Covid 19 thread

[12intheBox]

Numbers are up today for the US: 86,012 cases with 1,301 dead so we're at 1.5%. The obvious downward trend we were seeing with mortality has stopped for the past week or so.

I feel like we're at a crossroads tbh, where we have to more closely balance the risk of trying to shut everything down vs the spread with more of an eye towards ensuring stores don't run out of food and people don't starve to death.

Is that the case or does it just take a few weeks for this to kill you?

 

[Merlin]

Is that the case or does it just take a few weeks for this to kill you?

Not sure I follow. What do you mean?

 

[12intheBox]

Not sure I follow. What do you mean?

I mean the infection hasn't been in the US that long. We have the most cases in the world all of a sudden but not as many deaths. If the cycle is such that a typical case dies after having been infected for a few weeks, our 1.5% death rate may get worse. The patients who are going to die, just haven't died yet.

I hope that is all wrong, by the way. I hope not another soul dies and this thing ends - I am just worried that the death rate isn't falling as testing is increasing the way I hoped it would.

 

[SteezyEndo]

Kind of wonder how many people are taking advantage of the situation. HIV-aids is worse yet that doesn’t stop people with their sexual escapades.

 

[Pancake]

So I have set up my 3d printer to print medical shields parts. Anyone who has a 3d printer can help. Here is where i found info to get started.
View: https://youtu.be/CHDMdyN5Jjs


Also I'm looking into setting up my extra pc's for "folding". Still learning about it but here is a link if your interested in helping with that.

View: https://youtu.be/KU4qOebhkfs

 

[thirteen28]

I mean the infection hasn't been in the US that long.

I'd bet it's been in the U.S. longer than we know, and certainly longer than when we had our first confirmed case. We had 10,000 people per day coming in from the country that was the epicenter of the outbreak right up until January 31st. Odds are that some of them brought it in with them.

 

[Mackeyser]

Thanks for underscoring my point that you are looking at this from only one perspective, completely ignoring the economic consideration and attendant costs thereof.



Don't touch your face. That's how you spread the disease.



Italy has universal healthcare. How'd things work out there?

So does China for that matter. So does Spain.


"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety)" - H.L. Mencken

Yeah, I put lives over economics because I’m not a sociopath. And had we done that initially, BOTH would be better served.

I’ll wash my hands and face extra because there’s no way to not facepalm after reading that post.

As of now, we lead the world in cases and the death count tends to trail the case count by 2-4 weeks. So, a) we still don’t know how bad this will be for us and b) there isn’t a single scientist who’s working on this who hasn’t said the worst is ahead of us.

Yes there is pain in any economic downturn including loss of life. If we truly gave a shit as a society about that...so many things would be different. But we don’t so they aren’t.

I’ll be sorry as hell at the end of this to review all this because we’re all so damn thick and selfish that we won’t do what it takes to prevent it from happening again and again and again...

 

[Merlin]

I mean the infection hasn't been in the US that long. We have the most cases in the world all of a sudden but not as many deaths. If the cycle is such that a typical case dies after having been infected for a few weeks, our 1.5% death rate may get worse. The patients who are going to die, just haven't died yet.

I hope that is all wrong, by the way. I hope not another soul dies and this thing ends - I am just worried that the death rate isn't falling as testing is increasing the way I hoped it would.

I've been tracking that percentage for a while now. It was higher initially but had a clear trend downwards until it hit 1% about a week ago and it has slightly increased since. So who knows.

I expect there to be some ebb and flow as groups of infected suffer some fatalities and whatnot. But overall we are a rather solid 1.5% which is why I've been saying the world rates seem higher due to untrustworthy numbers and some countries with poor health care systems.

Either way the US has the most cases in the world now. So we have some solid numbers to look at now. Over time those ebbs and flows will lessen in fluctuation or so I hope and then we'll see where we're at. Even 1.5% is going to kill a lot of people so it's sobering, and I'm still hoping it will be well down below 1%.

 

[Dieter the Brock]

I’ll be sorry as hell at the end of this to review all this because we’re all so damn thick and selfish that we won’t do what it takes to prevent it from happening again and again and again...

Not so sure.
I think there is no way this doesn’t change everything moving forward. There is going to be a huge shift in how we think and act.

