Coronavirus

[SageBrush]

Love this idea, it’s essentially a binary search applied to testing

Yep.

I don't think it will scale as well as you imagine but it can help dramatically in achieving wide scale testing. It also has key advantages in not requiring new hardware and it can easily be distributed to reduce transport times.

 

[SageBrush]

I was banned for posting U.S. doubling rate info. Coronavirus
The banner claimed my post was histronics.
Been tracking in this spreadsheet:
Coronavirus doubling of deaths every x days
Not sure why I was unbanned.
Since my initial post on March 7, U.S. deaths have been doubling at a rate of 3.25 days.
Here is someone quoting my earlier post that got deleted by a mod:
Coronavirus
Suspect @KarenRei was banned also because the banner doesn't like the truth.

Who was the mod ?

 

[Uncle Paul]

It may be that while your were posting something truthfull, it was something also causing addtional anxiety to an already frightened public.

Maybe a faning the flames type of post.

 

[Lessmog]

45 minute test now approved: well done!

New test that could detect COVID-19 in about 45 minutes approved by FDA

Wow! That looks like very good news, if true.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Every one of these Trump press conferences is an unmitigated disaster and they keep happening every day too.

I hope you guys held your puts through the weekend.

 

[Lessmog]

Who was the mod ?

Dancing close to the brink there, my friend ...

 

[ohmman]

I’m uninvolved in moderation in this thread, but will say two things:

1. Karen isn’t banned.
2. Bans are rarely permanent. They have variable lengths depending on the infraction, so being “unbanned” is usually not a thing. More likely, the ban just times out.

 

[Lessmog]

I’m uninvolved in moderation in this thread, but will say two things:

1. Karen isn’t banned.
2. Bans are rarely permanent. They have variable lengths depending on the infraction, so being “unbanned” is usually not a thing. More likely, the ban just times out.

Also Not-a-Mod, but:
I would also be mightily p-o'd to receive that sort of "greeting".
My temper can also self-moderate over time, sometimes. Not always.
Hopefully a responsible party will apologize and make up soon. Equinox and all ...
Folks, we REALLY CANNOT AFFORD to lose an asset like @KarenRei (if she is still tuned in).
Good night for now. GLTA next week, and the next, ...

PS @ohmman -- extremely interesting avatar you have. Long time admirer. Does it run in the family?

 

[bkp_duke]

Back on topic - spoke with a contact at Tesla today. They do appear to be at least doing the feasibility work for producing ventilators from both Tesla and SpaceX. Basically he confirmed what I suspected - they are stupid simple to build and Tesla already has the engineering expertise on staff to do it.

Oh, and despite them dropping to 2500 employees active from 10k, they are still building cars (management's take is that the State's edict overrides the local one, and in the State's version they are explicitly allowed to stay open).

@Cosmacelf - you were correct, they are importing those 1000 ventilators, they didn't yet produce them in house. But I was told it would "not be hard compared to building a car". Minimal retooling to do it.

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

Karen, who is very much appreciated for her insights, was asked by one of the mods to stop posting in the wrong thread and in general post less OT stuff. She didn’t take that very well and said ‘goodbye’. She has not been banned.

 

[MXLRplus]

IIRC, Medtronics ventilator mfg is in Ireland? Medtronics requested we not shutter our doors. Ditto for other medical device companies. Every day we don't work, adds one day to the release of all the medical devices we are working on.

 

[SageBrush]

Karen, who is very much appreciated for her insights, was asked by one of the mods to stop posting in the wrong thread and in general post less OT stuff. She didn’t take that very well and said ‘goodbye’. She has not been banned.

Polite request, or a warning ?

 

[Lessmog]

Karen, who is very much appreciated for her insights, was asked by one of the mods to stop posting in the wrong thread and in general post less OT stuff. She didn’t take that very well and said ‘goodbye’. She has not been banned.

It could have been done in a more pleasant tone, I think.
But then again, who am I?
Lessmog, that's who. Goodnight for now.
Yes, this IS OFF TOPIC. We all know.

 

[Doggydogworld]

How I would deal with CV-19

The current “flatten the curve” strategy is a result of medical advisors constraining their options with a bad economic assumption and then governments not realising their medical advice contains an economic fallacy.
Flatten the Curve essentially means maintain enough social distancing to balance the health service on the edge of collapse until a vaccine is rolled out in 6-12 months. Due to the intensive care rate and the infectiousness of this virus, it looks like keeping the curve beneath health service capacity requires extreme economic shutdowns of leisure, travel, retail sectors etc.

Flatten the curve is a flu policy and makes sense if the total cost of flattening is lower than than cost of killing the curve, but due to the cost of flattening in this case, killing the curve is far cheaper because it can be done in far shorter period of time.

We know from Wuhan and common sense that 6 weeks full lockdown excluding non essential work, together with N95 masks for all essential workers and for shoppers, will more or less eradicate the virus from your area. We also know from China ex Wuhan and Korea that a thorough: Test, Trace, Isolate policy can keep secondary cases to an insignificant number while allowing the economy to get back running. (Most countries are too late to move straight to a Korea strategy because the virus is so widespread they no longer have capacity for contact tracing, so first they need lockdowns to get numbers under control).

But it is possible a more targeted strategy could allow shorter lockdowns. 2 weeks full lockdown excluding non essential work in-line with Wuhan/California/NY could be enough to buy time for a more targeted strategy.

After 2 weeks lockdown, households with no suspected cases should be tested. If clear they can go back to work (with N95 masks and improved hygiene policies). With tests again performed daily to catch longer incubation periods.

Households with suspected cases should be tested after 3-4 weeks to allow extra time to catch household chain infections. If clear, they too can go back to work.

