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COVID-19/Coronavirus thread


caulfield12
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3 hours ago, Texsox said:

So you are also listening to what elected officials have to say?

BTW, I haven't seen that quote from our governor. 

This is more in line with what he has been doing

 

You did notice that yesterday was the highest number of new cases Texas has had, and that this state has basically doubled its 5-day moving average since Abbott began relaxing restrictions in late April, right?

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11 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

You did notice that yesterday was the highest number of new cases Texas has had, and that this state has basically doubled its 5-day moving average since Abbott began relaxing restrictions in late April, right?

Yes I did. 

Did you think we were on the downside of the curve already? 

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It seems like any elected official's reopening plan that sets arbitrary dates rather than metric to meet before moving to the next phase is fundamentally a political plan and not a scientific one.

 

You should probably make sure you've taken appropriate measures to reduce r0 to a manageable level before you take actions that will increase it. Or don't and suffer the economic and mortal consequences.

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1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

No, do you think there is going to be a downside?

Months down the road. I think there will be a spike whenever we reopen schools. I believe that is unavoidable. 

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5 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

It was obvious that the curve would accelerate again if actions were taken based on being emotional rather than scientific.

I do not see a way to reopen without an acceleration unless we wait months or years for a vaccine. And even then the process of having people be vaccinated would cause a temporary spike as people leave their homes. We know increased contact equals more transition. It doesn't matter if that is today or 2021. If we all stayed in our homes for the next three months then came out, there will be an acceleration. The question is can the health care system handle the acceleration. 

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Just now, Texsox said:

I do not see a way to reopen without an acceleration unless we wait months or years for a vaccine. And even then the process of having people be vaccinated would cause a temporary spike as people leave their homes. We know increased contact equals more transition. It doesn't matter if that is today or 2021. If we all stayed in our homes for the next three months then came out, there will be an acceleration. The question is can the health care system handle the acceleration. 

Since our government failed to provide adequate testing levels, and wasted months of potential research into the virus and a vaccine, the only options are ones that involved people dying.  We COULD have done other things, but the President was too busy pretending this wasn't happening to keep his portfolio going up.

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10 minutes ago, Texsox said:

I do not see a way to reopen without an acceleration unless we wait months or years for a vaccine. And even then the process of having people be vaccinated would cause a temporary spike as people leave their homes. We know increased contact equals more transition. It doesn't matter if that is today or 2021. If we all stayed in our homes for the next three months then came out, there will be an acceleration. The question is can the health care system handle the acceleration. 

Tex - You hit on a key point I think others aren't discussing.  If we know there isn't a vaccine for 3 years, should we hold and wait 3 years with limited our entire way of living, or at that point, is it just manage the entire way through this thing, focusing on ensuring that our hospitals can handle the surge and where surges exceed, manage back through until we get through this entire bugger.  Maybe we target higher levels of continued quarantine for the most high risk population to buy further time for better treatments?  

The part of me that is bugged by this is, it certainly seems like we've seen areas / other countries who have knocked this thing out better and faster than us and why should we be talking about a much different containment strategy than others (unless we believe our data indicates that there is truly no containment and no matter what these other countries have done, at some point, 1 year from now or 2 years from now, they are going to deal with everything. 

I consider all of the above a worse case scenario because it essentially means we have no choice but to slowly manage to herd immunity.  

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1 minute ago, southsider2k5 said:

Since our government failed to provide adequate testing levels, and wasted months of potential research into the virus and a vaccine, the only options are ones that involved people dying.  We COULD have done other things, but the President was too busy pretending this wasn't happening to keep his portfolio going up.

I agree with your assessment of what happened in this country. I do disagree that it will have to be a US government led researcher that discovers a vaccine. The world's been working on one longer, and I wouldn't be surprised if researchers in this country had a head start even without guidance from the West Wing of our government. I will put some words in your mouth and agree in advance that US government funding would have been really useful sooner rather than later. 

But do you see any way we could have kept everything shut down until a vaccine is found? The concept of flattening the curve wasn't let's avoid anyone getting the disease, it was let's keep the medical systems from getting over loaded. People were always going to get sick, they were always going to die. Flattening the curve saves some lives but not all. Personally I wish we had an economic system that assured affected workers were not going to see their financial lives destroyed, especially the kids in their twenties and thirties. 

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Just now, Texsox said:

I agree with your assessment of what happened in this country. I do disagree that it will have to be a US government led researcher that discovers a vaccine. The world's been working on one longer, and I wouldn't be surprised if researchers in this country had a head start even without guidance from the West Wing of our government. I will put some words in your mouth and agree in advance that US government funding would have been really useful sooner rather than later. 

