Giving up on testing might make sense, but it is a bad sign for what is to come and should have never gotten to a point where giving up one of the only ways to keep ahead of the spread makes sense.

Everybody betting on quick 'herd immunity' should really think twice about what that would mean. A lot of younger folks still need treatment (but are more likely to survive) and if you even get 25% Infected before medication is available it will result in apocalyptic numbers.

Giving up testing right now, as a means to attempt to control the spread, and just admitting that it's got you, is like quitting a game in the bottom of the 2nd inning when you gave up 10 in a game you knew you needed to win. Everything after is just damage control.

My local liquor store was as full as I've ever seen it.

When damage control is all that's left, and trying to futilely contain the spread will make damage control worse .... IMO that's what you do. *shrug*

Uh oh, DeWine has brought the "A" word into this.

Ohio told providers to stop abortions due to the coronavirus pandemic - Vox

here's the order

https://wbns-cdn.s3.us-east-2.amazon...Home-Order.pdf

geez it's like everything is still open really.
i'm surprised they are still allowing churches to be open..,.and weddings. That's probably a big reason italy got hammered so hard.

I know the guy personally, and I assure you that he's not interested in making the numbers look better. He'd love to stick it to the right, but he's a doctor before all else. It appears that he (and others) are saying "look, it is what it is. We didn't test early enough because we didn't have the tests and we'll never catch up. That horse has left the barn. The best thing we can do NOW is keep people who are sick at home if they don't need a doctor."

Churches around here, and at least in many spots throughout the state, have had the good sense to go to internet broadcasting their services. Most of them never did that before and didn't know how at first. So what I'm seeing is good judgment from them on that aspect.

You're not wrong, it just sucks when you knew you had a chance and needed to pull your shit together and this was the result.

Definitely agreed.

The thing about lack of testing that comes into play is that if the only people who are getting counted are those with symptoms severe enough to get tested and possibly be admitted to the hospital does that:

1) continue to give people in the U.S. a false sense of how wide spread this is and how bad it could get?

2) without a sense of how widespread it is how do we escape the status quo and be able to make decisions on when it is safe to go about normal life again?

I don't disagree with this.


On churches...


1. The government shouldn't tell houses of worship that they MUST close. The last we need now is a constitutional distraction over that.
2. If you run a house of worship, you absolutely should close it voluntarily. If you don't, you're being a terrible neighbor.

I've been thinking about this. We are just trying to flatten the curve after all. If EVERYONE stayed home they'd just all get the virus whenever they finally leave the house. Or they're just waiting out a vaccine that might be available to them in 18-24 months.

People seem so anxious about the concept of anyone else being outside, but, that is kind of required to get to a herd immunity state where the impact of the virus on society is lessened. I guess the idea is that if the government says, "everybody has to stay home or we're all going to die!", they are understanding that that's the best way to get at least many people to stay home and flatten the curve. But the people who are out and about now, by necessity or choice, are going to lessen the long-term impact, even as they make the shorter-term impact more profound.

But I really wonder what the initiatives and policy will be like to bring society back online. It can't be total eradication of the virus, that may never happen. There has to be a point where more and more people are willing to take risks, or know or assume that they've already been exposed. But how willing are Americans going to be to leave their houses after months, or years, of the government telling them that they'll die if they do?

I guess it would be similar to the gradual opening of things that China is doing now. But they have the ability to direct those things in stages as a police state.

It's going to be very weird socially when more and more people re-enter society but everybody has a different idea about when that's appropriate to do. The social judgment and tension is going to be exhausting. But that will be the next challenge for the country. Getting people to get out and participate in the economy even if it's not perfectly safe to do so.

We're basically going to be two weeks behind for the duration of this thing.

We should have had tests two weeks ago, and we are just ramping up on them now.

I was one of the people saying "more tests, more tests" in the last few weeks. I should have been calling for ventilators and ICU beds at that point. By the time you realize you need more tests, it is too late.

By the time you realize you need 10,000 more ICU beds, it is too late.

What are you going to do for funerals?

A guy at my work just had his mother die last week. How should the funeral be handled?

The articles I've read have also suggested that this will be a multi-stage process. Like we do extreme social distancing for 5 months and then "normal" contact is allowed for a month before another 4-5 months of social distancing and then 2 months of "normal", and so on.

Looks like this thing is growing quicker in the U.S. than anywhere. Most recorded new cases in the world in the last 24 hours.

