COVID-19

[Taro T]

2 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

The articles themselves address the issue directly. There are only theories as to why Sweden bent the curve so dramatically after their spike. Trust in their health experts, higher level of societal responsibility (flying in the face of the theory that Sweden bent the curve by telling everyone to go crazy, folks, go crazy), measures the government took, their health care system etc. But it doesn't appear to be that enough people got infected to close down the virus.

On 1st glance it doesn't.  But, it seems to be another locale where they got to ~20% of the population exposed to the virus and then the new cases dropped significantly.  Coincidence or is there something to the theory that counterintuitively for this virus a herd immunity comes into play at ~ a 20% exposure rate.  (Hoping it's the latter, won't say yet that it's not the former.)

[That Aud Smell]

10 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

The articles themselves address the issue directly. There are only theories as to why Sweden bent the curve so dramatically after their spike. Trust in their health experts, higher level of societal responsibility (flying in the face of the theory that Sweden bent the curve by telling everyone to go crazy, folks, go crazy), measures the government took, their health care system etc. But it doesn't appear to be that enough people got infected to close down the virus.

my money's on that. about the same reason that Vermont is practically at New Zealand like levels right now.

[WildCard]

1 minute ago, That Aud Smell said:

my money's on that. about the same reason that Vermont is practically at New Zealand like levels right now.

Vermont may also be that, but they're much more rural too. 

[That Aud Smell]

4 minutes ago, WildCard said:

Vermont may also be that, but they're much more rural too. 

sure, that's fair. but the same outcome hasn't been achieved in, say, wyoming or either of the dakotas.

[SwampD]

4 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

They have penicillin now, too. It's been in all the placards posted down by the canal.

Does anyone care what the FDA says about hydroxyorangequine?

I heard that there is no penicillin made in the US. If true, that can't be good.

[Taro T]

52 minutes ago, SwampD said:

I heard that there is no penicillin made in the US. If true, that can't be good.

Don't know about pharmaceutical grade, but there is definitely penicillin being made here in the States.  Have you never been inside a college dorm room? All sorts of experiments going on & cultures growing.

[North Buffalo]

Antibiotics seem to be helping reducing secondary bacterial infections created by weakened immune systems and lung destruction caused by covid.  Heard from more than one person given zpacs who had covid and also tested positive for bacterial infections.  Can only surmise which allows the other to be more susceptible but covid from what I heard was the first diagnosis and the bacterial infection next.

[MakeSabresGrr8Again]

5 hours ago, North Buffalo said:

Antibiotics seem to be helping reducing secondary bacterial infections created by weakened immune systems and lung destruction caused by covid.  Heard from more than one person given zpacs who had covid and also tested positive for bacterial infections.  Can only surmise which allows the other to be more susceptible but covid from what I heard was the first diagnosis and the bacterial infection next.

Do you have any info/experience with RLF-100 (Aviptidil) I've heard about recently? 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2020/08/02/relief-neurorx-rlf-100-helps-critical-covid-19-patients/amp/

[North Buffalo]

35 minutes ago, MakeSabresGrr8Again said:

Do you have any info/experience with RLF-100 (Aviptidil) I've heard about recently? 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2020/08/02/relief-neurorx-rlf-100-helps-critical-covid-19-patients/amp/

Not here? no

[MakeSabresGrr8Again]

11 minutes ago, North Buffalo said:

Not here? no

Thanks...it sounds promising for more severe cases on vents.

[Zamboni]

Can anybody get past a pay wall for WSJ?

or have a subscription.

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-modest-good-news-on-covid-19-doctors-are-getting-better-at-treating-it-11596195903

[shrader]

8 hours ago, Zamboni said:

Can anybody get past a pay wall for WSJ?

or have a subscription.

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-modest-good-news-on-covid-19-doctors-are-getting-better-at-treating-it-11596195903

At first when I saw the link, I thought it was saying that there are 19 doctors who are getting better at treating it.

And no, I can't get through paywalls either.

