COVID-19 Talk

[Vice-Regent]

4 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

There is no political will to pay everyone’s salary indefinitely. People will start to go hungry and kill themselves from depression. 

Wrong again. They will move out of the cities and find a way to survive. You are posting too much and are too emotionally invested in a system that never cared about you. Now you finally see it and are now posting weird shit. Odd effect...

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

59 minutes ago, supernovasky said:

Part of me thinks you're right, part of me wonders if people won't just go crowd restaurants and beaches again.

 

I sure as heck am staying away from both.

However and whenever things begin to open up again (and I don't think it would or should be "all at once, come on in!!")...I admit I'll be a bit uncertain about going in to certain places, especially if they're big and crowded (say, going to a game or a large, busy restaurant kind of thing).  Traveling?  Maybe, if it's like visiting family or a close friend that's in driving distance (family in Philly and Ohio, not bad drives).

On a related subject, I still "patronize" (if that's the right word here) various local eating establishments that I like via ordering and picking up...and will continue to do so how I can.  It may not be much from one person, but I just want to help out to keep them afloat and keep people there employed (and I like the food, of course!).

[PhineasC]

1 minute ago, DCTeacherman said:

I dunno why you’re so gung ho about “indefinitely” or “6 months”.  If we are smart and the federal government does it’s just this can all happen much sooner.  It’s our job to demand they do that. 

People here are saying we are far away from opening and saying we need very broad testing and basically no new deaths. That will take months to achieve. If you all agree with the Ohio/NY style plans we have no disagreement. 

[PhineasC]

2 minutes ago, Vice-Regent said:

Wrong again. They will move out of the cities and find a way to survive. You are posting too much and are too emotionally invested in a system that never cared about you. Now you finally see it and are now posting weird shit. Odd effect...

You still have weed and mushroom access in your area?

[ErinInTheSky]

2,100 deaths yet again. Not all states reported yet. It's starting to look ugly in Massachusetts.

 

And the NY border states.

[Chris78]

3 minutes ago, Always in Zugzwang said:

However and whenever things begin to open up again (and I don't think it would or should be "all at once, come on in!!")...I admit I'll be a bit uncertain about going in to certain places, especially if they're big and crowded (say, going to a game or a large, busy restaurant kind of thing).  Traveling?  Maybe, if it's like visiting family or a close friend that's in driving distance (family in Philly and Ohio, not bad drives).

On a related subject, I still "patronize" (if that's the right word here) various local eating establishments that I like via ordering and picking up...and will continue to do so how I can.  It may not be much from one person, but I just want to help out to keep them afloat and keep people there employed (and I like the food, of course!).

We have been trying to give local restaurants some bussiness, a couple times a week. Weve done pizza, chinese, steaks from Outback.

 

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

5 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

People here are saying we are far away from opening and saying we need very broad testing and basically no new deaths. That will take months to achieve. If you all agree with the Ohio/NY style plans we have no disagreement. 

6 months or anywhere’s near that is not feasible to stay fully locked down imo.  I think if we are smart and careful and really ramp up testing/contact tracing we can open up in late spring.  It’s gonna take some trial and error of course but I think it’s possible.  There’s no way we’re staying on lockdown through the summer. 

[ErinInTheSky]

Just now, DCTeacherman said:

6 months or anywhere’s near that is not feasible to stay fully locked down imo.  I think if we are smart and careful and really ramp up testing/contact tracing we can open up in late spring.  It’s gonna take some trial and error of course but I think it’s possible.  There’s no way we’re staying on lockdown through the summer. 

Definitely, if we're smart.

 

If we're dumb and crowd beaches again, we're going to be right back here.

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

Just now, supernovasky said:

Definitely, if we're smart.

 

If we're dumb and crowd beaches again, we're going to be right back here.

If we let knuckleheads seize the debate and force us to open things up too fast/widely we might be in big trouble.  That’s the biggest possible way we fail IMO. 

