Coronavirus Thread

[Deleted member 2897]

Actually, I thought the federal guidelines about re-opening were pretty good, if they were followed. But I never expected that they would be and I was right. None of the SE states that are re-opening have even begun to reach the "plateau, then decrease" phase of their epidemics and, of course, none of them are ready with anything approximating the test/contact trace apparatus they would need to even go to phase 1, much less phase 2. When you add on top of this that the states involved - Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida - are not what you would call paragons for public health delivery in the first place and you get a potentially dreadful scenario.

If the federal guidelines are followed by governments that actually want to be sincere about it, I'd say we could start to re-open safely for most of the country in late May - early June. It would depend on the states involved. (If, say, North Dakota had decided to re-open like Georgia is planning to do, I'd be a lot less apprehensive about the effects for them.) Not re-opening does mean hardship and it will continue, especially if the virus re-ignites and we have to move back to square 1. What I fear is that if we re-open and we aren't ready - which is the case - then when the virus becomes more virulent there will be considerable pushback on any attempt to shut down to stop it. That's a recipe for raising our projected death toll from 100K to 250K or worse. And, unfortunately, that's what I think will happen.

I don't express to be an expert in other states' business, but this assertion is false in my state. At the city, county, and state level, we are running at less than half the case volume we were at the peak. Furthermore, even at the peak, we had hardly any traffic in our hospitals. I live in a 500,000 person county (Charleston County) and at the peak there were less than 10 COVID-19 patients in any given hospital. Most of the hospitals had 0. The hospitals have been ghost towns, bleeding money. Starting this week, they are allowing elective surgeries and normal traffic and activity. The number of nurses, doctors, and other healthcare workers that had lost hours and jobs was extreme. One hospital all by themselves had laid off over 1,000. Hopefully most of those people will be gainfully employed again in the next week or two. Our total deaths all-time is 5 - all very elderly in previously bad condition. (Not trying to minimize it, but just saying.). We actually had 0 new cases this Saturday in the entire county. We've been running < 10 about 70% of the time since peaking 2 weeks ago. We're about to start our 6th week of stay-at-home/shutdown, so all this data makes sense to me - we should be past the peak. We were the first in the country to get FDA/CDC approval for the types of reagents we use in our tests, and we were the second in the country to have drive-through testing...that's been in place for about 6 weeks. So part of all this could be that we've had adequate testing all along too.

 

[WreckinGT]

Why do you need unpaid volunteers to hold your hand down that path? I appreciate the product they provide. Period.
Edit...they do their level best.

So should I start responding to political posts in here with my own political posts in direct violation of the rules they set out?

 

[FredJacket]

So should I start responding to political posts in here with my own political posts in direct violation of the rules they set out?

No

 

[Deleted member 2897]

So should I start responding to political posts in here with my own political posts in direct violation of the rules they set out?

Coronavirus No. You can copy/quote Coronavirus their post and then paste over in a political thread if you want to continue the Coronavirus conversation. If you Coronavirus reply, your reply will get moved Coronavirus when the Mods move the main one that started it. Frequent Coronavirus abusers of the rules are at risk of warnings I would imagine Coronavirus. If you ever have doubt if your post is on the right thread or not, be sure to frequently mention Coronavirus.

 

[RonJohn]

The biggest takeaway I got was it isn't nearly as simple as turning on the lights and opening up the doors anymore. They have all sorts of legal and social issues they have to get through first. And most importantly, it is likely to be made more on whether they see demand for people to eat in restuarants. Right now there is no demand for it.

This is why I am not overly concerned. The way things are being reported, the beaches opened up to Spring Break conditions, and the business openings are going to be party times in the businesses.

There are ways to open up more than we have been without having the infection spread like mad. To have it work will take well thought out requirements for the businesses, and better communication of these requirements from the government. It will also take a less adversarial press, from all sides of politics. The press should help inform everyone about what is actually happening, instead of talking heads trying to rile people up.

 

[RamblinRed]

Actually, I thought the federal guidelines about re-opening were pretty good, if they were followed. But I never expected that they would be and I was right. None of the SE states that are re-opening have even begun to reach the "plateau, then decrease" phase of their epidemics and, of course, none of them are ready with anything approximating the test/contact trace apparatus they would need to even go to phase 1, much less phase 2. When you add on top of this that the states involved - Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida - are not what you would call paragons for public health delivery in the first place and you get a potentially dreadful scenario.

