The Coronavirus Thread

Discussion in 'Random Thoughts' started by purr1n, Mar 16, 2020.

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  1. Hands

    Hands Overzealous Auto Flusher - Measurbator

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    Can't wait for furnace filters to all be out of stock in a week.
     
  2. dmckean44

    dmckean44 In a Sherwood S6040CP relationship

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    It's already getting super hard to find vacuum cleaner bags and shoelaces.
     
  3. mscott58

    mscott58 Friend

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    5G turned me into a newt!!!

    (...but I got better)
     
  4. Ksaurav402

    Ksaurav402 Friend

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  5. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Cases is close to useless because of different criteria of which tests are given and test availability upon state. In time, number of cases should be better indicators, when there is less variance between cases / deaths.

    With Italy and China, there does seem that a flattening of the curve in the number of cases is being followed up by flattening of the deaths curve. However, Iran figures are like WTF: their deaths per each day flattened out while their cases kept increasing. Ayatollah is hiding something.

    Deaths is obviously a much more realistic indicator right now, albeit with a lag time.

    --

    Here is Sunday data. It's Sunday, so not sure how reliable this will be in terms of reporting by the states. We'll know tomorrow.

    upload_2020-4-5_19-43-57.png
     
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2020
  6. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    In hindsight these articles published in Feb 26 and Feb 10 respectively were highly irresponsible, but reflective of the thinking in the USA:

    https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/coronavirus-worse-than-flu
    Until a vaccine is developed or pharmaceutical agents are identified that can treat COVID-19, we will need to use the same tactics we are familiar with for preventing flu to prevent COVID-19

    https://www.mdmag.com/medical-news/the-fear-of-the-corona-virus-and-the-reality-of-the-flu
    The fact is, influenza is an illness that is far more deadly but also far more familiar to us. The current coronavirus outbreak, which originated in China, serves as a surrogate for a good deal of xenophobia and fear of the country itself.
    I remember reading those, and other similar articles around that time. I locked myself away by March 10th after getting explicit permission from work (it took about a week) and I know my company was already preparing for possible shutdowns a la China, two weeks before that. The physicians who wrote those articles should have their licenses taken away. This is the problem when Internet doctors pretend to be pandemic experts.

    The irony with the second article? Taiwan's xenophobia of China seems to have served them well. Dr. Murray's article is when you let political correctness render you stoopid.
     
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2020
  7. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I was going to ask the question on why our legislative branch (Congress) isn't weighing legislation about making the above happen. Big data and Coronavirus can only be done via the legislative branch. This could one of those BIG things that would enable us to get back to some semblance of normalcy. I mean, it seems we don't even have a plan to get back on our feet. We need to be thinking about this now while we address immediate needs.

    Well, I found out I was wrong: https://www.commerce.senate.gov/202...paper-hearing-on-big-data-and-the-coronavirus

    But oh, wait. I was right. Senators (in commerce committee) are going to have a meeting on the 10th, five days from now, to talk with "experts". WTF? I was in at least two meetings every single fricking day in the past 3-4 weeks with C-level executives, including on the weekends, some of us looking totally disheveled on our video screens, in our T-shirts, hair messed up, in our pajamas, etc.

    f**k these POS Senators. Obviously this is something can wait for them. This makes me very very angry. OK, this isn't a Thanos level threat, but it certainly qualifies as Loki level. JFC, convene now, even if you are in your underwear. Avengers assemble! Fly down the expert witnesses tomorrow. People voted for you fucks. Show some real leadership instead of hiding in your ivory towers. WTF is our government so useless? Why is our media not calling them out on this?

    Getting back on our feet (keeping down CV-19 flare-ups after the worst is over) >>> one or two time payments
     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2020
  8. Rustin Cohle

    Rustin Cohle FKA jazztherapist

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  9. james444

    james444 Mad IEM modding wizard level 99

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    This made me go 'wow':
     
  10. Riotvan

    Riotvan Snoofer in the Woofer

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    Well over here there was a report of a coroner only allowed to attribute 1 out of 3 deaths to the virus.
    True or not i can see why they would do that but still it sickens me.
    If we're going for a reset make it a good one. Heads on pikes and all that stuff.
     
  11. Thenewerguy009

    Thenewerguy009 Friend

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    There is a good video about the effectiveness of surgical vs N95 masks, based off of some studies done in the early '90s.



    The virus is not airborne, so the extra protectiveness & tight seal of a N95 mask is not needed, as you won't be breathing in the virus.
    A bandana or scarf will do just as well, as the main thing is to prevent you from accidentally touching your mouth/nose or coughing/sneezing on to other objects to infect others.
     
  12. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

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    You said exactly what I was wondering when I went on a walk earlier tonight down what is normally a very busy street in town and saw probably a total of 3 cars in 3 min. As much as I dislike Trump, I dislike the general media much more. IMO they bear as much responsibility if not more. Their turning this into another Trump witch hunt (like OK I get it - he's bad and you don't like him since 2015) instead of providing info that helps / saves people (or doing actually investigative stuff) or at least calling out our "leaders" and goading them into action.

    That and while I have said that I don't agree with payments in principle, if we're going to do relief checks, wtf, why is it only 1 time when this thing hasn't ended?

