OT (not really): COVID-19 Discussion Thread
With sports currently shut down, there is little to talk about other than the current pandemic. There have been a few threads on this, but nothing today and nothing currently on the page 1 of the board.
With life drastically altered, I, for one, miss so many of the mundane aspects of life, one of which is my discussions / arguments / laughs with the community on this board. Hence, this topic.
Here are a few questions / comments to get the discussion started, but feel free to chime in with your own:
1. When do you think that we will resume primarily normal activities in this country. By that, I don't mean 100% normal, but open bars and restaurants, most kids back in school, resumption of sports and open offices?
The decision is not so clear. On the one hand, we want to protect people from this scourge. On the other, locking down the world is going to have devastating real life financial consequences (not just the markets, but real people losing real jobs that won't come back for quite some time) if this goes on for more than a week or so. My prediction is that on or around April 1, the Fed government will announce that the 15 days to stop the spread did enough to slow the disease that the medical resources can deal with this disease. The reality is that almost all of the fatalities have been in a very defined group of people - older people or those with compromised immune systems. I can see a lifting of many of the shutdowns, but with advisories and restrictions left in place for such people. I can also see more localized shutdowns remaining in place in hot spots such as NY and Cali.
2. If the country is open for business by May, why would the NCAA not consider hosting "March Madness" then. Yes, it would require a massive amount of logistical work, but (a) the athletes who worked so hard deserve the opportunity to play; and (b) it would be a huge positive for the country's morale and for the economy (which is very needed). In my view, hosting the Tourney in May or June is the right, and patriotic, thing to do.
Please stop commenting in this thread. It is one thing if you are ignorant, but it is quite different to attempt to spread your ignorance. Quit it.
6.8.0i will not stop because the ignorance of people like you who insist that social distancing and long term shutdowns, damn the long term economic consequences, are the only way to combat this and refuse to entertain the idea that there needs to be a risk analysis so we can recover sooner rather than later.
There was a risk analysis already. It proves you wrong. Shut up now.
6.8.0500,000 dead.
over a million in the hospital.
there's your risk analysis.
So, pretty much a lot of hand waving. We should also maybe make Rick Santelli the head of the CDC.
"... mass distribution of the proper face masks ..."
You're aware that hospitals don't have enough N95s at the moment ... right?
Yes I’m aware. I’m not saying it has to happen today. I’m saying sooner rather than later. Surely this can be done sooner than the end of May as it has been suggested. That is entirely too long.
I'm no doctor or public health expert, but I'm getting the impression that you're *really* not.
There are already more orders of N95 masks than manufacturers can fill in a year of production.
China has temporarily banned some exports of respirators as they are needed there.
Your idea to get billions of these for over 330 million Americans is brilliant.
I actually agree with you to a greater extent than many of my posts might suggest. The challenge is two-fold:
1. We needed to be prepared to take your approach before the virus even hit (by having both large stores of proper face masks etc.and adequate capacity and procedures in place to develop a large scale testing system very quickly).
2. We needed to institute those procedures very quickly.
Now we are playing catch up. The virus has spread to large portions of the population. Because perfect social distancing is next to impossible, even during a period of social distancing there are likely many people getting infected with asymptotic cases. Regardless of when we stop aggressive social distancing, the virus will likely crop up again. We will have to be aggressive about testing and then tracking down people who have been exposed to symptomatic people. With widespread testing, these people will only need short quarantines until we can figure out if they are infected and need longer quarantines.
Under our current economic policy, yeah, companies are screwed. There will have to be a more interventionist policy to keep them going - think 2008 but on a larger scale.
You're in for a VERY rude awakening.
It's hard to say when this lift of social distancing will happen. I think schools, both public and university is a big area of concern/contention and I don't see anyone returning anytime soon. Most universities have ended the 2019-2020 academic year. I think most public schools best case scenario is to return in May with a good chance this academic year may also be over. I think our hope probably lies in a return to normalcy next fall.
1. About 3 more weeks IMO. A lot of schools have already determined to be done (in person) for the year, so I’m not sure if they can go back on that. But restaurants etc should (hope) start to re-open and initiate a nice upswing to getting back to normal. How long will it take to get to normal? I don’t know, but at least will start the process.
I’ve said this in other threads so I guess it’s worth repeating here. The key will be to test as many people as possible. What I’ll think we’ll find is that the incidence rate is way higher than what we thought which would bring the fatality rate way down to something more “palatable”. At which point panic/hysteria will subside and we can start the process to normal. Good news is that testing en masse is on its way, so that’s why I think 3 weeks.
lastly. Popcorn.gif. These types of threads usually get ugly fast.
