***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.”

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

No shit. This out dated firm handshake BS is some cro-magnum mad men level of thinking. My hands are usually way bigger than whom I meeting. I’m 6 inches and 100 lbs bigger than them. I go in trying to show some dominance with a “firm” handshake, they ain’t giving me a job. At least 40% are women too. I’m supposed to crush their hands too? GTFO.

I've read that the origin of a handshake was to prove that a person was unarmed. So when we meet new people and don't feel like shaking hands, we should just look them square in the eye and say, "I am carrying no weapons. Can you say the same?"

I suspect that would work well in job interviews, and in any other situation as well.

[suzzer99]

****ing cdc man. This thing has been roaming around western Washington since at least the first confirmed case. I’ve had multiple patients who have been flu negative with all the symptoms of covid-19. Multiple lobe pneumonia, ground glass on ct scan, low grade fever, no known source. All of these patients should have been tested, but the cdc wouldn’t let them be unless they traveled to a high risk area. I’m waiting for one of them to test positive, then my ass will be in quarantine lol.

China gave us over a month to prepare for this and we shit the bed. If this disease had arisen in a major American city rather than the other side of the world we would have been well and truly ****ed. As it is I wouldn’t be surprised if there is 50-100 people who are or have been sick for every one who has been confirmed right now.

We still don’t have point of care rapid tests for this. We have to send it to the state lab.

From a doctor on another forum.

Also this from Miami:

https://miami.cbslocal.com/2020/03/0...roper-testing/

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – In what may be the first case of coronavirus in South Florida, a woman who recently returned home from Italy says she was told by doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital that she “likely” has COVID-19, but that they are unable to verify it because state and federal officials refused to conduct the necessary tests to confirm it.

“The doctor himself told me that, you know, he thinks that the results of my [preliminary] tests mean that I most likely have the COVID-19, but that the Department of Health did not want to pursue it further,” said the woman, who requested that her name not be used to protect her privacy. “It was either the Department of Health or the CDC that decided not to further pursue the inquiry. But I was basically told that it is most likely that I have this virus and that I should self-quarantine.”

“Obviously, I would have liked to know if, in fact, I have this virus.”

[F150]

More accurate info Corona/Italy

[suzzer99]

Florence is not in Northern Italy. Some parts of Italy are ok at the moment. I have a friend who at least at the moment is still planning on going to Rome and Amalfi in a couple months.

My friend in Germany said his son's school trip to Rome was just canceled though.

Italy seems to be taking this a lot more seriously than the US though. We seem to be going out of our way to not test people.

From the Italy outbreak wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_c...break_in_Italy

[suzzer99]

Calibrate intuition from math. Assume *roughly*:

2% fatality rate (JAMA)
~4 weeks from infection to death for fatal cases (WHO)
7 day doubling time (NEJM)

Then a report of one death today would mean 50 infected four weeks ago — and 800 cases today. pic.twitter.com/3dYUIOWVdZ

— Balaji S. Srinivasan (@balajis) March 2, 2020

[Cleavage]

Awwww ****...I picked up DISTILLED water!!!!!

[suzzer99]

Wait are you supposed to get a different kind?

[Chief Pagan]

I prefer the 80 proof kind

[LiveSteam]

Ya had time to impeach.. Ya waited on purpose. So you could lock down the Senate.

[Sorry]

Originally Posted by Megatron96

Hahaha, well, it worked for me, dipstick.

I was the number 1 regional manager for 6 years running. Had a higher recruit retention rate than any other regional manager in the country. And my office managers, the guys and girls I recruited and trained, were consistently some of the best recruiters/trainers and producers nationally year in, year out.

I was the guy at the annual conference meeting that other regionals and office managers sought out and asked me for pointers on how I recruited and trained my people.

Weird flex

[Megatron96]

Originally Posted by Sorry

Weird flex

Sometimes I forget that most people haven't had the experiences that I've had. I assume too much commonality.

The short version here is that I learned and operated by a specific set of rules and 'algorithms,' if you will. A system. Taught to me by the guy who recruited and mentored me, who was taught by the guy who recruited him. That included everything from how to sell a product to how to recruit, how to manage people, and how to move up the ladder. So even an introductory interview with a candidate was governed by a set of rules and basically a kind of flow chart. It was typically about 10 minutes long and a number of boxes were checked. If the candidate didn't check at least 70% of those boxes, "sorry, have a nice day."

Some of those boxes were go/no-go boxes. "Look me in the eye and give me a decent handshake," was one of those boxes. Another was appropriate dress. Or at least the attempt to look professional.

