showmethesnow

Thought this was a pretty good article on what they are seeing with how the virus is interacting with the body. Just goes to show that when looking at different countries/regions and their infection rates and trying to attribute these numbers directly to response/mediation implemented is faulty logic. While response/mediation will have an impact, probably somewhat significant, it doesn't change the fact that there are many other variables in play that will impact these numbers possibly significantly in their own right. https://www.foxnews.com/health/coronavirus-genes-may-explain-why-some-face-greater-danger-than-others

Now this was one of my concerns when I started reading reports that a significant number of people were showing signs of a resurgence of the virus after they were thought to have been cleared of it. It is bad enough that the virus might hide out in the body to then re surge down the road a few days/weeks later. At least with that you can extend the quarantine the appropriate amount of time to account for that. But to have the autoimmune response to this virus fade after a few months allowing the host to be reinfected down the road at some later date throws all models on virus spread out the door. Just assuming that this is the case (reinfection) it will be paramount that they are able to create a vaccine that can initiate the appropriate response from the immune system to give us immunity for at least a year if not years. Otherwise I think we will need to implement somewhat radical protocols to keep this contained in the future. Now I am nowhere near the expert on this subject but from what I have read from different experts within the field is that the likelihood of reinfection is of very low probability, at least for such time periods of weeks or months. So there is no sense of panic on my part whatsoever, just an awareness of the possibility. https://www.foxnews.com/health/can-you-get-coronavirus-twice

This is a good article up to a point. Lays out some of my thinking into a much higher infection rate as well as the much lower mortality rate. I really thought it showed a great deal of thought and intelligence by him. But then he has to drop politics squarely into the middle of it and his logic and conclusions go straight into the crapper. Being as this article was dated March 20'th you would have thought he would have realized at that point that the numbers from China could not be trusted. Hell, at that time it was becoming pretty obvious that the numbers being thrown out were nowhere near the reality. And yet he used them anyway because they were convenient/necessary to move to his conclusion that the Orange Man is bad. This is pretty much your brain on politics. Turns even the smartest into idiots. Now this is something I have to deal with everyday from both the Right and the Left when I am researching different subjects. Just trying to figure out whether the facts and conclusions can be trusted or whether they have been made for the most part useless because of political leanings eats up a good deal of time. Until the intellectual community cam start looking at things in an unbiased way all the conclusions drawn from this virus and hence the solutions afterwards are going to be faulty if not out right wrong. That is really not the way to solve the problems we are facing. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hell-coming-mathematical-proof-185019616.html

Thanks. Saw mention of that somewhere earlier but never got a chance to look into it. Will have to look over it later.

I considered jumping in, but I figured my opinion that we were probably looking at a Early/Mid May time frame to start the initial ramp up would cause even more havoc. So I decided just to keep my mouth shut.

Guessing maybe it might deal with those that have had SAR's vaccines. Same family of Corona Virus as the cornavirus so it very well may help to produce a partial immunity for a population. Just a guess though. Probably other vaccines out their for other varieties of Corona Virus as well that may do this as well.

Granted, they may have to get creative. Maybe even consider tariffs being placed on specific products to force the issue (really don't like this option but it is what it is). All I know is that this needs to be done. No ifs ands or buts.

I mentioned elderly and I probably should have been more specific. Much of what I am referencing are those that are about to retire where many still have their money in a 401K. They are depending on this money to be able to retire. Take a huge chunk out and that can drastically change their plans. Now optimally you would hope that those about to retire are putting their money into far less riskier investment options. But many just not do that for whatever reason.

I think their will be a concerted effort by our government to make this happen through various methods (such as tax breaks and other incentives). After all we are now living through what happens when you don't have key industries within the country. If we don't see them make this happen we will continue to revisit the issues we are now facing because of our dependency on others. It would be a major failing on our part not to make this happen.

Sadly, many of the elderly depend on that for their retirement. If we don't see some sort of recovery in that regard there will be many elderly that will suffer a good deal. The seeds of what were seeing are pretty much be tracked back to Bush and NAFTA. And administration after administration have followed in the footsteps of this where policy has basically driven all are capabilities to handle this virus over seas. Just the way it is. One things we should see in the future is a strong move to get our capabilities/manufacturing back in house instead of depending on foreign players.

That is part of the equation and has to be considered. Many variables involved not just a handful. Ultimately when/where we begin startup of the country will probably not happen until they are comfortable that we can identify and contain any new cases without further flareups. And running hand in hand with that is having the ability to being able to have testing that can be done on the spot within hours if not minutes vs. taking it to the lab option for a day/days. I am thinking at this point once numbers get to between 5-10%, maybe 15% of peak infection rates we will start to see those areas start ramping up again.

Actually I believe the CDC has told doctors and health professionals to label questionable deaths as coronavirus related if they have doubts as to whether death could have occurred due to the virus itself or an underlining terminal health issue. Now how that would play out concerning deaths outside of the hospital I have no idea. But I could see where that could possibly increase coronavirus deaths vs. decrease them. But again, really don't have the knowledge to argue one way or the other.

