Coronavirus

[johnu]

Please keep in mind the reason for the mask - it is not to protect the mask wearer; it is to prevent asymptomatic spreaders and minimally ill from inadvertently spreading the virus.

The guidance has changed since the beginning of the pandemic. Initially, masks weren't recommended for the general public in the US, and certainly not N95 masks. Some public health experts acknowledge that N95 masks in particular were not recommended to prevent a run on them by the general public when they were (and still are which is a major disgrace for the Grifter's administration) in short supply for the front line workers.

 

Consider industrial use of face masks. They prevent the user from breathing in toxic vapor and dust depending on the type of mask. Those masks are not designed to protect the source of the vapors or dust. Sure they probably won't stop an individual virus which is incredibly miniscule, but depending on the quality of the mask they will usually catch droplets containing the virus which are much larger. You are protected to the extent that masks will stop these droplets before you breath them in.

 

But they won't give you 100% protection so you shouldn't expose yourself any more than if you weren't wearing a mask.

[smerriman]

On perhaps Monday I heard on NPR (National Public Radio) a report from New Zealand. It sounds like they are doing quite well. I would be interested in hearing more.

We have a huge advantage over many other countries - geography. We're pretty isolated from the rest of the world as it is.

 

Our government also took action very early - we've taken a big economic hit given we rely on tourism, but we shut our borders and went into full lockdown early in the hope that some pain now will allow us to get back to normal and prevent a larger one to come in the future. We're down to about 3 new reported cases a day, and that's still including returning travellers or ones that are being found in retrospect.

 

Our prime minister and chief executive of the ministry of health are also fantastic communicators - it feels a little like they've been able to 'hypnotise' (but not in a bad way) the whole country into doing what needs to be done - and actually wanting to! Their press updates are daily viewing for most of the country.

[y66]

In MA we're not allowed to go outside without a mask. Which is a Catch-22 for me, because I can't figure out how to get a mask without going outside.

 

I looked on Amazon.com, they all have expected delivery times in mid-May or June. I went to Walgreens.com, they don't have them for delivery. And even if I used a t-shirt as a makeshift mask, none of the local stores have them in stock, either.

 

Where are people getting masks from?

My wife made me one out of some flannel + an old Hawaiian shirt that had disintegrated + elastic from an old bed sheet. She used some vacuum bag material in the first version but it was not comfortable. Our neighbors' kids made us some white masks with turquoise stripes that are also quite sturdy (two layers) and breathable so we each have two. Our county board chair made

that shows how to make a mask for people who don't sew.

[johnu]

We have a huge advantage over many other countries - geography. We're pretty isolated from the rest of the world as it is.

 

Our government also took action very early - we've taken a big economic hit given we rely on tourism, but we shut our borders and went into full lockdown early in the hope that some pain now will allow us to get back to normal and prevent a larger one to come in the future. We're down to about 3 new reported cases a day, and that's still including returning travellers or ones that are being found in retrospect.

 

Our prime minister and chief executive of the ministry of health are also fantastic communicators - it feels a little like they've been able to 'hypnotise' (but not in a bad way) the whole country into doing what needs to be done - and actually wanting to! Their press updates are daily viewing for most of the country.

I am green with envy at the quality of your leadership.

[pilowsky]

Good news everyone! things might be getting back to normal. This just arrived in my letterbox this morning. My first thought was How do these people wear masks?

[Trinidad]

Here in Maryland, population about 6 million, there are about 23,000 confirmed cases and a little over a thousand deaths. A bit more than half of the deaths are patients in nursing homes. We are mostly in lockdown. We can shop for groceries, go to the hardware store, such things as that, wearing a mask.

There were 1730 new cases in the last 24 hours. This is nearly an 8% increase and was a shock. The percentage increase has mostly been under 5 % for maybe the last ten days or so. I hope the 8% is an anomaly.

This would mean that in Maryland, the death toll is at about 170 per million inhabitants.

