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

[Rudynate]

Bless your little heart. I'll say a prayer for you.

 

 

I appreciate it.

[+ stevenkesslar]

100,000 compared to the population that is nothing. And many deaths were recorded as the chinese flu when that was not the cause of death. So ?‍♂️ But run and hide chicken little.

 

Got it. If the number is 100,000, you don't care.

 

Here's a reality check.

 

It's not 100,000. It's 100,000,000 Americans at least.

 

They're not all dead. They're just all fucked.

 

You run a restaurant? Sorry. You're fucked.

 

You're an escort? Sorry. You're fucked.

 

You run a meat packing plant? Sorry. You're fucked.

 

You get the point. You're just fucked.

 

It has nothing to do with government.

 

You want me to eat in your restaurant? Fuck you.

 

You want me to fly on your airplane? Fuck you.

 

You think I'm gonna hire an escort? Fuck you.

 

Not everyone feels that way. But these were market lockdowns. In every sector where we have objective measures, maybe 2 in 3 restaurant or hotel or plane reservations were cancelled, anyway. And maybe 2 in 3 people say they won't stay at a hotel or go to a movie or fly. Not now. Maybe in a few months. But not now. So the message of consumers to businesses is clear: Fuck you.

 

So you can try to convince the consumer that 100,000 don't mean shit. Or some dead senior don't mean shit. But the consumer has spoken. The market has spoken. People are just fucked. They are deeply fucked.

 

I see no distinction between whether the virus kills 100,000 people, or the virus kills the economy for 100,000,000 people. It's the virus doing the killing, either way. And as long as the virus is killing, lots of people are gonna die. And that means the economy is fucked. And if you don't like it, you need to take that up with the American consumer.

 

Maybe you can take 60 year olds and force them at gunpoint to fly on a plane. Or go have fun watching a play at gunpoint. But that is what you'd have to do, pretty much. And that moves us from capitalism and a market economy to socialism, or maybe even terrorism. Short of that, what happened in early March, and what the polls say people feel now, and what is happening in Germany and Georgia where the economy is open and crippled, say one incredibly clear thing. As long as the death continues, the economy is fucked.

 

Maybe people are wimps or stupid. But you have to concede they have a point. At 100,000 dead, that's 9/11 every day for one month. Think about the impact one 9/11 had on America. Now we've had 30.

 

I'm an optimist at heart. So I meant that stuff about Mickey and Minnie. It works out well that corporations like Disney have no interest in their employees having to get sick or be hospitalized in droves. Let alone being Death Number 100,001 or 200,002. And they sure don't want that happening to their consumers. It's the Magic Kingdom, not the Viral Kingdom.

 

If they understand the market economy and consumers - which Disney and Apple and Google do - they can figure out some really cool shit. Masks and social distancing is pretty basic. Testing and contact tracing is a bit more complicated. But they'll help drive a consensus on that. Just like they did in Germany and Austria and South Korea and Australia and all these other places that are reopening. Having workers in hospitals or dead is just not good for corporations. Or for consumer demand for the products they sell. That's true whether it's 10 or 100 or 100,000.

 

To continue the airplane analogy, part of the reason we were fucked by 9/11 is it caught us off guard. Which was of course the plan.

 

That was COVID-19's plan, too. And it worked pretty well. It sure had us fooled. So far it got thirty 9/11's out of us. I had a friendly little heart to heart with COVID-19 recently. Just between you and me, it told me it was just getting started.

 

So I'm hoping Mickey and Minnie and the people who figured out how to make an iPhone will be able to help figure these things out. (Former Disney CEO Bob Eisner actually is on the kitchen cabinet California put together to figure out how to reopen the economy while killing the virus.) If we are really lucky, to use the 9/11 example, they'll figure out something like this:

 

 

More likely, it's the same shit corporations like Disney and Apple and GM do everyday. Grind, and discipline, and incremental progress.

 

Even in the last week, two Ford plants that just reopened had to close down again. A few people got sick. Ford didn't want to wait until 20 employees were in hospitals, and maybe one or two died.

