OT: Corona virus

[RangerJoe]

I would not be surprised that even if restrictions were relaxed that the number of cases would not dramatically increase. Some will still stay in seclusion, especially those at high risk, while others may get infected but not seriously enough to be tested. I think that most people will still be careful, but some may not. Also, there is a much smaller chance of catching it outside.

[Lowpe]

Another Stanford physician's conclusions: Scott W. Atlas, MD, is the David and Joan Traitel Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center.

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/ ... -isolation

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

With respect to the news, that makes sense. You can't trust people to handle/process truth. You have to mislead them to keep them in line and achieve goals for the common good.

[:)]

[8D]

[witpqs]

Use your imagination.

Here's a hypothetical - if Antarctic residents start displaying symptoms of a new unknown illness, and there's a massive increase in injuries from Emperor Penguins in both first and subsequent encounters, then that's a possible avenue to explore for determining the source of the new illness.
No, because a person's first Emperor Penguin injury could have been years ago even before electronic medical records. The distinction between first and subsequent injuries is not reliable in the database.

It's not even restricted to medicine, either. If you have good records on injuries from Emperor Penguins and control for the size penguin and human populations, then you can monitor how aggressive they are through seasons and years. Then you could compare that to weather information and see if climate change has an effect on their behaviour
No, because there would be many, many confounding factors to eliminate.

And why are not all species included? Why not even all species of penguins? Why not all birds? Why not all mammals? All species of sharks, nay, all fishes? What about injuries caused by the animals after death, such as by fish bones stuck in the throat? {ExtremeSarcasm=ON}Are those lazy, under worked ER docs recording what species the fish bone was from? How about which bone? Not just any rib, which rib?!{ExtremeSarcasm=OFF}

Arguments for including more and more detail are always there because they are always theoretical: we can dream!

That's just the top of the iceberg (pun intended) of what you could do with a silly little data stream like that.
Here I agree, except of course the data stream is anything but little. You can drive up the cost of medical care (both directly and throughout the infrastructure that supports it) while achieving non-compliance with the data collection (which destroys that heavenly theoretical value of the data collected), increase the time it takes to enter the data resulting in Doctors spending most of the time during a supposed examination staring at their computer screen while typing in/selecting said data, making medical care incrementally less available, and on and on.

The doctors I know personally have told me that having electronic medical/health records has, net, not improved patient care. The fact it is possible to merely think (fantasize?, hallucinate?) that wonders can be achieved is enough to overcome the practically non-existent resistance politicians have to spending other people's money, time, lives...

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

I would not be surprised that even if restrictions were relaxed that the number of cases would not dramatically increase. Some will still stay in seclusion, especially those at high risk, while others may get infected but not seriously enough to be tested. I think that most people will still be careful, but some may not. Also, there is a much smaller chance of catching it outside.

I agree, people are simply petrified here in my neck of Pennsylvania. I got a survey from my gym (Planet Fitness) and one of the questions is would sanitizing locker rooms every 15 minutes important to me. In addition to a whole slew of questions regarding the sanitizing everything and density of equipment and limiting people, and greater spacing, etc.

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Belgium and Netherlands continue to report sharp drops in new cases and mortalities.

This seems to be happening all over Europe and most of the US now. That may be because many of these jurisdictions began imposing countermeasures about six weeks ago. It might be due to climate, as weather warms across the northern hemisphere. Or both. Certainly a major developing trend.

I think both Belgium and the Netherlands are following the general pattern of sharp drops in numbers around the weekend. The seven day rolling figures are going down though which is encouraging.

I think when they do the next Washington revisions they'll stay the same/slightly increase for the US (where the total numbers of deaths are c.2k above what the most recent model predicted at this point), will go up slightly for Italy/Spain/France whose recoveries seem to be slower than predicted and the UK staying about the same at around 30k or just below (I think the last prediction was still underestimating health care system resilience and we were 2k below the most recent prediction for 26/04 but I think we will have the same pattern as other European countries and in the US with slower reductions in deaths than predicted).

