I just started making cold brew. I think it might be way too strong, cause after a glass I wanna build bridges

Can states block flights back from Las Vegas and mandate anyone going there self quarantine? They can do what they want over there but the return spread across the nation might be really bad

I belong to a facebook group with about 15K members about March Madness.

someone thew out the question if you could go today would you, at least half the people are saying yes. We are so screwed as a nation.

Hawaii did that. They are requiring a 14 day quarantine from all inbound flights.

I think travelling interstate fall under the scope of the federal government.

I have been trying to avoid closely following a lot of the day-to-day coverage of this for my general mental well being. However, I also need to generally stay informed for my job so I have been catching up on where things stand right now.

One thing I haven't seen - does anyone have a relatively recent source for estimates of the % of the adult population in the U.S. that is likely to get this? The stuff I am finding on this is closer to early March.

I stopped by our local grocery store for the first time in a couple of weeks. My first stop since Safeway introduced the single direction aisles.

I actually saw TP in the wild for the first time in about a month. Most shelves were well stocked except for pasta and garlic bread, oddly enough. Fairly busy for 10:30am considering the situation and all but 3-4 people were actually following the guidance of the arrows. Interestingly, those not following the arrows were all wearing masks.

NC Governor will be announcing reopening plans soon.

So far, he's been letting science and common sense guide things. Some things are closed, but a lot of stuff is open. I hope he continues to let science guide him as we transition.

Lemme guess they were of a certain age demographic as well?

Based on the recent daily death toll numbers and today again I do not see the numbers subsiding or based on weekend catch up nor as a substantial flattening of the curve despite the Fox news and WH briefing talking points. Unfortunately, I trust very little in those briefings anymore as they appear to be just trying to conceptualize the data to give the impression of things improving across the country.

Trump calling out Kemp for opening too fast. That may give pause to other governors who want to curry favor with the President.

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

Yup, Fauci is talking now with Trump to the side. It seems he is listening to Fauci.

Hopefully GA will slow down now since Kemp doesn't have Trump for cover.

All were older than me and I'll leave it at that.

All he wanted to do is impress Daddy and Daddy put out cigarette on his hand.

Lemme guess they were (black/brown/yellow) as well?

I don't understand what really happened. In the first paragraph, Harvard agrees to return $8.6M.

In the second paragraph, it says Harvard did not "receive" the funds. Probably some semantics but seem contradictory.

Other big name schools are saying they won't take the money but apparently Cornell will and says it'll go 100% to students. I suspect they will cave in soon also.

Harvard finally agrees to return coronavirus relief millions

Having worked on our church's loan a bit, there's a delay of a few days between loan approval and getting the funds in the bank account.

Vendors (including shopping services) are now going to start being required to wear face coverings at a lot of retailers (Walmart, Meijer, Sam's Club at least that I know for sure). That should increase the number of people doing that in some areas like my own where people aren't feeling particularly motivated to do that. Quite a few employees that still aren't here, but apparently that will be changing.

Depends on the timeframe. If there were no vaccine, eventually almost everybody since everybody is succeptible.
Not everybody will actually be noticeably sick of course, but everybody would catch the virus.
Maybe even more than once as immunity is currently not thought to be all that long.

Within this year or before a vaccine (some guess start of 21, but that is the best case) ? Depends on counter measures taken and how many heavily sick and dying at a time is deemed acceptable.

The point where it would noticeably slow down on it's own without many measures is estimated at about 70% (the famous point of "herd immunity"). But that is likely not happening before a vaccine, at least not without a repeat of New York, only across the country. It will be a delicate balancing act all year, unfortunately ...

Current models/studies from France suggest that about 12% within their 2 hardest hit regions (Paris and Alsacce) will have had it by Mid May and 6% for the whole country. So basically 2 months of constant and profound strain on the healtcare system with utter insanity in retirement homes etc results in 6% immunity.

Study article

While I'm starting to get depressed as mentioned about the death count not declining, there was more good news (from my POV) about the consensus holding in another poll out today. 61% say steps taken are about right, among those who didn't think so, it was 2:1 not enough done over those who thought things had been taken too far (12% there).

In ordinary times I'd be surprised to get 61% of Americans to declare the sun is warm, so I'll definitely take it. 56% say it's unlikely conditions where they live will be safe enough to lift restrictions within a few weeks.

