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

[Sbane]

Surprised this hasn't been talked about yet in the thread, but Walmart an Target are rolling out new social distancing measures tomorrow limiting stores to 20% capacity.

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1246277075100749824

Good, the grocery store seems to be the one place you can't avoid people who don't have a mask & blatantly disregard social distancing protocols.

No.  Bad.  Very, very bad.  This will just lead to more panic buying, which means more people will turn up to shop, which will now translate into long lines outside grocery stores (4 hrs wait for milk and eggs?), which means even *more panic buying.

This is the truly apocalyptic, society-ending stuff.  Not having to share a ventilator.

Working at Target I can tell you that we have strict limits on essential items now, panic buying has pretty much been banned. I can tell you this cause I’ve been verbally harassed and berated over the past few weeks upholding them. But guess what? Those customers can get f**ked. Done being polite.

Keep your head up brother. You are a hero.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Surprised this hasn't been talked about yet in the thread, but Walmart an Target are rolling out new social distancing measures tomorrow limiting stores to 20% capacity.

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1246277075100749824

Good, the grocery store seems to be the one place you can't avoid people who don't have a mask & blatantly disregard social distancing protocols.

No.  Bad.  Very, very bad.  This will just lead to more panic buying, which means more people will turn up to shop, which will now translate into long lines outside grocery stores (4 hrs wait for milk and eggs?), which means even *more panic buying.

This is the truly apocalyptic, society-ending stuff.  Not having to share a ventilator.

Working at Target I can tell you that we have strict limits on essential items now, panic buying has pretty much been banned. I can tell you this cause I’ve been verbally harassed and berated over the past few weeks upholding them. But guess what? Those customers can get f**ked. Done being polite.

Keep your head up brother. You are a hero.

Its the same at the Wal-Mart I work at. Strict limits on most everything, and now with the restrictions on foot traffic to maintain social distancing, I think panic buying is dead.

[Frodo]

Well now we know for certain that this virus wasn't hatched at some lab in Wuhan province:

The COVID-19 Virus May Have Been in Humans For Years, Study Suggests

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/michael_nielsen/status/1246457825720553472?s=20

[jimrtex]

Surprised this hasn't been talked about yet in the thread, but Walmart an Target are rolling out new social distancing measures tomorrow limiting stores to 20% capacity.

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1246277075100749824
Cities and counties are also starting to implement similar guidelines, like these new ones in Terrebone Parish, Louisiana (pop. 115k) that, among other things:

• All retail stores, including grocery stores and pharmacies, limited to 20% of fire marshal capacity
• Retail stores only open from 6AM to 8PM
• Shopping trips should only be made for "essential" items
• Only one person per family should go to the store at a time, if possible
• A 10PM to 5AM curfew is already in effect

I just don't understand the calculus here.  It's just a constant escalation of restrictions.  You can always find a way to be more aggressive in social distancing, but after a certain point the marginal costs exceed the marginal benefits.  Unfortunately, the sensationalist media and #FlattenTheCurve cultists will have these sorts of restrictions as their main raison d'etre by the middle of next week.

Panic buying is already a *major, major problem (and so far is actually a bigger problem than anything we've seen on the healthcare side).  Now the police are going to start enforcing a 20% limit?  What's the logical outcome here?  A bunch of people waiting several hours in line to buy groceries, contributing only to further panic and more runs on the supermarkets (which will lead to even longer lines in the best case scenario, violence in the worst).

Not to sound too alarmist here - but this is the *truly worrying stuff, not ICU/ventilator shortages.  The role of government in this situation should be to step-in and make sure essential retail operations remain open and accessible to all Americans.  If that means making people assume a bit more risk when they go out shopping, its a risk that's actually worth it in this case. 

What is fire marshal capacity for a Walmart (SuperCenter)?

With large numbers, it is harder to enforce social distancing in checkout lines. Competitors may also have complained that Walmart was getting an "essential retail" dispensation based on selling groceries, while bored customers were browsing the clothing aisles or buying bedspreads.

