Here’s the SNL clip discussed in earlier threads. I think the cast captures the Fox News brand of white grievance-mongering brilliantly. Fake Chris Matthews makes an appearance, as does real Senator Warren:
Judging from actual Fox News clips I’ve seen, SNL’s portrayal of how the network is downplaying the virus is spot-on. I mentioned in comments a while back that there’s a split among my elders on pandemic prep: the Fox watchers scoff as the virus spreads, and the non-Fox influenced aren’t panicky but are willing to lay in hurricane season supplies early just in case.
In Florida, Republicans are in recrimination mode over the handling of C-19. Everyone is kinda hoping it goes away when the weather gets hot. Doesn’t seem like much of a plan, but here we are.
Speaking of lack of planning, Ben Carson wasn’t very reassuring on the Sunday shows:
Here’s Ben Carson saying that if you’re healthy, “there’s no reason you shouldn’t go” to a crowded Trump rally.
“I’m confused by the message you’re sending right now,” Stephanopoulos replies. pic.twitter.com/AMPhjqNfWq
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 8, 2020
From past work as a flack for monsters (PR/marketing shops for health insurance companies), I recognize Carson’s situation: he’s not there to inform but to spin and obfuscate. The more the gulf between the facts and the administration’s response widens, the dumber it will make Carson look.
But it’s not really Carson’s fault; his job is impossible. It IS his fault that he voluntarily works for a monster, of course, and fuck him for that — just saying there’s no way to reconcile the opposing demands of the public health emergency and Carson’s demented boss.
These days, I’m a work-at-home shut-in, so a trip to the grocery store yesterday was the first opportunity I’ve had to gauge local reaction to the pandemic. The store has always had sanitizer wipes available to de-germ hands and cart handles, but the grocer set up a more prominent station for that purpose since my visit last week. A big trash can next to it was filled with wipes, indicating high demand.
No one was wearing masks that I saw. I tried to remember not to touch my face, but I can see already it’s going to require a dog cone.
Anyhoo, open thread.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Ha! and so freaking true. I never realized how much I touch my face until they told me not to do it.
I was already borderline obsessive about washing my hands, and now I’ve ramped it up
Kelly
Open Thread? Here’s Phoebe and Martin after my wife’s mandolin practice this morning
imgur.com/a/DVtEij9
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: OMG, so true about RGB! I don’t want her leaving a clean room without a hazmat suit!
Martin
California Dept of Public health has put out guidelines for colleges, schools, and large public events.
This is pretty close to my institutional recommendations. They’re advising closure when a single student tests positive (our plan is currently one instructor or student). Large event guidance is based on cases in the county.
The Carnival cruise ship in Long Beach disembarked an hour ago as the patient taken to the hospital tested negative. (This is a different ship than the one in Oakland – CA is a very large state)
Here’s what I think the end-state plan is based on Switzerlands decision last night to end community testing, and how Japan seems to be handling this. These countries are ending their containment efforts and moving to a management scenario. I think the US is already moving to this mode in Washington state. This is basically how we deal with the flu.
So, every contagious disease has a measure scientists refer to as R0 which is how many people an infected person will give the disease to. nCoV seems to be 3-4. This is the main driver of the geometric spread of the disease. One person gives it to 4, they give it to 16, they give it to 64, 256, 1024, etc. Our flu vaccine isn’t comprehensive – too many variants. It’s designed, along with basic cultural rules such as staying home when sick, to get the R0 value of the flu as low as possible – around 1. So rather than a geometric spread, you get something closer to a linear spread. One person gives it to 1, they give it to 1, they give it to 1, 1, 1, etc. The idea is to slow the transmission enough that the seasonality comes into help us (warmer weather) but also that if 1% of your nurses are sick with the flu at once, you can afford to let them stay home, limit its spread, and keep operating something you can’t do when 50% are sick at once. The US flu strategy isn’t about ensuring nobody gets the flu, it’s about accepting we will get the flu, slowing its transmission, and by not stressing the health care system too much and other measures (tamiflu, etc.), reducing the danger of having the flu.
So, what does this look like?
The efforts will shift from shutting down travel and such (something the US basically completely failed to do) to spread reduction. Shut down large events, continue with social distancing, etc. Rather than shut a school down with one student, you would wait for community spread to show, or you’d shut down the classroom with the student and not the whole school. You’re trying to balance keeping day to day operations going (as opposed to accepting a short term complete shutdown) with limiting spread. Remember, almost everyone will get this – just not all at once. Hospitals rotate staff that have recovered from an infection to the intake front lines since they have immunity, and they’ll learn to cope with having 5%-10% of their staff out at any given time. Before long, they’ll all be immune.
So, we keep doing all the things we have been regarding limiting travel, contact with others, etc. and we see if we can get that transmission spread rate down close to 1.0. That’s where Japan is now. Infections keep growing but at a much reduced rate. You stop community testing because you accept that people will get it – you save the tests for the more serious cases so you know the best way to treat them. You stop encouraging people to come to clinics for testing because you don’t want it to spread – instead assume you have it and self-quarantine for 14 days, and only come in if your case gets more severe. This buys the system time to add beds, manufacture masks, keep drug supplies moving. Treatments can be explored improving the survivability of those who catch it, and if we can drag this out long enough, we may get a vaccine in time for some people to be spared.
