Coronavirus

[Dixie Highway]

Me thinking out loud...

I believe wisdom and common sense goes a long way. I felt, all my life, I've had/have good common sense. I've tried to live a "practical" life. I've always kept an open mind to things I do not understand and to those things I thought I understood. Wisdom, IMO, sets in latter in life. When these 2 things meet, you truly have a different perspective on life. I really like this stage. Where am I going with all this? I have 2 highly educated boys, of whom I'm super proud of, but don't fully grasp the concept of social distancing and hand washing. They do keep to their own and wash their hands but without a full understanding the implications if you don't. Is this a generation thing/gap/age/intellect/money thing? I keep asking "Why don't they get it?" Is it because they think and feel they're invincible. Do they think this is "Not a big deal"? The school of "hard knocks" is cruel and often punishing. I wouldn't advise taking any classes. But, some lessons are tough to learn and tough to teach. I hope we do not learn the hard way. The price is life changing.

End of thought.

It's the difference between knowledge and wisdom. You can get knowledge anywhere, books, internet, school, whatever. Knowledge without wisdom is like a match grade bullet fired from a $3 pistol. This is something it took me 40 years to learn so far, and in doing so I have the wisdom to understand that whatever knowledge I might have, there is usually someone else out there with more. It's also the reason you find some brilliant academic types out there who can barely function in normal non-school society. Knowledge but no wisdom.

 

[Julian]

Here is an interesting article that puts the Covid-19 deaths in perspective.

The Rapid Increase of U.S. Coronavirus Deaths in One Chilling Graphic

Data show that COVID-19 daily death toll keeps growing.

nymag.com

The birth rate over the 8 days is sure nice to know as an average. All the other causes of deaths typically remain a (roughly) constant (just like the birth rate) -the kicker is how quickly Covid rose to the top....and the concern is how long will is stay there!

 

[Dean P]

Here is an interesting article that puts the Covid-19 deaths in perspective.

The Rapid Increase of U.S. Coronavirus Deaths in One Chilling Graphic

Data show that COVID-19 daily death toll keeps growing.

nymag.com

The birth rate over the 8 days is sure nice to know as an average. All the other causes of deaths typically remain a (roughly) constant (just like the birth rate) -the kicker is how quickly Covid rose to the top....and the concern is how long will is stay there!

View attachment 116419

This thing is SO contagious. This thing is not going anywhere till there is a vaccine. Honestly! Knowing where it is is great and testing will tell us where it is. This will also allow us to open our economy but we have no means of stopping it/CIVID-19 except to run from it and hide.

Can't POTUS use the DPA to force labs to do this. Are they ALL doing this? Does anybody know?

 

[swatski]

Can't POTUS use the DPA to force labs to do this.

For goodness sake, please. Let's hope he's not involved.
Yes, many labs working on this.

--

 

[Dixie Highway]

This thing is SO contagious. This thing is not going anywhere till there is a vaccine. Honestly! Knowing where it is is great and testing will tell us where it is. This will also allow us to open our economy but we have no means of stopping it/CIVID-19 except to run from it and hide.

Can't POTUS use the DPA to force labs to do this. Are they ALL doing this? Does anybody know?

There is most likely a secondary means to stop it, which is what they are calling "herd immunity". Right now they don't know how long the antibodies stay active in your system, but assuming it's a decent amount of time it would likely keep the vast majority from spreading the disease to such levels that it would overwhelm the nation. Honestly this is really the big unknown right now, how many people might have already had it and have antibodies? Stanford did a sampling study in California (Santa Clara county maybe?) and figured that of the county population, roughly 50-85,000 people would have tested positive. At the time, the county had 1,000 "confirmed" cases. My instinct tells me that the numbers shown LOOK like this disease is spreading like wildfire, it's more likely that many already had it and the testing is just now catching up. Is it contagious? Yes, very it seems. Is the only way to stop it run and hide? I'm not a doctor, but many infectious disease experts I've seen and heard have said that short of a vaccine (which might take months/years/if ever) having a bunch of people with it already is the best way to stop it. Same principle as preventative burns in fire fighting, if you already burned the fuel there's nowhere for it to spread to. Again not to arouse anyone's sensitivities here, but MY biggest concern is that while this thing has proven somewhat dangerous, by limiting EVERYONE (including the vast majority who will get this and show little, if any symptoms) that we are kicking the can down the road.

