OT: Corona virus

[Canoerebel]

In reply to Uncivil Engineer: The 50% to 70% infection rate has been widely quoted by multiple sources many times. Keep a lookout and you'll see it. Angela Merkel has Germany pegged at 80%.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Chickenboy, have your dreams involved unclad Ingrid Bergman, Shelly Winters, or Buddy Hackett?

I wish! I'd even take Buddy Hackett over some of them! [:(]

[Canoerebel]

[X(]

[Canoerebel]

If your dreams involve "Mother Abigail" sitting on the front porch of an old ramshackle house set in a Nebraska cornfield, you're one of the good guys. If, on the other hand, the subject is "The Walking Dude" aka Randall Flagg, go to church immediately with sincerity and purity of heart and stop dreaming about naked Buddy Hacketts.

P.S. I dream a lot. Usually nightmares that I'm still a lawyer (seriously). But my dreams are no more or less frequent.

[HansBolter]

Read The Stand many years ago and still have a copy.

It's King's semi-secular take on the apocalypse as he invokes both God and Satan while ignoring almost everything Biblical.

It's a good read and the movie is a pretty decent adaptation of the book. Have a DVD of the movie and watched it just a couple of weeks ago.

Jamie Sheridan, of Law and Order Criminal Intent plays Randal Flagg, the walking man, aka the Beast.

[USSAmerica]

The book was great and I really enjoyed the TV miniseries. Frankly, I'll watch anything that Gary Sinise is in. [8D]

[Olorin]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Last year, I re-read Stephen King's The Stand. It's a terrific novel about a bio-weapon escape that kills most of humanity. The few survivors begin having dreams.

Last week, there were reports in the news of people having dreams! Zoiks, thinks I!

Anyhow, The Stand is a great read but might be too rattling right now.

THere was also a miniseries starring Molly Ringwald and Gary Sinese. I don't know if it is any good, as I've never seen it. But it's apparently available on YouTube, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e64sPHWnsY

I might watch it, but I definitely won't encourage my wife to.

Also The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton is relevant, although the virus in the book comes from a fallen satelite.

Edit: The irony is that the satelite falls in a town called Piedmont.

[Chickenboy]

Back to the topic at hand:

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-mortality-risk

Really good discussion of issues impacting CFR. Many of these have been bandied about here, but this is a well-written and concise article. Highly recommended to check out the 'slider' on the lower right corner of the page that compares different regional / national CFRs over time.

ETA: The graph at the bottom right of the page with the slider is actually reflective of the "Infection Fatality Rate" rather than the Case Fatality Rate so misused in the media. I'm more interested in the IFR as it reflects what most people are interested in: "If I get this, what are the odds that it will make me sick enough to die?" The Case Fatality Rate includes nebulous factors such as willingness to go to hospital, quality of medical care locally, what one's definition of a 'case' is and so forth.

I think a salient point the authors made was that as the number of positive tests increase exponentially, if deaths only increase linearly then that drops the CFR. In other words, more testing = more 'ground truth' for what this virus really means for a given population. Since the bodies are harder to hide (except in China apparently), if you want to drop the CFR, find more positive people in your burgeoning testing program. Those that only preferentially test the sickest hospital admissions cases will artificially elevate their CFR.

ETA: The article also does a very nice job in distinguishing between the "Case Fatality Rate" and the "Infection Fatality Rate". Very often (and the author cites a particularly craptastic piece of journalism by the New York Times) the media misstates what they're looking for and misapplies the terms.

[JohnDillworth]

NYC's 911 system is running on it's springs but we are holding up. We have had a few cases leaves in ambulances over the last couple of days. We sanitize and deep clean the area and the elevator and move along. EMS is really strained. Essential personal are required to report. Even pregnant EMTs (they usually work in house manning dispatch potions). The refrigerated tractor trails I saw last week are filling up. I'm staying clean and isolated. Good to be busy. This is 2 blocks from where I work: NY Post Bodies on trailers. April is going to be bad. We are going to win

[Canoerebel]

We're pulling for you and NYC, John. Kick its butt!

Chickenboy, thank you for gently steering me back on topic.

[Canoerebel]

Chickenboy, thanks for linking that article.

Interestingly it includes a colorful graph of the Case Fatality Ratio in China, showing the gradual decline down to about 1%.

A similar graph posted here a week ago drew some sharp criticism from a Forumite or two. I thought then, and think now, that their criticism was misplaced. The graph provides accurate information. Where context is also provided (as it is in your source and in the source referred to last week) it is not misleading.

