Coronavirus: one version of our near future

goosegg-

I thought there wasn't suppose to be any political crap posted on this site and your link is nothing but a bunch of liberal garbage,

BTW....the sky really isn't falling dude.

This tweet thread is from a Harvard prof about cancelling classes and some of the "whys."

https://twitter.com/jasonfurma...365757693980677?s=09

Goosegg posted:

According to several sources I follow, the US is about 11 days behind Italy in its virus situation  - and following the Italian growth graphs exactly (so far). Here is a multi-part thread by a doctor in Italy's Lombardy region.

This is one possible path some of us will follow:

https://twitter.com/silviast9/...933818654896129?s=09

This scenario is what the US colleges, employers, state, and local governments, are desperately trying to avoid.

We are all in this together, and taking Public Health mitigation measures help the most vulnerable members of our society.

OMG could you pick a worse grouping of tweets to link to? 

among others Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, Jake Tapper...and Pocahontas herself. Nice work. 

I have come to the conclusion through-out life that people are just going to believe what they want to believe. Especially after reading the statements in the other thread with concerns about vaccines/autism (by the way I ain't touching that with a 10 foot stick as I refuse to be dragged down debating against Jennifer McCarthy).  But let me give you just one quick scenario as to why these flu percentages/death rates don't hold water esp in the USA. This scenario is known as a "therapeutic wait time" 

Imagine for a moment that you walk into a busy ER/Urgent Care/PCP office with a cough and cold. Hell the news after all has convinced you that the Zombie Apocalypse is happening tomorrow and you think you might be starting to turn. You may be dealing with a low-grade fever that comes and goes with some body aches. However at the time you get triage they take your VS and everything is WNL, but your temp is 99 something. Technically not considered a fever in the medical world but you still feel like crap. Generally you’re in decent shape as a person, but might have some pre-existing conditions such as HTN, Type2DM, etc... this is America after all. The point is you don't have severe COPD requiring supplemental O2, or CHF with an EF under 20, or taking anti-rejection meds for organ transplantation, or dealing with chemo/radiation for cancer, or etc.......... These are the people in the trauma bays getting immediate lifesaving interventions while everyone else is screaming in the waiting room about why he/she went ahead of me.   

***Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the 5 or so mental health patients waiting to be transferred, the 37 abdominal pain patients for which 4 have an immediate concern (and by the way good luck on figuring out which 4 they are), 16 patients with chest pain that need cardiac monitoring, 5 MVC patients (3 minor, 1 major, and 1 that needed to be pronounced on the scene), and how could I forget the GSW who was minding his business while walking to church (by the way he'll be fine, but he is going to jail for that drug-deal gone bad, he just don't know it yet)**** 

Now I ask which one of the two would you test (healthy with cough/cold or sickly with cough/cold)? Which one of the two does the medical staff truly need a diagnosis? I know the Ivory Tower answer is both, but managing resources and time is something that has to be done. If everyone got immediate testing done then you might be able to actually draw pretty accurate conclusions. However we who live in the real world realize that is feasibly impossible. Then while everyone is running around trying to get people seen as effectively as possible do you actually wait to be seen? I feel the need to tell you that many people do not wait and leave without being seen. Just as many stay inside the revolving front door after seeing the mass of people in the waiting room. They come to the conclusion that they aren't that sick, and just go home to get some chicken noodle soup. I'm not saying it's ideal, I'm just letting you know it's called a therapeutic wait time for a reason.

Let me end by giving simple answers to some simple questions:

Is any strain of flu highly contagious - YES

Is the flu dangerous esp to those who are chronically ill - YES

Is the flu dangerous every year regardless of the strain - YES

Was swine flu more dangerous than the regular flu - YES

Why was the swine flu more dangerous - slight increase in mortality rate (more noted with pediatric population if I recall correctly) and no vaccine available at initial discovery. 

What makes corona more dangerous than swine - birds migrate/fly, seems to effect elderly population worse, and no vaccine available at initial discovery. 

Could the political/social climate be to blame for the hysteria - I would rather just refer back to the 10 foot stick, but the truth is slapping me in the face. 