 

[Dean P]

There is most likely a secondary means to stop it, which is what they are calling "herd immunity". Right now they don't know how long the antibodies stay active in your system, but assuming it's a decent amount of time it would likely keep the vast majority from spreading the disease to such levels that it would overwhelm the nation. Honestly this is really the big unknown right now, how many people might have already had it and have antibodies? Stanford did a sampling study in California (Santa Clara county maybe?) and figured that of the county population, roughly 50-85,000 people would have tested positive. At the time, the county had 1,000 "confirmed" cases. My instinct tells me that the numbers shown LOOK like this disease is spreading like wildfire, it's more likely that many already had it and the testing is just now catching up. Is it contagious? Yes, very it seems. Is the only way to stop it run and hide? I'm not a doctor, but many infectious disease experts I've seen and heard have said that short of a vaccine (which might take months/years/if ever) having a bunch of people with it already is the best way to stop it. Same principle as preventative burns in fire fighting, if you already burned the fuel there's nowhere for it to spread to. Again not to arouse anyone's sensitivities here, but MY biggest concern is that while this thing has proven somewhat dangerous, by limiting EVERYONE (including the vast majority who will get this and show little, if any symptoms) that we are kicking the can down the road.

This is scary. Does this mean your better off getting it and trying to fight it off? I wish we could understand how an 80 year old woman survives while fit young men die. What is it about their blood/lungs/immune system is good while others is not? If wish we could figure that out and infect those with the missing antibodies than it would be like getting the Chicken Pox, right? Get it, your body fights it off, all while building the immune system to not get it again. Is this feasible?

 

[Bluewater272]

The 20k recorded deaths are terrible. To put this into perspective there are also about 88k births in the USA over 8 days (4 million per year). Not trying to make light of the deaths but rather help folks qualify these large human statistics in a way that is easier to think about and not all doom/gloom/fear.

Another perspective: It's the equivalent of 9/11, every day, for 8 days.

 

[Bruce]

Heard that same fact this morning. It's unfathomable. What's it going to be next week and the week after? I don't really want to know...

In less than two weeks more American lives will have been lost to CovID-19 than to the Vietnam War.

 

[Babin Farms]

For all of you worried about Covid-19, just remember

 

[Bruce]

This is scary. Does this mean your better off getting it and trying to fight it off? I wish we could understand how an 80 year old woman survives while fit young men die. What is it about their blood/lungs/immune system is good while others is not? If wish we could figure that out and infect those with the missing antibodies than it would be like getting the Chicken Pox, right? Get it, your body fights it off, all while building the immune system to not get it again. Is this feasible?

Dean, it is possible that antibodies from defeating the infection will provide protection against the same or a similar strain for months to a few years.

Early on it was thought that ACE2 receptors were playing a large role in the severity of CovID-19 presentation. ACE2 is still believed to be involved but the hopes that those of European descent would have less severe presentation due to having a lower preverlance of ACE2 receptors have not proven out.

There does appear to a genetic or preexposure component to the severity of the virus. Someday we will likely have data to understand those but that is unlikely in the short term.

Getting the virus to develop immunity is a bad bet. There is no way to predict severity. There is no guarantee that any immunity would be created. You could infect others including medical staff who may treat you.

 

[Dixie Highway]

This is scary. Does this mean your better off getting it and trying to fight it off? I wish we could understand how an 80 year old woman survives while fit young men die. What is it about their blood/lungs/immune system is good while others is not? If wish we could figure that out and infect those with the missing antibodies than it would be like getting the Chicken Pox, right? Get it, your body fights it off, all while building the immune system to not get it again. Is this feasible?

It would seem on the surface that for the majority of us getting it and developing the antibodies is the fastest, most efficient way to fight it. Why does it affect different folks differently? I’m not a doctor, I don’t even play one on TV, my guess is something genetically makes certain people susceptible. The numbers suggest men are more likely to die from it. People with blood type A are more likely to die from it. That puts me in a bad place I’m both lol.

 

[Bruce]

It would seem on the surface that for the majority of us getting it and developing the antibodies is the fastest, most efficient way to fight it. Why does it affect different folks differently? I’m not a doctor, I don’t even play one on TV, my guess is something genetically makes certain people susceptible. The numbers suggest men are more likely to die from it. People with blood type A are more likely to die from it. That puts me in a bad place I’m both lol.

