***NON-POLITICAL COVID-19 Discussion Thread***

[JakeF]

A couple of reminders...

Originally Posted by Bwana

Once again, don't come in this thread with some kind of political agenda, or you will be shown the door. If you want to go that route, there is a thread about this in DC.

Originally Posted by Dartgod

People, there is a lot of good information in this thread, let's try to keep the petty bickering to a minimum.

We all have varying opinions about the impact of this, the numbers, etc. We will all never agree with each other. But we can all keep it civil.

Thanks!

Click here for the original OP:

Spoiler!

Apparently the CoronaVirus can survive on a inanimate objects, such as door knobs, for 9 days.

California coronavirus case could be first spread within U.S. community, CDC says
By SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA, JACLYN COSGROVE
FEB. 26, 2020 8:04 PM

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating what could be the first case of novel coronavirus in the United States involving a patient in California who neither recently traveled out of the country nor was in contact with someone who did.

“At this time, the patient’s exposure is unknown. It’s possible this could be an instance of community spread of COVID-19, which would be the first time this has happened in the United States,” the CDC said in a statement. “Community spread means spread of an illness for which the source of infection is unknown. It’s also possible, however, that the patient may have been exposed to a returned traveler who was infected.”

The individual is a resident of Solano County and is receiving medical care in Sacramento County, according to the state Department of Public Health.

The CDC said the “case was detected through the U.S. public health system — picked up by astute clinicians.”

Officials at UC Davis Medical Center expanded on what the federal agency might have meant by that in an email sent Wednesday, as reported by the Davis Enterprise newspaper.

The patient arrived at UC Davis Medical Center from another hospital Feb. 19 and “had already been intubated, was on a ventilator, and given droplet protection orders because of an undiagnosed and suspected viral condition,” according to an email sent by UC Davis officials that was obtained by the Davis Enterprise.

The staff at UC Davis requested COVID-19 testing by the CDC, but because the patient didn’t fit the CDC’s existing criteria for the virus, a test wasn’t immediately administered, according to the email. The CDC then ordered the test Sunday, and results were announced Wednesday. Hospital administrators reportedly said in the email that despite these issues, there has been minimal exposure at the hospital because of safety protocols they have in place.

A UC Davis Health spokesperson declined Wednesday evening to share the email with The Times.

Since Feb. 2, more than 8,400 returning travelers from China have entered California, according to the state health department. They have been advised to self-quarantine for 14 days and limit interactions with others as much as possible, officials said.

“This is a new virus, and while we are still learning about it, there is a lot we already know,” Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “We have been anticipating the potential for such a case in the U.S., and given our close familial, social and business relationships with China, it is not unexpected that the first case in the U.S. would be in California.”

It is not clear how the person became infected, but public health workers could not identify any contacts with people who had traveled to China or other areas where the virus is widespread. That raises concern that the virus is spreading in the United States, creating a challenge for public health officials, experts say.

“It’s the first signal that we could be having silent transmission in the community,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. “It probably means there are many more cases out there, and it probably means this individual has infected others, and now it’s a race to try to find out who that person has infected.”

On Tuesday, the CDC offered its most serious warning to date that the United States should expect and prepare for the coronavirus to become a more widespread health issue.

“Ultimately, we expect we will see coronavirus spread in this country,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “It’s not so much a question of if, but a question of when.”

According to the CDC’s latest count Wednesday morning, 59 U.S. residents have tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus — 42 of whom are repatriated citizens from a Diamond Princess cruise. That number has grown by two since Messonnier’s last count Tuesday, although the CDC was not immediately available to offer details on the additional cases.

More than 82,000 cases of coronavirus have been reported globally, and more than 2,700 people have died, with the majority in mainland China, the epicenter of the outbreak.

But public health leaders have repeatedly reminded residents that the health risk from the novel coronavirus to the general public remains low.

“While COVID-19 has a high transmission rate, it has a low mortality rate,” the state Department of Public Health said in a statement Wednesday. “From the international data we have, of those who have tested positive for COVID-19, approximately 80% do not exhibit symptoms that would require hospitalization. There have been no confirmed deaths related to COVID-19 in the United States to date.”

