showmethesnow

Not sure I saw that study. At least I don't remember it which isn't surprising considering om a doddering old senile man. Have thought for some time that this virus was percolating in the States quite a bit of time before we currently believe. Maybe substantially longer if the supposed cases that have recently been found in China in the November time frame are accurate. But to be honest anything that comes out of China these days I am taking with a huge dose of skepticism. So I guess we will see.

@Eskimo Joe Curious at your thoughts on why you don't agree with my comment above.

New study out yesterday that suggest roughly 50% of those infected experience no symptoms at all. Adds weight to a previous study that 80% have minor to no symptoms from a month or so ago. In fact it might even go somewhat beyond as it might suggest there are even more silent carriers then the 80% study. Much of my thoughts for some time now were based on that 80% study because it felt right with how we were seeing things play out world wide. If these studies are correct we are more then likely seeing a higher infection rate, potentially much higher, then we currently believe to be the case. This is pretty much the reason I have thrown out numbers of a .75-1.25% true mortality rate for the US that I am sure many have scoffed at and probably still are. Now will we be able to ever figure out the true mortality rate? I am not sure. Depends. Short of nation wide testing of every citizen (won't happen), we will be depending on accurate modeling to catch all these hidden carriers. I will say I have my doubts on that though I might be doing a disservice to the statisticians. So in consideration of that I would not be surprised to see official numbers come in with totals up to around 2%. Now for those throwing out European style numbers of double digit mortality rates or worse here in the States all I can say is I don't see it. Nothing I have seen up to this time even remotely suggests this. Think we are probably even going to see a major readjustment of some of those numbers in Europe downwards after the fact. And I am not trying to down play the seriousness of the situation here, because it is some serious crap, but all these death, doom and destruction predictions are far out of line with what the ground truth is telling us. All they do is fuel unnecessary panic when what we need to see here is a semblance of calm.

Again, this was not a prediction. I just said I would not be surprised. There is a big difference there. If you really need to nail me down I would probably go with a 25-35% rate at this time. But really there isn't enough information at this time

Where did anyone say NY would have an 40% infection rate within 10 days? I sure didn't. As far as your 10% prediction after the first wave, I guess we will see. To be honest I have said this before but I will say it again. I don't think we will ever now for certain the exact rate. We can probably model what it was to get a generally ball park figure but i have a feeling that will be the best we can do. eta: And I didn't predict 35-40% infection rate for NY I just said I would not be surprised. Big difference there.

Most of my knowledge when it comes to this subject comes from HS and College which is extremely outdated as well as some pieces here and there over the years. So keep that in mind with my following comment. From what I could decipher on one article/report these mutations are mostly occurring on a harmless fragment of the genome sequencing. But again, limited knowledge so I could have very well misinterpreted what I read.

Thought I would also mention that your projected 3-6% infection rate as of now would argue other wise as well when you consider peak is, I believe, still probably 1 1/2 to 2 weeks away. I forget the formula for the doubling of the infection so this will be somewhat vague but I believe on the front side of the curve approaching the peak we are looking at a doubling of the infection roughly every 2 to 3 days. If someone has a more accurate figure I would love to hear it.

10% infection rate for NY? Are these thoughts yours or a studies? Last I saw, which was a week or so ago, were of projections from 25-40% infection rate nation wide. I'm sure they have since changed but to the degree you are predicting? Your projections to me sound like an extreme outlier especially when you are considering we are talking a major metropolitan area with high population density.

Really was conflicted on whether I wanted to add this or not to the above post. People are scared enough as it is and this is just another worry to pile on the crap heap. But after reflecting on it for a few minutes I thought it was better to be educated to the possibilities as opposed to being caught totally flat footed. One thing we have to consider is the possibility of a mutation. We see that and all bets are off. Don't know enough to know if this would put us back to square one with dealing with this virus but it sure would be a hell of a setback. That said, and I am going by what I have read from the professionals who make a living off these studies, this is an extremely stable virus with a very low mutation rate. Odds are strongly against this scenario even playing out.

