Coronavirus

[Dr. J]

Snoops has found this claim to be FALSE!!

Does Trump Own Stock in a Company CDC Uses for COVID-19 Tests?

What's the penalty for lying on a financial disclosure form? Oh yeah, never mind--the president can't be prosecuted for crimes while in office. (Not saying he did. Not saying he didn't.)

 

[sparcs]

Bloomberg: Trump to Declare National Emergency to Speed Virus Response

News conference at 3 p.m. in Washington

President Donald Trump plans to declare a national emergency on Friday over the coronavirus outbreak, invoking the Stafford Act to open the door to more federal aid for states and municipalities, according to two people familiar with the matter.

 

[Doggydogworld]

You guys are silly. The death rate for this is nowhere near 3%.

I agree, as long as you don't exceed your ICU capacity.

They tested every single person on the Diamond Princess and found 696 positives. The last numbers available were 7 deaths with a few dozen still in serious/critical condition. I've seen reports of other deaths, but only these 7 are well documented. So the fatality rate was a bit over 1%, perhaps as high as 1.5%. It's a small sample, though, with an older skew.

South Korea aggressively tracked contacts and tested exposed people with mild symptoms and even no symptoms. A couple weeks ago the "just a flu" crowd regularly touted SK's ~0.5% rate. They've gone quiet lately as more cases resolve and the rate -- now at 0.9% -- keeps climbing.

EDIT: Of course if the nutcases running Ohio's Dept. of Health are right about 100k undetected cases in that state then I agree there's nothing to worry about.

 

[EinSV]

I would categorize this as a rumor since it's second hand info. But it's virtually inevitable in any large workplace at this point

á on Twitter

 

[JRP3]

Of course Kolodny jumps on it like a parasite, or virus

 

[EinSV]

Of course Kolodny jumps on it like a parasite, or virus

What a surprise .... Didn't seem to work though -- the tweeter said she wouldn't talk to reporters.

á on Twitter

 

[azaz]

Of course Kolodny jumps on it like a parasite, or virus

this a poor example of her being a parasite lol, it's a journalist doing their job, following a lead.

 

[Heimdallr]

Brazilian president has corona virus, met Trump a few days ago...

Jair Bolsonaro says he has tested negative
The Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has tested negative for the coronavirus, his son told Fox News on Friday following media reports that his father, who recently met with Donald Trump, had tested positive.

“The test is negative,” Eduardo Bolsonaro told Fox News Channel in an interview.

The news follows some confusion today after local media in Brazil reported that Bolsonaro had tested positive.

Bolsonaro himself has lashed out on Twitter at “fake news”.

 

[Nocturnal]

We have exposure in my building now. He isn't sick but it was a family member so it's likely. My company was reluctant to let people work remotely (presumably out of fear of loss of productivity). I wonder what productivity will be when everyone is sick?

The US STILL isn't taking this seriously, in part thanks to fake news from Trump and conservative media. I still have relatives on FB sharing conspiracies about how this is all a form of control etc.

this a poor example of her being a parasite lol, it's a journalist doing their job, following a lead.

I believe she is personally short on Tesla. She definitely does not appear to be unbiased.

 

[EinSV]

Pretty interesting Twitter thread from Brett Winton of Ark, tracking searches for "shortness of breath" by US cities/areas over time.

Here is NYC -- draw your own conclusions.

Brett Winton on Twitter

 

[kyzhk]

If no actions are taken in the US we will likely reach herd immunity* in a relatively shorter amount of time compared to controlled slowing down of spread among the healthy population, but there will be a lot more casualty among the vulnerable group due to lack of resources for treatment.

This would be the worst case scenario.

*coronavirus has proofreading mechanism in replication, therefore likely do not mutate fast and frequent enough to become a lasting concern. Unlike flu, it would not come back every year. At least, not this strain.

 

[kyzhk]

See this death rate chart for 1918 spanish flu:

In Philadelphia where no social distancing measures were employed, death rate peaked at the mid october and the whole thing lasted about a month.

In st. louis with social distancing measure employed, it never quite ended by the end of year but death rate were kept low over the period of time. The total area under curve is less than that with no social distancing measures employed but duration of impact is far longer.

 

[EinSV]

If no actions are taken in the US we will likely reach herd immunity* in a relatively shorter amount of time compared to controlled slowing down of spread among the healthy population, but there will be a lot more casualty among the vulnerable group due to lack of resources for treatment.

This would be the worst case scenario.

*coronavirus has proofreading mechanism in replication, therefore likely do not mutate fast and frequent enough to become a lasting concern. Unlike flu, it would not come back every year. At least, not this strain.

The guesstimates (emphasis on "guess") I have seen are that 60% of the population would likely be infected in this scenario. With an overwhelmed medical system, death rates have been guesstimated at 3-5% (another emphasis on "guess").

At the high end that would be about 10 million dead just in the US (330 million x 0.6 x 0.05). Plus a massive number of extremely sick people, many of whom may suffer permanent lung damage and other effects. Nobody knows the real numbers of course.

 

[Dr. J]

If no actions are taken in the US we will likely reach herd immunity* in a relatively shorter amount of time compared to controlled slowing down of spread among the healthy population, but there will be a lot more casualty among the vulnerable group due to lack of resources for treatment.

This would be the worst case scenario.

Similar subject matter: Notes from UCSF Expert panel - March 10.

