2019-nCoV / Corona virus Pt 2

[Skeptical Greg]

..... I presume most of these are way too optimistic , to put it mildly.

Hope springs eternal..

 

[Kings Full]

Like I said, Trump apologists.

How does that single pandemic plan represent the entire work of the committee that was disbanded? We have several plans here too, I worked on a couple of them. They didn't need updating they were specific to flu and in our case it addressed treatment and vaccine and how those drugs would be allocated. I looked at our old plan and not much of it applied here. So?

Did you address my links? GOP funding cuts? The actual positions Bolton ended?

Your lack of intellectual rigor borders on ignorance. You dismiss any evidence that doesn't support your preconceived notion.

I don't have any problem with someone that has a disagreement with the way the current administration is handling this pandemic as long as they have a well reasoned and cogent argument. The facts are that the administration has made some missteps. But blanket statements are not only biased but ignorant.

The disconnect is in thinking that any other administration would have done better or that those people with no skin in the game have a better solution.

Remember when Trump was called a racist for cutting off travel from China? Now, it's clear that that move was both significant and helpful.

You have provided no concrete evidence that our response to this dynamic situation was hindered by any personnel cuts.

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

No time to reply to every point but the math is simple: x. number of people show up to buy stuff, y many of them can be processed through the checkout per minute. The lengths of the lines are therefore the same whether kept outdoors or indoors. Whether you can keep them apart by asking them to will be the same inside vs outside, whereas outside provides a lot more room for them to do so if they are willing. Crowds at registers particularly a concern vs open parking structures (remember these have air flows to vent car exhaust).

1) The lines would only be the same length if there was only 1 checkout.
2) I think that a line of 2 or 3 people at a checkout would be more likely to be spread out than a line of dozens waiting outside. Shopping carts would enforce some amount of spacing for people in checkout lines.
3) I'm expecting that restricted access will lead to panic shopping, so that there would be an increase, possibly a substantial increase, in the total number of shoppers.

 

[Blue Mountain]

What differences?

Reasonable vs batcrap.

Batcrap? Canada's response is not batcrap!

Belz means Trump and his happy-talking minions.

These quotes pretty much sum up my response. While Canada was slow at getting its act together on COVID-19, compare our response to Trump's "What Me Worry?" narrative. (Dates are for Trump's comments. Most of the Canadian news stories are from the same date, but sometimes there's a day's difference.)

Date | President of the United States | Canadian Government (mostly) response
January 22|“We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.”| How Canadian hospitals and airports are preparing for new coronavirus
February 2|“We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”| PM warns against discrimination at Lunar New Year event as fears of coronavirus spread
February 24|“The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”| Canada prepares pandemic response plan as coronavirus cases continue to climb
February 25|“CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.” “I think that's a problem that’s going to go away… They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”| Air Canada cancels flights to China until April as government braces for domestic coronavirus outbreak
February 26|“The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” “We're going very substantially down, not up.”| Canada preparing a Plan B pandemic response in case coronavirus containment fails
February 27|“One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”|(No CBC stories on Canada's response.)
February 28|“We're ordering a lot of supplies. We're ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn't be ordering unless it was something like this. But we're ordering a lot of different elements of medical.”|(No CBC stories on Canada's response.)
March 2|“You take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?” “A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they’re happening very rapidly.”| Bank of Canada may cut rates to aid economy sickened by COVID-19: Don Pittis
March 4|“If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work — some of them go to work, but they get better.”| Long-term care homes in Canada step up pandemic plans for COVID-19
March 5|“I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work.” “The United States… has, as of now, only 129 cases… and 11 deaths. We are working very hard to keep these numbers as low as possible!”| Canada’s military ordered to begin ‘pre-pandemic planning’
March 6|“I think we’re doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down… a tremendous job at keeping it down.”| Trudeau, premiers to talk coronavirus and blockades at first ministers’ gathering
March 6|“Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They’re there. And the tests are beautiful…. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.”| ‘Shocked and disappointed’: Arctic Winter Games cancelled due to coronavirus concerns
March 6|“I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault.”| B.C. port authorities preparing for arrival of Grand Princess cruise ship currently under quarantine
March 8|“We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus.”| Tim Hortons scraps Roll Up the Rim contest cups amid coronavirus fears
March 9|“This blindsided the world.”| A Newfoundlander is leading the global fight against COVID-19, and wants you to know the facts
March 10|"It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away."| Canadians being urged to help ‘flatten the curve' of COVID-19
March 13|National Emergency Declaration| Sophie Grégoire Trudeau tests positive for coronavirus

 

[Babbylonian]

The one slight hope is that China's tests turn up a strong treatment, in which case we can all stand down.

