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COVID19/4 Keep calm and wash your hands


Which Tyler

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I work in retail and our main issue is not an issue of supply. We’re expecting trucks to meet the demand. We actually had higher order levels to deal with the weekend, they just weren’t high enough. At these levels I’m not hearing about future supply issues, just an unexpected spike that will likely level off over the next week.

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My daughter is in the hospital for psych related issues and while we were there yesterday an older man was brought into an isolated room close to us, think it’s called a negative pressure room, by people in basically hazmat suits. This hospital has 3 confirmed cases already which are isolated in a completely different wing of the hospital. Needless to say everyone in our area, hospital staff included was like WTF.

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7 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

I haven't heard about puking up blood and mucus before.  How old is your friend and do you know if he had any other existing medical issues?

It's been pretty common in the reports, and it's one of the signature tells this is COVID-19 rather than the flu (well, it could be regular pneumonia as well). They're 38 and in excellent health.

I see someone else linking the report that about a third of people with COVID have the mucus issue. The blood isn't from the lungs (as far as can be told), it's from the lining of the throat because you're coughing like an absolute bastard.

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I suppose like I stated above, my suspicion is that there are a lot more than eighty thousand cases in China.  Eighty thousand only encompasses those that have been tested positive for it.

That was the problem at the start for China and it's the problem in Europe (particularly the UK) and the USA right now. When China went hardcore in cracking down on the virus, they seem to have gotten a much better handle on testing everyone who could possible have been affected and their charting of the cases seems to have been relatively successful, which is why the number of news cases in China (and South Korea after their initial bump) are coming down in line with the number of deaths. If the number of cases was rising at a low rate but the death rate was spiking, that'd be extremely concerning and would indicate a large amount of unchecked transmission. That's what we've seen in Italy and I suspect we'll start seeing here soon unless they start testing again.

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So... it seems like I have spent most of the day hunting for groceries. Forget my hopes that things might settle after two days of panic buying! Out there is still a bloody battlefield!

I started doing home deliveries, but the wait time for slots suddenly went from 48 hours to 8 days (!). The new strategy is to go to our local Tescos at about 2am to try to get in as the shelves are restocked. But yeah, it's bananas.

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Some people are still very much in denial about this. I've had relatives and colleagues rage about how it is all hysteria, a panic, a fuss about nothing, etc. Granted it is not the Black Death but it is so much worse than the flu. 

 

On Twitter there seems to be a widespread (well, vocal) belief that it's all a conspiracy to stop Trump getting elected. When Idris Elba confirmed today he had tested positive, there was a veritable wall of replies that "this Hollywood lib hoax won't stop what's coming in November" and so forth.

Quite a few sane Republicans pushing back on that, it was good to see, but the denialism in some quarters is insane.

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55 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

One person's pessimist is another's realist. And the world is so different from a century ago. I'd be careful to base too much on that, though it is still worth studying. 

And I guess that's one way to look at it, but there is no quarantine here. There will be one though, I'm sure.

Well, yeah, and it's precisely because there is NOT an official quarantine in your area yet that the fact the people are heeding the national calls for social distancing is such a good sign. They aren't waiting for official proclamations to do the responsible thing. 

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1 minute ago, Ormond said:

Well, yeah, and it's precisely because there is NOT an official quarantine in your area yet that the fact the people are heeding the national calls for social distancing is such a good sign. They aren't waiting for official proclamations to do the responsible thing. 

Things move quickly. Too quickly. See above. Our Governor is beginning the shutdown that is needed. 

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Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Things move quickly. Too quickly. See above. Our Governor is beginning the shutdown that is needed. 

Yes, that's great. Doesn't invalidate the point that a great many people were doing this on their own before he acted. 

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Just now, Ormond said:

Yes, that's great. Doesn't invalidate the point that a great many people were doing this on their own before he acted. 

Was shopping all day. Lots of people were out and about. It stood out to me that nobody was walking their dogs. That was the eerie part. 