The Netherlands has 17 million inhabitants. Since March 1st, the Covid-19 reported deaths are 260 per million. These are people who have been tested positive. They typically died in hospitals or at home after they had been diagnosed in the hospital. However, in that period the excess mortality is 520 per million. (The excess mortality is the number of people who died in that period more than you would have expected to die, based on the average in the same period from the previous 5 years.) So, in the Netherlands roughly half of the corona victims were tested. (Some people will have died from secondary effects of the corona crisis, think of heart attacks due to stress).

 

The number of hospitalizations (people who are or have been in hospital beds with confirmed or suspected corona) is now at 638 per million inhabitants. These numbers are also available on a local level. The region where I live has been hit hard. There is county nearby (about 25 miles from us) with 3247 hospitalizations per million. We have 1784 per million in the county where we live. The Northern part of the country is hardly affected. (The distance from North to South is about 200 miles.)

 

The national number of hospitalizations has increased with 5 per million (+ 0.8 %) in the last 24 hours. Here, we are definitely over a peak. We have very little data on test results, because we don't have the testing material.

Typically, health care workers are tested, as a sample for the population, and the data are collected. Some of the blood donations are tested for antibodies to collect data on (possible) immunity. My estimate is that roughly 5-10 % of the population has antibodies now.

 

To me this means that we will have to be in our "intelligent lockdown" for another 1-1.5 year. (3.5% immunity built up per month, 60 % needed - 7.5 that we have: 52.5/3.5= 15 months) The lockdown could be lifted gradually in this period, working similarly like an annuity. This would mean that the output numbers (casualty rate, hospitalization rate, etc.) remain constant whereas the number of contacts between people gradually increases (but the number of contacts with people who are not immune stays constant).

 

So, I have prepared myself mentally to have to deal with this for 1-1.5 years. I guess that this means that face to face bridge will start again after the summer of 2021.

 

Rik

[awm]

Switzerland has 29,705 cases and 1,435 deaths in a population of 8.57 million (so 3466 cases and 167 deaths per million inhabitants). However, the growth rate has flattened and we have been adding only about 100 cases per day.

 

We have started to open some businesses back up -- hairdressers, massage, and tattoo parlors reopened last Monday (with everyone wearing masks and some extra sanitary precautions), along with hardware stores. More things are supposed to open (including schools for younger kids) a week from Monday. In general the Swiss government is not asking people to wear masks on the streets -- only if they expect to be in close contact with other people not in their immediate family (i.e. at the hairdresser).

 

Of course, I expect to continue working from home for a long time to come (since tech companies lose relatively little by asking most employees to work from home).

[y66]

Per Johns Hopkins and Virginia Hospital data reported through 5/1, Virginia (population 8.5 million) has 16,902 cases, an average daily growth rate of 5.5% for the last 7 days (rate of doubling ~ 13 days), 3,738 hospitalizations to-date (1,426 currently), 5,070 available beds and 2,343 available ventilators which is 80% of capacity.

 

So, fewer cases per million (1988) than Switzerland (3433) and Maryland (3882*) but growing faster (5.5%) than Switzerland (0.5%) and Maryland (5.1%).

 

Virginia has a long way to go to get to Switzerland's growth rate which was where Virginia's is now on April 3rd. If we maintain their pace, which is not likely IMO, we will get to 0.5% by the end of May at which time we will still be below 30% of hospital bed capacity knock wood.

 

The US took 16 days to go from 5.8% to 2.9% which is where the US is currently. Switzerland took 8 days and I suspect they have done a lot more to slow things down since they got to 2.9% on April 10th than the US is willing to do for the next 20+ days. If we get below 2% (rate of doubling ~ 35 days) and stay there through 2020 that would exceed my expectations.

 

*corrected

[barmar]

Lots of people in my family are making masks at home. Etsy crafters sell masks. Here we had a good supply of masks from before the pandemic started, and are reusing them instead of throwing them out.

I looked at Etsy, that seems like a good source. One of them asked for a size, I have no idea what my head size is so I chose a different one. Estimated delivery May 6-19.

 

I searched my wardrobe for a scarf a couple of weeks ago, but I couldn't find one. I think I used to have one, but I never used it so I gave it away to charity.