If the federal guidelines are followed by governments that actually want to be sincere about it, I'd say we could start to re-open safely for most of the country in late May - early June. It would depend on the states involved. (If, say, North Dakota had decided to re-open like Georgia is planning to do, I'd be a lot less apprehensive about the effects for them.) Not re-opening does mean hardship and it will continue, especially if the virus re-ignites and we have to move back to square 1. What I fear is that if we re-open and we aren't ready - which is the case - then when the virus becomes more virulent there will be considerable pushback on any attempt to shut down to stop it. That's a recipe for raising our projected death toll from 100K to 250K or worse. And, unfortunately, that's what I think will happen.

I agree, I thought the guidelines were well laid out. A couple of the articles i read then said that based on the guidelines there were 4 states that would likely meet the guidelines to start to re-open on May 1 - Hawaii, Vermont, Montana, and West Virginia. No other states were likely to meet the guidelines by then.

I think the good news is that alot of businesses seem to be taking a wait and see attitude toward this and are not rushing to try to re-open their doors. After watching the last 24 hours I think the number of businesses that are going to open the next couple of weeks in GA is alot lower than the number that would eligible to open, and probably fewer than the Gov is expecting. I work for an essential service (financial services). I was told by my supervisor yesterday the company had no plans to make any changes to working assignments for the foreseeable future. Basically if you can work from home you will work from home. If I had a document at the office that I wanted, that was in a file, I literally would need to get approval from my manager to go into town, into the office and get that document.

I saw the Dr that created the IHME model (which had the apex being April 17 in GA) was quoted this morning saying that based on their model the timeframe for GA to start re-opening would likely be around June 15th. i think this is where the biggest misconception is. The idea of flatten the curve was not to re-open as soon as you passed the apex. The idea was that you had to get far enough down the curve past the apex so that when you do start to loosen up and cases naturally rise - even Gov Kemp said he expected the cases to rise, they don't rise back up to a level that you are once again potentially putting a strain on the system and have to cancel elective surgeries and not have enough room in the ER for non-COVID patients. The idea is to have the capacity to handle all the normal activities at a hospital and COVID19 without it getting to that 100% capacity point. Not be running right at 100% all the time.

 

[slugboy]

I'm expecting us to get back to some type of normalcy over the next couple of months, but I'm also starting to think this is a real possibility, simply because this feels like a lawsuit waiting to happen if a player was to come down with the coronavirus and it lead to hospitalization or God forbid something worse.

Syracuse has always been the big sports journalism school, but I’d think who the UConn president is talking to (sports journalism students) might mean he has done his homework before making that statement


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[RamblinRed]

This is why I am not overly concerned. The way things are being reported, the beaches opened up to Spring Break conditions, and the business openings are going to be party times in the businesses.

There are ways to open up more than we have been without having the infection spread like mad. To have it work will take well thought out requirements for the businesses, and better communication of these requirements from the government. It will also take a less adversarial press, from all sides of politics. The press should help inform everyone about what is actually happening, instead of talking heads trying to rile people up.

The talking heads are why I don't watch any TV news. From Fox, to NBC, to CNN, can't stand any of the talking heads on any of the cable news stations. All of them are awful imo. All three of those networks are horribly biased.

 

[YellowJacketFan2018]

The Governor of Georgia Brian Kemp said he's going to start opening all businesses up

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I agree, I thought the guidelines were well laid out. A couple of the articles i read then said that based on the guidelines there were 4 states that would likely meet the guidelines to start to re-open on May 1 - Hawaii, Vermont, Montana, and West Virginia. No other states were likely to meet the guidelines by then.

I think the good news is that alot of businesses seem to be taking a wait and see attitude toward this and are not rushing to try to re-open their doors. After watching the last 24 hours I think the number of businesses that are going to open the next couple of weeks in GA is alot lower than the number that would eligible to open, and probably fewer than the Gov is expecting. I work for an essential service (financial services). I was told by my supervisor yesterday the company had no plans to make any changes to working assignments for the foreseeable future. Basically if you can work from home you will work from home. If I had a document at the office that I wanted, that was in a file, I literally would need to get approval from my manager to go into town, into the office and get that document.

