Semi-OT: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread VI (Don't Read Post 1 & FAQ)

[Triples333]

2600+ deaths in just 1 month in the US alone since February 29th, and there are still people in denial saying Covid-19 shouldn't be taken seriously because it's just a flu.

While Covid is clearly more dangerous and not done spreading, you need to bear in mind that ~50,000 flu deaths in the United States in any given year has become very standard.

Unpopular take: The more we know about this, the more apparent it is that the short term "end-game" before we get a vaccine needs to be to continue/ramp up isolation to all those at the highest risk thresholds (be it age or pre-existing conditions), while continuing to ramp up test kits and equipment production. The fact of the matter is that for young, healhty children+adults, this is not particularly dangerous what so ever (will the odd 1 in 2,000 healthy, young person become seriously ill and potentially die? Sure. But that does not warrant a complete shutdown for the foreseeable future IMO).

Now, this protocol is much easier said than done as so many who qualify in the danger zones are such vital members of all walks of society, but it does indeed seem like this will be the play by mid-April/May.

People should also stop comparing "Quarantined Coronavirus" numbers vs "Unquarantined Flu". If the world never started quarantining the Coronavirus and let it spread freely just like the Flu, just imagine how much more death we'd see.

A) This is a half-ass quarantine if I have ever seen one. Many people are still going to beaches, shopping, seeing their friends, etc. And I would wager much more than >50% of Americans are still at the very least occasionally visiting gas stations, markets, post offices, banks, etc.
B) As I stated, it is clearly more dangerous to those who we can already identify as high-risk (elderly and pre-existing immunity compromising conditions). I have seen very little to indicate it is worth worrying about for the rest of the population (their proximity to the high risk individuals is what to worry about). The play here is to isolate those people from everybody else while we work through a vaccine and ramp up production of ventilator machines, etc.

I am not saying we are quite ready for this step yet. But it has become more and more clearly evident that this is the step that needs to be taken in the next 2 months.

[ken6199]

https://www.maskssavelives.org/masks.html



US surgeon general, WHO, welcome to the Hall of Shame.

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[KingDavid]

While Covid is clearly more dangerous and not done spreading, you need to bear in mind that ~50,000 flu deaths in the United States in any given year has become very standard.

Unpopular take: The more we know about this, the more apparent it is that the short term "end-game" before we get a vaccine needs to be to continue/ramp up isolation to all those at the highest risk thresholds (be it age or pre-existing conditions), while continuing to ramp up test kits and equipment production. The fact of the matter is that for young, healhty children+adults, this is not particularly dangerous what so ever (will the odd 1 in 2,000 healthy, young person become seriously ill and potentially die? Sure. But that does not warrant a complete shutdown for the foreseeable future IMO).

Now, this protocol is much easier said than done as so many who qualify in the danger zones are such vital members of all walks of society, but it does indeed seem like this will be the play by mid-April/May.

People should also stop comparing "Quarantined Coronavirus" numbers vs "Unquarantined Flu". If the world never started quarantining the Coronavirus and let it spread freely just like the Flu, just imagine how much more death we'd see.

A) This is a half-ass quarantine if I have ever seen one. Many people are still going to beaches, shopping, seeing their friends, etc. And I would wager much more than >50% of Americans are still at the very least occasionally visiting gas stations, markets, post offices, banks, etc.
B) As I stated, it is clearly more dangerous to those who we can already identify as high-risk (elderly and pre-existing immunity compromising conditions). I have seen very little to indicate it is worth worrying about for the rest of the population (their proximity to the high risk individuals is what to worry about). The play here is to isolate those people from everybody else while we work through a vaccine and ramp up production of ventilator machines, etc.

I am not saying we are quite ready for this step yet. But it is become more and more clearly evident that this is the step that needs to be taken in the next 2 months.

Half assed or not, there's still significantly more precautions being taken for covid19 than it has ever had for influenza. So his point still remains.

[MotownMadness]

Were gonna need it and its really nice

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[Triples333]

People should also stop comparing "Quarantined Coronavirus" numbers vs "Unquarantined Flu". If the world never started quarantining the Coronavirus and let it spread freely just like the Flu, just imagine how much more death we'd see.

A) This is a half-ass quarantine if I have ever seen one. Many people are still going to beaches, shopping, seeing their friends, etc. And I would wager much more than >50% of Americans are still at the very least occasionally visiting gas stations, markets, post offices, banks, etc.
B) As I stated, it is clearly more dangerous to those who we can already identify as high-risk (elderly and pre-existing immunity compromising conditions). I have seen very little to indicate it is worth worrying about for the rest of the population (their proximity to the high risk individuals is what to worry about). The play here is to isolate those people from everybody else while we work through a vaccine and ramp up production of ventilator machines, etc.

