COVID-19 Thread

[stalton]

So if we decide to give back New England back to regular England, our numbers are looking really good.

[logan82]

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.

Greater population density is always going to be a better place for viruses to spread. The big problem is that we don't really have any idea how much this has spread already. Could be 100x as many cases as we know about. could be 2x. Rural regions with their crappy internet could be more impacted if this spreads there. Without good internet they can't keep going to school. I also assume people in rural regions will be more likely to have factory or service industry jobs and will be out of work as opposed to being able to continue work from home.

[MrTPlush]

I doubt the spread is terribly worse than we are aware. We are picky testing and a sliver of those people are actually testing positive. It will get worse, but I don’t think a crazy number of people are trotting around infected.

 

Rural areas have fine internet...this is 2020, not 2003 or something. The real problem (if there is one) is many schools aren’t equipped to go fully online and the populations can veer more poverty enriched. The main problem is figuring out who has a computer to use and who has internet they can use. Many kids don’t have one (or even both) so they are trying to figure out how to get those children the resources they need. Of course this isn’t much different than poverty enriched school in say Milwaukee...so not necessarily a rural exclusive thing. Probably more likely for a poverty household in rural areas to have internet versus a bad part of a bigger city. More need for personal internet in rural areas to stay connected.

 

As far as jobs, yes many have factory jobs and service industry jobs...but not as much as you may think. A lot of people will travel to a more urban area for a more conventional office job. I would say rural areas are much more likely to have at least one parent dramatically affected job wise though.

[clancyphile]

Because it's China producing those numbers and they arent verifiable. They spent over a month trying to cover this thing up or suppress actual cases during its initial outbreak, even temporarily halting testing, until it got beyond their reach and they had no choice but to start reporting some numbers to try and keep the world off their backs. Axios had a great timeline piece of what china did from early december through late january - In a country of 1.5 billion people there is no way their numbers published are anywhere close to accurate. There are countless cases that go undetected by western countries because of testing limitation. Its markedly worse in a country like china, which is much more populated.

 

https://www.axios.com/timeline-the-early-days-of-chinas-coronavirus-outbreak-and-cover-up-ee65211a-afb6-4641-97b8-353718a5faab.html

 

I'd take China's published death toll and multiply it by at least 10, and take their published case toll and multiply it by around 100.

 

I have to agree here.

 

What is worse is that, if you believe the Financial Times, Taiwan was trying to sound the warning in December, but the WHO didn't listen.

 

China has a LOT of explaining to do, IMO.

[pacopete4]

I hope her are not headed in this direction.

[homer]

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.

 

Per capita, New Orleans far outpaces New York. Probably from Mardi Gras.

 

https://www.wwno.org/post/new-orleans-outpacing-other-covid-19-hotspots-rate-cases-capita

[MrTPlush]

Italy has announced 99% of Coronavirus deaths had another illness. This was after an 18% sample of the deaths.

 

25.1 had one other illness

25.6 had two other illnesses

48.5 had three other illnesses

 

High blood pressure was in 75% of cases, 35% had diabetes, and another third had heart failure at some point.

 

It skews exponentially towards people 60+, 80.5 being the average age of death. People under 40 were men with serious health conditions.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says

[adambr2]

Italy has announced 99% of Coronavirus deaths had another illness. This was after an 18% sample of the deaths.

 

25.1 had one other illness

25.6 had two other illnesses

48.5 had three other illnesses

 

High blood pressure was in 75% of cases, 35% had diabetes, and another third had heart failure at some point.

 

It skews exponentially towards people 60+, 80.5 being the average age of death. People under 40 were men with serious health conditions.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says

 

I think it's statistically clear by now that it's much more overly dangerous to elderly or those with pre-existing conditions.

 

I can't think of one single celebrity or athlete who has been infected by now (of which there have been many) who has become seriously ill.

 

There's been numerous articles warning that it can be dangerous to young people as well, to which I say, well of course it can. It's like anything else -- pneumonia, flu (not comparing it to the flu!), and other viral infections. These things are not usually life-threatening to Joe Average in his 30s. But, every so often, for whatever reason, you have that exception.

 

But that doesn't mean they are spreading it less. It's just as contagious, and for the most part, this is the age group still partying on the beaches of Florida and hanging out with friends.

 

If nothing else, I hope people remember that many of the most at-risk people in this country were ones storming the beaches of Normandy to protect future generations, and we owe it to them to take the necessary precautions to not put them at risk of a painful death to COVID-19.

[adambr2]

I hope her are not headed in this direction.

 

As a country, I don't think so. But in certain areas...I don't know. I hope not. New York is getting scary.

[igor67]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by right to try testing, Peavey.

