Off topic “coronavirus”

[FlyerInHi]

Wow, the Wuhan light show is amazing! I do love the bling.

[Coronita]

https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/

San Diego County looking good. Doubling every 9.5 days….

Riverside County is every 5 days….

[Coronita]

.

[The-Shoveler]

IMO economic effects of Covid-19 lock down will likely kill more people world wide (mostly in poor countries) than the virus itself.

Unless it ends quickly anyway.

[ltsddd]

[quote=The-Shoveler]IMO economic effects of Covid-19 lock down will likely kill more people world wide (mostly in poor countries) than the virus itself.

Unless it ends quickly anyway.[/quote]

This may help speeds the recovery up:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/10/health/us-coronavirus-friday/index.html

Those with the antibody should be free to go back to their normal activities.

[zk]

[quote=The-Shoveler]IMO economic effects of Covid-19 lock down will likely kill more people world wide (mostly in poor countries) than the virus itself.

Unless it ends quickly anyway.[/quote]

Maybe, maybe not. But that really isn’t the question.

You have to consider how many people would have died without the lockdown, not just how many will die with the lockdown.

You also have to consider the economic damage of an unchecked virus.

The question isn’t “will the economic effects of a lockdown kill more people than the virus will kill in a lockdown situation.”

The question is, “would the deaths plus economic damage caused by an unchecked coronavirus be worse than the deaths plus economic damage caused by the lockdown plus the virus in a lockdown situation?”

Economists will generally tell you the answer is yes. In fact, they think that just the economic damage alone would be worse from an unchecked virus than from a lockdown.

The IGM Economic Experts Panel’s latest survey of top US macroeconomists asked for their view of the statement “Abandoning severe lockdowns at a time when the likelihood of a resurgence in infections remains high will lead to greater total economic damage than sustaining the lockdowns to eliminate the resurgence risk”. Eighty per cent of the panel agreed, the rest were uncertain or did not respond. Not a single expert disagreed. 

https://www.ft.com/content/e593e7d4-b82a-4bf9-8497-426eee43bcbc

[The-Shoveler]

Hopefully this ends soon and we don’t have to find out how many millions die due to starvation and social unrest.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=zk]The question is, “would the deaths plus economic damage caused by an unchecked coronavirus be worse than the deaths plus economic damage caused by the lockdown plus the virus in a lockdown situation?”
[/quote]

That’s some good, quality analysis right there !

I think there is some optimization that could happen which isn’t happening, though. Our current response feels panicked, not optimized, especially in San Diego.

Somewhere on this blog someone posted a study recommending that we put all the kids back in school and keep older people on lockdown. This lets the youth develop herd immunity without endangering the vulnerable.

Still, New York has a higher deaths-per-1M than Italy now. So maybe the response there was not extreme enough and and maybe a little too extreme here.

I was reading about Switzerland’s approach today. Can’t find the article. Was interesting in that it was intended to allow conditions that could be sustained for a long period of time and allow herd immunity to build, but still flatten the curve.

[svelte]

Just found out last night about a family member on the east coast who is person #4 we know with it. Supposedly this person is in the hospital. I am trying to verify with that person’s son whether that is true or not – we heard it like 4th hand and the son is a close friend of mine.

News spreads like wildfire in the family when someone gets a positive diagnosis. This really appears like it might be Scarlet Letter Version 2020.

If you do find out about someone with it, it would be wise to protect their identity. No telling what sort of repercussion such a diagnosis could have on their life – warranted or unwarranted. Not to mention it would be a HIPAA violation.

[spdrun]

(1) NYC’s response was virtually identical to CA, some aspects were delayed by a few days, others happened earlier (closures of public gathering places in New Rochelle). I suspect that the outbreak was seeded there by people returning from Europe and China … a lot of the cases are around JFK, likely coming from airport employees. Density also didn’t help.

The good thing is that there’s some news that an insanely high number of people have active infections where testing is universal (~15% of women coming in to the delivery ward in some hospitals) … since we’re not counting cleared infections, the true attack rate could be much higher. If we’re at 50%, we’re well on the way to herd immunity. Only antibody testing will tell for sure…

(2) Antibody testing’s accuracy still stinks (60% if you’re unlucky, 90% if lucky). It’s not useful as a tool for telling people to go back to work, but it is a useful tool in telling POPULATIONS how close they are to mass immunity.

(3) One idea would be not to reopen schools, but reopen summer camps early for healthy kids, and maybe subsidize tuition. Use staff that are young and/or already recovered. The kids (~20% of the population) can pass the virus around, move towards herd immunity, while not risking infecting grandma and grandpa. Of course, it’s an open question whether kids shed virus after recovery, and for how long…

(4) Assuming most people develop immunity and clear the infection, why would infection be a scarlet letter?

[outtamojo]

I haven’t heard anything that would stigmatize victims please expound…

HIPPA btw only applies to employees of
Healthcare entities involved in his care.

[Anonymous]

Here is a Washington Post article citing a Stanford study showing that antibody test in Santa Clara identified 50-85 times more infected people than official report says

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/as-officials-plan-to-reopen-the-economy-a-key-unknown-remains-how-deadly-is-the-coronavirus/2020/04/17/0bd2f938-7e49-11ea-a3ee-13e1ae0a3571_story.html#comments-wrapper

[svelte]

[quote=spdrun]

(4) Assuming most people develop immunity and clear the infection, why would infection be a scarlet letter?[/quote]

Again, don’t believe me if you don’t want to.

I’m just giving fair warning that it appears to me, from the reactions I’ve been getting, that it just might become that.

[svelte]

[quote=outtamojo]I haven’t heard anything that would stigmatize victims please expound…
[/quote]

From the speed at which the news travels and the reactions I’ve had from folks when I tell them I know people who have it, it appears to me that folks want to be nowhere in the vicinity of someone who even *knows* someone with it, let alone to someone who has it or had it.

This will likely lead to decreased work opportunities as folks are discouraged from getting back to work if they’ve had it.

There is no proof this is happening, but I can tell you there is horror on the face of people when I say I know someone with it. I have to immediately explain that I haven’t seen these ppl in at least a year.

My wife mentioned to a co-worker she knew someone with it and on the next general conference call, the CEO announced that someone at the company knew someone with it. The conference call wasn’t even about COVID. When my wife looked into who that person was, it was herself. So that one comment had worked its way all the way to the CEO office.

Wildfire.

mojo, you don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to – you just can’t say I didn’t warn you.

[quote=outtamojo]
HIPPA btw only applies to employees of
Healthcare entities involved in his care.[/quote]

It’s HIPAA not HIPPA and I checked into it. It actually depends on who disclosed the condition:

“According to their interpretations of HIPAA, hospitals will not reveal information over the phone to relatives of admitted patients.”

So disclosing the name might be a HIPAA violation (a) for the hospital if they are the ones that disclosed it to you, or (b) for you if you work in the healthcare field.

I know folks at my company have been telling us to steer clear of HIPAA problems on this topic even though we’re not in healthcare. That’s probably where I got the misconception.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Insurance_Portability_and_Accountability_Act

[outtamojo]

Geeze we live in such a cruel world. Those afflicted deserve sympathy not suspicion.

Hospitals are not even allowed to disclose that you are even there to phone callers much less give your diagnosis.

[Author]

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