OT: COVID-19 thread #2

[Chi town]

The WHO has been incredibly useless. They have probably made this whole thing worse. Regardless, masks are a positive healthy or not. Its almost silly to argue otherwise.

The arguments against the mask are 1) it gives people a false sense of security, so that they may go out more and get closer to people than they should, 2) it would take masks from those that need them, and 3) people touch their faces more often when wearing a mask, which probably negates the benefits you get.

#1 is hilarious on so many levels. First off, they don't know if this thing is aerosol or not. The whole "6 feet" thing was pulled out of their asses. They don't even know what appropriate distance is. By this reasoning, the surgeon general would recommend that seatbelts be removed from all cars because if someone has one on, they might drive faster.

Asians and many others have studied this. Wearing a mask in public cuts down on the odds of getting sick by 60-80%. The CDC and WHO recommendations are so brutally stupid on this I question their standings as experts on this or any other topic.

In general, the CDC has performed so horrifically on this that the agency should be dissolved and reformed. They have made mistake after mistake after mistake and its going to cost a lot of lives. They are somewhat lucky that Trump is in charge and is providing cover for them.

Spot on CF.

[dice]

Then they should run for president. When this country was founded, people ran for office to serve their country instead of doing it to get rich.

donald trump is the only president in the history of the nation that i can think of that has blatantly run for personal financial benefit (other than the ego component, which certainly has played a part in a lot of them choosing the path that they did). which is not to say that many presidents haven't financially benefited as a byproduct of their presidency. you'd have to try pretty hard NOT to benefit financially from it, frankly...ironically, trump could have been one of them had he actually divested from his financial interests as prior presidents have done

Trump was already rich, whether he gets say 5% richer from the presidency isn't really the best example.

According to Forbes, the Clintons are worth $240 million from basically working in public positions their entire lives. Being president (or even a senator) increases your wealth exponentially. Without the presidency, they're at maybe 5 to 10% of that wealth at best.

true, but it misses the point. donald trump had not been meaningfully involved in politics his entire life until he decided to become the nation's top proponent of a racist conspiracy theory about barack obama. his entire life is blatantly lived in self-interest, including trying to cozy up to the clintons! he is not the kind of person we want in important government positions. meanwhile, the clintons have been in public service for pretty much their entire adult lives...they were not wealthy until bill left office. clearly it's nobody's goal in life to set aside their obviously lucrative talents to become public servants in the hopes of someday becoming POTUS and really cashing in. that would be moronic financial strategy. barack obama had an ivy league degree and decided to become a freaking community organizer before becoming a professor and then giving up that good paying job to become a public servant. hard to argue that there was any long-term grand financial scheme involved there either

[dice]

Well, it was sort of. But I get your point.

In other news, it looks like you can take your pick on whether to wear a mask or not, as the WHO now says healthy people don't need to wear masks, contradicting what the CDC put out a few days ago:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/says-no-healthy-people-wear-184300796.html

The WHO has been incredibly useless. They have probably made this whole thing worse. Regardless, masks are a positive healthy or not. Its almost silly to argue otherwise.

The arguments against the mask are 1) it gives people a false sense of security, so that they may go out more and get closer to people than they should, 2) it would take masks from those that need them, and 3) people touch their faces more often when wearing a mask, which probably negates the benefits you get.

there's probably some validity to point 1, but the false sense of security probably doesn't outweigh the benefit

#3 is obviously false because it PREVENTS people from instinctively touching their faces. also if it were true it would bring into question whether medical workers should even be using them

[Dresden]

The WHO has been incredibly useless. They have probably made this whole thing worse. Regardless, masks are a positive healthy or not. Its almost silly to argue otherwise.

The arguments against the mask are 1) it gives people a false sense of security, so that they may go out more and get closer to people than they should, 2) it would take masks from those that need them, and 3) people touch their faces more often when wearing a mask, which probably negates the benefits you get.

there's probably some validity to point 1, but the false sense of security probably doesn't outweigh the benefit

#3 is obviously false because it PREVENTS people from instinctively touching their faces. also if it were true it would bring into question whether medical workers should even be using them

What do you mean FALSE? These are reasons put forth by public health officials, who study disease transmission and public behavior. People do in fact touch their faces more often when wearing masks. Masks can be itchy, and have to constantly be adjusted. We are talking full face masks- these are N95's or equivalents. They only cover the mouth and nose. Any time your hand is going to your face (to adjust the mask, to itch, to take the mask on/off, etc) you are potentially bringing viruses close to your mouth, nose and eyes.

