Coronavirus/COVID-19, Thread 2

[Captain_Caveman]

FYI, Hong Kong is not China. Not sure why you think that's a load of s***.

It's not China, but also not not China.

I tend to believe their data more than China's, though. I think it is super likely that a lot of these case/death numbers are super low in many parts of the world. China, almost certainly so. I'm not one of those Wuhan virus COVIDiots, but also don't trust them as far as I can kick them.

[canman1971]

FYI, truth18 is doing great things out in Philly for the homeless community. He and a friend raised money to install sinks around town so the less fortunate would have a place to wash their hands, all in an effort to stop the spread amongst their community. DM me if you want the article.

What a champ. Good stuff. Would have donated if it was still open.

Right on. Another Glen (Toad the Wet Sprocket) show at 9pm EST tonight for a charity for food banks in New Orleans. No requirement to donate to watch, but super cool for him to do and if you can, same.
https://www.facebook.com/glenphillips

[theman]

FYI, Hong Kong is not China. Not sure why you think that's a load of s***.

Wait Hong Kong isn’t in China ? You’re telling me I’ve been lied my whole life ?
Please don’t tell me the rumours about Santa being fake are true as well .....

How old are you?

If you are older than 24, not your whole life.

On July 1, 1997, Great Britain handed over rule of Hong Kong to China. This ended 156 years of British rule. I wonder which country the people of Hong Kong preferred. Of course, self-rule would probably their first choice.

[SuperDeluxe]

Good information here on building herd immunity as a way to ease our way back to normal:

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If this physician is right (and I can't imagine why he wouldn't be), then the plan is a fail before it even starts.

[canman1971]

Good information here on building herd immunity as a way to ease our way back to normal:

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If this physician is right (and I can't imagine why he wouldn't be), then the plan is a fail before it even starts.

Could be. And I'm not comparing this to the flu, nor am I anti-vaccine or what not. However, I have never had a flu shot, and have never had the actual flu thankfully, but in no way do I feel it's not necessary. My son gets one every year. Just a bizarre state of affairs.

[threrf23]

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[SuperDeluxe]

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It doesn't take a brain surgeon to infer that opening the economy will have a predictable effect in terms of contagion.

[31to6]

[youtube][/youtube]

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It doesn't take a brain surgeon to infer that opening the economy will have a predictable effect in terms of contagion.

“Who knew healthcare could be so complicated?”

[zoyathedestroya]

WTF is wrong with these people??

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[threrf23]

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This applies to volunteers who are not getting paid a cent by anybody affiliated with New York. Out of state employers, who are volunteering their employees, are required to register with NY and do withholding there. That's just part of the paperwork involved. And I don't know specifics, but I would wager some of these volunteers will end up double taxed on their very modest income.

Law was already on the books, but Cuomo claims he fully intends to pursue. I know NY has a tough road ahead and can't afford to be idealist, but there has gotta be a better way.

Coincidence or not, this controversy is popping up shortly after...

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[threrf23]

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[Slax]

This applies to volunteers who are not getting paid a cent by anybody affiliated with New York. Out of state employers, who are volunteering their employees, are required to register with NY and do withholding there. That's just part of the paperwork involved. And I don't know specifics, but I would wager some of these volunteers will end up double taxed on their very modest income.

Law was already on the books, but Cuomo claims he fully intends to pursue. I know NY has a tough road ahead and can't afford to be idealist, but there has gotta be a better way.

I don't think these are literally unpaid volunteers, but people who volunteered to come to New York to do paid work, with the pay sometimes coming from their out-of-state employers who were paying them to work in New York instead of in their home state. In general it makes sense that New York (like most states, including MA) makes you pay some income taxes if you do paid work in the state, because it prevents loopholes of setting up residence in a low tax state to avoid taxes from your job in a high paying state. But what makes this different is these aren't people choosing to work in New York to earn more money, but people who chose to risk their lives to come to New York from out of state to help out in a time of need, and therefore it makes moral sense not to burden those people by taxing them on the basis that they worked here during an emergency. New York waived state income taxes for out of state workers helping with 9/11, and they should do it now too - pretty **** not to.

The complication here is that after months of reduced revenue from sales and income taxes, higher payments to social safety net programs, and throwing money at an unprecedented medical crisis, New York's state and local governments are all straight up broke, and that's going to be a huge problem for New Yorkers, especially because the federal government is dragging its feet on providing assistance as typically happens during natural disasters like hurricanes, so New York is going to make some difficult and frankly immoral decisions about how to allocate limited resources no matter what. And I think on top of that, Cuomo is the kind of **** who likes to play political hardball (for example, it's an open secret that he deliberately **** over NYC transit to try to make DeBlasio more unpopular), so while I hope this isn't part of the calculation, he might be trying to pressure Congress on providing budget assistance to New York by inconveniencing out-of-state workers and implying that he could solve this problem with federal assistance. I hope this gets resolved and that the state taxes get waived for those out of state workers who came to help us out soon - those people are heroes and deserve the royal treatment from New York. Makes me sad that this is happening.

[threrf23]

And I think on top of that, Cuomo is the kind of **** who likes to play political hardball (for example, it's an open secret that he deliberately **** over NYC transit to try to make DeBlasio more unpopular), so while I hope this isn't part of the calculation, he might be trying to pressure Congress on providing budget assistance to New York by inconveniencing out-of-state workers and implying that he could solve this problem with federal assistance. I hope this gets resolved and that the state taxes get waived for those out of state workers who came to help us out soon - those people are heroes and deserve the royal treatment from New York. Makes me sad that this is happening.

