Coronavirus

[Shock-On-T]

To make the statement that US cases are not growing exponentially based on testing data is ridiculous. At the King County press conference yesterday they clearly said that only about 250 people in the entire state of Washington have been tested so far. And that they have not tested any of the patients still inside of Life Care, any of the staff that works there, or their families, or any of the families that have visited their relatives there over the last month. The numbers of confirmed cases in the US are completely irrelevant right now as nobody is being tested yet.

Las Angeles had a press conference yesterday where they said 25 people have been tested so far in LA county.

I work in the medical field in Australia and unofficially it is expected we will stop testing in a few weeks.
There doesn’t seem to be any chance of containment, so the thinking is to just treat sick people the way we always treat sick people.

 

[Causalien]

Most antivirals are small molecule inhibitors that are specifically designed to prevent the virus surface proteins from binding to receptor proteins on yours and my cells and facilitating entry into those cell. No entry into the cell, no ability to replicate the virus.

The problem is that as viruses mutate, the proteins that they express change and sometimes those small molecule inhibitors don't bind to the virus proteins and block their entry.

It's a game of cat and mouse, and mother nature has had millions upon millions of years to perfect this strategy.

So the scary part of this virus is that it has that HIV protein spike. If the drug blocks that path and it mutates to target another protein. Will the end result be a change in R0 as the other proteins are harder/easier to bind to.

 

[dfwatt]

That is really stupid advice.

Testing kits are in extremely short supply, like less than a thousand kits last time I read about it.

The last thing we need is every snowflake with a runny nose getting tested and jamming up the ER if they aren’t seriously ill.

Your advice is severely misinformed and frankly ignorant. This individual became symptomatic AFTER being exposed to someone who later tested positive for COVID 19. You're not a clinician of any stripe or you would not put such embarrassing foolishness into print. And the reason we have such a shortage of test kits is that the federal government effort is being run by people who are also ignorant and motivated to deny and minimize this illness. If you can't find out whether you are positive, you may just continue to spread the pathogen, because you think you have a bad cold. I guess only 'snowflakes' should be concerned about that?

 

[KarenRei]

I work in the medical field in Australia and unofficially it is expected we will stop testing in a few weeks.
There doesn’t seem to be any chance of containment, so the thinking is to just treat sick people the way we always treat sick people.

"Stopping testing" seems to be taking it too far. If someone has the disease, surely they should know about it, as should the people they've been exposed to. My mother, for example, has chronic lymphoma and is also immunosuppressed to treat an antibody-related condition. If my father gets the disease, for example, he really needs to know, with respect to keeping my mother safe.

But I agree that it seems to have gone too far, and surely they're going to have to declare it a pandemic sooner or later and switch to a focus on reducing community spread rather than preventing it from getting into countries / regions. I mean... Italy has had it for months, and we're only just now starting to check passengers? Planes full of people from all over Europe have been visiting northern Italy all winter; it's a popular vacation spot. Clearly it's everywhere, at least at some low level.

And then think of the developing world! An example from today: a traveler from the US was diagnosed with the disease in Bhutan - Bhutan's first case. Fair enough. Except that he didn't go straight from the US - he had spent the past two weeks traveling around India. So he caught it in India. There's increasing evidence that India has a large number of undiagnosed cases out there, and they're barely getting started on trying to find them.

 

[sundaymorning]

Coronavirus response: Breaking down the $8.3 billion emergency spending bill Trump signed

• The bill includes more than $3 billion for research and development of vaccines, as well as more than $800 million for research for treatments.
  
  
• More than $2 billion is slated for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and $61 million to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
  
  
• The U.S. Agency for International Development would receive more than $1 billion.
  
  
• More than $1 billion will go to the state and local public heath efforts including community health centers and state and local governments.
  
  
• It also authorizes roughly $500 million to allow for Medicare providers to administer telehealth services.
  

 

[Snapdragon III]

I work in the medical field in Australia and unofficially it is expected we will stop testing in a few weeks.
There doesn’t seem to be any chance of containment, so the thinking is to just treat sick people the way we always treat sick people.

I hope you come back after here after you have treated a couple dozen cases and comment on whether or not you still think this was the right strategy.

 

[heltok]

Elon Musk
@elonmusk

The coronavirus panic is dumb
9:42 PM · Mar 6, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

 

[dl003]

I hope you come back after here after you have treated a couple dozen cases and comment on whether or not you still think this was the right strategy.

As opposed to what? Not treating sick people like sick people? If there's no chance of containment, who care if containment was the right call? You have to be realistic and work with what you have instead of antagonizing people for failing to stand in the way of nature.

 

[bkp_duke]

Elon Musk
@elonmusk

The coronavirus panic is dumb
9:42 PM · Mar 6, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

Perhaps now people will listen?

 

[generalenthu]

Elon Musk
@elonmusk

The coronavirus panic is dumb
9:42 PM · Mar 6, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

Sincerely, I feel that he had been super focused on starship, and didn't have time to think thru all implications, nor look at all data.

This may not age well.

