Coronavirus

[bkp_duke]

Few things to think about
- This is really a fast evolving scenario. We don't have very many peer reviewed reports. So, we'll have to look at the reputations of authors and how many of their papers have been withdrawn after peer review in the past.
- The confidence with which resident "experts" are saying the disease doesn't spread before symptoms is NOT reflected in what CDC says. CDC just says "thought to be" - a very weak assertion.

You will never see how many papers an author has had rejected. The system doesn't work that way. I've been neck deep in it, and that is just not data that any journal will ever publish.

EDIT - Peer review is part of the publication process - i.e. a journal's editorial staff sends copies of the paper around to peers in the same field as the author. It is anonymous, and those peers have a certain amount of time to read, review, and write up comments on the paper. This is a very laborious process, as the comments sometimes are nearly as long as the paper itself. Then there is a back and forth to give the author time to correct or explain things which were brought up by the peer review.

Basically, the German publisher should have never let that paper out in the open without some kind of peer review. It's bad form and precedent.

Anyone remember Andrew Wakefield? He falsified research and claimed a definitive link between vaccines and autism. That paper has since been disproven (we've spent more on this topic than all of the Apollo missions to send men to the moon). Despite being disproven it did huge damage to the confidence of the public in the scientific community and even the physician-patient relationship. This scenario is exactly why peer review exists.

 

[EVNow]

You will never see how many papers an author has had rejected. The system doesn't work that way. I've been neck deep in it, and that is just not data that any journal will ever publish.

Yes, there has been a lot of things said & written about it. But now a days you can track pre-pub and pub ...

I'd actually go one step more in this context and say this
- We are in the fog of war
- BOTH peer reviewed and pre-pub publications should be taken with a pinch of salt
- Apply salt liberally when we have pre-pub, low n etc. as usual

 

[bkp_duke]

Yes, there has been a lot of things said & written about it. But now a days you can track pre-pub and pub ...

I'd actually go one step more in this context and say this
- We are in the fog of war
- BOTH peer reviewed and pre-pub publications should be taken with a pinch of salt
- Apply salt liberally when we have pre-pub, low n etc. as usual

Actually, you cannot to the way you are wanting to. I published a paper in the last 3 months, but you cannot see revisions of it, etc.

I agree that all of this should be taken with a pinch of salt. Non-peer reviewed papers it should be an iceberg sized pinch.

 

[KSilver2000]

On a weird, local note, the pax from that Oakland cruise ship are not all being sent to quarantine at military bases. Not all of them, anyway. Between 4 and 8 will be housed at Asilomar...a local hotel and state park. Where minimum-wage workers will have no choice but to show up for work.
Pretty odd choice.
Robin

Yea, I really don’t understand why they are sending some to Asilomar. I’ve stayed there many times for work conferences. That’s not really a place where you can be quarantined from visitors.

 

[Silicon Desert]

speaking of buffets, good to hear this is happening:

https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local...rily-close-buffets-amid-coronavirus-concerns/

MGM Resorts International says they will be temporarily closing their buffets at ARIA, Bellagio, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, The Mirage, Luxor and Excalibur amid coronavirus concerns.
The changes will go into effect on Sunday, March 15, according to their Public Relations department.
The closures are temporary and MGM says it will be evaluated on a weekly basis.

Bummer. Now my hopes of getting fat on buffets are greatly diminished. I guess it will happen up here soon.

 

[Doggydogworld]

If I understand that correctly, he is speaking about the local ICU beds, not ICU beds in the whole USA. In that figure it says USA has ICU beds 2.8/10 000 adults. So with population of 327 000 000 and approximately 80% adults, it would mean approximately 73000 ICU beds. So Wuhan (less than 3000 critically ill, approximating from the chart) would not saturate all the U.S. ICU beds, but of course all _local_ ICU beds.

Maybe this was all clear to everyone else, but it made me to scratch my head for a while. Im surprised, that only the maximum burden of the epidemic saturates all the local ICU beds. Of course those beds are normally only 31.8% free (according to the same chart). And what is propably most important, Wuhan limited the disease with complele lock down.

Right. Nationwide beds don't help much in a Seattle outbreak. He scales it by population, so you can think in terms of local areas. If Wuhan were a typical US city it would have saturated available ICU beds on February 6 and all ICU beds at the peak on February 21. They locked Wuhan down completely on January 23 with only 495 confirmed cases and 23 deaths.

Seattle metro population is about 1/3rd of Wuhan's and as of yesterday they had ~250 confirmed cases with 22 deaths. Nothing even approaching a lockdown, but testing is finally becoming available.

 

[KSilver2000]

Well, that was fast.

San Francisco is now officially banning all events and gatherings of over 1,000 people.
The Warriors, the last major holdout from when the ordinance was just recommended, will now play homes games without an audience.

 

[EVNow]

Unfortunately Inslee stopped short of asking schools be closed. He just asked schools to prep ...

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee advised school districts to begin contingency planning over the next few days in case they are ordered to close.​

 

[adiggs]

Well, that was fast.

San Francisco is now officially banning all events and gatherings of over 1,000 people.
The Warriors, the last major holdout from when the ordinance was just recommended, will now play homes games without an audience.

Seems like anytime I get a notion about how things will develop, reality is faster than I thought.

 

[Silicon Desert]

It's really interesting to see some of the perspectives on this virus thing. The thoughts on TMC are more sane than one of my neighbors.

