Coronavirus Thread

[bobongo]

What we need are non-partisan, non-ideological, and rational discussions about what to do.

Oh, so your opinion is non-partisan, non-ideological, and rational but mine isn't? How does that work? I haven't talked about ideology, nor have I mentioned any political parties. I have simply said what I think we need to do in order to combat this virus, and why what we have been doing hasn't worked. Yet I'm the one who is partisan and ideological.

You have a right to your opinion, and I respect that. Respect mine.

 

[bobongo]

So do you believe that South Carolina should have the exact same restrictions as downtown Chicago?

Similar, yes, and the governor there has extended the state of emergency for two more weeks. Of course that means I'm partisan, ideological, and irrational, I guess. Whatever. The idea is that you put the lid on the thing, and then you open up. It requires an organized system of testing and tracking, which we do not yet have. It's said that we've been shut down too long, and we have - but we have squandered our time away without adequate testing or system of tracking.

There is the possibility of a treatment that could come along (nicotine may possibly be one), and that the virus will dissipate somewhat over summer. But right now those are two unknowns. If the thing gets heated back up we could be shutting down again. We might be putting the cart before the horse.

Nicotine:
https://www.dw.com/en/does-nicotine-help-against-the-new-coronavirus/a-53260336

 

[gtchem05]

From what I have heard, NZ also CLOSED THEIR BORDERS, something that was very popular with the people as a whole, but not popular at all with the NZ globalists. Trump has tried to close the borders, and he is constantly barraged with cries of racism and xenophobia from the left, when that is obviously a very important factor, as NZ has proven, in controlling spread of the virus.

It will be interesting to see what happens with New Zealand. I have no idea what their endpoint is going to be with some of the measures they have taken. They are being talked about in a very positive light like Singapore was a few weeks ago. I suspect SARS-CoV-2 will become endemic in NZ eventually just like it will nearly everywhere else. Seems like there are just delaying the inevitable. Maybe having such a delay will prove helpful to them, maybe it won't. Time will tell.

 

[bobongo]

It will be interesting to see what happens with New Zealand. I have no idea what their endpoint is going to be with some of the measures they have taken. They are being talked about in a very positive light like Singapore was a few weeks ago. I suspect SARS-CoV-2 will become endemic in NZ eventually just like it will nearly everywhere else. Seems like there are just delaying the inevitable. Maybe having such a delay will prove helpful to them, maybe it won't. Time will tell.

It did break out there, briefly, but they got a handle on it right away, relatively speaking:

https://www.npr.org/sections/corona...aland-says-it-has-won-battle-against-covid-19

From the article: "New Zealand has garnered praise for largely putting aside politics in order to tackle the outbreak."

 

[RonJohn]

Similar, yes, and the governor there has extended the state of emergency for two more weeks. Of course that means I'm partisan, ideological, and irrational, I guess. Whatever. The idea is that you put the lid on the thing, and then you open up. It requires an organized system of testing and tracking, which we do not yet have. It's said that we've been shut down too long, and we have - but we have squandered our time away without adequate testing or system of tracking.

The governor or Illinois is actually opening things up on some May 1st. Some of the things he is opening include allowing people to go hiking and fishing in state parks in groups of no more than two. I don't understand why it takes more than six weeks to determine that two people being together in a state park isn't any more dangerous than two people being together in a house. Not trying to say a Democratic governor should have realized that a single person fishing alone isn't a disease threat, such things should have been analyzed all around the country early on. There should have also been people involved with the Presidential task force looking at such things. In Georgia, I disagree with the governor who didn't carve out an exception in the Albany area for the reopening regulations.

