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You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / The COVID-19 Pandemic: Positivity

The COVID-19 Pandemic: Positivity

by Anne Laurie|  March 12, 202010:47 pm| 125 Comments

This post is in: COVID-19 Coronavirus, Healthcare

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The World Health Organization has announced that dogs cannot contract Covid-19. Dogs previously held in quarantine can now be released. To be clear, WHO let the dogs out.

— Liam Hackett (@DiageoLiam) March 12, 2020

If you are feeling helpless re COVID-19 you know what you can do to help the medical system? GIVE BLOOD https://t.co/mLZoiN1Oag

— Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) March 12, 2020

For those in alcoholism recovery and sobriety, I’m currently looking into hosting secure online meetings w/ video conferencing in case we are unable to get to the rooms for regular meetings.

If anyone is already doing this please reach out.

[email protected]

— Travis Akers ???? (@travisakers) March 12, 2020

It is really time to get serious about #FlattenTheCurve. Time to plan seriously for life in a period of social distancing, avoiding crowds, movement restrictions. Plan.
And help out the people who are going to be hurt by it, please. https://t.co/0cRGaTP15p

— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) March 11, 2020

If you want further reading…

Finally pic.twitter.com/cVpSAcQ7fz

— Pamela P. Martinez (@PamelaPMartinez) March 12, 2020

The Atlantic is putting their COVID19 stories outside the paywall now. https://t.co/aTr7ByAghn

— Rebecca7 | #BTSinSeattle (@mamajite) March 11, 2020

#coronavirus
MANAGING THE CHAOS
(my reflections to help give some structure to the madness or simply to rock your world) 1/ pic.twitter.com/R48Ea1HhrJ

— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) March 11, 2020

We need to get a battle rhythm. We will. All disasters seem like a cluster. We need to pace. Exhale. And hunker down. 3/

— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) March 11, 2020

I say this not as a therapist but look at this chart, our collective mission. I call it the “extend the runway” goal. We need to ensure our needs don’t overwhelm our capacity. 4/ pic.twitter.com/jTtWL7SYHZ

— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) March 11, 2020

And of course we could have done better, done more with the time we had (kits! Where are the testing kits!), and had a national leader capable of leading. We have the president we have, not the one we need. Dont dwell. Move forward. 7/

— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) March 11, 2020

A mantra / private consolation for us Cynics:

If – and it's a big if – we get this right, the measures will feel like an overreaction afterward. Not very bright people will say 'I don't know why we made all that fuss, when only a few thousand people died in the end.'

— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) March 12, 2020

US social media now feel like China on Jan.20. It will get worse and we really need to brace ourselves. https://t.co/k3Y04mb5TH

— Tony Lin ??? (@tony_zy) March 12, 2020

pic.twitter.com/sRan5GH6yS

— ?????????? ?? ???? ??? b?????*? ?? (@romanticskeptc) March 12, 2020

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Previous Post: « The Long Tail Of Racism And Disease
Next Post: Election Year “Respite” (!!!) Open Thread: Scrabbling Through the Ashes »

Reader Interactions

125Comments

  1. 1.

    debbie

    March 12, 2020 at 10:54 pm

    Very generous move to lower those paywalls for this. Perhaps free testing and vaccines will be next. //

  2. 2.

    cain

    March 12, 2020 at 11:01 pm

    What is the word on cats? Asking for a friend.

  3. 3.

    ziggy

    March 12, 2020 at 11:03 pm

    Thank you Anne Laurie! We need a “playing to win against Covid” thread more often, focus on solutions and what we are doing that is working, how we are coping, and not just “OMG, we are mostly all going to die!”. Because you don’t do enough threads//

  4. 4.

    Cheryl Rofer

    March 12, 2020 at 11:04 pm

    James Palmer’s point is so important.

    If – and it’s a big if – we get this right, the measures will feel like an overreaction afterward. Not very bright people will say ‘I don’t know why we made all that fuss, when only a few thousand people died in the end.’

    Similarly, I’ve seen an awful lot of “We may be overreacting” today. To my mind, there is no such thing as overreaction at this point.

  5. 5.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 12, 2020 at 11:05 pm

    positivity is in the eye of the beholder, I call this positivity

    @realDonaldTrump
    Sleepy Joe Biden was in charge of the H1N1 Swine Flu epidemic which killed thousands of people. The response was one of the worst on record. Our response is one of the best, with fast action of border closings & a 78% Approval Rating, the highest on record. His was lowest!

    The Hoarse Whisperer @ HoarseWisperer
    Your eventual tomb will see more urine than a stadium bathroom.

  6. 6.

    Martin

    March 12, 2020 at 11:07 pm

    This may be a weird way to be positive about this, but if this charts the course a lot of people are expecting and we’re slogging through this still in 6 months, we’re going to see some serious restructurings of the US economy, likely for the better. Not that there won’t be a lot of pain – but there was going to be pain no matter what.

    The cost of this is going to sufficiently high that industry bailouts will minimal. We simply won’t be able to afford it. We’ll dump money into critical industries but a whole bunch are going to swirl. This may kill off big parts of the gig economy. All of those industries that swore they’d go out of business having to give sick leave or pay health insurance or higher minimum wage will likely go under, because now the feds are paying for that, and fuck that. If Democrats get control in Nov, I would hope they would skip the tax cuts/credits approach and put specific funding into critical industries/infrastructure as a better mechanism to create jobs (the unemployment numbers are going to be astounding).

    This may be the gateway to a much more balanced, much fairer society, but it’s going to take some FDR shit to get there. We’re going to have to lean hard on our elected officials. Crisis is opportunity. But the right people need to be in place to take advantage of that.

  7. 7.

    Gravenstone

    March 12, 2020 at 11:08 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: Better to “overreact” and look back a tad sheepishly after the fact, than look back in sorrow and regret knowing “if only we’d done X”.

  8. 8.

    Anne Laurie

    March 12, 2020 at 11:08 pm

    @cain: What is the word on cats? Asking for a friend.

    I would assume they’re even less likely to transfer virus particles!  Dogs have to go outside and touch all sorts of possibly contaminated surfaces; cats don’t.

    (If one has an indoor / outdoor cat, this would be the perfect time to keep Furry Companion indoors for a while.  However much they resent the change, you’ll probably be at home to give them more attention to salve their feelings.  And when there’s a big social upheaval like we’re looking at, it’s always harder for small vulnerable beings to stay safe ‘in the wild’.)

  9. 9.

    Mary G

    March 12, 2020 at 11:08 pm

    I like this cat-themed post from yesterday.

    Lots of science-y folks are posting this graph. But if there is one thing I have learned from being on the internet, it is this:

     

    Data/graphs: Not compelling to many.

     

    Kitties: Compelling to many.

    So I present: #Catteningthecurve.#scicomm #epitwitter pic.twitter.com/Cr1xQXMppr— Anne Marie Darling (@amdar1ing) March 11, 2020

  10. 10.

