COVID-19

[Mrs Riggerjack]

I don't have much of substance to add, but I did find this amusing summary of the messaging we are receiving about dealing with the coronavirus threat.

"So, the collective advice from health authorities around the world can be summarized:

1) Wear a mask when going outside, Don’t wear a mask it won’t make any difference.
2) Don’t shake hands or physically greet people, practice socially distancing. Carry on life as normal your risk of catching the virus is low.
3) The people at risk are the elderly, and very young. Children are not at risk, very few are catching this and it’s only mild.
4) The fatality rate is [insert guess] So be warned/calm down.
5) Be sure to have a few food supplies and water on hand at home to be prepared. Don’t stock up there is no need.
6) Over 80% of people will only be very mild. For heavens sakes don’t go to hospital if you are unwell phone ahead so staff can prepare and put on masks and protective gear.
7) Don’t attend large gatherings or events, yes send your children to school.
8 ) Only those with symptoms can spread the illness, you may shed the disease for 14 (or 24 or 29) days before symptoms. You can shed the illness after recovery.
9) You can get the illness again, you can’t catch the illness a second time.
10) This is a pandemic, this isn’t a pandemic, this might become a pandemic, pandemic is not a helpful word. Pandemic is a bit racist.
11) This came from a wet market, bat, dead snake, a virus laboratory, was a bioweapon, was a Star Trek movie plot, probably caused by 5G.
12) There’s no need to cancel travel, people should cancel unnecessary travel.
13) Pets cannot contract or carry Coronavirus, this is not a zoonotic disease, this is a zoonotic disease and has infected at least two confirmed cases of pet dogs, it’s unknown if pets can be infected calm down.
14) Wash your hands, cough into your elbow, stay home if you are sick, you could probably continue to go to work with a very mild case."

But seriously, why are we given such conflicting information on how to deal with this...?

[Riggerjack]

The thinking in the UK seems to be the longer we can drag this out the less likely the health system is going to be overwhelmed. I find it hard to argue against that.

Yeah, that's what I hear here, too. But what I see is very different from what I hear. When actions and words don't match, I pay attention to actions.

What I see, is that nothing will be done from the top to slow the rate of infection. We have embraced a policy of Hope and Security Theatre. PPE is on backorder, so just keep going with BAU, and everything will be ok.

This is obviously not true. We have a State of Emergency in Washington. That looks very much like every other day. We have clear laboratory evidence of the virus evolving in our population from patient zero, and we know how virulent it is. And kids are in school. We have a confirmed case in the post office. And we are still delivering junk mail. Planes still fly, and the buses are running. Cruise ships are still loading out of Seattle, daily.

We have chosen epidemic over disruption. The only way this makes any sense, is if epidemic was inevitable. That this was inevitable isn't a hard case to make. Even after all of China's actions, if they get this under control, there is still reinfection risk...

In that case, one must choose between fast and hard epidemic, or slower, longer lasting epidemic. We talk about a slow drawn out epidemic, not overwhelming the system, but that would require actions we aren't taking.

While I would prefer a longer slower epidemic, I am not sure my preference would result in fewer overall casualties. Merely fewer casualties from the virus, and direct complications.

[jennypenny]

@Seppia--I guess I was hoping this thread would be a place to find useful and up-to-date information. I don't want to have to wade through rants trying to find actionable stuff. If I'm the odd one out, that's cool. I'll skip the thread from now on.


And since we're veering off of info-only posts, here's something that validates the hardcore 'I's on the forum as my parting post ...



"I've been practicing for this moment my whole life."

[sky]

Here is a US government official information email sent to all those participating in the Affordable Care Act:

HealthCare.gov

Here's what to know about Coronavirus

You’ve likely heard about the Coronavirus (officially called “2019-Novel Coronavirus” or “COVID-19”) in the news. While the immediate health risk remains low to Americans and there isn’t a vaccine yet, there are still ways that you can help prevent the spread of this virus.

To prevent the spread of this illness or other illnesses, including the flu:

Wash your hands often with soap and water,
Cover your mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze,
Stay home when you’re sick, and
See your doctor if you think you’re ill.


Visit The Centers for Disease Control website for more information on the Coronavirus, including what you should know about symptoms, treatments, testing, and other frequently asked questions.

Sincerely,

The HealthCare.gov Team

[Bankai]

Chief Medical Officer for England answering questions from MPs - I found this very informative and reassuring coming directly from one of the best-informed people in the world:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfJcwDaZrsA

Main takeaways:

- The original plan was to contain it in China and contain few isolated cases outside of China, now this plan is pretty much gone and chances of containing the virus are close to zero

- Washing hands is crucial as you usually get infected by touching something someone else touched after sneezing into their hand; however the virus is largely gone after 48 hours from hard surfaces, within 72h almost completely gone; lives on soft surfaces even shorter

- 1% is the upper limit for mortality rate in developed countries, most likely lower than that due to cases with no symptoms who we aren't able to identify now; personally he thinks mortality will be below 1%

- Modeling individuality and in combination how various responses affect reduced mortality & pushing back the peak of epidemy vs societal impact (schools unlikely to be closed as very little benefit, children appear to be largely unaffected but the effect on workforce and society would be great)

