OT: Corona virus

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: Scott_USN

We are all going to die... Really we are.

Bollocks! I plan to live forever. So far it is working out just fine [8D]


Also, here is a good analytical piece on the statistics of epidemics
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavi ... d3d9cd99ca

[JohnDillworth]

I'll repeat. Based on the current acceleration we may be at 1 million cases in the United States by the middle of April. We will run out of hospital beds by early May. Unless something is done to slow the acceleration. Cancelling the NBA season of stopping Europeans from traveling here won't do it. The horse is out of the barn. The virus is here. It must be dealt with here. Blaming foreigners when the entire human race is dealing with this is pointless and self serving. WE NEED TO SLOW THE ACCELERATION. We are currently seeing an increase of infections at a rate of 29% increase per day. Do the math. It exponential. It doubles every 3 days. Shut schools down. Shut transportation down. No large gatherings. Shut down air travel now. What is the paln?

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

I'll repeat. Based on the current acceleration we may be at 1 million cases in the United States by the middle of April. We will run out of hospital beds by early May. Unless something is done to slow the acceleration. Cancelling the NBA season of stopping Europeans from traveling here won't do it. The horse is out of the barn. The virus is here. It must be dealt with here. Blaming foreigners when the entire human race is dealing with this is pointless and self serving. WE NEED TO SLOW THE ACCELERATION. We are currently seeing an increase of infections at a rate of 29% increase per day. Do the math. It exponential. It doubles every 3 days. Shut schools down. Shut transportation down. No large gatherings. Shut down air travel now. What is the paln?

Did you look at the 15 minutes of interview which Erik linked to? 38% of nurses working in healthcare delivery in the US have children in school. Shut down the schools, lose 38% of nurses when you need them to work overtime. Or the kids are gathered elsewhere anyway.

What is your plan for feeding people with all transportation shut down? How about grocery stores - are they large gatherings?

[JohnDillworth]

Only China and Korea made managed to slow this down. What did they do? Quarantine. They found home confinement useless. They test every one. If you have it, or have a fever, you are sent to a fever clinic. No choice. Home confinement has only led to families becoming infected. We are still in denial. Shut everything down. Test everyone. Isolate the sick or infected. China and Korea are doing a fine job of feeding their people and they have far less food resources than we do. What’s your plan? Wait for it to go away? Have the Federal reserve do another rate cut? It’s here and it is spreading at an exponential rate. Harsh measures are in order. Or maybe it’s time for a rude tweet? We have no real plan to slow the infection rate. This is not an economical problem. We need science here. In NY state we have 28 labs ready and fully equipped to start testing. The only thing holding up that testing is the Federal Government needs to approve testing. So far they have refused! 28 labs ready to test and the Federal Government will not approve! This is madness

[HansBolter]

The entire population of the planet will eventually be exposed.

The only madness is thinking anyone one of us can hide from it.

I, like most people, might be able to stretch my stockpiles to last a month.

Only the survivalists we, as a society, have been making fun of for years, have stockpiled the resources necessary to survive the shut down of the distribution of goods for any lengthy duration.

Shutting down the distribution of goods is the quickest way possible to bring about the zombie apocalypse.

[witpqs]

Went to Costco yesterday to pick up the coupon items I wanted. On the way by that isle I noticed a sign - and the lack of stock - indicating they were completely out of toilet paper.

I think after production is adjusted to account for the current run on certain things, like TP, there are going to be some long draw-down of personal stockpiles of certain goods.

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

Only China and Korea made managed to slow this down. What did they do? Quarantine. They found home confinement useless. They test every one. If you have it, or have a fever, you are sent to a fever clinic. No choice. Home confinement has only led to families becoming infected. We are still in denial. Shut everything down. Test everyone. Isolate the sick or infected. China and Korea are doing a fine job of feeding their people and they have far less food resources than we do. What’s your plan? Wait for it to go away? Have the Federal reserve do another rate cut? It’s here and it is spreading at an exponential rate. Harsh measures are in order. Or maybe it’s time for a rude tweet? We have no real plan to slow the infection rate. This is not an economical problem. We need science here. In NY state we have 28 labs ready and fully equipped to start testing. The only thing holding up that testing is the Federal Government needs to approve testing. So far they have refused! 28 labs ready to test and the Federal Government will not approve! This is madness

I know. Take everyone and their families who has the virus and put them in camps surrounded by barbed wire. Take their personal possessions away from them and either destroy those possessions or sterilize them. If they are sterilized, then sell them at local thrift stores since there won't be any new goods going through the distribution system to regular stores.

The people in camps will be allowed to work but won't be fed enough due to corruption as well as the attitude "They are going to die anyway!" Since their personal clothing is now gone and they are in camps, give them all a unique outfit so they can easily be seen if they should leave the camps. Since they are going to die and their bodies may still carry the disease, have large cremation ovens. Since they are going to be cremated, make sure that any gold teeth are removed.