I'm not sure it's possible to talk about coronavirus without being "political'. Politics at its root is about how we citizens decide to live together. Slowing down the rate of covid-19 transmission by social distancing may keep our hospitals and medical system from being overwhelmed, and therefore save lives of the most vulnerable populations (caretakers, medical folks, elderly and sick). I would be disappointed if my kid's seasons got cancelled, but it is better than some of the alternatives. Quite a few of my HS students are worried about inadvertently infecting their grandparents or chronically ill parents. 

Fan2024 posted:

I'm not sure it's possible to talk about coronavirus without being "political'. Politics at its root is about how we citizens decide to live together. Slowing down the rate of covid-19 transmission by social distancing may keep our hospitals and medical system from being overwhelmed, and therefore save lives of the most vulnerable populations (caretakers, medical folks, elderly and sick). I would be disappointed if my kid's seasons got cancelled, but it is better than some of the alternatives. Quite a few of my HS students are worried about inadvertently infecting their grandparents or chronically ill parents. 

The bolded is just not a rational fear IMO. 

"The bolded is just not a rational fear IMO."

Ok, I'll bite. What is the factual basis for asserting this? Do you have clinical data on infectious rates in households backing up your assertion (which, while expressed as an opinion, is actually a conclusion which is based upon which facts)?

The data I read (from the site I use) indicates that social distancing - (which really cannot be maintained in most households), is one of the most effective Public Health measures. Clusters of positives often come from members of a household  - lending support for the theory that proximity to an infected person without protective gear is very, very bad.

So, I've given my facts. Where are yours? (I'll add that Harvard (eg) has a well developed Public Health department; that department has decades and decades of experience and data dealing with pandemic situations. If those men/women say something in the Public Health arena, I defer to their expertise.)

Give me some actual counter-facts I can analyze; dont give naked conclusions without citing actual data and expertise.

Goosegg posted:

"The bolded is just not a rational fear IMO."

Ok, I'll bite. What is the factual basis for asserting this? Do you have clinical data on infectious rates in households backing up your assertion (which, while expressed as an opinion, is actually a conclusion which is based upon which facts)?

The data I read (from the site I use) indicates that social distancing - (which really cannot be maintained in most households), is one of the most effective Public Health measures. Clusters of positives often come from members of a household  - lending support for the theory that proximity to an infected person without protective gear is very, very bad.

So, I've given my facts. Where are yours? (I'll add that Harvard (eg) has a well developed Public Health department; that department has decades and decades of experience and data dealing with pandemic situations. If those men/women say something in the Public Health arena, I defer to their expertise.)

Give me some actual counter-facts I can analyze; dont give naked conclusions without citing actual data and expertise.

Thank you for posting factual links. Thank you for sharing.  It's unbelievable that America's pandemic response team was fired and that while we have been told that everything is under control, it's not.  

Here's some data for you:

*as of March 1. On March 2, the "Total tested" figure was removed from CDC's website.

We're not testing nearly enough, simply because we don't have the tests. If you don't know who has the virus you can't manage its impact.  

Source:  https://www.worldometers.info/...us/covid-19-testing/

I keep thinking back to H1N1. I don't remember nearly this level of chaos. So I looked it up. Apparently 980 schools nationally were closed at its height, so I guess there was some chaos. But I don't remember any universities closing, or sports shutting down, even though young people were particularly affected.

The timing was different.  H1N1 first appeared in April, started spreading, by June they had 26,000 confirmed cases, and estimated there were actually 1 million cases, but it spread fairly slowly over the summer ("only" 477 deaths by early August).  They announced the vaccine in mid-September, and started vaccinating in October.  But, the second wave had already hit.  By Sept. 30 - 936 deaths, by Nov. 15 - 4000 deaths and an estimated 22 million cases, by Dec. 10 - 10,000 deaths and estimated 50 million cases. Then it started tailing off in January. In total they estimate 60 million people in the US got it.  This data mostly comes from the CDC's website.

Right now the CDC's website basically says "we aren't collecting data on this, the states are doing their own testing."  Isn't it the federal government's Center for Disease Control's job to coordinate national information to formulate a national response?