So what interesting trends (if any) have you found doing the shopping?

Good question actually. Around me we are running low on a few more things than I thought supply-wise; mostly stuff that I don't buy. Getting through an order without running into multiple things like that is something that used to happen, not a current reality. Good luck to you if you want pizza sauce or distilled water, or even lemon juice (???), though the more common staples except for flour and TP have largely recovered. Today for some random reason everyone wanted butter. Generic unsalted was the only kind to be found by early afternoon, but that hasn't been a trend so much as just a weird thing.

It's just kind of interesting exploring parts of the store that I never visit. Nobody bats an eye now when a middle-aged guy goes cavorting down the … let's call it the 'feminine products' aisle … and nobody cares that you look like an idiot in a hastily-assembled homemade mask (I'll have better within a few days). They get what you are trying to do - it's just interesting comparing to normal life pre-pandemic.

People have adjusted really well from what I can see to there being shortages, but also observed a lady in the butter area who appeared to be having a borderline panic attack at not being able to find her brand. Mostly though it's just accepted as the new normal from what I can see.

Also, lots of people apparently really like their Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce, but supply of that kind of thing is holding up well. And clearly the human race has horrible taste in peanut better. Everyone wants crunchy, and disregards the ton of creamy still available on the shelf.

Do you find it easier to find things early, mid, late in the day?

Have you asked/do the stores tell you when they restock?

On that it's pretty much always best right when they open, which is 8am industry standard now. All of them around me at least have a bunch of restocking that happens overnight, but they can't keep up during the day even when there is more that could be brought out. Just not enough people to restock when a lot of them are constantly helping customers find things, and even if they could how would they get through the crush of humanity to put it on the shelves? By noon in a lot of the grocery aisles there's traffic jams combined with people trying to distance meaning movement just stops for a while a lot of the time.

I'm doing this in a small city, approx. 12k population. The big cities have to be insane.

People are doing tons of baking at home, including pizzas. Distilled water is used in CPAP machines so people loading up.

OK boomer

First known death is now traced to early February in California. Someone who had no ties to China. Community spread was happening in mid to late January without any detection from our government. Travel ban from China was too late anyway.

The first US #COVID19 death (Feb 6) was a 57-year-old woman after community spread, misdiagnosed due to inability to test https://t.co/qTlZsh9xdG by @janiehar and @MikeStobbe @AP @APHealthScience
w/ comments by Sara Cody @HealthySCC director and me pic.twitter.com/GPG6Ln9RGf

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) April 23, 2020

Crazy story. Azar lied to the President about the spread in late January. Seemed to be more concerned about appeasing the President than stopping spread. Should immediately resign.

FDA chief Stephen Hahn asked HHS in January if he could contact companies about possible shortages of PPE and other equipment. He was told no. Azar told associates such calls would alarm the industry and make the administration look unprepared. https://t.co/ZGuesQZitQ

— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) April 22, 2020

Officially true but on the borderline of Gen X.

Just pointing out the underlying hypocrisy of some that decry racism but seem to tolerate ageism. One post does not make a pattern but see below.

See Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - Boomers vs Millennials

Thank you. As I mentioned in another post, I live in suburbia, went to Kroger on Sat 8am, and was pretty successful and found flour & Kroger branded toilet paper (that looked decent, haven't tried).

So as a PSA to everyone ... go when stores first open.

Just a thought, it must suck to be known as "the" patient X. Don't know if the name is out there but wouldn't be surprised if it eventually leaked.

Misc musings from my favorite guilty pleasure rag.

Not sure how to read this stat other than ventilators are probably treatment of the very, very last resort and odds are not good.

Nearly 90 per cent of COVID-19 patients placed on ventilators in NY's largest health system DIED | Daily Mail Online

I can see how some would view the dancing as being disrespectful but I gotta say that these guys are on the front lines in a pandemic and must be under unbelievable stress ... so if they want to "play" around and let it out then go for it.

I like the Irish clogging (?) one in the middle.

NHS staff criticised for dancing | Daily Mail Online

Missouri governor to re-open all businesses May 4th. Not sure home many really closed, but whatever. At the same time St. Louis county announces their stay at home order has been extended indefinitely.