1. U.S. 8148
2. Italy 5560
3. Spain 3180

Hope that is just a blip. That is a crazy acceleration over the last few days.

I think we follow the death rate and overcrowding at hospitals along with whatever temporary converted structures like hotels, arenas, etc. we end up using for that purpose as well. When people stop dying in obscene numbers from it and we have the luxury of doing elective surgeries again, that's the indicator I'd look at.

I was going to ask how some of you are going to deal with the closing of the barber shops.

Sounds like a blast!

I'm going to start looking into some moon real estate.

Those are darned good questions, but again, I suspect that we're past the point of being able to collect data that would be useful. On the first question, we have no way of knowing how many had a mild case and recovered already. My daughter (age 10, athlete, very healthy) missed 3 days of school in mid-February with a fever, cough, and mild respiratory distress, and tested negative for both strep and influenza. My wife, other daughter, and I then subsequently had milder versions of what seemed to be the same thing. Have the four of us already had it and thus have immunity? No way to know. On February 24th, a friend from my home town posted this on FB: He died of "complications from bronchitis" on Feb. 26th. He was 45. Did he have it? We'll never know.

Here is one example of the awkwardness.

Japanese basketball league briefly returns, shuts back down - ProBasketballTalk | NBC Sports

Just got a call from my boss. My hours are being cut, but not to the point I lose benefits. The same may not be said of my coworker from Sri Lanka. He may be let go in a week...partly because of business, partly because his work visa is also set to expire. Dude just had a baby. I feel horrible.

By the way, with the being immune after getting it thing … anyone have a source on that? I've read a couple things where people got it multiple times, so I'm not confident that's even a thing.

Medication will be key and in 4 weeks we will know if any of the 'repurposed' medications is effective. (already Approved medication developed for other illnesses. For example against Ebola, Malaria or certain flu strains)
There are dozens of studies being done right now.

And a vaccine is likely in 9-12 months.

Just letting it 'run through' the population is no option, even with restrictions now it will bring the healthcare systems everywhere to a breaking point. Hence trying to slow it to a point where you can get ahead of it again and identify a decent percentage of the sick before they have severe symptoms.
Which will be easier as there will be less flu patients (which also frees up space in hospitals).

Basically you need to get to a point where more people recover than get sick so that the healty system can recover, then you can think about what do 'bring online' again. I am just sceptical this will happen for the US before May after the botched start.

I got it from this article:

The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming | WIRED


and that article links to this one:

Did a Woman Get Coronavirus Twice? Scientists Are Skeptical | WIRED

Yep, this makes a ton of sense to me. We've already fallen far behind on the opportunity for something like a federal order to mobilize industry to pump out masks and ventilators, I assume that'll happen once the numbers start to show that it should have been done 2 weeks ago, like albionmoonlight said earlier, but yeah as far as getting a sense of where we stand, this is the way.

I've not been able to find that specific Q&A from CDC vs others less official sources.

However, CDC did say if you were sick/quarantine and you were released after 2 consecutive negative test, you won't be able to infect others. This implies you have built up some immunity (which makes sense to me).

One thing that makes this strategy of quitting tests dangerous: the severe cases don't start that way but with the same mild/moderate symptoms as everybody else. Meaning without testing and monitoring you miss the point where they get worse and get them onto ventilators too late.
This is pretty much what happened in Italy where suddenly hundreds of essentially already severely ill people turned up at hospitals and once they exceeded capacity the death Rates went off the rails. Because there is no medication all you can do is keep the lungs working, give medicine against complications and hope for the best.

This 'herd immunity' strategy is not an option. You need to keep the spread as low as you can until medication arrives, by then there also should be a tentative guess as to how long a vaccine takes.

This article is three days old, so it's practically already out of date, but it was informative & somewhat reassuring for me, FWIW.

I'm already seeing local funeral homes "encouraged" (you might say "strongarmed" since local Marshals were dispatched to have the "conversation") to shut down completely aside from performing the necessary preparations & either burying with restricted attendance or cremation.

I think that sort of answers the question you're asking since mortuaries et al have more control over services than churches in most places (they have custody of the body, by law, at least in Georgia)

Oh that's a terrible and tragic story Ben.



A friend of mine from High School had Ehlers-Danlos disorder and got sick the second week of Feb. We to the urgent care on Wednesday, back in the hospital Saturday, gone Sunday. Final diagnosis was H1N1, but it's hard to know if that's an honest diagnosis given what we know now.

