COVID-19 (f/k/a "the Coronavirus")

[Jay Bee]

Tricky one for me is meal prep. I want to do curbside pickups because I'm supporting local restaurants and their employees. Plus, seems pretty safe. I open the car window and they throw food into it.

But, I do have to go in elevators and across the street to get to my car. In theory, safer to stay in and cook.

With that said, I think I'm going to carefully order & pickup a huge breakfast now

[Hards Alumni]

How can you not separate politics and President Trump? If there is a failure of leadership, then all our leaders are failing. The Governor of California just closed all non-essential work in the state. Who determines what is essential and what is not? There can be a lot of unintended consequences with such a directive, but what alternative is there. This is not the time to fault our leaders regardless of our opinions of them. This is a serious crisis that not only affects our health but our livelihood as well. We should refrain from second guessing every decision they make. Lets hope we can all work together rather than pointing fingers at each other.

It is always time to fault our leaders.  That's what makes America great, not some red hat.  We hold our leaders accountable in real time because we aren't China.  We have open and honest conversations about failings, and people have too many we replace them.  We can all work together towards positive outcomes, WHILE STILL criticizing our leaders.  And its pretty hard to call someone a leader who has the title, but has none of the qualities.  Sorry if it ruffles some panties.

[Hards Alumni]

Tricky one for me is meal prep. I want to do curbside pickups because I'm supporting local restaurants and their employees. Plus, seems pretty safe. I open the car window and they throw food into it.

But, I do have to go in elevators and across the street to get to my car. In theory, safer to stay in and cook.

With that said, I think I'm going to carefully order & pickup a huge breakfast now

Bring a pencil to push the buttons on the elevator, and some tissues to touch doors and handles that you are worried about.  Don't touch your face and wash your hands when you get home.  You should be fine.

[Hards Alumni]

The map is so misleading. You would think every person in Europe has the virus with all that red. Even if there were a 1000 times more cases world wide that would only be about 4% of the population infected. I think people are concerned enough and should take precautions as we still know very little about the virus and how it spreads and how to treat it, but to exaggerate the outbreak of the virus in proportion to the population as the map does only causes more anxiety.

It isn't misleading, you can zoom in on the map or click on the red dots to get more information.  Also, at this point we know quite a bit about the virus and it its transmission.

[pbiflyer]

The US now also has the shortest growth time constant (i.e. we have the fastest doubling rate). Maybe rivaled by Spain, but Spain is slowly increasing their doubling time, while the US growth time constant is holding steady (which is not a good thing).

[Johnny B]

Just to late. Many people ignore the guidelines. Does anyone really think we wont have at least 100 million cases when this is said done

[JWags85]

Bring a pencil to push the buttons on the elevator, and some tissues to touch doors and handles that you are worried about.  Don't touch your face and wash your hands when you get home.  You should be fine.

Rubber/latex gloves. Super useful for the scenarios mentioned

[Hards Alumni]

Rubber/latex gloves. Super useful for the scenarios mentioned

Not everyone has them.

[Hards Alumni]

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.14.20036178v1

The COVID-19 virus has spread worldwide in a matter of a few months. Healthcare systems struggle to monitor and report current cases. Limited capabilities in testing result in difficult to guide policies and mitigate lack of preparation. Since severe cases, which more likely lead to fatal outcomes, are detected at a higher percentage than mild cases, the reported death rates are likely inflated in most countries. Such under-estimation can be attributed to the under-sampling of infection cases and results in systematic death rate estimation biases. The method proposed here utilizes a benchmark country (South Korea) and its reported death rates in combination with population demographics to correct the reported COVID-19 case numbers. By applying a correction, we predict that the number of cases is highly under-reported in most countries. In the case of China, it is estimated that more than 700.000 cases of COVID-19 actually occurred instead of the confirmed 80,932 cases as of 3/13/2020.

Good news.  This would lower the CFR significantly.

[JWags85]

This is a really good article. Long but data driven and informative

https://medium.com/six-four-six-nine/evidence-over-hysteria-covid-19-1b767def5894

[GooooMarquette]

Just to late. Many people ignore the guidelines. Does anyone really think we wont have at least 100 million cases when this is said done

Sad to say, but we will. The best we can hope for at this point is to flatten the curve enough to get more essential supplies and equipment to those on the front line.

