PrinceFrederickWx

Thanks for sharing this. This was the concern I was trying to discuss last night, I’m just not as articulate as this guy.

Yeah, I edited my post to put in that it was an expert vs a study and not two actual studies. Point still remains though- two different qualified experts telling us different information.

This is a hilarious example of why I said I feel dumber now than two months ago. One study says kids spread it, another expert says they don't. The CDC tells us masks aren't necessary, then they tell us they are. Experts say don't worry about shortages, now shortages are happening. The average person doesn't know what to believe anymore, that's why they panic and hoard toilet paper.

We hadn't done any traveling- it originated at my son's school, he was sent home sick. My kids all had it first- that was the weird part, our infant son was barely sick and for my other two kids it was mild. But it was by far the sickest my wife and I had ever been. I was acutely sick for about two weeks- on day 10 I woke up unable to breathe and almost went to the ER. The weird thing too was I had pink eye in addition to the sore throat, fever and cough. Now I've been reading more and more that pink eye is becoming a known symptom of COVID-19. I get a flu shot every year so I don't think it was the flu. My grandmother got sick in January (probably from us...) and was very ill with fever, dry cough, etc. She also had a flu shot and tested negative for flu when sick- her X-rays showed spots on her lungs (which have now disappeared). She and I both had an unexplained chronic cough for over two months! Fortunately we're all in good health now. I should note that we are all living our lives as if we have NOT had the virus though. Honestly when I look around, it seems like we're one of the few families that is actually still following the guidelines... You mentioned the mutations- I wonder if there's multiple strains, some of which are more aggressive than others. Like what if Italy, Spain and NYC/NJ have a more aggressive strain and CA, Germany, South Korea, etc. have a milder strain? I'm not sure if that's even possible. If there's multiple strains though I would assume the milder one would win through natural selection: i.e. no one knows they have the mild COVID-19 so it spreads faster and crowds out the severe version, while the severe one makes people too sick to get out of bed and spread it (and also provokes strict lockdowns which limit spread). Definitely not an expert on this, so anyone can correct me if I'm wrong. I haven't seen much discussion on this, so maybe it's not possible. I wish we knew how, where and (most importantly) when this virus originated!

One more thing- how plausible do you all think it is that perhaps the virus was actually here in the US earlier than thought? Community spread was first assumed to be late February, then we found out a woman died on Feb. 6 from community spread, which moved it back to January. What if we find someone who died even earlier? We weren’t testing back then so what if we missed it? I never understand how COVID-19 was already widespread in all 50 states when we started rigorous testing everywhere. Seems like it had to have been here earlier to become so widespread so fast. I still wonder if that’s what my family and I had at the end of December (and what my grandmother had in mid-January). Yes, I know with the current data we have, that’s not possible, but I’ll always wonder about it. I don’t even think an antibody test would solve it, as a positive result doesn’t prove *when* you were infected.

@jaydreb Yes I’m very thankful the impact on children seems to be mild; I am very concerned for my grandparents though. I don’t have any political ideology- I just like asking questions. I could probably fill this whole page with things I don’t understand. I feel like I understand less than I did two months ago. It still feels to me like we’re missing huge pieces of the puzzle, or some large underlying assumption about COVID-19 must be wrong.

All are equally targeted, yes, but why does it cause such severe illness and death in elderly patients but not infants and toddlers? The flu, RSV, etc. are life-threatening if an infant catches them, yet this seems almost non-existent with COVID-19. But again, this seems to be very rare for other respiratory viruses? It doesn't seem like COVID-19 slows down at all in hotter weather. We're trying to take all the precautions we can... masks, gloves, etc. The office claims to be taking precautions too but I'm skeptical on that part. If it's going to be around all summer, then why would we have another "wave"? We've been adding nearly 30,000 cases a day with no end in sight, and that's only a fraction of the true number of cases (I have no idea what that fraction is; no one really does). If we're doing that all summer and fall, I don't see how you wouldn't have some level of herd immunity. It just seems like it's gonna keep going at this rate until it burns itself out (whenever that may be). Sometimes I think I should just tune out all the news for several months and see what happens.

