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

[It’s so Joever]

Really discouraging numbers today across the board.  Already a new daily record number of deaths in the US, and a big jump in the number of cases compared to the last several days.  Also somehow a record number of new deaths in France after what had seemed like a leveling off.  No significant decrease in Italy in deaths over the last two weeks.  It seems like the only major nation showing a steady trend in the right direction is Spain (and maybe Iran).

Italy is actually looking like this improving. New cases per day are on a general decline and deaths will follow soon. If anything, today is more optimistic than you think. Also, if we can’t trust data from China, why the f**k can we trust data from Iran?

[It’s so Joever]

I have my doubts about this virus being a bioweapon or even being from a laboratory.
Firstly, while bats are likely the original source of the virus, pangolins are a suspected vector for the virus which would help explain how it spread to humans. Pangolin meat is unfortunately popular (relatively) in China, and pangolin scales are peddled as medicine. Also, Hubei is a hub for the illegal pangolin trade.
US intelligence also doesn’t seem to buy into the lab-created idea.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/14/covid-19-origin-lab-general-mark-milley

I think it’s more likely that some a***ole who was involved in the pangolin trade got infected with a slightly mutated version (which would become Covid) and spread it to other people unknowingly. It’s even possible this hypothetical patient 0 was asymptomatic which would further spread. This guy may have not even been connected to the Huanan Seafood Market, as it’s believed this virus has been spreading since late November. It’s entirely possible Huanan Seafood market just happened to be the first large cluster.
It’s not impossible it was lab-created, but it still seems unlikely.

[It’s so Joever]

I have my doubts about this virus being a bioweapon or even being from a laboratory.
Firstly, while bats are likely the original source of the virus, pangolins are a suspected vector for the virus which would help explain how it spread to humans. Pangolin meat is unfortunately popular (relatively) in China, and pangolin scales are peddled as medicine. Also, Hubei is a hub for the illegal pangolin trade.
US intelligence also doesn’t seem to buy into the lab-created idea.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/14/covid-19-origin-lab-general-mark-milley

I think it’s more likely that some a***ole who was involved in the pangolin trade got infected with a slightly mutated version (which would become Covid) and spread it to other people unknowingly. It’s even possible this hypothetical patient 0 was asymptomatic which would further spread. This guy may have not even been connected to the Huanan Seafood Market, as it’s believed this virus has been spreading since late November. It’s entirely possible Huanan Seafood market just happened to be the first large cluster.
It’s not impossible it was lab-created, but it still seems unlikely.

Maybe I'm missing something, but from reading the stories on Fox and CNN, it seems the officials think it may have made the jump to humans while being studied in a lab, but not that it was engineered.

Officials are looking into the idea as they should be, but they are finding the theory as unsupported and seem to skew towards the natural origin theory. Also, while there are bat coronaviruses being tested at Wuhan Virology Institute, they don’t genetically match with Covid.
It still is possible that Covid came from a lab, and we should be considering the idea, but it just doesn’t seem likely.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/theory-coronavirus-accidentally-leaked-chinese-lab-2020-4%3famp

[It’s so Joever]

Washington State's latest update has only 89 new cases over 24 hours. That's down from over 600 per day at our peak.

https://twitter.com/seattletimes/status/1250573126884360193

89 cases per day is fine for reopening the economy and schools. The west coast pact should release the measures on Washington and see how things go.

After they have already announced schools are closed for the academic year?

Yes.

They should start by opening up the Eastern part of the State. It is more rural and has far fewer cases (as one would expect)

[It’s so Joever]

God how I wish these protestors who blocked the ambulance could be reported and later denied an ICU bed/ventilator if they need one. That would help with shortages and would be more than justified imo.

[It’s so Joever]

Cuomo just announced that New York's stay-at-home order will extend to May 15th.  

 The stay at home orders have been very effective. We need the government to do their part and subsidize people to stay at home, even if the stimulus is retroactive we can evaluate getting things closer to normal(with safe practices) around June 1st depending on the locale.

 

Honestly, some places should be able to begin reopening before June 1st. I’m talking areas with very few confirmed cases per 100,000 and high testing capacity (Utah would be a good example) Obviously it would be a slow process to ensure there isn’t a sudden outbreak, but if we do it right, we should be able to prevent case growth in reopening areas.

[It’s so Joever]

Cuomo just announced that New York's stay-at-home order will extend to May 15th. 

