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

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by lungs

Don’t know if it will amount to much in regards to the overall food supply, but I’m seeing a few troubling trends in various places.

-A beef packing plant has been shut down due to positive tests on workers. Price of live cattle has cratered. I’ve seen some farmers having contracts for slaughter cancelled because processing capacity is limited.

- I’ve seen a few vegetable farmers nervous about H2-A workers not being able to come this year. Our undocumented population could theoretically pick up the slack.

- Milk is starting to get dumped. The price of milk has cratered once again. Cheese and butter are piling up because restaurants are shut down. Schools made up a decent chunk of demand. Temporary spike in fluid demand at grocery stores isn’t making up. That sound you are hearing is the bullet I dodged by selling my cows and farm while I still had my shirt.

-The oil price war makes ethanol a bad buy right now. Ethanol plants are trying to use act of god provisions in contracts to get out of them and shut down. They will lose less money by sitting idle.

Even with Trump’s farmer welfare of the past few years, agriculture is pretty well fucked at this point and I’m glad I jumped off that bus. The general economy had been stellar up until all this craziness. Ag was the exception so it’ll be interesting to see how this will shake out for the average person and food in general. The immediate concern would be in processing as that could end up being a bottleneck with plants getting shut down due to the virus.

My wife is senior VP of sales for Duracell, in charge of all grocery and drug stores. Before that she worked for P and G. Supply chain, etc...is right up he alley. She said she has zero worries about a food shortage. Not that I doubt your info, because I certainly don't, but her confidence and expertise give me faith it won't happen.

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by Lathum

This is one I could see never coming back

JCPenney says it has made the "difficult decision to temporarily furlough the majority of store hourly associates" and that a "significant portion" of its corporate employees will be placed on leave. The retailer had about 90,000 employees as of Feb. 1. https://t.co/QWA6TYgkuu

— CNN (@CNN) March 31, 2020

Oh boy my ex wife worked for the hair salon here in JC Penney.

[lungs]

Originally Posted by Lathum

My wife is senior VP of sales for Duracell, in charge of all grocery and drug stores. Before that she worked for P and G. Supply chain, etc...is right up he alley. She said she has zero worries about a food shortage. Not that I doubt your info, because I certainly don't, but her confidence and expertise give me faith it won't happen.

I don’t think we will see an overall food shortage either. It’s a diverse enough system that already produces in excess. Something like beef may get short if a few plants have outbreaks given how consolidated the beef industry is. We would just eat something else. Except me, I’ve got a freezer full of Wagyu beef.

[JPhillips]

I gave it too much time. Looks like we'll end tomorrow with twice as many confirmed cases as any other country.

[CrimsonFox]

Okay pimps,

Dr Vuong is here to tell you how this shit will kill you

HOW COVID-19 KILLS--I'm a Surgeon--And Why We Can't Save You - YouTube

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by lungs

I don’t think we will see an overall food shortage either. It’s a diverse enough system that already produces in excess. Something like beef may get short if a few plants have outbreaks given how consolidated the beef industry is. We would just eat something else. Except me, I’ve got a freezer full of Wagyu beef.

I can see the slow degradation of the food supply and can easily see the shortage of some food.

When the US and other countries are on multi-month "pause", it inevitable there will be a reduction in the variety and quantity of some foods. I'm not saying Depression-level deprivation but the impact will grow larger the longer we are on pause.

We import a lot of fruits from south of the border. A lot of seafood from China. See list here Importing Food Into the U.S.: What You Need to Know

The second factor to toss out there is how food gets to the stores. By air, land, sea, to warehouses & distribution centers, trucks, rail etc. I think truckers by default do a lot of social distancing already. Admittedly I think this risk is lower.

The third factor is the food supply we grow here. Lots of guest workers & illegals. Haven't read much about them but can forsee where the coronavirus runs through segments of that population.


There is now the new 30-day flatten the curve plan and I'm good with that. NY and NJ were discussed the most and maybe 30 days is good for them but there are some curves coming up (FL, LA, CA) and who knows, there maybe another 30-day plan.

If much of the country is going to do this 30-day plan, it seems to me that we should do this consistently across the nation. There are some pig-headed governors and state officials ... Trump should just mandate it.

