Coronavirus

[sokolow]

great news for good food, America! we wanted insight into what percentage of people around the world are currently wanting the rich buttery taste of a hot n fresh Hardee’s® Made from Scratch Biscuit™ so one saturday morning our team randomly sampled the opinions of 3300 potential cravers we encountered in parking lots of just a few of the more than 5000 Hardee’s® locations nationwide.  it would be a surprise, folks, if we didn’t know just how good those Made from Scratch Biscuits™ are — our analysis of the data collected in this study shows the answer is 100%!

[Hoosier]

The stay at home fatigue is really evident now.  Obviously have a fair number of people wearing masks though.

[Hoosier]

Not surprisingly the R₀ has crept up in Germany since they eased restrictions

https://news.yahoo.com/amphtml/coronavirus-reproduction-rate-germany-1-081807374.html

[Hoosier]

People going out more

https://www.thehour.com/news/article/Quarantine-fatigue-continues-for-second-week-15232645.php

[RyanDe680]

https://covidtracking.com/data

[nwohweather]

Yeah in SC everything is packed to the gills. No one is going to sit inside all day when its 80 and sunny. They just won't

[Baum]

I put no trust in Newsweek, hoping this has been debunked:

https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab-millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741

[Hoosier]

Some positive news coming out about remdesivir.  Shortened the duration of illness and apparently cut the mortality rate compared to placebo.

Hopefully won't be taken as "omg we have the cure, everybody back to normal now" but a good step.

[nwohweather]

56 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

Some positive news coming out about remdesivir.  Shortened the duration of illness and apparently cut the mortality rate compared to placebo.

Hopefully won't be taken as "omg we have the cure, everybody back to normal now" but a good step.

It's good timing on this as well. As we are finding out our economy basically can no longer endure this shut down

[Hoosier]

Link to the remdesivir story.  

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/coronavirus-drug-remdesivir-shows-promise-large-trial-n1195171

Not a knockout treatment but something is better than nothing.  

[sokolow]

4 hours ago, Baum said:

I put no trust in Newsweek, hoping this has been debunked:

https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab-millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741

I mean.  The USA should be supporting international collaborative research on potential emerging viruses. Financially and with technology and staff exchanges.  It makes perfect sense for us a nation to be supporting virology labs in China, India, Indonesia, all throughout South America, etc.  I think debunking is a matter of realizing there’s an ethical debate that’s been ongoing among researchers over gain-of-function, some measure of which is basically necessary for therapy and vaccine research, some of which is dangerous.

 

Put it like this:

the world in general and the economically marginalized regions of the world in particular has a persistent problem with polio eradication which is that the killed version of the vaccine is relatively expensive. prohibitively so for the so called developing world. it requires injection, hence at least a trained paraprofessional to do it safely, plus its ineffective at outbreak control. meanwhile the live attenuated vaccine costs pennies and you take it orally. however, the attenuated virus can and does mutate such that its descendants can cause disease in unvaccinated humans. so the polio eradication campaign for years has been running around trying to put out brush fires by back-burning, with the inevitable outcome that occasionally the campaign itself starts a local epidemic.

meanwhile, in a sinister & secretive lab in the united states the billionaire/oligarch bill gates and his arm candy bride melinda are employing hundreds of scientists and technicians to bioengineer a “designer” poliovirus by tinkering with its genome. the clueless public believe his PR lackeys, which claim that the gates foundation scientists are exploiting a bottleneck in the pathway by which the attenuated virus is able to revert to virulence, with the ultimate aim of creating a live attenuated oral poliovirus vaccine which does not carry the risk of epidemic reemergence.  those in the know, however, understand that in reality gates and his minions are engaged in reckless, dangerous gain-of-function experiments ... playing god at best ... perhaps creating the Dollar Flu at worst ...

[sokolow]

People are very interested in portraying sars-cov2 as a lab release allowed by irresponsible and reckless Chinese scientists.  Which is plausible in the “not impossible” sense but the claims to evidence for that are shall we say, circumstantial. 

And there’s supposed videos and secondhand reports of lax procedure in these labs. So of course we’re supposed to believe scientists in China must be uniquely reckless and incompetent. But like.  I was just listening to an interview with Christian Drosten, who is widely recognized as the German national expert on the spicy ‘rona.  At one point he was talking about how during sars-1 (sars classic?) he was involved in the first characterization of the virus in Europe.  And he had somewhere to be. So when the lab wrapped the work he chucked a briefcase filled with vials of active virus isolate into the trunk of his car and tootled down the autobahn to Frankfurt. He was telling us this, he said, because he was pretty sure enough time had passed he could no longer be charged criminally.