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38 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Yesterday the US had 3,700 cases, and now it's 4,400? And good grief, 81 deaths.

eta: no, it's 4,663 and 86.

Expect it to continue increasing at ~30% per day until 7-14 days after actual effective measures have been taken.  Even that could be an underestimate, because we'll be ramping up testing at the same time, could easily see increases in the 40-60% per day.  Assuming testing does continue to ramp up, I'd put the over/under for US cases by Friday night at 15k, and 40k a week from today. 

Geometric growth is scary stuff.  And even if all Americans were taking social distancing really seriously (they aren't), and it significantly dropped the infection rate, we still won't be seeing any slowing up for another week at the soonest. 

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16 hours ago, Mudguard said:

What specific things did the New York state and city government do or fail to do that you believe puts the blame on them and not the federal government?

The federal government's response is also an example of complete and utter incompetence, but this does not absolve New York (City and State) of their wrongdoings. New York City is not unique among American cities in having an extensive system of public transportation, but its system is by far the most extensive. It also acts as a great vector for all airborne and droplet diseases because millions of people use it every day and the way it works is dozens (sometimes of order 100) people are packed into individual train cars and/or buses wherein the air is blown around by an air conditioning system.

Knowing this and knowing that there are confirmed cases who live near and work or study inside the city (even with limited testing, this has been known for two weeks), either the governor or the mayor could have taken steps to limit the people commuting on a daily basis. For example, without having much of an economic impact, they could have requested that everyone who can work home does work from home. They finally did this for state employees yesterdays, but private companies are under no obligation to implement this. They could also have imposed the more disruptive measures (closing schools, bars, restaurants, etc.) a week ago rather than yesterday, but they held off as long as possible and only gave up because the situation was becoming untenable as individual teachers, parents and patrons were not going to play along.

In other words, it's the combination of federal, state and local incompetence that created the current situation in New York. Yes, Trump, the CDC and the rest of the federal machinery screwed up royally, but this screw up applies to all states and not all states have more than 20% of the total confirmed cases in the country (as I write, New York is at 967 while the US as a whole is at 4661).

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44 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I started doing home deliveries, but the wait time for slots suddenly went from 48 hours to 8 days (!). The new strategy is to go to our local Tescos at about 2am to try to get in as the shelves are restocked. But yeah, it's bananas.

8 days doesn't seem too bad, I was looking earlier today at the Tesco delivery slots and their first available ones were on the 3rd of April! I'm well stocked up for now, but I did put an order in for because I'll be needing more by that time.

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20 minutes ago, williamjm said:

8 days doesn't seem too bad, I was looking earlier today at the Tesco delivery slots and their first available ones were on the 3rd of April! I'm well stocked up for now, but I did put an order in for because I'll be needing more by that time.

Why do our giant corporations need to sound alike too. Ugh.

I'm having fun watching the captain of my HS football team debate our French teacher over ethics in paid teacher leave (he's also a teacher, but his young children aren't covered due to some weird language in the plan). 

ETA: clarity

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28 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Expect it to continue increasing at ~30% per day until 7-14 days after actual effective measures have been taken.  Even that could be an underestimate, because we'll be ramping up testing at the same time, could easily see increases in the 40-60% per day.  Assuming testing does continue to ramp up, I'd put the over/under for US cases by Friday night at 15k, and 40k a week from today. 

Geometric growth is scary stuff.  And even if all Americans were taking social distancing really seriously (they aren't), and it significantly dropped the infection rate, we still won't be seeing any slowing up for another week at the soonest. 

The current number of cases is almost certainly dominated by the testing (i.e. the lack thereof) rather than the prevalence of the virus. Thus far, it's been basically impossible to get tested unless you have a very severe case or you fall into a special category based on travel, profession, etc. Here's one estimate of the number of cases:

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A medical professor at Johns Hopkins University urged Americans not to believe low numbers of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States, warning the actual number of people walking around with the virus could be “between 50,000 and half a million.”

