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

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So is today a legit decline or the Sunday-Monday slump?

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My job will reopen when the stay at home order here expires, but we are laying off 25% of our work force as they were hired to do in person tech support and the rest of us will be working from home at least until August

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There's the Sunday-Monday slump

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Mask orders continue to spread across the country. Andy Beshear is now mandating all Kentuckians to wear masks in public by May 11: https://www.wkyt.com/content/news/WATCH-LIVE-Gov-Beshears-daily-COVID-19-update-569985941.html. Apparently, the general public will not be cited if they don't wear them, but they will be "asked" to put them on, and it will be mandatory for essential employees in businesses. The city of Birmingham, Alabama, is also making masks mandatory in public: https://www.al.com/news/2020/04/birmingham-eyes-requiring-masks-in-public.html. And in Colorado, Aspen is also requiring masks: https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/04/28/face-masks-mandatory-in-aspen/. Both Birmingham and Aspen will fine residents if they don't wear masks. Aspen is the first place in my home state that I am aware of that is making it mandatory.

How long do these mandatory masks orders last for I've seen as soon as they can last a year

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IHME model now revising the death toll up to 74k by August 1st and that most states should not begin to reopen until late June. I don't know what is going on with this model.

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A dog has now tested positive for coronavirus

https://time.com/5828413/dog-coronavirus/

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Why did NY cut off a lot of its testing?

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I'm actually shocked that Governor DeSantis put out a competent reopening plan I'm lucky that he's not opening up salons gyms or movie theaters in Phase 1

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I always always suspicious about our low death numbers


https://twitter.com/holmescnn/status/1255697532556115972

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

Once they start reopening we're going to see how much demand there is actually go back to doing the old things I think this is going to be an interesting thing to watch because I don't think people are just going to be rushing back to do what they used to before the pandemic because the virus is still out there we didn't stop it

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The Oxford vaccine trials have started, they started injecting volunteers last week, they said in 6 weeks we can expect results of efficacy and side effects, if it works they plan to try to get emergency authorization

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The Oxford vaccine trials have started, they started injecting volunteers last week, they said in 6 weeks we can expect results of efficacy and side effects, if it works they plan to try to get emergency authorization

Which would mean it'd be ready by the end of the year. Hopefully we can avert or heavily reduce the chances of a second outbreak.

They said if the results in mid-June are very good we could get it by September, some manufacturing companies are already starting to manufacture the vaccine candidate in the event it proves successful. We'll also get initial data sometime in May

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Just out of curiosity, is it just the death numbers, or also the case numbers that are being fudged with in Florida?

Right now it's just death number is but people are starting to suspect it's also case numbers

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I still don't understand the logic behind the Oxford 'vaccine'. In 6 weeks they know if it's effective? And they know it's safe by September?

Then why, pray tell, do we spend years on vaccines?

I'm still of the belief that we'll never get one.

Well what the Oxford vaccine they already were working on a MERS vaccine and we're doing pretty good with it so they just used the base and made it for covid-19 vaccines take a long time because usually they don't have the funding and they don't have enough people to trial test them on but during the pandemic when you have unlimited funding and volunteers you can rush it

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I'm still suspicious that new cases are slowly dropping here in Florida but going up in every state surrounding us

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237k tests today 27.3k new cases today
Last Sunday: 206k tests and 27k cases that that

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Until we get a vaccine or a very strong treatment that will reduce the risk of mortality to a very low level socially distancing in masks in public are going to be a thing. This is kind of why I'm hoping that the Oxford vaccine ends up working because it works so we can get a vaccine by September life can start to go back to normal around election time and for the holidays.

 but until either one of those two things happen we just have to accept we're going to live in a new reality

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DeSantis says if % of tests that come back positive remains under 5% and cases don't increase we could be going into Phase II reopening in 2-3 weeks. Regular testing and antibody testing will increase

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[snip]

please make your image smaller, it's stretching the screen

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Mask wearing will probably be a common thing, it is what stops most asian countries from suffering as badly from the flu, when I used to work at a restaurant a lot of the asian customers would come in wearing masks

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https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/status/1258488918036676609?s=20

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https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/08/health/coronavirus-triple-therapy-hong-kong-health/index.html

(CNN)A combination of three antiviral drugs plus an immune system booster seemed to help patients recover more quickly from coronavirus infections, doctors in Hong Kong reported Friday.

They said the approach needs more testing but it could offer another treatment possibility for Covid-19 patients. Currently the only authorized treatment is the experimental antiviral drug remdesivir, which also shortens the duration of illness but is limited in supply.

Dr. Kwok-Yung Yuen at Hong Kong University and colleagues tested the HIV drug combination of ritonavir and lopanivir along with the general antiviral drug ribavirin and a multiple sclerosis drug called beta interferon.

Patients in the study all had mild to moderate symptoms and were treated within seven days of testing positive. Some doctors think treating patients earlier in the course of the infection might be better.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

BC has done remarkably well compared to almost all other jurisdictions, but I'm worried too. The weather has gotten a lot nicer and people are definitely starting to throw caution to the wind. Beaches have been packed and people are definitely out and about.

Warm weather also hurts the virus, so I guess it cancels out.

Canadian study finds temperature, latitude not associated with COVID-19 spread

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Can someone with more expertise than me give any insight into how this works and what it would mean?

https://twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/1259194332793446402

Suppose you have two populations. In population A, all are normal people. Population B is split down the middle, half say hello by French kissing, the other half constantly wear a biohazard suit.

 In the initial stages of the disease, it may spread equally quickly in both populations. Let's say R0 = 3. In population A, 66% need to get the disease to push R < 1. This is different in population B. The biohazard people are not getting it, (R0 = 0) but the kissers are keeping the average up (R0 = 6). Once 83% of the kissers have the disease, herd immunity is reached, which is only 41% of the total population. By having different subpopulations with different suspectibility, the total number of people needed for herd immunity goes down. 

What this means in practice is very unclear. From what I am reading on epidemiologists Twitter feeds, they are skeptical the effect will be large. Apparently you need to have large and consistent variation between individuals for this to have a significant effect. On the other hand, you have forum experts who just heard of this effect and conclude it means herd immunity has already been achieved.

This is a preprint that has not been peer reviewed