COVID-19 Thread

[PeaveyFury]

The thing about the 'Safer' order is that even if the Court rules against it, I believe the case argument was that the legislature wanted control over the timing of the re-opening, rather than the executive branch. So it's likely that the Court would kick it to the legislature, who would need to develop a plan. I highly doubt that a ruling against it leads to an immediate opening of everything. There'll be a several-day lag, then it may even be a staggered reopening anyway.

[nate82]

Nonsense on Stilts by Massimo Piliguci is probably the single best source I can think of to point a non-scientist towards that provides a lot of insight into how to separate out garbage from more reliable (not not infallible) authority. Unfortunately the quacks have gotten more sophisticated over time, so it can be challenging even with good tools. Sorry if my book recommendations have gotten excessive, but as someone best described as a science generalist between my teaching experience and a very eclectic mix of publications my real specialty is educating students in how to think about and use science as future citizens.

 

I still prefer Little Science, Big Science by: de Solla Price, Derek J. for anything science related.

[reillymcshane]

I never claimed they were testing 14k people.

 

That being said there was about 1,400 more tests today compared to yesterdays record amount. The most notable part about that is we actually had less positive tests despite that huge increase in testing, 314 down from 335. The positive rate was 5.7%.

 

Also, when do they decide to shoot down the safer at home order or not? May 25th?

I never said you did. I was pointing out the reality of 'capacity'. What we can do is an important number. People, including politicians, have used our 'capacity' number in the past without clarifying what that actually means.

 

And my biggest point was that we CAN do the tests - but we need supplies to do them.

[reillymcshane]

Wisconsin showed a spike in testing ability up to 14,800 today, so I guess that is nice. The overall percent of positive cases has been declining pretty steadily this month...but now that meat plants are forced back open that probably won’t last long.

 

Maybe it lasts long enough for us to get some added freedoms.

The 14,800 is not what we are actually testing. Or even can test at this time.

 

Wisconsin actually did about 4,200 tests yesterday. https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/05/06/wisconsin-coronavirus-cases-up-335-testing-ramps-up/5175162002/

 

That's a record for the state - but we are no where near being able to run nearly 15,000 tests.

 

My wife's organization is listed as having the capacity of testing several thousand people a day - but the reality is that they can only do a few hundred.

 

Sorry for the broken record, but they just can't get the supplies to do the tests. They are ready to do the tests. They have the facilities and the people ready - but they don't have the supplies to actually do the tests. And it's killing them. They are losing a ton of money, and need to start doing more procedures and so forth - but they just can't.

 

Things are getting better - but we have a long way to go. We've got to get a reliable supplies of materials to make it happen.

This might have been covered in a previous post. I apologize if it has been.

 

Is one of the main causes for the lack of available testing because there isn't as much manufacturing in the US?

 

I honestly don't know much about the sources of the supplies. There's different kinds of supplies. There's consumable supples - such as swabs. This has been a problem. And then there are the reagents - these are the main ingredients used in any chemical-based test (I'm guessing someone else could explain more about what these are).

 

Also, it's important to know that there are different tests you can run for COVID. So the test run in one lab might require different reagents than the one run in a different lab. This means you can't just focus on developing a few specific items.

 

China has - in the past - been the leading producer of reagents. So I'm guessing (and strictly my guess) that the production of them in the U.S. was limited prior to all of this happening. And ramping up production of them just can't happen overnight.

 

As noted - things are getting better. We do have more tests being done - meaning production is increasing (I'm guessing - again, my guess) that the production is happening internationally - as well as the United States.

 

This is all just my basic knowledge - so someone else might know more, or be able to correct me if I'm off on something.

[FVBrewerFan]

The story out of NY is interesting. For those not aware, they studied all new cases in one day, found that 2/3 of new cases were people who have been staying at home. Not sure what conclusions we can draw from that but it's interesting.

[PeaveyFury]

The story out of NY is interesting. For those not aware, they studied all new cases in one day, found that 2/3 of new cases were people who have been staying at home. Not sure what conclusions we can draw from that but it's interesting.

 

Do you have a link? I didn't have any luck with my quick googling.

[nate82]

The story out of NY is interesting. For those not aware, they studied all new cases in one day, found that 2/3 of new cases were people who have been staying at home. Not sure what conclusions we can draw from that but it's interesting.

 

Do you have a link? I didn't have any luck with my quick googling.

 

https://www.newsday.com/news/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-long-island-new-york-covid19-1.44418223

[MrTPlush]

The story out of NY is interesting. For those not aware, they studied all new cases in one day, found that 2/3 of new cases were people who have been staying at home. Not sure what conclusions we can draw from that but it's interesting.

 

Do you have a link? I didn't have any luck with my quick googling.

 

https://www.newsday.com/news/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-long-island-new-york-covid19-1.44418223

 

That article states it was 1,300 hospitalizations surveyed. Which we know is greatly dominated by elders who don’t work etc...so obviously that study will show a disproportionate amount being people staying at home and of course old too. Which staying at home is somewhat misleading as I would guess most are going to the grocery store and other possible “essential” activities.

