COVID-19

[jacob]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw (94 mins)

Michael Osterholm (Director for the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy) on Joe Rogan.

[wolf]

chancellor Merkel said just recently in a press conference that "60 to 70 percent of people will get infected" (in Germany)

[Ego]

Two TSA screeners at San Jose Intl Airport have tested positive. The TSA is quarantining for 14 days other TSA employees who have been in contact with the screeners. No mention of the thousands of passengers who were patted down or had their passports handled by them.

[jacob]

@wolf - Yeah, those are standard numbers. What's interesting is how openly the various countries are handling it. Or which/how/when leaders finally communicating the numbers.

After dragging their feet all last week and until about two days ago, the Danish equivalent of the HHS (health services) came out and directly said that the most likely outcome will be 1680--5600 dead (ultimate CFR 0.3-1%...(although the admit the risk of turning Italian is "high") with 580,000 total infected (that's ~10% of the population) expecting 60,000 needing some treatment with 11,200 needing hospital admission, and 2,800 needing ICU. They're "expecting" to be able to handle this "really well" (whatever that means) and admit that this will mean that other treatments will be postponed(*) in the meantime.

(*) The national system has some rule where the patient has a right to be treated within a certain time. That has been suspended.

[Jason]

In the future, there will be much inked spilled on this. I'm sure Frontline is filming old women being wheeled out in body bags as we cough. But looking at the macro picture, there will no doubt be much contextualization of an exogenous force spreading throughout the globe during a time where there was a worldwide rise in nationalism and how these two events collided, and in the US, how it impacted a Presidential election. We (US) are not shy of using war imagery when it comes to domestic policy ie wars on drugs, wars on poverty etc. But no one from either party is saying war on Coronavirus at least from what I've read. I'm guessing because its been made into another battle in a greater culture war, although I'd have to think the Biden Alzheimer's trust has considered taking that linguistic route.

[Laura Ingalls]

@Jason
In all seriousness I have thought about what happens if either/both Trump or Biden dies after the convention but before the election?

[Cheepnis]

@Rigger, my redneck coworkers think it's all a hoax. One was explaining to everyone last Friday that we should be more worried about hepatitis.

[ertyu]

(ANSA) - ROME, MARCH 10 - "Specialized doctors who first faced the peak of the coronavirus emergency" will also arrive from China along with lung masks and respirators.
Foreign Minister Luigi DI Maio said in connection with La Vita live on Rai 1. "Not that our doctors need someone to teach them the job" but the Chinese doctors "were the first" and they will be able to bring their experience, he explained.

https://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/mondo/ ... e77c0.html

China is playing this brilliantly from an international relations perspective. Masks to Japan, Iran; doctors and masks to Italy; fucking *ducks* to pakistan. While the US flails, they're stepping in as the go-to power who is in control. They were already playing this role in their immediate neighborhood + resource-rich dvping countries where they have economic interests, but they are expanding this to include the western world + middle east/pakistan. Will be interesting to watch this develop.

[CS]

@c40
Someone on another forum said Washington state reopened their health exchange but I'm having a hard time finding confirmation about that. Moving might be enough of a change to get health insurance elsewhere.

@riggerjack
I did shut down my business over this. It cost me 3k in unexpected expenses for the insurance tail, with zero income for the year to offset the 5k of total expenses, and now my stash is, well, all that I have, but I'm not even worried about it. It was worth it.

Edit:
@ertyu Good points about China. The advantages of a group culture are shining right now.

[Bankai]

Some potentially good news for a change?

https://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/ ... mperatures

[shemp]

Just reporting in with some disconnected thoughts. I flew out of San Francisco on Feb 28, passed through Frankfurt, landed in Madrid, bus to Granada, and now living my customary homeless hiker existence in the mountains, alternating between hotels and camping.

No way to wash fresh fruit and vegetables from stores and so I eat unwashed as usual, though who knows how many people have touched it previously. I also don't wash my hands before eating, though they get dirty outdoors, nor do I treat water from springs, despite signs saying "non potable" (primitive springs have no signs, but are surely even more contaminated). In the past, I thought exposing myself to a constant stream of bacteria and viruses was building a strong immune system, but not sure this is a good idea with coronavirus.

I had nasty cold symptoms all February back in the USA, though it might have been allergies from the filthy motel I was living in (cleaning chemicals, dust of dead bedbugs and cockroachs, lingering cigarette smoke, maybe even meth fumes from a previous tenant). Anyway, after arriving in Spain, I had a horrible splitting headache for a day, though that might be related to lack of sleep and jetlag. After a good night's sleep outdoors, in the fresh mountain air, I recovered completely, other than some occasional mucus when huffing and puffing uphill, though that's probably just routine nasal irritation from dry air.

