COVID-19/Coronavirus thread

[Balta1701]

5 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

I really think most people don't really either know or believe that people without symptoms pass this virus. 

What's particularly nasty is that you won't realize whether this has become an epic mistake for a couple of weeks. New York made their mistakes March 10-24, but weren't to 500 deaths/day until about 3 weeks after that. 

[StrangeSox]

15 minutes ago, Heads22 said:

 

What is that even supposed to mean??

[Dick Allen]

6 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

What's particularly nasty is that you won't realize whether this has become an epic mistake for a couple of weeks. New York made their mistakes March 10-24, but weren't to 500 deaths/day until about 3 weeks after that. 

And that is how they were looking at people at the airports, when they first started limiting European travel.  You had to look like you were on death's front door to be pulled out of line and examined. 

[ScootsMcGoots]

3 hours ago, Jerksticks said:

Exactly.  And anybody that’s tried to get a test has found it extremely difficult to do so, my family and friends included.  I’d be more agreeable to the idea that we’ve had 1,000,000 pretty damn sick people that were sick enough to get tested.  That’s not perfect science either but I could ALMOST be convinced that it represents some kind of data point that is SOMEWHAT close to accurate.  
 

What do you think of that Scoot?
 

 

I think way more people have it than what we realize, and the as we get more tests, numbers are going to spike, and it's going to look very bad. Especially as these states start to open up, people are going to talk of a "second wave," while that may be true, are the rise of cases due to people going out more or due to more people being tested? And I think a lot of people have it and don't even realize it. I think way more people have mild cases and don't even have symptoms.

And yes, the tests have been hard to get, but free public testing centers are starting to open up. Here in Grand Rapids where I live, Rite Aid has opened up testing to the public, although you do have to fill out a survey, so I'm sure there is some kind of qualification. However, the front of the page does say it is specifically for people who have not displayed any symptoms. Before, you couldn't get a test if you didn't have any symptoms. That's starting to change. 

My questions is, how many people do you test, and how often should they be tested? I can be tested today and be negative, but in a week I can take the same test and because I touched a loaf of bread at the store that someone else who had Covid touched and put back down, now I have it. 

https://www.riteaid.com/

Edited April 27, 2020 by ScooterMcGee

[bmags]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/world/europe/coronavirus-vaccine-update-oxford.html

Some discussion on whether they should change the rules to allow people to volunteer for human trials on twitter.

[greg775]

7 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

Playing these same numbers out for the United States following a similar strategy (see below) as the UK would yield rough 475,000 deaths.   

(Greg, I haven’t gone outside once since January 20th or 21st, haven’t cut my hair once, haven’t had Starbucks once...just curious, why do you feel that are you facing mental health problems that are especially acute or unique?  I could even argue that I’m even in a certain amount of pain waiting to have a dental crown put on after having gone 4 months since the original series of root canal treatments... )
 

The UK could experience more than 100,000 coronavirus deaths later this year if the government eases restrictions to focus on just protecting those most at risk, according to one of the country’s leading epidemiologists.

Neil Ferguson is one of the scientists who has been advising the government in its response to the pandemic.

"The people most at risk of death are in care homes or have other health conditions," Ferguson said in an interview with the 'Unherd' website.

"I am very sceptical (skeptical) we can get to the level of shielding which would make that a viable strategy,” he said, referring to the idea of easing restrictions for most people and focusing government efforts on those most at risk.
"If you just achieve 80 percent shielding -- 80 percent reduction in infection risk in those groups – we still project you’d get well over 100,000 deaths later this year."

www.cnn.com

 

Hey, go back two months. We as a society were NEVER allowed to question others' mental health just to make sure it was GOOD. Never forget how easily we human can be triggered; don't forget all the mental health drugs we are on. I need to get out to go to the park and get drive through coffee or I'd go insane. You can't think about others' mental health year after year after year and stop just cause there is a virus. Everybody's feelings must be considered.

[bmags]

6 minutes ago, greg775 said:

Hey, go back two months. We as a society were NEVER allowed to question others' mental health just to make sure it was GOOD. Never forget how easily we human can be triggered; don't forget all the mental health drugs we are on. I need to get out to go to the park and get drive through coffee or I'd go insane. You can't think about others' mental health year after year after year and stop just cause there is a virus. Everybody's feelings must be considered.

