COVID-19 Thread

[Oxy]

Germany has become the gold standard for handling COVID-19. Anyone with mild symptoms can be tested. Easy drive thru testing. Almost 20K tests and just a 0.2% death rate.

 

Yeah, that will be interesting to monitor in the next few days/weeks. They are still in the early stages and look to be entering the exponential uptick right about now (as is New York), but the contrast between Germany+Switzerland vs Italy+Spain is pretty stark so far.

[reillymcshane]

627 dead in Italy in 24 hours. 86% of the dead were 70+. 96% were 60+.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/20/europe/italy-military-coronavirus-intl/index.html

 

Just gets worse and worse each day. Let's hope things peak there soon and they get over the hump and things get better.

[adambr2]

627 dead in Italy in 24 hours. 86% of the dead were 70+. 96% were 60+.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/20/europe/italy-military-coronavirus-intl/index.html

 

Just gets worse and worse each day. Let's hope things peak there soon and they get over the hump and things get better.

 

This thing might change Italy's entire demographics before it is done.

[Oxy]

And this is how the total death numbers can be off--also drastically. I had assumed something like this:

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-homes-insigh/uncounted-among-coronavirus-victims-deaths-sweep-through-italys-nursing-homes-idUSKBN2152V0

 

Different countries deal with their VERY elderly in very different ways.

[xisxisxis]

And this is how the total death numbers can be off--also drastically. I had assumed something like this:

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-homes-insigh/uncounted-among-coronavirus-victims-deaths-sweep-through-italys-nursing-homes-idUSKBN2152V0

 

Different countries deal with their VERY elderly in very different ways.

And a clue from that article why Italy's mortality rate is so high - they are only testing people with SEVERE Symptoms. So there are likely 3-4 times as many infected that just haven't been identified as they are either asymptomatic or have mild symptoms.

 

Sounds like the Germans are testing anyone they can.

[superfly]

And this is how the total death numbers can be off--also drastically. I had assumed something like this:

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-homes-insigh/uncounted-among-coronavirus-victims-deaths-sweep-through-italys-nursing-homes-idUSKBN2152V0

 

Different countries deal with their VERY elderly in very different ways.

And a clue from that article why Italy's mortality rate is so high - they are only testing people with SEVERE Symptoms. So there are likely 3-4 times as many infected that just haven't been identified as they are either asymptomatic or have mild symptoms.

 

Sounds like the Germans are testing anyone they can.

 

Based on what you are saying about that article....

 

So much dishonesty (and unknown being put out as “facts”) being printed by journalists it’s not funny. Some people need to lose their profession when this is all said and done. Basically with our alleged horrible testing our death rate is still only 1.3%. At the risk of being called someone that doesn’t care because I really do and it does bother me when I go out, we may be ruining our way of life over essentially nothing when we look back in a few years at this. I repeat, it is very real to those infected or who lose love ones, not downplaying it in that manner. The “essentially nothing” refers to other diseases we lose scores more people to and nobody cares because it happens slower, as well as there is no shock factor or ability for government to twist the population around its finger and see what they can get away with. As of today approximately 0.000033% of the world has been confirmed infected with coronavirus. Never let a good crisis go to waste.

[xisxisxis]

I understand that people may be freaking out about this, but we are way too early to be drawing any conclusions about the scope of this pandemic. But a few points:

 

1) Even if half our population is infected we are still likely losing 3-4million people. On a human being scale that is a huge hit, but overall it is only a small fraction of the population. I don't want to diminish the loss of those individuals and how it will effect families and friends, but on a societal level these are not world ending numbers. Will our society change? Yes, but it changes for many reasons all the time and if anything human beings are resilient. I have 100% faith that once we have to rebuild that even those that are beyond freaked out right now will be able to function during the recovery. We survived disco, bell-bottoms and ass-crack pants, and we will survive social distancing.

 

2) Is our economy ruined? Well what production capabilities have been destroyed? None. Supply side will recover relatively quickly. On the demand side, we will likely have some changes, but eventually there will be demand in more than just toilet paper and hand sanitizer. With the fed and government committed to making money flow we should have enough priming to get the economy moving again faster than in 2008.

