COVID-19/Coronavirus thread

[caulfield12]

3 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

WTF? Seriously how have you never seen a poll?

Sure, there were supposedly 6000 in the poll, but only 1600+ have been processed.  There were 25 additional results classified as “borderline.”  And there was no second test done after two additional weeks.

These antibody tests have already been proven to be inaccurate (especially the Chinese ones), so while 1,000 is enough for a political poll about candidate preference as a snapshot in time, would still like to see more.

Median income in Telluride is $63,000.

Show me the results in Pueblo or Grand Junction, not a ski resort town with presumably better health care resources and far fewer workers in blue collar or public facing/service positions.   Show me an area of Colorado with a high density or concentration of people, where the average salary is closer to $35-40,000.

 

http://zipatlas.com/us/co/zip-code-comparison/median-household-income.htm
Telluride would be roughly 50 out of 481 in terms of average salaries/community.   Placerville is #35, the closest I could find.

 

The test that Mei Mei Hu and Reese donated to the Telluride community is an antibody test developed by COVAXX, a newly formed subsidiary of their New York-based United Biomedical. It’s one of more than 30 commercially available tests without Food and Drug Administration approval under flexible rules adopted to address the COVID-19 pandemic. So far only one antibody test has received official FDA approval — a test made by Cellex, which uses just a pinprick of blood and produces results in about 15 minutes.

....

It’s absolutely my goal to make this standard for how we get the country back to a new normal,” Reese had said before the test was suspended. “If we tested everyone in the whole country and were prepared to do it twice, you would know exactly when you would be back at functioning — everybody back at work.”

Reese isn’t alone in his excitement. Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman invested an undisclosed amount of capital into COVAXX through his Pershing Square Foundation, and bestselling author and XPrize founder Dr. Peter Diamandis is listed as part of the COVAXX leadership team on the company’s website. Diamandis presents a fawning interview with Hu and Reese in a widely shared YouTube video, which does not disclose his relationship with the company. Neither responded to requests for comment.

https://khn.org/news/a-colorado-ski-community-planned-to-test-everyone-for-covid-19-heres-what-happened/

Edited April 16, 2020 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) authoritatively declared on Wednesday night that the American people understand that the economy needs to be reopened very soon and that when that happens, the deadly coronavirus is “gonna spread faster.”

Appearing on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, Kennedy—whose home state has been one of the hardest hit during the COVID-19 pandemic—insisted that social distancing restrictions need to be quickly reversed because “very soon, the can (car) is going to run out of road.”

After asserting that the world economy would soon collapse if the United States isn’t opened up in the near future, the Louisiana lawmaker went on to claim that nationwide shutdowns “did not stop the spread of virus.”

“I wish it had,” he added. “But it’s too late for that. The shutdown slowed the spread of the virus at enormous cost, but it still spread.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/gop-senator-gotta-reopen-country-020943247.html
 

 

 

As U.S. discouraged mask use for public, White House team raced to secure face coverings from Taiwan for senior staff

The Washington Post
By Carol D. Leonnig, Elizabeth Dwoskin and John Hudson 

In mid-March, a National Security Council team rushed to address what they saw as a threat to the U.S. government’s ability to function amid the advancing pandemic: a lack of masks to protect enough staff on the White House complex.

Alarmed by the small cache and the growing signs of an acute shortage of protective gear in the United States, a senior NSC official turned to a foreign government for help, according to people familiar with the situation.

The effort resulted in a donation of hundreds of thousands of surgical masks from Taiwan, which had plentiful domestic production and had sharply curtailed the spread of the coronavirus on the island.

The bulk of Taiwan’s goodwill shipment went to the Strategic National Stockpile, but 3,600 masks were set aside for White House staff and officials, administration officials said.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/16/politics/donald-trump-economy-coronavirus-pain/index.html

CNN reported Wednesday that governors and state health officials feel misled by the White House about a rapid, toaster-size testing device made by Abbott Laboratories and unveiled as a "whole new ballgame" by the President.

The federal government distributed the machines nationwide last week -- but accompanied them with only enough test kits to test around 115 people in each state.

Medical experts are warning that hospitals still lack sufficient tests to diagnose the sick, let alone to cover the rest of the population.

"We have made quite a bit of progress in the last few weeks. We are still not anywhere close to testing everyone who needs to be tested," said Dr. Jennifer Lee, an emergency room physician, on CNN's "The Situation Room."

"Let's stop pretending that three million tests is enough. We need the capacity to do millions of tests if not per day, per week," Lee said, adding that sometimes a hospital might have sufficient tests kits but lack swabs, or labs might lack supplies to process the tests so that doctors can make a diagnosis

 

Edited April 16, 2020 by caulfield12

[StrangeSox]

8 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

1. Having more aisles and more merchandise at those stores draws extra stuff in which raises the chances that 1 person is infected. 1 infected person touching the wrong things can lead to 10 more cases. You can’t shut down food or health supplies, but your garden is not worth someone’s life.

