[PearlJam]

Originally Posted by msdivy

4) Create an environment of courage
All medical personal are vaccinated. They must stop using PPE kits wherever possible. Masks & gloves are sufficient in most cases.

Disagree disagree disagree. Why should they even take a 1% extra risk, if they don't want to? And who are we to mandate that? It's their choice. They see so many infected people every day, may be having different strains/mutations.

[Lobogris]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

And yes, you can certainly carry back the virus to your family - on your skin & mucous membrane on the hands, nose, mouth and throat. Also, on your mask. It need not infect you, but if it finds another vulnerable host, it WILL infect them.

With respect, Sir, this is mainly a respiratory disease. It travels via air in an enclosed space with sufficient exposure. Any particle falling on hands, clothing or mouth gets dried and rendered harmless within a few minutes. Hence this fear of clothing and body getting infected and passing it on is rather overblown. This has now been acknowledged by most experts as well.

[ABHI_1512]

Originally Posted by msdivy

The buck doesn't seem to stop anywhere in the current state of affairs.
5) Learn from others
Many countries, regions have solved the COVID pandemic problem. Learn what they did and adopt them after customizing them to our country.

You know, your last point is what is make or break for our country and that is what that has actually taken our country back to stone ages with so many losing so much. No one wants to admit the mistakes, let alone learning from them.

I can just copy paste few photos of what the head of our nation and the chief ministers of the states have said and bragged about in the last one year or so. Some as recent as April when the second wave had already started.

When one says that it will take 21 days to defeat coronavirus, what exactly do you think ? When one brags to the world that we have defeated the virus,what exactly do you think ? When one says Corona is a living organism and it has the right to live as well, what exactly do you think ? When one says that Corona virus is no more in the state and one doesn’t need to wear mask, what exactly do you think ? When the health minister of the country promotes a dubious herbal ‘medicine’ as a counter to coronavirus, what exactly do you think ? When parliamentarians talk of cow dung and cow urine being used to ward off a virus and no one bats an eyelid, what exactly do you think ?

Course correction can always be done but firstly one has to admit the mistake. We are still seeing deaths due to shortage of oxygen, Goa being in the news for the past few days. Dead bodies are being buried on the banks of the rivers, bodies floating in the rivers, fudging of death figures, there is no end to tragic stories, not yet.

The situation is better then before but unless there is proper vaccination strategy is in place, things would be hard pressed to be better. All the major countries have focussed on vaccination and hence they are in a better place now. If only major vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna were allowed in India from the start along with our homegrown vaccines, things would have been much better already.

If only emphasis was put on working for the masses during this raging pandemic instead of managing headlines, things would have been so much better !!

[rjainv]

News article about ground truth of number of deaths in Gujarat.

https://m.thewire.in/article/health/...-registrations

Backed up by a district-wise and major city-wise break-up of the data, Divya Bhaskar noted that the Gujarat government had issued 1,23,871 death certificates in 71 days between March 1, 2021, and May 10, 2021. This was more than double the number issued for the corresponding period in 2020, which was 58,000 death certificates. In the absence of any other major factor contributing to mortality, it is clear that these 65,781 excess deaths were actually caused by the surge in Covid infections the state this year, though the cause of death for 80% of these is listed as hypertension, diabetes and other co-morbidities

[Fillmore]

Pretty insightful video. He talks a bit slow though so you can watch it a 1.5x speed.

Dr. Mathew Varghese, senior doctor at St. Stephen’s Hospital, Delhi, undertakes a clear, step-by-step, exposition of the timeline of the progress of Covid- 19 and its treatment protocol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJzo6JIqhCw

[mooza]

Originally Posted by Zen2001

.... Steam inhalation might also do the same trick without any danger of side effects (except burns!)...
DO NOT AVOID contact with the kids, but take all precautions (N95 mask, gloves, distance) when attending to your wife, followed by safe disposal of contaminated items ...All the best.