 

The extent of my "hand craft" is sewing buttons back on.

[LBengtsson]

I looked at Etsy, that seems like a good source. One of them asked for a size, I have no idea what my head size is so I chose a different one. Estimated delivery May 6-19.

 

I searched my wardrobe for a scarf a couple of weeks ago, but I couldn't find one. I think I used to have one, but I never used it so I gave it away to charity.

 

The extent of my "hand craft" is sewing buttons back on.

 

I am motorcyclist. I use doublefold like cowboy big cotton bandanna over mouth and nose. 27 x 27. also dust mask under. wash easy and dry quick after each journey. I can breath ok. good protection.

[pilowsky]

You have bigger problems than coronavirus.

[cherdano]

I am afraid this belongs in the other thread, too, but I will post it here. Let me get out of my normal cynical/slightly trollish mode here

 

There are huge discrepancies in how countries handled the early outbreak. That's worth a separate post, but here I will just say that while some did much better than others (in my view), and some of them deserve heavy criticism that isn't just based on hindsight, just a little bit of contemporary common sense---still, it was a completely new situation, where completely unprecedented measures needed to be deployed at a speed beyond anything that ever happens in democratic politics. (When we heard of the strict quarantine in Wuhan, I think most of us thought "Obviously that could never be done here!")

 

Now, all countries I follow seem to behave much more reasonably. The goal right now is to get down the number of infections as low as possible first. Then once they are at a manageable level, you hope that you can employ effective test-trace-isolate, keeping R at or below one with measures that are still drastic at the individual level (Stay home until I am tested just because I spent 2 hours next to an infected person?? Again?!?? Unthinkable 3 months ago!!!) but allow much more of the society (or "economy", if you prefer to think in monetary terms) to function almost normally. I am not sure we can all become South Korea or Hongkong (I wouldn't be shocked if someone discovered that many more people there have background immunity against SARS-Cov-2 from previous coronavirus infections.), but it's infinitely better than the alternative.

 

Well, all countries with one big exception, the US. The goal of US policy is ... ??? Letting most people get infected, hoping that the lower estimates of the lethality rate is right, and that only 328 million * 70% * 0.4% = 0.9 million people die? Or to keep the pandemic alive well enough so that 50,000/month die until there is a vaccine? All the while ensuring long-term damage to the economy, because most will still be afraid to go to the hairdresser/theater/restaurant/...???

 

It seems insane, and a policy disaster at a scale unlike anything we have seen since WW2.

[Trinidad]

I would definitely not compare the response in the European countries to that of the USA. At least here, there was a response.

 

However, I do feel that in Europe we are going in the wrong direction. The mathematicians tell us to hang in there for an other 6-8 weeks or so and we are in the test-trace-isolate regime where we can open up the economy (almost) completely. Meanwhile the pressure from lobbies and social groups is enormous to open things up immediately.

 

But if the general population has no understanding of how an exponential function behaves, it will be difficult to implement the right policies.

 

Rik

[johnu]

Well, all countries with one big exception, the US. The goal of US policy is ... ??? Letting most people get infected, hoping that the lower estimates of the lethality rate is right, and that only 328 million * 70% * 0.4% = 0.9 million people die? Or to keep the pandemic alive well enough so that 50,000/month die until there is a vaccine? All the while ensuring long-term damage to the economy, because most will still be afraid to go to the hairdresser/theater/restaurant/...???

 

It seems insane, and a policy disaster at a scale unlike anything we have seen since WW2.

You can adjust your formula in a number of ways, but the bottom line for the Grifter in Chief is that only 2 million deaths (one of the earliest worst case estimates) will be an outstanding success. In any case, half of those deaths are because of Obama's decisions to not prepare the country for COVID-19 and the other half is China's fault :rolleyes: . The goal of US policy has not changed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. That goal from day 1 was to reelect the Manchurian President by a record margin in the electoral college.

 

That's why restarting the economy is the top priority even though virtually none of the CDC guidelines for reopening the US have been close to being met.

[y66]

The goal of US policy is ... ??? It seems insane, and a policy disaster at a scale unlike anything we have seen since WW2.

