Covid-19 #14 - Are We Done Yet?

[Kalbear]

Aging population and not listening to advice + AC: Arizona!

 

 

[Zorral]

NY isn't yet reopened all the way, and NYC are not reopened beyond phase 1,  Yet the idiot restaurants and bars and other idiots are acting up against the rules and regs, and aren't observing any of the protocols.  Cuomo is threatening them with loss of licenses, fines and closure. No masks, no distance, no handwashing, no gloves, etc.  Also nowhere to pee.  Not only is this a perfect storm for covid infection, it's a perfect storm for the vermin who have been starved.

[Fez]

2 hours ago, Maithanet said:

But we aren't going to be particularly close to "normal" as a society for years, if ever.

I agree with most of your post, but not necessarily this part. I feel pretty good about there being a vaccine within a year, and that dexamethasone is the first of many treatments found to be effective. And once there is a widespread vaccine, or even just widespread use of therapeutics that reduce the fatality/serious complications rates down to much lower levels, I think society will bounce back to normal extremely quickly.

OTOH, if I'm wrong and these things don't come to pass, I still think society will go back to normal within a year or two. There just isn't the will to keep restrictions in place forever, and if there's no end in sight eventually society will just power through to the other side, even if it means mass casualties. To some extent that is already happening here in the US. Maybe people will change their tune once people they know start getting sick and dying. But only for so long; eventually the mental strain to keep going will be too much. 

[williamjm]

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Aging population and not listening to advice + AC: Arizona!

 

 

It is alarming that Arizona on its own is reporting more new cases today than any European country apart from Russia.

Looking at the European figures Sweden is now reporting more new cases than the UK (at least for one day), I think the Swedish approach is looking less and less attractive as time goes on.

[Larry of the Lawn]

26 minutes ago, Triskele said:

The heat will kill it.

In April, when spring arrives, the virus will disappear.

[Derfel Cadarn]

7 hours ago, Triskele said:

The heat will kill it.

All the bars need to do is give every customer a bleach chaser after every drink.

[rotting sea cow]

14 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

States here have started seeing spikes about 6 weeks after opening. It's not yet as bad as in the first hard-hit states, but if states continue to expand their opening process, it's only a matter of time before cases start exploding exponentially.

The cautious, phased openings is all that's keeping us from getting hit like back in March, April, and May.

Many European countries have already 6+ weeks of reopening and there are no new spikes. We discussed that in the last two or three pages. Sure, many people are careful, but not all. Parks are full. Etc. Why is that? I don't know.

Except for things like this

 

13 hours ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-over-600-people-test-positive-at-german-slaughterhouse/a-53846038

This is like the third or fourth outbreak at a slaughterhouse in Germany. There have been also some apartments blocks quarantined. Some post depots outbreaks. Churches. Etc. Mostly superspreading events. Interestingly no outbreaks are associated to schools or kindergartens (AFAIK), which reminds me a lot of the Swedish experience.

 

[rotting sea cow]

BTW: I'm trying to find information, but apparently the virus found in the Shangai market is a new variant containing several mutations. Some newspapers had some scary tones, but apparently it might be less harmful.

[Liv Stark]

7 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

Many European countries have already 6+ weeks of reopening and there are no new spikes. We discussed that in the last two or three pages. Sure, many people are careful, but not all. Parks are full. Etc. Why is that? I don't know.

Except for things like this

 

This is like the third or fourth outbreak at a slaughterhouse in Germany. There have been also some apartments blocks quarantined. Some post depots outbreaks. Churches. Etc. Mostly superspreading events. Interestingly no outbreaks are associated to schools or kindergartens (AFAIK), which reminds me a lot of the Swedish experience.

 

Just adding that the new outbreaks in Israel comes from schools and kindergartens  

[rotting sea cow]

1 minute ago, Liv Stark said:

Just adding that the new outbreaks in Israel comes from schools and kindergartens  

Well, Israel isn't in Europe, but clearly they are experiencing a second wave, with cases raising steadily for a couple of weeks. How prevalent is the usage of air conditioning there?

 

[Liv Stark]

1 minute ago, rotting sea cow said:

Well, Israel isn't in Europe, but clearly they are experiencing a second wave, with cases raising steadily for a couple of weeks. How prevalent is the usage of air conditioning there?

 

 

Very prevalent

There was also a scorching hot week (40C, which i think is something like 100F?) where mask wearing wasn't required because of the heat, and the cases started to raise a week after that (i think that was a big factor)

[Guest]

1 hour ago, rotting sea cow said:

Many European countries have already 6+ weeks of reopening and there are no new spikes. We discussed that in the last two or three pages. Sure, many people are careful, but not all. Parks are full. Etc. Why is that? I don't know.

When I say that things are open here, I'm pretty sure that means something different from what you mean. Here, in my state, many bars and restaurants are full, not operating at 25% or 50% capacity. I walked in to my barber shop last week to buy some products for my hair and beard and there were about 10 people in a 2,000 square foot barber shop. I was the only person wearing a mask.

