Coronavirus: How dangerous a threat?

[sir fly]

Some a$$holes definitely seem to be a bit... overactive…

Understood it's stomach flu.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

it just shows the world isn't ready for this kind of event. I'm sorry if this sounds harsch but there are too many people just being idiotic. We have too many dumb people.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Well, if you digest everything the media has to say...

The media is in the business of making money by getting you to pay attention. It looks like you've been a very reliable customer.

Not finger pointing at you LS, just making a statement.

People need to get over the notion that the media exists to inform people of the most factual, pertinent information. That quaint notion went away a long, long time ago.

 

[sir fly]

The media is in the business of making money by getting you to pay attention. It looks like you've been a very reliable customer.

Not finger pointing at you LS, just making a statement.

People need to get over the notion that the media exists to inform people of the most factual, pertinent information. That quaint notion went away a long, long time ago.

State-owned and publicly financed media should always be keeping the highest standard of professionalism and reliability in informing.
The problem is they're becoming like commercial media chasing ratings consequently losing the trust of the public, and then there's nobody to rely on in a crisis situation.
The problem is closely related to the growing (overwhelming) political populism.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Yeast makes bread and yeast makes beer.

Someone at my office saw somebody buying 360 rolls of toilet paper. Even if you're under a 3 month lockdown, that's 3 entire rolls a day.

Always remember that some people are full of ***.

 

[gregrowlerson]

With some countries now going into virtual lock down, how is the not leaving your home under unnecessary circumstances meant to be policed? I would think that would be impossible. Also, only being able to work is a problem, for whilst some people live to work, most of us work to live. And what if you are driving your car to get away from the city to hike for a few hours (probably encountering less than a dozen people)? If you are stopped by the police and admit that you are not going to work, are you sent back home again?

 

[Nirvana]

With some countries now going into virtual lock down, how is the not leaving your home under unnecessary circumstances meant to be policed? I would think that would be impossible. Also, only being able to work is a problem, for whilst some people live to work, most of us work to live. And what if you are driving your car to get away from the city to hike for a few hours (probably encountering less than a dozen people)? If you are stopped by the police and admit that you are not going to work, are you sent back home again?

You risk six months in the jail here, only yesterday were reported more than 7.000 people denounced.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The media is in the business of making money by getting you to pay attention. It looks like you've been a very reliable customer.

Not finger pointing at you LS, just making a statement.

People need to get over the notion that the media exists to inform people of the most factual, pertinent information. That quaint notion went away a long, long time ago.

The media is in the business of making money, yes. If your take from my comments is that I buy into the hysteria, then you're taking the wrong things from it. Sir Fly's comment is very apposite.

The problem is that the media, in times of non-crisis, likes to appeal to an emotional reaction rather than a rational one because that's an easier sell. At times of crisis, rational response is more desirable than ever, but an audience that's been trained to react based on emotionally charged responses rather than rationality will react as they've been trained, and that results in the kind of counterproductive panic buying, runs on shops, and overreaction that has resulted in mass hysteria.

My counterpoint is simply that reasonable precautions would be sufficient, should people get their heads out of their asses and stop being moronic. And that that applies to both sides, using the counterexample of Rudy Gobert as somebody who was too blasé about the threat if not trusting the media. There is a threat, and there are people who are at risk more than others. But the reality is that lots and lots of people are going to catch this and the vast majority will suffer no lasting damage. That doesn't make it any better for those who will, nor does it mean that we shouldn't take care to prevent those people suffering. Just saying "X number of dead" sounds a lot scarier than "X number of dead who average over 80 in age and in over 80% of cases had underlying health problems", no? It doesn't stop the number of dead being a tragedy, nor change one's responsibilities, but it puts the loss in context. The vast majority of us who will contract the coronavirus - and many of us will - will not die from it, nor will we suffer anything beyond a normal seasonal influenza. That doesn't expunge us of our responsibilities, because the person we stand next to may not be so fortunate. However showing pictures only of the worst affected areas and the most egregious countermeasure leaves the implication that this is what the world is like in Covid-19-affected regions. It isn't. The majority of people are still going about their daily lives, with a few concessions made in order to minimise the opportunity for transmission of disease. Fact-based media, unfortunately, doesn't sell as well as emotional-response-based media, though, so you won't read about those peoples' lives - only about those who are prepared for a hundred years of solitude in their own self-constructed germ-free Macondo. Which generates this polarised response - either you buy into the apocalyptica that the media is selling, and panic buy, shut everything and put up the plague sign on the doorstep, in which you're overly paranoid and gullible, or you aggressively reject it and treat the disease without the respect it needs to be treated, thus helping with its spread, in which case you're an irresponsible idiot.

