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posted by Fnord666 on Friday March 27 2020, @04:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the every-cloud-has-a-silver-lining dept.

Coronavirus: Six heartening stories you may have missed:

It's been just over two weeks since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak, which first appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late December, a global pandemic.

[...] Infections, the rates of which have accelerated since the outbreak began, have touched nearly every corner of the world and prompted unprecedented and widespread travel restrictions and business closures that threaten a global recession. At least three billion people, including India's 1.3 billion population, have been ordered to stay home.

Even as new cases in China have dropped dramatically, leading to the easing of many restrictions, places such as Italy, Spain, Iran, and the United States have become new hot spots for the virus, for which there is no vaccine or proven treatment.

[...] WHO launches global trial of possible treatments

The WHO launched a global trial to quickly assess the most promising treatments for the virus and the disease it causes. The organisation is currently looking at four drugs or drug combinations that were developed for other illnesses and are already approved for human use and could be made widely available.

[...] UK call for volunteers exceeds expectations

United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday night called for 250,000 volunteers to help deliver groceries and medicine to the most vulnerable citizens who have been ordered to self-isolate.

Within 24 hours, more than 400,000 people had signed up. That number soon rose to more than half a million, according to the BBC - larger than Britain's armed forces, which currently stand at just over 192,000.

[...] Air pollution drops

A silver lining of countries locking down across the planet, grinding transport and most industry to halt, has been a marked decline in air pollution.

Satellite imagery has shown pollution in China plummeting as large swaths of the country shut down at the height of the outbreak there.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) on Wednesday confirmed that the concentration of pollutants, in particular nitrogen dioxide, which is largely caused by road transport, recently massively declined in Europe "especially in major cities under lockdown measures".

[...] Italy coronavirus outbreak 'peak' may soon be reached

Italy has so far recorded more than 8,000 deaths and over 80,000 infections.

On Saturday, Italy recorded its highest daily death toll of 793 new fatalities from COVID-19.

However, since then the daily toll, while remaining high, has not surpassed that number. Daily new cases have also leveled off.

[...] US hospitals prepare to use blood plasma as treatment

[...] The US Food and Drug Administration said it is expediting approving the use of recovered patients' plasma to treat the newly infected.

When a person gets infected by a particular virus, the body starts making specially designed proteins called antibodies to fight the infection. After the person recovers, those antibodies float in survivors' blood - specifically in the plasma, the liquid part of blood - for months, even years.

Injecting the plasma into another infected patient could boost the body's ability to fight the infection, lessening the severity of the disease and freeing up hospital resources.

[...] Cuban doctors sent to help overwhelmed Italian health system

Cuba has dispatched a brigade of doctors and nurses to Italy to aid in the fight against coronavirus, following a request from the worst-affected Lombardy region.

[...] Cuba has sent its "armies of white robes" to disaster sites around the world since its 1959 revolution. However, the 52-strong brigade of medical personnel represents the first time Cuba has sent an emergency contingent to Italy, which has been brought to its knees by the pandemic, despite being one of the world's richest countries.


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  • (Score: 2) by legont on Friday March 27 2020, @06:02PM (11 children)

    by legont (4179) on Friday March 27 2020, @06:02PM (#976391)

    Jack Ma offered the US 500,000 face masks and thousands of ventilators. I haven't heard any thank you.
    Meantime Musk bought a few from China and now is the hero of the USSA.

    --
    "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 27 2020, @07:17PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 27 2020, @07:17PM (#976415)

    Everyone can offer or pledge whatever they want on twitter. But did anyone actually receive them? Don't offer, post the proof of delivery, then the other parties can either DENY the proof of delivery or THANK YOU for the donation.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 27 2020, @07:23PM (7 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday March 27 2020, @07:23PM (#976421)

    There's all kinds of ventilators. The University of Florida has put out a paper proposing "home grown" ventilators using common industrial valves and 3D printed parts.

    I suppose if I were dying, I'd take a UF 3D printed hack-a-vator rather than die, but... given a choice... I'd much rather have one made on the standard medical device assembly lines.

    As I understand it, Musk and NASA are supplying Medtronic with some of the harder to source parts needed to increase their ventilator production from 150 a week to 500+ a week.

    What the ingenious entrepreneur should be doing today is figuring out what to do with all the surplus ventilators after the crisis passes. They're bulky and not the sort of thing you want to put mothballs in.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 27 2020, @08:25PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 27 2020, @08:25PM (#976437)

      Easily the most innovative design. [gtech.co.uk]

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by legont on Friday March 27 2020, @08:33PM (5 children)

      by legont (4179) on Friday March 27 2020, @08:33PM (#976440)

      As a one who actually had a chance to try one, I'd prefer to die than do it again. It is, basically, constant waterboarding. My wife was given an instruction to never ever give a consent.

      --
      "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 27 2020, @08:46PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 27 2020, @08:46PM (#976445)

        Don't they typically sedate you / induce a coma, so you would be unaware during the experience?

      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 27 2020, @09:03PM (3 children)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday March 27 2020, @09:03PM (#976455)

        My wife was sedated when they intubated her for an emergency C-section. Very competent hospital staff, calm setting, nothing to rush them really - but... she's still scarred in her trachea 18 years later.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Friday March 27 2020, @09:28PM (2 children)

          by legont (4179) on Friday March 27 2020, @09:28PM (#976465)

          I woke up from my surgery on this thing. It was truly horrible. I could not talk and I could not see but I made them to give me paper and a pen and I demanded they remove it. I threatened them with a fight. Since they could not restrain me for the fear of stitches breaking, they complied. They did tell me I might die but I wrote "so be it".
          Not sure about sedating. I was sedated, but I guess it was dangerous in my case to go above certain level and it was not enough. I felt no pain and no fear, but that half dead lost breath; hard to explain. I truly hope they give all those elders on machines unlimited morphine. If not, it is pure torture and immediate death is better option.
          I am glad my parents are dead because it they get to that stage of the virus I would kill them myself.

          --
          "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday March 28 2020, @03:13AM (1 child)

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday March 28 2020, @03:13AM (#976559)

            If you're ever in ICU again, know this: morphine suppresses respiration. It became important for my wife because they gave her the morphine button and told her to press it whenever she was in pain, well - she was in pain all the time and tried to comply, so she got enough morphine that her breathing slowed and she started desaturating (O2), so they responded to that by giving her a dry O2 nasal cannula which was causing her nasal passages to crack and bleed - not the greatest thing in an ICU... I got her to stop pressing the button, so she could take off the cannula without setting off SaO2 alarms.

            Sometimes, I think they manage for extended stays rather than patient outcome.

            --
            🌻🌻 [google.com]
            • (Score: 2) by legont on Saturday March 28 2020, @03:32AM

              by legont (4179) on Saturday March 28 2020, @03:32AM (#976561)

              Yeah, that was probably the reason cause I was below 90 on oxygen even under mask.

              --
              "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
  • (Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Friday March 27 2020, @10:00PM

    by linkdude64 (5482) on Friday March 27 2020, @10:00PM (#976478)

    I know I threw the match on your house but I came back with a fire extinguisher, didn't I?!?! Come on, world!! I mean....come ON! I know it's only the second, or third...or maybe fourth major plague we've inflicted on you in the past 20 years or so but...I mean, come on!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2020, @10:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2020, @10:30PM (#977040)