2. I have never been in a kayak or canoe with 10 people. I have been in small motorized  boats with like 10 family members. Repeatedly. 

i don’t know if those were part of the ones issued yesterday or if those were issued a while ago, but there’s no perfect way to do this. You’re trying to think through all of human behavior in every industry in like 3 days. Some stuff won’t make sense as written but it will address one specific situation that someone asked about. With 2 years to prepare maybe you write a different rule, but right now, overdoing the restrictions is way smarter than leaving one path too weak and winding up infecting the wrong person.

Motor boats also require additional fuel and maintenance. Same with driving far away to second homes/cabins, just more chances to spread infections to new places and new communities.

[bmags]

7 hours ago, YoYoIsMyHero said:

 

It's definitely a relief that Chicago avoided capacity issues at hospitals, but it's a bit disappointing now how slow the curve has been to actually dip. It seems impossible to keep the R0 beneath 1 with our self quarantining sending people to homes with multiple people.

[caulfield12]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/16/world/coronavirus-response-lessons-learned-intl/index.html
How Taiwan, Germany, South Korea and Iceland got it right

 

 

A total of 141 people who had apparently recovered from Covid-19 have tested positive again, South Korea's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said on Thursday.

KCDC deputy director Kwon Joon-wook said the agency did not know what caused the people to retest positive and was investigating. 

Most experts think it's unlikely that somebody will be re-infected for the coronavirus soon after recovering. It's possible that issues with testing – or varying amounts of viral RNA in the body, which the tests look for – could explain why people tested positive after testing negative. 

Kwon also said that the government is studying cultivated samples from the patients to determine whether the cases could be contagious. Kwon said the study will take about two weeks from today.

“Our KCDC workers are working day and night to collect samples and conduct studies,” Kwon said.

cnn.com

 

[Kyyle23]

Caulfield, come on dude.  Not every article 

[Jenksismyhero]

My secretary and her family all got it this weekend. Well, at least one confirmed this weekend, but they all had/have the same symptoms for the last couple weeks (gradually increasing in severity). Despite Trump's promise that anyone who wants a test can get one, only one of them could get tested because she was ultimately admitted to the hospital. The other two were not admitted, and the hospital staff explained that they could not waste a test on someone who was not admitted. One of them also went to the ER a week ago with the same symptoms, and instead of being tested, they were chastised for coming to the ER to begin with. 

Communication on this issue is really piss poor at basically every level it sounds like. 

[Texsox]

I just learned in laws living in England have tested positive and most are quarantined. I believe that being in laws it's two degrees of separation. 

[NorthSideSox72]

I tend to agree that a few of Whitmer's new conditions are probably a step too far, and that certainly doesn't help things. It just gives ammunition to the idiots who would make a fuss anyway but now are getting some sort of justification.

I have major concerns about the unrest that is likely to come from this in the next few weeks. People are being fed this absurd idea that the orders are illegal, that their freedoms are being taken away permanently, that this is all some huge conspiracy... and I fear that some of the deepest-in of the Cult 45 will fall for all of it. If the results are just a few traffic jam protests like we saw in MI, I will consider that a lucky outcome. I fear it will get much worse.

 

[StrangeSox]

These protests are being astroturfed heavily, expect them to get worse.

 

[tray]

1 hour ago, NorthSideSox72 said:

I tend to agree that a few of Whitmer's new conditions are probably a step too far, and that certainly doesn't help things.

Which ones do you think go too far?  I'm asking.

 

[pcq]

Just now, NorthSideSox72 said:

I tend to agree that a few of Whitmer's new conditions are probably a step too far, and that certainly doesn't help things. It just gives ammunition to the idiots who would make a fuss anyway but now are getting some sort of justification.

I have major concerns about the unrest that is likely to come from this in the next few weeks. People are being fed this absurd idea that the orders are illegal, that their freedoms are being taken away permanently, that this is all some huge conspiracy... and I fear that some of the deepest-in of the Cult 45 will fall for all of it. If the results are just a few traffic jam protests like we saw in MI, I will consider that a lucky outcome. I fear it will get much worse.

 

Our collective mental acuity is disconcerting. They are almost willing dupes. 

[soxfan49]

@caulfield12 I know you're at the center of this and we all appreciate your insights and opinions, but you're posts are not only incredibly difficult to read but extremely time consuming.

[NorthSideSox72]

37 minutes ago, tray said:

Which ones do you think go too far?  I'm asking.

 

The in-store limitations are pointless and make people angry while not accomplishing anything useful. The use of certain gas-powered devices is also questionable when the order already says generally that outdoor activities are good.

Nothing major, just some things that are dumb, and therefore give a foothold for the cult to use.

 

[StrangeSox]

40 minutes ago, NorthSideSox72 said:

The in-store limitations are pointless and make people angry while not accomplishing anything useful. The use of certain gas-powered devices is also questionable when the order already says generally that outdoor activities are good.

