Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

[FunkyDexter]

You certainly do ned to scale for population and it amazes me that people seem to miss that (I suspect it's often wilfully missed). Though I will say that only scaling for population is also woefully inadequate if you're trying to judge the effectiveness of a nations response. There are too many other factors at play. Not just size population but density of population, age of population, wealth of population, even gender and ethnicity of population. Then you've got to consider when the virus arrived in the country, ease of travel in the country pre-virus, a bunch of cultural factors... the list of things that can come into play is endless and I'm honestly left thinking that national comparisons of statistics are largely just a stick to beat each other with. That said we're currently running worst in Europe so yay for us.

I think you can see whether a nation's failing without needing to look at the stats. The US is failing. Sorry, it just is. And I find Trump's continuing politicisation of this disgusting. The UK's failing too. We still haven't got the PPE we need, the Turkish shipment turned up late and, when it did, it turns out half the contents didn't meet standards so can't be used. We almost met our testing target... for one day. And now we're saying that the problem is that we have the supply but there's not enough demand. Really? Because I don't know a single person in this country who wouldn't have a test tomorrow if they could. The problem is not the demand, it's the logistics of allocating the supply we have.

[wes4dbt]

Yeah, I just noticed today that the UK was leading Europe in deaths. But the US is leading the world, by a wide margin. I still think the numbers from various countries are being manipulated for political reasons and also by the fact they are just not testing.

Now if you want to scale for population, since the US has @ 5-6x the population of the UK, Spain, Italy.... then the US is doing a great job. But the shear size of the US, 15, 20 and even 30x of European countries has to be considered. New York alone has about the same amount of deaths as Spain, 26,000+, so really, population density is a much bigger factor than just population.

[TysonLPrice]

Yeah, I just noticed today that the UK was leading Europe in deaths. But the US is leading the world, by a wide margin. I still think the numbers from various countries are being manipulated for political reasons and also by the fact they are just not testing.

Now if you want to scale for population, since the US has @ 6x the population of the UK, Spain, Italy.... then the US is doing a great job. But the shear size of the US, 15, 20 and even 30x of European countries has to be considered. New York alone has about the same amount of deaths as Spain, 26,000+, so really, population density is a much bigger factor than just population.

I think the whole count is also being skewed by deaths at home that aren't diagnosed as the virus. Elderly in areas that would just would just chalk it up to a flu/cold/whatever to old age and getting sick. The death count due to the virus, in my opinion, may be greater by a magnitude or so.

[wes4dbt]

Russia has some clumsy doctors, they keep falling out of windows.

https://www.vox.com/2020/5/6/2124855...-windows-death

[dilettante]

In NY 66% of hospitalizations were of people who stayed at home.



It has been funny watching vested interests trying to explain the findings away, but many serious professionals have been reduced to muttering and wondering what is going on.

All we can do is await more explanation, but it seems clear things are not quite as the "given wisdom" has said.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I don't see why that's shocking. Based on the categories shown, that doesn't seem surprising at all. After all, if I got COVID today, I would fall into that category. I certainly DO stay at home...most of the time. However, I do go out to get food roughly once a week. If the virus is circulating widely, then the only times that I do go out, I will tend to be going to places with larger circulations of people (grocery stores). So, it's not like I'm taking random trips out of the house where I have a random chance of interacting with a person, and a random chance of encountering somebody who carries the virus. It seems like I'd be more likely, simply because everybody has to eat, at least occasionally.

[dilettante]

I haven't been in a store of any kind since March 17th, but I watched this coming and started stocking up a little at a time since January. I admit that option only has another week or two left though, so I've been looking into the shop online for pickup or delivery options.

The study suggests to me that "shelter at home" might offer little or no real protection though. It may even cast doubt on the common sense idea that hand washing and masks are doing any good.

I won't suggest that people should abandon any of those things, but it does make me want to know more. Not everyone is in a financial position like mine and unemployment is really hurting a lot of families.

[FunkyDexter]

If everyone (or the vast majority of people) is staying at home due to lockdowns, then having the majority of cases coming from people who are staying at home is exactly what you'd expect. It doesn't imply in any way that having everyone staying at home isn't supressing the overall infection rate.

