Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[Rasputin]

Or let's go straight to Bennet Ormalu--he's a forensic pathologist (specializes in autopsies)

Well Trump would rather have someone he knew and trusted, you know, someone on TV, like Quincy:

[old goat]

The point of the Fitbit (or something like it) would be that you would be wearing it all the time and it would be able to pick up on many aspects of your health, and notice symptoms that you weren't aware of. If it could take temp, heart rate, SPO2, and other vitals all day and night, that could be pretty useful. The thing about it being on you all the time, long term, is that it could then see what your baseline vitals are, then alert you when things are off from normal. Then you go get tested, quarantine, or at least don't visit your grandma in the nursing home.

I'm more talking about what could be done in the future with this technology, not what is currently available.

By the time a fitbit picked up a significant drop in O2 sat or increased pulse and temperature you would already be feeling pretty sick.
I wonder how often temperature screening picks up a fever. People with fever are home in bed. Temp screening makes sense to me in say a meat packing plant, where people have to come to work, or in an airport, where canceling a reservation, especially to fly back home would have significant consequences, but I think for the most part temperature checks are theater. Maybe someone has some actual data that proves me wrong.

[bobz]

The point of the Fitbit (or something like it) would be that you would be wearing it all the time and it would be able to pick up on many aspects of your health, and notice symptoms that you weren't aware of. If it could take temp, heart rate, SPO2, and other vitals all day and night, that could be pretty useful. The thing about it being on you all the time, long term, is that it could then see what your baseline vitals are, then alert you when things are off from normal. Then you go get tested, quarantine, or at least don't visit your grandma in the nursing home.

I'm more talking about what could be done in the future with this technology, not what is currently available.

Yup, it's cool tech for sure, and only a start in terms of what people (particularly athletes, serious or otherwise) will be able to monitor for a better understanding of their body state.

I wore one of those units, earlier tech that didn't do O2, mostly just activity monitoring, wore it for most of a year until it crapped out. I also used to run with a Polar heart monitor when I was doing race training. I'm hardly oblivious to the market segment. Again, though, apparently a dip in O2 numbers isn't a leading indicator on Covid, and it probably won't clue you in about mild symptoms that you're otherwise ignoring; it is something to to keep an eye on if you have symptoms and want to know when things are about to get a lot worse.

[bobz]

Air pollution may be ‘key contributor’ to Covid-19 deaths – study

The analysis shows that of the coronavirus deaths across 66 administrative regions in Italy, Spain, France and Germany, 78% of them occurred in just five regions, and these were the most polluted.

[pureantigravity]

All 92 passengers aboard a flight from Honolulu to Guam quarantined due to COVID-positive traveler
~The Guam Daily Post

[jono]

By the time a fitbit picked up a significant drop in O2 sat or increased pulse and temperature you would already be feeling pretty sick.
I wonder how often temperature screening picks up a fever. People with fever are home in bed. Temp screening makes sense to me in say a meat packing plant, where people have to come to work, or in an airport, where canceling a reservation, especially to fly back home would have significant consequences, but I think for the most part temperature checks are theater. Maybe someone has some actual data that proves me wrong.

I'd like to be wrong about that, too, but the fraction of people who get a fever at all is not very big. Going from memory, but I thought I saw about a third. So if you're checked every day when you show up at the plant that's one thing, but if you're looking for otherwise asymptomatic people among random patients you see twice a year it's definitely theater. If they do get a mild fever as the first symptom the odds it's timed right make detection even less likely.

OTOH, I hear the recommendation is now stop anyone over 100.0, down from 100.4. Seems unlikely but possible that more people get a really mild fever that went undetected at 100.4. If that change increases the fraction who get a qualified fever then maybe there's a bit more to it. Maybe. But anecdotal evidence indicates you're right: many hundreds checked, none detected. But lots of cancellations for symptoms. (And a few assholes who won't change a thing for a sniffle, of course.)

[huckbucket]

Medicaid enrollment is blowing up, driven by states where expansion of coverage is occurring under the ACA. So many people are fooked financially. Demographics here include any adult with income under 138% FPL ($1468/month indiv/$3013/month fam 4) is eligible, except some immigrants.

Can we please just turn this into universal coverage and be done with it? It's painful to watch.

https://xpostfactoid.blogspot.com/20...ndemic-23.html

[Name Redacted]

By the time a fitbit picked up a significant drop in O2 sat or increased pulse and temperature you would already be feeling pretty sick.
I wonder how often temperature screening picks up a fever. People with fever are home in bed. Temp screening makes sense to me in say a meat packing plant, where people have to come to work, or in an airport, where canceling a reservation, especially to fly back home would have significant consequences, but I think for the most part temperature checks are theater. Maybe someone has some actual data that proves me wrong.