 

They should survey ALL positive cases to get more relevant data...only surveying hospitalizations leaves a lot of holes in the study.

 

Of course maybe I missed something in the article...but that’s what I got out of it.

[Machu Peach]

As far as I can tell this is a result of Cuomo/the media severely misreading the data. The categories in this graph (Nursing Home, Jail/Prison,Homeless, Home, Congregate, Assisted Living) show that "staying at home" means where they sleep. It does not appear to show that they are "people who had largely been sheltering at home" or not taking public transportation or anything of the sort. It also does not show the location where they were infected/exposed.

 

I'm not 100% sure I have that right, but it's the only conclusion that I can think of given the possible categories.

 

(https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/ny-gov-cuomo-says-its-shocking-most-new-coronavirus-hospitalizations-are-people-staying-home.html)

 

Edit: grammar

[FVBrewerFan]

Yea, all those things may be true. In one way it's good to focus on hospitalizations though. Yes, that sample will be older but that's useful since that's one of the main things we need to figure out- how to protect them. We don't know if they left their home at all, or if someone came into their home and infected them. That would be good data to have too.

[FVBrewerFan]

As far as I can tell this is a result of Cuomo/the media severely misreading the data. The categories in this graph (Nursing Home, Jail/Prison,Homeless, Home, Congregate, Assisted Living) show that "staying at home" means where they sleep. It does not appear to show that they are "people who had largely been sheltering at home" or not taking public transportation or anything of the sort. It also does not show the location where they were infected/exposed.

 

I'm not 100% sure I have that right, but it's the only conclusion that I can think of given the possible categories.

 

(https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/ny-gov-cuomo-says-its-shocking-most-new-coronavirus-hospitalizations-are-people-staying-home.html)

 

Edit: grammar

 

No, there's more info behind the story. Only 3% used public transportation, and all of them were sheltering at home. I may have missed it, but I don't think Cuomo is misreading the data. It's more of a whoa didn't expect this, need to continue this type of research to learn more.

[LouisEly]

The story out of NY is interesting. For those not aware, they studied all new cases in one day, found that 2/3 of new cases were people who have been staying at home. Not sure what conclusions we can draw from that but it's interesting.

 

Do you have a link? I didn't have any luck with my quick googling.

 

https://www.newsday.com/news/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-long-island-new-york-covid19-1.44418223

What I took from it is that they are wondering why people who aren't employed and aren't taking the subway are contracting the virus in the first place. But that doesn't mean that they are staying at home all of the time and it doesn't mean that people aren't visiting them. Somehow they have to get food, either going out for it or for it to be delivered to them. And they probably live in multi-household buildings (it said they are predominantly located downstate, where almost everyone lives in multi-household buildings, and predominantly "minorities"), so they are likely being exposed to lots of people either directly or indirectly.

[Machu Peach]

As far as I can tell this is a result of Cuomo/the media severely misreading the data. The categories in this graph (Nursing Home, Jail/Prison,Homeless, Home, Congregate, Assisted Living) show that "staying at home" means where they sleep. It does not appear to show that they are "people who had largely been sheltering at home" or not taking public transportation or anything of the sort. It also does not show the location where they were infected/exposed.

 

I'm not 100% sure I have that right, but it's the only conclusion that I can think of given the possible categories.

 

(https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/ny-gov-cuomo-says-its-shocking-most-new-coronavirus-hospitalizations-are-people-staying-home.html)

 

Edit: grammar

 

No, there's more info behind the story. Only 3% used public transportation, and all of them were sheltering at home. I may have missed it, but I don't think Cuomo is misreading the data. It's more of a whoa didn't expect this, need to continue this type of research to learn more.

 

I can find this sentence. "Cuomo said nearly 84% of the hospitalized cases were people who were not commuting to work through car services, personal cars, public transit or walking." But it says nothing about where those 84% are sheltering or if they're going outside/commuting, just that they're not commuting to work. Given the age of the hospitalized (retirees) and the number of furloughs/unemployed/work-from-home it's not surprising that a large fraction aren't commuting to work.

 

The Newsday article list that 83% are unemployed or retired, but again, does not address their travel habits.

 

At any rate the statement in the CNBC article that "It shows that 66% of new admissions were from people who had largely been sheltering at home." is clearly unsupported by any data presented in the article (or at best is unclear). I'm not saying it doesn't exist because I obviously don't know, but they don't have it.

 

A link to the actual survey data would be greatly appreciated if anyone has one.

[PeaveyFury]

There's also possibly an issue of respondant bias as well. In a state where it's mandatory to be locked down, won't a lot of people say 'yeah, sure I quarantined at home' regardless of what their actual movement behavior was?

[OldSchoolSnapper]

There's also possibly an issue of respondant bias as well. In a state where it's mandatory to be locked down, won't a lot of people say 'yeah, sure I quarantined at home' regardless of what their actual movement behavior was?

