A reminder why we can't risk exposure to Covid 19

[Guest]

Then there is a much larger minority, like @BnaC, that will go along with the rules. Partly out of social contract, and partly because they do get there is some danger to people they love. And to themselves. But they still think the whole thing is overblown. Obviously 100,000 deaths hasn't changed their mind.

Since you’re on the cusp of putting words in my mouth and using ambiguous language, let’s clarify:

I don’t believe that anyone with a shred of intelligence - even the greatest cynic - would argue that “it” is overblown if “it” refers to the virus. The virus is real and it is serious to those on the fringes of age and/or good health.

 

If “it” is the response - that is, the total lock down, the political determination of winners and losers, the concept that we can create imaginary bubbles of isolation around us, and so on - then your representation is accurate. But if you’re going to put words in my mouth, then please make them accurate.

 

Beyond that, I’ll agree with you on one factual data point. My number is also ~4.5%. But it’s a different number. That is, if the active infection rate were 4.5%, then draconian lock down would be more justified. Assuming the r-naught value of 2 for the virus’ transmission, the .5% I note above in my city would be 1% in about, let’s say, 10 days. Then in 20 days, it would be 2% and in 30 days, it would be 4%. But even then, overall, we’d have ample medical facility IF we took action somewhere in that time range. Keep in mind that, right now, at least where I live, medical professionals have been furloughed...ER and ICU included. The virus itself has created capacity with reductions in other areas of medical demand.

[Epigonos]

Daddy has posted, on the Review Site, a great article, that we should all read entitled "How to Safely Buy Groceries in a Pandemic".

[+ Reisr30]

I’m in my late 40s and fairly healthy but it seems Covid doesn’t discriminate and even younger healthy people can end up dead or super sick. Hence I’m not sure when things will be normal even with a vaccine

[+ Charlie]

I’m in my late 40s and fairly healthy but it seems Covid doesn’t discriminate and even younger healthy people can end up dead or super sick. Hence I’m not sure when things will be normal even with a vaccine

"Normal" is a term that refers to a specific point in time, and what most of us consider normal is already outdated even as we think about it. If we think that "normal" means returning to May 2019, then we are mistaken, because it probably will never happen.

[+ sync]

I'm optimistic that post vaccine there will be a return to "normal," but it will be a gradual phasing into it.

[mike carey]

There will be a new 'normal', the question is how different will it be to the status quo ante? My guess is that personal space will be respected more, and if you wear a mask it will be unexceptional, nobody will think you're a weirdo.

[+ WilliamM]

I remember being terrified during the Polio epidemic because of the pictures showing children in iron lungs. We did as told because of the fear of ending up in am iron lung?. The swimming pools were closed but we did not complain because we did not want to be confined to those dreaded iron lungs.

 

Comment: why is The Wall Street Journal article about Liberty University's successful response to the novel coronavirus behind a pay wall,? Other publications have abandoned pay walls of important stories concerning novel coronavirus.

[+ E.T.Bass]

Coronavirus pandemic cripples Seattle restaurant industry, with more than 50 closures in 2 weeks

March 13, 2020

 

 

 

 

That's a fascinating story that may be predictive of what comes next. Note the date of the story, and the location. March 13th. Seattle.

 

On March 13th Seattle was still the COVID Capital of America. Washington had 568 diagnosed cases and 37 COVID-19 deaths. New York had 421 diagnosed cases, and 0 deaths. Today, New York has 29,231 deaths. Washington has 1,086 deaths. Why was New York crushed, and Washington spared? Granted, New York is bigger. But even adjusting for population, Washington has 143 dead per million. New York has 1,503 - ten times more. Why?

 

Here's one explanation, courtesy of a New York Times piece on the silent spread that set up the massive death machine:

 

 

When I first read that, I was skeptical. I checked, and SF was the first city to lock down, on March 16th. That may help explain why California has 3,790 deaths, compared to the almost 30,000 in New York. But Washington state did not issue stay at home orders until March 23rd. Seattle did close public schools on March 12th.

 

I checked around several articles from Seattle in early March. That article I posted above expressed the fear the clearest. Here's another quote from the same article that says it even more clearly:

 

 

Again, that was written on March 13th, 2020. There were ZERO lockdowns in America yet. Zero. But you already had the restaurant business down 90 % in Seattle. Business owners were already scared shitless about being able to pay their rent. Not because of some government shut down. Because they had a public scared shitless, about deaths in a nursing home in Kirkland at the time.