Any attempt to build herd immunity would overwhelm our medical system resulting in higher mortality rates. More concerningly the loss of medical workers would create a long term reduction in the availability of medical care. If we were to try for herd immunity I would suggest that it be voluntary and that all medical services be shutdown before doing so. It is lunacy but many express that they want it.

 

[Dixie Highway]

Any attempt to build herd immunity would overwhelm our medical system resulting in higher mortality rates. More concerningly the loss of medical workers would create a long term reduction in the availability of medical care. If we were to try for herd immunity I would suggest that it be voluntary and that all medical services be shutdown before doing so. It is lunacy but many express that they want it.

Maybe, we just don’t know. We don’t even know how many already had/have it. We could already be most of the way there, no numbers to support either way.

 

[Bruce]

Maybe, we just don’t know. We don’t even know how many already had/have it. We could already be most of the way there, no numbers to support either way.

Stanford ran a, likely flawed, antibody test in Santa Clara County, CA. They found a 1.5% prevalence of antibodies suggesting that as much as 4% of the population might have already had CovID-19. That is a strong indication that we do not have a large population who has already been exposed to SARS-CoV-2.

COVID-19 Antibody Seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California

Background Addressing COVID-19 is a pressing health and social concern. To date, many epidemic projections and policies addressing COVID-19 have been designed without seroprevalence data to inform epidemic parameters. We measured the seroprevalence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in Santa Clara...

www.medrxiv.org

 

[Dixie Highway]

True but the report also say prevalence is 50-85 times as many as there are confirmed cases. 4% of the population is over 12 million people, far more than the 250,000 confirmed cases we see reported.

 

[Bruce]

True but the report also say prevalence is 50-85 times as many as there are confirmed cases. 4% of the population is over 12 million people, far more than the 250,000 confirmed cases we see reported.

If 1% of the population was testing positive we would be out of ICU beds. Lets not hope for more.

 

[Dixie Highway]

The current hospitalization rate for Covid is 20 per 100,000, that’s what, .02%? By my math that’s about 6,000 with 3,000,000 cases.

COVID Data Tracker Weekly Review

The week’s key data, narrative interpretations, & visualizations.

www.cdc.gov

 

[Bruce]

The current hospitalization rate for Covid is 20 per 100,000, that’s what, .02%? By my math that’s about 6,000 with 3,000,000 cases.

COVID Data Tracker Weekly Review

The week’s key data, narrative interpretations, & visualizations.

www.cdc.gov

In Italy 10% were needing ICU style treatment. My state of Arkansas has few cases and is at 7.9% hospitalization. New York is at 7.2% hospitalized

There are ~100K ICU beds in the US. At 1% infected and 3% of the infected needing those beds they are all filled.

 

[Mainah]

Here is an interesting article that puts the Covid-19 deaths in perspective.

The Rapid Increase of U.S. Coronavirus Deaths in One Chilling Graphic

Data show that COVID-19 daily death toll keeps growing.

nymag.com

The birth rate over the 8 days is sure nice to know as an average. All the other causes of deaths typically remain a (roughly) constant (just like the birth rate) -the kicker is how quickly Covid rose to the top....and the concern is how long will is stay there!

View attachment 116419

I was attempting to lighten the doom and gloom and perhaps failed. Constantly hearing terms like catastrophic and devastating is starting to wear on me. I am not trying to minimize deaths.

Those that think getting back to normal right away and attempting herd immunity because the economy is suffering are not considering the possible impact to the economy of doing that would be even worse once we spread this even faster and overwhelm the hospitals. Just like there is data proving Coronavirus/CV19 is bad there is also data proving that we need people back to now as the impacts could be just as bad. The key is how do we do it safely. It is going to be a tough balance that will require greater restraint on the part of individuals than we have witnessed over the past weeks.

I am very much against trashing the economy worse as we are hitting threshold that will mean real life bad things. Those of us that can work from home and significantly limit trips to the store should. All of us need to deepen our resolve to remove social contact as something that will be ok in the near future but rather look forward to a cherishing a more distant future where we have won on both fronts and can resume life close to normal.

 

[swatski]

It is absolutely astonishing, how we are failing in the face of this.

But what else can one expect if there is blatant disregard for scientific data, any kind of rigor, at the highest level. The response that follows a hunch? a... gut feeling, anyone?

You can't have productive discussion, let alone coordinated response, without data.
You know what they say, “a fish rots from the head down”.
I'd never thought I would live to see this here.

--