Corona Virus spreading ... US official says no need to worry

[Melensdad]

Seems like the virus is starting to pick up a lot of steam as it rolls around the world. China's problems may have started burning out, as viruses tend to do. They have only locked down 100,000,000 people for 3 months in their efforts to contain the virus.

Now it looks like its the rest of the world's turn.

My friends in Australia report their school is closed after a 16 year old boy tested positive. He has also visited a retirement home to see his grandparents in the past few days so there is major concern in the retirement home.

My sister reports that all the Indian Swaminarayan (SP?) temples in the UK and ALL of Europe have been ordered closed as of today. The local temple in my area is still open. Already reported are the closing of churches in Korea and parts of northern Italy.

And ZeroHedge has a nice summary of the events around the world, which is a considerably longer list than has been published in recent days. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopoliti...nd-reports-1st-death-global-coronavirus-cases

Summary:

• San Francisco mayor reports first 2 cases in the city
• New Jersey Lt. Gov confirms 2nd "presumptive" case
• NY state cases double to 22
• Washington state reports another 20 cases
• Palestinian territories confirm 7 cases
• Seattle closes 26 schools
• Pentagon tracking 12 possible COVID-19 cases
• 35 passengers aboard 'Grand Princess' showing flu-like symptoms
• Another senior Iranian figure dies
• Illinois reports 5 more cases
• NYC reports 2 more cases, raising total to 4
• Italy postpones referendum vote; death toll hits 148
• WHO's Tedros: "Now's the time to pull out the stops"
• Tennessee confirms case
• Nevada confirms first case
• New Delhi closes primary schools
• EU officials weigh pushing retired health-care workers back into service to combat virus
• Italy to ask EU for permission to raise budget deficit as lawmakers approve €7.5 billion euros
• Beijing tells residents not to share food
• 30-year-old Chinese man dies in Wuhan 5 days after hospital discharge
• Cali authorities tell 'Grand Princess' cruise ship not to return to port until everyone is tested
• Global case total passes 95k
• Lebanon sees cases double to 31
• France deaths climb to 7, cases up 138 to 423
• EY sends 1,500 Madrid employees home after staffer catches virus
• Trump says he has a "hunch" true virus mortality rate is closer to 1%
• Switzerland reports 1st death
• South Africa confirms 1st case
• UK chief medical officer confirms 'human-to-human' infections are happening in UK
• UK case total hits 115
• Google, Apple, Netflix cancel events
• HSBC sends research department and part of London trading floor home
• Facebook contract infected in Seattle
• Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Netflix cancel events and/or ask employees to work from home
• Netherlands cases double to 82
• Spain cases climb 40, 1 new death
• Belgium reports 27 new cases bringing total to 50
• Germany adds 87 cases bringing total to 349

Of note are some Twitter 'tweets' below from various accounts. The head of the WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION seems alarmed. Perhaps now is time to take this seriously? Or do we continue to downplay this?

Also interesting to note how many hotel stays have been cancelled in San Francisco. 150,000 nights worth. For a city that uses tourism as one of its major economic engines, and doesn't have a native population large enough to support the thousands of restaurants (and restaurant jobs) the loss of hotel revenue is going to cost them millions, tens of millions of dollars in lost revenues and probably will lead to hospitality job losses in retail, hotel and restaurant sectors. The city will be adding 3 more lost nights due to me cancelling a trip. I was planning to attend a fencing coaching conference in the city in 2 weeks. I cancelled my trip. I suspect that the 150,000 nights lost due to cancellations is ONLY THE BEGINNING and it will be exponentially higher by the time this virus is finished.

 

[waybomb]

I guess I'm not gettin' it.
Just think if this much effort were spent to contain the common flu.
We'd be stone age.
But we'll just let 35,000 people a year die from complications with the flu.

 

[Melensdad]

Link to story—> https://apnews.com/435cb3786f0d6692c8143a07e29c3e79

WHO shouts out an alert to all nations.

‘This is not a drill’: WHO urges the world to fight virus


BANGKOK (AP) — The global march of the new virus triggered a vigorous appeal Thursday from the World Health Organization for governments to pull out “all the stops” to slow the epidemic, as it drained color from India’s spring festivities, closed Bethlehem’s Nativity Church and blocked Italians from visiting elderly relatives in nursing homes.

As China, after many arduous weeks, appeared to be winning its epic, costly battle against the new virus, the fight was revving up in newly affected areas of the globe, unleashing disruptions that profoundly impacted billions of people.

The U.N. health agency urged all countries to “push this virus back,” a call to action reinforced by figures showing about 17 times as many new infections outside China as in it. The virus has infected nearly 98,000 people and killed over 3,300.

