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

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Like we've been talking about, the effects of this virus wasn't a secret. China and Italy were dealing with issues before we became serious about it. I can easily see a few financial analysts thinking this is going to be far worse than people are treating it in late February and adjusting their portfolios respectively.

Corona was discovered in the USA a full week before it did in Italy. There was nothing to learn from them back then.

But listening to China might have been wise, the whole world knows the Trump administration is too stubborn to ask help from countries he likes to insult.

Beating a dead horse here, most countries have different population sizes, demographics, density and public discipline. It's always apples and oranges.

[whomario]

Also: Without at least semi-stringent social distancing Rules, the German health system would fill up completely within 10 days. And our System stacks up extremely well in terms of capacity (total and Intensive Care with Ventilators) and is adding more space every day, both new beds and clearing beds (postponing operations etc). Italy has 2.5 times fewer available intensive beds per capita. Which is still much more than other countries such as the UK.

So this should show how the Situation in Italy could happen. All it needed was missing the outbreak by a week and having it grow largely unnoticed for a week longer than everybody thought ... (And in reality all signs point to it being way more than one week). That's how terrible this virus is when combining easy spread and not-even-extreme fatality, because without cure or vaccine all it takes is to go slightly passed capacity to have a cascading effect

Everything after, including the lockdown, is basically trying to turn around an oil tanker and will take a long time to get back below the point where you are operating at capacity. Until then mild cases turn severe and severe cases turn into deaths.

Long story short: Take it seriously, please.

[Arles]

Yeah, the US social distancing effort has been paramount to getting through this. We just had a bunch of business owners petition the governor to re-open restaurants (got denied). The worst was this morning. My birthday is on Monday and one of my buddies decided to plan a cul de sac party across the street for tomorrow night. Ugh, I told him there was no chance of that and shut it down. Thankfully my wife hadn't found out or she would have lost it. Yes, let's have a part with 20-30 people and kids everywhere in the middle of this virus fiasco. I was feeling good about things until that point - now I'm back to being worried about our collective intelligence again.

[tarcone]

I saw on the news we have like 53000 ICU beds in the country. Does that sound right?

If so, that could fill up next month.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Arles

Yeah, the US social distancing effort has been paramount to getting through this. We just had a bunch of business owners petition the governor to re-open restaurants (got denied). The worst was this morning. My birthday is on Monday and one of my buddies decided to plan a cul de sac party across the street for tomorrow night. Ugh, I told him there was no chance of that and shut it down. Thankfully my wife hadn't found out or she would have lost it. Yes, let's have a part with 20-30 people and kids everywhere in the middle of this virus fiasco. I was feeling good about things until that point - now I'm back to being worried about our collective intelligence again.

I keep seeing all the kids around the neighborhood playing with each other. I dashed into Kroger for 2 minutes today because the pickup missed a couple of key ingredients we needed for meals in the upcoming week and people were acting like it's just business as usual, only busier in the grocery store because of the increased demand. At my work, they put us, people who could work remotely, at 30% shift. So there are 1/3rd as many people there but we still have to go in every third day, defeating the purpose of a quarantine.



SI

[Brian Swartz]

All depends on how you classify them, but it's really close. 54k is the best number I can find. And yeah, we're probably going to run out. The big thing is how long do we run out for, how quickly can we get more in place, and so on.

[whomario]

Originally Posted by tarcone

I saw on the news we have like 53000 ICU beds in the country. Does that sound right?

If so, that could fill up next month.

Seems close to what i found. There are higher estimates, but those often carry an asterisk (meaning they are called "ICU" but would not necessarily meet the criteria when looking what you need for a respiratory illness.

Which is still pretty good and not nearly the biggest issue for the US. The main issue seems getting Rules in place, thenlack of early testing and a generally 'unhealthy' relationship between people and the health system . You can propagate free tests or even treatment* as loud as you want but people will still be more reluctant to go see a doctor until it is already almost too late than they would with proper health insurance or a better social safety net. And the later you detect the average case, the more likely it turns from mild to moderate or moderate to severe from what i gather.

