OT: Coronavirus chat

[S E P H]

It did spread to other areas in China. They got a quicker hold on it because of their tough policies on social gatherings. I'm sort of amazed they're still running these wet markets.

Nanny state ideology.

 

[Avsboy]

Nanny state ideology.

I think they handled the coronavirus well, except not sharing the info with the world early. But the wet markets have to be regulated.

 

[S E P H]

I think they handled the coronavirus well, except not sharing the info with the world early. But the wet markets have to be regulated.

Meh, that's what you get with full governmental control. They dragged anybody who had a fever and put them in quarantine camps. Might be ruthless, but you're right that it worked (if we were to believe the numbers which I don't) whereas in 'Merica you have college idiots still conducting spring break. The problem though that is due to the nanny state, those wet markets won't ever go. It's already deep in Chinese society as the acceptable norm and peoples' basic rent is made in markets.

 

[henchman21]

Baring a miracle, I cannot see how the NHL will have time to complete this season in any form.

To me it depends on how society and the public pressure responds to the second wave. The curve is bending in the US and there is a solid chance that we see a peak of daily new cases form. In a raw number and not a percentage as the percentage peak might have already happened. If that follows, and a noticeable decrease in raw new case happens in mid to late April, not outside the realm of possibility to see things normalizing in May. Certainly a second wave will hit in May, if we go right back to handling it this way... we will see it all shut down. If there is a more segmented response, we could still see a season go on. I'm not counting on it, but if the trends over the past week hold, it is possible.

 

[ABasin]

While this is true... many of the stats from elsewhere are unreliable too. There are known issues in both Japan and Italy numbers right now, France may have some similar issues to Italy. There is going to be a lot to dissect after this calms down.

Yeah, I brought Japan up last week, re: how in the world is a country that densely populated not feeling the effects of this.

 

[henchman21]

Yeah, I brought Japan up last week, re: how in the world is a country that densely populated not feeling the effects of this.

Can't have Covid-19 if you don't test! And if you don't test they can't cancel the Olympics! Wait....

 

[flyfysher]

Baring a miracle, I cannot see how the NHL will have time to complete this season in any form.

Televised games in empty arenas? Or someone please explain how the NHL plans to hold a crowd event in the absence of an effective vaccine and/or widespread availability of anti-viral meds? Wow!

 

[Northern Avs Fan]

Baring a miracle, I cannot see how the NHL will have time to complete this season in any form.

Agreed. I think the prospect of finishing the season is looking pretty bleak, unless they want to shorten next years season. If it’s 4 weeks until the peak, then it’s going to take even more time after that to get to a point where they can play again.

And it sounds like a lot of players don’t really have interest in playing in front of empty arenas and I can’t say I blame them.

I just hope next season isn’t obstructed.

 

[Foppa2118]

Such coincidences actually do happen all the time, they're well documented throughout history. One of the funny things about statistics is that no matter how unlikely it is for a specific thing to happen, sometimes, it WILL happen given enough time. Improbable and impossible are different things.

Some coincidences change the world, like the time an incompetent alcoholic policeman was somehow assigned to be Abe Lincoln's bodyguard as he watched a play. Some coincidences are meaningless, like running into your art teacher in a museum in Paris while you're on vacation with your family. But they do happen, literally all the time. The closer you study human history, the more you realize how chaotic and random it is. And if the human brain is good at anything, it's finding patterns in randomness.

Very well said.

Not enough people are aware of the massive amount of potential connections between two random things happening in their lives, and how the cumulative effect of all those potential connections, despite the extreme low probability of each, makes one happen every once in a while.

Unfortunately this is one of the tougher things to get people to understand, and as you note, humans are very good (relatively speaking) at finding patterns. It was likely an evolutionary trait that helped keep us alive at some point.

 

[McMetal]

Very well said.

Not enough people are aware of the massive amount of potential connections between two random things happening in their lives, and how the cumulative effect of all those potential connections, despite the extreme low probability of each, makes one happen every once in a while.

Unfortunately this is one of the tougher things to get people to understand, and as you note, humans are very good (relatively speaking) at finding patterns. It was likely an evolutionary trait that helped keep us alive at some point.

For sure. When I was in middle school, my family took a vacation to England over the summer. One weekend, we took a boat across the channel to Paris, and while we were in a museum there, we bumped into my art teacher, who was also there on vacation at the same time. The odds of that specific thing happening are staggeringly low, but it happened nonetheless.

The difference between me and Tintin is that I didn't invent an elaborate conspiracy theory to explain why there was a sinister reason she was there at the same time as me because I refused to accept that coincidences are a thing.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Televised games in empty arenas? Or someone please explain how the NHL plans to hold a crowd event in the absence of an effective vaccine and/or widespread availability of anti-viral meds? Wow!

