OT: Corona virus

[Lowpe]

WATCH: E.R. Doctors Urge A Reopening: Lockdown Creating Public Health Crisis, Doctors ‘Pressured’ To Add COVID To Death Reports, Quarantining Healthy ‘Never Seen’ Before

https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-e- ... seen-befor

I found this interesting.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive
Ok that makes much more sense. I'm still not sure which careers have gone permanently so that people can't go back to them once the lockdown has lifted. In terms of the commitment in terms of training etc that would have put in to get going in their career I guess the big one would be airline pilots. Maybe chefs also? Finding it hard to think of other specific examples.

One of my college roommates also served as groomsman at my wedding. Good friend still. He worked for a very well known wafer fabrication design software company in silicon valley. 51 years old. Been with this company for 25 years. He and his entire team let go en masse last week. Since nobody is buying anything (including the largest companies in the world), they had no use for sales and service teams. They got a small severance package.

Ageism is rampant in silicon valley. An 'old timer' like him may be eventually replaced. But it won't be by a 51 year old. It'll be by a twenty-something from India most likely. The mature leavening he provided his teams won't be reproduced. He will look for something, but odds that he can get back to where he was are nil. So his career is effectively over in this industry. It's a hard pill to swallow, but it is what it is.

And beyond silicon valley. HR departments (who are supposed to be the gatekeepers of companies' ethics in hiring) actually push it.

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

WATCH: E.R. Doctors Urge A Reopening: Lockdown Creating Public Health Crisis, Doctors ‘Pressured’ To Add COVID To Death Reports, Quarantining Healthy ‘Never Seen’ Before

https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-e- ... seen-befor

I found this interesting.

That is interesting to me as well. Thank you.

[Cap Mandrake]

Over 90F Friday and yesterday. Mid 80's today. Brilliant blue sky, hills all green from recent rains, wildflowers. Grey whales all over the place. 100 miles visibility

I just want to go to beach before it's back to grind. It's only 6 miles away. State beaches are open for walking and surfing but parking is shut down. Local governments are going to have open insurrection soon.

[pbiggar]

What is the view of this group on the impact of easing the lockdown in the US? Given around 30,000 new infections daily and about 2,000 deaths per day, do you expect this number to be higher or lower a month from now?

If it remained stable it would result in another 900,000 infections and 60,000 deaths.

I have the impression that Italy and Spain waited to see their numbers come down more before easing up.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Over 90F Friday and yesterday. Mid 80's today. Brilliant blue sky, hills all green from recent rains, wildflowers. Grey whales all over the place. 100 miles visibility

I just want to go to beach before it's back to grind. It's only 6 miles away. State beaches are open for walking and surfing but parking is shut down. Local governments are going to have open insurrection soon.

Freeways there were already crowded enough, darn it.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Over 90F Friday and yesterday. Mid 80's today. Brilliant blue sky, hills all green from recent rains, wildflowers. Grey whales all over the place. 100 miles visibility

I just want to go to beach before it's back to grind. It's only 6 miles away. State beaches are open for walking and surfing but parking is shut down. Local governments are going to have open insurrection soon.

I have a brother in Huntington Beach, would love to visit...but he is very busy working, but loving his quick commute:

from the daily mail on the 24th https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -home.html

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: obvert


Actually, its been quite demonstrably proven by a number of countries having flattened the curve through lockdowns. Without lockdowns you'd see what happened in the initial stages in Italy, with hospitals being overwhelmed.

There are plenty of places that didn't lockdown and aren't overwhelmed. How do you explain that?

To ascribe lockdowns as the culpable factor in flattening the curve, which is not a scientific proven fact but rather a hypothesis, at this stage is wrong. Sure, we have all gone thru extensive pain from the disease and lockdown and want to believe it is working as advertised.

The only large European country I know that didn't lock down is Sweden, but they're recommended distancing measures and the populace has complied in large part. There are still criticisms that they have increased mortalities unnecessarily and failed to protect the vulnerable effectively. They're mortality rates are significantly higher than other countries nearby.