Medical workers are in a whole other category. They are trained not to touch their faces when wearing masks, and they also have new masks, which believe me, are less itchy than a mask you've been using for 1 week. They also wash their hands frequently, and are usually wearing gloves as well.

[coldfish]

The arguments against the mask are 1) it gives people a false sense of security, so that they may go out more and get closer to people than they should, 2) it would take masks from those that need them, and 3) people touch their faces more often when wearing a mask, which probably negates the benefits you get.

#1 is hilarious on so many levels. First off, they don't know if this thing is aerosol or not. The whole "6 feet" thing was pulled out of their asses. They don't even know what appropriate distance is. By this reasoning, the surgeon general would recommend that seatbelts be removed from all cars because if someone has one on, they might drive faster.

Asians and many others have studied this. Wearing a mask in public cuts down on the odds of getting sick by 60-80%. The CDC and WHO recommendations are so brutally stupid on this I question their standings as experts on this or any other topic.

In general, the CDC has performed so horrifically on this that the agency should be dissolved and reformed. They have made mistake after mistake after mistake and its going to cost a lot of lives. They are somewhat lucky that Trump is in charge and is providing cover for them.

You have to draw a line somewhere. Based on the models they had, 6' was roughly the distance when most droplets would fall to the ground before they reached another person. And a lot of studies seem to back this up. Yes, they are based on non-aerosol transmission, but even then the odds go way up in your favor if you only have to worry about the aerosols (which are much smaller and contain many fewer viruses), and not droplets. Saying stay 6' is away is much better than giving people no guidelines at all. This at least avoids the most likely means of transmission.

And yes, some people do feel like they can stand closer together, or that they are immune from infection if they are wearing a mask, whereas if they aren't, they will be much more cognizant of maintaining distance.

I'd like to see the study that shows that wearing masks in public will cut down your risk of getting the corona virus by 60%-80%. If there was definitive evidence for that, there wouldn't have been such ambiguous guidance on whether to wear one or not.

I have a lot of respect for the scientists and public health officials in the CDC and The WHO. If you don't trust them, you may as well just say you don't believe in science. Unless, of course, their executives are saying things based more on political reasons (which I will grant, do come into play in any organization of that stature), than on what their own scientists are saying. I haven't seen a l whole lot of that going on though. If anything, they have been a valuable counterweight to the more politically motivated pronouncements being made by Trump, Pence and their ilk.

Let's not make this a science vs non science thing. The scientists in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, etc. completely disagree with the CDC on a wide variety of issues regarding this. I happen to agree with the scientists out of Asia and their results back up their claims.

Its not just the masks. The CDC were the ones who set back the testing in the whole country by sending out defective tests, which, is bad science since one of the first things you are supposed to do on test equipment is verify it. That by itself cost our country countless lives. That's not just an "oops". They made a bunch of bad estimates early on regarding r0 number, they were completely cocksure that only symptomatic people can infect others, for some reason they completely believed China on their data, they have set up regulations that made them a bottleneck in testing, etc., etc., etc. They have performed terribly here. Again, if not for Trump's daily idiocy, the CDC's performance would be getting a lot of grief on this.

[dice]

This is the problem with the Republican base. They've been programmed and propagandized so hard that stats and facts no longer matter to them. Everything is fake news unless it agrees with the propaganda in some small way. They don't even realize when they're voting against their own economic interests. They treat politics like a casual sports fan rooting for their home team. Who's on the roster? What's the front office doing? Who cares? Let's go [insert local team name here]! And it's not their fault either. We have busy lives. It's a luxury to think about a candidate's policy prescriptions and how it would affect your own life. It's a luxury to look at a candidate's voting record, and determine the degree to which that record reflects good judgment, and determine what the candidate is likely to push for. Some people haven't even made it to the stage of becoming critical thinkers. If you are middle class or poor, supporting the Republican party is like amputating your leg for the sake of preparing for a track meet. I respect wealthy Republicans because they at least understand how to vote for their own interests. Trump bungling the management of this pandemic for months, and disbanding the nation's team of pandemic experts two years ago, doesn't have to matter to rich people, who are mostly insulated from the harsh realities facing the middle class. But if you're poor or middle class and voting for Trump, you are voting against your own healthcare (and during a pandemic, too), your own income, your own children's education.

