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

[Walter Sobchak]

My elderly parents (including my stepdad who smokes) had dinner three times last week with neighbors who tested positive with symptoms. Now, I'll start to panic a bit.

This is an old person plague (spares the vast majority of young people that become infected), so we must adapt living to address this. My parents are super cautious (thank God).

[Uncle Ted]

1268 new cases in Bexar County today. The previous high was a few days ago at 795.

Uggh.

If this is true then maybe it is not as bad as it looks...

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What he is saying seems to check out... About 27% of the folks in the ICUs have Covid-19. Even though the rate of new cases have been increasing the death rate is not (and may actually be declining). But maybe it is just really lagging but I wouldn't expect the rate to go down. It is primary the 20-39 years olds that are getting sick (70% of those that are getting sick).

I am guessing he or she will be fired soon for not encouraging people to come in to their ER and spend lots of money on testing if they remotely feel like they are sick. What is wrong with healthcare execs these days?

[Lost Student]

What is wrong with healthcare execs these days?

Well for starters, they don't know the difference between "then" and "than."

[Jarid in Cedar]

Arizona hospitals are now allowed to invoke crisis care standards. Buckle up folks. It is going to be a long summer.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news...7JfG0QkFKuV0lY

[myboynoah]

Arizona hospitals are now allowed to invoke crisis care standards. Buckle up folks. It is going to be a long summer.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news...7JfG0QkFKuV0lY

Yep.

[myboynoah]

Americans sacrificed to flatten the curve. Their leaders have let them down.

It is time to return to first principles. We need a colossal effort, a Manhattan Project, to fight the virus, and we don’t have it. Experts have identified the best strategy: test, to find out who is sick; trace, to find out who may be sick; and isolate those who are suffering. Personal habits must accompany this: wearing face masks, hand washing, physical distancing and avoiding crowds in enclosed spaces.

The strategy worked in nations that pursued it with conviction, such as South Korea and Germany. But in the United States, testing began in chaos and still lags what’s needed to suppress or even mitigate the virus, according to a useful analysis just published by the Harvard Global Health Institute and NPR. To reach a goal of mitigation, or keeping the ratio of positive tests below 10 percent, would require 1.2 million tests a day; the United States is currently performing about 570,000. The analysis found 32 states are not doing enough to achieve mitigation; 18 and the District are doing enough. To suppress the virus, and get the positive ratio below 3 percent, would require 4.3 million tests a day. Suppression might allow some return to normalcy. “That’s what we all want — to get our lives back. But right now we’re losing to the virus,” says Ashish Jha, who runs the Harvard institute. Contact tracing is also way behind what would be necessary.

[Moliere]

Interesting oped from the provost and president of Cornell (ever heard of it?)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-cor...nion_lead_pos6

Why Cornell Will Reopen in the Fall

Colleges and universities in the U.S. face a difficult choice in the coming weeks. Some have decided that closing their campuses and offering online classes is the safest option. For others, the safer and more responsible alternative may be to allow students to return while putting in place a comprehensive virus-screening program that minimizes the risk of transmission. Contingent on New York state’s approval, we will be opening Cornell for residential instruction this fall.

....

For many universities, closing the campus to undergraduates is probably not the safest option—notwithstanding concerns that college students may not adhere to public-health guidelines. That’s because at many colleges, students will gather on and around campuses whether classes are held in person or online.

At colleges where many students live off-campus in leased apartments, students are likely to return to their college town or city even if education is online. Our surveys indicate that as many as 50% of undergraduates plan to return to Ithaca this fall, whether or not Cornell is open for residential instruction. If we are fully online, they will live together and interact free from the virus screening or behavioral requirements that would be in effect if the university were reopened. Students who don’t live in our dormitories are largely beyond the reach of campus regulations. Since evidence suggests that most infections among those of college age occur without symptoms, students returning to small college towns, or to student neighborhoods adjoining campuses in urban centers, will have little reason to seek testing on their own and will mix freely with local residents.

...

As universities like Cornell make difficult decisions about the fall semester, it’s important to consider the risks of not reopening alongside the risks of opening. Epidemiological modeling suggests, perhaps counterintuitively, that if a university is prepared to put in place a comprehensive virus screening program followed up with supportive quarantine and isolation—in addition to other effective public health measures—reopening may be the more responsible option.

This argument makes a lot of sense, especially for a school like BYU. Most kids from my area like to go to Provo for the experience of being around kids their age that share similar beliefs and morals. That's one reason that a lot of them are choosing UVU over local schools like UH or aTm. Most of them seem hell bent on getting back to Utah in the fall and likely will be there whether the campus is open or not and the argument that it's safer to have good testing and monitoring on campus makes a lot of sense.

I'm getting nervous that our school district might try to stay closed and do distance learning. Hopefully they are looking at the data and seeing that closing the elementary and secondary schools is far worse than allowing them to be open during the pandemic. The kids are not susceptible to the virus and very rarely have they found kids to be carriers that infect other people As a father of 5 kids I'd prefer them to be in school and learning instead of at home in a half-baked distance learning environment.

