OT: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Part III

[Machinehead]

Probably not a rabbit hole I should be looking to go down, but we’re all friends here so why not. You know I’m on your side with the current situation, but the 9/11 comparison is a rough one for me because in hindsight, I find it pretty hard to argue that the response to 9/11 was either proportional or effective.

Oh yeah, completely different situations.

I'm just trying to get people who think it's "not that deadly" to understand the gravity of the number of deaths we're looking at.

 

[Brooklyn Rangers Fan]

Suuure, let’s all stop the self isolation starting next week...

 

[Barnaby]

Oh yeah, completely different situations.

I'm just trying to get people who think it's "not that deadly" to understand the gravity of the number of deaths we're looking at.

I think most of us realize its awful. People need to be smart(er)... At the same time, causing a full fledged panic isn’t helping anyone either. It can be stressful already for First Responders and hospital staff alike. For example, many people with an illness will call 911 rather than just driving to the hospital. As a first responder, I won’t go visit my parents since their age range makes them higher risk incase I’ve contracted something and don’t know it. People need to be aware of the dangers, but we don’t need everyone coming down with it hysterical thinking they’ve gotten a death sentence. We don’t need every ambulance out of service transporting everyone with sniffles to the hospital so when we do have a serious case of the virus or another type of medical emergency then those people can get timely treatment.

 

[JimmyG89]

Yeah, keep eating the bullshit their feeding you.

The lede was buried.

 

[eco's bones]

wouldn't quarantining the high risk people accomplish the same thing, while everyone else can go on with their lives? or is it, we cannot order only some people to stay home so we must make everyone stay home? eventually if the high risk people stay away, everyone else who gets it asymptomatically or minor will infect each other, be done with it, and then it ends anyway in a few months right? too simplistic?

Wouldn't testing everybody and by everybody I mean everybody sort our who actually has it and who doesn't? Could we do that all in a day or a week? Unfortunately we don't have that many tests nor the capability to get the results back in that short of a time period. And are you going to round up all the homeless? How do we decide who is high risk? Right now in NYS highest risk of getting it is the age group between 19 and 49--that's everybody from the spring breakers to most of the working population. Highest risk of dying are older people and very young children. So if you're working in an office in Manhattan and you have a 2 or a 3 old at home--just to keep the economy moving do you bring that shit back home to your kids at the end of the day? How important are people's jobs compared to their actual lives?--and by the way they don't even know if having it once gives immunity to a person once they're over it. What if they reinfect? They do know it's extremely contagious. They don't know if summer is going to knock it down either. They don't know if choloroquine is going to work either like the POTUS suggests and a couple older volunteers in Arizona just guinea pigged for him--one's dead and the other is in the hospital. Early on they were saying it didn't seem to transmit in Tropical regions but there are cases now in Hawaii. So we don't know more than we know and it's going to take time to know more.

People want life to go back to normal. This is not normal though. This could kill hundreds of thousands--perhaps millions of people. Haven't you taken a look at China--the extreme measures they took (much more extreme than here) to contain the virus? Have you seen what's been happening in Northern Italy?

 

[Khelvan]

Folks keep extending the goalpost.
First it was 4 weeks.
Some want to push it 18 months.
The critter is in the wild.
We will all be exposed and over 90% show no or little symptoms.
The longer its dragged out the more powerful government will become.

 

[Ola]

Wouldn't testing everybody and by everybody I mean everybody sort our who actually has it and who doesn't? Could we do that all in a day or a week? Unfortunately we don't have that many tests nor the capability to get the results back in that short of a time period. And are you going to round up all the homeless? How do we decide who is high risk? Right now in NYS highest risk of getting it is the age group between 19 and 49--that's everybody from the spring breakers to most of the working population. Highest risk of dying are older people and very young children. So if you're working in an office in Manhattan and you have a 2 or a 3 old at home--just to keep the economy moving do you bring that shit back home to your kids at the end of the day? How important are people's jobs compared to their actual lives?--and by the way they don't even know if having it once gives immunity to a person once they're over it. What if they reinfect? They do know it's extremely contagious. They don't know if summer is going to knock it down either. They don't know if choloroquine is going to work either like the POTUS suggests and a couple older volunteers in Arizona just guinea pigged for him--one's dead and the other is in the hospital. Early on they were saying it didn't seem to transmit in Tropical regions but there are cases now in Hawaii. So we don't know more than we know and it's going to take time to know more.

