COVID-19 Talk

[PhineasC]

5 minutes ago, Vice-Regent said:

25,000 new cases in the US and those deaths are 14-20 days away. Not sure I accept that line of reasoning. We need to lock-down for 6 months and we need door to door vaccines. A massive mobilization effort. Hospitals are death traps.

Yeah, I'm sure the CFR on those 25,000 people will jump to 100% and they were all infected the day of the test. Good post.

[snowfan]

Re: grading

End of year grades as of Q3 will be implemented. Schools are going to see a lot of kids....maybe even an overwhelming number....not completing their tasks for a number of reasons. Teachers, kids, and parents are all in a shitty position.

I already recommended to my daughters teachers that they load the weeks worth of assignments at the beginning of the week as opposed to day by day. For starters, seeing the weekly workload on sunday night or monday morning helps with simple planning for the week in the house.

[40westwx]

2 hours ago, mappy said:

not something i would openly advertise. 

Well recently I moved to a health care company and we develop software for Health Record interoperability.. I really though I was gonna be doing stuff that was gonna have a direct impact on helping people.. but it is pretty far removed from helping people.. so I guess I will take what I can take and be grateful for having a job!   

[40westwx]

25 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Death is a lagging indicator. Those dying now were infected at least 14-20 days ago or more, on average (there are outliers). We need to stick to the plan through the death counts.

It might be less than that.. I have heard reports that it goes from 0-60 really fast for the vulnerable population.  but yeah.. we are definitely seeing a lag.. hopefully we are over the hump and we are in the peak for deaths.. fingers crossed.

 

[gymengineer]

What Alexandria City P.S. is doing for grading in the 4th quarter is that it is pass/no record for secondary students (grades 6-12). So as long as a student earns a 60% or higher, 4th quarter counts as a pass at a flat 100%, with the 4 quarters being 25% each in weight (e.g. (72+68+75+100)/4)). If the student doesn't hit 60%, then 4th quarter does not exist grade-wise, which means the three previous quarters factor in 1/3 each for determining the final percent. 

[PhineasC]

11 minutes ago, 40westwx said:

It might be less than that.. I have heard reports that it goes from 0-60 really fast for the vulnerable population.  but yeah.. we are definitely seeing a lag.. hopefully we are over the hump and we are in the peak for deaths.. fingers crossed.

 

There was a chart somewhere I saw that showed ICU timelines for very ill patients. They spent between 8-10 days in the ICU, as I recall. And that was on top of 8-10 days before they showed up very ill.

[PhineasC]

Another study out of Boston just released that shows how widely this disease spreads under the radar.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.12.20059618v1

It was a homeless population, the kind of people who don't have good social distancing practices and don't show up to the ER with the sniffles to get tested: classic hidden spreaders.

Quote

The circumstances of homelessness create the potential for rapid transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in this vulnerable population. Upon observing a cluster of COVID-19 cases from a single large homeless shelter in Boston, Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program conducted symptom assessments and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing for SARS-CoV-2 among all guests residing at the shelter over a 2-day period. Of 408 participants, 147 (36.0%) were PCR-positive for SARS-CoV-2. COVID-positive individuals were more likely to be male (p<0.001) but did not differ significantly from COVID-negative individuals with respect to other demographic and clinical characteristics. Cough (7.5%), shortness of breath (1.4%), and fever (0.7%) were all uncommon among COVID-positive individuals. Our findings illustrate the rapidity with which COVID-19 can be widely transmitted in a homeless shelter setting and suggest that universal PCR testing, rather than a symptom triggered approach, may be a better strategy for identifying and mitigating COVID-19 among people experiencing homelessness.

The very low rate of symptoms at time of testing is pretty crazy, even crazier than 36% of them being infected. Obviously you can't extrapolate to the whole country, but this is another log on the fire that this disease has already infected far, far more people than the official numbers and it presents mild or no symptoms for a lot of people. Keep driving that IFR down...

[snowfan]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/15/europe/german-zoo-crisis-slaughter-animals-pandemic-trnd/index.html

[40westwx]

Just now, PhineasC said:

Another study out of Boston just released that shows how widely this disease spreads under the radar.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.12.20059618v1

It was a homeless population, the kind of people who don't have good social distancing practices and don't show up to the ER with the sniffles to get tested: classic hidden spreaders.

