reasonably healthy, late-middle-aged, and with a part-time job that involves interacting with many people per shift. I'm also the sort of person who has a tendency to "power through" most viruses. I'll take painkillers/day-time/night-time meds for cold and flu symptoms, ramp up my Vit C & D and ColdFx or similar, and sleep through my days off to get over most mild/moderate illnesses. Were I to acquire this, I'd probably take cold meds, work my shifts, and infect a whole pile of people.
 
In Oz we had a report on how to self-isolate if you catch the virus. If you live alone you order supplies online and ask them to leave outside the door. You don't leave your apartment/house.

What do you do about emptying your garbage/bottles/papars etc????

If more than one lives in the home you have to confine yourself to a bedroom - and the bathroom story is a nightmare in itself.........

I can't help feeling that those that live in democracies will wittingly/unwittingly break most rules of self-isolation.
the good news is, that if healthy, the symptoms will probably be mild - and a vaccine will be found.
 
PilgrimsProgress said:
the good news is, that if healthy, the symptoms will probably be mild - and a vaccine will be found.
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Shares of the clinical-stage vaccine companies Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:INO) and Novavax (NASDAQ:NVAX) both jumped by as much as 18% in pre-market trading Monday morning. Inovio and Novavax appear to be getting a major boost this morning from the latest COVID-19 statistics, which seem to indicate that the outbreak is quickly turning into a global pandemic.

Investors are clearly banking on Inovio or Novavax being among the first companies to develop an effective vaccine against this deadly respiratory virus. Inovio, for its part, previously announced that it has an experimental vaccine already designed and ready for human trials. Novavax hasn't said much about its COVID-19 prospect, but it also stated near the beginning of the outbreak that it had a promising vaccine in the works as well. Both companies noted that they could kick off clinical trials for their respective COVID-19 vaccine candidates within just a matter of months.

Is this viral outbreak a compelling buying opportunity?

In short, there's no logical reason to buy either of these developmental biotech stocks on this news. Any experimental vaccine will likely take years to trial and subsequently gain marketing approval. By then, the COVID-19 threat will most likely have petered out.

The NanoFlu data, on the other hand, could be a significant market-moving event for the company. There's a clear need for better flu vaccines, and NanoFlu could fill this treatment gap.

That's a big deal because the global flu vaccine market is currently worth upward of $2 billion a year.
 
KayTheCurler said:
One daughter is currently on a cruise ship in France. She is making the outfits for the entertainers at the moment - singers, dancers, actors etc. When they arrive she will be busy adjusting the items they ave to fit whatever bodies they have. It is a brand new ship that is still being fitted out. I'm hoping it doesn't become a floating flu incubator while she is on board.
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Hopefully her ship won't be affected.
 
KayTheCurler said:
I'm hoping it doesn't become a floating flu incubator while she is on board.
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They pretty much are just that anyway. Even leaving COVID-19 aside, hardly a cruising season goes by now without one or more ships reporting outbreaks of noroviruses and such like. I've never gotten sick on a cruise but my boss, who does a lot more cruising than I do, has.
 
Mendalla said:
They pretty much are just that anyway. Even leaving COVID-19 aside, hardly a cruising season goes by now without one or more ships reporting outbreaks of noroviruses and such like. I've never gotten sick on a cruise but my boss, who does a lot more cruising than I do, has.
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Solution: stay hom and dream ... the Greek took it as a transient literal form ... transliteration? It may provide a great opening for the abstract idiem ... idiem being something that must be assembled! Thus tales are fabricated ... do tel wilhelm!
 
Listening to all the recommendations for surviving and enduring a pandemic. If we encountered any major pandemic in Canada it appears there would be a shortage of hospital beds, moreso even than now.
I wonder if family doctors/nurses should be considering the use of Skype or something like it, to keep in touch with those at home in isolation? I remember a case with a researcher in Antarctica who actually operated on herself....while this would not be necessary with the current virus.....it could free up beds and emergency units and give sufficient notice if their disease progressed to the point of requiring hospitalization or not.
And offer reassurance without a trip to the doctors once diagnosed.
 
Waterfall said:
I wonder if family doctors/nurses should be considering the use of Skype or something like it, to keep in touch with those at home in isolation?
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There are a growing number of apps, one of which we are testing at work, for enabling healthcare workers to do "virtual visits". In our case, it enables not just Skype-like voice and video calls but the collection of data from medical devices in the home and the use of workflows to automate prompting patients to collect the data and generate automated responses to the data (e.g. if O2 sat is below a certain level, ask some diagnostic questions and alert the staff person assigned to the patient). The devices are bluetooth enabled and paired with a tablet running the app. Since we are focussed on home oxygen, we are only using their oximeter but there are also blood pressure cuffs, thermometers, glucometers, etc. Virtual Care is definitely going to be a thing, in other words, but it is still in its infancy. Our trial, for instance, only includes 30 patients at one location right now.

I have also built an integration to our main management application so that the data collected is automatically added to their electronic chart.
 