And no, you don't need 360 toilet rolls.

 

[Koronin]

With some countries now going into virtual lock down, how is the not leaving your home under unnecessary circumstances meant to be policed? I would think that would be impossible. Also, only being able to work is a problem, for whilst some people live to work, most of us work to live. And what if you are driving your car to get away from the city to hike for a few hours (probably encountering less than a dozen people)? If you are stopped by the police and admit that you are not going to work, are you sent back home again?

I'd love to know how people are supposed to pay bills if they can't work. No work means no paycheck thus no money to pay bills that don't stop.

 

[Merckx index]

The vast majority of us who will contract the coronavirus - and many of us will - will not die from it, nor will we suffer anything beyond a normal seasonal influenza.

Would you fly on an airplane if there were an 0.2% chance of its crashing? I doubt it. What if the chances were much higher--5-10%--depending on the carrier or the type of plane, and you had no way of knowing in advance what that was?

Would you eat at a restaurant if there were a 15-20% chance of becoming so sick that you needed to go into intensive care in order to survive? Even assuming ICU had room for you?

I'd love to know how people are supposed to pay bills if they can't work. No work means no paycheck thus no money to pay bills that don't stop.

No work means some bills may have to stop. How can payment of certain monthly services be justified if some aspects of the services are suspended?

 

[gregrowlerson]

I'd love to know how people are supposed to pay bills if they can't work. No work means no paycheck thus no money to pay bills that don't stop.

The Italian Government was going to not force home owners to continue to pay their mortgages for the foreseeable future. I don't know how this is all worked out financially, but that's what I stumbled across.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/...ts-suspended-during-lockdown-2020-3?r=US&IR=T

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Would you fly on an airplane if there were an 0.2% chance of its crashing? I doubt it. What if the chances were much higher--5-10%--depending on the carrier or the type of plane, and you had no way of knowing in advance what that was?

Not boarding the plane would be sufficient pre-emptive measures. It wouldn't take a complete ban on aeroplanes and closure of all airports to prevent the risk of anybody else boarding any aircraft, in case any aircraft that may be boarded may be that aircraft that has a 0.2% chance of crashing, to stop me from boarding that aircraft. In the same manner, you don't have to ban sex to manage the spread of HIV, but it doesn't mean that not banning sex gives you carte blanche or that the risk of contracting HIV should be treated lightly. In a Trumpian world of binary outcomes, perhaps we do need this complete "all or nothing" approach to management ("not sufficient evidence of guilt" = "total exoneration"), but in a rational world we should not. I resent being treated like a total moron, but simultaneously I despair of the irrational, panicking mob whose counterproductive responses help justify the government treating its populace that way.

The issue with Covid-19 is not its ill effects for the vast majority of people. It is its transmissibility to the very small minority of people for whom those ill effects are worse, and managing the flow of those so that they aren't overrun like they have been in Italy in the emergency departments.

 

[Koronin]

The Italian Government was going to not force home owners to continue to pay their mortgages for the foreseeable future. I don't know how this is all worked out financially, but that's what I stumbled across.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/...ts-suspended-during-lockdown-2020-3?r=US&IR=T

I'm sure that is helpful, but that isn't the only bill and does that include rent? What about people in other countries?

No work means some bills may have to stop. How can payment of certain monthly services be justified if some aspects of the services are suspended?

Rent/mortgage, electric, water, garbage, phone, Water, electric, phone (I would think garbage) are essential and rent/mortgage is computerized. Italy has at least suspected mortgage payments (hope that would include rent as well).

Maybe we'll get lucky and some of those companies will allow late payments on bills.

 

[Koronin]

For those who want an update as to part of the issues with testing in the US, NC state Senator Jeff Jackson posted this explanation today. (This is posted on his facebook page).