It’s funny watching TV and seeing shows where people are in crowds or bars, stadiums, parades, etc, simply enjoying themselves. I miss that. I think we will all miss that connection and ensure that we never have to go through this again. I mean to watch an Arsenal game on tape that happened just a month and a half ago and wax nostalgic is hardcore to me. I don’t agree with your pessimism or cynicism about how mankind will behave after all this is over. Yes it will be a tough slog back, but i think after this people will have a greater appreciation for our neighbors. You talk about a correction, this is a huge correction for all of us. And I think we’ll all get our heads out of our proverbial asses and strive for a better future for our kids. At least I will

 

[thirteen28]

Yeah, I put lives over economics because I’m not a sociopath. And had we done that initially, BOTH would be better served.

It's not "lives or economics" as you falsely portray it. It's the toll of the virus vs. the toll of severe economic dislocation, which could lead to lives lost just as well, maybe even more than the virus. You may think you are prioritizing lives over economics, but in reality you are just ignoring some lives and prioritizing the ones you feel should be saved.

As it stated in the post I put up earlier, and re-quoted, a 5% increase in unemployment (very possible if this continues) translates into about 16,500 suicides per year. So again, I ask you - why are the lives lost to the Wuhan virus more important than the lives lost to suicide brought on by economic dislocation?

You keep running from answering that question. Probably because you don't have a good answer. Still, your silence on the question speaks volumes.

As of now, we lead the world in cases and the death count tends to trail the case count by 2-4 weeks. So, a) we still don’t know how bad this will be for us and b) there isn’t a single scientist who’s working on this who hasn’t said the worst is ahead of us.

Well, if you believe China's stats, then yes we do have the most . I, for one don't. Considering they lied about the virus in the first place ... suppressed those in their country that were trying to warn us about it ... are (laughably) alleging they haven't had any new cases for the last several days ... expelled western journalist from their country ... have recently closed off their own country to any new arrivals ... recently shut down movie theaters again, after having re-opened them ... and so on.

You can trust the numbers provided by the Chinese government if you wish. I'll choose otherwise, given their track record.

Yes there is pain in any economic downturn including loss of life. If we truly gave a shit as a society about that...so many things would be different. But we don’t so they aren’t.

And yet, as you have clearly demonstrated above, you don't give a shit about lives lost due to economic downturn. If I'm wrong, prove it, and address the cost of lives and livelihoods that result from the type of non-targeted shutdown which you favor.

BTW, below are Dr. Fauci's own words from a piece he published in the New England Journal of Medicine yesterday:

If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.2

Some, who have previously held Dr. Fauci up as an oracle are now slamming him over this, keying on the word "assumes". But the assumption is far from unreasonable:

80% of Diamond Princess coronavirus patients had mild or no symptoms

The SDF report is believed to be one of the largest analyses of symptoms caused by the new virus to be compiled in Japan, according to the Defense Ministry.

www.japantimes.co.jp

About 80 percent of COVID-19 patients from the virus-hit Diamond Princess cruise ship showed mild symptoms or none at all, according to a report compiled by the Self-Defense Forces Central Hospital.

 

[thirteen28]

For those that want to use Italy as a projection for what will happen here, please see this:

Ten years (2004-2014) of influenza surveillance in Northern Italy - PubMed

As the regional influenza reference centre operating within the Italian network InfluNet, here we report data on virological and epidemiological surveillance of influenza, as well as on the vaccination coverage rates achieved in Lombardy (Northern Italy) over 10 consecutive winter seasons...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

The upshot: over the 10 year period studied, 2004-2014, Northern Italy (which is the epicenter of the outbreak in that country) has had an unusually high death rate from the flu. Any projection of what is happening in Italy onto the U.S. has to be adjusted for whatever factors makes their flu death rate so much higher than the norm, because this virus, like the flu, is essentially a respiratory disease.

 

[Corbin]

 

[Dieter the Brock]

View attachment 35021

I totally get your point

 

[Mackeyser]

Not so sure.
I think there is no way this doesn’t change everything moving forward. There is going to be a huge shift in how we think and act.

It’s funny watching TV and seeing shows where people are in crowds or bars, stadiums, parades, etc, simply enjoying themselves. I miss that. I think we will all miss that connection and ensure that we never have to go through this again. I mean to watch an Arsenal game on tape that happened just a month and a half ago and wax nostalgic is hardcore to me. I don’t agree with your pessimism or cynicism about how mankind will behave after all this is over. Yes it will be a tough slog back, but i think after this people will have a greater appreciation for our neighbors. You talk about a correction, this is a huge correction for all of us. And I think we’ll all get our heads out of our proverbial asses and strive for a better future for our kids. At least I will

No, I mean that we won't do what it takes to prevent this from happening again.

Nothing changed after 2008. If anything, they GREW the MBS market to about 4X the size prior to the crash with even crazier leverage. Don't think the Congress hasn't been briefed about that. They've also expanded into the auto loan market, securitizing those loans as well.