Dr. Marty Makary told Yahoo Finance's "On the Move" on Friday that he believes the number of coronavirus cases is much higher than the 1,600 confirmed cases and 41 deaths that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported.

“Don’t believe the numbers when you see, even on our Johns Hopkins website, that 1,600 Americans have the virus,” Makary said. “No, that means 1,600 got the test, tested positive. There are probably 25 to 50 people who have the virus for every one person who is confirmed.”

 

Of course, this was a few day ago so you can take all of the numbers and multiply by around 3.

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31 minutes ago, Altherion said:

The federal government's response is also an example of complete and utter incompetence, but this does not absolve New York (City and State) of their wrongdoings. New York City is not unique among American cities in having an extensive system of public transportation, but its system is by far the most extensive. It also acts as a great vector for all airborne and droplet diseases because millions of people use it every day and the way it works is dozens (sometimes of order 100) people are packed into individual train cars and/or buses wherein the air is blown around by an air conditioning system.

Knowing this and knowing that there are confirmed cases who live near and work or study inside the city (even with limited testing, this has been known for two weeks), either the governor or the mayor could have taken steps to limit the people commuting on a daily basis. For example, without having much of an economic impact, they could have requested that everyone who can work home does work from home. They finally did this for state employees yesterdays, but private companies are under no obligation to implement this. They could also have imposed the more disruptive measures (closing schools, bars, restaurants, etc.) a week ago rather than yesterday, but they held off as long as possible and only gave up because the situation was becoming untenable as individual teachers, parents and patrons were not going to play along.

In other words, it's the combination of federal, state and local incompetence that created the current situation in New York. Yes, Trump, the CDC and the rest of the federal machinery screwed up royally, but this screw up applies to all states and not all states have more than 20% of the total confirmed cases in the country (as I write, New York is at 967 while the US as a whole is at 4661).

Well it's kind of fucked up to attribute this to NY's response rather than to what NY is.  It's a major port of entry from the rest of the world, a world city, where people live on and commute in close proximity to one another, it's weird to say that it's got special circumstances that dictate a stronger and more proactive response (it does) but to also act like it's a mystery that it has more than its statistical share of cases as one of fifty states.  

If you look at it per capita and where people exit and leave the country and where they have actually managed to test people it's probabaly not so much of an outlier.  

That being said, they should have acted more quickly, especially given the shortage of tests and fact that it can be spread by asymptomatic individuals.

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33 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Well it's kind of fucked up to attribute this to NY's response rather than to what NY is.  It's a major port of entry from the rest of the world, a world city, where people live on and commute in close proximity to one another, it's weird to say that it's got special circumstances that dictate a stronger and more proactive response (it does) but to also act like it's a mystery that it has more than its statistical share of cases as one of fifty states.

But that's exactly the point: it has more than its statistical share precisely because it's got circumstances that require a stronger and more proactive response and it did not get such a response. For example, Kentucky (which is neither a global hub nor anywhere near as dense nor with a large number of cases) announced that it was closing all of its schools before New York City did and so did quite a few other states.

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2 minutes ago, Altherion said:

But that's exactly the point: it has more than its statistical share precisely because it's got circumstances that require a stronger and more proactive response and it did not get such a response. For example, Kentucky (which is neither a global hub nor anywhere near as dense nor with a large number of cases) announced that it was closing all of its schools before New York City did and so did quite a few other states.

Really?  When did they each announce they were closing all schools?  

We're most of NY's already closed when that was announced?  Were many of them on spring break anyway?  

I don't really disagree with the premise, that NY (like everywhere else) did too little too late, but it's not weird that for a variety of reasons NY has 20% of reported cases.  I'd be surprised if they didn't.  Too bad all the governors and mayors were left in the wind to make unpopular decisions.  I wonder if there had been strong federal leadership on the gravity of the outbreak potential, if govs and mayors would have been more willing to act proactively.  

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