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The Worldwide C0VlD-19 Coronavirus Pandemic Discussion Thread...

sparechange

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Mammoth

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Anyone else been looking at everything that's been going on, all the new social norms.....and think of Demolition Man??

For some reason it popped into my head last night.

Check this out:

View: https://youtu.be/n7nFEnFtvCM


Maybe the world is ready for the seashells?
 

Kak

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No need to apologize...

Though it does make me sad that we live in a world where correcting bad information leads to a sarcastic response (implying that the correcter did something wrong) as opposed to a simple, "Thanks for the correction!" (simply taking responsibility for the mistake).

That's my preferred response:




Perhaps that's why there's so much fake news out there... :(

I'm sorry I am not as perfect as you @JScott .

Before I submit the post this time let me "fact check" my response... Oh the "fact checker" says I am not sorry. Dang! Tough luck. :eek:

youre-wrong-s-com-ichecked-snopes-buy-one-get-one-41241121.jpg
 
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ChrisV

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Ernman

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I'm sorry but that's ridiculous. Not Dying 4 Wall Street? People are so f*cking ignorant it's insane. Who said you're dying? What are you going to die from? I hate to keep comparing this to cars and other forms of death but people like this force you. In that case, I'm "NotDying4Travel".

This is the big problem with the world we live in. Combine hysteria, fake news, and toxic media and feed it to sheep minded people and you get the 99% or these "social warriors". What most people don't realize is this a political attack and I know @MJ DeMarco does not want political talks. But that's all this "campaign" is - a political attack just like the fish tank death is a political attack. Wake up people. This is not the time to move your political agenda. The people making these "campaigns" are the same people living pay cheque to pay cheque and feeding off of free money from the government. We'll see once you get fired from your job if you'll "die4wallstreet" or not. Hilarious.
Why do you think there are so few of us in this forum? ...relatively speaking. The vast majority of people in the world are sidewalkers and slowlaners. Granted some of us are still stuck in the slowlane, but we've taken on a Fastlane mentality and will escape. If the world wasn't full of such sheeple, MJ wouldn't have had to write his books. Like you, I still shake my head and wonder at the stupidity. Then I say a silent "thank you" to MJ for articulating so well what I knew was wrong, but could never put my finger on.
 
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JAJT

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Here are some thoughts I just read from Dr. Tom Inglesby, the Director of Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Copied from twitter, since reading anything on twitter is horrible:

In last 24 hrs there've been prominent US voices calling for a stop to social distancing, citing rationale that they're worse than impact of COVID itself. It’s worth looking very closely at that claim, where we are in US COVID epidemic and what happens if we stop.

COVID has been spreading w/ exponential growth in US for some time, and we're just beginning to get an understanding of how extensively. There are nearly 40,000 cases recognized in the US as of today, w/ ~100 deaths today. A few weeks ago, we had recognized 70 cases total.

Some hospitals have said publicly that within a week they will not have ventilators to treat everyone with COVID anymore.

There continue to be big diagnostic limitations. Shortages in reagents, swabs. Don’t have rapid diagnostics in many hospitals yet, so it can be days before doctors and nurses can find out if a pt in front of them has COVID.

We don’t have capacity to diagnose many of the COVID cases that are not sick enough to be in the hospital, so those numbers aren’t counted in our national totals.

There continues to be terrible shortages in the masks that health care workers need to keep from getting sick with this disease.

How do we gain time to let hosps get more supplies & prepare for high number of pts? How do we lower the speed of spread of COVID in US? How do we lower odds that ICUs will run out of vents, hospitals run out of space? The answer for now is large scale social distancing.

In Asia, we've seen these interventions work to lower pace of the epidemic, lower numbers of critically ill, lower the number of people who get COVID. In Asia where big social distancing measures have been in place for two months, they have had very strong impact.

In Asia they've slowed the disease by slowing social interaction. Left to its own, this disease spreads from 1 person to about 2.5 people, and then they do the same, and so on. For this disease to stop, we need to make it so that the avg person spreads it to <1 other person.

These big social distancing measures take time to work. The impact of big interventions in Wuhan China took about 3 wks to start to reverse things. And then everyday after the situation got better. In the US, we're about 7 to 10 days into this, depending on the state.

To drop all these measures now would be to accept that COVID pts will get sick in extraordinary numbers all over the country, far beyond what the US health care system could bear.