[wes4dbt]

Yeah, I've got family that are hurting financially because of the shut down. I'm glad our state moved quickly because the case loads could have been overwhelming. But in my area the results have been surprising to me. Hospital cases have been low, that's good. But my son works at a grocery store and not one employee has been infected. At the grocery store I shop the most they don't even wear masks (I do) and all the regulars clerks are there. Just lucky, maybe. I don't doubt how infectious the virus is and if one person in the store gets it then it will spread. Just look at the meat plants. But the study Cuomo was talking about seems to show that people are bringing the virus home or spreading it when they visit. So unless your a hermit then your at risk. I'm starting to lean more to the reopening faster agenda. If we had more testing capacity I definitely would say reopen. A lot of people are suffering, getting buried in debt, businesses going bankrupt from the closures. Hell we're all just guessing, I'll continue to wear my mask and see what happens.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

It doesn't imply in any way that having everyone staying at home isn't supressing the overall infection rate.

Damn right it doesnt

The study suggests to me that "shelter at home" might offer little or no real protection though. It may even cast doubt on the common sense idea that hand washing and masks are doing any good.

I find it difficult to understand why anyone would believe that staying away from other people would NOT offer protection. Clearly if you dont come into contact with other people that may have the virus then you are much less likely to contract the virus.

[wes4dbt]

If everyone (or the vast majority of people) is staying at home due to lockdowns, then having the majority of cases coming from people who are staying at home is exactly what you'd expect. It doesn't imply in any way that having everyone staying at home isn't supressing the overall infection rate.

In the US I wouldn't say the VAST majority of people are staying home. It was a small study but it does seem to raise the question, why do essential workers have a lower rate of infection than people who stay at home. Maybe having families confined inside a house results in everyone getting infected if one of the family gets infected. It's just food for thought.

[FunkyDexter]

So the way I read your logic is:-

When People are confined in close proximity they're more likely to spread the virus to each other
The virus is most likely to be introduced to such a group when a member goes out and returns
Lots of people aren't fully locking down, meaning they are exiting and returning at an unnecessary frequency
The solution is to increase the frequency at which people exit and return

I agree with all your arguments but not your conclusion.

I too really want this lockdown to lift. I'm currently losing nearly £2000 a month as a result of this and I'm not rich. I also live in a part of the country that is minimally infected so it feels like the risk is minimal. But this has killed 30, 000 people in the UK so far and the cost of lifting the lockdown measures prematurely could make that far, FAR worse.

If we had more testing capacity...

I think that's the key, right there.

[wes4dbt]

The solution is to increase the frequency at which people exit and return

Where did I say I had a solution?

the cost of lifting the lockdown measures prematurely could make that far, FAR worse.

It definitely could. Sorry your losing money but you haven't mentioned having to go hungry or being behind on all of your bills, so staying home is manageable. I wish we had proof of what's the best course of action. I'm going to keep limiting my exposure because of my age and it doesn't really have any negative effect on my life.

[FunkyDexter]

Where did I say I had a solution?

In so far as we're all proposing solutions. I didn't mean to imply that you were claiming you had a definitive or proven one, you clearly weren't claiming that. I just disagree with the proposed solution you said you were leaning to based on the argument you were making.

[wes4dbt]

In so far as we're all proposing solutions. I didn't mean to imply that you were claiming you had a definitive or proven one, you clearly weren't claiming that. I just disagree with the proposed solution you said you were leaning to based on the argument you were making.

To be honest I'm not trying to make any argument. I'm just trying to make sense of what's going on. I've been very strong on the stay at home method but then some study comes along like the one Cuomo was referencing and it muddies the waters. It doesn't make sense that essential workers have such a low infection rate. Like I said before, we're all just guessing. I'm for error on the side of safety but at the same time I know there are a tremendous amount of people who are really starting to hurt. Given the choice, my guess is these people would rather risk the virus than see their family suffer or lose everything they've built over the years. The fact they could infect someone else is a secondary issue to them. I'm glad I'm not in that position and I don't have to make that choice.