We’ll see an end to counting infected and a shift to only counting casualties. That becomes our new metric – reduce the rate at which people die from this, hopefully to a more linear rate. This means accepting the mortality rate for now and hoping we can reduce it through better care. If the healthcare system gets overwhelmed that rate will shoot up and that’s the real thing we’re trying to prevent. But that means we’re accepting fatalities in the US of a million or more.
The challenge in the US will be communicating this strategy when there are parts of the country that aren’t overrun, and why they need to accept that containment has failed, and how to get an executive to communicate this fairly subtle message when he seems completely unable to understand subtleties like this or resist making shit up on the fly. I suspect this is why Ben Carson is being pushed to the front of this – as someone who can deliver that message. My guess is CDC epidemiologists have already accepted this is the reality but don’t really know how to get the political appointees on board with it. That’s why I think EvergreenHealth has that message – some lower level professional has made the call for that region but they don’t want to push that up through the PR side of the agency where the political appointees would need to sign off. So we have a split message – one delivered through lower level policies which is exposed via health providers or states, and the WH approved message which is obviously very different and often contradictory. So everyone will be confused. Look for what the rule-making is trying to tell you, not what the press releases are trying to tell you.
Kelly
@Martin: Thank you. Informative and well written.
Princess Leia
@Martin: Thank you for this. It feels like what my PH department was assuming was going to be the case when we met earlier in the week. I am still wondering what they are going to do to mitigate harm in populations that can’t social distance as easily, or self-quarantine at all, like homeless people.
hells littlest angel
ELL OH fucking ELL.
Betty Cracker
@Martin: Sounds about right, and your last line is always good advice. Do you know if there’s any reason to hope warmer weather will slow the virus down?
I read an article today in The Tampa Bay Times that says we just don’t know. ( Link to article.) The person who said it’s unknown is Dr. John Sinnott, an immunologist and chair of internal medicine at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine.
Martin
@Kelly: My pleasure. You folks get my thinking out loud version before I turn it into work products.
I’m now trying to model out what size courses we could keep in session – basically, can the labs we can’t virtualize keep going if we accept ending in-person instruction in our larger courses.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kelly:
They were tired!
Served
In the next couple of weeks, MLB, NHL, NBA, and MLS will all be in season, and the NCAA tournament will be underway. Tens of thousands of people in a confined space in multiple cities every day. It seems crazy to think that any of them will or should be business as usual, but there is so much money involved and the entire federal government has its head up Trump’s ass so I don’t know if they have any incentive to limit or cancel attendance.
Martin
@Betty Cracker: It’s never slowed a coronavirus down before. Besides, look at Egypt and Australia. It may help in the sense people congregate outdoors more than indoors, but that’s probably about it. The SARS outbreak in 2003 was April/May in southern China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Philippines, etc. It was pretty warm. This is just a SARS variant.
RepubAnon
@Martin: As Martin notes, it’s quite warm in the Southern Hemisphere – yet they’re having Covid-19 outbreaks. I expect the “it’ll go away in April” folks are overly optimistic.
Martin
@Served: Most of the money is in TV rights, not ticket sales. Hold the games, cancel attendance, expand broadcast. It’ll sound weird, but that’s about it.
mrmoshpotato
Hooboy! “Our incomplete plan is sooper seekrit!”
I’m at a loss for words.
trollhattan
Did Carson at some point say “Mah luggage!” and rush off set?
Lord forgive me, I hate these people so very much.
Impressed at how quick Kate McKinnon is changing costumes and getting out there with Warren. Not my president. Damn it.
dmsilev
@Martin:
We’ve already canceled all open-to-the-public events for the next few weeks, with an expectation of canceling more. That includes things like an event that would have brought in high school students from around the state to campus for a whole weekend. ‘Visiting days’ for prospective graduate students, canceled (would have been late March). Contingency plans for isolating dorm residents who get sick are being worked on (not trivial on a small campus with only a few dorms). Classes are still going on as normal, but even a case or two on campus will likely trigger closing. We’re keeping dorms open during spring break so that students who want the option can stay here. Etc.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mrmoshpotato: as several people have snarked on twitter: They don’t want the virus to learn their secret strategery.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Well, that’s a bummer.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
AOC, about whom I remain ambivalent, is getting dragged on twitter for saying something nice about Warren’s post-campaign comedy bit.
mrmoshpotato
@RepubAnon:
Edited for accuracy. :)
Martin
@mrmoshpotato: I mean, I kinda don’t mind that they’re going to be working out the plan until the last second. What I do mind is that 3 weeks after the Diamond Princess they didn’t even have a conceptual plan in place that they only needed to figure out how to operationalize.
For example, I’m trying to work out if I have enough capacity to take our, for example, 40 student labs with 2 students per station and turn them into two 20 student labs with 1 student per station. If I determine it’s feasible, then it’s just a matter of documenting the idea, putting some guidelines in place, and then turning it over to the larger number of staff to implement. But I hope to have that sorted out in the next 2-3 days. And we haven’t shut anything down yet as a campus, and this is just part of a contingency plan.
