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The official website for all questions re the coronavirus
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
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Deleted member 2897
Guest
Here comes all the bailouts again.
Here’s a hint for the government – in a recession, the people still working are not the ones that need the most help. It’s the people that get laid off or furloughed – which means that cutting their payroll taxes is irrelevant. Cutting someone’s retirement or health insurance payments seems so odd.
RonJohn
Helluva Engineer
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But that is too boring. They don't have red colored heat maps. They don't blame everybody for causing the virus to spread. They don't say that everyone is going to die. They don't tell people to go out and rush stores for bread, milk, and face masks. They don't have breaking updates every five minutes with stats that haven't changed in the last five minutes.
What the do have is factual information and things for people to do to mitigate the chance of getting the virus: Good hygiene, stay away from sick people, and stay home if you are sick. Who wants to pay attention to things that can actually help them when they can spend all day watching reports that excite them while continuing to practice bad hygiene thus putting themselves at risk?
Deleted member 2897
Guest
But that is too boring. They don't have red colored heat maps. They don't blame everybody for causing the virus to spread. They don't say that everyone is going to die. They don't tell people to go out and rush stores for bread, milk, and face masks. They don't have breaking updates every five minutes with stats that haven't changed in the last five minutes.
What the do have is factual information and things for people to do to mitigate the chance of getting the virus: Good hygiene, stay away from sick people, and stay home if you are sick. Who wants to pay attention to things that can actually help them when they can spend all day watching reports that excite them while continuing to practice bad hygiene thus putting themselves at risk?
The 60 minutes interview with Dr. Fauci last night was hilarious. They did everything they could to stir up trouble, but he didn’t take their bait.
RonJohn
Helluva Engineer
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I went to the grocery store on the way home. There was an elderly lady in one of the motorized carts. She was a little pale and sweaty. She had a cell phone in one hand and the other on the buggy controls. She told the person on the phone that she felt really bad, all the while going down the aisle and coughing like crazy.
Whether she has strep, flu, or COVID-19, that is bad form.
Whether she has strep, flu, or COVID-19, that is bad form.
Deleted member 2897
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LOL
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RonJohn
Helluva Engineer
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I think the "frustration" is because people want numbers and answers NOW. The numbers available now are not accurate, so the answers from experts are not good.
She posted a link to another article: https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-03-05/flu-killed-more-people-coronavirus-covid-19
From that article:
Where have I heard that in the last few days?
Deleted member 2897
Guest
He keeps this up and he’ll hit my prediction for being the first President to be in office during a $2T deficit.
LibertyTurns
Banned
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Hey where are all these people not working? I’ve been hiring like crazy for over 2 years and can’t find enough people to work to fill all my open spots. I don’t think I’ve had less than 100 positions open at any one time since probably early 2017.
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The overreactions are now reaching colleges and universities. UCF, for example, proactively announced a one day quarantine and travel ban for their football team, effective Friday, September 18th. Safety first.
Techster
Helluva Engineer
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Presser held during the busiest news window of the day...after markets closed at a historical drop.
Nothing to see here folks...
Deleted member 2897
Guest
Yep, he invited companies to come hat in hand to the White House, and they will. Get ready for handout central.
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http://www.enkiops.org/blog/2020/03...rk4iuDo2XABCVQoX4Qwuql4Moeum4JVgQGeqDXL8nW9kg
ZOMG! The COVID Numbers Changed! (Or did they?)
Posted on March 9, 2020
One of my major frustrations with the “news” media is how they treat numbers. In a situation like we are facing with the COVID-19 outbreak, the data is very fuzzy, and we are apparently seeing wild swings in the numbers. Headlines like this one in the New York Times are facing folks as they wake up this morning: Cases and deaths surge in Italy as its north is locked down. So we should panic, right? Maybe not.
As previously noted, I’m using data from the nCoV-2019 Data Working Group data base, Epidemiological Data from the nCoV-2019 Outbreak: Early Descriptions from Publicly Available Data as well as the current (9 March 2020) World Health Organization database. I’m also indirectly using other sources of information to cross check these data.
If we look at China, which seems to be stabilizing, it seems the all population hospitalization rate (sick enough to present for medical care and require hospitalization) for COVID19 is about 0.14 percent. Do we believe that number? I think so. The number for Korea is about 0.15%. The number for the Diamond Princess cruise ship, adjusted for demographics, is about the same. Iran and Italy are still below that (0.07% and 0.05% respectively), but are still increasing day by day and are a several weeks behind Iran and Italy.
So we can have some confidence that the fraction of the total population that will get sick enough to need medical care is 0.15 to 0.25 percent. That is what the numbers in China and Korea are converging on. For reference, the 2017 H3N2 outbreak had an overall rate of between 0.25% and, for the unvaccinated fraction of the population, 0.39%. So for the overall population this is a lot like a bad influenza outbreak. It does have some differences (it is moving faster, and it impacts various populations differently) but the overall number isn’t statistically different for the average person.
Given the above, I expect that the Italy numbers still have significant “upside” – they could (and probably will) nearly double. While that seems catastrophic, it is still less than half of what the 2017 H3N2 outbreak was responsible for. So ignore the breathless headlines and day to day updates: nothing significant has changed. The numbers are converging towards where they have been estimated to go.
All that said, I don’t want to downplay the stress this is going to cause our health care system, and the risk to vulnerable people. As noted in previous posts, this virus hits hard vulnerable populations – especially those over 65 or so and with health problems. Take a place like Chatham County, GA. As I understand it there are 155 ICU beds to serve population of around 400,000. That may not sound like much, but it is slightly above the national average of 33.6 beds per 100,000 people (Chatham is ~38). Typically about two thirds are in use at any given time. The problem is that based on the data we should expect to need a surge of 60 additional ICU beds due to COVID19 for several weeks. I hope the various authorities are planning on this both in Savannah and across the country.