I think the complaint was that it might be misperceived as indicating the infection was petering out.

[JohnDillworth]

thanks, my projections are trending down just a bit the last few days. I think the self isolation is starting to show. The raw numbers are higher, but the rate of doubling has slowed just a bit. Hoping for a quick test availability in the next few months. Both my wife and daughter had flu shots, caught the flu in early February, and both tested negative for the flu. Nasty cough for 3 weeks after. Starting to wonder if the Pale Rider has already visited and passed by.

[MakeeLearn]

People must be getting stressed. At work it was:
"Double check the morphine.....Double check the morphine"

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: Ian R

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Offensive image deleted.

Mate, I have tried to take your posts in jest for a while.

But really? You don't need to post that stuff.

Be contrarian by all means.

Express your reasoned view for discussion.

But do not discount the prospect that there are people who can track you down through the internet.

Reconnaissance... But seriously,

How can one condemn the Chinese, while we have hunted and trapped the "Coney Island Red Hot" into near extinction. Just so that we can have a gourmet food that makes us giggle from the sexual innuendo.

[JohnDillworth]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

ORIGINAL: Ian R

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Offensive image deleted.

Mate, I have tried to take your posts in jest for a while.

But really? You don't need to post that stuff.

Be contrarian by all means.

Express your reasoned view for discussion.

But do not discount the prospect that there are people who can track you down through the internet.

Reconnaissance... But seriously,

How can one condemn the Chinese, while we have hunted and trapped the "Coney Island Red Hot" into near extinction. Just so that we can have a gourmet food that makes us giggle from the sexual innuendo.

How can one condemn the Chinese, while we have hunted and trapped the "Coney Island Red Hot" into near extinction. Just so that we can have a gourmet food that makes us giggle from the sexual innuendo.

Well I will say this. The supermarkets have been really inane. It's calmed down a bit but in the beginning everything was gone except for the "organic" chickens and all that vegan food. I would not be surprised if the humble hot dog makes a comeback

[MakeeLearn]

Elderly woman dies after being smacked for not social distancing: sources

https://nypost.com/2020/03/29/elderly-w ... g-sources/

"An 86-year-old woman awaiting treatment for bowel blockage at a Brooklyn hospital yesterday died after being punched by a fellow patient — for not engaging in “social distancing” amid the coronavirus, law enforcement sources told The Post on Sunday.

[Cap Mandrake]

We are all (or at least the large majority) human and our brains have had 100-200K years to get ready for danger..and our hominid brethren before that..and their simian brethren before them. This is the most fearful time of my lifetime. Surgeries..spinning a sports car in the rain..rock climbing..getting pounded by a big-ass wave and wondering if you are going to make it to the surface..threat of getting nuked by the Russians..sliding on an icy mountain road in a bus...earthquakes..getting challenged by cholos with guns. Most of those things were at least partly fun. This is different. I think it is the sinister invisibility of the damn thing. I too am having very vivid, long lasting and exquisitely detailed anxiety dreams. Our daytime thoughts are priming our brains to be more alert at night in order to arouse when the leopard is sneaking up on us. I tried alcohol. It doesn't work. I think what works best is hard physical exercise or yard work until everything hurts. A machete is especially effective. No caffeine after noon either.

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth




Well I will say this. The supermarkets have been really inane. It's calmed down a bit but in the beginning everything was gone except for the "organic" chickens and all that vegan food. I would not be surprised if the humble hot dog makes a comeback

I've been very vocal when ever I go shopping. While standing in the checkout line one of the things I say out loud is "What are people going to be like in 2 months.", "I guess we're about to see people for who they really are." Or "Welcome to my world."[:)]

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

thanks, my projections are trending down just a bit the last few days. I think the self isolation is starting to show. The raw numbers are higher, but the rate of doubling has slowed just a bit. Hoping for a quick test availability in the next few months. Both my wife and daughter had flu shots, caught the flu in early February, and both tested negative for the flu. Nasty cough for 3 weeks after. Starting to wonder if the Pale Rider has already visited and passed by.

Yes, saw a lot of that in February, especially the first two weeks when we did have a clear upsurge of "influenza-like illness". The thing is the quick nasal swab influenza test has a fair number of false negatives. That is why the CDC recommends not even testing in most cases. A patient with a viral-type lung infection in Early March who looked like she had C-19 turned out to have RSV (Respiratory Syncitial Virus) and her whole family got knocked low by it. Usually we see RSV in early Winter.

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

A machete is especially effective.

Machete, lots of history and styles for such a simple tool/weapon

https://www.machetespecialists.com/products/machetes/