Mendalla said:
There are a growing number of apps, one of which we are testing at work, for enabling healthcare workers to do "virtual visits". In our case, it enables not just Skype-like voice and video calls but the collection of data from medical devices in the home and the use of workflows to automate prompting patients to collect the data and generate automated responses to the data (e.g. if O2 sat is below a certain level, ask some diagnostic questions and alert the staff person assigned to the patient). The devices are bluetooth enabled and paired with a tablet running the app. Since we are focussed on home oxygen, we are only using their oximeter but there are also blood pressure cuffs, thermometers, glucometers, etc. Virtual Care is definitely going to be a thing, in other words, but it is still in its infancy. Our trial, for instance, only includes 30 patients at one location right now.

I have also built an integration to our main management application so that the data collected is automatically added to their electronic chart.
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So it sounds like a good idea....I wonder if this should be as much a priority for the govt plans as much as vaccines and trying to figure out the cause.
Once in place its done... Would it be hard for family doctors to hook up to their individual patients computers or would it require a more secure system?
 
Waterfall said:
So it sounds like a good idea....I wonder if this should be as much a priority for the govt plans as much as vaccines and trying to figure out the cause.
Once in place its done... Would it be hard for family doctors to hook up to their individual patients computers or would it require a more secure system?
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Actually, Virtual Care is an identified priority in Ontario, part of the government's plan for revamping health care.

Our system is device driven, so phones and tabs rather than computers. We are using a dedicated, locked-down (ie. can only run the virtual care app) tablet that we supply but the app can be set up and configured on patient-owned devices as well. This just minimizes support headaches and is a bit more secure. It doesn't keep data locally but connects to a data store in the Amazon Web Services cloud, so the main security issues are the connection and the server, both of the which are secured to an acceptable degree by the supplier (the system is PHIPA compliant).

Oh, and it's a Canadian startup based in Ottawa, so we are supporting the domestic STEM industry, too.
 
Mendalla said:
Actually, Virtual Care is an identified priority in Ontario, part of the government's plan for revamping health care.

Our system is device driven, so phones and tabs rather than computers. We are using a dedicated, locked-down (ie. can only run the virtual care app) tablet that we supply but the app can be set up and configured on patient-owned devices as well. This just minimizes support headaches and is a bit more secure. It doesn't keep data locally but connects to a data store in the Amazon Web Services cloud, so the main security issues are the connection and the server, both of the which are secured to an acceptable degree by the supplier (the system is PHIPA compliant).

Oh, and it's a Canadian startup based in Ottawa, so we are supporting the domestic STEM industry, too.
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If you supply the tablet, who pays for it' use?
 
Waterfall said:
Only one? Sounds like there's room for some healthy competition. :giggle:
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There's at least one other Canadian player that I know of besides these guys. Not sure about the US scene. We've only looked at Canadian options. More likely to have their data stored in Canada and be compliant with Canadian legislation.
 
Waterfall said:
If you supply the tablet, who pays for it' use?
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We have them on a monthly data plan that we pay for. Again, if we go the BYOD route (letting the patient run it on their own device), then they would be responsible for the data plan since it would just use whatever they already had set up.
 
I have heard that some Chinese restaurants in Canada are empty due to concerns about catching this so called 'novel virus'.

So as the 'virus' 'virtually' spreads across cities in North America ... what if no one wants to go out at all?

How many 'cases of Covid-19' in your community will it take for you to decide not to frequent public places?

Cafes, restaurants, theaters, concerts, etc.

How many 'cases' in your community will it take for you to decide not to take public transit?

How many 'cases' in your community will it take for you to limit going to supermarkets?

How many 'cases' in your community will it take for you to ask your boss to work from home?
 
Is a novel whistleblower a kind of weird cynic that makes powers uncomfortable?

That shouldn't happen by rites ... of folks at high position!
 
@Ritafee I fit in the category of 'likely to become very ill' if infected. So, for me, the answer is 'if it is in the community I will stay in the house. This precaution is the same for any type of flu.
 
Waterfall said:
Listening to all the recommendations for surviving and enduring a pandemic. If we encountered any major pandemic in Canada it appears there would be a shortage of hospital beds, moreso even than now.
I wonder if family doctors/nurses should be considering the use of Skype or something like it, to keep in touch with those at home in isolation? I remember a case with a researcher in Antarctica who actually operated on herself....while this would not be necessary with the current virus.....it could free up beds and emergency units and give sufficient notice if their disease progressed to the point of requiring hospitalization or not.
And offer reassurance without a trip to the doctors once diagnosed.
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Good questions and thoughts Waterfall. My province has electronic hookups so patients can 'see' their far away specialists. As far as I know these are in only set up in local hospitals though so wouldn't be ideal for flu checks. I wonder if it would work for patients to 'meet' with a doctor or nurse using FB videochat?

Going off topic - Some time ago I heard a doctor describing her case load of diabetic patients who were encouraged to join a private FB page. She aimed the experiment at her more challenging patients. They were required to check in with their blood testing on a daily basis. If they missed two days they got a reminder followed phone call if necessary. She said it was working well, especially with her teenaged patients.
 
Ritafee said:
Indeed. So why all the 'global' panic around this newly named 'flu' ... ?
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It is a mystery to me why there is so much panic. A FB friend posted that she was terrified and started to shake every time she thought about it! . Overall my belief is that politicians are as easily scared by new things as the general population.
 
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