Seems?

[Trinidad]

The institute that coordinates the intensive care units in the Netherlands, publishes data on a daily basis. One of the graphs that interests me shows the cumulative amounts of patients that have left the intensive care. There are three categories:

• 
   
  
• Deceased
  
• Left IC alive, went to regular hospital care
  
• Left hospital alive
  

Today for the first time, the total number of IC patients who left the hospital alive outranked the total number of IC patients that didn't make it.

 

You have to keep in mind that the patients who die on the IC, do so relatively early, after about two weeks. IC patients that can leave the hospital alive, do so after a few weeks in the IC and a few weeks in the hospital. The curve for the cured is lagging behind by a few weeks.

 

Rik

[akwoo]

I am afraid this belongs in the other thread, too, but I will post it here. Let me get out of my normal cynical/slightly trollish mode here

 

There are huge discrepancies in how countries handled the early outbreak. That's worth a separate post, but here I will just say that while some did much better than others (in my view), and some of them deserve heavy criticism that isn't just based on hindsight, just a little bit of contemporary common sense---still, it was a completely new situation, where completely unprecedented measures needed to be deployed at a speed beyond anything that ever happens in democratic politics. (When we heard of the strict quarantine in Wuhan, I think most of us thought "Obviously that could never be done here!")

 

Now, all countries I follow seem to behave much more reasonably. The goal right now is to get down the number of infections as low as possible first. Then once they are at a manageable level, you hope that you can employ effective test-trace-isolate, keeping R at or below one with measures that are still drastic at the individual level (Stay home until I am tested just because I spent 2 hours next to an infected person?? Again?!?? Unthinkable 3 months ago!!!) but allow much more of the society (or "economy", if you prefer to think in monetary terms) to function almost normally. I am not sure we can all become South Korea or Hongkong (I wouldn't be shocked if someone discovered that many more people there have background immunity against SARS-Cov-2 from previous coronavirus infections.), but it's infinitely better than the alternative.

 

Well, all countries with one big exception, the US. The goal of US policy is ... ??? Letting most people get infected, hoping that the lower estimates of the lethality rate is right, and that only 328 million * 70% * 0.4% = 0.9 million people die? Or to keep the pandemic alive well enough so that 50,000/month die until there is a vaccine? All the while ensuring long-term damage to the economy, because most will still be afraid to go to the hairdresser/theater/restaurant/...???

 

It seems insane, and a policy disaster at a scale unlike anything we have seen since WW2.

 

 

Trump has blasted a ridiculous slam because he was down by 10 IMPs on the last board, and now he is trying to drop one K singleton with his LHO and then play for the triple squeeze with RHO having QJT9 in one suit, KJT in a second, and A in the last because it's the only way to make it.

 

All Trump cares about is getting re-elected. If the epidemiologists are right, he won't get re-elected no matter what he does. If they are wrong and he opens up the country, then he has a chance. He figures it's about 50/50 (because he has no understanding of probability, so all gambles are 50/50) so why not?

[akwoo]

A distinct second point.

 

Every couple of years, somewhere in the US, someone who happens to be carrying a gun sees a burglar breaking a window to get into a house and shoots the burglar dead. Then everyone treats the shooter as a hero. I think in most of the rest of the developed world, besides the fact that many fewer people are carrying guns, most people would think that killing someone to prevent a TV or some jewelry from being stolen is insane. (In part, that's why fewer people are carrying guns.)

 

I think folks in the US generally just value human life, especially lives of people unconnected to themselves, much less than in most of Western Europe.

 

I am afraid this belongs in the other thread, too, but I will post it here. Let me get out of my normal cynical/slightly trollish mode here

 

There are huge discrepancies in how countries handled the early outbreak. That's worth a separate post, but here I will just say that while some did much better than others (in my view), and some of them deserve heavy criticism that isn't just based on hindsight, just a little bit of contemporary common sense---still, it was a completely new situation, where completely unprecedented measures needed to be deployed at a speed beyond anything that ever happens in democratic politics. (When we heard of the strict quarantine in Wuhan, I think most of us thought "Obviously that could never be done here!")

