Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

Thanks for the recommendation. Totally agree. In that note I linked above, the authors point out that global society is ever more interconnected and this can only increase the chances of outbreaks becoming pandemics. It’s not going to be politically popular, but we should probably just pony up now and get prepared for the next one.

 

Certainly, how easily this has spread is no doubt directly related to how interconnected and easily humans move around the world. Right now, though we are seeing short term thinking--and probably more fooling ourselves--in terms of opening back up. Thinking that things will bounce right back. The underlying *problem* with it is in not having a vision for the future. Maybe we can't fully blame leaders right now since we're in the midst of the battle, but there really needs to be some effort now to consider future permanent changes. The flip side to this seems to me to how many ordinary folk don't want to consider this. I get it. But what's the alternative?

 

Trump lashes out at scientists whose findings contradict him

 

I read the whole thing and I don't agree with you on several parts. I'll respond when I have more time today.

 

'All the psychoses of US history': how America is victim-blaming the coronavirus dead

Hammers conservatives for their responses, then takes aim at liberals as well.

I wish they had included a link to those polls.

 

I think this is what they are talking about when they references the polls showing some white Americans change their opinion about health problems when the person experiencing the health problems is black.

Interesting study, I think they did a good job of designing their research to isolate the attitudes that led to the different takes on responsibility.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...coronavirus-some-people-think-they-are-blame/

 

Thanks for sharing, but no surprise there.

 

Wanted During a Pandemic: Presidential Leadership | The American Conservative

 

Having antibodies is a fun fact... lol. we are using the plasma (of people with antibodies) to treat sick people, its a bit more than a fun fact.
There have been very few "re-infected" It looks like that situation is a very low % chance. Are we seeing large numbers of previously infected healthcare workers getting infected? I haven't seen anything n that regard, that's where I'd expect the signal first.

 

Read it all and agree.
Increasing hospitalizations should be watched. Since you can get tested all over positive case will rise... Since prior infected get counted in there also healed people will make overall infected numbers rise also.
Important numbers are hospitalized, ICU admits, death rates.
Does it matter how many millions get it who are asymptomatic? The more that do the faster to herd immunity.
At risk take more precaution and stay home. Common sense solutions.

 

“Fun fact” was not to downplay their relevance in finding a cure/vaccine, but again I’ll ask, what relevance does that have in tracking active cases? There’s no reason to lump them together in your testing efforts other than to inflate those numbers to justify increasing cases.

 

I may have mistook your comment. I read it as having antibodies meant nothing.

I agree that total cases while good to know is less important that tracking and noting changes in new acute cases.
However we must be mindful there too, a large batched data set can skew the trend. My area had that a few weeks ago when there were 50+ new cases in one day out of 350 total case. (They mass tested the jail and a large block of results came back at once all being asymptomatic).

Seems like we agree.

 

Just met up with a golf buddy of mine who I hadn't heard from in a few weeks. He had Covid and just got out of quarantine. He's in his mid 30's and said it was pretty bad. Couldn't sleep for 3 days and had over 103 temp almost every night. Lost taste and had some shortness of breath. His pregnant wife and young son never had it, tested negative, he works with his father and he never got it. I played golf with him in the 14 day window and never had it or did anybody we play with. I did get tested and was negative (tested for other reasons, symptoms but as I thought was my allergies). My take away is that while I'm sure its highly contagious by the numbers we see, but doesn't seem to be as contagious as some would think. The fact that nobody else in his house got it is shocking.

 

Based on the numbers, it is either highly contagious or highly deadly (or some fairly high degree of both).

 

It was neither in this situation, although every situation is different. How do three people in the same household not get it, as well as his father who he works with daily in the same office? It is not highly deadly to 98% of the population based on the numbers.

 

Unlikely events happen when N=1. Probably not best to make determinations based on N=1. However, over the population, given the number of deaths, at least one of these is true:

1. It is very contagious and we have missed a huge number of cases. But the death rate is maybe as low as 0.5%.
2. It is very deadly and we have missed quite a few cases but not nearly as many as in option 1 (i.e., we caught maybe 1/8 cases).

 

well the R0 is around 2 so although you and his family didn't get it he likely infected 2 others. No way to really know though.

 

I don't think we know the percentage of population for which the disease is deadly or causes long term morbidity. But of reported cases, death rate in the US is running 6% overall. 5% outside the NYC metro area.

That obviously doesn't factor in the cases we don't know about, but also doesn't factor in what appears to be a pretty high number of deaths that have not been counted towards this virus, nor any of the permanent morbidity numbers for survivors.

This virus is tough, as your friend can attest. And he's in an age group that supposedly is very low risk.

 

Yeah he said it was like a bad flu as far as level of sickness, just some different symptoms. Said he had some hallucinations maybe due to not being able to sleep for 3 nights, that sounds like good side effect, lol. He never felt like he was close to having to go to hospital though.

 

Mutz posted:
People need to go back and read Plagues and Peoples by William McNeill.

Bought and read this one - excellent read.
Would also recommend "The Coming Plague"
by Laurie Garrett. She has been making the rounds on TV lately. Urge you to listen to her recent podcasts or interviews.