Walmart could organize a car queue to regulate customers coming in.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

My county is possibly re-opening beaches because there were protests today and yesterday over it and one councilwoman is threatening to sue to the county AG  and county Exec over it

[emailking]

Its the same at the Wal-Mart I work at. Strict limits on most everything, and now with the restrictions on foot traffic to maintain social distancing, I think panic buying is dead.

How are the limits enforced with self checkout?

[brucejoel99]

Well now we know for certain that this virus wasn't hatched at some lab in Wuhan province:

The COVID-19 Virus May Have Been in Humans For Years, Study Suggests

I've already read this study. It states that, since it's a cousin of SARS, it has markers that are traceable to other viruses. What it doesn't state is that SARS-CoV-19 has been in humans for a long time, but that others like it share human & bat reservoirs, so that's quite the sensationalist title to promulgate. If nothing else, though, it's a good study to prove that it wasn't "engineered" by China.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Its the same at the Wal-Mart I work at. Strict limits on most everything, and now with the restrictions on foot traffic to maintain social distancing, I think panic buying is dead.

How are the limits enforced with self checkout?

Well I can relate my experiences with this having been stopped incorrectly. The self checkouts are overlooked by an associate. I had six gallons of water, which the aisle signs, said was the limit. I got up front and the associate claimed she "couldn't let me have that many". After I pressed my case, she made a phone call and they let me buy them. Failure to communicate and update the signs. I use water to make tea and lemonade because the tap water leaves a nasty after-taste when I use that for such purposes.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Surprised this hasn't been talked about yet in the thread, but Walmart an Target are rolling out new social distancing measures tomorrow limiting stores to 20% capacity.

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1246277075100749824
Cities and counties are also starting to implement similar guidelines, like these new ones in Terrebone Parish, Louisiana (pop. 115k) that, among other things:

• All retail stores, including grocery stores and pharmacies, limited to 20% of fire marshal capacity
• Retail stores only open from 6AM to 8PM
• Shopping trips should only be made for "essential" items
• Only one person per family should go to the store at a time, if possible
• A 10PM to 5AM curfew is already in effect

I just don't understand the calculus here.  It's just a constant escalation of restrictions.  You can always find a way to be more aggressive in social distancing, but after a certain point the marginal costs exceed the marginal benefits.  Unfortunately, the sensationalist media and #FlattenTheCurve cultists will have these sorts of restrictions as their main raison d'etre by the middle of next week.

Panic buying is already a *major, major problem (and so far is actually a bigger problem than anything we've seen on the healthcare side).  Now the police are going to start enforcing a 20% limit?  What's the logical outcome here?  A bunch of people waiting several hours in line to buy groceries, contributing only to further panic and more runs on the supermarkets (which will lead to even longer lines in the best case scenario, violence in the worst).

Not to sound too alarmist here - but this is the *truly worrying stuff, not ICU/ventilator shortages.  The role of government in this situation should be to step-in and make sure essential retail operations remain open and accessible to all Americans.  If that means making people assume a bit more risk when they go out shopping, its a risk that's actually worth it in this case. 

What is fire marshal capacity for a Walmart (SuperCenter)?

With large numbers, it is harder to enforce social distancing in checkout lines. Competitors may also have complained that Walmart was getting an "essential retail" dispensation based on selling groceries, while bored customers were browsing the clothing aisles or buying bedspreads.

Walmart could organize a car queue to regulate customers coming in.

Depends on the square footage of the store. I have heard numbers of 5, 10, and 20 per thousand square footage of store.

[It’s so Joever]

Yet another day in a row where the percentage increase in new cases was less than the day before (and testing is up again).  It wouldn't surprise me we're approaching the peak of new cases in the next couple days (the peak of active cases and deaths would follow a couple weeks behind), and we can start on the downward part of this curve by next week.

The good news is, if you continue to make this claim every week, one of these times you'll be right. Until then it's a matter of minimizing embarrassment when you're wrong.

I swear to god, some people really don’t learn from mistakes.
 Case in point, every virus-downplayer on here. I remember when they said this is just SARS, or Bird Flu. Yet they still refuse to admit their own failings.