The very low rate of symptoms at time of testing is pretty crazy, even crazier than 36% of them being infected. Obviously you can't extrapolate to the whole country, but this is another log on the fire that this disease has already infected far, far more people than the official numbers and it presents mild or no symptoms for a lot of people. Keep driving that IFR down...

Can I ask you a question.. what if we get a good antibody test and it shows ~60% immunity in the population (I personally think that is a conservative number.. but what do I know?)... what does that mean for the the current policy?  Does that mean that we need to selectively let people out of quarantine if they have immunity?  Or would that mean something bigger? Perhaps that we have had the hospital capacity all along and we should simply cancel the quarantine? 

[40westwx]

7 minutes ago, snowfan said:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/15/europe/german-zoo-crisis-slaughter-animals-pandemic-trnd/index.html

thats a low blow.. they literally are pulling out all the stops here folks..

I dont know what is worse.. the propped/ posed body bags from yesterday or this.. 

[mappy]

52 minutes ago, snowfan said:

Re: grading

End of year grades as of Q3 will be implemented. Schools are going to see a lot of kids....maybe even an overwhelming number....not completing their tasks for a number of reasons. Teachers, kids, and parents are all in a shitty position.

I already recommended to my daughters teachers that they load the weeks worth of assignments at the beginning of the week as opposed to day by day. For starters, seeing the weekly workload on sunday night or monday morning helps with simple planning for the week in the house.

Baltimore county hasn’t been great. We were supposed to get two weeks worth of stuff, last week. Still nothing. It’s online, but at first grade most of it needs to be done on paper. We’ve printed things as we’ve needed them. She gets one hour a week of face time with her class and teacher. Not enough, IMO. But I know it’s tough for everyone 

[snowfan]

1 minute ago, mappy said:

Baltimore county hasn’t been great. We were supposed to get two weeks worth of stuff, last week. Still nothing. It’s online, but at first grade most of it needs to be done on paper. We’ve printed things as we’ve needed them. She gets one hour a week of face time with her class and teacher. Not enough, IMO. But I know it’s tough for everyone 

My daughters class hasnt had a live video chat in 2 weeks. The kids are asking for it, but......

[snowfan]

Any of the parents hear from their respective daycare facilities? I reached out to the before n after care my daughter attends, and they're at the mercy of the state reopening things. Just hoping these places can survive this, so I dont have to scramble to find a new one.

[ErinInTheSky]

Just now, snowfan said:

Any of the parents hear from their respective daycare facilities? I reached out to the before n after care my daughter attends, and they're at the mercy of the state reopening things. Just hoping these places can survive this, so I dont have to scramble to find a new one.

I made sure to tell my daycare the only way I was paying for their 1/2 price distance learning curriculum was if they kept their employees and his teacher.

 

They did, and his teacher zoom's with him and his class twice a day, which gives me a bit of a breather.

[40westwx]

26 minutes ago, snowfan said:

Any of the parents hear from their respective daycare facilities? I reached out to the before n after care my daughter attends, and they're at the mercy of the state reopening things. Just hoping these places can survive this, so I dont have to scramble to find a new one.

I am thinking about opening one on the black market.. we have a great dane and an assortment of other animals.. let me know if you need to get a break for a couple hours.

[mappy]

32 minutes ago, snowfan said:

My daughters class hasnt had a live video chat in 2 weeks. The kids are asking for it, but......

I’m sorry! I know that has got to be so tough to explain

29 minutes ago, snowfan said:

Any of the parents hear from their respective daycare facilities? I reached out to the before n after care my daughter attends, and they're at the mercy of the state reopening things. Just hoping these places can survive this, so I dont have to scramble to find a new one.

This earlier convo prompted me to do that same. Before/after care is at liberty of schools, my private daycare lady has to be cleared by the state to open. I don’t believe she was deemed an essential at home daycare 

[Inverted_Trough]

I suspect the reason there are so many asymptomatic people is because the virus has a long incubation period.  It can take up to two weeks after infection to experience symptoms.  The flu and common cold typically takes just a couple days.

Too much focus on IFR - which appears to be at least 10x higher than the flu but it's an academic exercise at this point.  The hospitalization rate for this virus is very high.  The hospitalization rate for the flu is between 1%  and 2%.  It's  about ~20% for symptomatic covid patients.  The flu is an upper respiratory infection, which very rarely triggers a hospitalization.  Covid seem to attack the lower respiratory system.  That causes shortness of breath which leads you to the hospital.