CDC officials have also warned that although the virus is likely to spread in U.S. communities, the flu still poses a greater risk.

Gostin said the news of potential silent transmission does not eliminate the possibility of containing the virus in the U.S. and preventing an outbreak.

“There are few enough cases that we should at least try,” he said. “Most of us are not optimistic that that will be successful, but we’re still in the position to try.”

[Coach]

Originally Posted by petegz28

Well the media has made the shift from deaths to cases. A lot of people have grasped onto that and now have a "but are you dead?" attitude. I agree in places like AZ and CA where the hospitals are getting ran on things need to be taken seriously.

But people understand that if you do get Covid you are not going to die and really have a good chance to not even know you got it.

Rightly or wrongly it comes down to deaths. And good or bad, we have seen cases almost triple but deaths are not up by much.

Here's my concern on Covid. Even if you are not going to die, the long term consequences are still unknown at this point, other than probably respiratory issues, which is a whole another mess. The only close parallel one can make is the original SARS studies.

Also, and people may scoff at this and that's fine, but it's true that there will also the mental issues with this. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression, to name a few.

And if one is a patient that had to be hospitalized because of it, but survived, well, good for the person for winning that battle, but the hospital/medical bills is another story, especially if that person lost its job and/or health insurance.

The whole thing is just a mess.

[petegz28]

Originally Posted by Strongside

Is there a running count or list of CP members who have contracted?

3

Lew
Lew
OTWP (I think)

[KCrockaholic]

Lew testing positive twice is very interesting to me. One was May 1st, and the other was like July 13th or something. He's either been secretly a part of these COVID party's or something about his immune system is very sensitive to this illness in particular.

[Strongside]

Wait, Lew x2?

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by Strongside

Wait, Lew x2?

I’ll take some Weller if you ain’t got no Pappy.

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by KCrockaholic

Lew testing positive twice is very interesting to me. One was May 1st, and the other was like July 13th or something. He's either been secretly a part of these COVID party's or something about his immune system is very sensitive to this illness in particular.

Asymptomatic and mild. I’ll take that.

Our PTA is in the hospital fighting for his life, and we’ve had another therapist and 3 nurses need hospital care from their bouts with the virus since March.

[suzzer99]

Originally Posted by KCrockaholic

Lew testing positive twice is very interesting to me. One was May 1st, and the other was like July 13th or something. He's either been secretly a part of these COVID party's or something about his immune system is very sensitive to this illness in particular.

It really does make you wonder if there's a big chunk of people getting this, but they develop no symptoms and don't show up on antibody tests. And they're not immune for very long.

So it's like they never really had it at all. Except they did. And we don't know if they can infect others in this state.

[OnTheWarpath15]

Originally Posted by lewdog

I’ll take some Weller if you ain’t got no Pappy.

I have an unopened bottle of 12 and Antique. I'll leave them sealed until we can share them.

[Chief Pagan]

Originally Posted by petegz28

You can't tell people their business are shut down and tough shit if it means you can't feed yourself, pay your rent, etc. People will just ignore you. Especially when the order is coming from someone who is getting their full pay check.

I agree. People need more government support.

Without a vaccine, when the government support that does exists runs out and the eviction moratorium expires, things could get grim in a hurry.

[jdubya]

Originally Posted by Coach

Here's my concern on Covid. Even if you are not going to die, the long term consequences are still unknown at this point, other than probably respiratory issues, which is a whole another mess. The only close parallel one can make is the original SARS studies.

Also, and people may scoff at this and that's fine, but it's true that there will also the mental issues with this. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression, to name a few.

And if one is a patient that had to be hospitalized because of it, but survived, well, good for the person for winning that battle, but the hospital/medical bills is another story, especially if that person lost its job and/or health insurance.

The whole thing is just a mess.

Can we not say the same regarding pesticides and fertilizers we use today? How many of us have used Roundup for weeds in the last 40 years and now we have lawsuits everywhere because apparently Roundup is killing everybody?

