Coronavirus Numbers

[LivingnLA]

It's higher for now, but they are keeping the elderly isolated while letting the younger population get exposed. The purpose of the "social distancing" is to prevent overwhelming the the healthcare system. While the thought of an effective vaccine is a nice dream, the reality is that (1) there's never been an effective vaccine created against a coronavirus, and (2) even if we're able to develop a safe and effective vaccine, it won't be ready by the northern Hemisphere's Fall/Winter. We cannot simply stay holed up for an entire year. I suspect that in the long run, Sweden will fare better. Of course, there's no way to know something like that with any certainty. I have a feeling that most people are going to get exposed before there's a vaccine. It's probably better for this to happen when it's warm out and the virus less virulent. Well, a year from now, we'll be able to look back and find out who had the right idea.

 

There is no such thing as one "right idea" when we're talking about pandemics because the number of factors and variables involved demand targeted ideas. The whole one size fits all approach is flawed and inefficient. Sweden has made a choice for their 10 million citizens that is killing more of them than necessary in the short-term but they're gambling that it will level out and be a net improvement long-term. Given what I know of their demographics, culture, economy, etc. their choice was a reasonable choice for them. It's a brutal choice for a country like the USA because of our deeply flawed and smaller (per capita) healthcare system and our significantly more vulnerable population. If we'd taken Sweden's approach, we would've lost many hundreds of thousands of people, likely into the low millions, especially as hospitals collapsed, healthcare workers died, and deep panic set in. The economic impact of so much death and panic would've likely been substantially worse.

Edited April 28, 2020 by LivingnLA

[+ stevenkesslar]

We cannot simply stay holed up for an entire year. I suspect that in the long run, Sweden will fare better. Of course, there's no way to know something like that with any certainty.

 

Again, there just seems to be a lot of magical thinking going on.

 

This debate between lives and economic livelihood is just a fake argument. At least some people seem to think the problem is the lock down, not the virus. It seems like the magical thinking is that if the lock downs go away, the virus will go away with it. It's also just not true to say that the numbers of new cases are going down in the US. They are at best flat, and probably going to go up with "reopening".

 

We'll know soon enough. But when the lock down goes away, the virus will likely get worse. As a result, the economy will probably get worse. Tell me if this article make sense:

“Once people start hearing of people getting sick and dying after eating at a restaurant, who’s going to want to go out to dinner again?” Professor Stevenson said.

 

If a nail salon or tattoo parlor is open but no customers show up, those businesses will suffer. If restaurants are open but no one shows up to eat, those restaurants will suffer. When movies, concerts or sporting events open up, people aren’t going to show up, no matter how much performers and sports teams would like them to.

More significantly, an economy depends on consumers just as much as producers. Businesses need customers. It’s not clear they plan to participate.

 

That article makes sense to me. It's anecdotal, but I was stunned to learn from the owner of my local small business take-out-only pizza place that business was down 50 % to 75 %. This is a place that I thought would be booming. Many people are simply choosing NOT to take out pizza - even though the business is wide open, and has no lock down restrictions whatsoever.

 

The article above makes one of the best cases of everything I have read about why our economic livelihoods depend on our lives. That's certainly the lesson of 1918. When a pandemic runs wild, social life and the economy collapse - completely. That's not a theory. That is the fact of what happened all over the US in 1918. That said, cities across the US that had a plan cut the death rate by a half or or even two-thirds, and made things less terrifying. Presumably, given our better technology, we should be able to do at last as well in 2020.

 

I agree completely with @LivingnLA that there is no "right idea" here. The opposite. This is probably the biggest human crisis of my lifetime. There are no easy answers. That said, to simplify it, there is a choice to be made: do we want to be South Korea, or do we want to be Sweden? We at least now know we have to have a plan. And you really can't be both South Korea AND Sweden. You have to choose.

