COVID-19 - Wuhan Coronavirus (a non-political thread, see pg. 36 #1778)

[panerd]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/u...ath-child.html

I mean I hope this heeds a warning to those who think they are invincible. (never understood why anyone would want to get a sickness that could be rough even if you don't die) On the flip side I'm sure the media will ensure this begins large panic mode of something that A) We already knew from China and B) Is still statistically so low and likely tied to immune issues. (St Louis media tried pulling this with a 30 year old's death until the real background came out)

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Far right? As in siding with Trump? I believe I lean more to the left in this situation in criticizing the poor response, Trump's initial obliviousness, and now Trump's repeatedly out-of-context half-truths and BS.

But I will say that although much of the Trump criticism is well deserved, we all know there would also be a lot of fails by Hillary/Biden in the same situation. It's just that Hillary/Biden wouldn't bluster and BS us as much as Trump.

More in general in the political threads.

[whomario]

Originally Posted by cartman

So apparently 300,000 tests have been conducted in the US, based on the numbers from the afternoon press conference. We are at just over 53k cases, so that means about 1 in 6 people getting tested have it.

For comparison:

Italy on March 21st was at 300k/69k (23%) and they are really only testing in hospitals in some regions now (Lombardy 40% positive and that's likely much higher since the onslaught began)

Berlin in Germany was at 5% a few days ago (so 1 in 20), best guess for Germany as a whole now based on lab capacity reported by the leading institute coordinating efforts is still pretty close to that (160k tests a week, 30k positive total).
And that's with pretty targeted testing based on contacts of known patients, visited regions or early symptoms. So it's unlikely to be low because we miss a disproportional amount and look in the wrong place.
Will go up obviously, but so far i think other than South Korea and a few smaller countries (Austria for example) Germany has done about the best job of testing early and often.

[whomario]

Mind blowing nunber of the day: A friend who is a stat geek and writes for a blog on public health send me the following estimate based on official stats and reports:

Normally in the Lombardy region about 145 people die in hospitals daily during March. From all causes from heart attacks to cancer or accidents. For a week now every day 300-400 people have died being Infected with this virus. Even accounting for underlying conditions playing a part, that's utterly apocalyptic.

And there is no reason this would not happen at least to a somewhat similar degree elsewhere (even half as bad is insane) or would stop anytime soon if you did not slow the spread and flatten the curve early.

And some stupid fucks on YT are still putting out Videos claiming the world would have never noticed the virus if we hadn't started testing for it.

[Brian Swartz]

That's part of why YT demonetizes videos talking about current events like this, because there'll never be any lack of opportunistic/trollish people looking to take advantadge.

[Brian Swartz]

Bill Gates says he thinks 6-10 weeks is the appropriate time for the shutdown … so roughly another month or two.

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Bill Gates says he thinks 6-10 weeks is the appropriate time for the shutdown … so roughly another month or two.

Does Bill Gates say how the poor should pay their rent 6-10 weeks w/o a job?

[Brian Swartz]

No, but if the bill that Congress passes is what's currently being advertised (Schumer's saying 4 months of pay for anyone that was laid off etc.) it would more than cover that. I think that's the obvious answer; there's a limit to how much we can borrow but we can borrow enough to get people through a couple of months and worry about the fallout from that later.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by panerd

I mean I hope this heeds a warning to those who think they are invincible. (never understood why anyone would want to get a sickness that could be rough even if you don't die) On the flip side I'm sure the media will ensure this begins large panic mode of something that A) We already knew from China and B) Is still statistically so low and likely tied to immune issues. (St Louis media tried pulling this with a 30 year old's death until the real background came out)

For the last 48 hours, the big discussion point has been about how changes in our current policy would affect the health of senior citizens vs the economy. As much as we know that it does actually affect all age groups, the collective we have basically said that teenagers ARE invincible. The talk when it comes to babies, toddlers,teenagers and young adults has been and continues to be that they would just get a mild sickness or get nothing at all. Unless of course they have the underlying issues. Man, I am starting to hate that term.

Did the teen have underlying issues? I don't know. Will it cause me to wipe my brow and feel like the collective we got away with one because it was someone with underlying issues and it wasn't a teen without underlying issues? Well no.

