jaydreb

I know we don’t want government to compel behavior, but at some point it has to step in and stop this stuff. Going to work or a grocery store is one thing. Gathering en masse to look at trees, as beautiful as they are, is quite a different story.

You said their “flu deaths in the past decade are not much different than coronavirus.” Their flu death rate in the study you posted was 1.3%. Italy’s death rate from Coronavirus has been over 8%. And the global death rate from coronavirus is over 3%.

The study covered a 4 year period.

Actually, it looks like the death rate from corona is MUCH higher than the death rate in the flu study that you posted.

It’s not good of course, but numbers will continue to increase for some time. We need to see whether the rate of increase is slowing. I haven’t looked at the data on that yet. EDIT: Interesting article explaining why Italy has such bad numbers. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/have-many-coronavirus-patients-died-italy/

The good news is that this medication has been used for decades to treat malaria and other ailments, so we have a lot of experience with it and it is generally safe. Also, it is produced in mass quantities in generic form, so there should be plenty of it. As for efficacy, there was a study done in France that showed great results, especially when given along with an antibiotic. The problem is that the study has a very small sample size and was not a blind study. I’ve also read that it has been used with some success in South Korea. Since the medication has already been approved by the FDA for other illnesses, doctors in the US are free to prescribe it “off label” to treat coronavirus. I’m sure many will do so in the next few weeks, at which point we’ll have a lot more data about its efficacy and safety. So it’s a promising development but too early to say just how helpful it will be.

One final insult.

I was talking about the guidelines for no gatherings greater than 10 people. That’s 15 days but will certainly go beyond. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/03.16.20_coronavirus-guidance_8.5x11_315PM.pdf I agree that we won’t be seeing any big events any time soon. In fact, I won’t be surprised if we’re ordered to stay in our houses with limited exceptions. You will hear a lot of experts (and non-experts, like me) giving a lot of opinions about how long this will last. Nobody knows for sure except that it will probably go on longer than anyone thinks.

Makes sense. The goal of social distancing is to prevent the curve/spike from exceeding our health care resources. The goal is not to stop people from getting sick unfortunately (although officials may not admit it). If/when we see sufficient flattening of the curve, they may loosen some of the restrictions. And then they may reinstitute them if there’s another spike and we approach the capacity of our health care resources. Hopefully in a year or so we’ll have a vaccine and this will be behind us.

Who is “they”? The current guidelines are for 2 weeks. They’ve all but said that they will be extended and possibly made even stricter, but to my knowledge no one in an official position has said they will go on for a year. I do suspect that this will last at least until the summer. I doubt we will be sitting home a year from now. If it seems like they are moving the goal posts it’s because they are. They are instituting the social distancing measures as a gradual process, rather than all at once, and it’s guided by the data and modeling. We all wish there was some magical better plan, but this is the best we can do for now. We need vaccines and anti-virals but that takes time.

If the curve flattens it WILL be because of social distancing. That’s the whole idea behind what we’re doing.

At today’s press conference Trump said that he would like to keep the airlines flying so that necessary travel can take place. He also said that they are talking with Congress about getting checks out to all Americans as well as small businesses. Did not discuss specific amounts but said that the plan is for it to happen immediately (i.e., in the next week or two). Tax payments to IRS can also be deferred for up to 3 months.

Sorry to hear. A glimmer of hope is that sore throat is rarely a symptom.

Where were they coming from? My understanding is that the travel restrictions apply to foreigners from Europe, China, and South Korea. American citizens and green card holders are allowed to return from those countries but must undergo screening and possible quarantine. I hope this is actually taking place. I don’t believe there are restrictions from other countries but that may soon change. I suspect that there will be a complete ban on all foreign and domestic travel sooner rather than later. I expect all commercial flights to be grounded.

Yeah. They’re basically saying “We recognize how serious it is but it’s not our problem?” Seriously?

Hopefully no one goes. I’m actually pretty surprised that the country has responded as well as it has with the shutdowns, etc. It will be interesting to see how long it can last though. But every little bit counts.

Lol’d at this.

Enjoy it because my bet is it won’t be open anymore in a week or so.

Get ready for the real apocalypse! https://patch.com/pennsylvania/across-pa/pa-state-wine-liquor-stores-close-amid-coronavirus-outbreak

We’re not talking about stopping it. We’re trying to slow it down.

I hope you are right, but we are in the very beginning stages of this. Way too early to draw any conclusions IMO.

It’s just starting here. All we can do is use the numbers we have. Why would Americans be any different?

That’s the number that was cited by the Task Force at yesterday’s press conference. It’s based on cases around the world.

Good post. We need to respond to this threat as we would to an attack on our country and band together to fight it. I think most eveyday Americans understand this and are acting responsibly.

We simply don’t know the actual death rate. We know that it kills roughly 3% of actual confirmed cases but, as you say, there are certainly many undiagnosed cases out there. But it’s prudent to assume that this is many times worse than the flu and act accordingly. And this is about much more than the death rate. About 20% of confirmed cases end up requiring hospitalization, and about 5% require ventilators/respirators. That would put a catastrophic strain on our hospitals resulting in some unnecessary deaths. People are dying in Italy that could otherwise be saved because doctors have to choose which ones get scarce hospital resources. We need to avoid that. We need to assume the worst and plan accordingly. Not hope for the best. IMHO.