COVID-19 Thread

[nate82]

So my work just announced for my department everyone will be working from home. Which is a nightmare because previously they only gave out tokens to exempt employees to be able to work from home.

[FVBrewerFan]

As I've read and heard volumes about this virus, two questions keep coming to mind.

 

1) When/ how will it be decided life returns to "normal?"

 

CDC will always be (rightfully) conservative. Are we/ should we automatically follow their recommendations if we're still locked down after April? 4 months? 6 months?

 

2) This is not the last one of these. Are we going to go into lockdown for 2-4 months every 4 years? Actually, it's not impossible for a similar virus to hit every 2-3 years, even EVERY year.

 

We're talking about destroying the economy, employment, education, entertainment, socialization, etc., as we know it. Literally going back to colonial times in a lot of ways if this were to happen every year or two.

 

Once we get past this, some realllly tough questions need to be asked about how we handle the next one, and the ones after that. Questions about the greater good. Is all this worth the price of one person dying? Most would say no, of course not. Is that number 20? 500? 5,000?

 

I'm not suggesting we shouldn't be taking all the actions we have, I don't know. What I do know is that as a society we'll have to determine when to get on with our lives at some point this spring, and try to wrap our heads around making the toughest of decisions next time.Our best hope is science can catch up, and react to the next virus much more quickly. Unfortunately, science always seems to be one step behind nature.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

As I've read and heard volumes about this virus, two questions keep coming to mind.

 

1) When/ how will it be decided life returns to "normal?"

 

CDC will always be (rightfully) conservative. Are we/ should we automatically follow their recommendations if we're still locked down after April? 4 months? 6 months?

 

2) This is not the last one of these. Are we going to go into lockdown for 2-4 months every 4 years? Actually, it's not impossible for a similar virus to hit every 2-3 years, even EVERY year.

 

We're talking about destroying the economy, employment, education, entertainment, socialization, etc., as we know it. Literally going back to colonial times in a lot of ways if this were to happen every year or two.

 

Once we get past this, some realllly tough questions need to be asked about how we handle the next one, and the ones after that. Questions about the greater good. Is all this worth the price of one person dying? Most would say no, of course not. Is that number 20? 500? 5,000?

 

I'm not suggesting we shouldn't be taking all the actions we have, I don't know. What I do know is that as a society we'll have to determine when to get on with our lives at some point this spring, and try to wrap our heads around making the toughest of decisions next time.Our best hope is science can catch up, and react to the next virus much more quickly. Unfortunately, science always seems to be one step behind nature.

 

I don't know. But here's one thing I feel is likely to happen: TSA will develop some kind of health screen that annoys everyone and doesn't work.

[adambr2]

As I've read and heard volumes about this virus, two questions keep coming to mind.

 

1) When/ how will it be decided life returns to "normal?"

 

CDC will always be (rightfully) conservative. Are we/ should we automatically follow their recommendations if we're still locked down after April? 4 months? 6 months?

 

2) This is not the last one of these. Are we going to go into lockdown for 2-4 months every 4 years? Actually, it's not impossible for a similar virus to hit every 2-3 years, even EVERY year.

 

We're talking about destroying the economy, employment, education, entertainment, socialization, etc., as we know it. Literally going back to colonial times in a lot of ways if this were to happen every year or two.

 

Once we get past this, some realllly tough questions need to be asked about how we handle the next one, and the ones after that. Questions about the greater good. Is all this worth the price of one person dying? Most would say no, of course not. Is that number 20? 500? 5,000?

 

I'm not suggesting we shouldn't be taking all the actions we have, I don't know. What I do know is that as a society we'll have to determine when to get on with our lives at some point this spring, and try to wrap our heads around making the toughest of decisions next time.Our best hope is science can catch up, and react to the next virus much more quickly. Unfortunately, science always seems to be one step behind nature.

 

You bring up some really good points. When this is all said and done, very few of us will have died, but almost all of us will have suffered.

 

People are losing jobs, being laid off, presumably losing their houses and livelihoods, delaying retirement, among many other consequences.

 

I'm not going to sit here and say that we should value the economy and quality of life for the country over 1 life or 100,000 lives. I'm also not going to say we shouldn't. I simply don't know the answer. I know we lose 40K people or so per year to influenza, 50K to suicide, 146K per year to stroke, 674K to heart disease, and many others, we try to improve these things and we push on. We live to die, eventually.