 

So here's an interesting perspective on the US and our choice:

I don't know it well enough but it still seems to me that the Americans let coronavirus go too far before any real strategy came into place. One of the real big problems in the beginning was the lack of testing. I'm also not really sure how well the U.S. health system can change as dramatically as we in Sweden have been able to, for example. We have almost double the intensive care capacity that we had a couple of weeks ago. Being centrally organized and steered (as part of a state-funded system) allows for greater flexibility in changing the health system. I'm not sure how well that can be done in the U.S. with all the private actors and insurance firms. It may make it more difficult to handle this kind of situation.

 

Guess who said that? Anders Tegnell, architect of Sweden's strategy, in an interview in USA Today. I agree with everything Tegnell said above. It reinforces what @LivingnLA said.

 

That's a good overview of the pluses and minuses of what Sweden is doing. I will give Tegnell credit for this. There is a plan, which is better than the total mess in the US, as he describes it. And he is aware of the real and potential failings. They learned that protecting people in nursing homes is easier said than done. They do have a much higher death rate than their neighbors - so far. It is simply a gamble that "herd immunity" is actually being achieved. Nobody knows. The death is real. The herd immunity is a theory.

 

Most important, Tegnell's theory is built on the idea that China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia, Austria, Thailand, and others are just wrong. Those countries believe they can "essentially eradicate" the virus, as New Zealand's PM just said. Tegnell believes that is not a sustainable strategy. At this point, nobody can say for certain whether it is sustainable or not. We can say that if you exclude China from that list I just named, every other country COMBINED had way fewer deaths than Sweden. So there is a good argument that the best way to contain the virus is to do what most countries are doing - contain the virus, through testing, tracing, and treating.

 

One factor that is different in the US is that we let it get completely out of control. So starting from a peak of 30,000 cases is just different than having 1,000 or co cases as a peak, like South Korea or Australia did. Plus, they got their shit together much more quickly then we are on "test, trace, treat". On any given day, the US is still confused about whether we want to be Sweden, or South Korea. 20 % or so want to be Sweden, and 80 % want to be South Korea.

 

Here's another thing about the science and numbers of this. If a herd of cows could vote, and 80 % of the herd voted not to be slaughtered, then presumably the herd would not be slaughtered. But if 20 % of the herd walks into the slaughterhouse, they are probably going to be slaughtered, anyway. So if 20 % of the US population wants to do what they want to do, that changes the science and the numbers. It basically means that, by default, we can't be South Korea.

 

It's ironic, I think. South Korea has exactly what we say we want. They have open businesses, open offices, open restaurants. We say that is what we want. We say, Why can't offices be open? Why can't small businesses be open? Why can't restaurants be open? Somehow, in South Korea, they actually are! And yet the country has had 695 deaths, total - which is 1 % of what the US now says is the "goal" we will try to keep deaths to. So South Korea gets the mostly functioning economy, and the US gets death and lock downs.

 

Can you explain that to me, @Unicorn? How is this possible?

 

Again, it is magical thinking to say that anyone thinks we should just hibernate for a year or two. I think it is also magical thinking to believe we can just "bubble wrap" seniors and vulnerable populations for a year or two. So it actually does make sense to me to say that, as difficult as it will be, maybe millions of tests a day and an army of 300,000 or so contract tracers is a better idea than millions of deaths.

 

Here's a take on how we are handling it in the US. I'm posting this article not based on any political perspective, but simply because it does a good job of laying out the numbers and the facts:

 

Bennett & Leibsohn: Coronavirus response — compare Florida with New York, and look at the results so far

 

I said we can't be both South Korea and Sweden. As a nation, that is correct. But we are kind of trying to have it both ways. Florida is basically trying to be like Sweden, but in an organized way. So far, both Florida and California have COVID-19 deaths that are way lower than their annual flu deaths. By objective measures, California is doing somewhat better than Florida. But both are doing way better than average. Both are certainly doing way better than NY, where the virus had already spread like wildfire before anyone realized what was happening.

 

New York has now had 7 times the number of deaths they do annually from the flu. And the almost 23,000 deaths there don't account for a huge spike in unaccounted for deaths, at home and in nursing homes, beyond what is normal for New York at this time of the year. So 23,000 is probably an undercount, not an overcount. I think that tells us that if we just let this run out of control in an overwhelmed medical system, it will easily be at least 10 times as deadly as the flu.

