Coronavirus

[AlanSubie4Life]

As for the fornite transmission

Fomites are objects (tools, vehicles) and surfaces in the environment.

CA currently has 51k known infected cases.

This means there have been about 500k cases in California, probably 250-300k of which are active. That is a lot.

Why can't those patients simply answer a questionnaire about what industries they work in, whether or not others in their family had been infected, and what industries those people are in?

200k active cases indicates a large amount of cryptic transmission (community transmission which is hidden from view). We need to get those numbers down. That’s why we are SAH and why we are ramping up TTIQ capacity.

It is hard with that level of exposure to get perfect screening with your methods. I would assume such screening would be a prerequisite, but due to asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission it is not enough.

There is a reason that everyone who meets with the President receives an instant PCR test.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

My wife has become a drill Sgt when it comes to shopping

• We take our own bags -- I because I hate waste, she because she does not want to touch communal items
• When we return to the car I put the bags in the back and then we both wash our hands outside with sterilizer before we touch the door handle or any part of the car interior
• At home the items are put on a table in the sun for a while, and anything that does not sit for hours get a cleaning by the Sgt
• I take the masks upstairs to be decontaminated with hot air. Then I wash my hands and arms thoroughly and change clothes. The laundry goes straight into the washer.
• In the meantime wife has washed her hands multiple times and when she is finished with the groceries she showers and adds her clothes to the washing machine which is then operated.

It is really rather outrageous, but the nutty thing is that we hardly notice anymore. I have no interest in antibody testing but I would love to pan culture my house. I double-dare one stinking virus to step inside.

That is ... rather rigorous! I think it would be a good enough start if we can get everyone to wash their hands after using the restroom.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

Fomites are objects (tools, vehicles) and surfaces in the environment.



This means there have been about 500k cases in California, probably 250-300k of which are active. That is a lot.



200k active cases indicates a large amount of cryptic transmission (community transmission which is hidden from view). We need to get those numbers down. That’s why we are SAH and why we are ramping up TTIQ capacity.

It is hard with that level of exposure to get perfect screening with your methods. I would assume such screening would be a prerequisite, but due to asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission it is not enoigh.

There is a reason that everyone who meets with the President receives an instant PCR test.

So then, the 50k would represent a sampling. It's a data point worth acquiring, since contact tracing can't start until we have the spread under control and have enough test kits available. Waiting until conditions are perfect takes too long and wastes valuable time. In a race, once you know the general direction, you can start moving even if you don't know the exact path that you need to take. In cpu parlance, out-of-order-execution works, because you don't need all the data to be able to complete some deterministic paths.

 

[TEG]

Then how is CA able to keep their infection rates so low despite having so many vectors open from all the critical businesses that are still running? Mitigation measures must be having an effect...

Sure, they are having a big effect. But we haven't stopped the virus spread completely. There are new cases every day...
ArcGIS Dashboards
Also, those businesses that have remained opened are doing all sorts of measures to try to keep workers and visitors safe.
This includes things such as mask requirements, social distancing requirements, staff doing constant cleaning, etc.

My local grocery keeps adding more and more precautions. Most recently they put in one way isles so that shoppers have to snake their way through the store and you don't run into people coming the other direction. I have gone shopping about once every 2 weeks and each time there are more precautions in place. They make sure the store isn't too crowded so they keep a line outside until enough previous customers have already left.

The pharmacy installed plastic barriers between customers and the pharmacists now...

I assume Tesla will have to institute extra precautions for the factory once it re-opens.

At this point, I have to assume it is a pipe dream that we could completely get this under control. Slowing it down is both helpful and harmful. I have a spouse with serious risk factors, so personally I side more on the "stay safe" side of things, but I don't want to see our economy collapse either. No great answers either way.

 

[azaz]

And I am _not_ talking about that CA hasn't peaked yet. I am talking about that CA is barely able to control the situation as it is. No reason to make it more difficult, until we have reached a level were test & trace is effective enough to start taking over (with the help of other already existing measures). Then we have control. Not yet.

Our politicians and media have not done a good enough job making it clear that they have to wait for the infrastructure to be in place that is required for a safe re-opening. It would stop these conspiracy places from taking hold. The conversation in the media all too binary and our politicians are too focused on what can happen when vs the logic behind it.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

since contact tracing can't start until we have the spread under control and have enough test kits available.

We’re getting there. Lack of clarity on the ramp of test kits and ability to process the results, but Tesla should be helping with this stuff any way they can, if they are not already.

Waiting until conditions are perfect takes too long and wastes* valuable time.

*saves valuable time.

I think we will have to just agree to disagree.

cpu parlance, out-of-order-execution works, because you don't need all the data to be able to complete some deterministic paths.

Not sure where to start with this analogy.

Maybe...

“It’s not just a CPU, bro!”

At this point, I have to assume it is a pipe dream that we could completely get this under control. Slowing it down is both helpful and harmful. I have a spouse with serious risk factors, so personally I side more on the "stay safe" side of things, but I don't want to see our economy collapse either. No great answers either way.

