Coronavirus

[jc23]

I know they are impossible to find but from what i have read wearing masks does indeed help slow the spread. Im not talking about the n95's either, just your regular surgical style. Early on the word spread from somewhere that they were useless because they are not 100% effective.

Pie in the sky stuff but had the entire US population been able/comfortable with wearing masks in public the "curve" would be under control is my guess.

[dougthonus]

This is very Orwellian and I reject it outright as a basis for a policy discussion regardless of its medical accuracy.

I hope macro level decision makers don't reject doing things that are medically accurate and logically better because they just feel uncomfortable. I'd rather create the best outcome. We can debate a lot about what the best outcome is, but I think we know that in the best outcome people will die, lose jobs, businesses will close, and there will be terrible things happening.

It's already an awful outcome, and it's going to get worse, and policy makers should be weighing all the factors to determine what they think is best.

We can also tremendously improve the economy and societal health by mandating that those with low life expectancies but healthy organs can be euthanized and harvested for the greater good.

Pretty big leap from saying "when prioritizing medical care, that if I can only save one person, I'd save the one with more longer quality life expectancy left" and "we should kill people with short life expectancy to harvest their organs". Don't really seem like comparable situations.

An recent study in Chicago showed that the life expectancy in Streeterville was 90, in Englewood it was 60. Thats a pretty big “life years” gap as well. I wonder how we can implement that data to set policy?

Consider our philosophies in a time of non crisis. My philosophy would be we should spend a lot of resources to close that gap to increase quality life years. It would appear your line of thinking is this gap is irrelevant since a life is a life and this isn't a problem at all.

[Mech Engineer]

Social distancing can happen and life can still function with businesses open. It is almost like retraining ourselves how we need to behave with a friendly snake. But, we are months away from making any such decision. Why can't we eat in restaurants with people forced to maintaining social distancing or travel in trains or flights with social distancing. Schools are the problem but we have time until August/September if we write off this year.

[Dresden]

Social distancing can happen and life can still function with businesses open. It is almost like retraining ourselves how we need to behave with a friendly snake. But, we are months away from making any such decision. Why can't we eat in restaurants with people forced to maintaining social distancing or travel in trains or flights with social distancing. Schools are the problem but we have time until August/September if we write off this year.

I agree. We need to change our practices- just we did after the AIDS crisis. This will be much more intrusive and pervasive, but it can be done. Sure, there are some things that will be impossible- as you said, schools will have some issues, I don't know if big sporting events can be held for awhile, airline, train, bus and subway transport will require extra stringent precautions. But it can be done, even if we all have to wear hazmat suits for the next 12 months whenever we are out.

[Dresden]

Everyone knows we need better testing, but I don't know how we'd get to the level of better we need.

[/quote]

Not everyone! Trump was on the air only yesterday, saying that he isn't hearing from anyone that there is a shortage of test kits available. Makes you wonder who he is talking to....

[Habs72]

Italy is closing ALL companies that are non critical for country to function. Lombardy region which has it worst in Italy is denyin all non critical moving outside homes. Germany is limiting gatherings over TWO people.

[Dresden]

I know they are impossible to find but from what i have read wearing masks does indeed help slow the spread. Im not talking about the n95's either, just your regular surgical style. Early on the word spread from somewhere that they were useless because they are not 100% effective.

Pie in the sky stuff but had the entire US population been able/comfortable with wearing masks in public the "curve" would be under control is my guess.

It's hard to see how they could not. A mask combined with a full face shield (to keep people from touching their eyes, nose and mouth) seems like it would do wonders to eliminate spreading germs.

[Dresden]

It's important to discuss all kinds of ideas...The government got into this mess by not believing this can cause disruption in the west by thinking it's a China problem. We need to think of everything and filter out the impractical ones.

I hear from my doctor friends on how they are running out of PPEs and some of them are scared because they cater to an elderly group of patients. That's why I was thinking of my healthy doctor is immune, she can treat her elderly patients without the fear of spreading to them. It's just a sad, fearful situation right now.

I wonder though- if a person is immune, can they still be carriers? It's also not a certainty that you cannot get infected twice. They suspect that to be so, but it hasn't been proven since this virus is so new to humans.