    Jay

    March 12, 2020 at 11:09 pm

    ER doc described 2 recent patients in enough respiratory distress to be admitted to the hospital, tested negative for flu and 20 common viruses, had CT scans consistent with Covid-19. State denied them both testing. Doc: “It made me realize that they weren’t testing anyone.” https://t.co/q3rgzpWTH6— emma brown (@emmersbrown) March 12, 2020

  11. 11.

    Gravenstone

    March 12, 2020 at 11:10 pm

    @Anne Laurie: I think the question is also in the vein of ‘can we infect our cats if we come down with Covid-19?’. And for that, I don’t think anyone knows at this juncture.

  12. 12.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    March 12, 2020 at 11:11 pm

    Given the financial hit we’re taking in my house in order to make our boomer forebears feel and be safe, I’m finding myself caring less and less about them, particularly when their political puppets view mitigation of the financial impact as socialism.

     

    We all gotta die of something- maybe this is Gaia’s way of culling….

  13. 13.

    Martin

    March 12, 2020 at 11:12 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: Yeah.  There are problems you can measure and gauge the proper response to, and there are problems you can’t measure and have to throw everything you have at, because if you come up short, you’ll have to do it again, but even bigger.

    Most of the things we’re ‘overreacting’ to have little to no cost. Kids missing a week of school isn’t a big deal. Delaying the NBA isn’t a big deal. Cancelling a concert or a cruise isn’t a big deal. Yes, it is to individual workers who may lose money or their job even, but if we are able to turn those things right back on again, those will recover. It’s only when we can’t that it’s truly painful, and in that case it wasn’t an overreaction.

  14. 14.

    West of the Rockies

    March 12, 2020 at 11:13 pm

    @ziggy: 

    Agreed. For a few days, this place sounded like a Jericho Trumpet (the device attached to WW2 Stuka divebombers). I’m not encouraging naivety, just a need for hope, action.

  15. 15.

    Anne Laurie

    March 12, 2020 at 11:14 pm

    @Gravenstone: I think the question is also in the vein of ‘can we infect our cats if we come down with Covid-19?’. And for that, I don’t think anyone knows at this juncture.

    I’m not a veterinarian, but I would assume the odds are very much against such zoonotic transmission.

    And the same precautions we use to protect ourselves will also protect our feline housemates.  As they would be the first to say:  Keep cleanng ALL THE THINGS, all the time!

  16. 16.

    Cheryl Rofer

    March 12, 2020 at 11:14 pm

    @Gravenstone: Yup

  17. 17.

    chris

    March 12, 2020 at 11:15 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: One can only hope that the overreaction will be enough. I have my doubts. And fears.

    This is huge: Ohio Health Dept. Director Amy Acton is saying that evidence of community spread indicates that 1% of Ohioans are currently carrying coronavirus. That's *117,000* people.Only 5 in Ohio have actually tested positive to this point. pic.twitter.com/lae7T6W5jN— Tyler Buchanan (@Tylerjoelb) 12 March 2020

  18. 18.

    Aleta

    March 12, 2020 at 11:16 pm

     

    They’re preparing boxed meals to distribute to kids.

    Tay Anderson @TayAndersonCO
    Activist, Community Organizer, Elected to the Denver School Board (He/Him/His)
    @DirectorTay for all official School Board work.

    We will provide FREE Breakfast and Lunch to ALL KIDS in Denver, ages 1-18! This will begin 3/16 and will last through 4/6. Breakfast is 8-9 — Lunch is 12-1 Here are the locations:
    https://twitter.com/TayAndersonCO/status/1238297407776894977

  19. 19.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 12, 2020 at 11:16 pm

    here’s some genuine positivity. I am not a follower of the basketball, but I’ve seen a few players step up, and of course Mark Cuban, who I still think is kind of goofy

    SportsCenter @SportsCenter
    Kevin Love commits $100,000 to the Cavs’ arena and support staff due to the suspension of the NBA season.

  20. 20.

    Martin

    March 12, 2020 at 11:17 pm

    @Mary G: The explanation for the flattening the curve is easy for anyone who has used a funnel.

    There’s a maximum rate you can pour without it overflowing. There’s no danger in pouring more in so long as it can flow out just as quickly. But if you pour in too quickly, it overflows and you have a mess, and you only need to go a little bit over that maximum before it all goes to hell. By taking a little longer to pour it out, you avoid spilling over.

    We need to take longer to spread this around to not overflow the hospitals.

  21. 21.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    March 12, 2020 at 11:18 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Dude, if I recall correctly, you’re a boomer.

  22. 22.

    Mike J

    March 12, 2020 at 11:19 pm

    https://twitter.com/emmeyekayeee/status/1238303409549144065?s=20

  23. 23.

    Jay

    March 12, 2020 at 11:20 pm

    Reposted from yesterday,

    I went to the grocery store this afternoon. As I was walking in I heard a woman yell to me from her car. I walked over and found an elderly woman and her husband. She cracked her window open a bit more, and explained to me nearly in tears that they are afraid to go in the store.— Rebecca Mehra (@rebecca_mehra) March 12, 2020

    Thread,…..

  24. 24.

    dmsilev

    March 12, 2020 at 11:22 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Similarly, I’ve seen an awful lot of “We may be overreacting” today. To my mind, there is no such thing as overreaction at this point.

    Reminds me of Y2K. Lot of people sat around in 2001 and said “what a big nothing burger; we all panicked for this?” and ignored the vast vast amount of work that had to get done to make it mostly a nonevent. Absent that work, it’d have been a lot worse.

  25. 25.

    delk

    March 12, 2020 at 11:22 pm

    I wish there was overreaction 30 plus years ago when all my friends died.

  26. 26.

    Brachiator

    March 12, 2020 at 11:22 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Similarly, I’ve seen an awful lot of “We may be overreacting” today. To my mind, there is no such thing as overreaction at this point.

    The people who say stuff like this never go on to say what the proper reaction should be.

  27. 27.

    Gin & Tonic

    March 12, 2020 at 11:22 pm

    If – and it’s a big if – we get this right, the measures will feel like an overreaction afterward. Not very bright people will say ‘I don’t know why we made all that fuss

    I’m old enough to have been in an IT project management role for years before Y2K, and I know well how much effort the (collective) industry devoted to mitigation. For years afterward we had to listen to morons saying “hey, it was no big deal, nothing much happened.” Yeah, because millions and millions of programming hours were spent to make sure of that.

  28. 28.

    HumboldtBlue

    March 12, 2020 at 11:23 pm

    I asked downstairs, but from those in the know, does this video teach me anything useful?

    My only real coping mechanism is to read and learn what I can about a subject. I have an 88-year-old father, a sister and BiL in fucking Morocco after the entire fucking clan begged them to stay home before they left last week and now the crisis deepens.

  29. 29.

    2liberal

    March 12, 2020 at 11:23 pm

    this came to me via email with 8 degrees of separation so consider the source.  I posted it before but that was 2 threads ago so I’m aiming for more readership.