“This is not a drill. This is not the time for giving up. This is not a time for excuses. This is a time for pulling out all the stops,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva. “Countries have been planning for scenarios like this for decades. Now is the time to act on those plans.”

As Chinese manufacturers gradually reopened their factories, anti-virus barriers went up elsewhere.

In Italy, the epicenter of Europe’s outbreak, workers in latex gloves pinned “closed” notices on school gates, enforcing a 10-day shutdown of the education system. Italy’s sports-mad fans are also barred from stadiums until April 3.

A government decree that took effect Thursday urged the country’s famously demonstrative citizens to stay at least 1 meter (3 feet) apart from each other, placed restrictions on visiting nursing homes and urged the elderly not to go outside unless absolutely necessary.

That directive appeared to be widely ignored, as school closures nationwide left many Italian children in the care of their grandparents. Parks in Rome overflowed with young and old, undercutting government efforts to shield older Italians from the virus that hits the elderly harder than others. Italy has the world’s oldest population after Japan.

“It’s an absolute paradox!” said Mauro Benedetti, a 73-year-old retiree called upon to watch his grandson. “They tell us to stay home. How can we help our kids and grandkids at the same time?”

“Grandparents are now at risk,” he said.

...

I guess I'm not gettin' it.
Just think if this much effort were spent to contain the common flu.
We'd be stone age.
But we'll just let 35,000 people a year die from complications with the flu.

If this is as contagious as they say then 40-60% of all Americans will get it. Most will be fairly mild to moderate cases. 15% will end up in the hospital.

If 15% of 40% of the population needs to be hospitalized, as is projected from experience in China, then every hospital bed in the country will have a corona patient filling it and there will be sick people on gurneys in the hallways and probably the streets too. We’d need to build more hospitals.

If you don’t think that will lead to an economic apocalypse I’m not sure what will convince you.

 

[m1west]

Link to story—> https://apnews.com/435cb3786f0d6692c8143a07e29c3e79

WHO shouts out an alert to all nations.

​

If this is as contagious as they say then 40-60% of all Americans will get it. Most will be fairly mild to moderate cases. 15% will end up in the hospital.

If 15% of 40% of the population needs to be hospitalized, as is projected from experience in China, then every hospital bed in the country will have a corona patient filling it and there will be sick people on gurneys in the hallways and probably the streets too. We’d need to build more hospitals.

If you don’t think that will lead to an economic apocalypse I’m not sure what will convince you.

I think the masses are behind the curve on the financial impact.

 

[Melensdad]

I think the masses are behind the curve on the financial impact.

Each action is like a little ripple in the water when a pebble is dropped into a pond. And so it is with the new WORK FROM HOME trend that many companies are adopting ... and schools are enacting e-Learning where teachers and students each teach/study at home. Business conventions are cancelled. Conferences are turning into tele-conferences.

And so commuter traffic is down. And projected to drop further. Airline traffic is dropping fast and moving toward post 9/11 levels of non-travel.

Starbucks apparently crunched some numbers. They are now advising shareholders that sales will be down over $400,000,000 due to Coronavirus. Lower sales = lower staffing needs. Lower staffing needs = fewer workers getting hours. Fewer hours = lower paychecks. Lower paychecks = less spending on non-essential goods. Less spending = recession.

Now if Starbucks is projecting that type of sales loss, what will other stores see? How will those losses affect Main Street in your town?

 

[m1west]

Each action is like a little ripple in the water when a pebble is dropped into a pond. And so it is with the new WORK FROM HOME trend that many companies are adopting ... and schools are enacting e-Learning where teachers and students each teach/study at home. Business conventions are cancelled. Conferences are turning into tele-conferences.

And so commuter traffic is down. And projected to drop further. Airline traffic is dropping fast and moving toward post 9/11 levels of non-travel.

Starbucks apparently crunched some numbers. They are now advising shareholders that sales will be down over $400,000,000 due to Coronavirus. Lower sales = lower staffing needs. Lower staffing needs = fewer workers getting hours. Fewer hours = lower paychecks. Lower paychecks = less spending on non-essential goods. Less spending = recession.

Now if Starbucks is projecting that type of sales loss, what will other stores see? How will those losses affect Main Street in your town?

You don't have to convince me, Restraunts, movie theaters ,sporting events. the list can go on forever. Even my little company being in food processing ( canned food ) on one hand this could be good for my business when the food hoarding gets going and on the other hand the manufacturing facilities I work in are very loud like most manufacturing with ear plugs everyone when they talk its in each others face inches away. Historically when any cold or flu comes around everyone in the plant gets it. So at some point are people going to be afraid to go to work? What about money (banks). some business are going to make a killing like hand sanitizer, masks, medical equipment etc. and others already mentioned are not. On a whole it won't be good.

