Coronavirus

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clickie
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Re: Coronavirus

#381 Post by clickie » Fri Mar 27, 2020 3:38 pm

kv wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 3:00 pm
Jesus, the stupid in this thread today...

Just wait for it people....it's gonna happen before your stupid fucking eyes

If this kills 1% it's 10x worse then the flu...and they don't run outa beds with the flu...and the flu isn't gonna fuck the staff like this is...or the economy...just wait for that to take full effect so the dolts of the world can know what's already transpired....

Honestly kinda refreshing to see morons here....I've been seeing them riding bikes at the beach and crowding parks and gathering all over...figured we were lucky to not see so many here...but people are people...
You need to calm down my man

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kv
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Re: Coronavirus

#382 Post by kv » Fri Mar 27, 2020 3:52 pm

You need a coloring book and crayons...

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kv
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Re: Coronavirus

#383 Post by kv » Fri Mar 27, 2020 4:10 pm

Yes, please continue deleting your posts... :thumb:

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Hype
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Re: Coronavirus

#384 Post by Hype » Fri Mar 27, 2020 4:11 pm

Larry B. wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 1:44 pm
Yeah the mortality rate will fall when all is said done.
This phrase is a bit strange to me... it's like... "when people stop dying, we'll see that people aren't dying anymore."

About 3.5% of infected people will die. A huge percentage of infected people about 80 will die. If countries don't take reasonable measures and their health systems collapse, we might all end up knowing someone whose relative died from it.

I just don't think is worth it to risk it. I don't want to die, don't want my wife to die and wouldn't want to infect my nephews or parents.
3% of 40% of 7.5 billion is a way larger number than the number ‘3’ makes it seem. It’s 90 million people. Do you know how many people died in World War 2? 75 million people, over 6 years.

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Larry B.
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Re: Coronavirus

#385 Post by Larry B. » Fri Mar 27, 2020 4:28 pm

Of course. It’s awful. That’s my point.

I don’t think “panic” is needed, but your daily decisions are more about eventually surviving than the daily decisions you made 2 months ago, both for yourself and the people around you.

No need to panic, but it needs to be taken seriously. Because if something bad happens, you can’t go back.

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Re: Coronavirus

#386 Post by clickie » Fri Mar 27, 2020 4:32 pm

No one is taking this 6 foot social distanceing seriously

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kv
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Re: Coronavirus

#387 Post by kv » Fri Mar 27, 2020 4:45 pm

Larry B. wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 4:28 pm
Of course. It’s awful. That’s my point.

I don’t think “panic” is needed, but your daily decisions are more about eventually surviving than the daily decisions you made 2 months ago, both for yourself and the people around you.

No need to panic, but it needs to be taken seriously. Because if something bad happens, you can’t go back.
The panic is caused by the people who are being careless that can and will impact people I care about...if more people took it serious the "panic" would calm

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Juana
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Re: Coronavirus

#388 Post by Juana » Fri Mar 27, 2020 5:54 pm

kv wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 4:45 pm
Larry B. wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 4:28 pm
Of course. It’s awful. That’s my point.

I don’t think “panic” is needed, but your daily decisions are more about eventually surviving than the daily decisions you made 2 months ago, both for yourself and the people around you.

No need to panic, but it needs to be taken seriously. Because if something bad happens, you can’t go back.
The panic is caused by the people who are being careless that can and will impact people I care about...if more people took it serious the "panic" would calm
This right here... so many people are not realizing even if it doesn't kill you being sick for a month is no fun

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Re: Coronavirus

#389 Post by mockbee » Fri Mar 27, 2020 6:27 pm

I think everyone (meaning here) is dealing with this in their own way.....I think we have to forgive them for that - as long as they aren't directly putting others in danger.
This is weird times and stuff changes daily/hourly..... :noclue:

Nobody here is an official, and I assume we are all taking the quarantine seriously.............