 

So corporations will quickly get the protocols down. They'll figure out it is in their interest to make sure that these tracers are good enough to track the virus down and kill it, through isolation of sick people. Before it finds its way to the Ford auto plant floor. Let alone the nursing home down the street. That just fucks up your consumer economy. And Ford and Apple don't want the consumer economy to be fucked.

 

I like that Open Table data. Because it shows that consumer demand pretty much tanked the entire US restaurant industry. Government had nothing to do with it.

'

Since I'm focusing on planes, I can't find airline data on consumer-driven flight cancellations. But people cancelled flights like crazy. Here's what I found that indirectly measures the impact of consumer fear of flying:

 

[MEDIA=twitter]1241366059590049792[/MEDIA]

 

No government told those people they couldn't fly. They just wouldn't fly.

 

So what Disney and Apple and GM and Ford and Amazon and meat packing plants and even every small restaurant owner are going to do is try very hard to make things as safe as they can. So that people will work, and shop, and eat, and buy things. It works out that's a much better way to get people to work, eat out, fly, and buy than getting them sick, or putting them in hospitals.

 

If we all do what we are supposed to do, we know how the movie ends.

 

 

A plane landing in the Hudson is a once in a lifetime thing. That's why I like this plane story as an analogy. My guess is I'll only live through one pandemic capable of killing at least 2 million Americans in my lifetime.

 

So normal is not an option. Yeah, the plane was supposed to go to Mexico. But we're fucked. We don't want to end up in the World Trade Center. So the goal now is to avoid crashing. And figure out what we all have to do to get out of this alive. So we can get back to normal eventually.

 

It actually did not matter, in the real world, what people thought about what they were doing on that plane. Or whether they agreed. All that mattered is that they did what they were supposed to do to make a very abnormal situation end in the least worst outcome.

 

In this case, maybe you give a shit about not having 100,000 more dead people. Or maybe you don't. Maybe you give a shit about how the virus is killing the economy for 100,000,000 Americans. All that really matters is what you do. Mickey and Minnie will help make that clear, I think. It doesn't matter whether you get the memo from Mickie or Minnie, or Fauci or Birx. What matters is what you do. That said, for me, Mickey is the one that for some reason always gets me hard.

 

Speaking of which, me being an ignorant whore, there are certain things I never figured out. I never figured out how to give a socially distant blow job. I never figured out how to get my cock inside a socially distant ass. So if you want a poster child for people who are fucked by the virus, until the virus is dead or caged, people like you and me are it. Again, not everyone feels this way. But most people do.

 

Eastwood is one of my favorite directors because he tells stories about how abnormal events turn average people into everyday heroes. And he rarely makes it up. They are real people that did real things, a soldier or a pilot or whatever. Although he may add drama to make it sell popcorn.

 

So in this case there is a good argument that the hero is Sully. Not to take anything away from the really Sully, but Tom Hanks did Sully best. He refused to accept the idea that he was the "x" that got everybody through this thing. He said it was everybody. The crew. The passengers. The people who showed up in the boats. Everybody had to do their thing. That was the "x".

 

So "x" can be 100,000 or 100,000,000. It doesn't matter. What matters is we have to do our thing. That's the lesson, I think. And in this case, it fits like a glove. It's the doctors like @purplekow , the nurses, the grocery stores workers. And now, believe it or not, Mickey and Minnie, handing out masks and not shaking your hand.

 

All this stuff I'm saying is based on facts, and real life events. But I'll make up a few hypotheticals, just to underscore the point.

 

In the real plane, you could have had someone who refused to wear his seat belt and was running around saying, "Liberate the plane! Put it back up in the sky!" It might have added drama in the movie. Most likely, everybody around him would have said, "Buddy, please sit down and shut up. Stop being such an asshole, okay?"

 

So the analogy works for me. We are all on the plane. We are all fucked. That's not even a choice. The choice at this point is just about the least worst outcome. And how many people make it out alive.

 

To that end, whether "x" is 100,000 or 100,000,000 is irrelevant. The "x" that matters is what we do.