    “I have this from a friend of mine whose brother is on the Stanford hospital board. This is their feedback for now on Corona virus: The new Coronavirus may not show sign of infection for many days.
    How can one know if he/she is infected? By the time they have fever and/or cough and go to the hospital, the lung is usually 50% Fibrosis and it’s too late. Taiwan experts provide a simple self-check that we can do every morning.
    Take a deep breath and hold your breath for more than 10 seconds. If you complete it successfully without coughing, without discomfort, stiffness or tightness, etc., it proves there is no Fibrosis in the lungs, basically indicates no infection. In critical time,

    please self-check every morning in an environment with clean air. Serious excellent advice by Japanese doctors treating COVID-19 cases:
    Everyone should ensure your mouth & throat are moist, never dry. Take a few sips of water every 15 minutes at least. Why? Even if the virus gets into your mouth, drinking water or other liquids will wash them down through your throat and into the stomach. Once there, your stomach acid will kill all the virus. If you don’t drink enough water more regularly, the virus can enter your windpipe and into the lungs. That’s very dangerous.

    1. If you have a runny nose and sputum, you have a common cold
    2. Coronavirus pneumonia is a dry cough with no runny nose.
    3. This new virus is not heat-resistant and will be killed by a temperature of just 26/27 degrees. It hates the Sun.
    4. If someone sneezes with it, it takes about 10 feet before it drops to the ground and is no longer airborne.
    5. If it drops on a metal surface it will live for at least 12 hours – so if you come into contact with any metal surface – wash your hands as soon as you can with a bacterial soap.
    6. On fabric it can survive for 6-12 hours. normal laundry detergent will kill it.
    7. Drinking warm water is effective for all viruses. Try not to drink liquids with ice.
    8. Wash your hands frequently as the virus can only live on your hands for 5-10 minutes, but – a lot can happen during that time – you can rub your eyes, pick your nose unwittingly and so on.
    9. You should also gargle as a prevention. A simple solution of salt in warm water will suffice.
    10. Can’t emphasis enough – drink plenty of water!

    THE SYMPTOMS
    1. It will first infect the throat, so you’ll have a sore throat lasting 3/4 days
    2. The virus then blends into a nasal fluid that enters the trachea and then the lungs, causing pneumonia. This takes about 5/6 days further.
    3. With the pneumonia comes high fever and difficulty in breathing.
    4. The nasal congestion is not like the normal kind. You feel like you’re drowning.
    It’s imperative you then seek immediate attention.

    SPREAD THE WORD – PLEASE SHARE.”

  30. 30.

    Cheryl Rofer

    March 12, 2020 at 11:23 pm

    @chris: A big problem with those estimates is that we don’t know how many cases are asymptomatic, how many are like a mild cold, how many are at the “mild” limit of a horrendous cough that still doesn’t need to be in the hospital, and how many are much worse.

    I was just reading on Twitter that Justin Trudeau’s wife tests positive and that there is a case in the FBI? CIA? and thinking that I’d like to know where on that spectrum these cases land. The celebrity cases, so far, seem to be mild.

  31. 31.

    West of the Rockies

    March 12, 2020 at 11:23 pm

    @Martin:

    Oh, nice explanation.  Thanks.

  32. 32.

    Martin

    March 12, 2020 at 11:25 pm

    @chris: I really don’t agree with that estimate. Ohio might have an outbreak in a city where 1% of people have it, but that doesn’t mean you can extrapolate it to a state simply because that’s the political boundary that defines your job.

    The US data got off to a weird start because the first deaths came in a small, highly vulnerable location. So if you extrapolated from that data point, it’d look like it was vastly more common than it actually was. In that nursing home, some 70% of people had it, but outside it was vastly lower.

    Maybe 100K people across the US have it. My guess is it’s 25K-50K.  We’re starting to find it in disconnected corners, which is concerning because it suggests its passing all kinds of normal social borders.

  33. 33.

    Kent

    March 12, 2020 at 11:25 pm

    Sooooo…..kind of a nit pick here.

    Looking at the twitter graph on flattening the curve above.   This tweet: https://twitter.com/juliettekayyem/status/1237785223829622785?s=20

    It occurs to me that as a physics teacher, the area under the graph would normally represent the number of incidences.  The red curve is taller but narrower, the blue curve is shorter but wider.  At first glance, the volume under the curves looks roughly similar.

    Obviously this isn’t want they want to represent.  That the same number of people are going to die, just over a longer period of time.  Especially on a graph with no numerical axis.  But that’s what it looks like to me.

  34. 34.

    Kent

    March 12, 2020 at 11:26 pm

    @Brachiator:The people who say stuff like this never go on to say what the proper reaction should be.

    Whatever China or Korea or Singapore are doing to bend the curve downwards perhaps?

  35. 35.

    Martin

    March 12, 2020 at 11:29 pm

    @2liberal: Some of that doesn’t match what we’re seeing in studies. It’s passing around just fine in equatorial location and southern hemisphere where temperatures are higher.

    It can stay on hard surfaces for multiple days (all coronaviruses do). It can remain airborne for 3 hours.

  36. 36.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 12, 2020 at 11:32 pm

    @Kent: That the same number of people are going to die, just over a longer period of time.

    Just because people get the disease does not mean that they are going to die.  As I understand it, the deaths occur if treatment isn’t available.  So, if the same number of people get it but they get it over a longer period of time so that they can get appropriate treatment, fewer people will die.

  37. 37.

    Kent

    March 12, 2020 at 11:32 pm

    @2liberal: Those claims were fact-checked and determined to be false:

    https://factcheck.afp.com/health-experts-say-drinking-water-every-15-minutes-does-not-prevent-coronavirus-infection

  38. 38.

    West of the Rockies

    March 12, 2020 at 11:32 pm

    @2liberal:

    That description sounds like it pertains to serious cases.

  39. 39.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    March 12, 2020 at 11:33 pm

    @dmsilev: As someone who worked on Y2K issues, this is true.

  40. 40.

    Cheryl Rofer

    March 12, 2020 at 11:33 pm

    @Kent: Excellent point!

    @2liberal: I have my doubts about a number of those points, including drinking water to get the virus into your stomach and all the numerical survival times.

    We do not know the virus’s response to ambient temperatures. Just do not. So we can’t assume it will go away in the summer. And if it does, it will come back in the fall

    ETA: The symptoms that I’ll call the New Mexico hotline for are combined dry cough and fever. Or obvious exposure to someone who’s got it.

  41. 41.

    The Dangerman

    March 12, 2020 at 11:35 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    ….& a 78% Approval Rating, the highest on record.

    Where the fuck does 78% approval come from? He couldn’t get to 78% in a room filled with only his children.

  42. 42.

    Jay

    March 12, 2020 at 11:35 pm

    @Martin:

    As of 3 days ago, according to John Hopkins, there were only 760 confirmed cases in the entire US and Territories. The CDC said today, 1,215.

    and yet, cases are popping up in rural hamlets that havn’t had a single visitor since the last FTFNYT Cletus Safari and nobody has traveled anywhere, ever, so,………

    funny thing when there is a disease out there nobody is testing for.

  43. 43.

    chris

    March 12, 2020 at 11:35 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: Justin and Sophie are in their 40s and disgustingly fit and healthy. He hasn’t been tested yet but they seem very affectionate with each other so… They should get through without too much trouble.