 

I had the exact same thought. Kind of like getting an STD in those places. Not something you're going to feel like explaining.

[igor67]

You mean like a Socially Transmitted Disease

[SoCalBrewfan]

Interesting country-by-country graphical representation; cases and start dates are normalized to make the curves visually comparable as a means of looking at national-level responses. US is not in the good group here, sadly. We had our first reported case same day as South Korea, which is largely past the first outbreak. Though in fairness most of east Asia was hard hit by SARS and perhaps as a result more amenable to masks and quarantine.

 

Sweden, UK notably tried different initial strategies based on less quarantine in an effort to build herd immunity and they haven't done as well as neighbors. Some countries whose leaders seemed to be in denial (Brazil, Russia) are also in that red group.

 

https://www.endcoronavirus.org/countries?fbclid=IwAR0Thu6fl8LkBN-qDQXcpaQioVID0sPfR7DgH3NtEvKnlsUc_7LbA-sHz14

[Fear The Chorizo]

MN is now pleading for anyone who even thinks they have Covid-19 symptoms to go get tested...they easily have capacity for 10k tests per day but have only been able to test around 4k per day on average over the last 10 days because there isnt demand for more...that's even with testing extremely high percentages of meat processing plants, prisons, etc...

 

The problem is so many people are asymptomatic...could be pointing to mutations of the virus weakening.

[superfly]

MN is now pleading for anyone who even thinks they have Covid-19 symptoms to go get tested...they easily have capacity for 10k tests per day but have only been able to test around 4k per day on average over the last 10 days because there isnt demand for more...that's even with testing extremely high percentages of meat processing plants, prisons, etc...

 

The problem is so many people are asymptomatic...could be pointing to mutations of the virus weakening.

 

Pleading for cases to keep nonsensical and irresponsible lockdowns in place scheduled to end here soon.

[homer]

MN is now pleading for anyone who even thinks they have Covid-19 symptoms to go get tested...they easily have capacity for 10k tests per day but have only been able to test around 4k per day on average over the last 10 days because there isnt demand for more...that's even with testing extremely high percentages of meat processing plants, prisons, etc...

 

The problem is so many people are asymptomatic...could be pointing to mutations of the virus weakening.

 

Or the social distancing is working?

[Fear The Chorizo]

MN is now pleading for anyone who even thinks they have Covid-19 symptoms to go get tested...they easily have capacity for 10k tests per day but have only been able to test around 4k per day on average over the last 10 days because there isnt demand for more...that's even with testing extremely high percentages of meat processing plants, prisons, etc...

 

The problem is so many people are asymptomatic...could be pointing to mutations of the virus weakening.

 

Or the social distancing is working?

 

Not really, also more articles of people prepping for elective medical and dental procedures that will soon be allowed again that were tested only because of the upcoming procedures, they tested positive and had no idea they and their whole family had it. 90 percent plus of positive meat packing plant positive cases are asymptomatic. 95 percent plus of inmate positive tests are asymptomatic cases...

[stoutdude04]

MN is now pleading for anyone who even thinks they have Covid-19 symptoms to go get tested...they easily have capacity for 10k tests per day but have only been able to test around 4k per day on average over the last 10 days because there isnt demand for more...that's even with testing extremely high percentages of meat processing plants, prisons, etc...

 

The problem is so many people are asymptomatic...could be pointing to mutations of the virus weakening.

 

Pleading for cases to keep nonsensical and irresponsible lockdowns in place scheduled to end here soon.

 

I'll be shocked if places dont start opening up once this latest lockdown is scheduled to end.

 

Nonsensical and irresponsible? Not in my opinion.

[MrTPlush]

Tony Evers said the other day there is no reason (looking at the current situation) that there will be any reason to extend the lockdown. So it sounds like he expects it to just expire barring outbreak explosions all over the state.

[BrewersSuperCollector]

This may be starting all over again affecting.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/05/09/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-update.amp.html

[superfly]

MN is now pleading for anyone who even thinks they have Covid-19 symptoms to go get tested...they easily have capacity for 10k tests per day but have only been able to test around 4k per day on average over the last 10 days because there isnt demand for more...that's even with testing extremely high percentages of meat processing plants, prisons, etc...

 

The problem is so many people are asymptomatic...could be pointing to mutations of the virus weakening.

 

Pleading for cases to keep nonsensical and irresponsible lockdowns in place scheduled to end here soon.

 

I'll be shocked if places dont start opening up once this latest lockdown is scheduled to end.

 

Nonsensical and irresponsible? Not in my opinion.

 

 

When we enacted them? I agree. Two months later and a bevy of data suggesting this is nowhere near what we were told it was going to be? Yes. The only deaths occurring in MN are in nursing homes. Not tens and hundreds of thousands of young and middle aged people. The coming crisis of healthcare and employment is about to make this virus look laughable if we don’t stop the bleed.