I never said to open the economy while there was still a wide spread of the virus. I have said and continue to say we need to take a balanced and measured approach considering both sides of the equation. And this will be determined by where the damage done by the cure is more then the damage done by the disease itself. Now people will have different ideas of where this balance is reached which is to be expected as they will put more weight on one side of the equation or the other.. But for those who are arguing we need everything shutdown until we see infection rates virtually at zero this is very unrealistic .As is the idea that we should open everything up now or even that we should have not shut down at all. Neither idea works/would have worked. eta: I would also like to add we can not just open the country up at day one at full throttle. We need to need see incremental changes over time towards this goal. And these changes will involve many factors such as location, peak rate, etc...

Most of those projections are based off seeing our country transition out of the lock down in a few weeks. And if we do in fact do this I would tend to believe we see such a recovery. But if we are talking at the least another couple of months of status quo it will begin to start having serious impacts on our ability to recover. As I said above things will begin to spiral out of control. The far less rosier outcomes by some economists are probably based off this longer idea of a lockdown. As far as what we have to deal with this Fall. I am the type of person that believes you have to deal with the crisis on hand before you start worrying about the next. Doesn't mean you don't prepare, just means you really need to take care of the business at hand before you move to the next crisis. And to be honest with you, the more I am seeing lately the more I am believing that any impact from a secondary wave will be far more muted then what we are currently seeing. Potentially much more so.

So I am just putting $ signs to lives? So you would just totally dismiss the ruined lives and the suicides? They are irrelevant? And as far as the economy, I am not sure how many different styled economies could endure the stress ours is and will be put under. In fact ours is probably the best able to handle such a situation.

This isn't a unique event. Read up on the ozone hole over the antarctic in the 70's. Pretty much the same thing played out there as well. As in that case we will more then likely see an replenishment of the ozone levels here in the next few years as well.

Looking over comments recently I am not really sure how some can be arguing that we need to keep things shut down for months on end. Plain and simple, it just is nowhere feasible. We just can't do it. I know the arguments surrounding these thoughts revolve around the idea of it's lives vs. money. But really it is not. It is in actuality (lives vs. money+jobs+lives+economy+life quality). You can not just dismiss what a extended shutdown will mean and just try to frame it is just being about money. It isn't and it is nowhere near that case. Right now the government is trying its best to just keep everybody's heads above the water. That is what these stimulus packages are all about. But we have nowhere the money needed to do this for an extended period of time (months on end). We just don't. Now let's first consider job creators. These businesses have only limited ability to withstand periods of having no revenue coming in. The larger businesses will have the better ability to withstand longer periods vs. the smaller and the Ma and Pa's quite often are living month to month. Now as I said, the government has limited ability to infuse capital into the business sector to keep them afloat. So what we will eventually see (in fact are already seeing) as this shut down drags on is that the small Ma and Pa stores will begin to shut down, this will be then followed by the smaller businesses and then eventually the larger cooperations. What this means is that we will begin to lose jobs, slowly at first and then more rapidly as we progress. Now let's look at a more focused level, Families. Again, the government is trying to keep their heads above the water. But once again there is a limited ability in this regards. Now consider this, the majority of Americans basically live paycheck to paycheck. An extended period of just weeks hurts them severely as they find themselves falling farther and farther into depth. Now what are months upon months going to do to their financial situation? ***Now some would argue that we need to see a suspension of all bills and loans. Now I am not going to break it all down as it gets complicated very quickly. So I will just say, yes would could do that. Unfortunately that would only buy some time and there is a very good possibility that we would come out in a worse position then if we had forgone that. Needless to say, I think that the Feds should leave their hands for the most part out of that possible quagmire and let the industries/businesses/utilities/banks/families/etc... deal with this at a more personal level*** So let's project what an extended period of shut down would actually mean when we come out of it. First innumerable jobs have been wiped off the map. Second, many families will be coming out in dire financial straits looking desperately for jobs. Many jobs of which no longer exist. And if you are one of the fortunate ones that is able to land a job you will find that most of your money is now going to bills/food/rent/necessities with little to none available to purchase consumer goods. So people no longer have the resources to throw into the consumer sector to stimulate the economy. Businesses don't make money so we once again see more businesses folding taking their jobs along with it. We would see a crashing of the system as we spiraled out of control. Now I mentioned lives were part of the equation as well. Now what do you exactly think would happen to many of these individuals that are put into the above scenario? A scenario that would make many feel totally helpless where their life has spun out of control and been destroyed? If you guessed suicides then you would be spot on. This is a very real concern for many that first have to deal with the shutdown itself and then the repercussions afterwards. And this doesn't even in the factor of what we would see as far as addiction rates. Really when it comes down to it. Opening up the country again will be one of an balancing act where you have to fully understand the impacts we see on both sides of the equation. And you have to consider all the factors, not just some that fit your needs. Right now I am still sticking with my projection (currently 3 1//2 to 5 1/2 weeks max of 7 1/2) I have made over the last several weeks as to where we are making a strong move to once again open up the country.