I am not saying we are quite ready for this step yet. But it is become more and more clearly evident that this is the step that needs to be taken in the next 2 months.

Half assed or not, there's still significantly more precautions being taken for covid19 than it has ever had for influenza. So his point still remains.

As does mine. And I would wager vaccines >>> more effective than a half-assed quarantine (that only started 2 weeks ago despite the virus having been here for at least 2 months) in a h2h comparison.

[Dirk]

Daily new cases in Italy appear to have peaked (hopefully they won't exceed March 21 high of 6,557 new cases). The daily death rate has not peaked yet, but is a lagging indicator compared to daily new cases.

Italy started its nationwide quarantine on March 9. Our country's shelter in place rules haven't been nearly as consistent and stringent nationwide, we'll see what happens. It's hard for me personally to not expect other areas to blow up like New York (there already are of course, just on a different timeline.)

The % positive rate seems to have stabilized around 20% the last few days; I'll feel better when that starts going down consistently

For whatever reason the testing in Italy fell about 10K the last 2 days (could be good news - maybe less sick people are presenting).... but that does seem to explain the lower infection rate given the steady percentage.

It's important to keep in mind that the number of tests is not always the same. It dropped 11K from Sat to Sund. Sund to today it dropped another 1K. I'm pasting that data below.

They're happy with the number of people who left the hospital (the most in a single day) and less people are going to ICU(graph below).

Since March 21

Daily cases variation
13.94%
10.38%
8.10%
8.21%
7.53%
8.27%
7.40%
6.91%
5.64%
4.15%

Positive tests variation (positive/total)
24.90%
22.08%
28.11%
24.38%
18.96%
16.80%
18.05%
16.85%
21.29%
17.36%

Daily number of tests
26336
25180
17036
21526
27481
36615
33019
35447
24504
23329

New ICU admissions per day

[KingDavid]

A) This is a half-ass quarantine if I have ever seen one. Many people are still going to beaches, shopping, seeing their friends, etc. And I would wager much more than >50% of Americans are still at the very least occasionally visiting gas stations, markets, post offices, banks, etc.
B) As I stated, it is clearly more dangerous to those who we can already identify as high-risk (elderly and pre-existing immunity compromising conditions). I have seen very little to indicate it is worth worrying about for the rest of the population (their proximity to the high risk individuals is what to worry about). The play here is to isolate those people from everybody else while we work through a vaccine and ramp up production of ventilator machines, etc.

I am not saying we are quite ready for this step yet. But it is become more and more clearly evident that this is the step that needs to be taken in the next 2 months.

Half assed or not, there's still significantly more precautions being taken for covid19 than it has ever had for influenza. So his point still remains.

As does mine.

Uh, you make it seem like it's easy to isolate entire demographics. Who's going to care for those in nursing homes? In retirement villages? Are you going to prevent families from seeing one another? You need to follow up these ideas with plans.

It spreads 3 times as much as influenza. You can't isolate such a large demographic from something that spreads that rapidly. I mean unless you have an idea?

[KingDavid]

https://www.maskssavelives.org/masks.html



US surgeon general, WHO, welcome to the Hall of Shame.

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Interesting.

[KingDavid]

A) This is a half-ass quarantine if I have ever seen one. Many people are still going to beaches, shopping, seeing their friends, etc. And I would wager much more than >50% of Americans are still at the very least occasionally visiting gas stations, markets, post offices, banks, etc.
B) As I stated, it is clearly more dangerous to those who we can already identify as high-risk (elderly and pre-existing immunity compromising conditions). I have seen very little to indicate it is worth worrying about for the rest of the population (their proximity to the high risk individuals is what to worry about). The play here is to isolate those people from everybody else while we work through a vaccine and ramp up production of ventilator machines, etc.

I am not saying we are quite ready for this step yet. But it is become more and more clearly evident that this is the step that needs to be taken in the next 2 months.

Half assed or not, there's still significantly more precautions being taken for covid19 than it has ever had for influenza. So his point still remains.

As does mine. And I would wager vaccines >>> more effective than a half-assed quarantine (that only started 2 weeks ago despite the virus having been here for at least 2 months) in a h2h comparison.

Is there a vaccine now? No? Then what should we do in the meantime? Let it spread more by opening everything back up?