But do you see any way we could have kept everything shut down until a vaccine is found? The concept of flattening the curve wasn't let's avoid anyone getting the disease, it was let's keep the medical systems from getting over loaded. People were always going to get sick, they were always going to die. Flattening the curve saves some lives but not all. Personally I wish we had an economic system that assured affected workers were not going to see their financial lives destroyed, especially the kids in their twenties and thirties. 

It doesn't have to be an American based find, but we also pissed away two months of potentially finding it, increasing the odds that it won't be found for a longer amount of time.

 

Also the GOP has made clear that it would rather have people die than to pay people for staying home, and that includes the sick and at-risk.

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1 minute ago, southsider2k5 said:

It doesn't have to be an American based find, but we also pissed away two months of potentially finding it, increasing the odds that it won't be found for a longer amount of time.

 

Also the GOP has made clear that it would rather have people die than to pay people for staying home, and that includes the sick and at-risk.

I am going to guess big pharma started racing on a vaccine as soon as the outbreak in Wuhan became large enough. By that point, there was enough potential money to do more work.  I don't think Big Pharma waited for any government funding to do what they would have needed to do (because potential profits & PR benefits of being the Company to solve this thing would be massive). Now the government could have created broader collaboration networks sooner and for all I know maybe they did those exact things (just kept it quiet...but with this regime if they did anything worthwhile or even somewhat worthwhile they would have talked about it from a mountaintop). 

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13 minutes ago, Texsox said:

I do not see a way to reopen without an acceleration unless we wait months or years for a vaccine. And even then the process of having people be vaccinated would cause a temporary spike as people leave their homes. We know increased contact equals more transition. It doesn't matter if that is today or 2021. If we all stayed in our homes for the next three months then came out, there will be an acceleration. The question is can the health care system handle the acceleration. 

Bingo.  The whole point of us flattening the curve was to not overwhelm hospitals as the virus continues to spread. 

It is supposed to keep spreading.  Why does that fact seem to get lost so easily?

 

When did elimination and containment replace flattening the curve?  

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I'm not certain we pissed away two months. Just because the Grand Ol Party wasn't behind it I can't believe private and university researchers waited for Trump to ask for help. I believe turning it into a political football for voters caused a horrible lack in preparation and I can't find the word I'm looking for. We just sucked at all the precautions. I believe it is our selfish and entitled ways. 

And it's my personal bias but the GOP has consistently been in favor of people dying as long as they are born. Pro-Life seems to end at the birth canal.  

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15 minutes ago, Texsox said:

I agree with your assessment of what happened in this country. I do disagree that it will have to be a US government led researcher that discovers a vaccine. The world's been working on one longer, and I wouldn't be surprised if researchers in this country had a head start even without guidance from the West Wing of our government. I will put some words in your mouth and agree in advance that US government funding would have been really useful sooner rather than later. 

But do you see any way we could have kept everything shut down until a vaccine is found? The concept of flattening the curve wasn't let's avoid anyone getting the disease, it was let's keep the medical systems from getting over loaded. People were always going to get sick, they were always going to die. Flattening the curve saves some lives but not all. Personally I wish we had an economic system that assured affected workers were not going to see their financial lives destroyed, especially the kids in their twenties and thirties. 


https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/05/13/frozen-years-potential-sars-vaccine-tested-coronavirus-cryogene-houston-baylor-college-medicine/3110750001/

Speaking of an imminently logical one (compared to hydroxychloroquine) that was right in your backyard, just waiting to be refunded after interest in SARs abated.

Bill Gates and his foundation has also been all over this.  The problem is the anti-vaxxers will take any breakthrough as a Gates/Soros-led attempt at world domination, somehow...well, just because he’s now the bogeyman behind everything.   If it’s a Chinese company, 50% of Americans will think it’s a Trojan Horse trick to poison us and take over as top dog, replacing the US dollar with the RMB as the global reserve currency after staging a predawn paratrooper invasion of Lawrence with our defenses weakened, etc.

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2 hours ago, pcq said:

The idea that wearing a mask is a political statement shows what a hot mess we have become. Now we are inventing things to be offended over.

How bout making masks available that are a.) easily acquirable and disposable and that are readily available? Masks were hoarded just like everything else. Also nobody has explained to me how to keep a mask clean before you put it on in a restaurant, church, etc. You put it in a briefcast, germs. Put it on your car seat, dust and germs. Put it on your table at home waiting to wear it, germs. 

We need masks you can buy in disposble groups of 50 for a reasonable price if we have to wear masks.

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2 hours ago, NorthSideSox72 said:

Yeah I have zero sympathy for people upset about wearing a mask in public spaces and businesses. We've abided by no shirt, no shoes, no service forever. This is a change but it is tiny and goes a long way to allowing us to get back to semi-normal.

