*** OFFICIAL *** COVID-19 CoronaVirus Thread. Fresh epidemic fears as child pneumonia cases surge in Europe after China outbreak. NOW in USA (9 Viewers)

[Doug B]

From my experience, Sams Club and Costco have less meat than the "grocery stores".

There's definitely an order to which stores get hit: club stores (Sam's, Costco, etc.) first, then big-box retailers (WalMart, Target, etc); chain groceries, local one-store grocers, then lastly dollar stores & discount stores.

 

[dawgtrails]

Just got a notice from our health district that a Dr. In a small clinic went to work not feeling well. Ten of the patients he met with now have symptoms and 46 people are quarantined. 

first, do no harm

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Not only is that a low death rate, but it's a death rate only applied to 20% of the population. 

I'm not trying to be morbid, and I optimism has it's place. But when advising others, being realistic should be paramount. 

To be fair they also have a Bear case that is worse (30% of pop, 1.9% death rate). 

 

[BassNBrew]

Most stores around here have instituted a hard "1 item" policy for most of the stuff that gets gobbled up.  It has really helped.

Really isn’t A good idea as it forces people back to the store on a daily basis

I disagree -- there will never be a hard number of infections, no, just like there never are for any disease. But you can rest assured that various means of sampling the population for antibodies -- allowing an educated estimate of population infected -- are forthcoming. Probably starting in earnest 6-18 months down the line, and probably an annual (or biannual) exercise in U.S. public health statistical analysis going forward.

Hi hope you are correct. I’d just don’t have a lot of faith that they will ever be able to get an accurate sample with this disease occurring in pockets around the country.

 

[Politician Spock]

To be fair they also have a Bear case that is worse (30% of pop, 1.9% death rate). 

Well, that's only 7 times worse.

When you create a dart board the size of Texas, it's hard to miss. 

 

[beer 30]

I'm half-reading it while listening to a training call.  That's an absurdly low death rate that they've pulled from the sky.

That being said, I don't think we should expect to learn a lot from Investment companies.  It probably isn't in their own interests to paint a less than rosy picture.  I doubt anyone before the 2008 crisis expected it to happen, either (in fact I know they didn't).

The economic devastation we've already seen is worse than anything I can remember.  The govt is the only thing keeping the whole economic system from crashing right now.  

Might be the scariest thing that's been posted in this thread so far

 

[Redwes25]

Cuomo wants USNS Comfort to take Coronavirus patients.  What does NY think about this?

That ship is useless and not meant for virus but battlefield injuries.  The virus gets on it and it will spread like wild fire among the crew that live in bunks, etc.  It was all about headlines and really doesn't do anything.  

Also, to be honest the disease will get on that ship anyway.  Lots of people are showing up with Cardiac arrest type symptoms but what they really have is Covid.  

 

[dawgtrails]

Really isn’t A good idea as it forces people back to the store on a daily basis

There is a huge market for deliveries. Some stores should really increase their delivery capacity 100 fold and they would make a killing. I know I would pay a huge premium to not have to go to the store, nor wait a week for delivery

 

[shader]

New York reports 9,810 new cases and 397 deaths :(

 

[Politician Spock]

Might be the scariest thing that's been posted in this thread so far

For humans, millions of deaths is scarier than trillion dollar loses. 

At least it should be. If it's not for someone, I question their humanity. 

 

[shader]

There's one site that's been breaking the Italy numbers early the last few days.  Apparently they've gone backwards, which really sucks. 

5974 new cases and 889 new deaths

 

[Joe Bryant]

True. In her defense, I think she was trying to say go now before the official statement so the grocery stores aren’t sold out or are chaos from a pre-quarantine run. But ambiguously worded texts are yet another reason to not trust women or Harris.

If you come back, don't do anything remotely close to this again. 

 

[lakerstan]

Self-delete.  

 

[Politician Spock]

There's one site that's been breaking the Italy numbers early the last few days.  Apparently they've gone backwards, which really sucks. 