 

 

Here's to a safe 4th of July!

Edited May 28, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[+ stevenkesslar]

1) flattening the curve by definition prolongs the event

2) ... the economy is more like a machine that requires motion to stay lubricated. Once it stops, it is hard to restart.

 

Is anyone promoting flattening the curve is the goal anymore?

 

I think the flattening the curve people were the ones that saw this huge tidal wave coming that nobody was prepared for. Reality did confirm their fears. Wuhan, Italy, Spain, France, London and NYC were not prepared. The impact was crushing - as predicted. We've had ten 9/11's - 30,000 dead Americans - in New York alone.

 

There's a myth that this is just NYC or some old dead woman in a NJ nursing home. So I'll keep bringing it back to South Dakota.

 

Minnehaha County, South Dakota

 

That's Sioux Falls, where they put the fire that started in a huge pork processing plant out. They now have a virus reproduction rate of 0.76. COVID-19 is being caged and killed. The state reports contact tracing 46 % of all positive cases. That's how they actually got a handle on it in Sioux Falls, so they could reopen the plant. They tested and traced thousands of people to find the ones infected, and isolate or treat them. It worked.

 

The local hospital capacity was strained. I read that some ICU's in Sioux Falls were filled to capacity. That graph shows it got as high as 57 % of capacity in the entire county. It is now back down to 32 %. My point is that this is not just about New York City. No one knew where it was going to strike next. To that point:

 

Beadle County, South Dakota

 

Huron went a month without a COVID-19 case. Now there are more than 100.

 

 

Now the fire is raging in Beadle County. Guess what? It didn't start in a nursing home. It started in a turkey processing plant and a beef jerky factory. Out of 190 cases, 9 people have been hospitalized and 2 are dead so far. Death lags. So both those numbers are likely to go up.

 

Alpena jerky plant to expand; 75 new jobs possible

 

Alpena jerky plant to expand; 75 new deaths possible

 

That first headline is real, from 2012. I think it explains itself. The second headline is one I made up. It think it explains itself, too. Granted, 75 people won't die, or even get sick. Many will. I think that is why we are fucked. People want to work, of course. But they don't want to get sick, or be hospitalized, or die. I have 12 tenants, and most are out of work in some form. All of them want to work. None of them want to die. So as much as I want them to pay the rent, them being in a hospital or dying doesn't help me, or them.

 

That's why market lockdowns are happening everywhere. Ford plants and meat packers mostly shut down as soon as the virus pops up. They don't want to wait and see how badly illness fucks up the production line. Or how many end up in a hospital or die.

 

The more this happens, the more I think it focuses businesses and workers on one goal: crush the virus. Kill it. Blow it back to hell.

 

That is, in fact, what the plan now is in many large capitalist nations. Germany, Austria, and Australia have pro-business governments. Should I connect the dots? This is a nightmare for corporations and businesses. Outside China, no nation has crushed it completely. But they have caged it. They want people to be able to feel safe to work, or eat out, or shop in stores.

 

 

No one ever settled whether that red area and blue area are the same size. It's all models, anyway. I think initially, before the tidal wave hit, the model was that we have to assume we can't stop the tidal wave. We just have to try to spread it out. As the model says, the model focused on one goal: avoid crushing our health care system's capacity.

 

That was what California set out to do a few months ago. The assumption was that 56 % of Californians would get sick. Like it or not, we had to create capacity for that. You can say that was alarmism. But that is how public health works. The goal is to inform people of the worst outcome, in order to avoid it.

 

That helps explain why we have just under 30,000 dead in New York and just over 4,000 dead in California. New York and New Jersey now have about 10 times more dead in a few months than their entire annual flu season - AFTER extraordinary market lockdowns. California deaths from COVID-19 are about 85 % of annual flu deaths. Which is not to say anyone in New York or New Jersey was stupid. They were caught off guard.

 

Again, the people who cancelled a reservation may have kept themselves from getting sick, or ill, or dying. Nick Cordero, 41, and his wife had just bought a new house in LA. She thinks it was the flights between NYC and LA where he got infected.