[RangerJoe]

It seems to me that the areas with the most deaths were both highly concentrated in population as well as airborne pollution. It hit the older people worse simply because they tend to have more health problems. If people (especially me included) were to take better care of themselves, they would have a better quality of life but not necessarily live longer.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

I would not be surprised that even if restrictions were relaxed that the number of cases would not dramatically increase. Some will still stay in seclusion, especially those at high risk, while others may get infected but not seriously enough to be tested. I think that most people will still be careful, but some may not. Also, there is a much smaller chance of catching it outside.

I agree, people are simply petrified here in my neck of Pennsylvania. I got a survey from my gym (Planet Fitness) and one of the questions is would sanitizing locker rooms every 15 minutes important to me. In addition to a whole slew of questions regarding the sanitizing everything and density of equipment and limiting people, and greater spacing, etc.

My sister, who needs to go to the gym to fight osteopenia/osteoporosis, complains about how many people don't wipe off machines when they are done with them. I'm talking about before COVID-19, just leaving pools of sweat on benches, handles dripping wet, and so on. Suddenly gyms are going to disinfect locker rooms every 15 minutes? And the air is a huge issue, so they would have to have large air handlers with UV or something to disinfect that. Sounds like a difficult business going forward.

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: witpqs
No, because a person's first Emperor Penguin injury could have been years ago even before electronic medical records. The distinction between first and subsequent injuries is not reliable in the database.

Sure, the best time to collect data for a time series is years in the past. The next best time to do it is today!

No, because there would be many, many confounding factors to eliminate.

That's what zoologists are for.

And why are not all species included? Why not even all species of penguins? Why not all birds? Why not all mammals? All species of sharks, nay, all fishes? What about injuries caused by the animals after death, such as by fish bones stuck in the throat? {ExtremeSarcasm=ON}Are those lazy, under worked ER docs recording what species the fish bone was from? How about which bone? Not just any rib, which rib?!{ExtremeSarcasm=OFF}

Arguments for including more and more detail are always there because they are always theoretical: we can dream!

Emperor penguins (at a guess) are included given the circumstances under which an attack would need to take place.

IOW, in the Antarctic, with a limited human population and close to a colony. If every fourth person on an Antarctic expedition is getting mauled by penguins, that's worth knowing if your the expedition doctor.

This information is important to collect, even if you find the process tedious. I should not need to be the one to explain the value of medical records and paperwork for the assurance and audit purpose.

Here I agree, except of course the data stream is anything but little. You can drive up the cost of medical care (both directly and throughout the infrastructure that supports it) while achieving non-compliance with the data collection (which destroys that heavenly theoretical value of the data collected), increase the time it takes to enter the data resulting in Doctors spending most of the time during a supposed examination staring at their computer screen while typing in/selecting said data, making medical care incrementally less available, and on and on.

The doctors I know personally have told me that having electronic medical/health records has, net, not improved patient care. The fact it is possible to merely think (fantasize?, hallucinate?) that wonders can be achieved is enough to overcome the practically non-existent resistance politicians have to spending other people's money, time, lives...

I can't speak for the US, but I imagine that the data landscape there would be quite different from the UK, given the proliferation of healthcare providers. In the UK, thanks to the single system, it's significantly easier.

In late Febuauary I attended a talk on using healthcare data to benefit society. The most impressive work linked medical records with homelessness data. In short, people in the early stages of becoming homeless (but not actually homeless) spike in terms of their interactions with specific medical services (drugs, alcohol, mental health issues) about 1-2 months before presenting themselves at their local authority as being actually without a place to live.

That's powerful knowledge as you can have an electronic system flag this to a doctor that the medical issues they're seeing in isolation may be part of a wider problem and enables more effective access to services that can be helpful.

That's a really clear benefit of having solid medical records, but of course this type of linking between datasets is the most complex.

If you're really interested I'll see if I can find the paper.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Another Stanford physician's conclusions: Scott W. Atlas, MD, is the David and Joan Traitel Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center.

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/ ... -isolation

Well said. It's what we're all thinking, but succinctly summarized.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

I would not be surprised that even if restrictions were relaxed that the number of cases would not dramatically increase. Some will still stay in seclusion, especially those at high risk, while others may get infected but not seriously enough to be tested. I think that most people will still be careful, but some may not. Also, there is a much smaller chance of catching it outside.

