***NON-POLITICAL COVID-19 Discussion Thread***

[JakeF]

A couple of reminders...

Originally Posted by Bwana

Once again, don't come in this thread with some kind of political agenda, or you will be shown the door. If you want to go that route, there is a thread about this in DC.

Originally Posted by Dartgod

People, there is a lot of good information in this thread, let's try to keep the petty bickering to a minimum.

We all have varying opinions about the impact of this, the numbers, etc. We will all never agree with each other. But we can all keep it civil.

Thanks!

Click here for the original OP:

Spoiler!

Apparently the CoronaVirus can survive on a inanimate objects, such as door knobs, for 9 days.

California coronavirus case could be first spread within U.S. community, CDC says
By SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA, JACLYN COSGROVE
FEB. 26, 2020 8:04 PM

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating what could be the first case of novel coronavirus in the United States involving a patient in California who neither recently traveled out of the country nor was in contact with someone who did.

“At this time, the patient’s exposure is unknown. It’s possible this could be an instance of community spread of COVID-19, which would be the first time this has happened in the United States,” the CDC said in a statement. “Community spread means spread of an illness for which the source of infection is unknown. It’s also possible, however, that the patient may have been exposed to a returned traveler who was infected.”

The individual is a resident of Solano County and is receiving medical care in Sacramento County, according to the state Department of Public Health.

The CDC said the “case was detected through the U.S. public health system — picked up by astute clinicians.”

Officials at UC Davis Medical Center expanded on what the federal agency might have meant by that in an email sent Wednesday, as reported by the Davis Enterprise newspaper.

The patient arrived at UC Davis Medical Center from another hospital Feb. 19 and “had already been intubated, was on a ventilator, and given droplet protection orders because of an undiagnosed and suspected viral condition,” according to an email sent by UC Davis officials that was obtained by the Davis Enterprise.

The staff at UC Davis requested COVID-19 testing by the CDC, but because the patient didn’t fit the CDC’s existing criteria for the virus, a test wasn’t immediately administered, according to the email. The CDC then ordered the test Sunday, and results were announced Wednesday. Hospital administrators reportedly said in the email that despite these issues, there has been minimal exposure at the hospital because of safety protocols they have in place.

A UC Davis Health spokesperson declined Wednesday evening to share the email with The Times.

Since Feb. 2, more than 8,400 returning travelers from China have entered California, according to the state health department. They have been advised to self-quarantine for 14 days and limit interactions with others as much as possible, officials said.

“This is a new virus, and while we are still learning about it, there is a lot we already know,” Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “We have been anticipating the potential for such a case in the U.S., and given our close familial, social and business relationships with China, it is not unexpected that the first case in the U.S. would be in California.”

It is not clear how the person became infected, but public health workers could not identify any contacts with people who had traveled to China or other areas where the virus is widespread. That raises concern that the virus is spreading in the United States, creating a challenge for public health officials, experts say.

“It’s the first signal that we could be having silent transmission in the community,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. “It probably means there are many more cases out there, and it probably means this individual has infected others, and now it’s a race to try to find out who that person has infected.”

On Tuesday, the CDC offered its most serious warning to date that the United States should expect and prepare for the coronavirus to become a more widespread health issue.

“Ultimately, we expect we will see coronavirus spread in this country,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “It’s not so much a question of if, but a question of when.”

According to the CDC’s latest count Wednesday morning, 59 U.S. residents have tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus — 42 of whom are repatriated citizens from a Diamond Princess cruise. That number has grown by two since Messonnier’s last count Tuesday, although the CDC was not immediately available to offer details on the additional cases.

More than 82,000 cases of coronavirus have been reported globally, and more than 2,700 people have died, with the majority in mainland China, the epicenter of the outbreak.

But public health leaders have repeatedly reminded residents that the health risk from the novel coronavirus to the general public remains low.

