OT: Corona virus

[Cap Mandrake]

There is remarkably precise language about Presidential authority on declaring an emergency over. I suspect the Congress was more worried about Andropov or Brezhnev getting "a bad cold" and the Rooskies nuking the US in 1976.

Pretty sure they never heard of bat soup back then.

[Canoerebel]

Grim projections have not yet materialized...

On Sunday, Sammy51 asked a series of questions predicated on his belief or assumption that NYC-type outbreaks would spread to other major cities in the US.

I replied mostly using the data from the Univ. of Washington projections indicating no other major outbreaks. Here's an Associated Press story this morning that delves into that: https://apnews.com/f68fa688b76c2853d22a3c765042f066

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing


Sorry, but even with the context it still doesn't cut it.

You would think on a country that takes great pride in its democratic traditions would produce a leader that's a little more in tune with those principles...

Yes, yes, yes! We get that you don't like Trumpolini and take a supercilious air about those who voted for him.

By ra way, I propose a compromise. How about YOU vote for Glasgow City Council and let us vote for President? We promise to not say anything about parking enforcement and trash collection or the abridgement of internet speech and you let us try to find a vaccine and try to avoid sending the world into a 10 year depression by crushing a $22T economy?

[Cap Mandrake]

Local 450 bed hospital...19 proven or likely Covid-19 cases admitted. Entirely manageable considering essentially all of the elective cases are cancelled.

They now have the 5 minute test (they are getting about 20 kits a day from the manufacturer). These are mostly used for emergent admission who DON'T seem to have Covid (like women in labor or "elective" C-sections and likely cases who are potential candidates for clinical trials (study drugs) but need quick confirmation.

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

ORIGINAL: mind_messing


Sorry, but even with the context it still doesn't cut it.

You would think on a country that takes great pride in its democratic traditions would produce a leader that's a little more in tune with those principles...

Yes, yes, yes! We get that you don't like Trumpolini and take a supercilious air about those who voted for him.

By ra way, I propose a compromise. How about YOU vote for Glasgow City Council and let us vote for President? We promise to not say anything about parking enforcement and trash collection or the abridgement of internet speech and you let us try to find a vaccine and try to avoid sending the world into a 10 year depression by crushing a $22T economy?

In fairness, if you knew half of what GCC got up to I think you'd be hard pressed to keep quiet on the issue.

Didn't realise that you were engaged in discussions with the Fed and the DoT. Let me know how those go!

[MakeeLearn]

De Blasio on coronavirus victims being buried in NYC parks: ‘Totally false’
April 6, 2020


https://nypost.com/2020/04/06/de-blasio ... lly-false/


"Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday blasted claims that the city could temporarily bury coronavirus victims in New York City parks as “totally false.”

“There will never, ever be anything like quote on quote mass graves or mass interment in New York City — ever,” the mayor said on NY1."

[MakeeLearn]

No, NYC Is Not Running Out of Burial Space Due to COVID-19
4.10.2020 9:48 AM


https://reason.com/2020/04/10/no-nyc-is ... -covid-19/



"Unfortunately, a lot of professional media has been erring on the side of LOOK AT WHAT AMERICA HAS COME TO: THERE ARE SO MANY DEAD BODIES THEY HAVE TO START HIRING PEOPLE TO DIG MASS GRAVES."

"Kersten said the city hired contractors to add "two new trenches in case we need them.""

[Encircled]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Context people.

Taken alone, it is a ridiculous assertion but it wasn't meant to be taken alone. It was a response to a SPECIFIC question about lock-down rollbacks and governors making that call.

Is the criticism political? Hell yes it is. Mario the Pious (Cuomo) is the same guy who was bashing Trump and FEMA for not sending him 30,000 ventilators (which was WAAAY more than he needed and FEMA didn't even have that many) and now he wants to secede from the Union with New Jersey and Connecticut and Rhode Island decide when to reverse the Federal lock down order? Is he going to send the NYPD to bombard the Statue of Liberty? Do they have a flag yet? They will have to make one because the Stars and Bars are taken. I suggest the Yankee logo on a blue background.

Of course some of the criticism is political, but a hell of a lot of it appears to be justified.

UK/US did something different, and the result is, well, out there for all to see.

Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Green, labour, Tory, Lib Dem (thats me!), SNP whatever, you want to make sure the lessons from this are learnt.