    Sophie was in the UK for some event and I wonder if she caught it from the genius Minister of Health who spent several days with all kinds of people including Bojo.

  44. 44.

    Martin

    March 12, 2020 at 11:35 pm

    @Kent: No, that is what they are trying to represent.

    There is no containment. Half of us will get this. The problem is that hospital admits below the line have a roughly 1% fatality rate (based on areas outside of Wuhan and Italy) while cases above the line, where hospitals are overwhelmed are around 5%. The 3.2% rate quoted is for all of China. But there’s a within capacity rate (1%) and an above capacity rate (5%). We’re trying to keep to the 1% rate. There’s no hope of limiting cases unless we stretch this out long enough for a vaccine or some highly effective treatment to arrive.

    The rate we don’t know (and hope never to) is the rationing care rate if Italy goes through with their plan to deny intubation for anyone over 60. That’ll probably be as high as 20%.

    In fact, they’d be willing to trade out more people getting it if that was the cost of dragging this out longer. Unless we can ramp up ICU beds dramatically, we might need to drag this out for over a year to keep hospitals from getting overwhelmed.

  45. 45.

    2liberal

    March 12, 2020 at 11:36 pm

    @Kent: thanks for the link.  I’ll pass this on to the source of the email.

  46. 46.

    Cheryl Rofer

    March 12, 2020 at 11:36 pm

    Thanks to all the Y2K commenters! I said something like Palmer’s tweet the other day on Twitter, and someone responded with Y2K. I was almost going to mention it upthread, but I didn’t know for sure. You have convinced me.

  47. 47.

    Martin

    March 12, 2020 at 11:37 pm

    @Kent: I don’t think any of those things are possible in the US in the timeframe we have.

  48. 48.

    debbie

    March 12, 2020 at 11:37 pm

    @2liberal:

    Huh. That post came to me from a FB friend whose niece is a “doctor in residence at Standford.” That lung test sounds helpful.

  49. 49.

    Gravenstone

    March 12, 2020 at 11:37 pm

    @Kent:  Actually, that’s exactly what they want to represent. If the area under the curves is total number of patients requiring advanced care, then the flatter curve means fewer patients needing that care at any given time. And that means less stress on the very limited resources of ICU facilities and mechanical ventilators. Otherwise we wind up like Italy, which is triaging who can get onto the limited number of ventilators, with preference being given to younger patients in the absence of any overriding criteria. The unavailability of those resources to those not selected during triage means a likely spike in deaths until the surge passes.

  50. 50.

    mrmoshpotato

    March 12, 2020 at 11:38 pm

    @Gravenstone: I look forward to overreacting like all hell when voting for the Democratic presidential nominee in November.  I hope enough people will join me.  It’s simply hitting the touchscreen for the Dem nominee or filling in the bubble or line.

    If only enough people had overreacted like that in 2016…

  51. 51.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 12, 2020 at 11:38 pm

    @The Dangerman: according to his own side (sort of, she’s a far-right never-trumper)…

    Liz Mair @LizMair 1h

    The 78% number comes from RNC polling of small dollar donors on its list and it used to be a 90%+ number. What’s really interesting here is that Trump’s approval among GOP small dollars on an RNC list fell a minimum of 12%. Think about THAT.

    You wonder who combs through different polls of increasingly more specific groups to find a binkie for him, Kellyanne? Hope?

  52. 52.

    Jay

    March 12, 2020 at 11:39 pm

    These incompetent bastards!Click "animate spread" to see movement COVID-19. The *first* country hit by infection outside of Asia was USA. The *last* country to start testing was USA. The *only* industrialized country without massive testing *now* is USA.https://t.co/t5saWuIuT6— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) March 12, 2020

  53. 53.

    Mike J

    March 12, 2020 at 11:39 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: 

    So, if the same number of people get it but they get it over a longer period of time so that they can get appropriate treatment, fewer people will die.

    Not only people with coronavirus. If the hospitals are overwhelmed, they can’t treat coronavirus or heart attacks or car crashes. Flattening the curve is the best way to keep more people alive.

  54. 54.

    Martin

    March 12, 2020 at 11:39 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: Actually the water thing sounds possibly right. The virus needs to get in the lungs to infect you. If it’s lodged in your windpipe it doesn’t, so you want to ensure it doesn’t go into your respiratory system.

    It’s like 20 seconds of hand washing but for your throat.

  55. 55.

    FlyingToaster

    March 12, 2020 at 11:39 pm

    @Kent: Not necessarily die.

    The same number of infections — and possibly serious infections — will happen.  But if the hospitals aren’t full, then the serious cases will get the care they need and fewer will die.

    Think South Korea (where the curve has flattened and everyone with a serious case is in hospital) versus Italy (where they’re triaging ventilators, and if you’re over 35, you probably won’t get one).

  56. 56.

    chris

    March 12, 2020 at 11:39 pm

    @Martin: Thanks. I put it there hoping someone more numerate than me would poke holes in it. My knowledge of statistics is… insignificant.

  57. 57.

    Brachiator

    March 12, 2020 at 11:40 pm

    @2liberal:

    This information may be well intentioned, but should not be spread around. It contains a mix of maybe good advice with some dubious statements.

    One item is demonstrably false.

    This new virus is not heat-resistant and will be killed by a temperature of just 26/27 degrees. It hates the Sun.

    Neither cold weather nor hot baths kill the virus.

    People should visit the CDC or WHO website for clearly explained tips and facts.

    For example

    WHO Myth Busting

    https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/myth-busters

  58. 58.

    Jay

    March 12, 2020 at 11:43 pm

    Coronavirus testing numbers:

    -CDC tested 77 people this week **total** as of Wednesday

    -States are testing an average of 50 people per day.

    -A single private lab is up and running w. coronavirus tests. The next soonest will be ready to go on 03/16.https://t.co/HwnjMhnD94— Alexander Nazaryan (@alexnazaryan) March 12, 2020

  59. 59.

    The Dangerman

    March 12, 2020 at 11:44 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    The 78% number comes from RNC polling of small dollar donors on its list and it used to be a 90%+ number.

    So, the 78% number is a number that should be causing Trump to be crapping in his pants. Got it.

    I don’t believe in a Hell, which is too bad, as KellyAnne would have an express ticket, too. Jump the line, fucker!

  60. 60.

    Anne Laurie

    March 12, 2020 at 11:45 pm

    @delk: I wish there was overreaction 30 plus years ago when all my friends died.

    You are not alone in that, my friend.  (Even though, praise Murphy, my *immediate* circle was pretty well spared, so I haven’t wanted to stress that personally.)

    When the twitter hipsters sneer Well, it’s just old sick people, who cares about them anyway, I get Names Quilt flashbacks…

  61. 61.

    TEL

    March 12, 2020 at 11:45 pm

    @2liberal: The 26-27 degrees will kill it doesn’t make sense to me. If that were accurate, the act of infecting humans would kill it as normal human body temp is around 36-37 degrees.

