Formerly DT: COVID-19 - Featuring Lots of Politics, now CR because political talk not going away

[atomheartbevo 90058]

1 hour ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I have to admit that I’m thinking about slowly stockpiling a few grocery items. If and when coronavirus starts to spread in the US, grocery stores will be hit hard. When a hurricane enters the Gulf, people empty stores even though most likely they only need food and water for 1-3 days max.  And that’s if it actually hits them.

imagine a scenario where you might want to avoid leaving home for a month? You might need to take a gun to Kroger in order to get your groceries to your car.

If you want to be entertained and informed, and maybe horrified (there is some good info there though)

https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comments/f9msc8/what_type_of_provisions_should_i_buy_at_the_store/

https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comments/f9namp/im_in_the_us_and_want_to_start_getting_prepared/

https://www.reddit.com/r/PandemicPreps/comments/f3dvkl/the_megaguide_for_the_flu_pandemic_survival_and/

 

Edited February 26, 2020 by atomheartbevo

[bernorange 8375]

Just now, Txzen said:

The virus is most similar to SARS which in general is spread from respiratory droplets and has poor survivability on surfaces. ...

So, I looked it up...

Quote

...
But how long can the new coronavirus linger on surfaces, anyway? The short answer is, we don't know. But if this new coronavirus resembles other human coronaviruses, such as its "cousins" that cause SARS and MERS, it can stay on surfaces —  such as metal, glass or plastic — for as long as nine days, according to a new study. (In comparison, flu viruses can last on surfaces for only about 48 hours.)
...

https://www.livescience.com/how-long-coronavirus-last-surfaces.html

[TXSG8R 3362]

12 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

It's been a few decades since I went through basic training and NBC training (nuclear, biological, chemical), but I feel confident in saying that average people who find themselves directly exposed to the virus will fuck up dealing with the mask after exposure, and keeping the virus from getting on their hands/face/hair.  

The Chinese have publicly admitted to 3,000+ healthcare professionals coming down with it.  A Japanese quarantine officer who went onto the cruise ship came down with it.   A bunch of Iranian officials came down with it (and Iran has had somewhat recent experience with chemical/biological weapons thanks to their little spats with Iraq).  These are people that, in theory have access to areas for disinfecting and trained co-workers to help with disinfecting, that Joe B. Smith from Pflugerville won't have.  And Joe B. Smith is not going to be wearing full PPE either.

If you're going to be serious about it, be very clean-shaven (sorry, no beards, you might get away with a goatee at most), have plenty of gloves, have an area away from your house, and be prepared to go through a lot of clothing.

I don't want to discourage people from doing the mask thing, but being the father of two young kids, I have come to realize just how often people touch their faces/clothes, and if you come into contact with somebody who's actively got the virus, the virus particles that the mask can keep you from inhaling are still going to end up on your cloths, hands, neck, hair, etc.

I dont think anyone is remotely ready for full CBRN processes/procedures.  I think the big problem with a lot of the early exposures for most health officials is they were using very basic PPE (surgical masks and gloves) because no one understood how transmittable this thing is.  Surgical masks are there to protect the patient from the doctor, not the other way around.  N95 masks or full blown respirator masks are much more effective for preventing the stuff getting in through your airway.  The bigger problem AFAIK, is how long its staying active on surfaces, so even masks arent going to make a shit if you dont have a method from keeping things from moving into "clean" areas.  Thats why these cruise ships are fucked, lots of people in a very compressed area all touching the same stuff.  Quarantining them in their rooms is pointless when their food/dishes/linens are all cycling through the staff, thats touching all the same shit throughout the ship.  

[Asithappens 974]

22 minutes ago, TXSG8R said:

So the virus is supposed to stay active on surfaces for 9 days I think I read?  If thats true, what are all our preppers doing to deal with disinfecting all the stuff they will come in contact with?  Costco pallet of Lysol to spray down every package and non-perishable item?  Wash station for all your veggies prior to letting them in the house?  Gallon jugs of hand sanitizer for everything you touch outside your home?  

Right.

 From an analytical view, my interests (assuming I don't die from covid-19) are:

1. Risk analysis. Humans can exhibit some faulty thinking here (see Kahneman). We're not stupid, it's just how we are wired. One death in South Korea is "breaking news". Meanwhile, how many people will die from tobacco use? Today? 

2. Marginal costs, which ties into

3. the psychology of "just doing something". Our fears are more assuaged if something is done, even if that something is ineffective, because we can more easily convince (fool?) ourselves that we have some control over events. Especially if we have kids. It puts our minds at ease, so that's a plus. 

Now, we all make assumptions and mine may be wrong. But imo the virus is already out there. We're not gonna stop it from spreading. Will it kill a lot? I hope not. 

[Loco 3754]

that list is bullshit...   How much beer are we supposed to have per person?  huh?  Riddle me that!