 

3) While much of the uncertainty relates to the Coronavirus spread, the major issue with the stock market were triggered by Russia and Saudi Arabia starting a price war with gasoline that they show no signs of stopping. When we've recovered from Coronavirus and bailed out US oil production, we should be making some plans as to how to best "F" them both up.

 

So much dishonesty (and unknown being put out as “facts”) being printed by journalists it’s not funny.

I don't really know what you mean without specifics. The issues are complex. Each country tests and manages their patients differently. Everyone is trying to extrapolate the numbers without all the details. That will lead to mistakes. My only beef is that with all the people now out of work, why can't most of these outlets hire a friggin copy editor. Earlier today an article said that "France" had surpassed China in deaths - No, It's ITALY.

 

Some people need to lose their profession when this is all said and done

I can think of 539 that need to start working for a living instead of collecting a paycheck, the best health care, and a cushy retirement while being absolute crap at their job. Personally I would rather live next to a pedophile than a politician because the pedophile at least stands for something no matter which way the wind is blowing.

 

Never let a good crisis go to waste.

I really can't wrap my head around the idea that this is some form of manufactured self-destruction. The issue is pretty simple to me. We are attempting to keep the pandemic from spreading out of control across the country so that we don't lose 100's of thousands of people to a disease because the health care system has collapsed under the volume of ill people. All of this is trying to make sure we don't lose 20million people because we weren't vigilent enough in the beginning to make the right decisions. Is it worth a recession of we save 100,000 people? 1 million? 10,000,000? I don't think we can answer that as we will never know how bad it would be if we didn't risk a recession to take the steps to save lives. I think it's better to have a discussion on how we can make sure this doesn't happen again.

[homer]

And this is how the total death numbers can be off--also drastically. I had assumed something like this:

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-homes-insigh/uncounted-among-coronavirus-victims-deaths-sweep-through-italys-nursing-homes-idUSKBN2152V0

 

Different countries deal with their VERY elderly in very different ways.

And a clue from that article why Italy's mortality rate is so high - they are only testing people with SEVERE Symptoms. So there are likely 3-4 times as many infected that just haven't been identified as they are either asymptomatic or have mild symptoms.

 

Sounds like the Germans are testing anyone they can.

 

Based on what you are saying about that article....

 

So much dishonesty (and unknown being put out as “facts”) being printed by journalists it’s not funny. Some people need to lose their profession when this is all said and done. Basically with our alleged horrible testing our death rate is still only 1.3%. At the risk of being called someone that doesn’t care because I really do and it does bother me when I go out, we may be ruining our way of life over essentially nothing when we look back in a few years at this. I repeat, it is very real to those infected or who lose love ones, not downplaying it in that manner. The “essentially nothing” refers to other diseases we lose scores more people to and nobody cares because it happens slower, as well as there is no shock factor or ability for government to twist the population around its finger and see what they can get away with. As of today approximately 0.000033% of the world has been confirmed infected with coronavirus. Never let a good crisis go to waste.

 

Other diseases aren't as contagious. If we say "it was nothing" in a few years that means we did it right

[adambr2]

There's probably about 0 people total ever who have been convinced to look at things a little differently after reading a response like that.

 

EDIT: This response was to a deleted post, not to Homer.

[MrTPlush]

Well this seems like a good time to wish everyone good health to them and their families. Regardless of whether it is an overreaction or justified people of all ages are ending up in the ICU...even those healthy are probably being negatively impacted one way or another.

 

What isn’t debatable is this virus is quite dangerous for many at risk populations. I am sure we have numerous forum members that fall into that category or at least know many people that do. Seems like a poor time to call people names etc...it’s all a big joke till someone close to them dies or ends up on a ventilator.

[PeaveyFury]

Just a reminder that if you can't be civil, we'll be happy to socially distance you from the site for a day or two.

[Oxy]

 

Based on what you are saying about that article....

 

So much dishonesty (and unknown being put out as “facts”) being printed by journalists it’s not funny. Some people need to lose their profession when this is all said and done. Basically with our alleged horrible testing our death rate is still only 1.3%. At the risk of being called someone that doesn’t care because I really do and it does bother me when I go out, we may be ruining our way of life over essentially nothing when we look back in a few years at this. I repeat, it is very real to those infected or who lose love ones, not downplaying it in that manner. The “essentially nothing” refers to other diseases we lose scores more people to and nobody cares because it happens slower, as well as there is no shock factor or ability for government to twist the population around its finger and see what they can get away with. As of today approximately 0.000033% of the world has been confirmed infected with coronavirus. Never let a good crisis go to waste.

