Coronavirus Outbreak...

[demi-conservative]

BoJo oot o ITU. The Lord be praised.

Are you clapping for BoJo?

[Mountain Man]

BoJo oot o ITU.

Are you Canadian now? The only thing missing was an "Eh?" at the end.

[carpedm9587]

BoJo oot o ITU. The Lord be praised.

[Sparko]

I think he is saying Boris Johnson is out of ICU. He is using a scottish accent.

[carpedm9587]

I think he is saying Boris Johnson is out of ICU. He is using a scottish accent.

Wow... I missed that completely. Thanks for the translation...

[Sparko]

Wow... I missed that completely. Thanks for the translation...

Took me a minute too, until I remembered he is scottish.

[Mountain Man]

Took me a minute too, until I remembered he is scottish.

Oh, that was deliberate? I thought it was typos!

[carpedm9587]

I had to chuckle when this hit my inbox this morning:


Scenario: meteor hits the earth

Dinosaurs: Oh no! The Economy!

[Mountain Man]

In other news, a hospital in Oklahoma City is shutting its doors due to lack of patients].

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...k-of-patients/

There are many similar stories of empty hospitals all across the country.

https://www.syracuse.com/coronavirus...mpty-beds.html
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronav...n-largely-empt
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattve...attle-n2566680

[carpedm9587]

In other news, a hospital in Oklahoma City is shutting its doors due to lack of patients].

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...k-of-patients/

There are many similar stories of empty hospitals all across the country.

https://www.syracuse.com/coronavirus...mpty-beds.html
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronav...n-largely-empt
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattve...attle-n2566680

Were you under the impression that all areas would be hit equally? If the choice is "prepare and not need it" or "need it and not be prepared for it," I'll take the former every time. And the NYC resources were designed to be "overflow." How wonderful that they are not being needed as anticipated and the hospitals have been able to handle the surge. NY state has 90,000 hospital beds and currently 18,000 of them are occupied. Some hospitals are swamped - and others are not. Unfortunately, the reduction in need may be (in part) because the death rate is causing NYC to dig mass-graves to deal with the unclaimed bodies. If patients die quickly, as they tend to do with this, they tend to free up beds.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has more confirmed coronavirus cases than the next three (almost four) countries combined, and New York State is more infected than any other country on the list, including Spain, Italy, France, and Germany. Most of those cases are in the southeast corner of the state - in and around NYC. Upstate has an infection profile more like Vermont because it is more rural with a few larger cities like Rochester, Syracuse, and Buffalo.

Selectively choosing a few cities that are over-prepared doesn't dismiss the data. It's argument by example, and examples can be selectively chosen to make a case for a desired position.

ETA: Shutting down elective surgeries was not only to free up hospital resources for the virus. It was also part of social distancing. One of the most likely places to contract a virus is where the people who are sick with that virus are being taken.

[oxmixmudd]

A bit of actually fairly good new. For 6 days now the number of new cases has remained fairly steady at below the high on April 3. The number is high - over 30,000, but it is more or less static. Likewise, for 3 days the number of deaths has also not climbed, though it is also very high, at close to 2000. BUT, it has a slight downward trend over those 3 days.

What this means is that the logarithmic curve is flattening, which would imply our 'shelter in place' is having effect. Indeed, if we had continued on the exponential growth slope that we were on for the entirety of March prior to the plethora of shelter in place orders, we would be, instead of looking at around 500,000 cases and 17,000 deaths, we'd be looking at somewhere near 2,000,000 cases and likely north of 100,000 deaths.

So we are beginning to see significant fruit from our efforts. Now we need to see it turn down. We can't break this position yet, it will nearly immediately start to grow given the number of active cases out there that are likely asymptomatic. That is, based on a 50% asymptomatic figure, over 400,000 people out there have contracted the virus but are not sick enough to even know they could give it to someone. turn all those folks loose without mitigation and we'll be in a mess in a hurry.

[Terraceth]

Meanwhile, the U.S. has more confirmed coronavirus cases than the next three (almost four) countries combined,

Which means... what, exactly? Spain, Italy, France, and Germany combined have a population of about 261 million. The US has 328 million.

The rest of your post makes some sense, but I'm not sure why you keep bringing up this "the US has more cases than the next 3-4 countries" when the population difference is so large.

[carpedm9587]

A bit of actually fairly good new. For 6 days now the number of new cases has remained fairly steady at below the high on April 3. The number is high - over 30,000, but it is more or less static. Likewise, for 3 days the number of deaths has also not climbed, though it is also very high, at close to 2000. BUT, it has a slight downward trend over those 3 days.

What this means is that the logarithmic curve is flattening, which would imply our 'shelter in place' is having effect. Indeed, if we had continued on the exponential growth slope that we were on for the entirety of March prior to the plethora of shelter in place orders, we would be, instead of looking at around 500,000 cases and 17,000 deaths, we'd be looking at somewhere near 2,000,000 cases and likely north of 100,000 deaths.

So we are beginning to see significant fruit from our efforts. Now we need to see it turn down. We can't break this position yet, it will nearly immediately start to grow given the number of active cases out there that are likely asymptomatic. That is, based on a 50% asymptomatic figure, over 400,000 people out there have contracted the virus but are not sick enough to even know they could give it to someone. turn all those folks loose without mitigation and we'll be in a mess in a hurry.