5974 new cases and 889 new deaths

I've been contemplating a theory that as a result of people not going out and getting enough sunshine due to stay at home orders, their vitamin D levels could be lower, resulting in a weakened immune system, resulting in an increase of the virus spread.

It's a theory that also applies to why the flu spreads more in the fall and winter than it does in the spring and summer. 

Now that Italy has been "inside" for a month, weakened immune systems could be resulting in increase cases. 

 

[Chemical X]

Yeah, from childhood. It was around the time that Travolta was in Welcome Back Kotter. My brother and I called this movie Barbarino in a Baggie as well as Sweat Hog in Saran Wrap 

Seinfeld Bubble Boy.....Moops!

 

[shader]

I've been contemplating a theory that as a result of people not going out and getting enough sunshine due to stay at home orders, their vitamin D levels could be lower, resulting in a weakened immune system, resulting in an increase of the virus spread.

It's a theory that also applies to why the flu spreads more in the fall and winter than it does in the spring and summer. 

Now that Italy has been "inside" for a month, weakened immune systems could be resulting in increase cases. 

That's interesting.  My wife has us taking all sorts of vitamins.  But I'm also making sure I get sunshine every day.  To be honest, I'm probably getting more sunshine than I would if I was doing my regular job.  Hopefully that will have an impact.  

For many, many reasons, I'd encourage everyone that can safely get outside to do so as much as possible.

 

[msommer]

There's one site that's been breaking the Italy numbers early the last few days.  Apparently they've gone backwards, which really sucks. 

5974 new cases and 889 new deaths

Spain reports 5645 new cases and 587 deaths. That's much lower than the last couple of days. Hopefully it lasts. Also recoveries are increasing

 

[Redwes25]

Spain reports 5645 new cases and 587 deaths. That's much lower than the last couple of days. Hopefully it lasts. Also recoveries are increasing

Spain usually reports twice a day so imagine that is jut the initial report.  I will add the first set of numbers are usually higher then second set so imagine their numbers are flat but hope I am wrong.  

 

[Doug B]

Really isn’t A good idea as it forces people back to the store on a daily basis

Hi hope you are correct. I’d just don’t have a lot of faith that they will ever be able to get an accurate sample with this disease occurring in pockets around the country.

... regionally-varying distribution patterns don't hamper sampling in any way, provided the researchers don't pull all samples from a handful of towns or something. Yes, the samples have to be distributed from all over the country.

 

[shader]

Spain reports 5645 new cases and 587 deaths. That's much lower than the last couple of days. Hopefully it lasts. Also recoveries are increasing

They will report again tonight.  

 

[Navin Johnson]

The best guidance after washing your hands is to dry off with paper towels so you can throw them away, not on a t-shirt that is going to be reused.

It's actually so yo can use it to turn off the faucet and open the door without touching either.  Then throwing it away.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Well, that's only 7 times worse.

When you create a dart board the size of Texas, it's hard to miss. 

Last thing FWIW: Saw this on the Economist: Link

 

[Navin Johnson]

I don't think this is accurate, at least wrt deaths - the spike results in more dying, both from Covid and other illness, as medical resources are overwhelmed.

In the absence of a treatment/vaccine, the AUC may end up the same for total cases, as herd immunity is the endgame. But containment measures can stop if much earlier if perfectly executed, as they collectively can drop Ro to less than 1.

The curve I am referring to is the infection curve.  I never meant to imply that the deaths remained the same.  If they did we would be better off not quarantining and just getting it over with as quickly as possible.

 

[shader]

Spain usually reports twice a day so imagine that is jut the initial report.  I will add the first set of numbers are usually higher then second set so imagine their numbers are flat but hope I am wrong.  

At this point, I'm not getting wrapped up in whether numbers are going slightly down or slightly up.  The exponential growth has clearly stopped.  If it hadn't, they'd be dealing with 100k new cases a day by the standards of the pre-quarantine numbers.  