JPL
What’s horrifying is they are not testing. Students who sat next to the boy in Fulton Cty. who has been identified with they virus are exhibiting symptoms. Duh.. Why not test them. Best to just let it spread I guess.
Betty Cracker
Given the unique dysfunctions of the US healthcare system and paid leave situation (among developed countries), we’ll have a bumpier time moving from containment to management, most likely. We can’t count on sick people to self-quarantine for weeks without pay. Can’t count on folks to get non-ER treatment to prevent deterioration of their condition.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: We can’t even count of them being able to get a test.
the numbers might looks bad for the dear leader.
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: So the virus can hear (and understands English). Can it also read English? ?
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: No cult! No cult! You’re the cult! You’re the cult!
SFAW
@mrmoshpotato:
No, but then again, neither can the Moron-in-Chief.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: a friend of mine works in a rehab facilty– skilled nursing, I think is the technical term– mostly elderly patients. The other day a colleague of hers pretty much coughed on her in the break room because his hands were full. She laid him out (verbally) but what are the odds that’s the first or last time he’ll do that.
Saw a tweet yesterday about someone visiting a parent in a similar facility where a known-trumpy nurse opined that this was all a deep state conspiracy. Twitter responders said: report her.
mrmoshpotato
@Martin:
What were you saying about working out a plan until the last second? ?
patrick II
I think that Presiden Xi’s explanation to our dumb president that the virus would go away when the weather warms was a sly attack on America that will cost us economically and with many lives. Only our idiot president would believe him (because they are such good friends).
mrmoshpotato
Obligatory
Bill Arnold
This is helpful on wikipedia: it uses WHO raw data. You can see that certain reporting countries seem to have it under control, and others are showing numbers like a greenfield epidemic (probably including the US). (Hong Kong, for instance, looks good. Maybe those masks do block infection by droplets.)
Multiple tables for different time periods, so today, search on “Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) cases in first half of March 2020”
coronavirus_outbreak_data
Maybe this can be contained in countries with the will. (US, probably not.)
mrmoshpotato
@SFAW: Well then, how about a written plan? (Or will some infected Trump trash read it out loud to own the libs, and then the virus will know?)
Kelly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: They love mandolin. They snuggle up close and purr when she plays. They also look askance when she hits a sour note :-).
Martin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: It is a bummer. And it’s hard to communicate why that’s the strategy. It’s a bit abstract while still having to acknowledge that the public can do the math on a 3.4% mortality rate times 300M people.
But, we’re likely to be giving up on controlling the 300M people part of this, and instead focusing on controlling the 3.4% mortality part. I imagine there will be additional focus on high-risk individuals – folks who we know likely won’t survive contact with this and finding ways to really isolate them. We haven’t been doing any of that so far. Nursing homes are going to need multiple control layers.
My confusion the other night stemmed from the statement that this was endemic in Kings County, and yet there was no effort to control movement in and out of Kings county. I mean, SEATAC is still fully up and running. So, either they’re accepting that spread is going to happen, or the rules-makers don’t know how to solve that problem without getting sign-off by the political appointees, and so they’ve decided to let it go for now.
I know this seems like a lot of tea-reading, but most of my success at work has come from implementing things that the higher ups weren’t sure about (or who even opposed) by pulling all of the levers I had the authority to pull and avoiding all of the levers I needed permission to pull, and getting something implemented and proven well enough that they had no choice but to go with it.
That mode of working is widespread in the federal govt right now. You saw a fair bit of it in the impeachment hearing. It’s a different kind of check and balance in the system. It’s a tricky one because you’re implementing it against the people who can fire you, and if you’re wrong, nobody is going to have your back so you better fucking be right, but this is how career professionals advance.
Major Major Major Major
For what it’s worth, you’re better off focusing on staying away from people than focusing on not touching your face. Obviously both are good, but the former is far better. CDC.gov:
JoyceH
What amuses me is that Trump initially canceled the CDC visit because of word of someone infected there – and yet it was always his intent to spend the weekend at Mar a Lago. There are cases of coronavirus in Florida, and does anyone imagine that the cleaning and wait staff at Mar a Lago have paid sick leave?
mrmoshpotato
@patrick II: That’s where the dayglow dumbshit got the idea that warmer weather would kill off the virus?!
Jesús, María y José!
Ksmiami
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: And this is why I don’t care if Bernie supporters take their toys and go home. His campaign and his supporters are toxic AF
Martin
@mrmoshpotato: Yeah. I think Cheryl and Adam can speak to this in a more important context, but you have a scenario (page 31 – outbreak on cruise ship) and then you need to fill in the operational plan once it becomes a reality – how many people, where are they located, where specifically will we house them, who are we sending in, how do we feed them, where do medical staff come from etc. Those things take time, there’s a lot of detail there, but at least you aren’t trying to figure out generally what needs to happen, and because you have a scenario, you can distribute that task to the implementation teams and they can get right on it without having to wait for leadership to figure out what’s going on.
The key to anything like this is to get the policy folks out of the loop because they’re always a bottleneck. You do that work ahead of time. Operations scales. Planning doesn’t.
Major Major Major Major
From what I’ve read, droplets are the main vector. Surgical masks protect against droplets. N95 masks if properly worn can protect against aerosols but that’s not the main transmission method.