After this, the country should only open easy borders to countries that have adopted a similar “kill the curve” policy. Most countries should do this before too long, but all borders can be opened in a year or so once everyone is vaccinated.

Adopting a 4-7 week "kill the curve" strategy should allow much more thorough support for industries to allow them to quickly re-hire and ramp back up afterwards. Currently the "flatten the curve" policy is open ended and governments need to maintain borrowing capacity and dry powder to allow them to support current measures for 6 months plus which means measures are not comprehensive enough to prevent long term economic damage. It is also much harder for debt and equity markets to have confidence to fund companies to avoid bankruptcy when these shutdown measures are open ended.

I generally agree, but note that Wuhan lockdown was 2 months, not 6 weeks. They are starting to loosen, but it's still extremely tight. I'm also highly suspicious of China's numbers. I don't think it's running rampant -- their controls are very tight. But zero cases? Hmmm.

Test-and-trace fans (like me) took a body blow today, as poster child South Korea is now moving to a soft lockdown:
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/a...ts-147-new-coronavirus-cases-total-8-799-kcdc

 

[generalenthu]

@bkp_duke is the Cepheid 45 min test an RT PCR test?

 

[X Fan]

For folks who like data, Florida has a great 22 page update with demographics, county info & items such as ED visits for cough, etc along with Covid-19 stats: https://floridadisaster.org/globala...id-19-data---daily-report-2020-03-21-1008.pdf

 

[bkp_duke]

@bkp_duke is the Cepheid 45 min test an RT PCR test?

Checking.

Xpert® Xpress SARS-CoV-2 has received FDA Emergency Use Authorization

EDIT - still reading. But point-of-care tests - - I've never known of a PCR PoC test.

 

[bkp_duke]

@generalenthu

It's a RT-PCR test. Cartridge based to run out of their proprietary system. They probably follow the computer printer model: give the tabletop equipment away for cheap, and make money because only they can supply the cartridges (I don't know this, just a guess).

https://p.widencdn.net/jdgicj/Cepheid-GeneXpert-Xpress-System-Brochure-US-IVD-0688-English

Should be a good test. As someone else pointed out, it's not high-throughput, but we'll take every manuf that wants to join in on this right now.

 

[vwman111]

View attachment 524020 Latest Florida Stats:
Case load hasn't exploded yet (and number of deaths is still low which is encouraging given the aged impacted) but the number of hospitalizations is worrisome. Please note age distribution; high number of 20-50 case being uncovered.

btw: NY State is now over 10,000 cases with around 75% from NYC alone.

Gov, Cuomo comment: "The state has now performed 45,437 tests, more than the 23,200 done in California and the 23,343 in Washington State, where the nation’s initial outbreak was identified."

Are we confident that Florida is even bothering to test and report its cases...It seems to have huge discrepancey between expected cases and reported cases...

 

[Sean Wagner]

The health commissioner of Lombardy mentioned that people in their 40s and 50s were in intensive care too.
Even if just 1% of that age group require it all at once to survive the present system will not be able to cope. At all.


Young people are not invincible, warns WHO head
...
Speaking at a press conference, the head of the World Health Organisation said young people were “not invincible,” adding that a significant percentage of those who had been hospitalised for coronavirus have been under 50.
...
“I have patients in their early 40s and, yeah, I was kind of shocked. I’m seeing people who look relatively healthy with a minimal health history, and they are completely wiped out, like they’ve been hit by a truck. This is knocking out what should be perfectly fit, healthy people. Patients will be on minimal support, on a little bit of oxygen, and then all of a sudden, they go into complete respiratory arrest, shut down and can’t breathe at all.”
...
Subscribe to read | Financial Times

#New Orleans
A Medical Worker Describes Terrifying Lung Failure From COVID-19 — Even in His Young Patients | March 21
... “It first struck me how different it was when I saw my first coronavirus patient go bad. I was like, Holy *sugar*, this is not the flu. Watching this relatively young guy, gasping for air, pink frothy secretions coming out of his tube.” ...
A Medical Worker Describes Terrifying Lung Failure From COVID-19 — Even in His Young Patients — ProPublica

To continue on, only two numbers are important is all this, and unfortunately these numbers are at the tail end of the process: # ICU patients (versus capacity) and deaths.

I've been watching Italian numbers of discharged and deceased closely and been saddened by today's marked increase in the latter. The hope being that improved isolation measures will become recognizably effective over the next two weeks. They must.

Whole-heartedly agree with @DaveT . We need a better plan to tackle the virus. Couple this with an antibody test for all and we could get back to normal faster.

While in the interim those that have recovered can lend a hand. There will be more in the harder hit parts of the country too.

Sure but there weren't tests available in any sort of volume.

That's why China's initial coverup was so costly.

The Taiwanese diligently prepared for exactly that "don't trust the communist party" scenario and started testing people coming off flights from Wuhan in early January [!] for fever and a plethora of known infectious diseases.

• 23 million Britons may already be infected with the virus

• Social distancing measures may have to be in place for a year

• Contact tracing could reduce the spread of the outbreak

Good luck with the contact tracing... tracing... system overload... [I do think the number is a little out of this world]



Paging Elon - what to do with all those battery cells pouring out of the Nevada GF? How about portable, battery-powered masks that purify air with arrays of high-intensity UV leds or ceramic heating elements [cost next to nothing]?

Or just build cheap ventilators that will be required in their thousands and are essential for providing the pressure needed to help damaged lungs absorb sufficient oxygen.

Italian engineers who were on the spot for replacement valves delivered:
Covid-19: start-up that saved lives with 3D-printed valve may face legal action | 18 MARCH 2020 NEWS
Start-up which 3D-printed lifesaving ventilator valves may face legal action