Coronavirus Thread

[MountainBuzzMan]

Yes we are to maintain safe distances and sterilize areas regularly. Common areas are to be closed to gatherings. Look, I work in a building with about 400 people and have about 45 people in one room alone (big room, divided up in cubicles. The walkways are only 3 feet wide, you have to literally turn sideways when two people walk past each other. Worst part, we are a software development group not some manufacturing org that HAS to be in person and hands on.

Yea, that's really bad! My engineers have been able to work from home for the most part and I plan on doing that as much as possible for as long as possible.

 

[armeck]

Then your company is not following the directives of leaders and health officials. That sucks and I wouldn't want to go back in either. I also work for a software company and in a similar environment. I am prepared to be the last group of employees to get back to "normal". What and when ever that is.

How surprised would you be if I told it was the DoD? You shouldn't be too surprised...

Yea, that's really bad! My engineers have been able to work from home for the most part and I plan on doing that as much as possible for as long as possible.

It's silly. We began telework prior to the SIP, so even if that is lifted the criteria that sent us home initially is still in play.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I remain skeptical about the true severity of all this. I understand the figures, but we are still a long, one way from losing 16,000 people EVERY year from this virus, as we do with the flu. We are used to seeing 16,000 people killed every year by a disease (the flu) and because coronavirus is new, we get frightened easily. As I said, I remain skeptical.

Not calling you out on this, because the world completely changed from back then (we had less than 30 cases nationwide rolling into March and still didn't know the severity of China's lies even after they had started fessing up), but just think about this. Imagine if someone had replied into this post all the way back then and said that 16,000 people would die in New York City alone in the next 6-8 weeks.

 

[gthxxxx]

Random samples do reduce sampling bias, but that's it. Let's say you had figures for the entire population of the US; there are plenty of studies that have just that these days. Would you prefer a random sample to that? Not likely, though you might check the population figures against a randomized study or two just to be on the safe side. Or let's say you did an internet poll (Civiqs does these; I get pestered regularly) that ends up with 30 - 40K respondents, properly weighted for representativeness. Results from those usually don't vary from what you find with random samples. It's the old "quantity has it's own quality" business. Here's Angus Deaton on the subject:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953617307359

But you are right about misrepresenting your findings. There's way too much of that.

I'm not sure I'm following. If you had figures on the entire population of interest, there would be nothing to extrapolate?

 

[GTNavyNuke]

..... Let's hope that the new "guidelines" are actually adhered to. Then we might have a handle on prevalence and find ways to get back to normal safely.

But do I think this will happen? Nah.

They really aren't where I live in Virginia. Small town of 14,000. Last Saturday I went to the hardware store. Of 20 people in there, 3 including myself had a mask on. Most were social distancing as convenient. Left within 2 minutes and washed up afterward.

We are going to see a long high rate of new cases across rural America if this is any indication. Sad.

Local Food Lion grocery maybe 30% wear masks. Local Whole Foods maybe 90% wear masks. Just a different demographic.

 

[Techster]

Yet Taiwan never locked down and has the lightest impact of any nation thus far.

Their secret appears to be that they were VERY aggressive early with contact tracing and quarantining. If you tested positive, you were issued a phone by the government so they could monitor your location and insure you stayed quarantined.

Lockdowns are only one solution. Easier to implement short term that the tracing and quarantining approach if it is already out of hand, but much MUCH more damaging economically to those not infected.

The key to this is aggressive testing. If you look at the common denominator between the countries that have been able to "contain" it to the ones where it seems spread has been rampant, it all goes back to testing. Those that have tested aggressively have been able to keep their numbers down, those that don't test have seen the their infection curve rocket.

On another note, I spoke with a childhood friend of mine last week. He's from Taiwan, but did his grade schooling in America, which is where we met. He returned to Taiwan after college. He does a lot of traveling in China for business, and he happened to be in Wuhon in October. He said he noticed almost everyone with coughs during that time while running around the city. He didn't think much of it because it was flu season, but looking back he suspects that the virus was already introduced to the population then. If you look at the timeline of how this virus spreads and how fast it became unmanageable in Wuhon, and review some cables the FBI unearthed from the Chinese government, it makes sense. He said he came back from that trip feeling like he had a really bad cold that lasted quite a long time. He's a pretty fit dude. He suspects he might have been exposed to it and gotten over it. Luckily, his wife and son were in America during that time, and he would be joining them in November for Thanksgiving and then Christmas...so if he did have the virus, it would have been through his system by then.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

I think Sweden's approach is a failure because they didn’t stick to it. They have implemented social distancing and stay at home orders. But they did so under tremendous pressure well after they should have. It would have been more interesting had they stuck to their guns to see if they would have had a steep trip up...but then a steep trip down. At the end of the day, they will probably be doing the same as everyone else...just much slower.