I spoke to my mother today and they had moved all the patients in the nursing home to another building. My mom had no idea why, and I didn't want to panic her.

But, me, I'm a little freaked out right now.

In Spain you are not allowed now to bury your family if they die, they just get incinerated, no funeral at all allowed. Imagine the pain.

Interesting read from Newsweek about implementation of "continuity of government" plans in the event that large segments of the executive, legislative and judicial branches are incapacitated.

Exclusive: Inside The Military's Top Secret Plans If Coronavirus Cripples the Government

Coronavirus task force briefing starting (some what delayed). No Fauci and Birx. Trump, Pence and FEMA guy ... don't think this will be very informative.

Apparently the St Louis Fed Chair head thinks we could be heading for thirty percent unemployment in Q2. That would be 5% higher then the Great Depression.

THIS. 1000% THIS!

I will say I don't think I'd have a problem traveling by car, especially as the containment fight looks to be lost everywhere in the US, so it's not like you'll be a Patient 31 unless you start hanging out in nursing homes.

Coincidentally enough with some people talking about cancelling or postponing trips to Charleston or Myrtle Beach, I've floated the idea to co-workers of VRBO'ing a house there for a few nights if this extends more than a month under the theory that there will be extremely cheap deals, we're already spending 40-50 hours a week in close proximity, and if we avoid other people you can still spend time with each other or at a beach without increasing anyone's risk.
No, they didn't. They reprimanded doctors, destroyed samples, denied human to human transmission was occurring, and didn't implement any sort of lockdown until after the Lunar New Year. Early Timeline

Now they're pushing a narrative that says the opposite & apparently many people are happy to eat it up Propaganda push

No question we were slow on the uptake & Trump hurt us, no question he's being an unnecessarily petulant idiot calling it the Chinese Flu, no question South Korea, many other small Asian countries, and yes even China that were hit hard by H1N1, SARS or MERS had better protocols in place & more experience implementing them once they took it seriously. There's also no question that China did a really poor job early on - and just like Trump - was more concerned with PR than preventing an epidemic.
I tried to check numbers yesterday & it appears the CDC only releases their daily report Monday-Friday... That should probably be upped to 7 days a week, though I suppose it doesn't actually matter nearly as much as other things they could be working on.

Some friends of mine from Tucker posted today about their mother/grandmother having died last night. She was 92. She was in hospice and they were unable to visit her during her last week. They're a close family with five kids, all in their 30s. Yesterday they had a "social distance" birthday party for the youngest. (Lawn chairs in the front yard of the parents' house. Well spread out.) The mom and dad and are in their late 60s. I don't know what they'll do about a funeral.


As for wedding, I've seen various stuff. One couple I know who was planning to have a big wedding yesterday just did justice of the peace instead. Another (my nephew and his bride-to-be) postponed the wedding indefinitely.

All McDonalds closing after 7pm tomorrow evening here. Completely closing, not operating a takeout service or Drive Thru only, but closing.

We had decent weather here this weekend, and people mass gathered at seaside towns, parks, sports pitches, etc. Mind blown...

Dola, for the nth time this week

If Taco Bell goes then I'm done for.

I think we need more officials like these mayors and regional presidents from Italy.

🌈 on Twitter: ""I stopped him and said, 'Look, this isn't a movie. You are not Will Smith in I Am Legend. Go home."
This is the updated compilation of Italian Mayors losing it at people violating #Covid19 quarantine. Yes, subtitles are accurate.… https://t.co/quU2toD1be"

Wow.

Ehh, I get yelling at people who are still gathering in groups, but I don't know how much walking a couple hundred yards across an empty area & talking up close to two people playing ping-pong to tell them to avoid people is helping. Also not sure why someone going for a run with their dog is a bad thing - I've heard Dr. Fauci specifically say that is perfectly fine.

Yes, they've also said walks (or even bike rides) are a great way to exercise here in AZ with the gyms closing. As long as you keep your 6-feet of distance around others, it appears one of the best things you can do to get out of the house.

I think they were saying they were using the dog walks as an excuse to hang out with other people. The hairdresser one was funny.

CFA for me. Unfortunately, I think many fast food places will follow suit.

I might have to get a Big Mac tomorrow.

Yeah, after 61 governments since the end of WW2, Italy finally has it right!

:(


i'm getting angry abuot reading all these stories of people testing positive.
especially famous people

when they also keep saying they are limiting testing