COVID19

[FangKC]

It's not just about a choice of 2 approaches though. We could also come up with creative ways to cautiously bring back workforce while taking social distancing seriously. Getting PPE and N95 masks in hands of workforce could still slow down spreading while not destroying the economy. The fact that we have many working essential stores *w/out* PPE is perhaps more dangerous to general public and those at risk than getting most workforce back in place *with* PPE and with standardized workplace safety procedures. No one has immunity so herd immunity over time will likely take place given no vaccine, but it's about getting it to a manageable level.

Testing is the key to getting the economy on track. However, since the Trump Administration turned down the WHO test kits, and fired the pandemics staff in the National Security Council. we are way behind the ball. People who have already recovered from COVID could go back to work. Many had it but didn't know it. But we have no way of knowing that right now because they can't get tested.

[kas1]

Makes you wonder if Florida and Texas are not counting COVID related deaths even if COVID as at least part of cause. That is someone with terminal cancer that has less than a month to live gets COVID and dies but is counted as a cancer death and not a COVID death. Is possible that warmer weather reduces deaths in southern states but could some states be reporting some COVID involved deaths as something else?

According to the New York Times, only 2/3 of the confirmed coronavirus patients in Alabama have had their cause of death recorded as coronavirus. It didn't elaborate on every single state.

And warmer weather definitely does not reduce deaths. The worst outbreak in the world is in Guayaquil. A different article from the NYT argues that they have around 10x the number of cases per capita as Spain, which is generally consistent with observational evidence and estimates from Ecuadorian officials.

[earthling]

I'm in Florida right now to take care of an elderly relative that had a stroke recently and is diabetic. Am concerned about acquiring COVID myself as he'll likely be toast if getting it. Am doing the shopping with mask/gloves but is concerning that store workers don't have PPE at this stage of spreading. And the pollen is bad here giving me chest congestion so always wondering yet can't get tested.

Am in support of workforce returning sooner than later but with PPE and ideally N95 masks - along with reasonable workplace social distancing. Testing that takes minutes will help too if every workplace could get ahold of it.

[grovester]

No workforce returning until there is massive amounts of testing.

[earthling]

^How many millions need to be tested before returning do you think? If a person was tested a week ago, they may get later.

How about everyone in workforce (outside those able to work from home) needs PPE along with testing as possible. But in order to do that PPE manufacturing and ensuring materials in supply chain need to be a top 5 global priority.

[FangKC]

The priority is testing working people. People that can still self-isolate can be tested later when more testing supplies are available.

[earthling]

^So how many do you think need to be tested before allowing non-essential workforce to return? There's about 160M in labor force. And might need random tests every week of those previously tested as well.

[kas1]

It's not a matter of testing everybody before they return to work. It's a matter of having enough capacity to test every person who was in close contact with people who get sick in the future so that presymptomatic people can be quickly isolated. As long as most social distancing policies remain in place, the spread would be slow enough for health officials to catch back up again even if a few people do briefly slip through the cracks here and there.

[earthling]

That's the Singapore/S Korea tracing method you've been touting, and agree it's the most ideal but they managed this before out of control. We're already past that and US/state govts may not be disciplined enough to pull off that method, especially with domestic flights still active and hotspot regions not shut off. In addition to that, Asia uses PPE publicly and in workplace.

Will also help when the antibodies test is widely available, which shows if someone already had COVID. The current tests only works while COVID is active.

Any kind of testing that will help will be great but producing PPEs should also be a top 5 global priority to get workforce back sooner than later. We can easily fall into partisan politics and oppose Trump's ideas to return workforce (he's totally incompetent for this crisis), but we really do need to get workforce back ASAP. It just needs to be more cautious than Trump's plan and target managing spread at some acceptable level.

[earthling]

A break from the debate...

Italian Teledistancing Crosby Stills Nash...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtX1r0SzxlI

[kas1]

If we reduce cases to a manageable level before letting people return to work then we can also use PPE in the workplace since our hospitals won't be burning through everything so quickly.

You keep acting like the United States is categorically incapable of doing anything that Asian countries are doing, and it's pretty ridiculous. Our elected officials might be awful, but the actual professionals who work in government agencies are quite capable of doing something as straightforward as contact tracing. If I'm not mistaken, public health officials were instrumental in limiting the damage in some places like Seattle and New Rochelle even without hardly any access to testing and with a public that hadn't yet been taking any precautions whatsoever. With more time to prepare and with better knowledge of how this virus operates, they can be effective as long as they are not overwhelmed. They don't have to achieve perfect results in order to play a role in holding R below 1.

Sending people back to work without reducing active cases to a low level is a recipe for disaster, and reducing cases to a low level and then sending people back to work with no plan for how to keep the cases at a low level is also a recipe for disaster. You keep pooh-poohing any plan that attempts to achieve success, but you don't offer anything of your own.

[kas1]

And in other news, it's starting to look like our daily death toll may peak at a level that's below Italy, Spain, and France (in per capita terms), so the parts of the country that have nothing to do with the South might actually have a reasonable pathway out of this.

[earthling]

You keep acting like the United States is categorically incapable of doing anything that Asian countries are doing

Yes, the West in general because of the cultural and discipline differences discussed earlier in thread. And given the outbreak and death rate are now much higher in West that's literally the case. That's OK if you disagree but yeah, that is indeed my position for various reasons given and the outcome is supporting it. We aren't locking down hotspot regions from rest of US for starters, and likely can't.

