COVID-19 Mega thread

[Crumpets]

I don't have the source on hand, but I saw there was the first case of unknown origin in New York (and possibly the East Coast?) in Westchester County.

Also, according to my parents in Seattle, the run on grocery stores and pharmacies is in full swing right now. I'm thinking of buying up a bunch of purell here in DC and selling it at a big markup next time I head back like Levis in the Soviet Union.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/scottdesigns/status/1234793690935242752

[Almost Anyone But Biden Or Trump (ABBoT but not Greg Abbott)]

https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1234822447947558915

Eventually some high ranking political leaders are going to catch this. And eventually, some of them are going to die from it (as has already happened in Iran), particularly because they are disproportionately in high risk groups (old males). You would think that might make them do something about it.

But still we are reading about problems where people can't get tested in Washington State etc.

https://twitter.com/into_the_brush/status/1234685467682979840

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

That woman's tweet thread is frightening and heartbreaking. 

[Omega21]

I see, well why don't they just pay for a test in a private clinic??

It's the American way! Damn those leeches wanting to get tested off of other people's taxes.

*Sarcasm mode off now*

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Three more deaths in WA announced across the past half-hour or so.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Mynorthwest/status/1234927675518509056

[President Johnson]

This is really sad what's happening in the US. And all this while there is an inept administration.

[YPestis25]

Extrapolating the deaths from the WHO's case mortality rate, that puts the tally of cases at around 450, which mean we have hundreds of cases circulating in the US undetected. It is particularly worrisome now that appears testing infrastructure simply isn't in place in the United States and by the time it is, the situation will have become all the more difficult to contain.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

https://mobile.twitter.com/mkraju/status/1234934796817780737

I mean, hey, we ARE still a political forum.

[Convicted Felon Donald Trump]

Covid-19 has a lower death rate than most other recent pandemics.

Is my memory seriously flawed, or does it seem as if this is being taken waaaay more seriously than those other higher fatality rated pandemics?

If so, why?

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

North Carolina reports its first confirmed case.  The afflicted reportedly visited the long-term care facility in Washington that has seen a bulk of the cases on the West Coast.

https://mobile.twitter.com/StolpWSOC9/status/1234936335556841472

[emailking]

Why is everyone continuing to make fun of Beet? Have conditions grown desperate enough that you can only reassure yourselves by ritualistically mocking his comments long after ridicule is warranted?

I've tried to keep an open mind. I thought some of Beet's earlier posts were a bit alarmist, but he's basically been vindicated.

I don't know what the right way to calculate CFR is though.

[emailking]

Covid-19 has a lower death rate than most other recent pandemics.

Is my memory seriously flawed, or does it seem as if this is being taken waaaay more seriously than those other higher fatality rated pandemics?

If so, why?

Here's an interesting thread along those lines (it's 9 tweets long)

https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1234584440493375490

The rest is:

"There are a few things that seem clear from the early data we have on COVID-19
1) it is more transmissable than the flu
2) it has a higher fatality rate
3) the fatality rate goes up *staggeringly fast* for older patients and the immuno-compromised.

4) many of folks in those populations are going to require hospitalization, intensive medical care and ventilators in order to recover.

So those are the individual risks to patients, but the best way to think about the *systemic risk* of COVID-19 is to consider that there is essentially a fixed supply of medical care available at any one time in any one place: a certain number of doctors, nurses and hospital beds

The season flu unfolds over time in a fairly predictable manner, and increases in vaccination rates, means that the current system can handle the flow of those patients with high risk as they come through.

But we've seen in places like Wuhan, and Iran and Northern Italty to a certain extent, is that if the disease transmits quickly enough in one place, it produces a need for intensive medical care **that outstrips the supply**. That's the full-blown crisis everyone wants to avoid.

One way to avoid that is through fairly dramatic mitigation efforts like we've seen in Japan: cancelling school for a month, or massively restricting travel/public events.

All of that is undertaken with an eye not to snuff out the virus, but to slow its transmission so that the hospital/healthcare system can manage the flow of patients. But in order to avoid a kind of "run on the hospitals" you absolutely need to know the scale of the problem.

And here in the US we simply do not know the true scale because we are testing nowhere at the level we need to be."

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Covid-19 has a lower death rate than most other recent pandemics.

Is my memory seriously flawed, or does it seem as if this is being taken waaaay more seriously than those other higher fatality rated pandemics?

If so, why?

No, your memory isn't necessarily flawed.  Your understanding of the details may be obscured, though (not taking a shot at you, Special K, my dear lol).

There are a number of factors at work here.  

For starters, COVID-19 is highly transmissible.  And, not only that, but it is highly transmissible even when non-symptomatic.  Ebola, on the other hand, is only transmissible when the patient is symptomatic and, by that point, the patient is usually too debilitated to travel/transmit the virus on a widespread scale.  In other words, a strain of Ebola can be ten times as transmissible as COVID-19 (let's say), but if the most acutely ill patients with the greatest risk of transmitting the illness are confined to special wards or containment zones, that high risk transmission level is neutered.  As harsh as it sounds, it's better for the general population that Ebola acts so acutely.  It kills quickly.  

COVID-19's incubation period means that an afflicted individual can walk around with it without knowing that he or she has it.  In the time between the initial transmission and when this individual is properly tested, the afflicted may have come into contact with dozens or even hundreds of others.  

Most of these people will recover without long-term systemic damage.  But there is certainly a non-negligible amount of individuals who are elderly, have compromised immune systems, have compromised respiratory systems, or a combination of all the above.  Even if the virus was to only kill these individuals, it would still mean a fairly good-sized death toll.  