Japan didn't lock down early, but was forced to more recently after numbers began to rise more quickly.

South Korea has had some recommended measures but largely got no top of the outbreak very early due to extensive testing and contact tracing. As reported by Commander Cody, this has been accomplished after these strategies were put in place over the last years due to earlier outbreaks like SARS.

Are there other you know about?

This page from the BBC shows the lockdowns across the globe.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-52103747

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: pbiggar

What is the view of this group on the impact of easing the lockdown in the US? Given around 30,000 new infections daily and about 2,000 deaths per day, do you expect this number to be higher or lower a month from now?

If it remained stable it would result in another 900,000 infections and 60,000 deaths.

I have the impression that Italy and Spain waited to see their numbers come down more before easing up.

I think most are at least grudgingly accepting of the *need* for staggered easing of the lockdown here, pbiggar. Some counties/cities/states will do it more rapidly than others based upon the applicable governmental edict being unwound. Like our neighbors to the North, not all places are as affected here, so local control is probably the right move.

There's a growing body of people here that are pointing out the costs (societal, economic and otherwise) of indefinite extreme quarantine measures are unsustainable. And a reconsideration that these costs may be heavier to bear than COVID-19 mortality. Some perfectly reasonable considerations for balance.

ETA: We are seeing raw numbers of positive tests continue to stay high. But in the face of much more testing numbers, a 'steady' 30,000 cases is actually somewhat reassuring. Attack rates continue to drop (see my post from earlier today) which suggest that-assuming the criteria for testing people doesn't change-the prevalence of this agent will diminish.

Where will we be in a month? At this rate we'll be testing 5,000,000 people a week. If we continued to have 30,000 cases a day at that rate of testing (assuming that the criteria for testing people doesn't change), I would be mollified that the worst is behind us and that prevalence is waning.

I'd like deaths to go to zero ASAP, as would everyone. Being within spitting distance of emergency approval of a good treatment for the most ill (remdesivir) may help. But realistically-we will still have nursing homes and convalescent care facilities that will have the infection spread to them. They will contribute to mortality figures as long as the virus is in circulation.

[witpqs]

Listening to the radio when driving, it seems that every large and medium sized company in the country, plus all car dealers and numerous others, have advertisements about how they are taking measures regarding COVID-19. So all the marketing resources necessary to produce those ads are obviously considered 'critical' in states where they are produced.

An acquaintance in Kansas is trying to get their vegetables planted, and he usually orders seeds online. The seed company is located in Michigan, and they are not allowed to ship product because of the state ordered lock down measures.

Advertising is critical but planting food is not.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Listening to the radio when driving, it seems that every large and medium sized company in the country, plus all car dealers and numerous others, have advertisements about how they are taking measures regarding COVID-19. So all the marketing resources necessary to produce those ads are obviously considered 'critical' in states where they are produced.

An acquaintance in Kansas is trying to get their vegetables planted, and he usually orders seeds online. The seed company is located in Michigan, and they are not allowed to ship product because of the state order lock down measures.

Advertising is critical but planting food is not.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Lots of stories about poultry and hog slaughter/processing facilities being shut down due to line workers that are ill. Those birds or hogs are going to go into the ground instead of into the food chain. Seen some video of farmers discing in whole fields of crops because they can't get them harvested and moved to market.

Gasoline supply has been plentiful. Same with electricity, potable water, natural gas and other important building blocks of society. But you crimp food production and delivery and things will get nasty nasty nasty. All agriculture should be considered essential. Full stop.

[Chickenboy]

@Warspite1: You mentioned some time ago in this thread that you have relatives (nephews) that are in the medical field and may be near the 'front lines' of this thing in your country. How are they faring?

[Canoerebel]

Big drop in mortality in Italy today - lowest number since March 14. Keeping everything in context, that's worth celebrating.

Other European countries also reporting major drops.

USA figures are still in progress, as state reporting is staggered well into the evening.

[Chickenboy]

Doing a little more digging on state by state CFR rates. Found some interesting insights.

