COVID-19 aka 2019 (and 2020) Novel Coronavirus

[WetEV]

True. I think the very mild symptoms in some are resulting in a much wider spread of the disease than we know. The apparent high death rate "could" be as a low the flu as it would appear in most areas (at least in mine) many with the virus are not being tested. They are simply advised to self isolate at home and ride it out. I know two people who have been sick 3 weeks now. Another who was sick for almost two weeks then went to Emergency and was immediately admitted. I have lost contact with him so pretty sure he still isn't home yet.

But our infected count stands at 36. The numbers only change twice a week so we shall see where its at on the next change which should happen today or tomorrow but neither of the two at home are on the infected list and the 3rd likely wasn't until he hit the hospital.

South Korea has been playing wack-a-mole. Or more correctly wack-a-virus.

One case is found somewhere, perhaps in a business, test everyone in the building, everyone that visited the building, notify people on their cell phones if they were near that person to go get tested. The lunch place where they ate, the places they shopped. Family and friends. Find some positive test results, repeat. Test everyone with a fever. Test everyone with flu like symptoms. Testing 15,000 or more people per day, and finding 100 or so positive. Testing isn't busy enough, test some random people.

South Korea is finding and isolating enough cases so as to keep the virus from growing. R zero is below 1.0. The virus is losing. That means South Korea is finding by testing more than something like 2/3 of cases. or the infected numbers would be exploding. Many of the cases are in people who have returned from overseas.

South Korea's current death rate is between 1.5% and 3% Exact value will be known at the end of the epidemic.. Many of those infected are both young and female, as the big outbreak in a church was mostly filled with young females. Both young and being female reduce the risk of death.

This is far deadlier than the flu.

 

[WetEV]

The asymptomatic rate is crazy. One the one Princess cruise ship, 40% of the people who tested positive were asymptomatic. In a more controlled scientific study the rate was more like 20%. But even the lower figure seems extraordinarily high to me.

Some other virus diseases have much higher asymptomatic rates. West Nile Fever, for example:

https://www.cdc.gov/westnile/symptoms/index.html

 

[WetEV]

This is a bizarre pandemic, in that we seem to see too few deaths to frighten people - right up until they surge and it's often too late to finally start taking it seriously. So far, in Upstate NY we have had something like six deaths, with all or almost all of them being elderly people or middle-aged people with serious health issues. You'd be hard pressed to better design a pandemic to spread in this stealth mode. That and of course the amazing lack of widespread testing in the US have given us a health crisis akin to slowly, very slowly, being boiled alive.

Infected cases double every 3 days to 5 days, varies with culture. Deaths don't start for weeks, and deaths continue for weeks beyond that.

If the first death is at 25 days and the virus doubles every 5 days, that means you see the first death 25 days after about 100 people were infected, and the number infected has doubled 5 times since then, so there are 2^5*100=3200 cases when the first death occurs. Or if the virus is doubling every 3 days, 2^8*100=25600 cases.

All those places in the Midwest not taking this seriously? Not going to be pretty. Need to take action now to slow the spread. Even small steps can increase the doubling time, vastly reducing the growth.

 

[WetEV]

Some serious reading about Europe's status.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-Europe-estimates-and-NPI-impact-30-03-2020.pdf

 

[cwerdna]

Covid-19 Virus Devastates Skagit Valley Chorale Group
https://skagitbreaking.com/2020/03/27/covid-19-virus-devastates-skagit-valley-chorale-group/

Posted By: Louise Richards March 27, 2020

Skagit County, WA – Earlier this month, before strict social distancing requirements were in place in many parts of Washington State, members of the Skagit Valley Chorale were already taking coronavirus precautions. The group told singers not to attend practice or performances if they had even a hint of the illness.

The Choir group met on March 10th, 2020 for practice. The Chorale has around 120 members and around 60 people attended the practice. Of those 60 people, 45 have developed symptoms of the Covid-19 virus and 27 (so far) have tested positive. One of the choir group’s members has died, another has been hospitalized and several others have struggled to recover from the illness.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-29/coronavirus-choir-outbreak covers this but is behind a paywall, if you hit your article limit.

