***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.”

[Monticore]

Originally Posted by Donger

It's not arbitrary at all.

March 21 = 374 deaths
April 21 = 45,318 deaths

with preventative measures in place with a few hot spots , not equally spread across the country.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by petegz28

Yes it is. How do you know we didn't have anyone die from this before we started keeping count?

That isn't relevant to his statement of fact:

That's 45,000 people dead in one month.

[Monticore]

Originally Posted by petegz28

Yes it is. How do you know we didn't have anyone die from this before we started keeping count?

How many more 200? 20000? either way you look at it is still bad.

[petegz28]

Originally Posted by Monticore

We most likely missed some as well with this theory.

I'm sure we missed a lot. I mean every day we are finding out this hit the country sooner than we thought. We are also being told more people up to a factor of 55 really have this virus.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Monticore

with preventative measures in place with a few hot spots , not equally spread across the country.

Yes. I shudder to think what they would have been without it.

[petegz28]

Originally Posted by Monticore

How many more 200? 20000? either way you look at it is still bad.

Who knows? That is sorta my point. I am not disagreeing with his take just stating that the 300 number could very easily be more but we aren't counting them for obvious reasons.

[DaFace]

Good lord. More debates about the exact numbers. WHY??????

[mr. tegu]

This is a few weeks old but not sure if it was posted. Yes I’m aware it hasn’t been peer reviewed so try to contain yourself from mentioning that. It’s pretty subjective but interesting anyways.

Abstract

Detection of SARS-CoV-2 infections to date has relied on RT-PCR testing. However, a failure to identify early cases imported to a country, bottlenecks in RT-PCR testing, and the existence of infections which are asymptomatic, sub-clinical, or with an alternative presentation than the standard cough and fever have resulted in an under-counting of the true prevalence of SARS-CoV-2. Here, we show how publicly available CDC influenza-like illness (ILI) outpatient surveillance data can be repurposed to estimate the detection rate of symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections. We find a surge of non-influenza ILI above the seasonal average and show that this surge is correlated with COVID case counts across states. By quantifying the number of excess ILI patients in March relative to previous years and comparing excess ILI to confirmed COVID case counts, we estimate the syndromic case detection rate of SARS-CoV-2 in the US to be approximately 1 our of 100. This corresponds to at least 28 million presumed symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 patients across the US during the three week period from March 8 to March 28. Combining excess ILI counts with the date of onset of community transmission in the US, we also show that the early epidemic in the US was unlikely to be doubling slower than every 3.5 days. Together these results suggest a conceptual model for the COVID epidemic in the US in which rapid spread across the US are combined with a large population of infected patients with presumably mild-to-moderate clinical symptoms. We emphasize the importance of testing these findings with seroprevalence data, and discuss the broader potential to use syndromic time series for early detection and understanding of emerging infectious diseases.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....01.20050542v2

[petegz28]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Good lord. More debates about the exact numbers. WHY??????

Why not?

[Donger]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Good lord. More debates about the exact numbers. WHY??????

Why not?

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by petegz28

Why not?

Because people come to this thread to keep up on the latest news and information, but about every other day we go for 100-200 posts in a row where all you're doing is debating minutiae that doesn't matter. We've gone from "not many deaths" to "a **** ton of deaths" in a month. Why is it so critical to agree on some exact number that we all know is pretty rough anyway?

It's why I keep joking about forcing "debate the numbers" talk into its own thread. It's just useless and clutters up what is otherwise mostly good conversation.

[sedated]

Originally Posted by petegz28

I mean every day we are finding out this hit the country sooner than we thought.

No, we're not.

Where are you getting this bullshit?

[Monticore]

Originally Posted by petegz28

Who knows? That is sorta my point. I am not disagreeing with his take just stating that the 300 number could very easily be more but we aren't counting them for obvious reasons.

I just know Influenza is very dangerous and deadly and people are not scared enough of it (45% of adults over 18 get the flu shot in US), this is worse(by how much who knows) , more complicated with no vaccine and natural immunity.

That is all that people should be considering at this point trying to makes sense of numbers at this point will make you go crazy and could potentially cause harm because depending on how you look at the numbers it could mislead people into thinking this isn't serious.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Because people come to this thread to keep up on the latest news and information, but about every other day we go for 100-200 posts in a row where all you're doing is debating minutiae that doesn't matter. We've gone from "not many deaths" to "a **** ton of deaths" in a month. Why is it so critical to agree on some exact number that we all know is pretty rough anyway?

It's why I keep joking about forcing "debate the numbers" talk into its own thread. It's just useless and clutters up what is otherwise mostly good conversation.

I can't agree. Having more deaths in one month from this thing compared to a normal flu season IS news and information.

But, I digress.

[petegz28]

Originally Posted by sedated

No, we're not.

Where are you getting this bullshit?

Coronavirus US live: first Covid-19 deaths were weeks earlier than originally thought
https://www.theguardian.com/world/li...t-news-updates

This is just the latest from today....