ETA and of course universal mask adoption (beloved by public health types) forces the ill into wearing masks which may be the main benefit.
mrmoshpotato
@Kelly:
LOL
ziggy
@Martin:
This makes much more sense. Though even just postponing the spread for as long as possible is very helpful. I sometimes fantasize what it would be like to have competent, skilled communicators (like Obama) at the top right now, and what a difference that would make.
The mortality rate is much lower in countries like South Korea, that seem to be tracking cases much more closely–the rate there is more like .58%. It seems that we might be able to get the mortality rate even lower as we work out more effective treatments. Figuring out who needs hospital care quickly and getting them in is going to help a lot. This virus is really new, and we’re learning more and more about it every day.
If we could get the mortality rate, and the rate of cases requiring intensive treatment, even to just twice the rate for the common flu, I think people’s fear level would go down a lot, and this management regime would work well.
Catherine D.
@Major Major Major Major:
My life goal in general – hermit to the core!
mrmoshpotato
@Martin: Yeah, basically a contingency plan that’s tweaked to the specific needs of a situation, right?
Major Major Major Major
@Martin: I saw an analysis showing that R0 drops above and below 40 degrees, based on Chinese geography. Can’t find the link right now. It was a drop from 2.x to 1.75, so good but not a panacea.
The same twitter thread had two other studies, one finding no weather effect and one finding a significant one based on analyses of other similar diseases. So it’s very much unknown…
Suzanne
@Martin: My understanding is that part of the thought that warmer weather would reduce the spread of the virus doesn’t really have anything to do with temperature but really is about increased UV radiation on surfaces as the days get longer and less cloudy. (When we design operating rooms, we sometimes install UV light systems that are designed to be used for about fifteen minutes when the room is empty, and those have been demonstrated to be very effective in sterilization efforts.) This doesn’t help interior environments away from windows, though.
Martin
@ziggy: Yeah, it’s critical. I don’t know how Trump goes on Fox and explains how 10% of their viewership is likely to die from this, and that’s the best plan we have. I don’t think he can, and so I think he’s just going to keep contradicting and confusing everyone. That’s where the panic will come from.
It’s hard. I don’t like accepting this plan. I have two relatives that will 100% die if they contract it. I have a number of coworkers in the same situation. I worry about a number of people here. But that’s what we’re probably facing, and we need folks who can stand up and say that.
Martin
@ziggy: Exactly.
Litlebritdifrnt
Copy and pasted from the downstairs dead thread.
I just had one of the most “it could only happen round here” moments ever. The area where I now live (Westgate in Morecambe) is heavily occupied by a) old people (it is almost all Bungalows and is hoverround central) and b) Travelers (formerly known as Gypsies. That is no longer politically correct but the World Champion boxer Tyson Fury, who lives down the road, calls himself “The Gypsy King”) Anyhoo, I went to the local Grocery Store to pick some things up and a Traveler with a Pony and Trap were circling the parking lot. Couldn’t understand it until I was leaving the store, turns out his mate had gone into Lidl to buy a bag of carrots for the Pony, which they were feeding him outside the front door of the store. It was one of those iconic, yup this could only happen around here moments. :)
Kelly
I’ve read the virus does not survive well of ordinary fabrics. The fibers suck the life out of it. Seriously thinking wearing cotton gloves when out shopping. My Mom is 83 and lives close enough for me to do her shopping. May be time to talk her into letting me shop for her.
Major Major Major Major
Somebody might be able to help with this: my oral thermometers (old one and new one I just bought) show my temperature to be 96-97. I do take Aleve for back pain sometimes and a few Rx meds but this still seems super low. Anybody know what’s up? Husband is 96.5-97.5.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: Just a note…Kings County is in California, King County(not plural) is in Washington.
JR
That SNL skit actually almost brought a tear to my eye. Warren is so much better than our current…options I guess you’d call them.
Oh well
ziggy
@Martin:
Trump is decompensating quickly with the stress, and I would not be surprised if we start to see much less of him (hopefully!).
The fear level is off the charts in some areas here in the Seattle area, I think because of how the Evergreen Life Care situation has evolved. It doesn’t look good at all. But if people can be moved out of these petri-dish situations immediately and get proper care, I think the outcomes are going to be a lot better. Even the stress of being in that situation can’t be helping their immune systems.
trollhattan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
One tiny letter off. Otherwise they’re nearly identical!
Jinchi
I thought the theory was that people are outside more often, not cooped up in small, enclosed spaces with groups of others who go about breathing the same air and touching the same surfaces throughout the day.
The downside being that the virus comes back in the fall when the weather gets colder.
trollhattan
@JR:
To go along with the SP Warren show clips, here are she and McKinnon having some fun on Instagram.
Ohio Mom
Watching the public health response evolve has been fascinating. I’m indirectly learning a lot of science.
Now I want to hear from the economists, and their predictions about what kind of beating the world and U.S. economies are taking.
If we are going to have a recession, could it please start in time to crater whatever support Trump has?
wvng
@Martin: is it not true that if we aggressively isolated the people most at risk from this for a long time, until a vaccine is developed, we could save a lot of lives?. Lives like my sisters. Is it remotely feasible?
zhena gogolia
The masks need to be saved for the health-care workers.