[si_the_geek]

In terms of essential workers having a low infection rate in that case, I suspect it is because those essential workers are similar to the ones here... they have gloves and masks (and the option of washing their hands etc), whereas the members of the public generally don't bother.

I can see a shop from my window, and while the staff all have protective equipment there are lots of customers who have nothing and aren't being careful enough. This afternoon I saw several people walk up to their friends in the que and have a quick hug and chat before walking away; not the safest idea, but as long as they don't start hugging me (or many of their friends) it's their life. I'll keep using gloves and mask when I go out!

[techgnome]

To be honest I'm not trying to make any argument. I'm just trying to make sense of what's going on. I've been very strong on the stay at home method but then some study comes along like the one Cuomo was referencing and it muddies the waters. It doesn't make sense that essential workers have such a low infection rate. Like I said before, we're all just guessing. I'm for error on the side of safety but at the same time I know there are a tremendous amount of people who are really starting to hurt. Given the choice, my guess is these people would rather risk the virus than see their family suffer or lose everything they've built over the years. The fact they could infect someone else is a secondary issue to them. I'm glad I'm not in that position and I don't have to make that choice.

There's a lot of nuances that some of these very localized "reports" are showing... Cuomo holds up something... that just represents his area... it isn't representative of everything... it probably falls apart as soon as you cross state lines. One thing that hasto be taken into consideration is what's an essential worker. If you look at nurses and healtcare workers... well then, yes, it makes total sense. They are the ones taking the extra precautions to make sure they aren't getting infected. Many of them don't really go home... they go either to hotel or to some other "living" station - I've seen photos of one worker who converted the back of their station wagon into sleeping quarters - just so they don't have to worry about infecting their family. So... it does make sense... if you think it through. If you look beyond the numbers. And that's the problem with all these "studies" ... they have to be taken with a grain of salt... you have to look past the numbers and think about the why. Why is that number the way it is. Because the numbers are lying to us. And that's going to bite us in the arse here shortly. We're going to pay the price for it big time. I worry that the bounce is going to be worse than the bounce from the Spanish Flu 100 years ago.

-tg

[wes4dbt]

Essential workers aren't that well protected, at least not around here. My daughter is a critical care nurse, they have been trying to limit them to one gown and mask per 12 hour shift. When your working with a contagious patient your suppose to throw the gown and mask away everytime you leave the room. My son works in a grocery store, they were given one mask and told to put it in a plastic bag after each shift and reuse it until it was hard to breathe or got a hole. The grocery store I shop at, they don't even wear masks.

I agree that the report Cuomo was talking about can't be given a too much significance but it shouldn't just be dismissed either. One of the things about the report that should be considered is it is not about infection percentages, it's about hospitalization percentages. And the large majority of them were 50+. retired or unemployed. So those numbers make a little more sense. Still I am amazed that no one where my son works has been infected(of course no has been tested so....), I'm glad for him and me because he is living with me for a while. It's a little scary. lol

[FunkyDexter]

Hats off to both your son and daughter. You're daughter in particular. Health Care workers are getting hammered over here at the moment and I imagine it's the same over there. But your son too. I don't see shop workers being particularly well looked after at the moment.

The picture you describe isn't that different to over here. Proper PPE is tight for the medical community (we seem to have done OK in hospitals, eventually, but we've really let those in care homes down) and it's pretty much non-existent for shop workers. Where it exists for shop workers it's improvised - e.g. bike masks rather than medical face masks.

I don't see where that video says that key workers are suffering more than anyone else though. In fact, at 2:17 he says exactly the opposite. Medical care workers aren't being hit.

The conclusion of that video, really, is given at 2:54. They believe people aren't actually taking the personal measures they should be. They're not staying home (even if they say they are), they're not using masks (though most of the evidence I've seen is that the improvised masks probably make this worse and we probably ought to be leaving the medical ones for the health workers) and not using hand sanitizer.

Given the choice, my guess is these people would rather risk the virus than see their family suffer or lose everything they've built over the years.