I live near the border of St. Louis county. Should be interesting around here.

May the 4th be with you.

I've found this to be true with my pickup orders, too - the earlier in the day, the better the chance of getting the items I requested.

SI

I've got a bad feeling about this...

I think things are just coming back into stock, gradually. For instance, I got the bread flour I've been requesting for 4 weeks in my order yesterday.

Also, which store you orders from matters, too (duh). We had been really hit and miss on meat from Kroger and were down to not much left and so I put in an order at HEB (regional Texas-based chain). We got over $150 worth of meat this week and almost everything I ordered was in stock so we're set for quite a while.

SI

Which particular "this"? I can't keep up

SI

I was just going with the Star Wars theme, and the whole opening up on May 4th plan.

Right, right. Well, I'm sure Parson said "never tell me the odds"

SI

After consulting with 2 different Doctors at our veterinary clinic, we had decided to take our dog to the Doggie Day Care where she used to go a couple times a week before this pandemic started. And then we saw the news last night that 2 cats in NY were confirmed positive. And now Health Officials are recommending to continue social isolation of pets. It's a shame, because she certainly doesn't understand why she can't play with any of the other dogs in the neighborhood anymore. But I think it's sufficiently spooked us both into reconsidering for the time being.

The news about cats being carriers has been around for a couple of weeks. I don't know about dogs, though

SI

Whitmer says more on Michigan's plan next week, but stay-at-home is likely to be extended.

Where I think all the politicians have failed is in communicating the metrics that will be used to lighten restrictions. It seems like there's a general sense of, "when things get better," but too little hard info on what better means in terms of loosening restrictions. That will also help drive policy towards the metrics that are deficient.

She's going to need to announce the plan to slowly open before any extension, because I doubt the state GOP will vote to continue stay at home without one.

I think some of the problem is that we all don't really know. Every day the news changes about the virus as we learn more things.

Getting ready to leave shortly to get our second pickup order from Walmart and looks like we got most of it this time-a couple of substituions and only chicken thighs not available. Yogurt for some reason is hard to find-few subs and 1 not available.

Taking the opportunity to get a chicken teriyaki bowl for lunch from Mon Cafe right near the Walmart-they do curbside pickup too.

Elizabeth Warren's older brother has died from the virus

Her Twitter thread on her brother's death is heartbreaking :(

NC Gov Roy Cooper expected to announce later today...

We're still routinely getting $80-100 subbed or canceled out of our order at Kroger.

Interesting... at my last Kroger pickup they had just about everything. Only $15 canceled. Got tons of meat now - ground beef, sausage, bacon and even paper towels!

My favorite substitution offer was pesto for yeast.

I'm not sure they understand anything about either pesto or yeast.

Interesting.

New: Study of 318 outbreaks in China found transmission occurred out-of-doors in only one, involving just 2 cases. Most occurred in home or public transport. Raises key chance for states to move services outdoors (religious, gym classes, restaurants, etc). https://t.co/Isg5DGxRWa pic.twitter.com/Z5n1b52h8V

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) April 23, 2020

5 letter word, three common letters, how different can they be?

Well if the study was Chinese then we know it's trustworthy.

So we don’t trust the Chinese numbers we don’t like to hear, but we do trust these as they are more positive?

At least you got one. Up here you will get a time slot, place the order, then on the day you are supposed to have pick up/delivery they just cancel it.

I have a big one next week for Costco, really hoping I get it.

Chinese scientists following scientific standards and publishing in a scientific forum isn't the same as the Chinese government manipulating numbers so that they look better. Much of what we know about the virus is based on publications of Chinese scientists.

Starting to wonder if people are releasing fake positive news on drugs just to pump up the stock price for a short period of time.

Data on Gilead’s remdesivir, released by accident, show no benefit for coronavirus patients. Gilead still sees hope. https://t.co/qgeqco1Q6D

— Jason Ukman (@JasonUkman) April 23, 2020

More traffic out there today, but to be expected really given the loosening of stay at home orders. Most every employee I saw today had masks and gloves on. About 50% of customers had some kind of face covering. Still a lot going in to Walmart with nothing on though.

To be fair there is lot of positivity coming also from 'the field' and not just desperate people but also from f.e. Germany and Austria where you can currently afford to be analytical about it (and plenty of those participate in studies for various treatments).

