The basic conceit there is you can mutate every copy of the virus in the entire world, at once, along with choosing said mutation. Having said that, it is an interesting if overdesigned game, and one always feels a little guilty having wiped out humanity.

Says you...

When you're in isolation for too long
 

But what about the other states that had big numbers today and today is the highest daily total when I thought the US already hit the apex. Hopefully tomorrow’s numbers look better.

Death numbers lag a week or 2 behind the peak. Hospital visits is the key number and that's dropping.

MLB helping a study that may have some results as soon as next week on the asymptomatic spread MLB players, team employees participating in coronavirus study

In Houston, we're still 2 weeks away from peak (hey, it's almost like leaving the rodeo open was a bad idea). I wonder what Florida and Spring Break looks like?

SI

2,000,000 confirmed cases world wide

The models I saw said April 15th was the likely apex for deaths. Which would be tomorrow. I'm thinking by the weekend or early next week we hopefully start seeing a gradual decline.

Has any model been anywhere near correct though?

Guess it depends on what your standard is. Pegged Michigan's peak being at least a week earlier than it was so if you're looking for precision, no you won't find it. I don't think they've been way out of left field though either.

COVID-19

This is the one I’ve been looking at. Says we hit peak hospital use 4 days ago and peak deaths 1, but I guess pretty close. They’ve been updating their model every few days and Georgia keeps getting worse while other states get better.

I don't see how you can look at NYC or Detroit or Chicago or South Dakota and say that the scientists are exaggerating things. We know what happens when people congregate as normal, people get sick and too many of them die. The death totals have only declined from the early models because we took extreme action, not because this virus isn't as bad as we've been told.

People just don't look that far. I.e., recent article in the Washington Times is making the rounds pointing out that the current national death rate is less than a hundredth of percent. An increasing number of people just compare that to the economic impact and don't go any further. Can't get them to engage with a realistic assessment of what would have happened to the economy if we did nothing, how many more casualties there would have been, overrun of the medical system, etc.

It's emotionalism over logic. People are upset at the restrictions on their freedom and the economic hit, and look for evidence to support what they want to see happen, we should end this self-inflicted recession, etc. We've elected presidents, long before the current administration, with less justification.

I got a slight chuckle out of this, take 'em where we can get 'em these days

Florida judge tells lawyers to get out of bed and appear fully clothed during Zoom hearings - TheBlaze

Facts don't matter.

#FloridaMan

SI

CDC director says even if the virus dies down in summer “ we will definitely see a second surge in the fall again of the virus”

How are people seeing this as a massive US/China centered conspiracy surrounded by business people and a deep state set out to keep stripping freedoms from you to keep you contained? I get that in the sense that there are movies like that, or that in a small way, there might be a fraction of traction generated from that in a real world situation, but we're talking about a global scale level of power, so incredibly organized and efficient that nearly every country is effected, and are in one way or another driving toward the same decisions that others have made on a different timeline. Yet this power is so well disguised that there are only shadow players and only by connecting the dots can we really see the reality, except, that only a few can see it, and the rest are just willing sheep to the slaughter, and this power is so well conceived and efficient that the true nature of it's existence is a massive hidden cult of perfection. People want to blame video games for violence, they need to be blaming books for driving imagination to levels of idiocy.

Someone in a car stopped me on my dog walk a few days ago and started telling me that this her family says this is actually a Chinese atheist conspiracy intended to turn us away from god.

I kind of know this lady, she lives down the street. She's older, she may be declining mentally. She's friendly, she has a pitbull that she loves. When she shares stuff like this, I tell her that it's poisonous thinking and she should be look around and be happy at the glorious day we've been given. Then she tells me I'm a wonderful person and that god loves me. We've done this a few times. It's basically my way to get out of the conversation as quickly as possible, but, I'm also really glad she seems to take what I'm saying to heart.

I mock conspiracies, and really dislike people who relish in spreading them, but when you meet a person who shares one like that you see that it's a coping mechanism from someone struggling to process what they're going through. If she came at me in more hostile way, as the conspiracy theorists tend to do on Facebook and such, I wouldn't be able to say anything like that, I'd just walk away and then tell her off if she kept bothering me. But those walls between us on the internet and social media, I think, can mask that fear and coping sometimes. I think now this lady says crazy shit to me because she wants me to gently say that she should ignore it and appreciate what we have.