I was at the store earlier this week and got extra "stuff" food/supplies so I wouldn't have to go back for the next three weeks. The checkout person was commenting the whole time how ridiculous people are being, buying all this stuff. I just kinda stared at him, slightly nodding....from about 6-7' away. There were 4-5 other checkers just gathered around the exit to the checkout gabbing back and forth. The checker kept yelling out "$350 HERE!!! That's a record!...Margot, what did you have earlier today?! $325?!?! We got $365 here now!!" I have no idea why there were doing that. People are dealing with this differently....... I got my stuff and got out of there, and was glad I made the decision I did, I don't want to go back to the store again for quite sometime. I have also stopped visiting my mom.

One bonus was during my trip to the store, they were of course cleaned out of TP, for the second/third week in a row, and I was okay about it, but would have to make due with something else in the next week or two if I didn't find any. Anyways....I was rounding a corner and stuffed behind the paper plates and picnic supplies was some package. I looked closer and was shocked, I thought it was a mirage, it was a 12 pack of toilet paper!!! I looked around to be sure nobody was claiming it, or saw it too. I grabbed it and put it on my cart...people kept came by and got close and asked where I got that?! Some people touching it.... :conf:

I ended up hiding the whole package under other stuff and trying to get the hell out of there.....people are weird.

I am not going out (outside of my jogs/bike rides/nature walks) for quite some time.....

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Re: Coronavirus

#390 Post by Hokahey » Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:10 pm

I'm taking everything VERY seriously. I'm barely leaving the house. I'm social distancing. I'm wiping everything down at grocery stores. I'm washing my hands frequently.

I also do not believe worst case models will be reality. And the numbers will prove that right. Watch.

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chaos
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Re: Coronavirus

#391 Post by chaos » Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:21 pm

mockbee wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 10:23 am

How is Boston doing?
Massachusetts has over 3200 cases, 35 deaths. Boston has over 600 cases and 150 of those are healthcare workers. Supplies are low and the Governor is frustrated since Massachusetts (as well as other states) keep getting outbid by the Federal Government for supplies/equipment.

The Governor issued an "advisory" stating that travelers entering Massachusetts are urged to self-quaratne for 14 days. It is posted on highway signs, and pamphlets are given to people at the airports, train and bus stations.

People seem to be taking it seriously.

Rhode Island, on the other hand, issued a self-quarantine "order" for people traveling to their state from New York. State Police are at their borders, and the National Guard is at the bus depots and train stations. I have no idea how her order will be enforced.
https://www.necn.com/news/local/ri-gov- ... e/2251198/

During her daily news conference, Raimondo said she will now be ordering anyone arriving in the state from New York to self-quarantine for 14 days in order to protect residents. Rhode Island State Police will be at the borders and will be stopping any vehicles with New York license plates, she said.

In addition, National Guard Troops will be stationed at bus depots and train stations to further implement the new policy. The purpose is to collect contact information.

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Re: Coronavirus

#392 Post by Hype » Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:56 pm

Sort of "good news" for B.C. that helps justify what we're all doing: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/ ... -patients/

They think that the social distancing measures have actually helped keep things at a manageable level. So, it works.

Bad news: it's not over. You have to keep doing it. But at least it means that hospitals can continue to function, with increased precautions.

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Re: Coronavirus

#393 Post by Hokahey » Fri Mar 27, 2020 8:01 pm

Hype wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:56 pm
Sort of "good news" for B.C. that helps justify what we're all doing: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/ ... -patients/

They think that the social distancing measures have actually helped keep things at a manageable level. So, it works.

Bad news: it's not over. You have to keep doing it. But at least it means that hospitals can continue to function, with increased precautions.
Wonderful news.

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Bandit72
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Re: Coronavirus

#394 Post by Bandit72 » Sat Mar 28, 2020 4:58 am

Just seeing the military are already in Johannesburg. 6 people in one shack ordered to stay in, isn’t happening. It could escalate massively in Africa.