I think I get it. The media hypes things too much for your taste. Particularly the negative stuff. I think there are more people that agree with you than disagree. You want to hear a balance of good news and bad news. So would most. I think we all want to hear the good news when it comes to the virus. I think we have good news. Most of us won't die and many won't get sick. That info probably should be hyped more. In this specific case, I don't want the media to hype that up too much tbh. I have seen what happened when we did that before.

EDIT: If I am wrong about the last part, then I apologize. That was my perception.

[Atocep]

My wife changed jobs on March 2nd. She worked at a community health dental clinic and moved to a private office that falls under a chain of dental clinics on the west coast. An email went out 2 weeks ago telling everyone they were preparing to shut down whenever the Governor directs (actually started today) and they would offer 2 weeks administrative leave to everyone to use at their discretion. Unfortunately for us, they clarified that policy via email on Friday and created a cutoff of 30 days since your hire date. So my wife has been sent home without pay until her clinic is allowed to reopen. She filed for unemployment while at work on Friday.

[PilotMan]

The big glaring number that pops up right now, that makes me wonder about the next steps is that with 53,655 people infected and 698 deaths, is that out of all those people only 378 have totally recovered.



It's hard to imagine a reality where we start to look at opening things back up again anytime soon. Only Italy has more active cases and after tomorrow they'll be number two.

[JAG]

Here’s a pretty cool website that shows state information for when they should implement shelter in place or face having hospitals overwhelmed. I’m sure there are assumptions and such built into it, but I found it interesting so thought I’d share:

Coronavirus Act Now

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

The big glaring number that pops up right now, that makes me wonder about the next steps is that with 53,655 people infected and 698 deaths, is that out of all those people only 378 have totally recovered.



It's hard to imagine a reality where we start to look at opening things back up again anytime soon. Only Italy has more active cases and after tomorrow they'll be number two.

With the way this thing supposedly spreads, there are a lot more people than 54k that have. We just don't know it. Does the mortality rate stay the same?

I have to believe there are more folks. I think it was Gupta who said that 4 out of 5 people get it from someone who didn't know they had it.

[Ben E Lou]

Per two physician friends back home, multiple Atlanta-area hospitals are nearing overflow, including Grady Memorial.

[Brian Swartz]

That's why the death number, morbid as it is, remains the best indicator IMO. I don't trust the total cases, but the trend in the number of people dying from it is a good indicator of how bad things were two weeks ago.

[sterlingice]

Andrew Cesare on Twitter: "Gangs in the Rio de Janeiro favelas have enforced a lockdown from 8pm tonight. The statement reads: "If the government won't do the right thing, organised crime will"… https://t.co/tqcHkBp8l5"

Originally Posted by Tweet

Gangs in the Rio de Janeiro favelas have enforced a lockdown from 8pm tonight. The statement reads: "If the government won't do the right thing, organised crime will"

SI

[whomario]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

The big glaring number that pops up right now, that makes me wonder about the next steps is that with 53,655 people infected and 698 deaths, is that out of all those people only 378 have totally recovered.



It's hard to imagine a reality where we start to look at opening things back up again anytime soon. Only Italy has more active cases and after tomorrow they'll be number two.

I am pretty sure recoveries are not acurately tracked anywhere. And even if they are in the US: Quite a few that tested positive will have never actually gotten seriously sick but are still within the formal Quarantine period (14 days in Germany, not sure on US). 2 weeks ago the US had under 1000 positive tests. And for bad cases, dying is much faster than recovering ... Estimates for China are 2 weeks hospitalisation for moderate cases (no ICU i guess), anywhere from 3-6 for bad cases.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Bill Gates says he thinks 6-10 weeks is the appropriate time for the shutdown … so roughly another month or two.

That's based on China's experience, but that won't matter if we don't really isolate.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Per two physician friends back home, multiple Atlanta-area hospitals are nearing overflow, including Grady Memorial.

A friend just forarded me a text. She knows a woman who is a school nurse. The Board of Health apparently is reassigning all of them, if thats the word, to the front lines.

[whomario]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Andrew Cesare on Twitter: "Gangs in the Rio de Janeiro favelas have enforced a lockdown from 8pm tonight. The statement reads: "If the government won't do the right thing, organised crime will"… https://t.co/tqcHkBp8l5"





SI

Brasil will be hit hard if it truly spreads, especially since the President is in total denial (friend wrote me he published a video today calling it a "tiny flu" ). And worse if it does before the worst is over elsewhere that might send aid and other help.

