COVID-19/Coronavirus Information and Support Thread (see OP for useful links)

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I get it, a quarantine is needed to stop the spread of the virus.

That being said, an entire month is a very long time. How can we expect people to pay bills?
 
Denver mayor just said that he's not issuing a shelter-in-place order today, but that he can't guarantee he won't do it within the next 48 hours. He thinks it should be "regional" rather than "city". I think this means I'm about to get sheltered-in-place some time tomorrow.
 
Rage Racer
What's the reason for China to report >3,000 deaths but not report 30,000, 300,000 or 3 million, or whatever numbers you believe in?

I think people who say so just can't accept the idea that those 'wild Asian commies' might be handling the situation better than the white Europeans.
The Chinese quarantine measures were harsh, but they helped. Facts say that. China used to recieve aid from the rest of the world a month ago, but not PRC itself provides aid for Japan, Italy and others. Hainan prepares to open for tourists again. Why would China lie about the situation getting better if it's not? They already have experience with epidemics, they mobilized all their healthcare resources when things turned serious, and sent the army to isolate the infected areas (despite of some sensible people whining "how dare they? It violates their freedoms, human rights, blah blah").

Compare this to how Italy (and other European states) reacted. When first cases were discovered, they didn't take it seriously enough (it's just another flu, innit?) and lost the precious time. At last, Italy, Spain and others started locking down their cities like China, but it was so late...

If you say "Winnie caused the pandemic", then it's OK to say that Conte spread it all over Europe.
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Given they covered it up for over a month and they are the most populated country on earth in a densely populated part of the country, all it confirms is that China is completely lying out of their you know what on the numbers.

The worse this disease looks the worse it is for the CCP since they covered it up and allowed it to freely spread soo easily at the start, so they have every reason to make it look less serious then it is.
 
Danoff
Denver mayor just said that he's not issuing a shelter-in-place order today, but that he can't guarantee he won't do it within the next 48 hours. He thinks it should be "regional" rather than "city". I think this means I'm about to get sheltered-in-place some time tomorrow.
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Come on in, the water's fine! I mean...stay in your own water, but you get the idea.

The whole country basically needs to do this:

1. Quarantine/Shelter in Place
2. Test Test Test Test - This needs to be job 1! We can't know/pinpoint/control outbreaks if we're blind! Everyone who is able to (looking at you, chemical companies & private labs, & biotech companies) needs to be figuring this out. I'm not sure why we have all these outrageously profitable biotech companies if they can't figure out how to make this test in massive quantities and quickly.
3. Develop the hell out of that vaccine. Whatever it takes. This should be Manhattan-project levels of resources and urgency.
 
I don't really understand this. "Social distancing" ought to be all that's required. How are you going to get Covid-19 from walking in the street or a park? It would be much more reasonable for people to practice extreme social distancing than actually shelter-in-place, although I appreciate that that is more difficult to achieve in a big city with big apartment buildings. I live in a small town that is normally inundated with tourists. Went for a walk today, the streets were deserted. I felt I was in a scene from Walking Dead (minus the zombies ... so far).

The problem is all the people still mingling socially. I see clips of kids partying in Miami, they'll go back to whatever part of the country they come from, a small percentage of them will carry the virus & start spreading it in their home town ... & then it will take weeks to get on top of that.
 
TheGeologist
I get it, a quarantine is needed to stop the spread of the virus.

That being said, an entire month is a very long time. How can we expect people to pay bills?
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Spain, Italy and other countries have suspended the payment of necessities (water, electricity, gas) and mortgages / rents. A friend of mine from Madrid was telling me this measures can last the rest of the year.

If no one can go out to work, you can't do anything but suspend payments of basic necessities.
 
I live in the University District in Seattle, all spring quarter classes have been set to online-only, this week is finals. Just about everyone has gone home to family and campus and the surrounding area has turned into a near ghost town.

There’s been a mandate for all restaurants to shut down or serve exclusively takeout orders.
I work for a pizza chain and I am extremely fortunate with how they’re handling the situation. They’ve closed our store and a few others in our district, and activating our paid sick leave (fortunately ~2.5 years of employment has built up a fair amount), as well as a government stimulus package of 14 days of pay based roughly on the hours you worked in previous weeks, activated automatically after the company sick leave runs out. We’re permitted to pick up shifts at our other regional stores, and doing so will “pause” our sick pay, essentially extending our pay by a day for every shift we pick up.

I live in a rented house with ~14 friends (college puts you in weird places), and we’re all getting a bit stir crazy. It’s a very, very strange time to be in.
 
zzz_pt
Spain, Italy and other countries have suspended the payment of necessities (water, electricity, gas) and mortgages / rents. A friend of mine from Madrid was telling me this measures can last the rest of the year.