No one seems to be panicking in the small towns I'm passing through. Not sure what I'm going to do if the virus spreads. Schengen visa rules say I need to leave Spain on May 27, but I'll probably get a waiver if air travel has been sharply curtailed. In the meantime, I have no idea what is the best course of action. As long as I'm hiking in the mountains, I'm as isolated and safe as possible. But the minute I go into town for groceries or hotel stop, exposed.

Finding it very hard to see how I can adjust my habits to reduce possibility of infection. I could stop eating fruit, but what about bread? Even bread wrapped in plastic isn't safe because someone might have touched the plastic wrapper. Ditto for canned goods, cheese in plastic wrappers, chocolate, peanuts, which are my other foods. Wrapper protects food, but nothing protects wrapper. I'm sure there's a way to remove the wrapper without contaminating the food in the process, IF I had a full kitchen at my disposal. But living this quasi homeless existence, not a chance.

[Riggerjack]

@ CS

Good move.

At 49 with asthma, I am not worried about dying. I do think that long term consequences are worth the effort to avoid, if possible.

But MERS and SARS both have high rates of long term consequences. We don't have a long term with covad-19, so we don't have a clue about that. Nobody is even considering it, that I can find. Let's just pretend that either one does or lives on with no repercussions, that's just easier.

Though MERS and SARS both have a much higher mortality rate than Covad-19. So there is hope.

Speaking of which, I should really try to remind myself what a piddling little virus this is. It's super contagious, but on a scale of scary viruses, this is about as good as we could hope for.

Not that it'll be much comfort to someone waiting on a gurney in a hallway, waiting for someone else to die so they get to use his breathing equipment...

[reepicheep]

At the beginning of the pandemic, Reep had an orgy.

[Jason]

@Jason
In all seriousness I have thought about what happens if either/both Trump or Biden dies after the convention but before the election?

I know many people are using this thread in a serious manner which although I respect, by virtue of my nature, I find impossible to comport with, it does makes you think about watching Trump addressing the Republican National convention with a bloody handkerchief over his mouth railing against fake news and Joe Biden being Zoom Videod from wherever he is quarantined.

[Bankai]

According to BBC WHO just declared global COVID-19 pandemic. Not that it hasn't been the case for some time already, but markets will not be happy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-51829559

[Lucky C]

I almost want to catch it now just to get it over with... while hospital capacity is still there.

Might be too late for that. It can take 2 weeks for a healthy person to even start to show symptoms, and if you catch it today and needed ICU it could be 3 weeks before you get to that point. Italy is over capacity already and the US is about 2 weeks behind (tough to know exactly based on test rollout issues). I'm not confident that in an extreme situation I would be prioritized for ICU based on my medical history so I'm looking to isolate until it burns its way through the country. Even if I knew I would only have a mild response I would still want to avoid it since "mild" includes non-hospitalized pneumonia cases and potential long term impacts.

[jacob]

Anyone have a timeline on how long all this is going to play out?

At least into the fall. Watch the Osterholm interview I linked above. This is just the beginning. Locking down will demonstrably stop the spreading, but once it's opened up at again, a second wave will form. Eventually the increasing density of recovered people will slow down the spread on its own... that is, the distance to still-infectable people will be high enough on its own so that people don't have to self-distance as much. Hopefully some of the habits being developed now will persist and help as well.

[Riggerjack]

@ bankai

* 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)

You realize that none of that influences CFR, right? You could have a nation of Elvises in uniform, singing in jeeps. Those national traits could influence infection rate, but once they catch the virus, they caught the virus.

* 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.

These would influence CFR. Whether we are talking about young, thin Elvises, or fat old Elvises matters a lot.

[Bankai]

Fair point. Although you might say that being reserved and compliant and wearing a mask around old people might make you less likely to give it to them once you realise they are in a high risk group. So proportionally less old people in the infected group which would lower CFR?

[den18]

Do we know anything more about coronavirus and surface tempature? My understanding is that cooking will likely kill it, but do we know at what tempature and how long it takes? Also relevant if you are ordering delivery, the virus could be killed after cooking, but if it can survive a "hot" tempature, the food could be reinfected when handiling.

Any update if the infection spread is coming from person to person contact (or aresols) or contaminated surfaces?