 

Other diseases aren't as contagious. If we say "it was nothing" in a few years that means we did it right

 

It depends how long and how widespread the shutdowns are relative to the outbreak. The shutdowns are necessary due to the novelty and lack of testing/vaccine for the virus/disease. We were trying to prevent utter disaster. In another 2 weeks we'll have a much better handle on localizing everything. It looks like New York may be shut down for awhile (months), while if it peaks and trends downward toward 0-ish for a week in most other places I would guess that those places will get back to business as usual (except for non-essential travel).

 

Right now the blanket shutdowns of everything have a lot of people rightfully frustrated. I think we'll see those roll-back a bit except for certain locales. If we DON'T see a reasonable local approach and treat rural middle America the same way that we treat New York New York--or even if the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is treated the same way as Detroit--then the cries of over-reaction in certain places may become justified. We are still in the gathering information stage and the better safe than sorry stage, though.

[xisxisxis]

On Monday, I received an email with the results of one of the first studies to look at the effectiveness of approaches to stopping the coronavirus spread in Wuhan. I don't know if the paper has been released publicly and I haven't seen any mention in the press so I will just summarize the details:

 

"I would like to share with you our analysis results of 25,000+ lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases in Wuhan until February 18, 2020.

 

The strategy of lockdown+mitigation (social distancing)+home quarantine helped but was not good enough to stop the outbreak based on the Wuhan data. It reduced R from 3.88 to 1.25. This is because family transmission is common. Family members and close contacts are likely to be infected, and then infect others. Centralized quarantine of ill patients in mobile cabin hospitals and exposed subjects in hotels/dorms effectively stopped the outbreak (R=0.3). "

 

To be clear, based on the Wuhan data, the only way to stop the outbreak is quarantining ALL INFECTED ("hospitals") AND ALL EXPOSED ("hotels") individuals. Social distancing HELPS, but is insufficient. I've spoken with Chinese colleagues and they guess that some of the quarantine efforts were to lock families into their homes and wait for them to 1) recover or 2) die. A strategy a Democracy is not likely to attempt.

 

At this point our efforts are likely only to slow the progression, not stop it.

 

Edit: R is rate of transmission. Other notable findings: 1) Health Care workers are 3-4X more likely to be infected then the general population; 2) the outbreak started from the urban districts and gradually spread to the suburban and rural areas, leading to strong geographic differences with the highest rates in the urban districts; 3) at it's peak there were ~150 cases identified per 1,000,000 people. Extrapolating to the US would be roughly 45,000 cases per day if the entire country was equal. Likely the pandemic will show significant differences in progression across regions. Extrapolating to LA or NY would be 1,000 to 1,500 cases per day. (none of these are unexpected findings).

[Oxy]

At this point our efforts are likely only to slow the progression, not stop it.

 

 

I know you know this, but the point is to slow it down until a vaccine is available and to mitigate social disorder/disaster due to flooded healthcare system. Flatten the curve with moderate measures is far better than to extinguish the curve with draconion measures that cost billions/trillions to the economy and hinder the well being and freedom of millions of people. Those types of measures might be necessary for short terms in high density areas that are afflicted with high incidence rates, but not as a general plan.

[LouisEly]

Right now the blanket shutdowns of everything have a lot of people rightfully frustrated. I think we'll see those roll-back a bit except for certain locales. If we DON'T see a reasonable local approach and treat rural middle America the same way that we treat New York New York--or even if the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is treated the same way as Detroit--then the cries of over-reaction in certain places may become justified. We are still in the gathering information stage and the better safe than sorry stage, though.

The problem with rural middle America is that there tends to be a higher elderly population in rural America than urban America, at least on a per capita basis. Wisconsin's first two deaths were in Fond du Lac and Ozaukee counties, not Milwaukee or Dane.

 

That being said, population density has an effect on transmission rates. Lower population density means more natural social distancing.