I agree, people are simply petrified here in my neck of Pennsylvania. I got a survey from my gym (Planet Fitness) and one of the questions is would sanitizing locker rooms every 15 minutes important to me. In addition to a whole slew of questions regarding the sanitizing everything and density of equipment and limiting people, and greater spacing, etc.

My sister, who needs to go to the gym to fight osteopenia/osteoporosis, complains about how many people don't wipe off machines when they are done with them. I'm talking about before COVID-19, just leaving pools of sweat on benches, handles dripping wet, and so on. Suddenly gyms are going to disinfect locker rooms every 15 minutes? And the air is a huge issue, so they would have to have large air handlers with UV or something to disinfect that. Sounds like a difficult business going forward.

Agreed. A large gymnasium like that is rife with opportunity for respiratory disease transmission.

[Cap Mandrake]

My main problem with the WHO diagnosis codes is they have 26,000 possible codes plus probably millions of modifiers so you literally have to look everything up. Then there are hundreds of idiosyncratic rules like an "O" code only applies to a pregnant woman not to the baby even though the baby has a problem related to the gestational diabetes. With the ICD-9 codes I had many hundreds of codes committed to memory but they threw those out and now they give the time consuming task to the busiest people in the system or cause the hiring of trained new coders. Cleverly, the WHO charged a royalty fee on the millions of 6 lb coding books published.

With "Attack by Emperor Penguin, second encounter" there is a modifier "with cognitive impairment" or "without cognitive impairment"

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake
With "Attack by Emperor Penguin, second encounter" there is a modifier "with cognitive impairment" or "without cognitive impairment"

Who is having their cognitive impairment measures / recorded? The Emperor penguin? Granted, they're not particularly intelligent animals, but what system do you have to measure their cognitive skills?

Or perhaps it was the victim of the penguin drubbing: I imagine if they slappety-slappety-slappety you enough about your head and neck you could be concussed.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

I would not be surprised that even if restrictions were relaxed that the number of cases would not dramatically increase. Some will still stay in seclusion, especially those at high risk, while others may get infected but not seriously enough to be tested. I think that most people will still be careful, but some may not. Also, there is a much smaller chance of catching it outside.

I agree, people are simply petrified here in my neck of Pennsylvania. I got a survey from my gym (Planet Fitness) and one of the questions is would sanitizing locker rooms every 15 minutes important to me. In addition to a whole slew of questions regarding the sanitizing everything and density of equipment and limiting people, and greater spacing, etc.

My sister, who needs to go to the gym to fight osteopenia/osteoporosis, complains about how many people don't wipe off machines when they are done with them. I'm talking about before COVID-19, just leaving pools of sweat on benches, handles dripping wet, and so on. Suddenly gyms are going to disinfect locker rooms every 15 minutes? And the air is a huge issue, so they would have to have large air handlers with UV or something to disinfect that. Sounds like a difficult business going forward.

A lot of gyms are notoriously bad on their membership agreements and canceling your membership.

I particularly joined this gym because of it's very lenient membership agreements and have not been disappointed.

Most of the membership is older, at least during the times I go, and I would say about 90 percent wipe down their equipment after use. I have only seen pools of sweat a few times. The staff is there to train, but I always seem them cleaning equipment and areas. To me it never looked unsanitary and the air circulation was strong. So I was happy, and can't wait to return. I miss it in my daily routine and it would be a shame if this is fatal to them.

[Canoerebel]

While meandering about the woods yesterday, I seemed to have missed a key post about emperor penguins that started a long chain. Sometimes it's possible to jump in midstream and comprehend through context. This ain't one of those times. My efforts to follow this thus far this morning have been pretty darned funny.

(P.S. Don't interpret this as a request for clarification. I can go back and find it.)

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Another Stanford physician's conclusions: Scott W. Atlas, MD, is the David and Joan Traitel Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center.

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/ ... -isolation

Well said. It's what we're all thinking, but succinctly summarized.

