quote:

Originally posted by amals:

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Originally posted by parabellum:
Well, all of this is difficult to fathom. Perhaps it's the slow-motion nature of this unfolding catastrophe that makes all this seem so surreal.

I think that's a large part of it, and "surreal" is exactly the term I have been using in conversations for a few weeks now. But I would add the factor that nothing remotely like this--and I mean both the disease and the accompanying responses and collateral results, worldwide-- has happened before in our lifetimes. And yet it is actually happening now.

If the internet didn't exist the way it does today, with everyone plugged in 24/7 on cell phones, I don't think it would happen like this. The virus would hit, people would get sick, some would die, and everyone else would carry on.

Now we can watch it 24 hours a day on multiple cable news channels, tons of online articles, social media, and even here...

It is worth pointing out one of the underlying assumptions of the IHME model, and some of its implications. The quotations below come directly from the IHME website at http://www.healthdata.org/covid/faqs .

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Does this show the effect of social distancing and other measures?

The model assumes continued social distancing until the end of May 2020. In states that do not currently have social distancing in place, we have assumed that they will put it in place within seven days of the last model update. If they do not, then the number of deaths and the burden on their hospital systems likely will be higher than the projections.

Will we need social distancing until there is a vaccine?

Our model says that social distancing will likely lead to the end of the first wave of the epidemic by early June. The question of whether there will be a second wave of the epidemic will depend on what we do to avoid reintroducing COVID-19 into the population. By end the of the first wave of the epidemic, an estimated 97% of the population of the United States will still be susceptible to the disease, so avoiding reintroduction of COVID-19 through mass screening, contact tracing, and quarantine will be essential to avoid a second wave.

The model assumes social distancing will be in effect nationwide until at least the end of May. Essentially, in this model, the mitigation efforts now underway are the reason the death rate peaks and then begins to drop as early as it does. Without those measures, the peak would be much higher and much later.

In this model, the spread is projected to halt much earlier than it otherwise would - after about 3% of the population has been infected (versus early doing-nothing projections of 40-70%). That isn't enough to have a meaningful degree of herd immunity. That means that even if we are successful in containing the spread now, we will still have to do things differently than we were a couple of months ago until an effective vaccine (or EXTREMELY effective treatment) is found, or we might end up right back where we started with uncontrolled spread.

That doesn't necessarily mean we all need to be in lockdown forever. It does mean that if we want to control the spread of the disease, and we can get the number of cases down enough, we will at an absolute mininum have to practice aggressive testing, contact tracing, and quarantine of infected and exposed individuals to keep the disease contained at a low enough level to manage without more restrictive measures.

If this is how we handle a relatively non-lethal virus epidemic, imagine how society would crumble if the next one China releases has a much higher kill rate.

Interesting tidbit of trivia.

Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are derivatives of the compound quinoline, which also gives rise to quinine which is a very, very old medication used to treat malaria.

According to a video from the History Channel, during the 1889 Russian Flu Pandemic (130 years ago), there were widespread rumors that quinine was an effective treatment or preventative. They didn't mention whether it helped or not. But I would infer that it did not.

Everything old is new again.

I'm not known to be a Pollyanna among confederates, but there are some - potential - rays of hope in this godawful mess. Viruses really are mathematical organisms - given a particular virus, with a particular genome, infecting a specific species, the rate of spread can be fairly precisely measured and predicted, as well as the lethality. The question Para and others were asking. That's what the President's advisors are using, and trying to be as non-committal as possible from what I've seen. But they know the pure mathematics, and I think are as scared as anyone else. Probably more - I hear it in their voices. And this virus follows the pattern of all its kin.

But - a very large qualifier - most viruses are also delicate - they can't even reproduce outside a cell, and are easily destroyed by common precautions and disinfection. Once inside a cell, a different ballgame, but outside, a turtle without a shell. This one also may be - very likely is in my opinion - a chimera, made up of two viruses. Less prone to mutations for an RNA virus would seem to confirm - we only know of two, maybe three so far, and its muddy zoonotic origins would also suggest that. Hence may be unstable, and one of its 15 genes could lose its surface protein code, or have its effectiveness significantly reduced in being able to lock onto human cell receptors after millions of generations. Hence may diverge in the next wave to something less transmissible, or lethal. My theory and opinion only, and I'm lonesome among associates. But we'll know in a few weeks, one way or another.

