The next spike is apparently here today, 1500+ so far. Hoping there aren't many more to come.

Yeah, I'd argue this. I'm quite positive that whether or not we'll get packages delivered to our door by USPS (I live in apartment) depends on the postal carrier. Before COVID 19, all packages would go to the leasing office. But the leasing office has closed up and asked all delivery folk to drop packages off at apartment doors instead. No issue for FedEx or UPS.

My neighbor was waiting on a USPS package that should have arrived. She called in and they said, oh we aren't doing door to door deliveries in your apartment building for the safety of our carriers. My neighbor is immunocompromised and has mobility issues. Having her go to the post office would have been ridiculous.

Especially since I was positive I saw a USPS mail carrier going door to door the week before.

So today the same USPS mail carrier is delivering things door to door (we got a bunch of stuff - including something that was mailed to us but they told the sender that they are holding it at the post office for pickup) and delivered my neighbor's package.

I'm convinced that we have one good USPS mail carrier and she only works like once a week or something. And the other USPS mail carriers are just lazy.

Thomkal and Fozzie, do you use Firefox by chance?

I do

In the URL bar type:

about:config

Go through the warning screen. In the search box paste:

editor.use_div_for_default_newlines

Change the value from true to false.

You won't have a bunch of extra line breaks when making posts. It won't mess with anything else.

done

This is the best thing ever...especially for Ohioans :)

DEWINE & AMY OPENING THEME - YouTube

lt gov Husted doing the Carmine Big Ragu dance spins just kills me

I use chrome. weird

You, sir, are a lifesaver.

SI

I wonder about this since those numbers dropped sunday and monday. This happened last week too but the scale was so much smaller then. It might jive with what whomario (or AlexB I forget, my apologies) had posted about officially counting and reporting issues from the weekend lagging into the work week for a couple days. Of course we know we're not at the peak yet here, so it could be either, or both?

Alex posted a BBC link explaining it for the UK, i mostly assume it as common sense and past Weekends going the same. I think it is a mix of both, just seems logical that even in a crisis you will have less staff sundays at the labs.

But a spike was always inevitable, simply due to the 2-3 week delay between peak cases and peak deaths. And even after the shutdown people will still infect others, mostly im their household. They will infect less people, but if the number was high then it will still increase the total.

And that increase in cases/infected mean more hospitalised/ICU and that means less optimal care for each patient even if you manage to find a bed/ventilator for everybody. Abd more tests means longer wait time for results or notification leading to people coming into the hospital or into the Covid ward too late ...

Just a big snowball effect, which is why it is so crucial to avoid these sudden steep peaks and should be a stark warning for other states :(

Really interesting, if beyond my knowledge, discussions about how to use ventilators, focusing on individual hypoxia issues rather than pneumonia protocols. Doctors around the globe are discovering that this approach may provide much better outcomes for the most critically ill.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog...acute-covid-19

I read something about how people dying at home are not counting. The numbers are dramatically up but because they were never tested they don't count. Number is likely considerably higher.

Staggering Surge Of NYers Dying In Their Homes Suggests City Is Undercounting Coronavirus Fatalities - Gothamist

CDC paper shows a very high R0 rating for Covid-19.


Previous estimates were around 2.5.

All countries i know of, the hardest hit regions really seem to be those with large initial numbers of cases and big cities or events facilitating an unnoticed spread. Even after a lockdown or other measures they already had too many to supress that first wave.

Seattle region seems to have been able to squash the initial outbreak because it still was decently few "Patient 0", whereas New York just couldn't track those and had more.

Same pattern in Italy or Spain, Germany too essentially has a very linear amount of increases linked to the origin regions of the initial wave of Holiday returnees from Italy and Austria (an earlier outbreak based on connections to china was actually contained).

The only outliers are big regional events.The region if Heinsberg f.e. in Germany has the biggest density of cases in Germany and it all started with 1 infected person attending a big carnival festivity. Even now almost all cases in the region can be traced back there.

Could you post the link ?