As supernovasky brought up. We will be better prepared at that point. But another factor that may play an even bigger part is that we will see nowhere near the infection rate we are currently seeing. This first round will be the biggie by far as I expect we at the very least see an infection rate of 15-20% throughout the States (think herd immunity starting to kick in somewhat as potential hosts have been taken out of the equation). I just don't think we are going to be able to escape this. That alone will dampen a decent amount the infection rate on any secondary go round. But that isn't the biggest thing to consider. If you note where the major hot spots are generally located they are for the most part centered on major metropolitan areas and they have been spreading outwards into the suburbs. These high density population centers are fertile breeding grounds for spreading this disease. We will see by far the highest infection rates within these cities. As they spread out the infection rates will continue to lower as the population density decreases until you get out into the rural areas where the infection rates will be very low. As far as the cities I really cringe when I consider some of the infection rates we may actually see especially with what we are seeing within NY. If I hear some reports approaching 35-40+ I don't think I would be that surprised. So what does that mean as for a possible followup? It means that there is a good chance that many of the major cities will approach if not achieve achieve herd immunity where the worst we see is sporadic cases here and there. This pretty much would take out these fertile breeding grounds that were pretty much the catalyst for spread. That leaves the areas outside of the cities to consider. They will have seen smaller infection rates but they also have lower population density. So the herd immunity factor is lower then the cities. So they may not achieve true herd immunity but they are probably getting close as to where it will have a fairly significant impact on infection rates. Then you get out into the rural regions. The rural regions will have the lowest infection rate probably by far of all as the population density just does not support a major flareup. So all that said. If we do see a secondary peak come next year what would it look like? Well I wouldn't rule out some cities flaring up that are mostly spared this go round. But I think the focus will be more so centered on the suburbs which will probably mostly be composed of much smaller flareups that can be contained. Then in the rural areas we probably see sporadic cases or even possibly very minor flareups here and there. I doubt very much that we would need to see a major shutdown of the whole US again. It will be more in the way of shutting down smaller regions around these much smaller flareups. So really, I don't think any secondary surge with this virus will even sniff what we are currently in the middle of. It would probably be magnitudes lower in impacts.

Never really know what to say when it comes to tragedy because no matter what I say it always feels like it is never enough. But my heart goes out for you and your family and I will keep your other two family members in my prayers. Something like this really drives home that what we discuss on these boards is not just an abstract subject but in fact a subject that will impact so many at a personal level. Again, love and prayers your way.

Mappy, please tell me you didn't delete my comment on the WHO post I had. I spent quite a bit of time writing that up and I thought it brought up key information on why we didn't use this vaccine. And I am pretty sure it wasn't political or at the very most minimally political.

I might PM you a little later. I did start looking into it until we got somewhat sidetracked with are civil's class. Then my boss told me to jump. So I jumped. My wife can be pretty assertive when she's in the mood. Just getting back to the computer right now and will probably have to step away again shortly as I will most likely be doing most of the day. Really, I like to spend time looking over everything and thinking it through before I like to commit. But I promise, I will make every effort to look into it at some point today.

Sounds like you are having a hankering for some wings from the local buffet.

Some morning thoughts. Just my opinion but looking at the infection rate increase charts is probably a not a good way to get a read on where we stand as far as the virus. The fact that we had very little testing initially and we are now continuing to increase testing is going to skew these charts. Now maybe there is a way to mathematically get a more accurate read considering all the variables but that is way above my pay scale. Think a far more accurate read, though faulty in its own right, would be to look at the deaths and those I would look at over several days as we will see a waxing and waning from day to day. And even this method will start to become skewed as doctors become better able to treat their patients through trial and error, if the malaria drugs/aids drugs actually are found to work or God forbid we see our hospitals crash. We are seeing guesstimates that a vaccine will be available for mass distribution in the US in 1 to 1 1/2 years. This would be far to late to help if we see a secondary flareup in the Fall/Winter if this virus ends up being of the seasonal variety. Now I haven't really looked hard into this at this point so this is pretty much guesswork on my part from what little I have read. But from what I have seen so far the major hangups with the delay seem to be with our own internal regs/red tape as well as the mass production of any vaccine. I will make a prediction here. I bet we see a vaccine available for in the US in under a year. We will more then likely see a cutting of the red tap/regs. And as far as the mass production, after China's threat of with holding the vaccine I think we will see a concerted effort to put in place in-house production so we are not relying on outside players. Now really the question in my mind is can we get this done quickly enough in time for the flu season? After all we are talking roughly 8 months from now and it may be asking too much.