Hopefully, anti-body tests will help sort the "safe" from the "unsafe," but I don't see that being widely available all that quickly. They cant even get the current tests out as widely as they need to be and most communities are still shooting in the dark.

There's an interesting discussion in the other thread about "being fearful." There is a distinction between "being afraid" and "being driven by fear." Of course I'm afraid. I'm afraid for my 87 year old mother. I am afraid for my wife and myself given that we are in our sixties. I am afraid that much of what I managed to save for my retirement is suddenly at risk. There are many things about this pandemic that are cause for fear and it is understandable to be fearful. That does not mean that fear drives my decisions. Hopefully, the data drives my decisions.

Case in point - my wife and I are largely hunkered down, going out only to help with community food deliveries (where we never make contact with anyone and wash every container before and after we touch it) and to do groceries every other week for ourselves and two elderly households. Last weekend, a tall pine tree dropped a 5" branch 40' through the roof of my in-laws house. I went down to Massachusetts, appraised the situation, made a list and went to home depot for materials (practicing the same social distancing, mask-wearing, and wiping protocols), and fixed their roof without ever going near them. When I came home, my wife said "we have to self-quarantine for 14 days - the governor said so." My response was "bull!" If my in-laws had lived 30 miles away, I would have done exactly the same thing and no one would be saying "self-quarantine." It is the same bug there as it is here, and I was no more exposed in rural Massachusetts than I would be in rural Vermont. Until someone can make an argument as to why fixing it there carries a higher risk than fixing it here, I'll continue to live my life as we have been - which is pretty isolated anyway.

Fear? Absolutely. Why would anyone not have an element of fear facing the current situation? Especially with Mr. Trump at the helm...

[oxmixmudd]

Hopefully, anti-body tests will help sort the "safe" from the "unsafe," but I don't see that being widely available all that quickly. They cant even get the current tests out as widely as they need to be and most communities are still shooting in the dark.

There's an interesting discussion in the other thread about "being fearful." There is a distinction between "being afraid" and "being driven by fear." Of course I'm afraid. I'm afraid for my 87 year old mother. I am afraid for my wife and myself given that we are in our sixties. I am afraid that much of what I managed to save for my retirement is suddenly at risk. There are many things about this pandemic that are cause for fear and it is understandable to be fearful. That does not mean that fear drives my decisions. Hopefully, the data drives my decisions.

Case in point - my wife and I are largely hunkered down, going out only to help with community food deliveries (where we never make contact with anyone and wash every container before and after we touch it) and to do groceries every other week for ourselves and two elderly households. Last weekend, a tall pine tree dropped a 5" branch 40' through the roof of my in-laws house. I went down to Massachusetts, appraised the situation, made a list and went to home depot for materials (practicing the same social distancing, mask-wearing, and wiping protocols), and fixed their roof without ever going near them. When I came home, my wife said "we have to self-quarantine for 14 days - the governor said so." My response was "bull!" If my in-laws had lived 30 miles away, I would have done exactly the same thing and no one would be saying "self-quarantine." It is the same bug there as it is here, and I was no more exposed in rural Massachusetts than I would be in rural Vermont. Until someone can make an argument as to why fixing it there carries a higher risk than fixing it here, I'll continue to live my life as we have been - which is pretty isolated anyway.

Fear? Absolutely. Why would anyone not have an element of fear facing the current situation? Especially with Mr. Trump at the helm...

Indeed. There are two kinds of people that deny being afraid of what is deadly.

Liars and fools.

And there are two kinds of people that venture out into that which is deadly in spite of the danger:

The courageous and the fools

The difference in the latter of course is that the courageous do so for the good of others overcoming their fear. The fools, well, they are just fools.

Our Nurses and Doctors, policemen and fireman, they are the former (courageous).

[carpedm9587]

Which means... what, exactly? Spain, Italy, France, and Germany combined have a population of about 261 million. The US has 328 million.

The rest of your post makes some sense, but I'm not sure why you keep bringing up this "the US has more cases than the next 3-4 countries" when the population difference is so large.

I bring it up because of the trend line. We didn't used to be first for total cases, then we were. Then we had more confirmed cases than the next top two. Then the next top three. Now we are closing in on the next top four. While it is true that, for confirmed cases per million citizens, the U.S. is 21st (1,491) behind San Marino (10,138), Vatican City (9,988), Luxembourg (5,149), Iceland (4,909), Gibraltar (3,770), Faeroe Islands (3,766), Spain (3,359), Switzerland (2,837), Italy (2,441), Isle of Man (2,364), Belgium (2,301), Monaco (2,293), Channel Islands (2,289), Liechtenstein (2,072), France (1,913), Montserrat (1,803), Ireland (1,638), Portugal (1,517), and Austria (1,505), we used to be 44th on that list. In the past 4 weeks we have steadily moved up the list and we show significant signs of continuing to do so. Some we will likely never overtake because they do not benefit from the "law of large numbers." but others we close in on because they are "flattening their curve" more quickly than we are.

Meanwhile there are two other countries with a greater population than ours. While I question China's numbers (57 per million pop), I have little reason to question India's (6 per million pop). And there are 170+ countries whose number per 1M pop is lower than ours. Although NYC is badly skewing our numbers, it is the 31st largest city in the world. Every other larger city in the world has smaller numbers.

Bottom line, we got a late start and a muddled response. The drum-beat from the right to question the numbers and encourage Americans to jump to easing mitigation before the curve has even started a downward trajectory so we can "save the economy" is not helping.