***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.”

[tk13]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

I didn't assert a POV, I asked a question.
Like I said I want to avoid the politics of it, but it appears that this might be an impossible ask.
You want to discuss the merits of different POVs, I'd be game. But I don't think the mods would assent.

There is, however, an asymmetry. People who risk to continue to perform work duties do have a choice. There's a safety net for those who don't feel able, and they are not being prohibited OR commanded by force of law.

You knew that would create a purely political discussion when you asked that question.

The right answer is we don't know. If 15-20% of the country is unemployed then a lot of people probably aren't going to care how rich people are doing.

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by petegz28

So NY's first reading today is 540 new deaths. By far their lowest in weeks. Now, are they going to report again or is this the only report? They've been going back and forth lately. Yesterday was really weird but whatever.

Who knows.

I’m mainly thinking we should compare today’s numbers with last Saturday’s...

[BossChief]

Originally Posted by petegz28

So NY's first reading today is 540 new deaths. By far their lowest in weeks. Now, are they going to report again or is this the only report? They've been going back and forth lately. Yesterday was really weird but whatever.

Seems from the time I checked JH early yesterday till this morning the death toll in NY alone went from in the 14xxxs to over 17000 now.

Crazy

[TLO]

As DaFace has referenced in the past, they're essentially trying to predict the exact path of a hurricane.

I like to think of it as a snowstorm. (Just because have more experience tracking snow storms as opposed to hurricanes)

Let's say there's a massive snow storm showing up in the models, but it's 2 weeks away from hitting.

The range it is predicting is somewhere between 1 - 36 inches of snow. That's a big discrepancy.

As the storm gets closer to approaching, the models have more data to try and make a more accurate prediction. They're 100% confident the snowstorm will hit, but they still don't know how severe it will be. And to make matters worse, the models don't have a good idea of exactly how fast the storm is moving. It may hit us sooner than expected.

But wait... there's still a ton of variables that the humans feeding the models still don't understand. The model is only as good as the people feeding it information.

Now back to reality. We have learned a lifetime of information about this virus and how it behaves and impacts people and communities. We've learned this information in a very short period of time. Different studies come out almost daily. This all impacts how doctors, nurses, EMT's, healthcare workers, and the federal public respond. It appears the snowstorm is weakening a bit! But we can't be sure..

The snowstorm has already started, and it's obvious we're getting more than an inch of snow. Are we going to get the worst case of 36 inches of snow? Probably not. It's likely going to fall somewhere in the middle.

[TLO]

Originally Posted by petegz28

So NY's first reading today is 540 new deaths. By far their lowest in weeks. Now, are they going to report again or is this the only report? They've been going back and forth lately. Yesterday was really weird but whatever.

I saw that. Hoping that's the only report they have for the day.

[KCUnited]

Feels odd to be pulling for Florida yet here we are.

At least here locally, if the sun is out and over 50 degrees people are going out no matter what. So the closing of parks and lakefronts is almost creating congestion by limiting the space people can go. I don't envy local decision makers.

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by BossChief

Seems from the time I checked JH early yesterday till this morning the death toll in NY alone went from in the 14xxxs to over 17000 now.

Crazy

The only time it really jumped that much was the 14th when they added all the probables in there.

But I don’t follow the JH Numbers much. They seem to be different than all the rest and jump around. Sooner or later they catch up but it’s weird

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by tk13

You knew that would create a purely political discussion when you asked that question.

The right answer is we don't know. If 15-20% of the country is unemployed then a lot of people probably aren't going to care how rich people are doing.

I hoped it wouldn't, but it is frustrating. Because there is a lot of talk about things rife with 'political' implications, particularly in both an era where everything has a political angle, and a specific situation with tons of inherent and unavoidable political considerations. And people seem to have the urge to 'talk about it without talking about it.'

At it's base, I was just musing, with all the talk of the sacrifices that have to happen, will people remember that sacrifices were made. If no one wants to contemplate it, I guess they're free to assert precedent and ignore the antecedent. Just seems odd.

With that, I'll retract. Go about your day.

[TLO]

Originally Posted by SAUTO

The only time it really jumped that much was the 14th when they added all the probables in there.

But I don’t follow the JH Numbers much. They seem to be different than all the rest and jump around. Sooner or later they catch up but it’s weird

I agree 100%. The JH data always seems ahead of what other places are reporting. I'm not sure if they have some sort of insider data or what.

They currently have Missouri at 5,446 cases and 189 deaths.

I'll update the MO DHSS numbers when they come out in about a half an hour, but I'd almost guarantee that they are very close on case count, but will still be ahead on total deaths by a number of 5-10

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by TLO

I agree 100%. The JH data always seems ahead of what other places are reporting. I'm not sure if they have some sort of insider data or what.