As of March 14 at 8:00 a.m., the state of North Carolina has a total of 680 public (i.e., non-commercial) coronavirus test kits.
So the big question is, “Why don’t we have more tests?”
Here’s the situation:
First, there’s a difference between “test kits” and “extraction kits.”
Extraction kits = extract RNA (genetic material) from nasal swabs.
Test kits = test RNA to see if it’s coronavirus.
We started with a national shortage of test kits. That happened because the CDC - after rejecting the WHO kits and deciding to make their own - had a manufacturing error that allowed their test kit to produce false positives. So they had to start over several weeks in.
To make matters worse, while the CDC was fixing their manufacturing error there were many other labs across the country (academic and commercial labs) that wanted to produce their own test kits. But they needed federal approval to move forward, and getting that approval took a couple weeks - a serious amount of time, given the prospect of exponential viral spread.
It appears we are now seeing the production of test kits ramp up from both the CDC and commercial labs like LabCorp (which happens to be headquartered here in North Carolina).
BUT that leads us to our second problem, and the current major bottleneck: extraction kits.
Before you can test the RNA sample from the nasal swab, you have to extract it. Doing so requires a specific chemical. The majority of this specific chemical (called a reagent) is produced by one company with production facilities in Germany and Spain.
And now that specific chemical is in very high demand. The whole world wants it.
A few weeks ago, the FDA started allowing independent labs to develop alternate chemical processes for RNA extraction. It’s unclear how much progress has been made.
So, looking now at the big picture, we basically have a two-track testing system: public testing, which involves our main state lab in NC using the re-manufactured CDC test kits (and in NC, we currently have 680 test kits) and then there’s commercial testing.
Regarding commercial testing, we really don’t know how much is happening. The commercial labs aren’t required to disclose test results unless they’re positive. In North Carolina, we have LabCorp conducting commercial tests. In Charlotte, we also have our two major hospital systems - Atrium and Novant - now saying that they are going to provide “screening.” It’s unclear whether they are simply collecting swabs and sending them to LabCorp (where they may face the same extraction kit bottleneck) or whether they’ve developed in-house capacity to actually produce their own test results.
But it’s important to note that BOTH public and commercial testing appear to be hitting a bottleneck when it comes to extraction.
As a result, we are not screening nearly enough people.
Ideally, anyone who displays flu-like symptoms would be eligible for a public test, free of charge. That’s how we would address this like South Korea and provide for wide-scale testing on the order of tens of thousands per day.
But - due to the shortage - that’s not the case. Instead, the CDC guidelines (which NC is currently following) currently state that you have to 1) display flu-like symptoms AND have had direct contact with a confirmed COVID-19 case OR, 2) you have to display flu-like symptoms AND lower respiratory symptoms (cough, shortness of breath) AND a negative rapid flu test.
A simpler way to say that is we are currently rationing public tests because we don’t have enough capacity.
Congress is now providing more funding specifically for these issues and commercial labs are reportedly innovating rapidly, but this is essentially a race against time and increasing our testing capacity within the next ten days is absolutely critical. It’s also possible that the window of opportunity for containment - at least in some regions - is now closed and we’re going to have to rely heavily on social distancing to slow the rate of infection.
You should also know that in the process of piecing this together I had many, many conversations with state and local health officials and every single one of them was on the same page, knew exactly what the bottlenecks were, and were working the problem. These folks get it, and they’re working around the clock for us.
More updates soon,
Sen. Jeff Jackson

 

[jmdirt]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

 

[RedheadDane]

Italy has at least suspected mortgage payments

I knew those mortgage payments couldn't be trusted! Do you mean suspended?

 

[Jagartrott]

You risk six months in the jail here, only yesterday were reported more than 7.000 people denounced.

That's just reactionary BS. Hiking and cycling on your own should always be allowed. Not doing any sport, not going outside, has proven adverse effects on body and mind. You don't pick up the virus in the woods or when no-one is around, and you don't risk spreading it, so it's totally irrational.

 

[Merckx index]

Not boarding the plane would be sufficient pre-emptive measures. It wouldn't take a complete ban on aeroplanes and closure of all airports to prevent the risk of anybody else boarding any aircraft, in case any aircraft that may be boarded may be that aircraft that has a 0.2% chance of crashing, to stop me from boarding that aircraft.

I think you're missing the point. I used the example to illustrate how death changes our view of low probability. In the intended example, every plane has an 0.2% chance of crashing, and it's completely random. You can't avoid this possibility by not flying on a particular plane. Of course it would result in a complete ban on boarding any aircraft, because you don't know which one is going to crash, and very few people--maybe you are more adventurous than others, but very few--would chance it. In fact, they couldn't if they wanted to, because the FAA would definitely step in. More than 100,000 flights occur daily all over the world. An 0.2% chance of crashing means there would be an average of two hundred plane crashes every day. The public simply wouldn't tolerate that.

The issue with Covid-19 is not its ill effects for the vast majority of people. It is its transmissibility to the very small minority of people for whom those ill effects are worse, and managing the flow of those so that they aren't overrun like they have been in Italy in the emergency departments.