[Chris78]

Just now, DCTeacherman said:

If we let knuckleheads seize the debate and force us to open things up too fast/widely we might be in big trouble.  That’s the biggest possible way we fail IMO. 

I agree. Social distancing is working. We need to let it run its course. Rushing it and needing to go back to tougher restrictions would be worse for the economy IMHO.

[Cobalt]

16 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Keeping everything tightly locked down is basically trading lives, dude. You are destroying the lives of healthy 30 year olds to save some percentage of obese 80 year olds with heart failure and diabetes and give them a bit longer. That’s the reality of the stats. Young people don’t die from this basically ever. 

Well first off, I guess that depends on your definition of "young people". According to New York City Health (as of April 14th), 4.5% of all deaths there were in the age range of 18-44. The fatality rate of a similar age group in the US (20-49), is 0.3%, compared to the annual flu's 0.02%. And of course while a big contribution to these deaths is that many who die have pre-existing conditions, how healthy do you think the general American population is? 1 out of every 3 Americans likely has pre-diabetic or diabetic symptoms (where 80% of those with prediabetes are unaware that they have it). 39.8% of all adults over 20 are obese. 18.2 million adults above the age of 20 have Coronary Artery Disease. 25 million Americans have asthma. Of course while many of these conditions overlap, that makes it especially worse for those people. This isn't just one particular old age group that is affected. If you've checked a population pyramid lately, an incredibly large portion of Americans are between the ages of 40-70. You can't exactly cut off one group of people who are at risk and expect the situation to be resolved, as so many of those people who are at risk but fall out of the (as you put it obese 80 year old) group, they still need to make a living. I guess from that perspective there isn't exactly a winning solution on either end. 

[PhineasC]

4 minutes ago, supernovasky said:

Definitely, if we're smart.

 

If we're dumb and crowd beaches again, we're going to be right back here.

IMO once we open we stay open. If it goes bad we will just bury the stats. 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

10 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Even in overwhelmed Italy barely anyone under 50 died from this. Look up the stats. They are actually kind of crazy. Even nurses getting hammered with viral load survived. 

From what I understand and heard, the region in Italy that got so badly hit by this in terms of cases and number of deaths has a much larger elderly population.  So sure, the most affected are those who are older; same was true in China and elsewhere.  That said, I heard there were some studies that show younger people are perhaps not so little affected as originally thought.  Maybe that's changed, I don't know.  There's also the issue of asymptomatic people being able to (inadvertently) spread it, including to those who are more vulnerable.

 

7 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

There is no political will to pay everyone’s salary indefinitely. People will start to go hungry and kill themselves from depression. 

Is anyone talking about paying salaries indefinitely?  I'm far from an economic expert (nor do I play one on TV!), but giving people something to survive on during the worst of this pandemic or holding off debt payments and the like for some amount of time, until things (hopefully) go down, is not out of order.  How best to do that, I don't know myself and don't claim to know it all.  I'm sure we'll need to re-think our ideas of economics in these kinds of situations, much like we had to do during the Great Depression.  Similarly for how health care should be administered.  A lot of that is political, sure, and I won't get into that stuff in here.  But you can be sure we'll be changing our views on how we handle something like this.  It's not always necessarily the "big bad gov-mint" trying to take away your freedoms.  Not saying we shouldn't be vigilant of unscrupulous leaders, but I don't like when I hear the knee-jerk reaction that everything is the government trying to hold everyone down.

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

8 minutes ago, Chris78 said:

We have been trying to give local restaurants some bussiness, a couple times a week. Weve done pizza, chinese, steaks from Outback.

 

And I'm also completely fine with giving the liquor establishments plenty of my business!!!  As much as my liver will afford! 

[Chris78]

Just now, Always in Zugzwang said:

And I'm also completely fine with giving the liquor establishments plenty of my business!!!  As much as my liver will afford! 

Thank god there considered essential!