 

There's a similar theory about Florida. Mobile phone data shows that weeks before any shutdown, travel in areas where a lot of seniors live suddenly slowed. Many people stopped traveling more than a mile from their homes. There were no orders preventing them from doing anything. Everyone saw the horror unfolding in New York. In fact, some of them actually came from New York, to get away from New York.

 

I terms of what happens next, I think this paints a picture. Something like 2 in 3 Americans have gotten this memo and agree with it. They have little or no intention to go to a restaurant. Regardless of any lock down policy. Just like on March 13th in Seattle, when the best restaurants in town had already lost 90 % of their reservations.

 

The other 1 in 3 Americans will not be moved by hearing about a Gay nurse who lost 50 pounds because he probably got a real good dose of COVID trying to save someone's life. Those people will want to blame the lack of business on all the hysterics who want everything locked down forever. Except there won't be a lock down anymore. It will be like early March in Seattle. There will be an economy. But at least at first, most people will be too scared to play. They won't want to risk exposure to the virus.

 

My guess, or at least my hope, is that Seattle won't go into lock down again. They already understood the risk in early March. So between public awareness of the risk, and the government running around testing and treating the virus into a corner, that may actually do the trick. Washington right now has a fraction of the new daily cases that Australia or Austria or South Korea did at their peak. Meaning 200 a day, compared to at least 1000 a day at the peak in each of those countries. And those places are all bigger than Washington. So if they can corner COVID, there's every reason to hope Washington can, too.

 

Case Investigations and Contact Tracing

 

Washington now has a web page up about their contact tracing. They are serious. I went hunting for data on whether it works, following on some very good questions @Charlie asked: How many tracers? How many people do they trace? How much infection do they find? How do they isolate them? Do they actually block more infection? How do they monitor or enforce compliance? I could not find any answers on their website. But I've read lots of articles about the virus detectives in Iceland or South Korea or Germany. Again, if it works there, Washington can probably figure it out. They sound very motivated to do so.

 

Back to my middle-age lung buffet, I think that's Plan B. Assume instead that people in Seattle (or Alabama, or anywhere) are in "That Gay bodybuilder nurse is an exception. I don't give a shit." mode. To the more general point of the OP, they don't need any reminder of the risk of exposure to COVID-19. Because they think it is overblown bullshit.

 

That sets up a lot of dead seniors. Which is what scared the shit out of lots of people in Seattle to start with. That seems to be why, by early March, they were no longer willing to go eat in a restaurant.

 

But if that doesn't work, then you get your COVID-19 middle age worker lung buffet, I suspect. We are starting to see previews of that all over the US - at meat packing plants in Iowa, or Texas, or South Dakota. At Ford plants in Michigan. They are having to shut down. Or there is worker pressure to shut them down. Then add that 53 year old woman who owns the nail salon in Atlanta. Oh, and that other 47 year old Gay nurse - the one that works out at the gym in Dallas.

 

If that starts happening all over the US, it's going to start to fuck everything up for corporate America and small businesses real good. If its "just" 3000 or so people hospitalized in Washington, which is the actual number right now, that's manageable for hospitals. And maybe for businesses. But if every business has to shut down for two weeks every time every one of their workers goes to a hospital to have their lungs snacked on by COVID, that gets real expensive for corporations and small business owners real quick. And they've already been through a lot that hurt their bottom line.

 

Just to extend this to its even more absurd conclusion, corporations and small businesses could say we're just going to have to work through this anyway. So that Gay nurse is checking your blood pressure while COVID is snacking on his lung. Or some waiter is coughing little bits of his lung on your plate while he's serving you at one of Tom Douglas's chic restaurants in Seattle. Somehow, I don't see that happening. More likely then not, the middle-aged sick will be off to the hospital to (mostly) get well. And everybody else will be out of work again for a few weeks. It will be a huge fucking mess.

 

This won't play out as simplistically as I laid out. But it may play out. It's already starting to play out all over America. Corporate America will not like it. They will not like it one bit.