Not really. A "strong treatment" will still require contracting the virus and becoming symptomatic, then going to a doctor which will remain dangerous and may still result in hospitalization. Given that a big part of the problem is the stress the virus's very existence puts on medical infrastructure (for example, requiring gowns, masks, and gloves for virtually every patient encounter), a treatment is only part of the solution and doesn't address the issue of apparent easy communicability.

I [directly] heard one doctor talking yesterday about discharging a patient immediately after a procedure instead of keeping them for the normal 23-hour observation because he was concerned about potential coronavirus exposure if they were kept on the floor. A treatment wouldn't obviate that concern at all.

 

[Blue Mountain]

The current situation in Canada:
......Despite rather different responses, the US and Canada are seeing the typical 10:1 ratio (based on population) of infections and deaths between the two countries.

NONONONO!!!

The ratio is 10:1 of CONFIRMED cases to deaths. Since they only test symptomatic patients we can NOT extrapolate that to 10% of the overall population dying.

Such a small percent of us have been tested it is impossible to extrapolate an overall death tally. At this time South Korea still has the most robust numbers, at .6%. And dropping.

And anybody who states a number rather than a percent is playing the emotion card. Save it for when you lose a loved one. There is a good chance it may never happen. Or as likely as grieving for a victim of pancreas cancer.

I think you misread my post.

The 10:1 number is not the ratio of COVID-19 diagnoses to deaths. It refers to the fact that the populations of the US and Canada have a 10:1 ratio, so lots of things that happen in Canada happen at a rate of about 1/10 to the States. There are some exceptions, such as the homicide rate.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

The irony is that I hope people later say that we did too much.

Yes. We sure don't hope they're saying the opposite.

 

[Marcus]

First of all, your estimate of the number of people who would die if COVID-19 was "allowed to run it's (sic) course" is low. By several orders of magnitude.

Second, the "preexisting (sic) conditions" mentioned in the article aren't exactly rare. Close to 40 percent of adult Americans have 1 or more of them.

I'm presuming by "several" you mean only three. You're predicting 250 million deaths, are you sure you want to go with that?

 

[Matthew Best]

If I'm reading the Imperial College impact report correctly, they are suggesting 2.2 million deaths in the US if the virus was "allowed to run its course". That would imply about 50 million for the world, I think.

 

[The Atheist]

Lots of stories about breakthroughs concerrning vaccines or cures on the verge of being discovered and avaialble in a couple of weeks. I presume most of these are way too optimistic , to put it mildly.

Quite possibly, although the early results with chloroquine phosphate and Remdeivir or an HIV drug seem to have performed wll pre-trials, but that's all anecdotal.

The Chinese are conducting widespread double-blinded testing, so hope one of them is effective.

Not really. A "strong treatment" will still require contracting the virus and becoming symptomatic, then going to a doctor which will remain dangerous and may still result in hospitalization. Given that a big part of the problem is the stress the virus's very existence puts on medical infrastructure (for example, requiring gowns, masks, and gloves for virtually every patient encounter), a treatment is only part of the solution and doesn't address the issue of apparent easy communicability.

Obviously, but it will cut ICU usage enormously and work well in makeshift hospital situations. It would dramatically reduce the mortality and while plenty of infections would happen, I see no reason it couldn't all be managed under a reduced infrastructure.

Social distancing seems to have a solid impact, so the spread should be able to be slowed so that a dual approach with treatments manages to get most people through it.

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

I'm presuming by "several" you mean only three. You're predicting 250 million deaths, are you sure you want to go with that?

I was thinking that "several" meant more than 1, but the dictionary says that it actually means more than 2. So I should have said "at least 2" instead of "several". But the point still stands that the claim of 250,000 was unrealistically low.

 

[Babbylonian]

Obviously, but it will cut ICU usage enormously and work well in makeshift hospital situations. It would dramatically reduce the mortality and while plenty of infections would happen, I see no reason it couldn't all be managed under a reduced infrastructure.

Social distancing seems to have a solid impact, so the spread should be able to be slowed so that a dual approach with treatments manages to get most people through it.

Cool, cool. I'd love a consistently effective treatment, obviously. I'd just hate for it to make anyone complacent.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Your lack of intellectual rigor borders on ignorance. You dismiss any evidence that doesn't support your preconceived notion.

I don't have any problem with someone that has a disagreement with the way the current administration is handling this pandemic as long as they have a well reasoned and cogent argument. The facts are that the administration has made some missteps. But blanket statements are not only biased but ignorant.

