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

[0xdeadbeef 1648]

3 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

There are going to be plenty of case studies about how the US completely fucked up something that much smaller countries are handling much better.    And it’s not just this, and it’s unfortunate that Hahn was the one who originally said it - he was a higher-up at M.D. Anderson.   

Pretty sure all the studies done in the future will show that it didn't really matter what actions the US or Europe took as far as testing and local containment went and that there was no chance for the world to contain this once it blew up in Wuhan.Testing would move up the timetable for us to panic, but only a totalitarian government and a submissive people, like China, have a chance to contain this.

It's the asymptomatic spreader that makes this impossible to stop.

If we were testing aggressively we might show as many as a few thousand cases, but we still couldn't stop it.

 

 

[lonestarsooner 121]

17 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

My typical pace is about 4 segs/week, but I'm off that pace right now due to idiotic internal meetings and more direct flights, so I've only got like 20 right now. We're going into travel freeze though, even for sales, so the trip monday had  to get executive leadership approval. I'm likely grounded for the forseeable future. 

That’s the perfect scenario I mentioned in a post above about this affecting people’s status for next year. Would love to see some analysis at the end of the year regarding how may people have hotel/airline status downgrades this year versus a normal year. 

Edited March 6, 2020 by lonestarsooner

[bolverk 29660]

For those interested in a map showing where cases are popping up, I highly recommend this one from Johns Hopkins:

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

[Surly Bevo 24908]

So serious question because admittedly no epidemiologist etc here.  This thread started back in January, likely CoVID19 was around in December.  Most seem to think that it has generally been poorly contained, even China took some time before they went full totalitarian lock down.  

At this point we have ~100K confirmed cases, in basically almost 3 months.  So on the surface that number being so infinitesimally small as a percentage of population that it's not worth calculating makes me think that while we can be uncertain all day about CFR does this thing really spread that fast/easily?   I know that was the thought at the beginning but just doesn't seem to be playing out that way, at least insomuch as what we are seeing in confirmed cases.   Now if we want to think that the actual number of cases/carriers far exceed the number of confirmed cases and this thing really is fast spreading, then we are back to the issue of is the CFR really that significant against other respiratory illness etc.

I get the "it can take up to 14 days for symptoms to show up" line of thought but it also seems most seem to think that is more the exception. Also understand the testing issues (but again testing aside if there were tons of people getting their asses kicked by this you wouldn't need a test...shit would be out of control in hospitals, doctor's offices, etc)

Just random questions as I think the unknowns are still what makes this dangerous and worth paying attention to but at the same time on the surface when you step back from it a little the notion of it as this thing that is going to sweep through mass parts of the population is hard to wrap the head around as it seems like our awareness of each and every case in this digital age may be an issue of forest and trees.

[closetojumping 62604]

18 minutes ago, 2300 Nueces said:

Maybe you and your cocksucking hero deniro can catch it and give us a reference but I have a feeling you'll be running to the ER for a swab.

Ha. The jokes on you, sir. I've been prepping for this moment for most of my adult life. I have a bunch of little kids, so I'm pretty, prettay sure that I'm immune. Beyond that, one of my brothers is a doctor and has already loaded me up on various needs for when the apocalypse comes. Beyond beyond that, as a Surly 1%er, naturally I own a medical treatment company and we stocked all the way the fuck up on zinc, vitamin c, a bunch of other medical shit, and 3 months of inventory worth of lactated ringers. The hype around this thing is going to be a boon. Also also also, we've immediately started ratcheting up pricing in order to profiteer all over the face of this thing. You're welcome.

So no, I won't be running to the ER for a swab. I'm going to be packing my little petri dishes masked as children into as many airports, planes, and crowded places as I can for the next 3 months, hoping that we get lucky and they brush-up next to you and sneeze all over the fucking place. I bet you have multiple doctors on speed dial that you pester daily, so it shouldn't be anything new, I guess. 