Given the choice I suspect you're right but that's because people respond to the threat they can see and are very short-termist. People can see their bank balance dropping into debt but they don't see the deaths this is causing because they happen behind closed doors in hospitals and unless someone they are actually close to dies the whole thing can be looked at in the abstract. That's why, in this case and contrary to our usual instincts, we should not be given the choice.

[dilettante]

The conclusion of that video, really, is given at 2:54. They believe people aren't actually taking the personal measures they should be.

No, at 2:54 he resorts to scare and spin to try to pump hot air into a deflated narrative. The important question is how and why this narrative has been a failure, at least within the limits of a study on those 1000 cases.

At least he was honest enough to present the facts after his experts failed to explain them away after trying very hard for two weeks. The study seems to suggest that following the neoliberal authoritarian guidelines is actually a risk factor and a significant one. Personally I believe that reads too much into the study but it does raise important questions. We need far more information.

Trying to turn on inconvenient truth on its head and claim that it somehow proves its opposite is silly. Sure feels like one more "faux left" religious argument that denies the science.

[dilettante]

Obviously people don't acquire the disease through public water, windblown entry into homes, or spontaneous generation.

What I think the study suggests is simply that the lockdowns don't seem to be effective. You can say people are cheating, you can say they aren't being vigilant enough. Yet nothing reported on the study supports that.

Why they have failed we just don't know yet.

[FunkyDexter]

The study seems to suggest that following the neoliberal authoritarian guidelines is actually a risk factor and a significant one.

No it doesn't (unless there's data in it that wasn't included in that video). What it says is that 66% of hospitalisations have come from people who are "staying at home". At a time when I imagine that a much greater percentage than that are "staying at home".

[Shaggy Hiker]

Yeah, I didn't see it as suggesting that staying at home was a risk factor. I also didn't see how they assigned people to the different categories. Some categories are pretty obvious, though that doesn't mean that I'm not misunderstanding how people were classified to those categories. However, staying home is something that they really need to explain better. How did they decide that people were in that category? How did they define the category? How did they ascertain that a person assigned to that category belonged in that category?

Frankly, I suspect that they used self reporting. If you asked me which of those categories I'd be in, I'd say "staying home", as that fit better than any other, but it's not really true. I've been out at least once a week since the lockdown began. I think my average may be as high as twice a week, though not by much. If that's what they mean by "staying home", then the category is meaningless. If the category includes people like me, then the category is meaningless.

Of course, I'm in an area that has a pretty low detection rate to begin with. It's not New York City. Probably a safe enough strategy for me, at this time.


However, people should remember that the first wave of the Spanish flu was not the most deadly one. Until we see what happens next fall, we don't really know.

[dilettante]

Divergent opinion?

[FunkyDexter]

You really are heading down a conspiracy theorist's rabbit hole. If you're expecting anyone to take you're opinion seriously, maybe stop relying on a self declared conspiracy theorist and, now, a nut bar survivalist who writes stories about the "spirit forest". I've given you credit, watched your links and even fact checked some of your posts for you. There is literally zero substance in any of it.

But, yeah, global liberal conspiracy FTW.

[wes4dbt]

My biggest concern (for myself) is, since there is no vaccine or drugs that mitigate the possibility of dying, even if we stay at home for another 2 months until we have low levels of new cases, the virus is still there. So does it mean the same amount of people will be infected and die but it will just take longer to happen.

[FunkyDexter]

I think that's a very real concern. In the short term the lockdown isn't about eliminating the virus, it's about slowing the rate of infection so that the health services aren't overwhelmed. Your chances of surviving getting infected are way worse if your health service is overwhelmed when it happens.

But that does leave the question of what happens in the longer term if a vaccine cannot be developed or if this virus is not susceptible to antibody immunity. If both of those prove correct then, yes, the same number of people would die, just over a longer period (well, somewhat fewer as people will have a better chance of survival if health services aren't overwhelmed but I don't think that's central to your argument). However, the credible scientific community is working on the principle that neither of those is true.

We don't know that we will be able to build up immunity to this virus but the number of viruses that we don't is diminishingly small. If it wasn't we'd all be dead by now because you come into contact with hundreds of viruses every single day.