Eventually the real world has to return back to normal and things have to start operating as such again.

A time will come when governments and people in general will just accept the risk associated with it and carry on with life as it was before.

Especially once they really do some studies on this virus in the next 6-8 weeks and get a good grasp at just how risky(Or not risky) it is, especially in the summer months coming up where there stands a good chance to die off quite significantly as the humid weather takes over.


The question is whether that return to normalcy and just assuming some risk happens by the time May roles around... or if we're still talking July/August month before that happens. But one way or another it will happen. Especially once the number come out on this disease and the real mortality rate for it gets set at ~1%.

 

[flyfysher]

So I am reading a CNN article and here's the quote that is disturbing.

"'If we do things together well, almost perfectly, we could get in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 fatalities,' (Dr. Deborah) Birx told NBC's "Today" show Monday. 'We don't even want to see that.'
Birx said the worst-case projections show 'between 1.6 million and 2.2 million deaths if you do nothing' and disregard social distancing guidelines."

A moderate case scenario could be over a million deaths? The best case scenario certainly seems overly idealistic given all of the Darwin Award candidates going to Florida beaches, Mardi Gras, going to mega church sermons and greeting the hospital ships. This does not bode well.

 

[flyfysher]

Eventually the real world has to return back to normal and things have to start operating as such again.

A time will come when governments and people in general will just accept the risk associated with it and carry on with life as it was before.

Especially once they really do some studies on this virus in the next 6-8 weeks and get a good grasp at just how risky(Or not risky) it is, especially in the summer months coming up where there stands a good chance to die off quite significantly as the humid weather takes over.


The question is whether that return to normalcy and just assuming some risk happens by the time May roles around... or if we're still talking July/August month before that happens. But one way or another it will happen. Especially once the number come out on this disease and the real mortality rate for it gets set at ~1%.

I think it's going to come down to first bringing the infections under control. I hear you though about going back to work. But that's just reality. As people hear these stories coming out of the hospitals, there's just no way they're going to readily risk exposing themselves to the risk of a deadly infection. Or they won't survive.

How are you holding up PH? I'm beginning to go a little stir crazy. Hope you're staying safe and healthy.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

I think it's going to come down to first bringing the infections under control. I hear you though about going back to work. But that's just reality. As people hear these stories coming out of the hospitals, there's just no way they're going to readily risk exposing themselves to the risk of a deadly infection. Or they won't survive.

How are you holding up PH? I'm beginning to go a little stir crazy. Hope you're staying safe and healthy.

I think they will. Then again, maybe people really do have a severe lacking understanding of how dangerous the common influenza, or more specifically Pneumonia and TB are.


I suspect if people knew just how deadly these 2 diseases alone were, they probably wouldnt be leaving the house either.


Once the covid number get more heavily dissected and people start realizing the real death rate of this virus, it wont be long after before everyone aside from the "at risk" groups will be ready to get back to normal.


As for me, fortunately my work is considered essential work and I'm high enough in the company that I'm basically no different than before. Full time work with very little change. Aside from spending my weekend and evenings at home. Which is easy enough to do now with the weather still being mostly shit on this island. But it's gonna get increasingly difficult to deal with as we get close to the summer.

Hopefully the early signals prove accurate about how the humidity and weather effects the spread of this thing. I dont want to be spending all summer trapped inside.


I can already taste the Corona beers out on the deck.

 

[The Abusement Park]

So I am reading a CNN article and here's the quote that is disturbing.

"'If we do things together well, almost perfectly, we could get in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 fatalities,' (Dr. Deborah) Birx told NBC's "Today" show Monday. 'We don't even want to see that.'
Birx said the worst-case projections show 'between 1.6 million and 2.2 million deaths if you do nothing' and disregard social distancing guidelines."

A moderate case scenario could be over a million deaths? The best case scenario certainly seems overly idealistic given all of the Darwin Award candidates going to Florida beaches, Mardi Gras, going to mega church sermons and greeting the hospital ships. This does not bode well.

What? A million fatalities would be worst case scenario? Like you just said in your post. Moderate would be in the 600-800,00 range based on what you posted.

 

[flyfysher]

What? A million fatalities would be worst case scenario? Like you just said in your post. Moderate would be in the 500-700,00 range based on what you posted.

Birx says 100-200K is best case scenario and 1.6-2.2M is worst case scenario. Split the difference for the moderate scenario which is anything in between. Nothing to base it on statistically but I agree with your assessment of 500-700K. So much depends on people's behavior. A lot will happen in waves I suspect. People dropping their guard with summer and then it might come back in the fall. Anyway,,weird to think of a half million deaths as an acceptable loss.