though i disagree with their position, i can at least respect the pro-life voters who are knowingly voting against their own financial self-interests. even though they're harming the majority of the population in the name of a pipe dream (overturning roe v wade)

On the flip side, Joe Biden is a walking corpse. He will not be able to stand up to Trump because he doesn't have the brain power any more.

ordinarily i might agree, but we're comparing biden to...trump

Corporate Democrats are essentially moderate Republicans, because they favor the interests of corporations over the interests of the citizens they are supposed to represent. That donor money that Joe Biden is taking controls his decision-making. Biden has told his donors that nothing will essentially change if he gets into office. Joe stands for nothing. He would probably govern better than Trump, but that bar is low. I will be voting for Joe because Trump is so bad and incompetent at the job, but I expect the turnout amongst Democratic voters to be more depressed than when Hilary ran. The reason people turned from Obama to Trump is because Obama didn't do enough for middle and lower income individuals.

1) you're vastly overestimating the ability of a president to unilaterally do stuff for the masses. obamacare has helped tens of millions of people economically and saved countless lives. we need a lot more, but a less pragmatic democratic president (bernie, for example), probably would have accomplished absolutely nothing. ted kennedy said that the biggest mistake of his political life was refusing to compromise with nixon on health care. nixon was proposing something similar to obamacare! even had kennedy simply completely caved and accepted nixon's proposal, we'd probably have progressed to single payer government coverage by now. he didn't, and things got much worse for decades

obama was strongly advised by his political advisors, including chief of staff rahm emanuel, to punt on health care reform when the going got tough. because they knew it would cost them big at the polls in 2010. but obama pushed it to the finish line. in large part because of his own negative experiences with his mother's health struggles. and was predictably punished severely at the polls because of it, effectively neutering his ability to pass major legislation for the remainder of his presidency. and perhaps costing him a supreme court justice selection as well due to republicans controlling the senate and making the unprecedented decision not to consider a sitting president's nominee...for an entire year

2) what percentage of democrats in congress would you say are "corporate democrats"? because if that's your characterization of the democratic establishment, that's extremely dangerous rhetoric that impedes progress. and it's not really true. here are the recent voting records of senate democrats and republicans:



you'll notice ZERO overlap between the two parties on economic issues. even the most moderate democrat is significantly to the left of the most moderate republican. joe biden is way closer to bernie and elizabeth warren than he is to the republican party. if a democrat won't vote for biden because he's only a 7 on the progressive scale rather than an 8 or 9, there are few better examples of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. the reality is that, while biden would never forcefully push for, say, medicare for all (probably because he knows its chances of passage are nil), he will most certainly support anything that democrats in congress are somehow able to get through. and then there's...the supreme court, which is frankly the best reason of all if you're a democrat to "vote blue, no matter who." by far, given the great unlikelihood that any democratic president will enjoy large majorities in congress

when was the golden age of progressive achievements in american history? FDR's reign. not just because of his bold leadership, but because he enjoyed huge majorities in congress...at a time when the democratic party was the most moderate in modern history:



wanna affect progressive change? elect ****loads of moderate democrats in purple districts. don't play ideological purity games. the name of the game is WINNING before anything else

and what else does that last chart show us? that the ideological gap between the two parties is way bigger than it has ever been. not because the democratic party has been slowly drifting left for the entirety of any of our lifetimes (which it HAS been), but because the GOP of old hopped the slow train to birther town when the reagan revolution took hold. reagan himself has gotta be be rolling over in his grave by now ("wait, WHO is president now? that twit from new york? please tell me he's a democrat")

[dice]

The arguments against the mask are 1) it gives people a false sense of security, so that they may go out more and get closer to people than they should, 2) it would take masks from those that need them, and 3) people touch their faces more often when wearing a mask, which probably negates the benefits you get.

there's probably some validity to point 1, but the false sense of security probably doesn't outweigh the benefit

#3 is obviously false because it PREVENTS people from instinctively touching their faces. also if it were true it would bring into question whether medical workers should even be using them

What do you mean FALSE? These are reasons put forth by public health officials, who study disease transmission and public behavior. People do in fact touch their faces more often when wearing masks. Masks can be itchy, and have to constantly be adjusted. We are talking full face masks- these are N95's or equivalents. They only cover the mouth and nose. Any time your hand is going to your face (to adjust the mask, to itch, to take the mask on/off, etc) you are potentially bringing viruses close to your mouth, nose and eyes.