[atoq]

On 8/3/2020 at 11:37 AM, Taro T said:

Um, there was no editorializing about the website & it provides links to many studies directly (including studies that lean positive, negative, & inconclusive) and includes whether they were peer reviewed or not.  Seems that having direct access to studies that often can be locked behind paywalls would be a good thing.

If you don't want to check out the studies, that absolutely is your prerogative.  But sending the OP into a politics thread that will have limited views seems to be counterproductive.

To the bold: Yes there was. The website selectively chooses studies, ignores the quality of the evidence, misrepresents the conclusions of studies, and fails to consider how studies compare to each other in terms of cases studies. The graphic at the top of the page is also complete BS and entirely misleading for reasons mentioned earlier, mainly leaving out Brazil, but also in it's general design and inclusion of debatable labels that reveal the agenda behind the site instead of letting the data speak for itself. Design is important, especially on the internet, and the misleading graph and tagline in bold are clearly given center stage at the top of the site. The graph has been widely shared on social media as this website has been disseminated (more on that later). That is the primary messaging of this website.

I agree with you that in an ideal world everyone would do their homework and read through the studies (or at least summaries) to draw their own informed conclusions. However that doesn't change the fundamentally flawed nature of this website. This website clearly makes it's argument at the top of the page, and it is asking a lot of people to click through hundreds of links and to read scientific articles about something that the creators of the website essentially presented as fact. That's expecting an awful lot from the general public, especially when you yourself have seemingly put little critical thought into the validity of the website as an independent data aggregation source.

I should have explained better my comment about how this website has been disseminated, which I think also ties into @Taro T's point about stereotypes about people hopeful about HCQ. Looking at reddit and twitter, this site is most popular in conspiracy theory communities, where the underlying narrative is that HCQ is being suppressed by the [CENSORED] to implement shut-downs to intentionally damage the economy and prevent [REDACTED] from being [CENSORED]. @Taro T and I have discussed information sources in other threads, so I went to his favorite news source: Two Bills Drive, Politics, Polls and Pundits, and sure enough c19study.com was posted there the day before Taro shared it here. On TBD the site was posted alongside many of the previously mentioned conspiracy theories and the misleading graph was also highlighted. I wonder: how many of those readers took the prerogative to read the actual studies? This HCQ website was initially shared on TBD via The Gateway Pundit, a website that is rated by multiple media review sites as having extreme bias with poor sourcing of credible information and prone to promoting conspiracy theories. So, if we follow the chain, c19study.com is being promoted on unreliable political news sources, picked up and disseminated in online communities where political conspiracy theories flourish (TBD, reddit conspiracy theory) and now being presented as an independent scientific data aggregation resource in a supposedly apolitical thread focused on the public health. When the flaws of the website were pointed out, the OP chided others for not doing their investigative homework in reading through the studies.

Look, I think we are all hopeful that existing and affordable medicines will prove effective at treating COVID. These are difficult times and we are all looking for answers. I didn't meant to stereotype those with interest in HCQ treatments, but given the brief review above it's undeniable that there is a segment of the population have latched onto HCQ for reasons beyond public health concerns, and that for those people, it is often a question of HCQ treatment vs wearing masks, quarantine and social distancing protocols. While I can understand if someone would want to take HCQ in consultation with their doctor, I would also hope that others could understand that others might opt against it, especially in pre-exposure or post-exposure stages, given the general side effects, possible complications, and lack of conclusive scientific evidence of the benefits in relation to COVID outcomes. For this reason and others, it's important that sufficient public health strategies are developed to not have to overly rely on unproven medications until they can be tested and approved by the FDA. Some people are justifiably worried that strategies to protect people's health (or at least public messaging on those strategies) have been overly-focused on unproven medications like HCQ at the expense of planning for solutions that have worked in other countries and in the US in previous months.