If no one can go out to work, you can't do anything but suspend payments of basic necessities.
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They're doing that here sort of. Utilities can't be shut off & you can't be evicted. Other than that, it's coming down to which companies are deciding to help out. Many are waiving any late fees so you can let the bills lapse for a couple months. However, my mortgage company isn't suspending anything; they're only offering the option to call & discuss alternative payment methods to "help" out. But, they clearly still want their money. For those that this helps, terrific. Personally, I've been paying them as I really don't want to expect a statement 3 months from now asking for March, April, & May's collection if the pandemic passes/they don't extend pass the waive term.
 
Hello everyone, I report this news that I read today : Massimo Galli, head of the infectious diseases department of the Sacco hospital in Milan. "My hope is that we can get rid of this virus in no more than three months from the moment of application of certain rules. And I have already given a chilling term. It is not and will not be a short thing, if it were to take place in time short I will be the first to throw a party. "Galli also spoke of the hope of a vaccine against Covid-19:" The vaccine is a hope. There are at least eighteen programs open to get the vaccine. I hope that in the various declarations that there is more or less truth in all ". Then he adds: "Certainly something will come out but I doubt that we are able to delimit and limit the epidemic and overcome it by waiting for the vaccine. The vaccine likely to be lucky will arrive after the summer, not before. And even if it arrives sooner they will pass however of the months ". In short, we are only at the first battles of a war that will be long.
 
Joey D
The growth rate of the confirmed cases is solely reliant on how many tests are being performed, the growth rate for the actual spread of the virus is completely unknown.
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Not entirely true - confirmed cases are based on a clinical diagnosis and/or a positive test; the actual spread of the virus is not totally unknown but can be estimated from confirmed cases and from modelling.

There is also the small issue of the fact that US testing at a rate way under most other developed nations - 6 times less than the UK, and 40 times lower than South Korea (which has contained the outbreak thus far).

As such, confirmed cases (by test only) in the US is likely to be a much larger underestimate than it might otherwise have been.

Joey D
That's the difference I see between the two and why I'm having such a hard time accepting that people are being infected at an exponential rate. Also, what point are people starting the exponential growth curve at? If it's January 20th when the first case was confirmed, that's a period of 59 days and the curve ends up larger than the population of the planet. To hit everyone in the US, it takes just about 29 days. If it's doubling once every two days, we should be at roughly a 66% infection rate for the entire country right now and I'm having a hard time accepting that.
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I really hope you are right.

There is certainly a lag phase (a period of non-exponential growth) but rigorous testing and early intervention is the way to keep this lag phase going as long as possible. Many countries (the US and the UK included) are now clearly in an exponential growth phase (based on confirmed cases) and very likely in all cases too.

Joey D
While I do believe the virus is spreading and will infect many people, I don't think it's spreading as quickly as predictions are making it seems. To me, this just plays into the panic that's already present in society and it's not doing anyone any good. The horrible data, articles, "studies", etc. floating around is almost as bad as the virus itself, if not worse.
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Keeping people calm is very important, but... unfortunately, this doesn't have any bearing on whether the predictions or measures of cases are accurate or not. The trouble is that the predictions/models etc could well be an underestimate of the truth. My gut feeling is that the RO number is indeed a bit lower than some early predictions, but the transmission rate also depends on successful containment and rigorous monitoring/testing from the get-go.

TheGeologist
I get it, a quarantine is needed to stop the spread of the virus.

That being said, an entire month is a very long time. How can we expect people to pay bills?
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I'm sorry to say this and I don't mean to upset or annoy you, but if you think a month is a very long time, you may need to prepare yourself for a shock.

There is very likely going to be prolonged period of restrictions - a bare minimum of 3 months, but quite likely substantially longer than that... the best-case scenario is a flexible workforce where people are rotated in and out of workplaces, jobs etc., to help keep the transmission rate down.

That said, countries where the transmission rate is already out of control may end up having to bite the bullet and abandon containment and delay altogether - that is a terrible double-edged sword. It gets the epidemic over and done with in the shortest period of time, but it comes at the highest possible cost in terms of lives. The alternative is to spread the cases over the longest time period possible in order to save the most lives, but at the expense of prolonged disruption, which could easily last well into next year.

-

My hope, however, is that drug treatments are able to combat the illness and make the virus far less dangerous, and thus freeing up a substantial portion of the workforce. Ultimately a vaccine will also be developed, but it could be brought under effective control within a few months should anti-viral drug treatments prove successful and can be rolled out en masse efficiently.
 
One thing they are apparently doing in South Korea is intstructing people to touch and use things such as door handles with your weaker hand; you are far less likely to touch your face with your weaker hand.

It's... actually very clever.
 