Is that sort of like a Sharknado?

6 months? Not really expecting that myself. Think a more realistic time frame is more like another 4-6 weeks from this point in time, maybe upwards 8 weeks max before we can really start relaxing things. But that is just my opinion for whatever that's worth.. As far as the testing I will have to try to go back and look into the details. Been some time since I researched this so details aren't as clear as they were before. This was pretty much a jumbled period of time with multiple tests, multiple failure rates, multiple abilities on be able to getting the product out in the numbers needed, multiple testing requirements etc..., etc..., etc... But really, this is all pretty much water under the bridge at this point. Something to go back to after the fact and research the failures we saw. Systemic failures across the board put in place over the last 15-20 years. But I will throw one thing your way as far as the WHO test. This is an excerpt from Mikka Luster, PhD Medicine and Healthcare, European University Cyprus. First, the WHO test is a lab based test. One that requires special labs. It works well in China, where it’s OK to force people to work 48 hours en bloc and where every city has one of those labs. It doesn’t work so well in most of Europe and the US, where we have one or two of those labs to 20 to 80 million people. The FDA, as did Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, and many other countries, decided that it would not be implementable to have this test run. It’s still not OK to force people to work 48 hour shifts or to work them to death (https://news.joins.com/article/2... and http://www.donga.com/news/articl... are two examples of this). The two I just linked come from South Korea, a country usually mentioned as the great place that managed to test so many people. That’s a price the US (or Germany, etc.) won’t pay. Two lab workers have died, not from COVID but from overworking in those labs. The test requires a dedicated lab tech for six minutes per sample and five more at the end. That’s 11 minutes, plus 12 minutes of physician/nurse time to sample it. This does not scale. The full transcript can be found here. https://www.quora.com/Why-are-other-countries-able-to-do-Coronavirus-COVID-19-virus-tests-numbering-in-the-hundreds-of-thousands-while-the-U-S-can-only-do-a-few-thousand?share=1

I wasn't calling you out by any means. Well maybe a little. You did take a quick pot shot at Trump after all. But your point is pretty much on target. We have some very polarizing figures on both sides of the aisle that are focal points for the wide almost insurmountable chasm we now see between the two different ideologies. But I would probably argue that these figures aren't so much the cause of the issues more so then they are a product of this deep ideological divide. Take out the underlining issues (the divide) and we wouldn't have these polarizing figures as there would be no need for them. In other words, they are nothing more then a product of our times. Just my thoughts.

I am sure @WxWatcher007 was stirring the pot.

Boy, that tornado is so huge and imposing that it makes the picture look almost surreal. Almost like it was a fake picture or something.

Trump? You really do believe in throwing the elephant into the room. I think we might be better served by focusing on the pros and cons of the corona virus policies themselves when it comes to it rather then taking shots at the Trumps, Pelosi's, McConnell's, Schumer's or whomever else brings strong polarizing reactions. Otherwise this thread will quickly turn ugly with no meaningful discussion. But that is just my opinion.

It is what it is unfortunately. I quite often used to have debates with others and actually enjoyed them. I have always felt that you needed both sides of a story to get a healthy perspective on the issues. But I have found now-a-days that fewer and fewer are even interested in civil discourse let alone trying to get an understanding of differing views. What we have now is pretty much an echo chamber on both sides of the aisle where like minded people scream their like thoughts back and forth to each other and any differing opinions are squashed. It sort of reminds me of what you see with a group of people psyching each other just prior to a brawl/riot. And I tremble to think of where our country is heading when I see this type of behavior. As they say, ''A house divided falls' and that is exactly what I see across the board in America. Which is shocking when you consider our current crisis. You would think that at least now we could put aside our differences for a common cause. But I guess not.