Nothing changed after Sandy Hook. I'm not talking about taking guns or even universal background checks. NOTHING changed... except kids are asking for bulletproof backpacks now. What an incredible indictment.

Nah, fam, we're a horribly selfish group that gets more selfish the smaller the group we associate with.

Will we make changes that would prevent this tragedy if it stops some Billionaire from making an extra buck or requires wine moms in the suburbs to do a little extra? Hell no.

If we loved one another as we aspire to do and as we pretend we do in movies, then maybe. But we don't....not even close.

But yeah, we'll get back to consuming asap because that's what we do. It only highlights how sad it all really is.

 

[Mackeyser]

It's not "lives or economics" as you falsely portray it. It's the toll of the virus vs. the toll of severe economic dislocation, which could lead to lives lost just as well, maybe even more than the virus. You may think you are prioritizing lives over economics, but in reality you are just ignoring some lives and prioritizing the ones you feel should be saved.

As it stated in the post I put up earlier, and re-quoted, a 5% increase in unemployment (very possible if this continues) translates into about 16,500 suicides per year. So again, I ask you - why are the lives lost to the Wuhan virus more important than the lives lost to suicide brought on by economic dislocation?

You keep running from answering that question. Probably because you don't have a good answer. Still, your silence on the question speaks volumes.

Firstly, I've not put one set of lives over another. My point all along is that this was very serious, was taken very lightly at first, dismissed as a matter of public health and NOW we have people making this argument. Where was this argument a month ago?

See, I study econ on my spare time. I studied it in college and it's something that comes naturally to me. I called the housing market crash in Nov' 2005 based on the work that *I* did in looking at the data. I'm very much aware of what happens when there's an economic downturn.

My point is that if we gave a single shit about this when we could have done something, BOTH sets of lives would have been prioritized. Instead, we had dogmatic bullshit substituting for science and NOW people are trying to pit one group of lives against another.

Well, F all that. Some of us cared and wanted to get in there quick to AVERT the tragedy based on the science.

My silence? I'll give you the whole thing loud and clear, but I'm pretty sure the mods wouldn't want that right now. Don't ever presume to speak for me or my motives.

Well, if you believe China's stats, then yes we do have the most . I, for one don't. Considering they lied about the virus in the first place ... suppressed those in their country that were trying to warn us about it ... are (laughably) alleging they haven't had any new cases for the last several days ... expelled western journalist from their country ... have recently closed off their own country to any new arrivals ... recently shut down movie theaters again, after having re-opened them ... and so on.

You can trust the numbers provided by the Chinese government if you wish. I'll choose otherwise, given their track record.

I actually agree with you here. I specifically said that China would have another outbreak and it looks like they might be in the beginning of one right now. I dunno where there numbers are, but short of China letting it get completely out of control, we're going to have the most cases and the most deaths unless India decides to play in which case, especially with the lack of clean water, COVID will ravage India, making China and the US look like Luxembourg.

And yet, as you have clearly demonstrated above, you don't give a shit about lives lost due to economic downturn. If I'm wrong, prove it, and address the cost of lives and livelihoods that result from the type of non-targeted shutdown which you favor.

BTW, below are Dr. Fauci's own words from a piece he published in the New England Journal of Medicine yesterday:

Some, who have previously held Dr. Fauci up as an oracle are now slamming him over this, keying on the word "assumes". But the assumption is far from unreasonable:

80% of Diamond Princess coronavirus patients had mild or no symptoms

The SDF report is believed to be one of the largest analyses of symptoms caused by the new virus to be compiled in Japan, according to the Defense Ministry.

www.japantimes.co.jp

Firstly, Dr Fauci has been doing a very tough job. When he or any other Dr sticks to the science, it's important. That said, what he said was at best an educated guess. We can't ever know because in the US we aren't mass testing. So we CAN'T know. He may be right or wrong, but the US numbers are almost as problematic as China due to the testing bias. Worse, we have no idea how many ill people are dying at home of pneumonia or other respiratory diseases as the cost of treatment is approx $35k and is NOT covered by the recent rescue package, only testing. And if you don't think people are going to remain untested because they don't want to be forced to pay $35k for treatment, I dunno what to tell you. There's no Do Not Treat for this.

As for your other nonsense, I don't love people or care about their lives based on a post that you didn't even understand? M'kay. Cool.

What you don't get is that I was caring about the lives of workers AND those who aren't covered by work, the poor who can't work or were unemployed, caregivers and the disabled, etc.

You want to weaponize workers against the poor and disabled as if they aren't in the same boat. Well, sorry, but they are and when it comes to pandemics, we're ALL in the same boat. It's NEVER been about either/or, it's been about BOTH, at least for me, all along.