Greg - go outside for walks. Get sunshine. Go to starbucks drive thru.

Wear a mask, bring hand sanitizer. Keep your distance. Wash your mask, wipe down your door handles, wash your hands. You'll be fine.

[StrangeSox]

The additional ~$350B in funding for small businesses lasted all of 2 minutes.

Congress is doing maybe 5% of what's necessary to really address what we're facing.

 

[Heads22]

greg can just move to iowa, the more the merrier at church

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, ScooterMcGee said:

I think way more people have it than what we realize, and the as we get more tests, numbers are going to spike, and it's going to look very bad. Especially as these states start to open up, people are going to talk of a "second wave," while that may be true, are the rise of cases due to people going out more or due to more people being tested? And I think a lot of people have it and don't even realize it. I think way more people have mild cases and don't even have symptoms.

And yes, the tests have been hard to get, but free public testing centers are starting to open up. Here in Grand Rapids where I live, Rite Aid has opened up testing to the public, although you do have to fill out a survey, so I'm sure there is some kind of qualification. However, the front of the page does say it is specifically for people who have not displayed any symptoms. Before, you couldn't get a test if you didn't have any symptoms. That's starting to change. 

My questions is, how many people do you test, and how often should they be tested? I can be tested today and be negative, but in a week I can take the same test and because I touched a loaf of bread at the store that someone else who had Covid touched and put back down, now I have it. 

https://www.riteaid.com/

Right now, the total number of positive tests in the US is 940,000, only 0.3% of the population, so it is also entirely possible that there are "Way more people having it than we realize" and still "an overwhelming number of people have no exposure and re-opening moderate areas will allow much larger second waves if people actually go out". If 1% of the US had exposure, that would be 3x the number actually tested positive, but then 99% of the population could still be waiting to be exposed. RIght now, New York has at most 25% of their population exposed, so New York has plenty of unexposed people to repeat the current outbreak nightmare there if they went back to normal business. 

[bmags]

Another decline in testing but still 13k. 1900 positives so slight uptick in positive percentage. Still much better looking than last wed.

[Balta1701]

Texas stay at home order now officially expires April 30. Limited capacity to 25% but all businesses, restaurants, movie theaters malls are allowed to reopen. May 18 will allow 50% occupancy - only 2.5 weeks later. 

[ScootsMcGoots]

51 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Right now, the total number of positive tests in the US is 940,000, only 0.3% of the population, so it is also entirely possible that there are "Way more people having it than we realize" and still "an overwhelming number of people have no exposure and re-opening moderate areas will allow much larger second waves if people actually go out". If 1% of the US had exposure, that would be 3x the number actually tested positive, but then 99% of the population could still be waiting to be exposed. RIght now, New York has at most 25% of their population exposed, so New York has plenty of unexposed people to repeat the current outbreak nightmare there if they went back to normal business. 

So that begs the question, then, are we delaying the inevitable with the stay at home orders?

[StrangeSox]

Can't imagine many restaurants or theaters doing well at 25% capacity with 90% overhead costs.

 

[StrangeSox]

Just now, ScooterMcGee said:

So that begs the question, then, are we delaying the inevitable with the stay at home orders?

No, because it's not inevitable that the cases all come at once and completely overwhelm our hospitals.

 

 

[Kyyle23]

 

[ScootsMcGoots]

10 minutes ago, StrangeSox said:

No, because it's not inevitable that the cases all come at once and completely overwhelm our hospitals.

 

 

Right, that's been the main concern all along is hospitals becoming overwhelmed. Which is a very valid concern, when you have no data to work with. The data is starting to come in. From what I've researched, a lot of the hospitals are not overwhelmed. In fact health care workers are being laid off because hospitals are not accepting non-critical cases. They are underwhelmed. This is the case where I live and its happening in other parts of the country. The data is starting to come in and I think it's showing that the measures we are taking need to be adjusted.

