OT: Coronavirus chat

[Foppa2118]

I don't think they care about that as much as they did at first, at least not here.

Tests aren't as reliable as they thought they were and they simply don't have enough. The #1 deciding factor appears to be how many people show up at the hospital...if they have enough room they'll open up the economy. If/when they get overwhelmed they'll close it again. Rinse and repeat until vaccine or herd immunity.

There are two types of tests that are important right now. The PCR tests to see if you currently have the virus, and the antibody tests to see if you ever had the virus.

Both tests will provide a critical piece of information that's important for evaluating risk. That's how many have/had the virus, including asymptomatic/presymptomatic, and therefore what percentage of the population may (and I stress may because we haven't done studies to know for sure) have built up enough immunity.

Herd immunity is calculated based upon the reproduction number (vaccine efficacy is factored in as well if there's a vaccine). The current estimated reproduction number for this novel coronavirus is around 2-2.5.

So they estimate the herd immunity threshold to be around 60%. Though some recent CDC studies estimated 85%.

We also don't know the risk of reinfection, or what level of immunity we will develop after contracting the virus, and how long we will have that immunity. There's a wide range that this could be, and it has big impacts on how quickly this will spread once we reopen the economy. Governors opening up their states early are betting people's lives that these will not be big factors.

Since both the PCR and antibody tests will give us an idea of what percentage of the population has had the virus, then if we assume (key word again assume) we develop some immunity after contracting the virus, then we'll have an idea of what the herd immunity is.

We don't have tests with high sensitivity or specificity right now, so we're getting some false negatives, and some positives that are picking up another virus. But the testing is still important for knowing more about the virus, and to aid in contact tracing.

Proper contact tracing is necessary for reopening the country too, otherwise we won't be able to contain the spread once we reopen. They estimate that we'll need 100,000-300,000 contact tracers which is a massive increase to the roughly 2,000 contract tracers they are using right now.

Without proper testing, we don't know what our herd immunity is. Without sufficient contact tracing, we won't be able to contain the spread.

So opening the economy back up without doing sufficient testing along the way, is doing so based on hopes and hunches that it won't return. It's not based on science. And that is risking a second wave even before the expected second wave in the fall.

 

[Foppa2118]

I've seen some statements saying that the US needs to do up to 30m tests per week to open up. Some say 4m. To date, there have been 4m tests total. There isn't enough reagent nor enough capability to test 4m per week in the US, even if you stopped nearly all other tests. There isn't enough bandwidth. Mass testing isn't the way out.

This is incorrect for a few different reasons.

First, the 30 million test per week plan was not proposed to be done before opening up the economy, but rather to support the openings they acknowledge are about to happen. This came from a very detailed plan put forth by the Rockefeller Foundation who proposed, among other things, ramping up testing over a 6 month period.

Going from 1 million tests per week (which was done the first two weeks of April) to 3 million a week over the next 2 months, and then up to 30 million a week after 6 months.

Secondly, we don't have enough reagents and swabs right now to administer enough tests, but they do have the capacity to run a lot more than the 1 million tests a week we're doing now, because they're not utilizing all the lab capacity, or a lot of the federal labs within states.

They will have to scale up capacity if they want to get to that proposed 30 million a week number, but it can be accomplished if given the proper funding for staffing and equipment, and a supply chain task force for testing like they did with PPE in the hospitals.

The reagents and swabs are a supply chain problem that can be addressed if the feds do their jobs and ensure the country has what it needs, rather than making states bid against each other and the rest of the world for supplies. This supply chain problem is the main reason testing is still slow right now to ramp up in the US, even at this late stage in April.

If you're worried about the effects on the economy then you should be worried about the effects of causing a second wave before the one expected in the fall/winter. The longer this spreads at a high rate without vaccines or treatments, the bigger the impact on the economy.

Testing is the only way out of this safely and wisely. Doing this without sufficient testing along the way is adding too much risk of another big wave of cases, because it's solely based on hunches, hopes, and incomplete data.

https://www.rockefellerfoundation.o...erFoundation_WhitePaper_Covid19_4_21_2020.pdf

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

I come to HF boards just to watch that guy^ disagree argue with every post Hench ever makes

 

[Cousin Eddie]

Newfoundland seems to be in a really fantastic place in all of this right now. We had one really bad outbreak from an infected person attending a funeral home, which resulted in the infection of like 75% of our total cases and all 3 deaths are related to that outbreak.

But since that situation calmed down things have really started turning around. Today was our 5th day in a row without a single new case on the island. And we only have some ~50 active cases at this point and 200 recovered.

They've also expanded testing to the point now where anybody who has any 2 of the symptoms related to the virus are eligible to get tested. So wake up one day with a cough and a sore throat or a runny nose and a sore throat... And you automatically qualify to get tested.