 

You can say Cordero, down a leg and with lungs that are permanently damaged, is an exception. Nobody cares. Except it works out that lots of 41 year olds and even 21 year olds are saying, "I think I'd rather wait a while to fly. If I do fly, I don't want to catch COVID-19 on a plane." That's why United and beef jerky plants in South Dakota are interested in how they can organize the illness or hospitalization or death of their workers and customers most efficiently. I think they just want to make work and the economy safe. I think they now want to crush the virus.

 

America’s COVID warning system

 

If we're talking about flattening the curve, I think that website is where many of the "flattening the curve" crowd are at now. So Tomas Pueyo did write on March 10th that if we didn't lock down immediately, millions would die. Everything he predicted turned out to be right. No one in New York had died of COVID-19 on March 10th. No one would have believed that 30,000 New Yorkers would be dead by Memorial Day. As much as I respect the "quants" from JP Morgan and read their data to see how badly this has killed the US economy, the idea that the lock downs killed more people than they saved is absurd, and offensive. These are people who claim to understand consumer-driven economies? Come on!

 

So you can look at any state on the warning system above and get an updated model that has nothing to do with "flattening the curve". The message in the US is muddled, and we have no clear national plan. So it's hard to create models, I think. At least for now what they are doing is saying here's what we think happens if we stay the course, and here's what happens if we go back to "normal". Reality will obviously be neither.

 

California is interesting. They're right on the line of an infection rate of just about 1.00. So the state has been stuck on this plateau. Meanwhile, Sioux Falls has an infection rate of 0.76. That's good news for that pork processing plant and the people who work in it. The virus is quickly being contained. Beadle County, SD has an infection rate close to 2.00. That's very bad news for anyone who owns a beef jerky plant, or works there, or knows anyone who does.

 

The good news in Beadle is there are only so many people that can be hospitalized or die, anyway. Although if you actually work in a beef jerky plant, one more dead person matters if the dead person is you.

 

California is a better macro example. This model projects that if we stay on a course of gradual decline, we go from about 4400 hospitalizations now to about 3300 by August. We'll have about 15,000 dead by the end of August. That's almost 4 times higher than the death count today. If we liberate the virus and go back to "normal", like January 2020, they think 215,000 Californians will die.

 

Cue up the chorus that says these are models, and this is stupid. But given the outcome when the virus ran rampant in New England, I don't think most people doubt this is a realistic worse cases scenario.

 

Even if they are right about 15,000 deaths in California, I would not call that flattening the curve. It's closer to crushing the virus. California would still have very little herd immunity. And this does not factor in the full deployment of 10,000 contact tracers. In states like Oregon and Montana that have done contact tracing early and often, infection rates below 1.00 that are stable or declining. As successes emerge, it's a given that consumers who are afraid to eat out or fly will gravitate toward, "Can't we just kill this virus?"

 

Too bad Arnie is a senior now. In his prime, there was a movie to be made out of this. Surprisingly, it would not be The Terminator. It would be Kingergarten Cop, where Arnie needs to explain things calmly. And figure out ways to get the whole class to go along.

 

Edited May 29, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[thickornotatall]

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.

My cousin Denny contracted polio in 1956...He was in an iron long which was huge...My aunt and uncle cleared the dining room to keep him downstairs....I was a year younger but remember a mirror on the iron lung so he could see around the room as he was flat on his back...There was a big sign on the door...QUARANTINE Do Not Enter...He eventually recovered but used crutches and then a cane.....He always had a limp and he hated that....He died a few years ago of polio related complications...

[RealAvalon]

Is anyone promoting flattening the curve is the goal anymore?

 

I think the flattening the curve people were the ones that saw this huge tidal wave coming that nobody was prepared for. Reality did confirm their fears. Wuhan, Italy, Spain, France, London and NYC were not prepared. The impact was crushing - as predicted. We've had ten 9/11's - 30,000 dead Americans - in New York alone.