There will always be other factors: Dosage, what and in what way other treatments (even just Fluids, Oxygen or Antibiotics) are present etc. For example there have been developing fundamentally different methods to manage the oxygen treatment and only now you will slowly see a consensus on it.

To name a semi-related example: in NYC there are reports of close to 80% of ventilated patients dying. Does that mean ventilators should not be used ? No. Because elsewhere like in Germany or Austria under less dire circumstances only about 30% die. So the difference is most likely in the details of how they are used or on whome and when they are used. Remember, everybody is still figuring out what to do how and when. A friend if mine working at the hospital says he and pretty much everybody is living on the pre-publication servers at home trying to educate themselves.

It might mean they were used at the wrong time or too liberally on patients that were never going to survive it or sth in the treatment before that went wrong (namely a german Chief of Medicine reportet from an international conference call including counterpars in NYC and Italy that patients in NYC or early in Italy got to the hospital way, way too late and in much worse shape (oxygen levels f.e) which stems back to lack if testing, overwhelmed systems etc. A patient in Germany will usually be treated for a few days before he either needs a Ventilator or not, in Italy or NYC many patients came in so late they went straight to what should be a last-ditch attempt.

That's why the big ongoing Remdesivir study in Europe encompasses many thousands of patients in dozens of hospitals in several countries. Because then you can eliminate some randomness factor from other factors, also see what effect it had where and sort of retrace the steps

On the drugs side, I think it's wise - though frustrating because we are all understandably impatient - to just wait and see what the trials conclude when they're finished. There's just no rushing this stuff beyond a certain point and until that point is reached it's counterproductive to invest in something that's unproven to help.

So there's some fun chatter about this today.

1) It could totally be that the drug doesn't work. Lots of stuff fails in phase 3/4 when you start subjecting it to double blinds and randomized trials. Could totally be what happened.

2) Get out your spaghetti chart because the tin foil version is more fun! China's been wanting to get a patent to use remdesivir to treat coronavirus for a while. So, after Trump withdraws US funding from WHO, China agrees to give them $30M today. A couple of hours later, a pretty flawed Chinese study is "leaked" by the WHO that shows it's not useful to try and discourage other trials and decrease demand so the Chinese can stockpile it because it's really hard to make.

SI

Or both.

Agreed, I was just tying to point out a general stereotype, not linked to you personally. Sorry if you’ took it that way

I think we need a separate webpage tallying how many people kill themselves by listening to trump's medical advice

Chuckled, good one.

Trump's yesterday "speculation" notwithstanding, is there good evidence to be optimistic that warmer weather will slow down coronavirus some or significantly in the US?

FYI Marshawn Lynch is riding around Oakland on a BEASTMODE golf cart, wearing a crown, handing out covid masks, on his birthday.

No problem.

I claim no expertise, and have not read the articles/studies, but Gottlieb has been very rational amidst all of this. He's one of the credible voices I tend to trust.

Goddam, I love Marshawn Lynch!

Michigan has extended stay-at-home through May 15th. New stuff in the latest pronouncement:

** 'Requires' - with no penalty if you don't - shoppers in situations where social distancing isn't possible to be wearing masks.

** Garden center, boating, golf, etc. may resume.

** Nurseries, repair shops, etc. are allowed to reopen but must follow distancing guidelines.

** Nonessential business can reopen, but only for curbside/delivery.

My first take on this is it's a decent try at threading the needle between too harsh and not harsh enough. Michigan is still seeing roughly 100-150 deaths a day and does not appear to be past the peak yet, though I do think we are at it and have been for a couple weeks now.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/cor...242170311.html

One drive-in theater in Florida is now the entire US box office report

NC Schools closed until 2020-21.

I saw lat week a guy that had a bitcoin movie and had bought all the seats in a few theatres had the #1 movie in America.

In contrast, schools over here will reopen May 11th, with one major caveat: classes split in 2, half the class on Monday, the other half on Tuesday, etc.

The Dutch national institute of health care (and environment) is convinced children aged under 13 can't spread COVID-19 amongst each other, they can only catch it from adults.

Wait.. so they think that kids can catch it from adults, but then can't spread it to other kids in the class after that?!