Many models report that health care systems will be completely overwhelmed/collapse by the peak of cases if major social distancing is not put in place.

If a health care system in a given community stops working, can no longer provide care to the ill, the case fatality rate for COVID will be far higher than 1% - we would not be able to care for some or all of the expected 5% of recognized cases that get critically ill.

Beyond that, if hospitals were completely overwhelmed, they may struggle to provide even oxygen for some or many of the 15% of recognized cases expected to be “severely ill”. let alone provide care for other life threatening conditions.

Anyone advising the end of social distancing now, needs to fully understand what the country will look like if we do that. COVID would spread widely, rapidly, terribly, could kill potentially millions in the yr ahead with huge social and economic impact across the country.

Before considering big changes to social distancing measures now, we should as quickly as possible get to strongest possible position for COVID response – we're no where near that now. We'll need rapid Dxs in place almost every location where a pt can be seen for care.

We'll need extraordinary quantity, reserve+production lines of masks, PPE so that shortages at hosps and clinical sites around country are no longer possible. We'lll need to have more vents on the way. We'll need capacity to provide med care to many more that we can now.

We'll need to reduce the # of cases to such a low level that we could again do contact tracing & isolation of cases around the country (as they can in many countries in Asia now).

We will need system of screening at airports so that no person comes into the country with the disease without being diagnosed and isolated.

We'll need a serology test that can be used to identify those that have been infected and recovered already, and to know how prevalent disease is in the US. We would hopefully have therapies developed and in a quantity that we can treat at least the sickest pt w COVID.

Once we have those things in place, it would be a far less risky time to take stock of social distancing measures in place and consider what might gradually be reduced with trial and error. We would have learned more about the experience in Asia as they try to do that.

For now we need to keep production running, doctors offices working, groceries, pharmacies, banks open. It is ok to have science informed dialogue about which businesses need to be closed vs what can stay open in some way if social distancing can be put in place in them.

But we need to press ahead for now w closed schools, mass telecommuting, no gatherings, strong advisory to stay home unless you need to go out – all are needed to slow this epidemic.

We also need to put every conceivable econ program in place to help those being hurt by these social distancing measures. And move ahead rapidly to get our country far better prepared to cope w COVID before people recommend we abandon our efforts to slow this virus.
 

GIlman

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I'm sorry but that's ridiculous. Not Dying 4 Wall Street? People are so f*cking ignorant it's insane. Who said you're dying? What are you going to die from? I hate to keep comparing this to cars and other forms of death but people like this force you. In that case, I'm "NotDying4Travel".

This is the big problem with the world we live in. Combine hysteria, fake news, and toxic media and feed it to sheep minded people and you get the 99% or these "social warriors". What most people don't realize is this a political attack and I know @MJ DeMarco does not want political talks. But that's all this "campaign" is - a political attack just like the fish tank death is a political attack. Wake up people. This is not the time to move your political agenda. The people making these "campaigns" are the same people living pay cheque to pay cheque and feeding off of free money from the government. We'll see once you get fired from your job if you'll "die4wallstreet" or not. Hilarious.

There is zero evidence to support your position this is a hoax or political attack, this is a rapidly spreading severe disease. Where is your proof, you have none. Just an empty statement as if it’s fact.

I just got off the phone with a friend in the New England area. They told me that they have been off the hook busy, people from every radiology department have been repurposed just to take x-rays, these are specialists trained in advanced procedures (like cardiac stenting) being told to do the most basic job there is because the volume is unmanageable. In 15 years I’ve been practicing medicine, the number of times I have seen that, or even heard of it is flat out ZERO.

Places that are reporting high numbers of cases are seeing a huge number of severe and critical pneumonia patients with horrible X-rays, from all age groups. This is just in the last several days. I’ve heard this same report from several people at several hospitals in the East and west coast. Anecdotal, yes, but also fits in with all the actual data a modeling out there, and even though anecdotal is highly significant given that this same pattern is repeating at several facilities and is unheard of.

These are not news reports, these are people in these hospitals who I know personally that speaking directly to me on the phone. Professional to professional. What’s the source of your claims. Who on the ground in hospitals around the coast are you talking to in hard hit areas telling you this is a hoax.

Now if you want to debate if we should let it rip and let the chips fall where they will, that is another argument, one I’m more than happy to have. Let’s discuss the value of a bunch of lives vs the economy. It’s a worthwhile discussion and one that should be had.

