COVID-19 Talk

[ErinInTheSky]

1,400 deaths this morning and we haven't gotten to evening updates yet. We may very well pass 2k/day today.

[Vice-Regent]

1 minute ago, supernovasky said:

Right now, bodies are not piling up and we aren't even at peak death. Unrestricted spread of coronavirus is magnitudes worse than we are currently experiencing. 

Even if you open it nobody will actually be willing to risk their lives for the economy unless the banks push hard on people. Without rental/mortgage forcing people into the economy they won't come back. Remember back during the post-World War 1 era. Germany had the same problems.

[Rhino16]

4 minutes ago, EastCoast NPZ said:

Have you been to Lowes recently?

That’s probably just people buying a new plunger to get rid of this excess TP. The old plunger got to difficult to use.

[aldie 22]

2 hours ago, H2O said:

The concern now will be getting people to understand that even if numbers drop due to social distancing we have to keep doing that to not have a repeat spike and be back to square one.

Good luck with that 

[mappy]

59 minutes ago, supernovasky said:

1,400 deaths this morning and we haven't gotten to evening updates yet. We may very well pass 2k/day today.

we probably will. this week isnt going to be a very good week regarding deaths. so many who have been sick, will either turn a corner and get better, or they don't and end up on ventilators, and we know how low the chances are of surviving once on a ventilator. 

[ThePhotoGuy]

1 hour ago, Eskimo Joe said:

I hope I'm wrong, but everyone was saying how things would change after 9/11, Katrina, the 2011 tsunami, Northridge earthquake and here we are today.

Agree.

Counties and states might invest more in their public health agencies, obtain more supplies, apply more mitigation efforts in the short term (1-2 years) but doubt it lasts in the longer term. Budgets dry up and these efforts and investments are the first on the chopping block. Money will be diverted to more pressing needs once this is over because the American people will forget about it and won't care that mitigation and preparedness efforts aren't being made until the next pandemic happens.

[psuhoffman]

On 4/6/2020 at 6:37 AM, showmethesnow said:

Can't even begin to debate you when it comes to economics but I will throw one thing out there. Granted I agree with your thoughts as far as the US having a strong economy heading into this thing where one would typically expect a strong bounce back. But now all the worlds economies are so intertwined we also need to be aware of what is occurring elsewhere. From what I see the EU will struggle after the fact which will put a damper on things on the worlds economy. But the real elephant in the room is China who has massive fingers intertwined into everything. I have a feeling they took a massive hit with this virus, far worse then they are letting on. Now the CCP may very well be able to force the issue on getting the economy up and running again quickly despite things. But what if they can't or even worse we see an uprising after the extremely draconian measures they have/are evidently employing (not that I am particularly expecting that)? Now excepting an uprising a sluggish Chinese economy would really hamper the recovery of the world's economies. So we are pretty much talking at that point can a strong economic recovery by the US pull up the world's economies or would China and the EU drag them down?

Rebooting the world economy will take coordination and a collaborative effort. Too much of the workforce depends on transnational corporations or demand from international markets for one region to prosper in a vacuum.  We are no exception. 

I was just saying one advantage we have now over most past economic crises is the market imbalance at work here can be temporary. I say can be because without adequate fiscal and monetary interventions the temporary imbalance could become permanent.  

Lets compare this to the Great Depression. In that case 4 major problems combined. An incredibly unhealthy distribution of wealth that limited purchasing power and product demand, extreme inflation of market value due to an unregulated financial sector acting recklessly and a lack of feduciary regulations combined with a sudden banking crises unchecked by a lack of funds insurance,  and exasperated by a laissez-faire attitude by some governments unwilling to take measures to infuse the necessary artificial stimulus to kick start growth. 

Of those 4 factors acting to create the extreme imbalance only 1 exists today in a tangible way beyond the temporary effects of the virus. We again today have an unhealthy distribution that will threaten a worse recession someday if it is not rectified.  But the other 3 factors do not exist to the same degree. In the 1920s we actually were still pretty close to a true capitalist economy. Not quite as much as the 1800s prior to the progressive movement when damn near anything was legal in the name of making a buck but still close.  In that way we were ill equipped to manage a sudden market imbalance. Once demand was wrecked by such an imbalance it could take years for people to cobble together enough cap to increase demand and thus labor again. Plus people were burned and even when they had money were acting frugal which was not helpful to creating labor demand which requires people buying stuff. Today we can, to a degree, control and offset such imbalances. Whether we are willing is another story. 