And we don't know that we will be able to develop a vaccine for it. But we were within a hairs breadth of developing one for Sars (also a Corona Virus, COVID 2 I think) before it disappeared. All that research is still there and currently being resurrected so the scientific community is very optimistic about that.

[wes4dbt]

Yeah, a lot more questions than answers. That unnerves me a little. I was one of those pain in the arse people who always asked lots of questions in school. It's just my nature, if I don't understand something, then I ask questions. Oh well, it gives us something to talk about while the world is on hold. I'm starting to have a hard time remembering what day of the week it is.

[dreammanor]

Deleted ...

[dilettante]

When did Cuomo become a "self declared conspiracy theorist?" Where did I say I agreed with that survivalist guy?

There seems to be a lot of fear of both opinion and fact here. "Wrong thinking is punishable" around here now, hmm?

[dilettante]

Here's another voice to set your knees a-jerking:






Nutjobs? Maybe. Or might the reality be somewhere between the extreme points of view?

[dilettante]

BTW, I'm not saying I agree with either of those guys.

As I write this it even appears that S. Korea may be entering its second wave already and it sounds alarming.

I'm just asking questions, not offering advice. What is so wrong about an open mind?

[dilettante]

[FunkyDexter]

Jimmy Dore is the self declared conspiracy theorist

I'm just asking questions

Uh Huh... Think I mentioned that a while back

[dilettante]

Dr. Campbell suggests "No."

[dilettante]

Just to get your head spinning again:



Not true.

[Shaggy Hiker]

BTW, I'm not saying I agree with either of those guys.

As I write this it even appears that S. Korea may be entering its second wave already and it sounds alarming.

I'm just asking questions, not offering advice. What is so wrong about an open mind?

This makes me moderately optimistic, actually. What I was fearing was that the virus would go quiet for the summer, then come roaring back in the fall. If it never goes away, and we get small outbursts here and there, I feel it's more manageable. Furthermore, humans have a great tendency to declare victory (too early) and move on to the next adventure. We need more of a resolution, here, and we need to stick with it.

Sure, that's not much reason for optimism, but I think there are worse options. A long series of smaller waves is bigger than two tsunamis. I remember seeing a video about the Indonesian tsunami. The first wave topped the sea walls and flooded a ways inland, but did very little damage. People probably thought, "wow, that was bad, but we got through it." Then the second wave arrived a little while later, and scoured the land killing hundreds in the area of the video (many more overall, of course). There was a significant delay between the first and second wave. Had people kept running after the first wave, the death toll would have been far lower, but they didn't.

A lull can be bad. People might think it's over. We just don't know, yet. Heck, we don't know why SARS vanished.

Some corona viruses (MERS) seem to result in several years of immunity. Others seem to result in several days of immunity. We sure hope it's the former for COVID-19, but we just don't know yet.

[wes4dbt]

Well it looks like Boris thinks it's time for you guys to get back to sunbathing and working. lol

Seriously, I am curious what the response from the public will be. The daily new cases in the UK hasn't really went down very much. The US and UK have both been hit very hard and seem close to the same stage of fighting the virus so I think the response of the UK citizens will be a good indicator of how the US citizens fill about going back to work. Good luck.

[FunkyDexter]

Boris' message yesterday was a confusing mess. God knows what the rules are now, I don't have a clue. I'm not a fan of Piers Morgan (he's a dog-whistler extraordinaire) but watching him and Suzanna Reed tear the message apart this morning has been entertaining to say the least.

[PlausiblyDamp]

Boris' message yesterday was a confusing mess. God knows what the rules are now, I don't have a clue. I'm not a fan of Piers Morgan (he's a dog-whistler extraordinaire) but watching him and Suzanna Reed tear the message apart this morning has been entertaining to say the least.

I am not sure anyone has a clue what his message was. I think we need to go / not go to work and use public transport but socially distant public transport and only with members of our immediate household. Or something.

As far as I can tell Boris is simply too weak to make a decision, so he is effectively trying to agree with both sides on the keep / abandon the lockdown argument and not surprisingly it is a confusing message. At least here in Wales we are sticking with the "Stay Home" message, rather than the be alert for an invisible virus message.