Our assumption is also that people who recover simply go back to normal - just like is the case with the flu or cold.  There are some studies out there showing that a significant portion (20% or so) of people have lung scarring, heart damage and liver problems after they've recovered.  Obviously the virus is only a few months old and we'd need to have longitudinal studies done on the patients who have recovered from covid, to see how they fare long-term.  But those initial studies are concerning.  

In the meantime, we need to 1) collect data - lots of data, and research the heck out of this virus to remove the uncertainty surrounding it; 2) build a testing capacity such that we can test everyone.  Yes, we might need to test 330 million people.  Maybe that's impractical but I think we might have to strive for that. 3) Hire millions of people to help with contact-tracing.  We have 17 million recently unemployed:  Hire some of them to do this until we finally get a vaccine.

 

[H2O]

38 minutes ago, snowfan said:

My daughters class hasnt had a live video chat in 2 weeks. The kids are asking for it, but......

My son(HS senior) has been able to do video distance learning both days this week and was able to start some work before Easter. He doesn’t even need to do it as he will be allowed to graduate and his grades were As prior all this. 
 

My two daughters have struggled with the video side as the school website for learning has been glitchy. They had to cancel today’s work due to technical issues. But my hope is they will get it ironed out this week. 
 

This is an unprecedented time for educators and school systems. Anyone who thought they could just flip a switch to utilize technology so that tens of thousands could all access learning material was a fool. This isn’t easy. And trying to provide materials to ALL students is a challenge. Some still don’t have access to computers as easily as others

[mappy]

8 minutes ago, Inverted_Trough said:

I suspect the reason there are so many asymptomatic people is because the virus has a long incubation period.  It can take up to two weeks after infection to experience symptoms.  The flu and common cold typically takes just a couple days.

Too much focus on IFR - which appears to be at least 10x higher than the flu but it's an academic exercise at this point.  The hospitalization rate for this virus is very high.  The hospitalization rate for the flu is between 1%  and 2%.  It's  about ~20% for symptomatic covid patients.  The flu is an upper respiratory infection, which very rarely triggers a hospitalization.  Covid seem to attack the lower respiratory system.  That causes shortness of breath which leads you to the hospital.

Our assumption is also that people who recover simply go back to normal - just like is the case with the flu or cold.  There are some studies out there showing that a significant portion (20% or so) of people have lung scarring, heart damage and liver problems after they've recovered.  Obviously the virus is only a few months old and we'd need to have longitudinal studies done on the patients who have recovered from covid, to see how they fare long-term.  But those initial studies are concerning.  

In the meantime, we need to 1) collect data - lots of data, and research the heck out of this virus to remove the uncertainty surrounding it; 2) build a testing capacity such that we can test everyone.  Yes, we might need to test 330 million people.  Maybe that's impractical but I think we might have to strive for that. 3) Hire millions of people to help with contact-tracing.  We have 17 million recently unemployed:  Hire some of them to do this until we finally get a vaccine.

 

As someone who works with data, all the time, I approve this post. I’m sure some of it may be impractical now, but in the end the more data the better!

[ErinInTheSky]

11 minutes ago, mappy said:

As someone who works with data, all the time, I approve this post. I’m sure some of it may be impractical now, but in the end the more data the better!

As someone else who works with data, you and me both!

[mappy]

Whelp, my nice 0 case zip code is no longer at 0. 2 confirmed cases 

[mappy]

5 minutes ago, mappy said:

Whelp, my nice 0 case zip code is no longer at 0. 2 confirmed cases 

I think a backlog of local cases was released today. All surrounding zip codes have 1-3 cases. Yesterday all were 0

[mappy]

4 minutes ago, losetoa6 said:

And @nw baltimore wxsaid I would start the spread along the northern tier 

lol 

[WVclimo]

Just caught up on this thread and am struck by how different things are here in WV from the rest of the subforum.  We have had 100 cases so far in Berkeley County.  But no more than 10% of people at most are wearing masks in public.  I see people congregating with no regard to keeping 6' between them.  Still smoking cigarettes near the entrances of stores.  

They finally shut down the local ice cream stand in the past week after many complaints on social media about 30-50 people in lines without any separation from each other at peak hours.  But the rest of the stores like WalMart, Lowe's etc are packed.  None of the employees at any of the stores are wearing masks or gloves either.