I find it reprehensible that the ONLY time we hear about caring about the lives of workaday people is when there's an economic downturn that negatively affects the wealthy. THEN it matters. Doesn't seem to matter to the masses on a regular Tuesday. Why is that?

Sorry you didn't get that earlier.

Lastly, my only purpose in this thread was to share information and connect with my Rams community. I don't give a single shit to debate anyone's economic or political dogma, so to everyone...be well. Hydrate, space and wash your hands until they're all pruney.

Save the mods the response. I'll see my way out.

 

[Dieter the Brock]

No, I mean that we won't do what it takes to prevent this from happening again.

Nothing changed after 2008. If anything, they GREW the MBS market to about 4X the size prior to the crash with even crazier leverage. Don't think the Congress hasn't been briefed about that. They've also expanded into the auto loan market, securitizing those loans as well.

Nothing changed after Sandy Hook. I'm not talking about taking guns or even universal background checks. NOTHING changed... except kids are asking for bulletproof backpacks now. What an incredible indictment.

Nah, fam, we're a horribly selfish group that gets more selfish the smaller the group we associate with.

Will we make changes that would prevent this tragedy if it stops some Billionaire from making an extra buck or requires wine moms in the suburbs to do a little extra? Hell no.

If we loved one another as we aspire to do and as we pretend we do in movies, then maybe. But we don't....not even close.

But yeah, we'll get back to consuming asap because that's what we do. It only highlights how sad it all really is.

I disagree
I have seen a change in attitude amongst people already. With my own eyes. It’s happening.
I will also be part of what makes a difference moving forward and fight against cynicism and self interest
You can too.

 

[XXXIVwin]

Hey Mac, sure hope you don’t stay away too long... I have found your posts on this topic to be particularly well informed and interesting. Cheers.

 

[12intheBox]

3/27/2020

553,244 confirmed
25,035 dead

4.5 %

3/28/2020

615,519 Confirmed
28,717 dead

4.6 %

 

[Angry Ram]

I can just hear the keyboards being pounded right about now...

 

[thirteen28]

Firstly, I've not put one set of lives over another. My point all along is that this was very serious, was taken very lightly at first, dismissed as a matter of public health and NOW we have people making this argument. Where was this argument a month ago?

And my point all along is that the response should not end up causing more damage than the disease itself, and that the response should be proportional, targeted to the most vulnerable while not creating a whole host of problems for those that are not vulnerable, thereby making this a much bigger tragedy. And in making that larger point, I also made the point that we have to consider not only the spread of the disease on one side, but the economic and human toll of blanket, mass shutdowns of the economy on the other side, since that's the solution we have been taking.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but man, does it appear that you objected, and strenuously so, to those points.

See, I study econ on my spare time. I studied it in college and it's something that comes naturally to me. I called the housing market crash in Nov' 2005 based on the work that *I* did in looking at the data.

In this thread here, you have used very little data in your responses to me, but lots of emotion, mostly underlying fear. I've tried to get you to address some of the various data I have linked to, and you haven't.

- You haven't specifically addressed the 3.3 million new unemployment claims
- you haven't specifically addressed the additional suicides that result from unemployment, outlined in one of the articles I linked to
- you haven't addressed anything about the case of the Diamond princess, which involves an environment which is ideal for the virus to spread, with a statistically significant sample size, albeit one with a selection bias that skews toward the most vulnerable demographic by age, and, which despite all that, found only a 17% infection rate, with most of those asymptomatic and a majority of those with symptoms having light symptoms.

Well, F all that. Some of us cared and wanted to get in there quick to AVERT the tragedy based on the science.

What science did you base your proposed response on? Let's review some of the events we've seen in the past couple of month.

- Sometime around the 3rd week of January, the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) flatly stated that COVD-19 was not transmissible from human to human. Oops.

- Not long after that (and apparently ignoring the WHO), the administration here formed the first task force to respond to the new virus.

- On January 31st, the administration cut off all travel from the then-epicenter of the disease, China. That reduced from about 10,000 incoming per day (with overwhelming odds that some of them were carriers of the virus) to zero. Critics of the move said it was an overreaction, while hurling the usual epithets (racist, xenophobe, blah blah blah).

- In early March, after previously stating that COVD-19 couldn't be transmitted from human to human, the Director General of the WHO radically reversed course, stating that this disease had a mortality rate many times higher than the average seasonal flu, and predicted a Spanish-flu like scenario. That's a pretty big shift don't you think? From one extreme to the other. And yet from the data we know, he was wrong - wildly wrong - in both cases.