Nothing major, just some things that are dumb, and therefore give a foothold for the cult to use.

 

How many people have to be brought in to work in order to get a bag of fertilizer on the shelf in a store, though? Plant workers who supply the base materials to the fertilizer plants; shipping/logistics from plant-to-plant; packaging material manufacturers and their shipping; Plant workers to manufacture and package; warehouse workers for the manufactuer; shipping company employees to get to a retailer's centralized warehouse; various warehouse employees for the retailer to redistribute to the appropriate store; receiving and inventory at the store; stockers; cashiers; and then you driving to the store and all the support that goes with getting those people to their jobs and you to and from the store. I'm sure there are more I'm forgetting but the primary and secondary links in all of our supply chains are enormous.

It takes a lot of effort to get any product on to a store's shelf and then into your car and back home. The concern there wouldn't be fomite transmission along the chain necessarily, but in all of those people having to work to get pretty non-essential products on a store shelf. At a time when supply chains are already going to be stressed, why clog it up with lawn care stuff and have that whole chain of people coming into workplaces and potentially getting and spreading infections?

Without adequate testing so sick people can self-quarantine, we really shouldn't be engaging in all this frivilous activity that really does increase risk. That may only be a tiny fraction of a percent for the bag of fertilizer that you decided you really needed to go get, but in the aggregate that's a whole lot of additional risk, and for what?

It's at least something that needs to be seriously considered on a deeper level rather than dismissed out of hand.

 

 

edit: sorry supply chain/massive web was on my mind recently as we tried to get my toddler to eat her food by explaining all the effort it takes to get to her plate! When you step back and think about it, there is a ton of labor from dozens of people that go into getting almost anything onto a retail shelf.

Edited April 16, 2020 by StrangeSox

[tray]

I do not agree that the restrictions went too far but even if they did, the inconveniences were not worth protesting and blocking traffic.

 

 

[default]

15 hours ago, StrangeSox said:

 

How is it that stuff like this aways seems to get swept under the rug??    I can only find it being reported by 2 media outlets.

[southsider2k5]

34 minutes ago, default said:

How is it that stuff like this aways seems to get swept under the rug??    I can only find it being reported by 2 media outlets.

Typically the President acting like a clown takes up the headlines. 

[StrangeSox]

Good news in NYC

 

 

[almagest]

Quote

About 3 percent of blood donors in the Netherlands have developed antibodies against Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, RIVM director Jaap van Dissel told the Tweede Kamer based on an as-yet-unpublished study by blood bank Sanquin, NU.nl reports. If blood donors are representative of the Dutch population, then around 3 percent of Netherlands residents have had the coronavirus to a more or lesser extent.

https://nltimes.nl/2020/04/16/3-dutch-blood-donors-covid-19-antibodies

Netherlands has 29k reported cases. If the true infection rate is 3% of the population, that's actually 518k cases.

[Heads22]

Still unsure what we are doing in Iowa. The state has some 0-12 rating scale for six parts of the state. The governor had said if any region hit a 10, it would trigger a shelter in place for that region of the state. So, when northeast Iowa hit a 10.......that didn't happen. 

The other oddball part of today's press conference was when a reporter asked for guidance for Iowans without internet access with questions pertaining to stimulus checks.....and she said that that guidance would be posted on the state website later today.

 

 

✔@BethMalicki

 

Currently people can go hang out at each others' homes without fear of breaking any order. But after tonight, those in Region 6 can face a misdemeanor for gathering socially (except for weddings, funerals, etc.). That's the change.

 

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, almagest said:

https://nltimes.nl/2020/04/16/3-dutch-blood-donors-covid-19-antibodies

Netherlands has 29k reported cases. If the true infection rate is 3% of the population, that's actually 518k cases.

The caution on most of the antibody tests have been that the false-positive rate is something like 5%, so depending on the test that was used, there's a good chance that almost all of those are false positives. It's probably not a coincidence that the percentage falls right where you'd expect based on almost all the positives being false. 

[bmags]

125 dead in a 24 hour period in Illinois, first day over 100.

1100 new cases, again, if you average out the last few days we are basically just flat. 

I missed some of it, but Pritzker seemed to outline that some changes should allow a jump in testing next few days.

edit, have grown closer to 6k per day. 10 k is still the goal.

[almagest]

1 minute ago, Balta1701 said:

The caution on most of the antibody tests have been that the false-positive rate is something like 5%, so there's a good chance that almost all of those are false positives.  

That doesn't make sense. If 5% of positives are false then I would expect the actual % of positives to be something like 2.85%. Unless you mean that up TO 5% of the total number of positives are false, meaning anything below 5% are likely all false?

Either way, do you have a source on the 5% false positives? And if this false-positive rate is well known, why wouldn't these sorts of models have those projections built in already (either by direct result adjustment or multiple tests to confirm results)?

[southsider2k5]

One of the prisons by us has 90 positive cases out of about 3000 inmates, or 1 in 30 people.