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Re: Coronavirus

#395 Post by Matz » Sat Mar 28, 2020 4:58 am

That is good news about B.C, means it should work here too, although we don't see the effect yet. But we should soon. Unfortunately there are quite a few people here that are quite nonchalant about this, hope they haven't fucked things up too much

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Artemis
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Re: Coronavirus

#396 Post by Artemis » Sat Mar 28, 2020 5:07 am

Matz wrote:
Sat Mar 28, 2020 4:58 am
That is good news about B.C, means it should work here too, although we don't see the effect yet. But we should soon. Unfortunately there are quite a few people here that are quite nonchalant about this, hope they haven't fucked things up too much
I think Denmark is doing something right because the cases aren't increasing as rapidly as in other places. Canada was well behind Denmark in cases a week ago, now we are close to 5000 cases. I do realize the population is much smaller than Canada.

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Re: Coronavirus

#397 Post by Matz » Sat Mar 28, 2020 5:28 am

ok might be, but the name of the game o course is: How many are on a ventilator and how many ventilators are there, not really how many infected people there are. Denmark has 970 and as of today 104 people are on a ventilator so there's no panic yet, but if the number keeps climbing we're fucked.

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Re: Coronavirus

#398 Post by Larry B. » Sat Mar 28, 2020 6:24 am

I thought this video was good and could be interesting for some here. Very briefly, it proposes a graph that shows when measures are having a considerable effect in 'beating' the virus.



And here's a link to the graph itself: https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/

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chaos
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Re: Coronavirus

#399 Post by chaos » Sat Mar 28, 2020 10:32 am

NY, NJ, CT may be issued federally mandated quarantines. (Didn't know the Fed Gov could do that :hs: ) And the virus peak in NY may be in 14-21 days.

FYI: For those of you who do not have a subscription to the Washington Post site, they are providing stories on coronavirus for free. Below are two, short updates from them along with the links.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... etro-area/

Trump says he’s considering a two-week quarantine on the New York metro area

By Colby Itkowitz
March 28, 2020 at 12:56 p.m. EDT

President Trump said Saturday he may announce later in the day a federally-mandated quarantine on the New York metro region, placing “enforceable” travel restrictions on people planning to leave the New York tristate area because of the coronavirus outbreak.

“Some people would like to see New York quarantined because it’s a hot spot,” Trump told reporters outside the White House before departing for an event. “I’m thinking about that right now, we might not have to do it, but there’s a possibility that sometime today we’ll do a quarantine, short-term, two weeks, on New York. Probably New Jersey. Parts of Connecticut.”

Trump said he spoke with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) about it. Asked if the quarantine pertained to limiting travel out of those areas, Trump said it was and it would be enforceable.

“I’d rather not do it, but we might need it,” he said.

Cuomo, who was simultaneously giving a press briefing, said he had not spoken to Trump about a potential federal quarantine.

“I haven’t had those conversations,” Cuomo said when asked about Trump’s comments. “I don’t even know what that means.”


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... test-news/

Live updates: Trump says he is considering coronavirus quarantine on New York, parts of New Jersey and Connecticut

By Karla Adam, Brittany Shammas, Emily Rauhala, Kim Bellware and Lateshia Beachum
March 28, 2020 at 1:14 p.m. EDT

President Trump said Saturday he may announce later in the day a federally-mandated quarantine on the New York metro region, placing “enforceable” travel restrictions on people planning to leave the New York tri-state area because of the coronavirus outbreak.

The news comes as the United States has become the epicenter of the novel coronavirus pandemic, with more than 100,000 confirmed infections and nearly 1,600 deaths.

Here are some significant developments:

-The outbreak in New York — the hardest-hit state so far — will reach its apex in “14 to 21 days,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo anticipated. The surgeon general warned that Detroit, New Orleans and Chicago are becoming “hot spots.”