[Brian Swartz]

As a legal matter, I don't think Trump can mandate it. This is for the same reason that when there's a hurricane, etc. , governors declare a state of emergency and then ask FEMA for help. The states have that authority and autonomy.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

As a legal matter, I don't think Trump can mandate it. This is for the same reason that when there's a hurricane, etc. , governors declare a state of emergency and then ask FEMA for help. The states have that authority and autonomy.

Okay. But that shouldn't stop Trump from applying maximum pressure and saying "You should do this, I am telling you to do this, the GOP is telling you to do this. If you do not, the deaths in the state is your fault etc."

It doesn't make sense to me that we go through the 30 day plan to flatten the curve for majority of the states but yet another 30 days could possibly be added to non-compliant states (because they are now cresting).

[JPhillips]

I wonder at what point does this become a serious problem.

17% of NYPD officers now out sick.

1418 have tested positive for COVID-19

[Brian Swartz]

Sure, definitely agree that Trump should be out there advocating for that. I think Sweden is also going to be interesting to watch, since they are essentially taking the personal responsibility route, which has some using them as an example of the right way to do this.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Sure, definitely agree that Trump should be out there advocating for that. I think Sweden is also going to be interesting to watch, since they are essentially taking the personal responsibility route, which has some using them as an example of the right way to do this.

Yes, saw that article on Sweden. I predict pain for them but we shall see.

[Edward64]

According to worldometers, 4,066 deaths out of 188,881 or 2.2% so far.

Assuming the chart is accurate, the shit is about to hit the fan.

[cartman]

they fucked with the scale on the vertical axis. Starts off in increments of 40 then switches to increments of 20.

[Brian Swartz]

For reasons already discussed, I think the death total is probably a lot closer to accurate than the mortality rate. But yeah as long as it keeps going up we should be wary. The next time daily deaths doubles we'll be into heart disease & cancer territory.

[whomario]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Sure, definitely agree that Trump should be out there advocating for that. I think Sweden is also going to be interesting to watch, since they are essentially taking the personal responsibility route, which has some using them as an example of the right way to do this.

Sweden reported 59 deaths today so far which is already the equivalent of about 500 adjusted for German population size. And they had a lot less travel coming in from China or Italy or Spain than other countries. So it naturally took longer for the outbreak to reach 'critical mass' when enough infected people end up infecting others.

And with how little they test i don't see how they can regain any overview of the situation and 'interesting' is not the way i would put it.

Like mentioned yesterday, the Netherlands and Belgium also were slow to react and their numbers are pretty much the same level as Italy/Spain numbers if adjusted for population.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by cartman

they fucked with the scale on the vertical axis. Starts off in increments of 40 then switches to increments of 20.

Good catch. The graphics is misleading but the stats still stand and tell the story.

[whomario]

UK with 563 yesterday as well and that's excluding anybody dying in a home, best guess from early data (up to March 20th) is you can add at least another 20-25 %. of course one can go down the 'but they would have died anyway' route, but i really don't.

And as this is bound to come up in the future when people will do revisionist history of 'was it really necessary' for at least the countries that got away with a somewhat 'normal' number due to heavily combating the spread: The majority (!) of deaths attributed to Influenza actually is thought to occur outside the hospital and are never tested but merely extrapolated as a statistic from overall deaths in the population compared year to year.

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by whomario

And with how little they test i don't see how they can regain any overview of the situation and 'interesting' is not the way i would put it.

Like mentioned yesterday, the Netherlands and Belgium also were slow to react and their numbers are pretty much the same level as Italy/Spain numbers if adjusted for population.

You're mostly preaching to the choir here, I've been of the same mind as you regarding restrictions being necessary. I'm thinking maybe the word interesting means something different to you than it does to me.

[whomario]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

You're mostly preaching to the choir here, I've been of the same mind as you regarding restrictions being necessary. I'm thinking maybe the word interesting means something different to you than it does to me.

Yeah sorry about that. Bit touchy on the subject admittedly due to a mixture of the whole thing weighing on me and regular contact with people deeply involved in it at various levels and multiple countries due to work, uni contacts and sports-connections across the globe.

So yeah, didn't mean to attack you with it

[Brian Swartz]

No apology needed. This has a way of affecting almost all of us I think in ways we wouldn't prefer.