 The stay at home orders have been very effective. We need the government to do their part and subsidize people to stay at home, even if the stimulus is retroactive we can evaluate getting things closer to normal(with safe practices) around June 1st depending on the locale.

 

Honestly, some places should be able to begin reopening before June 1st. I’m talking areas with very few confirmed cases per 100,000 and high testing capacity. Obviously it would be a slow process to ensure there isn’t a sudden outbreak, but if we do it right, we should be able to prevent case growth in reopening areas.

 This would be possible already if we had any kind of competent Federal response. If the Federal government were equipping the states with tools and protocols to do contact tracing, if we had blanket community tests to see where hot spots are breaking out, we could respond in those areas specifically. The response has not been adequate.

Hence why I say states with high testing capacities. You can see which states have this both through gauging tests per capita (because duh) and positivity rates (lower positivity rates and high testing per capita suggests strong testing capabilities) So far, Utah, New Mexico, and parts of Washington seem to qualify.
As long as testing is strong enough, outbreaks can be detected and cut off and will die out in smaller communities.

[It’s so Joever]

Dr Oz has always been a quack and this has just solidified it

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1250807416872189952

I want to go back to school so whatever.

Not disagreeing with you on the sentiment, but it’s kinda funny how back in 2019, most kids/teens wouldn’t be caught dead saying something like that. Heck, just a few weeks before my school district closed for this, classmates were praying for a snow day. I wonder how that will change after this all finishes.

[It’s so Joever]

Important data points here:

Sweeping testing of the entire crew of the coronavirus-stricken U.S. aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt may have revealed a clue about the pandemic: The majority of the positive cases so far are among sailors who are asymptomatic, officials say.
...
The Navy’s testing of the entire 4,800-member crew of the aircraft carrier - which is about 94% complete - was an extraordinary move in a headline-grabbing case that has already led to the firing of the carrier’s captain and the resignation of the Navy’s top civilian official.

Roughly 60 percent of the over 600 sailors who tested positive so far have not shown symptoms of COVID-19, the potentially lethal respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, the Navy says. The service did not speculate about how many might later develop symptoms or remain asymptomatic.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-military-sympt-idUSKCN21Y2GB

this is around the same % that we got in the italian town of Vo'

I'm not sure if the insane asymptomatic rate on this thing is a good or bad thing. On one hand it's good because it means the mortality rate is extremely inflated and it's probably actually more like the flu than SARS in regards to danger, on the other hand it makes the virus harder to control and record.

This is about in-line with cruise-ship data and Iceland’s data. Although I think the true asymptomatic rate is closer to 35/50%.
The Navy Ship population skews younger probably and some will develop symptoms later. Even that rate would still be very high.

[It’s so Joever]

White House just released its guidelines for "Opening Up America Again":

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/16/politics/read-guidelines-for-opening-america/index.html

It’s not terrible, as long as the Trump administration and State officials really enforce it. I do question testing capacity, but I do hope that will improve over the next couple of weeks dramatically.

I am glad it’s a phase-wise solution that takes into account possible re-surges and also that it is state-by-state (makes more sense for a country this large)
Overall I expected worse.

[It’s so Joever]

Important data points here:

Sweeping testing of the entire crew of the coronavirus-stricken U.S. aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt may have revealed a clue about the pandemic: The majority of the positive cases so far are among sailors who are asymptomatic, officials say.
...
The Navy’s testing of the entire 4,800-member crew of the aircraft carrier - which is about 94% complete - was an extraordinary move in a headline-grabbing case that has already led to the firing of the carrier’s captain and the resignation of the Navy’s top civilian official.

Roughly 60 percent of the over 600 sailors who tested positive so far have not shown symptoms of COVID-19, the potentially lethal respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, the Navy says. The service did not speculate about how many might later develop symptoms or remain asymptomatic.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-military-sympt-idUSKCN21Y2GB

this is around the same % that we got in the italian town of Vo'

I'm not sure if the insane asymptomatic rate on this thing is a good or bad thing. On one hand it's good because it means the mortality rate is extremely inflated and it's probably actually more like the flu than SARS in regards to danger, on the other hand it makes the virus harder to control and record.

IDK whether halfish asymptomatic cases (showing up pretty consistently now between Italy, Iceland, the Diamond Princess and now the Theodore Roosevelt) is a good thing or a bad thing?  It would lower the fatality rate of course,  but only by about 1/2, which if true takes from perhaps 10X more dangerous than seasonal flu to perhaps 5X.  Still quite scary. The flip side is that it makes this thing extremely hard to contain.  If it was 10X more dangerous than flu but only people who already had a high fever were contagious, it could be a lot easier to contain with health screenings.

