Coronavirus Thread

[Deleted member 2897]

Also not sure that surges worry me much when the baseline is so low to begin with.

Exactly. My state currently has 1/5th as many cases as New York does on a per capita basis. In other words, we'd need to quintuple our total all-time cases before we'd have as many historically as they do. So while nobody inherently likes to see new case graphs increasing, you gotta keep things in perspective...especially if hospitalization and deaths are also low. We're trying to flatten the curve, not eradicate the disease. We want to get to where New York is now, with low new cases, but not by doing it how they did - ripping through society killing tens of thousands of people and breaking their hospital systems.

 

[forensicbuzz]

Nursing home deaths top 50,000.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/corona...g-term-care-facilities-top-50-000-11592306919

Dr. Fauci admits he’s a liar (seriously):
https://thehill.com/changing-americ...fauci-why-the-public-wasnt-told-to-wear-masks

Who of us walks around with N95 masks? NOBODY. The fact he told us all we didn’t need to wear masks because he was scared we’d deplete medical grade masks is insane. That’s not an excuse to lie. What else was he lying about?

I walk around with a N95 mask. Anything less and I'm not doing my best to protect myself, my family, my parents and my in-laws.

 

[Techster]

It will be interesting to watch, but I have heard chatter that the southwestern states (CA, AZ, TX) are all likely being affected by people fleeing Mexico, as I hear things are bad south of the border. Not sure that is something that the data can account for easily. Cases figures to me continue to be a red herring, as testing grows and more asymptotic cases are discovered it really is not a threat to our society if that is all we are seeing. It is why (to me) hospitalizations matter, not cases.

Also not sure that surges worry me much when the baseline is so low to begin with. The mortality data on states like GA (24 deaths per 100,000), FL (14 deaths per 100,000), and TX (7 deaths per 100,000) are so much lower than the New England states, all of whom are now well over 100 deaths per 100,000. Part of all of this is learning how to live with covid....and what makes sense and what doesn't. Wearing masks is still good idea for going anywhere indoors, and sanitary practices as well.

Overall data for the country continues on its steady downward path, as I posted yesterday.

It has been hard to predict how all this would go, but the panic about new waves seems premature to me.

https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/COVIDNet/COVID19_5.html

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/

The biggest thing is staying ahead of the curve...pun not withstanding. Because data and infections (and by extension hospitalizations) are trailing, once we get to the 75% mark in hospital capacity utilizations, it's already too late. The next wave of patients coming in is inevitable and hospitals will be overrun once the 75% mark is hit.

Deaths are not really the issue here (though it's obviously an issue in the big picture). I think we're at a point where we are going to accept a high death total as morbid and awful as that sounds. That's plain as day and we don't have to look any further than this messageboard comparing death totals to cancer/Aids/Flu/car crashes/etc. The bigger issue is another economic shutdown, and the longterm affects the virus will have on the health of those infected. People forget that if someone gets sick, they are not going to work. Look at the Tyson Food meat processing plants across the nation for an example of what happens to companies when the virus spreads. Tyson has shut down multiple plants, and they're not the only ones. You also have people calling out because they are scared of becoming infected. The affects of the virus has many tentacles outside of just deaths and hospitalizations that are being ignored for the most part. We haven't really seen it because we shutdown before it became a rampant issue...but you just have to look to Italy and China to see those "Main Street" level affects.

Right now the nation is playing a massive game of chicken with the Covid virus. Given how irresponsible most are being with social distancing and wearing masks in public, I have little faith we're going to win this. We have a large segment that believe its more important to pack bars/restaurants and have a good time than do what's necessary right now to fight off the virus to a level we can all resume normal lives.

Like I said, I hope for the best...but hope and reality are not related.

 

[WreckinGT]

Exactly. My state currently has 1/5th as many cases as New York does on a per capita basis. In other words, we'd need to quintuple our total all-time cases before we'd have as many historically as they do. So while nobody inherently likes to see new case graphs increasing, you gotta keep things in perspective...especially if hospitalization and deaths are also low. We're trying to flatten the curve, not eradicate the disease. We want to get to where New York is now, with low new cases, but not by doing it how they did - ripping through society killing tens of thousands of people and breaking their hospital systems.

Comparing two states on a per capita basis while ignoring population density is a little strange. New York had a much bigger problem to deal with than South Carolina and pretty much every other state.

 

[WreckinGT]

The biggest thing is staying ahead of the curve...pun not withstanding. Because data and infections (and by extension hospitalizations) are trailing, once we get to the 75% mark in hospital capacity utilizations, it's already too late. The next wave of patients coming in is inevitable and hospitals will be overrun once the 75% mark is hit.