[Arles]

I still contend that between 1.5 and 2 million people have (or have had) the virus in the US. If you look at the counties tested (and many haven't had any tested) and extrapolate, those numbers seem to be in the ballpark. In other words, look at Maricopa county (where I live). There are over 4.4 million people in it and 791 cases (8 deaths). Given how the virus travels, when real "stay at home" measures were put in place and the testing procedure - we probably have had closer to 10,000 (if not more) actual cases of the virus.

So, I think looking at the deaths is the best way (but understand they will also be under-reported). My guess is the actual death rate (once we get all the data down the road), will be closer to 0.5% than 1%. But, if 60 million people get the virus, that's still 300K deaths. I also think social distancing will reallly have made a massive impact. If we spread out the cases and even restrict them using this, it could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

[CU Tiger]

Im not sure if this belongs here or the mental health thread so Ill start here and gladly move it if the group prefers.

One aspect of this has really consumed my brain for the last week.

Let me add this disclaimer before I got further. This is not an angle to minimize this pandemic. I think this is a major, serious, global issue that is going to get worse before it gets better. This isnt intended to minimize, excuse or ignore any of that.

With that aside, I am left wondering whether our global connected nature, as a whole, has helped or hurt in this crisis.

I ant but think if we go back to even the late 80s, how relatively little inter-connection and information availability was. (As a personal note I have been really mentally meditating and thinking on society and roles as a whole lately - thinking to settlement days where everyone had a task. The butcher, the farmer, the blacksmith, the barber etc and coming to grips with where my current societal contribution fits. So that's a relevant back drop to this thought) but I cant help but think about just 2 generations back.

In a much more isolated world. There has been 1 death in my county. In the days of newspaper and back I think this would definitely be a big deal in Italy and in New York currently. But would it be a big deal in my local community? Would it be totally business as usual and if this too does in fact pass with time, would it be thought back on as that horrible disease that killed the one lady two towns over. I spent this weekend visiting with my Grandfather who is 93(ish) and he was talking about the great depression for whatever reason. And how "that was horrible up in New York. but it never hit the farm Thank God"

In a more regionalized point in our history, certainly this wouldn't have spread as wide, and even if it did I wonder how it would be memorialized in our minds.

Again Im not intending to make light of the situation. But my ind is drawn to quantities. Ive read that 40,000 people die every year in car crashes. 13 in every 100,000 people die every single year in auto accidents. We all know someone who has died in a car wreck I suspect. And it doesnt lessen the tragedy, but it also doesnt consume our consciousness. In fact we hardly ever stop to think about it beyond a wreath on the side of the road.

But this in our current social and traditional media environment, dominates our thoughts. And again rightly so. I just wonder if in a simpler time it would have even registered. In a rural ag community such as mine, its just about planting time. And I can imagine that being all grandpa thought about. With an occasional cursory thought to "those poor folks in Nw York battling that virus"..and maybe I selfishly long for that life.

[panerd]

Originally Posted by CU Tiger

Im not sure if this belongs here or the mental health thread so Ill start here and gladly move it if the group prefers.

One aspect of this has really consumed my brain for the last week.

Let me add this disclaimer before I got further. This is not an angle to minimize this pandemic. I think this is a major, serious, global issue that is going to get worse before it gets better. This isnt intended to minimize, excuse or ignore any of that.

With that aside, I am left wondering whether our global connected nature, as a whole, has helped or hurt in this crisis.

I ant but think if we go back to even the late 80s, how relatively little inter-connection and information availability was. (As a personal note I have been really mentally meditating and thinking on society and roles as a whole lately - thinking to settlement days where everyone had a task. The butcher, the farmer, the blacksmith, the barber etc and coming to grips with where my current societal contribution fits. So that's a relevant back drop to this thought) but I cant help but think about just 2 generations back.

In a much more isolated world. There has been 1 death in my county. In the days of newspaper and back I think this would definitely be a big deal in Italy and in New York currently. But would it be a big deal in my local community? Would it be totally business as usual and if this too does in fact pass with time, would it be thought back on as that horrible disease that killed the one lady two towns over. I spent this weekend visiting with my Grandfather who is 93(ish) and he was talking about the great depression for whatever reason. And how "that was horrible up in New York. but it never hit the farm Thank God"

In a more regionalized point in our history, certainly this wouldn't have spread as wide, and even if it did I wonder how it would be memorialized in our minds.