But for instance, most don’t realize how government spending really happens. When we spend money we don’t take it from revenues. We actually just print the money. We make it up. Then the following year we correct the imbalance by either taxing it out of the economy fiscally or use monetary measures (open market operations or tinkering with interest rates) to prevent rapid extreme inflation. The deficit is just the estimate of the imbalance between how much more money we are infusing into the economy than taking out the following year. And normally that’s important because in a well functioning economy without an imbalance if you flood cap into the market without increasing production you end up with rapid inflation that destabilizes the economy. But what if we have an equal downward economic pressure like right now?  Will the 2T infusion of cap really cause the same harm now?  Not likely. In some limited sectors maybe. But the downward pressures right now will offset most of the effects.  So we could spend recklessky right now without as much harm as in other situations. We also could freeze debt to limit the instability.

Now will we do those things?   I’m skeptical. But my point was our unwillingness to enact a proper economic plan doesn’t make the healthcare plan wrong.  We could manage this in a way to minimize both the virus impacts and economic impacts imo.  

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

21 minutes ago, mappy said:

we probably will. this week isnt going to be a very good week regarding deaths. so many who have been sick, will either turn a corner and get better, or they don't and end up on ventilators, and we know how low the chances are of surviving once on a ventilator. 

The time between infection and death i was reading is generally around 1 month so hopefully once we get a month out from the SD we’ll see a drop in the death count.  I know NYC had some SD implemented in mid March but didn’t do a stay at home order until March 22 so maybe this week is the worst and then we’ll see improvements. 

[mappy]

18 minutes ago, DCTeacherman said:

The time between infection and death i was reading is generally around 1 month so hopefully once we get a month out from the SD we’ll see a drop in the death count.  I know NYC had some SD implemented in mid March but didn’t do a stay at home order until March 22 so maybe this week is the worst and then we’ll see improvements. 

so based on what i've seen its 7-10 days from time of infection until symptoms show

then from what ive seen it either lasts a good week or more and then people start to get better, or they end up in ICU. I've read that happens around 7-10 days from onset of symptoms. Obviously some may progress differently and faster

So lets say 14-20 days from infection until a corner is turned. thats one hell of a time period for people to stay home and not infect anyone else

[jaydreb]

For those of you who have been to grocery stores, what time do you recommend?  Our local store is open 6am-10pm.  

[Baltimorewx]

7 minutes ago, jaydreb said:

For those of you who have been to grocery stores, what time do you recommend?  Our local store is open 6am-10pm.  

Probably depends where you live. I honestly haven’t really had much of a problem any time outside of making the mistake of going directly after one or Hogan’s pressers. People seem to panic after those. But anyway, I would imagine that early or late is best. Obviously stock may vary, but I mean ya can always find something to eat lol

[jaydreb]

Just now, Baltimorewx said:

Probably depends where you live. I honestly haven’t really had much of a problem any time outside of making the mistake of going directly after one or Hogan’s pressers. People seem to panic after those. But anyway, I would imagine that early or late is best. Obviously stock may vary, but I mean ya can always find something to eat lol

Thanks.  I was thinking more of crowds than stocking.  I guess it just depends on the place.  

[gymengineer]

The thing about the IHME model that is striking to me is how quickly it projects the backside of the curve of daily deaths to plunge towards zero. Today was modeled to be in the 420’s for both Italy and Spain. Granted, daily death counts still are reflecting a catching-up, but Italy’s was 542 today while Spain spiked again up to 757. 
 
The model is showing both countries dropping to under 100 daily deaths in 11 to 13 days. This backside of the curve for each country/region is really going to be significant in determining the final death toll. If it’s not as sharp as in the IHME model, that model’s projection will be too low. 

[Baltimorewx]

20 minutes ago, jaydreb said:

Thanks.  I was thinking more of crowds than stocking.  I guess it just depends on the place.  