[jimrtex]

Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, besides being physically stronger than any other world leader, an excellent marksman and a skilled driver, is also a genius scientist who developed a vaccine that he is not sharing outside of Turkmenistan.

That, or he's simply concealing the numbers.

I thought you were making that up.

I remember a New Yorker cartoon that had a floor mounted globe about five-feet high. A Pentagon general, and a Senior Foggy Bottom diplomat pointed at the globe, and exclaimed, "We've been sending foreign aid to a booger!".

GB may be a booger.

[Virginiá]

Said no sane person ever.

I won't obey it for 2 months.

The problem here is that if everyone had that same thought, and there was no lock down, the virus would spread like wildfire, completely overwhelm the healthcare system, and we'd be looking at worst-case scenarios in terms of deaths. The fact that even Trump is moving the goalposts to 100,000 - 200,000 deaths is bad enough, but do you really want million(s) dead? It's a pretty simple question here: Without a vaccine immediately available, how many people do you want to die (or get terribly ill and possibly suffer long-term lung damage) so life can go on as normal for the rest?

Few people enjoy the isolation and anxiety that comes with shutting down society. I'm going stir-crazy myself, even though FL's policy and the response to it is so lax I could technically just go about my business (minus a job) - except that this virus could easily be fatal for my mom if I were to pass it to her.

[Bismarck]

Well now we know for certain that this virus wasn't hatched at some lab in Wuhan province:

The COVID-19 Virus May Have Been in Humans For Years, Study Suggests

I've already read this study. It states that, since it's a cousin of SARS, it has markers that are traceable to other viruses. What it doesn't state is that SARS-CoV-19 has been in humans for a long time, but that others like it share human & bat reservoirs, so that's quite the sensationalist title to promulgate. If nothing else, though, it's a good study to prove that it wasn't "engineered" by China.

I don’t think anyone serious was suggesting that. I have seen some people suggest that it may have been mistakenly released from the Wuhan institute of virology where coronaviruses are studied. Regardless, expect a large number of studies to come out of China this year suggesting ambiguous origins for the virus. Many Chinese researchers have a very high standard but research ethics there are much less universal than they are in the West. Even Chinese scientists I know have told me that.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Yet another day in a row where the percentage increase in new cases was less than the day before (and testing is up again).  It wouldn't surprise me we're approaching the peak of new cases in the next couple days (the peak of active cases and deaths would follow a couple weeks behind), and we can start on the downward part of this curve by next week.

Bottom line is that I am confident that most business will reopen on May 1st.

The more cases that have piled up, the harder it is to get a percentage increase. Yeah I guess this is better than daily percentage increases. But the number of cases is still accelerating. We're not peaking.

That is actually true.

On an exponential growth curve like the USA is experiencing in graphic clarity, every day will actually see a decrease in percentage of new cases whilst seeing an acceleration in the number of actual new cases.

Why?

Dividing the new cases into a larger and larger base of existing infections makes no sense to get a percentage. It will just fall slowly like every exponential curve would. It's a symptom of the maths, not a reflection of the reality of what is actually happening.

It is a bit like this:

Growth of new cases in the USA was from Louisiana and Michigan.

But dividing that by the number of existing cases in New York is meaningless.

Hence percentage increases are doubly deceiving when analysing exponential growth data.

The only thing you can conclude is that those countries with the highest percentage increase in New Cases are most like in week 1 of the growth curve.

If the percentage growth is decreasing, then by definition you are not seeing exponential growth.  An exponential growth curve displays a constant percentage increase at all points.

[brucejoel99]

Said no sane person ever.

I won't obey it for 2 months.

The problem here is that if everyone had that same thought, and there was no lock down, the virus would spread like wildfire, completely overwhelm the healthcare system, and we'd be looking at worst-case scenarios in terms of deaths. The fact that even Trump is moving the goalposts to 100,000 - 200,000 deaths is bad enough, but do you really want million(s) dead? It's a pretty simple question here: Without a vaccine immediately available, how many people do you want to die (or get terribly ill and possibly suffer long-term lung damage) so life can go on as normal for the rest?

