COVID-19 Talk

[rollenwiese]

2 hours ago, Chris78 said:

Once I saw middle aged people dying of it and even younger,  weeks ago it got my attention real quick and realized it was something much more than "just the flu". How many middle aged people that are generally healthy do you see die from the flu? I dont know anyone.

This happened to a Frederick resident, and granted they were somewhat well known, it made the newspaper.

[nw baltimore wx]

60% of the about 600 crew members that tested positive on the Theodore Roosevelt are asymptomatic. Gives a new definition to aircraft carrier.

[Inverted_Trough]

9 minutes ago, Eskimo Joe said:

100% agree.  We started working on our recovery/re-opening plan the day after Hogan announced the shuttering of non-essential services.  What is going to really suck is what places like Florida are doing where they're re-opening things full blast in the next 2 weeks without check.  Florida is starting to re-open beaches this Friday at 5:00 pm and the governor has stated he wants to no restrictions on crowds. That's completely asinine.

Build.The.Wall.  Around Florida.  Have a Gaza Strip style checkpoints at their border.

[Eskimo Joe]

7 minutes ago, Inverted_Trough said:

Build.The.Wall.  Around Florida.  Have a Gaza Strip style checkpoints at their border.

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

DCPS is done for the year, gonna continue distance learning til May 29 then close it up.  I imagine Hogan will announce the same thing this afternoon.  I think they are positioning themselves for an earlier start next academic year.  Of course it's not clear if we'll be ready to open up for business as usual in early August.  I wonder if we'll do some kind of staggered schedule or A day/B day thing where only half the staff/students are in the building on a given day.

[mappy]

13 minutes ago, DCTeacherman said:

DCPS is done for the year, gonna continue distance learning til May 29 then close it up.  I imagine Hogan will announce the same thing this afternoon.  I think they are positioning themselves for an earlier start next academic year.  Of course it's not clear if we'll be ready to open up for business as usual in early August.  I wonder if we'll do some kind of staggered schedule or A day/B day thing where only half the staff/students are in the building on a given day.

DC will be different than MD on when schools start in the fall. Hogan pushed for all schools to start after Labor Day a couple years ago, then state congress made it so counties can pick. Baltimore County is set to return the Tuesday after Labor Day. 

[WxUSAF]

27 minutes ago, nw baltimore wx said:

60% of the about 600 crew members that tested positive on the Theodore Roosevelt are asymptomatic. Gives a new definition to aircraft carrier.

Wow, that’s a good data point to have.

[nw baltimore wx]

4 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

Wow, that’s a good data point to have.

Yeah, I thought so too.  Here's a link to the complete ariticle.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-military-sympt/coronavirus-clue-most-cases-aboard-us-aircraft-carrier-are-symptom-free-idUSKCN21Y2GB

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

6 minutes ago, mappy said:

DC will be different than MD on when schools start in the fall. Hogan pushed for all schools to start after Labor Day a couple years ago, then state congress made it so counties can pick. Baltimore County is set to return the Tuesday after Labor Day. 

Yeah I was referencing the fact that hogan will probably announce they close up for the year.  Next years going to be interesting, of course it’s all guesswork now, but school could look very different. 

[ErinInTheSky]

2 minutes ago, DCTeacherman said:

Yeah I was referencing the fact that hogan will probably announce they close up for the year.  Next years going to be interesting, of course it’s all guesswork now, but school could look very different. 

I'm a lot more interested in daycares. Schools were going to close anyway, but daycare availability is what will matter for a lot of people working in the summer.

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

 

[WxUSAF]

^wow that’s a very important result. 

[PhineasC]

3 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

^wow that’s a very important result. 

You guys were just blowing me up over saying IFR will be dramatically lower once we have better serological test results and it will change our policy towards this disease... 

"But it's a 9/11 every day!!"

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

 

Just now, PhineasC said:

You guys were just blowing me up over saying IFR will be dramatically lower once we have better serological test results and it will change our policy towards this disease... 

"But it's a 9/11 every day!!"

I never argued with you at all about IFR.  I was arguing with you about herd immunity being a viable strategy.  Let’s say for arguments sake that 2.8% number holds nationally.  It cost us 35,000 lives.  To get to herd immunity you need like 60%.  That would be a million deaths. 

[40westwx]

1 minute ago, PhineasC said:

You guys were just blowing me up over saying IFR will be dramatically lower once we have better serological test results and it will change our policy towards this disease... 

"But it's a 9/11 every day!!"

What I don't understand is that everyone is saying we need  better (antibody) serological testing and then (always in the same sentence) they say then we can do better contact tracing.. thats unadulterated bs and makes no sense whatsoever.  The more people you find that are COVID positive (or have the anitbody), the fewer degrees of separation you will have before you get to 100% contact in a population. 

Its like the Kevin Bacon game. 

If everyone has been in contact with everyone within 2-3 degrees of separation.. what the heck is point of contact tracing?

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

Just now, 40westwx said:

What I don't understand is that everyone is saying we need  better (antibody) serological testing and then (always in the same sentence) they say then we can do better contact tracing.. thats unadulterated bs and makes no sense whatsoever.  The more people you find that are COVID positive (or have the anitbody), the fewer degrees of separation you will have before you get to 100% contact in a population. 

Its like the Kevin Bacon game. 

If everyone has been in contact with everyone within 2-3 degrees of separation.. what the heck is point of contact tracing?

To prevent a million deaths

[WxUSAF]

7 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

You guys were just blowing me up over saying IFR will be dramatically lower once we have better serological test results and it will change our policy towards this disease... 

"But it's a 9/11 every day!!"

It literally is a 9/11 per day. And even if you extrapolate that one data point to the whole country (which nobody should do), it’s way below herd immunity levels.

