COVID-19

[7Wannabe5]

@steveo73:

I meant 2% for men in their 50s, not 2% overall.

[Bankai]

@7W5: sorry to hear that. I don't think anyone here is postulating to let millions die. But there surely must be a better way than shutting everything until vaccine.

Re: mortality rate - Tyler9000 posted on previous page most recent science estimating it at 0.66%. that's of all infected, so assuming 50% gets the virus only 0.33% will die (or 1 in 300).

[IlliniDave]

7wb5, my first thought is maybe that's the age where hypertension, moderate obesity, and the cluster of conditions surrounding heart disease and type 2 diabetes set in, disproportionately in men. I'm barely able to keep that cluster at bay myself.

Two of the facilities of my employer were cleared for "return to work" after their CDC Level 3 cleaning. Return is somewhat voluntary. For those whe can work from home, they are already mandated to do so. For those that rely on the facility for their work, people are doing the best they can finding alternate work that can be done from home, but it's not always possible. For people who "voluntarily" stay home who can't work 40 hours remotely they've expanded flex time and unpaid leave policies. So worst-case an employee who chooses to stay home will have reduced earnings, but won't lose their job. For those who are quarantined or affected by facility closures arrangements are made on a case-by-case basis. Overall not too bad for an evil heartless corporation.

I'm now sold on the opinion that we should have, and still should ASAP, go into a coordinated nation-wide hard lockdown (enforced) for 2-4 weeks then extended as events warrant. In many ways it's very "un-American" to restrict peoples' movement and activity so thoroughly and heavy-handedly, and truthfully it sort of scares me that I would support the government doing that. I think we've overdone the "war on <abstract concept>" sloganing, but this fits the term war better, and the disease is not an abstract thing. It's economically devastating of course, but I think more pain for shoter time will work out better in the long run than less pain for more extended duration.

Heard in passing about some analysis/scientific inquiry/modeling that suggests there is almost no chance the Chinese government has been forthcoming about what's happened/is happening there, that things in all likelihood have been and are far worse. Anyone know if there is any merit to those allegations? Or is it just propaganda of the vast right-wing conspiracy?

[Jason]

Fountains of Wayne is an actual business - fountains being the product, Wayne being the name of the town. It's adjacent to the DMV where I tested for my first drivers license and where our local mafiosos bought their lawn ornaments before heading to the strip club they owned hiding behind it. Its quintessential NJ. He did not look to be in good health, a little Jack Blackish. Any way, RIP.

[7Wannabe5]

@Bankai:

.33% of the U.S. population is 1.2 million people.

NYT started an obituary page just for those of some renown dying from Covid. Most depressing entry to me was 74 year old man who wrote a book about walking every block in NYC.

@IDave:

Maybe, but sex differential was also seen in mice trials. Might be due to estrogen or viral protection provided by extra X chromosome. The co-morbidity correlation could also possibly make sense as coincidence. IOW, the risk is mainly related to age of immune system or cells and co-morbidities simply come along for the ride.

For instance, if 52 percent of people over 50 have high blood pressure and the most frequent co-morbidity (73%) seen in Covid deaths is high blood pressure, and 20% of deaths do not have known co-morbidities, then it is difficult to tag very much causation to the fact of high blood pressure, because 73% of 80% is 58%. In fact, the more in alignment the co-morbidities associated with Covid deaths are with the prior statistical distribution in the population, the more likely both Covid deaths and these co-morbidities are simply correlative with cell or immune system age.

[chenda]

Fountains of Wayne is an actual business - fountains being the product, Wayne being the name of the town.

Sadly it appears its closed down. Maybe the strip clubs still going though ?

[Bankai]

.33% of the U.S. population is 1.2 million people.

Of course, it is. But you're only looking at one side.