 

It's a thought provoking, maybe even philosophical debate. But no, I don't think we can afford to respond like this with every pandemic. I don't know what the right level of reaction is. I can completely sympathize with the standpoint that they'd rather overreact now and err on the side of caution to save lives now even if it gets looked at as an overreaction in hindsight. That's perfectly valid. But each reaction has consequences, and death is far from the only one.

[TURBO]

geez, you guys are bumming me out.

[FVBrewerFan]

geez, you guys are bumming me out.

 

Sorry, would much rather be bickering about why Sogard is in the lineup again in some IGT in a couple weeks.

[LouisEly]

I guess my question was more geared toward whether or not we may have drastically overestimated the lethality and number of potential hospitalized of this. I don't question that the total infected is going to be far more than our current numbers. If you tested every American today I wouldn't be surprised if 500,000 came back positive.

 

I think the question is more appropriate if the hospital system becomes taxed. It's easier to keep a number down when you don't have hospital beds in tents outside a hospital like in Italy.

 

True. I have to wonder how many of the 2,000+ dead in Italy are dead because they got coronavirus and died in spite of care, and how many of them are dead because they got coronavirus, couldn't get adequate care, and died.

Couple of things about Italy and Italians.

 

1) Their social norms are very different than here. Lots more greetings with kiss-on-the-cheek (or lips), not just limited to grandmothers kissing their grandchildren. That causes a respiratory virus to spread much more quickly.

 

2) If the average Italian over the age of 80 is anything like my Italian grandmother and great-grandmother were, they are stubborn as all hell and will not have anyone tell them what to do. As my grandmother once said to me about a year or two ago, "I'm too sick to go to the doctor." That was soon followed by an ambulance ride to the hospital, which she did not like at all, and then the only way to get her to go to the doctor was to threaten her with another ambulance ride. I am not joking. (She passed away two weeks ago.)

[FVBrewerFan]

Also, it's not uncommon for 2-3 generations to live together in Italy. Obviously, that increases the exposure to the elderly as well.

[brewcrewdue80]

I hate the Italy comparisons because Italy at a whole is like 70% the size of California while their population is something like 166% more than California. You're also dealing with a much older population susceptible to the virus. No models of what is occuring there should apply here.

[superfly]

As I've read and heard volumes about this virus, two questions keep coming to mind.

 

1) When/ how will it be decided life returns to "normal?"

 

CDC will always be (rightfully) conservative. Are we/ should we automatically follow their recommendations if we're still locked down after April? 4 months? 6 months?

 

2) This is not the last one of these. Are we going to go into lockdown for 2-4 months every 4 years? Actually, it's not impossible for a similar virus to hit every 2-3 years, even EVERY year.

 

We're talking about destroying the economy, employment, education, entertainment, socialization, etc., as we know it. Literally going back to colonial times in a lot of ways if this were to happen every year or two.

 

Once we get past this, some realllly tough questions need to be asked about how we handle the next one, and the ones after that. Questions about the greater good. Is all this worth the price of one person dying? Most would say no, of course not. Is that number 20? 500? 5,000?

 

I'm not suggesting we shouldn't be taking all the actions we have, I don't know. What I do know is that as a society we'll have to determine when to get on with our lives at some point this spring, and try to wrap our heads around making the toughest of decisions next time.Our best hope is science can catch up, and react to the next virus much more quickly. Unfortunately, science always seems to be one step behind nature.

 

You bring up some really good points. When this is all said and done, very few of us will have died, but almost all of us will have suffered.

 

People are losing jobs, being laid off, presumably losing their houses and livelihoods, delaying retirement, among many other consequences.

 

I'm not going to sit here and say that we should value the economy and quality of life for the country over 1 life or 100,000 lives. I'm also not going to say we shouldn't. I simply don't know the answer. I know we lose 40K people or so per year to influenza, 50K to suicide, 146K per year to stroke, 674K to heart disease, and many others, we try to improve these things and we push on. We live to die, eventually.

 

It's a thought provoking, maybe even philosophical debate. But no, I don't think we can afford to respond like this with every pandemic. I don't know what the right level of reaction is. I can completely sympathize with the standpoint that they'd rather overreact now and err on the side of caution to save lives now even if it gets looked at as an overreaction in hindsight. That's perfectly valid. But each reaction has consequences, and death is far from the only one.

 

Everybody losing their job ---> government subsidized healthcare OR greatly diminished state of health and mind. This is absolute insanity, there had best be a GOOD reason for the precautions we are doing when we look back in a year or two, because we have effectively 1929'd our economy in the name of avoiding something that's going to get us anyway in the end. This isn't 2008 bailing out bankers, we're doing it to ourselves and the ramnifications could be far worse than 2008 if it is not short in duration.