There's also the political/bureaucratic element.  There's no standard practice for containing an outbreak.  Different nations are all over the place.  And there are many governments (the U.S., the United Kingdom, etc.) that don't want to admit their handling of the outbreak has been less-than-ideal at best.  There's a certain head-strong mentality that we've been seeing: "we'll take this seriously, but we won't close schools, encourage people to stay home from work, or cancel public events.  We'll get through this without such drastic measures."

Now let's throw in the fact that it's easier than ever for anybody and everybody to spread misinformation (whether intentional or not) with a few keystrokes and a click.  Misinformed panic can make a monster out of any outbreak.  Skepticism and cautiousness are healthy; panic is not.
 

In short, we really can't compare COVID-19 to any of the previous outbreaks on a one-to-one basis because each outbreak is its own animal.  That's one of the challenges of epidemiology:  we can use the past to learn about the present and the future, but there are always differences with each affliction, each response, and each era when the outbreak occurs.  

[Middle-aged Europe]

https://twitter.com/scottdesigns/status/1234793690935242752

The cure for coronavirus is in Donald Trump's tiger blood. Spread the word.

[Crucial Waukesha]

Interesting part is that 2 of the 3 deaths announced today in Washington occurred days ago, both on Feb 26 and were only now linked to COVID-19.  Shows how slow the response has been.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Interesting part is that 2 of the 3 deaths announced today in Washington occurred days ago, both on Feb 26 and were only now linked to COVID-19.  Shows how slow the response has been.

Welcome to Atlas!

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Secretary Esper: Protecting Donald Trump's ego is more important that protecting our troops from COVID-19

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper has urged American military commanders overseas not to make any decisions related to the coronavirus that might surprise the White House or run afoul of President Trump’s messaging on the growing health challenge, American officials said.

Mr. Esper told commanders deployed overseas that they should check in before making decisions related to protecting their troops.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Covid-19 has a lower death rate than most other recent pandemics.

Is my memory seriously flawed, or does it seem as if this is being taken waaaay more seriously than those other higher fatality rated pandemics?

If so, why?

Not much other news to fill the 24/7 cable news monster. Certainly not anything else to generate ratings. If we want to get Corollavirus (sic) out of the infotainment, we need more tornadoes and shootings.

[GP270watch]

Secretary Esper: Protecting Donald Trump's ego is more important that protecting our troops from COVID-19

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper has urged American military commanders overseas not to make any decisions related to the coronavirus that might surprise the White House or run afoul of President Trump’s messaging on the growing health challenge, American officials said.

Mr. Esper told commanders deployed overseas that they should check in before making decisions related to protecting their troops.

 This doesn't even seem like it could be a real headline, I had to read it again and then the article again. Trump is such a stain on this nation.

[Almost Anyone But Biden Or Trump (ABBoT but not Greg Abbott)]

https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1234584440493375490

I dunno WTF the basis is supposed to be for anyone thinking it will kill fewer people than the flu. It certainly won't do that if we don't majorly step up serious countermeasures rather than continuing to sit on our hands ASAP. Starting social distancing now is better than doing it in a week or a month.

[Meclazine for Israel]

https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1234584440493375490

I dunno WTF the basis is supposed to be for anyone thinking it will kill fewer people than the flu.

That is based on statistical data and the current death rate.

https://www.health.com/condition/cold-flu-sinus/how-many-people-die-of-the-flu-every-year

The Flu is thought to kill up to about 400-500,000 people per annum.

Let's say 36,000 per month. That is 1,200 people per day.

The Corona virus is killing about 40-100 people per day.

[Beet]

The surge in South Korea and Iran are f'ing insane.

Death rate.

Officially 3,198 died and 50,675 recovered. The case fatality rate dropped to 5.9%.

The number of confirmed cases by Region:
Total overall: 93,123
Hubei Province: 67,332 (+115)
Outside Hubei, China:  12,935 (+8)
South Korea: 5,328 (+993)
Italy: 2,502 (+466)
Iran: 2,336 (+835)
Japan: 293 (+19)
France: 204 (new over 200)

[Almost Anyone But Biden Or Trump (ABBoT but not Greg Abbott)]

https://twitter.com/ericuman/status/1234987363643691009

Jeez.

At the rate things are going with the USA's lack of any serious response to this, Seattle is going to be like Wuhan and Iran pretty soon. And then the rest of the country follows unless we get our ***** in gear.

The time for action is now (well, actually it was really a month or so ago, but better now than nothing). Waiting an additional week or 2 or 3 will only make things worse.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Some things I've noticed on social and mainstream media that I feel the need to address:

- There's a video circulating around of a man reportedly collapsing on the street in Iran.  The video claims to show an individual suffering from COVID-19.  And this isn't the first video of its type out there. I advise everybody to exercise a healthy level of skepticism with images such as these. While they may show genuine cases of COVID-19, there is any number of afflictions from which this gentleman could be suffering that have nothing to do with the virus (low blood sugar, cardiovascular episode, etc.).  These videos may not even be from the reported location or even recent.  Be wary of your sources and don't take everything at face value. 

- When scanning headlines, take a moment to scrutinize the wording. "(Location) CLAIMS its first case" and "First reported case of virus in (location)" are a world away from "First confirmed case" or "First positive test".   There are nations that reported possible cases which resulted in negative tests.  Again, be prudent in your sourcing. 

Genuinely not trying to lecture y'all and it's not y'all that need to be lectured.  Pretty much everybody that has posted on this thread has been well-informed or, at the very least, curious for more answers.  Misinformation spreads even faster than COVID-19, itself.  And it can be dangerous all on its own.