Deaths are not really the issue here (though it's obviously an issue in the big picture). I think we're at a point where we are going to accept a high death total as morbid and awful as that sounds. That's plain as day and we don't have to look any further than this messageboard comparing death totals to cancer/Aids/Flu/car crashes/etc. The bigger issue is another economic shutdown, and the longterm affects the virus will have on the health of those infected. People forget that if someone gets sick, they are not going to work. Look at the Tyson Food meat processing plants across the nation for an example of what happens to companies when the virus spreads. Tyson has shut down multiple plants, and they're not the only ones. You also have people calling out because they are scared of becoming infected. The affects of the virus has many tentacles outside of just deaths and hospitalizations that are being ignored for the most part. We haven't really seen it because we shutdown before it became a rampant issue...but you just have to look to Italy and China to see those "Main Street" level affects.

Right now the nation is playing a massive game of chicken with the Covid virus. Given how irresponsible most are being with social distancing and wearing masks in public, I have little faith we're going to win this. We have a large segment that believe its more important to pack bars/restaurants and have a good time than do what's necessary right now to fight off the virus to a level we can all resume normal lives.

Like I said, I hope for the best...but hope and reality are not related.

Yep, like these 16 geniuses who rushed out to the bar as soon as they opened for a friends outing. All 16 got the virus. One is a healthcare worker. Who knows who else they spread it to.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/17/us/group-tests-positive-florida-bar/index.html

The culture in this country simply isn't conducive to containing a pandemic.

 

[MWBATL]

Given how irresponsible most are being with social distancing and wearing masks in public, I have little faith we're going to win this. We have a large segment that believe its more important to pack bars/restaurants and have a good time than do what's necessary right now to fight off the virus to a level we can all resume normal lives.

I am rooting for you to be wrong about this, but I don't know. I can only control my own behavior. I tend not to worry about being outside, most of the stuff I see about covid says that's not very risky, but being inside (grocery stores, restaurants, home improvement stores, etc) it is really silly not to take precautions and do the masks, sanitizing, etc routine.

 

[Techster]

I am rooting for you to be wrong about this, but I don't know. I can only control my own behavior. I tend not to worry about being outside, most of the stuff I see about covid says that's not very risky, but being inside (grocery stores, restaurants, home improvement stores, etc) it is really silly not to take precautions and do the masks, sanitizing, etc routine.

I am rooting for myself to be 100% wrong as well.

 

[GCdaJuiceMan]

Luckily for us, the FL Governor is, well, illiterate, when it comes to statistics:

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/pol...0200617-ypofaadnsnarbj254vtiwivnrq-story.html

Greater Orlando Aviation Authority CEO Phil Brown in the statement said the Florida Department of Health did conduct 500 tests at Orlando International Airport over three days last week. Just two of the tests in that batch came back positive, he said — 0.4%.

So where did the 260 figure come from?

According to Brown, from mid-March through June 6, a total of 132 airport workers — including airline and rental car company employees, TSA workers and airport authority staff — tested positive for the disease caused by the new coronavirus. In addition to that, 128 people tested positive who don’t work at the airport, but who were linked through contact tracing to the 132 airport workers with confirmed COVID-19 infections.

 

[RonJohn]

Yep, like these 16 geniuses who rushed out to the bar as soon as they opened for a friends outing. All 16 got the virus. One is a healthcare worker. Who knows who else they spread it to.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/17/us/group-tests-positive-florida-bar/index.html

The culture in this country simply isn't conducive to containing a pandemic.

I still believe that a lot of that attitude is pushback from regulations that didn't make sense at all. In at least one state a person couldn't go fishing alone at a public lake even though they were not anywhere close to six feet away from other people. In at least one state it was against regulations to drive by yourself unless you were engaged in an authorized activity such as getting groceries. In at least one state it was against regulations to get an item from an unattended storage facility even though the person wouldn't come even 200 feet from another person. In at least one state it was against regulations to go to a weekend home even if only your family in your main home traveled with you.

When asked about such regulations, the governors said that they were following science to protect from spreading the virus. Allowing someone to fish on a public lake was described as "opening up". I think most people can see that fishing by yourself on a lake has no chance of spreading the virus. I think that if the regulations had been examined much sooner and changed to allow activities that didn't actually have an impact on spreading the virus, such as fishing by yourself or entering an unattended storage facility, that people would be more apt to have trust in what they are being asked to do. I am all for requiring people to wear masks in public, but many people see that as the same "science" that restricted people from fishing alone.