    I wondered about this too (same for current Hong Kong, and to a much less degree, probably just a general long standing dislike of China in SK and Japan). [EDIT (clarify): But then there's Singapore.] I don't think the anti CCP and anti China attitude there is nearly as strong as any of these places and they've been relatively successful too. Maybe it's due to other factors? IDK.

    That and Taiwan and HK have proved one thing - dislike (personal, political, or otherwise) of CCP or China and blaming them for this (IMO very rightly so up to a point) is completely independent of containing the virus, keeping the economy going, managing society and their country/region (or province/admin region - we don't need SBAF banned in China rite???). Taiwan and HK did both. Whereas US and maybe EU blames China, but haven't managed this well at all. That or maybe dumb US media hasn't "figured out how" (read my sarcasm - very deliberately choose not to) to properly blame China without either crying about PC crap (maybe b/c they still want all the RMBs) or turning it into racism (b/c thinking is hard hurr durr)
    ----------------
    Now also this - China reopens wet markets:
    https://nypost.com/2020/04/03/dr-fa...ny-of-chinas-wet-markets-are-still-operating/

    Yes, it's Fox (using NY post link b/c fox site is nearly unusable) and Fauci isn't currently in China... but given that wet markets reopened after SARs I'm inclined to believe. Seeing this made we want to yell and laugh at the same time. Yell b/c stupidity. Laugh b/c I imagine somehow CCP still thinks playing the save face game >> all else despite face being completely ripped off already and then some. I see no other reason to re-open markets right now.
     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2020
  13. JustAnotherRando

    JustAnotherRando My other bike is a Ferrari

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    Not sure if I understood your post properly, but the HK and Taiwan responses were pretty much totally opposite when it came to China.

    I believe that Taiwan closed down transport links to China on Jan 26, right at the beginning of CNY. Would have taken huge balls to make a call like that, regardless of whether the government there likes or dislikes China. So many Taiwanese citizens would have been affected by that.

    Hong Kong kept open all border crossings for ages, with literally over a hundred thousand people a day crossing either way weeks into the crisis. This was despite a lot of people demanding border closures (to the extent that medical staff formed a brand new union and went on strike for several days). I think that the real advantage that HK had was SARS experience which caused the population to react a certain way. And of course, being a single city means that even if the government response had problems and occasionally resembled a Monty Python sketch, it still had to be more cohesive than what 50 states and several thousand counties in the US would end up doing (I am under the impression that decisions are being made at the county level over there, I could be wrong).
     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2020
  14. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

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    You understood properly. The dislike manifests itself differently from what I can see, but it's currently very pervasive in these 2 places none the less.

    It also demonstrates that borders closing or not is not a singular factor that can be 100% blamed or not. It's all in the daily management and "getting it done" which happened in both places (SARs experience or no, it got done).

    If post doesn't make sense, sorry, late now, going to bed.
     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2020
  15. Ringingears

    Ringingears Honorary BFF

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    Actually the virus can be aerosolized. It can hang in the air for up to 3 hours in an enclosed airspace. You can contract it from an asymptomatic person just talking to you. The masks are only going to give you partial protection due to the nanometer size of the virus. But partial protection is better than none. Staying at home is the best idea. Sorry, I know I wasn’t going to post in the thread, but this is something I think should be known. The initial information about it not being spread in the air was incorrect as the research was updated.

    Edit: N95 masks if properly fitted can filter out the virus. But medical personnel are in dire need so please stay at home. Get grocery delivery non-contact if you can. And if you have to go out, please wear some type of a mask for everyone’s safety.
     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2020
  16. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    That is probably the best I read so far underlying the contradictions at least in the interpretation of the data and models.

    Usually it goes like this: here is the assumed R-reproduction rate depending on the measures, some assumptions about the pattern of social contacts etc.. and we arrive at the projected infections spread rate.
    In the case of some models, for example the first Imperial College report, every highly populated country should have millions of infections by now. Like many millions.
    And we tested just a tiny fraction of the number of potential infections.
    OK, so why the number of confirmed cases vs deaths is almost always used in estimating the mortality rate from CV?

    Either you treat the f'ing models seriously or not? If yes, then the infection rate, as predicted by the model, should be used to calculate mortality. In this case the denominator will be much bigger, therefore the mortality rate by an order of magnitude lower.
     
  17. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    They are just guesstimates at this time, usually taken from countries where CV-19 has already peaked. If you take a look of the actual data, it's all over the place. Germany has big case numbers from a lot of testing, but few deaths. Italy and Spain are the opposite. France is slightly better.
     
  18. Kernel Kurtz

    Kernel Kurtz Friend

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    True, but up till now (in Canada at least), we are only testing people in what we consider high risk groups - people with severe symptoms, people who have traveled, and people who have likely been exposed to people who are confirmed positive. We have tested 300,000 people so far, with a ~4% positive rate. If the vast majority (~96%) of people in high risk groups are not infected, it is hard to imagine huge swaths of low risk people being infected. I'm no epidemiologist, but I would expect if huge numbers of not sick people have it, then the percentage of sick people who have it should be much higher. The only other explanation would be that it is not very dangerous at all, but we need only look at Italy and New York City to know that is not the case.

    (edit; those minus signs should be tildes, but forum does not render them)
     
  19. Taverius

    Taverius Smells like sausages

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    They show as tilde for me!
     
  20. StandUp713

    StandUp713 Friend

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    Have a link or name to that take out place?
     
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