 

Now, all countries I follow seem to behave much more reasonably. The goal right now is to get down the number of infections as low as possible first. Then once they are at a manageable level, you hope that you can employ effective test-trace-isolate, keeping R at or below one with measures that are still drastic at the individual level (Stay home until I am tested just because I spent 2 hours next to an infected person?? Again?!?? Unthinkable 3 months ago!!!) but allow much more of the society (or "economy", if you prefer to think in monetary terms) to function almost normally. I am not sure we can all become South Korea or Hongkong (I wouldn't be shocked if someone discovered that many more people there have background immunity against SARS-Cov-2 from previous coronavirus infections.), but it's infinitely better than the alternative.

 

Well, all countries with one big exception, the US. The goal of US policy is ... ??? Letting most people get infected, hoping that the lower estimates of the lethality rate is right, and that only 328 million * 70% * 0.4% = 0.9 million people die? Or to keep the pandemic alive well enough so that 50,000/month die until there is a vaccine? All the while ensuring long-term damage to the economy, because most will still be afraid to go to the hairdresser/theater/restaurant/...???

 

It seems insane, and a policy disaster at a scale unlike anything we have seen since WW2.

[johnu]

Trump has blasted a ridiculous slam because he was down by 10 IMPs on the last board, and now he is trying to drop one K singleton with his LHO and then play for the triple squeeze with RHO having QJT9 in one suit, KJT in a second, and A in the last because it's the only way to make it.

 

All Trump cares about is getting re-elected. If the epidemiologists are right, he won't get re-elected no matter what he does. If they are wrong and he opens up the country, then he has a chance. He figures it's about 50/50 (because he has no understanding of probability, so all gambles are 50/50) so why not?

Ironically, the Grifter in Chief's core base is older, working class (white) voters who are at high risk for dying or having serious cases of COVID-19. Killing off 10's of thousands of his core supporters will greatly reduce his chances of winning in close swing state races.

[Cyberyeti]

Ironically, the Grifter in Chief's core base is older, working class (white) voters who are at high risk for dying or having serious cases of COVID-19. Killing off 10's of thousands of his core supporters will greatly reduce his chances of winning in close swing state races.

 

I don't know if it's the same in the US as the UK, but here BAME people are 4 times as likely to die of it as white people, and they in the main wouldn't be voting Trump.

 

Edit: - it appears 4x is the unadjusted figures, but still with all the adjustments, 2x

[barmar]

Ironically, the Grifter in Chief's core base is older, working class (white) voters who are at high risk for dying or having serious cases of COVID-19. Killing off 10's of thousands of his core supporters will greatly reduce his chances of winning in close swing state races.

We've known since he was elected that his base doesn't think things through rationally like this. They go with their gut, and they like what he's saying.

[y66]

Martin Wolfe at FT:

 

The UK government is planning how, and how quickly, to end the lockdown. This necessitates a complex and interlocking set of decisions taken under huge uncertainty. In making them, the government must realise it has a poor record of managing Covid-19 so far. It has to do much better.

 

The UK’s recorded rate of death per million, almost certainly an underestimate, is the fourth highest among its peers, with only Italy (just), Spain and Belgium ahead. That is so even though these countries suffered the pandemic’s onslaught before the UK. This should have given Britain time to recognise the dangers and respond effectively. Am I surprised by the failure? Not really.

 

A large number of people believe that, in order to protect the economy, the sensible thing to do was — and still is — to impose few or no restrictions on individual behaviour, other than to tell the most vulnerable to stay at home. Yet countries that refused to impose tight controls such as Sweden and the Netherlands are not now forecast to do better economically. They have had far more deaths than peers such as Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany or Norway. Yet their growth prospects, at least for now, are not expected to be any better. The assumed trade-off between suppression of the virus and the health of the economy, in the medium term, is illusory.