The fatality rate isn’t the only issue here (although it alone is a big one.). About one in five confirmed cases requires hospitalization. There are going to be a lot of people filling up our hospitals who won’t end up dying of this but will require treatment all the same. It’s not just elderly people either - younger adults are also being hospitalized at a fairly high rate, they just aren’t dying for whatever reason.
There is also the issue that if you have a raging pandemic that is killing/hospitalizing thousands daily, it will cause consumer panic. People won’t just return to their old routines like nothing’s changed. They have trust that public spaces are safe again before they go back to their old ways.
I wasn’t saying it will be normal in 3 weeks, just that we’ll start the process to get to normal. Getting people back to work one-by-one will be big. Lots of businesses (like my gym) voluntarily closed. I think those places reopen.
I don't think 20% of cases require hospitalization, though. I think a lot of these early mild cases are resulting in hospitalization because it's new and hospitalization has been a way to quarantine those infected. Look at Tom Hanks, for example: never had symptoms beyond achiness and was hospitalized a week.
Reports today out of Wuhan suggest fatality rate is lower than originally suspected.
All that to say, even at a 0.5% fatality rate, a million Americans could die at the current growth rate.
One in five confirmed cases has required hospitalization here in the United States.
Now, it’s likely true that there are thousands of unconfirmed cases, so the total rate is probably significantly lower than 20%. But it’s still very high. The hospitalization rate for confirmed flu cases is 1-2%. (Most cases of influenza aren’t officially confirmed either.)
As for the fatality rate, it’s clearly dependent on the available hospital resources. Italy’s CFR is above 8% now. They now have more official covid-19 deaths than China. Maybe China isn’t being truthful with its numbers but still, that’s grim. Italy got its first confirmed case just over a month ago.
I'm just saying that a lot of these early cases have been hospitalized out of an abundance of caution and not because the patients required intensive care.
Your point may be true, but unless you have more than a Tom Hanks example, I question whether you are right. I don’t think they generally hospitalize people out of an abundance of caution. They are trying to get all but the mist extreme cases to stay at home snd aren't even in many cases testing, I suspect (but I will admit I have no cites to back up this assertion), that most hospitalizations are generally focused on people with the most severe symptoms or who have more than moderate symptoms and addiction high risk factors.
Yes, I think it's the case now that only the more severe cases are being hospitalized. And it will become more and more the case to the point where even severe cases will be turned away due to lack of capacity.
The 20% require hospitalization rhetoric is misleading and just perpetuates the mass hysteria going on in this country. We have hospitals telling people to stay home. We have the CDC telling people to not even go to the doctor unless they can’t breathe. You might want to perpetuate the myth that it’s only to reduce the workload of the healthcare system/workers but they aren’t going to tell people to stay home and die just to keep the hospitals from becoming too crowded. That 20% rate is just as misleading as the fatality rate being thrown out all over the place.
If every American tested positive for the virus the hospitalization rate would plummet, as would the fatality rate. Remove the elderly and those with advanced immune deficiencies and the rate would plummet even further.
Just stop with the whole sky is falling bullshit. You’re gonna end up on the wrong side of this when it’s all said and done. Is it a big deal, sure. Is it something we should all be addressing, of course. Is it even nearly as bad as you want to believe and make others believe? The sheer statistics say no. Stop perpetuating doom and gloom and stay in your lane bro.
March 19th, 2020 at 11:37 PM ^
The vast majority of Covid 19 cases go untested. People get sick and people get better. Some don’t even notice it. The data is skewed.
it’s still a frighteningly devastating disease.
I have a friend’s mom in ICU on a vent as I type this. She is getting the Zithromiacin and Malria treatment.
I read we lose 3.3mm a year in the US so an increase of 1m is significant. However, if most of those 60% of more, are from aged 70-80+, that mitigates the impact. Is terrible for them and their loved ones but it at least kids will survive and continue moving society forward.
Unfortunately testing is not really the answer either...because most of the tests given out don't actually work.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32133832. This is a scientific study that shows the testing results of the Wuhan Virus to have a false positive rate at potentially 80%. If you are a believer in this scientific studies in general, and this one specifically, the logical conclusion is that we have no idea how many are infected. Take all aggregate infection data with a grain of salt.
And here’s another one: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-17319/v1. This study’s conclusion is that “single negative result of the test, particularly if it is based on an upper respiratory tract specimen, in highly suspected cases, does not exclude COVID-19.” So we have a test that gives both false positives and false negatives. Yes, this is the same test that is currently being used in many places, but there is an attempt to get more accurate tests out in the past week (or two? I don't know exactly).
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I got bashed by one particular poster because he/she didn’t believe me that these tests were bunk.
Now, the new tests that just got cleared or EUAs by the FDA are going to be much better.
Unless you are referring to a different post, you got bashed because you kept insisting without any evidence that we could not have geared up to do testing faster in the US.