Thank you to @Taro T and @shrader for pointing out mine and other's imprecise usage of the word 'miracle cure'. I think my use of the word cure was a bit sarcastic and less in reference to how HCQ treats the virus and more in reference to the socioeconomic context, where many people seem to believe that we can continue on with business-as-usual and deal with letting the virus run rampant by treating it with HCQ or other existing medicines. Given that these treatments are still unproven, the seemingly prudent thing to do would be to try to prevent the virus from running rampant until more testing has been done. Premature celebration and promotion of unproven drugs, alongside the general downplaying of the severity of the virus, has undermined social distancing efforts and lead to more community spread. For this reason, in my opinion, until more evidence exists that COVID can be safely treated with HCQ, this debate is only a distraction from necessary and difficult conversations we need to have as a country on what can be done to protect public health while also protecting American individuals and businesses from impending economic disaster, as well as a distraction from developing realistic education strategies instead of trying to reopen schools, etc given how widespread the virus is in the US.

Edit: I've seen access to scientific papers mentioned in this thread. I think this topic is so vitally important because quality scientific information is so often hidden behind a paywall while misinformation is freely disseminated and promoted. For anyone looking to access academic papers try googling sci hub.

 

Edited August 5, 2020 by atoq

[LGR4GM]

2 minutes ago, atoq said:

To the bold: Yes there was. The website selectively chooses studies, ignores the quality of the evidence, misrepresents the conclusions of studies, and fails to consider how studies compare to each other in terms of cases studies. The graphic at the top of the page is also complete BS and entirely misleading for reasons mentioned earlier, mainly leaving out Brazil, but also in it's general design and inclusion of debatable labels that reveal the agenda behind the site instead of letting the data speak for itself. Design is important, especially on the internet, and the misleading graph and tagline in bold are clearly given center stage at the top of the site. The graph has been widely shared on social media as this website has been disseminated (more on that later). That is the primary messaging of this website.

I agree with you that in an ideal world everyone would do their homework and read through the studies (or at least summaries) to draw their own informed conclusions. However that doesn't change the fundamentally flawed nature of this website. This website clearly makes it's argument at the top of the page, and it is asking a lot of people to click through hundreds of links and to read scientific articles about something that the creators of the website essentially presented as fact. That's expecting an awful lot from the general public, especially when you yourself have seemingly put little critical thought into the validity of the website as an independent data aggregation source.

I should have explained better my comment about how this website has been disseminated, which I think also ties into @Taro T's point about stereotypes about people hopeful about HCQ. Looking at reddit and twitter, this site is most popular in conspiracy theory communities, where the underlying narrative is that HCQ is being suppressed by the [CENSORED] to implement shut-downs to intentionally damage the economy and prevent [REDACTED] from being [CENSORED]. @Taro T and I have discussed information sources in other threads, so I went to his favorite news source: Two Bills Drive, Politics, Polls and Pundits, and sure enough c19study.com was posted there the day before Taro shared it here. On TBD the site was posted alongside many of the previously mentioned conspiracy theories and the misleading graph was also highlighted. I wonder: how many of those readers took the prerogative to read the actual studies? This HCQ website was initially shared on TBD via The Gateway Pundit, a website that is rated by multiple media review sites as having extreme bias with poor sourcing of credible information and prone to promoting conspiracy theories. So, if we follow the chain, c19study.com is being promoted on unreliable political news sources, picked up and disseminated in online communities where political conspiracy theories flourish (TBD, reddit conspiracy theory) and now being presented as an independent scientific data aggregation resource in a supposedly apolitical thread focused on the public health. When the flaws of the website were pointed out, the OP chided others for not doing their investigative homework in reading through the studies.

Look, I think we are all hopeful that existing and affordable medicines will prove effective at treating COVID. These are difficult times and we are all looking for answers. I didn't meant to stereotype those with interest in HCQ treatments, but given the brief review above it's undeniable that there is a segment of the population have latched onto HCQ for reasons beyond public health concerns, and that for those people, it is often a question of HCQ treatment vs wearing masks, quarantine and social distancing protocols. While I can understand if someone would want to take HCQ in consultation with their doctor, I would also hope that others could understand that others might opt against it, especially in pre-exposure or post-exposure stages, given the general side effects, possible complications, and lack of conclusive scientific evidence of the benefits in relation to COVID outcomes. For this reason and others, it's important that sufficient public health strategies are developed to not have to overly rely on unproven medications until they can be tested and approved by the FDA. Some people are justifiably worried that strategies to protect people's health (or at least public messaging on those strategies) have been overly-focused on unproven medications like HCQ at the expense of planning for solutions that have worked in other countries and in the US in previous months.