“While COVID-19 has a high transmission rate, it has a low mortality rate,” the state Department of Public Health said in a statement Wednesday. “From the international data we have, of those who have tested positive for COVID-19, approximately 80% do not exhibit symptoms that would require hospitalization. There have been no confirmed deaths related to COVID-19 in the United States to date.”

CDC officials have also warned that although the virus is likely to spread in U.S. communities, the flu still poses a greater risk.

Gostin said the news of potential silent transmission does not eliminate the possibility of containing the virus in the U.S. and preventing an outbreak.

“There are few enough cases that we should at least try,” he said. “Most of us are not optimistic that that will be successful, but we’re still in the position to try.”

[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by Donger

Well, the 50% compliance was clearly a guess, as it had to be, but apparently the 90% is known with much higher certainty, no? I'd like to find out how they got that figure, though. I thought I read something about mobile phone tracking, but that's a can of worms that I'd rather not open at this stage.

You know what grade Missouri had last week on the mobile phone tracking app for social distancing?

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

You know what grade Missouri had last week on the mobile phone tracking app for social distancing?

No.

[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by Donger

No.

C

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by Donger

CDC considers loosening guidelines for some exposed to virus

https://apnews.com/fab319a90ead9aae057f7fab059c2ccb


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering changing its guidelines for self-isolation to make it easier for those who have been exposed to someone with the coronavirus to return to work if they are without symptoms.

The public health agency, in conjunction with the White House coronavirus task force, is considering an announcement as soon as Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence said.

Under the proposed guidance, people who are exposed to someone infected would be allowed back on the job if they have no symptoms, test their temperature twice a day and wear a face mask, said a person familiar with the proposal under consideration. The person was not authorized to publicly discuss the draft because it had not been finalized and described the proposal on the condition of anonymity.

Snip

A far simpler and more reliable solution would be to get serology testing out to the public and then if someone has antibodies and is fever and symptom free for X number of days, they are cleared to do whatever they want.

You can debate almost every aspect of our response to this but I find it hard to justify how little emphasis was placed on getting serology testing rolled out as soon as possible.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

Apparently no one wants to actually answer your question

His question was answered multiple times.

Originally Posted by DaFace

I'm not defending the model. I'm just pushing back on the idea that it's appropriate to react with "OMG THE MODELS ARE ALL WRONG AND WE SHOULD NEVER HAVE DONE ANYTHING!!!!!111!!ONE!!!" when the numbers shift.

If a Category 5 hurricane is making a beeline for Miami, is it not appropriate for leaders to tell people to GTFO? That happens regularly (well, maybe not Cat 5 necessarily), and it's not at all uncommon for storms to shift and end up veering off into the ocean and not impacting people on land much, if at all. Does that mean that, in the future, leaders should just tell people to stay put even if all the models show a Cat 5 hurricane bearing down? Absolutely not. Ignoring the model entirely could result in a huge catastrophe and thousands of people dead.

This isn't any different. It appears that, through a combination of better understanding of the "storm" by watching its track and our own mitigation efforts, the models are now suggesting that the damage won't be as severe. That doesn't mean that the model was "wrong" in the first place - it just means that better information has resulted in a different understanding.

Again, models should be taken with a grain of salt. But you seem to keep implying that they're completely useless and should be ignored. Doing that would certainly have resulted in far more deaths than we're seeing right now, and that's not really debatable.

I just don't understand what point you're trying to make other than...

Originally Posted by Fat Elvis

I don't think Marcellus understands how modeling works, nor how small changes in the beginning of a time period can lead to *huge* overall changes to final outcome numbers; think of it as compound interest.

Four weeks ago, if you had told me that the numbers the government were basing their projections on were predicated on a 50% compliance rate, I would of told you that it was a pie-in-the-sky projection. I thought we would be lucky to get 25% compliance. But 90% compliance? Never in my wildest dreams did I think that was possible because, quite honestly, I thought there were more morons like Marcellus, Pete, and KCChiefsfan88 running around.