 

[JimVT]

to curb the spread our local federal forest office in Washington state, mount baker Snoqualmie national forest in our town cancelled pemit to a large snow poker run. it usually has up to 300 people on snowmobiles. for march 7. and then told us of a forest users meeting on Monday is cancelled

 

[Bamby]

You don't have to convince me, Restraunts, movie theaters ,sporting events. the list can go on forever. Even my little company being in food processing ( canned food ) on one hand this could be good for my business when the food hoarding gets going and on the other hand the manufacturing facilities

Each action is like a little ripple in the water when a pebble is dropped into a pond. And so it is with the new WORK FROM HOME trend that many companies are adopting ... and schools are enacting e-Learning where teachers and students each teach/study at home. Business conventions are cancelled. Conferences are turning into tele-conferences.

And so commuter traffic is down. And projected to drop further. Airline traffic is dropping fast and moving toward post 9/11 levels of non-travel.

Starbucks apparently crunched some numbers. They are now advising shareholders that sales will be down over $400,000,000 due to Coronavirus. Lower sales = lower staffing needs. Lower staffing needs = fewer workers getting hours. Fewer hours = lower paychecks. Lower paychecks = less spending on non-essential goods. Less spending = recession.

Now if Starbucks is projecting that type of sales loss, what will other stores see? How will those losses affect Main Street in your town?

You all are addressing the very real problem but in reality blaming the wrong cause. All the above is something we've been forced to address as a nation long before Corona made the scene.

We are no longer the prosperous rich country with the most current up to date manufacturing facilities and a talented enough work force to keep the production rolling. We used to be all that and more but as the production lines got antiquated to the point profits could no longer be made the decision was made to abandon the old facilities to be a future brownfield to become a future taxpayer subsidized cleanup project.

Maybe to avoid liabilities to the waste they left in their wake but also seeking lower production costs most everyone took up shop overseas where both life and labor is cheep.

I see where there is some concern about the poor Starbucks employee being tossed out of work and how their lose of income is going to affect their community. Anyone working at fast food or Starbucks ain't got any disposable income to effect much of anything. If anything they're also being subsidized by the government somehow. Food service never was meant to support a family. What is best at was developing work ethics for future employment where a person could earn a honest median family income.

I also see work from home as a very viable trend that should have already been utilized. Imagine the congestion that could be removed from the roads thus making the roads safer for the people who still have to show up for work. .....

 

[Melensdad]

So it looks like a lot more to not really worry about but things are certainly starting to accelerate around the globe.

PERSONAL OBSERVATION: The lovely Mrs_Bob and I were at O'Hare International Airport this morning dropping off Melen to send her off to North Carolina for the weekend. She has a wedding shower to attend. The airport was like a ghost town. This is one of the top 3 busiest airports in the world and it was nearly empty. I pulled the car right up to the door, the main passenger check in area had so few passengers that you could have held the world bowling championships and not hit any passengers with bowling balls. It was bizarre. Truly bizarre.



Here is a summary of headlines from ZeroHedge:

Summary:

• 15th US death reported in WA.
• CDC has tested fewer than 2,000 Americans, Atlantic reports
• 15 more patients from Kirkland nursing home hospitalized
• 2nd LAX screener tests positive
• LA County confirms another 2 cases, bringing total to 13
• Germany reports 90 new cases to 534
• Saudi Arabia suspends sports events starting Saturday
• U. of Washington will move all classes online for rest of semester
• McDonald's cancels franchisee convention
• Iraqi officials report third death
• LatAm airline employee confirmed as Peru's first coronavirus case
• Houston area confirms 6th case
• Italy reports another 678 cases
• Gap closes NYC office
• New York cases climb to 33
• Baggage handler at Heathrow tests positive
• Madrid closes old folks homes
• 5 schools close in PA.
• Trump visit to CDC is back on
• WHO: "false hope" that virus will disappear when summer arrives
• WHO: We don't know mortality rate
• Kudlow: "Buy stocks"
• 2nd death in UK, cases hit 163; France reports 2 new deaths bringing total to 9
• French total cases hits 577
• Egypt reports 12 cases aboard cruise ship on the Nile
• 2,733 asked to voluntarily quarantine in NYC
• Trump scraps trip to CDC
• Switzerland, the Netherlands report 1st deaths
• Slovakia only country in Europe without coronavirus
• Russia accuses Italy of spreading virus
• Singapore reports 13 new cases, largest one-day jump since outbreak began
• US case total: 234
• South Korea, Japan feud over virus
• Microsoft, Adidas, Lockheed say at least 1 employee has contracted virus
• China claims it can have vaccine ready by April
• Pompeo says China withheld information, leaving US "behind the curve"