What about millions of unemployed, tens or hundreds of thousands of failed businesses, millions of women/children who will be abused by frustrated unemployed partners with nowhere to run, millions of people who will develop mental illnesses due to isolation, millions of vulnerable people who will get worse due to isolation, tens or hundreds of thousands of suicides, unknown numbers of new drugs and treatments which won't be developed, tens of millions of children who will lose half a year or a year of education, possibly impacting their future in a dramatic way, all the debt future generations will have to pay somehow (be it in taxes or inflation), all the ill that won't get treated, many thousands of start-ups which will never be started and all the inventions, life and longevity improvements those new companies would generate that we will never see, all new Elon Musks who will be scarred for life by this crisis and will play it safe by becoming accountants instead of starting something great and improving the world?

I don't see any of this ever being discussed in the media. The discussion is framed as lives vs money. But it's lives vs lives. Do we really want to sacrifice 99.7% to save* 0.33%? Our civilization was not built on sacrificing everything to save all possible life at all costs, throughout human history, there were always trade-offs and difficult decisions to be made.

To reiterate, I don't think we should ignore the virus completely and let the old and weak die. But neither we should sacrifice everyone else to save lives at all costs. Short term lockdown would probably prevent less suffering than it would save. However, if it goes on for many months, total suffering will be growing exponentially and quickly outweigh the benefits of saving lives.

*save means adding 4 years to life expectancy on average

[Jason]

Sadly it appears its closed down. Maybe the strip clubs still going though ?

If history has proven anything, there is single mother who has just named her baby daughter "Corona" assuring that the supply chain remains in tact.

[7Wannabe5]

@Bankai:

IOW, almost the same thing that would happen if almost everybody early retired. If you account for natural resources not usually included in standard economic analysis, some measures, such as air quality, have already improved. Any kid who is getting 1on 1 attention from a parent with an IQ over 100 is probably learning more than while in school, people are eating more home cooked meals, and less CO2 is being released into atmosphere. Level of financial churn does not necessarily equal quality of life even if people have been marketed into installing this notion in their muscle memory.

It only takes 2% of the U.S. workforce to grow all the food we need and the farmers can now get their petroleum inputs cheap. Nobody in the U.S. is going to starve and a few people might learn how to whittle or do embroidery or read a book.

Also the military is still on full active duty and plans for huge infrastructure projects are in the works. I don’t think any of us are going to be able to predict how this is going to play out.

[J_]

Something new in Austria: the government started a (yet still) small random testing to get a better idea how much of population of the country are recovered and were asymptomatic.

By order of the government masks are distributed to all groceries for free for all shoppers. Shoppers are then only allowed entrance wearing a mask.

[IlliniDave]

7wb5, okay, I have no reason to discount that it could be more due to underlying conditions that give rise to the diseases that tend to correlate with c19 death than the diseases themselves. At this point we can only really talk about correlation, it will take some time to work out all the causation. That the c19 death rate seems to ramp up around the same age the whole "metabolic syndrome" cluster has historically risen in men at higher rates is only a coincidence at this point. There are other unrelated risk factors as well. This one might defy a tidy univariate cause-effect description.

[Bankai]

@7W5: that's a beautiful vision. But I'd rather this be a life choice available for each individual than something enforced on the population by the government. We know where that route leads.

[Jason]

Anything scientific alludes me, but I found this to be an interesting explanation as to the gender discrepancy in Covid death tolls.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/opin ... e=Homepage

[7Wannabe5]

@Bankai:

I don’t disagree. But, please also consider how many people feel free to make decisions independent of their corporate overlords. For many, it’s like they need permission from Mommy (the government) to not do what Daddy( their employer) and is telling them to do, even if that entails putting themselves at significant risk. They won’t or can’t behave in alignment with their own calculations and “at will” status. Unlike the POTUS and other members of his class, they don’t comprehend that breaking contract beats being dead.

@Jason:

Good article. Weird thing I recently learned is that women who have given birth have slight extra advantage because some fetal cells escape into mother’s system during pregnancy. So, for instance, genetic coding I got from my ex by way of one of my kids might help in some instances.