Meanwhile in 2014, science staff cleaning out an old NIH lab which was basically being used as a storage closet / junk drawer.  In an old wooden box just sitting on a shelf, they found a dozen sealed glass tubes labeled VARIOLA. if that was me I would have run screaming from the building.  In 2005, CDC researchers reconstructed the 1918 H1N1 virus in an uparmored BSL3 lab. then they published the genome.

[RogueWaves]

Those two medical Doc's in CA were off their rockers. Because their take on this goes against the majority coined narrative they are censored? Hmm. What they've deducted based on hard testing numbers just confirms what has been known outside the official narrative for some time now. It makes total sense. It's obvious the initial knee-jerk reaction to isolate everyone was typical, if not the best choice in hindsight. 

[wisconsinwx]

So far today Wisconsin is recording its lowest percent positive rate in a long time (6.9%). It has certainly been at least a few weeks since we've seen it under 7%.  Hope that sticks and as long as we don't see a bump up in a couple weeks from the protests, I'd feel good about a gradual reopening trend here.

[Baum]

is this true ?: https://nypost.com/2020/04/29/who-lauds-sweden-as-model-for-resisting-coronavirus-lockdown/

[weatherbo]

2 hours ago, Baum said:

is this true ?: https://nypost.com/2020/04/29/who-lauds-sweden-as-model-for-resisting-coronavirus-lockdown/

Stop swimming upstream, fall inline.

[Hoosier]

The percent of the total population that has died in Sweden (not talking deaths divided by confirmed cases) is actually running higher than the US.  I don't know if I'd call them the model.  One thing mentioned in there was the long term care facilities.  That has been an epic disaster in many countries.  Very sad. 

[Stebo]

1 hour ago, Hoosier said:

The percent of the total population that has died in Sweden (not talking deaths divided by confirmed cases) is actually running higher than the US.  I don't know if I'd call them the model.  One thing mentioned in there was the long term care facilities.  That has been an epic disaster in many countries.  Very sad. 

Maybe a model of how things would look if people didn't listen. Imagine if we had their percentages attached to our population.

[sokolow]

2 hours ago, Baum said:

is this true ?: https://nypost.com/2020/04/29/who-lauds-sweden-as-model-for-resisting-coronavirus-lockdown/

reading the transcript i would suggest that mike ryan is being extremely diplomatic while emphasizing & executing positive reinforcement before finishing with a warning to swedes, their leadership and all of us that basically sweden is running a natural & social experiment on whether people as individuals and as a community as well as as a polity will take the initiative to arrest the epidemic & mitigate its effects. praising a relationship of trust between swedes, their governance, their social norms & institutions, telling us its a model we will need but then saying that its going to be put to the test

from the presser:

But I will say that the general outcome, even in areas of fairly intense transmission, the proportion of people who have seroconverted or who have antibodies in their blood is actually quite low, which is a concern because it does mean the vast majority of people remain susceptible. So the chances of disease rebounding or returning is quite high, especially if control measures or lock-down type measures are released too quickly, without being replaced by case finding, contact tracing, testing and strong community compliance.

Dr. Michael Ryan: (43:56)
I think if we are to reach a new normal, I think in many ways Sweden represents a future model of if we wish to get back to a society in which we don’t have lock downs, then society may need to adapt for a medium or potentially a longer period of time, in which our physical and social relationships with each other will have to be modulated by the presence of the virus.

“But again, I wanted just to emphasize, Sweden has not avoided controlling COVID-19. It’s taken a very strong, strategic approach to controlling COVID-19 across all of the elements of society. What it has done differently is it really, really has trusted its own communities to implement that physical distancing. That is something that remains to be seen whether that will be fully successful or not.“

[sokolow]

Finding the transcript I saw from the papers and blogs that this is featured in that it is going to be a very popular partisan item but for our purposes I would point out that notwithstanding the Nordic countries’ relative movement towards liberal (their liberal not ours, ie to the right) economic & government policy since the 80s Sweden starts this experiment in voluntary community compliance from a very different place than the USA in terms of institutions & policies that enable material conditions that would allow people to make this possibly succeed.

Like doing whats best for you and everyone else: stay home from work when you’re sick.  In normal times Norway and Sweden still have a problem with illness presenteeism, though its way less than in the USA and usually the reason is people feel bad for making their colleagues rearrange their days. instead of fear.

Meanwhile in the USA we’ve been fighting a vicious battle with each other over the very concept of medical PTO and even without PTO its not uncommon for employers to take the attitude that people are malingering when they call in sick and to demand what is basically a punitive physician’s note

[sokolow]

Check out his comment on USA from the presser before and you can see how Mike Ryan works his messaging:

acknowledging local challenges & sociopolitical context, praise, pointing towards need for science based leadership, praise, countries need to fashion a solution thats long term, praise, emphasis that there needs to be a plan driven by case data and healthcare capability, optimistic finish

 

Thank you for taking my question. Dr. Tedros, a few weeks ago, you had said that America was doing a great job in fighting the coronavirus. On Thursday, President Trump said that he asked whether or not injecting disinfectants into the body would help kill it. There are states that are reopening government, reopening services, even though there’s no contract tracing in virtually any state in the United States and we’re about to hit a million cases. Can you tell me if you still think the United States is doing a great job? And if so, what is it that the US is doing well? And what is it that we’re not doing so well?