Few people enjoy the isolation and anxiety that comes with shutting down society. I'm going stir-crazy myself, even though FL's policy and the response to it is so lax I could technically just go about my business (minus a job) - except that this virus could easily be fatal for my mom if I were to pass it to her.

Don't bother trying to talk some sense into him. His history in these COVID threads clearly indicates that, yes, he's perfectly fine with millions (including your own mother) dying so long as he feels like he's not being stopped from going about his business.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Yet another day in a row where the percentage increase in new cases was less than the day before (and testing is up again).  It wouldn't surprise me we're approaching the peak of new cases in the next couple days (the peak of active cases and deaths would follow a couple weeks behind), and we can start on the downward part of this curve by next week.

Bottom line is that I am confident that most business will reopen on May 1st.

The more cases that have piled up, the harder it is to get a percentage increase. Yeah I guess this is better than daily percentage increases. But the number of cases is still accelerating. We're not peaking.

That is actually true.

On an exponential growth curve like the USA is experiencing in graphic clarity, every day will actually see a decrease in percentage of new cases whilst seeing an acceleration in the number of actual new cases.

Why?

Dividing the new cases into a larger and larger base of existing infections makes no sense to get a percentage. It will just fall slowly like every exponential curve would. It's a symptom of the maths, not a reflection of the reality of what is actually happening.

It is a bit like this:

Growth of new cases in the USA was from Louisiana and Michigan.

But dividing that by the number of existing cases in New York is meaningless.

Hence percentage increases are doubly deceiving when analysing exponential growth data.

The only thing you can conclude is that those countries with the highest percentage increase in New Cases are most like in week 1 of the growth curve.

If the percentage growth is decreasing, then by definition you are not seeing exponential growth.  An exponential growth curve displays a constant percentage increase at all points.

Point taken.

I will change my statement to say that the growth we are seeing is sub-exponential due to two main reasons:

• The naive population available for new infections decreases with time;
• Recoveries and mortality from 'Active Cases' increase with time.

I don't actually know why countries are seeing vastly different levels of growth. I would assume social factors.

But I do know that this viral pandemic is starting with a stronger % increase at the bottom. Countries are starting with 30-80% growth per day, and then settling around 15-30% and so on as we reach the half way point.

It matters little. If it were a perfectly similar % increase on each day, that analysis would be pointless in looking at that data.

My point is that the % increase is not a reliable indicator to monitor the reality of the numbers in the US growth curve.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

And I don' t appreciate being told I'm going to hell because I won't endorse 2-month-long lockdowns. Everyone who knows me knows I am very careful about social distancing and avoiding germs everywhere. I am the first to call out people who won't use common sense on this.

We are supposed to be a republic where people can move about relatively freely, and I look at the numbers from locked-down countries and states on Worldometer each day only to find there hasn't been any progress - in weeks and weeks.

Our social institutions are crumbling, and this can't last. My own health can't last.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Panic buying is already a *major, major problem (and so far is actually a bigger problem than anything we've seen on the healthcare side).

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Trump's incompetence, media sensationalism, and lack of forethought about what the next steps looks like and how this process unwinds, is leading to despair of various sorts. Some rather than succumb to despair will just reject the whole process out of hand and I get the sense that is what might be at play here.

If people in places of authority had the vision and leadership, then people would be less resistance and less despairing over eternal lock-downs, economic armageddon and mass suicide.

[jimrtex]

South Dakota state representative dies from coronavirus, first sitting U.S. lawmaker to die after testing positive for COVID-19

https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-south-dakota-state-representative-bob-glanzer-dead-20200404-43tkdggt3zakfj26i7zoczghnu-story.html

Interesting that this happened in SD, given how few cases & deaths they've reported. Has it really not hit the Dakotas at all or are they just not testing?

South Dakota news reports say that his wife, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law had also tested positive. His niece died last week.

His wife had received treatment for breast cancer in early March, and the family had been welcoming her as she recovered. Huron is not very big (13,000). After receiving treatment in Huron, Glanzer was moved to a hospital in Sioux Falls.