[dougthonus]

It's hard to see how they could not. A mask combined with a full face shield (to keep people from touching their eyes, nose and mouth) seems like it would do wonders to eliminate spreading germs.

Pretty big leap to go from common surgical face mask to full face shield though. Both in cost and convincing people to use.

Unfortunately, you also couldn't get common surgical masks if you tried right now, but that would be probably be a great step to take if we could ramp up production of them and distribute them in a way that prevents hoarders (maybe directly to businesses for use of workers should be prioritized).

[Dresden]

It's hard to see how they could not. A mask combined with a full face shield (to keep people from touching their eyes, nose and mouth) seems like it would do wonders to eliminate spreading germs.

Pretty big leap to go from common surgical face mask to full face shield though. Both in cost and convincing people to use.

Unfortunately, you also couldn't get common surgical masks if you tried right now, but that would be probably be a great step to take if we could ramp up production of them and distribute them in a way that prevents hoarders (maybe directly to businesses for use of workers should be prioritized).

Face shields are pretty inexpensive. I found one online at an industrial supply company for my sister who is a doctor and is trouble finding one. It was around $ 4, and made out of rigid plastic, which is easy to clean, so they are re-usable.

[Bandit King]

It's hard to see how they could not. A mask combined with a full face shield (to keep people from touching their eyes, nose and mouth) seems like it would do wonders to eliminate spreading germs.

Pretty big leap to go from common surgical face mask to full face shield though. Both in cost and convincing people to use.

Unfortunately, you also couldn't get common surgical masks if you tried right now, but that would be probably be a great step to take if we could ramp up production of them and distribute them in a way that prevents hoarders (maybe directly to businesses for use of workers should be prioritized).

I did a drug test for my new job starting soon and the lab person was wearing a mask and the shield.

[Red8911]

Holy **** your president is beyond terrible

Read on Twitter

Beyond embarrassing. Absolutely time for him to get replaced with a more competent leader to handle this - TODAY. Jokes are long over.

I'm honestly surprised that none of the people standing next to him physically attacked him. At some point, probably way to late, someone will just start punching him, or, if it's an SS agent, might actually just shoot him in the head. Very plausible IMO.

The tolerant left lol.

[dougthonus]

Face shields are pretty inexpensive. I found one online at an industrial supply company for my sister who is a doctor and is trouble finding one. It was around $ 4, and made out of rigid plastic, which is easy to clean, so they are re-usable.

Clearly quality PPE is difficult to find in general though, because hospitals are struggling with supplies. Though part of it may be that hospitals are generally looking at disposable stuff rather than washable stuff.

It's likely the case in a crisis like this that we need to alter our approach to conserve supplies.

[League Circles]

Beyond embarrassing. Absolutely time for him to get replaced with a more competent leader to handle this - TODAY. Jokes are long over.

I'm honestly surprised that none of the people standing next to him physically attacked him. At some point, probably way to late, someone will just start punching him, or, if it's an SS agent, might actually just shoot him in the head. Very plausible IMO.

The tolerant left lol.

I'm not left wing lol. I'm also not making a political statement or advocating anything. I'm making an observation on human nature.

[dice]

Exactly. And if you don’t buy that time now, you cannot do it later. It has to be early to have any positive effect. That’s just a scientific fact based on how diseases spread, not an opinion. Indeed, the likely scenario is that we already started much later than we should have.

So far all explanation for social distancing I read about is flattening the curve. To flatten the curve you need to do it for a super long time and the economic impact to flatten the curve is catastrophic.

I do think there is value in getting more information, or mass producing ventilators, or making tons of make shift hospital beds, or figuring out ways to ramp up the number of sick we can care for at once. If you find a good treatment method and mass produce that as well then that also has tons of value.

I'm not against social distancing per se, I just don't think you can do it for an extended period of time. I think anything more than 2 months will be catastrophic and even 2 months might be catastrophic. You have to gain something in those 2 months that is meaningful, because you won't flatten the curve in that time.