My suspicion here is if we can make it to 14 days without any new cases, we'll start seeing very fast action towards opening places up. And if we can go another 14 days after the last confirmed case has recovered without new cases... I think the entire province opens up again.

I said from the beginning that as an island NL had a really good chance to do extremely well fighting this virus. With the sanctions in place for travel right now, there's only 3 spots on the island where people can travel here from away. With everything streamlined into those 3 places its easy to screen everyone entering the province and turn away anybody who cant take proper isolating measures immediately.

Long story short I think NL will end up being one of(If not the very first) the first provinces in Canada to get back to a sense of normalcy very quickly here. My thoughts are that by May 15th some restrictions are lifted, and small social gatherings(5 or 10 people probably) are allowed again... And by June 1st if those days go well, we see wide range restrictions lifted.

Social distancing practices in grocery stores and retail stores likely remain in effect for a long time regardless. But some sense of normalcy will come back here soon if we keep going like we are now with nobody getting infected.


Because, we're seeing in the US already that people are growing impatient and want to get back to work and back to a sense of normalcy even with a massive number of active cases across the country. So... People here in Newfoundland will quickly grow impatient and unsatisfied if they try to keep restrictions enforced when there's nobody infected and no cases going on in the island.

6 consecutive now

 

[Balthazar]

6 consecutive now

Make it to 40 and you're clear!

 

[henchman21]

Home

You can debate particulars and things that don't make sense, but this is another good example of planning by a state.

 

[henchman21]

Ex-NHL player Colby Cohen is putting career contacts to use...

Friend of the show.

 

[Foppa2118]

I come to HF boards just to watch that guy^ disagree argue with every post Hench ever makes

What a silly exaggerated thing to say. Some things are objective facts, not matters of opinion. I post about once every 100 things I disagree with him on, and they usually aren't matters of opinion.

 

[Islay1989]

Trump really outdid himself with his latest number. UVC exposure and shots of disinfectant for everyone!!!!!!!!! That will help with the coronavirus. First, we expose the population to UVC rays, cook the germs - and the host in the process -, produce poisonous gas that can kill the infected and then inject survivors with Purell. Soon enough there'll be no active cases.

 

[Sheet]

Trump really outdid himself with his latest number. UVC exposure and shots of disinfectant for everyone!!!!!!!!! That will help with the coronavirus. First, we expose the population to UVC rays, cook the germs - and the host in the process -, produce poisonous gas that can kill the infected and then inject survivors with Purell. Soon enough there'll be no active cases.

Can’t deny the efficacy. Guaranteed to kill the virus and stop the spread. Big picture thinking.

 

[Foppa2118]

Important takeaways:

“The IHME model is an odd duck in the pool of mathematical models,” said Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Medicine. “I fear the White House is looking for data that tells them a story they want to hear, and so they look to the model with the lowest projection of death.”

At the center of those concerns is a key element, the IHME model’s critics say. The projection makes no attempt to account for the virus’ defining characteristics, such as how easily it spreads or how long someone can be infected before they show symptoms.

Instead, it relies on data from cities already hit by the coronavirus, including in Italy and China, and matches the U.S. to a similar curve. The result is a projection that’s easily digestible and more precise in its predictions than most infectious disease models, but far more volatile as the situation plays out on the ground.

The IHME has made frequent revisions to its model over the past month. Since April 9, for example, its forecast of the nation’s death toll had risen from around 61,000 to closer to 70,000, before adjusting back down to roughly 67,000 people.

Each of its projections also includes an upper and a lower boundary, mapped out by a shaded area, which range from as few as 48,000 — a figure the U.S. has already surpassed — to as many as 123,000 deaths.

“It’s a statistical model fitting the curves of epidemics in China and other places to what they think might happen in the U.S.,” Gonsalves said, “and then constantly refitting based on new data.”

...

"IHME Director Christopher Murray defended his team’s work as rigorous and among the best models available, arguing that the forecast simply seeks to achieve different goals than more traditional projections. The model was originally meant to help hospitals predict their supply needs, as providers across the world braced for a wave of coronavirus patients.

“We’re willing to make a forecast. Most academics want to hedge their bets and not be found to ever be wrong,” Murray said. “That’s not useful for a planner — you can’t go to a hospital and say you might need 1,000 ventilators, or you might need 5,000.”

He added that IHME’s model is far more optimistic than others in large part because it heavily accounted for the impact of social distancing — a decision Murray credited for helping pinpoint the pandemic’s national peak even as others warned of continued massive growth in cases."

...

"That just opens up a whole new set of challenges,” Murray said, noting that Georgia — whose governor, Brian Kemp, has called for businesses to reopen far sooner than his counterparts in other states — hasn’t even hit its coronavirus peak under the IHME model.

“If Georgia’s going to have a resurgence, what about the neighboring states?” Murray said.