 

If things have to play out this way, which they might, my guess is that Ford and Smithfield and Amazon and lots of others will gradually become the biggest advocates of "test, trace, treat" - or anything else that works - in America. I don't think they can afford to have 4.5 % of their middle-aged workers cycling in and out of hospitals, with all the constant stop/start to workplaces that would involve.

Well before the lockdown in Washington, public health authorities had evidence COVID was already widespread in Seattle and King County. They immediately contacted employers like Microsoft and Amazon and directed them to have as many employees as possible telecommute. The resulting drop in rush hour traffic was striking. I read details of this in The New Yorker. Their COVID coverage has been interesting. Will try to find the article again.

 

Compare that to NYC. Yes, the St. Patrick's Day parade was canceled but the bars were still packed, just how NOLA was packed during Mardi Gras.

 

Couple that in NYC with how normally crowded there, subways, tourists, busy airports that included travel from Europe rushing to return before flights were stopped, many infected. NYC was set up for disaster.

 

Back to the OP, the gay nurse in SF and many in NYC can attest to how terrible the effects of the virus across all age groups. The young folks out at the pool or the beach this Memorial Day weekend have made a big mistake, IMO.

 

Lastly, CNN reports

Nearly half of the Twitter accounts discussing 'reopening America' may be bots, researchers say

Carnegie Mellon researchers collected 200 million tweets discussing the coronavirus since January, and they found that 82% of the top 50 influential retweeters are bots and 62% of the top 1,000 retweeters are bots as well.

 

So, IMO, when coming up against accounts shilling for opening the economy, one might wonder if they are not at all concerned about the effects of COVID because the account is employed to further an agenda.

 

Paying attention to the effects of COVID on the SF nurse ought to be a reminder not to take any chances with this virus. Sadly, many Americans don't consider the big picture or if they do, they are being fed a slanted view by a nefarious on line account or forum member. .

Edited May 25, 2020 by E.T.Bass

[+ purplekow]

You’re right @purplekow, you’re in a special situation (and I think we all appreciate what you’re doing and how you’re doing it) and masking up is crucial. But here’s a little math: in my city, after two months about .5% of the urban (not MSA) population has a confirmed case. Therefore, if they were all out milling around today (they’re not), I’d have a 99.5% chance of not encountering any of them in casual passive interaction. But you’re right, I still wear a mask because it’s the right thing to do and there’s limited downside...and does perceivably mitigate the high R-naught value associated with non casual active interactions.

 

I’m not sure why you asked about life insurance, but no, I’ve not purchased any additional coverage. I have however updated my Will so my ex-wife wouldn’t become the “happy widow” upon my untimely death.

I did not ask about your insurance. I asked if your life changed not your life insurance. lol

[Guest]

I did not ask about your insurance. I asked if your life changed not your life insurance. lol

Ha! I don’t know how I misread that!! But clearly, yes it has changed...but the trajectory of my life hasn’t. I am both humbled and provoked by what’s going on. I may be a little poorer from the impact of the pandemic but I’m still trying to help others where I can. Life’s a journey. Sometimes we have storms, but They always pass.

[Guest]

Acknowledging that @purplekow is both medically qualified to understand the disease and living it out - personally and professionally - at America’s ground zero, I’d like to offer a variation of a commentary I read today offering a business and economic view.

 

First, the commentator noted that this is the first pandemic in a social media world (I might argue it was Ebola...but it played out then as well. The access to the online media has served to make it scary to many.

 

But, he observes that scary isn’t the same as dangerous. Scary is emotional. An example - heart disease kills many more people EVERY YEAR than Covid is likely to but we aren’t scared of heart disease. It’s dangerous, but it doesn’t scare us. It has higher mortality by age, but many older people don’t modify the behaviors that put them at risk.

 

For those who fear Covid and think we are doing the right thing, please note that NPR reported that deaths by Overdose increased considerably last month...other media report spikes in suicide. Government is not able to support people without a robust private sector. Government derived resources from taxes on income that’s not being earned right now. It is time to stop acting in fear and get this world going again

 

So, I will do my part to be a responsible citizen, but I am not scared...nor should you be. It is time for us to live well again...with care, but living!

[+ purplekow]

Acknowledging that @purplekow is both medically qualified to understand the disease and living it out - personally and professionally - at America’s ground zero, I’d like to offer a variation of a commentary I read today offering a business and economic view.