I saw the Dr that created the IHME model (which had the apex being April 17 in GA) was quoted this morning saying that based on their model the timeframe for GA to start re-opening would likely be around June 15th. i think this is where the biggest misconception is. The idea of flatten the curve was not to re-open as soon as you passed the apex. The idea was that you had to get far enough down the curve past the apex so that when you do start to loosen up and cases naturally rise - even Gov Kemp said he expected the cases to rise, they don't rise back up to a level that you are once again potentially putting a strain on the system and have to cancel elective surgeries and not have enough room in the ER for non-COVID patients. The idea is to have the capacity to handle all the normal activities at a hospital and COVID19 without it getting to that 100% capacity point. Not be running right at 100% all the time.

Part of the reason South Carolina is starting to open things up again is because:
1) We are way beyond the peak and have seen a significant reduction in new cases.
2) We never even got remotely close to the anticipated virus traffic (cases, hospitalizations, deaths) when we were at the peak.
3) Most hospitals in the state right now are operating around 30% of capacity. They are literal ghost towns.

 

[RamblinRed]

Syracuse has always been the big sports journalism school, but I’d think who the UConn president is talking to (sports journalism students) might mean he has done his homework before making that statement


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FWIW, the UCONN Pres has had to walk those statements back some,
https://www.courant.com/sports/ucon...0200421-3q2eyjtf3vfuzaxxu2qyxnclre-story.html

Basically had to say that that 'was the current thinking', but that no decisions have been made and it wasn't based on inside information, just speculation.

Not saying that he is wrong (frankly he may be getting closer to right every day), but no decision had been made and as for now college football is on for this fall.

 

[BuzzStone]

Part of the reason South Carolina is starting to open things up again is because:
1) We are way beyond the peak and have seen a significant reduction in new cases.
2) We never even got remotely close to the anticipated virus traffic (cases, hospitalizations, deaths) when we were at the peak.
3) Most hospitals in the state right now are operating around 30% of capacity. They are literal ghost towns.

Have you found a decent place to see the amount of test we are running each day here in SC? From my sources in heathcare they have really cut back on testing for the past week.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Have you found a decent place to see the amount of test we are running each day here in SC? From my sources in heathcare they have really cut back on testing for the past week.

I go here a lot for that information:
https://scdhec.gov/infectious-disea...covid-19/sc-testing-data-projections-covid-19

My guess is since we do heavy pre-screening (and even at the peak it was 85% negative), and since our case volume is dropping, that will also lead to lower tests needed to be run in the first place.

Some interesting South Carolina stats:
1) We are running at 1/4 the projections for COVID-19 deaths.
2) We passed our already low peak.
3) Our COVID-19 death rate is in the range typical with a normal Flu.
4) We currently have 62 in beds in the ICU with a COVID-19-specific bed capacity of 405.
5) System wide for all beds for any reason, we are running at 1/20th capacity (not a typo).

 

[gthxxxx]

Actually, I thought the federal guidelines about re-opening were pretty good, if they were followed. But I never expected that they would be and I was right. None of the SE states that are re-opening have even begun to reach the "plateau, then decrease" phase of their epidemics and, of course, none of them are ready with anything approximating the test/contact trace apparatus they would need to even go to phase 1, much less phase 2. When you add on top of this that the states involved - Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida - are not what you would call paragons for public health delivery in the first place and you get a potentially dreadful scenario.

If the federal guidelines are followed by governments that actually want to be sincere about it, I'd say we could start to re-open safely for most of the country in late May - early June. It would depend on the states involved. (If, say, North Dakota had decided to re-open like Georgia is planning to do, I'd be a lot less apprehensive about the effects for them.) Not re-opening does mean hardship and it will continue, especially if the virus re-ignites and we have to move back to square 1. What I fear is that if we re-open and we aren't ready - which is the case - then when the virus becomes more virulent there will be considerable pushback on any attempt to shut down to stop it. That's a recipe for raising our projected death toll from 100K to 250K or worse. And, unfortunately, that's what I think will happen.

