***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.”

[TLO]

Originally Posted by Monticore

also what is the percentage need for herd immunity again 80%?

Yes. I believe the number mentioned was 80%

[O.city]

It depends.

If the RO is like 6, yeah you'd need 80%. If it's 3.5 or so, IIRC, you'd need about 40% or so? I don't remember.

[TLO]

Gonna go ahead and put on my nut cup now. I'm prepared for that swift kick to the nuts that's coming.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by petegz28

The US economy has wiped out all the job gains since the Great Recession
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/23/the-...recession.html


10 years of job gains gone just like that. And people think the economy is just going to do okay until we decide to go outside again?

I'm no economic expert, but theoretically I'd think fixing something that was purposely done is inherently easier than being relatively blindsided by an economic bubble bursting.

Aside from the black or white hysteria/"all is fine", what are the facts at this point? How many of the jobs lost from Covid things will come back immediately? Is there hard evidence at this point that the majority of jobs (or a large chunk) won't come back? If we're at 'great recession' levels now and we're talking about opening things up soon, how exactly would this be worse than that period of time (not saying you said it would be worse, but some people are really acting like it)?

Yeah, the country isn't going to all run out and go to the movies and concerts and travel, etc... small business have already closed and others will. Spending will be down. OTOH.... it's been one month with hopes of ending this fairly soon, yet people are acting like those 20 million people have been unemployed for a year with zero hope of employment.

There are so many variables and unknowns, not sure why we have to jump to the worst case scenario.

[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by O.city

NEW: The first phase of results from a statewide antibody study are in.

We collected approximately 3,000 antibody samples from 40 locations in 19 counties.

Preliminary estimates show a 13.9% infection rate.

— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) April 23, 2020

Given there are 10.6MM people in that area that would be 1.2MM potential infections correct?

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by O.city

NEW: The first phase of results from a statewide antibody study are in.

We collected approximately 3,000 antibody samples from 40 locations in 19 counties.

Preliminary estimates show a 13.9% infection rate.

— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) April 23, 2020

Originally Posted by O.city

So basically 1 in 5 people in NYC have had and are now immune to this virus.

EDIT: Looks like NYC was actually 21%. So that would put the infections in the city at what 1.8 million people?

That's what you'd hope for. I haven't seen info on the antibody test they're using. There is a possibility that other coronaviruses could cause a false positive. I listened to a podcast on 538 with the head of the IHME model and he mentioned that the previous antibody tests had extremely high false positive rates.

Originally Posted by Monticore

Any false positive rate, like picking up other corona virus antibodies? or can you have some antibodies and still not be immune?

Both are possible.

Originally Posted by Monticore

also what is the percentage need for herd immunity again 80%?

Depends on R. The equation is 1-(1/R). If R is 5.7, then I need 1-1/5.7, which is roughly 82%. If it is 3, then it is 1-1/3, or 67% of the population.

However, let's assume that we can limit R through distancing measures. If we can drop it from 4 to 1.5, then we would need 1-1/1.5=33% of the population to contract the virus.

One thing that gives me pause is that, if these numbers are to be believed, the area with the highest density of cases in the United States is still quite far from natural herd immunity.

Disclaimer that all of this is based upon projections that these antibody studies are accurate. For the "let it burn through," crowd, it's also worth considering what happened to their hospital system when they didn't even approach herd immunity.

[mr. tegu]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

This might explain part of the problem in NY.

https://nypost.com/2020/04/21/cuomo-...ragic-goodwin/

What an amazingly stupid policy.

Probably the worst part about this policy is how much faith they are putting into test results. There are way too many false positives and negatives to place people in groups based on those results.

[Monticore]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

That's what you'd hope for. I haven't seen info on the antibody test they're using. There is a possibility that other coronaviruses could cause a false positive. I listened to a podcast on 538 with the head of the IHME model and he mentioned that the previous antibody tests had extremely high false positive rates.




Both are possible.