Man, we have a drive thru near Houston that I've been wanting to go to but they're not open.

Seriously, though, I've been thinking about this - what level of exposure is going to a drive thru movie? I mean, if you stay in the car with the windows open, it's, what, on par or even less than going outside to run in a park with few people?

SI

Have the Dutch never had kids before?

Si

NC Governor also said school "won't look the same" in the fall. Sports may not happen. Big budget to prepare for more distancing in classrooms. More school nurses. Concern about older teachers.

Hell, I am not sure professional sports will happen in the fall.

It's more a theory that they actually don't spread it much, period. Reason being a) they definitely don't get as sick as often as adults, which is why only a fraction of cases are Children, because they rarely have symptoms and rarely get tested.
Of course them not being tested also means you don't know how often they even catch it or how they spread it amongst each other. Or not. Because no symptoms does definitely not mean no spread among adults, on the contrary.
And b) that at least one recent study indicates that spread within households is less than you'd expect.

Big caveat is the study, from what i know, did not actually look for the role the kids had here as 'buffers', so it is merely conjecture based on a result for a different question (less infection spread in household than expexcted).
The result could also be due to very different reasons, maybe as simple as chinese families being generally small(ish) or the inhabitants knowing they were infected and thus taking a lot more precaution than a family would normally take.

Even the antibody studies published iirc never look at kids or at least never differentiate. I would expect that if they did and found they actually don't catch it or there is a big trends visible, they would shout the joyful news from rooftops. So since no one did i remain sceptical as of yet.

it would be great if true, but jury is definitely still out.

EDIT: just saw the dutch use their own data from contact tracing in families. Good for them, though a german virologists essentially said that "there seems to be sth there, but it's not neccesarily statistically significant when accounting for variations from variables". So yeah, let's hope that hunch is correct.

Germany has those in their last year back in schools as well (10th grade in sone schools, 12/13th in others. Our system is different than the US)

If we don't have Kansas football in the fall, will it make a sound?

SI

I was saying that I can see individual games taking place, but not seasons. What do you do when one team has to forfeit three weeks of games because they were exposed and are now on quarantine? This is a problem for leagues from professionals all the way down to H.S.

So I have been taking Losartan (cozaar) for my blood pressure for a while. For the past several years it seems a batch or two a week get linked to cancer but never has been mine and my doc has always said the benefits far outweigh the negatives. So there has been some debate even back in Febraury on Losartan's effect on COVID and obviously taking the drug I have been keeping up with it but it seems as though it may be the next "mainstream" news stroy drug like hydroxychloroquine/remdesivir etc.

Well here is the bitch it either...

A) Is a fantastic drug that actually battles COVID and prevents lung damage and heart damage from getting worse or...

B) It enables the COVID infections to get worse hence the large number of people with hypertension dying from COVID especially in Italy.

So as a moderately healthy 45-year old do I keep taking the drug that may actually help or potentially go from <0.5% chance or whatever to a much higher chance of serious illness/death if I catch COVID? Interesting times we live in...

(Also if it becomes a big time positive what will the market be like for this drug I currently pay like $1.50 a month for. Should I stock up on 6 months of it?)

Not really looking for answers obviously I've talked with my wife, not yet to the doctor kind of following the news, but just another unknown about this fucking disease.

I don't know about the medical, but I'd stock up on a 6 month supply if you can get it just in case since, you know, you need it anyway.

SI

Our regional drive-in is opening tomorrow - Call of the Wild and Onward double feature. They're going to reduce capacity by a third or so. That means they'll let in around 150 cars. The owner says he has no clue if 50 will show up, or if he'll be turning people away. The only concession will be pre-boxed popcorn I think, and only one person from a car is allowed to be at the concessions or bathroom at a time. Typically, people bring chairs and watch the movie from outside their car, I'm not sure they'll be regulating that. But, I will go in the next few weekends if they're not overwhelmed this weekend.

My office also told me that we can optionally go back to the office May 4, but, depending on how many people want to go in, they may stagger days people can be there. I told them I want to go in, and gave my pitch as to why I need to, to try to get to the front of any rotation.