* Is it in this case ?

[MIJB#19]

Here in the Netherlands, the provinces where the large infection rates are, the hospitals are expecting to see the intensive care completely full somewhere within a week. Additional IC beds are being created. Numbers of patients keep growing, they are already getting relocated all over the country. Shortage of supplies and personnel (number of infections keeps increasing there as well) is emerging.

Government is still optimistic, but the call for help from hospitals is clear. This semi lockdown started only 8 days ago, a week earlier if you include the hardest hit province, the current numbers are only suggesting things are getting worse every day. As to be expected, based on the incubation time, you'll need 4 weeks at minimum to see the effect of social distancing. The toughest part is yet to come, I suspect.

[whomario]

Yeah, personell being infected is a big issue ... In Italy about 8% of all positive tests were health personell. Which isnt only affecting people with Covid19, but has a ripple effect obviously for people with other serious injury currently in treatment.

Another factor is also that you can't exactly shift these patients around at will between hospitals/cities all that easily once they need to be on ventilators. So the total number is not really relevant for a city that gets a sudden influx of patients. And even if you could, 3 days later you might have an unexpected influx where you just moved some and face the same dilemma.

[Edward64]

Yup, right approach. Assume same as the hospital ships, these will contain the non-coronavirus patients or less in need ones to help with the hospital capacity.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/20/polit...als/index.html

The US military said it is working to convert buildings into hospitals and could potentially provide 10,000 hospital beds in New York, as the coronavirus pandemic escalates.

Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, the head of the US Army Corps of Engineers, said Friday that retrofitting hotels or dormitories into temporary hospitals to alleviate the burden on civilian hospitals caused by the virus would hopefully take three or four weeks.

"We would like to think we can do this in three or four weeks and try to go as fast as we can," Semonite told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Yup, right approach. Assume same as the hospital ships, these will contain the non-coronavirus patients or less in need ones to help with the hospital capacity.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/20/polit...als/index.html

Should have happened weeks ago.

[Icy]

Netflix and Amazon accept reducing the bitrate of the streamings in Europe to reduce a 25% of the internet traffic here due to all the people watching TV at home.

[whomario]

Originally Posted by Icy

Netflix and Amazon accept reducing the bitrate of the streamings in Europe to reduce a 25% of the internet traffic here due to all the people watching TV at home.

Isnt it more them reducing their bitrate by 25% ?

In any case the default rate of the streams is overkill for 95% of devices used to stream them anyway. Unless you have a ginormous 4k capable TV, i doubt one would notice it.

[Radii]

L.A. County gives up on containing coronavirus, tells doctors to skip testing of some patients - Los Angeles Times

A front-line healthcare provider who was not authorized to speak to the media and requested anonymity said county doctors are interpreting Thursday’s letter and other advice coming from senior L.A. County public health officials to mean they should only test patients who are going to be hospitalized or have something unique about the way they contracted the virus.

I suppose this just takes things that we've all been saying for awhile - that we are incapable of putting together a successful response as seen in South Korea and that isn't expected to change - so its just now official policy to severely ration testing.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by Radii

L.A. County gives up on containing coronavirus, tells doctors to skip testing of some patients - Los Angeles Times




I suppose this just takes things that we've all been saying for awhile - that we are incapable of putting together a successful response as seen in South Korea and that isn't expected to change - so its just now official policy to severely ration testing.

I makes me wonder as we get deeper in to this how many people are going to start swinging to the "we just need to let this run it's course" camp. Between the governments inept response ( political, sorry), job losses, inability for the system to handle unemployment claims, schools closed, and the general disruption of daily life, I wonder in there is going to start being an attitude of "yeah, I know it will be bad but lets get it over with."

[AlexB]

Tom Allen on The Last Leg:

“You know who I feel sorry for? Greta Thunberg. She can’t get the environment into the news right now can she?

And she can’t go back to school...”