Depends on R. The equation is 1-(1/R). If R is 5.7, then I need 1-1/5.7, which is roughly 82%. If it is 3, then it is 1-1/3, or 67% of the population.(depending on R0)

However, let's assume that we can limit R through distancing measures. If we can drop it from 4 to 1.5, then we would need 1-1/1.5=33% of the population to contract the virus.

One thing that gives me pause is that, if these numbers are to be believed, the area with the highest density of cases in the United States is still quite far from natural herd immunity.

Disclaimer that all of this is based upon projections that these antibody studies are accurate. For the "let it burn through," crowd, it's also worth considering what happened to their hospital system when they didn't even approach herd immunity.

Could use assume 4x the hospitalizations and 4x the deaths to achieve that herd immunity? if it is 80%

[O.city]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

That's what you'd hope for. I haven't seen info on the antibody test they're using. There is a possibility that other coronaviruses could cause a false positive. I listened to a podcast on 538 with the head of the IHME model and he mentioned that the previous antibody tests had extremely high false positive rates.




Both are possible.



Depends on R. The equation is 1-(1/R). If R is 5.7, then I need 1-1/5.7, which is roughly 82%. If it is 3, then it is 1-1/3, or 67% of the population.

However, let's assume that we can limit R through distancing measures. If we can drop it from 4 to 1.5, then we would need 1-1/1.5=33% of the population to contract the virus.

One thing that gives me pause is that, if these numbers are to be believed, the area with the highest density of cases in the United States is still quite far from natural herd immunity.

Disclaimer that all of this is based upon projections that these antibody studies are accurate. For the "let it burn through," crowd, it's also worth considering what happened to their hospital system when they didn't even approach herd immunity.

Considering all the other tests and info coming in, there seems to be too much similarity to doubt it. I'm guessing we're undercounting our number of infections by 15-25 ish times.

If these were also don't a few weeks ago, you'd have another time of doubling in that area.

[Titty Meat]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

I'm no economic expert, but theoretically I'd think fixing something that was purposely done is inherently easier than being relatively blindsided by an economic bubble bursting.

Aside from the black or white hysteria/"all is fine", what are the facts at this point? How many of the jobs lost from Covid things will come back immediately? Is there hard evidence at this point that the majority of jobs (or a large chunk) won't come back? If we're at 'great recession' levels now and we're talking about opening things up soon, how exactly would this be worse than that period of time (not saying you said it would be worse, but some people are really acting like it)?

Yeah, the country isn't going to all run out and go to the movies and concerts and travel, etc... small business have already closed and others will. Spending will be down. OTOH.... it's been one month with hopes of ending this fairly soon, yet people are acting like those 20 million people have been unemployed for a year with zero hope of employment.

There are so many variables and unknowns, not sure why we have to jump to the worst case scenario.

Its fear porn for sure.

[limested]

Originally Posted by O.city

So basically 1 in 5 people in NYC have had and are now immune to this virus.

EDIT: Looks like NYC was actually 21%. So that would put the infections in the city at what 1.8 million people?

I thought there were verified cases of reinfection?

[petegz28]

he Financial Times said — citing documents accidentally published by the World Health Organization — that remdesivir did not improve patients’ condition or reduce the coronavirus pathogen in their bloodstream.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/22/dow-...ss-claims.html

[O.city]

Originally Posted by limested

I thought there were verified cases of reinfection?

Eh, there was some talk of it, but I think it was deemed not as reinfection but that they had never cleared the initial infection and had a false negative test.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Monticore

Could use assume 4x the hospitalizations and 4x the deaths to achieve that herd immunity?

We might not be able to for hospitalizations anymore in NYC, because their practice seems to have changed. They are sending patients home they would have hospitalized earlier.

Apparently, that's also one of the reasons why the resource use model was so far off- they based resource use for future patients on patients in the initial surge.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by petegz28

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/22/dow-...ss-claims.html

You should quote the entire article.