But at this point there is zero debate that this is not a hoax and made up. There is zero debate that the effects of this are certain to be severe and far reaching. At some point in time making this argument just becomes ignorant, akin to trying to justify the merits of slavery or the haulocaust.

Edit: Sorry I’m getting a little testy with this argument. But it’s equivalent to a patient coming in with breast cancer that’s eroding through the skin, visible to the eye, that when told they have stage 4 breast cancer that it’s just a rash. Exactly the same.
 
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BlindSide

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There is zero evidence to support your position this is a hoax or political attack, this is a rapidly spreading severe disease. Where is your proof, you have none. Just an empty statement as if it’s fact.

I just got off the phone with a friend in the New England area. They told me that they have been off the hook busy, people from every radiology department have been repurposed just to take x-rays, these are specialists trained in advanced procedures (like cardiac stenting) being told to do the most basic job there is because the volume is unmanageable. In 15 years I’ve been practicing medicine, the number of times I have seen that, or even heard of it is flat out ZERO.

Places that are reporting high numbers of cases are seeing a huge number of severe and critical pneumonia patients with horrible X-rays, from all age groups. This is just in the last several days. I’ve heard this same report from several people at several hospitals in the East and west coast. Anecdotal, yes, but also fits in with all the actual data a modeling out there, and even though anecdotal is highly significant given that this same pattern is repeating at several facilities and is unheard of.

These are not news reports, these are people in these hospitals who I know personally that speaking directly to me on the phone. Professional to professional. What’s the source of your claims. Who on the ground in hospitals around the coast are you talking to in hard hit areas telling you this is a hoax.

Now if you want to debate if we should let it rip and let the chips fall where they will, that is another argument. But at this point there is zero debate that this is a hoax and made up. There is zero debate that the effects of this are certain to be severe and far reaching. At some point in time making this argument just becomes ignorant, akin to trying to justify the merits of slavery or the haulocaust.
I don’t think he’s talking about the virus, I think he’s talking about the hashtag wars on Twitter.
 
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MoneyDoc

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There is zero evidence to support your position this is a hoax or political attack, this is a rapidly spreading severe disease. Where is your proof, you have none. Just an empty statement as if it’s fact.

I just got off the phone with a friend in the New England area. They told me that they have been off the hook busy, people from every radiology department have been repurposed just to take x-rays, these are specialists trained in advanced procedures (like cardiac stenting) being told to do the most basic job there is because the volume is unmanageable. In 15 years I’ve been practicing medicine, the number of times I have seen that, or even heard of it is flat out ZERO.

Places that are reporting high numbers of cases are seeing a huge number of severe and critical pneumonia patients with horrible X-rays, from all age groups. This is just in the last several days. I’ve heard this same report from several people at several hospitals in the East and west coast. Anecdotal, yes, but also fits in with all the actual data a modeling out there, and even though anecdotal is highly significant given that this same pattern is repeating at several facilities and is unheard of.

These are not news reports, these are people in these hospitals who I know personally that speaking directly to me on the phone. Professional to professional. What’s the source of your claims. Who on the ground in hospitals around the coast are you talking to in hard hit areas telling you this is a hoax.

Now if you want to debate if we should let it rip and let the chips fall where they will, that is another argument. But at this point there is zero debate that this is a hoax and made up. There is zero debate that the effects of this are certain to be severe and far reaching. At some point in time making this argument just becomes ignorant, akin to trying to justify the merits of slavery or the haulocaust.
What? When did I say the virus is a hoax? Where did I mention hoax in my post?

I said the campaign (NotDying4Wallstreet) is a political attack just like the fish tank death is a political attack.
 

GIlman

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What? When did I say the virus is a hoax? Where did I mention hoax in my post?

I said the campaign (NotDying4Wallstreet) is a political attack just like the fish tank death is a political attack.

sorry I read it a very different way. Dangers of written communication, tone and context sometimes matter. Your post came across to me exactly opposite of that. My apologies for misinterpreting what your wrote.
 

MoneyDoc

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sorry I read it a very different way. Dangers of written communication, tone and context sometimes matter. Your post came across to me exactly opposite of that. My apologies for misinterpreting what your wrote.
No worries man!
 
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WillHurtDontCare

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@GIlman , what are your thoughts on how this could affect births in the coming months? It will likely be hard for a lot of women to get into the hospital to give birth, plus some might just avoid the hospital out of fear.