I think one thing that really, really spooked (and by spooked, in a good way) people were the images coming out of Italy before the shit really hit the fan in the US. Those images were simply shocking and looked like a real life nightmare. People did not want *that* so it made it much easier to convince them to follow safe distancing protocols. Because people followed those protocols much, much better than anticipated, our overall infection and death rates were much, much lower than early model projections.

So yes, the math actually does add up.

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

The same guy who yesterday had to be taught about super spreaders is now excoriating a model for ineffectiveness while also not understanding how 90% adherence leads to far, far less growth in a virus that spreads exponentially when not contained.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

My understanding is that it is not based on any hard data at all. It is based on going back over the data and finding a figure that fits the reality. Actually it's a whole set of figures that are adjusted to make the models' algorithms fit the data.

You start with an educated guess and adjust as more hard data comes in. The problem is that (as shown by an alternate model in the UK) you can have vastly different models that fit with the limited data we have at this point.

I'm sure that we all would love to have nothing but hard data, but that's not realistic. Call me crazy, but I just don't believe that there's anything nefarious going on here. They just seem to be doing the best they can with what they have. And no, I'm not saying that that is what you're doing. Others are, however.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

C

That's nice. And what does that "grade" mean in terms of numbers and who gave it?

[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by Donger

I'm sure that we all would love to have nothing but hard data, but that's not realistic. Call me crazy, but I just don't believe that there's anything nefarious going on here. They just seem to be doing the best they can with what they have. And no, I'm not saying that that is what you're doing. Others are, however.

I'm not nor have I ever implied it was anything nefarious.

What's interesting is that the info on the virus we have been given from the start has been false, inaccurate, inconsistent, and or flat out wrong it seems like we have all stated at some time it's hard to know what to actually believe.

But if someone has a difference in opinion then obviously they must be wrong.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Donger

Well, the 50% compliance was clearly a guess, as it had to be, but apparently the 90% is known with much higher certainty, no? I'd like to find out how they got that figure, though. I thought I read something about mobile phone tracking, but that's a can of worms that I'd rather not open at this stage.

Explain this - the idea of social distancing is to flatten the curve, yes? And in flattening the curve, you lower the peak. Agreed?

Yet universally, in EVERY one of those models, the consensus was that by flattening the curve and lowering the peak, you push said peak out. Because of course you do, that's how mitigation operates.

And yet the peaks are moving in. MASSIVELY. By over a month in Missouri. Nothing about higher rates of social distancing would've caused that. Sure, it might yield lower overall figures but it wouldn't simply rush the peak forward by several weeks.

You fellas are so eager to take these guys at face value that it just blows my mind. Yeah, I'm sure the explanation they give, which just so happens to reinforce the thing they said to do anyway, was the right one. Nevermind the fact that there's an internal logical failure to it. Even when they showed 'social distancing vs. no social distancing' in their own models, the lowered peak was always further out. There was never an argument that any amount of social distancing, 20%, 50% or 100% would move the peak in.

This is the "I care too much" of interview answers. "We were just TOO right, guys. We knew how important social distancing was and look, the fact that we were off by enormous numbers even at the BOTTOM of our uncertainty curves just proves how right we were!!!" Oh, and the fact that we saw in real time that social distancing was going along at rates far higher than 50% for over a week, 'updated' our model twice in that period of time and STILL couldn't get within 1/4 of our claimed figures....nah, don't worry about that little guy.

FFS. Y'all shit on any study that uses SARS or MERS as a baseline yet the Imperial College model was nothing BUT an recycled SARS model. And it assumed total social distancing in its best case scenario (Ferguson swore by that when he was preaching his gloom and doom) - shockingly, the IMHE model tracked right along with it.

And now you're just taking their justifications, ones that just happen to make them look good despite being catastrophically wrong, at face value and assuming these kindly scientists and mathematicians who will absolutely be using their 'performance' as a basis for grants, etc... had clearly pure motives as they were rushing models to the front with literally no reliable real-world data.