The issue is that DESPITE the quarantines, the virus still isn't going away.

Look, the right things have been done to hold off total devastation.  The same measures will likely keep devastation from happening in the USA. 

But we are moving to a point where the bigger issue will become, what next?  I don't think anyone has a good answer for that.

 

[msommer]

Spain usually reports twice a day so imagine that is jut the initial report.  I will add the first set of numbers are usually higher then second set so imagine their numbers are flat but hope I am wrong.  

They will report again tonight.  

Never noticed that  

 

[ConstruxBoy]

I've been contemplating a theory that as a result of people not going out and getting enough sunshine due to stay at home orders, their vitamin D levels could be lower, resulting in a weakened immune system, resulting in an increase of the virus spread.

It's a theory that also applies to why the flu spreads more in the fall and winter than it does in the spring and summer. 

Now that Italy has been "inside" for a month, weakened immune systems could be resulting in increase cases. 

I actually started taking a one a day vitamin 3 weeks ago just because of this possible issue. Also thinking of fresh fruit and veggies being tough to find. 

 

[dawgtrails]

From the article:

I agree with their overall numbers IF only 20% of the population gets infected in 2020, and the death rate is as low as 0.4%.

But that's a big IF. 

Even so, that is 250,000 deaths. If that is the optimistic scenario, holy ####

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Even so, that is 250,000 deaths. If that is the optimistic scenario, holy ####

That's actually their base scenario, which they put at a 50% probability. The Bear scenario is at 30% probablity and the Bull is the other 20%. FWIW. 

 

[BobbyLayne]

Are the statistics out of NY counting every patient that died with Covid-19 in their system to be logged as a Covid-19 fatality?

When looking at their statistics, an alarming amount of the people who died had underlying conditions.  You'd have to think that some of those deaths were to people who died from something else and just happened to have Covid-19 in their system.

In Dr. Bhakdi's open letter to German Chancellor Merkel he posited the same

It’s my layman’s understanding no one dies of Covid-19. They die because of the complications that arise from the immune system fighting the disease.

This article is 7 weeks old, and while our understanding of the data has evolved, I haven’t seen any evidence this is not still the case (e.g., death occurs not directly from Covid-19 but rather due to what happens in the body after the immune system begins to attack the virus.)

how does this disease turn fatal?


The first symptoms of COVID-19 are pretty common with respiratory illnesses — fever, a dry cough and shortness of breath, says Dr. Carlos del Rio, a professor of medicine and global health at Emory University who has consulted with colleagues treating coronavirus patients in China and Germany. "Some people also get a headache, sore throat," he says. Fatigue has also been reported — and less commonly, diarrhea. It may feel as if you have a cold. Or you may feel that flu-like feeling of being hit by a train.

Doctors say these patients with milder symptoms should check in with their physician to make sure their symptoms don't progress to something more serious, but they don't require major medical intervention.

But the new coronavirus attacks the lungs, and in about 20% of patients, infections can get more serious. As the virus enters lung cells, it starts to replicate, destroying the cells, explains Dr. Yoko Furuya, an infectious disease specialist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

"Because our body senses all of those viruses as basically foreign invaders, that triggers our immune system to sweep in and try to contain and control the virus and stop it from making more and more copies of itself," she says.

But Furuya says that this immune system response to this invader can also destroy lung tissue and cause inflammation. The end result can be pneumonia. That means the air sacs in the lungs become inflamed and filled with fluid, making it harder to breathe.

Del Rio says that these symptoms can also make it harder for the lungs to get oxygen to your blood, potentially triggering a cascade of problems. "The lack of oxygen leads to more inflammation, more problems in the body. Organs need oxygen to function, right? So when you don't have oxygen there, then your liver dies and your kidney dies," he says. Lack of oxygen can also lead to septic shock.