Because the reality was that the candidate was in my office that day for 10 minutes selling himself to our clients. And our clients were expecting uber-professional reps to promote their product or whatever. Not some dipstick that had a problem shaking hands. Or some dumbass that couldn't be bothered to wear slacks and a button-down shirt. Or whatever personal quirk they might have. I needed professionals.

You have to understand we're talking about cold-call face-to-face business office sales here. This wasn't some cubicle drone "warm body" job where you could get by just by existing and showing up on time most days.

I was interviewing 100-130 people a week, trying to find at least 10-15 to bring back for a follow-up interview. I'd generally hire 5-7 of those a week. That's 20-30 candidates a month, and the company average was you'd only have 5-7 of those guys still working for you in 3 months. I usually kept 10-13.

But that was because I only brought back really professional looking and acting people that ticked most of the boxes, and then I trained the shit out of them. 9 hours a day for 6 days on-the-job training. Then turn them loose on their own territory. Retrain them after a week. And again two weeks later. Rinse and repeat until they could go out and net at least $800-$1000/week selling the lowest-end products we had. But with the understanding that I didn't want them out there doing that nonsense. I wanted to promote them to trainer, then recruiter. Then assistant manager. Sooner rather than later.

If you were just a career salesman, or just some wanker looking for a job to fill time, I wasn't interested. Some other managers would keep the career sales guys because they could put up consistent good numbers. I never did because they were like a cancer sooner or later. They weren't team guys, and they inevitably would do something stupid to make a number, and either piss off a client or a customer. And the worst case of that was that behavior infecting the rest of the crew, who then repeated it and cost us either customers or a client, or both.

So I didn't have to time to fool around wondering if a candidate might be worth the time to bring back. I had to know it. My recruiter taught me the system piece by piece, and I just made it my mantra.

By the time they made me a manager I had talked to over 150,000 customers. Over a 1000 people a week. You learn to read body language, tone of voice, diction, phraseology . . . tells, essentially. I could tell if you were a buyer or not in less than 3 minutes. Then they had me selling our company to prospective clients. Marketing managers and Advertising directors of some pretty big companies.

So figuring out if some guy/girl was worth the trouble of bringing in for training took about 5 minutes. Because I wasn't looking for some JAG to fill a position. I was looking for a guy/girl that wanted to be successful and become an assistant manager, at the very least. Someone with real potential beyond the entry-level "I'm selling shit" BS.

I needed to find and train people that could learn the system, learn to teach, train and recruit, exactly the same as how I taught them to do those things. So that when my boss called me up and asked me if I had anyone that could become the assistant manager for the new Austin TX office, I could say, "yeah I got a couple guys/girls that I KNOW will be able to do the job. When do you need them?"

Because my ability to train solid assistant managers on a consistent basis that my bosses could place with confidence is what got me promoted eventually to regional manager.

So maybe from the outside the handshake thing seems trivial. But from where I was sitting at the time, it was essential.

Okay, ramble rant over. Don't know why I did that. I'm not even in that business anymore.

[Frosty]

I live in the northeast corner of Washington state in a small town. I work in a larger nearby town that is still pretty small. The school district in the town I work in is closed this week because of a suspected case of Covid 19. My wife works in the school district for the town we live in and said about a quarter of the kids were gone yesterday. Some of them are because of colds and flu but most are probably just parents keeping them home out of fear.

The worrying thing for me is that my son goes to the University of Washington in Seattle. There haven't been any cases reported on campus yet despite the high amount of Chinese students but there is some pressure being applied to close campus to avoid an outbreak. That would severely suck because he is a quarter away from graduating and has a job waiting for him as soon as he is done. Going back for another quarter next spring would be a major pain.

Fortunately, it's stating to warm up here which usually slows colds and flus. Hopefully the warmer weather will slow the outbreak enough for them to get out in front of it eventually.

[Donger]

106 cases now. I think that's pretty good, really.

[TLO]

Listened to the WHO daily conference again today. They are still preaching containment, containment, and more containment.

They are seeing some progress being made in Italy and South Korea. They've also said China had handled the outbreak well. WHO teams were skeptical of the Chinese reporting initially, but they say that their teams have confirmed the Chinese findings.

They also noted that they are finding it more and more likely that people who have the disease, but that are not showing symptoms are likely not spreading the disease.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by TLO

Listened to the WHO daily conference again today. They are still preaching containment, containment, and more containment.

They are seeing some progress being made in Italy and South Korea. They've also said China had handled the outbreak well. WHO teams were skeptical of the Chinese reporting initially, but they say that their teams have confirmed the Chinese findings.

They also noted that they are finding it more and more likely that people who have the disease, but that are not showing symptoms are likely not spreading the disease.

Well, that would be a game changer.