In short, for what it’s worth, my concerns are in order of priority:
1) the economic impacts (extremely high level of concern).
2) the stress on the health care system (somewhat high level of concern).
3) general population impacts (manageable if everybody is sensible).
What does that mean to you? Same thing as yesterday: Wash your hands, don’t touch your face, don’t freak out. The best source of practical information are at the CDC web site, and the DHS/FEMA “ready.gov” pandemic preparation site. Essentially, these are common sense actions. If you or a member of your family is over 65 (and especially over 75), or has health problems (especially respiratory or immune system issues), you should take some extra precautions. Avoid crowds, limit travel where you will be exposed to people, be super-fastidious about hygiene, and so forth, until this thing subsides, hopefully in a few months.
What about quarantines, such as Italy is (unsuccessfully) trying to do in their north? Well, this horse has been out of the barn for a long time. They probably aren’t terribly effective at this stage other than to further screw up the economy and panic people. Quarantines are only effective for small populations you can easily isolate. That day passed for the SARS-COV-2 virus a long time ago. What will work are “mitigation” measures – things like social distancing, emphasis on hygiene, limiting large gatherings, etc. But don’t do this …
ZOMG! The COVID Numbers Changed! (Or did they?)
Posted on March 9, 2020
One of my major frustrations with the “news” media is how they treat numbers. In a situation like we are facing with the COVID-19 outbreak, the data is very fuzzy, and we are apparently seeing wild swings in the numbers. Headlines like this one in the New York Times are facing folks as they wake up this morning: Cases and deaths surge in Italy as its north is locked down. So we should panic, right? Maybe not.
As previously noted, I’m using data from the nCoV-2019 Data Working Group data base, Epidemiological Data from the nCoV-2019 Outbreak: Early Descriptions from Publicly Available Data as well as the current (9 March 2020) World Health Organization database. I’m also indirectly using other sources of information to cross check these data.
If we look at China, which seems to be stabilizing, it seems the all population hospitalization rate (sick enough to present for medical care and require hospitalization) for COVID19 is about 0.14 percent. Do we believe that number? I think so. The number for Korea is about 0.15%. The number for the Diamond Princess cruise ship, adjusted for demographics, is about the same. Iran and Italy are still below that (0.07% and 0.05% respectively), but are still increasing day by day and are a several weeks behind Iran and Italy.
So we can have some confidence that the fraction of the total population that will get sick enough to need medical care is 0.15 to 0.25 percent. That is what the numbers in China and Korea are converging on. For reference, the 2017 H3N2 outbreak had an overall rate of between 0.25% and, for the unvaccinated fraction of the population, 0.39%. So for the overall population this is a lot like a bad influenza outbreak. It does have some differences (it is moving faster, and it impacts various populations differently) but the overall number isn’t statistically different for the average person.
Given the above, I expect that the Italy numbers still have significant “upside” – they could (and probably will) nearly double. While that seems catastrophic, it is still less than half of what the 2017 H3N2 outbreak was responsible for. So ignore the breathless headlines and day to day updates: nothing significant has changed. The numbers are converging towards where they have been estimated to go.
All that said, I don’t want to downplay the stress this is going to cause our health care system, and the risk to vulnerable people. As noted in previous posts, this virus hits hard vulnerable populations – especially those over 65 or so and with health problems. Take a place like Chatham County, GA. As I understand it there are 155 ICU beds to serve population of around 400,000. That may not sound like much, but it is slightly above the national average of 33.6 beds per 100,000 people (Chatham is ~38). Typically about two thirds are in use at any given time. The problem is that based on the data we should expect to need a surge of 60 additional ICU beds due to COVID19 for several weeks. I hope the various authorities are planning on this both in Savannah and across the country.
In short, for what it’s worth, my concerns are in order of priority:
1) the economic impacts (extremely high level of concern).
2) the stress on the health care system (somewhat high level of concern).
3) general population impacts (manageable if everybody is sensible).
What does that mean to you? Same thing as yesterday: Wash your hands, don’t touch your face, don’t freak out. The best source of practical information are at the CDC web site, and the DHS/FEMA “ready.gov” pandemic preparation site. Essentially, these are common sense actions. If you or a member of your family is over 65 (and especially over 75), or has health problems (especially respiratory or immune system issues), you should take some extra precautions. Avoid crowds, limit travel where you will be exposed to people, be super-fastidious about hygiene, and so forth, until this thing subsides, hopefully in a few months.
What about quarantines, such as Italy is (unsuccessfully) trying to do in their north? Well, this horse has been out of the barn for a long time. They probably aren’t terribly effective at this stage other than to further screw up the economy and panic people. Quarantines are only effective for small populations you can easily isolate. That day passed for the SARS-COV-2 virus a long time ago. What will work are “mitigation” measures – things like social distancing, emphasis on hygiene, limiting large gatherings, etc. But don’t do this …
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Deleted member 2897
Guest
If that percentage of hospitalization holds, that implies 1,500,000 people in the US will be in serious medical condition. That implies tens of millions will get the virus, and many tens of thousands of deaths. That’s not comforting.
RonJohn
Helluva Engineer
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The population of the US in 2018 was 327.2 million. 0.14% of 327.2 million is 458,000. About the same number as estimated to be hospitalized for flu in the 2019-2020 flu season. Why should we be concerned about this, but not the flu?
flounder
Jolly Good Fellow
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Because they're happening at the same time. 2 times the number of flu patients > number of beds available.
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