Again Im not intending to make light of the situation. But my ind is drawn to quantities. I've read that 40,000 people die every year in car crashes. 13 in every 100,000 people die every single year in auto accidents. We all know someone who has died in a car wreck I suspect. And it doesnt lessen the tragedy, but it also doesnt consume our consciousness. In fact we hardly ever stop to think about it beyond a wreath on the side of the road.

But this in our current social and traditional media environment, dominates our thoughts. And again rightly so. I just wonder if in a simpler time it would have even registered. In a rural ag community such as mine, its just about planting time. And I can imagine that being all grandpa thought about. With an occasional cursory thought to "those poor folks in Nw York battling that virus"..and maybe I selfishly long for that life.

Yeah I'm in a similar boat. Information is good, social distancing, isolating is good and without the modern media this might not be happening. However on the flip side continual updates and information can just be overwhelming and the days I have not spent much time reading about it have been the least anxious.

I guess the best way to answer your question would be what historians have said about what happened during the Spanish Flu. Were small towns blindsided? Were some areas unaffected? I don't know the answers as I don't know much about this topic honestly.

[Butter]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Trump should just mandate it.

He's not going to mandate anything, because he's trying to take credit for anything good that happens, but he wants to blame states for their own problems and I guess he's hoping the problems stay in mostly the blue states. If Florida goes south, that could be a major problem for him.

[Brian Swartz]

Good post CU Tiger. A few points that strike me.

Originally Posted by CU Tiger

s. Ive read that 40,000 people die every year in car crashes. 13 in every 100,000 people die every single year in auto accidents. We all know someone who has died in a car wreck I suspect. And it doesnt lessen the tragedy, but it also doesnt consume our consciousness. In fact we hardly ever stop to think about it beyond a wreath on the side of the road.

Sure. Over half a million die each from heart disease and cancer. The difference between those and your examples and a pandemic is that they aren't contagious. Normal living doesn't materially affect other people dying from that. It does in a pandemic. That doesn't explain all of the difference, but it's a good part of it.

Originally Posted by CU Tiger

I just wonder if in a simpler time it would have even registered. In a rural ag community such as mine, its just about planting time. And I can imagine that being all grandpa thought about. With an occasional cursory thought to "those poor folks in Nw York battling that virus"..and maybe I selfishly long for that life.

I think this is true, but that there's more to it. Globalization has brought with it many benefits, and also challenges. In fact, there are more pandemics now because of the fact that we continue pushing into parts of the world where wildlife was previously left undisturbed … including the viruses they carry. Two generations ago, much less back in 1918, we didn't expect as much from medical science in terms of stopping premature deaths, prolonging life, etc. We also didn't have all the modern benefits we get from global trade. All of that is part and parcel of the increased connectedness - life just used to be harder, and in general shorter. Any random infection could kill you, nevermind malaria, tuberculosis, polio, etc. One of the reasons cancer and heart disease are such a problem now is that so many more people even live long enough to have such issues.

I have no issues with the nostalgia, I just think we should remember that there was a price paid for that style of life.

[Icy]

In a related note, I have always thought that as a comparision, they should write down close to the coronavirus deaths, the amout of deaths by common flu, car accidents, cancer, etc for the same period so we can see the relative effect.

The only info I have seen about it was today in the Spanish news, that 1 of every 2 deaths in Spain today are because cov19.

[JAG]

If you're not from Minnesota, the specific information may not necessarily be that interesting to you, but the way the department of health has improved their information of reporting over the past week has been pretty remarkable:

Situation Update for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) - Minnesota Dept. of Health

Number of cases in each county (with color-coded map and Excel dump of raw numbers), a pie chart of likely exposure (cruise ship, out of state, community transmission, and so on), a bar chart of the demographics of those infected, hospitalization information including those in ICU, and the median age range for those infected, hospitalized, in the ICU, and deceased.

[Lathum]

Wimbledon cancelled.

[Brian Swartz]

Florida now issuing statewide stay-at-home.

[bob]

First world problems to be sure, but I can't wait for the upcoming fight for camp deposits and summer activity refunds.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Florida now issuing statewide stay-at-home.

criminal the way that governor has handled this.

[ISiddiqui]

And Georgia is still leaving it up county by county.

[JPhillips]

Someone in the US needs to stand up and help get those American citizens off the cruise ships. Saying they can go back to the country they are flagged under is no way to treat our own citizens. There's a shit ton of empty hotels and dorms, so this isn't an impossible problem.