-More than 600,000 people have been infected and at least 28,000 have died worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University. Italy has been hit especially hard, with more than 9,000 deaths — most in the world. Italy has also surpassed China’s reported case total, with more than 86,000 infections as of Saturday.

-South Korea marked a new milestone, as more coronavirus patients have been discharged than those currently undergoing treatment.

-Following several days of back-and-forth criticism with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), President Trump granted her request for a disaster declaration, as well as one for Massachusetts.

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Re: Coronavirus

#400 Post by guysmiley » Sat Mar 28, 2020 11:42 am

so went everyone is contradicting everyone...It means no one knows whats going on. This is the truest thing you'll hear. Let's see how the system works. Ironically communist China might be the only ones to get through it.

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Re: Coronavirus

#401 Post by Bandit72 » Sat Mar 28, 2020 12:51 pm

A friend shared this earlier.
Hey everybody, as an infectious disease epidemiologist (although a lowly one), at this point feel morally obligated to provide some information on what we are seeing from a transmission dynamic perspective and how they apply to the social distancing measures. Like any good scientist I have noticed two things that are either not articulated or not present in the “literature” of social media. I am also tagging my much smarter infectious disease epidemiologist friends for peer review of this post. Please correct me if I am wrong (any edits are from peer review).

Specifically, I want to make two aspects of these measures very clear and unambiguous.

First, we are in the very infancy of this epidemic’s trajectory. That means even with these measures we will see cases and deaths continue to rise globally, nationally, and in our own communities in the coming weeks. This may lead some people to think that the social distancing measures are not working. They are. They may feel futile. They aren’t. You will feel discouraged. You should. This is normal in chaos. But this is also normal epidemic trajectory. Stay calm. This enemy that we are facing is very good at what it does; we are not failing. We need everyone to hold the line as the epidemic inevitably gets worse. This is not my opinion; this is the unforgiving math of epidemics for which I and my colleagues have dedicated our lives to understanding with great nuance, and this disease is no exception. I want to help the community brace for this impact. Stay strong and with solidarity knowing with absolute certainty that what you are doing is saving lives, even as people begin getting sick and dying. You may feel like giving in. Don’t.

Second, although social distancing measures have been (at least temporarily) well-received, there is an obvious-but-overlooked phenomenon when considering groups (i.e. families) in transmission dynamics. While social distancing decreases contact with members of society, it of course increases your contacts with group (i.e. family) members. This small and obvious fact has surprisingly profound implications on disease transmission dynamics. Study after study demonstrates that even if there is only a little bit of connection between groups (i.e. social dinners, playdates/playgrounds, etc.), the epidemic trajectory isn’t much different than if there was no measure in place. The same underlying fundamentals of disease transmission apply, and the result is that the community is left with all of the social and economic disruption but very little public health benefit. You should perceive your entire family to function as a single individual unit; if one person puts themselves at risk, everyone in the unit is at risk. Seemingly small social chains get large and complex with alarming speed. If your son visits his girlfriend, and you later sneak over for coffee with a neighbor, your neighbor is now connected to the infected office worker that your son’s girlfriend’s mother shook hands with. This sounds silly, it’s not. This is not a joke or a hypothetical. We as epidemiologists see it borne out in the data time and time again and no one listens. Conversely, any break in that chain breaks disease transmission along that chain.

In contrast to hand-washing and other personal measures, social distancing measures are not about individuals, they are about societies working in unison. These measures also take a long time to see the results. It is hard (even for me) to conceptualize how ‘one quick little get together’ can undermine the entire framework of a public health intervention, but it does. I promise you it does. I promise. I promise. I promise. You can’t cheat it. People are already itching to cheat on the social distancing precautions just a “little”- a playdate, a haircut, or picking up a needless item at the store, etc. From a transmission dynamics standpoint, this very quickly recreates a highly connected social network that undermines all of the work the community has done so far.