Edited April 28, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[+ stevenkesslar]

Here's one additional factoid that speaks to the complexity of how to reopen without just killing both hundreds of thousands of people and the economy.

 

South Dakota has the 13th highest per capita infection rate of all US states. And yet they have the lowest fatality rate of all - 0.49 % of confirmed cases. They are the only state with a death rate below 1 % of all cases. I think we now all realize that the number of confirmed cases is way lower than the number of actual infections, of course. Meanwhile, Utah has the second lowest death rate, at 1.04 %.

 

I think I can guess why this is. Utah has the youngest population of any US state, by far. Rep. Ben McAdams is a poster child. He got so sick that he had to be in a hospital for a week. Thankfully, he survived. So even for the relatively young and healthy, this virus is no picnic. Even for the young, it strains hospital capacity. Even for the young, strokes happen, and young people die.

 

In South Dakota, a huge chunk of those confirmed cases were a meat packing plant in Sioux Falls, which had to be closed. So, again, it is magical thinking to believe that people can work through a pandemic. The people who work at that plant DO NOT want to work if it means getting sick, being hospitalized, and maybe dying. Would any of us choose to work there? So it just seems like magical thinking to believe this isn't going to be happening a lot - all over the US - unless we have really aggressive testing and contacting tracing in place.

 

The good news, such as it is, is that only a few people in the meat packing plant died. We can't have grocery stores open if the message to the employees is: "Hey, good news! Only a few of you will die." That won't work. But I'm hoping what the low death rate in SD means is that even when an outbreak does happen in a major job center (about 4000 jobs), it can be quickly contained and contact traced without spreading further. That, at a minimum, is what we need to figure out if we DO NOT want an economy built on fear and death.

Edited April 28, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[Guest]

...If we'd taken Sweden's approach, we would've lost many hundreds of thousands of people, likely into the low millions, especially as hospitals collapsed, healthcare workers died, and deep panic set in. The economic impact of so much death and panic would've likely been substantially worse.

I definitely didn't say that locking down when we did was a bad idea, and I certainly agree that loosening should be done gradually. SK noted that Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and Taiwan have had low rates of Covid deaths so far. We don't know for certain, but one very plausible explanation are that those are countries which are either tropical or who just finished their summer. Australia and New Zealand are also more isolated and have less international travel than seen in the US and Europe.

There's a lot we don't know about this virus, and I would be wary of comments made from observations, especially cherry-picked ones. Why were the deaths so much higher in Italy, Spain, France, and the UK than Sweden? Are there different strains of the virus? Different host factors? Why was the situation so much worse in NYC and New Jersey than in California? Did NYC get the European/Atlantic strain, and California the Asian/Pacific strain? Is it because the climate is warmer and drier in California? Is it because Governor Newsom is more clever than Governor Cuomo? One can take educated guesses, but anyone who thinks he knows the answer for sure is deluding himself. Observations give rise to hypotheses, not answers. A year from now we'll have more answers.

I do believe that most places in the US (maybe not the northeast or midwest yet) should begin a measured and gradual easing of restrictions, especially to take advantage of warmer weather, and keep an eye on healthcare system usage. If this coronavirus behaves as other coronaviruses do, and proves to be less virulent in warmer weather, we can continue our observations and ease things further.

[+ stevenkesslar]

We don't know for certain, but one very plausible explanation are that those are countries which are either tropical or who just finished their summer. Australia and New Zealand are also more isolated and have less international travel than seen in the US and Europe.

 

That idea is almost certainly not true. Brazil is off the charts with infection and death. It is in the Southern hemisphere.

 

This is a theory, but I actually believe there is so much evidence that is almost a proven fact. You have to have a plan. And you have to choose to be either Sweden, or South Korea. It's not quite that black and white. But either you essentially go for natural herd immunity, or you go for "test, trace, treat". The latter is a strategy to mostly contain the virus until the vaccine itself confers injected herd immunity. Just like with many other diseases we have mostly conquered. Both strategies are based on certain unproven assumptions about antibodies and vaccines.

