M-m-m-my Corona! NCOVID-19 #5

[BigFatCoward]

5 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

I'd pay attention to the number of new cases in Italy right now as opposed to the number of new deaths.  

Do we know of any posters on this board that actually live in Italy?

There is a similar trend in new cases, 4 days of plateau, then another jump yesterday. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

6 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

I'd pay attention to the number of new cases in Italy right now as opposed to the number of new deaths.  

Do we know of any posters on this board that actually live in Italy?

I wonder if the news of the plateau in China is good news?  If the span is 6 weeks we, at least have an idea when a semblance of normalcy will return.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I wonder if the news of the plateau in China is good news?  If the span is 6 weeks we, at least have an idea when a semblance of normalcy will return.

CNN’s top headline is that the government is planning for this to last 18 months. Normalcy is a long ways away.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

CNN’s top headline is that the government is planning for this to last 18 months. Normalcy is a long ways away.

No business can survive this for 18 months.  Courts cannot function remotely for that length of time.  We don’t have the infrastructure for everyone to appear remotely.  Most law firms don’t have that kind of infrastructure.

[BigFatCoward]

Yeah, the virus might last 18 months, but society can't sustain this shutdown for that long.  There comes a point where someone might have to make the hard decisions to write of the 2-4% of the population that might die, as in the long term its the least worst option. 

[Fragile Bird]

The length of time is going to depend on whether or not Americans can get their act together and follow the example of how to get control of the situation set by China and South Korea. It may be some states will do it but others won't, and you'll face the issue of shutting down state borders. 45 days appears to be the period required, but that was done under lockdown.

As for Italy, not very long ago (10 days? I can't remember) the Italian government imposed lockdown. The news was leaked that lockdown was coming and thousands of people fled south, carrying and spreading the virus. I think many of the new cases come from that.

Ok, it was March 9, 10 days ago. Symptoms are popping up, and more people will go to hospital. Once in hospital, the bad cases will die in an average 8 days.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

No business can survive this for 18 months.  Courts cannot function remotely for that length of time.  We don’t have the infrastructure for everyone to appear remotely.  Most law firms don’t have that kind of infrastructure.

Which leaves us two choices:

1. Get everyone sick right now and accept a mass die off.

2. Drag this out forever, leading to a slow mass die off and the economy gets nuked.

Either way, buy bullets. Looting will probably happen.

[BigFatCoward]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

Which leaves us two choices:

1. Get everyone sick right now and accept a mass die off.

2. Drag this out forever, leading to a slow mass die off and the economy gets nuked.

Either way, buy bullets. Looting will probably happen.

At least with option 1 we sort of know the worst case scenario, option 2 could be far far worse.  

[Winterfell is Burning]

Brazil registred 5 deaths so far, all in the last two days. 

One consequence of the Coronavirus is that, due to Bolsonaro's erratic behavior (yes, even more than Trump, who at least eventually realized that his reelection depended on it), his base of support is clearly melting. This was always a higher risk of this happening with him than with Trump because Brazil is not a two party system and his voter base was made of a much higher percentage of college educated and wealthier people than Trump's,  but the slow erosion he had seems to be drastically increasing.

Mind you, the Minister of Health is doing a very good job, and taking very good measures (wouldn't be surprising if he became a bigger figure in politics when the crisis is over), but Bolsonaro keeps getting in the way. 

 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

At least with option 1 we sort of know the worst case scenario, option 2 could be far far worse.  

Both scenarios have terrible externalities. One kills the healthcare system for sure, the other for sure kills the global economy in a way that makes 08 look like a walk in the park. Either way, there is a somewhat decent chance society breaks down. This is moving faster than any of us can game out, and I say that as someone who has been doing a good job at it. I called the NBA closing a week before it happened. My next guess is all major cities go into quarantine within a week.

[sologdin]

fascist bolsanaro can't bluster his way out of the plague with anti-atheist bullshit and calls for violence against persons with leftwing beliefs or non-heteronormative practices, eh?

[Fragile Bird]

I want to tiptoe into a subject that raises hackles and hate, but it may be the gorilla in the room. When information about coronavirus first started coming out of China in greater detail, you may recall the WHO issued a statement about people at greatest risk. That included people with existing conditions, and they gave a list of conditions.

I did not realize how at-risk diabetics were, and several people here told me how they've lived their lives trying to avoid getting the flu. ( to you all) One of the other conditions that surprised me was obesity, and in my mind I linked higher levels of diabetes with obesity.

Last night a story from the NYT popped up on my Facebook page, about a family in New Jersey with 7 cases of Covid-19 and 3 deaths. Four are in hospital in tough condition. What's been really hard on the family is the fact there simply was so little testing available it was almost no testing. Brutal. But something else really struck me. With horror.

The Times story includes pictures of family members, including one taken at some event, a wedding perhaps, of the 73-year old mom and her 11 children. All are at least obese, and it looks like almost all are morbidly obese. The two children who have died were her oldest, aged 55, but no age for the other one is given. The story says neither had any underlying conditions. Doctors are really puzzled about the deaths.

If the WHO was correct about obesity being an underlying risk, based on Chinese data, I'd say we North Americans had better work very hard on self-isolation.

Here's a link to the story. Perhaps you can't read it, but maybe you can see the family picture, either here or on the internet.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/nyregion/new-jersey-family-coronavirus.html

eta: I assume in a year or two researchers will dig through all the statistics and figure out if it’s true or not. Already it’s been reported the Chinese think they have found a link to blood type.