Speaker 3: (33:07)
Thank you very much for this question, Dawn.

Dr. Michael J. Ryan: (33:11)
Thank you. I think the United States is dealing, as it has been for awhile, with what is a complex situation. This is a very large country with 50 states, each one with different populations, with different levels of urbanization, and the epidemic at different levels of development and evolution in each of those. I believe the federal government and the system of governors are working together to move America and it’s people through this very difficult situation with public health and other scientific leaders adding and inputting their advice into the system. And as such, as the DG just said, WHO advises our member states on what we believe to be rational policies, but governments themselves-

Dr. Michael J. Ryan: (34:03)
I believe to be irrational policies. But the governments themselves and especially in the United States with its superb public health, health, science and policy infrastructure is well-positioned to manage its own transition from the public health and social measures, and has to balance, as I’ve said before, the health issues associated with COVID, and the lives and livelihoods issues.

Dr. Michael J. Ryan: (34:28)
What we can say is that it’s important that I think there is a national plan. I think that has been very clearly laid out, a phased plan for a stepwise reduction in public health and social measures. That plan is driven by certain parameters of data. Like I mentioned before, a downward trajectory of cases, the availability of capacity in the health system and many others. As Maria said, it’s a multifaceted decision-making process. And that framework exists. And obviously, if that framework is being advised by top scientists at a federal level, then obviously it is a discussion with the state system as how best to introduce that.

Dr. Michael J. Ryan: (35:16)
But we believe that the overarching federal plan seems to be very much based on science and to the extent possible. And with all of the adaptations that are needed as we move forward, we hope that the US government and its people can move through that plan, work through day to day how to do that, and we’ll find a successful solution that reduces the impact on people’s lives and also on their livelihoods.

[RyanDe680]

5 hours ago, Hoosier said:

The percent of the total population that has died in Sweden (not talking deaths divided by confirmed cases) is actually running higher than the US.  I don't know if I'd call them the model.  One thing mentioned in there was the long term care facilities.  That has been an epic disaster in many countries.  Very sad. 

The real problem with Sweden’s approach is the general lack of knowledge around mutation.  If this mutates similarly to the flu (only in terms of the viral replication and then mutation of the flu) then I don’t know how herd immunity would work.  

[RyanDe680]

2 hours ago, sokolow said:

Check out his comment on USA from the presser before and you can see how Mike Ryan works his messaging:

acknowledging local challenges & sociopolitical context, praise, pointing towards need for science based leadership, praise, countries need to fashion a solution thats long term, praise, emphasis that there needs to be a plan driven by case data and healthcare capability, optimistic finish

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Thank you for taking my question. Dr. Tedros, a few weeks ago, you had said that America was doing a great job in fighting the coronavirus. On Thursday, President Trump said that he asked whether or not injecting disinfectants into the body would help kill it. There are states that are reopening government, reopening services, even though there’s no contract tracing in virtually any state in the United States and we’re about to hit a million cases. Can you tell me if you still think the United States is doing a great job? And if so, what is it that the US is doing well? And what is it that we’re not doing so well?

 

Speaker 3: (33:07)
Thank you very much for this question, Dawn.

Dr. Michael J. Ryan: (33:11)
Thank you. I think the United States is dealing, as it has been for awhile, with what is a complex situation. This is a very large country with 50 states, each one with different populations, with different levels of urbanization, and the epidemic at different levels of development and evolution in each of those. I believe the federal government and the system of governors are working together to move America and it’s people through this very difficult situation with public health and other scientific leaders adding and inputting their advice into the system. And as such, as the DG just said, WHO advises our member states on what we believe to be rational policies, but governments themselves-

Dr. Michael J. Ryan: (34:03)
I believe to be irrational policies. But the governments themselves and especially in the United States with its superb public health, health, science and policy infrastructure is well-positioned to manage its own transition from the public health and social measures, and has to balance, as I’ve said before, the health issues associated with COVID, and the lives and livelihoods issues.

Dr. Michael J. Ryan: (34:28)
What we can say is that it’s important that I think there is a national plan. I think that has been very clearly laid out, a phased plan for a stepwise reduction in public health and social measures. That plan is driven by certain parameters of data. Like I mentioned before, a downward trajectory of cases, the availability of capacity in the health system and many others. As Maria said, it’s a multifaceted decision-making process. And that framework exists. And obviously, if that framework is being advised by top scientists at a federal level, then obviously it is a discussion with the state system as how best to introduce that.