[Asithappens 974]

24 minutes ago, bernorange said:

Seems to me that folks stocking up on canned food, water and toilet paper aren't really thinking this through.

But it makes people feel better and gives the sense that we can control this.  And that feeling is not a bad thing. Just don't use that feeling to make poor public health decisions. 

[Asithappens 974]

10 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Sure, you can have it without having a temp.  In fact, the majority of people most likely don't get too sick (based on cases in the West so far).  As a very high-profile example on the temp thing - take that interview I posted several pages back, with that dumb bitch and her husband (the Philly fans) who lied about having a negative test (they didn't have their results) before getting on the charter, and then developing the fever while being repatriated back to the US.

Say that was a normal flight - they come down with a fever on the 18-hour flight (or however long) to the US.  They get checked at the airport as they leave the plane, have a fever (they aren't quarantining people who are below 99, and maybe not even low 99's).  They are quarantined on the spot, and the people who were directly around them are notified and tracked.  You've just taken two spreaders out of circulation, and hopefully you caught them before they had exposed too many people - people at work, family members, people at the grocery store, church etc.

You are focusing on the trees.  Step back and look at the forest.   The fact that you are bringing up the cost of and the chances should make you realize that this is not about eliminating every possible transmission vector.

This is more about making sure that our healthcare system isn't overwhelmed, by trying to eliminate the low-hanging fruit (people with obvious symptoms that need to be tested and tracked).

Austin has around a million people in and round it.  We only have around 5,000 or so hospital beds according to the Chamber of Commerce, and a big chunk of those are in use already (accidents, serious illnesses, etc.).  With a hospitalization rate of around 10-20%, it would not take many people at all to completely overwhelm a city like Austin.

Let's talk about Houston - around 20,000 hospital beds for an area with 4 million people.

Are you seeing where this becomes a problem?

Well yeah, I see the problem.

I also see how checking the temp of every single person coming over from the Pacific  is a fool's errand (imo). 

You seem to think that if there are 100 people with the virus and we identify 90 of them, then we're good. What about the other 10 that we don't/can't get? 

I guess I'm fixating on your comment of it being negligent to not check the temp of every single person coming in from the Pacific. I couldn't disagree more.

[MNLonghornFUKM 8916]

Wore a PPE suit to work today, got some high fives and some weird looks

[Bevo 13637]

2 minutes ago, Asithappens said:

Right.

 From an analytical view, my interests (assuming I don't die from covid-19) are:

1. Risk analysis. Humans can exhibit some faulty thinking here (see Kahneman). We're not stupid, it's just how we are wired. One death in South Korea is "breaking news". Meanwhile, how many people will die from tobacco use? Today? 

2. Marginal costs, which ties into

3. the psychology of "just doing something". Our fears are more assuaged if something is done, even if that something is ineffective, because we can more easily convince (fool?) ourselves that we have some control over events. Especially if we have kids. It puts our minds at ease, so that's a plus. 

Now, we all make assumptions and mine may be wrong. But imo the virus is already out there. We're not gonna stop it from spreading. Will it kill a lot? I hope not. 

If 20% of people get the virus this year, a lot fewer people will die compared to if 50% of people get the virus. I know it is obvious, but keep it in mind when I go through the rest of this. A vaccine should be available in 2021 so if the disease spreads next year it should be somewhat contained. So the goal this year is to limit the spread of disease as much as possible which will limit deaths in both the short and long run.

[Goredho 17512]

I am personally not afraid of the virus.   I accept that my wife, kids and I will probably become infected, have a rough couple weeks but ultimately the odds are vastly in our favor to recover.

But while sick, should I run down to HEB to pick up some groceries?  Or should I be quarantined (by self or a public health authority) to avoid propagating the spread of the virus?  Could we make it to the grocery store if we wanted to?  It’s 8 miles away down a dirt road that gets 20 feet of snow a year and requires healthy county maintenance workers to keep plowed and open.  We often receive snowstorms through May.

Those are my concerns.  And the concerns of the CDC.  It’s the disruption to essential services and supply chains if a significant part of our population gets severely ill.  No doomsday death plague prep.  Just prep to not venture out of our home for a few weeks.

Edited February 26, 2020 by Goredho

[StruggleBus 3922]

35 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

It's been a few decades since I went through basic training and NBC training (nuclear, biological, chemical), but I feel confident in saying that average people who find themselves directly exposed to the virus will fuck up dealing with the mask after exposure, and keeping the virus from getting on their hands/face/hair.  

The Chinese have publicly admitted to 3,000+ healthcare professionals coming down with it.  A Japanese quarantine officer who went onto the cruise ship came down with it.   A bunch of Iranian officials came down with it (and Iran has had somewhat recent experience with chemical/biological weapons thanks to their little spats with Iraq).  These are people that, in theory have access to areas for disinfecting and trained co-workers to help with disinfecting, that Joe B. Smith from Pflugerville won't have.  And Joe B. Smith is not going to be wearing full PPE either.