In the first place, how do you propose to keep those most at risk from being infected? If you don't restrict the behavior of those at lower risk, that behavior will definitely lead to infections of higher risk people. In fact, the relatively small number of people at high risk (though it isn't that small, it's around 15-20% of the population, or more, depending on where you draw the line), means they're going to be greatly outnumbered by people who pose a great risk to them.

In the second place, you're ignoring the serious-critical cases, 15-20% of the total. That's what's overwhelming medical resources. I ask again: would it be worth eating at a favorite restaurant if you had that high a risk for ending up in intensive care?

Before you can test the RNA sample from the nasal swab, you have to extract it. Doing so requires a specific chemical. The majority of this specific chemical (called a reagent) is produced by one company with production facilities in Germany and Spain.

There are different methods for extracting RNA, shouldn't have to depend on one specific reagent (and in fact it isn't one reagent, but a combination of several). There may be one procedure that maximizes speed and purity, but it's not like absent that procedure, testing can't be done.

 

[djpbaltimore]

Scenes from airports are horrifying. A virus' dream come true. I am amazed that people have managed to stay civil.

 

[Mayomaniac]

I looked a bit at some numbers and made a graphic that shows how it evolved in each country after they hit 1,000 confirmed chases.

It looks like the USA, France and Switzerland are going to end up like Italy, Germany even worse and Spain looks like a real desaster, a total collapse of the whole health care system seem really plausible.

 

[Red Rick]

I looked a bit at some numbers and made a graphic that shows how it evolved in each country after they hit 1,000 confirmed chases.

It looks like the USA, France and Switzerland are going to end up like Italy, Germany even worse and Spain looks like a real desaster, a total collapse of the whole health care system seem really plausible.

From what I read, US and UK reactions and testing are the worst, so I expect those to be the biggest disasters sadly.

Switserland just took an enormous hit.

We just passed the 1000 mark. 8 new deaths. We stopped testing most people except for people over 70, people with comorbidities or highly symptomatic people in need of urgent care. Our number is far, far higher than 1155, and the bars etc are still frigging open.

Weather's gonna be really good this week, can't wait to see the terraces full once again /s

 

[Red Rick]

I think you're missing the point. I used the example to illustrate how death changes our view of low probability. In the intended example, every plane has an 0.2% chance of crashing, and it's completely random. You can't avoid this possibility by not flying on a particular plane. Of course it would result in a complete ban on boarding any aircraft, because you don't know which one is going to crash, and very few people--maybe you are more adventurous than others, but very few--would chance it. In fact, they couldn't if they wanted to, because the FAA would definitely step in. More than 100,000 flights occur daily all over the world. An 0.2% chance of crashing means there would be an average of two hundred plane crashes every day. The public simply wouldn't tolerate that.



In the first place, how do you propose to keep those most at risk from being infected? If you don't restrict the behavior of those at lower risk, that behavior will definitely lead to infections of higher risk people. In fact, the relatively small number of people at high risk (though it isn't that small, it's around 15-20% of the population, or more, depending on where you draw the line), means they're going to be greatly outnumbered by people who pose a great risk to them.

In the second place, you're ignoring the serious-critical cases, 15-20% of the total. That's what's overwhelming medical resources. I ask again: would it be worth eating at a favorite restaurant if you had that high a risk for ending up in intensive care?



There are different methods for extracting RNA, shouldn't have to depend on one specific reagent (and in fact it isn't one reagent, but a combination of several). There may be one procedure that maximizes speed and purity, but it's not like absent that procedure, testing can't be done.

Yes. Every time we go to the restaurant, we have a nonzero% chance of indirectly killing somebody or multiple somebodies who otherwise would've survived.

 

[yaco]

My guess is within two weeks the skies will be locked for around a month, except for cargo planes carrying essential supplies - This gives individual countries/states/cities time to work through their strategies to contain the virus.

 

[GVFTA]

Here in Colorado the governor has shut down all ski resorts for at least one week. I'm sure this will only be the beginning.

 

[Tricycle Rider]

Here in Colorado the governor has shut down all ski resorts for at least one week. I'm sure this will only be the beginning.

Here in Oregon we now have one death in the Portland area attributed to the coronavirus (an elderly man with underlying health conditions), and I'm surrounded by counties that all have confirmed positive cases, my county doesn't have an officially positive case yet. But that's probably due to lack of testing.

Local k-12 schools are now closed, libraries closed, future concerts and sporting events (like the Eugene marathon) have either been cancelled or postponed, I'm guessing you probably have something similar coming your way.

Also, and sadly, I must report that Oregon has not been exempt from the toilet paper hoarding hysteria, that too we've been having here. So that might be coming your way as well if it isn't there already.