Just random questions- feel free to answer or point out where I'm wrong. I've generally been optimistic but I'm starting to lose the faith... I'm not seeing any evidence this is slowing down nationally? Looks to me like a sine wave that goes on forever rather than a curve. I mocked the CHIME model the DC Mayor originally put out (which had them peaking in July) but that seems more likely to me now than the IHME (which is already wrong it seems). Though my question is: if this keeps going into the summer, are we really going to have a second wave in the fall? Take NYC for example- that antibody test showed about 20% may have already had it? There's a lag in antibodies too I think, so that's probably a snapshot of a few weeks ago then? If this keeps going at that rate, aren't many areas of the northeast going to be approaching herd immunity in a few months anyway? Can anyone give me an example of a respiratory virus that only targets older people and those with metabolic syndromes? All the others I know of hit both very young AND old hard. Also, why is COVID-19 able to spread in warm weather? I don't know of any respiratory virus that transmits well in heat. If heat and lockdowns aren't squashing it, what's to stop it from continuing to spread at the rate it currently is until herd immunity? My youngest son has to go in the Dr. for his 1-year immunizations in two weeks, and we're all worried we're gonna catch it then in the Doctor's office. :-(

I was supposed to be on hiatus, but came back to check messages and saw this. I'm still sticking to my buy-and-hold dollar cost averaging strategy and doing well so far. :-)

I think we’re safe to call it. @Prestige Worldwide is the winner- congratulations! Attached is your snow trophy- you led all season and toppled the Olaf/Stormpc dynasty! I’ve decided (for multiple reasons) to take a long hiatus from this forum, so I won’t be doing the summer temperature contest. If anyone else is interested, feel free (maybe @RodneyS or @Roger Smith would like to run it). I will be back in early November with the next snowfall contest. I encourage you all to tell new people to sign up or get your AmWx friends from outside this subforum to join in- we had a record turnout this year, and the more players we have, the more fun and competitive it is! May next winter bring an end to COVID-19, a booming economy and triple-digit snow totals at all four airports.

I’ll leave these two articles here as I found them both interesting: Model War: GFS vs Euro lol https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-outcomes.html Food for thought, from an epidemiologist at Stanford: https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

Their Flu death rate from 13/14 to 16/17 was 1.3%, which is in line with the death rates from Coronavirus worldwide. Consider that the U.S. Flu death rate is only about 0.1%, so just the Flu itself is about 13 times as deadly in the Italian population.

Italy has always had much higher death rates every year though- their Flu death rates in the last decade are not much different than Coronavirus. https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(19)30328-5/fulltext

Azithromycin has been shown in studies over the years to act as an anti-inflammatory in addition to an antibiotic, particularly for respiratory issues. Some examples: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15590715 https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/33/1/171

Let’s all hope that the experts dire predictions end up being as accurate as the predictions most of you made for this winter.

Could a benchmark be when the deaths from starvation exceed virus deaths? Because right now, even if the virus were magically wiped out, you're looking at exceeding Great Recession levels of unemployment and GDP contraction. If this goes for months, you're looking at Great Depression levels easily. I don't think many Americans realize what that's going to look like. So I agree on the honesty part.

Two weeks? Even the CDC has recommended social distancing for the next eight weeks: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/487702-cdc-recommends-no-events-of-50-or-more-people-for-next-eight-weeks One example of many experts saying this will take years: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/17/21181694/coronavirus-covid-19-lockdowns-end-how-long-months-years

They keep moving the goalposts on social distancing- first it was weeks, then months... now I see experts saying it could take a year or more? The economy can’t handle that. Neither can humans. I don’t think officials realize the devastating impact this will have on the millions of people with mental health disorders. Isolation has been shown to increase health issues and mortality in and of itself... I don’t claim to have a solution to any of this, but the current plan is NOT going to work, that is all. Come up with something better.

I’m calling it now- cat 5 up the bay during the height of the pandemic this summer.

Great Depression incoming. Also 2020 elections will be cancelled.

We can handle the virus. We cannot handle selfish, ignorant pigs hoarding things though. We need to start rationing supplies like we did in World War II, or else we're going to keep seeing losers walk out with ten carts full of toilet paper and bread, leaving none for anyone else. Babies are missing formula, people can't find pet food... I can't even find diapers for my son. Stores around here are still out of many basic items like meat, water and toiletries.

You should be concerned about the xenophobic fallout from this. I know this isn’t a political board so I’ll leave it at that.

You know what scares me more than the virus... large groups of crazy, ignorant Americans stuck at home with nothing to do, looking for someone to blame.

The vast majority of my money is still in the G fund. I was talking about setting my contribution allocations going forward (which I've got set to nearly all C fund now)- I will be dollar cost averaging all the way down. I don't think anyone knows where the bottom will be (I certainly don't) and attempting to time the market and "look for the bottom" are not going to work. I do know that the last few years have been ridiculously overvalued, which is why I sat it out. I've been waiting for this bear market. And to think, just a few months ago I was told the exact opposite- "You're still sitting in the G Fund? You're missing out on this historic bull market!" I'm totally fine with a 50% drop, the lower the better. I have a lot of time... unless you're going to argue we're Japan in the 1980's, in which case we're all screwed anyway so it doesn't matter.

Good choice. I have been loading up on the C Fund (S&P 500) in my TSP... if you have ten years or more to sit on it, this is the best buying opportunity since early 2009 IMHO. You want to be buying when everyone is panicking and heading for the exits.