Compounding those concerns is what he called a “disturbing” trend of slower drop-offs in new cases in some countries like Italy, a signal that the crisis could persist for longer than expected.

The IHME, he said, will update its estimates next week to reflect a gloomier future amid indications that states like Georgia will begin to reopen — and boost the odds of a prolonged pandemic.

“We had presumed, perhaps naively, that given the magnitude of the epidemic, most states would stick to their social distancing until the end of May,” Murray said. “That is not happening.”

...

"In recent days, Fauci and Birx have avoided benchmarking where the country may end up and emphasized that social distancing might remain in place longer than many people realized.

Privately, two people close to the administration’s response effort acknowledged that the death toll is likely to grow into the 70,000 and perhaps 80,000 range — and that’s assuming there isn’t a second wave of outbreaks in the fall."

 

[Ararana]

We'll have to start keeping an eye on our euros' social media.

 

[Sheet]

Ive sort of figured based on what we’re seeing day to day somewhere between 50-100k is probably likely in the immediate. The yearly death total will probably surpass 100k if I’m a betting man.

I said earlier how I had mixed feeling about opening up. I remain conflicted but the impacts of shutting down are actually effecting hospitals profoundly.

My hospital just furloughed 400, other local hospitals have furloughed a greater percentage of their workforce. The elective surgeries generate a ton of income but it’s not just that.

Nationally, hospital admissions and ER visits have plummeted. It’s not like people are having less strokes and heart attacks and what not. They’re afraid to come to the hospital. So the ones we do get, tend to be sicker. Volume generates better revenue. Not acuity.

Summary, hospitals are being hit particularly hard right now by these shut down requirements as well, which was maybe a bit of an unforeseen side effect in some ways. The loss of income from surgery was anticipated, hence the funds approved to support hospitals, but the drop in volume wasn’t anticipated to this extent.

I still maintain the more we open up the higher the death toll will be, and it’s hard to place a value on a single life versus the greater good. I don’t envy those making these decisions. Where I am, New York, we’re not in a great place to open. Maybe rural areas. Just a mess all around.

 

[Foppa2118]

Ive sort of figured based on what we’re seeing day to day somewhere between 50-100k is probably likely in the immediate. The yearly death total will probably surpass 100k if I’m a betting man.

I said earlier how I had mixed feeling about opening up. I remain conflicted but the impacts of shutting down are actually effecting hospitals profoundly.

My hospital just furloughed 400, other local hospitals have furloughed a greater percentage of their workforce. The elective surgeries generate a ton of income but it’s not just that.

Nationally, hospital admissions and ER visits have plummeted. It’s not like people are having less strokes and heart attacks and what not. They’re afraid to come to the hospital. So the ones we do get, tend to be sicker. Volume generates better revenue. Not acuity.

Summary, hospitals are being hit particularly hard right now by these shut down requirements as well, which was maybe a bit of an unforeseen side effect in some ways. The loss of income from surgery was anticipated, hence the funds approved to support hospitals, but the drop in volume wasn’t anticipated to this extent.

I still maintain the more we open up the higher the death toll will be, and it’s hard to place a value on a single life versus the greater good. I don’t envy those making these decisions. Where I am, New York, we’re not in a great place to open. Maybe rural areas. Just a mess all around.

The solution to this is funding, not opening the economy back up before the case rate starts to decline.

Hopefully the $75B congress passed for hospital funding last week will help. This is on top of the $100B they passed in the first bill, and doesn't including an extra $25B for testing.

 

[SirLoinOfCloth]

My fiancée today finally left quarantine in our house. She was couped up in our bedroom for 18 days with this crap. She hasnt had fever for 3 days now and so she's slowly reintroducing herself back into the house. She's probably got a good few weeks ahead of her of recovery from the lung damage and muscle mass lost by being mostly bed-ridden for nearly 3 weeks.

The kids and are also at this point symptom free, I've been taking everyone's temperatures multiple times a day and so far so good.

I hope anyone else going through this, or who knows someone going through this, comes out the other side soon. This was a nasty little shit and the sooner it dies off, the better.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

We'll have to start keeping an eye on our euros' social media.

So my guess on a timeline based on this would be...


- Mid-May, players return to team cities, where they'll again be expected to self-isolate for another 14 days.

- After those 14 days, we'll be up to roughly June 1st. This is where a "mini-training camp" will begin for ~2-3 weeks through the middle of June. Also matches up with the timeline John Scott said recently for a training camp start date.

- After those training camps. Teams will fly to the designated 4 cities where play will be held. Another 2 week team self isolation will begin again. Where teams can continue practicing and be together within there own "bubbles" but no contact outside of team players and personnel. This will bring us up to the end of June or very early July range.