They currently have Missouri at 5,446 cases and 189 deaths.

I'll update the MO DHSS numbers when they come out in about a half an hour, but I'd almost guarantee that they are very close on case count, but will still be ahead on total deaths by a number of 5-10

They move the numbers up and down. It’s weird.

Worldometer will explain what happened with their numbers and always seem fairly accurate.

Just scroll towards the bottom and click on the date you want to see.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by TLO

I believe the big scary number came from the Imperial College in London. I believe those were the numbers shown assuming no social distancing was put into place. (Up you 2.2 million American deaths)

That model then backed everything way, way down not too long after. For example they predicted 500l deaths in the UK, then backed it down to 50k.

Not long after that, the White House showed a model that predicted 100k - 240k Americans dying even with social distancing measures in place.

We then learned that the model the White House was using was very similar to the IHME model we all know and love. I distinctly remember Dr. Birx referencing this.

Dr. Fauci then explained that models are good, but we can't base all of our decisions on them. (So many different variables that go into models)

As more information comes in our ability to refine predictions will obviously improve. I've mentioned this twice in the last day, but I think it bears repeating. Regardless of what you initially believed about the models, we are getting enough data in from New York and the infectiousness of the virus to make some baseline assumptions about the death toll that are fairly well grounded.

What we know:
*New York State has a population of 20,000,000
*New York has a death toll of 17,671 at this point
*Tests of suspected COVID patients in New York were 38% as of April 1
*Deaths usually lag about two weeks behind infections

What we are assuming based upon some clinical research:

The low end of the R0 is 2.2, the high end is over 8. One study put the R0 at 5.7

We can plug and chug to help us understand fatality rates, but this is still back of the napkin stuff:

Given that 38% of suspected COVID patients were positive in April (and those are the ones most likely to test positive) and the test has a false negative rate of 30%, at most 47% of people in New York (and I'm counting the entire state, which will greatly elevate the potential number of infected) would have been infected at that time.

That gives us a pool of 9.4 million infections in New York. Although this is highly, highly unlikely, it would give us a lower bound of a fatality rate. As of now it would be 0.19.

Now, if we assume that the R0 is 2.2, then we would need 55% of the population to be infected to reach herd immunity. If the R0 is 5.7, then it's 82%.

Thus, with no mitigation strategies, and assuming that New York had a population that was actually 47% positive (essentially impossible) with no excess deaths, the total death rate from COVID with no mitigation would be:

330,000,000*0.55*0.0019= 344,850

With an R0 of 5.7 it is: 330,000,000*0.82*0.0019=514,140

And that's assuming that hospitals wouldn't be overrun.

If mitigation strategies reduced the R0 (known as Re) of the virus to 1.5, then 1/3 of the population would need to contract the virus for herd immunity. Thus, mitigation strategies, even if they only lowered the infectiousness of the virus by 50% on on the low end, would save this many lives:

(344,850)-330,000,000*0.33*.0019= 137,940

So, given what we know now, even if mitigation strategies were only 50% effective and the virus was at the low end of infectiousness, distancing, shutdowns, mask wearing in public after reopening would save, at minimum, 137,940 lives.

I can definitely see how the model came to an estimate of 1.1-2.2 million deaths without mitigation, because if New York ends up with 40,000 dead, then, by definition, the CFR couldn't be less than 0.2%, even if every single person in the state was infected, which is an impossibility.

[Donger]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the "common cold" have R0 figures of around 6?

[TLO]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

and the test has a false negative rate of 30%,

I'm not doubting or discounting this - it just blows my mind that a test could be this inaccurate.

I remember Dr. Birx talking a while back about the test being very accurate, but it has to be administered correctly. (Obviously)

I wonder if improper testing is leading to higher false negative numbers.

[petegz28]

Originally Posted by TLO

I'll put this here and update it when our 2pm numbers come out

Per MO DHSS website

Cases in Missouri: 5,283

Total Deaths: 165

Patients tested in Missouri (by all labs): approximately 53,525
As of 2:00 p.m. CT, April 17

(Prediction of deaths reported today will be somewhere between 178 - 184 This is my own personal prediction)

That does not sound right. That means no new cases and -17 new deaths

Or is that for yesterday?

[Monticore]

Originally Posted by TLO

I'm not doubting or discounting this - it just blows my mind that a test could be this inaccurate.

They are picking your nose to try and figure out what is going on in your body , how the test was done, viral load/shedding in nasal cavity, accuracy of test itself etc.


Some viruses like mono can test negative even when you are positive just because the viral load isn't enough, negative 1 day positive tomorrow.