COVID-19/Coronavirus thread

[turnin' two]

My daughter is in 1st grade at a Catholic school, and I have no doubt her teacher worked much harder in the spring than she would have in a normal year.  She (again, 1st grade) and 6-7 zoom meetings a week, online coursework to do, as well as her normal allotment of homework.  I would say she easily had 5-6 hours of work to do per day.  Her teacher had all assignments and coursework posted by 5am every morning.  She was hosting the zooms, she was available for talking to the kids and parents.  She was fantastic.  My daughter had additional Spanish assignments posted every week, and even her gym teacher would post exercises and things like that on their google classroom page.  I think her school did a tremendous job, and I think her workload got her to, at least pretty much where she would have been if she had been in the classroom.  

Thankfully, though, at least for now, the dioceses has said that the schools will be open in the fall.  

[Dick Allen]

Trump administration is ending support to  13 Covid 19 testing sites across the country, 7 in Texas. Now the lackeys looking the other way is going to kill people. That this actually happens in America during a pandemic should stun everyone.

Edited June 24, 2020 by Dick Allen

[Balta1701]

3 hours ago, NorthSideSox72 said:

35 kids per classroom? I mean I know the numbers go up in Jr High (my sampling was most recently in 5th and 2nd grades), but that seems insanely high to me.

Anyway, back on the central topic - the schools are going to have a very hard time with all of this, but I just do not think e-schooling is a real solution unless we see some enormous explosion in COVID deaths and have no choice but to shut it all down again. Barring that, get the kids into school, even if their days will be pretty weird for a while.

 

one of my colleagues is dealing with this right now - he had a major, unknown virus about 8 years ago, nearly died, wound up with permanent issues because of it. Even if Texas was as under-control as Illinois, his kids couldn't go because they can't risk bringing something back to him. So for your state, you also have to have some version of an e-schooling option available, because otherwise kids with familial issues like that will all be homeschooled. 

[southsider2k5]

39 minutes ago, almagest said:

The trend shows a slight bump back up is likely so I'd agree on 500-750 short-term, but the overall trend means 1000/day is very unlikely. There's nothing going on that would indicate a return to these numbers. We just had giant outdoor protests with people smushed together a few weeks ago and the death rate didn't climb., plus the infected population is moving away from the elderly and at-risk and to younger, healthier people as the lockdowns lift.

Unfortunately, yes. State and local governments did a TERRIBLE job protecting at-risk populations. Absolutely criminal - for example Minnesota had 81% of their deaths in nursing homes. New Jersey 45%.

 

And who do you think was bringing it to the nursing homes?  How about those employees who get to go out  into public where people aren't protecting themselves and each other?  How about the contractors who deliver food and medical supplies to those facilities?  How about the families who visit loved ones because someone told them this is just a hoax and only as bad as a normal flu?

Long Term Care facilities are a great example of why stopping the spread on macro level is so important to stopping it on the mirco-level.  It isn't just about protecting healthy people.  It is about limiting the number of unhealthy people who are around people who can't psychically handle this illness.  Every single extra exposure is a chance at a case.  Every extra case is an extra chance at exposing an exponential  number of people based on how public people feel safe to be around.  Sure this might not be a big deal for you to catch.  But if you don't care and catch it, there is a chance you expose the health care worker who works in the facility taking care of my mom.  Every additional layer of people you introduce multiplies the odds of someone else catching this exponentialy.

[caulfield12]

43 minutes ago, almagest said:

The trend shows a slight bump back up is likely so I'd agree on 500-750 short-term, but the overall trend means 1000/day is very unlikely. There's nothing going on that would indicate a return to these numbers. We just had giant outdoor protests with people smushed together a few weeks ago and the death rate didn't climb., plus the infected population is moving away from the elderly and at-risk and to younger, healthier people as the lockdowns lift.

Unfortunately, yes. State and local governments did a TERRIBLE job protecting at-risk populations. Absolutely criminal - for example Minnesota had 81% of their deaths in nursing homes. New Jersey 45%.

 

Florida and California on Wednesday reported record high one-day tallies for new confirmed coronavirus cases at 5,508 and 7,149, respectively. Arizona on Wednesday saw another 1,795 positive cases after adding a record 3,591 on Tuesday. In Texas, Houston Mayor Sylvestor Turner said that the city’s intensive care units were at 97% of capacity, according to a Twitter post from a Houston city councilwoman.

Meanwhile, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that travelers to New York, New Jersey and Connecticut coming from Covid-19 hot spots would be subject to a 14-day quarantine.

