Corona Virus 2019-nCoV

Most of the country is on "lock down". The hots spots have been Seattle, California, NYC. California and Seattle have been fairly effective. The predictions by the infectious disease organizations seem to suggest that the U.S. as a whole will peak in about 2 weeks and a few days later Seattle and California as well.

I'm just passing on that information. It isn't based on infecting the whole country and then relying on "herd immunity". That would take longer.

 

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OK thanks for clarifying. Perhaps the accounts we read in the UK press, of Trump refusing to organise anything and spending his time just blaming state governors and city mayors, are overdone.

If the whole country is on lockdown 2 weeks would seem to make sense, compared with the predictions I am reading for London, which is a bit ahead of the rest of the UK.

The issue then will be whether we lift the lid a bit, to allow some flickers of economic life while still keeping R close enough to 1 that we do not overwhelm the hospitals (with their hopefully increased capacity), while the epidemic runs its course and herd immunity builds up, or whether we keep the lid down and try to stamp it out entirely without building herd immunity. That's a really tough call, it seems to me.

 

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31.03.2020 10.24pm AU

Worldometer

800,023 confirmed cases
38,748 Fatalities
169,993 recovered
====
30,289 (5% ) severe - critical (ICU (?) )

 

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Most of what you read about Trump is true it's just that people have learned to work around him.

Lock down decisions are local anyway. Yes, it is a tough call regarding getting back to work or not but I think most areas will err on the side of lock down for a while.

 

In addition to doing essentially nothing of benefit, Trump has actively organized obstacles to dealing with this epidemic. (He didn't want the disease numbers to affect the stock market and reflect badly on him).

That is, I'm pretty sure they aren't. They can't be, I think - certainly not the BBC's, which are the only ones I've read. Those are underdone, by a significant margin. Even Joe Pie's rants underplay Trump's behavior a bit (he bothsides some stuff).
Trump has been given a media pass on almost everything, and held to full account on almost nothing.
Illustration: Remember the accounts of Trump wildly exaggerating the size of the crowd at his inauguration? He also lied about the weather, the identities of some of the people he invited, the cost and source of financing, his profiteering use of a nearby hotel he was legally forbidden to own, the attendance at the parties, and what people said about it afterwards. That's not a complete list.
And people complained that the media were picking him unfairly, by mocking his lie about the crowd size. What could have happened was his arrest and incarceration, at any time before he took the oath - that's what treating him fairly, as one would have treated a regular citizen, would have looked like. If he had been treated as he recommended black men be treated, the arrest would have been made by slamming him on the ground and putting a knee on his neck while cuffing his hands behind his back.

And by that enforcement of the rule of law, that draining of a pond in the swamp, many thousands of Americans might - almost certainly would - have been saved their now statistically almost inevitable death by coronavirus infection in the next few months. Trump has done a lot of damage to the US public health bureaucracy since January of 2017, and especially to its capabilities of response to a pandemic. And that is not hindsight - his dismantling of US epidemic and pandemic response readiness, that in particular, was railed against at the time and all along until now by dozens of experts and pros and people who knew better.

The former President Trump most closely resembles is Reagan, and the press crowd used to call Reagan the Teflon President - nothing, not even pandering to the Klan or lying about Iran/Contra, stuck to him. To this day you can hardly find a single Republican voter who credits the well-established fact that Reagan's administration financed and protected the launch of the crack epidemic in America. Reagan's other great public health fuckup - his abetting the spread of HIV - has also mostly slid off him.

Nothing sticks to Trump either - but, like Reagan, he did do this stuff. So far very few (one or two? The pee tape? but that's still hanging) of the media stories about Trump have been shown to be biased against him, or exaggerations of his actual behavior, or invented - the default presumption regarding any media allegation against Trump, as opposed to any against Clinton or Obama, is that it is damped, not hyped.

It's not. Nothing about Trump's behavior in this matter makes sense. There has been no successfully coordinated Federal policy of any kind, let alone that - partly because Trump has undermined every attempt by tweeting or speaking nonsense on TV, partly because there are essentially no undamaged and functioning Federal agencies capable of coordinating a national response of that kind. If it can't be done by force of arms using ICE or some branch of the military, Trump's government probably can't get it done.