 

The coordinated goal of federal and provincial governments in Canada is to flatten the curve, except in the places where its declining or already zero.

[+ WilliamM]

My cousin Denny contracted polio in 1956...He was in an iron long which was huge...My aunt and uncle cleared the dining room to keep him downstairs....I was a year younger but remember a mirror on the iron lung so he could see around the room as he was flat on his back...There was a big sign on the door...QUARANTINE Do Not Enter...He eventually recovered but used crutches and then a cane.....He always had a limp and he hated that....He died a few years ago of polio related complications...

 

Thank you for describing what polio was actually like...it has been a while since reading about such a brave young man or woman.

[RealAvalon]

100,000 compared to the population that is nothing. And many deaths were recorded as the chinese flu when that was not the cause of death. So ?‍♂️ But run and hide chicken little.

9/11 was 3,000. Is that also unimportant to you? 1/33rd as important, as the current pandemic?

[RealAvalon]

the virus will only have so much energy and cannot perpetuate itself once is loses uninfected hosts

No one knows that. This is a new virus that we are learning things about everyday. No one knows if there is immunity or not. Magical thinking isn't super helpful right now. Your statement is scientifically baseless and ignorant.

[+ WilliamM]

According to The New York Times, the coronavirus is spreading rapidly - 700,000 cases in the last week in South America and The Middle East. In contrast, the mayor of New York City is planning to open up the city in June - a truly horrid decision.

[+ GregM]

According to The New York Times, the coronavirus is spreading rapidly - 700,000 cases in the last week in South America and The Middle East. In contrast, the mayor of New York City is planning to open up the city in June - a truly horrid decision.

 

And over 99% will not die and will recover.

[+ Reisr30]

Wow this is very cool to see; it’s impressive how the porn industry moves quickly to implement testing. Yet I can’t get a test here in the Garden State...

 

[MEDIA=twitter]1265660275450982400[/MEDIA]

[+ GregM]

9/11 was 3,000. Is that also unimportant to you? 1/33rd as important, as the current pandemic?

 

That was the work of the US government, the world's largest terrorist org. Not even comparable. But regardless 911 or the Chinese flu the governement is over reaching and trampling on our rights. But keep yourself locked in your house, i don't really give a fuck.

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

Wow this is very cool to see; it’s impressive how the porn industry moves quickly to implement testing. Yet I can’t get a test here in the Garden State...

 

[MEDIA=twitter]1265660275450982400[/MEDIA]

 

I mean, that's fine and dandy, but what version of the test was it: Viral or antibody?

 

Bottom line, his status could easily change tonight, tomorrow or the next day.

 

It's basic PR window-dressing to post results like this to try to make people think he's fine.

[RealAvalon]

That was the work of the US government, the world's largest terrorist org. Not even comparable. But regardless 911 or the Chinese flu the governement is over reaching and trampling on our rights. But keep yourself locked in your house, i don't really give a fuck.

No one here is locked in their house, unless they are actively contagious and are self-isolating.

 

We've had wide spread testing, tracing and isolating, as needed. Extensive social distancing, with provincial regulations developed and inspected for work places and essential services (food, gas, etc.). Public health has focussed on educating people - wash your hands, don't touch your face, wear your mask. None of it legislated. Just the obvious responsible to each other citizenship. We had a state of emergency declared for 10 weeks, directed at containing the virus, and it's mostly worked (other than seniors care homes).

 

The result, in a province with 5.1 million people, we had one death yesterday. The day before yesterday, zero deaths. And the day before that, one death. New cases are regularly in the single digits every day. Why? Because people have changed their behaviors, are listening to the advice of public health officers, and wearing masks.

 

The economy is opening; schools are opening. Opening as much as the health care system can manage. If it gets to be too much for the health care system, some restrictions will be reinstated. We learn more about this new virus everyday, because we still know very little about it.

 

Whatever you're angry about, share that with someone you love.

Edited May 29, 2020 by RealAvalon

[+ purplekow]

100,000 compared to the population that is nothing. And many deaths were recorded as the chinese flu when that was not the cause of death. So ?‍♂️ But run and hide chicken little.