  62. 62.

    Brachiator

    March 12, 2020 at 11:47 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    The stuff from “Stanford Hospital” is false information which should not be spread. From the Verge:

    A list of dubious coronavirus tips is going viral on Facebook and Twitter, as well as spreading through email. It falsely claims to be from the Stanford Hospital board and contains advice like “take a few sips of water every 15 minutes at least,” to kill the virus. None of these tips have anything to do with reality; it is dangerous misinformation.

    https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/12/21177262/coronavirus-tip-fake-list-stanford-hoax-covid-19

  63. 63.

    Kelly

    March 12, 2020 at 11:47 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    If – and it’s a big if – we get this right, the measures will feel like an overreaction afterward. Not very bright people will say ‘I don’t know why we made all that fuss

    Y2K was the closing act of my career as a mainframe programmer for big biz. He’s right.

  64. 64.

    Cheryl Rofer

    March 12, 2020 at 11:47 pm

    @Martin: I agree it sounds kinda right, but I demand a scientific reference. There is too much mis- and dis-information going around to share on the basis of sounding kinda right.

  65. 65.

    Major Major Major Major

    March 12, 2020 at 11:48 pm

    @Martin: yeah that Ohio stat did not pass the smell test. Saw it ricocheting all over the Internet.

    Quite a thread!

  66. 66.

    Mary G

    March 12, 2020 at 11:48 pm

    Well, this is horrible (WaPo)
    ‘Italy has abandoned us’: People are being trapped at home with their loved ones’ bodies amid coronavirus lockdown.

    When his sister died after contracting the novel coronavirus, Luca Franzese thought that things couldn’t get much worse.

    Then, for more than 36 hours, the Italian actor and mixed martial arts trainer was trapped at home with Teresa Franzese’s decaying body, unable to find a funeral home that would bury her.

    “I have my sister in bed, dead, I don’t know what to do,” Franzese said in a Facebook video over the weekend, pleading for help. “I cannot give her the honor she deserves because the institutions have abandoned me. I contacted everyone, but nobody was able to give me an answer.”

    Hospitals aren’t the only places that can be overwhelmed. Iran has dug trenches in a cemetery that can be seen from space.

  67. 67.

    chris

    March 12, 2020 at 11:49 pm

    @TEL: Singapore, Australia et al. are over 30 at this time of year.

  68. 68.

    Brachiator

    March 12, 2020 at 11:50 pm

    @debbie:

    That lung test sounds helpful

    It is, unfortunately, nonsense. The list of Tips is false misinformation.

  69. 69.

    joel hanes

    March 12, 2020 at 11:51 pm

    @dmsilev:

    Y2K. …  Absent that work, it’d have been a lot worse.

    Absent that work, it would have been a sci-fi catastrophe.  My mom was on the board of a regional electric utility, and what their engineers told them would make you turn white as a sheet.  But they were warned in time, and found and hired the old grey-ponytail programmers who knew the stuff, and got it all fixed well in advance, and tested it.

    Because what their engineers told them would make you turn white as a sheet.

  70. 70.

    MisterForkbeard

    March 12, 2020 at 11:52 pm

    @2liberal: I think others have said so, but this specific mail has been proven to be false. Not from Stanford, and about 2/3s of it is nonsense and the other 3rd has some errors.

    The Sun thing is because UV rays kill viruses, not because of heat around 26/27 degrees.

  71. 71.

    Sister Golden Bear

    March 12, 2020 at 11:53 pm

    @Martin:

    Most of the things we’re ‘overreacting’ to have little to no cost. Kids missing a week of school isn’t a big deal. Delaying the NBA isn’t a big deal. Cancelling a concert or a cruise isn’t a big deal. Yes, it is to individual workers who may lose money or their job even, but if we are able to turn those things right back on again, those will recover. It’s only when we can’t that it’s truly painful, and in that case it wasn’t an overreaction.

    As mentioned, I know a lot of performers and artists. Many of whom day jobs were in the gig economy, which has no dried up along with their bookings. As in someone who bartends and had all of her shifts cancelled, and now is panicking about being evicted at the end of the month, and being able to pay for groceries.

    We need to “over-react” right now, but there’s definitely going to be some huge short-term damage to a number of people. I don’t know of a good, fast, solution, but we need to be “over-reacting” on that too.

  72. 72.

    TEL

    March 12, 2020 at 11:53 pm

    @chris: Very true! Sounds like the whole list is bogus.

  73. 73.

    sanjeevs

    March 12, 2020 at 11:54 pm

    Currently experts expect over 1 million deaths in the U.S. since the virus was not contained & we cannot even test for it. This will be recorded as a major preventable public health disaster. I will try to relate what I learned from a long day of calls about what is happening.

    The original sin is Trump’s months long denial and his dismantling of public health and response infrastructure. That wasn’t all, but it led to other fatal mistakes. 2/

    The public health infrastructure could have been prepared. What does that mean: nasal swabs, respirators, ventilators, RNA kits to read tests, machines, gloves. We can at best do 10,000 tests/day. We should be able to do millions. 3/

    All of this could have ramped up and solved in January & February and right now we would be talking about containment. We could have also allowed labs to produce tests earlier or gotten WHO tests. We did not. Why? In part Federal workers could not be seen contradicting Trump. 4/

    If you don’t think that’s right, remember only weeks before Trump firing justice department officials who weren’t loyal to him. But worse, tweeting out their names for savage mobs to attack. 5/

    Still today, people in the CDC are well aware of the fatality estimates at the top of this thread. Yet they are muzzled. They are aware of the shortages. Yet they are muzzled. Worse, they are being asked to call the press and tell them they are not being muzzles. 6/

     

    https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1238303395448008704

     

    Former Medicare, Medicaid, ACA head for Obama

     

  74. 74.

    joel hanes

    March 12, 2020 at 11:54 pm

    @Kent:

    I believe it’s supposed to be a graph of instantaneous number of cases, not a graph of fatalities.

    Fatalities would comprise the peak of the taller curve, above the line that denotes the capacity of the medical system to cope.

  75. 75.

    Brachiator

    March 12, 2020 at 11:55 pm

    @Martin:

    Actually the water thing sounds possibly right. The virus needs to get in the lungs to infect you. If it’s lodged in your windpipe it doesn’t, so you want to ensure it doesn’t go into your respiratory system.

    If you breathe the virus in, you’ve got it. Drinking anything will not make a difference.

  76. 76.

    ziggy

    March 12, 2020 at 11:56 pm

    @Anne Laurie: And the same precautions we use to protect ourselves will also protect our feline housemates.  As they would be the first to say:  Keep cleanng ALL THE THINGS, all the time!

    But they would want us to do it by licking ourselves.

  77. 77.

    Cheryl Rofer

    March 12, 2020 at 11:58 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear: We need to be over-reacting in terms of providing a safety net for all the people who will be unemployed. I have seen some good lists that supposedly represent the bill Nancy Pelosi is negotiating, but I’m not convinced they’re reliable, so I’ll stick with the hope that she’s going to get a good bill and then we can bludgeon the Senate into passing it.

