COVID-19 Megathread 3: Third time's a charm

[Smeulders]

Big news and a major thing to keep an eye on ---

Now, to the results...

https://www.sanmiguelcountyco.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=511

When you get some large scale numbers, can you send me a message.

We are doing the same thing in Australia right now. With the Spanish Flu, 500 Million people fell ill out of a population of 1.8 Billion.

So what was going on with the 1.3 Billion? Did they miss the infection altogether?

They were most probably 'lightly' exposed and quickly developed antibodies and never had symptoms. So this was 66% of the population who were mildly infected or not infected and developed anti-bodies.

In Australia, there is some talk from economists about getting an antibody certificate, which means you are free to go back to work once you have antibodies as you can no longer carry the virus. I am not sure whether that works in reality, but antibody testing offers a fast way out of this pandemic for many.

It would be interesting to see what the proportion of antibody development is in a population like New York as the pandemic hits.

Tests like this are being planned, or are underway, all over the world at this point. Accuracy of the tests might still be a problem though. In Belgium, blood samples are being collected at the moment, but are being frozen for testing sometime next week. The researchers involved were not yet convinced the tests were accurate enough to immediately start testing.

[Grassroots]

1 million worldwide cases have been reached.

We'll get past this- and we will sooner than y'all think.  By Memorial Day weekend, we will be grilling out with our friends and swimming in our pools.

'People talking about that which they don't know' example #225,799.

I think a solid slice of America will think this way. Our chief competitor announced plans to reopen May 1, which sounds even more insane than ER's expectation. I don't think people will obey anything past the first week of June with good weather though thankfully New Yorkers consider themselves the center of the universe so it could depend on them. Memorial Day activities will decline and be more sparsely attended, but I think plenty will go on away from the coasts.

The mood seemed to shift significantly today if people can't believe we are at the 20 percent point rather than the 80 percent point and that they feel they've sacrificed all they can. Two more months is definitely pushing it.

ExtremeRepublican is right, this is getting better. Not fast enough to make us throw in the towel, which is a good thing.

While things get better, we need to rely on the media and Fauci to keep the fear mongering and pessimistic rhetoric going. People need to stay in their houses and social distance. If the media reported this even a sliver more optimistic than they should, this would all be for nothing.

Pessimism is needed to make change. Even if it's a stretch.

[American2020]

I approve this message.

https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1245635579229822977

[Torrain]

1 million worldwide cases have been reached.

Realistically, there are probably 100 million cases out there, but with a much lower death rate- which is a good thing.  Another piece of good news is that most European countries are now clearly past peak and hopefully aren't too far from some semblance of society returning.  The US is probably still 1-2 weeks away from peak, but the percentage increase in new infections continued to slow today, despite an increase in testing.  On top of all of that, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh said that they believe they have a vaccine and are asking the FDA to fast-track the approvals to have it ready "soon" (probably still a couple months, but way better than the year timeline that seems to be everyone's mantra).  There has been so much promising work into treatments, and that, combined with better contact tracing, should blunt any second wave without the need for major disruption to everyday life.

This thread needs way more positivity and way less doom and gloom (I can barely read it anymore with all of the hysteria and pessimism).  We'll get past this- and we will sooner than y'all think.  By Memorial Day weekend, we will be grilling out with our friends and swimming in our pools.

Mate. We're sad and frustrated for a reason. The indicators all suggest this is going to get far worse before it gets better. You keep posting really optimistically, and if that's your coping mechanism, then I totally get it. But please cite your sources, because you're getting pretty close to misinformation.

The vaccine is not 'months' away, it's at least a year:

It’s for these reasons that taking a vaccine candidate all the way to regulatory approval typically takes a decade or more, and why President Trump sowed confusion when, at a meeting at the White House on 2 March, he pressed for a vaccine to be ready by the US elections in November – an impossible deadline. “Like most vaccinologists, I don’t think this vaccine will be ready before 18 months,” says Annelies Wilder-Smith, professor of emerging infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. That’s already extremely fast, and it assumes there will be no hitches.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/03/when-will-a-coronavirus-vaccine-be-ready

Cases in the US aren't slowing, they're growing exponentially


I agree that we should be more positive, and yeah, there's a lot to be hopeful about, but please, don't think we're going to just solve this thing and be back to normal by May.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Here is some important context, isn't it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert



2016 USDA map. According to the Medley Food Desert Project,[6] nearly 24 million Americans live in food deserts. Food deserts are heavily concentrated in southern states, which correlates with concentration of poverty. The map presents percentages of people without cars living in areas with no supermarket within a mile.

