COVID-19 Coronavirus Information and Discussion

[Flightwave]

Teddy excellent post 👍👍

[Top Cat]

there's the rub

if one is tested, their test could return a negative, but the next stranger they pass close to could pass them the virus. Theoretically, one could contract the virus 5 minutes after they are tested. It's a crap shoot

I agree with this completely.

[Poisoned Youth]

Earlier in the outbreak, a number of leading health experts stated that masks aren’t very effective, that we don’t need them. The tide has turned on that. I think that the tide on mass testing is turning now or will do so very soon. I work in a university hospital. One Associate Professor of public health (MD) said to me at lunch recently, ‘The people who call for mass testing are people who look at computers all day. They don’t have to go out into the public and enact policy’. For what it’s worth.

First off, that article is almost a month old - which is a lifetime in The Great Pause.

Let's be honest. Nobody knows WTF they are doing, and most of the world was caught with their pants down because they acted too late, weren't prepared, denied the problem, and/or had to weigh decisions that factored the economy and freedoms (among other things).

Even the best and brightest experts are primarily experts on science, not policy. So you still have a massive gap between what to do and how to do it.

In the U.S., it was stated early and often that the mitigation strategy (social distancing and stay-at-home) was designed to lessen the burden on the healthcare system, and to buy time. Saving lives is essentially the "side effect", but just delays the inevitable since a suppression strategy was not implemented. Widespread mitigation was also necessary because more serious targeted actions were not taken in February.

But the key factor during "The Great Pause" is buying time. The U.S. (and several other countries) stumbled through the first few weeks of the mitigation process, with widespread shortages of PPE, equipment, spillover solutions, and reliable and quick tests.

There is a general consensus that mass testing (along with contact tracing) is an important component in lifting social distancing measures. However, I think the confusion is that "mass" implies "everyone". The U.S. can't and won't test 350 million people. So pick a different word, "widespread" or "comprehensive targeted" perhaps, that doesn't imply 100% of the population.

If we don't have all the tools needed in place and ready once social distancing is eased, there is a strong probability we will be back there. If the virus persists, I don't think the global economy can withstand another swath of stay-at-home measures.

I think even more valuable than widespread testing and contact tracing will be hardcore travel restrictions for the next 12 months, international and domestic.

[Dana5140]

The virus will always be there now. It is in the wild. There is no mitigation strategy to make it disappear- we need a vaccine to truly limit its reach.

[Trane]

First off, that article is almost a month old - which is a lifetime in The Great Pause.

Let's be honest. Nobody knows WTF they are doing, and most of the world was caught with their pants down because they acted too late, weren't prepared, denied the problem, and/or had to weigh decisions that factored the economy and freedoms (among other things).

Even the best and brightest experts are primarily experts on science, not policy. So you still have a massive gap between what to do and how to do it.

QFT... Indeed one can see that most Gv'ts see first how not to totally kill the economy in how to fight the pandemy. Which leads to stupîd decision like in the UK and reversing its decision two weeks too late
(Sweden and Netherlands are even more stupid in this regard, but it will be interesting to see if they manage better in nthe long run)

In the U.S., it was stated early and often that the mitigation strategy (social distancing and stay-at-home) was designed to lessen the burden on the healthcare system, and to buy time. Saving lives is essentially the "side effect", but just delays the inevitable since a suppression strategy was not implemented. Widespread mitigation was also necessary because more serious targeted actions were not taken in February.

But the key factor during "The Great Pause" is buying time. The U.S. (and several other countries) stumbled through the first few weeks of the mitigation process, with widespread shortages of PPE, equipment, spillover solutions, and reliable and quick tests.

Yup, we got caught with our pants down, but that's because previous pandemies were killed off quite quickly. But the fact that most of the manufacturing of the health defensive means was in the area where the virus first spread surely didn't help... at all.
The whole planet had become dependant on China and its cheap labor and surely that's going to be reshuffling the cards in the new ballgame

If we don't have all the tools needed in place and ready once social distancing is eased, there is a strong probability we will be back there. If the virus persists, I don't think the global economy can withstand another swath of stay-at-home measures.