The political condition is far too polar. One political side was pushing to almost not have any restrictions, while the other side was almost pushing to keep people locked in a single room in their houses for an indefinite period. I think a very large group of people more towards the middle have turned off listening to any of it from any side. Getting people to agree to even wear masks isn't going to happen now, even if the situation gets worse than the worst projections.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Comparing two states on a per capita basis while ignoring population density is a little strange. New York had a much bigger problem to deal with than South Carolina and pretty much every other state.

Well so what. Our population density is a little under half of theirs. So even if you more than doubled all our numbers to account for that, you're still not even in the same galaxy as their numbers. Their numbers they dealt with cannot be explained by either population or population density. Its more directly related to their behavior. They didn't close playgrounds and parks until April - New York City all by themselves had over 1500 deaths before they closed that stuff down. When the hospital ship came they lined the shores several people deep without masks to take pictures. They sent COVID-19 victims to nursing homes.

 

[WreckinGT]

Well so what. Our population density is a little under half of theirs. So even if you more than doubled all our numbers to account for that, you're still not even in the same galaxy as their numbers. Their numbers they dealt with cannot be explained by either population or population density. Its more directly related to their behavior. They didn't close playgrounds and parks until April - New York City all by themselves had over 1500 deaths before they closed that stuff down. When the hospital ship came they lined the shores several people deep without masks to take pictures. They sent COVID-19 victims to nursing homes.

You can't really look at overall population density for the state either. There are 28k people per square mile in New York City with over 8 million people total. South Carolina doesn't have a city with over 4k per square mile and has just over 5 million for the whole state. The 8 cities in the USA with the highest population density all come from New York or New Jersey. Then you can look at things like the New York subway which normally services 5.6 million people per day in a hotbox for virus spread. Thats an issue smaller states simply don't have. New York is its own unique problem and can't really be compared to any other US state. I agree that New York did not act as fast as they should have though.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

A couple countries not in the news much:
* Brazil is trending towards 4,000 daily deaths - they continue to essentially max out their testing with positive cases - another 35,000 new cases yesterday.
* India just recorded 2,000 deaths in a single day.
https://www.businessinsider.com/brazil-surpass-us-coronavirus-cases-deaths-end-july-2020-6

 

[takethepoints]

The virus wants to spread as fast as possible, natural selection. Besides a vaccine, there are other ways for this to happen. The fact that we are social distancing and taking other measures is a form of natural selection.

You may not know, but the H1N1 Was the Spanish Flu. We still have it around today, but it is a much tamer version than back in 1918. Natural selection made it the milder version without a vaccine. Why do we not react to the other versions of Covid in the human population? The common cold. because it is mostly benign. It is contagious but does not kill people so we don't react to it. So it spreads easier. ie natural selection. But you can 100% believe when they first jumped into the human population that they were far from benign.

I'm sorry, but I think this misunderstands natural selection, particularly the role of selection pressure.

It is true that any virus, just like this one, wants to spread as much as possible. But that doesn't entail any selection pressure if the organisms the disease spreads to have no natural or manufactured defense. Further, social distancing isn't exerting selection pressure pressure either; it is denying the virus a chance to spread, not directly affecting it's capacity to reproduce. Oth, vaccines do directly affect that capability of viruses (and other organisms). That's why the medicos are so careful about how they use antibiotics these days. The canary in the coal mine here is the way TB has evolved to defeat so many of the originally effective drugs; therapy for the disease is much more complicated and long term then it used to be.

This is why I think your examples are wrong as well. Think of the flu. We need a new vaccine almost every year to combat new strains of the disease. Further - and you can see this if you look at the death rates - often the new strains are more deadly then the ones before. (The way Americans ignore this is a major headache for our infectious disease people; Fauci is always complaining about it.) It is true that some strains of corona virus aren't harmful, but remember that SARS had a 10% death rate and MERS 33% (yikes). We were lucky with those diseases in that they weren't spread by asymptomatic individuals and required prolonged direct contact with infected people to catch; contact tracing worked effectively to curtail both. Not so much with SARS-Cov-2. One further point: H1N1 may not be any less virulent today then it was in 1918 but it may have less effect due to another form of selection pressure; it probably killed off many people here and elsewhere who had a lower capacity to develop a natural defense to the disease. (It probably killed 30M people worldwide and three or four times that were seriously ill.) Also, today we have vaccines for the flu and have had since the 30s.

In short, I wouldn't bet the farm on viruses or any other disease becoming less virulent over time. There isn't much evidence for that. It's our defenses that have become more effective.

 

[Milwaukee]

I love the common sense people, we need more of these guys.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I love the common sense people, we need more of these guys.

He probably got an F in 8th grade science. He fails so many basic known details about COVID-19. Hopefully people stay several feet away from him.