People want life to go back to normal. This is not normal though. This could kill hundreds of thousands--perhaps millions of people. Haven't you taken a look at China--the extreme measures they took (much more extreme than here) to contain the virus? Have you seen what's been happening in Northern Italy?

Of course it would be of help to test everyone, but I think it’s debatable just how helpful it would be.

If say 1% of the population has it, you test everyone tomorrow 10 am sharp, and say after 4 hours they get the results. During that 4 hours alone, that 1% will have infected a boatload of people, even if it’s just 0.005% or whatever. So even if you could test everyone, 20m people in NY state, and is able to make sure they don’t infect anyone after the test, it would still blossom up fairly fast.

And testing 20m at a set time is of course completely impossible. Testing 1m per day for a 20 period is surely completely unrealistic too, but like even if you could do that, you can imagine how — in accurate — a clean bill of health would be.

From the perspective of just common sense, I don’t get the hysteria with tests in the US right now, and it seems like the experts in some European countries who claims that testing is almost meaningless once it’s out have a point.

 

[eco's bones]

Of course it would be of help to test everyone, but I think it’s debatable just how helpful it would be.

If say 1% of the population has it, you test everyone tomorrow 10 am sharp, and say after 4 hours they get the results. During that 4 hours alone, that 1% will have infected a boatload of people, even if it’s just 0.005% or whatever. So even if you could test everyone, 20m people in NY state, and is able to make sure they don’t infect anyone after the test, it would still blossom up fairly fast.

And testing 20m at a set time is of course completely impossible. Testing 1m per day for a 20 period is surely completely unrealistic too, but like even if you could do that, you can imagine how — in accurate — a clean bill of health would be.

From the perspective of just common sense, I don’t get the hysteria with tests in the US right now, and it seems like the experts in some European countries who claims that testing is almost meaningless once it’s out have a point.

.....and that's going to happen too. You're being clean now doesn't mean you're going to be clean the next day. It's a snapshot that shows whether you have it or don't have it yet.

But anyway that comment was to illustrate to another poster why things aren't normal now and why we really can't go back to normal yet and probably not for a long while. We don't have nearly enough tests available in any case and then it takes time to process them. If the federal govt. hadn't taken so long to take this seriously IMO it would have mitigated some of this and we would have been a lot better prepared. As of now we are running out of equipment to handle the cases, medical people and first responders are going to be getting ill too and more people are going to get and even though most will survive---a significant number will die and some of the worse cases who do survive will be permanently physically damaged. Lung capacity for instance for some survivors is diminished. The tipping point though in NYS is the ventilators. When there are more people who need than the number of ventilators then doctors will be forced to make decisions who gets to live who gets to die.

Another point--because you're asymptomatic or only end up with a minor cold doesn't mean when you pass it on to someone else that they will be asymptomatic. They may end up instead in the morgue and if they're someone close to you you may end up arranging a funeral.

I would take some cues from sports leagues---they're not playing for good reasons. They see the general health and welfare of their fans and their players as compromised under the current situation. There's not going to be baseball for a while and quite possibly no season.

 

[Doctyl]

Yeah, keep eating the bullshit their feeding you.

The lede was buried.

How is that BS?

Yes it’s common sense not to go drink fish cleaner, but most people aren’t following common sense right now. If the POTUS gets up and says chloroquine will cure this. And you happen to have some (it is the same drug...just in a formulation for your fish) I see why they thought it was appropriate. What isn’t appropriate is the president passing off unsubstantiated anecdotal evidence as a miracle cure before the proper research has been done.