You can likely provide a lot of (international) value if you can figure out to deal with this dilemma. Midwife lead generation?
 
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farmer79

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Sorry WillHurtDontcare tried to quote your post but can’t get to work.

This is where we are now. My wife is due in 3 weeks. She doesn’t want to go to prenatal appointments etc. Worried what will happen if she or I contracts the virus before the birth. Worried about getting it at the dr’s or at the hospital. No one has good answer. When you call hospital or doctor with concern all they care about is if you have symptoms or not. Worrisome times.
 

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In last 24 hrs there've been prominent US voices calling for a stop to social distancing, citing rationale that they're worse than impact of COVID itself. It’s worth looking very closely at that claim, where we are in US COVID epidemic and what happens if we stop.

Did some back of the napkin math.

If we could magically double hospital and ICU beds and then double nurses and doctors , AND we quarantined 1 in 7 americans (those 65 and older or immunocompromised)

We would have to spread the disease out evenly through the remaining population over a 24 week period in order to not overwhelm the US healthcare system (technically that would only be 70% infected and recoverd / immune but , close enough)

So let that sink in.
 

EVMaso

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Saw this idea (on Twitter, but from a very smart person).

Why not let everyone <45yrs of age get back to work so the economy doesn't go to total crap. Let them run the percentage gauntlet and treat the bad cases, let the group build immunity. Then 14 days later release the next age group (45-55), etc. Seems like a decent compromise between total lockdown and the #notdying4wallstreet crowd. Would like to hear opinions on that one.

Also, someone earlier was asking about people literally being welded sealed into their homes in China. Here's a vid I found of such a practice in action.


The small white sign on the door supposedly says something to the effect of "infected person from Wuhan do not visit" or something like that.
 
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lowtek

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Saw this idea (on Twitter, but from a very smart person).

Why not let everyone <45yrs of age get back to work so the economy doesn't go to total crap. Let them run the percentage gauntlet and treat the bad cases, let the group build immunity. Then 14 days later release the next age group (45-55), etc. Seems like a decent compromise between total lockdown and the #notdying4wallstreet crowd. Would like to hear opinions on that one.

Also, someone earlier was asking about people literally being welded sealed into their homes in China. Here's a vid I found of such a practice in action.


The small white sign on the door supposedly says something to the effect of "infected person from Wuhan do not visit" or something like that.

This is a reasonable start to a strategy. What about families with intergenerational living? How could we mitigate the danger to the elderly within the household?

Hashing out the details could make such an approach viable. I certainly prefer something like that to locking us all down, or just letting us all run wild.
 

ChrisV

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Saw this idea (on Twitter, but from a very smart person).

Why not let everyone <45yrs of age get back to work so the economy doesn't go to total crap. Let them run the percentage gauntlet and treat the bad cases, let the group build immunity. Then 14 days later release the next age group (45-55), etc. Seems like a decent compromise between total lockdown and the #notdying4wallstreet crowd. Would like to hear opinions on that one.
I think we actually discussed this earlier in the thread (i think I made a joke about sending all the elderly people on a all-expense paid cruise for 2 months, and just letting us build herd immunity while they have a fiesta)

Cuomo was also talking about this before too. The problem is that then kids bring it home to their parents.

Edit, oh wait, here it is:


I mean shit... we can take everyone 65 years or older or with preexisting conditions and send them all on a 1-2 month all-expense paid luxury cruises with separate cabins and isolated air supplies... pamper them for a month or 2 and still come out ahead financially in comparison to a full shutdown.

By the time they get back from their 2 month fiesta (complete with daily Skype calls from their kids and grandkids, and anything else they love) the population will have build herd immunity and bam. Good to go.

Don't get me wrong... by no means should we put our elderly at risk, but there's got to be a better solution to this than (quite literally) shutting down the entire world and tanking the economy. There has to be ways of protecting them that are smarter than this.

(Btw my cruise suggestion is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I think it nicely illustrates my point)
 

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I think we actually discussed this earlier in the thread (i think I made a joke about sending all the elderly people on a all-expense paid cruise for 2 months, and just letting us build herd immunity while they have a fiesta)

Cuomo was also talking about this before too. The problem is that then kids bring it home to their parents.

Edit, oh wait, here it is:

Yeah I figured it was probably mentioned somewhere in this massive thread already, but I just saw it now so I thought I'd bring it up. Seemed pertinent with the #notdying4wallstreet discussion.
 