[RainMaker]

I only mention this because Johns Hopkins newsletter had a blurb about it. Kinsa makes smart thermometers and can track readings around the country. It has been helpful in anticipating influenza outbreaks over the years. And it was a leading indicator that New York would be hit hard.

Good News: They state that fevers have gone down around the country. A sign that social distancing may be working.

Bad News: Uhhh...look at Florida.

[grdawg]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

And Georgia is still leaving it up county by county.

Fulton county finally issued the stay at home, but this is ridiculous. Can Kemp do something or does he just not care?

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by Rainmaker

Bad News: Uhhh...look at Florida.

Super-great. The southeast in general, and southern Michigan while we're at it, aren't looking too rosy either.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Florida now issuing statewide stay-at-home.

I don’t want to seem ungrateful but...

DeSantis demurred when asked what penalties he’d impose for those violating the order.

“We don’t know how all these measures are going to work,” DeSantis said. “But we’ll figure out on the back end how this will work out.”

Governor, you are a Floridian and a military officer. As a Floridian, you know we Floridians are already loathe to follow orders as it is. An order without consequences? Only if we are feeling nice.

As a military officer, it is your plan Sir. You are supposed to know how this is going to work on the front end then adapt and overcome on the back end.

[tyketime]

The Florida statewide shutdown order expires on April 30, though at least one major study out of the University of Washington predicted Florida’s peak for coronavirus cases would be May 3.

Oofa - it's gonna be a long depressing month ahead of us. I only wish this was an April Fool's joke...

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by grdawg

Fulton county finally issued the stay at home, but this is ridiculous. Can Kemp do something or does he just not care?

Business interests are too much in Kemp's ear, IMO.

[whomario]

Originally Posted by Icy

The only info I have seen about it was today in the Spanish news, that 1 of every 2 deaths in Spain today are because cov19.

Yes, this sounds about right, maybe a bit less but not much. Most years about 400k people die in Spain. In Lombardy it has been quite a bit more than 50% for 10 days now and that is assuming deaths outside hospitals are even counted as Covid and not as undetermined (they are not in France and the UK).

And remember that most other illnesses aren't being 'force-prevented' (forbidding people from driving cars or smoking or eating unhealthy) and merely treated after the fact.

In the end it will hopefully be remembered what happened in the (hopefully) brief period it was not prevented from being devastating, not have people in 10 or 15 years look back and think "well, it were't that many deaths overall" and fuck up the response when the next and maybe more deadly virus hits.

[ISiddiqui]

Looks like Florida shamed Kemp. Stay at home in GA

[tarcone]

Still no stay at home order in Missouri. But the Governor did talk about the economic impact. $500 million shortfall in budget because of revenue declines.

Money over lives I guess.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Looks like Florida shamed Kemp. Stay at home in GA

Looking for AL to call it also.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

We are not listening. We are Italy. We are not doing enough.

Pence on @CNN just now: "We think Italy may be the most comparable area to the United States at this point."

— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) April 1, 2020

The predictability of the bad decisions along this path has been so frustrating. Once it became clear that denying the crisis was a politically savvy move at various points in time, we were cooked. We're Italy all right.

[GoldenEagle]

MS governor issues stay-at-home order, but it is probably not going to change that much.

[tarcone]

Here is part of our governors presser today:

The governor also defended his decision to resist issuing a statewide stay-at-home order.

“We look to see how many counties in the state of Missouri have a positive hit, and how many of multiple hits,” said Parson. He said as of Tuesday there were 95 counties in the state with fewer than 5 cases. He said part of his decision-making process involves the economic impact a shutdown would have on those communities

[rjolley]

Originally Posted by bob

First world problems to be sure, but I can't wait for the upcoming fight for camp deposits and summer activity refunds.

Our signup for summer programs started after the initial stay at home was issued in the Bay Area, so, with the information that was available, we made the decision then to not sign the kids up and make other plans. We didn't want to worry about getting a refund.

[Brian Swartz]

We're not having the cohesive response needed, though parts of it are good, but we're not Italy. It might be sheer luck that we're not, but still.

[GrantDawg]

What exactly are they doing to protect the sailors on the Navy ships?

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[ISiddiqui]

Why in the world does the coronavirus briefing have the Defense Secretary talking about increased narcotics enforcement in the East Pacific and Carribean?