https://www.foxnews.com/health/coronavirus-traces-found-in-massachusetts-wastewater-at-levels-far-higher-than-expected Not that you can necessarily take this at face value or whether you can extrapolate these results for the whole US at this time but you can get a general idea that this could potentially drastically change the equation for how we respond going forward after this first wave for any possible future waves. As most of you probably know the coronavirus can be found in human waste. Evidently testing of sewage in a Mass. metropolitan area (the numbers and timing would strongly suggest Boston) in late March is showing over 5 times the concentrations of the virus in the sewage then would be expected with the cases that were positively confirmed at the time. Now this is somewhat of a leap (too many unknowns) but for arguments sake let's say we use this 5x's figure on the IHME projection of 3% infection rate after this wave. This would put us at an 15% infection rate nation wide, right in my range that I believed we would see for some time now. Now while many would shrug off 15% and say what's the big deal it doesn't change a thing, I myself would argue otherwise. As I have gone on about numerous times it really is just a numbers game. And the objective here is to slow the spread enough on any future waves that we reach a stage where we can contain any flareups keeping them small in scale vs. allowing them to spread widely and uncontrollably. And believe it or not just taking 15% of the US population out of the equation as possible hosts does a good job of moving us in that direction especially when you consider some things. What we have to consider are the numbers we actually see within the cities. As most have probably noticed the large uncontrollable out breaks have been concentrated on large metropolitan areas. They have been by far the biggest breeding grounds of this virus where the virus has quickly spread outward into the lesser populated regions. Take these large metropolitan ares out of the equation for any future waves and the dynamics of the virus drastically change. Now by far the highest infection rates are going to be found in these areas vs. the suburbs and rural areas. At this point the IHME is, I believe, projecting roughly an 8% infection rate for these densely populated regions. Now while it helps it still doesn't do near enough to slow the spread where we have any hope of controlling it. Any future waves will once again spread uncontrollably where we have no hope of controlling it and we are for the most part waiting for it to burn out. But... at some point we reach an infection rate that will be enough to slow the progress of the virus where we can contain any flareups keeping them much smaller in scope and more localized. As mentioned before I roughly estimate this threshold at roughly 35% (uncontrolled burns vs. containment). So in consideration of this lets look at what happens with our IHME projected 8% and then multiple it by 5. We are now looking at 40%, above my containment threshold. We can also possibly see this idea playing out in the suburbs as well. So though they will have a lower infection rate in those regions they will also have a lower threshold number they need to achieve considering their lower population density. One last thought. If we are in fact seeing an infection rate of 5x's what we are currently believing this also would have dramatic impacts on the mortality rate. This would in fact put that rate down into the ballpark of the numbers I have been throwing out for over a month now of .75-1.25%. Well below the numbers that were originally being thrown out. Now all of the above is conjecture based on a lot of unknowns. But the one thing we can take away from it is there are strong indications now surfacing that we are seeing much higher rates then are currently believed. And believe it or not, though it may seem contradictory, it is exactly what we want to see for our prospects after this wave. It really would change the dynamics moving forward.

Hadn't even considered this. Let us just say, this would not be a good thing. The benefits of social distancing would be drastically reduced. Maybe we should be hoping for a drought in our region? https://www.foxnews.com/health/can-mosquitoes-spread-coronavirus

Same here. Very noticeable drop in temps as well from just a couple of hours ago.

Think the biggest problem is that we are probably going to see even more separation between the haves (A students) and the have nots (F students). For whatever reason (lack of discipline, lack of money, lack of family structure, needing to work, etc...) these students had difficulty in an school atmosphere to begin with so to expect them to transition over to distant learning without any difficulties is probably a fantasy. In fact it will probably be worse. Potentially much worse.

Rain squall just moved through up here in Hanover with gusts probably 35-40 mph. Saw a pretty good drop of temps as well.

Sort of my thoughts as well. I would probably try to do a very condensed refresher on material covered this year as well as the material that was never covered and then move on. As you said, no matter how you look at it, it won't be pretty.

PA just closed schools for the remainder of the year. More then likely MD will be following shortly. Question I now have is, how do these students make up this work? I know we are talking remote/distant learning being thrown out in many cases but will that be enough? Especially for those students that come from a family with minimal means/money? Wife has told me that they have had serious issues in portions of MD especially in this regards. Guess it will be a learning process over the next few months to figure out the best method. Might involve some out of the box thinking to get this done.

True. You can never get total containment when the virus is so wide spread as it was at that point. All you can hope to do is substantially cut into the numbers that are actually getting into the States. In small enough numbers that if you can't at least contain the hot spots that will pop up you can at least buy yourself some extra time. As I said, his ban was a good start but I don't think it went far enough.