Maybe. You are assuming that getting it builds up an immunity that remains effective for a significant amount of time. We won't know that answer for a while. (The Scientific American article I previously posted was really good on that.) I think many of the repeat cases have been poor tests where people felt better, were cleared and then got worse again. Given the very
time that many people are sick, I'm not sure that they are building up much immunity but the virus goes into remission for a while. I had the parvo virus for 18 months and it came and went.

My daughter is very sure she had COVID-19 but wasn't tested as it was 6 weeks to 2 weeks ago. She was sick in various degrees for about a month. Worst three days she had a 103F and could barely walk. Her boyfriend also got it and they took care of each other. They aren't on the official statistics. The point is she is very healthy 32 year old and it took her a month with several ups and downs. (Yes I probably am guilty of giving her bad genes. )

One final aspect of these curves. Look at the long lag between cases reported and recovered. That shows it takes most people a lot of time to "recover".

 

[GTNavyNuke]

in comparison to the US, Norway's deaths are 1 per every 35,264 residents. US is 1 for every 9,909 residents and Sweden is 1 for every 7,674 residents
So on a per capita basis Sweden has the worst death rate of the three.

FWIW, Italy is 1 death every 2,723 residents. Spain is 1 death for every 2,430 residents, UK is one every 4,855 residents, France is 1 every 3,738 residents and Germany is 1 every 20,488 residents

Here is the link for where that chart came from. Financial Times has alot of great worldwide information on the virus.
https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest

I've been looking for a chart that is based on cases or deaths per 1000 population (or some number). Didn't see it there either. Any links?

As I said above, it takes a while for this virus to run it's course. I expect our numbers to climb for a while.

 

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/antib...tkU5z1DH_rdohYx2H4fvHqi21VGXQVFRwD5t6veftOoJ4

“Our findings suggest that there is somewhere between 50- and 80-fold more infections in our county than what’s known by the number of cases than are reported by our department of public health,"

If Stanford is correct about this, what we are essentially dealing with is a far more contagious flu from a mortality rate perspective.

I thought I heard last night that California was a standard (so to speak) for the country in at least the percentage of known cases in the population, as well as deaths. What happened? Were they falsely reporting, or did new stats become available just overnight?

 

[GT_EE78]

I've been looking for a chart that is based on cases or deaths per 1000 population (or some number). Didn't see it there either. Any links?

As I said above, it takes a while for this virus to run it's course. I expect our numbers to climb for a while.

This one has cases,deaths and tests per 1m pop, scroll down for the ss
the US section has same by state
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

 

[GTNavyNuke]

This one has cases,deaths and tests per 1m pop, scroll down for the ss
the US section has same by state
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Fabulous. Thanks.

 

[GT_EE78]

> I had hoped these "probable " deaths were being integrated over the time history but it looks like a big data dump and deaths from the 14th on won't be comparable to the days prior to the 14th.(at least for now) the 6K deaths on the 14th was in part the result of this.Hopefully it will get adjusted for historical actuals.
>Ohio is already doing this and it's unclear how or when for other states. This also effects "new cases" as those probable deaths are getting added now - at least for NY and Ohio.
> Note- this criteria change likely is why we've seen a rise in new cases since the 14th. (chart below)


"On April 14, New York City reported 3,778 additional deaths that have occurred since March 11 and have been classified as "probable,""
"As with similar instances in the past (with other countries), we have added the additional data on the day it was reported. If and when the historical distribution is provided, we will make the needed adjustments.
Finally, since every probable death necessarily implies a probable case, logic mandates that the adjustment be made to both deaths and cases, and not only to deaths. We have now adjusted April 14, April 15, and current data for New York State and the United States accordingly."

new CDC guidelines on "Case" and "Death" definition
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/us-data/

 

[LibertyTurns]

Whoever’s counting appears to have given the world the finger!

 

[GT_EE78]

I thought I heard last night that California was a standard (so to speak) for the country in at least the percentage of known cases in the population, as well as deaths. What happened? Were they falsely reporting, or did new stats become available just overnight?

it's a projection from a sample of abt 3000 antibody tests. It's only for one county but still i'm not sure i'd trust it.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Wow, 30,000+ new cases again today and lotsa time left. Sheesh. It’s the energizer bunny.

 

[GT_EE78]

Wow, 30,000+ new cases again today and lotsa time left. Sheesh. It’s the energizer bunny.

ya gotta take it with a grain of salt because of the new reporting criteria (and the lack of info about how/when states are switching over). look two posts up

 

[dtm1997]

Wow, 30,000+ new cases again today and lotsa time left. Sheesh. It’s the energizer bunny.

Wait until next week now that the Florida beaches are reopened.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

ya gotta take it with a grain of salt because of the new reporting criteria (and the lack of info about how/when states are switching over). look two posts up

Even if a few thousand deaths weren’t tested but now are presumed and added into new cases, that’s still a very high number...in other words, 28,000 new cases isn’t that different from 31,000.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Interesting story on asymptomatic positive tests.

https://www.boston25news.com/news/c...-homeless-shelter/Z253TFBO6RG4HCUAARBO4YWO64/

 

[GT_EE78]