On Monday of this week, DR MIKE RYAN, executive director of W.H.O.s health emergency program said:

“Here we have a disease for which we have no vaccine, no treatment, we don’t fully understand transmission, we don’t fully understand case mortality, but what we have been genuinely heartened by is that unlike influenza, where countries have fought back, where they’ve put in place strong measures, we’ve remarkably seen that the virus is suppressed,”

Now just for the fun of it I'll put up a couple of charts. Keep in mind that the data indicates that 40% to 60% of the entire US population will get the Corona virus. CNN is now saying that the "elderly with serious underlying conditions" should be concerned. Roughly 15% of the cases are considered severe, and 85% are considered mild too moderate. The severe cases require hospitalization. Assuming a population of 350 Million, and assuming 150 Million get Corona, and assuming 15% of those 150 Million get severe cases requiring hospitalization that means we need 22.5 Million hospital beds for those people.

From BLOOMBERG News, the horizontal bar graph posted below is comparing the COVID 19/Corona virus to other illnesses. Many people, some media sources, etc use this type of data to downplay the disease (despite the real news from the W.H.O. and C.D.C. that seem to indicate there is a problem).

From BUSINESS INSIDER, the vertical bar graph posted below shows the death rates of those infected, by age group, of the flu versus the Covid-19. This is the type of data that many people overlook.

 

[m1west]

We now have 2 self quarantining at home in our little county of a few thousand people. Man and wife went on a Cruze to Mexico last month and people tested positive on that trip. They have not been tested and are not showing signs of illness.

 

[EastTexFrank]

Thanks Bob. At last some useful information.

 

[JimVT]

i wouldn't want to be flying now. i see an advertisement for coronavirus free flights.
https://seattle.craigslist.org/see/avo/d/seattle-coronavirus-free-aircraft/7085406492.html

I took the wife with her broken wrist to the doctor Wednesday and a large sign on the door . do not enter if sick.
yesterday she had it fixed with screws or pins and a small plate. a very common brake or fracture and surgery. the out patent surgery was one other person in the waiting room.
overall empty . grocery stores are full
were s.e. of seattle 35 miles.

 

[Melensdad]

Dr John Campbell, in Australia, in his health blog, indicates that the UK and the USA are the two worst prepared nations of the western developed nations affected by Covid-19. Not sure really why he is saying that, he puts out 2 video blogs per day, I have not sifted through enough of them to understand his theory.

But this article from THE ATLANTIC is pretty mind blowing. Is it possible the US has tested less than 2000 people?

Full story => https://www.theatlantic.com/health/...s/607597/?preview=3-4FLneYp3QF4ooMLWUN_KtUiR8

Exclusive: The Strongest Evidence Yet That America Is Botching Coronavirus Testing
“I don’t know what went wrong,” a former CDC chief told The Atlantic.

Updated at 4:07 p.m. E.T. on Friday, March 6, 2020.

It’s one of the most urgent questions in the United States right now: How many people have actually been tested for the coronavirus?

This number would give a sense of how widespread the disease is, and how forceful a response to it the United States is mustering. But for days, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has refused to publish such a count, despite public anxiety and criticism from Congress. On Monday, Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, estimated that “by the end of this week, close to a million tests will be able to be performed” in the United States. On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence promised that “roughly 1.5 million tests” would be available this week.

But the number of tests performed across the country has fallen far short of those projections, despite extraordinarily high demand, The Atlantic has found.

“The CDC got this right with H1N1 and Zika, and produced huge quantities of test kits that went around the country,” Thomas Frieden, the director of the CDC from 2009 to 2017, told us. “I don’t know what went wrong this time.”

Through interviews with dozens of public-health officials and a survey of local data from across the country, The Atlantic could only verify that 1,895 people have been tested for the coronavirus in the United States...

Thanks Bob. At last some useful information.

I've been trying to provide it.

It is even more telling if you look at mortality by age by nation. Some nations have much higher mortality than others by age. That said, its hell if you get this and you are old and sick.

 

[EastTexFrank]

Well, I'm old! And I have some of the old person problems. Nah! I've had two Scotch so I'm immortal and invincible.

 

[Melensdad]

My summary this morning, which is just a supplement to the ZeroHedge summary:

• Stanford University is cancelling classes and switching to "on-line" learning.
• High school districts in some of the American 'hot zones' (Washington area, Boston area) have closed schools.
• 21 people on the Grand Princess crew ship tested positive for the Covid 19 ... the ship is 20 miles off the coast being helped(?) by the US Coast Guard
• Grand Princess will dock in a "non-commercial port" and people will be offloaded and quarantined.
• 24 states now have cases of Covid-19 but many states, like Indiana, do not have any known 'community spread'
• CDC doesn't not have enough test kits
• Airlines expect to lose $63 Billion in revenues
• Cities are cancelling festivals
• Spectators are being banned from an increasing number of sporting events including NCAA Basketball and USA Fencing
• Only selected hospitals have Covid 19 tests
• Groceries and supplies in the USA seem to be very widely available. There are nationwide shortages of very few items, face masks are 1 of those items.