You can complain that there are so much poor people in US/these states (it's a tragedy) and that the [southern] states didn't fix that, but you can't complain that these people didn't stop "travel more than 2 miles". They doesn't have that privilege.

[pbrower2a]

Chest is sore this morning.  Starting to feel some pain during inspiration.  

It could be because of the cough.

Possibly.  This pain feels pleuritic.  

Without knowing other background on your condition -- when do you think you consider getting screened/treatment?

I already tested positive.  As for when I'd seek treatment, I haven't decided yet.  

The earlier, the better. Don't try to tough this one out.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

This is outrageous for a number of reasons but this is probably the type of stuff WH advisors have been saying the entire time and Kushner is the only one there dumb enough to say it in front of cameras.

What Jared said was there were examples where the States had no idea about their inventory levels, and that he had asked them to have their data on:

1. Inventory of Respirators/Ventilators.
2. Current patient use.
3. Anticipated patient use.

before requesting these items.

He went on to say that some states who had very few COVID-19 patients were asking for 100 ventilators just to be safe.

Whereas other states had a direct need right now, and the Federal Government would send the ventilators were required based on ranking of requirement. That was something each state could not determine.

And after that conversation, your comment came out.

Ventilator shortages are imminent in a number of states, and the number of cases is going to increase (possibly dramatically) in all fifty states. Of course states are going to be requesting extras in a case of extreme shortages.

Even still the statement in the tweet shows Kushner's sentiment as well as prior statements by Trump make it clear they think it's not their responsibility to grant states the rights to use federal hospital resources, which is... crazy. The federal stockpile exists for a reason. It's much easier (and wieldy in a smaller-scale crisis) for the federal government to have a stockpile which distributes supplies to the states than it is for each individual state to have its own stockpile; this is why the federal stockpile exists in the first place.

Nah. You are mostly tilting at windmills.

Nor Kushner, nor Trump said or imply it. They said that thee federal stockpile is, indeed, a back-up for States, but that the States should have had their own stockpiles as well. Is there anything controversial in that attitude?

The reality is that they had 20k ventilators and already distributed 10k (5k to NY alone). They won't be able to make every state happy. Nor should States expect it giving the dire reality.

This article is unfair & horribly timed, & it's sad seeing the NY Times put this out; it kinda shows their lack of actually looking into this. For one, the boat was just approved late yesterday to accept patients. What's more, it has only been taking non-COVID patients who first need to be identified & tested (which takes a while). Moreover, once the patients are identified, they need to actually be moved there, which takes time & coordination & scarcely allocated resources to bring said patient, which would likely require a team of medical staff. And they literally just started! Things like this, even in emergencies, just don't happen instantly. Do people really expect this boat to be crammed full of 1,000 patients overnight? Give the men & women of that ship a break & let them do their extremely stressful & difficult jobs.

If the Comfort was only approved late on April 1 to accept patients, I would say that raises more questions. It apparently arrived in NYC on March 30. Why did it take 2 full days to get approved to start seeing patients? Did it really need to take that long? If approval was a holdup, is there some reason it could not be pre-approved so that it would be ready when it got there? If stuff needed to be set up on the ship, could it not have been set up while the ship was sailing on the way there?

Suppose that there were a shooting war on, and the ship had been needed to treat military casualties. Would it have needed 2 days after arriving in the war zone to start treating soldiers? If so, that seems like a problem.

JFC, do you any doubts that ~everyone there tried to do their best jobs? Nah, must be ORANGE MAN BAD fault. He hold off approval, right?  FFS.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Roommate is getting tested in Montana today. 

My concern is that she definitely came into contact with several people on her drive from Philadelphia back to Billings.  Hopefully the hotel staff at the place at which she stopped along the way were taking the proper precautions. 

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://apnews.com/996e9504177861cb29dd77dadec5d873

US sheds 701,000 jobs, ending a record-long hiring streak

A record-long streak of U.S. job growth ended suddenly in March after nearly a decade as employers cut 701,000 jobs because of the viral outbreak that’s all but shut down the U.S. economy. The unemployment rate jumped to 4.4% from a 50-year low of 3.5%.

Last month’s actual job loss was likely even larger because the government surveyed employers before the heaviest layoffs hit in the past two week. Nearly 10 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits in the last two weeks of March, far exceeding the figure for any corresponding period on record.