Lol 

[Chris78]

3 minutes ago, Always in Zugzwang said:

From what I understand and heard, the region in Italy that got so badly hit by this in terms of cases and number of deaths has a much larger elderly population.  So sure, the most affected are those who are older; same was true in China and elsewhere.  That said, I heard there were some studies that show younger people are perhaps not so little affected as originally thought.  Maybe that's changed, I don't know.  There's also the issue of asymptomatic people being able to (inadvertently) spread it, including to those who are more vulnerable.

 

Is anyone talking about paying salaries indefinitely?  I'm far from an economic expert (nor do I play one on TV!), but giving people something to survive on during the worst of this pandemic or holding off debt payments and the like for some amount of time, until things (hopefully) go down, is not out of order.  How best to do that, I don't know myself and don't claim to know it all.  I'm sure we'll need to re-think our ideas of economics in these kinds of situations, much like we had to do during the Great Depression.  Similarly for how health care should be administered.  A lot of that is political, sure, and I won't get into that stuff in here.  But you can be sure we'll be changing our views on how we handle something like this.  It's not always necessarily the "big bad gov-mint" trying to take away your freedoms.  Not saying we shouldn't be vigilant of unscrupulous leaders, but I don't like when I hear the knee-jerk reaction that everything is the government trying to hold everyone down.

Sometimes its the goverments role to protect people from themselves lol

 

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

6 minutes ago, Always in Zugzwang said:

From what I understand and heard, the region in Italy that got so badly hit by this in terms of cases and number of deaths has a much larger elderly population.  So sure, the most affected are those who are older; same was true in China and elsewhere.  That said, I heard there were some studies that show younger people are perhaps not so little affected as originally thought.  Maybe that's changed, I don't know.  There's also the issue of asymptomatic people being able to (inadvertently) spread it, including to those who are more vulnerable.

 

Is anyone talking about paying salaries indefinitely?  I'm far from an economic expert (nor do I play one on TV!), but giving people something to survive on during the worst of this pandemic or holding off debt payments and the like for some amount of time, until things (hopefully) go down, is not out of order.  How best to do that, I don't know myself and don't claim to know it all.  I'm sure we'll need to re-think our ideas of economics in these kinds of situations, much like we had to do during the Great Depression.  Similarly for how health care should be administered.  A lot of that is political, sure, and I won't get into that stuff in here.  But you can be sure we'll be changing our views on how we handle something like this.  It's not always necessarily the "big bad gov-mint" trying to take away your freedoms.  Not saying we shouldn't be vigilant of unscrupulous leaders, but I don't like when I hear the knee-jerk reaction that everything is the government trying to hold everyone down.

The paying salaries indefinitely, 6 month closure, etc is a straw man.  No one is advocating for these things. 

[PhineasC]

1 minute ago, Cobalt said:

Well first off, I guess that depends on your definition of "young people". According to New York City Health (as of April 14th), 4.5% of all deaths there were in the age range of 18-44. The fatality rate of a similar age group in the US (20-49), is 0.3%, compared to the annual flu's 0.02%. And of course while a big contribution to these deaths is that many who die have pre-existing conditions, how healthy do you think the general American population is? 1 out of every 3 Americans likely has pre-diabetic or diabetic symptoms (where 80% of those with prediabetes are unaware that they have it). 39.8% of all adults over 20 are obese. 18.2 million adults above the age of 20 have Coronary Artery Disease. 25 million Americans have asthma. Of course while many of these conditions overlap, that makes it especially worse for those people. This isn't just one particular old age group that is affected. If you've checked a population pyramid lately, an incredibly large portion of Americans are between the ages of 40-70. You can't exactly cut off one group of people who are at risk and expect the situation to be resolved, as so many of those people who are at risk but fall out of the (as you put it obese 80 year old) group, they still need to make a living. I guess from that perspective there isn't exactly a winning solution on either end. 

The NY data is not useful without having more data about the total number of infected; we will not know that for a year+. Italy has done more serological testing than us and has a better handle on that. Same for Germany. Death rates for young people will be very skewed for now because many of them are walking around with mild or no symptoms and will never be tested. It's often impossible for them to be tested and the only ones we hear about are deathly ill in the hospital already.

