06-29-2020, 03:10 AM
(06-29-2020, 02:18 AM)AussieBengal Wrote: Yes but you weren't writing a prescription for it to be used with Covid 19 in January, Feb, March or April.
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.
Quote:The new Saliva test they are rolling out in Victoria uses the same PCR test in the lab as the current nose and throat test.
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.
Quote:Testing is not a treatment no but I was also discussing the purpose of flattening the curve was to buy time to improve resourses and practices and improving wide scale testing is an important component of combating Covid 19. Countries that have managed to do well up to this point are the countries that implemented aggressive contact tracing to break the infection chain. The US is way past this point, but increasing the capability of testing and contact tracing was a significant advantage of flattening the curve here.
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.