Most states are still testing only symptomatic people or those most at risk to extended exposure (e.g., first responders, medical staff, etc.) by RT-PCR. A 'case' per most domestic testing programs then represents the presence of virus in a symptomatic person or a person most at risk from exposure.

I'm not hearing of much conflation of what constitutes a case between states or counties or whatnot. I'm seeing more conflation regarding how mortality figures should / should not be lumped in to related mortality.

There are many legitimate questions for 'how widespread is this' based upon asymptomatics or untested or sick-recovered-no longer shedding virus instances, but the 'case' definition as it stands now seems to be pretty straightforward and unifying. Because of seemingly uniform testing criterion, these asymptomatics, because they are not being tested by RT-PCR wouldn't constitute defined cases for CFR calculation. It will take some time to get a grasp on Infection Fatality Rate (IFR), because we aren't measuring statistically meaningful numbers of people for whether they've ever been exposed to this-ever-.

Sticking to CFR and not conflating it with unknown / unknowable IFR:

I thought that using these definitions and with these caveats in mind, looking at CFRs for the states may shed some light on regional issues and standouts. Most states (I haven't run this calculation on all, but many) are around a 2.5%-4.5% CFR.

Connecticut 7.6%. Minnesota (surprisingly) 7%. Louisiana 6.2%. New York (surprisingly) 5.8%. New Jersey (surprisingly) 5.5%. Nebraska 2.2%. Georgia 3.9%. California 4.0%. Texas 2.6%. Pennsylvania 3.8%. Ohio 4.7%. North Carolina 3.3%. Florida 3.5%.

These rates were higher than I would have thought at first blush across the board. I get that the press bandies the term "CFR" about when in fact they mean "IFR". But there was less variation between states than I was anticipating and some unexpected standouts: Minnesota and Connecticut.

Despite larger numbers of cases in New York and New Jersey, they seemed to fare better than Minnesota cases. And the Connecticut numbers-likely related to the spread in NYC environs-were higher than NY/NJ overall. And what about Texas' victims makes them better candidates for survival?

Some puzzlers. [&:]

https://covidtracking.com/data

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Doing a little more digging on state by state CFR rates. Found some interesting insights.

Most states are still testing only symptomatic people or those most at risk to extended exposure (e.g., first responders, medical staff, etc.) by RT-PCR. A 'case' per most domestic testing programs then represents the presence of virus in a symptomatic person or a person most at risk from exposure.

I'm not hearing of much conflation of what constitutes a case between states or counties or whatnot. I'm seeing more conflation regarding how mortality figures should / should not be lumped in to related mortality.

There are many legitimate questions for 'how widespread is this' based upon asymptomatics or untested or sick-recovered-no longer shedding virus instances, but the 'case' definition as it stands now seems to be pretty straightforward and unifying. Because of seemingly uniform testing criterion, these asymptomatics, because they are not being tested by RT-PCR wouldn't constitute defined cases for CFR calculation. It will take some time to get a grasp on Infection Fatality Rate (IFR), because we aren't measuring statistically meaningful numbers of people for whether they've ever been exposed to this-ever-.

Sticking to CFR and not conflating it with unknown / unknowable IFR:

I thought that using these definitions and with these caveats in mind, looking at CFRs for the states may shed some light on regional issues and standouts. Most states (I haven't run this calculation on all, but many) are around a 2.5%-4.5% CFR.

Connecticut 7.6%. Minnesota (surprisingly) 7%. Louisiana 6.2%. New York (surprisingly) 5.8%. New Jersey (surprisingly) 5.5%. Nebraska 2.2%. Georgia 3.9%. California 4.0%. Texas 2.6%. Pennsylvania 3.8%. Ohio 4.7%. North Carolina 3.3%. Florida 3.5%.

These rates were higher than I would have thought at first blush across the board. I get that the press bandies the term "CFR" about when in fact they mean "IFR". But there was less variation between states than I was anticipating and some unexpected standouts: Minnesota and Connecticut.

Despite larger numbers of cases in New York and New Jersey, they seemed to fare better than Minnesota cases. And the Connecticut numbers-likely related to the spread in NYC environs-were higher than NY/NJ overall. And what about Texas' victims makes them better candidates for survival?