Until we get a viable vaccine this unprecedented outbreak will not be overcome in one grand, sweeping gesture, rather only by the collection of individual choices our community makes in the coming months. This virus is unforgiving to unwise choices. My goal in writing this is to prevent communities from getting ‘sucker-punched’ by what the epidemiological community knows will happen in the coming weeks. It will be easy to be drawn to the idea that what we are doing isn’t working and become paralyzed by fear, or to ‘cheat’ a little bit in the coming weeks. By knowing what to expect, and knowing the importance of maintaining these measures, my hope is to encourage continued community spirit, strategizing, and action to persevere in this time of uncertainty.

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Re: Coronavirus

#402 Post by chaos » Sat Mar 28, 2020 1:28 pm

https://www.yahoo.com/news/middle-u-bra ... 56898.html

Middle of U.S. Braces for Onslaught as Virus Moves Beyond Coasts
Julie Bosman
The New York Times March 28, 2020, 10:09 AM EDT

CHICAGO — A second wave of coronavirus cases is charting a path far from coastal Washington state, California, New York and New Jersey and threatening population centers in America’s middle. Emerging hot spots include smaller communities like Greenville, Mississippi, and Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and large cities like New Orleans, Milwaukee, Detroit and Chicago.

Local and state leaders find themselves struggling to deal with the deadly onslaught, urgently issuing guidance to residents and sounding the alarm over a dearth of equipment in local clinics and hospitals.

As the threat expands, the orders from state and local officials have sometimes been a chaotic, confusing patchwork. With mixed signals from the federal authorities in Washington, D.C., local leaders have wrestled with complicated medical and economic choices. Mayors and governors in Oklahoma, Massachusetts, South Carolina and Texas have clashed over which restrictions to impose on residents, dispensing contradictory instructions, even as their communities are being ravaged by the virus.

This week, cities and states that had no known cases of the coronavirus not long ago have seen the infection’s sudden, intense arrival. In Detroit, more than 850 cases have been identified and at least 15 people have died. In New Orleans, public health workers have identified more than 1,100 cases, including 57 people who have died. Eight deaths and nearly 400 cases have been reported in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. And in Chicago and its inner-ring suburbs, there have been nearly 2,000 cases, as of Friday morning.

“I look to New York to see what’s going on there, and I think it’s a cautionary tale for the rest of us,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, a Democrat, said in an interview Friday, a day when known cases in the United States rose above 100,000. “I look at New York and think, what do we do so that we are as prepared as possible as this begins to ramp up in a city like Chicago?”

A survey of cities conducted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors released Friday found that despite assurances by the federal government that adequate medical supplies are available, cities say the equipment they need is not reaching them.

Nearly every American city is lacking the most basic supplies. More than 90% of the nearly 200 cities that responded to the survey said that they did not have a sufficient supply of face masks, and nearly 90% lacked an adequate amount of personal protective equipment. Detroit said it needed 18,000 surgical masks. Dayton, Ohio, needed 200,000 N95 masks, 150,000 pairs of gloves and 100,000 digital thermometers.

Many local officials seeing a rise in cases have struggled to put in place robust restrictions that would help slow the spread of the outbreak. In Albany, Georgia, a city of 73,000 where there have been 16 deaths and more than 160 confirmed cases of the virus, Mayor Bo Dorough imposed a stay-at-home order, similar to those enacted in New York, Illinois and California. But other than Albany and one nearby county, no other jurisdiction in southwest Georgia has restricted people’s movements or ordered businesses deemed nonessential to close.

“It’s not a natural disaster that’s confined to a certain geographic place,” Dorough said. “The county lines don’t mean anything to the virus.”

In Mississippi, the state government had largely resisted calls to put in place regulations around the virus. That led to a jumble of regulations, as mayors in Oxford, Jackson and Tupelo closed bars and restaurants and established shelter orders not much different from the rules in Houston, New Orleans, New York, Boston or San Francisco.