 

The Bank of England’s latest forecast of a 14 per cent contraction of gross domestic product this year followed by a 15 per cent expansion in 2021 assumes that “social distancing measures and government support schemes” remain “as they are until early June, before being gradually unwound” by the end of the third quarter. It also assumes very little “scarring” of the economy from the output collapse now under way. Alas, these assumptions look optimistic. Another big spike in infections would certainly make its forecast recovery seem inconceivable. But avoiding such a spike must also mean that distancing measures of some kind will continue far beyond September 30.

 

Getting people back to work, an excellent study from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, brings out the many obstacles to any such early return to normality. First, uncertainty will not disappear. Second, the impact of the virus on supply and demand for goods and services will be highly heterogeneous. On the supply side, work that demands face-to-face contact or co-operation will continue to be more affected than work that can be done at a distance. The same will be true of the pattern of demand. Third, the impact on the labour supply and on would-be purchasers is also going to be heterogeneous, with the young able to operate much as before and the older and those with health conditions far less so. Fourth, even this ignores the complex impact from the world economy.

 

An obvious implication is that the structure of supply, demand and available work will alter radically throughout the epidemic. This makes the BoE’s assumption of a smooth economic rebound more implausible. It will also complicate the withdrawal or modification of government support programmes. A further implication is that the effects on different groups will remain unequal. Yet another is that government and business will have to find ways to reassure workers and customers.

 

The close links among different groups of workers will be particularly hard to manage. Getting parents back to work demands the reopening of schools. That means enticing teachers back to work, too. Getting the young back to work requires the presence of older supervisors and managers. Should non-key-workers go out freely if that puts their partners at risk? The report clarifies these complexities — and many more.

 

The UK is only at the end of the beginning. It was not a good start either. It seems foolish to imagine the country will swiftly return to life as it was before Covid-19. Things will remain different.

 

Our least bad future seems to be one in which the disease is suppressed until a vaccine arrives. In the meantime, testing, tracking and quarantine will be required, and government, business and worker representatives will need to make plans that allow as much of the economy as possible to reopen, while protecting the health and livelihoods of the physically and economically vulnerable. It is one of the most complex tasks government has ever attempted. No doubt, there will be surprises. But this time, it really must be thought through.

[Cyberyeti]

y66 That article misses a massive point, comparing Italy with England is very misleading. The populations are approximately equal, but Italy has more than twice the land area, and the capital city is less than half the size. You with all other things equal would expect a lot more deaths in England

[Winstonm]

y66 That article misses a massive point, comparing Italy with England is very misleading. The populations are approximately equal, but Italy has more than twice the land area, and the capital city is less than half the size. You with all other things equal would expect a lot more deaths in England

 

I don't know if it is of value to make a comparison between countries, but it is equally misleading to fail to mention the differences in the culture of Italy and its topography. The Italian language does not even have a word for privacy, their evening strolls, the passeggiata, along with the communal nature of shared piazzas as living rooms brings people into super close contact - and continually, day after day - a cultural thing brought about most likely due to space limitations because of the terrain. A huge mountain range runs down the spine of the country, making that space less inhabitable. Although Italy's biggest city may not be the size of London, the towns and cities that are there are compacted due to the terrain into smaller areas with communal public spaces.

 

None of these cultural disadvantages (disadvantage to stop a pandemic) apply to England.

[Cyberyeti]

 

I don't know if it is of value to make a comparison between countries, but it is equally misleading to fail to mention the differences in the culture of Italy and its topography. The Italian language does not even have a word for privacy, their evening strolls, the passeggiata, along with the communal nature of shared piazzas as living rooms brings people into super close contact - and continually, day after day - a cultural thing brought about most likely due to space limitations because of the terrain. A huge mountain range runs down the spine of the country, making that space less inhabitable. Although Italy's biggest city may not be the size of London, the towns and cities that are there are compacted due to the terrain into smaller areas with communal public spaces.

 

None of these cultural disadvantages (disadvantage to stop a pandemic) apply to England.

 

England also has some pretty densely packed cities (the regional cities seem to be denser in Italy, but Rome is only 25% smaller than London with less than half the population), one of Italy's problems is that many more people smoke than other places, and old men seem to disproportionately catch this there and many of them die.