  78. 78.

    ziggy

    March 13, 2020 at 12:00 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: Similarly, I’ve seen an awful lot of “We may be overreacting” today. To my mind, there is no such thing as overreaction at this point.

    From a vantage point of the Seattle area, it does not feel like overreacting.

  79. 79.

    Elizabelle

    March 13, 2020 at 12:01 am

    Gloves coming off.  Rarely watch “The 11th Hour”, but it’s Ali Velshi as host.  Very bright guy.

    Last segment:  pretty much direct quote from Jon Meacham:  “Trump has shown no capacity to grow or change and that is one of the tragedies of this modern era.”

    Yup.

  80. 80.

    Anne Laurie

    March 13, 2020 at 12:01 am

    @HumboldtBlue: I have an 88-year-old father, a sister and BiL in fucking Morocco after the entire fucking clan begged them to stay home before they left last week and now the crisis deepens.

    I think the best advice at this point would be for your whole clan to shun your sister & BiL for at least 14 days after they come back — if the Trump admin allows them back in, which isn’t at all certain, and I hope they packed with that possibility in mind!

    As someone whose chronic allergic rhinitis is griefing me right now, the best information about symptoms I’ve been able to find is that a fever of 100.4 or higher & a dry cough are the most reliable signs of COVID-19 infection.  Runny noses, sneezing, itchy eyes are (thank the Trickster God)  not.  Nor are digestive upsets… although as the current meme goes, There’s a toilet paper shortage because every time one person sneezes, a dozen others soil themselves.

    Anyone has better information on symptoms, please DO share with the rest of us!

  81. 81.

    Jeffro

    March 13, 2020 at 12:02 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: sign. me. up.

  82. 82.

    Mary G

    March 13, 2020 at 12:06 am

    Hi Folks. We have a new show tonight w no audience, but we cancelled next week’s shows before our scheduled break. I wish I could stay on stage to share this uncertain moment w you, but I don’t do this show alone, and I have to do what’s best for my staff. Hope to be back soon.— Stephen Colbert (@StephenAtHome) March 13, 2020

  83. 83.

    Mary G

    March 13, 2020 at 12:08 am

    Introducing Sir Patrick Stewart, @PeteButtigieg says “He’s in charge of a fictional star fleet. Just like Mike Pence.”— Adam Wren (@adamwren) March 13, 2020

  84. 84.

    Jeffro

    March 13, 2020 at 12:10 am

    @Elizabelle:Trump has shown no capacity to grow or change and that is one of the tragedies of this modern era.

    Or perhaps

    trumpov has shown no capacity to grow or change…and granted, he started from the lowest possible baseline of expectations with his dimwit followers, and he has only degenerated from there…and that is one of the tragedies of this modern era.

  85. 85.

    Anne Laurie

    March 13, 2020 at 12:13 am

    @Mary G: Iran has dug trenches in a cemetery that can be seen from space.

    Actually, I’ve got a thread about that queued up for later.  TL;DR, that’s a gross exaggeration; using Google Earth to zoom in gave a misleading photo of an Iranian cemetary with a hundred or so pre-dug individual plots.  Since local religious practice mandates burial within 24 hours whenever possible, the Iranian government has actually been circulating this information, to reassure people that if the worst happens, they won’t be worrying about not being able to properly bury their dead relatives.

  86. 86.

    Suzanne

    March 13, 2020 at 12:13 am

    Our school district is on spring break this week, and they just announced closure for next week. I am already working from home. We’re throwing ourselves into social distancing.

    I wish we had quality leadership. Understatement, I know.

  87. 87.

    piratedan

    March 13, 2020 at 12:14 am

    @joel hanes: we had a similar issue with our Lab software, entire modules had to be re-written to accommodate date format changes and calculations that only used six digit date formats…

  88. 88.

    Brachiator

    March 13, 2020 at 12:15 am

    @Anne Laurie:

    From the WHO website:

    The most common symptoms of COVID-19 are fever, tiredness, and dry cough. Some patients may have aches and pains, nasal congestion, runny nose, sore throat or diarrhea. These symptoms are usually mild and begin gradually. Some people become infected but don’t develop any symptoms and don’t feel unwell. …

    Around 1 out of every 6 people who gets COVID-19 becomes seriously ill and develops difficulty breathing. …

    People with fever, cough and difficulty breathing should seek medical attention.

    https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses#:~:text=symptoms

     

    ETA. Please excuse any formatting issues. Posted on the fly from my phone.

  89. 89.

    Kirk Spencer

    March 13, 2020 at 12:16 am

    @sanjeevs: Millions.

    So two threads down I made a longish comment estimating upcoming deaths over the upcoming year. The most optimistic path (barring miracle vaccines) was “only” 330,000 deaths. However, jl was kind enough to note the optimists’ numbers have gotten even better, probably.

    But.

    I also did the pessimists. The “what’s the worst we’re seeing, and what if we have a short sharp rise that exceeds hospital capacity, and guess what we think we see in the US” number.

    That’s over 11 million dead.

    The actions such as decisions of the NBA and NCAA and hundreds of stories of individuals stepping up give me hope for the optimists. But the big structure that’s supposed to be supporting all that (the government) working against all that makes me unable to dismiss the latter. And it doesn’t help when people like Andy Slavitt say things like this.

  90. 90.

    Kent

    March 13, 2020 at 12:18 am

    @Kirk Spencer: How is Andy Slavitt harming the effort?

  91. 91.

    HumboldtBlue

    March 13, 2020 at 12:21 am

    @joel hanes:

    Can we get a link to the story about this?

  92. 92.

    Uncle Cosmo

    March 13, 2020 at 12:22 am

    @2liberal: IIRC what you just posted has been rather thoroughly exposed as a hoax & should be erased from the site. Here’s one source. There are probably many more out there.

    (And BTW, who the hell are you? Never saw that nym here before.)

  93. 93.

    MisterForkbeard

    March 13, 2020 at 12:24 am

    @Uncle Cosmo: 2liberal’s been here before. Not a constant poster, but I’ve seen the name.

  94. 94.

    Kirk Spencer

    March 13, 2020 at 12:25 am

    @Kent: Sorry, I wasn’t clear.

    I’m a natural pessimist. I’m trying to be optimistic. THAT is the battle he’s in which he’s being the opposite of helpful.

    Which is not a denigration of him. It’s a rueful observation coupled with an ongoing sense of dread.

  95. 95.

    terry chay

    March 13, 2020 at 12:26 am

    @Kent: The graph is for infected not mortality. Mortality is a big function of whether or not the medical system gets overloaded.

    In places such as Wuhan, Italy, Iraq it got overloaded and mortality was/is 2-4%. In places like the rest of China, Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong it is not and we are seeing mortality less than 0.7%.

    Even if the area under the curve is the same (and without a vaccine it will eventually be as total infections will climb until about 50% of the world has it and there is herd immunity), the mortality is very very different.

  96. 96.

    Anne Laurie

    March 13, 2020 at 12:29 am

    @Brachiator: Thanks!