Here is a review of the data available in Europe:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.11.20061721v1

Quote

Background and Objectives: To date, more than 1,000,000 confirmed cases and 65,000 deaths due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been reported globally. Early data have indicated that older patients are at higher risk of dying from COVID-19 than younger ones, but precise international estimates of the age-breakdown of COVID-19-related deaths are lacking. 

Materials and Methods: We evaluated the distribution of COVID-19-related fatalities by age groups in Europe. On April 6, 2020, we systematically reviewed COVID-19-related mortality data from 32 European countries (European Union/European Economic Area and the United Kingdom). We collated official reports provided by local Public Health or Ministry of Health websites. We included countries if they provided data regarding more than 10 COVID-19-related deaths stratified by age according to pre-specified groups (i.e., < 40, 40-69, ≥ 70 years). We used random-effects meta-analysis to estimate the proportion of age groups among all COVID-19-related fatalities. 

Results: Thirteen European countries were included in the review, for a total of 31,864 COVID-19-related deaths (range: 27-14,381 per country). In the main meta-analysis (including data from Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland; 21,522 COVID-19-related fatalities), the summary proportions of persons < 40, 40-69, and ≥ 70 years of age among all COVID-19-related deaths were:

• < 40 years: 0.1% (0.0-0.2%; I2 24%), 

• 40-69 years: 12.8% (10.3-15.6%; I2 94%), and 

• ≥ 70 years: 84.8% (81.3-88.1%; I2 96%). 

Conclusions: People under 40 years of age represent a small fraction of the total number of COVID-19-related deaths in Europe. These results may help health authorities respond to public concerns and guide future physical distancing and mitigation strategies.

This clearly shows that the death rate for 0-20 will be vanishingly low. Flu is deadlier for small children and teenagers than COVID-19.

Yes, the US is unhealthier (in some ways -- Europeans smoke more). We will need to see how much that changes in our numbers. I could see the average age for deaths being closer to 75 than 80 as it is in Europe.

I don't see how you can say this doesn't target one particular demographic more strongly; it very clearly does and the data all shows that and it's becoming even more stark as the data is adjusted.

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

1 minute ago, PhineasC said:

The NY data is not useful without having more data about the total number of infected; we will not know that for a year+. Italy has done more serological testing than us and has a better handle on that. Same for Germany. Death rates for young people will be very skewed for now because many of them are walking around with mild or no symptoms and will never be tested. It's often impossible for them to be tested and the only ones we hear about are deathly ill in the hospital already.

Here is a review of the data available in Europe:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.11.20061721v1

This clearly shows that the death rate for 0-20 will be vanishingly low. Flu is deadlier for small children and teenagers than COVID-19.

Yes, the US is unhealthier (in some ways -- Europeans smoke more). We will need to see how much that changes in our numbers. I could see the average age for deaths being closer to 75 than 80 as it is in Europe.

I don't see how you can say this doesn't target one particular demographic more strongly; it very clearly does and the data all shows that and it's becoming even more stark as the data is adjusted.

That’s a lot of 40-69 year olds dying!!

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

Just now, Chris78 said:

Sometimes its the governents role to protect people from themselves lol

 

Agree.  Like I said, I don't want to get into the ugly weeds of politics here, but there's been way too much of a push (in my humble opinion) over the past few decades to make people automatically distrust anything the government does (a sarcastic "thank you" to Ronnie!).  Some of that is warranted, sure.  There's also the issue that I don't think as many people now are willing to just make the necessary sacrifice, whether it's inconvenience or whatever.  I mean...does the stay at home stuff suck?  Yeah, it does.  Is it a pain to wear a face covering at the supermarket?  Sure.  Or not be able to go to many places like we used to for awhile?  Absolutely.  And I don't even want to hear that I don't understand that people have lost or will lose their jobs because of this...that's where support is supposed to come in, in whatever measure is necessary.