Because right now it is hitting the countries best prepared to contain/endure it, if sth like Italy were to happen in, say, Delhi, Rio or Kairo ...

African countries are already imposing pretty substantive measures, some based on only a dozen cases. One can only hope that is more vulnerable to heat/UV than some early observations indicate, that way this would give some of the most vulnerable countries a little bit more protection. Add the tendency of those types of Virus to get less potent over the course of an epidemic/pandemic and it might be enough to not be totally out of control outside the rich nations ...

[Lathum]

We visited my in laws today, on their driveway at a safe distance. While we were there a UPS driver pulled up and brought an envelope to my father in law. the driver just kept getting closer and closer. We kept waiting for him to stop and he didn't. Just walked right up and handed the envelope directly to my FIL, no gloves or anything. My wife started yelling to her dad " go wash your hands!!!"

[whomario]

Originally Posted by Lathum

We visited my in laws today, on their driveway at a safe distance. While we were there a UPS driver pulled up and brought an envelope to my father in law. the driver just kept getting closer and closer. We kept waiting for him to stop and he didn't. Just walked right up and handed the envelope directly to my FIL, no gloves or anything. My wife started yelling to her dad " go wash your hands!!!"

My mother works at the Post Office and had multiple people lick the envelopes to close them up right there waiting in line before handing them over. And there are rolls of 'tape' prominently displayed that they pass on their way.

None of these is a big Part of how it spreads (this really is mostly prolongued Close proximity), but it is still insane how little regard some people can have in their ignorance.

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by Lathum

We visited my in laws today, on their driveway at a safe distance. While we were there a UPS driver pulled up and brought an envelope to my father in law. the driver just kept getting closer and closer. We kept waiting for him to stop and he didn't. Just walked right up and handed the envelope directly to my FIL, no gloves or anything. My wife started yelling to her dad " go wash your hands!!!"

I think I've said it upthread, but I've got a friend who is a USPS carrier and he says they're practically running as normal. Little to no sanitation measures, threatened with getting fired if you take sick leave. Gotta get them coupons out. UPS probably has at least modern facilities, the USPS is broke (thanks to previous GOP legislation) & most post offices are 50+ year old buildings.

...so yeah, I agree that washing your hands when you get mail/packages is prudent.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

I think I've said it upthread, but I've got a friend who is a USPS carrier and he says they're practically running as normal. Little to no sanitation measures, threatened with getting fired if you take sick leave. Gotta get them coupons out. UPS probably has at least modern facilities, the USPS is broke (thanks to previous GOP legislation) & most post offices are 50+ year old buildings.

...so yeah, I agree that washing your hands when you get mail/packages is prudent.

My cousin is. I just texted him to get his thoughts

[Lathum]

Sounds like it may be a regional thing with the post office. Just got this from my cousin

Hey. Well, at our facility, we are given gloves for handling the mail, cleaning wipes to wipe down high-contact areas in the trucks... we’ve been directed by the postmaster general to stay home if feeling sick. A couple of workers were tested for coronavirus (they were found not to have it), and during the time they were out their stations and trucks were completely cleaned and sanitized. We’ve been told to avoid as much contact with customers as possible, so things that need a signature may be delivered anyway without having the customer sign, so we don’t need to come in contact with people. But, the mail has to be delivered, so we are still going to be out there delivering, but doing our best to avoid contact with people so any spread is minimized.

[thesloppy]

Here's a discussion from 10 minutes ago with a different carrier friend:

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Sounds like it may be a regional thing with the post office.

That is entirely possible. For as long as I've known these guys, both of their stations have been woefully understaffed, which probably ripples everywhere & in every way.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

That is entirely possible. For as long as I've known these guys, both of their stations have been woefully understaffed, which probably ripples everywhere & in every way.

Honestly, it is indicative as anything regarding a government agency, absolutely no standardization.

[Edward64]

On Mon, CNN was reporting that US hit a milestone of more than 100+ deaths.

On Tue, CNN is reporting 163 deaths.

Hopefully Wed won't see similar increase.