It is too late to prevent this from being an enormous disaster. But it is never too late to help in any way we can. And for anyone who isn't already following the guidelines, the way to help is to start today.

[GooooMarquette]

Not everyone has them.

In the absence of rubber or latex gloves, I pull the end of my sleeve over my finger to push elevator buttons, open doors and the like. And I still thoroughly wash my hands whenever I can, just in case.

[muwarrior69]

The US now also has the shortest growth time constant (i.e. we have the fastest doubling rate). Maybe rivaled by Spain, but Spain is slowly increasing their doubling time, while the US growth time constant is holding steady (which is not a good thing).

I'm confused. Is that the number of testing has doubled or the actual spread has doubled?

How many that have been tested have tested negative or are they all positive. Just asking what were actually measuring here.

[The Sultan]

This is a really good article. Long but data driven and informative

https://medium.com/six-four-six-nine/evidence-over-hysteria-covid-19-1b767def5894

Thank you for this.  This type of stuff leads me to believe that a good two-week isolation will really help slow this enough to get people back to doing somewhat normal things.

[pbiflyer]

I'm confused. Is that the number of testing has doubled or the actual spread has doubled?

How many that have been tested have tested negative or are they all positive. Just asking what were actually measuring here.

Actual positive tests are doubling at a rate faster than anywhere else.
And we are among the slowest testing. So our actual number of cases may be doubling significantly faster than the rest of the world if we tested more.
That's a really scary thought.

[muwarrior69]

This is a really good article. Long but data driven and informative

https://medium.com/six-four-six-nine/evidence-over-hysteria-covid-19-1b767def5894

Yes, thanks. The article actually demonstrates how misleading the map above actually is.

[forgetful]

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.14.20036178v1

Good news.  This would lower the CFR significantly.

I agree that there is a ton of under-reporting, but that paper makes some invalid assumptions, and is missing a lot of variables. I don't think it survives peer-review.

Also, for the lay people, any articles from sites with rxiv.org as the ending, are not peer reviewed yet, so they could be highly inaccurate. I think this article's message is roughly true, their methods though are flawed.

[pbiflyer]

Yeah that paper makes some massive leaps and discounts important factors.
When they say we are doing about the same as Italy, that is not a good thing.
It also ignores the hospital bed factor. We have less beds per person than those other countries.

[The Sultan]

Harry Moroz
@hrmoroz
For the average American the best way to tell if you have covid-19 is to cough in a rich person's face and wait for their test results

[forgetful]

Tricky one for me is meal prep. I want to do curbside pickups because I'm supporting local restaurants and their employees. Plus, seems pretty safe. I open the car window and they throw food into it.

But, I do have to go in elevators and across the street to get to my car. In theory, safer to stay in and cook.

With that said, I think I'm going to carefully order & pickup a huge breakfast now

Remember you are also at the mercy of whether the people preparing your meal are following rules regarding proper hygiene (e.g. coughing, washing hands) and are staying home if they have any symptoms.

I'd prep food at home as much as you can if you are worried about exposure.

[shoothoops]

Let's begin with Aaron Ginn not being a credible person.

Manipulating data points for political gain is disingenous, and, on this topic, reckless and dangerous. His policy positions are more than a bit head scratching.

Here is a tweet from him yesterday for example.

https://twitter.com/aginnt/status/1240731186445660160?s=19

[forgetful]

Let's begin with Aaron Ginn not being a credible person.

Manipulating data points for political gain is disingenous, and, on this topic, reckless and dangerous. His policy positions are more than a bit head scratching.

Here is a tweet from him yesterday for example.

https://twitter.com/aginnt/status/1240731186445660160?s=19

Never heard of him, no idea on his politics or positions, but if that tweet is reflective of his intelligence, he is an idiot.

[The Sultan]

Never heard of him, no idea on his politics or positions, but if that tweet is reflective of his intelligence, he is an idiot.

Especially the point about being a teetotaler his whole life.

[Hards Alumni]

Yes, thanks. The article actually demonstrates how misleading the map above actually is.

What is misleading?  Maybe its your understanding.

[shoothoops]

Never heard of him, no idea on his politics or positions, but if that tweet is reflective of his intelligence, he is an idiot.

I saw some people above in the thread passing this article of Ginn's around below. So I wanted to point it out.

https://medium.com/six-four-six-nine/evidence-over-hysteria-covid-19-1b767def5894