 

[JLo217]

Birx says 100-200K is best case scenario and 1.6-2.2M is worst case scenario. Split the difference for the moderate scenario which is anything in between. Nothing to base it on statistically but I agree with your assessment of 500-700K. So much depends on people's behavior. A lot will happen in waves I suspect. People dropping their guard with summer and then it might come back in the fall. Anyway,,weird to think of a half million deaths as an acceptable loss.

But But the flu is worst....

That argument was something I never understood. Here in Cali it was really prevalent. Like so just because the Flu is bad, death is acceptable in any capacity?

 

[Foppa2118]

So I am reading a CNN article and here's the quote that is disturbing.

"'If we do things together well, almost perfectly, we could get in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 fatalities,' (Dr. Deborah) Birx told NBC's "Today" show Monday. 'We don't even want to see that.'
Birx said the worst-case projections show 'between 1.6 million and 2.2 million deaths if you do nothing' and disregard social distancing guidelines."

A moderate case scenario could be over a million deaths? The best case scenario certainly seems overly idealistic given all of the Darwin Award candidates going to Florida beaches, Mardi Gras, going to mega church sermons and greeting the hospital ships. This does not bode well.

It can still be less than that. The 100-200k number is based on modeling of how they think this might play out. But there are factors like the virus mutating and dying out, and successful antivirals coming out before the next wave in the winter, that could potentially lower the number a fair bit.

The 1.6-2.2M number was basically Fauci trying to get those remaining people still gathering in large groups to pay attention. We're already doing the things that should hopefully prevent that worst case scenario.

It's still a very large number though. Even if it's only 100k deaths, that's 2-3 times what you see from influenza in a given year. IMO we could have kept that number a lot closer to influenza if the administration had acted when the scientists were warning them, and large cities like NYC, LA, New Orleans, and Miami had closed up business and large gatherings sooner. Would have cut down a lot on the spread.

Basically, the Fed govt knew this could be bad in early January, and should have been monitoring it, sounding the alarm to Governors, and then started doing in February what they eventually did in March. They were basically 2-6 weeks too late everywhere, and we'll likely see a lot more deaths than we would have if they were more worried about people's lives and the healthcare system, then they were about the stock market and economy tanking.

 

[henchman21]

Another day in, the curve in the US is definitely bending.

 

[flyfysher]

This assertion in NPR scared me. It says 95% of Americans will not have been exposed to Covid-19 even after the surges.

CDC Director On Models For The Months To Come: 'This Virus Is Going To Be With Us'

 

[JLo217]

Another day in, the curve in the US is definitely bending.

In a good way?

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Coronavirus death rate is lower than previously reported, study says, but it's still deadlier than seasonal flu - CNN

What some of us have been saying for quite a while in here now.


Death rate of probably less than 1% once this is all over and the proper research is done.

 

[henchman21]

In a good way?

Yeah the percentage growth is slowing, and throughout the world, it is becoming a pattern (there seems to be a natural cap to the virus). The doubling of cases is slowing to the 5-6 day range instead of the 2-3 day range... if that trend continues to slow, we will see the raw case numbers peak here in a week to two weeks. The US being a large, spread out country, this is a 10,000' view... regionally it will be a bit different. We see a pretty large difference between different cities and states.

 

[henchman21]

Coronavirus death rate is lower than previously reported, study says, but it's still deadlier than seasonal flu - CNN

What some of us have been saying for quite a while in here now.


Death rate of probably less than 1% once this is all over and the proper research is done.

The number keeps dropping and dropping... probably will continue to drop once they project out the asymptomatic and mild cases. It will likely be more than seasonal flu, but less than some flus that have passed through. The R0 has dropped significantly too, and likely is going to continue to drop. What the numbers are guiding to, are a virus that is more deadly than the flu by a factor of 4-5... but infects a lot less people. The early projections of mortality and spread are not holding true. This could all take a turn for the worse and still could get bad. So while we have shutdown and already have an impact on our economy... it is probably best to continue to take our medicine for a few more weeks, let it really start dying off, then re-evaluate.

 

[ABasin]

Agreed. I think the prospect of finishing the season is looking pretty bleak, unless they want to shorten next years season. If it’s 4 weeks until the peak, then it’s going to take even more time after that to get to a point where they can play again.

And it sounds like a lot of players don’t really have interest in playing in front of empty arenas and I can’t say I blame them.

I don't blame them either.

However, as long as they could play the games and remain healthy, I wish they'd do it anyway. I think some live sporting events on TV would be really helpful and uplifting to many people who are stuck at home alone with no family nearby - *ahem* - fans in the building or not. Two weeks into this thing, I'd watch a game or two every night.

But only if the players wouldn't be at risk.