 

First, the commentator noted that this is the first pandemic in a social media world (I might argue it was Ebola...but it played out then as well. The access to the online media has served to make it scary to many.

 

But, he observes that scary isn’t the same as dangerous. Scary is emotional. An example - heart disease kills many more people EVERY YEAR than Covid is likely to but we aren’t scared of heart disease. It’s dangerous, but it doesn’t scare us. It has higher mortality by age, but many older people don’t modify the behaviors that put them at risk.

 

For those who fear Covid and think we are doing the right thing, please note that NPR reported that deaths by Overdose increased considerably last month...other media report spikes in suicide. Government is not able to support people without a robust private sector. Government derived resources from taxes on income that’s not being earned right now. It is time to stop acting in fear and get this world going again

 

So, I will do my part to be a responsible citizen, but I am not scared...nor should you be. It is time for us to live well again...with care, but living!

Again spin this as you will, 100000 people are dead. More are dying every day. That people die of other things is a specious argument. Fear, well directed is protective. There is no way ignorance is well directed. So if you want to say, people will die but the economy is more important then you can have that thought. But do not say washing hands and a mask is enough. Or even, I don't bother with a mask because the president doent. Ultimately all any of us can do is to try and protect ourselves as best we can because there are lots of people out there who are not interested in protecting us, and that includes the president.

Keep spinning and hope you do not wind up spinning in your grave That is the example being sent by a man looking to get reelected.

[Guest]

But the problem is it’s not “spin,” it’s fact. Right now, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model suggests that GDP will shrink 41% this quarter. That contraction is nearly half the economy. One can say “this isn’t so bad” but like a tsunami or like the virus, there’s a second wave and a third wave that will come in with escalating devastation. Please recall that it’s the product of economic activity that makes the hospital you practice in, and the equipment you treat with, even possible. As represented in Maslow’s hierarchy, it is from a base of prosperity that we are even able to ponder the attractiveness of a person’s “before and after” picture (as initiated in this thread) or to care about whether we are able to do anything at all that is “nice“ for people vs what is absolutely “necessary”.

 

I’m still curious as to why NYC’s experience was so much worse, but in my city, if all the confirmed cases were out on the street today, I’d have a 99.5% chance of not encountering one of them. And yet, people in NYC who are staying home and isolated are still getting the disease.

[+ sniper]

 

 

But, he observes that scary isn’t the same as dangerous. Scary is emotional. An example - heart disease kills many more people EVERY YEAR than Covid is likely to but we aren’t scared of heart disease. It’s dangerous, but it doesn’t scare us. It has higher mortality by age, but many older people don’t modify the behaviors that put them at risk.

 

 

This is categorically false. In NY and NJ, the deaths from COVID are significantly exceeding all other causes put together. Death rate in NYS at the peak was TRIPLE the normal death rate for that time of year. The only reason it might not hit the heart disease total this year is precisely because of all the shutdowns and masks reducing the incidence and severity of the disease. Severity of the disease is directly related to the amount of virus the victim is initially exposed to, because it determines how long the body has to build up antibodies before the viral load in the body reached critical mass.

 

It's misleading and/or dishonest to use the numbers after intervention to argue that intervention was unnecessary, which is what is happening all over the place right now. People who know jack shit about data analysis are suddenly spouting off false "facts" they neither attempted to verify nor have the foggiest clue how to analyze. They just know they know more than "the libtards out to impose socialism."

 

It might well be the case that had we all started wearing masks on February 1, there never would have been the need to shut down en masse. But as usual, we all half-assed it for the first couple of months. But for all this talk of other countries getting through it with "no lockdowns," all those countries closed significant parts of their economy, and/or people stopped going out, which had much the same effect. SK and Japan did close schools and gyms and put restrictions on nightlife. But because of their higher degree of mask wearing, that was enough.

[+ sniper]

But the problem is it’s not “spin,” it’s fact. Right now, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model suggests that GDP will shrink 41% this quarter. That contraction is nearly half the economy. One can say “this isn’t so bad” but like a tsunami or like the virus, there’s a second wave and a third wave that will come in with escalating devastation. Please recall that it’s the product of economic activity that makes the hospital you practice in, and the equipment you treat with, even possible. As represented in Maslow’s hierarchy, it is from a base of prosperity that we are even able to ponder the attractiveness of a person’s “before and after” picture (as initiated in this thread) or to care about whether we are able to do anything at all that is “nice“ for people vs what is absolutely “necessary”.