Edit whoops I completely missed the point of your post. The places that are making the ventilators and masks are considered essential. They're open and making those materials.

[Dirk]

Interesting.

att: ken

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[OkcSinceSGA]

Dr Fauci on CNN. https://youtu.be/Ksi9rL2sDXo

Praises Trump for looking at his data and trusting his expertise when making decisions. Trump seems to be really giving up ground to Fauci for the greater good. That is promising for navigating this.

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[Zenzibar]

2600+ deaths in just 1 month in the US alone since February 29th, and there are still people in denial saying Covid-19 shouldn't be taken seriously because it's just a flu.

While Covid is clearly more dangerous to the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions (and not done spreading), you need to bear in mind that ~50,000 flu deaths in the United States in any given year has become very standard. And that is with widespread vaccinations.

Unpopular take: The more we know about this, the more apparent it is that the short term "end-game" before we get a vaccine needs to be to continue/ramp up isolation to all those at the highest risk thresholds (be it age or pre-existing conditions), while continuing to ramp up test kits and equipment production. The fact of the matter is that for young, healhty children+adults, this is not particularly dangerous what so ever (will the odd 1 in 2,000 healthy, young person become seriously ill and potentially die? Sure. But that does not warrant a complete shutdown for the foreseeable future IMO). Those are the people who will need to get back to work/life sooner than later.

Now, this protocol is much easier said than done as so many who qualify in the danger zones are such vital members of all walks of society, but it does indeed seem like this will be the play by mid-April/May.

We need to also bear in mind that the true positive rate for those who have been infected (and are recovering or have already recovered) in the U.S. alone is VERY likely already in the millions.

You know I was quoting this number early on as well regarding deaths being more than the Corona on a yearly basis. But something doesn't add up.
50,000+ deaths from the flu is rather enormous if you ask me. Even so, I'm starting to think that the number of deaths is being unreported.

There is a cold temperature tractor trailer down the block and near a park from Elmhurst Hospital in Queens loading bodies. Keeping the tractor out of site from the general public.

So I'm not sure, swear something doesn't add up. If we're shutting down a metropolis like NYC, it is because the yearly rate of death doesn't come close to the death rate right now.

[Dirk]

Good to trust Fauci. Bad to trust the personal Doc.

[MotownMadness]

]

Interesting.

I think casual to the fact people when wearing a mask get to careless to the fact of how it really gets in you.

Having it on your hands and then touching your face sounds like the most likely way to get it instead of just being within proximity of someone with it

[CalL]

Tests per 100.000 people

Source?
I find it really hard to believe that Germany has conducted less than 500k tests, especially when one of the leading virologists said last week that Germany is currently probably around 400k - 500k tests a week ...

[Wilfried]

https://www.maskssavelives.org/masks.html



US surgeon general, WHO, welcome to the Hall of Shame.

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1) It's not that there are countries that don't use masks and countries that use them. Pretty sure a lot of people in China wear masks (they already did it because of fog and smog issues).
All countries use masks, but they are used to prevent people from making other people sick. People that think a mask can protect them are delussional
2) Maybe there are other reasons some countries were able to contain the outspread of the virus? Japan is an island f.i. Much easier to cut foreigners and borders of. Also, they are much more disciplined people. And maybe their president was intellectually capable of not needing 3 months to see it's more than 'a flu'?
3) Who made the division between mask/no masks? A kid. This seems like a Donald Trump kind of way to make a difficult situation with a lot of different variables very easily comprehensible, not taking the truth into consideration while doing it.

[paxson_4_3]

Hey Dirk, could you post a link for the source of this data? Thank you in advance.

I will when you give us a goo breakdown on the situation in Germany.
Testing, if the extremely low death rate is 'trusted', how the population is dealing with the government orders and what they project as being the peak and 'return to some normality'.

Concerning the real number of tests it is very hard to find reliable data. The only official figures that have been published by RKI (Robert-Koch-Institute) are:

https://imgur.com/a/w82MSVa

But we have a big number of independendend labs which are running tests as well. And it is assumed that those are behind in forwarding numbers to RKI. So at this stage I can't give you other figures for Germany as the ones you have posted. In the picture I have attached you can see the percentage of positive tests as well.

As for age distribution we have right now a median age 47.
https://ibb.co/X4bnbSt

The death rate so far can be trusted as it reflects the situation you would expect as long as Intensive Care Units are working within their capacities. This will change after we reach the tipping point which is at this rate beeing expected in about 2 or 3 weeks.