 

I'm pretty darn depressed after watching today's edition of coronavirus conference on tv. Things are quickly going to go down the toilet if it doesn't change soon.

[Thurston Fluff]

On the financial side the event planning sector is really being hit hard. Pretty much every event for the next couple months already cancelled for us. It's the same all over. Given how much 2008 hurt our savings I really have no idea if this one is survivable without some form of help. We've always been prudent with spending and saved as much as we could over the years. We have enough to survive until about July. That would pretty much wipe out our entire savings. I have no idea how people who didn't have time to set aside that much or recoup the losses caused by the recession will do.

[FVBrewerFan]

Yea, I think everyone has gone along with it so far. Just information overload in a short period of time, and a general attitude of "seems to be the right thing to do." I predict patience will wear thin at some point, and many people will wake up to their savings wiped out and/or no job. Not even a bar open to go to to drown their sorrows.

[superfly]

Lack of clarity is maddening too. Do we even have concrete information on how long the virus survives on surfaces...the air...inside us...anything? I know the 14 days has been bandied about, but I’ve also heard things like “no clue,” “over 2 weeks”, “few hours to several days on surfaces,” etc.

 

With all the intelligence and trillions we spend, we can’t get a concrete answer on how long the virus survives on a surface?

[homer]

So the current US numbers that I've seen are:

 

3,837 total cases, of which 70 are deceased, and 73 are recovered.

 

So 3,694 current cases, of which 3,682 are considered mild, and 12 are considered to be either serious or critical.

 

12 total people hospitalized nationally from COVID-19 right now would not even put a tiny dent in our healthcare system. Even as the number of infected continues to rise, it seems that almost every new case found is a mild case. Obviously the 12 will rise but if the proportion of critical/serious cases continues to fall behind the number of total cases, the mortality rate of COVID-19 will plummet. 12 already seems incredibly low in proportion considering that one would assume that the vast majority of people tested are being tested simply because they have been symptomatic enough to get tested

 

Are you getting the 12 people hospitalized from here:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

 

Because they've been stuck on 12 for like 48 hours at least. I dont think that's accurate.

[adambr2]

So the current US numbers that I've seen are:

 

3,837 total cases, of which 70 are deceased, and 73 are recovered.

 

So 3,694 current cases, of which 3,682 are considered mild, and 12 are considered to be either serious or critical.

 

12 total people hospitalized nationally from COVID-19 right now would not even put a tiny dent in our healthcare system. Even as the number of infected continues to rise, it seems that almost every new case found is a mild case. Obviously the 12 will rise but if the proportion of critical/serious cases continues to fall behind the number of total cases, the mortality rate of COVID-19 will plummet. 12 already seems incredibly low in proportion considering that one would assume that the vast majority of people tested are being tested simply because they have been symptomatic enough to get tested

 

Are you getting the 12 people hospitalized from here:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

 

Because they've been stuck on 12 for like 48 hours at least. I dont think that's accurate.

 

Yeah. It was 10 either this morning or last night. I'm not sure about the accuracy of it or how they classify cases. The total infected is updated very regularly.

[JosephC]

Lack of clarity is maddening too. Do we even have concrete information on how long the virus survives on surfaces...the air...inside us...anything? I know the 14 days has been bandied about, but I’ve also heard things like “no clue,” “over 2 weeks”, “few hours to several days on surfaces,” etc.

 

With all the intelligence and trillions we spend, we can’t get a concrete answer on how long the virus survives on a surface?

 

Princeton and UCLA published some findings last week, not yet peer-reviewed. The virus remains viable in aerosols for 3 hours. Remains viable on certain plastics and stainless steels for 72 hours, although viable levels drop significantly for stainless steel after 48 hours. Less then four hours on copper. Less than 24 hours on cardboard.

[jerichoholicninja]

As I've read and heard volumes about this virus, two questions keep coming to mind.

 

1) When/ how will it be decided life returns to "normal?"

 

CDC will always be (rightfully) conservative. Are we/ should we automatically follow their recommendations if we're still locked down after April? 4 months? 6 months?

 

2) This is not the last one of these. Are we going to go into lockdown for 2-4 months every 4 years? Actually, it's not impossible for a similar virus to hit every 2-3 years, even EVERY year.

 

We're talking about destroying the economy, employment, education, entertainment, socialization, etc., as we know it. Literally going back to colonial times in a lot of ways if this were to happen every year or two.

 

Once we get past this, some realllly tough questions need to be asked about how we handle the next one, and the ones after that. Questions about the greater good. Is all this worth the price of one person dying? Most would say no, of course not. Is that number 20? 500? 5,000?