Liquid
One thing they are apparently doing in South Korea is intstructing people to touch and use things such as door handles with your weaker hand; you are far less likely to touch your face with your weaker hand.

It's... actually very clever.
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If you could consciously use whichever hand you want to perform intuitive actions, you could do that by not touching you face with your strong hand, right?

Dunno if it makes any difference but there's no wrong in trying it out I guess.
 
TheGeologist
I get it, a quarantine is needed to stop the spread of the virus.

That being said, an entire month is a very long time. How can we expect people to pay bills?
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It's more likely to be 3 months in many places. And even when we do go back I think the expectation is more periods of lock down to cope with the virus re-spiking again in terms of infection.
 
Here in Austria we've just been notified that the curfew will last 2 more weeks, that's a total of 3 weeks. Non-essential businesses will also stay closed for that time. According to unofficial data the daily raise in infections of approx 32-35% has dropped down to 22% since the curfew has been established.

Oh well, more isolation.- But it makes sense.
 
Liquid
One thing they are apparently doing in South Korea is intstructing people to touch and use things such as door handles with your weaker hand; you are far less likely to touch your face with your weaker hand.

It's... actually very clever.
Click to expand...
Wouldn't work for me I'm Fambidextrous - I use whichever hand I feel like using at any given time, although I can only write with my left.

I'm exceptionally irritating to play against in badminton.
 
I absolutely do not believe Americans have a chance in frost-bitten hell of anything less than a full sweep.

Honestly I think it's a waste for us to try. We're just prolonging the inevitable because Americans don't give a **** about anything.

I don't know how bad this virus actually is, but the people over 60 who need quarantine are often those who care the least.

Me? I'm supposed to be scared and cautious of this deadly virus, but also continue working knowing that I'll likely get it anyway.


Anybody know if holding a common cold stops you from getting it? Just curious.

Time will tell. Chalk me up as a cautious skeptic who thinks the mortality rate is currently overblown and Americans are so ignorant it doesn't matter if it is.

PA on lockdown. Except for me riding to work alone at night with the trucks. It's effing creepy.
 
Famine
Wouldn't work for me I'm Fambidextrous - I use whichever hand I feel like using at any given time, although I can only write with my left.

I'm exceptionally irritating to play against in badminton.
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Same here, I wasn't born like this but 15 years of weight lifting makes you very ambidextrous. I use my left and right hand interchangeably for everything except writing.

Still, the best way is mental conditioning - I say ''don't touch your face'' a couple hundred times per day, and it gets stuck in my consciousness. Also, I use gloves when grocery shopping, in addition to my full face mask.

CSLACR
I don't know how bad this virus actually is, but the people over 60 who need quarantine are often those who care the least.
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Same phenomenon here, those who care the least are the old and elderly, which make up nearly all the critical cases. Seems like wisdom has much less to do with age than I initially thought.
 
Rage Racer
What's the reason for China to report >3,000 deaths but not report 30,000, 300,000 or 3 million, or whatever numbers you believe in?
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Because 'China'. They have been withholding the truth, and some care about virtu signalling and making themselves believe people say certain things because they're white. No, its because China is a commie country that arrested the Doctor that broke the story of this virus.

Compare this to how Italy (and other European states) reacted. When first cases were discovered, they didn't take it seriously enough (it's just another flu, innit?) and lost the precious time. At last, Italy, Spain and others started locking down their cities like China, but it was so late...
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That's because "White people" are moronic and too concerned about falsely being called racist by the virtu signalling lefty MSM and puppet celebrities who have too much time on their hands.

https://voiceofeurope.com/2020/03/i...orence-mayor-urged-italians-to-hug-a-chinese/
 
CSLACR
but the people over 60 who need quarantine are often those who care the least.
Click to expand...

Michael88
Same phenomenon here, those who care the least are the old and elderly, which make up nearly all the critical cases. Seems like wisdom has much less to do with age than I initially thought.
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I was chatting with my neighbor from across the street as we were fetching our trash cans. She's quite old, and her husband is a multiple stroke victim who is in a very precarious state. We were having a pleasant smalltalk conversation from a distance of a neighborhood street, when she announces "I'm tired of yelling" and walks across the street to talk to me, and moves so close that I'd have backed up even if I had never heard of coronavirus.

I really sucks to upend your life to protect these people from themselves. I think that she figures as long as she goes to church and prays, God will provide.
 
lancia delta hf
Because 'China'. They have been withholding the truth, and some care about virtu signalling and making themselves believe people say certain things because they're white. No, its because China is a commie country that arrested the Doctor that broke the story of this virus.

That's because "White people" are moronic and too concerned about falsely being called racist by the virtu signalling lefty MSM and puppet celebrities who have too much time on their hands.

https://voiceofeurope.com/2020/03/i...orence-mayor-urged-italians-to-hug-a-chinese/
Click to expand...