The lockdowns and other measures are largely initiatives by - coordinated by - individual State governors, mayors, and the like - Trump's influence has been to delay them, make them difficult and onerous beyond necessity, publicly disparage the reasoning and motivations behind them, and pressure the officials to make them less rigorous and lift them quickly;
meanwhile restricting his contribution to bragging about his poll numbers and TV ratings while attacking and punishing anyone who does or says anything that makes Trump look bad - which includes doing and saying things that are necessary for dealing with this virus,

such as publicly requesting testing gear, masks, and other equipment that Trump had claimed was already available, or publicly complaining that Trump's false claims of test availability were creating influxes of patients seeking tests for minor reasons, burning through the scarce and already rationed masks and other gear while putting everybody involved - especially the medical folk - through greater stress and risk just as the real infections were ramping up.

He has, for example, threatened to withhold money available for epidemic response from States whose officials don't say nice things about him on television; not just from those who say bad things, mind, but also from those who do not say enough nice things. That is the approach of the guy Congress just gave billions of dollars of discretionary money to, with no real strings attached (he has declared the few oversight provisions that are built in will be ignored, and that he will refuse to allow Congress to, for example, audit the spending)
Meanwhile, Trump has growing support among his base voters and financial backers, not shrinking: like AGW the pandemic is becoming a political entity, with no physical reality independent of the Republican media feed: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/03/social-distancing-culture/609019/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/trump-genius/609142/
We're getting into serious bad news territory here.

 

This article is from an informed guy who has been on the case since covid was just a slope problem in some Chinese city where people ate bats: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-will-coronavirus-end/608719/
this one is hyperlinked to that one: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-many-americans-are-sick-lost-february/608521/

Quoting from both, mixed, bolding mine:

==The testing fiasco was the original sin of America’s pandemic failure, the single flaw that undermined every other countermeasure.
- - -
" A global pandemic of this scale was inevitable. In recent years, hundreds of health experts have written books, white papers, and op-eds warning of the possibility. Bill Gates has been telling anyone who would listen, including the 18 million viewers of his TED Talk. In 2018, I wrote a story for The Atlantic arguing that America was not ready for the pandemic that would eventually come. In October, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security war-gamed what might happen if a new coronavirus swept the globe. -
- - -
When Wuhan began burning with infections in December, the U.S. government took only illogical, inadequate actions to stop the virus’s spread
- - - - - -
“I’m not aware of any simulations that I or others have run where we [considered] a failure of testing,” says Alexandra Phelan of Georgetown University, - -
“The way no one expected how this response would fail in the U.S. is the testing,” Nahid Bhadelia, the medical director of the Special Pathogen Unit at Boston University School of Medicine, told us - - -
- - -
Instead, the CDC botched its own test development. - -
the Food and Drug Administration held up independent labs - - -
- - -
Every six days that the country did not test, every six days that it did not act, the number of infected Americans doubled.
- - -
“If you don’t know where the disease is early in the epidemic, you have no hope of containing it,” Bhadelia said.
- - -
Almost every city and state in America had a pandemic-preparedness plan,

King County, in which Seattle and Kirkland sit, had a plan, of course. The last revision, dated October 2013, forecast the consequences of a pandemic flu in now-eerie detail.- - -
- - So many of the steps that then seemed unthinkable to regular people—closing schools for months, social distancing, curfews, and more—were not only contemplated but gamed out. - - -
- - -
Except for one thing. The plan took as a given that a functional testing apparatus would catch diseases on the way in, or at least before the fire started raging. Under its “Planning Assumptions” section, the second bullet point - - -
- - - -
For every contingency that was considered, every difficulty and problem was assumed to be downstream of the high-quality information that would flow from the testing system.
- -
When Japan had nearly as many confirmed cases, it closed every school in the country. But because of the testing backlog, the United States remained unaware of its infection rate - -
- - -
In late January- -
“We have it totally under control,” President Donald Trump said at Davos. “It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
- -
In late February, the president voiced his hopes that “the numbers are going to get progressively better as we go along.”
-
Trump - - “Within a couple of days,” he said, the number of cases “is going to be down to close to zero. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”
Bedford now estimates that roughly 7,640 people in the United States were already infected.
- - -
One day after Bedford published his warning, the CDC announced that it would stop reporting how many people in the United States had been tested for the coronavirus.
{That's a field mark of fascism, rather than normal screwed up "conservative" thinking}
- -
Donald Trump shared his views on Fox News the following night. “A lot of people will have this, and it’s very mild,” he said. “They’ll get better very rapidly. They don’t even see a doctor. They don’t even call a doctor.”
- - -
On March 6, Trump said that “anyone who wants a test can get a test.” That was (and still is) untrue, and his own officials were quick to correct him. Regardless, anxious people still flooded into hospitals, seeking tests that did not exist. - - - “It really stressed the health-care system,” Popescu says.
- - - -
- - On March 10, CDC Director Robert Redfield described his agency’s strategy to The New York Times. “It’s going to take rigorous, aggressive public health—what I like to say, block and tackle, block and tackle, block and tackle, block and tackle,” he said. “That means if you find a new case, you isolate it.”