Medical workers are in a whole other category. They are trained not to touch their faces when wearing masks, and they also have new masks, which believe me, are less itchy than a mask you've been using for 1 week. They also wash their hands frequently, and are usually wearing gloves as well.

if touching the mask and getting germs on it increases your health risk anywhere near the degree that touching your face does, that makes total sense. and i guess i was making the bad assumption that people tend to adjust their masks appropriately

[dice]

POTUS suggesting that people take a drug for COVID-19 that is not (yet?) recommended by the FDA for that purpose. and...

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/donald-trump-stake-company-hydroxychloroquine-112913777.html

this is why presidents typically divest from their financial interests before they take office. to avoid even the SUSPICION of conflict of interest

[GimmeDat]

I'd feel like rubbing it in the point out, but Australia seems to be combating it really well so far. We shut down things reasonably early, and early signs indicate that the curve is successfully flattening. Obviously it's too early to celebrate and the one thing that would ruin everything would be to easy off the pedal now, but there are some early suggestions that our lockdown laws could be loosened by next month, which is encouraging.

Trump completely mismanaged it, simple as that. I worry for you guys how bad it's going to get over there. Fortunately, it seems like it's well and truly set in at this point and the seriousness is being respected. That's encouraging.

[coldfish]

I'd feel like rubbing it in the point out, but Australia seems to be combating it really well so far. We shut down things reasonably early, and early signs indicate that the curve is successfully flattening. Obviously it's too early to celebrate and the one thing that would ruin everything would be to easy off the pedal now, but there are some early suggestions that our lockdown laws could be loosened by next month, which is encouraging.

Trump completely mismanaged it, simple as that. I worry for you guys how bad it's going to get over there. Fortunately, it seems like it's well and truly set in at this point and the seriousness is being respected. That's encouraging.

I think Australia handled it well and if they continue to do so, may have dodged a bullet.

I will say this, someone pointed out early on that you could draw a latitude line around the world and hit virtually every area that has struggled with this. Weather does seem to be a component of the virus. Even in the US, out of the top 15 states for death per capita, 13 of them are in the north. Lousiana is the big exception and they practically had a million person doorknob licking contest with Mardi Gras. For those lacking critical thinking skills, obviously weather doesn't completely shut it down and there are testing issues but its hard not do come to the conclusion that warm weather reduces transmissibility.

[dougthonus]

I will say this, someone pointed out early on that you could draw a latitude line around the world and hit virtually every area that has struggled with this. Weather does seem to be a component of the virus. Even in the US, out of the top 15 states for death per capita, 13 of them are in the north. Lousiana is the big exception and they practically had a million person doorknob licking contest with Mardi Gras. For those lacking critical thinking skills, obviously weather doesn't completely shut it down and there are testing issues but its hard not do come to the conclusion that warm weather reduces transmissibility.

This is also backed up by how most flu like viruses behave. It was something many people assumed prior to there being any evidence, so it's not overly surprising that the evidence also supports this.

[GimmeDat]

I'd feel like rubbing it in the point out, but Australia seems to be combating it really well so far. We shut down things reasonably early, and early signs indicate that the curve is successfully flattening. Obviously it's too early to celebrate and the one thing that would ruin everything would be to easy off the pedal now, but there are some early suggestions that our lockdown laws could be loosened by next month, which is encouraging.

Trump completely mismanaged it, simple as that. I worry for you guys how bad it's going to get over there. Fortunately, it seems like it's well and truly set in at this point and the seriousness is being respected. That's encouraging.

I think Australia handled it well and if they continue to do so, may have dodged a bullet.