It should be noted the POPE/VATICAN have cancelled gatherings:

The Holy See press office just released the following statement (translated from Italian):

"With regard to the events of the coming days, the prayer of the Angelus of the Holy Father on Sunday 8 March will take place from the Library of the Apostolic Palace and not in the square, from the window. The prayer will be streamed live by Vatican News and on screens in St. Peter's Square and distributed by Vatican Media to the media who will request it, so as to allow the participation of the faithful. The General Audience on Wednesday, March 11 will be held in the same manner. These choices are necessary in order to avoid the risk of diffusion of the COVID-19 due to the gathering during the security controls for access to the square, as also requested by the Italian authorities. In compliance with the provisions of the Health and Hygiene Directorate of the Vatican City State, the participation of the faithful guests in the Masses in Santa Marta will be suspended until Sunday 15 March. The Holy Father will celebrate the Eucharist privately."​

So based on the FLU vs the COVID 19 graphs above I present this. Published in the CDC's U.S. Weekly Influenza Surveillance Report:

The number of people who have died from seasonal influenza so far has now reached 20,000, including 136 influenza-associated deaths in children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported as of February 29.

This is up from 18,000 just a week ago.

“This number [of children] is higher for the same time period than in every season since reporting began in 2004-05, except for the 2009 pandemic,” the CDC reported.

As the world gears up to battle the coronavirus, which has killed more than 3,460 worldwide, including 13 deaths in the United States in the state of Washington, the CDC is engaged in its usual battle to inform people about influenza and its dangers:

... The best way to prevent flu is by getting vaccinated each year.

“CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 34 million flu illnesses, 350,000 hospitalizations and 20,000 deaths from flu,” the CDC’s Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report said.

So the Flu has put 360,000 AMERICANS in the hospital so far this season. Give it the benefit of the doubt and assume before the season ends we see an additional 100,000 go into hospital beds for the seasonal flu. That would put 450,000 US citizens in the hospital this season for the seasonal flu.

No putting that into perspective with Covid 19.

360 Million Americans, 40% of those get the Covid 19 = 145 Million with Covid 19. It should be noted that Harvard virus researcher are suggesting 40-60% of Americans will get this, and a WHO infectious disease doctor suggested 40-70% is reasonable. So I'm using the LOWEST number from both. Data suggests 15% of the sick will end up in the hospital. That puts somewhere around 22,000,000 US citizens in the hospital for the Covid-19 virus. The scales of this is nearly incomprehensible.

The goal of the CDC and the WHO is to SLOW DOWN disease so several things can be accomplished.

1. 1) develop treatments to reduce the severity so fewer go into the hospital
2. 2) develop vaccines so some % of the population can avoid getting Covid 19
3. 3) slowing the progression also allows for some people to recover before others get sick so the load on the hospital system is spread over a longer timeline with less of a crushing load

 

[m1west]

....
So based on the FLU vs the COVID 19 graphs above I present this. Published in the CDC's U.S. Weekly Influenza Surveillance Report:



So the Flu has put 360,000 AMERICANS in the hospital so far this season. Give it the benefit of the doubt and assume before the season ends we see an additional 100,000 go into hospital beds for the seasonal flu. That would put 450,000 US citizens in the hospital this season for the seasonal flu.

No putting that into perspective with Covid 19.

360 Million Americans, 40% of those get the Covid 19 = 145 Million with Covid 19. It should be noted that Harvard virus researcher are suggesting 40-60% of Americans will get this, and a WHO infectious disease doctor suggested 40-70% is reasonable. So I'm using the LOWEST number from both. Data suggests 15% of the sick will end up in the hospital. That puts somewhere around 22,000,000 US citizens in the hospital for the Covid-19 virus. The scales of this is nearly incomprehensible.

The goal of the CDC and the WHO is to SLOW DOWN disease so several things can be accomplished.

1. 1) develop treatments to reduce the severity so fewer go into the hospital
2. 2) develop vaccines so some % of the population can avoid getting Covid 19
3. 3) slowing the progression also allows for some people to recover before others get sick so the load on the hospital system is spread over a longer timeline with less of a crushing load

So Its not so much the mortality rate, its the high rate of transmission even with a fraction that will need a hospital bed it will overwhelm the system to the point where some people will not get treatment and sent home like in Wuhan.