 

[Conflicting Thought]

38 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Which leaves us two choices:

1. Get everyone sick right now and accept a mass die off.

2. Drag this out forever, leading to a slow mass die off and the economy gets nuked.

Either way, buy bullets. Looting will probably happen.

shouldnt we try to maintaing calm and try not to panic?, i feel like some of us are falling to a desperation pit and it doesnt help anyone. like you dont have any way of knowing how this crisis is going to turn out, i personally dont think this is going to be the end of the world, i think its going to be transformative and many things will change (or should change, with capitalism you never know), buy how is calling for people to buy bullets and saying society will break down helping anybody?. You dont even know how is this going to turn out, i understand we are scared but please try to keep some perspective. at least try to not say things that will cause panic and sever anxiety  to people.

[Maithanet]

Yes, this is a scary time and we don't have a lot of good answers right now.  But we are learning more about COVID every day, and there are hundreds of thousands of smart people across the world who are working on different approaches to solving the problem.  We've already learned some things like ibuprofen possibly making it worse, and there are some treatments (like one anti-malarial) that shows initial promise to avoid the worst health impacts of COVID. 

And we're just getting started, we will know far far more in just a few weeks, and more still in a few months.  As knowledge grows, we'll be increasingly able to handle this outbreak.  Yes, things are going to be bad, and many, many people will die.  You have to be realistic about these things.  But you don't have to be fatalistic - humanity has faced worse than this. 

[DaveSumm]

6 minutes ago, Conflicting Thought said:

i personally dont think this is going to be the end of the world, i think its going to be transformative and many things will change (or should change, with capitalism you never know)

Indeed. I think ramping up testing will transform this, all the success stories rest on testing. Basically, other countries may take a rockier road but there’s no reason we won’t all end up like China; still restricted, but definitely over the worst. There’ll be an awkward period where we have to keep turning certain social taps on and off to stifle outbreaks, but we’ve seen China and Korea successfully stamp on these new flare ups. Again, testing and contact tracing are really effective once you’ve got the overall amount down. All the while, we’ll get better and better and treating it.

[Maia]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

2. Drag this out forever, leading to a slow mass die off and the economy gets nuked.

Either way, buy bullets. Looting will probably happen.

You don't think that a mass die-off would have also nuked the economy? Particularly, given the fact that even routine medical intervention would have become inaccessible during it.

Let's not go all doomsday - there are already promising leads on drugs that could be used to cure it. Not the vaccine, which is a year away at best, not new drugs that need to be extensively tested for side-effects, but stuff that has been around forever as treatments for other diseases and which is pretty cheap. So, what is needed now are bigger trials and then rapid ramping up of production. Ditto with tests and protective equipment. Getting a handle on this relatively quickly is very doable, as long as people in power aren't stupid about it.

Frankly, I am shocked that military-industrial complex is so unprepared - it looks like if anybody had used a biological weapon at any point, US and NATO would have been complete sitting ducks. Puts all the terrorist hysteria of the 2000-ies in a new light...

Also, this demonstrates that countries need to have their own production of  certain basic medical supplies, if at all possible. Viruses can potentially be so much worse...

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

15 minutes ago, Conflicting Thought said:

shouldnt we try to maintaing calm and try not to panic?, i feel like some of us are falling to a desperation pit and it doesnt help anyone. like you dont have any way of knowing how this crisis is going to turn out, i personally dont think this is going to be the end of the world, i think its going to be transformative and many things will change (or should change, with capitalism you never know), buy how is calling for people to buy bullets and saying society will break down helping anybody?. You dont even know how is this going to turn out, i understand we are scared but please try to keep some perspective. at least try to not say things that will cause panic and sever anxiety  to people.

I’m quite calm. Being realistic about this is calming. Pretending everything will be fine and go back to normal sooner than later is a farce. And if the supply lines break down, society is going to spiral out. Hopefully the national guard is doing its prep work, because this has a good chance to get ugly a lot quicker than you might expect.

[BigFatCoward]

If you can't get toilet roll amazon has loads of the industrial ones for sale for pennies.  I guess all the pubs and restaurants aren't ordering them anymore.  For £20 I just got 12 industrial sized rolls which i'm going to share with friends and neighbours. 

[sologdin]

had used a biological weapon at any point

i think this may be apples and oranges, as the current virus is not particularly useful as a biological weapon: comparatively low virulence, not obviously degrading military preparedness in the short term, and communicable person-to-person.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

13 minutes ago, Maia said:

You don't think that a mass die-off would have also nuked the economy? Particularly, given the fact that even routine medical intervention would become inaccessible during it.

Let's not go all doomsday - there are already promising leads on drugs that could be used to cure it. Not the vaccine, which is a year away at best, not new drugs that need to be extensively tested for side-effects, but stuff that has been around forever as treatments for other diseases and which is pretty cheap. So, what is needed now are bigger trials and then rapid ramping up of production. Ditto with tests and protective equipment. Getting a handle on this relatively quickly is very doable, as long as people in power aren't stupid about it.

Frankly, I am shocked that military-industrial complex is so unprepared - it looks like if anybody had used a biological weapon at any point, US and NATO would have been complete sitting ducks. Puts all the terrorist hysteria of the 2000-ies in a new light...

Also, this demonstrates that countries need to have their own production of  certain basic medical supplies, if at all possible. Viruses can potentially be so much worse...

 

A quick mass die off is a lot easier to come back from than this crippling industries over a long period of time.

Look, I work on the business side of a large hospital in a huge network. I can see that supplies are running low. Medical staff are getting sick. And they are running out of ways to protect themselves. The system cannot handle much more of this, and if there’s no significant changes quickly, the system will fail. This is what all the experts are warning us about, and so far their actions have not met the on the ground needs.