Thank you to @Taro T and @shrader for pointing out mine and other's imprecise usage of the word 'miracle cure'. I think my use of the word cure was a bit sarcastic and less in reference to how HCQ treats the virus and more in reference to the socioeconomic context, where many people seem to believe that we can continue on with business-as-usual and deal with letting the virus run rampant by treating it with HCQ or other existing medicines. Given that these treatments are still unproven, the seemingly prudent thing to do would be to try to prevent the virus from running rampant until more testing has been done. Premature celebration and promotion of unproven drugs, alongside the general downplaying of the severity of the virus, has undermined social distancing efforts and lead to more community spread. For this reason, in my opinion, until more evidence exists that COVID can be safely treated with HCQ, this debate is only a distraction from necessary and difficult conversations we need to have as a country on what can be done to protect public health while also protecting American individuals and businesses from impending economic disaster, as well as a distraction from developing realistic education strategies instead of trying to reopen schools, etc given how widespread the virus is in the US.

 

[Curt]

1 minute ago, atoq said:

To the bold: Yes there was.

Holy wall o’ text that I won’t be reading.

Taro meant, I think, that there was no editorializing about the website being done in posts on this forum, not that there was no editorializing being done on the website itself.

[shrader]

@atoq, you had an interesting note there towards the end that the press any medication is getting is undermining the social distancing.  It's an interesting thought, but I really don't think it's much of a factor there.  Those folks who don't take that seriously, they'd be doing it no matter what stories were out there.  They may use some random treatment numbers as an excuse, but they'd just as easily find another excuse.  It has much less to do with "I'm not at risk" and so much more to with with "you can't tell me what to do".  If I was a medical researcher, check that, if I was driving medical research, the only miracle cure I'd be searching for is the one for stupid.

I do wish though that more people I would actually read the actual studies, here and any other time, and not just run with what is reported on the news.  There's no better sign of how broken that whole process is than just sitting and watching some day time TV, counting the number of ambulance chaser commercials you see, citing the latest association observed with any random disease (ok, usually cancer).

[Taro T]

8 hours ago, atoq said:

To the bold: Yes there was. The website selectively chooses studies, ignores the quality of the evidence, misrepresents the conclusions of studies, and fails to consider how studies compare to each other in terms of cases studies. The graphic at the top of the page is also complete BS and entirely misleading for reasons mentioned earlier, mainly leaving out Brazil, but also in it's general design and inclusion of debatable labels that reveal the agenda behind the site instead of letting the data speak for itself. Design is important, especially on the internet, and the misleading graph and tagline in bold are clearly given center stage at the top of the site. The graph has been widely shared on social media as this website has been disseminated (more on that later). That is the primary messaging of this website.

I agree with you that in an ideal world everyone would do their homework and read through the studies (or at least summaries) to draw their own informed conclusions. However that doesn't change the fundamentally flawed nature of this website. This website clearly makes it's argument at the top of the page, and it is asking a lot of people to click through hundreds of links and to read scientific articles about something that the creators of the website essentially presented as fact. That's expecting an awful lot from the general public, especially when you yourself have seemingly put little critical thought into the validity of the website as an independent data aggregation source.

I should have explained better my comment about how this website has been disseminated, which I think also ties into @Taro T's point about stereotypes about people hopeful about HCQ. Looking at reddit and twitter, this site is most popular in conspiracy theory communities, where the underlying narrative is that HCQ is being suppressed by the [CENSORED] to implement shut-downs to intentionally damage the economy and prevent [REDACTED] from being [CENSORED]. @Taro T and I have discussed information sources in other threads, so I went to his favorite news source: Two Bills Drive, Politics, Polls and Pundits, and sure enough c19study.com was posted there the day before Taro shared it here. On TBD the site was posted alongside many of the previously mentioned conspiracy theories and the misleading graph was also highlighted. I wonder: how many of those readers took the prerogative to read the actual studies? This HCQ website was initially shared on TBD via The Gateway Pundit, a website that is rated by multiple media review sites as having extreme bias with poor sourcing of credible information and prone to promoting conspiracy theories. So, if we follow the chain, c19study.com is being promoted on unreliable political news sources, picked up and disseminated in online communities where political conspiracy theories flourish (TBD, reddit conspiracy theory) and now being presented as an independent scientific data aggregation resource in a supposedly apolitical thread focused on the public health. When the flaws of the website were pointed out, the OP chided others for not doing their investigative homework in reading through the studies.