If you're going to be serious about it, be very clean-shaven (sorry, no beards, you might get away with a goatee at most), have plenty of gloves, have an area away from your house, and be prepared to go through a lot of clothing.

I don't want to discourage people from doing the mask thing, but being the father of two young kids, I have come to realize just how often people touch their faces/clothes, and if you come into contact with somebody who's actively got the virus, the virus particles that the mask can keep you from inhaling are still going to end up on your cloths, hands, neck, hair, etc.

I’ll get rid of my beard when I’m dead

[TXSG8R 3362]

1 minute ago, Goredho said:

I am personally not afraid of the virus.   I accept that my wife, kids and I will probably become infected, have a rough couple weeks but ultimately the odds are vastly in our favor to recover.

But while sick, should I run down to HEB to pick up some groceries?  Or should I be quarantined (by self or a public health authority) to avoid propagating the spread of the virus?  Could we make it to the grocery store if we wanted to?  It’s 8 miles away down a dirt road that gets 20 feet of snow a year and requires healthy county maintenance workers to keep plowed and open.  We often receive snowstorms through May.

Those are my concerns.  And the concerns of the CDC.  It’s the disruption to essential services and supply chains if a significant part of our population gets sick.  No doomsday death plague prep.  Just prep to not venture out of our home for a few weeks.

Do you even HEB curbside service brah?

[atomheartbevo 90058]

2 minutes ago, Asithappens said:

Well yeah, I see the problem.

I also see how checking the temp of every single person coming over from the Pacific  is a fool's errand (imo). 

You seem to think that if there are 100 people with the virus and we identify 90 of them, then we're good. What about the other 10 that we don't/can't get? 

I guess I'm fixating on your comment of it being negligent to not check the temp of every single person coming in from the Pacific. I couldn't disagree more.

Actually, you don't see the problem.  Nobody here is saying we can fully contain it.

Using your example, if we could quarantine 90% of the people coming in to the US with the virus, that would be fucking awesome.  Absolutely fucking awesome.  Because, we will have a much better chance of providing the needed care for the cases that result from the 10% that slipped in.

I really don't think you comprehend what 5,000 hospital beds in Austin or 20,000 beds in Houston means.   Maybe one of the Surly med professionals can help - @ChiTownDoc or somebody can inform you, but most of those beds are not empty most of the time.

I also don't think you comprehend what a 10-20% hospitalization rate means, and I really don't think you comprehend how intensive this care is - this isn't the flu where it kicks your ass for a few days - this is putting a good chunk of people into a very limited supply of hospital beds for 2-3 weeks, and they are having to be treated by medical professionals in PPE gear.

And I wonder how much PPE hospitals have on hand, when the Health and Human Services Secretary is saying they only have 30 million masks and need 300 million more.

[B00M 6584]

21 hours ago, Helobious said:

It’s hard to imagine it getting to apocalyptic levels like you and others on here predict. For example I’d be shocked if it isn’t currently being transmitted openly across the US. I wouldn’t even be surprised if I have been exposed to it already. 

Huh? For weeks now, people simply being tested for coronavirus has made national headlines... By now everyone that gets the flu is suspected of having covid, but you think Americans are openly spreading it and no one is getting to the pneumonia phase, which is like day 8-9? 

[atomheartbevo 90058]

5 minutes ago, TXSG8R said:

Do you even HEB curbside service brah?

[atomheartbevo 90058]

36 minutes ago, TexasGolf said:

yes absolutely stock up on Clorox wipes and straight clorox, Windex etc... medicine and personal items for 90 days, propane/propane cook top.  stop touching face

So how do you teach little kids that.  Rub peppers on their hands?

[B00M 6584]

2 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Actually, you don't see the problem.  Nobody here is saying we can fully contain it.

Using your example, if we could quarantine 90% of the people coming in to the US with the virus, that would be fucking awesome.  Absolutely fucking awesome.  Because, we will have a much better chance of providing the needed care for the cases that result from the 10% that slipped in.

I really don't think you comprehend what 5,000 hospital beds in Austin or 20,000 beds in Houston means.   Maybe one of the Surly med professionals can help - @ChiTownDoc or somebody can inform you, but most of those beds are not empty most of the time.

I also don't think you comprehend what a 10-20% hospitalization rate means, and I really don't think you comprehend how intensive this care is - this isn't the flu where it kicks your ass for a few days - this is putting a good chunk of people into a very limited supply of hospital beds for 2-3 weeks, and they are having to be treated by medical professionals in PPE gear.