The guards should all have a nice uniform. Maybe a nice black (for mourning) with nice black boots. To show where they work so people will respect them, have a symbol like a skull (to show that they work around death) on their uniform.

To insure that the rest of the population stays in line, how about have check points where police check peoples papers to make sure that they are actually allowed to travel? With corona virus 19 checks as well? With secret police in plain clothes everywhere as well?

Is that what you want?

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Good interview on COVID-19:

https://youtu.be/cZFhjMQrVts

Here is a link to the PODcast website with the entire interview. Some of it goes into other infectious diseases, but the current corona virus outbreak is the main topic. The whole thing is very worthwhile.

http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/michael-osterholm

[geofflambert]

ORIGINAL: Kull

NBA just suspended the season. Coming next: March Madness, Baseball, NHL? If they shut down the Premier League, this is one Liverpool fan that will KNOW the gods hate us....

Life goes on day after day
Hearts torn in every way
So ferry 'cross the Mersey
'Cause this land's the place I love
And here I'll stay

[MakeeLearn]

Circuit Breakers Triggered Again With Stocks in Bear Market

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/circuit- ... 44972.html

Market-wide circuit breakers that already tripped once this week were triggered again as selling in the S&P 500 dragged stocks into an intraday bear market.

The benchmark for American equities plunged 7% to 2,549 as of 9:35 a.m. in New York, the level where NYSE rules stipulate a 15-minute trading halt aimed at soothing frayed nerves. That leaves the index 25% below its all-time high and on course to meet the accepted definition of a bear market.

“Circuit breakers won’t help sentiment,” said Dennis Debusschere, head of portfolio strategy at Evercore ISI. “What will help is policy and comfort the virus is contained.”

[Kull]

Let's talk about testing. If you like polemic-free information (and hard stats), check out the Wikipedia page on Covid-19 testing. There are quite a few different tests out there, and the reliability varies.

For those interested in the US, we are currently #7 in the world in terms of "number of tests performed", and may be higher. The first table in the attachment is at the Wikipedia link, and you can sort it by totals, "as-of" date, and "per million" (the favorite statistic for those who want to play politics with this as it lists the US 4th from the bottom).

The second graph is important since it shows the counts ever since the CDC altered it's testing requirements by delegating responsibility to the state and local public health agencies. As more kits enter the pipeline, you'll start to see the testing numbers jump, simply because the bottleneck has been removed.

Speaking of which, let's consider South Korea. They certainly made rapid progress in the testing area, and that does appear to be a major contributing factor in their apparent (or at least relative) success. But why? Well, I'm not a fan of traditional media (here's the link to the whole story), but this is really important to know, and I haven't seen this information anywhere else:

An outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in 2015 killed 38 people in South Korea, with a lack of kits to test for the MERS pathogen meaning infected patients went from hospital to hospital seeking help, spreading the virus widely. Afterward, the country created a system to allow rapid approval of testing kits for viruses which have the potential to cause pandemics.

When the novel coronavirus emerged, that system allowed regulators to collaborate quickly with local biotech companies and researchers to develop testing kits based on a genetic sequence of the virus released by China in mid-January. Firms were then granted accreditation to make and sell the kits within weeks --a process that usually takes a year.

In a short space of time, South Korea has managed to test more than 140,000 people for the novel coronavirus, using kits with sensitivity rates of over 95%, according to the director of the Korean Society for Laboratory Medicine.

That's instructive. They had a bad experience with a deadly infectious disease, studied what went wrong, and implemented a system to respond better in the future. And we are seeing the fruits of that approach today.

Which could very well be the silver lining in this whole Covid-19 situation. There are going to be lots of lessons learned in the days, weeks, and months to come, and those *should* allow our societies to perform better the next time - and there WILL BE a "next time" - something like this arises.

Because if the next contagious new disease has mortality rates more in keeping with the Black Death, at least now we'll know what to do and when to do it, without having to lose a third of the world's population.

[Zorch]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

ORIGINAL: Kull

NBA just suspended the season. Coming next: March Madness, Baseball, NHL? If they shut down the Premier League, this is one Liverpool fan that will KNOW the gods hate us....

Life goes on day after day
Hearts torn in every way
So ferry 'cross the Mersey
'Cause this land's the place I love
And here I'll stay

+1
If we stop joking, it means the virus has won [:D]
The attitude in some recent posts reminds me of that during the anthrax scare after 9/11.

[MakeeLearn]

I'am more concerned about the "CURES" than I'am the disease.

[MakeeLearn]

How Tom Hanks and wife Rita Wilson mingled with fans, visited Bondi Beach, the Opera House and went on morning breakfast show Today - before they tested positive for the coronavirus

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -test.html





“Mama always said, dying was a part of life." - Forrest Gump

[Zorch]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

How Tom Hanks and wife Rita Wilson mingled with fans, visited Bondi Beach, the Opera House and went on morning breakfast show Today - before they tested positive for the coronavirus

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -test.html


“Mama always said, dying was a part of life." - Forrest Gump

He has experience in quarantine.