Would really like to get businesses back open as soon as possible, get people back to work. Continued long terms closures of business and schools will have incredibly long lasting possibly irreversible implications for our society and will cause untold economic suffering and I don't want to see that. Glad to hear there may be some potential treatments that have shown possible good outcomes and that there seems to be some progress toward a vaccine. Also sounds like the confirmed cases are going up at a much higher rate proportionately than deaths resulting from the virus and that is good news as well.
I thought it was good that the FDA fast-tracked approval of the use of hydroxychloroquine (the anti-Malaria) drug for treatment use.
There are 2 studies as regards this drug: (1) Australian researchers indicating it works in vitro, and (2) French researchers indicating it works in a (admittedly limited test and control) field study.
This drug is also relatively cheap. It's an older drug, so we know its side effects already (they are pretty limited overall - blindness is the big one if you take it for years).
It may not be perfect, but it's a weapon to throw at the enemy in this war.
Here is a link to the French paper describing their trial. Again, this is a very limited test and we really do need a bigger scale double-blind tests before making it more widely available (do not listen to WH on this), but it is very promising. This may be our only avenue to get things back to normal.
Italy death toll now higher than China.
Only if you believe the bullshit state massaged numbers coming out of China.
This is what is happening in my family. I lay it out as a simple data point and nothing else. You can call it humble brag or whatever, I don't care. It is where my family is at.
My wife is a sole brick and mortar business owner of a 24 hour emergency vet clinic in Ann Arbor. As business owners, with 30+ employees, almost 2 dozen of which have families to support, this is scary as shit. We have locked our doors and require phone screening in order to assess clients and patients and their risk factor, have done the best we can to keep our staff safe and also continue to serve the community. The entire veterinary community has taken this extra step as there is fear that animals may present fomites that can transmit the virus from human to human (though COVID19 is not known to infect domestic pets presently).
We have wondered, as a family, if this virus has already been here. I have a 10 year old, 8 year old and 14 month twins. The twins went into the ER in February for croup and upper respiratory illness that wouldn't respond to steroids, including racemic epinephrine and dekatron. Influenza test was negative. Doctors refused to test for Coronavirus, because "the odds are too low." We all got sick from this. Where did it originate? Our best family friends were sick because their dad (best man in my wedding) is in the navy and spent a lot of time in a base where he was exposed to people traveling back from all over the world. Clearly no pediatrician was testing for it, because the odds were too small. So was anyone testing for it?
One of my roommates is a PA at a local hospital, and he shared that they are not testing patients at the moment (I'm sure they hope to at some point) because they are saving the tests they do have for doctors/nurses/staff so they can be quarantined if they contract it. Treating the symptoms is the same whether you have COVID-19 or something else.
Widespread testing is vital for containing and stomping out the virus as much as possible by isolating those that test positive, but when there are limited tests available, there's really no advantage to an individual's health and it's more important to protect the healthcare workers and remove them when they get it.
I think the most recent news has been somewhat positive on the testing front. I think I heard (corona virus daily briefing podcast, great podcast by the way) that there were 10k tests performed in the US yesterday, which is on par with SK - granted for a country with 5-6x the population, so still behind but definitely progress from when certain officials were ignoring this.
also, in terms of public safety confidence for the economy when things start opening back up, something like this (home testing) might really help:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/time.com/5805953/home-covid-19-test-everlywell/%3famp=true
no idea how likely or close it actually is, there have been a lot of press releases about global warming being solved bc company X is prototyping technology Y over the past decade...
Interesting. I know a lot of people, myself included, who told me they got very, very sick in mid to late January and early February. Fever, head congestion that then went down to throat and chest, cough. We're talking "I'm going to remember this one" feeling like dog crap. Bed ridden. A few told me they went to ER. I didn't, but I'm healthy (non-smoker, not obese, non-drinker). I got it because I travel a lot for business domestic and international.
I don't know if that was the coronavirus or not. Probably not.
Also, this corona virus is mutating, so in future years even with vaccines we can expect future variants of the virus to come back and want the last word.
March 19th, 2020 at 10:00 PM ^
I am a Doctor who also runs my own practice and four weeks ago my wife came down with a cold, aches, runny nose, fatigue that turned into a cough that lasted two weeks. We went to the ER and requested to be tested but they refused. The next week my kids and I all developed colds. We are wondering if we have already had it as well. But without testing how do you know.
In my opinion we peak at 45 days and by 90 days herd immunity will start to have an effect, then the virus will cycle through the population the rest of the year until everyone is exposed by the new year. I think that's why the sports leagues are talking about resuming in mid June.
The tournament isn’t happening.
No answers are possible without stopping spread and that doesn't seem to be close to happening. There are too many people not buying into quarantine and until they do, or a reasonable treatment/ vaccine is developed, normalcy will not return. The virus will eventually run its course, but that could be the end of summer of beyond.