I guess certain diseases are more important to some then others. Right now, as I have to go in an treat patients dying of this disease, they do not think it is nothing. Just as in 1983 when I went in to treat patients with AIDS and people were ignoring it, they did not feel it was nothing though they did think the deniers thought the victims were nothing. They said it only killed gays or it only killed the right people.

Your post is so callous and so dismissive and really downright cruel. Hopefully you will not get this acute disease that so far, does not let the people live until there is a truly successful treatment. We are doing better with the people that are getting very sick. Some of them only stay in the hospital for a week or two. But hey, two weeks of gasping for breath out of lifetime is nothing,.

And that is 100000 in the US with social isolation, the toll would be much higher otherwise and the worldwide total is going to be more than a million. But hey out of 7 billion, one million is nothing to you I guess.

Bury you head in the sand Ozzie Ostrich.

[+ purplekow]

Two things:

1) flattening the curve by definition prolongs the event

2) what I said was that the economic repercussions, like the virus, would come in waves. But like waves, the virus will only have so much energy and cannot perpetuate itself once is loses uninfected hosts. But, the economy is more like a machine that requires motion to stay lubricated. Once it stops, it is hard to restart.

History: Spanish influenza. 15 million dead.

Great Depression: Economy destroyed

1950. Economy booming

15 million. Still dead.

 

Economic turmoil is real. It just is not permanent.

[+ WilliamM]

And over 99% will not die and will recover.

Huh?

[+ pitman]

And over 99% will not die and will recover.

Not dying is not the same as recovering. How many people with lifelong debilitating medical issues is acceptable to you?

[+ stevenkesslar]

flattening the curve by definition prolongs the event

 

More ranting on "flattening the curve".

 

This post is about contact tracing. I think the biggest driver of a first crushing wave of virus suppression was consumer fear. If you run an airline, a store, a hotel, or a restaurant, the consumer message was swift and stark: FUCK YOU! Right now you are bad for my health.

 

That wave has passed. In many countries and states I'm guessing contact tracing will now play an increasing role in killing the virus.

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/california/

 

Compare New York and California. New York has had about 10 times their normal annual deaths from flu. California was spared about 90 % of the deaths. But both state's economies are badly crippled.

 

New York has not only flattened the curve. They have crushed it. (See the Daily New Cases graph.) New infections are down about 90 % from the peak. That "crushing the virus" curve looks like any country in continental Europe (here's Italy and Spain) that was hit hardest, with the exception of Sweden. Other states like New Jersey, Louisiana, and Massachusetts have similar declines. New daily cases dropped 75 to 90 % from the peak.

 

There's obviously many factors involved. That "early warning" website offers indirect data on the impact of consumer fear. The infection reproduction rate in New York is 0.80 right now. It was as low as 0.65 a few weeks ago. That's very similar to behavior in Sioux Falls, which is almost the opposite in terms of density or government philosophy. Their infection rate is 0.76. I think the common denominator for similar behavior is consumer fear. Mass infection drove behavior that quickly slowed the spread of the virus.

 

California looks more like Sweden. It's a "flattening the curve" plateau. That said, the "flattening the curve" idea, back in March, was that 60 % of Californians might inevitably get sick. The initial goal was to manage an ongoing hospital crisis. Thankfully, that never happened.

 

At the current rate of 2000 - 3000 news cases a day in California, we might have 10 % herd immunity by the end of the year. California has 0.2 % of all citizens confirmed positive. Based on antibody studies, multiplying by 10 is a good guess for real infections. So California could have about 2 % herd immunity. Add seven months of the same and we'd be at 10 % herd immunity by year end. That still leaves 90 % of California at risk.

 

I've figured the driver of the plateau in California is people who feel it is their right to disobey any rule - including simple social courtesy. Like the stories about grocery stores. Customers in each other's faces. Grocery store workers who say customers who don't observe social distancing guidelines put their health at risk.

