COVID-19

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Riggerjack
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Riggerjack »

The public heath approach seems to be that we just assume everyone will make poor choices and deal with the fallout. To be honest, I can't really blame them. You might convince one person to [do social distancing | lose weight | get vaccinated for Lyme] but in the aggregate, people still go to movies during pandemics and they still eat too much and move too little.
Yeah, people will people. Gawd knows we couldn't do anything to stop that. Like you know, write laws to incentivize people to take personal responsibility for personal actions.

That's why we don't have any laws about littering, or arson.

Or maybe we do.

Consider:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/us/c ... tate.html

The lady delivering thermometers and Panda Express to our local case is the wife of a coworker.

There were 16 people who were in contact with the guy who got sick. Our solution? Ask them to text our health department if they started to show symptoms.

One of those 16 decided to fly to the Midwest, instead. The system works!

We don't have a second case, and the guy who got sick is at home, recovering.

That seems like we got lucky. It also seems like a public health plan designed to curb population growth, the hard way.

So we had a highly contagious disease, and 17 people to deal with. I wonder how we COULD have done it better?

Obviously, quarantine doesn't work, but 17 people, only one of whom was sick, doesn't require a quarantine.

If I were to come up with a plan, it would be to allow the CDC to assign a disease as an infectious threat. When a case of that threat comes up, isolate the patient, take the history, and contact the others at risk. That's what we did.

But we need to do more than just ask the others at risk to text, and chase them down when they decide to fly interstate.

We need a legal designation, like "isolated individuals" for these people who are exposed, but not sick.

We should provide PPE, in case they need to go into the world. Explain that even if they don't feel sick, they could be infectious, and this disease is too virulent to take chances with.

And that they could be held liable for damages if someone can trace their exposure back to them, after this briefing. Imagine what it costs to isolate a patient in the hospital. And what a lawyer could do with that liability.

Put them on the no fly list.

We have laws to punish people who break quarantines, but by then it's too late. Modify that law to allow anyone they infect after notification by failing to protect the public health to sue them for damages.

We have FMLA to help employees who get sick. Modify this to cover isolated individuals. That takes care of work.

We have tax records. Replacing their per diem income shouldn't be that controversial or expensive. Covering expenses for lost opportunities (nonrefundable airfare and hotel costs for cancelling travel, etc) seems reasonable.

Individuals would have to deal with isolation from family, or their families go into isolation with them.

We should have their Amazon/USPS/etc deliveries routed through the health department. Then dropped off by the nurse who would be checking up on them daily, anyway; and comes by, geared up. The last thing we want is to expose delivery personel.

The government doesn't seem to have any objections to passing obligations on to industry for less important reasons, requiring delivery services to reroute packages from specific addresses to the county health department doesn't seem impossible to coordinate.

Having a case worker contact employers and schools to relieve the isolated from obligations doesn't seem outside of the normal operating parameters of typical government work.

It wouldn't be 100% effective. People will still be people. But it would be far more effective than "text us when you start running a fever".

People have lives, obligations and responsibilities. If we want them to drop all that for the public good, the least that we the public can do, is foot the bills. It's just 17 people.

Or we can foot the bill for the aftermath.

"But! But, my freedoms!" These people are already screwed. Through no fault of their own, or anyone else, they have been exposed to a contagion. Maybe they get sick, and maybe they don't. Either way, their life is going to change, and not in a good way.

Helping them, helps us. Helping us, should benefit them.

These are all existing limits and restrictions. They could all be modified by a single bill. Funding could be picked up by the federal budget for less than the accounting costs. The CDC already has a fund to deal with pandemic threat. Authorizing them to cover these costs seems efficient.

But that would require money, organization, and planning. You know, the stuff we keep hearing the government does.

But there is no constituency this serves. Nobody gets paid. No corporate interests are catered to, and no politicians get campaign contributions.

So while it seems very doable, I don't think we could do it before a whole lot of people died.

tonyedgecombe
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by tonyedgecombe »

@Riggerjack That's all well and good but if, as you have repeatedly said, government can't do anything competent then it isn't likely to happen. :lol:

Riggerjack
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Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Riggerjack »

Not can't do anything competent.

Rather that all the incentives are aligned against doing things efficiently.

Their toolbox is limited, and their backup toolbox is limited in a different way.

So my point was that this is a treatable problem. In contrast to the hours long videos of experts depicting otherwise.