    I now plan to include this in Friday’s Early Morning Open Thread.

  97. 97.

    HumboldtBlue

    March 13, 2020 at 12:30 am

    At least we can still sing. This brought me to tears. Siena Italy.

  98. 98.

    Jay

    March 13, 2020 at 12:30 am

    @Major Major Major Major:

    the Ohio stat is from the Ohio Surgeon General type person and is based on extrapolation of  known cases, suspected cases, known and unknown vectors and geographical dispersion.

    Basically, a guess based on the fact that almost nobody has been tested but some guy in Anus, Ohio, (Pop 6 right now), who’s never left his Momma’s couch in a decade, has tested positive.

    It’s one of the pandemic predictive models Epidemiologists use when because of war, remoteness, corruption or Dumph, they have little to no data on the spread of a disease.

  99. 99.

    Timurid

    March 13, 2020 at 12:31 am

    My school is planning to stay open for the foreseeable future. If they’re not the only college left open in Louisiana, they will be within a day. This place is run by literal madmen. But losing my job going into what will likely be a worse recession than 2008 would likely be worse for my long term health than actually catching the virus, so…

  100. 100.

    Jay

    March 13, 2020 at 12:32 am

    @terry chay:

    Iran, not Iraq, ( yet).

  101. 101.

    JanieM

    March 13, 2020 at 12:36 am

    @Jay:

    some guy in Anus, Ohio

    Pie filling.

  102. 102.

    CaseyL

    March 13, 2020 at 12:36 am

    @Brachiator: And I am right now coming down with… something.  Feels like an ordinary cold so far.  All my fingers and toes are crossed that it is just an ordinary cold.

    Twitter is all a-twitter over Trump proposing to limit travel to and from California and Washington.  Has anyone heard anything about that?  (Most of the comments I’ve seen are along the “Yay!  Cascadia at last!” variety.)

  103. 103.

    Jay

    March 13, 2020 at 12:38 am

    @JanieM:

    it’s an actual town. There is also one in Idaho.

  104. 104.

    Martin

    March 13, 2020 at 12:42 am

    @CaseyL: Yeah, Trump coughed something out of his face-hole about that. Nancy needs to tell him that travel restrictions after community spread will only serve to increase the bailout needed for the airlines, which she will not fund. Pay for screeners.

  105. 105.

    Sister Golden Bear

    March 13, 2020 at 12:47 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: Exactly. We also need action at the state and local levels.

    E.g. in SF losing a rent-controlled apartment is tantamount to being forced to move elsewhere for folks like my friend. So the city could implement a 30-day moratorium on rent-due evictions, while other financial aid gets lined up. Yes, it will undoubtedly end up in court, but that still buys time for people.

    The state could offer people the ability to immediately get on Covered California, with a delayed period for making payments.

  106. 106.

    Suzanne

    March 13, 2020 at 12:52 am

    @Brachiator: I have tiredness all the time. Seriously. Who is ever well-rested? I don’t think I’ve had a good night of sleep in at least eighteen months.

  107. 107.

    jl

    March 13, 2020 at 1:03 am

    @Kirk Spencer: Thanks for shout out.

    As I noted in previous thread, and repeat here for others, I think those numbers are for the final size of the epidemic, after all the dust settles and everyone who will ever be infected is infected. But we can’t be sure since many are not showing their calculations.

    Final epidemic size is sadly insensitive to reductions in the reproduction number, which is what you can control through control of transmission. Cut the transmission rate in half, you get less than half reduction in final epidemic size. So looking at that alone is very discouraging.

    But you can get a reduction in the epidemic peak that is an order of magnitude or more lower, you can really really flatten the curve, with moderate reductions in the transmission rate. And the epidemic is spread out for much longer. Which is bad since we have to put up with it longer, but good since a short epidemic that is over in two months would be a societal wipeout.

    So, even if the final epidemic size numbers are discouraging, remember that they are a pessimistic measure of the severity of the epidemic. The associated reductions in transmission rate flattens the curve tremendously, and buys society and individuals precious time to find much more effective control measures than we have now. For example, ID effective antiviral drug therapies.

  108. 108.

    Uncle Jeffy

    March 13, 2020 at 1:06 am

    Kids in our community whose parents own the local Chinese restaurant are asking classmates to tell their families that it’s safe to order take-out Chinese food because sales have dropped dramatically. And clerk at a local liquor store (famous in our area for great beer selection) told me that Corona sales are way down because people think they could get sick from drinking it. Unbelievable.

  109. 109.

    jl

    March 13, 2020 at 1:07 am

    @jl: You need to get down into reproduction ratio of 1.2 range to see optimistic looking numbers for how reducing it reduces final epidemic size, at least for simple models.

     

    I wish the people putting out those numbers would show their work, so people can see what kind of data and models they are using.

  110. 110.

    Raoul

    March 13, 2020 at 1:07 am

    I tried reading that new Baker / Haberman piece, but NYT house style now makes me so crazy.

    The twee, soft euphemisms for his disastrous egocentrism and unteachability have gone far past cute. It’s reckless.

  111. 111.

    Sister Golden Bear

    March 13, 2020 at 1:11 am

    @Anne Laurie: Also worth including:

    Coronavirus Poses Unique Risks for Many LGBTQ and HIV-Positive People 

    They offer a few reasons why LGBTQ people are at greater risk: “Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, plus (LGBTQ+) people are at particular risk for Coronavirus disease 2019 (or COVID-19) as a result of several factors: We use tobacco at rates that are 50% higher than the general population. Coronavirus 2019 is a respiratory illness that has proven particularly harmful to smokers. Higher rates of HIV and cancer among LGBTQ+ individuals mean that a greater number of us may have compromised immunity, leaving us more vulnerable to Coronavirus infection.”

    They note as well that LGBTQ experience health disparities: “Access to care barriers leaves us less likely to get medical care, and existing health disparities mean more of us live in a state of compromised health.”

    More information at the National LGBT Cancer Network’s site.

  112. 112.

    2liberal

    March 13, 2020 at 1:24 am

    @Uncle Cosmo:  I’m a long time follower of the site and used to post sometimes.  Nowadays I just  lurk. Thanks for the  link, I’m going to contact the admins and request deletion of my post. edit:  looks like it’s already been deleted.

  113. 113.

    C Stars

    March 13, 2020 at 1:25 am

    @CaseyL: well isolate and suck on zinc lozenges if you have them! Also, keep your neck warm.

    I can’t imagine that they could enforce a travel ban across state lines. My boomer in-laws are insisting that they are still coming to visit us here in CA in early April. For some reason I keep envisioning a face-off between Dear Tweeter and my MIL. She always wins.

  114. 114.

    JustRuss

    March 13, 2020 at 1:49 am

    @ziggy:
     

    From a vantage point of the Seattle area, it does not feel like overreacting.

     

    My daughter lives 300 miles from Seattle. Two cases in her town yesterday, 6 more today. Shit’s gettin real.

  115. 115.

    Martin

    March 13, 2020 at 1:49 am

    Info from UCSF panel. UCSF is a UC campus which is effectively a standalone medical school/teaching hospital.