And I wonder how much PPE hospitals have on hand, when the Health and Human Services Secretary is saying they only have 30 million masks and need 300 million more.

This, so much this. Anything we can do to slow the spread is good. Now is not the time for arrogance.

[DallasHorn26 586]

17 hours ago, Armin Tamzarian said:

I had a shop teacher one time named Turd Wallet. Used to drive the bus, too. Only had one thumb. Nasty motherfucker.

My shop teacher in Jr high was Richard Head

[atomheartbevo 90058]

33 minutes ago, TXSG8R said:

But what is the process?  Are you bleaching all your mail/packages? 

https://www.usps.com/manage/hold-mail.htm

33 minutes ago, TXSG8R said:

Dunk station for all your non-perishables?  Drop station for your clothing with a bleach scrub before going into the house?  Im not shitting on the idea, just genuinely curious how people think this will function.  If this thing lives on surfaces as long as they say it does, masks are barely a band-aid to the problem.  

Yeah, that's the thing that bugs me about the masks.  I'd rather just eliminate the need to go out and interact with people for a while if/when SHTF.

[Goredho 17512]

36 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Sure, you can have it without having a temp.  In fact, the majority of people most likely don't get too sick (based on cases in the West so far).  As a very high-profile example on the temp thing - take that interview I posted several pages back, with that dumb bitch and her husband (the Philly fans) who lied about having a negative test (they didn't have their results) before getting on the charter, and then developing the fever while being repatriated back to the US.

Say that was a normal flight - they come down with a fever on the 18-hour flight (or however long) to the US.  They get checked at the airport as they leave the plane, have a fever (they aren't quarantining people who are below 99, and maybe not even low 99's).  They are quarantined on the spot, and the people who were directly around them are notified and tracked.  You've just taken two spreaders out of circulation, and hopefully you caught them before they had exposed too many people - people at work, family members, people at the grocery store, church etc.

You are focusing on the trees.  Step back and look at the forest.   The fact that you are bringing up the cost of and the chances should make you realize that this is not about eliminating every possible transmission vector.

This is more about making sure that our healthcare system isn't overwhelmed, by trying to eliminate the low-hanging fruit (people with obvious symptoms that need to be tested and tracked).

Austin has around a million people in and round it.  We only have around 5,000 or so hospital beds according to the Chamber of Commerce, and a big chunk of those are in use already (accidents, serious illnesses, etc.).  With a hospitalization rate of around 10-20%, it would not take many people at all to completely overwhelm a city like Austin.

Let's talk about Houston - around 20,000 hospital beds for an area with 4 million people.

Are you seeing where this becomes a problem?

Even if a measure prevents no cases, but simply throttles them to where we have less of a surge in a short amount of time, that's a win for our healthcare services.

[Ths71 472]

At the very least, we should have been checking the temps of everybody coming over from the Pacific.  That’s negligence.  Yeah, people that took meds to keep their fever down could slip through, but these are long flights, and we’ve already seen Americans from the Cruise Ship from Hell developing fevers on their flights home.  
Speaking of, another 14 cases on that cruise ship, so it’s over 700 cases now.   
 

Went to Vietnam in 2005 when Avian flu was a thing. When we deplaned for our layover in Seoul, some guy in a uniform grabbed us an stuck a digital thermometer on our necks. Kinda scary.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Judge Roybeanbag 11825]

48 minutes ago, TexasGolf said:

  stop touching face

 

Um, that's not your face.

[Bevo 13637]

1 minute ago, Ths71 said:

Went to Vietnam in 2005 when Avian flu was a thing. When we deplaned for our layover in Seoul, some guy in a uniform grabbed us an stuck a digital thermometer on our necks. Kinda scary.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[wild_turkey 3222]

I’m a physician who interacts with 40-50 patients on a daily basis. I’m assuming this will spread throughout the U.S. within the next 1-2 months, and based on my high degree of interaction with other people, it seems very likely that I will be exposed.

I’m young and pretty healthy but I do have an autoimmune condition and take medicine that both technically make me immunocompromised. Not sure if that’s truly a concern with this virus because other common illnesses (cold, flu) don’t seem to be a significant problem for me.

But I do wonder if the virus begins popping up in my city, at what point a nonessential medical practice should close to limit the spread. I’d hate to be responsible for transmitting it to 10 new people daily for an appointment that could probably wait a few months.

I’m hoping for the scenario where it either burns out as the weather warms up, or for some reason or another it turns out to be much less virulent in our country.

[Poe It Up 126]

I was talking to a friend of mine that’s a doctor yesterday and made a joke about wearing a mask. He seems to think that wearing a mask doesn’t do much good at all. Any amount of moisture, which apparently doesn’t take much time, and the mask is useless. Also, the constant adjusting/removing actually encourages you to touch your face. So I thanked him for the advice, hung up the phone, and finished purchasing my masks.

