COVID-19 Megathread 4: Grandma Got Run Over by the Dow Jones

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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy/italy-coronavirus-death-toll-rises-by-681-intensive-care-falls-idUSKBN21M0NW?utm_source=reddit.com

More evidence that things are improving in Italy!

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https://twitter.com/scontorno/status/1246432338860523523

Look what happens when you stray from the word of our lord and savior Jeb!

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Is there anyone here who still maintains that the US is on an Italy-type disease trajectory?  Or can we all reasonably agree that the United States looks like it will be one of the "success stories" of the global pandemic?  If so, can we talk about what factors have influenced the U.S. emerging relatively unscathed from this?  Better testing, more docs/ventilators, lower population density, younger demographics, warm weather, etc.

South Korea was relatively unscathed.  The US may not come out of this quite as badly as Italy (or several other major European countries), but we will be much closer to Italy than Korea or several other Asian countries (or other places that did significant early testing like Iceland).  And that is clearly or failure.

I don’t know why we aren’t talking more about what Iran is doing.  It seems like they stopped the growth of the virus several weeks ago, and have consistently been seeing only about 100 deaths per day for the past month.  They were the earliest Western country to see a big outbreak, and everyone was very concerned about their high death rate.  But the US will pass Iran in deaths per capita today.

Iran isn't a Western country, and how do we know their numbers are trustworthy?

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https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/492142-california-sees-first-decrease-in-coronavirus-icu-hospitalizations?fbclid=IwAR1ExmmRfVpLL0KJ12ajdJWvwFoaUw_1e5GGYf6Sl2581-LfrxI7Sqs_a-w

California apparently had fewer hospitalizations on Thursday than they did on Wednesday.

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Why is the administration so obsessed with hydrochloroquine when there are several other possible drugs out there that seem to have shown more promise with fewer side effects?

It's been in use for a long time, can be easily produced on a mass scale, and there are multiple anecdotal reports of its effectiveness. Plus it was probably the first one he heard about.

[Roll Roons]

There's also blood plasma from recovered patients, which seems to be particularly effective.

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Midwest Governors Announce Partnership to Reopen Regional Economy

- Illinois
- Indiana
- Kentucky
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Ohio
- Wisconsin

https://twitter.com/MollyBeck/status/1250856108807221248?s=20

They clearly are not on the same page, since Evers just extended the shutdown to May 26th, while DeWine is trying to open up on May 1. DeWine was doing so well, and now he's just doing Trump's dirty work once again. It's simply idiotic to open up such a big state again in 2 weeks, especially when Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and nearby states, are still not doing well.

Flattening the curve is not about keeping everyone locked inside forever. It's about making sure hospitals don't get overloaded like they have in Italy or NYC, and clearly DeWine's actions have flattened the curve in Ohio. He's also putting in specific rules about how things can open, and still isn't allowing big gatherings like concerts or sports games. Everyone else will need to open back up at some point, and Ohio can show us how it's done.

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https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/16/early-peek-at-data-on-gilead-coronavirus-drug-suggests-patients-are-responding-to-treatment/

My amazing university seems to think remdesivir is looking very promising.

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Stanford study of Bay Area residents concludes that the infection rate is orders of magnitude higher than what was previously believed, making the death rate far lower.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/17/coronavirus-2-5-to-4-2-of-santa-clara-county-residents-infected-stanford-estimates/