I still go to work every day as I always have.  My kids have been off from school though since mid-March and twice they have had three weeks worth of assignments uploaded on Dojo that they need to complete and upload to Schoology.  But neither my junior in high school or my 5th grader have had any instruction from their teachers.  My fifth graders' teacher has scheduled two 15-minute sessions on Zoom in six weeks, both times she read aloud to the kids while wearing pajamas.  My high schooler can't even get her teachers to respond to questions.  At all.

officially our schools are only closed through this coming Monday.  The governor hasn't made any pronouncements for beyond 4/20.

A close friend was laid off and applied for WV unemployment benefits on March 23.  Still hasn't had her claim processed more than three weeks later.  Seeing all you folks staying home and all the rules Governor Hogan has put in place is a stark contrast to the day-to-day here in Wild, Wonderful..

[ErinInTheSky]

2482 deaths. Most deaths so far in a single day for this disease.

 

And New York just recorded, with the evening update, it's largest single day new cases ever at 11,525.

 

I don't think we are at peak yet, or at best, we are at a bad plateau.

[jaydreb]

8 minutes ago, supernovasky said:

2482 deaths. Most deaths so far in a single day for this disease.

 

And New York just recorded, with the evening update, it's largest single day new cases ever at 11,525.

 

I don't think we are at peak yet, or at best, we are at a bad plateau.

Fauci has said that deaths will lag behind other indicators and will be the last thing to decrease.  I think the key indicator to look at is new hospitalizations.  New cases doesn’t tell us much because it could simply be the result of doing more testing.  

[ErinInTheSky]

Just now, jaydreb said:

Fauci has said that deaths will lag behind other indicators and will be the last thing to decrease.  I think the key indicator to look at is new hospitalizations. 

I know. God... just shows how bad this would be without a quarantine/shelter in place. 2,400 dead two days in a row. Many days in a row of 2k dead. This disease is terrible.

[mappy]

35 minutes ago, WVclimo said:

Just caught up on this thread and am struck by how different things are here in WV from the rest of the subforum.  We have had 100 cases so far in Berkeley County.  But no more than 10% of people at most are wearing masks in public.  I see people congregating with no regard to keeping 6' between them.  Still smoking cigarettes near the entrances of stores.  

They finally shut down the local ice cream stand in the past week after many complaints on social media about 30-50 people in lines without any separation from each other at peak hours.  But the rest of the stores like WalMart, Lowe's etc are packed.  None of the employees at any of the stores are wearing masks or gloves either.

I still go to work every day as I always have.  My kids have been off from school though since mid-March and twice they have had three weeks worth of assignments uploaded on Dojo that they need to complete and upload to Schoology.  But neither my junior in high school or my 5th grader have had any instruction from their teachers.  My fifth graders' teacher has scheduled two 15-minute sessions on Zoom in six weeks, both times she read aloud to the kids while wearing pajamas.  My high schooler can't even get her teachers to respond to questions.  At all.

officially our schools are only closed through this coming Monday.  The governor hasn't made any pronouncements for beyond 4/20.

A close friend was laid off and applied for WV unemployment benefits on March 23.  Still hasn't had her claim processed more than three weeks later.  Seeing all you folks staying home and all the rules Governor Hogan has put in place is a stark contrast to the day-to-day here in Wild, Wonderful..

Thanks for checking in and sharing your experience. Glad you’re doing okay despite all the issues. Hang in there. 

[PhineasC]

30 minutes ago, jaydreb said:

Fauci has said that deaths will lag behind other indicators and will be the last thing to decrease.  I think the key indicator to look at is new hospitalizations.  New cases doesn’t tell us much because it could simply be the result of doing more testing.  

You are talking to someone who is emotionally invested in this disease being a global killer of biblical proportions. I don't think facts and figures matter much. I have been seeing this with some folks I know. Whenever you mention IFR or "tip of the iceberg" they just look wistfully off into the distance and say, "so many beautiful lives lost..." and that's pretty much the end of the discussion. Everyone is entitled to their opinion on this disease.

[WVclimo]

Governor Justice enlisted the National Guard to help with the backlog of unemployment claims.  At that point they were 90,000 cases behind.  I read that they are now able to process 6,000 a day, so looking like two weeks just to clear the backlog before new claims which are steadily filling in also.