Well, I started googling it, and they are apparently working on just what I described so they must think there's some merit.

What Fitbit and others offer is a massive set of biometric data from millions of people who wear the devices 24/7. I'm just spitballing here, but of the factors that these device can track, there's gotta be a signal of some sort that someone has contracted the virus before they know it. RHR, SPO2, Sleep, in the future possibly temperature, etc.

Like I said, if this virus is going to be around for years to come, this could be a great tool for early detection and hence prevention of the spread. It could also be used similarly for other illnesses like the flu or whatever other pandemic is next.

[Name Redacted]

Yup, it's cool tech for sure, and only a start in terms of what people (particularly athletes, serious or otherwise) will be able to monitor for a better understanding of their body state.

I wore one of those units, earlier tech that didn't do O2, mostly just activity monitoring, wore it for most of a year until it crapped out. I also used to run with a Polar heart monitor when I was doing race training. I'm hardly oblivious to the market segment. Again, though, apparently a dip in O2 numbers isn't a leading indicator on Covid, and it probably won't clue you in about mild symptoms that you're otherwise ignoring; it is something to to keep an eye on if you have symptoms and want to know when things are about to get a lot worse.

Once again, not talking about any one single biometric factor, I'm talking about all of the variables these things can measure, and what they could measure in the future. Early detection, screening, and potentially even detecting an outbreak earlier so that resources can be allocated to a region or even a neighborhood where it is occurring. The possibilities really are endless.

[riser4]

There was something about some smart thermometer that was good at identifying influenza outbreaks. Similar idea. Putting it all together could definitely be useful.

[Choss Jonger, Sr.]

Insanely bad air quality/ashfall and multi-fire, multiple failed attempts coupled with excellent 1.5 lane cliff-edge traffic jam-ups at crossings of the Great Divide yesterday and Tuesday (I-70 closure plus dingleberries in too-big trucks with too-long trailers hanging up on hairpins on three other passes) had me thinking of the excellent stress/covfefe/particulate synergies possible...so I naturally had a fried chicken/bacon/fat-slather sammich and pressed forth for a fourth pass and a fifth pass...only to get home to spousal pressure for alpine slog into the yuck zone of smoky haze at 13k above Frontrangia.

On the plus side I did get to blast I-70 in a 6.4L sportcar the other day. Which, as mother always says about motorcycles, is kinda like heroin: anyone can do it, it’s a helluva lotta fun, and it’ll kill you dead just like *that*.


Anywho, it’s been nice sitting in on the varied chitchat here and I hope 8/2021 finds you all fondly recalling the halcyon days of August 2020...the old man turned 75 just 5 days after the 3/4 C. Hiroshima day.

“Strange days have found us Strange days have tracked us down“

[Jax]

Lots of ear-danglers these days, and also masks hanging from rear view mirrors like goggles for gapes in the wintertime. The new fast fashion.

[Benny Profane]

Georgia's white people shrug off God.

https://twitter.com/dabeard/status/1293729434210578433

[Rideski]

More bad sanitizers.
https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safet...should-not-use


Anyone buying jugs from local booze distilleries? I’m running out need to find something new. Wouldn’t mind buying in bulk (a gallon or so) and giving some away. $5 for the tiny bottle at Safeway seems silly.

[bobz]

Once again, not talking about any one single biometric factor, I'm talking about all of the variables these things can measure, and what they could measure in the future. Early detection, screening, and potentially even detecting an outbreak earlier so that resources can be allocated to a region or even a neighborhood where it is occurring. The possibilities really are endless.

We're not exactly disagreeing. Elite athletes are getting a bunch of biomarker data collected and analyzed as a matter of routine, recently, in order to optimize their training, and it does help; significantly, though it's not exactly turning club athlete performance into star athlete performance. Tech is on its way (quickly on some metrics, slowly on others) to automating both the collection and the analysis of these biomarkers. Eventually (though not exactly soon), regular people (regular people with a lot of money in the earlier product generations), not just athletes, will be getting heads-up on all sorts of things, at various intervals in advance of symptoms.

So, since your main point now turns out to be "future tech is cool beans", then heck yeah, indeed, cool beans!

But, as two of us have already pointed out, your original claim that %SpO2 plus pulse data (and baselines of the two from constant monitoring, collected and stored and compared using amazingly miniaturized firmware) could be some kind of early predictive superpower for Covid... eh, not so much.

[bennymac]

I can see it now. “Doc I normally have an oxygen level of 97% and a heartbeat of 72. But over the last few weeks I’ve been more around 95% and 78. What does this all mean? I’ve looked on google and I’m pretty sure it’s lupus. So if I could just get tested that’d be great. It would really ease this anxiety I have right now.”