The most severe cases — about 6% of patients — end up in intensive care with multi-organ failure, respiratory failure and septic shock, according to a February report from the WHO. And many hospitalized patients require supplemental oxygen. In extreme cases, they need mechanical ventilation — including the use of a sophisticated technology known as ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), which basically acts as the patient's lungs, adding oxygen to their blood and removing carbon dioxide. The technology "allows us to save more severe patients," Dr. Sylvie Briand, director of the WHO's pandemic and epidemic diseases department, said at a press conference In February.

Many of the more serious cases have been in people who are middle-aged and elderly — Furuya notes that our immune system gets weaker as we age. She says for long-term smokers, it could be even worse because their airways and lungs are more vulnerable. People with other underlying medical conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes or chronic lung disease, have also proved most vulnerable. Furuya says those kinds of conditions can make it harder for the body to recover from infections.

"Of course, you have outliers — people who are young and otherwise previously healthy who are dying," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NPR's 1A show. "But if you look at the vast majority of the people who have serious disease and who will ultimately die, they are in that group that are either elderly and/or have underlying conditions.”

How COVID-19 Kills: The New Coronavirus Disease Can Take A Deadly Turn

 

[Politician Spock]

At this point, I'm not getting wrapped up in whether numbers are going slightly down or slightly up.  The exponential growth has clearly stopped.  If it hadn't, they'd be dealing with 100k new cases a day by the standards of the pre-quarantine numbers.  

The issue is that DESPITE the quarantines, the virus still isn't going away.

Look, the right things have been done to hold off total devastation.  The same measures will likely keep devastation from happening in the USA. 

But we are moving to a point where the bigger issue will become, what next?  I don't think anyone has a good answer for that.

Keeping essential services going means there is still a way for the virus to spread. Stopping the spread would require a strictly enforced full quarantine shutdown. That may have happened in China, which may explain China's numbers. The other explanation is China's numbers are bogus.

Either way, the virus won't go away with what Europe is doing, and especially with what the US is doing (given we suck at it). But as long as those efforts slow the spread, it keeps the hospitals from being overrun while we build up our immunity as a society. The question is how long will the immunity build up take to get to the point where we don't have to stay at home anymore. Whatever it is, it is likely faster than the amount of time a vaccine will take. But that date being June, is on the optimistic side, unless the  asymptomatic % is really high, which it might be, but knowing that will also take time to develop and deploy the testing. 

 

[Tin Cup]

I swear I'd like to see the local news do an expose on TP and paper towels at local groceries and big-box stores. They never, ever have either anymore (except maybe for a very few lonely rolls of store-brand paper towels). No matter when you go. I mean, I'd like to follow paper-product shipments from the truck, to the back of the store intake dock, to the back-area warehouse, to the stocking of the shelves, to the purchasing by customers.

While waiting for Wal Mart to open this morning, heard one of the employees mention that TP delivery is each day right before noon.  Not sure if true, and not sure if universal.  But figured I would pass it along.

 

[skol asylum]

Sooo... 

I think we have tens of millions of cases in the US at this point. 

Ive been closely following this model since mid February and it's been extremely accurate on deaths, with US fatalities only recently accelerating from ~1 day lag to ~1 day ahead. 

The only curious part about that model is it showed massive infection numbers that would presumably be hard to hide. Unless, as some studies show, truly asymptomatic cases are prevalent (~30-50%)... which some studies are starting to confirm.

Now we have THIS STUDY which hypothesizes we had 10MM cases as of 2 weeks ago. If that's the case we could be looking at ~15-20% of the US population being infected at this point.

What does that mean? Good news would be confirmation that many folks are completely asymptomatic, we may be further down the line toward herd immunity than expected, and fatality rate is significantly lower than we thought.

Downside would be that the risk of catching it, if you're not already infected, is much higher as you're likely surrounded by infected people when you're out. 

Very interesting read. I look forward to results of Widespread antibody testing Down the road to confirm/debunk this. 