To do that, you have to acknowledge mistakes.

Now if anyone thinks both the UK and the US are doing that (certainly at government level) then I'm yet to see it.

[MakeeLearn]

Preliminary German Study Shows a COVID-19 Infection Fatality Rate of About 0.4 Percent
4.9.2020


https://reason.com/2020/04/09/prelimina ... 4-percent/



"One often-heard statistic is the "case fatality rate"—that is, the percentage of people diagnosed with a disease who will die of it. This afternoon that figure stands at 3.5 percent for COVID-19 in the U.S., but this rate is significantly inflated because it does not count asymptomatic cases or undiagnosed people who recover at home. What we really need to know is the infection fatality rate: the percentage of all the people infected who eventually die of the disease. That's what the German study attempts to do."

[Canoerebel]

It looks like the US will end up with considerably fewer deaths per million than Italy, Spain, France, Belgium and possibly UK and Netherlands.

Encircled, the spotlight you're aiming on the US seems to be misdirected.

[MakeeLearn]

Opinion: One nasty side effect of coronavirus: Robots will take our jobs at an even faster rate
April 14, 2020


https://www.marketwatch.com/story/one-s ... 2020-04-13


"About 50 million jobs could be automated just in ‘essential’ industries "

"American workers are locked into their homes, avoiding contact with anyone and everything touched by others. Social contacts and supply chains are disrupted by coronavirus and the COVID-19 illness it causes. In the workplace, there is a solution that addresses both problems simultaneously: new colleagues immune to pandemics and ready to replace American workers.

More robots."

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Grim projections have not yet materialized...

On Sunday, Sammy51 asked a series of questions predicated on his belief or assumption that NYC-type outbreaks would spread to other major cities in the US.

I replied mostly using the data from the Univ. of Washington projections indicating no other major outbreaks. Here's an Associated Press story this morning that delves into that: https://apnews.com/f68fa688b76c2853d22a3c765042f066

I think the possibility that I was suggesting (it was late this side of the pond and I might not have been writing as clearly as I could have done) was that other large US cities could see similar outbreaks to those seen in NY in a second or third wave if lockdown measures were lifted prematurely and/or without a clear strategy in terms of avoiding further outbreaks (for me large scale proactive testing goes without saying but I think that the other process that will need to be set up is a way to swiftly quarantine specific small localities to avoid their outbreaks spreading).

I don't discount the possibility of infections being spread evenly throughout the country and there being something 'special' about NY which has meant that it has been hit far harder. It just seems unlikely to me. What seems more likely is that the vast majority of the initial 'spread' of the virus into the US was via transatlantic travel from Europe to the US - most of which goes into NY. It then spread out across the country but for most places the lockdown measures were introduced in time to stop it really getting a hold. For some states close to New York (New Jersey/Michigan) the measures were not quite soon enough to prevent a trend in deaths similar to those in London (although not as bad as NY/Madrid/Lombardy).

[Canoerebel]

The virus arrived at many US cities at the same time or earlier than it arrived in NY. Those other cities didn't experience massive outbreaks, either due to luck or some combination of other factors. Given your concerns, other cities already should have had raging outbreaks.

And Michigan isn't close to NYC. From NYC to Detroit is 614 miles - about the same as from London to Berlin.

[Encircled]

Jeez, Dan

I'm not going down the route some are taking by implying stuff but answers like that don't help.

Us and you are going to have the most deaths, and when you compare what we did compared to say, Germany, we come up well short.

You are perfectly entitled to think that the US (or UK) did a good job, but that is not backed up by the available evidence, AND (and this is the crucial point) that won't help learn the lessons from this.

[Canoerebel]

Encircled, I don't follow. The only way to measure country to country is by deaths/M. That measure puts things into perspective.

[MakeeLearn]

Florida declares WWE an essential business that can operate during stay-at-home order
8:09 a.m.


"During the coronavirus pandemic, Florida has come to the conclusion that putting on professional wrestling shows is an essential activity.

Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings on Monday said the state has deemed World Wrestling Entertainment an essential business, meaning the company can go back to holding live shows despite the state's stay-at-home order that lasts through the end of the month, ESPN reports. Demings said WWE was given that designation after discussions with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), even though they weren't "initially" deemed essential."