Some puzzlers. [&:]

https://covidtracking.com/data

I think Texans in general got a smaller viral load when the disease was transmitted because the heat deactivated more of the virus before it entered their body. Smaller initial infection gives more time for the body to build defences before getting to the critical stage. My SWAG/QRP of the day.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing



Which is why I'm banging on about the international comparisons being largely worthless. Cases and deaths are not by default directly comparable.

Even within the UK, Scotland is counting the deaths markedly different (mentions on death certificate, even if not confirmed) from England (died in hospital, tested positive).

Of course, that was handwaved way.

Here is an excerpt from BBC article about Sweeden, April 25. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52395866

Unlike in some countries, Sweden's statistics do include elderly care home residents, who account for around 50% of all deaths.




I know that the cause of death is wrong in 1 out of 3 of every US death certificates prior to Covid. Many states the cause is wrong approaching 50% of the time.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: obvert


Actually, its been quite demonstrably proven by a number of countries having flattened the curve through lockdowns. Without lockdowns you'd see what happened in the initial stages in Italy, with hospitals being overwhelmed.

There are plenty of places that didn't lockdown and aren't overwhelmed. How do you explain that?

To ascribe lockdowns as the culpable factor in flattening the curve, which is not a scientific proven fact but rather a hypothesis, at this stage is wrong. Sure, we have all gone thru extensive pain from the disease and lockdown and want to believe it is working as advertised.

The only large European country I know that didn't lock down is Sweden, but they're recommended distancing measures and the populace has complied in large part. There are still criticisms that they have increased mortalities unnecessarily and failed to protect the vulnerable effectively. They're mortality rates are significantly higher than other countries nearby.

Japan didn't lock down early, but was forced to more recently after numbers began to rise more quickly.

South Korea has had some recommended measures but largely got no top of the outbreak very early due to extensive testing and contact tracing. As reported by Commander Cody, this has been accomplished after these strategies were put in place over the last years due to earlier outbreaks like SARS.

Are there other you know about?

This page from the BBC shows the lockdowns across the globe.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-52103747

Thanks Obvert. Shows severity of lockdowns too.

Be careful in saying that Sweeden has a higher mortality rate, as in the BBC article I reference above, they might be counting differently than others.

[RangerJoe]

There was a Minnesota legislator, I think that I posted this before, who is also a doctor and he said that there is pressure to call every case CoVid-19 and every death is due to CoViD-19. He said that Medicare pays 13,000 a day for CoViD-19 cases but it goes up to 39,000 a day if the patient is put on a ventilator. That could be why Minnesota is so high since the infection numbers themselves are relatively small. Although the colder weather may help spread the disease more so than in Texas, but at least Minnesota does not have CHIGGERS!

The deer are usually larger in Minnesota as well. The white tailed ones, that is, not including the wild elk nor the moose. No more woodland caribou, however.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe
Be careful in saying that Sweeden has a higher mortality rate, as in the BBC article I reference above, they might be counting differently than others.

I think obvert said 'other countries nearby'. It's a useful comparative. Scandinavian countries ex-Sweden show much much lower Deaths/M. Sweden's 217/M is a significant departure from Denmark's 73, Norway's 37 or Finland's 34 and probably not explainable by vagaries in how deaths are counted.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

There was a Minnesota legislator, I think that I posted this before, who is also a doctor and he said that there is pressure to call every case CoVid-19 and every death is due to CoViD-19.

Yet that would belie Minnesota's comparatively low cases/M or deaths/M in their population, so that can't be it. I'm also assuming that there would not be many assignations of a positive case in the absence of corroborating RT-PCR positive or irrefutable clinical signs. Unlike New York and New Jersey that teetered on the precipe of a full-on hospital collapse, Minnesota was never pressed so as to take such shortcuts in diagnostics.

Minnesota has had 14.6% the number of cases we have had, but 42% of our mortality in raw numbers. Controlled for population, Cases/M for MN: 652; Texas 883. Deaths/M for MN: 49; Texas 23. So there's something else cooking here.