“The latest coronavirus news is not positive for the stock market which was betting the worst of the pandemic recession was behind us,” Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist for MUFG Union Bank, said in an email. “All the hopes of investors looking for a better economy to improve the bottom lines of companies shut down in the recession have been dashed. Forget about the fears of the virus coming back in the fall, the number of new cases and hospitalizations in states like Arizona, Texas, and Florida says the threat is happening right now.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during an appearance before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Tuesday that the “next couple of weeks are going to be critical” in containing the virus in states in the South and West where surges have appeared.

Still, state and local officials have so far largely tabled the idea of shutting down their state economies again, with Texas Gov. Greg Abott saying that a new lockdown would be the last option. Fauci also added during his testimony that states might not require going back into “an absolute lockdown” to contend with the latest rise in cases.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-live-june-24-2020-221938970.html

 

[almagest]

28 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Florida and California on Wednesday reported record high one-day tallies for new confirmed coronavirus cases at 5,508 and 7,149, respectively. Arizona on Wednesday saw another 1,795 positive cases after adding a record 3,591 on Tuesday. In Texas, Houston Mayor Sylvestor Turner said that the city’s intensive care units were at 97% of capacity, according to a Twitter post from a Houston city councilwoman.

Meanwhile, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that travelers to New York, New Jersey and Connecticut coming from Covid-19 hot spots would be subject to a 14-day quarantine.

“The latest coronavirus news is not positive for the stock market which was betting the worst of the pandemic recession was behind us,” Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist for MUFG Union Bank, said in an email. “All the hopes of investors looking for a better economy to improve the bottom lines of companies shut down in the recession have been dashed. Forget about the fears of the virus coming back in the fall, the number of new cases and hospitalizations in states like Arizona, Texas, and Florida says the threat is happening right now.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during an appearance before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Tuesday that the “next couple of weeks are going to be critical” in containing the virus in states in the South and West where surges have appeared.

Still, state and local officials have so far largely tabled the idea of shutting down their state economies again, with Texas Gov. Greg Abott saying that a new lockdown would be the last option. Fauci also added during his testimony that states might not require going back into “an absolute lockdown” to contend with the latest rise in cases.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-live-june-24-2020-221938970.html

 

What were the tallies in the week leading up? Did it just explode on Wednesday out of nowhere? Why hasn't the death rate also been increasing as the number of confirmed cases increased?

[almagest]

35 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

And who do you think was bringing it to the nursing homes? 

Primarily elderly people sick with COVID being put back into them. Example: https://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbarone/2020/05/15/who-sent-covid19-positive-patients-into-nursing-homes-n2568837

Edited June 24, 2020 by almagest

[StrangeSox]

1 hour ago, almagest said:

The trend shows a slight bump back up is likely so I'd agree on 500-750 short-term, but the overall trend means 1000/day is very unlikely. There's nothing going on that would indicate a return to these numbers. We just had giant outdoor protests with people smushed together a few weeks ago and the death rate didn't climb., plus the infected population is moving away from the elderly and at-risk and to younger, healthier people as the lockdowns lift.

Unfortunately, yes. State and local governments did a TERRIBLE job protecting at-risk populations. Absolutely criminal - for example Minnesota had 81% of their deaths in nursing homes. New Jersey 45%.

 

We already jumped back up to 880 yesterday, and deaths lag case count increase by 2-4 weeks or so. We won't be seeing the deaths from Texas hospitals hitting capacity in multiple major cities until the coming week.

We haven't really seen an increase in cases related to the outdoor protests. Combination of outdoors + fairly high mask-wearing seems to really limit the spread, which is good news not just for "whew, dodged a bullet" but also decision-making on restrictions going forward. The case load increases started just about two weeks after Memorial Day, right when a lot of these states really started opening up and, per mobility data, people started easing up on the distancing. You're right, though, that the current waves crashing over these states are trending younger, which means we should see lower CFR's from it. Provided that we don't completely overwhelm hospitals, of course. COVID-19 projections, which I think has been pretty decent, says we'll average about 650 deaths per day until October 1st.

Which, when you step back and think about it, is still pretty horrific. 650 more dead Americans every single day for the next 100 days. 

[southsider2k5]

22 minutes ago, almagest said:

Primarily elderly people sick with COVID being put back into them. Example: https://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbarone/2020/05/15/who-sent-covid19-positive-patients-into-nursing-homes-n2568837

That hasn't been done for months, and it is still spreading.

[almagest]

9 minutes ago, StrangeSox said:

We already jumped back up to 880 yesterday, and deaths lag case count increase by 2-4 weeks or so. We won't be seeing the deaths from Texas hospitals hitting capacity in multiple major cities until the coming week.

We haven't really seen an increase in cases related to the outdoor protests. Combination of outdoors + fairly high mask-wearing seems to really limit the spread, which is good news not just for "whew, dodged a bullet" but also decision-making on restrictions going forward. The case load increases started just about two weeks after Memorial Day, right when a lot of these states really started opening up and, per mobility data, people started easing up on the distancing. You're right, though, that the current waves crashing over these states are trending younger, which means we should see lower CFR's from it. Provided that we don't completely overwhelm hospitals, of course. COVID-19 projections, which I think has been pretty decent, says we'll average about 650 deaths per day until October 1st.