On a normal day I'm not within 50 feet of anyone, so I'll feel safe. And as I've mentioned here, anything that I do that is less risky than my girlfriend's grocery store job just feels not very risky at all. At work, I'm pretty much just in my office, or, talking with someone else from outside their office front door. But I'm sure sick of being home, and our state agency work-from-home tech setup is not great, so it's been a struggle to get through anything.

Idaho has not been hit hard at all yet, 51 deaths in the state. We usually have slow regular flu seasons too. And aside from our share of protesters, the urban parts of Idaho have pretty much shut down and complied with the orders, so, hopefully we can roll back gradually and be in a good spot. I think I saw a cell phone mapping study that rural Idahoans were altering their behaviors the least, but, they also have the natural protection of everything being spread out and not much people-to-people contact in any context. Our hot spot was Sun Valley, caused by vacationers flying in with the virus and spreading it at the ski resorts.

That's pretty much the theory after early testing results from within the country. Also that adults can't catch it from kids, nor that kids can infect each other.
The half classes instructions are to force some distance between kids to further limit the risks. Kids with just mild symptoms are still to be kept at home.

Don't ask me whether I'm a believer, I haven't seen the actual data to judge whether there are sample size issues at work or not.

+1

Still upset he wasn't handed the ball in the superbowl :(

The antibody test was from blood donors, the age group was 18 and up and reportedly an even distribution of age groups and countrywide spread. From these samples 3.6% of them showed anti-bodies. This would assume 500K of roughly 13.8M adults (on a 17.4M population) carry antibodies. Compared to the number of hospitalizations and deaths in hospitals and nurseries, these are wildly apart numbers. Based on those numbers, I would guess that 1 in 25 have caught COVID-19, of those infected 1 in 50 ended up in a hospital, of those in hospital 4 of 10 died.

I don't think testing on children under 13 was done, as far as I understand they just tried to trace at what point the kids and parents got sick and from that concluded only caught it from their parents. Which in itself is somewhat contradictory, as it would assume both that kids can get sick and thus could still potentially spread it.

Did they 'cross-check' the positive Tests in a lab ? (Far as i know no currently available Abtibodytest can conclusively filter out the other coronaviruses circulating every Winter). Also, don't blood donors generally skew towards healthier people due to restrictions like for blood pressure ? Plus, i would expect you will have more people doing it that are out and about more anyway, whereas the more cautious people might skip it.

I don't think just co-opting it will get nearly as good a result as actually doing a new study.

But 3-4 % does gel pretty well with other countries when you compare those numbers and others.

because kid's skin is actually scales and the scales are covered in Lysol so the Covid can't stick to it to be transferred to other scaly kids.

I don't have the answers. Actually, I have roughly the same questions about how reliable the test results can be.

Just to sort of give a bit more info on what I'm seeing on this - in my small city there's usually enough people to take all of the orders, and there's a few really high-level people doing it who have years of experience under their belts, are super-efficient, and do the whole shopping thing as their primary careers.

Even with that though, today there were seven promo orders for the same time slot, which are broken down into 1-hour blocks. Promo means that it's unlikely the order would get there on time based on the app estimates, so an escalating additional compensation starting at $2 and going as high as $20 is added on to the pay for it to encourage shoppers to pick up an order. So even in a pretty small market there are times when the demand is just higher than the supply, and there's a constantly increasing number of shoppers out there as they hire more people - ran into a couple this week who just started recently like myself.

In Grand Rapids, Michigan's second-largest city and nearest big metro to me, there's never not at least several dozen orders for the next roughly 48-hour period waiting in the overflow category for someone to grab them, and that's just in the city limits; it's in the low-mid hundreds if you count the various suburbs. Chicago, Detroit, LA, etc. have to be that much worse I would imagine.

I am on the Jersey shore in a pretty dense area. Then throw in we have had thousands of New Yorkers come down and it is pretty tough to even get a time slot. I can usually score one early Sunday morning. I have been working ahead, so I always have 2-3 orders in the queue for the next 2-3 weeks, so I am never in a position to need anything. I feel bad for people who can't do that since it does tie up a lot of credit card pre authorizations. So far we have been fine, but I feel for people who maybe need things like formula or diapers.

I have a Costco one coming in 4 days, curious to see how that goes.

Hearing through the grapevine (doubt you'll see news articles) that a large hog operation is about to euthanize 12,000 ready for market hogs because there is no processing capacity.