[PeaveyFury]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by right to try testing, Peavey.

 

Basically, the right for a patient to try a treatment as a last-ditch effort to try and pull a miracle. I.E., experimental treatments, etc. In this case, I assume it’s ‘hey, this might work but we don’t know, what do you think?’ Or that sort of thing.

[igor67]

That would potentially be an option. I dislike the phrasing because we have done a lot of work in the last 50-60 years to improve medical ethics, and attempts to walk that back by framing things as a 'right' can really undermine the principles of informed consent. For example extra levels of precaution when using vulnerable populations as research subjects.

 

In this case its not clear in a reliable way yet what signs would be used to determine they were beyond other means to help them. I think it would be justified to make a judgement based on current information where that line is and go from there. I do think we'll have some answers relatively soon given the increase in cases and how rapidly it works. It should be clear if the drugs provide a noticeable benefit.

[nodakfan17]

Here’s a potential upside to COVID-19 for Midwesterns: The pandemic will rapidly normalize WFH and companies in major metro areas will realize they don’t have to pay someone $100,000 to do a job that someone else in the Midwest is willing to do for $70,000.

[MrTPlush]

I joked maybe this will get some companies to get out of the dinosaur ages, put material in the cloud instead of on paper, and increase a willingness for WFH opportunity.

 

I don’t think it will though.

[adambr2]

The problem with this line of thinking is that companies rapidly deciding they can normalize WFH jobs after this are going to realize that they can outsource these jobs for even less.

[LouisEly]

There's been numerous articles warning that it can be dangerous to young people as well, to which I say, well of course it can.

Vaping.

[LouisEly]

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.

And they were criticizing wealthy people for leaving NYC and going to a vacation home somewhere.

 

I would have gotten the hell out of there too.

[adambr2]

The U.S. is estimating 10-12 weeks for the coronavirus lockdown.

[GAME05]

Park visitation, at least in my state, has about tripled. Nobody has anything else to do with everything shut down. Yesterday we closed bathrooms state-wide and we had already closed campgrounds. Rumor is that the governor already has it planned to shut down parks entirely. I'd only guess that there's some tipping point of infected people where it would rapidly spread publicly, and he's just waiting to see if we hit that number. But I presume even to the public that I've been talking to at work that we're likely headed for a full shut-down.

 

I had to sign an "essential employee" letter the other day. As I said to my boss, I think it's just to remind all of us that we're essential and that we may be deployed or at least told to work if things got worse and wouldn't really be able to refuse.

[homer]

In case anyone was wondering, pointing a hair dryer up your nose will not kill the virus.

[MrTPlush]

In case anyone was wondering, pointing a hair dryer up your nose will not kill the virus.

 

Additionally it is not recommended to flush your tortilla shells down the toilet when you resort to using them when you run out of toilet paper.

[adambr2]

In case anyone was wondering, pointing a hair dryer up your nose will not kill the virus.

 

I'm sure I don't have it anyway as I am still able to hold my breath for 10 seconds.

[nate82]

I joked maybe this will get some companies to get out of the dinosaur ages, put material in the cloud instead of on paper, and increase a willingness for WFH opportunity.

 

I don’t think it will though.

 

The government is still heavily regulated in paper so if there even was a willingness to do this it would take an act of god to get the US government to go from paper to digital. Currently in compliance for a bank and everything has to be on paper otherwise some departments are out of compliance.

 

There are some other countries where paper is not needed and it is all digital. Unfortunately in the US that is not going to happen any time soon as the baby boomers and gen-x are still holding onto paper records being the standard.

 

Gen-x is about as stubborn as the baby boomers are in not wanting to go digital.

[homer]

I joked maybe this will get some companies to get out of the dinosaur ages, put material in the cloud instead of on paper, and increase a willingness for WFH opportunity.

 

I don’t think it will though.

 

The government is still heavily regulated in paper so if there even was a willingness to do this it would take an act of god to get the US government to go from paper to digital. Currently in compliance for a bank and everything has to be on paper otherwise some departments are out of compliance.

 

There are some other countries where paper is not needed and it is all digital. Unfortunately in the US that is not going to happen any time soon as the baby boomers and gen-x are still holding onto paper records being the standard.

 

Gen-x is about as stubborn as the baby boomers are in not wanting to go digital.

 

We also know cursive and will use it to communicate code like the Apache in WWII.

[FVBrewerFan]

The U.S. is estimating 10-12 weeks for the coronavirus lockdown.

 

That's not going to happen, it can't. Lockdown of people at risk for that long, or loger? Yes. The entire population? No way.

 

Looks like they're going to start treating patients with the Malaria drug Tuesday morning. Yhis is huge, and we'll know a lot very shortly.