 

I’m still curious as to why NYC’s experience was so much worse, but in my city, if all the confirmed cases were out on the street today, I’d have a 99.5% chance of not encountering one of them. And yet, people in NYC who are staying home and isolated are still getting the disease.

FYI that 41% is an annualized figure, so it's 10.25% not almost half.

 

NYC's experience was worse because cases hit there first and the alarm wasn't sounded until there were a large number of cases out in the population. The virus doesn't spontaneously generate, it has to be transmitted. Then there's NYC's unique density. People closer together=more exposure. It's not that complicated. Same reason why once it's in a nursing home even with heroic efforts it spreads. It's airborne and people are in close proximity.

 

Other states both had lower density AND started lockdowns before they had a large number of cases in the first place, and all the measures combined DO drive the R(t) below 1, which means it that is sustained, they virus will "die out" at some point before herd immunity is maintained. But except for Hawaii no state has driven it much below 1, which is why the tail of the curve is so gradually sloping downward.

[Rudynate]

I don't think it is correct to state "most people don't develop symptoms.". Doctors Brix and Fauci would strongly disagree

 

 

And even people who don't need to be hospitalized say that the illness was a mofo, something they never want to go through again.

[Rudynate]

But the problem is it’s not “spin,” it’s fact. Right now, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model suggests that GDP will shrink 41% this quarter. That contraction is nearly half the economy. One can say “this isn’t so bad” but like a tsunami or like the virus, there’s a second wave and a third wave that will come in with escalating devastation. Please recall that it’s the product of economic activity that makes the hospital you practice in, and the equipment you treat with, even possible. As represented in Maslow’s hierarchy, it is from a base of prosperity that we are even able to ponder the attractiveness of a person’s “before and after” picture (as initiated in this thread) or to care about whether we are able to do anything at all that is “nice“ for people vs what is absolutely “necessary”.

 

I’m still curious as to why NYC’s experience was so much worse, but in my city, if all the confirmed cases were out on the street today, I’d have a 99.5% chance of not encountering one of them. And yet, people in NYC who are staying home and isolated are still getting the disease.

 

 

One doesnt "catch" heart disease simply by talking to somebody else with heart disease for a few minutes. False equivalence.

[Rudynate]

I’d have a 99.5% chance of not encountering one of them. And yet, people in NYC who are staying home and isolated are still getting the disease.

 

 

Just wait. In mid-March, Alabamans were pretty smug about their numbers and the fact that what was good for large urban centers lie NYC wasn't applicable to Alabamans. Now, Alabama is a hot spot.

[Epigonos]

In the May 5th issue of Time Magazine Marina Villeneuve/AP authored an article about previously undisclosed deaths from COVID-19 in nursing homes in New York. In that article she quoted the state's March 25 police that says "no resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to a nursing home soley based on a confirmed or suspedted diagnosis of COVID-19" From that point on deaths in New York's nursing homes exploded.

[+ bigjoey]

In the May 5th issue of Time Magazine Marina Villeneuve/AP authored an article about previously undisclosed deaths from COVID-19 in nursing homes in New York. In that article she quoted the state's March 25 police that says "no resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to a nursing home soley based on a confirmed or suspedted diagnosis of COVID-19" From that point on deaths in New York's nursing homes exploded.

When the history of this pandemic is written, NY’s mandating nursing homes must take infected people will be seen as one of the great blunders. Just comparing the nursing home death rate in NY with Florida and other states that had no such mandate, the real scope of the blunder can be seen.

[Guest]

FYI that 41% is an annualized figure, so it's 10.25% not almost half.

 

NYC's experience was worse because cases hit there first and the alarm wasn't sounded until there were a large number of cases out in the population. The virus doesn't spontaneously generate, it has to be transmitted. Then there's NYC's unique density. People closer together=more exposure. It's not that complicated. Same reason why once it's in a nursing home even with heroic efforts it spreads. It's airborne and people are in close proximity.

 

Other states both had lower density AND started lockdowns before they had a large number of cases in the first place, and all the measures combined DO drive the R(t) below 1, which means it that is sustained, they virus will "die out" at some point before herd immunity is maintained. But except for Hawaii no state has driven it much below 1, which is why the tail of the curve is so gradually sloping downward.