[adambr2]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/china-trolling-world-and-avoiding-blame/608332/

[LouisEly]

I understand that people may be freaking out about this, but we are way too early to be drawing any conclusions about the scope of this pandemic. But a few points:

 

1) Even if half our population is infected we are still likely losing 3-4million people. On a human being scale that is a huge hit, but overall it is only a small fraction of the population. I don't want to diminish the loss of those individuals and how it will effect families and friends, but on a societal level these are not world ending numbers.

Is that 3-4 million in the US, or globally?

 

The other thing is that almost all of these people are elderly and comorbid to begin with - they don't have a lot of time left anyway. I'll bet the younger ones (under 70) are or were heavy smokers. I'm not diminishing the loss of life either, but my 92-year-old grandmother passed away three weeks ago and she was in very poor health and had been for the last couple of years. In and out of the hospital for the last six months, and about a month or so before she passed was diagnosed with a rare form of skin cancer. My father agreed to give her infusions of I believe Keytruda... at 92 years old???

 

I'm sorry, but if you're over 80 and have serious comorbidities (like the average person in Italy who has died) you're not going to have some miraculous reversal of health. If you're in a nursing home, you aren't going to recover. You're allocating resources to people who simply are not going to benefit from it; you're keeping people alive for the sake of keeping them alive, just like my grandmother. You have to let go and allocate those resources to people who can benefit from it. But we live is such a litigious society, and the medical profession has learned that if you don't do everything possible or if something goes wrong you get sued.

 

Yes, decisions are going to have to be made on who to treat and who not to treat, and that sucks. But that means family members making decisions for the greater good, not selfish decisions, and not punishing doctors for making decisions for the greater good.

[xisxisxis]

I understand that people may be freaking out about this, but we are way too early to be drawing any conclusions about the scope of this pandemic. But a few points:

 

1) Even if half our population is infected we are still likely losing 3-4million people. On a human being scale that is a huge hit, but overall it is only a small fraction of the population. I don't want to diminish the loss of those individuals and how it will effect families and friends, but on a societal level these are not world ending numbers.

Is that 3-4 million in the US, or globally?

 

The other thing is that almost all of these people are elderly and comorbid to begin with - they don't have a lot of time left anyway. I'll bet the younger ones (under 70) are or were heavy smokers. I'm not diminishing the loss of life either, but my 92-year-old grandmother passed away three weeks ago and she was in very poor health and had been for the last couple of years. In and out of the hospital for the last six months, and about a month or so before she passed was diagnosed with a rare form of skin cancer. My father agreed to give her infusions of I believe Keytruda... at 92 years old???

 

I'm sorry, but if you're over 80 and have serious comorbidities (like the average person in Italy who has died) you're not going to have some miraculous reversal of health. If you're in a nursing home, you aren't going to recover. You're allocating resources to people who simply are not going to benefit from it; you're keeping people alive for the sake of keeping them alive, just like my grandmother. You have to let go and allocate those resources to people who can benefit from it. But we live is such a litigious society, and the medical profession has learned that if you don't do everything possible or if something goes wrong you get sued.

 

Yes, decisions are going to have to be made on who to treat and who not to treat, and that sucks. But that means family members making decisions for the greater good, not selfish decisions, and not punishing doctors for making decisions for the greater good.

Numbers are US. I agree with much of what you said. There is plenty of evidence in Italy that with the health system near collapse, they are making decisions to let nursing homes and other collections of very high risk individuals fend for themselves. At some point we will have to make decisions on allocating health care, but hopefully we don't get to a point where low risk people are being compromised/die because we don't have the medical capacity. I think that's one of the main reasons to slow things down now. Nobody is going to get in front of a camera and say we are going to let the old/sick people die to protect the rest of us... But that's what's likely to be the end result.