But I agree that it's not likely to be treated. :roll:

Riggerjack
Posts: 3180
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Riggerjack »

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/12/corona ... dates.html

Scroll to 2:41pm. Last item in the chart.

China will release 20k metric tons of frozen pork in 2 days.

Maybe now is the time to buy pork futures...

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Ego
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COVID-19

Post by Ego »

The Harvard Gazette: Coronavirus likely now ‘gathering steam’
Marc Lipsitch, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Head of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics

I sniped out a few points I found interesting.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/ ... ing-steam/

GAZETTE: But what is most important for the public to know about this?

LIPSITCH: There’s likely to be a period of widespread transmission in the U.S., and I hope we will avert the kind of chaos that some other places are seeing. That’s likely if we continue to be prepared, but I think it’s going to be a new virus that we have to deal with. That won’t be because the United States government has failed to contain it, it will mean that this is an uncontainable virus. If we’re dealing with it, it’s because everybody’s going to be dealing with it. I think that’s a likely scenario.

GAZETTE: From a treatment standpoint, it seems there are a lot of mild cases and then fewer serious cases that need respiratory support. Should hospitals and the medical establishment start thinking about capacity-building now?

LIPSITCH: To the extent that’s possible, yes, but I don’t know how flexible that capacity is. I think we should be prepared for the equivalent of a very, very bad flu season, or maybe the worst-ever flu season in modern times

-----

In other news, the number of new cases today was 14,840 which is 10X higher than yesterday's number of new cases.

Also, the WHO gave the virus the name Covid-19 so I changed the title of this thread to that name.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: COVID-19

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

Thanks for the reference, Ego. That was a concerning read, and just when I was getting hopeful because the mortality rate seems to be slowing. I read yesterday that Spanish flu had a mortality rate of 2.5%, although I think that varied country to country. So if COVID-19 has a mortality rate of 2%, we're looking at something similar to Spanish flu. :shock: Let's hope that's been an overestimate.

Also this explained the reinfection thing better:
LIPSITCH: That is a very important question, but we don’t know the answer yet because it’s been too short a time. The evidence from other coronaviruses is that there is some immunity but it doesn’t last for long. Immunity to the seasonal coronaviruses lasts for maybe a couple of years, and then you can get reinfected. There’s a further question of whether that’s because the virus is changing or because your immunity is not very durable. Given that it’s a new virus, we can’t say anything with certainty, but it would be reasonable to expect immunity to be somewhat short-lived, meaning a couple of years, rather than lifelong.
So it seems like other coronaviruses don't give you lifetime immunity and we're not quite sure why yet. Which means this thing could become endemic.

Riggerjack
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Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: COVID-19

Post by Riggerjack »

In other news, the number of new cases today was 14,840 which is 10X higher than yesterday's number of new cases.
My understanding is that this is an accounting issue. The methods of counting infection changed. We've known the math didn't work for quite a while. It seems that instead of counting cases that test positive for the virus, or chest scans (previous method, with bottlenecks) they are now counting cases that fit symptoms.

So probably not "accurate", but more accurate. I'm curious how this number changes in the future.

And in other news, Vietnam has it's first quarantine zone... :?

jacob
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Re: COVID-19

Post by jacob »

The new test screws with the numbers. Two possible conclusions:

1) They went back and retested existing blood samples resulting in a 33% increase. This should however not change the fact that new confirmed cases (under the old test) has been decreasing for almost 2 weeks. Without properly backdating the retest (under the new test) to the respective dates in which a confirmation had happened IF the new test had been available, one can't confirm the peak. However, if spread uniformly, the spread rate still peaked a while ago.

2) They didn't go back to retest. This means that it's of the usual 2-3k, they have 15k or 5-7x as many infected as believed instead of 33% more. Yet, numbers under the old test were still declining.

However, it should be noted that ex-China numbers are still increasing!

Dream of Freedom
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Location: Nebraska, US

Re: COVID-19

Post by Dream of Freedom »

California lab says it discovered coronavirus vaccine in 3 hours
An American biotech company says it created a coronavirus vaccine three hours after getting access to the virus' genetic sequence on Jan. 9, and now scientists are racing to get the vaccine on the market in record time.
https://news.google.com/articles/CBMiWG ... id=US%3Aen

ertyu
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Re: COVID-19

Post by ertyu »

is this run by theranos lady's cousins?