I think even more valuable than widespread testing and contact tracing will be hardcore travel restrictions for the next 12 months, international and domestic.

Absolutely...the frenzy to travel across the globe, whether for fun (tourism) or for business (exploitation) is partly what kills this planet ecologically, so I'm really hoping that humanity will at least reconsider what is useful travel and stop what is useless.

=======================

Outside the fact that we are all too many on this planet, we will have to reconsider how the whole economy works and programmed degrowth
It's amazing to see that cheap freight allows for your jeans (or programmed-obsolescense computers or lightbulbs) having travelled twice the planet before it gets to your store, and you throw them away four years later.

This may not be a popular opinion here or there, but I don't really care if this kills a few aircraft makers (and cruiseships construction yards) and closes down local provincial airports, but FFS let's stop taking planes for a yes or a no (that includes prog rock bands touring). Most of the new jobless employees will probably recycle themselves in more local economies-related jobs.
Short-circuit goods like a bakery bread made with locally-made flour is the future, instead of buying so plastic-bagged Wonder Bread made with African or Indonesian-imported yeast or chemicals)

Imean we got to stop this never-ending flee forward: what was wrong with the Tingsten lightbuld made at the start of the XXth (it was just metal and glass and vacuum) compared to the latest LED lamps we're buying (that have components coming from all over the planetwall.gif). What next? A plasma lamp with Mars-imprted elements?? nuts.gif

[Shadow]

The virus will always be there now. It is in the wild. There is no mitigation strategy to make it disappear- we need a vaccine to truly limit its reach.

[Klonk]

The easter bunny drove by my house yesterday.

Back to the virus itself. I am back working for a couple weeks now doing spring clean-ups/cuts etc. and man I can still really feel and appreciate what this thing did to my lungs. I only felt real shitty for 2-3 days with bad fever, chills, headache and after that there was a lingering dry cough and shortness of breath for another handful of days. But those handful of days I felt fine and really thought nothing of it. Man let me tell yas, work is always tiring, but I find myself having to stop and catch my breath quite often...I mean the first week back there was a couple times where I felt as if I was going to pass out. Never in all my working life have I felt this out of breath doing spring clean-ups. Like feeling in the worst shape ever . And of course, just when I feel like I'm starting to get my wind back, tree pollen explodes and allergies kick in Good times!! So I would say overall this virus and after effects have hung around for a good month. Lingering bitch!

Stay safe Proggers!

[ronmac]

The easter bunny drove by my house yesterday.

Back to the virus itself. I am back working for a couple weeks now doing spring clean-ups/cuts etc. and man I can still really feel and appreciate what this thing did to my lungs. I only felt real shitty for 2-3 days with bad fever, chills, headache and after that there was a lingering dry cough and shortness of breath for another handful of days. But those handful of days I felt fine and really thought nothing of it. Man let me tell yas, work is always tiring, but I find myself having to stop and catch my breath quite often...I mean the first week back there was a couple times where I felt as if I was going to pass out. Never in all my working life have I felt this out of breath doing spring clean-ups. Like feeling in the worst shape ever . And of course, just when I feel like I'm starting to get my wind back, tree pollen explodes and allergies kick in Good times!! So I would say overall this virus and after effects have hung around for a good month. Lingering bitch!

Stay safe Proggers!

Glad to see you're back in action.

[Top Cat]

The easter bunny drove by my house yesterday.

It's always kind of scary when the Easter Bunny does a drive by.
Glad you're feeling better. easter bunny drive by.jpg

[Buddhabreath]

I’m familiar with the Vo case.

Earlier you stated that you preferred to listen to the opinions of recognized field experts, health professionals etc. Fine. But then it should be noted then that this (perfectly reasonable) author self admits that he has no expertise in this field and that his suggestions are basically his own and not backed by any larger body or organization.

I never claimed otherwise, I thought you asked for an example of the argument for mass testing.

There are several problems in his argument, some glaring.