You keep pooh-poohing any plan that attempts to achieve success, but you don't offer anything of your own.

I actually agreed with you that the tracing method is ideal several times but yeah, don't think the West can pull it off. We're already past containment and apparently heading towards herd immunity. What I specifically offered earlier (in addition to testing when possible) out of concern for economic disaster in addition to COVID disaster...

- Feds or someone like Gates Foundation buy N95 mask patent from 3M and open source it license free to all mask capable makers on planet.
- Work with supply chains to build up enough materials to produce 100s of millions per day if possible.
- Blitz the planet with PPEs, with hospitals highest priorities, those at risk, then workplace, then general public.

It's a global issue that needs global solutions. I've been discussing finding a reasonable balance rather than prioritizing COVID with no concern for economy. Some oddly find it heartless to be concerned about the economy as well.

[FangKC]

Health experts say official U.S. coronavirus death toll is understated

Public health experts and government officials agree that the U.S. government's coronavirus death toll almost certainly understates how many Americans have actually died from the virus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention only counts deaths where the presence of the coronavirus is confirmed in a lab test, The Washington Post reports, and "we know that it is an underestimation," CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said.
...

https://theweek.com/speedreads/907010/h ... nderstated

[kas1]

We're already past containment and apparently heading towards herd immunity.

No, we aren't. At this point maybe 2% of the population in the US has been infected. Reaching herd immunity will take YEARS of this psuedo-lockdown state if we want to keep trickling people through the ICU at a slow enough rate to not run out of beds and ventilators. Years of sitting at home in order to kill a couple million people in as organized a fashion as possible. Or just give up on flattening the curve and let the virus chug through the whole population over the course of a few months and spit out 10 million corpses.

There's a very small town at the epicenter of the outbreak in Italy which may have reached herd immunity. A group of them donated blood and 2/3 of them had antibodies showing that they'd been infected. Currently around 1.7% of that town's population has been killed by the virus, and I'm sure that number will continue to tick up as the remaining active cases play out. So in the end they may lose 2.5% or 3% of their population. That's what it takes to get herd immunity. The deaths we've had so far in the US will end up as a rounding error if that's the path we choose. There are many very optimistic people out there who want to believe that actually gazillions of people have already been infected and were completely asymptomatic and we're secretly almost out of the woods, and this theory is contradicted by every possible set of data available. Right now we've barely dipped a toe in the water, and it's already been terrible.

[kas1]

Against all odds, the current hodgepodge of state and local orders combined people voluntarily not being stupid actually does appear to be resulting in a decrease in new cases. (The numbers on the graph refer to the percentage of the population currently experiencing a fever.) The worst thing we can do right now is throw away this progress by easing up on restrictions before a plan is in place. And obviously this plan won't come from the feds, but there's an incredible power vacuum right now that's just begging to be filled, and pretty much any governor who has some vision will be able to draw a lot of support if they take a step forward. What I'm hoping will happen is that the Pacific states continue being smart and competent, and the rest of the nation continues to follow their lead because those states are the furthest along.

[kas1]

Incidentally, what I've read is that unspecified people in the White House have been drafting plans for gradually easing restrictions in some sort of common-sense way by starting with low-risk jobs and then progressing from there as long as the situation remains stable. However, the Cheeto rejects these proposals out of hand and wants an all-or-nothing approach. There's pretty much only one way to completely fuck this situation up, so of course that is what we will get if the states don't continue to control the narrative.

[earthling]

Contact Tracing is ideal but is any state actually able to pull it off?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN21I324

The health director for Ridgefield, Connecticut, says there is no way that he and his staff of two can identify and isolate all the people who have interacted with an infected patient, not at the rate cases are multiplying across the town.

“Tracing exposures of exposures of exposures. It’s just impossible,” Briggs said. “The cases are to the point where we can’t possibly trace everybody back now.”

edit: Oregon claims they are trying but ultimately are not...

But the health officials in charge did not communicate with all Oregonians who had a positive test let alone all of their close connections, the newsroom found.

And after publicly touting the monitoring system as a way to keep tabs on the spread of coronavirus and help protect people, state officials abruptly stopped reporting a key set of tracking numbers without explanation.

[earthling]

On US employment impact, 10M jobless claims in last 2 weeks, which puts employment level down to upper 140Ms. If we get another 6M or more reported this week (Thursday), could be about 142M or lower. In 2 weeks hopefully jobless claims slow down but potentially we may see 10 years worth of job gains lost in one month. Looking at losses starting in 2008, it took nearly 7 years to get back to 2008 levels.

STL Fed Reserve Pres says job losses could total over 45M, which would put US job levels at 1980s level. Getting PPEs out to workforce (in addition to increased testing) could prevent further jobless claims and slowdown snowball effect.

US Employment in Thousands...

[taxi]

To change the topic slightly...

I don't wanna show off my wizardly math skills, but I believe each day makes it more likely one of us has a closer connection to someone with this virus. This makes me wonder how KCRaggers feel about public info, regarding those we know who have it.

I have a neighbor who has it, though his test results won't be back until later today (he was tested Saturday and shows most symptoms and is very sick). His wife doesn't want us to tell anyone. I also heard another member of our community, who is kind of high profile and had a lot of contact with a lot of people during early signs of symptoms, is being very secretive about it. If I had it, I would tell everyone, so those that may have had contact with me would know to be alert and more strictly quarantine.

How do you guys feel? Is there a stigma attached to this disease that makes some folks feel the need to hide it? Seems preposterous, since more than half of us are likely to get it at some point.