Wash hands, don’t touch face. That’s all I can do right now.
nasruddin
@Martin: Who has the authority to close, for instance, the airport?
Martin
@mrmoshpotato: Yeah, basically. Let’s take the cruise ship situation. You have a number of things you need to address no matter what:
And so on. Then it’s just a matter of assigning it out – Joe figures out where to offload them. He works with the ports in the area. Mary figures out where specifically to house them starting with the potential facilities – are they adequate to our needs for a situation like this (nCoV would have different needs than ebola), etc. and they have staff who document the protocols, identify responsibilities and points of contact, communication plans (not easy to coordinate moving 4000 frightened, potentially sick people). And they work out further contingency plans – what if it’s raining that day, what if we need more wheelchairs, where do we get them from etc. so that when things do go into operation, someone knows how to solve any anticipated problems. But you need to deploy a small army to something like this, which means you need to distribute decision making quickly and widely. The scenario does that for you.
The folks at the top stay the fuck out of the way, because they aren’t going to be the expert at ops. They aren’t the one who has been to the port and walked through the scenario and identified problems like the big construction project that you can’t see on google maps, etc. But they’re there to answer any questions, resolve disagreements, and keep everyone on task.
And it allows the folks at the top, people like me, to be able to walk into a leadership meeting and say ‘yes, this will be done on time’ because that scenario has a bunch of checklists and gantt charts and whatever attached to them so I can see that everything on the list is assigned out, what everyone status is, what problems they’ve identified, etc. I’m not currently in the policy making role, I’m at the top of the ops chain advising the policy makers of what can and can’t be done, what needs to be on that checklist, what they might be overlooking, etc. Part of my job is to remind them that the task they think is 4 steps is actually 18, and that they’ve proposed a plan requiring we put 20 lbs of shit into a 5 lb bag and that won’t work, but here’s what will.
On this issue I’m in a policy-making role because this is just too big and too complex for our institution. We also run the only public hospital and only tier 1 trauma center in a county with the same population as Iowa. We provide support and operations for the city and county on some things that need to keep working. We are part of the testing apparatus for the state. I’m tasked with plans for academics along with data/proposals for some of the other areas. My job is to safely keep students moving along with their academics as well as possible. Every university is relying on about 25% of their students leaving and being replaced in the fall. If they can’t leave because they can’t get their classwork done because we cancelled things, we don’t have plans for operating 25% over capacity (around 8,000 students in our case). That’s never happened before. So, its a big complex problem, but not a life or death problem. I just advise the people working on those as that’s not my area of expertise or pay grade.
JR
@Major Major Major Major:
Nothing to worry about, an average is exactly that, plus or minus a degree is fine. Also unless you have a medical-grade device that is calibrated, your thermometer just isn’t that accurate.
Did you know the average human body temp has declined over time? The current average is 97.5.
scientificamerican.com/article/are-human-body-temperatures-cooling-down/
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: Thanks. I’ll poke around for that.
ziggy
@Kelly: that might work well, especially if you can peel off the gloves directly into the washing machine when you get home. It would be interesting to have some studies of that.
One good thing that might come of this is that low-level containment strategies such as this become socially acceptable and even expected. And we can start to support people with sick leave, deliveries, in-home care, etc… so that transmission rates drop dramatically.
Major Major Major Major
@nasruddin: the feds can do stuff like that under the patriot act I think.
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: My baseline is around 97. Always has been since I was a kid.
Mike in NC
Daryl Hammond was one of the best things about SNL back in the day. He’d would have done a great job playing Fat Bastard. Certainly better than Alec Baldwin.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: Not a wit of difference between Hanford and Seattle.
nasruddin
@ziggy: 0.58% * 300*10^6 people is still nothing to sneeze at you might say.
It’s about the same number as the population of Phoenix AZ.
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Ah, thank you. Fortunately I’ve spent more time in Kings than King. Nothing against King county, but Kings is unusually spectacular.
zhena gogolia
@Kelly:
My source in the German government said wear gloves when you’re out in public. She also said something similar to what Martin’s saying. She seemed to be more hopeful than he is that more sunlight would work in our favor.
Martin
@ziggy: Yeah, a 50% rate of staff showing symptoms is very bad. That can’t be allowed to happen.
Suzanne
@Jinchi: I think it’s multifactorial. IANAD, though. The irony is that, where I live, this is actually the time of year for big outdoor events like street festivals because summer is too hot and you sunburn in about 20 seconds.
I also happen to have some masks as part of my construction PPE.
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: Yeah, normally the feds, but CA and WA have been ignoring the feds when it suits them, so maybe a Governor will jump on that grenade.
Major Major Major Major
@JR:
@Martin: thanks!
Martin
@wvng: Sure. The question is how realistic that is. The high at risk population is 20 million people, so that’s not very realistic. But could you soft-quarantine a loved one for a year? Sure. My wife did a 6 month bed rest run. That was rough, but we did it. If her mother was still alive, we’d have to do that for her. A simple cold would put her in the ICU.