Which, when you step back and think about it, is still pretty horrific. 650 more dead Americans every single day for the next 100 days. 

880 is in line with the previous wave, if you check the graph. But you're right, let's see how the next couple weeks shake out. I'm optimistic given a number of the factors I've mentioned.

It is morbidly cavalier to be speaking about any number of deaths as just a number. I wholeheartedly agree. It's the only way I can think about what's happening right now without getting seriously sad, though.

 

 

 

 

[almagest]

19 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

That hasn't been done for months, and it is still spreading.

Yes, it's spreading among other populations, as a reaping effect has already happened in nursing homes. The 87% drop in death rate I posted yesterday correlates highly. Also getting those first few infected highly symptomatic residents back into that closed ecosystem was the killer event. It became impossible to contain after that point.

[Balta1701]

6 minutes ago, almagest said:

Yes, it's spreading among other populations, as a reaping effect has already happened in nursing homes. The 87% drop in death rate I posted yesterday correlates highly. Also getting those first few infected highly symptomatic residents back into that closed ecosystem was the killer event. It became impossible to contain after that point.

Now that it's back to spreading rapidly among other populations in the "re-opened" states...that's going to make it harder and harder to avoid future outbreaks in nursing homes too. 

[southsider2k5]

7 minutes ago, almagest said:

Yes, it's spreading among other populations, as a reaping effect has already happened in nursing homes. The 87% drop in death rate I posted yesterday correlates highly. Also getting those first few infected highly symptomatic residents back into that closed ecosystem was the killer event. It became impossible to contain after that point.

It is in 40% of facilities nationwide,  and not nearly as many took in these patients. 

[bmags]

illinois is creeping down but feels like a plateau after such incredible progress in early june.

715 cases today but after a surge of tests (29331 tests so 2.4% pos rate). Chicago continues to drop precipitously in average cases. But needs to stay stable until contact tracing begins in earnest in late July.

[bmags]

I think I agree with everyone on the nursing homes. NYC/NJ forcing back still positive but recovered patients into nursing homes caused a surge of elderly death.

But the only real way it seems to protect nursing homes is to crush the virus in the general population. But the PPE shortage didn't help either and even though it's better now Illinois assisted living homes still are facing shortages.

[almagest]

31 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Now that it's back to spreading rapidly among other populations in the "re-opened" states...that's going to make it harder and harder to avoid future outbreaks in nursing homes too. 

I think that is a valid concern. Hopefully those facilities are smarter about PPE and quarantine procedures, and hopefully their governments have learned their lesson about placing symptomatic people back among the population. If not they should be in deep trouble.

30 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

It is in 40% of facilities nationwide,  and not nearly as many took in these patients. 

Do you have a source on that? What I find is that nursing homes are still compensated for taking in COVID patients (as of 6/4): https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/04/states-nursing-homes-coronavirus-302134
 

Quote

Coronavirus-positive patients can bring in double or more the funding of other residents.

...

Some homes have been eager for the new revenue, creating coronavirus wings or even converting to all-coronavirus facilities. But the ones most desperate for the money are often among those with low ratings and a history of citations for poor cleanliness or neglecting patients. In Michigan, for example, eight of 20 nursing homes selected by the state government to build wings for coronavirus-positive patients are currently rated as "below average" or "much below average," the two lowest designations, on the Health and Human Services department's five-star nursing home rating scale. One was sued in 2017 by a state watchdog group after a man died in its care.

The fear, advocates say, is that the generous payments designed to help patients will only serve to expose more elderly people to some of the factors that have led to nearly 26,000 Covid-19 deaths in nursing homes, from the rapid spreading of germs to a shortage of protective equipment.

 

Edited June 24, 2020 by almagest

[NorthSideSox72]

2 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

one of my colleagues is dealing with this right now - he had a major, unknown virus about 8 years ago, nearly died, wound up with permanent issues because of it. Even if Texas was as under-control as Illinois, his kids couldn't go because they can't risk bringing something back to him. So for your state, you also have to have some version of an e-schooling option available, because otherwise kids with familial issues like that will all be homeschooled. 

Oh I agree, they need an e-learning substitute available for kids in families with someone vulnerable, if they choose to stay home.

 

6 minutes ago, bmags said:

illinois is creeping down but feels like a plateau after such incredible progress in early june.

715 cases today but after a surge of tests (29331 tests so 2.4% pos rate). Chicago continues to drop precipitously in average cases. But needs to stay stable until contact tracing begins in earnest in late July.