A quick look at the federal guidelines listed at https://www.whitehouse.gov/openingamerica/#criteria and Georgia:

1) Downward trajectory of reported cases for covid/influenza-like symptoms within a 14 day period.
... I don't even know if there exists consistent record keeping of cases just based on symptoms (coughing? fever? trouble breathing? headache? runny nose?).
2) Downward trajectory of reported cases for covid within a 14 day period.
Based on either the daily confirmed covid cases and cumulative cases plots in https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-daily-status-report, I would say this condition is satisfied.
3) Hospitals treat all patients without crisis care and robust testing for at-risk healthcare workers including antibody tests.
... This doesn't even define a measurable threshold. Were all patients without crisis treated before Covid? What is robust?

Anyways, back to the main point, which is the timeline of government restrictions, the relief, and Covid. Assuming guidelines are followed, you believe with confidence that we can extend relief to those affected by closure until late May-early June, the virus won't re-ignite (I'm assuming by that you mean the trajectory of new cases won't increase), we can reopen and stop relief, and then sustain the status quo indefinitely (i.e. no re-ignition, no relief, no closure) until Covid is contained which is also unknown. Do I got this right?

 

[Techster]

Have you found a decent place to see the amount of test we are running each day here in SC? From my sources in heathcare they have really cut back on testing for the past week.

Well if you cut back testing, then you can report less and less infection numbers!!! Amirite....

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Well if you cut back testing, then you can report less and less infection numbers!!! Amirite....

If our test volumes are dropping (I haven't verified that), its because we have less transmission in our state - might not be the case elsewhere. We've never been near testing capacity, so we'd have no reason to just stop testing people. We've always run 85%-90% negative, even with a pre-screening process in place. Since our positive cases peaked a couple weeks ago, it would make sense we'd start seeing test volumes decrease now too. Less people needing a test.

 

[Techster]

The Governor of Georgia Brian Kemp said he's going to start opening all businesses up

Georgia will be the litmus test for the rest of the country. If people can behave themselves and be responsible, and we can keep the infection numbers and hospital numbers at bay (and by extension death toll), the rest of the country will have pressure to loosen up and open citing Georgia as the example.

However, if things start going downhill and numbers start skyrocketing, there will be another shutdown...citing Georgia as the example. For the most part, I think that there is a way to open the economy back up, but heavy testing is the key. We are nowhere near the number of testing needed to open up. Also, as always, there will be a minority that will ruin it for the rest of responsible people.

Either way, congratulations to Georgia. We are the guinea pigs for the rest of the country!!!

 

[dtm1997]

Every GT fan - Louisville is just a ****box academic school that makes no sense for the ACC.

Louisville - We may have figured out how to treat COVID19.

 

[Techster]

Every GT fan - Louisville is just a ****box academic school that makes no sense for the ACC.

Louisville - We may have figured out how to treat COVID19.

Every GT fan this Fall during football and basketball season: "Outside of developing the vaccine for Covid-19, Louisville is a ****box academic school"

 

[takethepoints]

I don't express to be an expert in other states' business, but this assertion is false in my state. At the city, county, and state level, we are running at less than half the case volume we were at the peak. Furthermore, even at the peak, we had hardly any traffic in our hospitals. I live in a 500,000 person county (Charleston County) and at the peak there were less than 10 COVID-19 patients in any given hospital. Most of the hospitals had 0. The hospitals have been ghost towns, bleeding money. Starting this week, they are allowing elective surgeries and normal traffic and activity. The number of nurses, doctors, and other healthcare workers that had lost hours and jobs was extreme. One hospital all by themselves had laid off over 1,000. Hopefully most of those people will be gainfully employed again in the next week or two. Our total deaths all-time is 5 - all very elderly in previously bad condition. (Not trying to minimize it, but just saying.). We actually had 0 new cases this Saturday in the entire county. We've been running < 10 about 70% of the time since peaking 2 weeks ago. We're about to start our 6th week of stay-at-home/shutdown, so all this data makes sense to me - we should be past the peak. We were the first in the country to get FDA/CDC approval for the types of reagents we use in our tests, and we were the second in the country to have drive-through testing...that's been in place for about 6 weeks. So part of all this could be that we've had adequate testing all along too.

Well, gooooood for you. I was writing about Georgia.