 

I have zero sympathy as well. And let's forget the idiot congressman who went walking around the Capitol wearing a gas mask to make fun of the situation. Then he ends up getting the virus. No, things will not return to normal because a person refuses to wear a mask. No, that is not a political statement. It starts at the top with Trump. He could help put an end to this nonsense by putting a cloth over his disgusting face. Now that would be a political statement.

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Just now, NWINFan said:

I have zero sympathy as well. And let's forget the idiot congressman who went walking around the Capitol wearing a gas mask to make fun of the situation. Then he ends up getting the virus. No, things will not return to normal because a person refuses to wear a mask. No, that is not a political statement. It starts at the top with Trump. He could help put an end to this nonsense by putting a cloth over his disgusting face. Now that would be a political statement.

It's amazing how supposed adults can come up with so many excuses for not wearing one. 

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2 hours ago, Texsox said:

The long lasting change in my view of our society after this is we are a very selfish, entitled, society. 

We've always been that way. The only times we've come together and banded together, in modern times, are whenever a hurricane hits somewhere. We band together to rescue and help people. If politics is involved at all ... we despise each other. That's why I like going to Mass so much and wanted it open if possible. People for one hour a week are in one place with no selfish motives in mind, just love. I've found it the only hour a week in which the world is not the rat-race, except like I say when tornadoes or hurricanes hit. People get out their boats and help. This crisis not so much because of politics and politicians power hungry IMO.

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8 minutes ago, greg775 said:

How bout making masks available that are a.) easily acquirable and disposable and that are readily available? Masks were hoarded just like everything else. Also nobody has explained to me how to keep a mask clean before you put it on in a restaurant, church, etc. You put it in a briefcast, germs. Put it on your car seat, dust and germs. Put it on your table at home waiting to wear it, germs. 

We need masks you can buy in disposble groups of 50 for a reasonable price if we have to wear masks.

Yes this is correct. It’s not hoarding though. Hard to build up that capacity in weeks.

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Speaking of masks...
 

(Dr. Rick) Bright (of BARTA) said that he would "never forget" an email from Mike Bowen, the hearing's other witness and the vice president of the medical supply company Prestige Ameritech, indicating that the US supply of the N95, the respirator masks used by health care professionals, was at a perilous level.

"He said, 'We're in deep shit,'" testified Bright. "'The world is.'"

Bright said he "pushed" that warning "to the highest levels" he could at Health and Human Services but received "no response."

"I was met with indifference, saying they were either too busy, they didn't have a plan, they didn't know who was responsible for procuring those," he said in his testimony, adding 'A number of excuses, but never any action."

Bright said that in a meeting on February 7, Health and Human Services leadership said they did not believe there would be a shortage of N95 masks. 

"My response was, 'I cannot believe you can sit and say that with a straight face.' It was absurd," he said.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/14/politics/key-moments-bright-hearing/index.html

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54 minutes ago, NWINFan said:

I have zero sympathy as well. And let's forget the idiot congressman who went walking around the Capitol wearing a gas mask to make fun of the situation. Then he ends up getting the virus. No, things will not return to normal because a person refuses to wear a mask. No, that is not a political statement. It starts at the top with Trump. He could help put an end to this nonsense by putting a cloth over his disgusting face. Now that would be a political statement.

Gaetz didn't actually get it yet, or at least it wasn't reported so, but he was around Rand Paul on the day that Paul got tested in the morning, went to the gym,  and then came back positive at noon, so he had to quarantine for 14 days.

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1 hour ago, Texsox said:

I'm not certain we pissed away two months. Just because the Grand Ol Party wasn't behind it I can't believe private and university researchers waited for Trump to ask for help. I believe turning it into a political football for voters caused a horrible lack in preparation and I can't find the word I'm looking for. We just sucked at all the precautions. I believe it is our selfish and entitled ways. 

And it's my personal bias but the GOP has consistently been in favor of people dying as long as they are born. Pro-Life seems to end at the birth canal.  

Depends on how you define pissing it away. You're absolutely right that researchers are working on stuff, probably to an extent never before seen in human history. Worth adding the detail that the US is refusing to participate in international groups working on the stuff, but anyway that's beside the point.

Where we did "piss it away" was in our failure to actually bend the curve downward anywhere but New York. When Italy wanted theirs downward, they put people indoors using every bit of authority they could. We haven't established a tracing program, we didn't take steps to get out in front of infections in tightly packed locations (Jails, meatpacking facilities), we didn't take steps to quarantine people away from their families after they tested positive (hotels), we just haven't done the type of work the government needed to do. 

See the thread on the previous page about a person coming home to Hong Kong, being put in a government-run facility, tested, informed of everything they were going to have to do, held there and fed while waiting for test results, assigned a GPS tracker, and given instructions on a 14 day arrival quarantine? Is the US doing any of that type of systematic, hard work to try to control flareups? Not at all. 

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