 

One article I read said that the weather was partly what worked in Florida. But not because warmer weather kept the virus at bay. I think the consensus, or near consensus, is that this virus seems to thrive in all weather conditions, as long as it has lungs to feed on.

 

The theory with Florida is that weather helped because it got people outside. Walking on a beach is almost certainly safer than being surrounded in a bar by hundreds of people who are exhaling the virus. I believe in Florida there are cops on the beach making sure that people keep moving, and don't congregate in groups. One of the articles I read suggested that after the initial novelty of being at the beach again wore off, a lot of people just said it was more trouble than it is worth. Mostly, I think the beaches are not packed.

 

 

So that's a recent picture from Newport Beach in California. Newsom's reaction was to say, "We can't have that."

 

I think it's probably common sense to say that the odds of getting COVID-19 at the beach, in the sun, are lower than the odds of getting it in a packed cinema, or sports stadium, of restaurant.

 

The Sweden versus South Korea choice to me is at some level very simple.

 

In South Korea, the public seems to be united in saying we want it to be so that only 20 people or so get this virus every day. Period. Just tell us what that means, and we'll do it. So far, it is working. It is not unlike saying that we will fly in planes if only a few of them crash every year. But if 50 planes crash every day, sorry. Figure it out, and until then we just won't fly.

 

The pretty much apples to apples equivalent to South Korea in Florida is this. We'll go to Disneyland, as long as it does not sicken, hospitalize, or kill us. But until you figure that out, Disneyland is going to have a huge problem on the demand side - whether it is open or not. And if it opens and people get sick, or hospitalized, or die, Disney knows they have a huge image problem all of a sudden.

 

Sweden is saying we'll let 5,000 or 50,000 people a day get infected. We'll just try to make sure they are not nursing home residents, or highly vulnerable. And we'll hope that the survivors have immunity to the virus for as long as it takes - which they may or may not. And some part of that does depend on having a centralized government-run health care system that can be reorganized more quickly than the US could do it.

 

There is no evidence in the real world that countries benefit by doing it like Sweden does. There is evidence that all the countries employing "test, trace, treat" so far have been more successful than unsuccessful in lowering deaths and containing the virus.

 

I don't think we will get the benefit of a Spring break and Summer vacation from this virus. There is at least no evidence of that so far.

Edited April 29, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[+ tassojunior]

Just a few weeks ago we were told the death toll estimate had been downgraded by both major forecasters to be 60,000. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/06/americas-most-influential-coronavirus-model-just-revised-its-estimates-downward-not-every-model-agrees/

 

We reached 60,000 deaths today. It's looking more like the original estimates of 100,000 to 200,000 deaths will prove true.

[+ tassojunior]

We know so little about coronavirus. What is important to me is if there is an immunity after contracting coronavirus and also how much of a viral load is necessary to gain that immunity. I have heard that the virus can be more or less severe according to how much of the virus you take in, all infections are not the same. As contagious as the virus is and as long as it stays on surfaces and the aerosol stays in the air, I would think it fairly certain that most of us will be exposed to some viral load of it soon and my hope is some small infection can create immunity. That would be very good news and could justify gradual reopening and "herd immunity". (tho come hot weather this country's reopening de facto anyway and we'll soon find out.)

Edited April 29, 2020 by tassojunior

[Populist Fury]

‘Life Has to Go On’: How Sweden Has Faced the Virus Without a Lockdown

The country was an outlier in Europe, trusting its people to voluntarily follow the protocols. Many haven’t, but it does not seem to have hurt them.

 

 

 

Freedom-loving angels ???

 

I envy their courage + the trust they have in their institutions & each other.

 

When I hear people call for so-called testing-tracking-tracing here, all I can think is "an Orwellian nightmare waiting to happen -_-". We must of oppose that s*** at all cost. There are several other ways to deal with the virus that doesn't involve us having to surrender more of our privacy & freedoms to the ever-growing Surveillance State.