But seriously, this won't be permanent, or I don't see it being so.  It's a sacrifice, and by all indications by those who are experts in the medical fields, it's a necessary one.  It's not overblown panic and hype.  God, I swear, I wonder what some people who complain soooo much right now would have done during the Depression, or WW-II, when sacrifice was not only mandated but required to survive and get through it.

Sorry for the mini-rant!!

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

5 minutes ago, DCTeacherman said:

The paying salaries indefinitely, 6 month closure, etc is a straw man.  No one is advocating for these things. 

I know that, I was responding to what PhineasC said about paying salaries indefinitely.

[PhineasC]

5 minutes ago, DCTeacherman said:

That’s a lot of 40-69 year olds dying!!

I understand if you are in that huge range it causes fear. Most who died in Italy had at least three major underlying comorbidities, such as diabetes, heart failure, kidney failure, or lung disease. The difference between 69 years old with heart disease and obesity and 40 with a clean bill of health is still stark.

And these numbers will continue to change as we grow the denominator (total infected). There are estimates that millions of people had this virus and didn't get tested. If you make that the denominator these death rates drop a lot. It's pretty clear to me the death rate for those under 40 will end up around swine flu territory at worst when this is all said and done.

Folks really should be using percentages and trends right now versus absolute numbers.

[PhineasC]

And now they are saying the hospital ships are sending the staff off the ships into nursing homes to augment...

The concern over ventilators and hospital capacity ended up being unwarranted. This virus will tear through nursing homes. That's the target victim group for COVID.

Also just heard at least 5k+ of the deaths so far are in nursing homes. That's crazy and puts the overall numbers into new perspective. 

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

4 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

And now they are saying the hospital ships are sending the staff off the ships into nursing homes to augment...

The concern over ventilators and hospital capacity ended up being unwarranted. This virus will tear through nursing homes. That's the target victim group for COVID.

Also just heard at least 5k+ of the deaths so far are in nursing homes. That's crazy and puts the overall numbers into new perspective. 

Also ventilators are basically a death sentence with covid and hospitals are moving away from using them and trying other techniques.

The concerns over hospital capacity are/were very much warranted IMO.

[PhineasC]

Just now, DCTeacherman said:

Also ventilators are basically a death sentence with covid and hospitals are moving away from using them and trying other techniques.

They have always been a death sentence if you are 80+ with major illnesses and stay on them for over a week. Which is why I was a little confused by the drive to use them in that way.

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

Just now, PhineasC said:

They have always been a death sentence if you are 80+ with major illnesses and stay on them for over a week. Which is why I was a little confused by the drive to use them in that way.

As for the hospital capacity thing you are aware that most hospitals in nyc and surrounding areas have basically been converted entirely to ICUs?  

[PhineasC]

Just now, DCTeacherman said:

As for the hospital capacity thing you are aware that most hospitals in nyc and surrounding areas have basically been converted entirely to ICUs?  

I can understand that, but ICU admissions are dropping rapidly so that will change soon. The hospitals outside NYC in the rest of the state have plenty of capacity. It seems clear to me we can survive this with plenty of hospital space left.

[snowfan]

Ok, so let's wager a guess at when Maryland enters phase 1. May 1? 15th? June 1? 

[SomeguyfromTakomaPark]

6 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

I can understand that, but ICU admissions are dropping rapidly so that will change soon. The hospitals outside NYC in the rest of the state have plenty of capacity. It seems clear to me we can survive this with plenty of hospital space left.

Having to convert entire hospitals to ICUs is a major capacity problem and isn’t sustainable so I don’t see how you can say the hospital capacity concerns were unwarranted. 

[ErinInTheSky]

I remember when people were saying it’s just the flu when there were 15 cases here and that it would amount to nothing. I’ve seen this convo had so often. Generally all you have to do is walk away and come back a few weeks later and they are onto a new argument about how it’s really not that bad.