OT: COVID-19 thread #2

[dice]

Faulty testing is likely the result of these anecdotal "second infection" stories you see pop up from time to time. Historically speaking, it would be inconceivable to think we wouldn't get some kind of immunity for a period of time after being infected.

i got chicken pox twice as a kid, so even with conditions that we know involve protection from re-infection, it's not necessarily foolproof. people should still take all the precautions even if they've recovered

[AKfanatic]

So I had a regular follow-up appointment with my Doc today.... but have been feeling like crap since Thursday (cough, cold chills, sore like I just ran a marathon, and the last couple days, trouble keeping my balance) and wanted to call to see if they’d prefer I reschedule.

Apparently I need to go in for a test in the next couple hours, after I get a ride. Fingers crossed this is something else as I’ve done everything right, wearing of mask, no unnecessary trips out, keeping away from people). I’m a bit concerned because I’ve never felt quite like this or had some of these symptoms.

Will update when updates come.

It's good you're getting tested. Hope you come out negative.

Both me and my father were tested today. We have both had flu-like symptoms for the past 4-5 days though we also both have a couple different symptoms. He’s had abdominal pain and I’ve kept getting “dizzy” spells.... moments were I literally just about fall over. The results should be back at some point tomorrow.... which surprised me, I assumed we’d have to wait much longer, but they told is 24 hours. I think one of the main reasons they’re testing us is we were both at the hospital about a week ago for my epidural appointment and they’d like to be sure those that worked on me aren’t at risk.

Hoping this is a bad flu bug... will wait and see.

[Dresden]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/nobel-prize-winning-economist-paul-023507777.html

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer says for the US to return to normal by the summer every person must be tested — at a cost of $100 billion

insider@insider.com (James Pasley)
Business InsiderApril 27, 2020, 7:35 PM PDT


The Nobel laureate Paul Romer says that if the US wants to return to normal this summer, the government should test every resident for the novel coronavirus every two weeks and isolate those who test positive.

He said it would probably cost about $100 billion, which is only a fraction of the more than $2 trillion that Congress has already spent dealing with the coronavirus.

"It's totally in our control to fix this," he told The Washington Post. "We should be spending $100 billion on the testing. We should just get it going. It's just not that hard."

[Dresden]

That makes a lot of sense, provided we can get the testing supplies we need. Which we should have been pursuing since early March. For all the talk about how much the shutdown is costing the economy (in the trillions), yet the govt. won't get involved in spending 100B for testing so we can all go back to work? Had we spent the money right away, we might be well on our way to doing the testing now. I'll never understand why the federal govt. has so thoroughly bungled the job of coordinating a nation wide testing program. It is the one thing almost everyone has been saying for almost two months now, and we still aren't even close.

[Dresden]

Lakers received 4.6 million under the PPP loan program:

Several companies returned their loan money in recent days amid the backlash, including the Los Angeles Lakers basketball franchise, which on Monday said it had given back its $4.6 million loan. Mr. Mnuchin said on Tuesday that he thought it was “outrageous” that the Lakers had taken money and warned other public companies that they could face criminal liability if they did not refund the loans by May 7.

“The purpose of this program was not social welfare for big business,” Mr. Mnuchin said.

[Dresden]

Another problem has been that start ups have gobbled up a lot of the money. Many have access to hundreds of millions of dollars through their investors, but were able to get their applications approved quickly because of the tight relationships they have with well connected banks, such as Silicon Valley Bank.

“If there’s money flying from the sky and everyone’s grabbing it, why would you not grab it?” he asked.

“It’s clear that people who need this money probably don’t have access to what’s going on,” Weiner said.

[chefo]

Watch on YouTube

Interesting take from Doctors against continuing the lockdown.

I don't necessarily disagree with their conclusion--that enforced home isolation of the healthy is a bad idea for prolonged periods and we need to start easing up, but the 'facts' and 'data' they present is utter and complete rubbish from a mathematical and statistical point of view, and it speaks poorly for the interviewing journalists that nobody called them on it.

Their conclusions are based on a model which in essence normalizes what they see in a very tilted data set to be true for the entire population, which is just as nonsensical as the original models that everybody else did that they disparaged themselves.

I'm not saying that what I'm about to type next is the reason why they came forward, but it's not feasible that it didn't affect their thinking--my family has several doctor friends, an anesthesiologist, two surgeons and a coupe of GPs. All have been furloughed or even technically speaking laid off. If you work in a small/niche practice, your volume is down to practically zero. I know from a contact that one of the largest hospital chains in Florida is losing millions / day, and every single small to medium-sized practice is probably experiencing a smaller-scale version of that.

Because of that, it is difficult to judge if they are speaking as small business owners, or as doctors, since they own several clinics. Doesn't mean they are wrong--if I had to guess their intuition is spot on and they are correct in how they want to handle the crisis, but they obviously have their own biases, which are not purely medical. Their conclusions are based on intuition and not on science every bit as much as everybody else's--in modelling, that approach is called both 'garbage in, garbage out' and 'curve-fitted', which pretty much means that the model just spits out an answer that has no predictive value of any kind.