“You can only go so far with leading from below,” said Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba of Jackson, the capital, which has more than 31 confirmed infections. “We need the state.”

In Utah, a standoff between Democratic government officials in Salt Lake City and the state’s Republican governor has heightened worries about the spread of the coronavirus in the state’s most densely populated region.

Erin Mendenhall, Salt Lake City’s mayor, said in an interview that she had drafted — but not yet issued — an emergency order instructing residents to remain in their homes. The order allows people to shop for groceries, pick up medications and exercise, among other activities.

But Mendenhall, a Democrat, said she had not invoked the order because Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican, had not issued a similar statewide order.

“For a city to do it alone, particularly a city that’s the center for regional activities and business, it doesn’t do as much good as it would if we act as a county or region or even as a state,” she said.

Many of the new cases and deaths have been concentrated in the Midwest’s largest cities.

Detroit has seen an explosion of coronavirus cases, with nearly 900 total — including the city’s police chief, James Craig — and at least 19 deaths. Residents have a hard time comprehending why so many people in their city have become ill, especially because they viewed state and city leaders as having taken aggressive actions early on, said Tonya Allen, the president and chief executive of the Skillman Foundation, a philanthropic organization that focuses on Detroit youth.

“I think we’re all surprised by how fast and hard it’s hitting in Detroit,” she said. “You can imagine why it would hit in some large cities on the coast. But why it’s moving so quickly in Detroit, we have no idea.”

The areas around Cleveland, St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri, have also seen spikes, leading officials to warn that medical facilities could be overwhelmed.

“What we do now will determine if we overrun Ohio’s hospitals and get to a situation where our medical teams are making life and death decisions,” the state’s governor, Mike DeWine, said Thursday. “We don’t want to be in that position. I worry about this every day.”

The race to keep Americans at home has happened at astonishing speed. In just over a week, nearly half the states have issued orders or formal advisories for residents to stay home, and others have strongly recommended it. As of Friday morning, at least 233 million people — or about 7 in 10 Americans — were being told to stay home.

Some governors who initially resisted such sweeping measures quickly changed their minds. Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, a Republican, who initially described a stay-at-home order as “not a practical ask,” later put one in place.


In independent-minded Texas, where there is no statewide order, at least 20 million people — from the Rio Grande Valley to sprawling suburbs of Dallas — were under local instructions to stay home.

Clay Jenkins, the Democratic Dallas County judge, was the first county executive in Texas to shut down bars and restaurants and issue a stay-at-home order. He said he had been watching the outbreaks on the coasts with alarm, particularly in California and New York.

“Those cities are two steps ahead of us, and I say that every day,” he said. “The storm is coming. But there is a level of unhelpful Texas exceptionalism that leads people to believe that somehow their rugged individualism or gut instincts will handle the virus in a better way.”

One of the biggest challenges to managing the virus locally has been mixed messaging from the White House, said Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, a Democrat. He pointed to President Donald Trump’s statement that he was aiming to have the country up and running again by Easter.

“It’s really dangerous and puts us on a worse track than we’re on today,” he said. “If people get this false sense of security that they can go out in the next couple weeks, we’re not going to see the cases decrease. We’re going to see the deaths spike.”


This article originally appeared in The New York Times.


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Larry B.
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Re: Coronavirus

#403 Post by Larry B. » Sat Mar 28, 2020 3:56 pm

Bandit72 wrote:
Sat Mar 28, 2020 12:51 pm
A friend shared this earlier.
Hey everybody, as an infectious disease epidemiologist (although a lowly one), at this point feel morally obligated to provide some information on what we are seeing from a transmission dynamic perspective and how they apply to the social distancing measures. Like any good scientist I have noticed two things that are either not articulated or not present in the “literature” of social media. I am also tagging my much smarter infectious disease epidemiologist friends for peer review of this post. Please correct me if I am wrong (any edits are from peer review).

Specifically, I want to make two aspects of these measures very clear and unambiguous.