[cartman]

This is not a good sign. Waffle Houses never close.

Waffle House closes 365 locations across the U.S.https://t.co/7v69sqbNqp

— WAFB (@WAFB) March 24, 2020

[Lathum]

Spain getting crushed.

[RainMaker]

https://apnews.com/8bd9ec1261d19913a...&utm_medium=AP

[AlexB]

I’m dead set against playing Russian roulette with my life, may family’s lives, or anyone else’s for that matter, but this line in a Times article shows the dilemma that those running countries face at the moment:

A study by Bristol University found that if the pandemic led to a fall of more than 6.4 per cent in Britain’s national income, more years of life would be lost because of the recession than would be gained by beating the virus.

The choice could (we’re not there yet, and I hope we don’t reach that point) get to a stage where it’s a choice of deaths now or deaths later...

In principle I’d choose the latter in the hope that a contingency can be found to prevent it, but overall I’m mostly glad I don’t have to make that decision

[Icy]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Spain getting crushed.

Yes, we lost a lot of time, our (left coalition) government and president also said it was a tinny flu when we got the Italian and China news and decided to not to take any action like closing airports with both of them.

Not even that but they allowed against all recommendations a mass feminist manifestation in Madrid, with over 300k people attending including all the women from the government, who btw have tested positive now (karma?). Imagine the amount of people infected that day that spread it later even if the government denies that it had something to do with the massive amount of infected people in Madrid. They were so scared of cancelling it as it wouldn't be politically correct for their voters so they even said that "machismo" kills more women than coronavirus...



The day we sent all the employees to work from home, a week before the government did as things were already bad, there was a huge free live concert in the major square in the very center of Madrid where my office is (imagine Times Square), it was hard for me to walk to get away from it as it was totally crowded.

Now the main problem in Spain is that we lack first level protection (suits and masks) for our doctors and nurses, as they were not ready and not the demand worldwide is huge and hard to get, so 12% already are infected and not able to work, making everything worse.

Luckily since our government took conscience of it, at least they are moving fast, with the total closure of the country except the needed industry, police and army in the streets to enforce it and the army setting up a massive campaign hospital in 24 hours in Madrid that is helping a lot. Yet our president said that at least the army is doing something useful now... I'm sorry about the political phrase but I really hate all the leftist pose and I really hope we won't have 4 years of it, that could be the only good effect of this crisis, to show how incompetent they are only worried about looking cool and modern.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Edward64

One mile radius quarantine with National Guard.

If this was a zombie movie, it'll be doomed to failure but ... interesting test case for those that say quarantines won't work in the US.

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/...11d28c8f83c0fd

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/24/us/ne...rus/index.html

I have not looked at the raw numbers yet but this seems like a good thing.

[Mota]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

I think I get it. The media hypes things too much for your taste. Particularly the negative stuff. I think there are more people that agree with you than disagree. You want to hear a balance of good news and bad news. So would most. I think we all want to hear the good news when it comes to the virus. I think we have good news. Most of us won't die and many won't get sick. That info probably should be hyped more. In this specific case, I don't want the media to hype that up too much tbh. I have seen what happened when we did that before.

I think it's the opposite. We need to hear stories about people in their 20's getting seriously ill. Because guess what, it's the young people that are moving around spreading it right now because they think they're invulnerable. It's been made quite clear that people 30 or under will be fine, pretty much nobody dies and many don't even feel any symptoms. I don't see any 70 year olds walking through the pharmacy licking entire rows of products.

If everybody sheltered in place for 2 weeks without any exceptions, we'd be over this in two weeks. Forget 2-3 months.

[whomario]

I really don't see how this has much to do with left/right leanings of a government per se and more with apeasing the electorate in general. Remember that Italy is right leaning and took a 'right-leaning' approach (let's lock this out) and that failed, too. And in Spain in was a womens rights march, in other countries it was different major events that were canceled too late. LaLiga matches were still being played in front of full capacity crowds at the same time as i am sure were countless other big events.

If you have the ressources, quarantining and isolating clusters/hotspots like Rochelle would of course be a good way to deal with it.
I am also quite sure that the more 'advanced' really small nations will fare pretty well. The Färöe Islands for example currently have already done about 1 test per every 19 inhabitants (of course some will be duplicates for medical professionals) and thus have a very high number of confirmed cases per capita (10 times higher than the US !) but also likely a much smaller number of undetected cases.
Another indicator that the number of actually infected in the US will be a lot higher.