Dream of Freedom
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Location: Nebraska, US

Re: COVID-19

Post by Dream of Freedom »

ertyu wrote:
Thu Feb 13, 2020 4:48 pm
is this run by theranos lady's cousins?
It's a company called INOVIO if you wish to research that.
Last edited by Dream of Freedom on Thu Feb 13, 2020 5:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

AnalyticalEngine
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Joined: Sun Sep 02, 2018 11:57 am

Re: COVID-19

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

WHO mentioned in their press conference this morning that the spike was causes by allowing for clinically diagnosed cases instead of just lab confirmed cases. The old test involved swabbing the back of the patient's throat and sending it off to a PCR lab to check for viral RNA. The clinically diagnosed cases involve checking for viral pneumonia on x-rays and calling it COVID-19 if the patient is living inside the epicenter/shows other clinical features. As far as I'm aware, we don't have a blood (antibody) test yet. Developing point of care diagnostics was one of the main research priorities set by WHO during their big conference earlier this week.

ToFI
Posts: 136
Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2011 1:22 am

Re: COVID-19

Post by ToFI »

The big spike was just from the Hubei province alone. There's no spike outside of Hubei province at all.

Also the mortality rate is much lower outside of Wuhan, Hubei.

For example, there are 1261 confirmed cases in Guangdong province but only 2 deaths. That's 0.16% mortality. It's like a seasonal flu.


Guangdong province average mortality is 0.16%
Hubei province average mortality is: 2.53%.
Nation wide average mortality is 2.17%.

Ah, it could be the temperature difference. It's much warmer in Guangdong province.

I checked the northern china:
In Heilongjiang province which is very close to Russia, the mortality rate is: 11/418 = 2.63%. So the virus thrives in colder temperature.

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TheWanderingScholar
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Re: COVID-19

Post by TheWanderingScholar »

@ToFI

Or just does worse in warm temperature. ;)

In other news, plasma immunotherapy has been brought up as a way to combat the disease.

Source: Convalescent plasma offers promising treatment for coronavirus
Source:China Seeks Plasma From Recovered Patients as Virus Treatment

So there is stop gap measures without a vaccine.

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Sclass
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Re: COV

Post by Sclass »

That is really interesting. It reminds me of how they make antivenin by shooting horses with snake venom.

I hope and pray they are screening for HIV and Hepatitis B and C when they do this. China created an HIV epidemic with contaminated plasma decades ago.

Edit - here’s a reference. It’s a dangerous game in China.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_Economy

Oh hell no, they’re still doing it.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society ... inated-hiv

Hey they mention the rabies vaccine. Didn’t know that’s how the belly injections worked.

JuliusFC
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Location: Vancouver, BC

Re: COVID-19

Post by JuliusFC »

I live in Vancouver and there continue to be multiple fights a day arriving from China and Hong Kong and our province is still only at 4 confirmed cases. Can anyone explain to my non-scientific mind how this can be? I'm assuming it's because people are simply dealing with their flu symptoms and not going to the doctor if they are/get sick (and they've been lucky not to be sick enough to have to go). So they're not getting tested and the numbers are staying low. Of course not all the people on the flights are staying in the Vancouver area. Some would just be moving on to cities in North America that have banned flights. It just seems odd to me that Vancouver and the airport haven't become hot spots.

Dream of Freedom
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Dream of Freedom »

@JuliusFC

The population of China is over 1 billion. There are about 65000 infected. So a fraction of 1 percent of people are infected. Hence not many cases coming through.
Last edited by Dream of Freedom on Fri Feb 14, 2020 2:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: COVID-19

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

Not to mention they have Hubei and other provinces inside a sanitary cordon, so the odds of a random infected person getting on a given plane are pretty low. Combined with airport fever screenings and quick isolation, they've done a pretty good job at containing it. Note that you don't have to detect every single case. You just have to keep the average number of people a give infected person infects below one. If you can do that, you can effectively contain the outbreak.

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TheWanderingScholar
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Re: COVID-19

Post by TheWanderingScholar »

Not only that but Chinese people, especially males, smoke a lot more than western countries. That makes the average Chinese person more susceptible to pneumonia like virus, which COVID-19 is.
Last edited by TheWanderingScholar on Fri Feb 14, 2020 6:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

JuliusFC
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Re: COVID-19

Post by JuliusFC »

Thanks @DreamOfFreedom et als.

Your logic and math are interfering with my overwhelming need to panic though. :)

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