 

[Brooklyn Rangers Fan]

This is what boggles my mind about the new line the President is pushing about “the cure being worse than the sickness”



Ignoring for the moment the public health concerns (which IMO should be paramount), do people not understand how bad it would be for the economy to let this thing run unchecked? Tens of thousands of people falling ill (including big time CEOs and bankers, because a virus doesn’t discriminate), mass fear by well more than half the public (whatever his strongest supporters believe), and the entire health care system (and industry) crushed. This is not a recipe for high employment and strong GDP...

 

[OverTheCap]

It would be beyond shortsighted to stop social distancing. Maybe the stock market and unemployment rate would briefly improve, but that would change pretty quickly once cases and hospitalizations soar out of control.

The NYC area has an infection rate of 5x the rest of the country. People would return to work here and entire workplaces and small businesses would be sick and quarantined almost immediately. Companies that were doing ok working from home would now be at a greater risk of having a sick and incapacitated workforce - how does that make things better than they are now?

Public health and the economy go hand in hand. You need healthy and productive workers for the economy to function. If the majority of the country is sick simultaneously, the economy will collapse even further than it has.

 

[eco's bones]

This is what boggles my mind about the new like the President is pushing about “the cure being worse than the sickness”



Ignoring for the moment the public health concerns (which IMO should be paramount), do people not understand how bad it would be for the economy to let this thing run unchecked? Tens of thousands of people falling ill (including big time CEOs and bankers, because a virus doesn’t discriminate), mass fear by well more than half the public (whatever his strongest supporters believe), and the entire health care system (and industry) crushed. This is not a recipe for high employment and strong GDP...

I don't know a whole lot about the 1918 Spanish Flu but I wonder just how much anyone stepped in back then to shut things down. I'm thinking probably not very much. At least 50 million to upwards of 100 million people died worldwide back then. They weren't as statistics happy in those times as now so there is some variance in the numbers.

Letting it run its course though is not any kind of solution.

The Lt. Governor of Texas went on Tucker Carlson's show on Fox last night. He thinks older folks should be willing to die in great numbers if necessary to save the economy. A patriotic sacrifice so to speak. We should get back to business and whatever happens happens. The bigger question for me is how did this guy ever get elected? I'm sure if you put legislation to euthenize older folks in front of his face he'd be aghast but this is pretty much what he's asking for. I'm all for people who are terminally ill to be assisted out of this world if they so choose but I'm sure he'd be against that too. The thing is it should be their choice---not a choice made for them.

The last thing is not only older people die from this. Children under 5 are particularly vulnerable too but really it can kill anyone. Part of the issue as well is there is a lot we still don't know about this disease and as is with lots of things the devil is in the details.

 

[JimmyG89]

Yes it’s common sense not to go drink fish cleaner

That's all you needed to say. It's common sense not to drink fish cleaner.

These people are beyond stupid to the point where if anyone told them that it would work, they would do it.

FFS, Cuomo has been touting the drugs. Guess if anyone in NY does it, it's his fault.

 

[Ola]

I am not so sure I am that concerned by Trump's message to return to normal "soon". There is undoubtedly a point where you must consider the economy vs public health. With that said, that point cannot come the coming weeks. But the market needs to know that there is a date within reach. If the market fear that the stop date can come August -- "nobody" can handle it. Everyone will go down. I think they are really concerned about the market panicking for real. So far the market has functioned really well, despite of course a tremendous underlying concern. The crash has of course been warranted. But if people start to distrust each other like in 08', then it could get ugly for real.

 

[Doctyl]

Also that fish cleaner tragedy doesn’t seem like it will be the only one.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/19/sales...after-studies-say-it-could-treat-coronavirus/

It’s like the tide pod challenge, except not an obvious joke

 

[Doctyl]

That's all you needed to say. It's common sense not to drink fish cleaner.

These people are beyond stupid to the point where if anyone told them that it would work, they would do it.

