COVID-19

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ToFI
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Re: COVID-19

Post by ToFI »

In China, they got a fairly good control of the virus. Outside of Hubei, the new case number dropped to almost 0 over the past few days. (18) However, in Wuhan,Hubei area, the new case number is still significant. (few hundreds). I think it's almost impossible to completely remove this virus. It's likely to remain in a low infection level for a long time except the hot summer weather can kill it off.

They start to gradually restart production outside of Hubei. The capacity won't be 100%, more like 70% capacity for the next few months. I don't expect products to be completely shut off from supply chain. It's more of reduced supply and longer ETA of productions. It's like the Intel CPU shortage. It's annoying but not catastrophic for businesses which depends on China as supply chain.

They can't be on a containment mode forever. There are two outcomes for the next few months: 1. The virus is gone. or 2. virus stays around but in limited exposure. and people move on and put their focus on something new like phase 2 trade deal?

I am less worried about it outside of china in developed countries. I notice in developed countries, there's natural social distance.(e.g. more emphasis on individuality) There's more closed socializing in China where it values family, friendships, socialism. In China, I know lots of people's name in town. In Canada, I barely talk to neighbours in a year..I don't even know people's name.It's not easy because we are busy with our own interest and own life. Especially, I have a new Syrian refugee family living beside me which barely speak English. And then there's cultural difference. The main risk is grocery shopping time.

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Ego
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Ego »

Expensive parking near our hospital down the street. Unmasked (someone I know) took an Uber to the emergency room and was diagnosed with flu. Ubered back home.

Always innovative South Korea is doing drive-thru Covid-19 clinics where patients stay in their car and the healthcare worker experiences minimal exposure through the partially opened window.

How soon until Uber flags transport to medical facilities. Otherwise, Uber Vector.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: COVID-19

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

Italy is now exporting cases. They've found it in Austria, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Spain, and Brazil. All tied to travel from Italy.

Dream of Freedom
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Dream of Freedom »

You guys could import a case of San Pellegrino or an Italian leather suitcase but you chose a case of convid 19. What were you thinking? :roll:

theanimal
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Re: COVID-19

Post by theanimal »

Very interesting thread on twitter positing a theory that the place to watch is not Wuhan but Wenzhou, a nearby city. It has the highest number of cases outside of Hubei and a large number of their residents are migrant workers working in Europe. Part 2 explains his thinking of how it expanded to Iran via Middle East markets in China. If his theory is right, he thinks the next place to have a major breakout will be Spain, which also has a very high Chinese migrant working population.

https://twitter.com/moldbugman/status/1 ... 8138925058

theanimal
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Re: COVID-19

Post by theanimal »

I'm surprised there hasn't been much discussion of supply chain effects here. Nissan and Hyundai have already both closed factories In S. Korea and Japan. Proctor and Gamble have mentioned that thousands of their products may not be available. Many active pharmaceutical ingredients are made in China (some exclusively) and the US gets most of their supply from outside the country. Just in Time inventory may be rethought after this if it continues to get worse. There aren't many companies these days with more than a few weeks supply of products in storage. This could really hurt some businesses as insurance isn't going to pick up the bill after learning lessons from SARS and previous pandemics.

naturelover
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Re: COVID-19

Post by naturelover »

If China continues to slow its manufacturing, I'd be interested to see if the US picks up to make up for some of the shortage. Seems unlikely though due to the sheer scale of the requirement.

So what's the point of quarantine at this point? Can it really die off with these measures, or is it really just to stem the tide? I was thinking the latter, since it will help minimize the impact on healthcare and allow for some time for a vaccine.

theanimal
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Re: COVID-19

Post by theanimal »

naturelover wrote:
Wed Feb 26, 2020 2:46 pm
So what's the point of quarantine at this point? Can it really die off with these measures, or is it really just to stem the tide? I was thinking the latter, since it will help minimize the impact on healthcare and allow for some time for a vaccine.
I'd agree. It already seems evident in how they are handling most of the cases in the US. So far it seems they are only quarantined in a medical facility if they are thought to have coronavirus. If they'd only had exposure they are asked to comply with a voluntary quarantine. 83 more people in Nassau County (NY) were just asked to undergo voluntary isolation today. This seems like a terrible policy given the extremely poor means of testing in the US at the moment and the disease's long incubation period.

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Ego
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Ego »

I listened to the Presidential Press Conference on the way home from the swap meet this afternoon. The President repeatedly quoted the Hopkins study (from page 3 of this thread) saying the US is the country best prepared to handle a pandemic.

At the bottom of a box full of medical gear were four boxes of prescription Albuterol. The seller wanted $1 per box. They expire in July. Of course I told them that in good conscience I could not purchase it because it is a prescription medication. :|

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AnalyticalEngine
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Re: COVID-19

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

Unknown community transmission has occurred in Sacramento, CA:

https://www.kcra.com/article/new-case-o ... a/31123681#

classical_Liberal
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Re: COVID-19

Post by classical_Liberal »

theanimal wrote:
Wed Feb 26, 2020 2:55 pm
This seems like a terrible policy given the extremely poor means of testing in the US at the moment and the disease's long incubation period.
Voluntary isolation run by public health is generally less sketchy than you think. They probably have public health nurses coming to the isolation residences at least daily, checking up on them, making sure they didn't have any community contact, making sure they have supplies so they do not feel pressured to leave, etc. At least this is how outbreaks of TB and the like are handled if people are not hospitalized. I mean, you can't just lock people up for being exposed without infection confirmation, and you can't put them in the hospital if they don't need it. Being in the hospital puts people at greater risk of picking up other infectious agents that could exacerbate any positives. Not to mention the resource drain. I'm not sure how else this could be handled in a relatively free society.
AnalyticalEngine wrote:
Wed Feb 26, 2020 10:57 pm
Unknown community transmission has occurred in Sacramento, CA:
This is the only post that concerns me so far from a US perspective. Hopefully they can track it down.