 

And there will be benefits coming out of this. The demographics will ease some of the drain on the SS system. Many of the deaths will also remove chronically ill people from the healthcare system and reduce those costs.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/china-trolling-world-and-avoiding-blame/608332/

This is the THIRD novel virus to arise in China over the last 20 years. How the "west" works with and interacts with China needs to change. Free trade should not equate to free to export deadly disease. This is also the country that had multiple companies making baby formula and other food that was substantially plastic components. If they don't have any regulatory and testing services in place then any item from China should be taxed an amount that the US can test. If it makes dog food from China too expensive, tough. We don't need to continue to be poisoned and infected by a country that can afford to implement the necessary regulatory changes. The issue is that China doesn't give a **** about the rule of law, because then Party members could be accountable, and safety shouldn't impact profits. It's time we get rid of the false idealogy of "free" trade.

[homer]

Yes, most people that get it recover just fine. But I think something to consider is the way people die from this. My understanding is that it's kind of awful - they aren't just falling asleep and not waking up. Most are on ventilators that are supposed to breath for them but they can't quite do it just right because of the diseased lung tissue. That is not a pleasant way to go. People are basically drowning in their own fluids. If someone has other info I'd like to read about it.

 

https://www.propublica.org/article/a-medical-worker-describes--terrifying-lung-failure-from-covid19-even-in-his-young-patients

[xisxisxis]

Yes, most people that get it recover just fine. But I think something to consider is the way people die from this. My understanding is that it's kind of awful - they aren't just falling asleep and not waking up. Most are on ventilators that are supposed to breath for them but they can't quite do it just right because of the diseased lung tissue. That is not a pleasant way to go. People are basically drowning in their own fluids. If someone has other info I'd like to read about it.

 

https://www.propublica.org/article/a-medical-worker-describes--terrifying-lung-failure-from-covid19-even-in-his-young-patients

Ventilators are useless. Once your lungs get that bad, no matter what you do they won't oxygenate the blood sufficiently. What worked in China was to put the patients with reduced lung function on a form of dialysis where the red blood cells are oxygenated outside the body then returned to the patient. That helped significantly in keeping people from suffocating to death. With sufficient oxygen they had a chance for their bodies to fight off the virus. Did it save everyone? no, but it significantly improved outcomes for many.

[PeaveyFury]

Yes, most people that get it recover just fine. But I think something to consider is the way people die from this. My understanding is that it's kind of awful - they aren't just falling asleep and not waking up. Most are on ventilators that are supposed to breath for them but they can't quite do it just right because of the diseased lung tissue. That is not a pleasant way to go. People are basically drowning in their own fluids. If someone has other info I'd like to read about it.

 

https://www.propublica.org/article/a-medical-worker-describes--terrifying-lung-failure-from-covid19-even-in-his-young-patients

 

Yikes. That's truly horrifying.

[homer]

Yes, most people that get it recover just fine. But I think something to consider is the way people die from this. My understanding is that it's kind of awful - they aren't just falling asleep and not waking up. Most are on ventilators that are supposed to breath for them but they can't quite do it just right because of the diseased lung tissue. That is not a pleasant way to go. People are basically drowning in their own fluids. If someone has other info I'd like to read about it.

 

https://www.propublica.org/article/a-medical-worker-describes--terrifying-lung-failure-from-covid19-even-in-his-young-patients

 

Yikes. That's truly horrifying.

 

 

Yeah sorry I'm not trying to be gruesome or scare anyone but I think it's a bit more complex than mortality rate or age of people that are dying.

[adambr2]

I tried to use the situation to get my wife to consider giving up cigarettes. No luck.

[adambr2]

While everyone needs to exercise the same precautions, the more this develops the more it looks like something that is going to be an extreme problem in heavily concentrated urban areas while sparse rural areas generally escape damage.

 

New York City itself probably accounts for half the cases in the United States right now.

 

A Wisconsin map looks exactly as you would expect. 85 cases in Milwaukee, around 40 in Dane, with some cases in the Fox valley area. Northwoods, Door County, either nothing or next to nothing. Regions that are already sparsely populated who are now exercising social distancing should help keep them that way.

 

The caveat to that is that if you do get spread in the rural regions, they probably don't have the resources to manage any kind of large scale outbreak.

[Oxy]

Yesterday and Today: 7000 new cases in NY/NJ out of a total of 10,300 new cases in the USA. 29 new deaths in NY/NJ out of a total of 81 new deaths in the USA.

 

To Date: 13,000 cases in NY/NJ out of a total of 24,000 cases in the USA. 72 deaths out of a total of 288 deaths.