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by Lathum

, I wonder in there is going to start being an attitude of "yeah, I know it will be bad but lets get it over with."

There are some people already there that I know. I remain of the opinion that's inevitably the worst option.

[tarcone]

1st death in St. Louis County

[Vegas Vic]

The second COVID-19 related death in Nevada was just reported, “a woman in her 60s with underlying medical conditions.” No other information on the victim was provided.

[NobodyHere]

Well there was the first death in my city today.

[Brian Swartz]

Unfortunately the United States seems destined to take the top spot in at least reported confirmed cases eventually. Just a matter of time.

[GoldenEagle]

I think this article sums up where I am at: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/o...istancing.html

[Fidatelo]

Pretty sure my son has an ear infection, which of course became obvious at 4pm on a Friday. I'm not taking him to emergency in this environment, and walk-ins are going to be nuts. Figured I'd call our Health Links line where you can speak with a nurse, see if there are other options. System is being hammered with COVID questions. Spent 2 hours on hold, then my dog walked past my phone and accidentally hung up with his face! Now I can't even get the number to respond and get back in a queue. Good times!

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

There are some people already there that I know. I remain of the opinion that's inevitably the worst option.

We aren't there yet but logic does dictate ...

[NobodyHere]

So we should let 1% of the population die instead of crashing the economy for everyone?

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

So we should let 1% of the population die instead of crashing the economy for everyone?

Current state long term (let's say 4-6 months) is untenable.

If we are clearly losing the war, then my preferred option first is to segregate the vulnerable+helpers from the general population.

If this fails for what ever reason, it's not "let 1% die" its really let everyone live as best as possible with social distancing and under the transparency that some will catch it and die.

[PilotMan]

So an update on Aviation.


The underlying infrastructure is beginning to falter. Nothing endangering safety, but keeping it from really working the way it's intended. First off, yesterday the government basically shut down all Americans leaving the country. The airlines are trying to figure out a way to operate while keeping options for foreign nationals to leave while getting americans home, but it's not going to be available for long. Eventually all international ops will shut down.


Domestic operations won't be far behind imo.



I'm sure you've heard about Chicago Midway shutting the tower down because someone tested positive. They've also shut down Las Vegas and JFK in NY. Last night, delays in JFK ran over 9 hours.


This morning Indy Center, which is the agency that controls airspace above local 'approach' controllers (who control areas around major cities and major airports up to 18,000 feet) had to shut down a large chunk of airspace between Indy, all the way in to Western PA. This resulted in more delays as planes couldn't be routed through their airspace. Again, because someone tested positive.



Compass airlines is shutting down in 2 weeks. Last night they notified their employees that they couldn't stay open. Compass was originally created by Northwest back in the early aughts, they flew for Delta and were most recently owned by Trans States Holdings (Trans States Airlines is also going out of business; leaving only GOJet Airlines as an operating airline for TSH).



This is just going to continue to get worse. There's no relief on the horizon.

[Flasch186]

I'm surprised that even this can't get the Pols to do what's needed and it would seem to have reached stasis in DC. Unfortunately, the only thing that might break the gridlock is pictures and videos of mass death I'm afraid.

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by Edward64

my preferred option first is to segregate the vulnerable+helpers from the general population.

This came up a day or two ago, and here's what I said in response:

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

If we had for example working teleportation technology, or a working fleet of millions of reliable drones, we could deliver a lot of the affected population what they need with no personal interaction. Of course we'd also need all of them to not be living with people who are still working, so the entire social structure of multi-generational habitation that is commonplace would also have to be changed. Do you know a feasible way to get these things done in a relevant timeframe?

It's not a case of either/or here. Because it's not possible in any way that I know to keep society functioning while still protecting the population we're talking about, I think it's best to find the least-bad options for maximizing our chances of not having a totally overrun medical system - or if that isn't possible, minimize said overrun. I certainly don't know where that line is, but I don't think the actions taken so far, extended over a longer period of time, are at all unwarranted.