FFS, Cuomo has been touting the drugs. Guess if anyone in NY does it, it's his fault.

What did Cuomo say? I don’t see anything more than him buying up doses for the state to use, asking doctors to investigate the drugs, and consider using them in the more severe cases.

unless he said something mind boggling that I missed, that’s a far far cry from “HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine”

 

[Ola]

Is anyone considering investment objects out there?

I took a 20% hit but have managed to stop it there. I still think its too early, but I am starting to consider some objects seriously. Was checking a sport betting company (Kindred). It has of course tanked completely. Just worth a third of its high the last 6 months. They have like a bit over 1,000 employees and pretty heavy debt. The chairman bought share for a million USD a few days ago.

I just think the "recovery" for so many markets will be really slow -- but the minute sports can be played again -- I think the internet sport betting companies will recover really fast. And even if they had more employees than I expected, and the debt is of course scary, they have been able to completely slash their biggest cost (advertising) and I think they will recover really fast. And once sports can be played again, the schedule will be packed surely.

Sport betting is also fairly recession proof. When you have no money and sit home depressed, you bet.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this and if anyone have any other objects they are looking at!?

 

[Gardner McKay]

This is what boggles my mind about the new like the President is pushing about “the cure being worse than the sickness”



Ignoring for the moment the public health concerns (which IMO should be paramount), do people not understand how bad it would be for the economy to let this thing run unchecked? Tens of thousands of people falling ill (including big time CEOs and bankers, because a virus doesn’t discriminate), mass fear by well more than half the public (whatever his strongest supporters believe), and the entire health care system (and industry) crushed. This is not a recipe for high employment and strong GDP...

No, it most certainly is not.

But as @HFBS above

The simple fact is that in the not too distant future, most people are going to take the 1% chance of dying over the 100% chance of losing everything you worked for your whole life

I don't know that things are always that black and white.

Now, I know it isn't a 100% chance that I will lose everything but as a homeowner, the parent of a young child and two dogs, the husband of a wife who is no longer receiving a paycheck, as someone who also helps provide for my in-laws, there will come a time sooner than later where I don't have a choice.

There is a fine line between being irresponsible and opening the US back up too early and leaving it closed for too long. Both will do catastrophic, potentially irreparable damage to our economy. I sit here and see that if this drags out too long, along with millions of other Americans, I potentially lose everything. Everything I have worked so hard for over the years, putting in 80-100 hour weeks, traveling and living out of a hotel room, all to build a life for my family, gone in the blink of an eye.

That is a hard, hard sell to a lot of people. It is as hard of a sell as telling millions of elderly/vulnerable people that the economy is more important than their life, essentially giving them a giant middle finger.

I wake up this morning feeling the same way that I did last night, I still lean on the side of caution and believe everything needs to stay shut down. I believe the situation should be constantly monitored. I believe saying anything in absolutes at the moment, whether it be the President saying we will open up in two weeks or saying we MUST stay closed longer than two weeks, is completely irresponsible. We really don't know how things will progress. We have an idea, but that can and likely will change.

 

[JimmyG89]

What did Cuomo say? I don’t see anything more than him buying up doses for the state to use, asking doctors to investigate the drugs, and consider using them in the more severe cases.

unless he said something mind boggling that I missed, that’s a far far cry from “HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine”

Then you are not paying attention:

New York To Begin Clinical Trials For Coronavirus Treatment Tuesday, Cuomo Says

https://nypost.com/2020/03/23/ny-will-turn-to-experimental-drugs-for-worst-coronavirus-cases-cuomo/

 

[Doctyl]

Then you are not paying attention:

New York To Begin Clinical Trials For Coronavirus Treatment Tuesday, Cuomo Says

https://nypost.com/2020/03/23/ny-will-turn-to-experimental-drugs-for-worst-coronavirus-cases-cuomo/

.........that’s what I said...I guess you’re not paying attention


Starting trials, being optimistic, and providing your state with the supplies needed is not the same as touting it as a miracle drug. The president said last night that nonsense Florida man story to the whole country who was watching about a guy literally dying one night and being totally fine in the morning after a dose of HCQ.