If this were airborne Ebola that kills half and incapacitates half of the survivors, maybe such draconian measures globally would have been warranted. But for this? I don't know--and this comes from somebody who can be considered to be a part of a high risk group (unrelated to covid) and who thinks this is actually much, much worse than the regular flu from the numbers I've run in-house... and who has close family members who've already had it.

[johnnyvann840]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/nobel-prize-winning-economist-paul-023507777.html

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer says for the US to return to normal by the summer every person must be tested — at a cost of $100 billion

insider@insider.com (James Pasley)
Business InsiderApril 27, 2020, 7:35 PM PDT


The Nobel laureate Paul Romer says that if the US wants to return to normal this summer, the government should test every resident for the novel coronavirus every two weeks and isolate those who test positive.

He said it would probably cost about $100 billion, which is only a fraction of the more than $2 trillion that Congress has already spent dealing with the coronavirus.

"It's totally in our control to fix this," he told The Washington Post. "We should be spending $100 billion on the testing. We should just get it going. It's just not that hard."

I believe this and he's 100% right, it is totally in our control to do this.... NOW.
Hey, we just printed $2.2 TRILLION, so what's another $100 Billion. Really just the proverbial "drop in the bucket".

[AKfanatic]

So I had a regular follow-up appointment with my Doc today.... but have been feeling like crap since Thursday (cough, cold chills, sore like I just ran a marathon, and the last couple days, trouble keeping my balance) and wanted to call to see if they’d prefer I reschedule.

Apparently I need to go in for a test in the next couple hours, after I get a ride. Fingers crossed this is something else as I’ve done everything right, wearing of mask, no unnecessary trips out, keeping away from people). I’m a bit concerned because I’ve never felt quite like this or had some of these symptoms.

Will update when updates come.

It's good you're getting tested. Hope you come out negative.

Both me and my father were tested today. We have both had flu-like symptoms for the past 4-5 days though we also both have a couple different symptoms. He’s had abdominal pain and I’ve kept getting “dizzy” spells.... moments were I literally just about fall over. The results should be back at some point tomorrow.... which surprised me, I assumed we’d have to wait much longer, but they told is 24 hours. I think one of the main reasons they’re testing us is we were both at the hospital about a week ago for my epidural appointment and they’d like to be sure those that worked on me aren’t at risk.

Hoping this is a bad flu bug... will wait and see.

Now being told it will be another day or two before we have results. I’m feeling like I have a terrible flu but am more concerned about my father. He’s a pretty healthy guy for a man in his 70’s. Before current circumstances he’d go to the gym daily and swim, run, do light weight work, but he does have diabetes and other underlying issues that would be expected at his age. Currently when I call him, I can here him gasping and that’s got me very concerned.

[AKfanatic]

Read on Twitter

[Dresden]

It's good you're getting tested. Hope you come out negative.

Both me and my father were tested today. We have both had flu-like symptoms for the past 4-5 days though we also both have a couple different symptoms. He’s had abdominal pain and I’ve kept getting “dizzy” spells.... moments were I literally just about fall over. The results should be back at some point tomorrow.... which surprised me, I assumed we’d have to wait much longer, but they told is 24 hours. I think one of the main reasons they’re testing us is we were both at the hospital about a week ago for my epidural appointment and they’d like to be sure those that worked on me aren’t at risk.

Hoping this is a bad flu bug... will wait and see.

Now being told it will be another day or two before we have results. I’m feeling like I have a terrible flu but am more concerned about my father. He’s a pretty healthy guy for a man in his 70’s. Before current circumstances he’d go to the gym daily and swim, run, do light weight work, but he does have diabetes and other underlying issues that would be expected at his age. Currently when I call him, I can here him gasping and that’s got me very concerned.

I hope you're both ok. If you dad starts having trouble breathing, he ought to go to the hospital, or at least call his doctor.

[AKfanatic]

Both me and my father were tested today. We have both had flu-like symptoms for the past 4-5 days though we also both have a couple different symptoms. He’s had abdominal pain and I’ve kept getting “dizzy” spells.... moments were I literally just about fall over. The results should be back at some point tomorrow.... which surprised me, I assumed we’d have to wait much longer, but they told is 24 hours. I think one of the main reasons they’re testing us is we were both at the hospital about a week ago for my epidural appointment and they’d like to be sure those that worked on me aren’t at risk.

Hoping this is a bad flu bug... will wait and see.

Now being told it will be another day or two before we have results. I’m feeling like I have a terrible flu but am more concerned about my father. He’s a pretty healthy guy for a man in his 70’s. Before current circumstances he’d go to the gym daily and swim, run, do light weight work, but he does have diabetes and other underlying issues that would be expected at his age. Currently when I call him, I can here him gasping and that’s got me very concerned.

I hope you're both ok. If you dad starts having trouble breathing, he ought to go to the hospital, or at least call his doctor.

Yeah I’ve told my mom to keep an eye on him and if it gets worse, contact the hospital. It’s a tough situation because id prefer she wasn’t around it, but odds are if he is positive, then i am, and she already is too.