Will read a little closer later. If you accept that we had 10 million on 3/15 and it doubles say every 3 days that would mean that 15 days later we would be at 320 million or the entire us population. I imagine that spread number drops significantly both to social distancing and the whole herd immunity thing where the virus has less and less hosts to jump to. Anyways yeah I guess if we accept that 10 million number and accept the spread rate we have ALOT of infected. 

I assume the math isn't quite this simplistic but if you take the 10 million number and halve it going backwards in time to get to theoretical patient zero in the US with that every 3 days doubling rate we go back in time 69 days which puts us in that end of January time frame.

I'm sure epidemiologists would be rolling their eyes at my application of this "math".

 

[Redwes25]

At this point, I'm not getting wrapped up in whether numbers are going slightly down or slightly up.  The exponential growth has clearly stopped.  If it hadn't, they'd be dealing with 100k new cases a day by the standards of the pre-quarantine numbers.  

The issue is that DESPITE the quarantines, the virus still isn't going away.

Look, the right things have been done to hold off total devastation.  The same measures will likely keep devastation from happening in the USA. 

But we are moving to a point where the bigger issue will become, what next?  I don't think anyone has a good answer for that.

Agree, I was really hoping to see numbers start to go down for new infections (especially in Italy) but haven't seen that yet.  

Leads me to the thought that anyone infected needs to be put in make shift hospitals to avoid further infection and spread.  China did this and set up like 10 hospitals for mild patients and if you moved to serious case you went to a "real" hospital.  Sounds drastic but might be best option to slow spread.  This is not unprecedented in the USA as there were "pest houses" during small pox outbreaks before widespread vaccination ended that virus.  These are radical ideas but if things don't start to go down soon in Italy we will be living with social distancing until a vaccine is widespread in a year.  I can't imagine what the economy looks like then...

 

[tangfoot]

I swear I'd like to see the local news do an expose on TP and paper towels at local groceries and big-box stores. They never, ever have either anymore (except maybe for a very few lonely rolls of store-brand paper towels). No matter when you go. I mean, I'd like to follow paper-product shipments from the truck, to the back of the store intake dock, to the back-area warehouse, to the stocking of the shelves, to the purchasing by customers.

https://marker.medium.com/what-everyones-getting-wrong-about-the-toilet-paper-shortage-c812e1358fe0

 

[Terminalxylem]

The curve I am referring to is the infection curve.  I never meant to imply that the deaths remained the same.  If they did we would be better off not quarantining and just getting it over with as quickly as possible.

From what I understand, AUC for total infections is impacted by control measures. Even at this point, it’s possible for it to be contained in smaller communities, with appropriate quarantine and contact tracing. Whether that is practical in the US is another story. 

 

[rogwadd]

I actually started taking a one a day vitamin 3 weeks ago just because of this possible issue. Also thinking of fresh fruit and veggies being tough to find. 

I've not had issues with fresh produce the last three weeks.  Our grocery store freezer aisles are becoming more and more barren.  My trip to the store yesterday included empty ice cream cases, something new.

 

[Capella]

If you're looking for good news, yesterday France's new cases collapsed to 2,116.  I hope to see that carry over today.  I also hope to see a similar collapse in Italy.

Italy is a frustrating case.  Yeah their exponential growth has definitely stopped...But this weekend is 4 weeks since Italy has been on lockdown and they are still getting 4-5k cases a day. 

How long can a lockdown of this length continue?   How long MUST it continue?

If you think about it, Italy has 35,000 new cases in the last week.  So they are locked down for at LEAST another month.  

That's not good news for the USA, who has quarantine measures that are far less strict than Italy.

If Italy is on a strict lockdown has does this continue to happen. 35k is an extraordinary number. 

 

[Capella]

I've not had issues with fresh produce the last three weeks.  Our grocery store freezer aisles are becoming more and more barren.  My trip to the store yesterday included empty ice cream cases, something new.