- After all of that, assuming no major setbacks(So no major outbreaks again in the US, and especially no Covid-19 cases among any NHL players or personnel in the slowly growing bubbles), we will see NHL games start to be played in fanless arenas in very early July, with a likely timeline for regular season ending in late July, and playoffs set to hopefully begin in the beginning of August.


IMO, this is a pretty clear outline of events the NHL plans to roll out, with each individual phase being a significant hurtle that will need to be crossed before an NHL season can start again. It goes along with all the rumors and reports we've heard the last week or so, and is a very safe and controlled way of bringing things back online so to speak.

 

[The Abusement Park]

My fiancée today finally left quarantine in our house. She was couped up in our bedroom for 18 days with this crap. She hasnt had fever for 3 days now and so she's slowly reintroducing herself back into the house. She's probably got a good few weeks ahead of her of recovery from the lung damage and muscle mass lost by being mostly bed-ridden for nearly 3 weeks.

The kids and are also at this point symptom free, I've been taking everyone's temperatures multiple times a day and so far so good.

I hope anyone else going through this, or who knows someone going through this, comes out the other side soon. This was a nasty little shit and the sooner it dies off, the better.

I’m glad to hear that! Hope you guys stay safe. I woke up this morning with body aches and have had chills very sporadically throughout the day. Taken my temperature 3 times and it’s been 98.5 so here’s hoping it’s nothing.

 

[Cousin Eddie]

I doubt players will have to quarantine for 14 days on arrival. Testing is much improved now and even when it wasn’t, pro athletes were getting tested quite easily.

I’d bet everyone arrives and is quarantined for 48 hours which includes a vivid test and maybe even two to be sure.

 

[Sheet]

The solution to this is funding, not opening the economy back up before the case rate starts to decline.

Hopefully the $75B congress passed for hospital funding last week will help. This is on top of the $100B they passed in the first bill, and doesn't including an extra $25B for testing.

The issue is congress can’t fund without funds.

 

[Foppa2118]

The issue is congress can’t fund without funds.

The federal government clearly has the funds to help the states. They're throwing around money left and right. They also gave $100B to hospitals in the first CARES act, and just added another $75B in hospital funding plus $25B for tests.

The issue is an unwillingness to fund certain things, and take over the supply chain to help the states. Combined with extremely poor logistics and leadership.

If hospitals are having trouble keeping in business, and furloughing workers during a pandemic, then the federal government needs to help out. So hopefully that funding will help. But they seem to want the States to do everything for some reason, despite having way less resources and money.

The current administration (with the help of the Senate) has created an environment where states are at odds with the feds, and even at odds with other states when bidding on the same supplies, instead of creating a partnership that ensures the United States gets everything they need during an emergency.

This is the republican Governor of Maryland who was forced to buy test kits from South Korea because the feds wouldn't provide them, and is now talking about how he was worried FEMA would seize them from him, like they did to the Governor in Massachusetts.

 

[Pokecheque]

The issue is congress can’t fund without funds.

Pffffffffffffffffft...

Congress dropped roughly $500 billion and over a TRILLION on Wall Street to try and avoid a stock market drop, which happened anyway. They did this without even a hint of debate or resistance.

The current defense budget is $748 billion. By comparison the 2nd largest defense budget is China's which is $177 billion. That's 23.7%, if my math is correct, of the US budget. You could hack that budget in HALF and it would still be far and away the biggest and most bloated defense budget in the world.

Don't tell me congress doesn't have the goddamned funds. The government could pay for all kinds of things that actually matter. They just don't want to.

 

[Sheet]

You both seem to think the wallet is infinitely deep and there’s no consequence to printing money willynilly.

 

[Balthazar]

Congress dropped roughly $500 billion and over a TRILLION on Wall Street

Throwing money that doesn't exist at Wall Street is a sad form of irony.

 

[Balthazar]

You both seem to think the wallet is infinitely deep and there’s no consequence to printing money willynilly.

I don't think the economic aftermath will be as bad as people think for the simple reason that ALL economic powers are printing money like crazy and we're all in the same boat. What creates inflation is the devaluation of one currency compared to another currency... if they all go down the drain then in the end none goes down.

The only exception is possibly China but I expect severe consequences for them. There's no way that the West will let them profit economically from the mess that they created.

 

[Freudian]

Too much debt is unhealthy, no matter if it's national, private or business depth. The cost of letting market forces work as they should is too high so they are being replaced by the federal bank printing money and buying useless assets (like they are currently doing in the US), bailing out those dealing in those useless assets. In 2008 it was junk mortgages being bought up to save the economy and now it's junk business bonds. It's not healthy to bail out those that engage in unhealthy consumption, be it private or corporate, over and over again.

This if of course a unique crisis so it's understandable it's hard to come up with clinical measures, but the current system with low interest rates and rising debt levels will eventually crash in such a way no federal bank will be able to save it.