Look, I think we are all hopeful that existing and affordable medicines will prove effective at treating COVID. These are difficult times and we are all looking for answers. I didn't meant to stereotype those with interest in HCQ treatments, but given the brief review above it's undeniable that there is a segment of the population have latched onto HCQ for reasons beyond public health concerns, and that for those people, it is often a question of HCQ treatment vs wearing masks, quarantine and social distancing protocols. While I can understand if someone would want to take HCQ in consultation with their doctor, I would also hope that others could understand that others might opt against it, especially in pre-exposure or post-exposure stages, given the general side effects, possible complications, and lack of conclusive scientific evidence of the benefits in relation to COVID outcomes. For this reason and others, it's important that sufficient public health strategies are developed to not have to overly rely on unproven medications until they can be tested and approved by the FDA. Some people are justifiably worried that strategies to protect people's health (or at least public messaging on those strategies) have been overly-focused on unproven medications like HCQ at the expense of planning for solutions that have worked in other countries and in the US in previous months.

Thank you to @Taro T and @shrader for pointing out mine and other's imprecise usage of the word 'miracle cure'. I think my use of the word cure was a bit sarcastic and less in reference to how HCQ treats the virus and more in reference to the socioeconomic context, where many people seem to believe that we can continue on with business-as-usual and deal with letting the virus run rampant by treating it with HCQ or other existing medicines. Given that these treatments are still unproven, the seemingly prudent thing to do would be to try to prevent the virus from running rampant until more testing has been done. Premature celebration and promotion of unproven drugs, alongside the general downplaying of the severity of the virus, has undermined social distancing efforts and lead to more community spread. For this reason, in my opinion, until more evidence exists that COVID can be safely treated with HCQ, this debate is only a distraction from necessary and difficult conversations we need to have as a country on what can be done to protect public health while also protecting American individuals and businesses from impending economic disaster, as well as a distraction from developing realistic education strategies instead of trying to reopen schools, etc given how widespread the virus is in the US.

Edit: I've seen access to scientific papers mentioned in this thread. I think this topic is so vitally important because quality scientific information is so often hidden behind a paywall while misinformation is freely disseminated and promoted. For anyone looking to access academic papers try googling sci hub.

 

You produce a 5 paragraph novella because you didn't see the word "about" in a sentence you bolded, but then say others don't read things carefully.  

And presumably upon reflection, as the comment was added much later, you seem to agree that the point of getting people access to papers so they can read for themselves is important.  But you take issue with providing people access to 67 papers when your subsequently cited reference only brings up 51.  You don't like the 1st site because it includes non-peer reviewed studies along with peer reviewed studies and "selectively "provides links, but that site is very transparent about that fact and actually points out whether a study was peer reviewed or not and it links to more studies than your preferred source.  And thank you again for providing that link and mentioning sci.hub as having access to additional studies is a good thing.  And that is all the original post on this subject was doing; proving people a source to access studies directly without having to rely on somebody else's interpretation of those studies.

But your paragraph addressed to Shrader and myself is kind of funny.  Please show us anywhere where yours truly has touted not social distancing, ignoring proper hygiene, or not researching other potential treatments & vaccines.  Pretty sure you can't.

Premature celebration of an unproven treatment IS a bad thing.  Pretty sure there was no celebration of it here.  But, also, reflexively shutting down studies of a drug in potentially useful combinations due to the results of 2 studies that were both retracted in short order due to serious problems with those studies is also bad.  As you mentioned, people don't always have the time, inclination, nor necessarily the background to fully understand what a particular study has found (or at minimum the authors purport it has found); which is why premature trashing of an unproven treatment is as bad as premature celebration of that treatment is.  