"squandered our time away without adequate testing". Who exactly squandered? How much testing should we realistically have at this point? It probably would have been possible to get enough of some kind of tests to test everyone in the US by now, but you have to take the schedule, cost, and quality triangle into account. To get that many tests that quickly would have stretched the cost and quality attributes. I think we could agree that whatever the cost for testing it would have been less than the stimulus or overall cost to the economy, so it doesn't matter. However, if the tests are 80% accurate, that isn't good enough. If the test accuracy is in the mid 90s, then multiple tests per person would have to be run to get accurate results. People have faulted the FDA and CDC for delaying approval of testing, but it is important to have accuracy. If tests produce bad results, then having the tests can cause more problems than not having them. (see footnote 1) Quest and Labcorp are for profit businesses. Do you believe that they are not trying to maximize the amount of testing that they can do, both from a public health issue and for profit? I don't know how long is too long to get tests and methods approved, but I do know that I want whatever tests are approved to be accurate, or in the very least to have the accuracy known so it can be considered when a test result is available. I also don't know what all is involved in the manufacture and administration of tests. I work in engineering for manufacturing, so I do understand issues in getting new products to market. Even projects that are just modifications of existing products or expansion of production capability can take considerable time. I don't have access to sources and information to dig into things, but why doesn't someone from the press do a deep dive into testing? Take a look at what all is required to conduct a test. (someone to administer, swabs, packaging for swabs, transport to a lab, a test, chemical reagents, a machine, etc.) Find out what the limitations are and report about it. I don't mind holding administration officials accountable for things they have said. However, I would be much more interested in knowing what the limitations actually are than political back and forth.

(footnote 1) There are also some people who have criticized the FDA for not approving "miracle" drugs for generalized use against COVID-19. The same speed vs quality arguments hold with respect to that. Even if a drug lowers the COVID-19 mortality rate in half, it isn't a good idea if it causes 3% to have a heart attack. Not trying to say that chloroquine does either of those, but in general removing safeguards because everyone wants an immediate cure does no good if it isn't actually a cure. Medical scientists understand implications of studies and what the reliability of those studies are better than I do. To believe that medical scientists worldwide are hiding information and intentionally allowing people to die to have a political impact on the US is crazy.

 

[armeck]

New changes to state’s virus data confuse experts, residents alike
I don't intend this to be political, more of a public health angle.

On April 27, at 8:25 p.m., Georgia passed a tragic milestone: 1,000 deaths during the novel coronavirus pandemic


Or maybe it didn’t. Within hours, the state Department of Public Health said on its website that the death toll was actually 995.

Or maybe it was 982, based on a county-by-county count DPH also published.

Death counts and other essential figures DPH publishes on COVID-19 have ticked up and down as the state changes the way that it reports them. While the state has added to the metrics it publishes, it has stopped running others and shifted its method of counting cases. This has confused ordinary Georgians as they decide whether Gov. Brian Kemp was right to begin reopening the state’s restaurants, movie theaters and hair salons.

In the past week alone, DPH rolled out a new data dashboard that added bar and pie charts. But they deleted a daily count of completed tests, making it difficult for the public to determine if Georgia is meeting a key White House criteria for reopening.

 

[Milwaukee]

 

[Milwaukee]

 

[GoldZ]

Wonder why that is, huh? It's multi-faceted for sure, but do ya think that perhaps, maybe, it's possible, that mitigations impacted it a little? Still wanna book a flight to Stockholm tmw?

 

[MWBATL]

From what I have heard, NZ also CLOSED THEIR BORDERS, something that was very popular with the people as a whole, but not popular at all with the NZ globalists. Trump has tried to close the borders, and he is constantly barraged with cries of racism and xenophobia from the left, when that is obviously a very important factor, as NZ has proven, in controlling spread of the virus.

I know a couple from the UK who were actually on an airplane heading to New Zealand when they closed their borders, going there to catch a cruise ship. They arrived to the sobering news that their cruise had been cancelled and that NZ was closed to tourists, so they could either quarantine in a hotel ..or fly back to the UK. They flew back home. Rough vacation!

 

[herb]

Wonder why that is, huh? It's multi-faceted for sure, but do ya think that perhaps, maybe, it's possible, that mitigations impacted it a little? Still wanna book a flight to Stockholm tmw?