[+ stevenkesslar]

Just a few weeks ago we were told the death toll estimate had been downgraded by both major forecasters to be 60,000. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/06/americas-most-influential-coronavirus-model-just-revised-its-estimates-downward-not-every-model-agrees/

 

We reached 60,000 deaths today. It's looking more like the original estimates of 100,000 to 200,000 deaths will prove true.

 

Nope. 100,000 to 200,000 is way too low. Not the way we are doing this.

[+ stevenkesslar]

I think the writer is taking Newsom out of context. I have listened to at least half of his news briefings, and I the only times I've heard him utter the phrase "herd immunity" is AFTER looking forward to "development of an effective and available vaccine".

 

I assume that is what he meant.

 

 

That has the clip of the quote, but not the context. I posted it partly because he just is a very geeky and almost robotic speaker. Public presentation is not his strong suit. That said, I kind of like the idea that my life in part depends on what this handsome geek does. He certainly didn't fuck me over when it came to same sex marriage. And he is one of very few people I regret not being fucked over by.

 

I think he must have meant what they say at the end of that clip. IF we simply follow a herd immunity strategy, it would mean a 70 % infection rate - 28 million Californians - and 800,000 deaths. I assume he meant that is why we are living abnormally, and wearing masks, and putting in all these restrictions - to avoid 800,000 deaths. It's the Bill Gates strategy. Muddle through together and plan to win the war with a vaccine. I buy it.

 

The interesting thing is that Newsom is using an implied death rate of 3 % - if you based 800,000 on 28 million infected Californians. I'm still guessing that Fauci's 1 % is a realistic number, once we really have the full picture. But whether you use 280,000 or 800,000 it is a scary number. For all his geekiness, I do think Newsom has done a good job of conveying the fact that, like it or not, we are all in this very scary horror movie together.

Edited April 29, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[+ tassojunior]

I assume that is what he meant.

 

 

That has the clip of the quote, but not the context. I posted it partly because he just is a very geeky and almost robotic speaker. Public presentation is not his strong suit. That said, I kind of like the idea that my life in part depends on what this handsome geek does. He certainly didn't fuck me over when it came to same sex marriage. And he is one of very few people I regret not being fucked over by.

 

I think he must have meant what they say at the end of that clip. IF we simply follow a herd immunity strategy, it would mean a 70 % infection rate - 28 million Californians - and 800,000 deaths. I assume he meant that is why we are living abnormally, and wearing masks, and putting in all these restrictions - to avoid 800,000 deaths. It's the Bill Gates strategy. Muddle through together and plan to win the war with a vaccine. I buy it.

 

The interesting thing is that Newsom is using an implied death rate of 3 % - if you based 800,000 on 28 million infected Californians. I'm still guessing that Fauci's 1 % is a realistic number, once we really have the full picture. But whether you use 280,000 or 800,000 it is a scary number. For all his geekiness, I do think Newsom has done a good job of conveying the fact that, like it or not, we are all in this very scary horror movie together.

 

G damn. KTLA needs to pay their reporters more. That's one ugly old apartment.

[+ Pensant]

Newport Beach and Huntington Beach last weekend

https://www.ocregister.com/2020/04/25/eager-early-risers-hit-the-beach-in-san-clemente-as-closure-lifts/

 

Some of these shots were taken with telephoto lenses, which distort the true distancing.

[+ Charlie]

The photos don't lie, but they may be misleading about the distances between groups on the sand (Imagine the media doing that:rolleyes:) The number of people on the beach is high, but one can probably assume that most of those in the groups came there together, and are not strangers casually socializing on one another's towels, borrowing their sunscreen, etc. However, it is true that those sharing shade under an umbrella are certainly not maintaining social distancing, and there are probably very few face masks.

[MikeBiDude]

Why are you criticizing the media like Trump does nearly every day during the worst public health crisis in a hundred years? Reporter are doing their jobs under the threat of novel coronavirus like everyone else.

No politics here in the Lounge please?? @WilliamM

[MikeBiDude]

Some of these shots were taken with telephoto lenses, which distort the true distancing.

No focal length distortions at my law abiding LA County beaches. I’m not fond of orange county enforcement of COVID-19 isolation right now ?