It’d be a manpower problem. I had to set my wife up so be self-sufficient for 4 hours at a time while I was at work, run home for lunch, set up for the next 4 hours. Run home for dinner, set up for the next 2 hours while I did grocery shopping and everything else, etc. If you’re retired caring for a spouse, probably not too difficult.
ziggy
@nasruddin: Yes it is, but if we could get the mortality rate even lower (say 2x average influenza), which I think is not unreasonable at all as this virus is being studied like crazy, that would drop it much lower. And if we can slow that rate of transmission, many fewer people are going to get it before an effective vaccine is developed. And if very vulnerable people start basically quarantining themselves until they can get a vaccine, that is going to help a lot.
Yes, like Martin said, a “soft quarantine” for the most vulnerable is totally doable and reasonable, we just have to help out. A difficult situation is going to be those that are have health issues, but still need to work and care for others. They are going to have to figure out a balance that protects them as much as possible, but still do the tasks of daily life.
trollhattan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Right?
Funnily enough, my first college roommate was from Hanford so King and Kings counties were roomies. He knew more about cows than I did.
nasruddin
@Martin: “Every university is relying on about 25% of their students leaving and being replaced in the fall. If they can’t leave because they can’t get their classwork done because we cancelled things, we don’t have plans for operating 25% over capacity”
That’s an interesting example of what the downstream problems might be. The Just-In-Time issues seems to be known but not the massive amount of make-up work that’s going to build up in certain domains if our situation goes poorly.
nasruddin
@ziggy: “Yes it is, but if we could get the mortality rate even lower (say 2x average influenza), which I think is not unreasonable at all as this virus is being studied like crazy”
Maybe eventually. So Korea seems to have the best story so far though, & I think that’s their number? Right now the Johns Hopkins dashboard shows 50 deaths in 7314 cases =~ 0.68%
I don’t see any reason to think we can do better than that before the current exponential growth rate swamps our boat.
Ella in New Mexico
Carson’s total lack of concern and knowledge here tells me one thing about his former career as a “brilliant pediatric neurosurgeon”:
He likely was more of a highly skilled savant/mechanic as a surgeon than an actual doctor.
Him having some kind of pervasive neurological difference putting him on the high functioning autism spectrum would explain so much of his political and behavioral oddness and lack of ability to empathize
Not that the ADA should prevent him from being shit-canned as HUD Sec should the Great Orange Fart Cloud so whim.
Catherine D.
@ziggy:
Just drop them into a 10% bleach solution. It destroys DNA so should nuke viruses. Obs, rinse with clear water over and over for your skin’s sake. It’s what we use to decontaminate for an eDNA testing program.
Martin
Here’s where the getting the mortality rate lower will be a challenge:
Just as we are bad at geometric or exponential growth, we are bad at non-linear diseases. Flu is nice – you start out a little sick and then get sicker, and then to start getting less sick and then you aren’t sick any more. It’s easy for care providers to triage patients in this scenario – pay more attention to those getting sicker and less to those getting better.
If this is biphasic where after the flu-like symptoms it goes into the nervous system and then simply fucks with respiration, seemingly at the point you are getting better, then it’s a real pain in the ass.
My aunt’s West Nile was like this. She was sick with the ‘flu’ at home. I talked to her every day. She was okay. She was getting better for 2 days. Then she called and asked me to take her to the hospital. I arrived and she couldn’t walk. In the 30 minutes it took me to get there she went from ‘my nephew take me to the hospital’ to ‘911 call’ symptoms. I took her there because I was there and could have her in the ER in less than 10 minutes (we called ahead – she worked there), but I don’t think she had another hour. I was shocked.
Same thing, it jumped to her nervous system and meningitis set in and her immune system was doing a good job of fighting off the non-nervous-system problems (the getting better part) but nervous system problems don’t advertise like that and we took our eyes off the ball. And when that part set it, it was shockingly fast.
Renie
Did everyone read about our esteemed Surgeon General kissing trump’s a$$ this morning and giving out no factual info on coronavirus? It always amazes me how many give up their dignity and self-respect to be a trump toady.
ziggy
@nasruddin:
The thing is the “total number of cases” number is completely unreliable. Not in the US. We are simply not getting enough tests, and processing enough of them, to even count near the number of total cases. Plus there may be political pressures at play to keep counts low (think of the damage to local economies!). Even though deaths can take a while to show up, I think an accurate counting (if it ever happens!) will show a much lower severe illness and mortality rate.
Martin
@Catherine D.: 0.1% bleach solution for 5 minutes will work. Dilute some off-the-shelf bleach 10:1 and you’re good.
ziggy
@Catherine D.: I’m imagining that one would have several pairs, in very fashionable colors of course! Then you could just wash them on a regular basis and always have a clean pair good to go for the next outing. Long black ones for evening affairs and visits to the treasury.
Another Scott
Two confirmed cases in Virginia (at least 1 in Fairfax County). Presumably Virginia will be updating its COVID-19 status and plans on Monday (there is not yet a declared State of Emergency in Virginia).
Cheers,
Scott.
ziggy
@Martin: Yes, apparently the coronavirus can also jump the blood/brain barrier, especially in older people as their barriers are not as strong. Perhaps there could be some way of discerning when that has happened? If we know what to look for, we can catch it earlier and have better outcomes.
