Coronavirus Outbreak...

[shunyadragon]

They can choose to stay home and hide in the closet.

Is there any hard evidence that stringent lockdown -- or any other measures -- will have a significant effect on the area under the bell curve?

Yes in Germany, South Korea, and Japan. The need to succeed was proactive measures early, aggressive and consistent measures to deal with the pandemic.

[oxmixmudd]

They can choose to stay home and hide in the closet.

Is there any hard evidence that stringent lockdown -- or any other measures -- will have a significant effect on the area under the bell curve?

Yes, but I doubt you care.

I grow weary of people making narcissistic, self serving arguments that ignore the real data and show a complete lack of compassion or mercy for the weakest among us.

[NorrinRadd]

German virologist: Wu-WHO Flu less deadly than feared.

The 30-minute video gives more details than the convenient text summary, but I find the sound quality mediocre, making it hard to follow.

[NorrinRadd]

Yes, but I doubt you care.

I grow weary of people making narcissistic, self serving arguments that ignore the real data and show a complete lack of compassion or mercy for the weakest among us.

Bite me.

[oxmixmudd]

German virologist: Wu-WHO Flu less deadly than feared.

The 30-minute video gives more details than the convenient text summary, but I find the sound quality mediocre, making it hard to follow.

Garbage.

[oxmixmudd]

Bite me.

I dont eat trash.

[MaxVel]

Being willing to take a risk does not confer the right to demand others take the same risk.

But there has to be a balance point somewhere between "lock everything down completely until there are no more cases anywhere" and "open up everything and proceed as if there is no virus".

Both extremes carry risks - the first of social and economic disintegration leading to worse outcomes than just a death toll from the virus; the latter leading to high levels of infection, overwhelmed health services and many deaths from the virus. In this situation there are no paths that lead us to outcomes without people dying from infection, and other disruptions to society and economic problems.



NorrinRadd is expressing his view (at his own personal risk) that we are at a point where we should move the balance more to the 'open up' end than the 'lockdown' end.

[rogue06]

Yes in Germany, South Korea, and Japan. The need to succeed was proactive measures early, aggressive and consistent measures to deal with the pandemic.

Here in the U.S. Florida was pretty late to the game when it comes to enacting quarantines and the like yet in spite of having more people than New York (21 million to 19.5 million) they've only had 38,800 people becoming infected as opposed to New York's 337,400 and 1600 fatalities compared to 26,300 in New York.

Now Florida doesn't have a single mega city like NYC, but they do have a considerably older population who are more vulnerable.

[oxmixmudd]

But there has to be a balance point somewhere between "lock everything down completely until there are no more cases anywhere" and "open up everything and proceed as if there is no virus".

Both extremes carry risks - the first of social and economic disintegration leading to worse outcomes than just a death toll from the virus; the latter leading to high levels of infection, overwhelmed health services and many deaths from the virus. In this situation there are no paths that lead us to outcomes without people dying from infection, and other disruptions to society and economic problems.



NorrinRadd is expressing his view (at his own personal risk) that we are at a point where we should move the balance more to the 'open up' end than the 'lockdown' end.

Yes, both ends carry risks. And I agree we have to move towards some sort of opening up. But not by pretending the virus is less than it is, not through self deception and denial. That will send it on an exponential growth pattern again and force a second more devastating shutdown. The path to minimum damage both in death and economy is through the recognition of the realities that we are facing and through the sober, creative, and intelligent implementation of the right set of mitigations. One of the most important is testing and tracing infrastructure which the Trump administration is still irresponsibly to the point of extreme negligence avoiding. The other is everyone simply wearing masks and avoiding physical contact as much as possible, which conservative outlets continue to mock and which conservative protestors have acted like is some sort of impingement on civil rights worthy of resisting with deadly force.

All of this ignorant, foolhardy, selfish, rhetoric on the part of the conservative pundits has produce one of the single most self-destructive and deadly divides in this country since the civil war. And it is only going to get worse until the single most divisive force in american politics is removed from or voted out of office and his death grip on GOP voters is eliminated.

Even then the legacy thus created will continue on its collision course with self destruction unless conservatives and liberals alike stop their march towards the demonization of every person that thinks differently from themselves.

Hatred is sn irrational, deadly, and self-destructive demon that controls the dialogue in this nation and on this website, and Jesus is the only solution. Love, forgiveness, turning the other cheek, mercy, gentleness, these are mocked in both word and deed mocked on these pages every single day in the name of anything but the Lord Jesus Christ, but they are truly the only way out of this death sentence we have placed upon ourselves. And the redeeming grace and power of Jesus Christ is the only true means of actually changing hearts as full of hatred as they are right now.

And the problem is that the church itself, the place that is supposed to be the beacon of this light, this hope, this saving grace, has itself become filled with this same hatred and paranoia - as we see evidenced every single day on these very pages.

[shunyadragon]

Here in the U.S. Florida was pretty late to the game when it comes to enacting quarantines and the like yet in spite of having more people than New York (21 million to 19.5 million) they've only had 38,800 people becoming infected as opposed to New York's 337,400 and 1600 fatalities compared to 26,300 in New York.

Now Florida doesn't have a single mega city like NYC, but they do have a considerably older population who are more vulnerable.

Florida came in later than other states for example Georgia, but yes Florida is in recovery. There are other factors that Sparko brought to my attention and that is temperature and humidity do effect the spread, and Forida and Georgia are significantly hotter and more humid.

. Distribution of the population is also a factor is the spread of the coronavirus. NYC was the first in the East, and s in recovery.

South Korea is finding that relaxing preventive measures leads to outbreaks.