[Applejack]

Interesting oped from the provost and president of Cornell (ever heard of it?)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-cor...nion_lead_pos6



This argument makes a lot of sense, especially for a school like BYU. Most kids from my area like to go to Provo for the experience of being around kids their age that share similar beliefs and morals. That's one reason that a lot of them are choosing UVU over local schools like UH or aTm. Most of them seem hell bent on getting back to Utah in the fall and likely will be there whether the campus is open or not and the argument that it's safer to have good testing and monitoring on campus makes a lot of sense.

I'm getting nervous that our school district might try to stay closed and do distance learning. Hopefully they are looking at the data and seeing that closing the elementary and secondary schools is far worse than allowing them to be open during the pandemic. The kids are not susceptible to the virus and very rarely have they found kids to be carriers that infect other people As a father of 5 kids I'd prefer them to be in school and learning instead of at home in a half-baked distance learning environment.

Preach!

[Northwestcoug]

This is a good review about the pathology of COVID-19 and what it does to certain organs. There's a couple of over-generalizations, but still not bad. Spoiler alert: it's all about the clots:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/healt...sies-findings/

[Paperback Writer]

Interesting oped from the provost and president of Cornell (ever heard of it?)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-cor...nion_lead_pos6



This argument makes a lot of sense, especially for a school like BYU. Most kids from my area like to go to Provo for the experience of being around kids their age that share similar beliefs and morals. That's one reason that a lot of them are choosing UVU over local schools like UH or aTm. Most of them seem hell bent on getting back to Utah in the fall and likely will be there whether the campus is open or not and the argument that it's safer to have good testing and monitoring on campus makes a lot of sense.

I'm getting nervous that our school district might try to stay closed and do distance learning. Hopefully they are looking at the data and seeing that closing the elementary and secondary schools is far worse than allowing them to be open during the pandemic. The kids are not susceptible to the virus and very rarely have they found kids to be carriers that infect other people As a father of 5 kids I'd prefer them to be in school and learning instead of at home in a half-baked distance learning environment.

I agree. My college student kid is probably going to return to College Station (Texas A&M) this Fall whether or not classes are online or not. She was about to go back for the Summer until she found out that several friends-of-friends tested positive in College Station and it would be more difficult to control with whom she comes in close contact living with roommates instead of living at home with family. That and there is a local guy she is interested in who is home for the summer.

As per the above bolded part, if someone gets admitted to Texas A&M, there is a very good chance he/she will get admitted to BYU (rather than going to UVU). I could see someone choosing UVU over Univ. of Houston. My experience is that many LDS local kids in the Dallas area (too many in IMO) apply to BYU and have BYU-I and UVU as their plan B. They are not even applying to local universities. As a side note, my kids first choice was Cornell but she didn't get admitted. Glad that she is closer during COVID-19 and has options to easily go back and forth from Dallas to College Station instead of flying to Ithaca or Provo and hoping for the best.

[Bo Diddley]

BBC reporting immunity to the COVID might be more widespread than we thought.

Prof Danny Altmann at Imperial College London described the study as "robust, impressive and thorough" and said it added to a growing body of evidence that "antibody testing alone underestimates immunity".

In the study, they weren't just testing for antibodies, but also for T-cells.

[Pelado]

This is a good review about the pathology of COVID-19 and what it does to certain organs. There's a couple of over-generalizations, but still not bad. Spoiler alert: it's all about the clots:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/healt...sies-findings/

Interesting findings. JIC, Cardiac - Any thoughts?

BBC reporting immunity to the COVID might be more widespread than we thought.



In the study, they weren't just testing for antibodies, but also for T-cells.

That would be nice.

[SeattleUte]

Heather Long at the Washington Post: lockdowns kill.

https://twitter.com/byheatherlong/st...396833795?s=21

[Bo Diddley]

Heather Long at the Washington Post: lockdowns kill.

https://twitter.com/byheatherlong/st...396833795?s=21

A Yale study claims the COVID is undercounted because of the excess deaths across America during the Pandemic. It seems too simplistic to really mean anything. I think lockdown deaths need to be counted along with lockdown mortality benefits (less driving=less accidents, etc.)

There are a lot of factors that they need to get to before they can say one way or the other how far off we are on the real numbers.

[tooblue]

A Yale study claims the COVID is undercounted because of the excess deaths across America during the Pandemic. It seems too simplistic to really mean anything. I think lockdown deaths need to be counted along with lockdown mortality benefits (less driving=less accidents, etc.)

There are a lot of factors that they need to get to before they can say one way or the other how far off we are on the real numbers.

Coronavirus: Air pollution and CO2 fall rapidly as virus spreads

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51944780

New Data Show Air Pollution Drop Around 50 Percent In Some Cities During Coronavirus Lockdown

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcm.../#2e17e240557b