Coronavirus

[TespaceX]

Agreed.

My wife accuses me of being a bitter old man for not applauding the ruse and viewing it as a swell of anti-trumperism in America. It is more a case of just viewing it as an ultimately ineffectual diversion by keyboard activists. Give me one Greta in exchange for 10,000,000 of those kids. And my comment about a future reservation fee was not just to point out that these tricks are easily blocked; the kids may have inadvertently given the trumpers a money collection tool.

Those same kids were also responsible for the following recently:

• $1M raised towards BLM
• drown out #whitelivesmatter hashtag
• temporarily crash the Dallas PD app that was put up to request anonymous reports of illegal behavior during protests

 

[bkp_duke]

I'm not too concerned about these early studies yet. Still optimistic about the likelihood of sustained immunity and success of a vaccine (the timeline on the vaccine I'm less optimistic about - there might be some false starts but hoping for some luck there). Immunity is complicated, and I'm not sure that a moderately reduced antibody titer (from one small study) is the only relevant metric here. Perhaps @bkp_duke could chime in with his expert opinion?

As mentioned before, the "body never forgets". By design antibody levels in people will drop, but the body will always keep a group of memory B and T cells around to go through rapid clonal division if it encounters the virus again.

Now . . . the tricky part is the proportion of B and T cells, and that the antigen (the part of the virus) that they bind and responds to does not change.

Most of the time, immunity to coronaviruses wanes in 2-4 years (although a partial immune response can make a recurrence much less painful).

 

[SageBrush]

From NBCNews:

The president was fuming at his top political aides Saturday even before the rally began after his campaign revealed that six members of the advance team on the ground in Tulsa had tested positive for COVID-19, including Secret Service personnel, a person familiar with the discussions said.

Trump asked those around him why the information was exposed and expressed annoyance that the coverage ahead of his mega-rally was dominated by the revelation.

Got that, folks ? Those infected are of no consequence. It is ALL about the optics. The trump POS looks out for trump. PERIOD

 

[SMAlset]

You guys might have heard or read that Friday while performing his comedy act DL Hughley collapsed on stage. This was in Nashville's Zanies Comedy Club. I have to say I immediately thought, covid? but they made it sound like he had just been exhausted, but he was sent to the hospital. Sadly today they are reporting that he tested positive for Covid-19 and I have to wonder if he was at the collapsing stage how many people that worked with him at the club, behind the stage, front office and those in attendance might now have health concerns.

This Aol article has a video message he made for his fans. He said he hadn't experienced any of the symptoms so was surprised. I wonder what his oxygen level was. He apparently has been released to quarantine for 14 days and hoping for the best.

D.L. Hughley tests positive for the coronavirus after collapsing on stage

 

[davepsilon]

"Only" he says. That number is *huge*, and for that matter it is the number that matters. The country is not really affected in any substantial way by mild infections at home.

The only virtue I can see for more testing in the community is as an early warning signal but that marginal utility drops off rapidly. You do not have to poll (aka: test) everybody to know what is going on. This is why I kept telling people here that their demands for universal availability of serological tests was a waste of resources and focus. All you need is a poll every couple weeks or less.

If you are going to primarily control numbers through contact tracing. You need testing capability for the contacts. Otherwise you are asking the contacts you actually get in touch with to isolate for 14 days on the suspicion of being infected. Offering a free & fast test is better - leads to better response from contacts.

isolating is a blunt tool, widely available testing makes it a targeted tool.

 

[Causalien]

Interesting anecdotal evidence. I am bumping into quite a lot of USA youths who recently decided to complete their immigration to Canada. Don't recall accidentally bumping into this many before. It seems like the combination of BLM riots, COVID stupidity and Trump has pushed them over the edge (100% of them bashes Trump, so I am guessing they are democrats)

 

[eevee-fan]

Interesting anecdotal evidence. I am bumping into quite a lot of USA youths who recently decided to complete their immigration to Canada. Don't recall accidentally bumping into this many before. It seems like the combination of BLM riots, COVID stupidity and Trump has pushed them over the edge (100% of them bashes Trump, so I am guessing they are democrats)

Is Canada still accepting Americans who seek asylum to Canada? Asking for a friend.

 

[dhanson865]

 

[dgatwood]

"In California ... Gov. Gavin Newsom mandated that masks be worn inside public spaces and in situations where staying six feet apart from others is not possible. But at least five sheriff’s departments in the state say they won’t enforce the order, in some cases citing the minor nature of the offense or a lack of resources.
That includes sheriff’s departments in Orange, Sacramento, Tulare and Fresno counties.

No surprise. OC is the county who so completely ignored public health policy that they almost singlehandedly got all beaches in California shut down. They're the Florida of California.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

San Diego County hit an all-time high of 310 cases with 7% positivity (we’ve been closer to 2-3% for weeks) today. I hope they just tested in a prison or a huge group home or something. But it looked to me zip code by zip code that things were up all across the county - focused in three separate areas - La Mesa, Barrio Logan/Skyline, and North County Del Mar to Encinitas/Carlsbad (has been pretty slow up there).

I guess we will find out if we are screwed tomorrow, when they have their normal press conference. I suspect we may be screwed, even though AC is pretty much optional in Western San Diego County nearly the entire year.

 

[SageBrush]

If you are going to primarily control numbers through contact tracing.

