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

[albionmoonlight]

U.S. Testing is ramping up at a pretty decent clip, actually. I don't know if it will be enough, but we're not doing as badly as we were.

[Edward64]

I'm all for this, definitely should be an analysis and lessons learn post-mortem.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/18/asia/...hnk/index.html

Russian President Vladimir Putin once called Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, a "lone warrior."

Putin was joking, but that description is starting to look more and more accurate. Russia has joined about 100 countries in backing a resolution at the upcoming World Health Assembly (WHA), calling for an independent inquiry into the coronavirus pandemic.

The European Union-drafted resolution comes on the back of a push by Australia for an inquiry into China's initial handling of the crisis.

That was met with an angry response from Beijing, which accused Canberra of a "highly irresponsible" move that could "disrupt international cooperation in fighting the pandemic and goes against people's shared aspiration."

While the resolution to be presented at the annual meeting of World Health Organization (WHO) members, which begins on Monday in Geneva, does not single out China or any other country, it calls for an "impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation" of "the (WHO)-coordinated international health response to Covid-19."

[thesloppy]

Well, let's remember that Russia is literally pushing covid experts out of windows. At this point Russia's involvement in anything only lessens my confidence in that thing.

There's certainly legitimate questions to be answered and investigating to be done, and it seems fairly obvious and unsurprising that China failed at parts of their response that depended on being transparent and honest, at the cost of significant number of lives in other countries....but a good number of those 100 leaders are surely getting in line solely so they blame any and all of their own poor decisions entirely on China.

[CrimsonFox]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

U.S. Testing is ramping up at a pretty decent clip, actually. I don't know if it will be enough, but we're not doing as badly as we were.

dickhead is trying to shut it all down tho

[albionmoonlight]

I'm still seeing a lot of places talking about mandatory temperature checks as part of how they will reopen safely.

Am I missing something, or is that kind of pointless since the whole thing that makes the novel coronavirus such a problem is asymptomatic spread?

I understand the human nature to want to "do something." And taking someone's temperature feels like a very good and medical thing to do (Have you ever been to a doctor's appointment where they didn't?). So I am sure that part of it is well meaning people trying to do whatever they can.

But I worry that the effect will be akin to security theater. Lots of inconvenience meant to produce the appearance of safety that actually gives people a false sense of security.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

I'm still seeing a lot of places talking about mandatory temperature checks as part of how they will reopen safely.

Am I missing something, or is that kind of pointless since the whole thing that makes the novel coronavirus such a problem is asymptomatic spread?

I understand the human nature to want to "do something." And taking someone's temperature feels like a very good and medical thing to do (Have you ever been to a doctor's appointment where they didn't?). So I am sure that part of it is well meaning people trying to do whatever they can.

But I worry that the effect will be akin to security theater. Lots of inconvenience meant to produce the appearance of safety that actually gives people a false sense of security.

How I see it is it'll help as not everyone is asymptomatic and it'll help with continued awareness awareness.

FWIW, here's a CNN graphic that shows past 14 days trend per state. GA is looking good for now.

Tracking Covid-19 cases in the US

[ISiddiqui]

I think the temperature checks serve two purposes. 1) I don't usually know when I have a mild fever, 2) it will prevent people who just don't care that they are sick from coming in.

[JPhillips]

Yeah, I would think a combination of approaches would most greatly reduce the odds of transmission. Masks, distance, dividers, temperature checks, disinfecting, etc. None of them stop transmission completely, but each additional measure reduces the odds more.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Edward64

GA is looking good for now.

I'm going to be cautious about this because from what I can see, Florida is trending up, South Carolina is trending up, North Carolina is trending up, and Alabama is flat. Though Tennessee is trending down as well.

So I wonder why GA is different - maybe we are benefiting (so to speak) from having a really early cluster in the Albany region in the SW of the state or something else is going on.

[cartman]

Texas is trending up as well.

[Atocep]

Things are very slowly starting to move toward reopening here. The Seattle Elite League just released their plan to restart play on the 22nd of June for 18U baseball. All of this applies to phase 3 of the reopening. For phase 4 most of this will be lifted. This is assuming we're able to go from phase 2 on the 1st of June to Phase 3 on the 22nd.

*No more than 5 players+coaches in the dugout at any time. Any player's+coaches over that number must find an area outside the dugout to wait and stay 6 feet apart.

*Players/coaches must sanitize their hands when going onto the field the first time for warmups and any time they're coming off the field (between every inning).

*No multi-field venues will be used until phase 4

*Social distancing will be enforced in the stands

*The homeplate umpire must wear a mask since social distancing can't be maintained between ump/catcher/batters.