We will have a 20,000 person rally at an indoor venue in my state on Saturday. When I say "open", I mean getting pretty close to how things were before the pandemic hit.

[rotting sea cow]

1 hour ago, Liv Stark said:

 

Very prevalent

There was also a scorching hot week (40C, which i think is something like 100F?) where mask wearing wasn't required because of the heat, and the cases started to raise a week after that (i think that was a big factor)

I've reading about it. Apparently masks are far more effective than people might naively think.

Air conditioning might be also an issue too.

[JoannaL]

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

This is like the third or fourth outbreak at a slaughterhouse in Germany. There have been also some apartments blocks quarantined. Some post depots outbreaks. Churches. Etc. Mostly superspreading events. Interestingly no outbreaks are associated to schools or kindergartens (AFAIK), which reminds me a lot of the Swedish experience.

 

I think this is another reason to believe in the theory of temperature dependance. It is now quite warm in Germany (around 25 degrees Celsius), but slaughterhouses operate at around 8 degree Celsius. So heat helps a lot, but only if you don't start the air conditioning.

 

there is also now a German study confirming that children do get the virus less likely than adults:

 

"Of 4,932 persons tested for SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies, 64 subjects were categorized as seropositive, corresponding to a seroprevalence of 1.3% (95% confidence interval, 1.0 – 1.7%). Altogether, 19 children (0.8%; 95% confidence interval, 0.5 – 1.2%) and 45 parents (1.8%; 95% confidence interval, 1.3 – 2.4%) were seropositive. The number of seropositive individuals in the age group 1 – 5 years was 7/ 1120 (0.6%; 95% confidence interval, 0.3 – 1.3%), in the age group of 6 – 10 years 12/ 1346 (0.9%, 95% confidence interval, 0.5 – 1.6%) and in the parent group 45/ 2466 (1.8%; 95% confidence interval, 1.3 – 2.4%). In 68% of seropositive children, the corresponding parent was also seropositive."

https://www.klinikum.uni-heidelberg.de/fileadmin/pressestelle/Kinderstudie/Prevalence_of_COVID-19_in_BaWu__.pdf

[Guest]

Tulsa mayor says they're expecting at least 100,000 visitors to the city during Trump's rally. In about 4-6 weeks this will turn catastrophic.

[rotting sea cow]

52 minutes ago, JoannaL said:

I think this is another reason to believe in the theory of temperature dependance. It is now quite warm in Germany (around 25 degrees Celsius), but slaughterhouses operate at around 8 degree Celsius. So heat helps a lot, but only if you don't start the air conditioning.

So air conditioning might be behind of the new surges in US and elsewhere? I mean, there are speculations that AC causes the virus to become an aerosol by drying up the droplets. But what about south European countries where AC is also prevalent? I'd worry specially about hotels (tourism is back!) with centralized AC systems is this is true. 

 

[Rippounet]

12 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

But what about south European countries where AC is also prevalent? I'd worry specially about hotels (tourism is back!) with centralized AC systems is this is true.

But here's the thing: tourism isn't really back.

Also, the use of AC is influenced by huge cultural differences. You have few large malls with powerful AC in Europe and a lot more reasonably-sized supermarkets (if not even smaller shops with no AC or barely any AC at all). Whereas in the US, IIRC, you have these huge malls with super-powerful AC systems...
Plus, most European countries are taking social distancing relatively seriously by now...

So I dunno... heat could be a factor, or not, bottom line is it's still not clear at this point...

[Ran]

8 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

. But what about south European countries where AC is also prevalent?

 

Prevalent and prevalent. Maybe 20% of households in Spain and Italy have air conditioners, compared to something around 90% of American households. Yes, hotels are a thing, but there's going to be fairly little in the way of tourism this summer.

 

[rotting sea cow]

@Rippounet@Ran

I mean. I believe that AC is a thing to look carefully and I know what you say about the differences in Europe wrt US. If AC is a thing, which is probable needed to explain the outbreaks at slaughterhouses, we should start seeing outbreaks where they are used too, like hotels, office buildings, etc. 

There is of course the confounding effect of personal precautions, aggressive testing, etc that would tone down the expectations. 

I also have the speculation that people who already got COVID19 might be acting as a social barrier hampering the progress of the disease, which might also explain the same behaviour, because not all persons have the same level of social contact.

[Ormond]

45 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

@Rippounet@Ran

I mean. I believe that AC is a thing to look carefully and I know what you say about the differences in Europe wrt US. If AC is a thing, which is probable needed to explain the outbreaks at slaughterhouses, we should start seeing outbreaks where they are used too, like hotels, office buildings, etc. 

 

The effect of air conditioning should certainly be looked at. However, one point to remember is that the temperature inside slaughterhouses/meat packing plants would be kept considerably lower than it would be in most residential or commercial facilities with air conditioning.