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:

If the internet didn't exist the way it does today, with everyone plugged in 24/7 on cell phones, I don't think it would happen like this. The virus would hit, people would get sick, some would die, and everyone else would carry on.

Now we can watch it 24 hours a day on multiple cable news channels, tons of online articles, social media, and even here...

I was just thinking how many newspapers would have been sold and all the extreme headlines.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
I understand that they are extrapolating the available data, but I just don't see how they can be so precise, down to the day.

When I click the link above your post and hit my state (MD) it list May 1 as peak resources vs May 14 in the list above. I am guessing it has been updated since the list was posted.

So I don't think they really know and are guestimating using all the current info which is changing.

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Originally posted by Fenris:
imagine how society would crumble if the next one China releases has a much higher kill rate.

That depends. If it's more deadly, it'll be more deadly in China first which means we're more likely to get a more dramatic heads-up and therefore more likely to institute more aggressive measures earlier.

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Originally posted by Doc H.:
My theory and opinion only, and I'm lonesome among associates.

It's still nice to get an educated sense of what may be happening.

Interesting link from UW Medicine, with projections made regarding deaths, bed and ICU occupancy, as well as ventilator use:

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

You can find your state in the dropdown menu.

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That's what the President's advisors are using, and trying to be as non-committal as possible from what I've seen.

And its at this point I'm going to respectfully disagree with you. At the beginning, and up until somewhat recently, Fauci and Birx stayed away from making wild eyed predictions. But of late it appears they are, 1) Bent on scaring the hell out of people (I would assume to better control them), and 2) a bit too full of themselves and their significance in the overall scheme of things. A new virus like this does however make one thing abundantly apparent, that being just how incapable the professional experts are when the rubber meets the road. I think some professionals (Fauci strikes me this way) develop a sense of arrogance and omnipotence over the years while they develop their 'expert' title, right up to the point a microscopic virus outs them to the world as being as helpless and lost as the rest of us little people.

I tend to agree with PARA in that when this is all over and everyone has had the luxury of time to review and analyze the 'actual' data, we're going to be utterly shocked at the damage 'we' did to this country via over reaction to this 'crisis'.

Something occurred to me today. 2009-2010 we had the H1N1 pandemic. 60M Americans caught it (1 in 6) and 12K+ died.

I keep hearing we've never dealt with anything like this before. But we did...

Apparently hospitals and the government learned absolutely nothing about being properly prepared and supplied for handling a pandemic for a highly contagious disease. How did that happen? How did we learn nothing??

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
And its at this point I'm going to respectfully disagree with you. At the beginning, and up until somewhat recently, Fauci and Birx stayed away from making wild eyed predictions.

And the basis for your assertion their predictions are wild-eyed is...?

Do not question the Haruspex...

One of the things I have been pondering the last few days is comfort zones. I saw it with one of my longest term friends this past weekend. My friend is an extrovert and the best example of a people person that I have ever met, but I'm more of an introvert (I'm an extrovert by engineer standards). For example, he's shocked when I meet one his many, many other friends and I don't keep in contact with the periodically unless he is involved. I'm a data guy (as are most of my fellow engineers as well as other professions such as scientists and accountants) and he could care less about data. He thinks it's odd that I create spreadsheets at home, and I used to think it was odd that he only creates a spreadsheet once or twice a year.

Why am I writing all of this? It seems like the past 4 of 5 days people with different comfort zones are butting heads.

People like me aren't panicking when we comb the internet for data, post data or models that we think will interest others, thank others for posting data, and create our own spreadsheets to see if data makes sense. It's our comfort zone, but I realize it's not everyone's cup of tea.

Conversely - People aren't sticking their head in the sand hoping this goes away if they are not combing the internet for data, are not combing this thread for interesting data and models, are not posting data, etc. They bring a different perspective to the thread that I appreciate, but not all of it is my cup of tea though.