University of California, San Francisco BioHub Panel on COVID-19

March 10, 2020
......

• Top takeaways
• At this point, we are past containment. Containment is basically futile. Our containment efforts won’t reduce the number who get infected in the US.
• Now we’re just trying to slow the spread, to help healthcare providers deal with the demand peak. In other words, the goal of containment is to "flatten the curve", to lower the peak of the surge of demand that will hit healthcare providers. And to buy time, in hopes a drug can be developed.
• How many in the community already have the virus? No one knows.
• We are moving from containment to care.
• We in the US are currently where at where Italy was a week ago. We see nothing to say we will be substantially different.
• 40-70% of the US population will be infected over the next 12-18 months. After that level you can start to get herd immunity. Unlike flu this is entirely novel to humans, so there is no latent immunity in the global population.
• [We used their numbers to work out a guesstimate of deaths— indicating about 1.5 million Americans may die. The panelists did not disagree with our estimate. This compares to seasonal flu’s average of 50K Americans per year. Assume 50% of US population, that’s 160M people infected. With 1% mortality rate that's 1.6M Americans die over the next 12-18 months.]
• The fatality rate is in the range of 10X flu.
• This assumes no drug is found effective and made available.
• The death rate varies hugely by age. Over age 80 the mortality rate could be 10-15%. [See chart by age Signe found online, attached at bottom.]
• Don’t know whether COVID-19 is seasonal but if is and subsides over the summer, it is likely to roar back in fall as the 1918 flu did

.....

 

[SageBrush]

They tested every single person on the Diamond Princess and found 696 positives. The last numbers available were 7 deaths with a few dozen still in serious/critical condition. I've seen reports of other deaths, but only these 7 are well documented. So the fatality rate was a bit over 1%, perhaps as high as 1.5%. It's a small sample, though, with an older skew.

If you are using the ship to extrapolate to the population at large then start from the ship population of 3 - 4 k (I've forgotten the exact number.)

 

[Dr. J]

The guesstimates (emphasis on "guess") I have seen are that 60% of the population would likely be infected. With an overwhelmed medical system, death rates have been guesstimated at 3-5% (another emphasis on "guess").

At the high end that would be about 10 million dead just in the US (330 million x 0.6 x 0.05). Plus a massive number of extremely sick people, many of whom may suffer permanent lung damage and other effects. Nobody knows the real numbers of course.

The mortality rate is probably closer to 1% than 3%-5%--that's still 10x the flu. But as you say, nobody knows for sure.

 

[Dr. J]

If you are using the ship to extrapolate to the population at large then start from the ship population of 3 - 4 k (I've forgotten the exact number.)

It was a little over 1%.

Never mind--I see what you're saying. It's <1% of everyone on board.

Actually, though, the mortality rate should properly be calculated from those infected.

So, back to 1% or so.

 

[powertoold]

If you are using the ship to extrapolate to the population at large then start from the ship population of 3 - 4 k (I've forgotten the exact number.)

That's not a comparable statistic though. But we also have to consider that the demographics of a cruise ship is not similar to the general population.

 

[Flehmenlips]

Some more info on the new UK strategy:

Benjamin Kentish on Twitter


View attachment 521125
View attachment 521126



And here is the UK Chief Medical Officer outlining the strategy. If you have mild symptoms, stay at home for 7 days. Only seek medical attention if your symptoms progress to serious. Meanwhile at this point, no forced bans on public events or school closures which are seen as counter productive to the central strategy.
Boris Johnson on Twitter

When the UK government says it is modelling for an 80% infection rate, I think we need to take them at their word. Germany are saying similar.

Coronavirus: as many as 10,000 in Britain may already have it, says PM

Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, said that worst-case scenario planning projected that 80% of the country would contract the virus, with a 1% mortality rate. This equates to more than 500,000 deaths.​

Speaking at a sombre press conference in Downing Street, the prime minister said measures to tackle “the worst public health crisis for a generation” could “cause severe disruption” to everyday life for months.

“It is going to spread further and I must level with you, I must level with the British public: many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time,” Johnson said, as two more fatalities from Covid-19 brought the death toll in Britain so far to 10.

Dismissing the belief that the virus is comparable to seasonal flu, he added: “Alas that is not right. Due to the lack of immunity, this disease is more dangerous,” with the elderly at particular risk. Entire families could be told to self-isolate if one of them falls ill, and people should start looking after elderly relatives and neighbours, he added.
​

As a son, husband, father and citizen it saddens me deeply that my prior warnings that were seen by many here as alarmist, are a view now openly shared by the government of the United Kingdom.

As an investor, I am relieved I took the steps I did, both to protect my existing assets and to profit from the slide to provide some extra buffer against likely loss of future income.

Where do markets go from here? There’s a prevalent market view still that this is a short sharp v-shape recession that will not affect 2021 numbers. Maybe that’s right but see my previous post on the unknowables. Even if that is the case, I do not think we are at the bottom yet, until this grim message has been properly absorbed by global society at large. The mood of which after all is what indirectly drives global markets trends outside the short term.

Unless of course the UK govt is totally wrong and it really is “Mission Accomplished” as claimed by China. Let’s hope so.

I feel like UK is the only sane voice in the room.

 

[Dr. J]

That's not a comparable statistic though. But we also have to consider that the demographics of a cruise ship is not similar to the general population.

A demographic comparison (ship to general population) would be useful.