Dr. Michael J. Ryan: (35:16)
But we believe that the overarching federal plan seems to be very much based on science and to the extent possible. And with all of the adaptations that are needed as we move forward, we hope that the US government and its people can move through that plan, work through day to day how to do that, and we’ll find a successful solution that reduces the impact on people’s lives and also on their livelihoods.

 

 

I agree with collaboration.  But with that comes forwardness and honesty to share data. You really think that only 80,000 people had this in China - a country 5 times more populated than the US?

[RobertSul]

On 4/27/2020 at 7:37 PM, Stebo said:

Yeah I have noticed more traffic when going to work over the last week. I just hope this isn't us unclipping from our parachute 1000' above ground.

With temperature forecast to be around 70 this weekend, I hope this ends up being a good practice round for people maintaining safe protocols as they venture out. 
 

The good news is that there appears to be an adequate amount of PPE for healthcare workers and civilians can now get masks at gas stations. 

[UMB WX]

Detroit has been thru so much, freaking adorable,

 

 

[sokolow]

7 hours ago, RyanDe680 said:

I agree with collaboration.  But with that comes forwardness and honesty to share data. You really think that only 80,000 people had this in China - a country 5 times more populated than the US?

i would be unsurprised if it were 10-20x as many persons infected and twice or three times as many dead as the official number but i’m more inclined to believe that if thats the case its because scientists in China themselves might not know yet or be sure of their data & surveillance than a deliberate & overt CPC policy of suppression. i personally am willing to believe the broad strokes of the narrative about the pandemic’s course in China because none of my friends in Shanghai have messaged me yet complaining that they had to call the cops because the semi-trailer full of decomposing plague victims parked across the street from their apartment was starting to smell

[sokolow]

@RyanDe680 On the other hand do you think decisionmaking in the USA about how to interpret unofficial, semiofficial, and official public health data & information from China is aided or hindered by the fact that thousands of health and biological scientists in the USA have by now had decades of close academic / professional relationships and personal friendships with their counterparts from China; how many relatively candid and direct channels of communication exist?

[sokolow]

On 4/27/2020 at 11:57 AM, sokolow said:

% positive per test over time is a huge mess number or so i’m told because in communities that are in crisis use of available tests will reflect urgent clinical priorities, hence NYC at one point hitting 50% positive per test because healthcare teams were trying to confirm what they suspected in the already sick patients they were getting so they could pursue appropriate care and precautions.

vs. when tests are deployed for epidemic surveillance and its low, like south korea finding 2% positive per test

For instance this article about C19 taking hold in Somalia:

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2020/04/somalia-struggles-coronavirus-infections-undetected-200428193056599.html

Low number of test kits available, few labs properly equipped to process the tests, technicians and clinical workers already strained to meet need in normal times; testing directed to the very sick; ~2/3 of the ~750 tests run return positive result

Six weeks after registering its first coronavirus case, Somalia on Monday had confirmed 480 infections out of 764 people tested for COVID-19, the highly infectious respiratory disease that has disrupted life worldwide. 

The figures, given to Al Jazeera by Dr Abdirizak Yusuf Ahmed, the person leading Somalia's COVID-19 response, raised major concerns that the actual tally could be much higher. 

"We believe we are missing thousands of cases," said Ahmed, incident manager of Somalia's task force.

He explained that infections are going undetected because only highly symptomatic people are being tested, which also in part explains the number of positives given the sample size. 

Ahmed also said the country does not have the capacity to mass test. There are currently only three labs equipped to safely test for the disease, including one in the semi-autonomous state of Puntland and one in the breakaway region of Somaliland.

"The number of tests these labs can process is very limited," said Justin Brady, the head of office for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Somalia. 

[RyanDe680]

 

4 hours ago, sokolow said:

@RyanDe680 On the other hand do you think decisionmaking in the USA about how to interpret unofficial, semiofficial, and official public health data & information from China is aided or hindered by the fact that thousands of health and biological scientists in the USA have by now had decades of close academic / professional relationships and personal friendships with their counterparts from China; how many relatively candid and direct channels of communication exist?

I'm not sure what that has to do with it?  No other country is influencing our reporting data.  You're saying that China is light years behind us in terms of reporting or understanding data?  Any ocean front property in Arizona for sale that I can buy?

[Hoosier]

So here we are on the last day of April.  Considering the current death toll and still generally having 1500-2000+ deaths per day, it is getting harder to see how we avoid reaching 100k deaths by the end of May.  

Saw this model posted in another subforum.  It assumes some relaxation in social distancing as time goes by, which is why deaths go up again in July.  

 

https://covid19-projections.com