 

[LeftieBiker]

Yes, I should have mentioned the high asymptomatic rate, although we still don't really know what that rate is, at least in the US. We do know that the asymptomatic are shedding virus, and are spreading it wherever social distancing and self-isolation aren't being practiced. That's why I felt terror whenever I went to a grocery store. I hope to not have to do that again for a couple of months, even though I wear mask, balaclava, gloves and ski goggles when I do. All groceries (and packages that get delivered) except refrigerated and frozen items get a 3 day 'quarantine.' The cold stuff gets alcohol wiped and rinsed in the kitchen sink immediately.

 

[GRA]

My local PBS station (KQED) and many others are re-showing the "Influenza 1918" episode of American Experience tonight. 8:00 p.m. here, but check your local listings. Many of them also seem to be showing another episode, "The Polio Crusade", either just before or after it. I know I saw the polio one when it originally aired (2009), and I was very glad I was born a few years after the vaccine became available.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Covid-19 Virus Devastates Skagit Valley Chorale Group
https://skagitbreaking.com/2020/03/27/covid-19-virus-devastates-skagit-valley-chorale-group/

Posted By: Louise Richards March 27, 2020

Skagit County, WA – Earlier this month, before strict social distancing requirements were in place in many parts of Washington State, members of the Skagit Valley Chorale were already taking coronavirus precautions. The group told singers not to attend practice or performances if they had even a hint of the illness.

The Choir group met on March 10th, 2020 for practice. The Chorale has around 120 members and around 60 people attended the practice. Of those 60 people, 45 have developed symptoms of the Covid-19 virus and 27 (so far) have tested positive. One of the choir group’s members has died, another has been hospitalized and several others have struggled to recover from the illness.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-29/coronavirus-choir-outbreak covers this but is behind a paywall, if you hit your article limit.

Side comment; Most news sources I use have dropped their paywall during the pandemic.

 

[mwalsh]

China did not report their asymptomatic rate as part of their infection totals. Turns out that it was about 30%. So I would say that a pretty safe bet to say that the asymptomatic rate is "between 20-40%". Which is great for the asymptomatic people, but not so great for those around them!

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

Covid-19 Virus Devastates Skagit Valley Chorale Group
https://skagitbreaking.com/2020/03/27/covid-19-virus-devastates-skagit-valley-chorale-group/

Posted By: Louise Richards March 27, 2020

Skagit County, WA – Earlier this month, before strict social distancing requirements were in place in many parts of Washington State, members of the Skagit Valley Chorale were already taking coronavirus precautions. The group told singers not to attend practice or performances if they had even a hint of the illness.

The Choir group met on March 10th, 2020 for practice. The Chorale has around 120 members and around 60 people attended the practice. Of those 60 people, 45 have developed symptoms of the Covid-19 virus and 27 (so far) have tested positive. One of the choir group’s members has died, another has been hospitalized and several others have struggled to recover from the illness.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-29/coronavirus-choir-outbreak covers this but is behind a paywall, if you hit your article limit.

Side comment; Most news sources I use have dropped their paywall during the pandemic.

Fox news streaming has been free for a couple weeks now. Good news for cord cutters who need to stay informed.

 

[LeftieBiker]

As long as they don't care about the accuracy of their news, anyway.

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

As long as they don't care about the accuracy of their news, anyway.

At least they carry the briefing so we can get the latest from Birx and Fauci, and also be entertained watching CNN dudes make asses of themselves.

 

[LeftieBiker]

Trump gives the only press conferences in recent memory in which many people end up knowing less that is true than they did before he started speaking. Fauci does his best, but he knows that too many corrections of The Boss and he's Fired.

 

[cwerdna]

Trump's press conferences on COVID-19 are a total waste of time with too many lies. talking in circles, attacking the media, rants and misinformation. I'm busy with WFH and don't have time for that kind of BS.

What kind of BS is this in response to a softball question?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw0T9RK0GrA - may as well listen at 2x speed or skip to about 1:30

And there was this garbage before:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/yamiche-alcindor-pbs-donald-trump-nsc-global-health-security_n_5e6bfe8bc5b6dda30fc8f955

It should be left to folks who know what they're doing and know the situation to do the talking (e.g. the doctors). All I can do is wait for reputable press to distill it down to the relevant new info. More media outlets should follow the lead of https://deadline.com/2020/03/coronavirus-donald-trump-nor-station-kuow-1202892198/.

