Coronavirus thread

[JBS]

I stopped when I read this

The real risk of the epidemic is that it will overwhelm our healthcare systems. They have assumed this risk away, more or less.

I don't think they've done that.  Even if only a small percentage of the population is hospitalized, our facilities could get overwhelmed. Illustration--Atlanta, where they have already filled up all their ICU beds. More dramatic illustration: NYC's hospitals are being overwhelmed with 15,000 cases (at the moment) in the city, most of them being treated at home and not in hospital. 15,000 people is about .02% of the city's population (if I am reading my calculator correctly).  So even a tiny amount of cases is wreaking havoc.

ETA...reviewing my math, that should probably be 0.2%. But it's still a small percentage.

[Kaga2]

I don't think they've done that.  Even if only a small percentage of the population is hospitalized, our facilities could get overwhelmed. Illustration--Atlanta, where they have already filled up all their ICU beds. More dramatic illustration: NYC's hospitals are being overwhelmed with 15,000 cases (at the moment) in the city, most of them being treated at home and not in hospital. 15,000 people is about .02% of the city's population (if I am reading my calculator correctly).  So even a tiny amount of cases is wreaking havoc.

ETA...reviewing my math, that should probably be 0.2%. But it's still a small percentage.

Well that makes their assumptions look even more over optimistic. My point is simply that if you assume a low enough risk you get a better outcome. They don't have any evidence it's true.

[drogulus]

It would be great if someone who understands statistics comment this -- Scarpia maybe. If the guys at Oxford are right it radically changes things.




https://www.dropbox.com/s/oxmu2rwsnhi9j9c/Draft-COVID-19-Model%20(13).pdf?dl=0

     The part about the first case occurring a month before the first death sounds right. It may also be right that there's far more herd immunity in the population than we know about. I've seen a figure of 80% of people who are asymptomatic. Illness is the tip of an iceberg and deaths are the tip of the tip. So, the game is to protect the most vulnerable until the population around them has recovered from a virus that never made them sick.

[drogulus]

Generally it seems like local public health officials figuring out the nature of the disease as soon as could be expected, but local political leaders suppressing information and thwarting an appropriate response. The statement that no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus has been seen stands out as a red flag. But at that point there was a small cluster of cases and it could be that all could be traced back to the market where it seems to have originated. Eight days later the national government ordered the province sealed off.

My point isn't that China didn't screw it up. My point is that people are criticizing China from countries that had advanced warning and screwed it up even worse.
 

    I agree that what certain well informed persons did and are doing is worse, which is amazing since they are not very Communist and completely not Chinese.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

How about a dose of good news?

Recent stories:

Doctors who were retired have come out of it and are pitching in.
News stories about people helping each other:  making surgical masks, shopping for strangers, doctors whose type of work isn't critical donating supplies from their practices
Donations from construction companies of masks
Heard about one cathedral that had found a bunch of masks and donated them:  https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-20200325-u4fore3w2nf35kjwki5arelhyy-story.html

What are some of the stories that you've heard/read lately?  We could all do with a dose of some good news.

Best,

PD

[drogulus]

     The U.S. should seek a humanitarian truce with Iran

     Would it hurt to let Iranians know we would like to help them, and if we can't it's because their government won't let it happen?

     

[SimonNZ]

Brazil gangs impose strict curfews to slow coronavirus spread

"Drug traffickers in one of Rio de Janeiro's best-known favelas have imposed a coronavirus curfew, amid growing fears over the impact the virus could have on some of Brazil's poorest citizens.

In recent days, as Brazil's coronavirus death toll has climbed to 46, gang members have been circulating in the Cidade de Deus (City of God) favela in western Rio ordering residents to remain indoors after 8pm.

Last weekend the low-income community – made famous by Fernando Meirelles' 2002 blockbuster of the same name – became the first such area to record a case of coronavirus.

And in an apparent attempt to prevent further infections the Red Command gang leaders who control the favela have ordered residents to stay at home.

A video apparently recorded in the City of God circulated on social media this week showing a loudspeaker broadcasting the alert: "Anyone found messing or walking around outside will be punished."

"The traffickers are doing this because the government is absent. The authorities are blind to us," one resident told the Guardian.

A report in the Rio newspaper Extra said gang members with loudhailers were moving around City of God telling its 40,000 residents: "We are imposing a curfew because nobody is taking [coronavirus] seriously. It's best to stay at home and chill. The message has been given."

City of God's gangsters are not the only outlaws attacking coronavirus in Rio's densely populated favelas, which are home to about 2 of the city's 7 million residents.