*Coaches are responsible for sanitizing the dugouts after the game is complete.


Several other stipulations as well, but that's the general outline of how baseball will likely look for high school aged kids this summer.

[molson]

It will be an adjustment for youth sports parents to only be allowed to violently threaten volunteer officials from 6 feet away.

[tarcone]

They ran a baseball tourney around here a couple weekends ago. Ump was 6 feet behind the pitchers mound and the catcher was 6 feet behind home plate.

I didnt think it was really baseball at that point. I guess they did not allow stealing, but Im not sure.

[CrimsonFox]

Originally Posted by molson

It will be an adjustment for youth sports parents to only be allowed to violently threaten volunteer officials from 6 feet away.

hahahaha

well played

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by molson

It will be an adjustment for youth sports parents to only be allowed to violently threaten volunteer officials from 6 feet away.

Beautiful

SI

[ISiddiqui]

I literally laughed out loud at that.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by molson

It will be an adjustment for youth sports parents to only be allowed to violently threaten volunteer officials from 6 feet away.

The nice thing about watching 18U baseball is there's usually only 10 or parents in the stands between the two teams. Social distancing should be pretty easy.

There's absolutely nothing that I miss about the days of 8-12u baseball though. I can't imagine what it's going to be like trying to get those ages up and running. The parents in that age range are awful enough as it is.

[rjolley]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

I'm going to be cautious about this because from what I can see, Florida is trending up, South Carolina is trending up, North Carolina is trending up, and Alabama is flat. Though Tennessee is trending down as well.

So I wonder why GA is different - maybe we are benefiting (so to speak) from having a really early cluster in the Albany region in the SW of the state or something else is going on.

Are the GA numbers before or after the change to the tracking numbers? I read an article yesterday that they were reporting the data out of order so that the rates appeared to be falling when, in fact, they were not.

Here's the article.

[ISiddiqui]

Even with the change to put the numbers in chronological order it appears cases are even, maybe slightly trending down. But deaths are definitely tracking even. Though today's cases looks to be slightly higher that the number of cases last Monday.

[Edward64]

And now China supports the investigation but wants WHO to drive it and wait until the crises is over. I think they know its inevitable there will be one.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/18/healt...ntl/index.html

Chinese President Xi Jinping said he supports calls for an investigation into the handling of the coronavirus pandemic at a key summit Monday, but insisted that any inquiry should wait until the virus is contained.

Xi spoke at the World Health Assembly after more than 100 countries backed a resolution calling for an independent inquiry into the pandemic, which has so far claimed more than 300,000 lives globally.

[Edward64]

Watching CNBC and they talked about Delta flights being down 90% same time last year. And then they added 250K traveled on Sunday.

That's 250K people more brave/foolish than I am. I'm all for slowly re-opening but I wouldn't get on a plane right now. If I had to absolutely get somewhere, I'd ask the company about driving.

[RainMaker]

There is no chance I'm going into any confined space with a bunch of people sharing the same air. Airplanes and public transportation would be #1 on my list of places to avoid.

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Watching CNBC and they talked about Delta flights being down 90% same time last year. And then they added 250K traveled on Sunday.

That's 250K people more brave/foolish than I am. I'm all for slowly re-opening but I wouldn't get on a plane right now. If I had to absolutely get somewhere, I'd ask the company about driving.

My brother in law had covid, he traveled quite a bit for his job and thinks an airplane is probably where he got it. I wonder how many of those on planes are "recovered" covid survivors? Insignificant number or a big chunk of them?

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by panerd

My brother in law had covid, he traveled quite a bit for his job and thinks an airplane is probably where he got it. I wonder how many of those on planes are "recovered" covid survivors? Insignificant number or a big chunk of them?

Care to share how was your BIL diagnosis, treatment, experiences with Drs & hospitals etc.?

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Care to share how was your BIL diagnosis, treatment, experiences with Drs & hospitals etc.?

Businessman living in Dallas traveled all the time all over the country including in March. Was never diagnosed actually in the office. He is in his late 40s had a fever he couldnt shake for about 2 weeks and lost his sense of taste and smell. His doctor told him no need to come in because he definitely had all the signs the virus but to go to the hospital if things got worse couldnt breathe etc. He was living on his own because his family is up in Colorado during the school year so he quarenteened for another two weeks after. Dont think he has gotten an antibody test but they say the smell thing is pretty telltale sign.