[shunyadragon]

Here in the U.S. Florida was pretty late to the game when it comes to enacting quarantines and the like yet in spite of having more people than New York (21 million to 19.5 million) they've only had 38,800 people becoming infected as opposed to New York's 337,400 and 1600 fatalities compared to 26,300 in New York.

Now Florida doesn't have a single mega city like NYC, but they do have a considerably older population who are more vulnerable.

I took a second look at New York and Florida, and found the pattern in Florida is more similar to New York State outside New York City. Another interesting comparison of the case history is New York State and city are on the long slow recovery with a second hump or imbedded bell curve just like other regions and countries of the world.

See:https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...rus-cases.html

[carpedm9587]

But there has to be a balance point somewhere between "lock everything down completely until there are no more cases anywhere" and "open up everything and proceed as if there is no virus".

Both extremes carry risks - the first of social and economic disintegration leading to worse outcomes than just a death toll from the virus; the latter leading to high levels of infection, overwhelmed health services and many deaths from the virus. In this situation there are no paths that lead us to outcomes without people dying from infection, and other disruptions to society and economic problems.

NorrinRadd is expressing his view (at his own personal risk) that we are at a point where we should move the balance more to the 'open up' end than the 'lockdown' end.

I like your continuum model. We will clearly never achieve either extreme end of the continuum, so it follows that at any given moment, there is an optimum point on the continuum where we should be based on the best available evidence. I, for one, advocate for a careful, deliberate re-opening. I don't think we have the evidence to clearly and (reasonably) unambiguously determine the best place on the continuum. Opening prematurely has clear and scientifically demonstrable ramifications in the form of deaths and these can be modeled based on the physical characteristics of the virus. Opening too slow has consequences that I have not yet seen adequately outlined; I see a lot of speculation about poverty and social isolation, but no hard information to back up the claims. Parallels to 1918 and the Great Depression fail because there are resources available today that didn't even exist back then (e.g., the Internet, eCommerce, telephones, transportation, shipping, etc.). We could get a message across the planet in a short time back then by telegraph, but that was not available to the average person from their home, and we had no hope of getting a package across the country, never mind across the world, in a day or two.

As I have said several times: we have several ways of dealing with poverty and social isolation. We have one way of dealing with the pandemic until we have a virus. Until someone can provide some hard evidence that opening slowly and carefully will cause more deaths than the pandemic, I believe we should err on the side of caution.

Now, if we could get some testing evidence that would show we are approaching (or at) herd immunity, that would change things. But our federal government is not prioritizing testing and never has.

[oxmixmudd]

I like your continuum model. We will clearly never achieve either extreme end of the continuum, so it follows that at any given moment, there is an optimum point on the continuum where we should be based on the best available evidence. I, for one, advocate for a careful, deliberate re-opening. I don't think we have the evidence to clearly and (reasonably) unambiguously determine the best place on the continuum. Opening prematurely has clear and scientifically demonstrable ramifications in the form of deaths and these can be modeled based on the physical characteristics of the virus. Opening too slow has consequences that I have not yet seen adequately outlined; I see a lot of speculation about poverty and social isolation, but no hard information to back up the claims. Parallels to 1918 and the Great Depression fail because there are resources available today that didn't even exist back then (e.g., the Internet, eCommerce, telephones, transportation, shipping, etc.). We could get a message across the planet in a short time back then by telegraph, but that was not available to the average person from their home, and we had no hope of getting a package across the country, never mind across the world, in a day or two.

As I have said several times: we have several ways of dealing with poverty and social isolation. We have one way of dealing with the pandemic until we have a virus. Until someone can provide some hard evidence that opening slowly and carefully will cause more deaths than the pandemic, I believe we should err on the side of caution.

Now, if we could get some testing evidence that would show we are approaching (or at) herd immunity, that would change things. But our federal government is not prioritizing testing and never has.

-- vaccine --

[carpedm9587]

-- vaccine --

AFAIK, there are two ways to achieve herd immunity: 1) a vaccine and 2) people getting and surviving the illness. If the latter approach is taken, flattening the curve may keep medical facilities from being overwhelmed and reduce the number of deaths that are a side-effect of inadequate healthcare resources, but it will not reduce the number of deaths due to the virus itself. It just spreads them out over time. So the ideal way to reduce total deaths is to isolate and significantly flatten the curve while putting all necessary resources into the development of a vaccine.

Testing could be VERY helpful here. These who have already been infected and are now (apparently) immune could return to work without risk to themselves. I am not 100% clear as to what risk they pose to others. It would seem to me they would pose a significantly reduced threat since they cannot spread the virus themselves, unless they are spreading it secondarily (e.g., passing on infected items, etc.)

[oxmixmudd]

AFAIK, there are two ways to achieve herd immunity: 1) a vaccine and 2) people getting and surviving the illness. If the latter approach is taken, flattening the curve may keep medical facilities from being overwhelmed and reduce the number of deaths that are a side-effect of inadequate healthcare resources, but it will not reduce the number of deaths due to the virus itself. It just spreads them out over time. So the ideal way to reduce total deaths is to isolate and significantly flatten the curve while putting all necessary resources into the development of a vaccine.

Testing could be VERY helpful here. These who have already been infected and are now (apparently) immune could return to work without risk to themselves. I am not 100% clear as to what risk they pose to others. It would seem to me they would pose a significantly reduced threat since they cannot spread the virus themselves, unless they are spreading it secondarily (e.g., passing on infected items, etc.)

I was just correcting the word virus where I am pretty sure you meant vaccine ("until we have a virus" -> "until we have a vaccine").

I don't think anyone knows for sure what the actual immunity is that getting the disease confers, is it short term long term, what percentage of people getting the virus get some element of immunity. Hopefully it is a good story and once you've had it you are immune. The other issue is spread. If my immunity is partial but I don't get very sick, can I still spread it to a person that has no immunity.