[ErinInTheSky]

16 minutes ago, DCTeacherman said:

 

A few caveats from the study:

 

"We consider our estimate to represent the best available current evidence, but recognize that new information, especially about the test kit performance, could result in updated estimates. For example, if new estimates indicate test specificity to be less than 97.9%, our SARS-CoV-2 prevalence estimate would change from 2.8% to less than 1%, and the lower uncertainty bound of our estimate would include zero."

 

"Other biases, such as bias favoring individuals in good health capable of attending our testing sites, or bias favoring those with prior COVID-like illnesses seeking antibody confirmation are also possible. The overall effect of such biases is hard to ascertain."

 

But it's a good study for sure, the bigger implication is that we have a good, working serological test and hopefully it can be mass produced.

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

Just now, WxUSAF said:

It literally is a 9/11 per day. And even if you extrapolate that one data point to the whole country (which nobody should do), it’s way below herd immunity levels.

Classic case of two things can be true, it can be true that the disease is more widespread than originally thought AND that it’s still too dangerous to turn it completely loose. 

[Inverted_Trough]

16 minutes ago, DCTeacherman said:

 

Only 2.8% infected?  You have people on this forum who claim that 30% of the population has already been infected.  I've been thinking it's closer to 3%.  The IMHE model assumes 5% of people will be infected by August 1st. so it seems like their assumption was a good one.

[WxUSAF]

2 minutes ago, DCTeacherman said:

Classic case of two things can be true, it can be true that the disease is more widespread than originally thought AND that it’s still too dangerous to turn it completely loose. 

Exactly. We’ve always known the real infection rate is higher than we’ve measured, which pushes the fatality rate lower. From everything we know, the fatality rate is still much higher than flu. 

Its also always been apparent that you can’t shut down the economy until a vaccine is ready. 

You have to find the balance. 

[ErinInTheSky]

Just so people are aware, specificity was an important point for the authors of the study to make, because serology test specificity is a major question/problem right now. You can read about the issue here:

 

https://www.360dx.com/infectious-disease/false-positives-could-undermine-utility-sars-cov-2-serology-testing

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/04/16/coronavirus-antibody-blood-tests-reliable-public-health/2981574001/

 

https://www.kxan.com/news/coronavirus/travis-county-medical-society-warns-of-unreliable-serology-testing/

[40westwx]

Just now, Inverted_Trough said:

Only 2.8% infected?  You have people on this forum who claim that 30% of the population has already been infected.  I've been thinking it's closer to 3%.  The IMHE model assumes 5% of people will be infected by August 1st. so it seems like their assumption was a good one.

2.8 % infected is terrible and only shows the fallacies of Social Distancing.  This basically tells me that we have failed as a human race to apply common sense and experience to a problem we have dealt with for many years.  Dragging this out will ultimately mean more deaths. 

I am really sad.

[Yeoman]

 

11 minutes ago, supernovasky said:

A few caveats from the study:

 

"We consider our estimate to represent the best available current evidence, but recognize that new information, especially about the test kit performance, could result in updated estimates. For example, if new estimates indicate test specificity to be less than 97.9%, our SARS-CoV-2 prevalence estimate would change from 2.8% to less than 1%, and the lower uncertainty bound of our estimate would include zero."

 

"Other biases, such as bias favoring individuals in good health capable of attending our testing sites, or bias favoring those with prior COVID-like illnesses seeking antibody confirmation are also possible. The overall effect of such biases is hard to ascertain."

 

But it's a good study for sure, the bigger implication is that we have a good, working serological test and hopefully it can be mass produced.

You sure your name isn't Debbie?

[nw baltimore wx]

Why did i just click, "show this post"?

[ErinInTheSky]

Just now, Yeoman said:

 

You sure your name isn't Debbie?

Nah. I've just read way too many scientific reports regarding data findings from back in grad school.

It's also kind of funny watching papers get posted to the public pre-review right now. And wild how quickly some are actually getting through review! God I wish my reviews went a tenth as fast back when I was in school.

[40westwx]

Just now, WxWatcher007 said:

What are you arguing here? Social distancing doesn’t work?

I am arguing that social distancing prolongs the time in which the disease is in the population.  That it needs to reach around 80% infection rates in order for it to extinguish itself.  

That flattening the curve will never change the number of people that contract the disease... the area under the steep curve is the same as the area under the flatten curve.  

And the longer it is around the higher the chance that it will impact the elderly population.  We should be letting our children to spread the disease around while not letting the elderly leave their home. 

[nw baltimore wx]

Just now, 40westwx said:

I am arguing that social distancing prolongs the time in which the disease is in the population.  That it needs to reach around 80% infection rates in order for it to extinguish itself.  

That flattening the curve will never change the number of people that contract the disease... the area under the steep curve is the same as the area under the flatten curve.  

And the longer it is around the higher the chance that it will impact the elderly population.  We should be letting our children to spread the disease around while not letting the elderly leave their home. 

Because kids do'n't live with old people.

[ErinInTheSky]

Just now, 40westwx said:

I am arguing that social distancing prolongs the time in which the disease is in the population.  That it needs to reach around 80% infection rates in order for it to extinguish itself.  

That flattening the curve will never change the number of people that contract the disease... the area under the steep curve is the same as the area under the flatten curve.  

And the longer it is around the higher the chance that it will impact the elderly population.  We should be letting our children to spread the disease around while not letting the elderly leave their home. 

That last bit goes directly against public health guidelines and is bad to promote. It's anti-vaxxer level stuff.

[WxUSAF]

The point of flattening the curve is not to limit long term infections. It’s to prevent catastrophic collapse of the hospital and health system. Which would kill many people who otherwise wouldn’t die if infections are spread out.