That's still where I am. Maybe there's a path I haven't yet seen, but I don't think segregating the vulnerable is possible (we don't even have a good handle on exactly who the vulnerable even are yet) and the economy's crashing for everybody if the health system gets overwhelmed to the degree that it absolutely will if we don't try to arrest the spread of the virus. I'm not certain we haven't already largely lost that battle.

[whomario]

Testing is still lacking a lot in tons of countries. France just announced upping to 2500 and just had 1600 new positive tests. Granted that the turnaround will be closer to 3 days than 1 but even then this is a extremely high 'success rate' of somewhere around 30-40%. and indicates two equally horrifying facts: Most tests are done on already highly symptomatic patients (mainly in hospitals already) and there is no way they are being able to track contacts and test them with so few available. Considering a portion of tests should also be reserved for medical personel that number grows smaller the more you look at it. And no matter how you look at it, it is clear that there are a lot more people infected than positive results.

As a comparison, the labs in Berlin alone turn around about 1500 Tests every day and 'only' 4% of tests last week were positive. And nationwide capacity is about 25k and rising. (Not 25k seperate people obviously due to regular repeat testing of medical personel or quarantined persons).

Basically right now 4000 cases in Germany worries me a lot less than 1500 in France ...

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by Fidatelo

Spent 2 hours on hold, then my dog walked past my phone and accidentally hung up with his face!

Oh man, I'm sorry and good luck!

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

This came up a day or two ago, and here's what I said in response:

That's still where I am. Maybe there's a path I haven't yet seen, but I don't think segregating the vulnerable is possible (we don't even have a good handle on exactly who the vulnerable even are yet) and the economy's crashing for everybody if the health system gets overwhelmed to the degree that it absolutely will it we don't try to arrest the spread of the virus. I'm not certain we haven't already largely lost that battle.

Just some quick notes for this thought exercise. The use cases fall under these broad categories:

1) Relatively healthy vulnerable(s) living by themselves in a home, apt
2) Sickly vulnerable(s), living by themselves, in nursing homes, or assisted living
3) Relatively healthy vulnerable(s) living with other family members

The overarching assumptions are:

a) Duration is 12-18 months, until a vaccine is developed
b) There are services that will help bring groceries, fix plumbing etc.
c) There are assisted living services to come into house/apt and check up or help the vulnerable or take them for their check-ups as needed

So of the 3 use cases above, #1 & #2 can be handled because they are already relatively segregated.

Its #3 that is problematic. The only option I see is to segregate them into a #1 or #2 scenario. Move them into a re-purposed Motel 6 or like. Finding segregated housing for this #3 population would very likely be cheaper than maintaining current status quo for an extended period of time.

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Finding segregated housing for this #3 population would very likely be cheaper than maintaining current status quo for an extended period of time.

I think this would be true if the rest of the population could be confident of only mild cases and therefore proceed with minimal disruption. The current data indicates this isn't the situation though, as demonstrated by the CDC report a couple days ago:

** 38% of hospitalizations were for those 20-54 years old.
** Almost half of ICU admissions were under 65.

You could further broaden the net of the transplanted/segregated to everyone with a serious underlying condition in addition to those vulnerable because of age. The problem with that is you're now talking about anywhere from a fifth to more than a third of the country, depending on what conditions end up qualifying and how you measure it. Almost 10% of the country are diabetics alone. I don't think that's reasonable and/or viable. The information presently out there indicates to me that there are simply too many wide swaths of the population that are in the vulnerable category.

[Fidatelo]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

Oh man, I'm sorry and good luck!

Not sure if it came across, but it was meant in more of a jokey/facepalm vein, like Charlie Brown 'good grief'. Obviously a lot worse going on out there.


As it is, never could get through again, but an hour later one of my wife's random internet home remedies seemed to miraculously work (putting ice on his ear? I don't get it). But if he's happy, I'm happy!

[grdawg]

This article does not bode much confidence.