He will either tell you it was the worst thing he has ever had or a piece of cake depending in which crowd he is talking to.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by panerd

Businessman living in Dallas traveled all the time all over the country including in March. Was never diagnosed actually in the office. He is in his late 40s had a fever he couldnt shake for about 2 weeks and lost his sense of taste and smell. His doctor told him no need to come in because he definitely had all the signs the virus but to go to the hospital if things got worse couldnt breathe etc. He was living on his own because his family is up in Colorado during the school year so he quarenteened for another two weeks after. Dont think he has gotten an antibody test but they say the smell thing is pretty telltale sign.

He will either tell you it was the worst thing he has ever had or a piece of cake depending in which crowd he is talking to.

My wife travels a ton for work under ordinary circumstances. She was travelling right up until the shutdowns. We are amazed she didn't have it.

[CrimsonFox]

Did she get antibodies test Lathum? Maybe she did.

[RainMaker]

This may explain why numbers in Florida were suspiciously low.
As Florida re-opens, COVID-19 data chief gets sidelined and researchers cry foul

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by CrimsonFox

Did she get antibodies test Lathum? Maybe she did.

Yeah. We both got them. Much to our disappointment they were negative.

[thesloppy]

It's interesting to see modern pop-culture and American-style celebrity try to persist through the lens of the lockdown. Like, taking commencement, hope & advice from random celebrities has always been questionable, but it's especially absurd to see some of that try to persist via tablet camera, with all of the glamour and processing stripped away.

[albionmoonlight]

We've been doing a moderate amount of takeout food, but I am wondering if that will continue once NC reopens places for dine-in.

Currently, I have some confidence that the people making the food are being socially distanced. But as we've seen across the country, once places re-open, a subset of customers seem to take it as almost a point of pride to not wear masks, breath on the cashiers, etc.

It seems somewhat inevitable that restaurant workers will start to get contagious as restaurants re-open.

Not sure I want to be going there to get food or not.

Counter argument--take out is easy and tasty.

[RainMaker]

This is good news for some sort of re-opening. Does seem like wearing a mask, washing hands, and keeping a distance can make things much more livable.

Coronavirus: Wearing surgical masks can reduce COVID-19 spread by 75%, study claims | World News | Sky News

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

We've been doing a moderate amount of takeout food, but I am wondering if that will continue once NC reopens places for dine-in.

Currently, I have some confidence that the people making the food are being socially distanced. But as we've seen across the country, once places re-open, a subset of customers seem to take it as almost a point of pride to not wear masks, breath on the cashiers, etc.

It seems somewhat inevitable that restaurant workers will start to get contagious as restaurants re-open.

Not sure I want to be going there to get food or not.

Counter argument--take out is easy and tasty.

We've been struggling with this decision, too, after Texas reopened last week.

Counter, counter-point: takeout isn't nearly as easy as it used to be when you have to repackage everything, be extra careful getting it out of containers, etc.

SI

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

This is good news for some sort of re-opening. Does seem like wearing a mask, washing hands, and keeping a distance can make things much more livable.

Coronavirus: Wearing surgical masks can reduce COVID-19 spread by 75%, study claims | World News | Sky News

Now to get people to wear masks!

[Arles]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

We've been struggling with this decision, too, after Texas reopened last week.

Counter, counter-point: takeout isn't nearly as easy as it used to be when you have to repackage everything, be extra careful getting it out of containers, etc.

SI

Has anyone really look at the risk of a pizza or takeout with all this? I know it's certainly possible, but it seems like you would almost need to hit the lottery to get it from take out. Between the heat of the food, the provided utensils in wrappers and long odds of getting it from an inanimate object (esp when most places are taking some precautions) - it just seems like you have a better chance of getting it on a socially distanced walk in the park than a brown bag from takeout.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Arles

Has anyone really look at the risk of a pizza or takeout with all this? I know it's certainly possible, but it seems like you would almost need to hit the lottery to get it from take out. Between the heat of the food, the provided utensils in wrappers and long odds of getting it from an inanimate object (esp when most places are taking some precautions) - it just seems like you have a better chance of getting it on a socially distanced walk in the park than a brown bag from takeout.

I haven't seen any conclusive studies about it. Kindof depends on what you're getting - like salad, etc - something cold - would have a much higher risk. But as soon as something is in the oven, it's safe.

To me, where it could get "un-safe" is when it is taken out of oven (presumably breathed on by workers, hopefully with masks). The delivery containers are certainly a risk, considering how long this stupid virus likes to live on surfaces. So if, say, pizza boxes are just sitting around and being breathed on all day by infected people (not literally someone just breathing on boxes - that'd just be weird - but like in the same enclosed area with minimal ventilation, which most kitchens are to some degree), that's a legit vector. Same with whatever smaller containers go in the bigger containers or whatever bags the bigger containers go into.

