At what point did you / will you take the coronavirus epidemic seriously?

[beefytee]

Looks like there have been close to 2000 deaths in the last 24 hours in the US.

A lot of people have been comparing the death rate of Covid-19 with the flu, car accidents and heart disease. Heart disease kills about 650,000 people in the US every year - the #1 killer. That is about 1800 deaths a day.

[BlueK]

Does it even matter that almost everything the president says isn't true? We're obviously all just used to it. Even his biggest supporters must know most of what he says is easily debunked crap. How do you "inherit" a bad test for a virus that has only been known for a few months?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/politics/fact-check-trump-inherited-broken-obsolete-coronavirus-tests/index.html

[Mormon Red Death]

Interesting graphic

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

[Uncle Ted]

Looks like there have been close to 2000 deaths in the last 24 hours in the US.

A lot of people have been comparing the death rate of Covid-19 with the flu, car accidents and heart disease. Heart disease kills about 650,000 people in the US every year - the #1 killer. That is about 1800 deaths a day.

I wonder how many of those 2000 deaths were folks with preexisting conditions like heart disease.

[Omaha 680]

Interesting graphic

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

As real data is fed back into the Washington model, they continue to revise down their death estimates and move their peaks earlier in time. NY is now expected to peak in two days. The vast majority of our population is now predicted to peak by April 16, when Massachusetts and California are predicted to peak. Note that these are peak death projections, which means that peak infection would have occurred 1-2 weeks before. Bloomberg had a good state-by-state breakdown of the latest model update yesterday:

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2...-on-the-curve/

The modelers are open that they originally used Wuhan and Italian data for the model, which is fine as you use what you have. The problem is Chinese data could be made up and the spread of the virus in Wuhan and northern Italy probably doesn't look a lot like in the US. As the model is updated with US data, the predictions continue to be revised down. I don't think that is all because of social distancing. Obviously the lockdowns have played a crucial role, particularly in the hard-hit northeast. But a big component of it may be apart from the high density and high mass transit use NY/NJ area, the virus can't spread like it did in Wuhan or Italy. Also, our healthcare system stretched, but largely is holding better than expected, even in NYC. If you believe Cuomo and the federal task force, no one has yet to be denied a ventilator who needs one and they don't expect that to happen now. Bed capacity in NYC will be tight this week, but they expect to accommodate everyone who needs one.

I'm doing a lot of speculating. But the next week will be interesting. If peak death continues to be revised down and moved earlier in time, and if we are largely through the worst of it by mid-April, the calls to start opening things up in a strategic way in early May will get very loud. And I don't think they will be unjustified. The feds should use the remaining time in April to do some large-scale antibody surveys by region to determine with acceptable accuracy how many people actually were infected. That would go a loooong way to making good decisions in May. So when TF are they going to do those surveys?

[Uncle Ted]

Some copper theives rented the house next to my parents a while back. We observed them rear window style before calling the police and getting them shut down. But for a few days they were hard at work for several hours a day stripping wire and melting some parts down in their backyard. Even with the high price of copper at the time, they couldnt have been clearing more than a few dollars per day per person. They could have made so much more working fewer hours just going down the street and getting a job at McDonald's.

Some people work very hard to not work.

And those copper thieves cause 10x in damage to the properties they stole from than the amount they get back in raw copper. When they get caught the ROI turns into a large negative number.

Only 10x?

When I was growing in rural Idaho some farmers caught a copper thieve in the act. The guy had done $10,000's worth of damage to irrigation pumps and who knows how much damage to crops. The farmers had him tied up, with a noose around his neck, and were ready to hang him when the sheriff got there. It took the sheriff a while to talk the farmers out of hanging him. Apparently the guy was so scared that he wet himself and couldn't stop from crying even after the sheriff took him into custody put in the back of his car. Yeah, this dude would have been better off working at MickeyD's.

[Omaha 680]

Only 10x?