I would suspect that the cancer treatment was in Minneapolis, or perhaps Rochester, Minnesota (Mayo clinic). If his wife was receiving chemo, her immune system would have been depressed. He would have been staying with her.

[Virginiá]

https://marker.medium.com/what-everyones-getting-wrong-about-the-toilet-paper-shortage-c812e1358fe0

There’s another, entirely logical explanation for why stores have run out of toilet paper — one that has gone oddly overlooked in the vast majority of media coverage. It has nothing to do with psychology and everything to do with supply chains. It helps to explain why stores are still having trouble keeping it in stock, weeks after they started limiting how many a customer could purchase.

In short, the toilet paper industry is split into two, largely separate markets: commercial and consumer. The pandemic has shifted the lion’s share of demand to the latter. People actually do need to buy significantly more toilet paper during the pandemic — not because they’re making more trips to the bathroom, but because they’re making more of them at home. With some 75% of the U.S. population under stay-at-home orders, Americans are no longer using the restrooms at their workplace, in schools, at restaurants, at hotels, or in airports.

Georgia-Pacific, a leading toilet paper manufacturer based in Atlanta, estimates that the average household will use 40% more toilet paper than usual if all of its members are staying home around the clock. That’s a huge leap in demand for a product whose supply chain is predicated on the assumption that demand is essentially constant. It’s one that won’t fully subside even when people stop hoarding or panic-buying.

Pretty good points here!

[brucejoel99]

https://marker.medium.com/what-everyones-getting-wrong-about-the-toilet-paper-shortage-c812e1358fe0

There’s another, entirely logical explanation for why stores have run out of toilet paper — one that has gone oddly overlooked in the vast majority of media coverage. It has nothing to do with psychology and everything to do with supply chains. It helps to explain why stores are still having trouble keeping it in stock, weeks after they started limiting how many a customer could purchase.

In short, the toilet paper industry is split into two, largely separate markets: commercial and consumer. The pandemic has shifted the lion’s share of demand to the latter. People actually do need to buy significantly more toilet paper during the pandemic — not because they’re making more trips to the bathroom, but because they’re making more of them at home. With some 75% of the U.S. population under stay-at-home orders, Americans are no longer using the restrooms at their workplace, in schools, at restaurants, at hotels, or in airports.

Georgia-Pacific, a leading toilet paper manufacturer based in Atlanta, estimates that the average household will use 40% more toilet paper than usual if all of its members are staying home around the clock. That’s a huge leap in demand for a product whose supply chain is predicated on the assumption that demand is essentially constant. It’s one that won’t fully subside even when people stop hoarding or panic-buying.

Pretty good points here!

Great article & a good example of how we need more exposure to systems thinking (& why grocery stores need to be rationing a certain amount per shopper if they haven't already begun to do so).

[jimrtex]

Well now we know for certain that this virus wasn't hatched at some lab in Wuhan province:

The COVID-19 Virus May Have Been in Humans For Years, Study Suggests

Can we make your conclusion?

Who put out the idea that the virus is a result of a recent cross-over from bats to humans at the wet market in Wuhan? Were the scientists at the lab ill-informed?

Presumably to sequence the genome of the virus you first isolate a sample. You don't do this by use of putting a human in a MRI do you? You put a sample in a test tube in a lab.

Can you the virus replicate in human tissue? Does that human tissue have to be inside a human body? The COVID-19 virus is supposedly good at attacking lung tissue, as opposed to a typical flu which attacks the throat.

Can hybridization occur in a lab?

Was the virus accidentally or deliberately released by the lab?

[Smeulders]

I look at the numbers from locked-down countries and states on Worldometer each day only to find there hasn't been any progress - in weeks and weeks.

Then you are not looking well enough. Or not understanding what progress means in this case. Italy has progressed immensely. They went from a tsunami overwhelming their healthcare system to a steady flow. Belgium has had almost constant hospital admissions for a week now. If we hadn't issued lockdowns weeks ago, we'd have seen our hospitals overwhelmed as well. Right now we are around 60% capacity and should stay under our limits in all but a worst case scenario.

You're demanding a painless way out. There isn't. Measures not living up to your impossible standards is not the same as then not working.