I haven't seen it mentioned here, but I have read that New York was forcing senior homes to take in new admittance of seniors that were covid positive -- I believe that this was the state supervised homes (basically state run) only but I am not sure. At my parents senior home in PA, a private facility, they have been on a complete lockdown for well over 40 days and they have had 0 infections. Of course life goes on, and not all senior homes can be as discerning or strong enough fiscally to do this. April and May are usually big move in dates traditionally because of the flu.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: obvert

Another avenue for finding new hotspots and more reliably measuring the number of people with Cornavirus. Sewage.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... 019927001/

Last week, county officials sent a sample of raw sewage from the Wilmington Wastewater Treatment plant on 12th Street to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology startup. There, they compared the prevalence of genetic fragments from the virus in fecal matter against local population data and sewage flow rates – all in an effort to estimate how many people may have the virus.

The company's analysis estimated that 15,200 people – three percent of the population north of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal – had the virus as of April 14. That number is approximately 15 times the laboratory confirmed cases in the county as of the sample date.

That kind of analysis is so rife with speculation and assumptions on what values to assign variables that it likely isn't any more accurate than measuring cosmological distances using the red shifting of light.

Was a speculated margin of error stated?

A creative exercise in how to find ways to spend tax dollar science funding.

Hans, do some research. Until you find it doesn't work, why negate it? It's being used in a number of tests around the world. Researchers in the Netherlands for instance found it in the waste before there was a known case in one town. So it is useful in several ways.

Have a read instead of finding the negative without looking into it.

[Canoerebel]

Until yesterday, that's what I thought too with respect to the Univ. of Washington projections. Except for Georgia, which has continuously come in far under projections for the past four or five days.

But yesterday's declines were so marked, nearly across the board, that I wonder how Univ. of Wash. will handle that. That may truly have been an anomaly, but if the trend continues today and tomorrow it'll necessitate serious adjustments to the projections.

That would be good. [:)]

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Belgium and Netherlands continue to report sharp drops in new cases and mortalities.

This seems to be happening all over Europe and most of the US now. That may be because many of these jurisdictions began imposing countermeasures about six weeks ago. It might be due to climate, as weather warms across the northern hemisphere. Or both. Certainly a major developing trend.

I think both Belgium and the Netherlands are following the general pattern of sharp drops in numbers around the weekend. The seven day rolling figures are going down though which is encouraging.

I think when they do the next Washington revisions they'll stay the same/slightly increase for the US (where the total numbers of deaths are c.2k above what the most recent model predicted at this point), will go up slightly for Italy/Spain/France whose recoveries seem to be slower than predicted and the UK staying about the same at around 30k or just below (I think the last prediction was still underestimating health care system resilience and we were 2k below the most recent prediction for 26/04 but I think we will have the same pattern as other European countries and in the US with slower reductions in deaths than predicted).

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

I would not be surprised that even if restrictions were relaxed that the number of cases would not dramatically increase. Some will still stay in seclusion, especially those at high risk, while others may get infected but not seriously enough to be tested. I think that most people will still be careful, but some may not. Also, there is a much smaller chance of catching it outside.

I agree, people are simply petrified here in my neck of Pennsylvania. I got a survey from my gym (Planet Fitness) and one of the questions is would sanitizing locker rooms every 15 minutes important to me. In addition to a whole slew of questions regarding the sanitizing everything and density of equipment and limiting people, and greater spacing, etc.

My sister, who needs to go to the gym to fight osteopenia/osteoporosis, complains about how many people don't wipe off machines when they are done with them. I'm talking about before COVID-19, just leaving pools of sweat on benches, handles dripping wet, and so on. Suddenly gyms are going to disinfect locker rooms every 15 minutes? And the air is a huge issue, so they would have to have large air handlers with UV or something to disinfect that. Sounds like a difficult business going forward.

I would imagine a large factor in how I would respond to a survey asking if disinfecting everything every 15 minutes would make me feel more comfortable would be a list of the intended disinfectants. Many chemicals we use to kill germs are just as toxic to humans. I definitely would not feel more comfortable huffing bleach fumes or any other toxic VOCs. Don't make the ccure worse than the disease.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: obvert


Have a read instead of finding the negative without looking into it.

Quickly gaining insight into the potential negatives is one of my key personality traits that I simply can't turn off.

A former employer, who had a pension for dreaming up unrealistic production schemes, hated me for my ability to shoot holes in his plans as he presented them.

Do you actually find any of my criticisms invalid.

I didn't mean to imply that no good can come from such a study, just that one needs a healthy dose of skepticism regarding any conclusions.