That could be one possibility. It could also be because maybe those two states are so reliant on public transportation? There was some study I saw out of China (I know, garbage in) that indicated that almost all the cases in one study originated in the home or on public transportation

 

[MWBATL]

Wonder why that is, huh? It's multi-faceted for sure, but do ya think that perhaps, maybe, it's possible, that mitigations impacted it a little? Still wanna book a flight to Stockholm tmw?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-media-vs-flatten-the-curve-11588113213?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

This column isn’t about Sweden, but the press now claims Sweden’s Covid policy is “failing” because it has more deaths than its neighbors. Let me explain again: When you do more social distancing, you get less transmission. When you do less, you get more transmission. Almost all countries are pursuing a more-or-less goal, not a reduce-to-zero goal. Sweden expects a higher curve but in line with its hospital capacity. Sweden’s neighbors are not avoiding the same deaths with their stronger mandates, they are delaying them, to the detriment of other values.

The only clear failure for Sweden would come if a deus ex machina of some sort were to arrive to cure Covid-19 in the near future. Then all countries (not just Sweden) might wish in retrospect to have suppressed the virus more until their citizens could benefit from the miracle cure.

As some wise folks on this forum have pointed out numerous times, until a vaccine or treatment is perfected, lockdowns merely delay the deaths, they don't actually change the total number who will ultimately die from this disease. When do we decide that making 330 million people (minus government workers who pay NO price at all during this pandemic) pay the price to spread out the deaths is worth it?

<a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://www.statista.com/graphic/1/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state.jpg" alt="Statistic: Death rates from coronavirus (COVID-19) in the United States as of April 29, 2020, by state (per 100,000 people)* | Statista" style="width: 100%; height: auto !important; max-width:1000px;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;"/></a><br />Find more statistics at <a href="https://www.statista.com" rel="nofollow">Statista</a>

 

[684Bee]

States are taking different approaches. Some are opening up sooner than others. That's how it should be. I don't think we should've seen the drastic lockdowns in most places in the first place, but it happened, which now sets a scary precedent. Cooler, calmer heads need to prevail. We have a serious lack of principled leadership, especially at the Federal level.

 

[MWBATL]

States are taking different approaches. Some are opening up sooner than others. That's how it should be. I don't think we should've seen the drastic lockdowns in most places in the first place, but it happened, which now sets a scary precedent. Cooler, calmer heads need to prevail. We have a serious lack of principled leadership, especially in the media.

Fixed it for ya...

 

[684Bee]

Fixed it for ya...

Well, yeah, that's true, but I can turn the media off and they don't get in my pocket and confiscate my money, nor do they have police power to tell me to stay in my house or that I can't open my business. So, for that reason, I'm much more concerned with a lack of principled leadership in govt.

 

[gthxxxx]

States are taking different approaches. Some are opening up sooner than others. That's how it should be. I don't think we should've seen the drastic lockdowns in most places in the first place, but it happened, which now sets a scary precedent. Cooler, calmer heads need to prevail. We have a serious lack of principled leadership, especially at the Federal level.

Political science class was decades ago for me. What tools/powers does the Federal government have here regarding lockdowns? Directly, I believe executive branch can lockdown national and interstate borders, although attempts at either would likely be delayed and wind up in the courts with uncertain outcome. Indirectly, I believe executive/legislative branch can use monetary pressure to influence state behavior, although again that would probably be delayed and wind up in court with uncertain outcome. Is my understanding wrong and am I missing anything?

 

[GT_EE78]

Spoke with one of my customers today and he sent me this:
“Unemployment in the state of Wisconsin is $963 a week after the $600 kick in from the fed's. That's more than I take home on a 50 hour check.”

That’s about 75k annually. Jesus what are we doing? So now you have machine operators, welders, grinders, fast food ee’s, etc all trying to get laid off on purpose. $963 take home, no tax. Up from $363, Gov Evers kicked in a $600 boost weekly. Wtf??