The disconnect is in thinking that any other administration would have done better or that those people with no skin in the game have a better solution.

Remember when Trump was called a racist for cutting off travel from China? Now, it's clear that that move was both significant and helpful.

You have provided no concrete evidence that our response to this dynamic situation was hindered by any personnel cuts.

Your insults are not helping your case.



What is your link supposed to represent?

It says:

Prepared as background material by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security for the Clade X tabletop exercise

You quote this as if it is relevant to gutting the public health budget:

HHS initially developed the Pandemic Influenza Plan in 2005 to “prevent, control, and mitigate the
effects of influenza viruses that pose high risk to humans.”2
It was last updated in 2017 and
identifies 7 key domains that will be focused on during the next 10 years:2

Why would that specific plan need to have been updated? (By the way, 2017, about the time Trump started eliminating the committee.)

That's not even the US Public Health, by the way. It was done with input from multiple agencies.

Re Trump cutting off Chinese traveling from China: Yes it was racist and the only people who think it had any benefit whatsoever is Trump and the people who believe his con job.

Facts: Travel bans only served to close the barn doors after the horses were already out of the barn.

WA State is a clear example. If we would have had widespread testing available the whole outbreak here could have been stopped in its tracks.

Banning Chinese from traveling here, while letting US Citizens from China in, what was that supposed to do?

You want to continue being a Trump apologist, be my guest. You have nothing but Trump con-job claims and some right wing echo chamber stuff that apparently you think meant something relevant.

 

[casebro]

Oh for pity's sake. Where have you been?

Here are some examples of the pattern:
2017: GOP health plan bill puts $1B CDC funding for disease prevention at risk


The Hill - Coronavirus poses new test for strained public health systemMore about cuts after the GOP began attacking the ACA is in the article.

USA Today: 'Gross misjudgment': Experts say Trump's decision to disband pandemic team hindered coronavirus responseSo Trump puts Bolton in charge then says he didn't know Bolton gutted the team.

There's a Trump apologist out there claiming it never happened. But the fact is, the team was disbanded.

but umm lemme thunk umm. doesn;t Congress control the budgetzzz< And the Przz can't even shift the Dollarzzzz to diifferent accountsssss?
And I forget, which party controls the Congress?

 

[Babbylonian]

but umm lemme thunk umm. doesn;t Congress control the budgetzzz< And the Przz can't even shift the Dollarzzzz to diifferent accountsssss?
And I forget, which party controls the Congress?

I forget. Which party controls the Senate where Democrat-passed bills (including budgets) go to die or be radically altered?

Maybe you forgot that the Senate exists as opposed to being intentionally deceptive.

 

[casebro]

Maybe add lack of hospital beds to your list. Apparently they are just letting them die at Life Care Center now, no sense transferring them to any hospital.



Though I must say, maybe two of those either had DNR orders or maybe they went back and started looking at previous deaths.

In light of the way the initial numbers from some cohorts were of very high ages, I'd like the full story on the Life Care Center. 180 patients, 120 workers, many tested positives. How many of the dead were at hospice level? How are the workers faring? My point is, is age + heart disease actually "high risk", or does "in hospice" cover a huge slice of the risk?

 

[Samson]

Whatever lockdown means, NZ is doing it tomorrow I am reliably informed.

ETA. Fake news

 

[angrysoba]

I agree. The idea that millions will die is flawed. The death percentage used in the models that predict that are too high, as is the percentage of total population that is assumed will catch it. The effects of mitigation efforts and possible anti viral agents are discounted. I don't count the effects of vaccines because they will come too late, at least for this year.

????

Please publish your research.

 

[casebro]

I forget. Which party controls the Senate where Democrat-passed bills (including budgets) go to die or be radically altered?

Maybe you forgot that the Senate exists as opposed to being intentionally deceptive.

My point was that Trump haters can't put the blame on Trump for changing the budget. It took both parties. SG's list was all proposals, where as I could come up with actual bills passed by Democrats. Enough with the partisanizing of the current crisis.

 

[crescent]

This thing has been around for about three months now. 100 days, give or take.

10% of all people diagnosed with the virus were diagnosed today. (20537 diagnosed today out of 219,000 total (really a bit less than 10%, but close enough. That's in increase of 20% for those areas outside of China).

10%of all people who have died from the virus died today. (closer to 11% really, dramatic license. 966 deaths today out of 8944 deaths total).

That's pretty bad. Things seem to be getting worse. Not better.