For your entertainment value, talk to one of my neighbors who thinks everything since he was born is a conspiracy. According to him, the Coronavirus was created by our country because they want to kill off the elder generation to avoid paying social security. Oh yea, and they sneaked it into China to make it look like the Chinese did it

If that isn't proof enough of his insight, he says the moon landing was faked, and that I shouldn't be supporting Tesla by buying a car because Elon is in on the conspiracy as evidenced by the fact that he put bio-weapon defense mode into the car

Can someone help me move away from this guy?
Now back to the more serious issue of the virus.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Unfortunately Inslee stopped short of asking schools be closed. He just asked schools to prep ...

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee advised school districts to begin contingency planning over the next few days in case they are ordered to close.​

I'm fairly sure the decision has been made to close the schools, he's just trying to give them a bit of prep time first. I expect the announcement will be made to close the schools by next week if not this week.

 

[dfwatt]

I hope you and your wife recover soon!

General observation: if your wife picked up the virus at work and then infected you, how is it possible that you both developed symptoms at about the same time? The assumption so far has been that the virus can only be transferred when someone has symptoms and that the incubation time for the next carrier is at least a few days. Any thoughts?

Not true. COVID 19 is among several pathogens that can become transmissible prior to fever and cough.

 

[KSilver2000]

Not true. COVID 19 is among several pathogens that can become transmissible prior to fever and cough.

The Biogen incident is proof of this.

 

[KSilver2000]

Seems like anytime I get a notion about how things will develop, reality is faster than I thought.

The stock market will also likely move faster and further than some people want to believe IMO.

 

[linux-works]

Man, I don't know why the feds are trying to hide this or slow down the testing.

they have no experience handling real problems. shouting 'fake news' is not working, at this point, and only makes them appear more like the boy who cried wolf.

they know that they farked up, but are still stubborn. which is the root of the problem with them, to be honest. never admit you are wrong - its their playbook.

 

[dfwatt]

extrapolating from H1N1 pandemic in 2009

US had biggest death toll, around 3k, but confirmed cases(110 000) were less than in China (120 000)
China had 800 deaths.

So we can expect 10k deaths in US and confirmed cases will be less than in China.

Unfortunately very much possible, but comparing to deaths from influenza(30k), it is just 1/3

Probably deaths from Corona would be same people who otherwise would be taken by flu.

Expect 20k deaths from flu and 10k from corona in USA in flu season 2019-2020.

Wildly optimistic. Likely off by at least one order of magnitude, at least in terms of whole 2020 year.

Not sure where you are getting your epidemiology from, but it looks ungrounded in the actual science.

Read here in WHO (hardly any version of an alarmist organization given their somewhat sluggish declaration of COVID 19 as pandemic) for the real story: WHO Report on Chine COVID 19.

Whether we have thousands of deaths, or hundreds of thousands or even worse, will depend on whether or not we adopt the strict measures that China and South Korea adopted. How do you think we are doing on that?

 

[Edbeck]

I think I might have the distinction of being the first COVID-19 positive member of TMC.

Ummmmmm, congratulations?

I'm not usually competitive but I was on the Grand Princess when it went to Mexico from Feb 11 - 21. Pretty sure I had it the first week of March. Soooooo Yea me?

But seriously I hope you and your wife are OK.

 

[Dilleyjc]

I think I might have the distinction of being the first COVID-19 positive member of TMC. My wife is a provider in Kirkland WA, and was exposed at work. She came down with symptoms Sunday evening, and I came down with almost the exact same symptoms a few hours later. We were only able to get her tested, because she is a health care worker. Normal people can not get tested unless they are bad enough to be hospitalized. Her results came in this morning and she was a "strong positive." We both are miserable, but so far our symptoms are on the mild end of the spectrum. It is very scary. Hopefully our symptoms will remain mild. We also know a number of other health workers who have been infected and had much, much worse times of it, than we have so far. This is definitely not just another flu. We are extremely afraid for ourselves, our parents, our community, and the economy.

It would be helpful to know your symptoms? How high is your fever? My husband and I are both down for the count but not sick enough to go to the hospital and get tested.

 

[linux-works]

my company is now on official WFH starting this monday. we're now in prep mode to enable people to work remotely via whatever automation gadgets/etc we can whip up, short term.

this is one reason I enjoy living in the bay area. the clue factor *can* be high, here. its not always, but it often is.

people and companies are taking this seriously.

 

[Doggydogworld]

The Biogen incident is proof of this.

The Biogen Incident sounds like an old Michael Crichton (RIP) novel

It's too early to say how much asymptomatic transmission there is. It is clear it can spread when symptoms are mild and not distinguishable from allergies or a minor cold.

Biogen cases could come from a single source, e.g. did these 70 have the fish?

Editing to add Dr. Fauci's testimony today is going to upset some apple cars. He indicates 1% eventual CFR - 10x more lethal than flu. Lower CFR than SARS but spreads much more easily. Then the money quote:

When pressed by lawmakers for an estimate of eventual fatalities in the U.S., Fauci said it will be “totally dependent upon how we respond to it.”

“I can’t give you a number,” he said. “I can’t give you a realistic number until we put into the factor of how we respond. If we’re complacent and don’t do really aggressive containment and mitigation, the number could go way up and be involved in many, many millions.”​