[atomheartbevo 89648]

19 minutes ago, nycHorn said:

Shit man. I thought I was bad.
Miami next week, Orlando the week after, Denver to Aspen the following week. If I’m still alive after, I’ll try my luck with Moscow in April.

If you make it through all of that unscathed, you should probably go hang with Raydog for a week or two, let him introduce you to some of his girlfriends.  Then you should play the lottery, because you’ll probably win.

[BLKNSTY 289]

Thots and players.

color me impressed.

[atomheartbevo 89648]

9 hours ago, RayDog said:

It sounds like 69 with an infected woman could be really bad for me.

41 minutes ago, RayDog said:

The Philippines has a case of local transmission now. He is Muslim and had a stall at a popular mall and attended prayers regularly. So there is probably a big cluster in Manila.

You should probably check in with this thread 1-2 times a day so we know you’re alive.  Maybe we should have a bat signal for you.  

[Bevo 13576]

54 minutes ago, NoName said:

Man made with a CFR this low? 

Someone is shitty at their job in that case.

Yeah, this is definitely not genetically engineered. It shares way too much homology with known coronaviruses. But, it would not surprise me to find that it escaped the Wuhan lab. Unless it can be proven, though, it is kind of a moot point.

[JesusSweatDuck 17781]

13 minutes ago, NoName said:

Again, with a CFR that low it's not high enough to be successful and it's impossible to keep from spreading. So you created something that both doesn't kill enough people and ends up coming to your country and killing your people too. 

So someone is shitty at their job if this is a bioweapon.

The interesting thing is that it seems we always had two strains, or it has mutated into a more deadly and less deadly strain.  Initial signs point to most of the critical cases in China being caused by the more deadly strain.  Will be interesting to see how this develops.  I believe this is the same thing we saw with the Spanish flu, where it eventually mutated into a less deadly strain.

[JesusSweatDuck 17781]

Posting again since edit time has past and it didn't embed properly

 

 

[Txzen 498]

1 hour ago, Tailgate said:

Good map of just U.S.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html

I’m looking forward to the eventual epidemiology reports on this - fascinating to me that the first site of outbreak were not around major travel hubs (Atlanta, Chicago, NY, Houston). We first saw it in Vacaville, Kirkland, Rhode Island, Tennessee. Clearly a lot we don’t understand yet. 

[Brisketexan 105095]

36 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

Because this site is littered with shitty lawyers.

I beg your pardon, good sir -- we have the finest experts on bird law in the business.

13 minutes ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

Pretty sure all the studies done in the future will show that it didn't really matter what actions the US or Europe took as far as testing and local containment went and that there was no chance for the world to contain this once it blew up in Wuhan.Testing would move up the timetable for us to panic, but only a totalitarian government and a submissive people, like China, have a chance to contain this.

It's the asymptomatic spreader that makes this impossible to stop.

If we were testing aggressively we might show as many as a few thousand cases, but we still couldn't stop it.

We aren't going to stop it or contain it, and I don't think that any rational strategy would even have that goal.

Our goal should be to slow the rate of spread so we can attenuate it/spread it out to avoid crashing our hospital/healthcare system.  We can handle 200 people at a time hitting Austin hospitals for oxygen and ventilators, and we can do that for a long time.  We can't handle 2,000 needing oxygen and ventilation all at once.  Slow the rate of spread, and we can avoid crashing our hospitals, which means that we can provide better care to the critical patients, lowering the death rate.  To me, that's the goal now.

[Pescado_Rojo 19416]

1 hour ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

I haven’t seen a change yet either. I’m out and back to NYC through JFK early next week, though, and the ticket was CHEAP.

yea, I'm going fishing in Mexico in May, and I started looking at tickets a month or so ago, but held off on buying. They've gone from close to $500 to about $350 RT in the last week. May hold off a little bit longer just for giggles. 

[JesusSweatDuck 17781]

1 minute ago, Txzen said:

I’m looking forward to the eventual epidemiology reports on this - fascinating to me that the first site of outbreak were not around major travel hubs (Atlanta, Chicago, NY, Houston). We first saw it in Vacaville, Kirkland, Rhode Island, Tennessee. Clearly a lot we don’t understand yet. 