- Meanwhile, in Britain, a modeler from Imperial College predicted 500,000 deaths from the virus in the UK, and 2.2 million in the US. Within the past two days, he has revised the UK number down to 20,000 for the UK (I haven't seen his revision for the US). Yet, none of the lockdowns started in the UK until mid-March, which means the virus was there and spreading, and yet the numbers they did have with no mitigating actions were orders of magnitude short of his dire predictions. Not surprisingly, Professor Ferguson does not want to release the code for his model.

The last two bullet points are the most important, because those formed the basis for responses around the world, including in this country, are based on the worst case scenarios that they presented. And even before we went down that path, there was enough data out there to strongly suggest that the worst case scenarios would not materialize even if we did nothing. While doing nothing would be imprudent, with the data we did have, we could have taken a much more measured approach that protected the vulnerable while not restraining everybody else outside of that group.

Instead, the response over here, by governors and mayors across the nation, has been based in fear of the worst case scenario, creating an unfounded panic which as driven unemployment significantly higher in a very short amount of time and caused economic damage that will linger long after the virus is gone, while turning the mere act of the acquisition of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and basic food items into the fucking Hunger Games. Well done, people take a bow (insert golf clap here).

I dunno where there numbers are, but short of China letting it get completely out of control, we're going to have the most cases and the most deaths unless India decides to play in which case, especially with the lack of clean water, COVID will ravage India, making China and the US look like Luxembourg

I don't even know why you are making any reference to China at this point after conceding their faulty data and lack of credibility of their government's messaging regarding the virus. Their credibility was shot long ago, and in the last few days they've cut off their country to incoming travelers (XENOPHOBES!!!!) and expelled Western journalists.

That said, what he said was at best an educated guess.

An educated guess based on a lot more data - data that is trending strongly in the direction of his educated guess.

Speaking of data, we have a bit more that should now be considered:


View: https://twitter.com/MichaelCoudrey/status/1243734377198018560


This same doctor has done other tests with this drug with results in line with this, and other studies have also shown similar results. While the studied groups are in and of themselves not large enough to be statistically significant, pretty much every study with this drug has yielded results that, at worst, are in the same ballpark, if not nearly identical. This is a drug that has been around since the 1940's and has been used a lot so its side effects are very well known. And it's a drug for which there are 100's of millions of doses floating around the U.S. right now, exceeding the number of confirmed cases of COVD-19 by many orders of magnitude. Therefore, its wide availability and demonstrated effectiveness in fighting COVD-19 should be factored into how we proceed. It's another data point that says we can get the non-vulnerable back to work.

On the flip side of that though, we have governors (read: not medical professionals) in two states completely prohibiting the use of this drug to treat COVD-19. Care to comment on that?

He may be right or wrong, but the US numbers are almost as problematic as China due to the testing bias.

Again ... China. Why even bring them into the debate at this point? They have as much credibility on COVD-19 as the Soviet government had on Chernobyl, i.e. absolute zero. Their reported numbers are meaningless.

Worse, we have no idea how many ill people are dying at home of pneumonia or other respiratory diseases as the cost of treatment is approx $35k and is NOT covered by the recent rescue package, only testing. And if you don't think people are going to remain untested because they don't want to be forced to pay $35k for treatment, I dunno what to tell you.

This is purely conjecture on your part. If you want to make a point with this, present some actual data. Not anecdotes that come from some heartstring-pulling story from The New Yorker or The Atlantic Monthly, not a few anecdotes here and there, but actual data. Absent that, this point has no support and thus no validity.

You want to weaponize workers against the poor and disabled as if they aren't in the same boat.

Where did I do that? I'm merely trying to get the concerns of the workers considered in this discussion, with their needs balanced against those who are getting sick from COVD-19 and with the hopes that a compromise that addresses both sides and doesn't leave long lasting damage that will exceed that of the virus itself.

I find it reprehensible that the ONLY time we hear about caring about the lives of workaday people is when there's an economic downturn that negatively affects the wealthy.

What the hell does that even mean? The 3.3 million newly unemployed I have mentioned multiple times in this debate are most certainly not the wealthy. I haven't heard anything about millionaires and billionaires losing their jobs en masse while the blue collar workers keep trucking along. As someone who studies economics in their spare time should know, ANY economic downturn affects those at the bottom of the ladder first, and affects them the most. Can you give me an example of an economic downturn that affected only the wealthy while those on an hourly wage just keep going like nothing happened? Either way, that's not the case here, so again, that point is a complete non sequiter.

I can just hear the keyboards being pounded right about now...

You were saying?