 

I'm not suggesting we shouldn't be taking all the actions we have, I don't know. What I do know is that as a society we'll have to determine when to get on with our lives at some point this spring, and try to wrap our heads around making the toughest of decisions next time.Our best hope is science can catch up, and react to the next virus much more quickly. Unfortunately, science always seems to be one step behind nature.

 

You know how some places set off their weather sirens during severe thunderstorm warnings and you watch all the people outside MAYBE start to head to their car or something but most people do nothing because the sirens go off all the time and nothing ever comes of it? Unless there are massive casualties from this the general population will not be cooperative next time something like this comes up.

[wallus]

I know this is fairly new but is anyone else concerned by the lack of a plan? It seems every day that there are new stricter regulations in some nearby state or at the national level. Wouldn't it make more sense to just make this very strict in the hopes of containing it sooner? Or am I just way off base on this? (very well could be the case)

[pacopete4]

How could you not be? I know these posts can’t go political but my god is leadership abysmal in this country right now.

[nodakfan17]

I know this is fairly new but is anyone else concerned by the lack of a plan? It seems every day that there are new stricter regulations in some nearby state or at the national level. Wouldn't it make more sense to just make this very strict in the hopes of containing it sooner? Or am I just way off base on this? (very well could be the case)

 

I’m with you on the more strict approach ... and I’m otherwise a huge libertarian. Unfortunately, this approach should have started weeks ago. Maybe we could all still be going to work were it not for all of the planes criss-crossing the globe and people disembarking cruise ships without quarantine. Better late than never, though.

[nodakfan17]

There’s probably some OK, Boomer humor to be found here:

 

[sarcasm]Boomers are pleading with Millennials to stop going to bars and restaurants, but they inexplicably can’t stop taking cruises.[/sarcasm]

[MrTPlush]

Flattening the curve is great, but that also means we are slowing killing people financially, the economy, and many businesses. You are telling me many hourly workers are going to not be able to work till August? I can't fathom what that means not only for those employees, but the (often times) small businesses they work for. Even for many large businesses this is incredibly crippling if this drags out months.

 

Is this really that bad where it is worthy crippling all those things? There is a real belief school may be done for the year.

[LouisEly]

I hate the Italy comparisons because Italy at a whole is like 70% the size of California while their population is something like 166% more than California. You're also dealing with a much older population susceptible to the virus. No models of what is occuring there should apply here.

From an article in Medscape:

 

The average age of the deceased in Italy is over 80 years old. Based on the analysis of medical records, the first 100 deceased patients had an average of 2.5 concurrent diseases. Those who had mild symptoms were recommended to stay at home, but were not systemically tested, which kept the denominator low.

 

My healthcare system sent an email saying that they will not test you if you are asymptomatic. I think this is prudent, as every hypochondriac would be in line every other day and the people who need to get tested wouldn't have tests available.

[wallus]

Here is my idea. Note I am not a doctor but ironically I am teaching 2 medical classes right now but that is for a different thread.

 

Quarantine the at risk populations for a month. During that time, they still get paid by their employers. Everything else resumes with travel restrictions still in place. You know full well that some people will ignore this (because America) and they may get infected but hopefully it doesn't overwhelm hospitals. If it does, they made their own decision. If it doesn't look good near the end of that month (we should have tons more tests available by then hopefully), extend it.

 

I think businesses would rather take a month hit with a few employees than what we are doing now. I shutter to think of the economic ramifications if this goes on for a long time. Yes I know that health>economy but there needs to be a balance as well. I am looking at the business I heavily am involved with personally. Normally I would be spending money like crazy right now getting ready for our big fall season. I have no idea what the heck life could be like then so I stopped spending altogether.

 

I think the majority of people will end up getting this virus but we can protect the at risk populations instead of doing it the way we are doing it imo. There are going to be a lot of businesses that won't survive this way and people's lives with be ruined financially as well.

[nodakfan17]

Flattening the curve is great, but that also means we are slowing killing people financially, the economy, and many businesses. You are telling me many hourly workers are going to not be able to work till August? I can't fathom what that means not only for those employees, but the (often times) small businesses they work for.

Should the situation get any worse, the federal government needs to step in and guarantee a basic income of $1,000 for every adult for 6 months. That’s $6,000 for 200 million adults or $1.2 trillion. Rates are so low right now, the US could finance the stimulus at < 1% for 10 years. Considering the national debt is $23.3 trillion another $1.2 trillion for some semblance of stability seems prudent.