Covid19

[Doug Fattic]

My wife works as a nurse in Berrien county Michigan on the very southwest corner with about 170,000 population. She tells me is not possible to get a test at all unless one is hospitalized. One of my friends came back from an international trip to Romania. He was very sick and had all the symptoms but could not get tested locally. He was told he had to drive to Grand Rapids a hundred miles away. He was really sick so he didn't want to drive all that way and back so just stayed at home miserable. Obviously if nobody who has the symptoms is able to get tested than the reported test results are going to be a lot lower than those actually infected.

[guido]

Chart: Confirmed US coronavirus cases have surpassed Italy and Iran - Vox

[Chik]

Just want to clear something that I’ve seen misunderstood both here and other places. Heard immunity includes a readily available vaccine. It’s not an and or. So that’s like 2-3B or more infections plus a vaccine.

Lets hope it simply burns itself out which it could. 🤞

I haven't come across an example of someone not understanding that a vaccine is part of achieving herd immunity. Rather, what I have seen are instances of people thinking that a population achieving herd immunity being the near term tactic even in the absence of vaccines, that is, in lieu of other tactical options such as isolation. Therefore, the misunderstanding is at an even more basic level: "Get everyone infected, and we'll be fine. If we lose a few pensioners along the way, tough shit."

Without a vaccine, I don't think we should even be discussing herd immunity amongst the general public. It's distracting.

[Will Neide]

Chart: Confirmed US coronavirus cases have surpassed Italy and Iran - Vox

Good illustration. The spread is increasing.

I know the article focuses on testing, and I'm not dismissing the importance of testing, but I do think that the attitude, or seriousness, of the population plays a significant part in slowing this virus.

Look at Japan. Far fewer test per million people, but a much better curve than ours. I'm not familiar with what precautions Japan took, but they clearly didn't do extensive testing. Unless I'm misinterpreting the charts.

Too many people still out and about.

[Matthew Strongin]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/healt...-so-hard-kill/

[Chik]

Nearly half of known patients experienced digestive symptoms (loss of appetite, diarrhoea, vomiting), prior to having respiratory symptoms. And, apparently, the mortality rate amongst those who did have digestive symptoms is higher.

Here's a bit on diarrhoea: Diarrhea a key symptom in 1 of 4 COVID-19 patients, study finds - UPI.com

[Chik]

I'm not familiar with what precautions Japan took

Hardly any.

And too many people are out and about.

I expressed my concern in post #827 about this.

[vertical_doug]

I've been curious about viral particle settling rates in still air since shortly after this contagion got onto my radar. Contemplating fog in still air made me think that, 1) it's quite a while and, 2) that the 6 foot rule is not terribly effective and gives people a false sense of security. Unhappily, the work in the linked paper from the NIH seems to support my concerns though note that it was performed on influenza A particles; but it's still obviously relevant. According to study mere tidal breathing mobilizes infectious concentrations of viral particles at the smaller end of the size spectrum which remain dispersed in still air for longer periods than larger particles. Sections 3 and 6 present the findings. Curiously, the summary in Section 7 doesn't directly address this particular aspect of their larger question.

According to this work the settling rate of the smaller particles is so low that a 5 micron particle requires around an hour to settle from a 3 meter height; and lots of viral particles are smaller than that. It also notes that normal tidal breathing may contribute more viral particles to a given air mass than infrequent sneezing and coughing. It's not surprising and it's not good news.

Influenza Virus Aerosols in the Air and Their Infectiousness

This is a bit like my statistical thermodynamics class. There is a non-zero probability state that all the air in the room rushes into one corner and we suffocate. But there are so many other states, that we really don't need to worry about it. The aerosol conversation while not this extreme may be such a case.

[Chik]

Iceland should have been included in the Vox article charts.

Iceland'''s Coronavirus Testing Strategy Could Help All Of Us

[davids]

Where does she think she got it? January in NYC!

As a data point to all: my wife came down with this in January- she had every symptom and was at the time clearing out our apartment in NYC after the landlord bought us out because it was rent stabilized. Three people she came into contact with also got sick: two she had dinner with and a farrier she knows who came by the barn. All were out of commission for ten days at least and continue to have trouble breathing. She thought it was the flu and tested negative, but was given a course of antibiotics for pneumonia. I took care of her and did not get sick, nor did our two children, one of whom has asthma. The two she had dinner with are not the picture of health by a long shot and it's truly a miracle one of them did not die as he is a wreck physically and in his eighties. He just sat in a chair for days unable to breathe, calling no one for help. A tough bastard.