[madvillian]

Lakers received 4.6 million under the PPP loan program:

Several companies returned their loan money in recent days amid the backlash, including the Los Angeles Lakers basketball franchise, which on Monday said it had given back its $4.6 million loan. Mr. Mnuchin said on Tuesday that he thought it was “outrageous” that the Lakers had taken money and warned other public companies that they could face criminal liability if they did not refund the loans by May 7.

“The purpose of this program was not social welfare for big business,” Mr. Mnuchin said.

lol, he's outraged his program is allowing big business to get loans? hey who designed the program anyways!

[madvillian]

Honestly doctors that are in one lane (like ICU doc) need to stay in their lane. They aren't statisticians, they are not virologists or epidemiologists. Smart and capable people sure but it's like asking a chemist to give an opinion on engineering a bridge. Sure they can tell you how the atoms bond in the steel but can they tell you if the bridge is going to crack in 10 years based on the expected loads? Probably not, that's why we have more general people like engineers that study chemistry then study their field.

[Nikola]

Read on Twitter

The "stimulus" money has been so overdone and so poorly done. It's insanity to see the stock market is one green day away from being up year over year.

[AKfanatic]

Now being told it will be another day or two before we have results. I’m feeling like I have a terrible flu but am more concerned about my father. He’s a pretty healthy guy for a man in his 70’s. Before current circumstances he’d go to the gym daily and swim, run, do light weight work, but he does have diabetes and other underlying issues that would be expected at his age. Currently when I call him, I can here him gasping and that’s got me very concerned.

I hope you're both ok. If you dad starts having trouble breathing, he ought to go to the hospital, or at least call his doctor.

Yeah I’ve told my mom to keep an eye on him and if it gets worse, contact the hospital. It’s a tough situation because id prefer she wasn’t around it, but odds are if he is positive, then i am, and she already is too.

Update: just got a call from my parents. They’ve been told my fathers test came back positive. So, at this point it’s pretty obvious what I’ll be told on my call. My mom needs tested tomorrow, though that also seems more of doing tests just to verify the obvious.

Good times.

[dice]

I hope you're both ok. If you dad starts having trouble breathing, he ought to go to the hospital, or at least call his doctor.

Yeah I’ve told my mom to keep an eye on him and if it gets worse, contact the hospital. It’s a tough situation because id prefer she wasn’t around it, but odds are if he is positive, then i am, and she already is too.

Update: just got a call from my parents. They’ve been told my fathers test came back positive. So, at this point it’s pretty obvious what I’ll be told on my call. My mom needs tested tomorrow, though that also seems more of doing tests just to verify the obvious.

Good times.

best wishes to you and your parents. glad you're all able to get the proper attention

[Dresden]

I hope you're both ok. If you dad starts having trouble breathing, he ought to go to the hospital, or at least call his doctor.

Yeah I’ve told my mom to keep an eye on him and if it gets worse, contact the hospital. It’s a tough situation because id prefer she wasn’t around it, but odds are if he is positive, then i am, and she already is too.

Update: just got a call from my parents. They’ve been told my fathers test came back positive. So, at this point it’s pretty obvious what I’ll be told on my call. My mom needs tested tomorrow, though that also seems more of doing tests just to verify the obvious.

Good times.

Well it's a good thing you all got or will get tested. At least you know for sure. My best wishes for a speedy recovery for all of you. If your pop is in good shape, he should have an easier time. Keep us posted....

[coldfish]

I hope you're both ok. If you dad starts having trouble breathing, he ought to go to the hospital, or at least call his doctor.

Yeah I’ve told my mom to keep an eye on him and if it gets worse, contact the hospital. It’s a tough situation because id prefer she wasn’t around it, but odds are if he is positive, then i am, and she already is too.

Update: just got a call from my parents. They’ve been told my fathers test came back positive. So, at this point it’s pretty obvious what I’ll be told on my call. My mom needs tested tomorrow, though that also seems more of doing tests just to verify the obvious.

Good times.

Good luck and be careful. Hopefully everyone pulls though with no issues.

[Dresden]

Lakers received 4.6 million under the PPP loan program:

Several companies returned their loan money in recent days amid the backlash, including the Los Angeles Lakers basketball franchise, which on Monday said it had given back its $4.6 million loan. Mr. Mnuchin said on Tuesday that he thought it was “outrageous” that the Lakers had taken money and warned other public companies that they could face criminal liability if they did not refund the loans by May 7.

“The purpose of this program was not social welfare for big business,” Mr. Mnuchin said.

lol, he's outraged his program is allowing big business to get loans? hey who designed the program anyways!

Unfortunately, the way this thing was rolled out, a lot of the onus was put on borrowers to follow the rules and to only request funding if they had no other source of loans. Now they are saying they will retroactively be auditing firms who get the loan to make sure they really needed it. Would have been a lot better had they eliminated the kinds of loopholes that allowed these large and wealthy businesses from qualifying in the first place. Apparently there was a big lobbying effort by the start up industry group to allow them to participate, even though many of them have access to millions in loans through their private investors.