Because of the media people are reacting with such fear of the virus they are not thinking rationally about this at all. It's very scary to have politicians decide what business to keep open. As someone who works in supply chain I know for certain that they have no clue what type of disruptions they are causing.

so you've been speaking with the politicians that are making these decisions?

what seems certain is that you have no clue that politicians constantly have business leaders in their ears who know a thing or two about supply chain. they are tasked with balancing business concerns and public health concerns

unfortunately, business operations are intertwined with the public health outcome here. saying that politicians should not be making decisions for businesses isn't much different than saying that it should be left to businesses to make the public health decisions. and how could that possibly go wrong?. believe it or not, businesses don't always even make the best BUSINESS decisions for themselves. and external decisions to shut down businesses might well end up saving many if not most of those businesses a lot of long-term personnel issues

the reality is that we cannot even begin to make focused, rational policy decisions until we have widespread testing results. until then we need to be skewed toward worst case scenario projections

[Dresden]

Face shields are pretty inexpensive. I found one online at an industrial supply company for my sister who is a doctor and is trouble finding one. It was around $ 4, and made out of rigid plastic, which is easy to clean, so they are re-usable.

Clearly quality PPE is difficult to find in general though, because hospitals are struggling with supplies. Though part of it may be that hospitals are generally looking at disposable stuff rather than washable stuff.

It's likely the case in a crisis like this that we need to alter our approach to conserve supplies.

I'm not saying it's possible right away. But it could be a good idea going forward for the next 12-18 months until we get this under control. Face shields are very simple- just a band of plastic to go around the head, and clear piece of mylar. In a few weeks to a month, they could be churning those out by the millions.

As for getting people to wear them, if it's a choice between that and losing your job, I think people would do it. I force my employees to wear respirators when they are scraping or spraying paint, and they do it. And those slip on face shields are much less uncomfortable or obtrusive to wear than a respirator.

[Dresden]

I'm honestly surprised that none of the people standing next to him physically attacked him. At some point, probably way to late, someone will just start punching him, or, if it's an SS agent, might actually just shoot him in the head. Very plausible IMO.

The tolerant left lol.

I'm not left wing lol. I'm also not making a political statement or advocating anything. I'm making an observation on human nature.

I think a good response would be for the entire press corps to stand up in unison and turn their backs to the president when he says something like that. At some point, you have to take a stand and say enough is enough.

[dice]

Beyond embarrassing. Absolutely time for him to get replaced with a more competent leader to handle this - TODAY. Jokes are long over.

I'm honestly surprised that none of the people standing next to him physically attacked him. At some point, probably way to late, someone will just start punching him, or, if it's an SS agent, might actually just shoot him in the head. Very plausible IMO.

The tolerant left lol.

he's not ADVOCATING any of that roflcopter

dangerous ignorance is not to be tolerated

[Habs72]

People are more used to wearing protective masks in Asia than in western countries might be also one of the reasons the outbreak is better contained in there than in here.

[coldfish]

All I can say as a front line medical worker seeing the deluge, your tune will likely change once you or someone you know is struggling to breath with no ICU beds available. How about arguing economic impact at that time?

This post exactly why people in the medical field should be part of the policy discussion but not determining policy.

You only see what's in front of you, which are the patients suffering from the virus. But you have no awareness of the social and economic impact of whatever policy you are advocating. You don't even consider those things.

So let me ask you, what is the effect of millions of people losing their jobs in the next two months? What strains does that cause on society? How many people die as a result? What happens to rate of violent crime?

At what point do the negative consequences of nationwide shutdowns outweigh the benefits of flattening the curve?

Or let me put it like you did: will your tune change if a family member is murdered as a result of mass rioting? Or if a family member commits suicide because he lost his job and can't care for his family?

Yes. Lets sacrifice people in the altar of economics. Some people dont get it before it explodes on their faces, or in their faces. Maybe this will make your country start thinking more about their citizens than money spend on space programs and military expenses. Mind you this will make a huuuuge impact on healthcare, also other than infected people. Your country is about to start to hit the deep end with this next week or two, 14 500 new cases in the last update and youre only getting started with this.

Let's be honest, as a Finn, you benefit from our military as much as we do. I have no idea what Putin, China, Iran, etc. would do if they had no fear of repercussions for their actions. Russia basically stole Crimea and they have made claims on parts of Finland in the past. The Baltic states . . . You could basically guarantee that Putin would put all of his neighbors under his thumb.