Mark C
Why is the HUD Secretary even being interviewed? Where’s CDC, HHS, COVID 19 Tsar, you know, anyone actually charged with addressing the issue? Carson is in a clueless fog even on his own department’s issues.
egorelick
@Major Major Major Major: I believe that 98.6 is a false number from way back when the sample population would have included many more unhealthy individuals with low grade chronic inflammation/infection.
nasruddin
@ziggy: “So Korea seems to have the best story so far though, & I think that’s their number? Right now the Johns Hopkins dashboard shows 50 deaths in 7314 cases =~ 0.68%”
South Korea. South Korea is reported to have tested about 140k people & be capable of testing 10k people/da. The population of So Korea is about 50 M. Sure, there are going to be issues with their data, but it’s the best quality known.
nasruddin
@Mark C: Carson – he seemed impaired in that interview. What is up with him?
Martin
@Kelly: My advise to my dad was to do what I do. Takes a bit of practice:
So, I don’t use a cart when shopping – I just load up my bags as I go around the store. I carry the bag in my right hand and take things off the shelf with my left. When the bag fills, I sling it over my shoulder and start on the next bag.
Left hand opens doors, etc. This is also helps because if I am going to touch my face, it’s with my right hand – my personal hand.
With a bit of practice your brain just does the right thing in the right place. Also, if you can do Apple Pay, saves you another category of social contact.
Another Scott
@egorelick: 98.6F = 37C. It probably goes back to that (i.e. most of the world using SI units, 37C is an easy to remember number that is pretty close to whatever the real average is).
(I’m too lazy to Google at the moment. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
OT. Ms. Cat has probably already seen this, but…
The two leaders then headed to a new cricket stadium – the biggest in the world – where Trump heaped praise on Modi as an “exceptional leader, a great champion of India” in front of a crowd of nearly 100,000.
Because of course he did.
Grr…
We have to vote the monsters out. Everywhere.
Cheers,
Scott.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: Having spent grad school in King County, it’ ain’t nothing to sneeze at.
trnc
@Martin:
I find your faith in Ben Carson’s ability to do that, or the idea that DT would accept a message that implies a mistake on his part, confusing.
Brachiator
Wait, this wasn’t an SNL skit?
Again, in my perfect world, the networks should have said, “Fuck you, Trump Administration, if we can’t book an actual health expert, we will not book anyone you send at all.
@Another Scott:
Totally agree. The irony is that so many angry people are voting against democracy, because it does not give them what they want.
J R in WV
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Absolutely~!!~ Trumpy nurse needs a lesson, and good and hard, too! Too stupid to be nursing people if she doesn’t believe in epidemiology.
Good friend of ours was a large-animal vet, then injured their back. Became a professor of epidemiology at NC State, now in the Episcopal clergy. No doubt with that background prayer is taking place!!
Hope it helps, even if only to make them feel better about what they’re about to witness.
Kelly
@Martin: Self checkout is suddenly attractive
Brachiator
@Martin:
Getting close to being like those countries where, supposedly, you wipe your butt with your left hand, and eat with your right hand.
Google Pay, Samsung Pay. Any phone with NFC and a wallet option.
Sab
@Martin: I was talking to my husband on my cellphone ( me bad) so I turned on my windshield wipers when I meant to signal for a right turn. That left/right hand stuff can be confusing.
Martin
@trnc: I think Ben being a doctor knows how to deliver that message to the public. I’m not saying he’s a great messenger, I’m saying that among the idiot brigade, he’s one of the best candidates they have.
DT won’t accept any message. It needs to be delivered despite Trump. That’s so incredibly problematic I don’t know how to even really articulate it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
God damn it, Warren should have got nomination.
Martin
@Sab: Might be age. For some reason I keep getting out of my car while it’s still running. In 30 years I never did that once. I must do it twice a month now. Part of my reasoning for minimizing driving.
That’ll hopefully be a part of a guest series I’m going to do once this shit calms down a bit.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
My normal temp is in the high 96 – low 97 range but actual temp varies for most people all the time. And yes I’ve been to the doc and my temp is 98.6. Activity, outside/room temp, all have an impact upon temp at any one time. We talk about 98.6 as the norm but temps do vary. I’ve also spent nearly a week in hospital with a temp that I’ve seen literature on that says this is above the level human life can exist at. Almost 50 yrs ago and I’m still here.
zhena gogolia
@Martin:
Covid-19 is having this effect on me. The other day my husband came to meet me at my office and was puzzled to find that my purse was sitting on the bench outside, while I was in the office with the door closed. I AM TOO PREOCCUPIED!
trollhattan
@nasruddin:
My kid will be an incoming class of 2024 somewhere, and I’m expecting this mess to toss a whole sack of monkeywrenches into the works. For sure, campus visits are now Right Out.
Sab
@Sab: My southpaw mother gave me a pair of good scissors when I took home ec at age 13. I have always treasured them because they were from her, although they worked badly. Just noticed last year that they are left-handed. I am ambidextrous, but she never told me they were lefties. I could easily have been using them with the correct hand all these years, instead of using them with my right hand and complaining about them. Thanks, Mom.
Sab
@Martin: Ambidextrous so I have always had right left issues. My left hand can do everything my right hand does, only backwards. I can do anything with my left hand that doesn’t require direction. Yes hammer, yes squeegee and snowscrape. No screwdriver or lightbulb. I can write with my left hand, but I am much faster going backwards.