That will NEVER work unless infectivity is markedly reduced; and conversely with very low infectivity the marginal utility and scale needed for TTQ is low.

My objection is not to TTQ per se, it is the naive opinion that more of it stands in for SMART behavior

 

[AZRI11]

A good explanation on why deaths from covid are dropping. Position of body "stomach down" in hospitalized patients is also looking like a treatment that's saving lives. Remember vitamin D deficiency can easily be avoided. Get some sun, and if not take supplements.

 

[jerry33]

Apparently the second level many took it to was to acquire a Google Voice number and just submit that so they wouldn’t get overwhelmed by spam texts (which predictably could not be stopped once started even after requests to stop).

This shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Doggydogworld]

This may have been a premature call. .... Over 100 deaths yesterday.

Then 12 on Thursday and no reporting of any data since. There's a reason I only use 7 day rolling averages for countries like Sweden.

In general I would expect their deaths to trend upwards a bit,

The downtrend from the peak has been steady and uninterrupted. What would reverse it?

New York State had 320 hospitalized COVID patients and 18 cumulative deaths on March 16th, one week before their lockdown. I worry that people are forgetting how fast these outbreaks can get out of control.

NY already a couple hundred deaths on March 16th, they just didn't know it due to under-testing and reporting lags. San Antonio has clearly gone exponential, but least we see it happening. The question is whether we'll do anything about it.

500k to a million to find the existing ~30k very symptomatic cases (personal health), 3 million to test all their close contacts (mitigation), and another million a day for surveillance.

Countries stopped outbreaks with much less testing. You have to stop transmission from people who don't have symptoms, or very mild ones. Social compliance is the real key (forced or voluntary), combined with effective contract tracing. Testing is a helpful tool for contact tracing, but testing itself does very little.

The US is a world leader in social non-compliance.

 

[CyberGus]

The US is a world leader in social non-compliance.

We're anti-social distancing

 

[TEG]

 

[Causalien]

Is Canada still accepting Americans who seek asylum to Canada? Asking for a friend.

Unfortunately, Americans gets it worst than African refugees as they can just cross Roxham Road in Quebec and use a loophole. That loophole is temporarily shut down now due to COVID 19, but I am expecting it to become a hot potato once things are back to normal.

So far the fastest and easiest way to come over is through being a student. Cheaper tuition cost and a streamlined pathway from student to job to PR. Otherwise, you'll have to find one of those international corps that has office in Canada and get them to transfer you while losing a significant amount of income. As of this moment, the investor immigrant path is temporarily suspended. It was waaay too cheap to get a Canadian Citizenship before compared to other western nations (a loan that you will get back after a few years? What a joke). It will probably reopen and get on par with other nations with golden visas with million dollar investment requirements.

 

[SageBrush]

I wonder what his oxygen level was.

Presumably OK since

He apparently has been released to quarantine for 14 days

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Countries stopped outbreaks with much less testing.

Do you have an example? I'm talking about stamping out the virus, not just bumbling along in mediocrity. I want an example of a country that has really stopped it cold with fewer than 1000 tests per daily death (10k tests per daily death brings it to a swift end, typically). Looks to me like France and Spain are hitting that.

I agree that social distancing compliance and general pigheadedness is a problem in the US. But more testing (etc.) is certainly helpful. We're nowhere near the testing density of most of these other countries (tests relative to disease burden). I've looked at this before, and the correlation between test to death ratio and disease suppression is very strong. It's just a correlation, I suppose. But there's reason to think it is causative for a virus with so many showing mild to no symptoms.

Then 12 on Thursday and no reporting of any data since. There's a reason I only use 7 day rolling averages for countries like Sweden.

I was comparing week over week numbers - the week prior was 78. (Looks like they'll probably trend up this week as I expected, based on 69 deaths today, taking their one week total to ~270 vs. the prior week at 220 or something.)

The downtrend from the peak has been steady and uninterrupted. What would reverse it?

What would reverse it is an increase in disease burden, as people tire of social distancing and get careless. It does look like Sweden is testing more, so it could go either way, I think. I'm not suggesting it will return to the prior peak. Treatments, demographics, and awareness should prevent that I think.

Testing is a helpful tool for contact tracing, but testing itself does very little.

That's why I always try to mention "testing, etc." Of course testing is only part of the solution - I use testing as shorthand for the entire supporting infrastructure & other pieces that go with it.

 

[Dave EV]

San Diego County hit an all-time high of 310 cases with 7% positivity (we’ve been closer to 2-3% for weeks) today. I hope they just tested in a prison or a huge group home or something. But it looked to me zip code by zip code that things were up all across the county - focused in three separate areas - La Mesa, Barrio Logan/Skyline, and North County Del Mar to Encinitas/Carlsbad (has been pretty slow up there).

I guess we will find out if we are screwed tomorrow, when they have their normal press conference. I suspect we may be screwed, even though AC is pretty much optional in Western San Diego County nearly the entire year.

@AlanSubie4Life - do you have a way to look at the city level data on a day-by-day basis? Otherwise it seems like you have to record the numbers yourself from the PDF report they publish daily.

Edit: Looks like if you use the County of San Diego COVID-19 Dashboard, you can choose a city for looking at data.

SD County cities trending up the last few weeks include:
Oceanside
Vista
San Marcos
Lemon Grove
Carlsbad
Santee
Poway
Fallbrook

Though really need to cross that data with # tests and positivity to know if it's a real trend or not.