 

The "consumer fear" idea seems to describe New York, Sioux Falls, Spain, Wuhan. People see death and disease everywhere. So that drives behavior that kills the virus, but also the economy. Factories shut down. People avoid interaction. This is all consistent with what happened in 1918. A variation is happening in Peru now. Since many people don't have refrigerators, they stand in lines to get food every day. Having to chose between starvation and possible infection drives a situation that is only getting worse.

 

None of what I just described is happening in California. It's closer to the opposite. Some California county that has zero known infections (there are a few) feels they are being punished for some shit happening in New York City. Even in LA, people just want to get back to work, or the beach.

 

I'm wondering whether a big part of the problem in California is asymptomatic spreaders who go undetected, and keep seeding another cycle of infected people.

 

In terms of behavior, we're not New York, where people went quickly from having no idea the virus was spreading like crazy, to then feeling they were living in a death camp. Both New York and California had infection reproduction rates that were out of control a few months ago. New York for weeks has an infection spread rate of 0.65 to 0.80 That has driven reduction. California's reproduction is stuck at 1.00, which means a plateau. As the crisis in New York passes and people feel a bit safer, their virus reproduction rate is nudging back up. That's not good news.

 

In terms of the math, asymptomatic spread is a possible explanation for California being stuck. The CDC's guidelines suggest that maybe 1 in 3 people remain asymptomatic. Absent testing, they usually infect two new people. That's a recipe for plateau. Some people who get sick will infect others, as well. But there may still be a lot of people who don't feel sick who are infecting others, which creates a similar sized next cycle of infection.

 

It amazes me that people who make the big bucks at JP Morgan can't connect this back to nursing homes deaths. The virus is not the tooth fairy. It does not appear by magic. It is brought in to homes by the millions of people who are employed caring for seniors. If we have symptomatic people who have no clue they have the capacity to kill Granny, what do we think is going to happen? This is why it has proven to be impossible to keep death out of even well run nursing homes.

 

This may help explain Canada's high rate of nursing home deaths in some provinces:

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/canada/

 

Canada's curve looks a lot like California. The good news is there is less death. The bad news is that the number of new cases seems stickier. It's going down, but not as quickly as in many countries.

 

Here's what one newspaper said:

.. the most affected provinces are Quebec and Ontario, followed well behind by Alberta, B.C. and Nova Scotia. Ontario has seen outbreaks in 300 homes, and Quebec in at least 273 homes, he said. Sinha suggested Quebec’s number could be even higher, as it stopped releasing a list of affected homes on April 30.

 

Look at this map of where Canada's COVID-19 infections are concentrated. Almost all the community infections are in two provinces, where most nursing home deaths are.

 

I get why a genius "quant" from JP Morgan thinks that if 81 % of the deaths are concentrated in 1 % of the economy - nursing homes - you just wall off nursing homes. I'd guess that "quant" does not have a Mom in a nursing home. Let an asymptomatic college student hand out plates at dinner and she can efficiently kill 50 seniors. She has no temperature. She won't test positive until it's too late. Gloves will prevent this, in theory. In practice, this magic wall always fails. Everywhere.

 

Until we track down asymptomatics who are seeding new cycles of infections, the death machine in nursing homes will continue. Canada is one more example of how community spread in each province determines the eventual number of nursing home deaths. There's a direct relationship between younger people who get infected and older people who die.

 

The best indicator that contact tracing will play a big role in detecting and ending infections are the countries that have done it best. 5 % of Iceland's population (maybe 20,000 people) spent weeks in voluntary isolation. That's better than two months or a year out of work. The smart countries realized early that to beat back the virus, they head to break the silent but deadly chains of transmission.

 

You can dismiss Iceland. It's harder to dismiss Germany or China. Germany dropped from 7000 to 500 cases a day. They focused on testing and contact tracing to find asymptomatic carriers from the beginning of March. It worked. There are fewer deaths, fewer deaths in nursing homes, and probably less fear. My guess is we'll learn Germany suffered less economic damage and permanent job loss than the US did.