[BWillie]

Looking strictly at cases a day is not how you do this. We have better testing now. That is by design. Correlate current deaths to new cases 3-5 weeks ago. When we were hitting 2,100 deaths a day we had way way more "cases" just not "confirmed reported cases".

With that said, the trend is not encouraging.

[suzzer99]

Originally Posted by BWillie

Looking strictly at cases a day is not how you do this. We have better testing now. That is by design. Correlate current deaths to new cases 3-5 weeks ago. When we were hitting 2,100 deaths a day we had way way more "cases" just not "confirmed reported cases".

With that said, the trend is not encouraging.

I eyeball back-tested the states that are blowing up right now - AZ/TX/FL - they're running at about 5% CFR with a one month lag. Meaning deaths today are 5% of confirmed cases one month ago. If you extrapolate that a month forward - you get over 500 deaths/day for FL, 600 for TX and 200 for AZ. It's not going to be pretty.

I did a similar analysis for every state, except I pegged 20% positivity rate at 5% CFR, and then discounted for lower positivity rates. So a 5% positivity rate only gets 1.25% CFR.

Adding up every state works out to about 2000 deaths/day in the US in a month. Which will be about double where we're at now.

[R Clark]

Originally Posted by jdubya

Can we not say the same regarding pesticides and fertilizers we use today? How many of us have used Roundup for weeds in the last 40 years and now we have lawsuits everywhere because apparently Roundup is killing everybody?

It kills weeds ,did you think it wouldn’t be bad for you?

[MahomesMagic]

Originally Posted by suzzer99

I eyeball back-tested the states that are blowing up right now - AZ/TX/FL - they're running at about 5% CFR with a one month lag. Meaning deaths today are 5% of confirmed cases one month ago. If you extrapolate that a month forward - you get over 500 deaths/day for FL, 600 for TX and 200 for AZ. It's not going to be pretty.

I did a similar analysis for every state, except I pegged 20% positivity rate at 5% CFR, and then discounted for lower positivity rates. So a 5% positivity rate only gets 1.25% CFR.

Adding up every state works out to about 2000 deaths/day in the US in a month. Which will be about double where we're at now.

No way that's happening.

[MahomesMagic]

Letter from an investment advisory firm to its clients on Covid/Investing

The 20th-century’s greatest pandemic (the Spanish Flu
of 1918) probably had an R0 just above 2.0, so the herd immunity threshold was likely 55-60%. But historians
estimate just 20% of people had been infected when the Spanish Flu’s spread suddenly collapsed. Philadelphia
saw peak deaths in mid-October 1918, but by mid-November the disease was effectively gone from the city. Spread
of the Spanish Flu peaked and plunged in weeks, without ever reaching herd immunity.
So how do we explain this?
The answer: there is not one, but two levels of population “immunity” to consider.
First, herd immunity: the level of specific resistance in a population required for a disease to fully disappear.
Second, the disease break point: the level of specific resistance in a population at which spread of a disease
collapses. The disease break point is generally one-third or less the threshold required for herd immunity.

The disease break point model uses graph theory to better explain how outbreaks evolve in practice. The model
assumes actors and outcomes are not equally distributed – and in fact assumes they are concentrated in certain
individuals and sub-populations. A node with a well-connected social graph is more likely to be infected early and
to transmit the disease widely. Once recovered, however, the “immune” node becomes a dead-end for future
disease spread. The system spikes and then collapses far quicker than a herd immunity model (a homogenous
approximation model) would predict as these “super-spreaders” become “super-suppressors.”
For COVID-19, the implications are powerful. If C19’s R0 is 2.5-3.0 and its herd immunity threshold is 60-65%,
then the disease break point would be only 15-20% specific resistance (a population’s precise disease break point
likely varies somewhat due to differences in susceptibility and social graphs).
Our research indicates Europe and the US reached this disease break point in March and April, respectively. We
believe spread of COVID-19 in these geographies has peaked and is now in irrevocable, sustained decline.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ws6...kSK3OS5l44ASqc