Seattle at least has a very high Chinese population so that one makes sense.  No idea about the others.

[RayDog 682]

I feel pretty certain there are already clusters in the major hubs.

[Trey3216 15346]

34 minutes ago, nycHorn said:

Shit man. I thought I was bad.
Miami next week, Orlando the week after, Denver to Aspen the following week. If I’m still alive after, I’ll try my luck with Moscow in April.

In Russia, bat soup eat you  

[G650 14249]

44 minutes ago, Loco said:

If Italy does have a Baby Boom after this quarantine can we refer to them as Bat Babies?

Goddamn the Weekly World News gonna sell trillions.

[Liquor and Poker 3659]

So has SK seen continued exponential-style infection rate growth or did it peak and level off, slow percentage-wise, etc.?

Not trusting anything from China at this point - not just case numbers but also not sure I buy the “fibroid lungs” thing, the “suppresses non-voluntary breathing“ thing, or the “the meaner strain is more successfully contained there” thing.  So I feel like SK is the controlled test case.  

[atomheartbevo 89648]

15 minutes ago, JesusSweatDuck said:

The interesting thing is that it seems we always had two strains, or it has mutated into a more deadly and less deadly strain.  Initial signs point to most of the critical cases in China being caused by the more deadly strain.  Will be interesting to see how this develops.  I believe this is the same thing we saw with the Spanish flu, where it eventually mutated into a less deadly strain.

I’m really thinking the Iran one is the same as what tore through Wuhan.    

[HenryJames 66041]

45 minutes ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Almost no point in testing people at this juncture

wut

[InkaUtexas 25907]

Just now, atomheartbevo said:

I’m really thinking the Iran one is the same as what tore through Wuhan.    

if so that means the Gulf is screwed. Most cases came from Iran. 

[G650 14249]

29 minutes ago, lonestarsooner said:

This is going to screw up a lot of people’s status for next year though

I thought I would be safe from this crap if I stayed off Flyertalk.

[atomheartbevo 89648]

10 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Our goal should be to slow the rate of spread so we can attenuate it/spread it out to avoid crashing our hospital/healthcare system.  We can handle 200 people at a time hitting Austin hospitals for oxygen and ventilators, and we can do that for a long time.  We can't handle 2,000 needing oxygen and ventilation all at once.  Slow the rate of spread, and we can avoid crashing our hospitals, which means that we can provide better care to the critical patients, lowering the death rate.  To me, that's the goal now.

The bit about the hospitalized need a good 2-3 weeks in the hospital is important.   Oh, and the healthcare workers needing full PPE when dealing with them as well.   Those two things will bite us in the ass unless we can spread things out far enough.  

[Doc Sam Beckett 5792]

13 minutes ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

yea, I'm going fishing in Mexico in May, and I started looking at tickets a month or so ago, but held off on buying. They've gone from close to $500 to about $350 RT in the last week. May hold off a little bit longer just for giggles. 

Volaris is having a really good promotion right now. 

[pacman 7355]

We have a Spring Break cruise to the Bahamas coming up. Carnival is allowing us to reschedule or get free money for drinks, if we keep our current schedule.

 

I am choosing drinks.

[JesusSweatDuck 17781]

4 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

I’m really thinking the Iran one is the same as what tore through Wuhan.    

I'd say the same thing about Kirkland with the way it's tearing through the olds there.

[atomheartbevo 89648]

4 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

if so that means the Gulf is screwed. Most cases came from Iran. 

Which I think is why the Saudis were being so proactive on the Mecca front.   They may claim to only have two cases, but they sure as hell have solid intel on what’s going on in Iran.  

[Liquor and Poker 3659]

1 minute ago, pacman said:

We have a Spring Break cruise to the Bahamas coming up. Carnival is allowing us to reschedule or get free money for drinks, if we keep our current schedule.