To be fair, R0 is not a static number but is dependent on circumstances and especially with a new disease you will get a wide spread of results depending on where and when you try and calculate it.
That's why many experts will talk about the goal being to lower it to 1 with enough measures in place.

There is an inherent quality/quantity based on the properties of a virus but there's lots of factors. For example Influenza is about 1.4/1.5 but if you were to find a population of Humans without ever coming in contact with it, that number would jump a lot and even now this will be higher in cities versus country and lower in regions with lots of vaccination or many cases the year before.

This probably isn't all (or perhaps even most) Covid patients, however. I have seen a few reports where NYC ER docs are commenting how they aren't seeing many heart attack/stroke patients when they get far more of them - speculation is that people with milder chest pain/arm numbness, etc. are more wary of going to the hospital because they don't want to get Covid 19, but end up dying of cardiac arrest (or other treatable ER diseases).

Coronavirus: Paris bans daytime outdoor exercise - BBC News


Am I missing something, or is that not just going to lead to everyone exercising at the same time, increasing the risk of closer contact?

I guess during the day is the time people with necessary tasks are out and about, so exercisers can be out a different time.

But we start banning exercise I don't know if that's going to be great for the hospital workloads.

Not sure how many will want to go for a run out after dark. They want ton discourage the ones that go more for catching some sun, less because they actually run an hour. It is cynical, but makes sense ...

It is born out of desperation and not logic anyway. They are at a point where there are only shitty solutions because they need to stop every possible infection since they are so much past capacity everywhere. Kinda like the NBAs luxury tax where it increases the more you are past the limit ...

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article

That's great man. I gave up long ago.

Cheers !

As i understand it they concentrated on the initial 'raw' spread in Wuhan before anybody in the public or most doctors even were fully aware of it. I think that that knowledge alone already makes a huge difference for everything after, which they kind of allude to:


Basically i think what the article boils down to is that it depends a lot on how many and how soon you can trace/isolate people from the general population. Early on in the pandemic it did not happen at all and then it was also neglected (the "lets wait if it actually us bad"/herd immunity crowd), bungled (US testing desaster) or just failed due to bad 'luck' in a lot of the countries hit after China with exceptions like Korea, Austria and Germany.

If you think about it, Social Distancing and Lockdowns esentially have the same effect, only kind of 'in reverse'. If you can't isolate enough people individually, reduce contact as much as possible for as many people as possible. Then those infected at the time will still infect their Share, but largely people they live with or other known contacts. Gives a way in for tracing efforts to pick up the bread crumbs once numbers eventually drop to a manageable level.

At least that is my takeaway combined with what else we know/have seen ...

Hard to blame them. I have to go to the hospital for treatment next Monday and I am terrified. I go to the cancer ward (I do not have cancer) and rationally I know that and the maternity ward are likely the safest place in the hospital at this point, but just the thought of parking and walking through the doors horrifies me.

I was going to speculate that maybe there's a curfew after 19:00?

SI

Is anyone else thinking that maybe we're going too far?

Father arrested for playing with daughter in park, citing coronavirus restrictions

Seems like the police department agrees that we're going too far.

That was my thought. I think they want to prevent the folks that are just hanging out in the sun on a nice day and saying "oh, this is my exercise". People who are actually going to go exercise will do so after dark, but those who are just joywalking (for lack of a better word) may not.

I think the obvious problem here would be a lack of communication/guideline for the officers and them severely overreaction/jumping like half a dozen steps going straight for the cuffs.

In general it really depends on why the Park was closed: are all parks closed (which is stupid because you rather want people in Parks than other peoples Garden) or was this park closed especially because it usually is highly frequented and adherence to social distancing would be problematic if frequented like usually ? If the latter it's a bit more grey as far as asking them to leave, but certainly cuffing is still weird to put it mildly unless he was going berserk or sth...

The latter is how it is handled in Germany. In principal Parks are open (but playgrounds/playstructures closed), but can be both closed as a precaution (if they are bound to be the No1 choice for too many) or be evicted if too many people are gathered.
Plus you are encouraged to not put down roots, but officers use discretion and will be way more lenient if it is your virtually empty neighbourhood park versus you travelling across town or further to lie in the sun in the prettiest spot with a few hundred others around (which is why certain natural hotspots get closed, that way people will be spread out over more different parks).

It is obvious that the police officers went too far but I have been wrong about these things before.

It certainly seems like the police went too far. I also wouldn't be surprised if the dad was a dick and it seems like he could have avoided the situation by complying. Still, to cuff a guy in front of his kid like that is beyond stupid.

I am curious why he is a former police officer and if he has some kind of ax to grind with law enforcement.

One almost ancient butbpromising treatment option i don't think was mentioned yet here: Plasma transfusions (collected from recovered patients). The scientific/medical community in Germany/Austria thinks it very promising and extensive studies are underway, already promising results in small studies in China and South Korea.

And contrary to some other options this is actually geared towards the already very sick, If i understand it correctly. And can reasonably be used even before clinical studies are completed.
Main issue is actually getting enough blood donations to 'produce' enough plasma.

Turns out no COVID-19, but he's still in the hospital. Improving though.

On a sadder note, the team I work on went from 7 members to 3 at the end of last week due to layoffs. One of the remaining three is based in NJ. He lost his wife to COVID-19 yesterday. Two kids, both in high school, are also left behind.

Oh man. That's brutal. So sad...

It's getting really bad here. We have a town pretty close by that has a very large religious population, in the tens of thousands. To avoid sounding like I have a problem with the religion itself I will leave it out. They firmly believe the laws of their god overrides the laws of the state. Because of this they have been having large weddings, going to religious services, etc...to the point of where the police were regularly breaking up gatherings and it was rumored the state national guard was called in. Isiddiqui will know where I mean.

Fast forward now and massive amounts of them are now overflowing all the area hospitals. My cousin is a nurse and said it is to the point that some of them have even been going out of state. It has had a pretty profound effect on our system. This town has by far the most cases in the county, 825. The next closest has 325 despite both towns having a similar population.

Re: Testing and going back to work.

Normal tests won't Help this. Need an antigen test (Rapid antigen test - Wikipedia) that will show both current and past infection.
Which is in the works all over the globe and essentially ready, just not accurate enough yet to trust it using it widely.

Normal lab Tests wont do any good because you need an instant result and get testet at least every 3-4 days* and since the labs Take 2-3 days mostly even now you will have to wait at home every few days awaiting results. Just because you don't have it one day dies not guarantee you won't catch itba day later from your spouse, kid or a random person. And wait time would be more with more tests. Aside from that, the needed chemical supply is stretched thin already.

*Time from Infection to the point where you start spreading it.

still need to be cautious (likely less acurate than a PCR lab test) and thus i doubt it will be the only tool used. And the firs batch produced should be used in hospitals and retirement homes.

My wife runs a dog rescue that sends dogs from Memphis to NJ.

We had some members of this community that wanted to foster, but transport on Saturday so they couldn't pick the dogs up and no one was willing to drive to that community.

I don't know the percentages, but a lot of the cases here in Orange County, NY are in the Hasid community in Kiryas Joel.

Every time i see a public figure wear a N95 or better mask i want to punch them considering the lack of those for healthcare workers.

This seems bad.

This is very worrisome. Among recovered former #COVID19 cases, “nearly a third had unexpectedly low levels of antibodies. In some cases, antibodies could not be detected at all.” �� https://t.co/VEwTJWOJD2

— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) April 8, 2020

It also sounds like if they start counting people who died in their homes as COVID deaths, the numbers are going to jump a lot more too.

How bad is it getting in NYC? That's a photo of the National Guard loading bodies into ***an Enterprise rental van***. https://t.co/Mh3aAm5oEE

— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) April 8, 2020

yeah. Same community here in Jersey.

That was smart of them to say no. An Uber driver posted a thread in the local facebook group about how he got a call to the hospital to pick up a member of that community because her husband wouldn't do it on the sabbath. The orderly apparently tipped the driver off she was positive and he refused the ride.

In the long term all this means that people even more so need to get access and incentive to get vaccinated. If the vaccine does not work, then i'll worry.

My state is having a difficult time processing all of the unemployment claims. There are protections against evictions not happening immediately (including the courts being closed), but it is a very dire situation for a lot of people who live paycheck-to-paycheck. I think we're underestimating the impact of that.

The only numbers that are worth looking at are total deaths compared to previous years’ averages. That will give the true impact

I think people dying at more than 3 times the usual rate in New York (and likely 5+ in Lombardy f.e ) while trying everything to prevent it is a decent clue how that turns out or at least would turned out if one wouldn't combat it agressively and would have allowed it to freely spread everywhere.
I can already imagine people looking at excess mortality for the year and going "hey, wasn't so bad", when the reason for "hey, wasn't so bad" will be the extreme measures taken. Which in turn will have a significant knock-on effect in future years.

Yes, people dying from Covid are older and have health issues. But that is not sth exclusive to this illness, that's the same profile as the average death in general in normal years present with. Most people over 70 have one or more underlying conditions but would still have 10 years to live (Statistically in Germany if you reach 80 you still on average have 9-10 years to live depending on Gender).
Only now there are way more of those in regions the virus was not stopped/controlled in time. In a way this is like the flu in that it kills the same 'demographic'. Only in regions it spreads wildly it kills 2-3 times more people in a day than the flu in a a bad year claims in a week. That is excess mortality right there.

Sorry if you did not mean it like that, touchy subject for me.

It amazes me that many of these systems are still written in COBOL. Obviously they can’t be scaled up to handle the demand.

Had to look it up, but damn ....

Wanted: People who know a half century-old computer language so states can process unemployment claims - CNN

Have to show this to my mate who is bitching about the 6,7 year old software at his insurance company ...

A couple of reporters are now saying that the flights coming in of medical supplies are being broken down so that 50% goes to states and 50% goes to private companies. No word on whether the companies are paying for the supplies or the transit.

And the companies keep them for their own use ? Or sell them on ? :confused:

Was it one of the more "mainstream religions, like Oprahism or Voodoo"?

SI

No joke, my 70-something year old dad turned down a lucrative offer this week to go program COBOL in Jersey.

SI

https://www.kansascity.com/news/poli...241861126.html
Kansas's GOP legislature overrules Democratic governor's order limiting church gatherings to 10 people ahead of Easter. I mean, are people that excited to die? I swear this is a disease that multiplies based on our stupidest impulses. Of course, it burdens all of us and kills indiscriminately.

SI

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/08/busin...rus/index.html

Meat processing plants shutting down due to lack of workers. Maybe a blip in the supply chain, maybe more.

SI

Not just lack of workers, but workers actively getting sick. Now I don't think there's much chance of COVID-19 surviving long enough to cause an issue with tainted meat, but... you know? I don't want to risk it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/n...835d90fe5f427d

I know hindsight is 20/20, but some of the things that happened (or rather didn't) in the buildup still seem to strange to be true... So much would have been avoidable if more people in power (countries, states, organisations) would have just stopped and considered that maybe they are not as smart or well prepared as they think.

Germany includes, we just had dumb luck and a head start on the one area independent from political decision making (testing and tracing)

I'm sure it helps to have a scientist in charge rather than an anti-vaxxer.

The companies then sell to the highest bidder. It explains why a couple of GOP lobbyists suddenly went into the medical supply business a couple of weeks ago.

Definitely. Merkel has her flaws and all, but there is no denying she is a rational thinker and here she gave the Institute in charge free reign and took their advice seriously when it came to taking the steps on the political end. Even now the equivalent of your task force briefing on the developments of the epidemic is done by the Robert Koch Institute with no politician in sight.

Still she stepped up publicly as well (after seeming almost burned out previously and biding her time) and watching her speak vs Trump ...
Not that long ago her rivals were preparing to pretty much oust her from office, now most seem really glad they didn't.

Sometimes i feel like visiting the moon when i dive into how things are done nowadays in the US :(

Sounds like more of the "do it yourself" stance, only in prettier words...


Like they couldn't manage them themselves if they still got funding and support (like contact to labs) :confused: seems like that's two different things.

If nothing else these 'external' Testing sides are great to give people an option that are reluctant to go to hospitals because of a little cough that may or may not be related to the virus. I know that the hospitals here welcome the extra sites (in Dortmund there is now one in the big Stadium for example)

Two different teams in NY have independently determined the virus was circulating in NYC in mid to late February and was brought primarily by travelers from Europe.

The stuff they can do with contact and genetic tracing is amazing.

This could be a pitch for some geezer movie where they have to reprogram the space shuttle before it breaks apart/some other catastrophe

COBOL programmers made tons of money leading up to Y2k as well, i guess they get thrown a bone every 20 years?

As for outdated Insurance company software... I work for a healthcare technology company, frequently working to connect our company to insurance companies. Last year I was given documentation on how to connect to a specific Blue Cross Blue Shield insurer, and saw that it was documentation I had written myself, when I was part of a team that developed their method for processing electronic transactions... 21 years ago, in my first job out of college. There's rarely any incentive to upgrade anything. The slower things are, they longer they can avoid paying out claims.

Doctors say that COVID19 will become a seasonal disease.
And a pandemic will end only when more than 50% of the representatives of society will have immunity. Or through a disease or through vaccination.
Different countries will go to this in different ways. But the faster immunity is formed in most citizens, the earlier the economy will be restored.
The US goes this way, hoping to minimize losses. By autumn, the formation of the immune layer will be completed.
The country has a resource for this.
China will go the other way - they will start the industry now, but they will introduce total control of the incidence before the invention of the vaccine.
They have a resource for this.
Europe will be tormented slowly and for a long time. And the industry will not be launched, and the immune layer will form for a very long time.
https://besthdporn.me/

I meant it in the way that you also do - there is considerable excess death, and that is the best way of gauging the effect. I was replying to Rainmaker’s words rather than commenting on the article, as those dying at home will be in the overall death numbers, even if they are not in the CV numbers

For example, in England & Wales the average weekly death rate was a fairly steady c.10% less than average until three weeks ago based on the Office of National Statistics.

Two weeks ago week it was 10% more, and although the numbers aren’t released yet, extrapolating the CV numbers it looks like it will be 30% more (at least) last week.

Although not the 2-3 times you reference, 30% extra deaths is a lot, and it’s only going to get higher based on this weeks CV19 numbers

Just so weird, my sister has had a fever for a few days and a bad cough with chest pains. Called the number and, despite living with an immune-compromised child (her husband's adopted son) and taking care of my 74 year old mother, was told she was too young for a test (37). They just opened a drive through test at GT (in my deck) but apparently still do not have enough tests. The lady did say she was lucky to live in Decatur with easy access to Emory in case she got worse though. :shrug:

Makes sense, thanks :) yeah, obviously the 3x, 5x are local phenomena because once you shut shit down it might be too late in some areas (like NY or Bergamo or Paris) but just in time or well early elsewhere because a virus does not magically spreads at warp Speed to everywhere thankfully.

heh tarcone

Is it Lakewood by any chance?

I am just glad my religious denomination has been almost universal in staying home. We indicated that we need to cancel Easter services 2 weeks ago. There are plenty of online worship tools for the Easter Triduum starting to come out today.

Spam is great. Just don't eat it straight out of a can, have to fry it till its almost/crispy.

Spam, cut super thin and cooked very crispy is pretty good. Agreed.

I just read that US gasoline demand is down 48% from a year ago. From a historical standpoint, the last time we saw gasoline demand at this level (under 5.1 million barrels per day) was January of 1969.

I saw that one making the rounds tarcone. I have but one response:

Weird Al Yankovic- Spam - YouTube

Our Governor just shut down all schools in Missouri for the rest of the year.

My senior daughter will not like this. Reality will really hit home now.

And I really like spam and eggs.

On a related note some insurance companies, GEICO and Allstate that I know of , are giving refunds due to the lack of driving.

Although not quite a refund, I just got an email from Geico offering a 15% credit on my next renewal.

Progressive refunding 1 billion dollars worth of premiums.

In completely unsurprising news, Michigan extends stay-at-home through the end of the month. People are starting to get a little testy about the definitions of what is and is not an essential worker, and it's coming from both sides; those who are working and those who aren't. None of it is productive whining.


Huh. I have Progressive and haven't heard diddly-squat.

Winner...

I have Progressive as well. I will be calling them tomorrow.

My neighbors sister is over there every day. With her 2 kids. One was born about 2 months early, though she is like 18 months now.

And there is a new house being built in the new subdivision behind my house and work goes on.

Im not sure what our stay at home order means.

My wife is an insurance broker and reminded me that any money refunded will eventually get added on as premium hikes. So, while people may get $50 now, their premiums may go up 100+ in 2021 to make up for that.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/...grvnke5s0vn-1i

We got an email from USAA stating they're crediting accounts 20% for the next 2 months.

Thanks Lathum - good to know. Just weird that I haven't heard anything from them yet, but it will help with some decisions I'm making as we go through this … whatever this is.

I worked for them for several years and some former coworkers put it on facebook.

From last week and now ...

Coronavirus Latest: Major Meat Processors Shutting Down Plants As Employees Get Sick With COVID-19 – CBS Philly

It continues to say consumers are unlikely to see any shortages. I don't get this because I've been seeing shortages for the past 4-5 weeks already.

There may not be shortages from source/supply but there shortages at the grocery stores.

The shortages are most assuredly from hoarding. I would think any shortages would be offset by the huge number of restaurants not ordering.

I gave to think that part of it based on consumer patterns.

We're not going to restaurants so we're doing more cooking at home etc...

True, but I know when I cook at home the portion sizes are much smaller than at a restaurant.

I dunno. Just a thought.

I follow some beef industry people on Twitter. There is a lot of beef needing a home because of restaurant order cancellations. Same with all the milk dumping. Farms in my neighborhood are dumping. Cheese and butter is being made and it’s all going to warehouses. But the warehouses are filled up. I heard a story of a smaller beef packer that killed 1500 animals right before restaurants shut down and it’s all sitting there waiting to find a home.

Hoarding is affecting what you see at the store but definitely no actual shortages from what I’m seeing.

I think you hit the nail on the head right here. Anecdotally, it's steadily getting better where I am in terms of what's available - eggs, bread etc. that were regularly out are now easy to find. Chicken was at one point gone an hour after opening; I got some in mid-afternoon a few days ago.

But more to the point, there are going to be variances in whether stores have enough people to stock things up - it can be full at the start of the day and gone by noon or whatever, but that doesn't mean they didn't have any. Additionally, getting all the supply chain stuff sorted with the different amounts that now need to go places - less to restaurants, more to grocery stores, adjusting layouts in the stores to have more shelving/whatever for more popular items, all of that.

So as you say, shortages in store may happen, but I don't think shortages in the supply chain will and the latter's a lot more vital.

I think like the toilet paper, there is a supply chain for businesses (restaurants) and grocery stores. So there isn't technically a shortage of the product, just an issue with how to shift that supply chain that was delivering to restaurants to shift to grocery stores.

I did notice my local grocery store now sells the cheap toilet paper you'd find at a business. Largely unbranded.

In Germany some executive people claimed that the market is back to normal since store sales for products like hand sanitizer and Toilet Paper are way down so obviously demand must be lower. The reason they are down: You can't bloody find those products in many stores :lol: have not seen either in 3 weeks across 3 shops, hardly anyone i know has.

Should I be preparing the family for summer plans being cancelled? I am having a lot of trouble finding information on what's the best guess timeline here.