[SydneyCarton 48315]

2 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

I’m a physician who interacts with 40-50 patients on a daily basis. I’m assuming this will spread throughout the U.S. within the next 1-2 months, and based on my high degree of interaction with other people, it seems very likely that I will be exposed.

I’m young and pretty healthy but I do have an autoimmune condition and take medicine that both technically make me immunocompromised. Not sure if that’s truly a concern with this virus because other common illnesses (cold, flu) don’t seem to be a significant problem for me.

But I do wonder if the virus begins popping up in my city, at what point a nonessential medical practice should close to limit the spread. I’d hate to be responsible for transmitting it to 10 new people daily for an appointment that could probably wait a few months.

I’m hoping for the scenario where it either burns out as the weather warms up, or for some reason or another it turns out to be much less virulent in our country.

In all fairness, how realistic is this? I understand the warm weather thing, and that's fine. But the much less virulent thing? I understand the concept of areas of the world with less than sanitary conditions, like China, or even areas of Brazil, the middle east perhaps, but when I consider Italy, I assume living conditions and sanitation and health facilities to be fair compared to the united states. Granted, this is an assumption on my part, so correct me if I'm mistaken anyone. 

In other words, how often, all things being equal, is a virus less virulent to a population country to country?

[RollLeft 5045]

6 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

I’m a physician who interacts with 40-50 patients on a daily basis. I’m assuming this will spread throughout the U.S. within the next 1-2 months, and based on my high degree of interaction with other people, it seems very likely that I will be exposed.

I’m young and pretty healthy but I do have an autoimmune condition and take medicine that both technically make me immunocompromised. Not sure if that’s truly a concern with this virus because other common illnesses (cold, flu) don’t seem to be a significant problem for me.

But I do wonder if the virus begins popping up in my city, at what point a nonessential medical practice should close to limit the spread. I’d hate to be responsible for transmitting it to 10 new people daily for an appointment that could probably wait a few months.

I’m hoping for the scenario where it either burns out as the weather warms up, or for some reason or another it turns out to be much less virulent in our country.

Turn your first waiting room into a sauna and then the second waiting room into a hotter sauna.  

[RollLeft 5045]

2 minutes ago, Poe It Up said:

I was talking to a friend of mine that’s a doctor yesterday and made a joke about wearing a mask. He seems to think that wearing a mask doesn’t do much good at all. Any amount of moisture, which apparently doesn’t take much time, and the mask is useless. Also, the constant adjusting/removing actually encourages you to touch your face. So I thanked him for the advice, hung up the phone, and finished purchasing my masks.

...cause like me you believe just because a "Dr." said it don't make it all gospel.  

[Bevo 13637]

3 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

I’m a physician who interacts with 40-50 patients on a daily basis. I’m assuming this will spread throughout the U.S. within the next 1-2 months, and based on my high degree of interaction with other people, it seems very likely that I will be exposed.

I’m young and pretty healthy but I do have an autoimmune condition and take medicine that both technically make me immunocompromised. Not sure if that’s truly a concern with this virus because other common illnesses (cold, flu) don’t seem to be a significant problem for me.

But I do wonder if the virus begins popping up in my city, at what point a nonessential medical practice should close to limit the spread. I’d hate to be responsible for transmitting it to 10 new people daily for an appointment that could probably wait a few months.

I’m hoping for the scenario where it either burns out as the weather warms up, or for some reason or another it turns out to be much less virulent in our country.

If your problem is something like psoriasis, I wonder if it makes sense to take something vs. dealing with the autoimmune condition this year (just a thought). What will you tell people who are on low dose corticosteroids? I'm just curious what the protocol will be for both minor autoimmune disease issues and even asthma where people take a steroid inhaler. I assume it is just to do a cost-benefit analysis. Overall, steroid inhalers are considered safe but I wonder if this virus changes the equation.

PS. Thanks for volunteering your name for the Surly dead pool.

[Newdoc 3465]

56 minutes ago, TXSG8R said:

If this thing lives on surfaces as long as they say it does, masks are barely a band-aid to the problem.  

It’s about reducing chances of exposure. You won’t get it to zero if you live in society. But you shouldn’t live fool hardy once it gets here.

I’m not worried about the virus itself causing a lot of health problems among the relatively healthy but I am worried about people’s reaction to it in our society and the overwhelming of our healthcare system.

My home hospital is currently full and has 23 people in hold in the emergency department as of this morning. There is no capacity for coronavirus patients.

[atomheartbevo 90058]

50 minutes ago, Asithappens said:

1. Risk analysis. Humans can exhibit some faulty thinking here (see Kahneman). We're not stupid, it's just how we are wired. One death in South Korea is "breaking news". Meanwhile, how many people will die from tobacco use? Today? 