Martin
@trollhattan: Don’t worry, we’ll get it sorted. It may not be ideal, but we’ll get everybody through on time.
A lot of campuses have virtual tours on their websites.
Nicole
@Sab: Ha! As a southpaw myself, I learned to use scissors with my right hand early, and was always confused when teachers made sure to give me the green-handled scissors (in my school, the red ones were right handed and the green left handed) because I would use them right-handed and they never worked.
That reminds me of getting into a conversation with a doctor (male, white) who told me, upon learning I was left-handed, that he didn’t believe anyone was actually left-handed- that people were either right-handed or ambidextrous. He based this belief on his observation that most right-handed people’s left hands were basically around for the ride, while he’d never known a left-hander who couldn’t do lots of things with their right hand. I suggested that maybe it was because the world was so based around being right-handed that all left-handed folk had to do a certain amount of adapting. Astonished, he told me had never considered that possibility before (I then really wanted to go on to introduce the idea of white male privilege, but I could tell his mind was blown enough for one visit).
catclub
@Martin:
This is what the sane economists were recommending for government fiscal policy – make money available to pay for sick leave, sick leave for tipped people – who need human interaction to get paid – and other cots of maintaining a healthier response to cut down on spreading the virus. Also money for tiding over small businesses that face the public.
Figuring out how to do those things would be hard, and you would have to make hard decisions. Luckily the present government is super competent.
catclub
The gift was also in intelligence test?
EthylEster
I just got off the phone with my sister in Orlando. While chatting about covid-19, she mentioned that someone said “heat kills it”. That’s the first I’ve heard of this hypothesis. So I guess that’s what they are going with in Fla. Makes sense….it’s Florida.
From an article at TampaBay.com (online news site): “Everyone is hoping the seasonal change will stop the spread, there’s not any evidence to that. But a lot of people are hoping for us that no one knows.”
Perhaps someone could tell me the meaning of the last sentence. Secret prayers?
trollhattan
@Martin:
I’m bitching more than she is, but she’s hoping for a grand Eastern campus tour that probably isn’t happening even if she gets invites to all [counts yet again] four. The remaining UCs are less of an issue, since she’s at least been on the campuses.
Morzer
@Major Major Major Major: For some reason, I seem to be consistently a degree below the “normal” temperature when the companies I work with in Korea test me for THE CORONAVIRUS. I have concluded that it’s a deep state conspiracy, because, you know, reasons. Sorry to see that they got you too.
Although, on second thought, maybe it’s those wily Chinese people stealing our God-given bodyheat…
zhena gogolia
@EthylEster:
There’s no evidence for it. It might be true but there’s no evidence, is what I understand. i.e. nobody knows. It’s not something to count on. We can pray!
Morzer
@Martin: SNL’s cold open a couple of weeks back had a very nice skewering of Ben Carson as the messenger who has to be constantly reminded by Pence that there are no problems and that everything’s fine.
Nicole
I just watched the SNL video. Oh my gosh, Darrell Hammond does a GREAT Chris Matthews.
ThresherK
This is just one more in a near-endless string of capper lines which can have come from either Betty C or Cole. It’s amazing how much their writing lines up with colloquialisms and language.
Martin
@catclub: These scenarios are where broader political opportunities come from. If Dems can win in November, they have a very good backdrop to try and pass universal child care, paid sick leave for all, reforms to healthcare, etc.
Nancy would do well to find opportunities to pass and showcase bills.
Economically, it’s better to build an orderly, structured universal child care system than to simply toss money into the economy hoping it does more or less the same thing.
trollhattan
@Nicole:
Agree. He nailed most of Tweety’s tics in a quick couple minutes.
Was going to write annoying tics but that’s redundant as hell.
Sab
@Nicole: My lefty stepson says he is more ambidextrous than his righty brother. On the other hand my mother’s right hand was just a flipper. She couldn’t actually do much with it.
rivers
@Major Major Major Major: I’m not a doctor, I just play one on TV (just kidding) but I’ve heard that a “normal temperature” can vary widely. My normal temp is under 97.
Bill Arnold
@Major Major Major Major:
You probably want to track it for a week or two, a few readings per day, to get a baseline.
My baseline is 98.6 exactly, with an old (treasured) mercury thermometer. The digital ones vary a bit for me.
Immanentize
@Martin: Martin, is there any chance you remember what post you shared that amazing vector info in? You know, one class, one person, four get it, next class, surfaces touched, etc.? It would be a great help if you know. Thank you!!
Nicole
@Sab: I imagine, like anything else, there’s variation in lefty abilities, but I would think it’s really hard to go through life being able to do nothing with your right hand; EVERYTHING is designed for right-handed people.
Writing, in particular, takes soooo much more effort, because pens are designed to draw ink across the page behind them, but when you write left-handed, you’re pushing the pen across the page, and it takes more force to get the ink out.
On the other hand, many a left-handed string instrument player has said they had an advantage when learning because the left hand is the one that has to do most of the finer-motor work (fingering the strings).
Kathleen
@Nicole: Are you taking extra precautions?
Heywood J.
Rick Scott is just pissed because, if he was still governor, he’d have already defrauded a mint out of the federal gubmint over this. DeSantis is a piker.