Basically where I am at. Really am trying hard to not cross the line and keep my comments subjective but so many of the issues are just out right polarizing. I know I have been saying I was going to try to stay out of the conversation because of this fact but to be honest I am bored as hell with being shut in so for better or for worse I have been tipping my toe in. Of course I guess I could go to some political boards and start trolling people, but that lost it's fun a long time ago.

Think Fauci had a good response when asked his thoughts on this and whether it was a mistake. Sort of mirrors my thoughts. “I wouldn’t necessarily characterize it as a mistake. I would say we worked very well with that office. It would be nice if the office was still there,” he said. With my wife working for the government I have found that internal reorgs are the norm and not the exception. Seemed that every year through the various administrations we were seeing a reshuffling of resources throughout the various government agencies in an effort to stream line the processes. These changes are normally implemented by the heads of the different agencies as they felt best met their needs. Changes that most times fell under the radar of the various presidents. But back to the original issue. What we saw here wasn't a dissolution of the teams functions but more a reshuffling of the different portions of the team into more area specific areas. So the apparatus in place under the Global Health Security team still exists, it is now just dispersed with no central organization. That said, as Fausi stated above, I think we would have better served having this unit intact to handle our current situation.

This brings up an interesting point. Do you use a test that has a known failure rate of 40+% with false negatives? One could argue yes, as it gets known cases off the streets so they don't continue spreading the disease. Those that would argue no, would point out that we would being giving a false sense of security to the 40+% who received the false negative. People that would more then likely continue socializing. But really it isn't quite a simple as I have stated above. As it really depends on the circumstances at any one particular point of time and what other actions may or may not be be putting in place concurrently. Given the circumstances we were facing at that given time I would probably favor no. I think we would have been seeing many of these false negatives still out on the streets (false sense of security) even if they were under voluntary quarantine because of the uncertainty. After all we have seen how well the self quarantine has worked or hasn't worked in so many cases. Now we could have forced the quarantine on the recipients but then you are facing a whole new issue with rights and freedoms. To further complicate the issue throw in Social Distancing or even Shelter in Place. We see that concurrently with the above test and I would probably favor releasing the kit. At that point I think the numbers favor getting known cases identified. Now some may ask 'So why we didn't we at least start social distancing at that time?' Well even that becomes somewhat complicated. But the quick answer to that is that it was far to early. If we put that in place so early in the process we are looking at flattening the curve so much that we extend this 6 months or even more. There is just no way in hell our economy nor our citizens could handle being shut down for that length of time. Now this is assuming that the virus is of the non-seasonal variety. If we are talking a seasonal type virus we run into another issue that could be even worse. What we see in that case is we have such a low level of infection rate this go round that we are nowhere near reaching what we need to see for herd immunity to start kicking in. This would portend another out break incoming next fall and winter where we once again have to shut everything down for an extended period of time unless we have a vaccine at that point. But unfortunately the projections on that being released in mass quantities is projected for a year to a year and a half at this time. Far too late to have a meaningful impact. Like it or not we are probably in this for the long haul until we start reaching herd immunity. Now given that we more then likely have to wait for this to burn out on its own that brings up the next important question. How do we get there? Too flat of a curve and we prolong the agony so long that the economy and/or the citizens break. We don't want to exit this with riots in the streets and/or an economy that is so broken it can not recover. But then again if we steepen the curve too much we are then looking at crashing the healthcare system where the mortality rate probably doubles, triples or even more. The optimal possible solution probably rides just a little under the capacity for our healthcare system to handle. Gives us the shortest time to get us through this with a little room for our healthcare system to handle any sudden spikes. We are pretty much in a balancing act at this time, a balancing act that will determine how we exit this pandemic and head into recovery.