IMO you either want to hope there are 10 or 100 contagious asymptomatic cases per person who gets sick (to massively drive down the fatality rate and quickly achieve herd immunity) massively or none (so that you can control it with fever screenings).  Halfish doesn't seem to help.

Think it's worth pointing out that the big asymptomatic case numbers that were being reported from the Diamon Princess were at the time of testing. If you follow up from the perspective of several weeks later, then, the number of asymptomatic cases was... signficantly lower.

As much as anything, there have been 12 deaths from 712 reported cases so far. Seeing as it's pretty unlikely that there were a huge number of non-identified cases on the ship, I feel that should probably call into question some of the more optimistic assessments of what the fataility rate for Covid is.

That population skewed older than average which would almost certainly cause a higher mortality rate. Also it’s important to note that the patients on the cruise ship may have been exposed to higher initial viral load as compared to the general population (outside of hospitals)
Taking this into account, I still would believe the true mortality rate is around 1%.

[It’s so Joever]

https://twitter.com/ChangePolls/status/1250901670206242818

Lol, white people privilege

lol libs using a pandemic to further inflame racial tensions

Liberals: Look at these racial disparities that hurt Americans of racial minorities! We should do something!
Hacks: wHY aRe yoU trYiNG to sTOkE rACIal TEnsIon!!11!!111!!!

Do you think everyone is not being hurt right now? Only clowns like you think that dividing the population during a pandemic will alleviate racial disparities.

Your trolling is boring and unfunny.
Try harder.

The hacks all band together! Also you're a foreign bad faith actor - shouldn't you worry about your  greece defaulting on its debt again

Your comments are about as relevant as your vote as a Republican in California.
Oh, and nice job modifying your post quickly, at least you were smart enough to do that.

[It’s so Joever]

https://twitter.com/ChangePolls/status/1250901670206242818

Lol, white people privilege

lol libs using a pandemic to further inflame racial tensions

Liberals: Look at these racial disparities that hurt Americans of racial minorities! We should do something!
Hacks: wHY aRe yoU trYiNG to sTOkE rACIal TEnsIon!!11!!111!!!

Do you think everyone is not being hurt right now? Only clowns like you think that dividing the population during a pandemic will alleviate racial disparities.

Your trolling is boring and unfunny.
Try harder.

The hacks all band together! Also you're a foreign bad faith actor - shouldn't you worry about your  greece defaulting on its debt again

Your comments are about as relevant as the California GOP you represent.
Oh, and nice job modifying your post quickly, at least you were smart enough to do that.

The rats truly come out of the woodwork now. Bro we're both posing on the same political forum - do you think either of our opinions are relevant you clown

Do you know any insults other than clown? I would love to know!
Look, I don’t even disagree with your sentiment that it’s not about race (looks like it could be more tied to income) But you come off as a clown (as you would put it) right now.

[It’s so Joever]

In other news, the Colorado GOP minority leader reached out to Jared Polis in a bipartisan and civil manner, to combat the virus which has already killed hundreds of Coloradans. I love the #moderate Colorado GOP.
Oh wait, he compared Polis’s stay-at-home order to the Gestapo.
{https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.denverpost.com/2020/04/15/jared-polis-colorado-stay-home-order-nazism/amp/

(In case of pay wall)
https://mobile.twitter.com/denverpost/status/1250549362855415808?ref_src=twsrc%5...
https://www.9news.com/mobile/article/news/local/next/polis-emotionally-responds-to-comparison-between-nazism-and-stay-home-orders/73-19f93892-0653-4222-9e8c-356ff83c9580

[It’s so Joever]

We knew about Remdesivir for months. Even here on Atlas, posters spoke about it as early as the first few days of February. The problem is, it had to be proven effective which takes months. Even if it is proven effective (it likely will be) it will take months to mass produce. This is a great thing, don’t get me wrong, but the actual production of Remdesivir will not be enough for at least this Spring and Summer. This is good news, but don’t get your hopes up too much.

[It’s so Joever]

https://twitter.com/ChangePolls/status/1250901670206242818

Lol, white people privilege

lol libs using a pandemic to further inflame racial tensions

Liberals: Look at these racial disparities that hurt Americans of racial minorities! We should do something!
Hacks: wHY aRe yoU trYiNG to sTOkE rACIal TEnsIon!!11!!111!!!