Something tells me we may be heading for a tinfoil shortage soon as well...
 
Again with the agism?! :rolleyes:

I don't doubt that there are many older people who have been & continue to be dismissive of the coronavirus. But to put it in perspective take a look at these not old people:




lancia delta hf
That's because "White people" are moronic and too concerned about falsely being called racist by the virtu signalling lefty MSM and puppet celebrities who have too much time on their hands.
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Equally, blaming "white people" or "lefties" is pointless. The flip side of the coin is "righties" denying the threat posed by the virus, or calling it a "liberal plot" to bring down President Trump.

It seems to me that what is required going forward is the application of much vaunted human adaptability - a whole variety of measures to control & minimize the spread of the virus & control & minimize the impact on the economy & people's lives. Ultimately that will include treatment & vaccines.
 
mustafur
Given they covered it up for over a month
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Over a month? What I read about is that the first man with unknown kind of pneumonia was hospitalized on December, 1st, 2019. On December, 26th, the virus was indentified, and they found out that it's not a random influenza or anything, it's a new disease never seen before. And on December, 31th, China alerted the WHO about the outbreak. Where did you count "over a month" here? Where can I read your story?

mustafur
they are the most populated country on earth in a densely populated part of the country
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"If so many people died of CoViD-19 in democratic Italy, then it can't be that communist China with denser population has fewer deaths!" - is this your way of thinking?

lancia delta hf
No, its because China is a commie country that arrested the Doctor that broke the story of this virus.
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Li Wenliang? Arrested?
He was called to the police and warned against spreading false rumors, that's all. Please learn more about the subject before accusing a country of 'arresting the doctor'.
 
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Touring Mars
Not entirely true - confirmed cases are based on a clinical diagnosis and/or a positive test; the actual spread of the virus is not totally unknown but can be estimated from confirmed cases and from modelling.

There is also the small issue of the fact that US testing at a rate way under most other developed nations - 6 times less than the UK, and 40 times lower than South Korea (which has contained the outbreak thus far).

As such, confirmed cases (by test only) in the US is likely to be a much larger underestimate than it might otherwise have been.
Click to expand...

I'm still not getting it. How can we accurately estimate the spread of the virus based on confirmed cases, which is already flawed data to begin with? I know the US test data is crap, but if what posters in this thread are saying is true, then the UK's testing data is bad as well (as are many other countries). I honestly don't know how other countries are doing because they're not part of the dashboard that I look at daily.

Touring Mars
There is certainly a lag phase (a period of non-exponential growth) but rigorous testing and early intervention is the way to keep this lag phase going as long as possible. Many countries (the US and the UK included) are now clearly in an exponential growth phase (based on confirmed cases) and very likely in all cases too.
Click to expand...

I still have a hard time believing there's exponential growth. Say we go back to March 1st, at that time there were 84 confirmed cases in the US. If we assume doubling every day, that means today we should be at 88 million or about a quarter of the US. As it stands today, we're at 14,332 confirmed cases. If my math is right (and lord knows it might not be) that's about a 30% per day increase.

I'm really trying to accept the scientific explanation, but the data just seems so incomplete that I'm not sure how they're making any determination.

Touring Mars
Keeping people calm is very important, but... unfortunately, this doesn't have any bearing on whether the predictions or measures of cases are accurate or not. The trouble is that the predictions/models etc could well be an underestimate of the truth. My gut feeling is that the RO number is indeed a bit lower than some early predictions, but the transmission rate also depends on successful containment and rigorous monitoring/testing from the get-go.
Click to expand...

I think the big problem is that every model, study, graph, etc. is being presented like it's the truth when really it's someone's best, educated guess based on the data we currently have. I think the average person probably doesn't understand the science isn't an exact art and there are a ton of variables that can move the number any which way. I think it was Vox or Slate or The Hill (one of those questionable media outlets) that had an article with graphics that said something like the "the math spells catastrophic consequences for the US". While some math certainly does, it seems like that article did a really good job cherry-picking facts to fit their story's narrative.

Not telling the whole story and skewing the facts is just making people more frightened and panicky. It's also having a devastating impact on the economy (which could last longer than the virus's impact).

Honestly, past the local health department and the university I work for, the best coverage I've found about COVID-19 is on SirusXM's Coronavirus Radio (yes they have a station, Channel 121). They're not afraid to say "we don't know" and they almost always present stuff with caveats that whatever outcome they're talking about is based on x, y, z data set. I can appreciate any media outlet that simply goes we're not sure because in my mind that's better than giving incorrect or incomplete data.

* I know tone sometimes gets lost in written form, so please don't think I'm being combative here. I legit don't understand and I'm trying to do so.
 

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