First, we are in the very infancy of this epidemic’s trajectory. That means even with these measures we will see cases and deaths continue to rise globally, nationally, and in our own communities in the coming weeks. This may lead some people to think that the social distancing measures are not working. They are. They may feel futile. They aren’t. You will feel discouraged. You should. This is normal in chaos. But this is also normal epidemic trajectory. Stay calm. This enemy that we are facing is very good at what it does; we are not failing. We need everyone to hold the line as the epidemic inevitably gets worse. This is not my opinion; this is the unforgiving math of epidemics for which I and my colleagues have dedicated our lives to understanding with great nuance, and this disease is no exception. I want to help the community brace for this impact. Stay strong and with solidarity knowing with absolute certainty that what you are doing is saving lives, even as people begin getting sick and dying. You may feel like giving in. Don’t.

Second, although social distancing measures have been (at least temporarily) well-received, there is an obvious-but-overlooked phenomenon when considering groups (i.e. families) in transmission dynamics. While social distancing decreases contact with members of society, it of course increases your contacts with group (i.e. family) members. This small and obvious fact has surprisingly profound implications on disease transmission dynamics. Study after study demonstrates that even if there is only a little bit of connection between groups (i.e. social dinners, playdates/playgrounds, etc.), the epidemic trajectory isn’t much different than if there was no measure in place. The same underlying fundamentals of disease transmission apply, and the result is that the community is left with all of the social and economic disruption but very little public health benefit. You should perceive your entire family to function as a single individual unit; if one person puts themselves at risk, everyone in the unit is at risk. Seemingly small social chains get large and complex with alarming speed. If your son visits his girlfriend, and you later sneak over for coffee with a neighbor, your neighbor is now connected to the infected office worker that your son’s girlfriend’s mother shook hands with. This sounds silly, it’s not. This is not a joke or a hypothetical. We as epidemiologists see it borne out in the data time and time again and no one listens. Conversely, any break in that chain breaks disease transmission along that chain.

In contrast to hand-washing and other personal measures, social distancing measures are not about individuals, they are about societies working in unison. These measures also take a long time to see the results. It is hard (even for me) to conceptualize how ‘one quick little get together’ can undermine the entire framework of a public health intervention, but it does. I promise you it does. I promise. I promise. I promise. You can’t cheat it. People are already itching to cheat on the social distancing precautions just a “little”- a playdate, a haircut, or picking up a needless item at the store, etc. From a transmission dynamics standpoint, this very quickly recreates a highly connected social network that undermines all of the work the community has done so far.

Until we get a viable vaccine this unprecedented outbreak will not be overcome in one grand, sweeping gesture, rather only by the collection of individual choices our community makes in the coming months. This virus is unforgiving to unwise choices. My goal in writing this is to prevent communities from getting ‘sucker-punched’ by what the epidemiological community knows will happen in the coming weeks. It will be easy to be drawn to the idea that what we are doing isn’t working and become paralyzed by fear, or to ‘cheat’ a little bit in the coming weeks. By knowing what to expect, and knowing the importance of maintaining these measures, my hope is to encourage continued community spirit, strategizing, and action to persevere in this time of uncertainty.
I hope everyone would read this. Good, down to earth, realist advice.

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chaos
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Re: Coronavirus

#404 Post by chaos » Sat Mar 28, 2020 6:09 pm


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Larry B.
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Re: Coronavirus

#405 Post by Larry B. » Sat Mar 28, 2020 6:39 pm

The US is realistically looking at covid-19 as the main cause of death in the country in 2 weeks - in an OPTIMISTIC estimation.

If the rate of infection doesn't go down, the US could have 20,000,000 infected people in 2 weeks (with only 2,000,000 teste and confirmed). Which would mean about 200,000 total deaths. That is fucking grim. And Trump doesn't think a quarantine is needed. Maybe 200,000 isn't enough for him.

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