One death in South Korea is not news.  Every new country that is added to the list is news.  Italy going from a half-dozen cases to 300+ cases in a few days is news.

I don't give a flying fuck about how many people will die from tobacco use, because no smoker is going to give me lung cancer because they coughed around me.

This coronovirus variation?  I have plenty of older/elderly relatives with underlying conditions.  I do not want them to die or spend weeks in the hospital because some dipshit with the virus coughed around them.  I don't want to have to worry about my wife or in-laws or kids catching it either.

Quote

2. Marginal costs, which ties into

3. the psychology of "just doing something". Our fears are more assuaged if something is done, even if that something is ineffective, because we can more easily convince (fool?) ourselves that we have some control over events. Especially if we have kids. It puts our minds at ease, so that's a plus. 

Dude, you really need to stop and think about how woefully unprepared we are for something on this scale.  Try to put this in perspective:  In less than a month, China added nearly four times as many hospital beds to the Wuhan area as Austin has in total. Just for the virus.

Before I had kids, like you, I was extremely ignorant of our healthcare system - I'd go in occasionally because of the flu or my yearly checkup, but I would usually be in and out of a doctor's office or clinic quickly.

Once I had kids?  I've had a handful of times where we had to go to an ER, plus we got to spend a few nights in the hospital while my wife was giving birth.  That was a fucking eye-opener and a half.  Unless you are dying on the spot, spending a shitload of time in waiting rooms at a hospital is the norm here.  And when my wife was having our kids, while they didn't rush us out of the hospital room before they were sure everything was okay, they made it absolutely clear they wanted us out of there ASAP.  And I've seen one of our local hospitals setting up tents to deal with people who had the flu/flu-like symptoms.

I would be shocked if Austin could handle more than a thousand cases of coronavirus that needed hospitalization.  And we are fairly small.

Edited February 26, 2020 by atomheartbevo

[RollLeft 5045]

4 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

In all fairness, how realistic is this? I understand the warm weather thing, and that's fine. But the much less virulent thing? I understand the concept of areas of the world with less than sanitary conditions, like China, or even areas of Brazil, the middle east perhaps, but when I consider Italy, I assume living conditions and sanitation and health facilities to be fair compared to the united states. Granted, this is an assumption on my part, so correct me if I'm mistaken anyone. 

In other words, how often, all things being equal, is a virus less virulent to a population country to country?

Do you even NYC bro?  

[InkaUtexas 26366]

I doubt this is the only one. 

 

[atomheartbevo 90058]

49 minutes ago, Asithappens said:

But it makes people feel better and gives the sense that we can control this.  And that feeling is not a bad thing. Just don't use that feeling to make poor public health decisions. 

Poor public health decisions on the part of China's government is why we are having this discussion in the first place.

And we can't control it, but we can mitigate our risks/exposure, and we can try and make sure that the resources are available for those who become seriously ill.

Transmission rates aren't fixed - even simple things can help reduce those rates, which, when extrapolated over weeks/months, it helps everybody - helps keep our personal financial costs down, helps keep our healthcare system from being overwhelmed, helps keep our economy going.

[Ths71 472]

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Helobious 9506]

Masks are entirely worthless without goggles and gloves too. Also there’s roughly a 100% chance you’ll fuck up the removal/disposal of your safety gear if you’re not a medical professional. But at least you feel like you’re doing something.

[Asithappens 974]

1 hour ago, Bevo said:

If 20% of people get the virus this year, a lot fewer people will die compared to if 50% of people get the virus. I know it is obvious, but keep it in mind when I go through the rest of this. A vaccine should be available in 2021 so if the disease spreads next year it should be somewhat contained. So the goal this year is to limit the spread of disease as much as possible which will limit deaths in both the short and long run.

Well yeah, but in the absence of a vaccine, it's only luck that 20% become infected rather than 50%. My point is that if there is enough of the virus to get 20% infected, then it's open season for everyone. By next year we're all gonna have been exposed. That assumption may be incorrect. But the genie is out of the bottle, imo. 

Now, if we have a vaccine, then everyone should jump on that train. 

I guess I'm saying that it's unrealistic to think that we can "contain" the virus for a year. 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2020 by Asithappens

[Pato del Muerto 52886]

41 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Actually, you don't see the problem.  Nobody here is saying we can fully contain it.

Using your example, if we could quarantine 90% of the people coming in to the US with the virus, that would be fucking awesome.  Absolutely fucking awesome.  Because, we will have a much better chance of providing the needed care for the cases that result from the 10% that slipped in.

I really don't think you comprehend what 5,000 hospital beds in Austin or 20,000 beds in Houston means.   Maybe one of the Surly med professionals can help - @ChiTownDoc or somebody can inform you, but most of those beds are not empty most of the time.