I don't know what all that means for today.  A virus starts slowly, and then it grows exponentially.  Maybe these aggressive measures will help stall it until summer slows it, and then a vaccine can come in.  I hope so.

Here's a link explaining some of the precautionary steps to take:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTYxDMYKyiI

R0 factor of well known infectious diseases ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..._reproduction_number

Goosegg posted:

"The bolded is just not a rational fear IMO."

Ok, I'll bite. What is the factual basis for asserting this? Do you have clinical data on infectious rates in households backing up your assertion (which, while expressed as an opinion, is actually a conclusion which is based upon which facts)?

 

Give me some actual counter-facts I can analyze; dont give naked conclusions without citing actual data and expertise.

Fan2024 stated they have "Quite a few of my HS students are worried about inadvertently infecting their grandparents or chronically ill parents"

Fan2024 bio says they are from New Jersey

New Jersey according to the Johns Hopkins study has 10 cases confirmed.

10 cases across the state of NJ should not lead to "quite few" random kids being concerned about infecting their grandparents.

This is not a rational fear...Goosegg you just need to take a breath and relax a little. 

Early mortality rates for coronavirus likely misleading, experts say.

While some studies peg the death rate to 3.4%, experts expect to see this rate decrease as the health care system starts finding milder cases. (I’m guessing plenty of mild cases will never see a doctor skewing the stats)

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/...ts/story?id=69477312

anotherparent posted:

I keep thinking back to H1N1. I don't remember nearly this level of chaos. So I looked it up. Apparently 980 schools nationally were closed at its height, so I guess there was some chaos. But I don't remember any universities closing, or sports shutting down, even though young people were particularly affected.

The timing was different.  H1N1 first appeared in April, started spreading, by June they had 26,000 confirmed cases, and estimated there were actually 1 million cases, but it spread fairly slowly over the summer ("only" 477 deaths by early August).  They announced the vaccine in mid-September, and started vaccinating in October.  But, the second wave had already hit.  By Sept. 30 - 936 deaths, by Nov. 15 - 4000 deaths and an estimated 22 million cases, by Dec. 10 - 10,000 deaths and estimated 50 million cases. Then it started tailing off in January. In total they estimate 60 million people in the US got it.  This data mostly comes from the CDC's website.

Right now the CDC's website basically says "we aren't collecting data on this, the states are doing their own testing."  Isn't it the federal government's Center for Disease Control's job to coordinate national information to formulate a national response?

I don't know what all that means for today.  A virus starts slowly, and then it grows exponentially.  Maybe these aggressive measures will help stall it until summer slows it, and then a vaccine can come in.  I hope so.

I think one of the factors for it seeming more chaotic day is there are many more people on social media. Information/misinformation is more widely available. 

RJM posted:

Early mortality rates for coronavirus likely misleading, experts say.

While some studies peg the death rate to 3.4%, experts expect to see this rate decrease as the health care system starts finding milder cases. (I’m guessing plenty of mild cases will never see a doctor skewing the stats)

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/...ts/story?id=69477312

^^^^ thank you RJM for some pure common sense.  Grandpa thanks you for letting him out of the locked closet that chicken little put him in 

Sorry - I do teach high school, so I can't post so much during the day. However, if there are 10 confirmed cases in NJ, there are probably somewhere between 100 - 1000 unconfirmed cases (depending  on the percentage sick enough to be tested- 15%-1%) and this grows exponentially, so each week 10× more. So next week, 100 (very ill) confirmed cases and 1000-10,000 unconfirmed cases. Next week's unconfirmed cases have already been infected (assuming 7 day incubation) and are currently walking around. 

For stats geeks and back-of-the-envelope estimators, this article is an interesting read:

https://www.theatlantic.com/id...rse-it-seems/607663/

Fan2024 posted:

However, if there are 10 confirmed cases in NJ, there are probably somewhere between 100 - 1000 unconfirmed cases (depending  on the percentage sick enough to be tested- 15%-1%) and this grows exponentially, so each week 10× more. So next week, 100 (very ill) confirmed cases and 1000-10,000 unconfirmed cases. Next week's unconfirmed cases have already been infected (assuming 7 day incubation) and are currently walking around. 

That is the problem.