COVID-19 Megathread 5: The Trumps catch COVID-19

[emailking]

Look, all I know is that I'm running out of movies to watch -- just had to go deep into the bargain bin with Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves.  MAJOR problem here, folks. 

I could - y'know - study, but where's the fun in that?

Dozens of movies come out every week and half of them are good.

https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/movieslist?SORT_ORDER=Release%2520Date

Have fun!

[emailking]

With the rate that states are going, this is going to be a continued outright pandemic for months ahead with more cases and more deaths. It's shameful.

As a person who checks the case numbers for almost every state every single day, we could see an end to this by mid may in most states.

So why do you ask everyday how the numbers are looking?

[emailking]

Of all past epidemics/pandemics in world history, which do you all think comes as the closest analogy to what we are going through now?  

Probably somewhere between the Spanish Flu and the Asian Flu.
If I had to make a scale out of 5, Covid-19 would be in the middle.
5: Black Death/N.A Smallpox
4: Spanish Flu
3: Covid-19
2: Asian Flu/Polio
1. Swine Flu/Ebola

I don't think Ebola belongs on the same scale, as it has never caused a true pandemic, only localized epidemics (and it's ill-suited to cause one in most developed countries based on how it spreads).  Also, the gaps between these are not consistent.  The Black Death (which some believe may have actually been an Ebola-like illness) would be a 100+ if the Spanish Flu was a 4.  I think it's hard to comprehend an epidemic truly killing 1/3 to 1/2 of the population- because nothing like that has been seen since the Black Death (except smallpox in the New World).

I assume he didn't intend a linear scale.

[emailking]

Updated data from CDC show that more Americans over the age of 85 have died of COVID-19 than those under age 65.  The risks to young people are terribly overstated by the sensationalist media. 

Half the deaths are between those ages. Why did you not mention this? Most people who died are younger than 85.

[emailking]

https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/1252643727811756034

This is interesting.  Georgia seems like the libertarian version of Michigan in terms of handling this.  Nail salons and movie theaters are on a totally different level from parks and beaches.

Fortunately all of the major chains are shut anyway by corporate decision, and whatever does open won't have much to show. No big budget movies coming out till June and only a few for the entire summer. Everything else has been delayed.

[emailking]

The US is going to set a new daily record for deaths today (at least according to the worldometers count).  The models that projected the peak to come around April 10 were clearly way off.

The peak in deaths isn't the same as a peak in new cases, and you must realize this is backlog right? It doesn't give an accurate picture into how many people are actually dying from this per day.

It does mean though than the pandemic to this point has been worse than we realized.

[emailking]

Probably not but it could if there are more strikes from food industry workers.

[emailking]

FWIW, this is also somewhat true of people favoring continuing the lockdowns (they look at any good news as evidence that the lockdowns are working, and any bad news as evidence that the lockdowns need to stay in place).

I think both can be true.

[emailking]

No idea. Glad it's not my decision. I go back and forth on the "is all this worth it" question, but I think I've mostly settled on, it is.

[emailking]

566 new deaths in Italy today.  One week ago, this number was 578.  Two weeks ago, it was 542. 
They've been in lockdown for more than 6 weeks now.  If is was truly working, shouldn't we be seeing a steady decline in this number by now?

Slightly down today to 437, maybe 7th times a charm. 😳

[emailking]

You know a lot of these posts belong on the other international thread

I thought it was decided way back when in part 1 that both threads could coexist to talk about rhe virus generally. I don't even check the other thread.

[emailking]

Yeah there's no law that says we have to follow a bell curve. On average that's what you get, but individual curves can be messy.

[emailking]

It's not clear to me that we're going down. If you start at March 31 and fit a curve to now it has a negative slope, yes. If you start at April 9, it's almost flat.

[emailking]

https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1253516500209741825

[emailking]

Businesses in Georgia that reopened are reporting they're not getting any customers pretty much. One barber shop in Atlanta reported on fridays they usually get 80 to 100 people but so far today they only got 2

I wonder if it's even cost effective to stay open if that doesn't start to pick up.

[emailking]

Ok so we were definitely not past peak the last 2 weeks. We may not even be now. We'll have to see what next week brings. But even if we get 5 days in a row in the 20s, that doesn't mean we've peaked yet either. As I said before, the curve could be very messy.

As for the increased number of tests, look we'll never know when people got infected. Positive tests is all we have to go on. A decrease in the percentage of positive tests doesn't mean we're past peak. If anything, that would be expected as we start testing more people.

[emailking]

Around here, about 1 in 20 people wear masks. I don't like the efforts to mandate them, simply because it defies the WHO's advice. I don't think it's even realistic for people to wear masks outdoors anyway, especially if they're over 6 feet from other people.

I don't think it can hurt anything to wear masks. Nowhere is requiring medical grade masks for the general public. It's easy to make one from a shirt. You can also get cheap ones on ebay.

[emailking]

Now more than ten 9/11's plus Pearl Harbors.

[emailking]

I overlooked Michigan. Governor Whitmer is also requiring her state's residents to wear masks in public spaces: https://www.wndu.com/content/news/Michigans-governor-extends-stay-home-order-through-May-15-eases-rules-569918961.html. So that means we now have six states (CT, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA) that require masks in public spaces. A correction is due to my earlier post, as I overlooked Governor Hogan in Maryland. With the exception of him, all other governors requiring masks in public spaces are Democrats. Again, I'm interested to see if masks will become a near-universal requirement, like the stay-at-home orders did.

Aren't most of these orders with the caveat that a mask is only required (in general) when 6 feet cannot be maintained?

[emailking]

We really need to deliberately infect 1000 volunteers in an isolated facility with this virus just to see how dangerous it really is. I seriously doubt the claims of a 0.1-0.3 mortality rate, but it would be good to have more information on the true severity of the disease.

This would likely be skewed towards people who think they will survive. Why would an 85 year old ever volunteer for this?

[emailking]

I keep reading here that flattening the curve was not about reducing the number of cases/deaths, just spreading them out over time. But as far as I remember, all of the models showed *many* fewer cases and deaths (like multiples) with a flattened curve than in a business as usual scenario.

[emailking]

It's likely most people get immunity after infection. Yes we don't know that for sure but it's pretty likely.

[emailking]

None of the supporters of the current blanket stay-at-home regime seem to be willing to acknowledge its consequences: at least a million people will die if we keep doing what we are doing.

We can get that fatality rate down much, much lower, but we need to radically rethink our strategy.  And this strategy will require young and healthy people to make some sacrifices to protect the most vulnerable.

I don't understand this post. You're saying we should keep lock down, lock down more, stop lock downs?

[emailking]

A study conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has found, based on preliminary data, that patients who received remdesivir recover faster than similar patients who received a placebo. Time to recovery was reduced by four days for patients on remdesivir.

This is great news!

[emailking]

Wow, I wasted a lot of effort explaining the whole thing about stay at home orders to you so that you would acknowledge it and then turn around the next day and say the same thing here in bold again. Noted.

I hope that others benefited from the exchange at least.

Yes from your posts and some others I am mostly convinced the lockdowns have worked.