[Erik Rutins]

In order to determine what is worth doing, I think you have to weight the potential cost. I think the potential numbers and effects without major mitigation are well summarized here:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/10/sim ... -covid-19/

The projections from epidemiologists are that without mitigation, 40-70% of the population will be infected. If you look at hospital beds running out within the first month of significant levels of infection, that means that the fatality rate could easily rise to between 5-10%. For a population of 330 million, the result would be that by the time this runs its course without any mitigation, millions would be dead. We're talking way more casualties than we suffered in all the wars of the 20th century. Now extend this across the world and the cost is beyond staggering, likely worse than the Spanish Flu.

For me, this means that against this unseen enemy, we need at least a WWII level of effort across the world and it starts in our own countries. This is not something we can wish away and if we don't take extreme measures and change our assumptions and how we deal with the world until this war is won, we will be the ones on the losing side. I think there is cause for hope given that we have seen free societies able to slow the spread, but we have been thinking half-measures would suffice and life could continue mostly as before and now have a lot of catching up to do. Until we do catch up (if we have the political and civil will at all levels of government and the citizenry) it will get very bad.

This will not really stop until we have a vaccine and we don't even know for sure that a vaccine is possible at this point, we just hope it is. There has never been a successful coronavirus vaccine and these types of viruses mutate very quickly, so it may be a moving target. This argues even more for very strong mitigation and massive efforts to find good therapies. Every country around the world will become a hotspot in the meantime, capable of spreading cases further. I think there is still time to avoid the absolute worst outcome, but it's still going to get very bad and at this point I'd guess it will be years before outbreaks stop popping up in various places around the world given the time it will take for mass vaccinations to spread to even the poorest countries.

I sincerely hope I'm wrong about all this and it turns out that we can get control of this in a month or two without that level of effort, but so far I've been feeling a lot like Cassandra which is not comforting.

Regards,

- Erik

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Good interview on COVID-19:

https://youtu.be/cZFhjMQrVts

Here is a link to the PODcast website with the entire interview. Some of it goes into other infectious diseases, but the current corona virus outbreak is the main topic. The whole thing is very worthwhile.

http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/michael-osterholm

Very nice, thank you. I would like to point out about the tick borne diseases, chickens like wood ticks. Ticks also don't like the smell of garlic. Neither do mosquitoes.

A park ranger (a pretty blonde, no less) told me that to get rid of ticks, put some dry ice down on canvas. The ticks would be attracted to the gas given off, touch the dry ice, and freeze.

As far as the chronic wasting disease in deer, I wonder if the wolves would be affected by it. They probably would go after the sick deer even before they show symptoms.

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

If you look at hospital beds running out within the first month of significant levels of infection, that means that the fatality rate could easily rise to between 5-10%. For a population of 330 million, the result would be that by the time this runs its course without any mitigation, millions would be dead.

Ummm, no. Every single Health Agency agrees that from a mortality perspective, the ones at risk are over age 60 AND with "underlying conditions". And even for them it's not 100%. Just yesterday, MakeeLearn gave us this extremely relevant post:

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

According to Italy's national health institute, the average age of those who have died was 81, and many of the deceased had preexisting health conditions. Only one in five Coronavirus patients is between 19 and 50 years old, making the older population significantly more impacted by the virus in Italy. "

"A study conducted last month from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention showed that the virus most seriously affected older people with preexisting health problems, which suggests a person's chances of dying from the disease increase with age."

So is this thing dangerous? Yes, but not for everyone.

[Kull]

Facts and data are good, so here's the 2018 Census breakdown of the US population by age group. So yes, there are millions in the purely age-related category. But to make that relevant, you'd need to know how many have the "underlying conditions". Because while the MakeeLearn chart is only age-related, we KNOW the vast majority had something else going on.

[Canoerebel]

I posted a few days back from a Reuters poll that found a marked different in how this is perceived among those aligned with political parties. That may be due to the fact that those in urban areas tend to align with one party and are also in a "hotter" environment for the virus spread. It's more of a clear and present danger to them.

I heard on a radio news program yesterday that a virus back in 2009 (H1N1, I think) resulted in about 14,000 deaths in the USA; and that more there were more than 1k deaths before the President declared a national emergency. There were many different factors involved, but its interesting that, to date, coronavirus has resulted in less than 40 deaths in the USA.

One of the major differences, of course, is that we in the US could see what was happening in China/Asia and then Middle East/Europe, got kind of rattled, and then saw it arrive here, and got really rattled.

But thus far, despite the increase in cases, it still doesn't appear (to me) to be apocalyptic. It seems likely that our experience should somewhat mimic that of China, or not be wildly dissimilar. That would be wonderful in comparison to the cataclysmic projections now proliferating. 5k, 10k, 15k mortalities would be nothing in comparison to the million+-estimates circulating publicly (and finding traction among some smart folks here).

My own guess is that in two or three weeks, the news will be good and we'll be getting back to normal.

I'm an optimist without credentials.