[whomario]

Originally Posted by Mota

I think it's the opposite. We need to hear stories about people in their 20's getting seriously ill. Because guess what, it's the young people that are moving around spreading it right now because they think they're invulnerable. It's been made quite clear that people 30 or under will be fine, pretty much nobody dies and many don't even feel any symptoms. I don't see any 70 year olds walking through the pharmacy licking entire rows of products.

If everybody sheltered in place for 2 weeks without any exceptions, we'd be over this in two weeks. Forget 2-3 months.

Yes, this is exactly why this is so tough to get a handle on. It is spread much more easily over a longer period by more people that feel fine or a little bit sick at worst.

This isn't Ebola (a german 'scientist' tried that particular comparison the other day to make people believe this is no big deal) or other diseases with devastating death rates, but thankfully those generally have the good tact to refrain from being spreaded by essentially healthy people, making it much easier to track and isolate.

This is much more contagious than the seasonal flu and considereably more deadly while hitting a populations with no natural (or artificial via vaccination) protection or any realiable medication.

Although as a semi-serious aside to your last point: I did however see a worrying amount of seniors that went to the supermarket to buy 2 or 3 items ...

[Breeze]

Originally Posted by Mota

I think it's the opposite. We need to hear stories about people in their 20's getting seriously ill.

Not in his 20s, but in better shape than a majority of those guys...

31 year old elite swimmer struggling with the virus.

https://swimswam.com/2012-olympic-go...rus-infection/

[Icy]

We have in Spain tree police agents dead that got infected on duty, 38, 39 and 52 years old, all them with not known previous health issues so yes, most of deaths are over 70 but that doesn't mean younger are totally safe.

We just got stats of deaths by age in the major newspapers for Spain out of 3k death:

0% under 10
0.1% 10-19
0.5% 20-29
0.6% 30-39
1% 40-49
2.5% 50-59
8.5% 60-69
21% 70-79
46% 80-89
19% over 90

[JPhillips]

Looks like Indonesia will soon become a major hotspot.

[panerd]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

I think I get it. The media hypes things too much for your taste. Particularly the negative stuff. I think there are more people that agree with you than disagree. You want to hear a balance of good news and bad news. So would most. I think we all want to hear the good news when it comes to the virus. I think we have good news. Most of us won't die and many won't get sick. That info probably should be hyped more. In this specific case, I don't want the media to hype that up too much tbh. I have seen what happened when we did that before.

EDIT: If I am wrong about the last part, then I apologize. That was my perception.

Yeah I mean this is a deadly virus so I don't really expect to pick up the paper and feel good about things. I guess 9/11 would be a good comparison. Right after nobody knew what was going on and so there were the anthrax stories every day but there will also A LOT of unsubstantiated stories that were clearly inaccurate at the time and proved to be inaccurate.

I kind of feel this way about the young deaths. The teenager in Los Angeles was immediate front page national news and like 12 hours later was then backtracked. Can't they wait 12 hours? They would wait if it were a car accident in normal times and they couldn't notify the family. Now they have to rush to publish the shocking news. In St. Louis sadly a 31-year old died with no known health issues. Also went national. Turns out she was very obese with multiple health conditions.

Again these deaths are tragic regardless of the background of the individuals and whether they had preexisting health conditions but let's make no mistake why the media is blasting them. It's careless and reckless.

I think part of the reason people didn't take this as serious (including high level politicians) is because of the media and what they did with SARS, swine flu, killer bees, Ebola. I mean that is definitely where I was at the beginning of this. They love to create mass hysteria, good for business.

[Warhammer]

Originally Posted by Mota

I think it's the opposite. We need to hear stories about people in their 20's getting seriously ill. Because guess what, it's the young people that are moving around spreading it right now because they think they're invulnerable. It's been made quite clear that people 30 or under will be fine, pretty much nobody dies and many don't even feel any symptoms. I don't see any 70 year olds walking through the pharmacy licking entire rows of products.

If everybody sheltered in place for 2 weeks without any exceptions, we'd be over this in two weeks. Forget 2-3 months.