 

[Melensdad]

And then there is this:

https://www.cbssports.com/college-b...nt-games-at-johns-hopkins-due-to-coronavirus/


While much is still unknown about the virus, a group of Australian experts have estimated that the virus may have severe consequences on global gross domestic product.

New modeling from The Australian National University looks at seven scenarios of how the outbreak might affect the world's wealth, ranging from low severity to high severity.

In the low-severity model — or best-case scenario of the seven — ANU researchers estimate a global GDP loss of $2.4 trillion, with an estimated death toll of 15 million.

Johns Hopkins University is banning spectators from the NCAA Basketball Tournament they are holding on their campus. Players will play their games in empty arenas.

https://www.cbssports.com/college-b...nt-games-at-johns-hopkins-due-to-coronavirus/

So without posting the story, just think about the economic ramifications from this. How much POPCORN, soda, beer, hotdogs and giant pretzels won't be sold. How many food service employees just lost their jobs?

How many T-Shirt, team jersey and souvenir trinkets won't be sold? And the people who rely on making those things and selling those things for jobs who won't get paid.

How many hotel bookings just got cancelled? How many hospitality workers will be sent home because the hotels are nearly empty? How many restaurants that rely on the throngs of fans to fill their tables won't be serving meals? Safe to say that tens of millions of dollars will not make it to the Baltimore economy because of this announcement.

Again, look at the ripple effect to the economy. I know of 3 major conventions that cancelled in Chicago just this week alone.

USA Fencing sent out notices yesterday that March through July events, currently scheduled, will take place as planned ... but they reserve the right to cancel or modify the plans based on the Covid 19 updates. A typical national level event will draw 2000-3000 competitors, plus parents, coaches, etc. So even a small event will bring 10,000 people to a mid-sized city's convention center. While a big event can bring upwards of 40-50,000 people into town. And NCAA Basketball tournaments dwarf the size of fencing events.

 

[Bannedjoe]

Not sure how to approach or battle this.
I think if I have to go out in public, I'll just taze anyone that gets within 10 feet of me.

 

[Melensdad]

From a presentation to the American Hospital Association:

Maybe just a 1/2 Million deaths? Almost 5 Million in the hospital? 96 Million infected. Certainly a better scenario than the low estimate of 40% infected. Certainly a much lower estimate than the Australians scenario.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...FFuwed0LCM3GkgXAYecANpxoGyACH1bZYKWYlG1RiNh60

• Almost half a million (480,000) Americans are expected to die from coronavirus
• 4.8 million will be hospitalized and 96 million infected
• Figures come from leaked slides from a presentation by Dr. James Lawler, a University of Nebraska Medical Center professor and hosted by AHA
• They show the spread of the deadly disease could be far worse than officials claim, with the crisis 10 times greater than a severe flu season
• The shock figures fly in the face of claims made by President Trump who has maintained on many occasions that the risk to Americans is 'low'
• Lawler estimated people with heart conditions have a one in 10 chance of dying from the disease, compared to less than one in a 100 among healthy individuals
• Trump signed a spending bill to allocate $8.3 billion to tackle the crisis Friday
• US has around 300 cases and 17 confirmed deaths, after Florida confirmed its first two deaths Friday

 

[Melensdad]

Warning this is some seriously scary number crunching here. Not trying to spread fear around, but rather just pointing out that this could get really ugly for people who are in the high risk categories. Oh, and don't look at the graphic at the bottom either, it compares the seasonal 2019 Flu to the Covid-19.

But this graphic from the American Hospital Association is enlightening.

Below, is a projection that uses simple exponential modeling, with the experiences from Italy as the basis for the numbers.

The lady who did this is a Biologist/PHD who is not a modeling expert. She is a food expert working at a food company and just worked out the math. But it is not a heck of a lot different than some of the other things we've seen. Just sort of breaks it down into steps.