One of the benefits of aging is the ability to recognize your own comfort zone and the comfort zone of other's. Perhaps, we can strive to do that in this thread and the head butting and bickering will lessen.

Be well my virtual friends.

---

Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
And its at this point I'm going to respectfully disagree with you. At the beginning, and up until somewhat recently, Fauci and Birx stayed away from making wild eyed predictions.

And the basis for your assertion their predictions are wild-eyed is...?

Really? That's your response? Tell ya what, prove to me their numbers and assumptions (wherever the hell they're getting them) 'are' valid and accurate and fully support their predictions. Everyone is guessing at this point whether you want to admit it or not. And my bet is, the high numbers they're throwing out right now have more to do with trying to scare the public into doing as they're told or else, than they do with reality. Oh what the hell. Fauci says 100k are gonna croke. Do I hear 200k? How about 300k? Hell, lets just go with a million. That should cause people to completely flip out.

I noticed that Louisiana has a mortality rate around 5% currently on COVID, that is disturbing. The other data point that was bothersome is the preliminary number out of San Miguel county Colorado. They are in the process of ELISA testing the entire county for COVID antibodies and the positives are running at 2% .

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
I understand that they are extrapolating the available data, but I just don't see how they can be so precise, down to the day.

I suspect it is there best SWAG at the time it is printed. It might even end up being right, but it might end up getting modified as they roll new information into their models. It might end up being spectacularly wrong. I’d bet on their SWAG over anything I’d pull out of my ear, but I still figure it is a SWAG.

ETA:

quote:

Original posted by Doc H.:
... [ snip ] ...
Hence may be unstable, and one of its 15 genes could lose its surface protein code, or have its effectiveness significantly reduced in being able to lock onto human cell receptors after millions of generations. Hence may diverge in the next wave to something less transmissible, or lethal. My theory and opinion only, and I'm lonesome among associates. But we'll know in a few weeks, one way or another.

Thank you for your continued sharing of knowledge and reason. Dumb question: If it is possible the virus can change becoming less transmissible or less lethal, is it also possible that it could become more transmissible or more lethal?

I’m hoping the answer is a flat ”No.” or at least “Theoretically, yes it is possible, but it improbable and much less likely than it becoming less dangerous.” but I have no clue, so I thought I’d ask. Thanks again!

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
One of the things I have been pondering the last few days is comfort zones. I saw it with one of my longest term friends this past weekend. My friend is an extrovert and the best example of a people person that I have ever met, but I'm more of an introvert (I'm an extrovert by engineer standards). For example, he's shocked when I meet one his many, many other friends and I don't keep in contact with the periodically unless he is involved. I'm a data guy (as are most of my fellow engineers as well as other professions such as scientists and accountants) and he could care less about data. He thinks it's odd that I create spreadsheets at home, and I used to think it was odd that he only creates a spreadsheet once or twice a year.

Why am I writing all of this? It seems like the past 4 of 5 days people with different comfort zones are butting heads.

People like me aren't panicking when we comb the internet for data, post data or models that we think will interest others, thank others for posting data, and create our own spreadsheets to see if data makes sense. It's our comfort zone, but I realize it's not everyone's cup of tea.

Conversely - People aren't sticking their head in the sand hoping this goes away if they are not combing the internet for data, are not combing this thread for interesting data and models, are not posting data, etc. They bring a different perspective to the thread that I appreciate, but not all of it is my cup of tea though.

One of the benefits of aging is the ability to recognize your own comfort zone and the comfort zone of other's. Perhaps, we can strive to do that in this thread and the head butting and bickering will lessen.

Be well my virtual friends.

I'll always read yer tatersheets and data, broseph.

Keep doing your thing (and alarmist hasn't ever been it...).

Stay safe, and comfortable, whatever that reasonably takes.

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
Something occurred to me today. 2009-2010 we had the H1N1 pandemic. 60M Americans caught it (1 in 6) and 12K+ died.

I keep hearing we've never dealt with anything like this before. But we did...

No one here is saying that. People are saying that we've never seen anything like this response to similar pandemics before in our lifetime, which is absolutely true.