[KQ]

Georgia's white people shrug off God.

https://twitter.com/dabeard/status/1293729434210578433

Talk about homogenized.

[dan_pdx]

More bad sanitizers.
https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safet...should-not-use


Anyone buying jugs from local booze distilleries? I’m running out need to find something new. Wouldn’t mind buying in bulk (a gallon or so) and giving some away. $5 for the tiny bottle at Safeway seems silly.

I got some hand sanitizer from a local distillery back in April or so when the usual brands like Purell were sold out. It smells like ambrosia, I think they were using the same base as their liquor for drinking. They don't use any thickener though, so it's pretty much the same consistency as water (or whisky, more to the point). That makes it a little hard to spread around and get good coverage on your hands, so I've been using it in a spray bottle, which works well.

[bobz]

I can see it now. “Doc I normally have an oxygen level of 97% and a heartbeat of 72. But over the last few weeks I’ve been more around 95% and 78. What does this all mean? I’ve looked on google and I’m pretty sure it’s lupus. So if I could just get tested that’d be great. It would really ease this anxiety I have right now.”

You left out the best part: "It's almost certainly nothing; these numbers jump around for all sorts of reasons. Testing will run you $160, but I don't recommend it. Please settle the $75 co-pay on your way out." Oh, and later that day, "You're late for work, and this is your third warning."

[seano732]

I got some hand sanitizer from a local distillery back in April or so when the usual brands like Purell were sold out. It smells like ambrosia, I think they were using the same base as their liquor for drinking. They don't use any thickener though, so it's pretty much the same consistency as water (or whisky, more to the point). That makes it a little hard to spread around and get good coverage on your hands, so I've been using it in a spray bottle, which works well.

Yep same here. Got a gallon from the local distillery for $15. Bought 3 mini spray bottles, one for each vehicle one for the house. Works great.

[Ted Striker]

Next Stop, Nowhere.

[Name Redacted]

We're not exactly disagreeing. Elite athletes are getting a bunch of biomarker data collected and analyzed as a matter of routine, recently, in order to optimize their training, and it does help; significantly, though it's not exactly turning club athlete performance into star athlete performance. Tech is on its way (quickly on some metrics, slowly on others) to automating both the collection and the analysis of these biomarkers. Eventually (though not exactly soon), regular people (regular people with a lot of money in the earlier product generations), not just athletes, will be getting heads-up on all sorts of things, at various intervals in advance of symptoms.

So, since your main point now turns out to be "future tech is cool beans", then heck yeah, indeed, cool beans!

But, as two of us have already pointed out, your original claim that %SpO2 plus pulse data (and baselines of the two from constant monitoring, collected and stored and compared using amazingly miniaturized firmware) could be some kind of early predictive superpower for Covid... eh, not so much.

I don’t think you understand what these trackers are already capable of or what the different vital signs even mean to overall health or the possibility of early detection of a virus. You understanding of what a tracker offers seems to be about five years behind. It isn’t just neat new tech.

But honestly, this was all just an idea I had while drinking a few beers last night. A quick search of the topic shows that the idea is far beyond where I took it, and being aggressively researched by a lot of people who are much smarter than you or I. So I guess they think it has some merit too. Go figure.

[bobz]

I don’t think you understand what these trackers are already capable of or what the different vital signs even mean to overall health or the possibility of early detection of a virus. You understanding of what a tracker offers seems to be about five years behind. It isn’t just neat new tech.

Your understanding of what a tracker offers seems like a loose baggie blowing in the wind. If you want to play this handwaving game with someone else, may I suggest making up your mind whether it's current or hypothetical Fitbits that can predict Covid ahead of symptoms.

[Benny Profane]

More about long term, which, of, course, we haven't had enough time to witness.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02335-z

[old goat]

A quick search of the topic shows that the idea is far beyond where I took it, and being aggressively researched by a lot of people who are much smarter than you or I. So I guess they think it has some profit too. Go figure.

FIFY. I'm not disagreeing with you about what biometric data a fitbit, etc might be able to measure. I'm disagreeing about the value of that data in detecting coronavirus infection in asymptomatic people. Where it could be useful is if you call your doc and tell him you have a headache, fatigue, and a cough and your doc asks you what the fitbit says. Of course the demographic that wears fitbits and the demographic that is getting sick aren't exactly the same. I suppose we could give everyone a fitbit and make them wear it. But maybe we should get people to wear masks and not go to parties.

Pending a vaccine or a miracle cure, this pandemic will not be controlled by tech, it will be controlled or not by human behavior.

Meanwhile--if you were hoping not to have to vote at the local covid transmission center (assuming anyone volunteers to work the polls) Trump says no money for the USPS because Dems want mail in voting. He is hoping they will be bankrupt and out of business by October.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...ge%2Fstory-ans