Quoting a useful earlier post of Zen2001, particularly with regard to Steam Inhalation.

I have been doing steam inhalation once a day for about 5 to 6 minutes, immediately upon returning from work over the past one year now, as a preventive step with no additives. My family ENT doctor suggested this to me over 20 years ago whenever I was down with the common cold and blocked sinuses.

I recently got my first dose of vaccination done as well.

But I have been very curious to know about the efficacy of daily steam inhalation towards Covid-19 prevention, as there are a lot of counter views on this.

There is an argument stating that once the virus enters the human body no amount of steam inhalation is going to help. To this, my counter view is that the virus has an incubation period, during which the inhaled steam can eliminate a big portion of the viral load even before it binds to the human system. It is akin to banishing an unwelcome guest from the entry door itself !

A reference article related to incubation is placed below:

https://www.news-medical.net/health/...on-Period.aspx


There is yet another warning against steam inhalation stating that it can scald the airways, or cause burns:

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/82509323.cms

However, I feel if one knows one's limits and takes care, this can be done safely. After all, even a cup of hot coffee can scald the throat when consumed boiling hot, so a similar judgement is to be used here.

It would be very useful to know as to how many Team BHP members have been following the steam inhalation procedure as a preventive step (with details of duration) and the outcomes in their families so far. We have a pretty large database of members here, and the data could be useful.

Hoping for a frank sharing of views, both for and against

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Tend to disagree on just one: but I just don't know about the PPE thing. It's probably best to leave that to the medical profession itself.

Originally Posted by PearlJam

Disagree disagree disagree. Why should they even take a 1% extra risk, if they don't want to? And who are we to mandate that? It's their choice. They see so many infected people every day, may be having different strains/mutations.

Yes, the choice is best made by medical personnel. The main reason hospitals are flooded because many doctors have stopped their private practice. All such doctors must start their practice. They can remodel their clinics for good ventilation, with safe distancing to ensure safety & hygiene. PPE kit conveys the disease is dangerous. If doctors, who have taken 2 doses of the vaccine feel it's dangerous, what about normal folks, who most of them haven't received a dose? We need to remove fear of the disease.

Originally Posted by poloman

1) Stop all COVID-19 testing (RT-PCR, Rapid, whatever)

Is it really the case? The main reason for Covid spread is the asymptomatic carriers. Testing is to identify and isolate them. I strongly believe the main reason for COVID phase 2 is people going out to work and spreading the disease to their family members.

But testing & preventive the outbreak hasn't worked, isn't it? To make it work everyone must be tested at least every week, to detect the virus. Otherwise, they might test -ve and catch the virus the next day. They will be spreading till they get tested next. A better plan would be to clinically diagnose the symptoms, treat the patients, make them better and not bother about the test results.

2) Withdraw the medicine list
Again in a stretched healthcare system, you need to look at the positives of this. A lot of people are not able to seek medical help at a hospital. So many consult online. So there is nothing wrong in having a standard medicine list.

Self-medication results in more complications, antibiotic resistance. Patients might take the wrong drugs, with less or more than the necessary dosage, for the wrong duration, at wrong hours, with the wrong mixture of other drugs without knowing the cross-reactions. Better to avoid.

3) Establish triage centers in open fields, parks
This is a good step. But there are not enough health care professionals to manage hospitals, so this looks like a far stretch,

We have to make the best & effective use of existing available medical personnel. The alternative is to let people die.

4) Create an environment of courage

Not sure how this is going to help. We don't need false feeling of security any more which is one reason we ended up in this horrible state in the first place.

This is to remove the fear of the disease. It is a nonlife-threatening, treatable disease. There is unnecessary fear associated with COVID-19. It hasn't helped at all and hindering the treatment. People are ignoring key symptoms and later turning their situation into emergencies.

5) Learn from others

There are n't much countries of our population and size who have successfully done this. The next biggest democracy, the US is 5 times smaller in population and they have fared worse both in cases and deaths.