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jennypenny
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Re: COVID-19

Post by jennypenny »

Studies profile lung changes in asymptomatic COVID-19

"In new research developments, a team from Wuhan, China, reports that even asymptomatic patients with COVID-19 pneumonia have abnormal lung findings on computed tomography (CT)..."

Lucky C
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Lucky C »

I doubt the Sacramento case is the only untraceable one in the US, just the only one reported so far. Considering the CDC has only tested about 500 people, and reports that they wouldn't test people if they didn't have a known link to Wuhan/China, and the test kits might have a high occurrence of false negatives, and estimates that unreported cases could be something like 10x to 50x actual, and reports that a flight attended tested positive after multiple trips in and out of LAX (sorry I am too lazy to link sources for all this so feel free to take with a grain of salt)... doesn't it seem much more likely that there would be on the order of 100 unreported cases in the US?

Since reported cases double every week (actually outside China has accelerated and tripled the past week) even with active containment attempts, and some areas "caught by surprise" or with poor containment measures could be much faster (R0 could be much higher than 2 or 3), it seems reasonable that it could now be lurking in all the major US cities. Or at least it seems reasonable to protect yourself as if it is already in the major cities, even if nobody else is taking precautions.

If there are about 20 cumulative non-Diamond Princess reported cases in the US now, and if actual/ascertained ratio is 30, then that's actual of 600. With the fast spread and lag from initial contraction to positive test, roughly 1000 might be a better estimate of currently infected in the US including asymptotic & incubating. Even if actual is only 100 now, it will easily get to 1000 in a few weeks since there's really no reason to believe containment measures would be as good or better than countries like China or South Korea.

LA metro population is about 4% of US population and seems likely to end up with a greater than average proportion compared to the rest of the county. They already have 2 confirmed cases in that area and even if they were contained I would expect double-digit unreported cases there currently. But again if I'm over-estimating then it's likely to be the case within a few weeks anyway.

Since I don't have any plans to go to any major cities or events, I (very roughly) estimate I have about a month left to go out and about to stores etc. with very low odds of getting infected even if not wearing PPE. Once spring is here I'll be avoiding everyone but happy to be able to spend more time outside in nature.

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Ego
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Ego »

How many days until the run on stores begins?

Saturday?

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jennypenny
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Re: COVID-19

Post by jennypenny »

I got seven notifications from Amazon overnight that said items in my monthly subscribe and save order were out of stock. Basic stuff like toothpaste.

Now that I have upwards of 8 people to stockpile for in my immediate circle, I plan on spending the next two days stockpiling everything I can get my hands on. It looks like inventories will run low even if the virus never gets bad here. DS lives in a house with 4 other people at college, so I'll probably ship them a bunch of stuff too.

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eta: It just occurred to me that my brother just moved and doesn't have a dime to spare right now ... add two more to the stockpile list.

I've always stockpiled, and assumed I'd need extra, but this real world exercise makes me realize how many people are in my inner circle right now and might need some help. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to do it -- it's my role in our group -- I'm just a little pissed at myself for not anticipating how much stuff I would need for 10 people.

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Ego
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Ego »

Ego wrote:
Mon Feb 17, 2020 12:19 pm

What would it be like if we were experiencing a crisis similar to China's? I wonder how our systems would fare. Hospitals overwhelmed. Severe staff shortages. Severe equipment and supply shortages. Would hospital staff show up to work if they were not provided adequate PPE?
Lancet article about conditions for hospital workers in Wuhan which had since been retracted under strange circumstances.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lang ... 6/fulltext

Is our system made up of voluntary employees able withstand this?

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jennypenny
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Re: COVID-19

Post by jennypenny »

The Jakarta Pandemic was a pretty good book about what might happen in a typical suburban neighborhood. I thought the invader part was a little far-fetched but the neighborhood dynamics were spot on. It's free if you have Kindle Unlimited.

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I'm using buy online, pick up in store where available to speed up the shopping today. It's free most places with a minimum order. Even my pharmacy has it.

chenda
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Re: COVID-19

Post by chenda »

@jennypenny - how many months are you planning on stockpiling for ? I'm on a news fast at the moment so this thread is my only info on things

ertyu
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Re: COVID-19

Post by ertyu »

Ego wrote:
Thu Feb 27, 2020 9:06 am
Lancet article about conditions for hospital workers in Wuhan which had since been retracted under strange circumstances.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lang ... 6/fulltext

Is our system made up of voluntary employees able withstand this?
That was sad and humbling.

As for the US system, any system made up of whoever will withstand it if the military shows up. It sounds far-fetched, one of those things "a free country" would never do - and probably wouldn't with covid - but it's not an impossibility in an epidemic.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: COVID-19

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

I'm quite concerned about the US system. There's quite a lot of people here who aren't taking the threat seriously. Panicking isn't helpful but neither is sticking your head in the sand. I have a family member with severe epilepsy which is made insanely worse by having a fever, and getting them to take it seriously has been like pulling teeth.

This is just an anecdote, but I read one article about an American who was charged $3k for a COVID test. Stuff like this basically guarantees people won't seek care until it's too late and it's already spread.

Hell, even Alex Azar keeps talking about market failures in his congressional hearing. Stuff like how companies won't make new antibiotics if they're asked not to use them often for the sake of antibiotic resistance. Or the director of the CDC complaining about how companies will make new opioids but won't make a covid vaccine.

I've also got those two books on hold that Jacob recommended on public health.

Anyway that's why I've gone to Costco and gotten enough supplies to hide in my house for 3 months.

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