Don’t get too demoralized. We let things get out of hand, but we have enormous resourcefulness (and resources) in this country, and have some really excellent people working in government, public health, and private industry, who are working hard to eliminate the threat. It appears to me that the western states, at least, have adopted a zero tolerance, data-based policy for the virus, so we should expect eradication to be the outcome, and continue to support that outcome however we can - fighting misinformation, staying safe, encouraging others, donating where needed, etc.

We really cannot have our country back until the virus is eradicated, so we really have no choice but to eradicate it ASAP.

And no, I don’t know how it’s going to work with some states overrun, while others are largely free of virus. Not well I suspect. Hopefully everyone sees the light shortly. I suspect it will be a self-limiting problem.

 

[vinnie97]

Then how is CA able to keep their infection rates so low despite having so many vectors open from all the critical businesses that are still running? Mitigation measures must be having an effect. Businesses which have significantly less inter-personal interaction should be at significantly lower risk of being outbreak sources (assuming they also apply mitigation measures). You're not going to get exponential spread with asymptomatic carriers in an assembly line, because you're simply not interacting with that many people.

Bringing up what-ifs to justify keeping these low-risk businesses closed, while simultaneously keeping the high-risk businesses open (because they're considered "critical") is applying policy blindly! Especially when you include the fact that busses and BART are still running! The current scope of the SAH order is asinine!

Additionally, and I haven't read much lately in the last week, Sweden didn't shutter their economy and are relying upon the herd immunity approach for their population. In the long run, we'll see if the Chicken Littles were correct or not (30+ million unemployed and endless small businesses destroyed may indeed be worse than the cures that are being proposed). Also, while I know South Korea took extra precautions at the beginning (it seems an end of world cult was the prominent vector spread there initially), they are just beyond the 2-week period of their recent parliamentary elections where millions voted in person and they've reported no new infections as a result (and this intent domestically to move to mail-in ballot expansion and hideous ballot harvesting couldn't be more transparent). This is little more than a dry run opportunity for tyrants to lick their chops for when the next (more potent) superbug comes along, and I don't care if that makes others brand me as a conspiracy theorist (a CIA-coined term to mollify those asking inconvenient questions).

 

[deonb]

I highly doubt Inslee even knows the lengths Korea has gone to implement contact tracing. I would bet a solid that almost the entire US will not approve of measures that even resembles that of Korea’s tracing program. Even in a very highly liberal state like, I bet something like Korea’s program will be a hard pass.

We technically enforce a higher level of SAH policy than South Korea does at the moment (apart from essential workers).

Inslee could sell a move to Korea's policies as "opt-in unlocking". e.g. "If you want to opt-in, here is how you can do it, if you don't, then you can continue with SAH. We'll even extend unemployment for you."

Dow Constantine was pretty smart in the way that he approached Microsoft individually first, and convinced them to SAH before there was any kind of lockdown or even guidance in place. This caused Amazon to follow suit, which caused most other tech companies in the region to do so as well. It also solidified in people's mind that the pandemic was real. So when WA finally introduced formal state-wide SAH, it was a "meh" event. Done right, this could follow a similar path.

There is actually a place in this world for career politicians who know how to play the game.

 

[SMAlset]

So how far does the virus travel? From this restaurant tracing more than 6 feet.

and the illustration seems to indicate they were all well endowed women

 

[NicoV]

The situation in Belgium is improving fast now. The number of patients in the hospitals and ICU is half of what it was at the peak now. New daily cases is down to about 500, a fifth of what it was at the peak, and that despite doing 4 times more tests than at the peak daily case situation. Closing in on 25K tests/day, with less than 500 positives.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

I'm saying that factories are not low risk. There are interactions all over the place. I also just took a quick look at some videos to make sure it is as I remember. Plus, you have hundreds or thousands coming in and getting out at the same time, probably many of them using public transportation or busses. You have open office space supporting the factory floor. And so on.

And I am _not_ talking about that CA hasn't peaked yet. I am talking about that CA is barely able to control the situation as it is. No reason to make it more difficult, until we have reached a level were test & trace is effective enough to start taking over (with the help of other already existing measures). Then we have control. Not yet.

This is exactly the fallacy that I'm trying to point out! The _assumption_ is that changing the existing SAH scope _automatically_ means an increase in infections. My point is that this assumption is wrong, since it's predicated on the flawed assumption that all businesses present the same levels of risk factors. See my original post in this thought chain. Allowing businesses that are suited to applying mitigation measures should NOT appreciably increase infections. The mitigation measures should be more effective in the low-interaction businesses, because they worked in the riskier high-interaction businesses.

 

[SageBrush]

A great description of what an automobile factory with thousands of workers, foremen, managers, suppliers will not do. Not at all. Except maybe the first two days, they might try to do 1/10th of that.

To be clear, most of this is wife regimented. I would be satisfied with mask use and hand washing.