Redfield’s advice would have sounded reasonable back on Planet A, where the U.S. surveillance apparatus had not failed so spectacularly, but it was almost nonsensical on Planet B, where we all now live. Almost no one was getting tested, so how could anyone find a new case? - -
- -
Without strong federal leadership, each state has been going after its own solutions and running its own show,
- -
Rudderless, blindsided, lethargic, and uncoordinated, America has mishandled the COVID-19 crisis to a substantially worse degree than what every health expert I’ve spoken with had feared. “Much worse,” said Ron Klain, who coordinated the U.S. response to the West African Ebola outbreak in 2014. “Beyond any expectations we had,” said Lauren Sauer, who works on disaster preparedness at Johns Hopkins Medicine. “As an American, I’m horrified,” said Seth Berkley, who heads Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. “The U.S. may end up with the worst outbreak in the industrialized world.”
- - -
A recent analysis from the University of Pennsylvania estimated that even if social-distancing measures can reduce infection rates by 95 percent, 960,000 Americans will still need intensive care. There are only about 180,000 ventilators in the U.S. and, more pertinently, only enough respiratory therapists and critical-care staff to safely look after 100,000 ventilated patients.
- - {Italian} doctors have been forced into the unthinkable: rationing care to patients who are most likely to survive, while letting others die. The U.S. has fewer hospital beds per capita than Italy.
- - -
One could easily conceive of a world in which most of the nation believes that America defeated COVID-19. Despite his many lapses, Trump’s approval rating has surged. Imagine that he succeeds in diverting blame for the crisis to China, casting it as the villain and America as the resilient hero.
- -
One could also envisage a future in which America learns a different lesson. A communal spirit, ironically born through social distancing, causes people to turn outward, to neighbors both foreign and domestic.
==

 

Now that is a seriously understated fact...bad news indeed!
After watching his last performance here, I got the distinct impression that Trump was talking with his administration holding gun to his head. Giving the thought, idea , notion that his administration has finally gained some courage, duty etc and are about to mutiny en masse.
Every one in his administration has family and friends being seriously effected by Trumps nonsense leadership and perhaps their personal cost may motivate them to action..even if their professional cost may not...
I wouldn't be surprised if his administration does a mass walk out leaving him to it...
Now that would be something to see!!!

 

Looking ahead, it seems that countries that have developed healthcare systems will emerge with their populations intact, if they have enacted social distancing enforcement measures along with.

Which makes the outcome for highly populated countries with meagre healthcare more likely to not see a good outcome (whatever that means). Such as India, Thailand, many South American and African countries, not to mention those with large refugee camps where healthcare is nonexistent.

Notice, China is looking ahead too, currently trying to maximise its investments in foreign companies, and angling towards an economy that depends on it being indispensible in the new global economy (that's the one that's going to replace the old, kind of worn-out one that led the world to where it is now).

I predict a run on biotech; governments might look at nationalising some of it and keeping it affordable, since no government would now reasonably want to see a re-run of covid-19.

 

This is the rare instance where I'll concede a substantive difference between Trump and Republicans, generally. IOW, I honestly think Mike Pence would have handled this in a vastly different manner from Trump. It certainly wouldn't be optimal, but it would undoubtedly be better. In fact, I think you could randomly select any person involuntarily committed to a psychiatric ward within the past 24 hours, and they would have handled it better. Governing isn't neurosurgery--you listen to your massive team of advisors, who--if you're a normal person--you concede know a hell of a lot more about pandemics and suchlike, if, say, they're epidemiologists and you're not. It's really that simple.

So it kinda comes down to this: you let a serial rapist dumbass run his mouth off and consistently make the most idiotic decisions imaginable, and in so doing, you effectively allow hundreds of thousands of your own countryfolk die and cause untold misery. OR... well, they can figure that part out, I guess.

 

According to headline snippets PRAVDA REPORT
Moscovites are required to obtain what is refereed to as QR codes that grant authorization to leave their homes.