Why would anyone go back to work? Anyone getting more from unemployment than their work should eventually have to pay back the overage.

 

[RamblinRed]

The Office for National Statistics in England says that as of April 17th deaths in England and Wales due to COVID19 is undercounted by at least 54%.
Official number on the date was over 14K, actual number was over 22K.

Two recent polls suggest that support for stay at home measures is still strong right now.
Reuters/IPSOS poll last week has support for maintaining stay at home orders even if it negatively impacts the economy at 72%, 17% support re-opening even if cases and deaths increase.
The Reuters poll does show the support for stay at home measures starting to wane some among Republicans (55% in favor, 45% oppose, that's up from 24% of Republicans at the end of March)
Politico/Morning Consult poll released today puts support for the stay at home orders even if it negatively impacts the economy at 73% with opening even if deaths and cases increase at 15%.
In the Morning Consult poll 79% said it was very or somewhat likely there will be a second wave.

In the State of GA a poll released last night puts the numbers for the stay at home order as 52% favor, 24% somewhat favor, 15% neutral, 6% somewhat oppose, 3% oppose. In terms of businesses closing 51% favor, 26% somewhat favor, 14% neutral, 6% somewhat oppose, 4% oppose.
Approval for Gov Kemp's plan to re-open: 43% strongly oppose, 19% somewhat oppose, 14% neutral, 14% somewhat approve, 10% strongly approve
Measures taken by the Federal Government: 52% appropriate, 14% gone too far, 34% not gone far enough
Measures taken by the state government: 44% appropriate, 15% gone too far, 42% not gone far enough

The CDC website has 7 different models on its website currently. One looks at actual deaths due to mitigation compared to likely deaths if no mitigation was taken.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/forecasting-us.html
It has likely actual deaths as of May 18th at 89,795 (range 63,719 - 127,002). Deaths if no mitigation measures had been taken in the US as of May 13th of 1,010,974 (range of 769,511-1,315,961)

 

[RamblinRed]

New changes to state’s virus data confuse experts, residents alike
I don't intend this to be political, more of a public health angle.

As a data scientiest this has been frustraing to me (as it apparently is to the GT and KSU professors quoted in the article). The state is making it difficult to get good data that is easy to track over time.
The way they are now counting positive cases deflates the most recent days so it looks like curves are going way down, but when you add the numbers back in that are added later the curve looks flat.
The hospitalizations number is very different than what I think most thought it was and makes it pretty useless for trying to figure out hospitalization use.

 

[RamblinRed]

This new Reuters/IPSOS poll has interesting numbers concerning people showing up at sporting events, concerts, movies, etc.
(Note that the sporting questions were linked to professional sports so you have to decide how much they would apply to college sports).
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ronavirus-vaccine-reuters-ipsos-idUSKCN22A2AK

Only about four in 10 who follow sports avidly and go to arts and entertainment venues and amusement parks said they would do so again if they reopened before a vaccine was available, the poll found.

Another four in 10 said they were willing to wait, even if it takes more than a year to develop a vaccine.

The rest said they either “don’t know” what to do or may never attend those events again.

Among those who have attended a professional sporting event in the past year, 42% said they would return whenever it reopens to the public and 39% said they would rather wait for a vaccine, even if that means waiting more than a year.

About 59% of sports fans agreed that before a vaccine is available, professional sports leagues should hold games with no in-person fans, while 33% disagreed.

The poll showed that only 27% of those questioned would go to a movie theater, concert or live theater performance when venues reopen, underscoring the hurdles faced by the entertainment industry as it tries to get back on its feet.

Thirty-two percent said they would wait for a vaccine before going back to the movies, theater or concerts.

In all, 55% of Americans said those events should not resume before a vaccine is available.

Enthusiasm for amusement and theme parks was even bleaker. Fifty-nine percent of respondents said they should not reopen until a vaccine is available. Only 20% said they would visit a theme park when they reopen.