I will say this, someone pointed out early on that you could draw a latitude line around the world and hit virtually every area that has struggled with this. Weather does seem to be a component of the virus. Even in the US, out of the top 15 states for death per capita, 13 of them are in the north. Lousiana is the big exception and they practically had a million person doorknob licking contest with Mardi Gras. For those lacking critical thinking skills, obviously weather doesn't completely shut it down and there are testing issues but its hard not do come to the conclusion that warm weather reduces transmissibility.

For sure. We're just transitioning into some cold weather now, so it'll be interesting to see what implications that has over the coming months. But that's definitely been a factor that's worked in our favor, no doubt.

[moorhosj]

As suspected, we still don't have a clear picture of how many people are infected or dying because of lack of testing. Here are two examples, in different states, of dead people not being tested due to a shortage of tests. We might not ever know the true impact of this virus.

In New York https://news.yahoo.com/home-covid-19-deaths-may-235737502.html:

The daily tally of New York City residents who died at home with coronavirus-like symptoms exploded from 45 on March 20 to 241 on April 5, according to Fire Department of New York data - suggesting the city may be significantly undercounting COVID-19 deaths.

In Colorado https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/06/health/coronavirus-coroners-uncounted-deaths-invs/index.html?ref=hvper.com:

Jill Romann, the coroner in Douglas County, Colorado, was so desperate for coronavirus tests that she began calling hospitals in the middle of the night to avoid management, begging whoever was on duty for one or two test kits.
Her total collection reached about 13 before the hospitals caught on and shut her down.
She asked the state health department for help getting the tests needed to determine whether deaths were linked to the virus. But she said the agency told her it was not providing them to coroners because it was prioritizing the tests for the living. She hasn't been able to get the supplies she needs from private labs either.

[dougthonus]

As suspected, we still don't have a clear picture of how many people are infected or dying because of lack of testing. Here are two examples, in different states, of dead people not being tested due to a shortage of tests. We might not ever know the true impact of this virus.

In New York https://news.yahoo.com/home-covid-19-deaths-may-235737502.html:

The daily tally of New York City residents who died at home with coronavirus-like symptoms exploded from 45 on March 20 to 241 on April 5, according to Fire Department of New York data - suggesting the city may be significantly undercounting COVID-19 deaths.

In Colorado https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/06/health/coronavirus-coroners-uncounted-deaths-invs/index.html?ref=hvper.com:

Jill Romann, the coroner in Douglas County, Colorado, was so desperate for coronavirus tests that she began calling hospitals in the middle of the night to avoid management, begging whoever was on duty for one or two test kits.
Her total collection reached about 13 before the hospitals caught on and shut her down.
She asked the state health department for help getting the tests needed to determine whether deaths were linked to the virus. But she said the agency told her it was not providing them to coroners because it was prioritizing the tests for the living. She hasn't been able to get the supplies she needs from private labs either.

Both of these things make sense. However, I'd agree that our data on deaths is probably under counted, but nearly as much as our data on infections. Testing of course is the key to both, and we haven't ramped that up fast enough for sure.

[econprof]

The temperature may only be an indirect factor. It seems that the virus travels through the air a further distance when the relative humidity is low. When it is cold outside, the relative humidity in a heated,unhumidified space approaches that of the Sahara Desert -- around 20 percent. This may explain the weather/transmission rate correlation. So as the season's change, the northern hemisphere's gain will be the southern's loss.

[molepharmer]

Depending upon the test, I'm wondering if they have even considered using a single test kit for multiple people. I understand that if you do test 10 people with one kit and it shows positive, you don't know which of the 10 is infected, and you'd have to re-test each individuals. However, if that group of 10 were all negative, you'd have saved 9 test kits. Obviously the proper controls would be needed to be run; e.g. ensure no cross sample interference. But if you're doing one of the serological tests (i.e. looking for IgM or IgG) maybe it'd work.

[moorhosj]

Both of these things make sense. However, I'd agree that our data on deaths is probably under counted, but nearly as much as our data on infections. Testing of course is the key to both, and we haven't ramped that up fast enough for sure.

Since we can't test these dead people, we can't test the people they live with or came into contact with while contagious. We have no idea how or where they may have contracted the virus. These are all the things that will lead to an even longer epidemic with more injuries and deaths.

