COVID-19

[EdithKeeler]

We have 7 cases in Tennessee, 2 here in Memphis. One person somehow had contact with a school.

I expect my employer is going to tell us to start working from home shortly; they tested the capacity of our system last night to make sure everything still works if we log in from home.

I got 2 calls from my mom’s nursing home today: first one said, essentially “don’t visit if you’re sick.” Follow up call was “don’t visit unless it’s an absolute emergency and we’re not going to let you into patients’ rooms.”

I wasn’t nervous before, but I’m starting to worry a bit, especially because DBF is coming into town on Friday and we’ll be going out a good bit.

And then, of course, there’s this (yes, here in Memphis...) I love the person with the crazy costume and bags on her feet... but her mask isn’t covering her nose. Pretty sure the human race is doomed....

https://mobile.twitter.com/ClayTravis/s ... 6084629506

Then there’s “nah, I’m not gonna wash my hands.” And “if people pray, they’ll be ok.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/wreg.com/n ... ut-it/amp/

[den18]

CDC has updated their recommendations. It looks like they are admitting that they can not control the spread and to prepare for a lot of people to get infected.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/09/man ... xelIhWeVOM

[Jin+Guice]

@Bankai: c_L probably knows more about this than me, but hospitals don't turn away emergency patients to my knowledge. It's more like you get saddled with debt for the rest of your life. The U.S. healthcare system is pretty weak, but it's not as bad as most Europeans I know think it is. I know there are still a lot of uninsured people out there, but Obamacare and the medicaid expansion made a material difference in terms of getting more people insurance.

[George the original one]

CDC has updated their recommendations.

Harumph! Aren't they pretty much the same as the ERE community decided a week or two ago?

[George the original one]

Meanwhile our president is saying that there is too much fear mongering by the media and that this is not so serious as people are thinking.

Are Trump and your president clones separated at birth?

[steveo73]

I've just been informed we have to work from home 1 week and then from the office the next week. I already work from home every Thursday so now I will be in office 4 days out of 10.

It's fantastic.

[OTCW]

We have 7 cases in Tennessee, 2 here in Memphis. One person somehow had contact with a school.

I expect my employer is going to tell us to start working from home shortly; they tested the capacity of our system last night to make sure everything still works if we log in from home.

I got 2 calls from my mom’s nursing home today: first one said, essentially “don’t visit if you’re sick.” Follow up call was “don’t visit unless it’s an absolute emergency and we’re not going to let you into patients’ rooms.”

I wasn’t nervous before, but I’m starting to worry a bit, especially because DBF is coming into town on Friday and we’ll be going out a good bit.

And then, of course, there’s this (yes, here in Memphis...) I love the person with the crazy costume and bags on her feet... but her mask isn’t covering her nose. Pretty sure the human race is doomed....

https://mobile.twitter.com/ClayTravis/s ... 6084629506

Then there’s “nah, I’m not gonna wash my hands.” And “if people pray, they’ll be ok.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/wreg.com/n ... ut-it/amp/

Follow Prince Mongo's lead. Wisest man in Memphis.

[EdithKeeler]

Follow Prince Mongo's lead. Wisest man in Memphis

He ran for Mayor again last year.

[Jin+Guice]

@EK: "But doctors say praying won’t be enough to protect you from this latest outbreak, which has already killed almost 4,000 people worldwide."

At least someone is having fun.

[EdithKeeler]

I’m thinking about postponing DBF’s visit. He’s 69, so at a higher risk of death. And I know we’ll be going out a lot while he’s here, out among the (apparently literally) Great Unwashed.

I dunno. Part of me says I’m overreacting, the other part of me says “they freakin’ closed Italy!!”

[fiby41]

Then there’s “nah, I’m not gonna wash my hands.” And “if people pray, they’ll be ok.”

Washing hands is kind of like praying with hands folded.

[Ego]

Looking ahead, viral respiratory infections often come in two waves.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1237 ... 20672.html

This study speculates why the second wave happens:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/artic ... 60343.s001

Some reasons why:
-changing contact rates
-the virus mutates
-differences in human immunity
-waning immunity

and others....

[C40]

Out here in SE Asia, I've gotten a bit worried about visa changes. In Vietnam, they will not grant any visas to incoming citizens of Europe, UK, China, Korea, or Iran. I read that they will do the same for countries that have over 500 cases or 50 new cases per day. The U.S. is past 500 (and likely 50/day), but I haven't read about them stopping for U.S. citizens yet. I've heard that they will allow citizens of those countries who are already in Vietnam to extend their visa by 3 months one time inside the country. I'm thinking, if I want to stay here to buckle down for a while, I'll try get a new 3 month entry (~visa) by going to the border this weekend, and then would have the option to extend another 3 months

The other thing I'm considering is going back to the U.S., where everything is more familiar which may be better for me if/when things get crazier. One problem with that is I canceled my health insurance for 2020 in January (uh, probably a bad idea in hindsight) in order to not have to pay a bunch for it because I sold a lot of stocks that month (a very good idea in hindsight) and have large capital gains and increase income this year

[sky]

I heard Viet Nam closed it's land borders to US citizens yesterday.
...
PSA Vietnam closed land borders for people from EU and USA. I just got kicked off the bus this morning

I'm based in Cambodia and have to do a visa run. Bus from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh is by far the easiest option, but after boarding the bus they told everyone Vietnam closed the land border for European and US citizens. I personally haven't been out of Asia for months, but that doesn't matter apparently. They gave us the option to stay on the bus, but on case they won't let us through we're on our own.