Do you think everyone is not being hurt right now?

homie the tweet you are responding to is a poll literally demonstrating that some people are being hurt more than others

(it's hard to actually draw inference without any sort of error measurements but those differences between groups are quite large either way)

No it is a poll that demonstrates how ppl FEEL they’re being affected by the pandemic. This ‘poll’ has no error bars or p score. I did not dispute that some ppl may be more affected than others, I disputed that white privilege is what caused that disparity and not pre existing health conditions/money/access to healthcare, etc

Maybe you should have made that argument first, rather than taking an opportunity to attack “the libs”

https://twitter.com/ChangePolls/status/1250901670206242818

Lol, white people privilege

lol libs using a pandemic to further inflame racial tensions

[It’s so Joever]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2020/04/china-wuhan-revises-coronavirus-death-toll-50-percent-200417042241868.html

It seems there was a revision to the Chinese case/death numbers, mainly in unreported deaths and cases being added in Wuhan. I expect more of this in recovering cities, not just from Wuhan, but from other places as previously undetected deaths are found to be Covid-19 related.

[It’s so Joever]

F**king insanity.
Days like these really make me want to bring back choppy boi unironically.

[It’s so Joever]

As usual, the stereotypes are more important than the actual facts. Florida actually has administered more tests in total than any State other than New York. That being said, they are 21st in per-capita tests as a function of their high population. Additionally, they have administered more tests per capita than South Korea. Florida had a bungled up response in many ways, and DeSantis got really lucky with a lot of things, but their testing game isn’t as bad as many States.
I still think opening the beaches was a mistake, but you can’t deny the basic facts.

[It’s so Joever]

This doesn't look too safe.

https://twitter.com/ErikSandoval/status/1251227129716539393

Given that they are also breaking social distancing, these specific protestors should be reported+identified and not allowed to ever have a ventilator or ICU bed if there is a shortage. After all, personal responsibility and natural consequences, right virus-truthers?

[It’s so Joever]

So it seems that antibodies aren't working in fighting the virus, according to the WHO.

Did they say that specifically, or that there isn’t sufficient evidence to prove they are working? The two are very different.

[It’s so Joever]

Do we think the Chinese did this by releasing it by accident from a lab? My distaste for the Chinese government is exponentially growing.

There is literally no evidence to suggest that. So no.

What about the intelligence being reported that suggests that? That government is vile so I wouldn't put it past them.

Except most US don’t think that happened.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/14/covid-19-origin-lab-general-mark-milley


I posted a while back on here why it’s extremely unlikely for it to be a lab accident. The genomes of the Covid-19 virus and the coronaviruses being used at the Wuhan Virology Institute also don’t match.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/theory-coronavirus-accidentally-leaked-chinese-lab-2020-4%3famp

US intelligence is investigating this for obvious reasons, but it doesn’t appear likely to be true. What probably happened is that FOX has a terrible source, as usual.

Look, I hate to say it, but the touting of such a theory seems more like an attempt to shift attention from this country’s s**t response to an easy scapegoat.

[It’s so Joever]

Do we think the Chinese did this by releasing it by accident from a lab? My distaste for the Chinese government is exponentially growing.

There is literally no evidence to suggest that. So no.

This thing has been in bat's for thousands of years is the most likely explanation.

But under any normal circumtance, it has (had) no mechanism to go from bat to human.

It finally made the switch through an intermediary animal. (i.e. Pangolin)

It is way too early to suggest otherwise.

Unfortunately, thanks to conspiracy theorists on Facebook, we are about to get 2-3 months of this lab story presented to us. I am already seeing that people are posting things that support their hatred of China rather than presenting any scientific modelling or facts.

I would bet money on it being a pangolin. Wuhan is a hub of the illegal pangolin trade, so it’s likely some worker got infected and spread it while asymptomatic. I bet it may have not even started at the Huanan market and probably spread around the city before that discovery.

[It’s so Joever]

Regarding protesters...if they don't adhere to the 6 feet rule, they should be arrested.

Disgusting.

“Disgusting to arrest people for breaking the law.”

[It’s so Joever]

I unironically think people who repeatedly break social distancing orders should be identified and denied an ICU bed/ventilator in advance (if there is a shortage) It would help with shortages and would punish criminals in one move. Natural consequences and personal responsibility, right?