First, the town of Vo has a population of 3000. 3000. This allows for a controlled, static study. 3000 tests can be carried out in a single day.

You might want to ask yourself why Italy hasn’t carried out this policy nation wide, nor has any other country, including, counter to his mistaken claim, S. Korea (more on that later).

The US (Of which I am neither a citizen nor resident) has about 300 million people. If you tested even 500,000 per day (which would be generous in terms of capacity and logistics), it would take 600 days to process everyone. In doing so, the presumed goal of rooting out asymptomatic carriers would be obviated. Why? Because the model would not be anything near static.

Test 500,000 one day and send, say, 450,000 of them back out with the assurance that they tested negative. Back into a population of 299,500,000. Wait 600 days until everyone has been tested. And then the original testees, due to possible exposure in the interim 599 days, would have to be tested again. And again. It would be nearly never-ending cycle, precisely because the US, and almost every national model, is dynamic.

And this is without including the need for dual testing and the relatively low accuracy rate of PCR tests (false negatives).

Well so far I see nothing demonstrably wrong, forget glaring. The quantitative does not negate the qualitative in this example. The principle is the same: identification and isolation. You are assuming larger populations cannot be made static or that testing cannot be scaled into the millions of tests being administered daily. Both are false assumptions IMO. Far greater logistical challenges have been met in the past and we see the population of NY more “static” right now than ever imagined or thought possible by many. This is more a failure of imagination rather than scalability. If there is some principle that limits the scalability of producing viral and antibody tests or their distribution and application, I am unaware of it. Will it be difficult and require a huge effort to overcome the many obstacles? Of course!

But let’s look at what he wrote about S. Korea. He states that they had carried out, at the time of article, 210,000 tests and then, rather oddly, says that this would have tested the whole country. Ummm, S. Korea has a population of 50 million people...

There’s a reason why S. Korea hasn’t carried out nation wide testing. The process is too dynamic and unwieldy. What the author is doing is confusing the Daegu outbreak, in which the country did well to contain a local cluster by locking down, tracing, and testing within one area, with some sort of national policy. Now, S. Korea has managed their situation well but it’s certainly not because the country adopted any wide-scale testing (as I said earlier, less than 1% of the populace).

Finally, the author states that this static, highly limited, controlled testing has to be applied very early. Well that train has departed.

Earlier in the outbreak, a number of leading health experts stated that masks aren’t very effective, that we don’t need them. The tide has turned on that. I think that the tide on mass testing is turning now or will do so very soon. I work in a university hospital. One Associate Professor of public health (MD) said to me at lunch recently, ‘The people who call for mass testing are people who look at computers all day. They don’t have to go out into the public and enact policy’. For what it’s worth.

Sorry for the long-winded response. One of the lesser stated side effects of self-isolation is that it makes us boring.

As previously pointed out the article is dated. However, I don’t see any coherent argument at all here against the efficacy and criticality of mass testing and contact tracing:

• It should have been done early, true but that doesn’t negate the present vital need.
• The fact that some experts may have changed their position on masks is irrelevant.
• Your professor demonstrated arrogance perhaps but not critical thinking or an argument.

All it takes in theory is a single asymptomatic individual to re-ignite this contagion. If we are to return to normal society then we will need to have confidence in the status of nearly all the population, not just a sample. That can only be achieved via mass (not necessarily universal) testing. You may be confusing the two. Repeated testing will also be needed since all testing is a snapshot in time.

Thanks for your response, I’ll out-bore you any day I’m sure. We’re all trying to figure this out. I don’t pretend to have all the answers or have absolute certainty. I am open to changing my views in light of new evidence and argument. The important thing is we get this right - and the whole world will have to work together to finally solve this.

[markwoll]

Would be nice so you didn't have to dispose of it. I can't believe they actually closed the landfills. With the Goodwills closed you can't get rid of anything.

The local government has been asking people to not spring clean.
They have dropped yard waste pickups and bulk pickup at the end of March.
A few people are blind to the news and piling stuff on the curb.
It just adds to the 'developing covid-19 scene'

[ronmac]

The main reason to have more testing is to identify asymptomatic people and isolate them and those they've been in contact with.