Yeah. I probably wouldn’t recommend going to the Costco’s and Sams clubs of the world. Go to the smaller type chains or even locally owned places. Usually not as bad 

[mappy]

35 minutes ago, jaydreb said:

For those of you who have been to grocery stores, what time do you recommend?  Our local store is open 6am-10pm.  

The last two weeks I’ve gone mid afternoon on (both times Thursday’s by chance) and I had a hard time finding the necessities

i went this morning at open and got everything on my list except ground beef and lunch meat. TP was slim pickings but everything else was stocked. 
 

I go to Walmart in Shrewsbury, PA so it’s ruralish and it depends on when stores restock. 

[poolz1]

24 minutes ago, Baltimorewx said:

Yeah. I probably wouldn’t recommend going to the Costco’s and Sams clubs of the world. Go to the smaller type chains or even locally owned places. Usually not as bad 

Agreed....we are a family of 4 and survive just fine off of a local mom and pop food mart....combined with a grocery store grab n go once a week for decent veggies.  Far less crowded and less people in general moving through in a given day.

[Baltimorewx]

Nevada just reported 22,000 new cases today and they only have 24,000 total. All these new cases recorded for today were probably back logged for weeks. This is why new daily increase in case numbers can’t be completely reliable and trusted 

[ErinInTheSky]

I believe that is an error. They've made errors like this before on Worldometers.

[ErinInTheSky]

It'll probably be fixed in an hour.

[WxUSAF]

7 hours ago, Eskimo Joe said:

FYI:  

 

Thanks! She also got an email yesterday saying zero job contacts required 

So I think she just needs to log into the job contact website weekly and say “zero” and it should be ok...

[Inverted_Trough]

Same thing is happening in Italy.  Thousands of people died in their homes and never got counted because they didn't get tested for COVID.  The numbers will likely revised upward at a later date.  France revised theirs upward by several thousand because of all the nursing home deaths.

That makes validating the IMHE model challenging.  I assume the model is trying to predict actual counts, but we don't really know actual counts.

[Maestrobjwa]

8 hours ago, mappy said:

yup. i dont see states lifting anything for another month. better to be safe than sorry

So now I'm wondering what the schools are gonna do...I'm still unclear on what the gradual opening back up would look like.

[jaydreb]

53 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

So now I'm wondering what the schools are gonna do...I'm still unclear on what the gradual opening back up would look like.

What do you mean?  Schools are not reopening until fall.  

[Maestrobjwa]

27 minutes ago, jaydreb said:

What do you mean?  Schools are not reopening until fall.  

You'll have to pardon my ignorance on this...but I wasn't sure what the barometer was for returning to normal. And since they didn't make a decision beyond this month I thought all of that was still up in the air with the virus...

[mappy]

38 minutes ago, jaydreb said:

What do you mean?  Schools are not reopening until fall.  

This is not certain, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. However, I think parents with kids should discuss that chance amongst themselves. My husband and I have.

[Maestrobjwa]

4 minutes ago, mappy said:

This is not certain, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. However, I think parents with kids should discuss that chance amongst themselves. My husband and I have.

I'm wondering what happens if the curve is flattened but not going down by the end of this month...I mean, could things still open, I wonder?

[mscott]

6 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

I'm wondering what happens if the curve is flattened but not going down by the end of this month...I mean, could things still open, I wonder?

Schools will not resume until Fall. Dr. Salmon advised today that the possibility of E learning is also on the table to start in the fall. Even if things get going by the end of the month which is extremely optimistic, there is no way schools pick up again with a month and a half left. Not worth the risk.

 

[jaydreb]

21 minutes ago, mappy said:

This is not certain, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. However, I think parents with kids should discuss that chance amongst themselves. My husband and I have.

Sorry, I didn’t see where he lived.  They are closed for the rest of the year in Virginia.  I think chances are slim to none that Maryland returns to school but I have no particlar insight into it.  

[ErinInTheSky]

I don't see any chance Maryland returns to school. All it takes is one kid to start another infection chain and hit a ton of families quarantining and make us all start this whole ultra social distancing all over again.

[snowfan]

Correct....no chance schools are reopening this academic year. It's just not official yet.