Also, not sure how you concluded that researchers worldwide studying whether HCQ based treatment regimens were viable was altering public policy appreciably causing the virus to spread.  Don't agree with that take, but not a big deal.

[FogBat]

Well, there is one “nice” thing about this pandemic: I get to show my team spirit.

 

 

[shrader]

12 hours ago, Taro T said:

But your paragraph addressed to Shrader and myself is kind of funny.  Please show us anywhere where yours truly has touted not social distancing, ignoring proper hygiene, or not researching other potential treatments & vaccines.  Pretty sure you can't.

This may be the first time you've ever spelled my name correctly.  I hope everything's ok.

[Stoner]

Hoping there are some nurses, CNAs etc. who can chime in here. Not sure it's something the docs can comment on.

Temperature checks at businesses, airports and the like are being touted as ways of keeping sick people out. However, I observed something on TV just now, the same thing I've noticed at work when I take people's temps: when you take temps using the infrared thermometer without waiting long enough between readings, you tend to get a very similar run of results.

The CEO of Frontier Airlines was on MSNBC. As he spoke about what the airline is doing to protect people, the video behind him showed a worker taking temps. You could see the readings. It started with 97.6 as the worker took a new reading, which was 97.7. There was a cut, and the new reading displayed 97.5 as the worker took two new temps in a row — 97.6 and 97.4. A third shot showed the thermometer starting at 97.6.

I get a similar lack of spread when I go room to room in quick succession.

Now, it's kind of old thinking that the average human temp is 98.6. It might be up to degree lower, so the readings at the airport could very well be valid. Maybe our stat man Shrader could opine on the chances of getting six readings so similar.

I tracked down the manual for the thermometer I use, and you're supposed to wait one minute between readings. I have no scientific explanation for why not waiting would result in the next temp being so close to the last. But there must be a reason for the one minute rule.

To add to the intrigue, when I did temps spaced out by several minutes or longer, the spread was more pronounced, although it wasn't unusual to get 96.9 and 96.7 in a row, but not for six to eight results. There's a couple in the same room whose temps I take together, and we have a running joke about who's going to "win." She's 96.6 and he's 96.7. Then the next day he's 96.8 and she's 96.9.

I haven't mentioned it to the boss. I'd rather get skewed results than have to do it the old fashioned way.

[SwampD]

32 minutes ago, shrader said:

This may be the first time you've ever spelled my name correctly.  I hope everything's ok.

He’s fine. He capitalized it.

[Brawndo]

1 hour ago, PASabreFan said:

Hoping there are some nurses, CNAs etc. who can chime in here. Not sure it's something the docs can comment on.

Temperature checks at businesses, airports and the like are being touted as ways of keeping sick people out. However, I observed something on TV just now, the same thing I've noticed at work when I take people's temps: when you take temps using the infrared thermometer without waiting long enough between readings, you tend to get a very similar run of results.

The CEO of Frontier Airlines was on MSNBC. As he spoke about what the airline is doing to protect people, the video behind him showed a worker taking temps. You could see the readings. It started with 97.6 as the worker took a new reading, which was 97.7. There was a cut, and the new reading displayed 97.5 as the worker took two new temps in a row — 97.6 and 97.4. A third shot showed the thermometer starting at 97.6.

I get a similar lack of spread when I go room to room in quick succession.

Now, it's kind of old thinking that the average human temp is 98.6. It might be up to degree lower, so the readings at the airport could very well be valid. Maybe our stat man Shrader could opine on the chances of getting six readings so similar.

I tracked down the manual for the thermometer I use, and you're supposed to wait one minute between readings. I have no scientific explanation for why not waiting would result in the next temp being so close to the last. But there must be a reason for the one minute rule.

To add to the intrigue, when I did temps spaced out by several minutes or longer, the spread was more pronounced, although it wasn't unusual to get 96.9 and 96.7 in a row, but not for six to eight results. There's a couple in the same room whose temps I take together, and we have a running joke about who's going to "win." She's 96.6 and he's 96.7. Then the next day he's 96.8 and she's 96.9.