I also don't think you comprehend what a 10-20% hospitalization rate means, and I really don't think you comprehend how intensive this care is - this isn't the flu where it kicks your ass for a few days - this is putting a good chunk of people into a very limited supply of hospital beds for 2-3 weeks, and they are having to be treated by medical professionals in PPE gear.

And I wonder how much PPE hospitals have on hand, when the Health and Human Services Secretary is saying they only have 30 million masks and need 300 million more.

Is that hospitalization rate artificially high because of the severity/misreporting of wuhan cases, or is it that high across the board?  We might not know until it runs through a population that can track cases, won’t propagandize the numbers, and has a fairly healthy populace to begin with. 
South Korea?  Japan?  USA?

[Asithappens 974]

24 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

One death in South Korea is not news.  Every new country that is added to the list is news.  Italy going from a half-dozen cases to 300+ cases in a few days is news.

I don't give a flying fuck about how many people will die from tobacco use, because no smoker is going to give me lung cancer because they coughed around me.

This coronovirus variation?  I have plenty of older/elderly relatives with underlying conditions.  I do not want them to die or spend weeks in the hospital because some dipshit with the virus coughed around them.  I don't want to have to worry about my wife or in-laws or kids catching it either.

Dude, you really need to stop and think about how woefully unprepared we are for something on this scale.  Try to put this in perspective:  In less than a month, China added nearly four times as many hospital beds to the Wuhan area as Austin has in total. Just for the virus.

Before I had kids, like you, I was extremely ignorant of our healthcare system - I'd go in occasionally because of the flu or my yearly checkup, but I would usually be in and out of a doctor's office or clinic quickly.

Once I had kids?  I've had a handful of times where we had to go to an ER, plus we got to spend a few nights in the hospital while my wife was giving birth.  That was a fucking eye-opener and a half.  Unless you are dying on the spot, spending a shitload of time in waiting rooms at a hospital is the norm here.  And when my wife was having our kids, while they didn't rush us out of the hospital room before they were sure everything was okay, they made it absolutely clear they wanted us out of there ASAP.  And I've seen one of our local hospitals setting up tents to deal with people who had the flu/flu-like symptoms.

I would be shocked if Austin could handle more than a thousand cases of coronavirus that needed hospitalization.  And we are fairly small.

I think you should care about how many people will die from tobacco use. 

Because if they are smoking, then there is second-hand smoke (or even third-hand, if you are of that ilk). 

People die from that. It's a slower death, to be sure, and doesn't raise the alarm bells like covid-19. 

I give a flying fuck about tobacco deaths b/c those deaths are preventable for the smoker and for those who live/are around the smoker. 

But that's an aside. I guess you and I will have to be on separate sides of these issues. 

*** edit to add ***

Another thing, imo, to highlight the questionable statement that one doesn't give a flying fuck about tobacco deaths: use of tobacco is a public health concern, and can create comobidities that result in more deaths from things like, wait for it, covid-19.

It's like they think this thing can be viewed in isolation from all other public health concerns. Imo, it cannot. 

If you don't give a fuck about tobacco deaths (for the reasons given) then you're a crackpot.

Edited February 26, 2020 by Asithappens

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13153]

51 minutes ago, StruggleBus said:

I’ll get rid of my beard when I’m dead

Well, yeah.

[atomheartbevo 90058]

5 minutes ago, Helobious said:

Masks are entirely worthless without goggles and gloves too. Also there’s roughly a 100% chance you’ll fuck up the removal/disposal of your safety gear if you’re not a medical professional. But at least you feel like you’re doing something.

No, you're wrong.  See, when you remove your mask and goggles and gloves, you use just one hand.  Then you wash your hands, paying careful attention to the hand that removed the gear.  But then you have to wash the faucet handle, because you may have touched it with your dirty hand.  But then you touched the dirty faucet while washing it with your clean hand.  And you're not sure which hand you touched the soap dispenser with.   Oh shit.

[InkaUtexas 26366]

that is why everything gets sprayed with bleach/lysol when done. It is a pain in the ass, but not rocket science. one thing that happens to health care people (see Ebola outbreak) is they are tired as shit and make mistakes. 

[NoName 16622]

1 hour ago, Asithappens said:

I still think this is way overblown. I saw a "breaking news" tweet about one (yes, one) death in South Korea. Could this be a pandemic that kills millions? Maybe. 

It's an interesting view on risk analysis, imo. Most of the disruption (almost all) is due to the reaction/fear of the virus. As far as deaths go, the numbers are very, very low relative to other health issues. It's not surprising that elderly with comorbidities may die at a greater frequency.

It's also an interesting study in how the internet feeds into this fear. 

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe 50 million will die. Maybe I'll be one of them. I doubt it, though. 