https://twitter.com/LizSpecht/status/1236152102310653952

• I think most people aren’t aware of the risk of systemic healthcare failure due to #COVID19 because they simply haven’t run the numbers yet. Let’s talk math.
• Let’s conservatively assume that there are 2,000 current cases in the US today, March 6th. This is about 8x the number of confirmed (lab-diagnosed) cases. We know there is substantial under-Dx due to lack of test kits; I’ll address implications later of under-/over-estimate.
• We can expect that we’ll continue to see a doubling of cases every 6 days (this is a typical doubling time across several epidemiological studies). Here I mean *actual* cases. Confirmed cases may appear to rise faster in the short term due to new test kit rollouts.
• We’re looking at about 1M US cases by the end of April, 2M by ~May 5, 4M by ~May 11, and so on. Exponentials are hard to grasp, but this is how they go.
• As the healthcare system begins to saturate under this case load, it will become increasingly hard to detect, track, and contain new transmission chains. In absence of extreme interventions, this likely won’t slow significantly until hitting >>1% of susceptible population.
• What does a case load of this size mean for healthcare system? We’ll examine just two factors — hospital beds and masks — among many, many other things that will be impacted.
• The US has about 2.8 hospital beds per 1000 people. With a population of 330M, this is ~1M beds. At any given time, 65% of those beds are already occupied. That leaves about 330k beds available nationwide (perhaps a bit fewer this time of year with regular flu season, etc).
• Let’s trust Italy’s numbers and assume that about 10% of cases are serious enough to require hospitalization. (Keep in mind that for many patients, hospitalization lasts for *weeks* — in other words, turnover will be *very* slow as beds fill with COVID19 patients).
• By this estimate, by about May 8th, all open hospital beds in the US will be filled. (This says nothing, of course, about whether these beds are suitable for isolation of patients with a highly infectious virus.)
• If we’re wrong by a factor of two regarding the fraction of severe cases, that only changes the timeline of bed saturation by 6 days in either direction. If 20% of cases require hospitalization, we run out of beds by ~May 2nd.
• If only 5% of cases require it, we can make it until ~May 14th. 2.5% gets us to May 20th. This, of course, assumes that there is no uptick in demand for beds from *other* (non-COVID19) causes, which seems like a dubious assumption.
• As healthcare system becomes increasingly burdened, Rx shortages, etc, people w/ chronic conditions that are normally well-managed may find themselves slipping into severe states of medical distress requiring intensive care & hospitalization. But let’s ignore that for now.
• Alright, so that’s beds. Now masks. Feds say we have a national stockpile of 12M N95 masks and 30M surgical masks (which are not ideal, but better than nothing).
• There are about 18M healthcare workers in the US. Let’s assume only 6M HCW are working on any given day. (This is likely an underestimate as most people work most days of the week, but again, I’m playing conservative at every turn.)
• As COVID19 cases saturate virtually every state and county, which seems likely to happen any day now, it will soon be irresponsible for all HCWs to not wear a mask. These HCWs would burn through N95 stockpile in 2 days if each HCW only got ONE mask per day.
• One per day would be neither sanitary nor pragmatic, though this is indeed what we saw in Wuhan, with HCWs collapsing on their shift from dehydration because they were trying to avoid changing their PPE suits as they cannot be reused.
• How quickly could we ramp up production of new masks? Not very fast at all. The vast majority are manufactured overseas, almost all in China. Even when manufactured here in US, the raw materials are predominantly from overseas... again, predominantly from China.
• Keep in mind that all countries globally will be going through the exact same crises and shortages simultaneously. We can’t force trade in our favor.
• Now consider how these 2 factors – bed and mask shortages – compound each other’s severity. Full hospitals + few masks + HCWs running around between beds without proper PPE = very bad mix.
• HCWs are already getting infected even w/ access to full PPE. In the face of PPE limitations this severe, it’s only a matter of time. HCWs will start dropping from the workforce for weeks at a time, leading to a shortage of HCWs that then further compounds both issues above.
• We could go on and on about thousands of factors – # of ventilators, or even simple things like saline drip bags. You see where this is going.
• Importantly, I cannot stress this enough: even if I’m wrong – even VERY wrong – about core assumptions like % of severe cases or current case #, it only changes the timeline by days or weeks. This is how exponential growth in an immunologically naïve population works.
• Undeserved panic does no one any good. But neither does ill-informed complacency. It’s wrong to assuage the public by saying “only 2% will die.” People aren’t adequately grasping the national and global systemic burden wrought by this swift-moving of a disease.
• I’m an engineer. This is what my mind does all day: I run back-of-the-envelope calculations to try to estimate order-of-magnitude impacts. I’ve been on high alarm about this disease since ~Jan 19 after reading clinical indicators in the first papers emerging from Wuhan.
• Nothing in the last 6 weeks has dampened my alarm in the slightest. To the contrary, we’re seeing abject refusal of many countries to adequately respond or prepare. Of course some of these estimates will be wrong, even substantially wrong.
• But I have no reason to think they’ll be orders-of-magnitude wrong. Even if your personal risk of death is very, very low, don’t mock decisions like canceling events or closing workplaces as undue “panic”.
• These measures are the bare minimum we should be doing to try to shift the peak – to slow the rise in cases so that healthcare systems are less overwhelmed. Each day that we can delay an extra case is a big win for the HC system.
• And yes, you really should prepare to buckle down for a bit. All services and supply chains will be impacted. Why risk the stress of being ill-prepared?
• Worst case, I’m massively wrong and you now have a huge bag of rice and black beans to burn through over the next few months and enough Robitussin to trip out.
• One more thought: you’ve probably seen multiple respected epidemiologists have estimated that 20-70% of world will be infected within the next year. If you use 6-day doubling rate I mentioned above, we land at ~2-6 billion infected by sometime in July of this year.
• Obviously I think the doubling time will start to slow once a sizeable fraction of the population has been infected, simply because of herd immunity and a smaller susceptible population.
• But take the scenarios above (full beds, no PPE, etc, at just 1% of the US population infected) and stretch them out over just a couple extra months.
• That timeline roughly fits with consensus end-game numbers from these highly esteemed epidemiologists. Again, we’re talking about discrepancies of mere days or weeks one direction or another, but not disagreements in the overall magnitude of the challenge.
• This is not some hypothetical, fear-mongering, worst-case scenario. This is reality, as far as anyone can tell with the current available data.
• That’s all for now. Standard disclaimers apply: I’m a PhD biologist but *not* an epidemiologist. Thoughts my own. Yadda yadda. Stay safe out there. /end