Here's the thing, we don't have enough data on the virus. I documented my "struggle", the worst part of the whole thing for me, I have had to take asthma meds for 2 straight weeks, multiple times a day. This is an effect of the virus. I had no asthma meds because I had not had a prior attack since who knows when. Does this mean I am still contagious? Who knows. Is it due to still having transmittable virus or is this a matter of my lungs needing to heal after the infection? Again, who knows.

For this to run its course, I believe we are looking at more like a 4-6 week period of shelter in place. This took 3 weeks of being sick for me to mostly get over it. I guess I was transmitting the virus for up to two weeks before that.

[JPhillips]

Prince Charles tested positive.

[Warhammer]

Originally Posted by panerd

Yeah I mean this is a deadly virus so I don't really expect to pick up the paper and feel good about things. I guess 9/11 would be a good comparison. Right after nobody knew what was going on and so there were the anthrax stories every day but there will also A LOT of unsubstantiated stories that were clearly inaccurate at the time and proved to be inaccurate.

I kind of feel this way about the young deaths. The teenager in Los Angeles was immediate front page national news and like 12 hours later was then backtracked. Can't they wait 12 hours? They would wait if it were a car accident in normal times and they couldn't notify the family. Now they have to rush to publish the shocking news. In St. Louis sadly a 31-year old died with no known health issues. Also went national. Turns out she was very obese with multiple health conditions.

Again these deaths are tragic regardless of the background of the individuals and whether they had preexisting health conditions but let's make no mistake why the media is blasting them. It's careless and reckless.

I think part of the reason people didn't take this as serious (including high level politicians) is because of the media and what they did with SARS, swine flu, killer bees, Ebola. I mean that is definitely where I was at the beginning of this. They love to create mass hysteria, good for business.

Hey let's not forget the couple in Arizona that was being plastered all over. I have taken some perverse joy in watching FB friends walk that story back after I have told them to read up on it. I think I told one guy, what they did was similar to me taking chlorine because I know sodium chloride is necessary for proper muscle health.

There is enough out there about this story to get people to buy papers and get media hits with out having to fearmonger.

[Warhammer]

Originally Posted by Icy

We have in Spain tree police agents dead that got infected on duty, 38, 39 and 52 years old, all them with not known previous health issues so yes, most of deaths are over 70 but that doesn't mean younger are totally safe.

We just got stats of deaths by age in the major newspapers for Spain out of 3k death:

0% under 10
0.1% 10-19
0.5% 20-29
0.6% 30-39
1% 40-49
2.5% 50-59
8.5% 60-69
21% 70-79
46% 80-89
19% over 90

Here's something interesting US Influenza deaths by age group for the 2018-2019 flu season:


Table 2: Estimated rates of influenza-associated disease outcomes, per 100,000, by age group — United States, 2018-2019 influenza season

Mortality rate
0-4 years: 1.3%
5-17 years: .4%
18-49 years: 1.8%
50-64 years: 9%
Over 65: 48.7%

Taken from the CDC site. Based upon Icy's numbers for Spain, the mortality numbers are no worse than the flu. The problem is the R number because of how fast this spreads.

[Brian Swartz]

I think those are two different things. You're talking about what % of people who get the flu die. Icy's rates only include those who die, and then break that down by age range. That doesn't say anything about overall mortality, which everything I've read says is 5-10x that of the flu. But of course even that isn't the real issue; the hospitalization rate is the thing that's really kicking our arse.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by cartman

This is not a good sign. Waffle Houses never close.

Waffle House closes 365 locations across the U.S.https://t.co/7v69sqbNqp

— WAFB (@WAFB) March 24, 2020

Wonder how they selected?

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Wonder how they selected?

Not sure if this is sarcastic. My guess is those are the areas that currently ban eating in restaurants. (I know Ohio and St. Louis county do and I'm guessing New Orleans area does) I could be wrong.

[Brian Swartz]

Update from my parent company. The top executives are forgoing salary completely, layoffs are happening, low-level salary people taking a 20% cut, a number of restaurants are closing, bonuses are all postponed, etc. I think they're doing the best they can in a bad situation, generally speaking. Meanwhile I've now been out of work for the longest I've been in years. Definitely feels very weird.