COVID-19/Coronavirus thread

[Jerksticks]

1 minute ago, Jenksismyhero said:

So what's the running theory on why the European countries have such a higher mortality rate than the US? Stronger strain of the virus?

There might as well be zero data at this point for us idiot-level humans to look at.    Who knows who gets a test in any of these countries and USA doesn’t even test etc.  Mortality rate is pointless without blanket testing for antibodies.  JMO

[Texsox]

Six months or a year from now it will be interesting to see which country's health systems were better equipped to handle this. 

[southsider2k5]

14 minutes ago, Jenksismyhero said:

So what's the running theory on why the European countries have such a higher mortality rate than the US? Stronger strain of the virus?

Undertesting for sure.  The US death rate is in the 1-1.5 of total cases.  Italy is 10%.  That means they are probably undertesting by a factor of between 6-10 times.

[southsider2k5]

Also as of today, the US now leads the world in positive COVID tests.

[Kyyle23]

29 minutes ago, Jenksismyhero said:

Trump can talk all he wants about this but states have taken the lead and continue to do so. My guess is if the medical community is saying we're not ready by Easter, Cuomo, Pritzker, Newsom, etc. will extend the shelter-in-place orders. 

Genuinely curious what happens when States defy his claim that it's ok to come outside and he starts getting really nervous about the economy.   I'm expecting a lot of twitter shit talking towards governors when that bridge is crossed

[StrangeSox]

7 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

Undertesting for sure.  The US death rate is in the 1-1.5 of total cases.  Italy is 10%.  That means they are probably undertesting by a factor of between 6-10 times.

Maybe I'm wrong but didn't Italy's mortality rate start climbing once hospitals hit capacity? That's where we're heading, especially in major cities.

[southsider2k5]

 

1 minute ago, StrangeSox said:

Maybe I'm wrong but didn't Italy's mortality rate start climbing once hospitals hit capacity? That's where we're heading, especially in major cities.

I can try to work back down the curve, but I feel like Italy's mortality rate has always been WAY high.  Even adjusting for something like age of population, it was very high.

[shipps]

1 minute ago, Kyyle23 said:

Genuinely curious what happens when States defy his claim that it's ok to come outside and he starts getting really nervous about the economy.   I'm expecting a lot of twitter shit talking towards governors when that bridge is crossed

The numbers will speak for themselves even before Easter that for the most part Trumps efforts to open back up will fall upon deaf ears, if he still is singing that tune. 

But again, for the most part. There will still be his loyal base that doesn't care about numbers. Ever. And will side with him no matter how many are dying.   

 

[Jose Abreu]

 

[Texsox]

We just had a school district update from our Superintendent. In about one week we passed out 25,000 iPads, Chromebooks, and mobile hotspots to students. We've distributed over 100,000 meals. We are pulling coaches from the distribution of meals and tech to allow us back into our classrooms full time. The video that was shown with the parents being so grateful put tears in my eyes. 

[Texsox]

3 minutes ago, Jose Abreu said:

 

How does that even work? I never thought of this before but is there a national database that all cause of deaths are reported to? 

[StrangeSox]

1 minute ago, Texsox said:

How does that even work? I never thought of this before but is there a national database that all cause of deaths are reported to? 

States are generally giving daily update press conferences with totals. 

 

This website has a continuously updated state-by-state tracker with source links

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

[Texsox]

1 minute ago, StrangeSox said:

States are generally giving daily update press conferences with totals. 

 

This website has a continuously updated state-by-state tracker with source links

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

I'm thinking beyond this. We have stats on how many people die from bee stings, cancer, heart attacks, lightening, etc. 

[Chisoxfn]

47 minutes ago, Jenksismyhero said:

Trump can talk all he wants about this but states have taken the lead and continue to do so. My guess is if the medical community is saying we're not ready by Easter, Cuomo, Pritzker, Newsom, etc. will extend the shelter-in-place orders. 

I have no doubt California is going to stay the course.  

[StrangeSox]

Ah.

Looks like the CDC compiles county-level data

https://wonder.cdc.gov/ucd-icd10.html

Summary:

The Underlying Cause of Death data available on WONDER are county-level national mortality and population data spanning the years 1999-2018. Data are based on death certificates for U.S. residents. Each death certificate identifies a single underlying cause of death and demographic data. The number of deaths, crude death rates or age-adjusted death rates, and 95% confidence intervals and standard errors for death rates can be obtained by place of residence (total U.S., region, state and county), age group (single-year-of age, 5-year age groups, 10-year age groups and infant age groups), race, Hispanic ethnicity, gender, year, cause-of-death (4-digit ICD-10 code or group of codes), injury intent and injury mechanism, drug/alcohol induced causes and urbanization categories. Data are also available for place of death, month and week day of death, and whether an autopsy was performed

[StrangeSox]

Nightmare scenario is we see the heads of the Federal government working in concert with politically friendly media to attack and pressure states to rescind their measures, threaten to cut off federal assistance, or urge noncompliance either directly or indirectly, coupled with politically aligned state Governors insisting that it's still no big deal and that they are Open for Business.