Not sure why this is so hard to understand.

[MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER]

The virus will always be there now. It is in the wild. There is no mitigation strategy to make it disappear- we need a vaccine to truly limit its reach.

pretty much sums up the situation sadly

[spellbound]

If you don't have widespread testing, you will always underestimate the number of COVID-19 cases and the areas where the virus is present, and it will then be too easy for the unscrupulous to prematurely declare that it is safe for everyone to go back to work and slave to pump up the rich man's economy.

[Garyhead]

The neighborhood is FULL of screaming kids.....cars parked in front of everyone's homes.....and I smell BBQ.......We're Fu*ked!

[Teddy Vengeance]

My final thought on this at least for today is that it is outrageous and mind boggling that we still have no coherent national plan!

Trump administration has many task forces — but still no plan for beating covid-19

...and one tragic result is

As feds play ‘backup,’ states take unorthodox steps to compete in cutthroat global market for coronavirus supplies

This is, I'd say, the biggest difference between what's happening in the U.S and those countries which are having more success in containment.

S. Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam:
United, coordinated, socially cooperative efforts, strategically targeted testing, with decisions made quickly, based on the best scientific evidence available at the moment. Not all of these countries took the exact same steps (SK and Taiwan are operating somewhat normally while VN is in a strict lockdown). Here in Japan we've been a little slow (govt is VERY afraid of treading on human rights) and its starting to bite us in the ass, even though the other qualities mentioned above exist here in spades.

These countries used to look up to the US as a model and leader but now, sadly, there's a lot of head shaking going on.

[Zeuhlmate]

Read the books titles!

covid-19litteratur.jpg

[Teddy Vengeance]

Someone, or some team, is going to be a hero whose name will be in your grandchildrens’ history books very soon.
One of the most enlightening articles I’ve read on the race to develop a vaccine:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/...085842883.html

[Frumious B]

If you don't have widespread testing, you will always underestimate the number of COVID-19 cases and the areas where the virus is present, and it will then be too easy for the unscrupulous to prematurely declare that it is safe for everyone to go back to work and slave to pump up the rich man's economy.

Given that testing is limited doesn’t that mean that people who are very sick and more likely to be hospitalized and die are also more likely to be tested? So if most of the cases that are either asymptomatic or mild don’t show up in the numbers then that would mean the actual mortality rate for the virus is lower than if you just divide the number of deaths by the number of reported cases. I have a friend whose doctor thinks she has a milder case. She is in self quarantine, but she hasn’t been tested. Her case won’t show up in the stats.

[Zeuhlmate]

Financial Times::

European countries should buy stakes in companies to stave off the threat of Chinese takeovers, the EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager has said, as Brussels steps up plans to protect businesses fighting for survival during the Covid-19 pandemic

https://www.ft.com/content/e14f24c7-...3-f629da62b0a7

[ronmac]

This thread is going off the rails. Dial it back, boys.

[GuitarGeek]

Saw a thing on the news that said they did a poll and something like 72% of all sports fans said they wouldn't attend a game without a vaccine.

[markwoll]

Saw a thing on the news that said they did a poll and something like 72% of all sports fans said they wouldn't attend a game without a vaccine.

The other 28% must be the ones who show up for games in the winter wearing body paint.

[Klonk]

Maybe it's time to move this shit over to Twitter now where it belongs. There is nothing interesting, helpful or positive coming from this thread anymore.

[Poisoned Youth]

See what happens when I let things go for a day?

This thread is going off the rails. Dial it back, boys.

Thank you.

Maybe it's time to move this shit over to Twitter now where it belongs. There is nothing interesting, helpful or positive coming from this thread anymore.

You mean now that you're better? Jeez.

Hey man, this thread has been like this since it was started. I just took Easter off, but I'm back to clean up.

I registered today to reply to this garbage untrue post.

You'd think this was a Yes thread. I hope you have something else to offer the forum.