Overall people are pretty compliant with the rules for social distancing. So far we are expecting a peak of patients in august. Without social distancing this peak would be expected for june which would cause huge problems with ICU beds and a significant rise in lethal cases.

*Sorry for posting the links to pictures. But otherwise they wouldnt show up in the preview.

[Triples333]

Half assed or not, there's still significantly more precautions being taken for covid19 than it has ever had for influenza. So his point still remains.

As does mine.

Uh, you make it seem like it's easy to isolate entire demographics. Who's going to care for those in nursing homes? In retirement villages? Are you going to prevent families from seeing one another? You need to follow up these ideas with plans.

It spreads 3 times as much as influenza. You can't isolate such a large demographic from something that spreads that rapidly. I mean unless you have an idea?

Now, this protocol is much easier said than done as so many who qualify in the danger zones are such vital members of all walks of society, but it does indeed seem like this will be the play by mid-April/May.

^You read that post. I wrote it 10 minutes ago. No, it will not be easy, but it is still what needs to be done.

Out of curiosity, how exactly do you think these nursing homes are being handled as is? Do you think they are taking care of themselves?

My play would be that those who DO have to maintain direct contact with high-risk citizens are tested weekly and are instructed to they themselves maintain a similar level of isolation to their patients. But again, no, I don't pretend that it is easy.

So, what would your play be? Self isolate the world for 18-20 months until they find a vaccine that they can distribute to everyone?

[LKN]

People should also stop comparing "Quarantined Coronavirus" numbers vs "Unquarantined Flu". If the world never started quarantining the Coronavirus and let it spread freely just like the Flu, just imagine how much more death we'd see.

A) This is a half-ass quarantine if I have ever seen one. Many people are still going to beaches, shopping, seeing their friends, etc. And I would wager much more than >50% of Americans are still at the very least occasionally visiting gas stations, markets, post offices, banks, etc.
B) As I stated, it is clearly more dangerous to those who we can already identify as high-risk (elderly and pre-existing immunity compromising conditions). I have seen very little to indicate it is worth worrying about for the rest of the population (their proximity to the high risk individuals is what to worry about). The play here is to isolate those people from everybody else while we work through a vaccine and ramp up production of ventilator machines, etc.

I am not saying we are quite ready for this step yet. But it is become more and more clearly evident that this is the step that needs to be taken in the next 2 months.

Half assed or not, there's still significantly more precautions being taken for covid19 than it has ever had for influenza. So his point still remains.

Just closing schools alone shuts down an absolutely ENORMOUS transmission vector.

Anecdotally (and I rarely get sick) the only time I ever catch anything is when one of my kids brings it home from school

[Archx]

2600+ deaths in just 1 month in the US alone since February 29th, and there are still people in denial saying Covid-19 shouldn't be taken seriously because it's just a flu.

While Covid is clearly more dangerous to the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions (and not done spreading), you need to bear in mind that ~50,000 flu deaths in the United States in any given year has become very standard. And that is with widespread vaccinations.

Unpopular take: The more we know about this, the more apparent it is that the short term "end-game" before we get a vaccine needs to be to continue/ramp up isolation to all those at the highest risk thresholds (be it age or pre-existing conditions), while continuing to ramp up test kits and equipment production. The fact of the matter is that for young, healhty children+adults, this is not particularly dangerous what so ever (will the odd 1 in 2,000 healthy, young person become seriously ill and potentially die? Sure. But that does not warrant a complete shutdown for the foreseeable future IMO). Those are the people who will need to get back to work/life sooner than later.

Now, this protocol is much easier said than done as so many who qualify in the danger zones are such vital members of all walks of society, but it does indeed seem like this will be the play by mid-April/May.

We need to also bear in mind that the true positive rate for those who have been infected (and are recovering or have already recovered) in the U.S. alone is VERY likely already in the millions.

I'm sorry don't want to be rude but you sound like Trump who has no clue what's going on.

The recovery rate for this virus is around 21-25 days. There is basically not even possible that so many people could have recovered in the US because the virus just started spreading and it will get worse. Listen to what your experts say rather than the dumbass in the office who want's everyone to go back to normal soon.

And keep in mind, not only old people but younger than 40 are dying as well. Basically every country in the Europe is in lockdown and yet, we still get reports of 1000's dying each day. Now imagine what will happen in the US if you don't control it? Are you satisfied with "only 80 and over" die? Do you even care for older people? Going back to normal won't be possible for a long long time....