I haven't mentioned it to the boss. I'd rather get skewed results than have to do it the old fashioned way.

A recital temperature is the most accurate reading ?

[shrader]

59 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Hoping there are some nurses, CNAs etc. who can chime in here. Not sure it's something the docs can comment on.

Temperature checks at businesses, airports and the like are being touted as ways of keeping sick people out. However, I observed something on TV just now, the same thing I've noticed at work when I take people's temps: when you take temps using the infrared thermometer without waiting long enough between readings, you tend to get a very similar run of results.

The CEO of Frontier Airlines was on MSNBC. As he spoke about what the airline is doing to protect people, the video behind him showed a worker taking temps. You could see the readings. It started with 97.6 as the worker took a new reading, which was 97.7. There was a cut, and the new reading displayed 97.5 as the worker took two new temps in a row — 97.6 and 97.4. A third shot showed the thermometer starting at 97.6.

I get a similar lack of spread when I go room to room in quick succession.

Now, it's kind of old thinking that the average human temp is 98.6. It might be up to degree lower, so the readings at the airport could very well be valid. Maybe our stat man Shrader could opine on the chances of getting six readings so similar.

I tracked down the manual for the thermometer I use, and you're supposed to wait one minute between readings. I have no scientific explanation for why not waiting would result in the next temp being so close to the last. But there must be a reason for the one minute rule.

To add to the intrigue, when I did temps spaced out by several minutes or longer, the spread was more pronounced, although it wasn't unusual to get 96.9 and 96.7 in a row, but not for six to eight results. There's a couple in the same room whose temps I take together, and we have a running joke about who's going to "win." She's 96.6 and he's 96.7. Then the next day he's 96.8 and she's 96.9.

I haven't mentioned it to the boss. I'd rather get skewed results than have to do it the old fashioned way.

I don't know a thing about how much body temp fluctuates or the precision of those thermometers, but I really don't see much fluctuation in the numbers you're showing.  I'd start to wonder if I saw something like a 94 pop up, but those little changes you're mentioning scream device fluctuations to me.  Now, if they're supposed to be more consistent than that, you're probably onto something with that "one minute between readings" thing.

I've wondered about those thermometers a bit lately, about how sensitive they are and how quickly body temperature can swing.  I've had my temperature taken twice with them recently and both times, I had just gotten out of my car that had been baking in the sun all day.  It was maybe 5 minutes from home, so nowhere near enough time for the 10 year old car to be any less of an oven.  Is that going to cause a higher temperature reading that my true internal temp?  Sure, baking in the car probably won't alter that internal temperature much, but since the thermometer is reading right there on the skin, you would think it should get a higher reading.  They never did tell me the results, so I'm left completely in the dark.

[Stoner]

1 hour ago, Brawndo said:

A recital temperature is the most accurate reading ?

That's how the choir people got Covid!

[Stoner]

1 hour ago, shrader said:

I don't know a thing about how much body temp fluctuates or the precision of those thermometers, but I really don't see much fluctuation in the numbers you're showing.  I'd start to wonder if I saw something like a 94 pop up, but those little changes you're mentioning scream device fluctuations to me.  Now, if they're supposed to be more consistent than that, you're probably onto something with that "one minute between readings" thing.

I've wondered about those thermometers a bit lately, about how sensitive they are and how quickly body temperature can swing.  I've had my temperature taken twice with them recently and both times, I had just gotten out of my car that had been baking in the sun all day.  It was maybe 5 minutes from home, so nowhere near enough time for the 10 year old car to be any less of an oven.  Is that going to cause a higher temperature reading that my true internal temp?  Sure, baking in the car probably won't alter that internal temperature much, but since the thermometer is reading right there on the skin, you would think it should get a higher reading.  They never did tell me the results, so I'm left completely in the dark.

To the first paragraph, you lost me a little. These are temps taken on different people. Maybe I'm being neurotic, but I'd expect to see 97.5, 96.5, 96.8, 98.1 etc.

You're right. The infrared is reading the temperature of your forehead surface. I'm always over 100 when I take my temp first going in for work, then it drops down to near normal, sometimes within a minute.