In the Morro dos Prazeres, gang members have told residents only circulate in groups of two while in Rocinha, one of Latin America's biggest favelas, traffickers have also decreed a curfew.

"The gangsters have said that after 8.30pm everybody must stay indoors and if they don't there will be reprisals," said a street hawker who lives there. "I'm staying at home – filled with fear and smothered in hand sanitizer," the man joked.

In Santa Marta, a favela that sits in the shadow of Rio's Christ the Redeemer statue, traffickers have been handing out soap and have placed signs near a public water fountain at the community's entrance that say: "Please wash your hands before entering the favela."

"I think they wrote this for the addicts who come here to buy drugs, so they don't bring the virus in," one local said. "But it won't work. People who live right up at the top of the [hilltop] favela sometimes go two weeks without running water. If people aren't even able to feed themselves, how are they supposed to stay clean?"[...]

[Mandryka]

I stopped when I read this

The real risk of the epidemic is that it will overwhelm our healthcare systems. They have assumed this risk away, more or less.

No. If the population is large (and it is) and the health service is small (and it is) then it can be true that "only a very small proportion of the population is at risk of hospitalisable illness" and "it will overwhelm our healthcare systems"

[Karl Henning]

How about a dose of good news?

Recent stories:

Doctors who were retired have come out of it and are pitching in.
News stories about people helping each other:  making surgical masks, shopping for strangers, doctors whose type of work isn't critical donating supplies from their practices
Donations from construction companies of masks
Heard about one cathedral that had found a bunch of masks and donated them:  https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-20200325-u4fore3w2nf35kjwki5arelhyy-story.html

What are some of the stories that you've heard/read lately?  We could all do with a dose of some good news.

Best,

PD

The first patient here in my town, Woburn, Mass. has recovered and is out of isolation. We now have but two confirmed positives.

[Kaga2]

The first patient here in my town, Woburn, Mass. has recovered and is out of isolation. We now have but two confirmed positives.

Excellent news. They have started using blood serum from the newly recovered to boost resistance temporarily. That won Behring the first Nobel prize in medicine in 1901! More survivors, more serum (he said like a vampire).

[Kaga2]

Has anyone else come across the "homeless" meme? I have seen it now in two places.
Here is an actual exchange I had today.

The way you can prove that this is all a scam is that not enough homeless people have died.
They have the worst health. The worst living conditions. The most pre-existing health problems.

They spend the most time in airports, take the most trips to Milan, entertain the most businessmen from Wuhan, spend the most time hanging out with Tom Hanks.

[drogulus]

The way you can prove that this is all a scam is that not enough homeless people have died.
They have the worst health. The worst living conditions. The most pre-existing health problems.

     Where did this guy learn that not enough homeless people have died?

     

     I'll just slip this in here for no reason.

[geralmar]

Pompano Beach, Florida, March 17.

Some Spring Break returnees have already tested positive for coronavirus.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-coronavirus-cases-surge-spring-breakers-express-regret-n1168686

Heartbreaking.  And no, they don't deserve it.

[Karl Henning]

Pompano Beach, Florida, March 17.

Some Spring Break returnees have already tested positive for coronavirus.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-coronavirus-cases-surge-spring-breakers-express-regret-n1168686

Heartbreaking.  And no, they don't deserve it.

No, but they were foolish.

[Kaga2]

Nobody deserves it.

[JBS]

Be it noted that Pompano Beach closed its beaches the day after that photo was taken. Most of the beaches in Broward were closed the day before the photo was taken.

[Holden]

I've decided to only post coronavirus humour as I'm all Covided out!

This is a classic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KPbJ0-DxTc

[Daverz]

Pompano Beach, Florida, March 17.

Some Spring Break returnees have already tested positive for coronavirus.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-coronavirus-cases-surge-spring-breakers-express-regret-n1168686

Heartbreaking.  And no, they don't deserve it.

You have to wonder what will happen in those families when Junior brings home the covid-19 infection that kills Nana.  Does everyone at the funeral just pretend that didn't happen?

[SimonNZ]

I've decided to only post coronavirus humour as I'm all Covided out!

This is a classic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KPbJ0-DxTc

not at all coronavirus related:

A Capella Science - Bohemian Gravity!

[Florestan]

I'm puzzled by the USA situation. In grave cases such as this, who is directly in charge of managing the situation nationwide? I see Trump wants everybody going back to business as usual before Easter (which would be insane) while some state governors have imposed or recommended partial lockdown (wise move and be prepared for a total one). Does Trump have the power to override their decisions? It's all such a confusing mess.