[Jin+Guice]

But there surely must be a better way than shutting everything until vaccine.

This my major problem with quarantine measures. Rich countries can afford a short term quarantine if they chose to, but how long can we afford to keep it going and what do we do when it's over? It's dumb to start a quarantine without an exit strategy, but hey, maybe we can all drive to the gym later so we can hit the treadmills. I hear they have life saving toilet paper at the gym.

What about millions of unemployed, tens or hundreds of thousands of failed businesses, millions of women/children who will be abused by frustrated unemployed partners with nowhere to run, millions of people who will develop mental illnesses due to isolation, millions of vulnerable people who will get worse due to isolation, tens or hundreds of thousands of suicides, unknown numbers of new drugs and treatments which won't be developed, tens of millions of children who will lose half a year or a year of education, possibly impacting their future in a dramatic way, all the debt future generations will have to pay somehow (be it in taxes or inflation), all the ill that won't get treated, many thousands of start-ups which will never be started and all the inventions, life and longevity improvements those new companies would generate that we will never see, all new Elon Musks who will be scarred for life by this crisis and will play it safe by becoming accountants instead of starting something great and improving the world?

This pitches a worst case scenario for the economy against a much rosier scenario for coronavirus. HOW CAN YOU ALLOW 20% OF THE POPULATION TO DIE BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT TO SPEND TIME LOOKING AT YOUR UGLY KIDS? I agree that the media is portraying this as lives vs. dollars when it should be lives vs. lives. They've changed the narrative from "who cares?" to "THINK OF THE CHILDREN*, WHY WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN."

*Children is a metaphor for old people. Old people is a metaphor for anyone over 50.

I think what @7w5 is getting at, is that, once you break into second and third order effects the comparisons get trickier. It's not that these don't matter, in fact, they matter the most. Estimates of these effects are tricky though one must count the positives along with the negatives (true for virus as well though too). Things get a lot stickier once you stop comparing bodies to bodies. Is there any estimate how many lives the economic apocalypse is going to cost?

If history has proven anything, there is single mother who has just named her baby daughter "Corona" assuring that the supply chain remains in tact.

Sadly the strip clubs were one of the first things to close... Rumor has it this may be the time to find whatever you're willing to pay for on the world wide web due to a reallocation of resources... I guess no touching will finally be fully enforced.

[Jason]

Sadly the strip clubs were one of the first things to close... Rumor has it this may be the time to find whatever you're willing to pay for on the world wide web due to a reallocation of resources... I guess no touching will finally be fully enforced.

In my experience, no group of workers demonstrates the resourcefulness of the Protestant work ethic more than strippers, possibly with the exception of heroin addicts.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/stripper ... b7c54b6278

[George the original one]

Isn't it still cheaper than stopping the world?

1-in-5 needing hospitalization of 1-4 weeks ain't cheap, at least not in the USA.

[sky]

In Michigan, the Stay at Home Order, and the Nonessential Business Closure will likely be lifted at the end of the month of April. Demand for COVID-19 hospital services will have declined by then, after peaking in mid-April. Only those who want to protect themselves from infection will continue to self-isolate after April.

The stay at home order and business closure are only there to reduce the peak impact on health care facilities, thereby reduce mortality due to inadequate equipment and resources.

The virus is too infectious to stop transmission with the current stay at home practices of allowing people to go for walks and go grocery shopping. Every person will eventually be exposed to the virus, unless they seal off their home and don't leave for months or years. Very few people have the discipline to do this.

[slsdly]

@sky: Today, Michigan just ordered schools closed for the remainder of the school year.

In Canada, internal federal government reports are suggesting the best case scenario will have the current measures end some time in June. The prime minister's messaging says it might be weeks, but plan for months of this.

[ertyu]

Doubling time for canada has lengthened to 7 days compared to 3 days with no intervention.* They're flattening already

*According to a friend who claims his father did the math