I mean at some point, the plateau is a statistical inevitability. The virus is actively spreading in Illinois, and even more so in some neighboring states, so at some point the positivity rate can't go down any further.

 

[bmags]

Just now, NorthSideSox72 said:

Oh I agree, they need an e-learning substitute available for kids in families with someone vulnerable, if they choose to stay home.

 

I mean at some point, the plateau is a statistical inevitability. The virus is actively spreading in Illinois, and even more so in some neighboring states, so at some point the positivity rate can't go down any further.

 

well I don't see any reason we couldn't track the same progress as new york which is closer to 1%. They are up to 50k tests per day when IL has hit a ceiling of around 30k (which I still think is just failure to promote that they are free and open without referral so fewer are trying to get tested.

I'd like Illinois to be closer to around 250 new cases per day by mid july. 700 in a day is too much.

[almagest]

9 minutes ago, bmags said:

I think I agree with everyone on the nursing homes. NYC/NJ forcing back still positive but recovered patients into nursing homes caused a surge of elderly death.

But the only real way it seems to protect nursing homes is to crush the virus in the general population. But the PPE shortage didn't help either and even though it's better now Illinois assisted living homes still are facing shortages.

I think we should absolutely be holding these states accountable for these actions - Cuomo placing all the blame on the federal government for "not telling us the virus was coming from Europe" is absolutely disgusting. Hopefully once the dust settles we can take stock of exactly what happened, how to improve, and who is at fault for what.

I don't think we can crush the virus in the general population without completely destroying the world economy or placing onerous and potentially long-lasting restrictions on individual liberties. I'm also optimistic that an increase in total cases won't correlate to an increase in deaths.

[bmags]

1 minute ago, almagest said:

I think we should absolutely be holding these states accountable for these actions - Cuomo placing all the blame on the federal government for "not telling us the virus was coming from Europe" is absolutely disgusting. Hopefully once the dust settles we can take stock of exactly what happened, how to improve, and who is at fault for what.

I don't think we can crush the virus in the general population without completely destroying the world economy or placing onerous and potentially long-lasting restrictions on individual liberties. I'm also optimistic that an increase in total cases won't correlate to an increase in deaths.

This is nonsense. Throw a stone on a map and you could find countries that have done this without either.

[almagest]

8 minutes ago, bmags said:

This is nonsense. Throw a stone on a map and you could find countries that have done this without either.

Like New Zealand? Jury is still out there - they rely heavily on tourism for their economy. It's also a tiny isolated island country compared to us.

Edited June 24, 2020 by almagest

[bmags]

4 minutes ago, almagest said:

Like New Zealand? Jury is still out there - they rely heavily on tourism for their economy.

Well, they could soon decide to take in tourists from functioning countries. How many people would travel there if the virus was under control? If you rely on tourism you aren't making a better decision to have the virus running rampant.

[Balta1701]

5 minutes ago, almagest said:

Like New Zealand? Jury is still out there - they rely heavily on tourism for their economy.

The EU and pretty much every other country is banning travel to and from the US without 14 day quarantines, so tourism in this country is pretty much going to be hammered too. 

[NorthSideSox72]

9 minutes ago, bmags said:

This is nonsense. Throw a stone on a map and you could find countries that have done this without either.

Not any that are good analogs for the United States. New Zealand did a great job, but I don't think I need to list the reasons why they were in a much different position than the US.

 

[Balta1701]

12 minutes ago, almagest said:

I think we should absolutely be holding these states accountable for these actions - Cuomo placing all the blame on the federal government for "not telling us the virus was coming from Europe" is absolutely disgusting. Hopefully once the dust settles we can take stock of exactly what happened, how to improve, and who is at fault for what.

I don't think we can crush the virus in the general population without completely destroying the world economy or placing onerous and potentially long-lasting restrictions on individual liberties. I'm also optimistic that an increase in total cases won't correlate to an increase in deaths.

Texas is experiencing a surge in cases right now. It's about to fill up our entire hospital system, and it will only take 10,000 cases per day to do it. Over the course of a full year, with overwhelmed hospitals, that would give you 3.65 million people who had the virus at a rte of 10,000 new cases per day. Texas's population is 29 million, meaning that you would have more than 5 years of 10,000 cases per day in this state before you start to approach herd immunity.

 When your hospitals are overwhelmed and can't deal with regular illnesses, and people who know they are high risk cannot afford to go out...you are destroying your economy. It does not function in settings like New York, or Texas now, or Florida or Arizona. The governors can only stick their head in the ground for so long, but literally a month and a half of being "partially open for business" triggered a crisis in multiple states. 2 months of open followed by 3 months of lockdowns is not a functioning economy, and a health care system that is completely overwhelmed is also not a functioning economy.

If you want anything resembling a functioning economy, you have no choice but to come up with a plan to crush the thing.