 

I am choosing drinks.

I’d pick not going on a cruise. 

[GreenspointTexas 9600]

RIP Pacman

[BrickHorn 18218]

3 minutes ago, pacman said:

We have a Spring Break cruise to the Bahamas coming up. Carnival is allowing us to reschedule or get free money for drinks, if we keep our current schedule.

 

I am choosing drinks.

Good thinking.  You don’t want to be thirsty while you’re choking to death on coronavirus.

[InkaUtexas 25907]

2 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Which I think is why the Saudis were being so proactive on the Mecca front.   They may claim to only have two cases, but they sure as hell have solid intel on what’s going on in Iran.  

and in their own country. I do not buy the low numbers. 

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

30 minutes ago, Surly Bevo said:

So serious question because admittedly no epidemiologist etc here.  This thread started back in January, likely CoVID19 was around in December.  Most seem to think that it has generally been poorly contained, even China took some time before they went full totalitarian lock down.  

At this point we have ~100K confirmed cases, in basically almost 3 months.  So on the surface that number being so infinitesimally small as a percentage of population that it's not worth calculating makes me think that while we can be uncertain all day about CFR does this thing really spread that fast/easily?   I know that was the thought at the beginning but just doesn't seem to be playing out that way, at least insomuch as what we are seeing in confirmed cases.   Now if we want to think that the actual number of cases/carriers far exceed the number of confirmed cases and this thing really is fast spreading, then we are back to the issue of is the CFR really that significant against other respiratory illness etc.

I get the "it can take up to 14 days for symptoms to show up" line of thought but it also seems most seem to think that is more the exception. Also understand the testing issues (but again testing aside if there were tons of people getting their asses kicked by this you wouldn't need a test...shit would be out of control in hospitals, doctor's offices, etc)

Just random questions as I think the unknowns are still what makes this dangerous and worth paying attention to but at the same time on the surface when you step back from it a little the notion of it as this thing that is going to sweep through mass parts of the population is hard to wrap the head around as it seems like our awareness of each and every case in this digital age may be an issue of forest and trees.

With the exception of SK and China no one is testing enough so we don't have an idea how bad this really is. If you are pointing to the relatively low number of attributed deaths, I would first point out that they have almost quadrupled in the last month. Additionally, I linked to an article from CBS earlier where a woman mentioned that her elderly parent from Seattle elderly Care center died of "natural causes" and they refused to test the body for coronavirus. I wonder how many of these "natural causes" deaths should really be attributed to that?

[Goredho 17399]

21 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I beg your pardon, good sir -- we have the finest experts on bird law in the business.

We aren't going to stop it or contain it, and I don't think that any rational strategy would even have that goal.

Our goal should be to slow the rate of spread so we can attenuate it/spread it out to avoid crashing our hospital/healthcare system.  We can handle 200 people at a time hitting Austin hospitals for oxygen and ventilators, and we can do that for a long time.  We can't handle 2,000 needing oxygen and ventilation all at once.  Slow the rate of spread, and we can avoid crashing our hospitals, which means that we can provide better care to the critical patients, lowering the death rate.  To me, that's the goal now.

Anytime someone new visits this thread, this should be a pop up alert that they have to read before posting.

[Doc Reeves 6434]

Saudi’s are absolutely full of shit

[TXSooner518 2438]

57 minutes ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Almost no point in testing people at this juncture

 

its not like people with cold symptoms are gonna quarantine themselves anyway

Which is why there needs to be widely available testing at low or no cost. If I get fever and a cough, I may not quarantine, but if I can go get tested, see I have it, then I would. Also, you test to make sure asympomatic people aren't spreading it. Guy posted yesterday that his uncle has it, confirmed, but his aunt has no symptoms, so they aren't testing her. She's free to roam. That is gross negligence. She should obviously be tested to help reduce the spread.

38 minutes ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

Pretty sure all the studies done in the future will show that it didn't really matter what actions the US or Europe took as far as testing and local containment went and that there was no chance for the world to contain this once it blew up in Wuhan.Testing would move up the timetable for us to panic, but only a totalitarian government and a submissive people, like China, have a chance to contain this.