What makes her certain are the stories coming out about a loss of appetite and the sense of smell and taste. This lasted for a week or so.

Wait. What? So which corner of the room should I go to?

This is a bit like my statistical thermodynamics class. There is a non-zero probability state that all the air in the room rushes into one corner and we suffocate. But there are so many other states, that we really don't need to worry about it. The aerosol conversation while not this extreme may be such a case.

Massachusetts is going to shelter in place. Coincidentally, my brother just wrote to share that Michigan is too. But if we don't get this nationwide - hell, worldwide - the curve doesn't flatten enough to get us through this well.

[Too Tall]

ABOUT EFFIN' TIME
Maryland >>
Governor Hogan issued an executive order this morning closing all non-essential businesses, organizations and establishments in Maryland effective 5 p.m. Monday, March 23, 2020.

Just got this missive from my license board (Massage Therapy) who until this point essentially said that "we" are smart people and will do what we think we should do.

Pogo was right.

[Will Neide]

But if we don't get this nationwide - hell, worldwide - the curve doesn't flatten enough to get us through this well.

Agreed.

[robin3mj]

ABOUT EFFIN' TIME
Maryland >>
Governor Hogan issued an executive order this morning closing all non-essential businesses, organizations and establishments in Maryland effective 5 p.m. Monday, March 23, 2020.

Just got this missive from my license board (Massage Therapy) who until this point essentially said that "we" are smart people and will do what we think we should do.

Pogo was right.

Virginia running slightly behind y'all, but they did just cancel the rest of this school year.

[vertical_doug]

Now that everyone is finally in a panic, I am relatively optimistic for Italy, NYC . Italian growth curve of new infections is slowing and before Easter they should be <1%. NYC can probably get there too. With the increased testing, the reported number of infections is probably closing in on the real number of infections. The good news about New York is the mortality rate mirrors South Korea at around <1% as opposed to Italy.

The rest of the US still in denial needs to copy the South Korea model of testing up the wazoo.

Globally reported infections will top 1mm by 3/28.

UK went into lockdown tonight. The stuff that is happening is now happening. I'm not going to whine about being poorer. I choose life.

[bironi]

Hope you are right Doug.
I decided to ride alone after this read this morning:

A Medical Worker Describes Terrifying Lung Failure From COVID-19 — Even in His Young Patients — ProPublica

[thollandpe]

The rest of the US still in denial needs to copy the South Korea model of testing up the wazoo.

Comparing the US and South Korea charts at this site is illustrative (they don't break out Japan)
Coronavirus Update (Live): 378,842 Cases and 16,51 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Outbreak - Worldometer

United States Coronavirus: 43,734 Cases and 553 Deaths - Worldometer

Total cases, active cases, and deaths are still on a textbook logarithmic increase in the US.

South Korea Coronavirus: 8,961 Cases and 111 Deaths - Worldometer

Total cases is showing how to bend the curve, and active cases are actually decreasing. Total deaths is on a linear, rather than exponential, rise.

The other two graphs, Newly Infected vs. Newly Recovered and Outcome of Cases (Recovery or Death), are very interesting. In South Korea the trend lines are diverging in the right direction.

Those last two graphs aren't available on the US page right now, but last time I saw them the Outcome of Cases trend lines had crossed and were headed in the wrong direction. Concerning.

[Mark Kelly]

I was about to post similar information, that site is gold.

The other thing to notice is that most of the graphs for total cases are in exponential phase once they pass 100: go to the "Total Cases" graph and click on "logarithmic", if the line is more or less straight on the right hand side you are in exponential phase. If you calculate the average exponent of this phase and divide by the log of two you get the doubling time in days.

That number for the USA is 2.4 days, which suggests that unless the curve breaks soon things will get bad quickly.

The number for Italy was 2.8 days but their curve is starting to break. The number for Australia is about 3.8 days, hopefully buying us some time.

[ides1056]

[claritycycler]

The rest of the US still in denial.....

So fucking true, NIMBY, until it happens locally or to friends nothing to worry about, right? STAY AT HOME! It's already beyond unimaginable, don't make it worse.

"hoping for the best, preparing(trying) for the worst"

do what you can, regards, Brian

[Mark Kelly]

If you calculate the average exponent of this phase and divide by the log of two you get the doubling time in days.

Sorry that's the wrong way around: what I did was take the average of log (number day_n / number day_n-1) and divided the log of two by that.