[+ WilliamM]

The photos don't lie, but they may be misleading about the distances between groups on the sand (Imagine the media doing that:rolleyes:) The number of people on the beach is high, but one can probably assume that most of those in the groups came there together, and are not strangers casually socializing on one another's towels, borrowing their sunscreen, etc. However, it is true that those sharing shade under an umbrella are certainly not maintaining social distancing, and there are probably very few face masks.

 

Members of media are risking their lives daily during the greatest health crisis in a hundred years.

[+ Charlie]

Members of media are risking their lives daily during the greatest health crisis in a hundred years.

That is quite right, and my post did NOT deny that.

[+ WilliamM]

That is quite right, and my post did NOT deny that.

 

You wrote "imagine the media doing that" - a very strange comment right now.

[+ Charlie]

You wrote "imagine the media doing that" - a very strange comment right now.

You don't believe that "the media" ever distorts anything? You believe everything in every area of the news media is completely objective?

[+ WilliamM]

You don't believe that "the media" ever distorts anything? You believe everything in every area of the news media is completely objective?

 

No. But right now it was a cheap shot, not at all like the overwhelming majority of your posts over the years.

[+ Pensant]

G damn. KTLA needs to pay their reporters more. That's one ugly old apartment.

Oh it’s not THAT bad

[+ Pensant]

No focal length distortions at my law abiding LA County beaches. I’m not fond of orange county enforcement of COVID-19 isolation right now ?

Manhattan Beach? I see the El Segundo power plant in the distance

[Guest]

The photos don't lie, but they may be misleading about the distances between groups on the sand (Imagine the media doing that:rolleyes:) ....

 

As the post right above yours said "Some of these shots were taken with telephoto lenses, which distort the true distancing."

[+ tassojunior]

ouch. the virus may stay airborne for 2 hours...

 

https://news.yahoo.com/airborne-coronavirus-detected-wuhan-hospitals-121525370.html

[+ stevenkesslar]

ouch. the virus may stay airborne for 2 hours...

 

https://news.yahoo.com/airborne-coronavirus-detected-wuhan-hospitals-121525370.html

 

Airborne Coronavirus Detected in Wuhan Hospitals

It remains unknown if the virus in the samples they collected was infectious, but droplets that small, which are expelled by breathing and talking, can remain aloft and be inhaled by others.

 

“Those are going to stay in the air floating around for at least two hours,” said Linsey Marr, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech who was not involved with the Nature paper. “It strongly suggests that there is potential for airborne transmission.”

 

Even with the new findings, the issue is not settled. Although the coronavirus RNA — the genetic blueprint of the virus — was present in the aerosols, scientists do not know yet whether the viruses remain infectious or whether the tests just detected harmless virus fragments.

 

Do other people buy this? I don't really.

 

It is similar to the findings on one of those cruises. They found COVID-19 RNA a few weeks later - like in cabins, on floors, all over the place I think. But I searched and I could not find anything that said the virus was still alive and contagious weeks later. My assumption is that passengers were unwittingly spreading it everywhere - through hands, touch, hugs, kisses, close breathing, door knobs, plates, whatever. But I never read that you could get it from something left behind two weeks prior. In a few interviews I've watched Fauci has suggested that, outside of lab experiment conditions, the virus mostly doesn't last on surfaces for more than a few hours. I've been assuming two days is a pretty good margin of error.

 

This One Number Shows Why Measles Spreads Like Wildfire

Infectious diseases such as polio, smallpox and rubella have R nought values in the 5 to 7 range — which means that one sick person would be likely to infect five to seven people who were not resistant to the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). [The 9 Deadliest Viruses on Earth]

 

Ebola, which spread across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2014, is widely considered to be exceptionally contagious, but it has an R nought value of only 1.5 to 2, NPR reported that year. Whooping cough has an R nought value of 5.5, according to a study published in 2010 in the journal PLoS Medicine, and SARS has an R nought value in the 3 to 4 range, researchers reported in 2004 in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

 

Yet, all these are far outstripped by the R nought value assigned to measles: 12-18, the CDC says.