It's the asymptomatic spreader that makes this impossible to stop.

If we were testing aggressively we might show as many as a few thousand cases, but we still couldn't stop it.

 

 

As has been posted over and over, slowing the spread is YUGE as far as crippling effects on our economy and health care system. 100,000 hospitalized over a 6 month period is dramatically different than over a 1 month period. 

[Brisketexan 105095]

6 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

The bit about the hospitalized need a good 2-3 weeks in the hospital is important.   Oh, and the healthcare workers needing full PPE when dealing with them as well.   Those two things will bite us in the ass unless we can spread things out far enough.  

Correct.

Also, we should already be mobilizing military medical resources.  We have the ability to set up functioning field hospitals.  Military medical personnel have a shitload of PPE (we are equipped to deal with NBC attacks).  The military is going to have significant medical equipment at hand, including ventilators.

If we were taking a comprehensive, national approach to managing this, we'd be doing a nationwide inventory of all available resources, anywhere.  Dragoon local health officials into getting a count from all local health providers, down to day surgery centers and nursing homes, of ventilators and oxygen supplies.  Do the same with the military.  Include any archaic equipment that's been mothballed.  Start working on the logistics of either constructing field hospitals, and/or repurposing existing structures to serve as care facilities.

And that's just on the medical treatment side.

If it's not time yet, it's damn near there -- ban large gatherings.  Sorry, sports and concerts, you're going to have to take a break.  Churches, you need to limit attendance, too, and stop all personal contact (first amendment concerns, sure, but police powers during a limited period for a limited purpose CAN trump those protections).  And there are other measures to be taken as well (we can learn from what other countries have done).

The target is slowing the spread so that our healthcare system can keep up with acute cases.  Period.  That's the only goal.  And get us to summer, when the transmission rate will likely slow.

[GreenspointTexas 9600]

Even if people test positive for it, most wont quarantine themselves for 2 weeks (and upwards of 39 days of u believe other numbers/studies). 
 

Testing is becoming more and more useless by the day

Edited March 6, 2020 by GreenspointTexas

[Pato del Muerto 52489]

2 hours ago, XYZ said:

Alaska.

People flying into/out of Alaska usually have a stop in Seattle. 

[InkaUtexas 25907]

3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Also, we should already be mobilizing military medical resources.  We have the ability to set up functioning field hospitals.  Military medical personnel have a shitload of PPE (we are equipped to deal with NBC attacks).  The military is going to have significant medical equipment at hand, including ventilators

If it's not time yet, it's damn near there -- ban large gatherings.  Sorry, sports and concerts, you're going to have to take a break.  Churches, you need to limit attendance, too, and stop all personal contact (first amendment concerns, sure, but police powers during a limited period for a limited purpose CAN trump those protections).  And there are other measures to be taken as well (we can learn from what other countries have done).

 

VA and FEMA are ramping up. Quietly. 

How about schools? 

[Liquor and Poker 3659]

2 minutes ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Even if people test positive for it, most wont quarantine themselves for 2 weeks (and upwards of 39 days of u believe other numbers/studies). 
 

Testing is becoming more and more useless by the day

Yeah, honest question here.  What purpose does testing serve if it’s accompanied by no mandatory actions for positive results?

[Macanudo 12976]

30 minutes ago, Txzen said:

I’m looking forward to the eventual epidemiology reports on this - fascinating to me that the first site of outbreak were not around major travel hubs (Atlanta, Chicago, NY, Houston). We first saw it in Vacaville, Kirkland, Rhode Island, Tennessee. Clearly a lot we don’t understand yet. 

The  first two Harris County (Houston) cases came back from Egypt on February 20th and we got word of them yesterday.   There's a shit ton more cases in the major cities than anyone realizes.

[TXSooner518 2438]

5 minutes ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Even if people test positive for it, most wont quarantine themselves for 2 weeks (and upwards of 39 days of u believe other numbers/studies). 
 