Agreed. They just closed schools in CA for another week until April 10th. But the governor is considering ending the school year full stop (which otherwise would have gone until June 17th here). That's unprecedented.
I was on a call with colleagues in Ireland today. They shut down schools and are giving students "full marks" as if they completed their work (?) and aced their A levels (final exams), etc.
Crazy stuff.
From what I see, aside from the jerkoffs stocking up on toilet paper and canned food, Americans are not taking things seriously enough.
It's not the flu. If you get sick from this, you may recover. Or you may end up on a ventilator with permanent/ irreversible lung fibrosis and very different quality of life forever. Just listed to what some survivor patients are saying. They felt like they were being waterboarded, can't get enough air.
Kansas has closed all schools for the school year and I believe 1-2 Canadian provinces have as well
If the Americans are smart, they will learn from the experiences and strict measures of Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan in controlling the outbreak in their countries (social distancing, masks, workplace policy enforcements & closures, school closures, medical resources, etc.)
I understand from some colleagues and friends that things are somewhat back to normal in Singapore, but they just reported 32 new cases of COVID-19 - all of them imported. Those patients have been identified, are already being isolated, treated and monitored. They know everything they did and where they came from, etc. Singapore a very different culture than the US though, and more draconian laws about behavior and compliance. The US has the benefit of its geography, but has been comparatively slow and far less stringent on enforcing new immigration/travel controls. I still don't see the US being strict enough, and we can now see the results.
US travel restrictions, border and immigration controls need to be kept in place for many more months until the infection rate slows down. This is going to choke commerce activity in many sectors - transportation, food service, hotels, entertainment, etc. and there are going to be a lot of job losses.
I don't wish to mention my employer or specific industry here, but in technology sales and certain industries most have issued edicts to employees to "work from home". Recently there are new rumors swirling that some companies (I am in CA) that have field sales people and field technicians/pre-sales engineering may be "furloughed", though not permanently fired. Something to the effect of: "You're not traveling and visiting customers and generating revenue (purchase orders, billable service hours), so we're not paying you for the next month. You're still employed, but on hold until the situation normalizes, and we'll see where things lie at end of April."
Not sure if other people are hearing similar.
If the Americans are smart
th;dr (too hypothetical, didn’t read)
Dunno if you realized this, but its actually impossible to control our borders. This is why we shouldn't have them.
I predict things stay shut down into early May and then we'll start to see gradual lifting of restrictions to see how things progress. Does the spread come roaring back? If so, things get shut down again.
I just tried to go back and find XM's thread back in late January asking how concerned people were about the coronavirus ("Worried or No Big Deal?"). It seems that thread is now gone. Anybody recall why it got nuked? Unfortunate as I recall many posters who expressed great confidence in the fact China was overreacting at that time (China had just quarantined 50 million people) and who diminished the threat by comparing to seasonal flu deaths. The certainty with which those posters weighed in on something they knew nothing about was eye opening to me at the time and I really hoped they were right. I guess it was a harbinger of things to come in many ways.
Yeah, the concern is how you go back to normal business without a spike in new infections. We’ve got to find a treatment for this pretty quickly or else we’re going to be going back and forth between normalcy and shutdown.
China was overreacting. Now the US is overreacting. I don't remember that particular thread, but my opinions were on record and I'm not afraid to reiterate them.
We are voluntarily entering a recession out of fear. There is a good chance that the cure will be worse than the disease.
The lack of widespread testing is hurting us all.
I disagree with this. China got the virus under control by enacting strict rules on the populations movement. They completely shut down a city of millions for weeks. It worked.
Tell that to the thousands of people trapped in the city who then died.
If it worked so well, why did the disease spread worldwide?
It didn't work. As a matter of fact, it may have done nothing. But we'll never know, because we can't go back and try again with a different set of behaviors.
What I do know, though, is that the Chinese economy is cratering because of their reactions. And, again, this is supposedly a success story.
Saying that the US is overreacting (it is) is not the same thing as saying that the virus isn't serious (it also is). However, so is the flu; so are traffic accidents; so is heart disease. But we're not voluntarily shutting down our economy in order to limit traffic accidents (although, I bet it's working!)
It got out from China because China improperly delayed reporting the information to the WHO for over a month after its discovery and it spread worldwide before any quarantines or measures were put in place
No, it got out from China because it's a virus, and that's what a virus does. By the time anybody realized it was a problem, it was already too late. China undertook the most aggressive mass quarantine in history, and yet the virus spread.
When a virus can be transmitted by asymptomatic people and can have an incubation period as long as 14 days, you're not going to be able to stop it. That's why the WHO argued against these travel bans from the beginning.