"A memo from DeSantis' office specifies that "employees at a professional sports and media production with a national audience" are considered essential, although only if the production is in a location closed to the general public. A DeSantis spokesperson said these services are essential "because they are critical to Florida's economy." ESPN notes this could potentially allow other sports to return in Florida."

[22sec]

Two weeks ago they were calling for the President to institute a nationwide lockdown. Now they are claiming the President doesn’t have the authority to reopen the country. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: pbiggar

How under reported are death rates for COVID-19?
From the Economist.

Posting short article below without nifty graphs as the link is probably behind a paywall.

Gist of article is deaths by Cardiac Arrest in NYC has gone from 30 a day to over 200 a day. Calls to 911 for cardiac arrests have gone from around 80 per day to 315 perday.
It would be interesting to know if other cities also experience changes like this. We will have to wait until this is done to get a proper accounting of the deaths.


NO CITY IN America has been hit by covid-19 as hard as New York. By April 12th, according to official statistics, more than 6,000 people had died. This is over a quarter of all deaths in the whole country. There is some cause for hope: new reported covid-19 cases and deaths in the city both appear to be falling. Modelling by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a research group at the University of Washington, suggests that New York state’s covid-19 epidemic may have passed its peak.

But when the final death toll is reported, it may be bigger than current data would suggest. A recent report from WNYC and The Gothamist, two New York media outlets, notes that the city’s official covid-19 fatality statistics have until recently excluded those who died in their homes, and therefore were never diagnosed with the virus. Exactly how many people are missing from the tally is unclear. One clue comes from the number of people calling 911 about cardiac arrests, a known consequence of covid-19.

According to data from the city’s fire department, New Yorkers are making four times as many emergency calls about cardiac arrests as they did last year. The most recent figures show that about 200 of these heart-attack victims are being pronounced dead at the scene each day, up from around 30 this time last year (see chart). It is plausible that some of these people were not victims of covid-19. Had hospitals not been so overwhelmed, they might otherwise have sought care early enough in person at emergency rooms, when they had their first symptoms, before things got bad enough to call an ambulance. Even so, the figures suggest that New York City (and possibly other places) may be drastically underestimating the number of people killed by the novel coronavirus.

The city has since announced that it will revise its covid-19 death count to include people who are likely to have died from the disease but who were never formally tested. Mortality statistics from governments tend to be reported with a significant time-lag. Officials might not know the full public-health impact of covid-19 until months after it has faded.

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

For Canoerebel, in relation to points raised previously on input control and accurate reporting.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52275823

I had actually missed pbiggar's post when I posted this.

Seems to be an emerging trend in both the US and the UK, and it wouldn't surprise me if it is the same elsewhere.

[Encircled]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Encircled, I don't follow. The only way to measure country to country is by deaths/M. That measure puts things into perspective.

And we are still going to be well below Germany.

Hans Bolter leapt off the deep end and implied it was anti-american to question what both our countries have done. (edit, its obviously not anti-american to question UK stuff!)

I don't think that helps when we both clearly have questions to answer.

(I leave it here btw as I don't want to get into a row over this now we've both made our points)

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

The virus arrived at many US cities at the same time or earlier than it arrived in NY. Those other cities didn't experience massive outbreaks, either due to luck or some combination of other factors. Given your concerns, other cities already should have had raging outbreaks.

And Michigan isn't close to NYC. From NYC to Detroit is 614 miles - about the same as from London to Berlin.

I think that if you look right to the beginning the picture might be a little misleading. Remember that the virus started in China and so initially would have been coming into the US from the West Coast. I'd suggest that is why you have early start dates for places like Washington State and California. Your president took a lot of criticism for shutting down the flights in from China but it seems to me that from that perspective at least he was ahead of the curve and gave you another month or so before it started breaking out again in earnest on the East Coast fueled by infections coming from Europe (at what point were flights stopped from Italy and Spain?).

In terms of deaths/million - New York is worse than any of the European countries on 513. You then have Spain Italy and Belgium on c.350, New Jersey/France on c.250, and then Louisiana, Connecticut, Michigan and the UK on c.160-180. Massachusetts is on c120. For me that (Louisiana aside) gives support to a suggestion that the US might actually be dealing with its second outbreak.

I'm finishing my lunch break now and will have to come back to any responses this evening.