My interpretation is that using a Government App citizens can only leave their homes after gaining a QR code during this quarantine period. This means that the lock down in Moscow is very strong and totally enforceable. ID is linked to code. GPS locates ID. No authorization means they will know where and when they are and enforce accordingly. ( if carrying the App)
It appears to be a very strong system of population management during this crisis. Perhaps something we may need to learn from.
====
Russia:
2337 confirmed cases
17 Deaths
====
Notes:
If Russia stats grow as they appear to have done else where, the CC number will climb strongly over the next few days, as will the death stats. as testing starts to be more comprehensive.
Transparency is an issue at this stage.
Other media are questioning the low CC rate. This confusion is to be expected as typical, of any nation starting it's contagion curve.
All stats have low credibility but the ratio of CC to Deaths is with in the typical range.

 

I also think (from that program I was watching) that Russia closed it's boarders to Chinese travelers early on and maybe with others as well.

I think the number over the next two weeks are going to be uncomfortable no matter what country you live it. Hopefully the rate decreases significantly after that.

Ultimately the same number of people are probably going to be infected whatever we do but the death rate should improve if the system isn't stressed to the max.

 

I understand why you may think that but I disagree.
The virus is not considered to be airborne transmission it is considered at this stage to be droplet or contact transmission.
So...
You have to have contact with the droplets to catch this thing. If you avoid that you will not catch it.
say for an extreme impossible example you sit in an empty park for the next 2 years and have no close contact with any one., you will not catch this bug.

The point being, that if you adhere to strict physical distancing ( more than 2 meters if you can) and avoid touching contaminated surfaces etc, wear a face mask when in "people"zones to prevent touching your face and scrub down exposed skin areas (including face, hands etc) when you return home you will be safe.
Your home or room needs to become a quarantine zone, a sanctuary. It and everything in it needs to be treated as such.
In my case I do not allow any one to enter my sanctuary and everything that is brought in is quarantined for the time required (7 days) or decontaminated before use if earlier.
There is no reason to expect that I will be infected.
A person can only enter if they have been tested negative or have endured a 14 day isolation period immediately before entering. If, for example, I had a girl friend I want to move in she and all that she was bringing would have to go into a room and isolate for 14 days (or be tested negative) before being allowed to move about in the sanctuary..
Nothing is fool proof though, but I believe you can get through this with out infection, if you take the care needed with out stressing out too much about it.

 

What would you estimate the odds of you having a girlfriend in your sanctuary?

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That 6 foot rule is now being re-examined as well and it may be more like 21 feet. It's hard to avoid all surfaces and all people in a grocery store. If you even walk around the block near your house at some point you are likely to pass someone closer than that for a brief moment.

You can also make a mistake regarding forgetting to clean a door knob after handling the groceries, etc. The fact that so many are inflected indicates that it's hard to totally avoid the virus over enough time.

It's possible, sure.

 

True. However we need to keep in mind all we have to do is keep R <1. It does not need to be zero. R<1 means you have a declining exponential instead of a growing one.

 

lol... finding a girl that is prepared to go though that much trouble would be a tad difficult I guess but then again they may already be doing it on their own already....(knowing that girl and trust come to the fore of course)
so to all those lost souls out there who think their love life is over it ain't... just a bit more difficult..lol

The point though is that there are limitations on what this bug can do. Work out how to live with in them and you can survive it with out getting infected.
You get to the point where the chances of getting infected are equal to or better than your normal every day risk factors ( car crash, getting hit by a bus sort of thing) and away you go...

Get rid of the door knobs and use a key only... there are ways if you apply yourself.

I use what I call the Michael Jackson method.
I always keep a chosen hand gloved. So one hand is gloved the other isn't. After a certain amount of time you get used to it and you use the gloved hand for potentially contaminated stuff and the un-gloved hand for stuff that is not contaminated, like tablets and phone etc...Touch screen-ungloved hand.
So I keep a glove on my left hand and open doors etc with that. Wash the glove daily along with any masks etc. Anything inside your sanctuary is already clean so you can dump the glove, mask and clothes if necessary in the wash as soon as you get in. Hop into a hot shower and scub down all potentially exposed skin.

As many people around the world will testify after living in hot spots for months without infection it is indeed possible and after you develop the routine that works for you it isn't that hard to do either.

 

You will _probably_ be safe. There are no certainties with this.

 

Things didn't turnout so well for Michael Jackson.

OK, so what you are saying is the sky isn't falling, the virus is overblown and we can stop with all the drama.

Agreed.

I'm still skeptical regarding the odds of you getting a girlfriend but that's another thread...

 

Overblown? Really?
Tell that to the tens of thousands of people unable to take a breath as they die a miserable death or tell it to doctors who are forced to turn dying people away!
Get a fucking grip mate.

 

Calm down sunshine. No need to have another casualty here.