This below was refreshing:

Not sure if folks had seen Lt. Gen Semonite of the Army Corps of Engineers talking. Someone else posted it on social media and those who commented were impressed, as was I. He's also in the 60 Minutes piece. https://twitter.com/USArmy/status/1241440439380488194 is a short clip.

We need more folks like him in charge.

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

The reality is this is just a tough situation and there wasn't anything anyone could have done or can do now to make it all rainbows.

As far as having enough ventilators the elephant in the room is that 86% of people who get to that stage die even with them, and many of the ones who survive that may only live a few months.

 

[cwerdna]

The reality is this is just a tough situation and there wasn't anything anyone could have done or can do now to make it all rainbows.

Now? The cat is way out of the bag. It's out of control and testing was woefully insufficient for weeks. It still seems problematic in the US.

Good luck trying to test, trace and isolate now. In some communities, it's WAY beyond that and impossible, even if there were widely available testing. (AFAIK, there's no tracing going on in my county. Last night on local news, they spoke to a woman who got tested on March 11th and didn't know her results until March 28! Another woman (a Lyft or Uber driver) had to wait 9 days for her results.)

Before? More could've been done instead of blowing things off and downplaying. Take look at the sound clips from the fired communications director at https://twitter.com/scaramucci/status/1240985096838053889. I remember most of them but can't vouch for the accuracy of the dates.

South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore have handled things pretty well.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-testing-specialrep/special-report-how-korea-trounced-u-s-in-race-to-test-people-for-coronavirus-idUSKBN2153BW
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/28/trump-coronavirus-politics-us-health-disaster - South Korea and the US apparently got their 1st cases of COVID-19 on Jan 20th.

Have you looked at how many cases and deaths they have (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html)? Yes, they're way smaller countries/regions but even if you multiply by how many times the US population is vs. theirs, we're doing poorly w/hospitals getting overloaded in NYC. It seems likely that problem will soon spread.

Did you see https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=30885&p=581227&hilit=taiwan#p581227, esp. the 124 actions that Taiwan took? We can't even fricking get surgical masks or N95 masks yet the Taiwanese govt made masks available to the public for sale for 17 cents.

I'm under no illusion that even if a Democrat were pres that our response would've been nearly as a good as Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea, but it almost certainly would've been better. Unfortunately, we can't change that and if it were Hillary or Bernie, I'm sure we would still have many deaths and people would be instead debating whether Trump would've handled it better.

Maybe the next time there's a pandemic that affects the US, we'll hopefully have learned a lesson from this. Some Asian countries learned their lessons the hard way due to SARS, H1N1, MERS, etc.

 

[WetEV]

The reality is this is just a tough situation and there wasn't anything anyone could have done or can do now to make it all rainbows.

It was clear if you were paying attention, it was going to be tough once the virus escaped China. That was in January. Trump golfed, held rallies, and said repeatably don't worry about it. Until the stock market crashed.

As far as having enough ventilators the elephant in the room is that 86% of people who get to that stage die even with them, and many of the ones who survive that may only live a few months.

In Wuhan it was about 49%. But perhaps you know something I don't. Source for that number, please.

 

[cwerdna]

And, apparently in early Feb 2020 per https://www.state.gov/the-united-states-announces-assistance-to-combat-the-novel-coronavirus,

This week the State Department has facilitated the transportation of nearly 17.8 tons of donated medical supplies to the Chinese people, including masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital materials. These donations are a testament to the generosity of the American people.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-tons-ppe-china/ points to https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1224773517704679426 that's still up from Pompeo on this.

OT: A few weeks back, someone at my work brought up ECMO and supposedly China having a lot of those machines. I just quickly found these.
https://www.ucsfhealth.org/treatments/extracorporeal-membrane-oxygenation
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3076218/coronavirus-intensive-care-techniques-prove-vital-saving-lives

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

In Wuhan it was about 49%

As reported by the Wuhan Institute of Virology?

 

[WetEV]

In Wuhan it was about 49%

As reported by the Wuhan Institute of Virology?

I ask for facts and get hate. This politics is everything attitude is why America is no longer great. And getting sicker, not just from coronavirus.