COVID19

[earthling]

Yeah, would expect bailout of industries impacted.

[earthling]

Here's a good site for tracking known cases/deaths and also tracks those in intensive care...

US
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

World
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

Another world, which shows US by state. Slow, allow time to draw maps...
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps ... 7b48e9ecf6

[FangKC]

The Dairy Farmers of America cancelled their annual meeting next week.

[FangKC]

Mayor Lucas, health officials issue state of emergency for Kansas City, Missouri

...
The state of emergency has been declared for 21 days, and during that time, all events with more than 1,000 attendees within the city are cancelled or delayed.

A moratorium has been placed on all nonessential travel for city employees until the state of emergency has been lifted.
...

https://www.kmbc.com/article/mayor-luca ... yFapPFAe5I

[wahoowa]

So if all these business end up filing insurance claims, will companies like AIG end up needing a bailout? There is no way they have this amount of money to cover all these claims

only limited forms of business insurance could potentially cover coronavirus-related claims. i suspect the insurers will be okay.

[flyingember]

So if all these business end up filing insurance claims, will companies like AIG end up needing a bailout? There is no way they have this amount of money to cover all these claims

only limited forms of business insurance could potentially cover coronavirus-related claims. i suspect the insurers will be okay.

And it comes with a cost when it does exist.

Go back to the Big Short movie.

One character bought what amounted to an insurance policy that paid out if so many mortgages of a certain standard failed. Think of it as asset protection insurance, they were worried their investments would be worth less if this market crashed. They were paying premium monthly to have outstanding coverage If the situation happened they got a big check.

So a business can get coverage for anything, but how much would it cost to do so?

I would give good odds that the top 10 huge international company like Apple, Microsoft, Exxon has cash on hand that they don't spend in order to self-insure against exceptional events and the next 50 or so buy the kind of policy that most don't

I bet most businesses either didn't ever assess the risk of such an event or didn't feel one would impact their business.

[earthling]

Three new cases in JoCo. All three visited same conference in Florida.
https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/ ... ansas.html

KC cases are imported, no spreading yet. But wouldn't be surprising if unknown cases 3X higher than known.

According NYT map, Omaha has second most cases in Midwest, some due to spreading...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... cases.html

[brewcrew1000]

There is no way Mexico has only 7 cases. They are probably just not reporting

[Steve52]

I just don't understand how they can test for this and you can be positive, what is the difference between this and the flu?

What they are doing is testing you for most of the current and common virus breeds and if those tests are negative they assume there is a real possibility your symptoms are or may be the corona virus. The difference is this bitch is aggressive and spreads faster and is ten times more deadly then the common flu. Which obviously can a very big problem for those who get it.

[brewcrew1000]

Cancelled Mexico. We leave Monday but just the thought of it now seems depressing. I could see resorts eventually canceling all buffets and any kind of public gatherings/shows, could be pretty miserable. Rescheduling for late May/june

[FangKC]

Big 12 cancels men's, women's basketball tournaments because of COVID-19 concerns

https://www.kmbc.com/article/big-12-can ... s/31439668

[normalthings]

Prices to Europe are down big time for the summer now. Near term, they have shot up as US Citizens try to escape. I have heard of multiple students now stranded in Europe.

[earthling]

My brother got out of Rome today, on the (originally scheduled) flight now, in air. No incidents. Next step, self-quarantine at home.

[normalthings]

First death being reported in KCK. No known contact with the current cases and no recent travel (fatality lives in a longterm care facility). I would think that the person who infected this victim would have to have gotten sick by now if the victim is dead. Does this mean there are people in the community carrying the disease with major symptoms?

[Sani]

So if all these business end up filing insurance claims, will companies like AIG end up needing a bailout? There is no way they have this amount of money to cover all these claims

There's an in-depth discussion of that here. In essence, business interruption not caused by property damage to the business is not covered under most business insurance policies.

[kboish]

First death being reported in KCK. No known contact with the current cases and no recent travel (fatality lives in a longterm care facility). I would think that the person who infected this victim would have to have gotten sick by now if the victim is dead. Does this mean there are people in the community carrying the disease with major symptoms?

Without major symptoms you probably meant to say.

And yes, thats exactly what is happening. Most people (80%) will have mild or no symptoms. The remaining 20% will have the worst illness of their life and likely need to be hospitalized. And between .6 and 2% will die. For comparison, .1% of people with the flu die.

The only reason KC is getting away with saying there are no loca spread cases was because they werent testing for it. They were waiting for someone to die. Well, now someone died and they cant pretend its not here anymore.

[FangKC]

The major concern in an pandemic like this is that people with strong immune systems become infected, don't notice or don't have obvious symptoms. They remain infectious and will pass on the virus to others who don't have strong immune systems. Among these are seniors, babies, people with compromised immune systems: cancer patients; HIV/AIDS patients; those who've had transplants, etc..

People who exhibit symptoms, and still go to work, are putting not only their coworkers at risk, but every vulnerable relative and neighbor with whom their coworkers come in contact.

Most people aren't in danger if they get infected. It's the vulnerable people they inadvertently infect. And when you exist in a situation where the government isn't prepared and can't test people quickly, that is how the virus gets out of control swiftly. You don't know who is infected, and who isn't.

[kboish]

The other problem is so many people will become severely ill at once (in addition to all the flu cases and other illness that typically use the hospital resources) that you overrun the system such that people cant receive the care they need and people unnecessarily die who otherwise would have survived. That is what we are seeing in other countries. We know thats what happens unless you flatten the infection curve.

[earthling]

Given we don't know who and how many have it (especially most showing no symptoms), it would seem to make more sense to focus on those at risk rather than carriers. That is, focus on what is known, not on what is unknown. Would have less impact on economy and more directly protect those at risk.

Maybe not at this point yet but at some point.

[kboish]

The other problem is so many people will become severely ill at once (in addition to all the flu cases and other illness that typically use the hospital resources) that you overrun the system such that people cant receive the care they need and people unnecessarily die who otherwise would have survived. That is what we are seeing in other countries. We know thats what happens unless you flatten the infection curve.

And we know this from not just this pandemic, but all previous pandemics. There is lots of research on this. Our poor response to this is judged by our lack of testing ready in time (that time has past) and now our lack of focus on preparing hospital resources to handle the coming surge of patients.

Think of the flu. We use vaccines to inoculate some of the population and use testing to inform those who have contracted the flu so they stop spreading it. They will preventatively test anyone who comes in with symptoms and people generally comply with advice to stay home and get better. In addition to that we will selectively close schools if there is a flu outbreak. If there is an outbreak, they have nearby hospitals to lean on.

Now for COVID. No vaccine. No widespread testing. Closings are coming AFTER DEATH occurs which means it has been spread far enough through healthy people to finally reach vulnerable and must mean there is widespread community spread occuring. It seems obvious to me we should be getting our hospitals ready for a big surge.