 

[KSilver2000]

There's increasing evidence that India has a large number of undiagnosed cases out there, and they're barely getting started on trying to find them.

Not sure what remote chance of that happening will be, especially in certain parts of India.

 

[thait84]

Sincerely, I feel that he had been super focused on starship, and didn't have time to think thru all implications, nor look at all data.

This may not age well.

More fodder for people to say Elon Musk lives in an Ivory Tower and is unaware of the world he lives in when you juxtapose that comment with people dying or people being quarantined.

Sort of like how he got flak when he said Public Transit sucks and .. "That’s why everyone doesn’t like it. And there’s like a bunch of random strangers, one of who might be a serial killer, OK, great. And so that’s why people like individualized transport, that goes where you want, when you want."

 

[Eugene Ash]

Comic Con - a yearly convention that attracts 100k people in Seattle is now postponed. UW is switching to online classes from Monday.

Live: Coronavirus daily news update, March 6: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the nation

Great source: my couple of observations:
Already 15 dead in King county: +5 from yesterday.
Not all elderly care facility workers and patients \inhabitants have been tested. Wow.
And a Toyota dealership postpones operations due to a confirmed case.

 

[KSilver2000]

Kudlow went on TV to encourage people to go to work this morning, and I applaud that. Telling people of your sob stories does little good. We expect the media to be kinder to a company like Tesla, but it isn’t, and that’s life. That’s the way things roll with a disease with less than 1% death rate and this is the way the media will treat Tesla who has captured less than 1% of the market share. Welcome to reality, everything will work itself out.

'America should stay at work,' despite coronavirus, Larry Kudlow says

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow claims coronavirus is 'contained,' says Americans should 'stay at work'

You know, after the silliest back and forth with you last evening, I didn't want to comment anymore.

In the absolute, most polite way I can say this.....that is a terrible message to send.

It doesn't matter whether a coworker or my kid's classmate has the regular flu, HFM, Cov, or some other communicable disease. If you are sick with symptoms, stay home and don't make matters worse for the other tens or hundreds of people because of your own ignorance.

And stop running around with some arbitrary 1% figure. I've already laid it out in a previous post. You have not even the remotest idea what the phrase "1% death rate" even means.

As someone suggested earlier, can you please stop muddying this thread.

 

[KSilver2000]

Elon Musk
@elonmusk

The coronavirus panic is dumb
9:42 PM · Mar 6, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

That is dumb.

I know someone who doesn't get to work from home.

 

[dl003]

You know, after the silliest back and forth with you last evening, I didn't want to comment anymore.

In the absolute, most polite way I can say this.....that is a terrible message to send.

It doesn't matter whether a coworker or my kid's classmate has the regular flu, HFM, Cov, or some other communicable disease. If you are sick with symptoms, stay home and don't make matters worse for the other tens or hundreds of people because of your own ignorance.

And stop running around with some arbitrary 1% figure. I've already laid it out in a previous post. You have not even the remotest idea what the phrase "1% death rate" even means.

As someone suggested earlier, can you please stop muddying this thread.

If you're sick, sure, by all mean, stay home. But if you're not sick, then...?

 

[sundaymorning]

Elon Musk
@elonmusk

The coronavirus panic is dumb
9:42 PM · Mar 6, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

Amen. Let nature take its coarse, educate your family and friends as best you can and know that humanity shall overcome.

The conditions That mutated this virus is 1 in a billion, there’s nothing we can do in the short term, the worse we can do is panic. Let nature develop and we’ll work on an antibody.

1% (perhaps even way way WAY less, is almost meaningless). My condolences to those who passed, if my number is called so be it.

 

[jerry33]

Elon Musk
@elonmusk

The coronavirus panic is dumb
9:42 PM · Mar 6, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

The panic part is dumb. Taking reasonable precautions is not.

 

[sundaymorning]

You know, after the silliest back and forth with you last evening, I didn't want to comment anymore.

In the absolute, most polite way I can say this.....that is a terrible message to send.

It doesn't matter whether a coworker or my kid's classmate has the regular flu, HFM, Cov, or some other communicable disease. If you are sick with symptoms, stay home and don't make matters worse for the other tens or hundreds of people because of your own ignorance.

And stop running around with some arbitrary 1% figure. I've already laid it out in a previous post. You have not even the remotest idea what the phrase "1% death rate" even means.

As someone suggested earlier, can you please stop muddying this thread.

you’re taking my words out of context, if you’re sick stay home it’s the smartest thing to do. I agree completely. But the economy cannot sustain if you allow fear to take over. Kudlow’s message and mine is for the healthy.

do you really think anyone would encourage the sick to work under these conditions? Everyone is freaking out, this has to stop. The question is when?

 

[Singer3000]

Elon Musk
@elonmusk

The coronavirus panic is dumb
9:42 PM · Mar 6, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

Elon’s least advised tweet of all time? I woke up, saw the tweet and was thinking, “intriguing, Elon is going to tell us why WHO and most govts’ healthcare authorities are wrong”.

I kept scrolling down to see the explanation and there wasn’t one. WTF is he thinking?