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ChrisV

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Yeah I figured it was probably mentioned somewhere in this massive thread already, but I just saw it now so I thought I'd bring it up. Seemed pertinent with the #notdying4wallstreet discussion.
Yea I think your suggestion is a bit more thought-out than mine lol. I think this is an ideal solution if the logistics can be worked out. We would have to figure out safe ways to get them food, etc. Try to email your senator or governor. People underestimate the voice they have.
 

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Why not let everyone <45yrs of age get back to work so the economy doesn't go to total crap. Let them run the percentage gauntlet and treat th

@ChrisV

because 20% need to be hospitalized regardless of age group (give or take 3 or 5%)

as of 2010 36.5% of the US was between 18 and 45, using todays estimate for US population thats 119,355,000 people, if they all got it at once that would be 23,871,000 who need to be hospitalized (if you need to be admitted to a hospital and you can't be, thats bad, you have a good chance of dying)

The US has just under a million total hospital beds, lets call it a million and ignore ICU cases. We need weeks in the hospital per patient, lets be generous and say just one week.

you would need 24 weeks of EVEN spread of disease (which we of course don't control) to move through that population.

and new york is having a very large number of younger victims needing ICU care.
 

MHP368

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It will be interesting to see how these predictions stack up to reality.

Horrifying is the word I would use given that we're basing these models on what we've already seen in places like italy and south korea and spain.
 

GIlman

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@GIlman , what are your thoughts on how this could affect births in the coming months? It will likely be hard for a lot of women to get into the hospital to give birth, plus some might just avoid the hospital out of fear.

You can likely provide a lot of (international) value if you can figure out to deal with this dilemma. Midwife lead generation?
Did some back of the napkin math.

If we could magically double hospital and ICU beds and then double nurses and doctors , AND we quarantined 1 in 7 americans (those 65 and older or immunocompromised)

We would have to spread the disease out evenly through the remaining population over a 24 week period in order to not overwhelm the US healthcare system (technically that would only be 70% infected and recoverd / immune but , close enough)

So let that sink in.

Don’t know the math you used. But usually it takes 14-18 days before people get into trouble. Then if they are ventilated typically require 20 days on ventilator. Did you factor that into your model? If not, what would be your revised estimates.
 
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Envision

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They're exaggerated projections, but could become real if precautions were not taken. Talk to anyone in Arizona and they will tell you everything is weird, its weird everywhere - everyone is conscious of this.

Social distancing measures have been in place for over a week in the entire country and will only get more strict.

Its impossible to assume the trajectory of this virus or any other. But as 330 million people shift their actions in the same direction, progress is being made. Thats where you should focus. What can you do or contribute versus talk about the horrors, hysteria, and catastrophe.
 

Bekit

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In the midst of the debate over economy vs health, this was a reality check for me.

I have a friend who is in the Philippines right now. I have known him since ~2008.

I was just chatting with him on facebook and this was what he said.

"it is Getting rough out here , we are down to one person a family to get out of the house to get neccesities. The numbers is going up badly everyday...One of my good friend died and was buried the same day in [city] and is suspected to have died because of the virus yesterday.

We are about to expect the worse if the lockdown goes on as people around losed jobs and mass shortage of food. We are trying to help with what we have but our resources is thinning fast as well. But still thankful to be alive another day.

this coming weeks will be more harder because the government had already locked down businesses and factories too along with little works where most of the people are making a living in a daily basis.

supplies are limited everyday and only one person from a family can get out once a day to buy food and supplies. The worst part is a lot of people specially those who make it one day at a time financially are now without work and income to buy food and supplies."


This really struck me hard.

Here I am, sitting in my nice, comfortable house, with heat and electricity and a belly full of nutritious food. And while I am seriously contemplating a scenario where I don't have money or food, that day is far enough off in the future to feel like it possibly won't ever happen at all.

And while Congress debates this insanity of a stimulus package, and people debate the relative merits of health vs wealth, I still assume that there will be food on the table and maybe even a merciful reprieve on housing and utility bills and we'll get through this one way or another.

Meanwhile, people are locked down in the Philippines who depend on that day's work to buy that day's food. Now their factories are closed.

No stimulus package for them. No $1,000 helicopter money payments for them.

I am struck, hard, with how MUCH I have to be grateful for.
 

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