 

What I've read about measles is that it has such a high R nought for one specific reason: aerosols. Some of what I've read suggests that anybody who is essentially breathing from the small piece of air of someone with measles is going to end up with measles. We know for sure that it is one of the most infectious diseases.

 

COVID-19, on the other hand, is one of the least infectious diseases, at least by the standards above. Maybe I am in denial. But I have a hard time believing that virus hanging in the air for hours is a path of transmission. If that were the case, like it is with measles, it seems like the exponential growth would be way higher.

 

If anything, the idea that you can be contagious and asymptomatic for days and still ONLY two or three people catch it suggests this is not the most contagious virus ever. In a typical four days in a big city a worker who commutes and hangs out with friends could be within 6 feet of hundreds or even thousands of people. I think what we know from cluster outbreaks is that they tend to be in places where people spend a lot of time together: # 1 is among families, at home, China found; # 2 is at offices, like the South Korea call center outbreak. Other candidates are churches, where people sit close together and hold hands or share food or drink.

 

I think we do know that doctors, nurses, and hospital staff have gotten it. I think there are at least three factors in that. First, those settings are viral petri dishes, by definition. Second, the lack of adequate PPE. Third, which is the part I understand least well, the severity of symptoms in part depends on the race between the virus spreading through a body, and the immune system trying to kill it. So if a doctor is getting exposed to higher doses of virus, or getting it more frequently, it may give the virus a head start in the race.

 

There's two other generic situations I can think of having read about that involve airborne infection: restaurants, and airplanes:

 

Restaurant’s air conditioning tied to 9 COVID-19 cases among diners who sat near single infected person

 

The study’s authors point out that the 73 other diners who were at the restaurant that day didn’t get sick, but those sitting in the path of the AC unit’s airflow did.

 

My takeaway from that diagram is that the social distancing rules of 6' or so basically make sense. The issue in this diagram is not that people were more than 6' feet apart, or sat at the same table two hours later. It is that the air flow apparently moved live viral particles immediately. Assuming the people at Table B may have been 10' to 20' feet away, it seems quite doable to move live viral particles over that distance. The part that is less clear to me is Table C, if in fact the air flow was moving only in the direction indicated.

 

'We’re a part of the spread': flight attendant's guilt over Covid-19

Seven other Air Canada staff members – two deadheading pilots and five flight attendants – had tested positive for Covid-19 following the return trip to Germany.

 

The crew had been flying a Boeing 777-300, the company’s largest plane. Depending on configuration, it can hold as many as 450 passengers.

 

The two pilots who tested positive had been sitting in business class. Wilson had been working in the back of the plane, on the opposite side of the aircraft.

 

“It led me to believe that there were many people who were Covid-19 positive on that flight,” she said.

 

I've not read any examples where everybody on a plane or most people on a plane or even many people on a plane all got COVID-19. In this case, several crew members appear to have gotten it from people they came into close contact with. As the flight attendant said, there may have been a number of passengers on the flight that were spreading it unknowingly.

 

I posted these two examples because even if I am right, and it is hard to get COVID-19 simply from breathing the wrong air, I still think that restaurants and airplanes are screwed unless we can get the number of cases way down - from like 30,000 new cases a day to maybe 300 new cases a day in the US. 300 cases a day would be ten or twenty times the number of daily new cases in a whole bunch of nations that have populations in the tens of millions.

 

I think the numbers are very simple, and the vast majority of Americans get it. If you are in a place where lots of people are infected, like a hospital ER, your chances of infection skyrocket. That is why everybody is afraid of being in an ER right now. If you live in a country where 30 people a day get it, and you wear a mask and socially distance and practice proper hygiene, your chances of getting it or spreading it are actually extremely low.

 

Until we get to that point in the US, I don't see how most people are going to get on planes, or go eat out. Maybe the exception is healthy young adults, or people who need to travel for work, or a certain percentage of people who just don't take it seriously. But until people feel safe, there's going to be an ongoing massive loss of revenue, I think.

 

Every single poll strongly suggests the vast majority of people would rather be safe than sorry.

Edited April 30, 2020 by stevenkesslar