May also want to take a look at this, agains some more seriously scary numbers:

https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1236097553520660483

 

[mla2ofus]

Maybe I'm overly optimistic but in about 3 wks I'll be 73, recovering smoker, didn't get a flu shot, caught and recovered from the flu with only over the counter medication(EmergenC).So I may be mistakenly thinking my immune system is about as strong as possible at this point in time, so if the virus makes it's way into our little podunk town I guess I'll just have to depend on my wellbeing and lady luck!!
Mike

 

[NorthernRedneck]

Our diocese for our church issued a response to the Corona virus.

-we do a common communion cup where everyone takes a sip of wine from the cup. It's wiped in between each person. They're still doing it but it's optional to drink from it.

-during the peace, no more shaking hands. Instead we can look at the person and just say the peace.

-the minister will no longer be shaking hands with anyone following the service.

All this is precautionary as we have many older people who attend.

 

[Melensdad]

Our church is still doing the shaking of hands for the sign of peace, technically it has always been optional. I suspect our priest will be saying something, he mentioned last Sunday that people who are sick with anything should refrain.

We also do the communal cup for wine.

On a different subject, the Centers for Disease Control said older & high risk people should stock up on supplies and stay at home: CDC says "older" and "high risk" people should stock up and stay home.

LINK ==> https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/specific-groups/high-risk-complications.html

 

[m1west]

Warning this is some seriously scary number crunching here. Not trying to spread fear around, but rather just pointing out that this could get really ugly for people who are in the high risk categories. Oh, and don't look at the graphic at the bottom either, it compares the seasonal 2019 Flu to the Covid-19.

....

May also want to take a look at this, agains some more seriously scary numbers:

https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1236097553520660483

Now it even gets better, WHO is now saying that it has mutated or there is 2 different strains. Im looking for more information but could explain why some get it bad and some don't.

 

[Lyndon]

150000 people die every day on this planet, 56 million a year. Worrying about a problem won't help. It also won't solve the problem. If you can do something about it, do that. By propagating a scare one becomes part of the problem.Eat good and Exercise, you'll be fine

 

[m1west]

150000 people die every day on this planet, 56 million a year. Worrying about a problem won't help. It also won't solve the problem. If you can do something about it, do that. By propagating a scare one becomes part of the problem.Eat good and Exercise, you'll be fine

Sharing information with others that may help them IS doing something about it.

 

[Melensdad]

Sharing information with others that may help them IS doing something about it.

Agreed.

Nothing here is posted to scare. All is posted to inform and share information. We are all in different areas. All in different stages of life. Of different faiths. Of different political beliefs. But all in the same lifeboat.

 

[waybomb]

Seasonal flu kills 300,000 to 600,000 worldwide every year.


This thing is blown way out of proportion.


The shorts on wall street took advantage of bad news and made it way worse.

 

[m1west]

Seasonal flu kills 300,000 to 600,000 worldwide every year.


This thing is blown way out of proportion.


The shorts on wall street took advantage of bad news and made it way worse.

I thing the problem is going to be where the transmission rate is much higher than the Flu. So even if a small percent get it in a bad way it will still overwhelm the system and people could be turned away just like in China. When that happens it will create a panic.

 

[tiredretired]

I'm of the opinion this is over blown. In the end we will find this will be only marginally worse than the regular flu.

Thousand upon thousands of people are dying of the regular flu every week and no one give a shit. One person contracts COVID19 and it is the lead story in the news.

I am doing the exact same thing I do during peak regular flu season:

1. Stop eating out.
2. Run errands early in the day.
3. Wash hands frequently and try not to touch your face.
4. Be stocked and prepared to stay at home if a infectious wave rolls through the community.
5. Be prepared to kiss your ass goodbye. :th_lmao: