And now we're past France. Though to Arles' point, it does appear that the death rate and critical cases are lower in the US than elsewhere, for which we can be thankful.

I think when it's all said and done, the Italy numbers will be a massive outlier when compared to the rest of the world. The combination of age+smoking+close proximity made for a "worst case" with any epidemic. That said, I fully support social distancing for the next 2-3 weeks to see what the numbers start coming back at. I'm just not ready to make the leap that we will still be on lockdown in June/July like many others seem to prefer/predict at this point.

It is the other way round: If this thing was as benign (relatively speaking) as the American Virus of 09 we would not be shutting down now.

The 'aditional' deaths ascribed in those studies (i assume the same as quoted from here: 2009 H1N1 Pandemic (H1N1pdm09 virus) | Pandemic Influenza (Flu) | CDC ) come from taking a guess at deaths in countries not tracking them at the time, i.e due to lack of laboratory tests etc. The death rate in the US f.e. was really low with roughly 13k from 60 mio cases within a year. Italy already has more deaths per capita after a few weeks and they are throwing the proverbial kitchen sink at the bastard.

And yes, i think it will be an outlier within Europe at least. But only because everybody else had a better start than they had (luck more than anything) and because measures are taken. Without those measures, every countries healtg system would be equally overloaded.

If Corona reaches 60 mio cases in the US within a year, this will be devastating. Now imagine what happens if this goes on unchecked in less developed countries.

Apparently Bay Area shelter-in-place means remote work, avoid nail salons (example Mayor gave), but go ahead and exercise out in the park with everyone else just as long as you stay 6ft away.

I guess it would work if everyone respected the 6ft distance. Time will tell.

Yeah, I think/hope this also.

I find the variance in fatality rates fascinating. I mean, how does Germany have only 28 deaths in over 12,000 confirmed cases? On the other hand, Spain appears as if they are on pace to match Italy.

All the parks in our area are still open and encouraging people to get out for some fresh air, but proceed with caution.

I just got back from the local park about an hour ago. Of the four courts, there was my son and I on one half of the court and two teenage brothers on the other side. A father and his son on half of the next court over. A young man by himself on the other half of that court. On the court furthest from us and separated by one court from everyone else,a father and his two young children were playing by themselves. There was an 60+ couple walking around the football field. All of us had no interactions with each other whatsoever and much more than a six feet distance.

And then on the football field itself, there was an ultimate frisbee game going on so......¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have an employee who reports directly to me who has been out sick yesterday and today. This afternoon he called me to let me know his doctor administered a COVID-19 test, and that he would have the results in a couple of days. He hasn't been traveling, nor has he come into knowing contact with anyone who has the virus; it's a precautionary test because some of his symptoms line up with the COVID-19 symptoms.

I reached out to a fellow supervisor to ask his advice as to the best way to circulate the news to our workgroups without causing panic - we are first responders, and as such have been and will continue to work throughout the shelter-in-place order. After we discussed our options, I let him know I was reaching out to HR and then would disseminate the message to my team.

Before I get off the phone with HR, the other supervisor sent out an ePage (mass text message) to both of our workgroups indicating we had a positive test in our region. I don't know if I've ever had the same mixture of disbelief, frustration, and irritation as I am dealing with right now.

I wonder how much of the variance would be explained by testing criteria and availability? Likely for instance we had 12,000 cases in the US or more by the time we reached 28 deaths I'd almost bet, just not tested.

I had read earlier that it was because Germany was reporting patients with pre-existing conditions that died of the coronavirus as having died because of the pre-existing condition, not coronavirus.

However, I did some googling and recent articles that I found said it was basically unexplained at this time.

Not sure what to believe, my guess there is some truth in the former when it first started but would think cause of deaths are more accurate now.

Well, the numbers are moving. We had a 40% increase in the total number just today alone.

On the mortality rates, I'm in the 'we just don't know enough' camp. The graph on that at the worldometer site (thanks to everyone who's linked it) appears to show that the worldwide average bottomed out and is now starting to rise as the virus spreads. I'm taking all that stuff with a grain of salt right now because testing is still ramping up.

My boss' wife works with a confirmed case. We haven't closed our offices but are strongly encouraged to work from home, which I'll be doing. Inspecting cell phone towers isn't so bad from my easy chair.

In the meantime, I'll fly to Newark again tomorrow for some airport appreciation time.

Esper confirms Navy hospital ships won't treat coronavirus patients and will take weeks to deploy

Everything's a con, COVID edition.

Been mentioned in this thread a few times that the mass of corporate email blasts have been generally useless, but I just got one from OpenTable that actually made a suggestion that was useful to me: gift cards are a great way to support local restaurants & businesses right now & give them some capital.

Over 3k cases just in NY.

Very surprised if they don’t do the pseudo shelter in place.

Also letting out low risk prisoners.

I hadn't considered the prisoner release thing. Man, what a cultural shift this could be.

Yeesh... Good luck, I hate managerial incompetence like that.
"Industries" won't disappear, but many individual small businesses will. You can only put rent and mortgages on hold for so long before it affects the commercial real estate companies, and the banks, and the whole system. Restaurants/bars are the most egregious example since they're often a bad month or two away from going under, but that quickly expands to other sectors.

I don't think we have replicated South Korea's response (though I do think our country is much more spread out & has a lifestyle less conducive to spread between generations than SK or Italy), but I'm heartened by the low mortality total and rate. I don't trust any of the information coming out of China, but again I don't think containment is possible. Flattening (and lengthening) the curve may make sense for a quick 2-3 weeks while they can ramp up available tests, ventilators, make contingency plans for extra beds in hotspots, etc, but containment is out of the bag (especially with these half-assed measures like keeping airports open) and we need to focus on protecting the vulnerable people instead of tanking the whole economy.

70-85% of places seeing a significant sales decline mean that if we try to keep this up for the 18 months or whatever, they will close. Drive thru & carryout might keep the Wendy's afloat but all of your local restaurants and bars will close if this lasts 6+ months. The unemployment rate will shoot up to 20-25%, it will be borne primarily by poorer (and younger) people, and a $1000 check is nice but we do not have the resources or will to support that long term.

Why can't you? Why is it more plausible to pull 60 million schoolchildren out, cost 20-30 million Americans jobs, and ask all 330 million Americans to drastically alter their lifestyle to stay home when it's not essential, than to find a way to better isolate the 50 million in the 65+ age bracket who don't have full time jobs and aren't exactly going out to bars & sporting events & concerts?

Ehh, I think our jails are a little less crowded than Iran's... limiting/eliminating outside visitors & forcing them to do it through the glass now would make a lot more sense. Even if it did run rampant in a jail, most are in little danger from it & it would seem better to keep them contained in that environment instead of letting them out into one where they'll still be asked to stay inside, but also presumably be around older relatives.

Show me a better idea for how to do it, and I'll consider it. I haven't seen one proposed. If we had for example working teleportation technology, or a working fleet of millions of reliable drones, we could deliver a lot of the affected population what they need with no personal interaction. Of course we'd also need all of them to not be living with people who are still working, so the entire social structure of multi-generational habitation that is commonplace would also have to be changed. Do you know a feasible way to get these things done in a relevant timeframe?

It's not a case of either/or here. Because it's not possible in any way that I know to keep society functioning while still protecting the population we're talking about, I think it's best to find the least-bad options for maximizing our chances of not having a totally overrun medical system - or if that isn't possible, minimize said overrun. I certainly don't know where that line is, but I don't think the actions taken so far, extended over a longer period of time, are at all unwarranted.


I don't see how you can ramp up production of ventilators, beds, etc. in that short of a timeframe. But I think the major sticking point between your perspective on this and mine is simply this; how do you avoid tanking the whole economy if we run out of those things? I don't see any way that happens. And even if we get the physical items in place, you're never replacing the number of trained medical personnel you'd need for proper care, and that's just as essential. We had a nursing shortage before any of this even is factored in. If people who need medical treatment for other things can't get it, society will start to break down. Deaths from causes other than coronavirus will skyrocket, with ripple effects that seem to me inevitably far worse than the alternative. I most definitely could be wrong, but I see no way around this and we already have scattered reports of some hospitals running short on things. If it stops being scattered, this will get much worse.


That's places that are still fully open, before the shutdown orders started coming in. So if your conclusion is correct, a lot of them close anyway given how long it's likely to be before the coronavirus is no longer a major threat, because business will be suppressed for at least that long. A major shift in the economy from restaurants to retail as just the one example is happening no matter what we do, and it'll be replicated in other areas. That's what I meant earlier when I was talking about there being no good solution, only least bad ones, and that there simply is no 'keep things as they were' option.

AA factor that no one here appears to be considering is the significant amount of trauma that would be caused if we lost that 1% (if that number is even correct given our healthcare system and the potential for other health conditions to not get the care they need). These are people's parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles etc... many of our children are being raised / taught, etc by these people.

I work for the school district and in that community a significant portion of our kids are being raised by people in the high risk group. Even assuming only 1% of that community died, the level of trauma that would result is significant.

You think kids will have a quality education if people in their (and the staff members lives) start dying in high numbers from this? We had a teacher pass away suddenly last school year and the kids in her class had trouble learning anything the rest of the year given the trauma from the situation. Adverse childhood experiences have huge short and long term effects

Now I understand there is also risk of trauma and adverse experiences by what is going on now which is why we need to take all this into consideration and do what we can to walk a fine line that can support individuals, families, communities, and businesses while also keeping people alive and healthy.

On a personal note, my daughter was born a month ago. Some of her grandparents are in the high risk group I'd really like for them to be a part of her life.

I keep hearing comments about "we can't just tank the economy" and I hate to break it to you that are thinking it but, yes, we can, and its going to happen no matter what precautions/actions we take.

This country hasn't had anything like this since the Spanish flu of the early 1900's we'e not only forgotten how to deal with something on that scale but we've actively believed and taught ourselves that nothing like that can ever happen again.

Guess what, its here and its happening. This virus isn't going away and if even 50% of the population gets this we're looking at a million and a half deaths.

The economy will be fucked no matter what because as this threat carries on (and believe me it has only just begun, its not ending anytime soon) the panic will grow, the self isolation will not need to be mandated because the fear and panic will generate it on its own.

stop worrying about the fucking economy, start worrying about the social train wreck that could happen if we do not maintain as much isolation as possible.

Wednesday's CDC report sheds light on who it's affecting

Highlighted in the NYT article are these sobering facts:

** 38% of the 508 confirmed hospitalizations from the coronavirus were in the 20-54 age group

** Almost half of the 121 ICU patients were under 65.

I wish this were not so. But it is so, and does reinforce my thinking that there's no stopping this thing. There is only slowing it down, and surviving it as best we can.

It’s also not even nearly as easy as saying ‘Everyone 65+ stay home, the rest of us got this.’ There are other people in higher risk classes, are we actually confident we’ve identified all those factors? The death rate, while low for the younger population, is not 0%, so you are sentencing a number of people to death, especially the youngest of the population who have underdeveloped immune systems. Even discounting the death rate among younger people, the hospitalization rate might also be significant enough that hospitals are overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases and can’t handle other serious cases that can occur at the same time.

I don’t see how we can avoid having to require isolation until there is a sufficient medical solution (safe and effective treatment or vaccine). The economic issues require a political solution.

Michigan's first coronavirus casualty happened yesterday, and cases are starting to spike; mostly in the Detroit area, unsurprisingly. That's where the first one in the state was, big cities are a natural breeding ground, etc.

This is clearly the situation, to avoid the hospitals collapse, in Italy doctors are talking about how hard is to have to choose who do you save and who do you let to die.

But for sure this will become another seasonal flu and we all with go through it one day, just not all at the same time, that is the only reason for current measures.

In Spain we have been 4 days already isolated at home, you can only go out for food shopping or work (if you can't do remote and you need a certificate form your company) or take care of people. Police is in the streets issuing fines to whoever breaks it as some stupids still ignore it. As an anecdote, there was a young guy yesterday in the news that went to the police outside and asked them to arrest him as he couldn't stand being at home with his mother anymore.

In my company we sent everybody home (130 employees) a week ago and have been working remotely since then, but we are in the online business so for us it's not been a problem at all and having remote offices in several countries we are used to it. In fact our business is growing as people being at home worldwide means more app installs, but for the whole economy this is a hard hit and will take years to recover.

For a less doom and gloom look, here’s a more optimistic outlook: Thread by @trvrb: I've been mulling over the @MRC_Outbreak modeling report on #COVID19 mitigation and suppression strategies since it was posted on March 16.…

I know that some of the large biotech companies have started to roll out test kits. Roche has one and has shipped out 450,000 test kits. Abbott yesterday got approval for theirs and is shipping out 150,000, by the end of the month they supposedly will be able to ramp up to shipping 1 million test kits per week. BD I believe also has a test kit under FDA review and there may be others.

I think that's a good point. Until testing catches up to the need for it, which I agree will happen and hasn't yet, I don't think we really will start to know exactly what the best approach is. A lot of other things can't be scaled up past a certain point, but the testing issue is certainly solvable.

My daughter was tasked by her eye center with calling all 60+ year olds, and rescheduling their appointments. She called my wife crying because of the abuse she was taking, and none of the people she called was willing to reschedule.

Not theoretical, it's already happening in the US.

I know they are considered lower risk and get the rationale but still a scary thought of a bunch of felons released where a majority probably lack the support mechanism (even more so now) to integrate back into society.

Those felons were going to be released back into society sooner or later anyways.

I don't know about the amount of prisoners per facility, but as a country we incarcerate at least twice as many people per capita than Iran.

The combination of our inherent American individualistic thinking, the stubborn resistance to breaks in routine that many older folks have, and the initial downplaying by the administration and many in the right-wing media is going to be tough to overcome. I'm already seeing some dismissing the administration's change of message as "even Trump is capable of bowing to political correctness." It's maddeningly frustrating, and it sucks that your daughter caught flack for it.

Some good news?

https://www.foxnews.com/world/wuhan-...onavirus-cases

I don't know who's running DeWine's twitter, but he's killing it. (I know it's not him, because of obvious reasons, including the fact that he was tweeting during his press conference the other day)

This is an interesting chart related to the 1918 flu outbreak. #Ohio is trying to #FlattenTheCurve like St. Louis did -- they began #SocialDistancing only a few days after their first case. #COVID19#COVID19OhioReady pic.twitter.com/ytIHIBlSFn

— Governor Mike DeWine (@GovMikeDeWine) March 15, 2020

More like every 60+ year old feels entitled, because you know Boomers.

My parents made it back from Hawaii and are self quarantining now. I think they dodged the bullets, but damn if it wasn't nerve wracking to have them on the other side of the country and my teens in the Dominican as this progressed.

We've had one reported death in our county.

I have to take my daughter and her girlfriend to the university today to move them out, I'm hoping it is my last risk for exposure.

Keeping two teens, an eight year old and a 4 year old occupied has been demanding, I'm working from home today and tomorrow.

We're fully stocked and have movies if the net goes down.

I'm expecting the docs to cancel my 8 year old's surgery next week.

I'm also expecting my boss to discuss longer work from home opportunities, but I actually want to be present at work (not because I want to avoid the kids). I'm concerned that companies will start cutting soon and if I'm showing some sort essential need then I won't be considered during the first wave.

Thankfully it's a pharma company that supplies a third of the world inhalation anesthesia.

I'm sure China is being fully transparent.

this is the same generation that put Trump in office and continues to defend him. why should we expect anything more?

My wife and I had an interesting conversation last night regarding the balance for people working from home while trying to balance care of young children and schooling for older ones. Add in the stress of all of this, meal planning, etc...and it is a challenge on a professional level. Someone from HR talked to her yesterday about how to handle it. My wife is Senior VP/GM of sales, 2 steps below the CEO and her opinion is people have to focus on their families first. What we came up with is the CEO needs to change the messaging regarding the urgency behind getting certain things done. She is actually considering hiring a couple people and training them do do some simpler tasks. Reviewing numbers, etc...to take the pressure off some of her team.

A chat interaction from my office about people packing the bars on St Patrick's Day (weekend):

Person A: it is amazing how much freedom people have lost due to this virus but the amazing part is everyone is fine with it. if you want to go do these things then do them thats on you

Person B: yeah its not about you being responsible for yourself... its you affecting other people

Person A: you tell people hey this is a horrible idea then it is on the individual to succeed or fail on their own

Person C: Half the people are dumber than average

Person A: then let them fail. thats how you learn. my daughter falls all the time trying to walk i just let her get back up

Person D: They are not the ones who will pay the price of their actions. They catch it and pass it to my mom in the grocery store. SHE pays the price.

Person A: not if she washes her hands and limits interaction with others as much as possible not saying it is perfect but i don't like being told i can't do something


I should note that Person A did not go to the bar on St Patrick's Day but thinks it's perfectly fine for anyone who did. My profile says Boston, but I live near Charlotte now.

Sounds like they're handling it really well, that's great.

Some companies, mine included, have never really been work at home friendly. Even though I can literally do my work anywhere in the world as most people with jobs in today's climate can. It's most definitely because our leadership is borderline Boomer and a little younger. Basically "if I'm not watching you, I don't trust that you're working". They literally sent out paperwork for people to sign around this.

I was lucky I had a little leverage a number of weeks ago and already was working from home 3 days a week. PLUS my kids are 19 and 17, so not really a hardship. I don't know how people with small kids get anything done.

I love the mentality of person A blaming person D's Mom for the negligence of others, SMH. I am still going to physical therapy post rotator cuff surgery and replace me with that Mom and add random infected bar hopper and that whole practice could pass that on to numerous patients. All because nobody is going to tell person A what they can't do. Fucking childish mindset.

I am currently arguing with a guy in a facebook group who is in the "quarantine the at risk people and let everyone else live their lives" camp. when I informed him it is being reported 40% of hospitalizations are between 20-54 he told me I was fear mongering and I should go support a local business. You can't win with these people and it's the reason we are screwed.

So much for that. Sounds like North Korea can't handle the spread within their borders.

Can't say I've thought about this before

Coronavirus online school: Can closed schools offer special education?

My wife teaches special ed.

She is doing remote assignments and will be doing video soon. No real time interaction though. Not perfect, needs more parental involvement (which 60-70% couldn't care to do, school was a public-funded daycare). Yes, the students get short-changed for sure.

Now for my wife's office. Her first patient came in and said "I was at a conference this weekend that one person was later diagnosed with the virus, but I feel fine." The second said, Oh, I can't pick out glasses right now. My daughter I as to help me, but I left her home because she is very sick."
I am afraid Georgian's may just be too stupid to live.

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