Georgia in the coronavirus age: Chaos, bad news, mounting deaths

It’s says in the article there were people on the plane that were positive yet
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention screened the other passengers for coronavirus symptoms — and then let them leave and book flights home, despite their exposure to the virus.”

After this is all over I think we need to entirely revamp the CDC or at least get them the funding they need because this is a shit show

[spleen1015]

Coronavirus Dashboard (Live)

A good link a coworker shared with me.

Looking at the graphs, this is spreading quicker in the US than any where else. Granted, I can't get China to show up on the 20 day graph and I think a lot of this depends on how quickly people are being tested.

No idea if or how any of this could have been avoided.

[JPhillips]

Roughly 2/3 of the passengers on the docked cruise ship have not been tested.

[miked]

I think people don't realize that casualties actually start increasing when hospitals run out of supplies and equipment, so that an initial 1% rate is pretty darn high. Put Sen Johnson's let 2-3% of the population die to preserve our economy in context.

Also, the really bad look is that reports are that the intel committee got reports of the impending doom in Jan/Feb and ignored. Worse so, a few of them sold off their stocks right away, but then fucked over the rest of the country.

[Brian Swartz]

There's only one thing I'm 100% sure of in the temporal world; the globe will not look the same when this has passed as it did before it showed up.

[PilotMan]

At the current rate of expansion in the US, we'll pass China in total cases in 5 days.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

At the current rate of expansion in the US, we'll pass China in total cases in 5 days.

The reality is we are likely past them now.

Wonder what happens when the first big celebrity dies.

[Brian Swartz]

Reports out of NY seem to indicate they'll start having serious space/ventilator problems by the end of the weekend. Coming soon to a big city near you. Connecticut joins the 'stay at home' parade. Between a fifth and a quarter of the United States is now under some for of that.

[thesloppy]

It's weird out there in my neighborhood, everybody was outside and on their porches because there's nothing left to do, so there was seemingly twice as many people out, and everybody is all polite and saying hello.....but also like walking in the street to not get too close, it's like Stepford Wives kinda shit.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

It's weird out there in my neighborhood, everybody was outside and on their porches because there's nothing left to do, so there was seemingly twice as many people out, and everybody is all polite and saying hello.....but also like walking in the street to not get too close, it's like Stepford Wives kinda shit.

Same for us. Took a walk and lots of people out but at 5:30 on a Friday almost no cars.

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

So an update on Aviation.


This is just going to continue to get worse. There's no relief on the horizon.

I don't know about the other companies but Delta isn't helping themselves in this either. They claim that "that the value of your ticket won’t be lost" (right from a Facebook post) - yet their solution to me having to cancel flights is no rebooking fee...as long as I fly by Sept 4. Who is planning a trip now to fly before then?

I realize how bad the industry is screwed with this and I realize that them giving my money back is only going to make things worse so its not really an option but why on earth is that credit not good until like 12/31/21? I mean if you screw over the people now they're not going to be in any hurry to come back when things are better. I'm certainly more apt now (as much as I hate it) to pack the family in a van and drive for two days to go to Florida on a Disney trip rather than forking over $2500+ for us to fly there on Delta next time.

[JPhillips]

Over 8400 confirmed cases in NY.

[NobodyHere]

Well NYC got one thing right

Liquor stores and coronavirus: New York says stores can stay open

[Arles]

So, I'm kinda new at this social distancing thing. But, let me see if I can get this right:

A. 40 people eating in a restaurant = bad
B. 50 people in line at Costco to get their 15th package of toilet paper = A-OK

[thesloppy]

Yeah, I haven't exactly seen the kind of attention (or any attention at all) to the touchscreens/keypads at the grocery store checkouts that I imagine they need.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

Yeah, I haven't exactly seen the kind of attention (or any attention at all) to the touchscreens/keypads at the grocery store checkouts that I imagine they need.

I think both Aldi & Kroger employees were all gloved up this week. Haven't seen WM since last Saturday morning & honestly don't remember one way or the other.