 

[jacketup]

That is not what is being said at all.
There will be kids on campus in the fall ,at least through Thanksgiving. Not everyone on campus is 18-24 and it isn't just about deaths. it's about how many people get sick.
According to the CDC the incidence rate is higher among 40-50 yr olds than 60-79 yr olds. There are alot of 40-59 yr olds on a college campus.

It's really pretty simple. Wear a mask, wash your hands, keep distance when you can.
There are a couple of studies now that suggest if at least 80% of people wear masks then the transmission rate drops by up to 99%. But you have to hit 80%+

It is still primarily about not overloading the health care system, on a national level that is not a current issue, there are some local places - like Montgomery, that are running at close to 100% utilization. But there is enough of it in the environment that if we don't do simple things there is a potential for health systems in some areas to get overwhelmed quickly if they have spikes.

Correct that students are currently scheduled to be back on campus at most schools. Incorrect to say that there is not an appreciable number people advocating that we should not allow schools to open.

CDC reports 116 COVID 19 deaths in the 15-24 age group so far. There are almost 44 million people in that age group in the US.

In 2018 2,476 teenagers ages 13-19 died in motor vehicle crashes in 2018. I could not find 15-24 stats, but it's a safe bet that it's more than 2500 per year. That's more than 1o times the number of COVID 19 deaths (annualized). Many times that number were injured. It's pretty simple. Let's not let people get in cars.

The vast majority of people who contract the disease the symptoms have "mild flu like symptoms", especially among younger people. That is not going to overload the health care system. At a teaching hospital in a metropolitan area of 800,000, plus the largest private hospital in the area, as of three weeks ago there were at total of three Covid 19 inpatients.

The incidence rate may be rising for 40-50 year olds, but again, with flu like symptoms. Less than 7.5% of deaths are people under 55 according to CDC statistics. Which is back to my point. Are we going to shut down for every health risk, from flu to cars? I have two kids in college. Am I afraid for them to go back? Not at all.

Viruses are very fragile. UV from sunlight kills this virus. I laugh at people walking down the street on a sunny day wearing masks, or riding alone in a car. There is so much misinformation from the media it's disgusting. At the teaching hospital I referred to a memo went out that staff should wear masks. For scientific reasons? No, due to public perception is what the memo stated. A surgeon I spoke with recently was complaining about protocols put in place--he was quick to say none were based on science.

So let's have college football. The kids who want to play can play. The people who want to attend can attend. You have to be hiding in a cave to not know the risk, which is low for people with no underlying health issues.

What happened to freedom to make your own decisions in this country? More importantly, what happened to freedom? There are risks in living in a free society. I prefer freedom to governmental dictates, but apparently most Americans don't feel the same. That's the real illness.

 

[LibertyTurns]

You all keep your inept Governors and those of us in Florida will keep one of the handful that makes decent decisions. Yeah he shut the state down too soon, shut it down in too many areas and then took too long to open it back up. That was much better than you saw in NY, NJ, Conn, Mich, Ill, etc. I’m just glad those morons were not calling the shots down here. Turned their states into a massive CF.

 

[takethepoints]

You all keep your inept Governors and those of us in Florida will keep one of the handful that makes decent decisions. Yeah he shut the state down too soon, shut it down in too many areas and then took too long to open it back up. That was much better than you saw in NY, NJ, Conn, Mich, Ill, etc. I’m just glad those morons were not calling the shots down here. Turned their states into a massive CF.

If I were you, I'd wait a month or two before I put a halo on DeSantis. Say what you will about NY, but they actually have decreasing trends for the disease. Florida plateaued, but since?

Well, things are worse in Arizona, Texas, and Alabama. We'll have to see how this works out.

 

[dtm1997]

 

[684Bee]

That is not what is being said at all.
There will be kids on campus in the fall ,at least through Thanksgiving. Not everyone on campus is 18-24 and it isn't just about deaths. it's about how many people get sick.
According to the CDC the incidence rate is higher among 40-50 yr olds than 60-79 yr olds. There are alot of 40-59 yr olds on a college campus.

It's really pretty simple. Wear a mask, wash your hands, keep distance when you can.
There are a couple of studies now that suggest if at least 80% of people wear masks then the transmission rate drops by up to 99%. But you have to hit 80%+

It is still primarily about not overloading the health care system, on a national level that is not a current issue, there are some local places - like Montgomery, that are running at close to 100% utilization. But there is enough of it in the environment that if we don't do simple things there is a potential for health systems in some areas to get overwhelmed quickly if they have spikes.

Maybe 2020 has rotted my memory, but weren’t you adamant not that long ago that students on campus wasn’t happening in the Fall?