South Korea had 3 infected and 0 deaths from initial SARS in 03/04

per Johns Hopkins dashboard here they are currently at 1261 infected and 12 deaths

"very very low relative to other health issues"

Quote

Generally speaking, seasonal flu is still a much more common threat than this coronavirus, however, novel emerging coronaviruses represent a considerable threat to global health as evidenced by the new 2019-nCoV,” said Ralph Baric, PhD, an epidemiology professor at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. “But the reason the new coronavirus is so concerning is that it’s much more likely to be deadly than the flu – fatal for about one in 25 people versus one in 1,000 for the flu.”

 

[MNLonghornFUKM 8916]

No, you're wrong.  See, when you remove your mask and goggles and gloves, you use just one hand.  Then you wash your hands, paying careful attention to the hand that removed the gear.  But then you have to wash the faucet handle, because you may have touched it with your dirty hand.  But then you touched the dirty faucet while washing it with your clean hand.  And you're not sure which hand you touched the soap dispenser with.   Oh shit.

Then you fap

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4980]

I'm just going to use a PAPR from work and switch all my light bulbs out for black lights to kill the virus, so I should be good.

[ChiTownDoc 21229]

53 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Actually, you don't see the problem.  Nobody here is saying we can fully contain it.

Using your example, if we could quarantine 90% of the people coming in to the US with the virus, that would be fucking awesome.  Absolutely fucking awesome.  Because, we will have a much better chance of providing the needed care for the cases that result from the 10% that slipped in.

I really don't think you comprehend what 5,000 hospital beds in Austin or 20,000 beds in Houston means.   Maybe one of the Surly med professionals can help - @ChiTownDoc or somebody can inform you, but most of those beds are not empty most of the time.

I also don't think you comprehend what a 10-20% hospitalization rate means, and I really don't think you comprehend how intensive this care is - this isn't the flu where it kicks your ass for a few days - this is putting a good chunk of people into a very limited supply of hospital beds for 2-3 weeks, and they are having to be treated by medical professionals in PPE gear.

And I wonder how much PPE hospitals have on hand, when the Health and Human Services Secretary is saying they only have 30 million masks and need 300 million more.

Definitely not my specialty but yes you’re right in that we just don’t have that many hospitals with excess bed capacity.  My biggest contract is with NW here in Chicago and their downtown hospital operates 95% full.  All their hospitals combined over 90%.  
 

Will try to post more details and thoughts on the whole thing later but personally I don’t see it as a major threat in the US.  That’s an educated (slightly) guess.  

[atomheartbevo 90058]

2 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Is that hospitalization rate artificially high because of the severity/misreporting of wuhan cases, or is it that high across the board?  We might not know until it runs through a population that can track cases, won’t propagandize the numbers, and has a fairly healthy populace to begin with. 
South Korea?  Japan?  USA?

It's the intubation and fluid maintenance for a few weeks, and and the need for caregivers to be in PPE that is the problem for hospitalization.

It's a great question.  China really fucked the rest of us by trying to cover up so much at the beginning, and the fact that they still have something like 20 makeshift hospitals being built/converted in Wuhan makes me wonder what the true numbers are (and I doubt they truly know).

I don't trust their infected numbers in Wuhan, because in order to match the 2% mortality rate they are claiming, that means there's a good 120,000+ that are actually infected (right now, the death vs recovered is still around 10% but has been dropping as more recover).

I also don't trust their infected and recovered, because they were only testing people who made it into the hospitals and/or were admitted.

South Korea and Italy are going to be our best scenarios for figuring this out, because it's surging and starting to hit their healthcare systems.  

[Sbbruin 21912]

IMO get enough for 60 days for your family and 2 other families/neighbors who did not. 

And then sell it to them for 5x your price. Smart thinking.

[JesusSweatDuck 17814]

1 hour ago, Txzen said:

The virus is most similar to SARS which in general is spread from respiratory droplets and has poor survivability on surfaces. Wouldn’t worry about packages unless the mailman sneezed on it. Spray with 70% alcohol, or 10% bleach and and wipe.  

You're wrong here.  The cruise ship outbreak was caused by a person who was on the PRIOR cruise and had already gotten off the ship and was asymptomatic while on the ship.  The people on the next cruise then started getting sick.

[atomheartbevo 90058]

28 minutes ago, Goredho said:

Even if a measure prevents no cases, but simply throttles them to where we have less of a surge in a short amount of time, that's a win for our healthcare services.

This is where I'm at.  We are picking up some extra stuff over the next few days, not because of a zombie apocalypse, but because if things get bad, we can cut down on our exposure simply by staying in and not having to go to the grocery store or whatever.

And I think some people are doing the prepping thing wrong - we are buying stuff that we would normally buy and use, but just doing a month or two's worth.  It's stuff we will consume/use with no problems going forward.

We normally keep around a week's worth of stuff anyways (hurricane habit from her being raised in Houston and me spending a lot of time there in high school and later on).