[Dresden]

I will say this, someone pointed out early on that you could draw a latitude line around the world and hit virtually every area that has struggled with this. Weather does seem to be a component of the virus. Even in the US, out of the top 15 states for death per capita, 13 of them are in the north. Lousiana is the big exception and they practically had a million person doorknob licking contest with Mardi Gras. For those lacking critical thinking skills, obviously weather doesn't completely shut it down and there are testing issues but its hard not do come to the conclusion that warm weather reduces transmissibility.

This is also backed up by how most flu like viruses behave. It was something many people assumed prior to there being any evidence, so it's not overly surprising that the evidence also supports this.

Maybe it's not so much temperature though as it people being inside more in cold weather cities? We know it is much easier to transmit indoors than out.

[chefo]

BTW, I've read the action/response plan the White House was briefed on a couple of years ago. It's really a plan on how to coordinate the dozen or so agencies during a crisis. It will be difficult for many to accept, but the government is following it fairly closely with a couple of exceptions. The main problem, from my take, has to do with pandemics that originate abroad because it was mostly done as response to the Ebola outbreak in Africa. There were glaringly poor assumptions in it:

1.) The foreign country will be open to international help and oversight so that the international community would know what they are dealing with (China was the exact opposite)
2.) The WHO would make the right call and make it early--the WHO inexplicably made the call to not harm China's economy (there are quotes to that effect from February) so travel in and out of China should NOT be restricted. A lot of the waterfall decisions counted on a WHO proclamation of a pandemic, which came fairly late and after the Chinese had let millions of potential carriers go vacationing around the world
3.) The government agencies, without a point agency or person running the operation, would somehow get along and the whole affair will not result in political turf wars. The action plan called for something like 10 different agencies to sit together in the case of a foreign pandemic and figure out what the US response should be--State Department, DoD, FEMA, CDC, and half-a-dozen others. For example, the latest is that US intelligence told a bunch of these agencies that something weird is going on in China in late 2019, but it got lost in the noise (BTW, the spooks were not on the list to coordinate, which is a glaring oversight IMO, given how many pies they have their fingers in).

So, by the time many of the pre-conditions for the US to act were verified true, the US was already waaay behind and the virus was raging in NY City.

The reason Trump and the White House are probably mad at the Chinese and the WHO is that if you were aware of that document, and given that a lot of people had seen it and the Chinese probably had a stolen copy, obfuscating the initial stage of the outbreak would almost guarantee a screw up on the US part (probably many others like Italy and the UK as well). Not because they are dumb, but because a lot of career bureaucrats with different agendas trying to make a major call on what they perceive is contradictory data will NEVER happen without a head person/agency calling the shots and that would not happen UNTIL the pandemic had already reached US shores, and at that point--given how virulent that bug is, it was already much, much too late.

So, things worked out about as well as one might expect--the government screwed up the initial response, and is now scrambling to do ANYTHING to cover it up and prove to the public how indispensable they really are. But here is the thing--Given all of the people that had to be involved to reach a consensus just because of how massive the US bureaucracy is, I think it would have mattered little who was in office. The US government would have done pretty much the same no matter what.

[coldfish]

I will say this, someone pointed out early on that you could draw a latitude line around the world and hit virtually every area that has struggled with this. Weather does seem to be a component of the virus. Even in the US, out of the top 15 states for death per capita, 13 of them are in the north. Lousiana is the big exception and they practically had a million person doorknob licking contest with Mardi Gras. For those lacking critical thinking skills, obviously weather doesn't completely shut it down and there are testing issues but its hard not do come to the conclusion that warm weather reduces transmissibility.

This is also backed up by how most flu like viruses behave. It was something many people assumed prior to there being any evidence, so it's not overly surprising that the evidence also supports this.

Maybe it's not so much temperature though as it people being inside more in cold weather cities? We know it is much easier to transmit indoors than out.

There are bunch of factors:
- Being indoors for the reason you note
- Humidity both protects lungs and mucous membranes and weighs viruses down
- Sunlight kills viruses directly both on surfaces and in the air
- Sunlight increases vitamin D production, which boosts immune function

There are probably others. Again though, a warm climate obviously doesn't take viruses down to zero but there are legitimate reasons why it decreases spread.