Sure guys - you were just too damn right. Thank you, oh noble 'experts'. You've proven your worth in spades throughout this thing.

[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by Donger

That's nice. And what does that "grade" mean in terms of numbers and who gave it?

I have no idea who wrote the app or programmed the grading system but one must assume you know what a "C" grade implies.

[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Explain this - the idea of social distancing is to flatten the curve, yes? And in flattening the curve, you lower the peak. Agreed?

Yet universally, in EVERY one of those models, the consensus was that by flattening the curve and lowering the peak, you push said peak out. Because of course you do, that's how mitigation operates.

And yet the peaks are moving in. MASSIVELY. By over a month in Missouri. Nothing about higher rates of social distancing would've caused that. Sure, it might yield lower overall figures but it wouldn't simply rush the peak forward by several weeks.

You fellas are so eager to take these guys at face value that it just blows my mind. Yeah, I'm sure the explanation they give, which just so happens to reinforce the thing they said to do anyway, was the right one. Nevermind the fact that there's an internal logical failure to it. Even when they showed 'social distancing vs. no social distancing' in their own models, the lowered peak was always further out. There was never an argument that any amount of social distancing, 20%, 50% or 100% would move the peak in.

This is the "I care too much" of interview answers. "We were just TOO right, guys. We knew how important social distancing was and look, the fact that we were off by enormous numbers even at the BOTTOM of our uncertainty curves just proves how right we were!!!" Oh, and the fact that we saw in real time that social distancing was going along at rates far higher than 50% for over a week, 'updated' our model twice in that period of time and STILL couldn't get within 1/4 of our claimed figures....nah, don't worry about that little guy.

FFS. Y'all shit on any study that uses SARS or MERS as a baseline yet the Imperial College model was nothing BUT an recycled SARS model. And it assumed total social distancing in its best case scenario (Ferguson swore by that when he was preaching his gloom and doom) - shockingly, the IMHE model tracked right along with it.

And now you're just taking their justifications, ones that just happen to make them look good despite being catastrophically wrong, at face value and assuming these kindly scientists and mathematicians who will absolutely be using their 'performance' as a basis for grants, etc... had clearly pure motives as they were rushing models to the front with literally no reliable real-world data.

Sure guys - you were just too damn right. Thank you, oh noble 'experts'. You've proven your worth in spades throughout this thing.

You should have just type the math doesn't add up in all caps, much shorter and concise.

[kgrund]

Originally Posted by Donger

I'm sure that we all would love to have nothing but hard data, but that's not realistic. Call me crazy, but I just don't believe that there's anything nefarious going on here. They just seem to be doing the best they can with what they have. And no, I'm not saying that that is what you're doing. Others are, however.

I would agree by and large they are doing the best they can with terrible data, which unfortunately is the core of any model worth using. The only thing I will add is they most certainly have a degree of fudge in their projections. Far easier to defend why you overestimated something as opposed to underestimating something when lives are at risk. By and large a model in which actual data is not falling within the upper and lower range of a projection is a really bad model.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

I'm not nor have I ever implied it was anything nefarious.

What's interesting is that the info on the virus we have been given from the start has been false, inaccurate, inconsistent, and or flat out wrong it seems like we have all stated at some time it's hard to know what to actually believe.

But if someone has a difference in opinion then obviously they must be wrong.

Do you want me to go back through your posts in this thread?

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Donger

The funny part is that you just mentioned that you understand linear compared to exponential growth.

You just are apparently horrible with math, or have another agenda.

Guy on message board: "You have another agenda!!"

Academic leaders: "Pillars of nobility who are never beholden to political pressure..."

Makes sense.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Explain this - the idea of social distancing is to flatten the curve, yes? And in flattening the curve, you lower the peak. Agreed?

Yet universally, in EVERY one of those models, the consensus was that by flattening the curve and lowering the peak, you push said peak out. Because of course you do, that's how mitigation operates.

Yes.

I don't know if what you claim in the second paragraph is accurate or not. Would you like to link one?