06-29-2020, 10:09 AM
(06-29-2020, 03:10 AM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: I was prescribing it for the relief of symptom caused by airway inflammation regardless of the diagnosis whether it be acute bronchitis, COPD, asthma, ARDS, Covid 19, etc. Even if you don’t have a diagnosis, but they have airway inflammation there’s a good chance you’re going to use a steroid to treat it. That was always in the tool box. So I probably did, but wouldn’t know because we didn’t have the ability to test for Covid 19 until June.
That sounds great. When it finally becomes available. Because we’ve had PCR testing for less than a month and are still having problems with supplies. Right now we have less than 35 tests and will run out tomorrow morning without a re-supply.
The tests are being used via an emergency use authorization so manufacturers don’t have to submit validation data so if we do get the saliva test we won’t know the sensitivity or specificity to know how accurate the test is.
And I was responding to the comment we’re more prepared for treatment. And we’re not. Hell, we’ve barely improved testing. Improvements in contact tracing lags behind improvements in testing. And our President and Vice President (who leads the pandemic response) refuse to wear a face covering against medical advice the President himself announced to the public. Our President also says we use the best tests in the world, but those anterior nasal swabs we ran out of this week are made in China.
And when it comes to actually treating the patient as in what can you do for them it’s basically the same as it was 6 months ago. I can’t prescribe anything different than I wasn’t already able to prescribe. And the treatment is mainly supportive and symptomatic.
Mate we aren't on different sides of this arguement, I'm from Australia and things are a lot different over here, from the outside looking in it appears that the US has dealt with this terribly and your post suggests that you hold a similar view on this. Over here we are still able to aggressively trace every contact and that has been invaluable for us in our response. We wouldn't have been able to do that without the lockdown we went into which was the reason for my post that you responded to. I am not a doctor, just someone who is concerned about people I know in the US and how things are developing over there. Though it doesn't help when you have a leader who openly states that the reason for high numbers in the US is that you do to much testing so he has asked people to test less