Testing is becoming more and more useless by the day

People who test positive are under mandatory quarantine.

[GreenspointTexas 9600]

1 minute ago, TXSooner518 said:

People who test positive are under mandatory quarantine.

Didnt know that. Who is enforcing it?

[TXSG8R 3362]

22 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

So has SK seen continued exponential-style infection rate growth or did it peak and level off, slow percentage-wise, etc.?

Not trusting anything from China at this point - not just case numbers but also not sure I buy the “fibroid lungs” thing, the “suppresses non-voluntary breathing“ thing, or the “the meaner strain is more successfully contained there” thing.  So I feel like SK is the controlled test case.  

I believe they are ahead of it, last I checked they had 3 straight days of lowering # of cases.  SK is still an anomaly though based on their testing volume.  They were able to reduce growth by finding spreaders before they were symptomatic.  They also dont have the PPE issues we have.  They dont have a shortage, and they dont have a problem with using it.  

[atomheartbevo 89648]

27 minutes ago, Surly Bevo said:

Just random questions as I think the unknowns are still what makes this dangerous and worth paying attention to but at the same time on the surface when you step back from it a little the notion of it as this thing that is going to sweep through mass parts of the population is hard to wrap the head around as it seems like our awareness of each and every case in this digital age may be an issue of forest and trees.

Italy seems to be the one to watch, as far as trying to wrap our heads around it.   South Korea bugs me because that cult was responsible for so many of their cases - Italy seems like a more “natural” spread   

I’ve been fascinated about this from almost the start, because I was fascinated with the 1918 flu due to some genealogy/historical research I did a long time ago for some family history stuff.    

The whole digital age thing is fascinating, because when I was reading newspaper articles and letters from the Spanish Flu era, so much of it was downplayed by the government, there was a lack of knowledge, and in some cases, it was almost like “well another family member got sick and died, and by the way, the crops look to be good,  but because we just lost Percy, and lost Franklin a few months ago, we aren’t sure if we will be able to harvest everything in time. We may have to get a hired man to come in and help.”

I don’t think people got a true sense of it back then, and/or they were slightly desensitized to it  since we’d just been through a short, but brutal war that fucked up a lot of American soldiers.  Plus, it happened in waves   

Here we are in 2020, we can hear about every case as they are confirmed, at least for now, and so maybe hearing about it in 1s and 2s kind of diminishes it, makes it seem like not a big deal.  But if you step back and only look once every day or two, you see we had 25 confirmed new cases this day, 50 the next, then you see European and Iranian numbers climbing, and you realize we are going to be hitting 100 confirmed, 150 confirmed cases, and so on, fairly rapidly.  

It’s hard to find a middle ground on how to process it.  

Plus, it feels like the government is looking towards Tom Herman for advice on managing disasters.  

[BradInATX 9208]

Any thoughts on what to expect in terms of airlines giving back-out options on non-refundable tickets? None? I have trips to Anaheim and Vegas that I'd probably like to cancel if possible. Anaheim on Delta and Vegas on SWA

 

 

 

 

[Ellellelle 308]

Delta won't budge. Shouldn't stop you from trying but they will not want to cancel.

 

 

[StruggleBus 3922]

9 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

Any thoughts on what to expect in terms of airlines giving back-out options on non-refundable tickets? None?

Well they're non-refundable so...

[atomheartbevo 89648]

14 minutes ago, TXSooner518 said:

People who test positive are under mandatory quarantine.

12 minutes ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Didnt know that. Who is enforcing it?

Yeah, article up thread mentioned that if you’re positive, you are being checked out to see if you are complying - don’t know if it’s local or state law enforcement.    

Oh, and if you don’t have it, but are potentially exposed you are quarantining.  If you are positive, it’s isolation.

If you have it, and aren’t isolating yourself, and are nailed for violating your isolation order, if you’re name gets out, I imagine it would make a lot of people angry at you.