SI

[Arles]

OK, so I envision a scenario where I have covid and am boxing your takeout. Let's say I don't have a mask, box your food and then call for delivery that takes less than 20 min. Even in that situation, I can't imagine the odds of you getting the virus from the packaging being higher than 1%. From what I understand, the virus would have to get on a container within 25 min of you touching the container. You would then need to touch that container in the exact spot where the virus was and then touch your face/eyes all without ever washing your hands.

I guess it's not a massive hassle to repackage take-out, but I don't really see the need to. if you just wash your hands before eating you've pretty much eliminated that 1% chance. Plus, I have yet to see anyone packaging food for takeout not wear a mask. If that happens, your 1% chance goes away even if you didn't wash your hands.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Arles

Has anyone really look at the risk of a pizza or takeout with all this? I know it's certainly possible, but it seems like you would almost need to hit the lottery to get it from take out. Between the heat of the food, the provided utensils in wrappers and long odds of getting it from an inanimate object (esp when most places are taking some precautions) - it just seems like you have a better chance of getting it on a socially distanced walk in the park than a brown bag from takeout.

Generally its very low to get the virus from surfaces of any kind. Basically you'd have to touch a surface where someone sneezed on (or something) and then immediately put it into your mouth. Sure the virus can live on surfaces, but it's difficult to get enough of the virus (and remember viral load matters a lot here) transferred from infected person to surface to non-infected person for the non-infected person to get infected.

[JPhillips]

I went to Home Depot to go to the garden section that's not roofed. The entrance to that area was exit only and the entrance to the main store was a little jammed while the parking lot was packed. I came home instead of going in.

Keep in mind that where I live the death count suggests around 40k people in my county have been infected.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Arles

OK, so I envision a scenario where I have covid and am boxing your takeout. Let's say I don't have a mask, box your food and then call for delivery that takes less than 20 min. Even in that situation, I can't imagine the odds of you getting the virus from the packaging being higher than 1%. From what I understand, the virus would have to get on a container within 25 min of you touching the container. You would then need to touch that container in the exact spot where the virus was and then touch your face/eyes all without ever washing your hands.

I guess it's not a massive hassle to repackage take-out, but I don't really see the need to. if you just wash your hands before eating you've pretty much eliminated that 1% chance. Plus, I have yet to see anyone packaging food for takeout not wear a mask. If that happens, your 1% chance goes away even if you didn't wash your hands.

Right. That's exactly what I've seen as well. Generally getting takeout or delivery is safe. If you want to be extra cautious, you could wipe down the boxes with Clorox or repackage. We do a quick Clorox wipe and wash well.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Arles

OK, so I envision a scenario where I have covid and am boxing your takeout. Let's say I don't have a mask, box your food and then call for delivery that takes less than 20 min. Even in that situation, I can't imagine the odds of you getting the virus from the packaging being higher than 1%. From what I understand, the virus would have to get on a container within 25 min of you touching the container. You would then need to touch that container in the exact spot where the virus was and then touch your face/eyes all without ever washing your hands.

I guess it's not a massive hassle to repackage take-out, but I don't really see the need to. if you just wash your hands before eating you've pretty much eliminated that 1% chance. Plus, I have yet to see anyone packaging food for takeout not wear a mask. If that happens, your 1% chance goes away even if you didn't wash your hands.

FYI: What I mean by "repackage" is just that we put our food onto plates instead of eating out of the carryout containers (because then if there is a risk of surface contamination, it's something that happens each time you might inadvertently touch the "plate"). Considering everyone wants to put like 50 individual containers in each carryout order, it's a bit of a pain in the butt. That's all I was getting at.

SI

[tyketime]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

This may explain why numbers in Florida were suspiciously low.
As Florida re-opens, COVID-19 data chief gets sidelined and researchers cry foul

This is bothering me greatly as more information comes to light. I wouldn't be surprised if other states are also presenting data in a very controlled, not necessarily the entire truth, kind of way

[IlliniCub]

Originally Posted by Arles

OK, so I envision a scenario where I have covid and am boxing your takeout. Let's say I don't have a mask, box your food and then call for delivery that takes less than 20 min. Even in that situation, I can't imagine the odds of you getting the virus from the packaging being higher than 1%. From what I understand, the virus would have to get on a container within 25 min of you touching the container. You would then need to touch that container in the exact spot where the virus was and then touch your face/eyes all without ever washing your hands.