- Vaccine within a year would be lucky; might be ready for a second wave (presumably next winter 21/22?) if the virus will continue circulating in society (as he believes is likely); as mortality rate is low, there will be no cutting corners with ensuring vaccine is safe, plus manufacturing process on top of that

- Some existing drugs or combinations might work against this (ie HIV drugs)

- Advisable for groups at risk to isolate from the virus (but at the peak of epidemy and not too early). No benefit to self-isolate at the moment as it's just starting. Don't want to isolate them from society completely though

- Fit and healthy people can die from anything, but this is very rare to happen so no worry about them

- Children with asthma etc. should be OK unless severe asthma which gets worse with any other respiratory infection; in that case might need to go to the hospital

- Median time b/w acquiring it and getting symptoms is around 5 days, the vast majority who have mild symptoms have them for around 7 days.

- For the majority of people who run into trouble, it starts from day 6-7 so it's usually either mild case and recovery or mild case turning worse after a while

- No need to stockpile on anything at this time; this will be a marathon, not a sprint, there’s going to be a lead time before the actual serious take-off of this comes (another confirmation that the worst is still to come & markets are not pricing this correctly)

- The vast majority of people who get it will not be expected to go to GP and just stay at home and self-isolate

- Reiterated that even 80+ people will largely be OK - mortality was 9% in extremely under pressure China and even there 91% recovered; expected mortality here is less but will be looking into shielding/isolating when epidemy speeds up

Overall it seems they expect a large proportion of the population (20-50%) to get it but for the vast majority, this will be just another cold/flu. In light of this, the economic disruption will be prolonged IMO and markets will react accordingly once they realize this won't be over in a couple of weeks (as some commentators still claim).

[tonyedgecombe]

See your doctor if you think you’re ill.

We are getting the opposite advice, there is a hotline to call, drive in test centres and if you are sick enough you will be directed to a treatment centre. Of course the hotline is overloaded right now.

[steveo73]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9plB00gdlkk

This one is short and sweet.

[Dream of Freedom]

Washington county with nine coronavirus deaths urges ALL its 2.2MILLION residents to work from home, pulls 22,000 students from school and tells everyone over 60 to stay indoors -

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -home.html

[George the original one]

State of Washington published count as of 11a
- 70 confirmed cases
- 10 deaths

News services updated the count to 74 cases and 11 deaths, but the web site was not changed.

[steveo73]

That is a massive mortality rate. Is there something special in these numbers. That is scary.

[Dream of Freedom]

The U.S. isn't testing much so only severe cases are even reported.

[Bankai]

Assuming 1% death rate Washington only found 7% of cases? Sounds bad...

[steveo73]

That makes more sense. It does sound bad.

[Riggerjack]

That is a massive mortality rate. Is there something special in these numbers. That is scary.

Well, we found 25 sick people in an old folks home, when our second death occurred. The numbers are going to skew on the scary side until that anomaly gets lost in the shuffle. But they are exactly what one would expect when the virus gets loose in that kind of environment, and there was no testing until the first death. Perhaps not all 25 of the respiratory illness cases were Coronavirus, but keeping one case in there unprotected until near death is going to have an effect.

So the numbers are scary, and due to get scarier, (I can't imagine the residents not showing symptoms at the time got away Scott free) but not generally applicable outside of this local bubble.

That one case, became 25 patients and 25 staff with suspected cases at the time, IIRC.

[George the original one]

That is a massive mortality rate. Is there something special in these numbers. That is scary.

Elder care facility. All deaths are over age 60. Only one severe case is in their 40s. State of Washington is no longer reporting how many people they are tracking, but the last number reported was 231.

The lone confirmed case in Nevada (again, only severe cases are being reported) was a retired military man who traveled to both Texas and Washington. He could easily be the gambler/traveler that infected an employee in the Pendleton, Oregon, casino.

[AnalyticalEngine]

Unfortunately we just don't know the CFR. It's pretty high in Italy at 3.75%. But then lower in Korea at 0.7%. Unfortunately a lot of people in Korea are still ill so it could go up. If I had to guess I'd say it'll shake out around 2-3% but the scary thing is we just don't know.

Also Colorado has two cases now. I will say our governor is handling it well. Press conferences are clear and they have a plan to tackle it.

[George the original one]

Well, crap. Oregon Health Authority is not updating numbers tonight due to a large number of samples submitted.

[black_son_of_gray]

Something to keep in mind with respect to older people being more at risk of dying from COVID-19 is that older people are more at risk of dying generally. See chart:


Source: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db26.htm

Note how the shape of the curve looks more or less the same as the COVID-19 mortality curve. It's grim calculus, but the most relevant question is "how many more deaths will occur from COVID-19 than would have occurred otherwise." If I'm thinking about this correctly, this compensation might lessen the steepness of the COVID-19 mortality curve considerably.

Edit: The same analysis could be done for any given existing condition (e.g. heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, etc.)

[sky]

This may be a hoax, but there does seem to be some evidence that electromagnetic pulses can be used to reduce virus infection:

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _treatment

https://youtu.be/3iBtTuf3Pbg

https://www.bobbeck.com/pdfs/build-your-own.pdf

[Seppia]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... nators-say

Test rollout slower than promised