We are stuck with Wuhan stratergy of lockdown, which China used to cut off that region from the rest of their country. China used it effectively once when the situation was unmanageable and never had to use it again. We never had to cut off any region. We are using it as an isolation strategy and it is not working. We are still using lockdown as if we are unable to come up with any alternative to solve the problem.

Other countries have found what works best for them and have moved on. Their citizens are planning holidays, the mask rule is off. Here we are stuck like we have flunked the exams and preparing for supplementary, while our classmates are celebrating the results.

[Thad E Ginathom]

I'm sure that many people do steam inhalation dangerously. I have seen somebody hold a baby's face close to the steam coming from an electric kettle!

[drrajasaravanan]

Originally Posted by msdivy

The same recommendations hold good for future waves.
My 2 cents.

Hi,
IMHO
1. The govt plays the number game and I literally don't give a damn. Maybe because I see the 2% of the whole lot who are worst hit.
2. Agreed. Self medicating and easy access to steroids has worsened and we are seeing the complications. As long as the access is easy it can't be done.
3. Mild cases and severe cases are diagnosed as they evolve and triaging is not as easy as you portrait it. It's easy to see this is as a flow chart but the reality is quite different.
4. This is the most ridiculous statement of all. The virus load we are exposed matters. My colleague who takes utmost precaution and has received his vaccination is presently isolated and we are keeping our fingers crossed. I have lost known colleagues both elder and younger while they were handling the crisis. You don't have a clue what you are speaking off. If doctors have to inspire courage by not donning I request you to spend one shift in an ICU doing the minimal and see with your own eyes. I find this in poor taste.
5. Agreed and we all are still learning.

And once again this thread instead of helping fellow bhpians who are going thro tough times has again shifted to something else. Can't we stick on to extending help wherever possible instead of posting such views. We will have time to do all this after this wave is over and before the next wave begins.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by Godzilla

https://nicholaswade.medium.com/orig...es-6f03564c038

Now I leave you to draw your own conclusions. I am curious to see the views of our BHPians. Thanks to Dr. Sujai for sharing this article.

Yes, when I need information about a complex virus which even epidemiologists are still baffled about, I will go ask a bachelor of arts who has a history of writing controversial "science" articles based on his beliefs.

On one of the books he wrote this is what people who actually study genomics etc.,

Over a hundred geneticists and biologists categorically dismissed Wade's view of race in a joint letter published in The New York Times on 8 August 2014:

Wade juxtaposes an incomplete and inaccurate account of our research on human genetic differences with speculation that recent natural selection has led to worldwide differences in Intelligence quotient (IQ) test results, political institutions and economic development. We reject Wade's implication that our findings substantiate his guesswork.[14]

Next if I fall sick, I think instead of going to a MD I should go to a civil engineer?

[Dr.Vikas]

Hi friends,
Sharing herewith the latest Code of Advisory by Govt on Mucormycosis, commonly known as Black Fungus. It's emerged recently during second wave of Covid 19 as one of the most deadly post Covid complications.

Hope, this helps in understanding and spreading awareness regarding the deadly disease.

Thanks

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by Fillmore

Pretty insightful video. He talks a bit slow though so you can watch it a 1.5x speed.

Dr. Mathew Varghese, senior doctor at St. Stephen’s Hospital, Delhi, undertakes a clear, step-by-step, exposition of the timeline of the progress of Covid- 19 and its treatment protocol.

Every patient or patient handler needs education on this. I think this is not new. The management of covid 1st wave & 2nd wave is similar. The difference is between the waves is 2nd wave has a faster transmission and slightly different symptoms (information I collected as a non-doctor).

Originally Posted by Dr.Vikas

Hi friends,
Sharing herewith the latest Code of Advisory by Govt on Mucormycosis, commonly known as Black Fungus. It's emerged recently during second wave of Covid 19 as one of the most deadly post Covid complications.