 

[Levitate]

I think it's inevitable that the shelter in place orders etc will eventually be loosened in the next month or so, but "social distancing" will still be enforced to a degree and we may have to go back into shelter in place several times to control new out breaks etc. It's gonna be our new normal until a vaccine is out. We don't get to just shrug and open everything back up to business as usual

If i'm pinning my hopes on anything hopeful is that maybe widespread effective treatments can trivialize the effects of the virus and greatly aid recovery so that in 3-6 months or something we can all be a little more normal if treatments lower the death rates.

All pretty f'd up though and it sure would have been nice to have a federal government who had a plan and resources in place to help deal with something like this.

 

[JimmyG89]

.........that’s what I said...I guess you’re not paying attention


Starting trials, being optimistic, and providing your state with the supplies needed is not the same as touting it as a miracle drug. The president said last night that nonsense Florida man story to the whole country who was watching about a guy literally dying one night and being totally fine in the morning after a dose of HCQ.

So you disagree that these two drugs could be a big game changer in this? So I guess the process which has gone on so far, where those treated have had an extremely high recovery rate is not game changing? There was also already a hospital in NYC that has been using these and have had 0 deaths.

It's whatever. I'm not going to change your mind on this because his quote is taken by some dumbasses the wrong way. He also never said take it if you have no symptoms and you'll be cured. On top of that, someone willing to consume an item that is marked to be used in a fish tank are not high up on the intelligence spectrum.

 

[Doctyl]

So you disagree that these two drugs could be a big game changer in this? So I guess the process which has gone on so far, where those treated have had an extremely high recovery rate is not game changing? There was also already a hospital in NYC that has been using these and have had 0 deaths.

It's whatever. I'm not going to change your mind on this because his quote is taken by some dumbasses the wrong way. He also never said take it if you have no symptoms and you'll be cured. On top of that, someone willing to consume an item that is marked to be used in a fish tank are not high up on the intelligence spectrum.

What’s the recovery rate with these drugs? What’s the sample size of patients treated? What are their viral loads before and after treatment?

You make a lot of claims. Please add a source

 

[sbjnyc]

I don't know a whole lot about the 1918 Spanish Flu but I wonder just how much anyone stepped in back then to shut things down. I'm thinking probably not very much. At least 50 million to upwards of 100 million people died worldwide back then. They weren't as statistics happy in those times as now so there is some variance in the numbers.

Letting it run its course though is not any kind of solution.

The Lt. Governor of Texas went on Tucker Carlson's show on Fox last night. He thinks older folks should be willing to die in great numbers if necessary to save the economy. A patriotic sacrifice so to speak. We should get back to business and whatever happens happens. The bigger question for me is how did this guy ever get elected? I'm sure if you put legislation to euthenize older folks in front of his face he'd be aghast but this is pretty much what he's asking for. I'm all for people who are terminally ill to be assisted out of this world if they so choose but I'm sure he'd be against that too. The thing is it should be their choice---not a choice made for them.

The last thing is not only older people die from this. Children under 5 are particularly vulnerable too but really it can kill anyone. Part of the issue as well is there is a lot we still don't know about this disease and as is with lots of things the devil is in the details.

 

[Crease]

The "how long can we wait while flattening the curve" debate is an interesting one. There's an article on Medium written by an Ohio accountant which states that for every one coronavirus-related death in Ohio there have been 23,000 unemployment claims (last Monday through Thursday). The economic impact is just staggering.

Public health is remarkably important. Balancing public health and the economy is an almost impossible choice. I'm of the opinion that the economy needs to open ASAP. And I mean ASAP by its literal definition - as soon as possible. What's as soon as possible? When we have enough capacity to test, isolate, treat, and manufacture PPE/ventilators. I don't have an answer to when that is, but we should be focusing on it with borderline military industrial complex.