Yeah if you read his actual statements, it sounds like a ploy to pressure Washington. While I haven't become Cuomo's biggest fan from afar, and while I don't have the utmost faith in NY voters despite some of the fine men they have elected to public office over the past 20+ years, I doubt he would stoop so low as to actually see this rule enforced within this context.

But ****, this isn't even how you manipulate the White House right now, and it sends a **** message to act like this could ever be acceptable. Like, set up a GoFundMe. And these people might be getting paid, but they are generally not getting paid for the work they are doing in NY, they are essentially being given paid sick leave and probably getting taxed on it already by their home state. And their employers, some of whom are essentially being generous with paid sick leave in order to help out in NYC, are technically burdened by bureaucratic requirements if forced to comply.

[zoyathedestroya]

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[claycarver]

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51979654

Is the virus bringing forward deaths by a few months?
Every year, about 600,000 people in the UK die. And the frail and elderly are most at risk, just as they are if they have coronavirus.

Nearly 10% of people aged over 80 will die in the next year, Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter at the University of Cambridge points out, and the risk of them dying if infected with coronavirus is almost exactly the same.

That does not mean there will be no extra deaths - but, Sir David says, there will be "a substantial overlap".

"Many people who die of Covid [the disease caused by coronavirus] would have died anyway within a short period," he says.

Knowing exactly how many is impossible to tell at this stage.

Prof Neil Ferguson, the lead modeller at Imperial College London, has suggested it could be up to two-thirds.

[zoyathedestroya]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/health/virus-summer-pandemic.html

The countries varied from Canada to the tropics, but no effect for temperature was found. Humidity had a very weak connection to diminished spread, they found. But by far the most important in associations with a diminished spread of the disease were school closings, social distancing and restrictions on large gatherings.

“In our study,” the researchers wrote in the study, published Thursday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, “only public health interventions were consistently associated with reduced epidemic growth, and the greater the number of co-occurring public health interventions, the larger the reduction in growth.”

Some countries near/along the equator -- Somalia, Brazil, Indonesia, Ecuador, Philippines, Singapore -- where it's warmer, are still struggling to contain covid.

[Slax]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/health/virus-summer-pandemic.html

The countries varied from Canada to the tropics, but no effect for temperature was found. Humidity had a very weak connection to diminished spread, they found. But by far the most important in associations with a diminished spread of the disease were school closings, social distancing and restrictions on large gatherings.

“In our study,” the researchers wrote in the study, published Thursday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, “only public health interventions were consistently associated with reduced epidemic growth, and the greater the number of co-occurring public health interventions, the larger the reduction in growth.”

Some countries near/along the equator -- Somalia, Brazil, Indonesia, Ecuador, Philippines, Singapore -- where it's warmer, are still struggling to contain covid.

There goes that hope. I'm less worried about the fact that there might not be a summer lull in the US than I am about how some of these developing countries are going to handle this. I was really hoping near-tropical developing countries would be less affected, because most of their health care systems aren't as prepared.

[Slax]

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51979654

Is the virus bringing forward deaths by a few months?
Every year, about 600,000 people in the UK die. And the frail and elderly are most at risk, just as they are if they have coronavirus.

Nearly 10% of people aged over 80 will die in the next year, Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter at the University of Cambridge points out, and the risk of them dying if infected with coronavirus is almost exactly the same.

That does not mean there will be no extra deaths - but, Sir David says, there will be "a substantial overlap".

"Many people who die of Covid [the disease caused by coronavirus] would have died anyway within a short period," he says.

Knowing exactly how many is impossible to tell at this stage.

Prof Neil Ferguson, the lead modeller at Imperial College London, has suggested it could be up to two-thirds.

I remember reading this back in April, and also saw a good response by a skeptical actuary here: https://www.actuaries.org.uk/news-and-insights/news/what-difference-word-makes

But the life expectancy of these non-athletes is more ‘athletic’ than you’d think. Even assuming no mortality improvements, to stack the game against them more, a 70-year old of diabetic obese male smoker has a life expectancy in the region of 8-9 years; an 80-year old has a life expectancy of 4-5 years. If we take away the diabetes and instead assume COPD, or a heart attack a few years ago, we get roughly the same results.

Yes, you say, but life expectancy is an average and there’s a lot of variation around that average. That’s true, of course, but the odds of our reference group surviving the year are good. Only around 1-in-20 of such 70-year olds, or 1-in-7 of such 80-year olds, would be expected to die within twelve months.

These are examples of people who have a respectable number of years to look forward to; they are not ‘the walking dead’, and if they die with COVID-19 raging in their bodies, we can accurately say that they died of COVID-19, and were probably not going to die this year in any case.

For the record, I don't know which one of these assessments is correct, but I think the fact we're seeing large numbers of excess deaths in places that were hit hard (eg nyc) makes me lean toward the interpretation that most of these people weren't on the verge of dying anyway.

[theman]

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It doesn't take a brain surgeon to infer that opening the economy will have a predictable effect in terms of contagion.

Nor does it take a noble winning economist to know that keeping the economy shut down will have terrible effects on unemployment. It is a balancing act. And before you say lives are more important than money, let me point out that 20% of suicides are related to unemployment.

[theman]

De Blasio: Hospitalized coronavirus patients should return to nursing homes

Mayor Bill de Blasio said some hospitalized patients who have tested positive for the coronavirus should still return to their nursing homes — even though they risk exposing other elderly residents to the deadly bug.

What could possibly go wrong?