Most people don’t know how to cook. You’d think this would be the time to learn. 

 

[skol asylum]

Agree, I was really hoping to see numbers start to go down for new infections (especially in Italy) but haven't seen that yet.  

Leads me to the thought that anyone infected needs to be put in make shift hospitals to avoid further infection and spread.  China did this and set up like 10 hospitals for mild patients and if you moved to serious case you went to a "real" hospital.  Sounds drastic but might be best option to slow spread.  This is not unprecedented in the USA as there were "pest houses" during small pox outbreaks before widespread vaccination ended that virus.  These are radical ideas but if things don't start to go down soon in Italy we will be living with social distancing until a vaccine is widespread in a year.  I can't imagine what the economy looks like then...

We really should be using hotels for this. 

 

[Redwes25]

If Italy is on a strict lockdown has does this continue to happen. 35k is an extraordinary number. 

Family/close relationship spread.  You read the WHO report about China they said that was the number one cause of spread of the relationship was among families.  

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

This chart of where people were still traveling last week is problematic.

 

[thecatch]

Thanks for sharing.  I'm busy and can't read the full article until later today, but judging by the headline, those guys have their heads in the clouds.  I think this is going to make the 2008 recession look like a cakewalk, unless things suddenly change in the next month. 

I tend to agree.  This crisis is going to be absolutely devastating for small businesses even if it completely goes away in a few months.  

 

[msommer]

Good post BL.  I get RK's point though.  I know a lot of older people die with a little bit of cancer in their bodies, but their death isn't a "cancer death".

Does anyone with a medical background know how they assign cause of death?

At the end of the day, I think it comes down to 'would this person be alive today if covid-19 didn't exist'.  

From a research perspective, it's important to distinguish fatalities that were a direct result of the virus.  (I'm a stats nerd, sorry)

I think it varies from country to country, and, unless CDC or centre for infectuous diseases have sent out guidelines it may differ from state to state in the US

 

[Steve Tasker]

But did they even have a reason to leave the house? It's the Czech Republic. 

To get some of their awesome beer. And to see their women. 
 

Carry on 

@UniAlias

 

[tangfoot]

I agree that we need more TP at home now that we are no longer using the restrooms at our workplace, in schools, at restaurants, at hotels, or in airports.

That's not really the gist of this article.  The supply chain for consumer vs industrial TP is very different and there aren't many manufacturers that provide both.  If 40% of our TP was industrial, that's a massive demand that has switched over to consumer over the past month.  The manufacturers can eventually catch up with demand, but not in the short term.

 

[RnR]

This chart of where people were still traveling last week is problematic.

I'm not sure it's as problematic as it appears on the map. Most of the "hot zones" appear to largely be areas that require a drive to get any basic supplies.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

If Italy is on a strict lockdown has does this continue to happen. 35k is an extraordinary number. 

Especially on a population base less than 20% the size of the US.

 

[dickey moe]

I've been contemplating a theory that as a result of people not going out and getting enough sunshine due to stay at home orders, their vitamin D levels could be lower, resulting in a weakened immune system, resulting in an increase of the virus spread.

It's a theory that also applies to why the flu spreads more in the fall and winter than it does in the spring and summer. 

Now that Italy has been "inside" for a month, weakened immune systems could be resulting in increase cases. 

All the more reason why people should be going out for walks AS LONG AS THEY STAY THE #### AWAY FROM OTHER PEOPLE.

 

[ChiefD]

I'm not sure it's as problematic as it appears on the map. Most of the "hot zones" appear to largely be areas that require a drive to get any basic supplies.

Yeah. Western Kansas has about 80 people that live there.

 

[wilked]

I'm not sure it's as problematic as it appears on the map. Most of the "hot zones" appear to largely be areas that require a drive to get any basic supplies.

roll down further to the 4th or so graphic

Believe me, you have to drive to get basic supplies in Maine and Montana, but those states took early action