Thank you for clarifying (of course, that implies you believe that the economic impact will be limited to Q2...it won’t). But either number is historic and unprecedented...particularly for a single digit increase in aggregate US mortality.

 

and, remember, this is an event and can only run so far...heart disease is recurring.

[+ stevenkesslar]

In the May 5th issue of Time Magazine Marina Villeneuve/AP authored an article about previously undisclosed deaths from COVID-19 in nursing homes in New York. In that article she quoted the state's March 25 police that says "no resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to a nursing home soley based on a confirmed or suspedted diagnosis of COVID-19" From that point on deaths in New York's nursing homes exploded.

When the history of this pandemic is written, NY’s mandating nursing homes must take infected people will be seen as one of the great blunders. Just comparing the nursing home death rate in NY with Florida and other states that had no such mandate, the real scope of the blunder can be seen.

 

I think the best formula for killing seniors - and I mean big killing, like concentration camp levels - is to fail to admit that COVID-19 turns nursing homes into concentration camps.

 

I'll repeat what I said. You tell me the number of people that died of COVID-19 in any country or any US state. And I'll tell you how many seniors died in nursing homes. It's going to be about 50 %. So if you want more senior citizen death, the very best plan is herd immunity. You definitely will have more cases, which leads to more death, which leads to more dead seniors. It's as simple as 2 + 2 = 4.

 

One-Third of All U.S.

Coronavirus Deaths Are Nursing

Home Residents or Workers

 

Now, granted, New York fucked up. They did not get their full share of senior citizen death. So really, they should have had thousands of more dead seniors in nursing homes. Many New York cops and young adults died instead. So that is a big policy glitch. If we'd just let the nursing homes function properly as quasi-concentration camps, we would have had a much more efficient and targeted slaughter in New york focused largely on senior citizens.

 

Now, sorry to keep infecting wonderful theory with troubling practice and actual facts, but you guys know me.

 

Only 20 % of New York's deaths were seniors in long-term care facilities. By comparison, since @bigjoey mentioned Florida, 42 % of all Florida deaths were in long-term care facilities. So that is a big failing on New York's part. They really fucked up the part about having a lot of dead seniors in nursing homes. If they had done as well as Florida, they could have had 5,903 more dead seniors in nursing homes. (Meaning if 42 %, not 20 %, of the 27,015 dead in New York at that point were seniors in long-term care facilities.)

 

Others states were much better than Florida in focusing death on seniors with nursing homes with Nazi-like efficiency and precision.

 

As I said in another post, Oregon and Washington have both had about 60 % of their deaths in nursing homes. Canada has been particularly efficient. 80 % of their COVID-19 deaths have been in nursing homes.

 

There is a data note that needs to be made. That New York Times chart is incomplete, as it states. I posted it mainly to show that New York has one of the lowest percentages of deaths in long-term care facilities. The number dead there, 5,403, does not completely match up with the state's own reported number as of today, which is actually about 3000 confirmed COVID-19 nursing home deaths. The Times may be including presumed deaths, and non-nursing home long-term care facilities. And I'm not 100 % sure the Florida number is right, either.

 

Florida nursing home deaths from COVID-19 spike dramatically: up to 22 at a single home

 

That articles says that 60 % of all COVID-19 deaths in Florida in one week were in nursing homes, which represented a huge spike.

 

So if we are talking about how policies were used to doom seniors in nursing homes to death, we have to admit that New York is just a slacker. These place like Canada and Oregon and Washington are the models for how to have nursing homes playing the roles Auschwitz or Dachau did in the Third Reich. These are the places were death is concentrated, and executed very efficiently. Cops? They'll be fine. Workers? They'll pretty much be okay. It's the seniors in nursing homes that get slaughtered. New York fucked that up completely. They had lots of dead cops, and workers.

 

I think everybody has drawn the proper conclusion from my sarcasm. Which is that New York is what Plan Herd Immunity gets you. @sniper has made this point repeatedly, and he's right. Pretty much every nursing home in New Jersey had cases, because when it is everywhere it is simply hard to keep out of nursing homes. They are the sitting ducks.