 

Hopefully we either have some sort of miracle hard break where new cases and deaths start dropping and a mid-April timeline actually makes sense medically, or more likely we continue on current trends and the harsh reality quiets down the voices currently advocating for letting a whole bunch of people die.
 

[StrangeSox]

Tucked into the Senate bill, a $170B tax break giveaway to real estate developers that backdates to 2018 and 2019 losses

 

[Texsox]

Do you mean like the Lt Governor in Texas stating he'd die for the economy? 

[mqr]

This dude is going to get so many people killed jfc. 

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, Jenksismyhero said:

So what's the running theory on why the European countries have such a higher mortality rate than the US? Stronger strain of the virus?

It has seemed that people show peak symptoms 5-7 or so days after infection in most cases but most of the deaths are delayed by about a week, most of the deaths happen something like days 10-14, so we're seeing the cases that were established last week right now, and the deaths will come next week. 

[Kyyle23]

13 hours ago, Texsox said:

Do you mean like the Lt Governor in Texas stating he'd die for the economy? 

Did he actually say that -He- would die for the economy?  I thought he said he heard from older people that stated they would.

[caulfield12]

4 hours ago, Kyyle23 said:

Words I never thought I would ever type but here goes:

 

Do you trust Caulfield on the subject?   Dude is right in the middle of it and has been quite a bit more optimistic recently about everything 

Yes, the government "disappeared" 2-3 citizen reporters who were reporting directly from and outside the hospitals in late January.

Yes, we know all about Dr. Li Wenliang, the whistleblower.  He's from my neighborhood, and went to Wuhan University with my wife (well, he went to medical school, but same age and school.)

Yes, a number of cases (hundreds probably) in the beginning where people died weren't yet diagnosed as COVID-19, but natural causes or pneumonia.

Of course, the same thing has been happening in the US (see Kirkland Life Care Center)...and we'll never know unless they autopsy everyone who's died in the US since late December or early January.

Yes, there were rumors about sulphur dioxide clouds being captured from the crematoriums, in lieu of the normal pollution from factories.

 

In the end, people are already back to work this week, if they have their own cars.  The airport and subway are back online Saturday.   On the subway or Metro, there's three yellow tape lines for what used to be a longer 5-7 person metal seat, social distancing.   She will go back to work on Monday.   Schools (KG-middle or junior school) are still looking at a May start, after draconian measures from January 23rd until that time.  High schools (at least seniors) are supposedly going back a bit earlier, sometime between April 15th and the end of the month because every senior in the country has to take the Gao Kao examination on June 7th/8th (same test, same exact time for every student in whole country) and it's not fair to kids in our province if they aren't provided as much time as possible to study with their teachers in-school when most of the rest of China has reopened at least 4-6 weeks earlier.

[caulfield12]

4 hours ago, Texsox said:

What doesn't make sense to me is a on - off switch to work. I do see returning to work looking more like a wave. Perhaps NY gets back first since they are getting hit hard first. Perhaps by the time we're talking lifting the restrictions, even partially, we will have a better handle on who would be the better choice and have some sort of back to work priority. Young to old. Maybe a test to confirm you had the virus and are now healthy. 

A couple of things.

One of the Grand Princess "survivors" at the best infectious treatment center in the US, Omaha, kept getting positive tests 28 days on.   Do we have enough kits at this point to keep testing people (including swabs and reagents) 20-30 times per person?

There were cases here in Wuhan where patients "recovered," were sent home, and developed symptoms again.

While they seem fairly rare, and there hasn't been a published paper academically...it's definitely a possibility, especially if we're going with the 2-3 different strains of the virus circulating theory (which also hasn't been proven, more a theory.)

They were using blood/plasma/platelets from the ones who recovered to come up with a way to treat those who were ill, but it wasn't conclusive how much more effective those treatments were than say, Traditional Chinese Medicine or Redemsivir or the antivirals or whatever they threw at it.  Thailand was claiming success at the same time, but that story sort of faded away, like INOVIO being on the way to a cure or vaccine.

 

 

[caulfield12]

2 hours ago, Jenksismyhero said:

So what's the running theory on why the European countries have such a higher mortality rate than the US? Stronger strain of the virus?

Germany and Switzerland have been very successful.  There are a number of factors.  Biggest of these is the early surveillance/contact tracing of EVERY single case in Germany, as well as the much higher ratio of nurses to patients compared to Italy and Spain.  Then you can look at other factors, such as average age of population, men vs. women, co-morbidities, smoking or vaping, etc.

[caulfield12]

1 hour ago, Texsox said:

How does that even work? I never thought of this before but is there a national database that all cause of deaths are reported to? 

The CDC (not Google) was supposed to be working on this.

Hospital by hospital across the country...all the patients testing positive, critical/severe, ICU admissions, equipment needs, etc.

Not all information would be made available for public consumption (and you can be sure the withheld information will be fought for by the press via lawsuits over FOIA.)