Couldn't read it, is there an English version? We know that steroids reduce immunity and the body is open for infection. How does this fungus come into the body? Are there any other infections to watch out for?

Originally Posted by drrajasaravanan

3. Mild cases and severe cases are diagnosed as they evolve and triaging is not as easy as you portrait it. It's easy to see this is as a flow chart but the reality is quite different.

Since it's a wave, these triage centers are needed for max 2 months. After that, it can be disbanded. This is not a new concept. Long back, whenever there was n outbreak, the medical personnel used to camp in affected areas for few days, till the cases were manageable.

4. This is the most ridiculous statement of all. The virus load we are exposed matters. My colleague who takes utmost precaution and has received his vaccination is presently isolated and we are keeping our fingers crossed. I have lost known colleagues both elder and younger while they were handling the crisis. You don't have a clue what you are speaking off. If doctors have to inspire courage by not donning I request you to spend one shift in an ICU doing the minimal and see with your own eyes. I find this in poor taste.

I didn't suggest stopping using PPE in a toxic environment. Hope there is no misinterpretation. Apologies if my statement came out in the wrong way.

[PearlJam]

Originally Posted by msdivy

It is a nonlife-threatening, treatable disease.
...
...
The main reason hospitals are flooded because many doctors have stopped their private practice. All such doctors must start their practice. They can remodel their clinics for good ventilation, with safe distancing to ensure safety & hygiene. PPE kit conveys the disease is dangerous. If doctors, who have taken 2 doses of the vaccine feel it's dangerous, what about normal folks, who most of them haven't received a dose? We need to remove fear of the disease.

When you say it's non life threatening, I assume you mean that statistically, most of the people will recover perfectly at home, and will be fine in a few days. Many of us here have already been saying that all along, stressing that IFR is very low. Of course, we've also debated on this enough, and there have been opposing viewpoints.

Even in this 2nd wave, the doctors have agreed that mortality rate is not higher. But since the infectivity rate is higher, and given our burgeoning population and scant regard for following norms, it translates into more number of absolute cases, and hence a proportionately higher number of hospitalizations and deaths. Even a 0.01% increase on 140 crore people is 1.4 lakhs!

But I do not agree with you that health care workers should stop using PPEs, just to instill some sense of confidence among the people. The cost-benefit just doesn't make sense. Why should they expose themselves even a bit more than required, if they don't want to? They see the worst of the cases - i.e the ones that are reaching the hospital are already in a relatively bad shape. We already know that they face a much higher viral load for a longer time duration, and different possible strains, that may not be neutralized effectively by the vaccines. Don't you think that reducing black marketeering, corruption in allocating of beds, hoarding of oxygen and medicines, reducing red tape at customs, etc will help in creating a much much higher level of confidence?

I'm aware of many doctors in their 60s, and many of them also having comorbidities. Yes, many have stopped their practice. They just do not find it worth it in these times, at their age. They are already close to retirement, and they have families too. I do not know if they fall under some essential services act, and whether they are legally allowed to skip duty or not - but I do not have any opinion on that.

[Eddy]

Originally Posted by Dr.Vikas

Sharing herewith the latest Code of Advisory by Govt on Mucormycosis, commonly known as Black Fungus. It's emerged recently during second wave of Covid 19 as one of the most deadly post Covid complications.

Is this a problem only in India? Or it it prevalent somewhere else too?

[Godzilla]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Yes, when I need information about a complex virus which even epidemiologists are still baffled about, I will go ask a bachelor of arts who has a history of writing controversial "science" articles based on his beliefs.

On one of the books he wrote this is what people who actually study genomics etc.

Next if I fall sick, I think instead of going to a MD I should go to a civil engineer?

Please read the comment section of the blog. There are researchers who validate the article as rational and scientific. One does not need degrees to share facts, he has compiled the information from other scientists. I feel it is worthy journalism.

No qualifications needed to ask valid questions.

It is okay to disagree. There is sufficient space for people to think whatever they find comfortable.