 

You just can't separate the virus - as in deaths and hospitalizations - from the complex interactions it has with an economy driven by consumer confidence and fear. I think that is becoming increasingly obvious based on the successes and failures of different countries, states and provinces.

 

Fear of COVID-19 won't go away until the virus does. But the best case of "flattening the curve" now seems like a worst case scenario. It keeps the medical system under constant stress. That drives other bad outcomes - kids missing vaccinations, or cancers going undetected. It also drives the fear and market lockdowns that are crippling the economy. Countries like Germany and China will be in the forefront or showing how much consumer fear can be reduced while COVID-19 is lurking in the background.

 

Edited May 29, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[+ stevenkesslar]

A second video on Shanghai Disney, more of a behind the scenes look at what they are doing

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtGcdQIvD88

 

We're going to have to change the Urban Dictionary definition of "Mickey Mouse" to mean the exact opposite:

 

mickey mouse

 

Substandard, poorly executed or organized. Amateurish.

"Who's in charge of this mickey mouse operation, anyway?"

 

And in the spirit of Disney, this kind of fits in, too.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te7jRqVBLpE

 

I found it to be a beautiful statement about how we're one world, all in this together. That was February, right when COVID-19 was silently infecting people all over the world.

 

The song is not entirely off topic. Something titled "Into The Unknown" that communicates hope and optimism in a universal language is perhaps exactly the point.

 

By the way, Aurora, the siren, is from Norway. It's not personal, Anders. But I'm going with Norway rather than Sweden on this one.

Edited May 29, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[Guest]

History: Spanish influenza. 15 million dead.

Great Depression: Economy destroyed

1950. Economy booming

15 million. Still dead.

 

Economic turmoil is real. It just is not permanent.

The same can be said of disease, it’s damage is real when it happens, but not permanent.

and BTW, remember that the boom of the 50’s was a post-war boom following the 85million deaths of WWII

 

Back to my earlier point though - war is scary AND dangerous. Whether WWII or 9/11, war cannot be ignored. But unfortunately, outside the field of battle, war tends to drive economies.

 

Likewise, infected and sick people cannot be ignored. They must be treated. But while the disease is scary, outside a small number of compromised folks, indications are that it is NOT dangerous. The Prosperity of the economy is the enabling mechanism for treating the sick (unless you’re willing to work for free and can do so without the benefit of the facilities you practice in).

 

so, let’s stop confusing things by comparing events that are scary AND dangerous with things that are scary and NOT dangerous.

[Guest]

i said “flattening the curve by definition prolongs the event”

Your response:

More ranting on "flattening the curve".

 

Sir, if “ranting” can be accomplished in eight words in a post with four lines, then I encourage you to learn how to “rant!”

 

otherwise, maybe you should look up “ranting” and then take a hard look at your own prose. OK? PSA complete

[Guest]

No one knows that. This is a new virus that we are learning things about everyday. No one knows if there is immunity or not. Magical thinking isn't super helpful right now. Your statement is scientifically baseless and ignorant.

Ok, since my statement is scientifically baseless and ignorant, prove me wrong with your science based wisdom. No assertions, no hypotheses...just conclusions of undisputed fact.

 

You see sir, you can’t say my statement “ignorant” right after after saying medical science is learning new things every day and that they don’t know this or that yet...what you’ve just said is that “medical science, while inquisitive, is ignorant”

 

But if I’m wrong, prove me wrong with fact based science that doesn’t simply make the opposite unproven assertion followed by “you’re ignorant” if you don’t believe the gospel of assertions by @RealAvalon. By comparison, your polite Canadian neighbors must think your style of debate is awfully rude....

[Poincare]

Steroids, which clearly he was using, impact immune response. How awful, I'm glad he's recovering now.

There are different types of steroids. You are probably referring to his taking androgens to increase muscle mass. Corticosteroids have been shown to increase susceptibility to COVID complications. These have very different effects on the immune system. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.....

[+ bigjoey]

What our offices and work behavior will look like:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/health/cdc-coronavirus-offices.amp.html

 

Note that despite the physical changes, much will come down to personal behavioral compliance with the suggested new norms.