    • 40-70% of the US population will be infected over the next 12-18 months. After that level you can start to get herd immunity. Unlike flu this is entirely novel to humans, so there is no latent immunity in the global population.
    • [We used their numbers to work out a guesstimate of deaths— indicating about 1.5 million Americans may die. The panelists did not disagree with our estimate. This compares to seasonal flu’s average of 50K Americans per year. Assume 50% of US population, that’s 160M people infected. With 1% mortality rate that’s 1.6M Americans die over the next 12-18 months.]  
    • Appears one can be infectious before being symptomatic. We don’t know how infectious before symptomatic, but know that highest level of virus prevalence coincides with symptoms. We currently think folks are infectious 2 days before through 14 days after onset of symptoms (T-2 to T+14 onset).
    • On surfaces, best guess is 4-20 hours depending on surface type (maybe a few days) but still no consensus on this
    • We at UCSF are moving our “at-risk” parents back from nursing homes, etc. to their own homes. Then are not letting them out of the house. The other members of the family are washing hands the moment they come in.

    My estimate is that to stay under the current ICU capacity at a 50% infection rate, and assuming no seasonality, we need to maintain this posture for around 3 years. 12-18 months sounds pretty realistic assuming build-out of infrastructure and other things. Should have a vaccine in that timeframe. But that also means we can back off of some measures as we find better ways to limit transmission. I don’t expect the school closure thing will last long, but we will need to change our protocols around school. University large lectures might need to stay online, but other parts of campuses may stay running. Public events probably need to stay cancelled for quite a while.

    This is probably going to ravage the nursing home industry. Maybe the retirement living community as well.

    4-20 hours lifespan on surfaces is better than what I got before. There’s been a lot of testing on this lately. The T-2 infectious is fucking terrifying. It means you can’t actually know if you’re spreading it or not.

  116. 116.

    Brachiator

    March 13, 2020 at 2:05 am

    @Martin:

    This compares to seasonal flu’s average of 50K Americans per year. Assume 50% of US population, that’s 160M people infected. With 1% mortality rate that’s 1.6M Americans die over the next 12-18 months

    This doesn’t sound right. The risk of death is not equally distributed among people who might become infected with the virus.

    The risk is not even equal among persons over age 60, and this group is already more clearly established as those who are more at risk to suffer serious, life threatening illness.

    I am also not sure that the mortality estimate adequately adjusts for medical intervention.

    I got some nerve, perhaps, but I am pretty sure that the basic math here is wrong.

  117. 117.

    prostratedragon

    March 13, 2020 at 2:13 am

    @Kent:
    More or less. I think the dotted line representing hospital capacity is the key. “Flattening the curve” is to keep the maximum number of cases at the peak time within capacity.

  118. 118.

    Martin

    March 13, 2020 at 2:15 am

    @Brachiator: It’s correct with the provision that you are unable to protect one population more than another. If we can restrict it to only people under 45 it’ll be vastly lower, if only over 60 then vastly higher.

    Thus far, nobody has been able to achieve that. And if you accept a rate near 50% when herd immunity starts to kick in, then at best you can slightly influence it because 50% requires such widespread propagation that you can barely shelter people from it.

  119. 119.

    Brachiator

    March 13, 2020 at 2:26 am

    @Martin:

    It’s correct with the provision that you are unable to protect one population more than another. If we can restrict it to only people under 45 it’ll be vastly lower, if only over 60 then vastly higher.

    I don’t think you are formulating this correctly. Even if you assume that the risk of contracting the virus is equal, the risk of death is not equal.

    It is not a matter of protecting one population more than another, nor is herd immunity a factor.

    Even with the Spanish flu deaths of 1918, deaths were not distributed equally among all ages.

  120. 120.

    jl

    March 13, 2020 at 2:29 am

    @Martin: “The T-2 infectious is fucking terrifying. It means you can’t actually know if you’re spreading it or not.”

    Assuming that people are equally contagious before and after symptoms, that means around 12 percent of the infections come from asymptomatic people. That is far too high for simple contact tracing and self-quarantine to do much good.

    California’s contract tracing program tried to ID and quarantine all people judged to be sufficiently exposed to present a threat of infection. But that program ended last Friday because it got overwhelmed, and maybe the figured tests coming online would help. We’ll see if California’s more aggressive than usual approach to tracing and quarantine did any good.

  121. 121.

    Fair Economist

    March 13, 2020 at 3:32 am

    I’m feeling relatively positive today because so many states are taking this seriously. Only GA and FL look particularly problematic of those states that have or face imminent outbreaks.

  122. 122.

    Martin

    March 13, 2020 at 4:08 am

    @Brachiator: So, I can look at the distribution of ages in the population and calculate the relative fatality rates for each  population. Let’s say there’s only 2: <45 and >=45. And the <45 has a mortality rate of 1% and the >=45 has a rate of 3%. If those two populations are equal in size, we can expect a rate of 2% across the whole population assuming they get infected equally. If we can protect the >=45 at the expense of the <45, then we’ll have a rate of 1%. If we can protect the <45 at the expense of the >=45, then it’ll be 3%.

    Here’s what it looks like in my model:

    Age   Population   Fatality Rate   Est Fatalities (50%)
    50-59   42,830,000   1.30%   278,395
    60-69   37,410,000   3.60%   673,380
    70+      34,000,000   8.00%   1,360,000

    You can practically ignore the <50 group the rate is so low.

    So, you have two ways of dealing with that 70+ group. Either develop treatments to reduce that 8%, or develop mechanisms to keep them from getting infected in the first place.

    Every model out there assumes an equal infection rate for every demographic, but none assume an equal fatality rate. What we need to do is find a way to change that – to reduce the infection rate of the older cohorts even if you have to do that at the expense of the younger ones. So, for my retired neighbors I’ve offered to do any out in the world stuff that might present an infection risk, because it’s much less of a problem if I contract it than if they do (provided that doesn’t just lead to me giving it to them).

  123. 123.

    Brachiator

    March 13, 2020 at 5:44 am

    @Martin:

    All right. Now we are getting more focused. The number of people age 50 plus at greater risk add up to 113 million, not the 162 million you originally started out with. And these fatality rates were largely based on the Chinese data. I presume that subsequent data from other countries align closely with the Chinese numbers, but I also presume that the researchers are revising the numbers as more information pours in.

    The data also suggested that men, especially in the oldest age groups, were significantly more likely to die than women, suggesting further refinement of the data.

    Finally, what we are talking about here is the case fatality rate, a figure that can vary, for a lot of reasons. So you have to be careful when using it to predict deaths. It provides a reasonable estimate of a possible outcome, but it is not a hard number.

  124. 124.

    Uncle Cosmo

    March 13, 2020 at 8:35 am

    @MisterForkbeard: Well OK, my mistake, sorry. But that stuff is still a hoax.

  125. 125.

    Uncle Cosmo

    March 13, 2020 at 8:43 am

    @2liberal:  As above – sorry. Honest mistake on both ends apparently, good on ya for requesting deletion.

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