 

[dfwatt]

I think I'm starting to understand your issue. You are looking as any tweet Elon has liked or retweeted as something he wrote and 100% agrees with. As someone who follows Elon closely I don't stalk him to the point of monitoring his likes, so I have no idea what he has liked. As far as retweets, just because you retweet something doesn't mean you 100% agree with it. Sometimes you don't even agree with it a little bit, it is more of a can you believe this?

As far as mis-reported deaths, I can verify that it 100% is happening. The hospital that I have inside information from will flag any death for someone that as much as coughs once, or reports having a cough, as being COVID-19 related, even if they tested negative. (Even a gun shot victim.) So yes, the death numbers are not accurate. I don't know if overall they are high or low, but they are wrong. I have no idea if they will end up going back and testing/re-testing/correcting those reports or not... Anything even tangentially COVID-19 related gets flagged to include in submitting for more government money/reimbursement. And I understand why, they are hemorrhaging money and trying to stay afloat. Most of their employees are in a contract, so they can't reduce pay and they don't want to do a big layoff.

Sorry. Hospitals do not get paid more if a death is flagged as covid-19 related. This is misinformation. As for their misreporting deaths from covid-19 that are potentially from other causes, that's a passel of complexities, as covid dramatically increases the likelihood of deaths from kidney failure and heart attack among other issues. This is still legitimately considered a death from covid-19. Overall it's pretty clear that the number of deaths that at least involved covid-19 infection are undercounted not over counted

 

[jerry33]

This is America, and we eat liberty for breakfast!

This tyranny cannot be tolerated! Before you know it they'll be limiting our right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater!

Hopefully this is a /s because throughout American history, Americans have given up their freedom at the slightest hint of something fearful. Internment of Japanese citizens, the Patriot Act, the McCarthy era, etc.

 

[jerry33]

What?

You're correct about the WA and TX population comparison, but totally incorrect about the pop of a modern city. If you're talking American city.

WA has a population of over 7 million which puts it well above the population of every city in the US except NYC.

Anyways I do agree that deaths have to be compared by using per million people.

Huh? greater LA 13.3 M, greater Chicago 9.5 M, DFW, 7.2

 

[SageBrush]

A great description of what an automobile factory with thousands of workers, foremen, managers, suppliers will not do. Not at all. Except maybe the first two days, they might try to do 1/10th of that.

To be clear, most of this is wife regimented. I would be satisfied with mask use and hand washing.

 

[SageBrush]

Americans have given up their freedom at the slightest hint

I think you mean they have given up the freedom of those they choose to scapegoat

 

[FoverM]

Last week GA did a partial reopening of the economy on 04/24 and not much changed. Not many people were out and about other than walking. My wife went into work to start things up again. I stopped by. The parking lot at her little "village" was empty. It was a ghost town.

Kemp lifted the SAH order yesterday, 05/01, ... and it made a huge difference. My wife's medical spa was open but limiting service to one appointment at a time. I decided to drop by to see how things were going. All the parking spots were full. People everywhere. Kids playing in the commons area. We had a sit-down dinner her coworker and husband outside one of the restaurants. All of the employees at these places, including my wife, wore masks while working.

So, if you want to see if there is a surge in case in GA due to the partial reopening, start your incubation timer on 05/01, not 04/24.

PS. A little coronavirus humor. The coworker's family had a big scare last week when their daughter had a persistent fever, cough, chest tightness, etc. She had pneumonia and was tested for coronavirus. Fortunately, it was negative. The husband was very concerned because he has diabetes. He said he got tested too and showed us the results. His result was negative as well. Then I looked down the page farther and saw a bunch of "positive" results for syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, etc. Jackass

 

[MXLRplus]

What?

You're correct about the WA and TX population comparison, but totally incorrect about the pop of a modern city. If you're talking American city.

WA has a population of over 7 million which puts it well above the population of every city in the US except NYC.

Anyways I do agree that deaths have to be compared by using per million people.

Yes, we agree on the central point, that is anyone who ignores regional pop when doing people stats is playing games in an attempt to fool you. This is why I hold the media in contempt. They are ignoring population when screaming the sky is falling.

Luanda is just larger than Washington State which makes Washington #45 when measured as a UN city. The UN lists Chicago at 8.8 million. They might be counting the suburbs though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luanda

 

[EVNow]

We take our own bags -- I because I hate waste, she because she does not want to touch communal items

I've to think about getting our own bags. We currently get paper bags from the shops and use them to collect recycled / compost items. SO no waste … but lately the grocery stores are running out of paper bags and we are getting afraid of reusing paper bags. But we have switched to delivery / pickup - so we may not have much choice with our own bags.

BTW, I also use gloves when shopping. So, at the end dispose gloves, sanitize hands and then touch the car

At home all items get a wash / wipe down. We throw away all plastic packaging etc.

Not sure all this makes much sense - being out in public is probably an order of magnitude riskier than getting the virus because of packaging.