I guess it's not a massive hassle to repackage take-out, but I don't really see the need to. if you just wash your hands before eating you've pretty much eliminated that 1% chance. Plus, I have yet to see anyone packaging food for takeout not wear a mask. If that happens, your 1% chance goes away even if you didn't wash your hands.

So I agree 100% with everything you have said and the risk of contamination from the above scenarios is very low, especially with new data coming out that surface transfer is even less than we thought. However, for someone like me that's admittedly a germaphobe the piece of mind out weighs the hassle. I don't claim it's rational but it makes me feel better so yeah I repackage as well.

[AlexB]

Originally Posted by tyketime

This is bothering me greatly as more information comes to light. I wouldn't be surprised if other states are also presenting data in a very controlled, not necessarily the entire truth, kind of way

Over here the official figure is 35,500 Covid deaths, but the excess deaths since it started the last time I checked (which was some time ago now) was there was well over 50,000 deaths above the 5-year average

Given that before CV19 the average death level was below the 5 year average, the real figure from the virus is likely to be at least 50% higher than what is being reported

[Kodos]

I thought this video was pretty good at laying things out.

What's Next with COVID-19: New Normal or Second Wave? < Research, Clinical & Data Driven Responses to COVID-19

[Atocep]

Sweden's herd immunity approach seems to be failing.

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Atocep

Sweden's herd immunity approach seems to be failing.

I would agree that Sweden's approach would not be the best one in my opinion but doesn't it seem like evaluating a method like that would have to wait until next year? I mean if all the other countries have 2nd/3rd waves and they don't it would be a massive success right?

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by panerd

I would agree that Sweden's approach would not be the best one in my opinion but doesn't it seem like evaluating a method like that would have to wait until next year? I mean if all the other countries have 2nd/3rd waves and they don't it would be a massive success right?

They had the world's highest death per capita of any country over the past week. It may be too early to call it a failure overall, but they are trending in the wrong direction and they don't have measures in place to correct that trend. Hospitals not accepting any covid patients from nursing homes so they can better manage patient loads isn't going to help either.

[JPhillips]

A new report claims Sweden has 20% with antibodies. That's terrible given the deaths and basically the same damage to the economy as their neighbors that locked down.

[whomario]

I have a very hard time believing that 20% is 'current', do you happen to have the link to the article for context ? There was a study with this result recently but that was retracted due to massive mistakes in the math.

Also, if anybody wants to get angry at an established figure in science (the guy that did the SantaClara study) doubling down in highly dubious Fashion, someone did that for you:

Twitter


Pandemic blog 23: why one published research finding is misleading – Quomodocumque

That study found that in blood donors, all ages 18-72 (Ioannidis says <70, not sure why), 2.7% showed immunity. Ioannidis reports this, then makes the following computation. About 15m of the 17m people in the Netherlands are under 70, so this suggests roughly 400,000 people in that age group had been infected, of whom only 344 had died at the time of the study, giving an IFR of a mere 0.09%. Some plague! Ioannidis puts this number in his table and counts it among those of which he writes “Seven of the 12 inferred IFRs are in the range 0.07 to 0.20 (corrected IFR of 0.06 to 0.16) which are similar to IFR values of seasonal influenza.”
(...)
Now we definitely don’t know that the infection rate among old Dutch people is the same as it is in the overall population! But even if you suppose that every single person over 70 in the country is infected, that gets you to a little over 2 million infections, and an IFR of 0.15%. In other words, the number reported by Ioannidis is substantially lower than the theoretical minimum the IFR could actually be. And of course, it’s not the case that everybody over 70 already had COVID-19 in the middle of April. (For one thing, that would make the IFR for over-70s only slightly higher than the IFR overall, which contradicts the one thing about COVID we really know!)

Several more major gaffes, like putting the population of Oise in France 8-times higher than reality (what shock the IFR is low ...) and not considering the issues of the studies he chooses (essentially by a variation of "googling" and picking what Supports his view) or that the oft-cited 0.1 for Influenza is a Case Fatality rate (and no, the IFR won't be as much lower as it is with Covid19, with Influenza both cases and deaths are severely undercounted, but it also is not the same).

I know i come across as overly skeptical or even alarmist Sometimes ... I don't want Covid19 to be a big problem nor do i fail to see how big the Problems are caused from the response.
But you have got to be honest and 'true' in science, that is the most basic thing.

I actually have no Problem being told that the 'cure' is devastating in it's effect, but please don't purposefully mislead people on the 'disease' to make that point. You just can't say that 2 illnesses are equally harmfull by excluding the death count among the most vulnerable group in only one of them !!