When I was growing in rural Idaho some farmers caught a copper thieve in the act. The guy had done $10,000's worth of damage to irrigation pumps and who knows how much damage to crops. The farmers had him tied up, with a noose around his neck, and were ready to hang him when the sheriff got there. It took the sheriff a while to talk the farmers out of hanging him. Apparently the guy was so scared that he wet himself and couldn't stop from crying even after the sheriff took him into custody put in the back of his car. Yeah, this dude would have been better off working at MickeyD's.

Not to derail (ha!) the thread further with railroad stories, but yeah 10x is a low estimate. That might be true in residential copper theft, but when they start hitting industry it can multiply quickly. In addition to the direct damage thieves do to railroad infrastructure, they put a lot of people in danger by disrupting vital processing and safety critical signal systems and/or power distribution. Electrified railroads typically include a long segment on safety around the power distribution systems when you certify to be on railroad property. In their class, NJ Transit would always show a photo of a pair of copper thieves that were electrocuted/burned to death when they chose the wrong copper to steal on property.

[wapiti]

They say Utah will peak in late April. But looking at the numbers, maybe we've already peaked? Wasatch county was one of the early counties with it. It has had only 8 cases in the last 3 days and none in the last 24 hours. There is still work to do in the big counties but numbers are trending in the right direction even with testing on the increase.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Utah

[SeattleUte]

Looks like there have been close to 2000 deaths in the last 24 hours in the US.

A lot of people have been comparing the death rate of Covid-19 with the flu, car accidents and heart disease. Heart disease kills about 650,000 people in the US every year - the #1 killer. That is about 1800 deaths a day.

Uh, you're comparing an average to a peak or near peak. Also, every year millions of very old people die from "natural causes." What actually happened is that many of them had their hearts stop because of coronary heart disease, died of pneumonia brought on by an underlying infection such as the flue, etc. Which is it? natural causes or the immediate cause of death? The same thing is true here. In this sense, the dead are being vastly overcounted. Many died with Covid-19 but it's debatable whether they died because of it.

[Omaha 680]

They say Utah will peak in late April. But looking at the numbers, maybe we've already peaked? Wasatch county was one of the early counties with it. It has had only 8 cases in the last 3 days and none in the last 24 hours. There is still work to do in the big counties but numbers are trending in the right direction even with testing on the increase.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_c...ndemic_in_Utah

The bloomberg article summarizes peak death, which will lag peak infection by a couple weeks. So yeah Utah may have already peaked infection wise. I think (hope) those peak death dates will continue to be moved earlier.

[myboynoah]

I'm shocked, shocked to find that Trump is spreading misinformation!

The most false content about coronavirus is on Twitter, researchers say

The most powerful spreaders of misinformation were politicians, celebrities or other public figures. The report cited President Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro as politicians who have made documented false statements about the pandemic.

[myboynoah]

Study calls into question effectiveness of school closures to prevent spread

That said, Russel Viner, an author of the study and professor of adolescent health, told The Washington Post that he didn’t want people to come away from the research with the idea that school closures due to the pandemic were bad.

“In the U.K. I absolutely support the government closing schools,” he said, noting Britain is a country hit particularly hard by the coronavirus.

For the time being, in those places it’s worth shuttering schools. But as the virus’s spread abates, Viner said, “we need to not leave school reopening to later.” The study proposes opening schools back up in a way that incorporates social distancing — for instance by having grades come in at different times of the day so the buildings are less crowded.

[old_gregg]

i swear, if john prine dies...

Dammit. I love that guy.

ugh

[Northwestcoug]

Uh, you're comparing an average to a peak or near peak. Also, every year millions of very old people die from "natural causes." What actually happened is that many of them had their hearts stop because of coronary heart disease, died of pneumonia brought on by an underlying infection such as the flue, etc. Which is it? natural causes or the immediate cause of death? The same thing is true here. In this sense, the dead are being vastly overcounted. Many died with Covid-19 but it's debatable whether they died because of it.

Man, you are going to flip when you find out not a single person ever died of AIDS...

[Bo Diddley]

Man, you are going to flip when you find out not a single person ever died of AIDS...

I would think they'll be able to figure the effective totals by comparing death totals from years past. After a few years, I would think they could even estimate how many years people lost at the end of their lives because of COVID-19.