Oof. And it was before it even started.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Roommate is getting tested in Montana today. 

My concern is that she definitely came into contact with several people on her drive from Philadelphia back to Billings.  Hopefully the hotel staff at the place at which she stopped along the way were taking the proper precautions. 

What is the testing policy in US? Will the people she met be tested? None? ~Near contact? Only if they get symptoms?

[Bandit3 the Worker]

I approve this message.

https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1245635579229822977

He already blew it with his martial law rant.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Roommate is getting tested in Montana today.  

My concern is that she definitely came into contact with several people on her drive from Philadelphia back to Billings.  Hopefully the hotel staff at the place at which she stopped along the way were taking the proper precautions.  

What is the testing policy in US? Will the people she met be tested? None? ~Near contact? Only if they get symptoms?

Good questions, RB.  In terms of actually getting a test, it seems to depend on the state and their testing capabilities. In some places, it's pretty much: "No symptoms? No test." In others, any serious contact with someone who has been confirmed positive will prompt your physician to recommend a test.  

As for tracking down the people with whom she came into contact, that's far beyond my purview.  I'm not even certain what department would handle that (if at all) -- especially since it reaches across multiple states (she stopped at a hotel in western Wisconsin and gas stations in Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota and North Dakota).  

[Tender Branson]

Americans, this will come to you in about 2 weeks, so here I’m already posting an instruction video for you:

https://twitter.com/mutverein/status/1245651453819023360

🇺🇸👍🇺🇸😷🇺🇸👍🇺🇸

[Tender Branson]

This sh*t is exploding in the US as if someone dropped a nuclear bomb there ...

[Bandit3 the Worker]

This sh*t is exploding in the US as if someone dropped a nuclear bomb there ...

The growth in new cases is more linear now.

It's still pretty sad that the U.S. hasn't approved remdesivir. It can approve stuff like pemoline that destroys livers, but it can't approve things like remdesivir that save lives.

[emailking]

^ a very steep linear

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Here is some important context, isn't it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert



2016 USDA map. According to the Medley Food Desert Project,[6] nearly 24 million Americans live in food deserts. Food deserts are heavily concentrated in southern states, which correlates with concentration of poverty. The map presents percentages of people without cars living in areas with no supermarket within a mile.

You can complain that there are so much poor people in US/these states (it's a tragedy) and that the [southern] states didn't fix that, but you can't complain that these people didn't stop "travel more than 2 miles". They doesn't have that privilege.

I know that this map has been used for weaponized outrage but I don't think it's nearly as compelling as most people. The highest density of food deserts are in the Black Belt and Appalachia, but even those regions don't make up the entirety of those states. In the first map, you see that nearly all of the non-urban/suburban parts of states which have been slow to adopt policies are highlighted in red.

Western North Carolina, Oklahoma outside of Little Dixie, Northern Georgia, NE/Central Florida, East Texas... all of these areas are showing up as low-density for food deserts but still having transit. Meanwhile if you move outside the rural south there are still plenty of food deserts and they don't correspond very well to areas which still have public movement. Even if you look in WV/KY you'll see WV is mostly food deserts but has mostly been staying home while KY has movement in Central/West plains and no movement where there are higher densities of food deserts than in the Eastern part.

I've seen people like Chris Arnade (yes, I know his book is in my signature and yes, despite that I think his Twitter persona is toxic) and Sarah Taber use this to "coastal elite"-shame people who post this map and call it racist (?) but that's a pretty tenuous case to me.

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/sykescharlie/status/1246080517767942145?s=21

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/rothschildmd/status/1245925885301014530

These. People. Are. Insane.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/rothschildmd/status/1245925885301014530

These. People. Are. Insane.

Shhhhh, this atleast keeps them in.

[emailking]

Why do they think this has to be done in secret?

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Why do they think this has to be done in secret?

Think?

[Crumpets]

QAnon diehards will never crack. Any possible course of events can be worked into their narrative, no matter how patently ridiculous it might sound.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

https://mobile.twitter.com/bnodesk/status/1246092469500088320?s=21

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

QAnon diehards will never crack. Any possible course of events can be worked into their narrative, no matter how patently ridiculous it might sound.

I can empathize with them. It's doubtless much more comforting to believe that current events are the result of a deliberate plan, than that we're caught up in the chaos resulting from random natural events exacerbated by the actions of a stupid, malevolent madman who suckered a quarter of the nation with lies so transparent you'd have to be a imbecile to believe them.