I think we need to look at this as a more regional and county-by-county crisis, rather than state-by-state. Also, we need to not focus on just numbers. Yes, they are very very important, but contrary to what a lot of people would say, they only tell part of the story.

Edited April 27, 2020 by ScooterMcGee

[Balta1701]

7 minutes ago, ScooterMcGee said:

So that begs the question, then, are we delaying the inevitable with the stay at home orders?

It depends on what the additional response is. 

If you have hundreds, or thousands of cases in your state, and you aren't actively tracking how each individual one is being transmitted, then when you reopen things and people begin taking the message that contact is safe to heart, then you will rapidly get explosions of new cases because somewhere along the line you're going to start getting those massive spreading events.

If you get your state down to maybe 10-20 cases (not even as strict as in Wuhan), then you can actually deploy tracking and tracing and at least have a shot at slowing it down. Australia just unveiled their tracking and tracing app, is your state doing that? Does your state have the resources to, every time a new case crops up, publicly identify the thousands of people they might have come into contact with over the last week, isolate them for a few days, and then test every one of them to see who needs a multi-week quarantine? Even this detail was insufficient to prevent a second outbreak in Singapore, but it still has slowed it in many countries. 

If your state is not prepared to do this, then yes, there is a good chance that places like Texas, Iowa, Florida, Tennessee, places that are now opening their doors to force low-wage workers back to business, they have done nothing but delay the inevitable. Texas is currently showing 700+ new cases tested for per day, and they have one of the lowest testing rates in teh country so it's almost certain they're missing a substantial number. So, the order today...is saying yeah there's a number of people we're ok with killing.

[Balta1701]

12 minutes ago, ScooterMcGee said:

Right, that's been the main concern all along is hospitals becoming overwhelmed. Which is a very valid concern, when you have no data to work with. The data is starting to come in. From what I've researched, a lot of the hospitals are not overwhelmed. In fact health care workers are being laid off because hospitals are not accepting non-critical cases. They are underwhelmed. This is the case where I live and its happening in other parts of the country. The data is starting to come in and I think it's showing that the measures we are taking need to be adjusted.

I think we need to look at this as a more regional and county-by-county crisis, rather than state-by-state. Also, we need to not focus on just numbers. Yes, they are very very important, but contrary to what a lot of people would say, they only tell part of the story.

Don't forget the New York example though. They went from saying "We have 1000+ ICU Beds in this state" confidently in early March to deploying the national guard to isolate a community 2 weeks later, and then it only got worse from there. SIngapore went from thinking they had successfully dealt with it to having 1000 new cases a day in a 2 week period. Japan did something similar.

[Jenksismyhero]

Very long, but an interesting perspective here.

 

 

[Balta1701]

4 minutes ago, Jenksismyhero said:

Very long, but an interesting perspective here.

 

 

Quote

He said coronavirus and the seasonal flu are "similar in their prevalence and death rates," and "now that we have the facts, it's time to get back to work."

 

 

 

Waste of time.

[Dick Allen]

28 minutes ago, StrangeSox said:

Can't imagine many restaurants or theaters doing well at 25% capacity with 90% overhead costs.

 

Movie theaters have to show old movies as well.

[Jenksismyhero]

3 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

 

 

 

Waste of time.

Lol, you considered it for less than 5 minutes. So typical.  "Does not fit my narrative, immediately ignore."

[Balta1701]

1 minute ago, Jenksismyhero said:

Lol, you considered it for less than 5 minutes. So typical.  "Does not fit my narrative, immediately ignore."

No I actually saw that earlier and knew exactly what it was and knew exactly what they said already and that it was completely inconsistent with global data that I've been paying attention to.  

Anyone, and I mean anyone, who is dumb enough to say "this is a bad flu season", when we have a Vietnam war of deaths in a month and half, needs to be shot down and scoffed at because they are putting people's lives at risk. 

[NorthSideSox72]

4 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:

It will be interesting to see the stats diverge now between more and less strict states.

Check Iowa's per capita curve versus MInnesota, their next door neighbor in a similar climate. Now look starting a few days after MN put in place their sheltering orders while Iowa did not. It's quite clear. Iowa is still accelerating at a high pace, MN has leveled.