I'm looking at flights now, as apparently the airport does allow entry

https://www.reddit.com/r/digitalnomad/c ... ople_from/

[C40]

I can't find confirmation about them closing to U.S. citizens yet. (just 8 EU countries, China, Iran, and Korea).

The visa run company I've organized a border trip with for this Saturday (3 days from now) says that Vietnam is still issuing visas for U.S. citizens. They did say one border crossing towards the south end of Vietnam is shut down (in some amount) because they weren't following health testing/declaration protocols. Maybe that person was expecting to go here. Or maybe they are from one of those EU countries and just added the U.S.

IDK.. The US is far over the numbers that Vietnam set for closing countries, so I expect it will happen. Maybe they'll also do some accounting for the population of countries as well. My landlord has told me a few times that U.S. citizens get much better treatment from the Vietnam government than others. Maybe that is or will be a factor also, but I'm sure, only for so long and not all that long. Vietnam seems to be doing a good job of quarantining and now blocking entry to protect its people.

[Lucky C]

(Sorry if any of this has already been posted...)

Status of first RI case: middle-aged man with asthma but otherwise healthy, required ICU and came "one inch from death".
https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronaviru ... 6?mod=e2fb

Status of first CT case: middle-aged man with a heart condition, now in a coma.
https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Wi ... 120356.php

New England is not off to a very good start!

Why is South Korea CFR so low? Check out the high young-old and female-male ratios:
https://twitter.com/Barton_options/stat ... 2288211971

Also Ben Hunt's (Epsilon Theory) Twitter feed has been full of details I have not seen elsewhere.
https://twitter.com/EpsilonTheory

[Riggerjack]

Why is South Korea CFR so low?

South Korea has done the most testing, so their number of infected is closer to reality than anyone else. High denominator means more accurate CFR.

By comparison, Italy is over 5% CFR.

I tried to explain the math to an engineer who was spouting the 'it's just a bad flu, and the real flu is deadlier" line. Either covad is far deadlier than 1% mortality, or it's far more common than we know.

Either way, it's nowhere near as bad as a bad flu, but way worse than seasonal flu.

Basic, back of the envelope division is too much for people to process. Talking about infection curves vs recovery curves is way outside of their capabilities.

I hate taking my headphones off at work, my low opinions of my coworkers just get lower.

Oddly, all the "dumb rednecks" I know all have their prep together, and are settling in for the sky to fall. It's all the educated/domesticated that somehow can't process change.

Co-worker still flying out Friday for vacation, still getting congrats about upcoming travel...

[Bankai]

I think demographics and testing are just two of many reasons why Korea has such a low CFR. Others are:

* It's a very reserved culture, similar to Japanese, so people are unlikely to be very close to one another or touch each other casually. This is in contrast to southern countries in Europe where people touch each other all the time. So less chance for transmission.

* Wearing masks was already a big thing in Korea before the virus and now even more people do it - so it's not seen as something weird or alarmist as it is in the West

* Less individualism and stronger national/group identity means people are much more likely to listen and adhere to official guidelines (even celebrities there go to the military for 2 years and it's expected of them)

* They have tons of hospitals and are well prepared. Healthcare is so available that some people just go to the hospital when they are chronically tired and casually get drip with vitamins

* They are much healthier and health-conscious - very few obese people, most people use sunscreen even in winter, etc.

[Lucky C]

For cases by state in the US, Massachusetts is behind Washington, New York, and California.
But adjusting for population, MA is now in 2nd place.

Cases per 1000 residents based on Johns Hopkins data morning of 3/11/20:
Washington: 0.036
Massachusetts: 0.013
New York: 0.009
California: 0.004

I've been trying to project odds of getting infected for the average person based on very rough guesses of ascertainment ratio (30?), doubling time (nobody taking this seriously = around 4x per week?) and the delay between infection and report of being infected (1 week?). This results in a projection that the average Massachusetts resident would expose themselves to an approx. 1% chance of infection if they continue their regular routine (no slowdown measures implemented) through next week (1% chance for the entire week, not for a single outing). The last week of the month (March 25th through 31st) would be more like a 10% chance of getting infected. Still pretty good odds even if you go to work everyday and take no precautions like everyone else, but of course projecting out to just the first half of April it's going to be EVERYWHERE. But with the 2 - 14 day delay in symptoms and further delays in reporting, people probably won't realize it's everywhere until the end of April, and might not be scared enough to change their behavior until after they're already infected.

I know even on this forum this might sound extreme, that by the end of this month you could have a double-digit percent chance of getting infected if you go about your daily routine, but this is what the math says with the fast spread, delay from infection to reported case, and low ratio of reported cases to actual. Run your own numbers if you think ascertainment ratio and doubling time are way too high, or if you are in a more rural area. Again this is for MA which is currently in 2nd place for infection rates. Even if my numbers are way off then in terms of time it's probably only a matter of weeks, not months. The main takeaway is that when you consider the fast spread with little mitigation in place combined with the lag between case reporting and people initially coming into contact with the virus, the probability of infection for an Average Joe is likely going to ramp up a lot faster than you might think.

[IlliniDave]

(Sorry if any of this has already been posted...)

Status of first RI case: middle-aged man with asthma but otherwise healthy, required ICU and came "one inch from death".
https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronaviru ... 6?mod=e2fb

Yikes, I better revisit my estate plan. I've been fighting a low-level battle with allergy-related asthma since I was 11 years old. The only thing possibly working in my favor is that only the very first occurrence was anywhere near acute, and it wasn't bad enough for hospitalization or anything. Too bad I didn't spend a little more $ for a "four season" hideout in the Northwoods--I could run up there and hide and perhaps forestall my demise.