 

I posted that New York list because you can go county by county and see that most counties have senior deaths in nursing homes. And, no surprise, the counties with the most deaths in nursing homes are the counties where the most community infections occurred. Starting with any county in or around the metro area.

 

So you have to get to "M" - Montgomery County - before you have a county in New York with zero nursing home deaths. That county has 50,000 residents, and is in between Albany and Syracuse. All those counties where the virus was spreading like crazy in February and March ended up with hundreds of nursing home deaths. 2 + 2 = 4. The pattern and math is incredibly clear.

 

The flip side is that Canada and Oregon and Washington had a lot less death, period. Testing and contact tracing fits in here, too. All three places, like Germany and Iceland, have been leaders on contact tracing. So my guess is that tracing did what it was supposed to do: stopped or at least slowed broad spread of the virus in the general community.

 

That said, all it takes is one asymptomatic nursing home worker and you can have a nursing home wave of death before you know it. By the time the first senior is sick, lots of them are infected. And all of them are at high risk of death. I'm not sure contact tracing has much value in nursing homes. What does have value is ubiquitous testing and temperature checks to keep the virus out. But, again, the more potential for any one of those workers to get infected at church or home or the grocery store or wherever, the harder it is to keep them from bringing the virus to work.

 

I am NOT arguing that there are not bad apples. There are. But to blame this on most nursing homes is counterproductive. Partly because the people who work in those homes are good, dedicated people who don't want to get sick and maybe be hospitalized and maybe die either. So if we keep the virus out, it is a win/win for the residents and for the dedicated employees who care for them. Not to mention the volunteers like @bigjoey , of course. And the loving family like me and my siblings who want to go hang out and play cribbage or cards with Mom and Dad.

 

In my romp through stories on Germany yesterday one of the endless list of creative things I read they did is built (or redesigned, I'm not sure) a nursing home specifically for COVID-19-infected nursing home residents. There's some scale and expense issues there, which probably only a government could do. Many nursing homes are corporate. But I'm not sure in the US you could easily move an infected senior from Kansas to California. I'm trying to steer clear of any remotely political or partisan comment in The Lounge. But in that category, I think it paid off big for Germany that Merkel herself seemed to act like the chemist and research scientist she is, not a partisan politician. That right there was one of the things that worked out very well for Germany. She viewed this as a science problem to be solved, much like Dr. Fauci or Dr. Birx.

 

At one point I had a roommate from hell with a pit bull in a home in Sacramento. I was living in SF at the time and whoring and flipping homes. So I would show up one or two days a week. Other than that the house was his. So after he moved in the first week I showed up the back slider was open - in the middle of the Summer with the AC on. There were probably hundreds of dead flies in the house, and dozens of pieces of dog shit in the fenced back yard. So I told him he had to keep the door closed other than to let the pit bull out. And he had to clean up his dog's shit. The next time I came there were no dead flies in the house, and no dog shit in the back yard.

 

Maybe I am oversimplifying things. It would be more complicated and maybe interesting to figure out how to have an open door, and still have no dead flies in the house and no dog shit in the back yard. But I think everyone gets my point. It is way easier to just close the fucking door. It is helpful that Germany and Iceland and South Korea and China and Australia have given us examples of how to do it.

 

It seems to work in places like Washiongton and Oregon. New York has "only" 20 % senior citizen nursing home deaths, whereas Oregon and Washington have 60 % senior citizen nursing home deaths. But in New York that means thousands of dead seniors. Versus hundreds of dead seniors in Washington, and dozens in Oregon. Meanwhile, dozens of New York cops died, at least one of whom has a young widow in her 30's with young kids and now maybe no health insurance to pay for their vaccinations. To my knowledge, Washington and Oregon have zero dead cops. The numbers and facts speak for themselves.

Edited May 28, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[+ GregM]

Over 99% get over this and don't die.

[Rudynate]

this is an event and can only run so far.

 

It can run as long as the virus can find hosts to infect. There are more than a few professionals who think this will be an "event" several years in duration.

 

 

 

heart disease is recurring.

 

You just said upthread that the pandemic is likely to be recurring. And you're in good company. Many public health professionals think so too.

[Rudynate]

Over 99% get over this and don't die.

 

 

That may be true, but 100,000 deaths is 100,000 deaths. Within the space of a few weeks, anyone would agree that that is a singular event.