The answer lies in what you've said here, but perhaps not in the way you are intending. If indeed people are as dumb as you describe, then they are also dumb enough to be fleeced by such a conspiracy if one existed (it doesn't).

I.e., the old Orwell quote from 1984 - "Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”

The argument the conspiracy-theorists make is the same stupidity one, just that they are the smart ones. I.e. this stuff is obvious to those who have eyes to see, but no of course the willfully blind who prefer the safety of their carefully constructed world of make-believe don't see it … because they don't want it to be true. In this assessment of human nature alone they are not far from the truth.

Isn't this though, the standard operating point where we learn to how to think critically, process multiple streams of information, and then use experience, history, rationalization and common sense to process all that down to the "truth"?

Because it seems to me, that this gap in analyzing all this data is just that. It's the inability to think critically. I think for many people they have not challenged their own line of thinking or any line for that matter, enough to develop any sort of ulterior points of view. As a result, they are left with a myopic view, and one that is easily manipulated (by their own ignorance) into seeing the path that fits in their own sight line.

In fairness to the conspiracy theorists though, some of them become that *after* going through the critical thinking process. I.e., they'll say that they used to be sheep or whatever until they realized 'what was really going on'. I know a lot of people, here and elsewhere, who are as smart as me or smarter and have done their darndest to analyze the facts as best as they can, and come to wildly different conclusions.

People just think differently, and there's no way to completely eliminate the effects of our inborne biases.

In other news, latest small study though we have bigger ones ongoing obviously, has found that hydroxychloroquine had no discernible clinical effect on coronavirus patients. Which again reinforces my suggestion that it's harmful to be giving out therapeutics that actually aren't proven yet to be effective, instead of preserving them for the diseases they are demonstrably useful against.

Coronavirus: Lego producing 13,000 visors a day for healthcare workers

I think the story is obvious by the URL. I just came here to make the joke about not stepping on those visors in your living room or it's going to hurt.

SI

This is the FOFC content I'm here for.

We are starting to see some public erosion in support for the stay-at-home. Our Governor (R) has gained generally high marks for taking this seriously, but we are starting to see more pushback via social media, at least. Inevitable, I guess.

MD death tolls and hospitalizations still on the rise. Not a sense that our hospitals are totally overwhelmed, rather that they are half full of COVID, no room for anything optional, and that the HC workers are falling apart psychologically and in some cases medically.

Today’s going to spike the curve. Insane amounts of people out and traffic

Yeah seeing DeWine getting called a RINO left and right by openers. Like have you seen his voting record?

A friend of mine is an incredibly intelligent conspiracy theorist. His problem is everything has to make sense and fit in a box, so to speak, so it's almost impossible for him to accept coincidences. We've had discussions where I try to explain with the near limitless number of events going on at any given time that it's a probability that you're going to see 2 or more unrelated events that seem related (coincidences). The thing is, he gets it, but his brain still isn't wired to accept it.

It's really hit an miss here and varies by community. I sit in a small suburb between Tacoma and Lakewood, WA. Lakewood seems to have given up on stay at home about a week or so ago. I drive through there to work and it's empty at 7am, but everyone is out by lunch and it continues throughout the rest of the day. I also made the mistake of stopping at Safeway in Lakewood after work one day last week and it was like there wasn't a pandemic or anything else going on. Completely packed with shoppers and very few people even attempting to maintain social distancing.

Well right now in Ohio it's snowing in the middle of April. That should help keep people from coming outside.

Our governor did what I'd hope he'd do, extend the stay-at-home two weeks but loosen it just a tiny bit. People are going to be much more willing to comply if they feel like we're moving in a positive direction. Non-essential physical businesses can now operate to the extent they can do it via curbside - dropoff, delivery, whatever.

Something along those lines does seem like a wise political balance. Not sure if it meshes with the medical view, but practically speaking, that seems like a good groove.

People here burning down 5G masts as that’s what’s causing it apparently. Never mind that most countries affected don’t have 5G... :rolleyes:

Tired of Trump daily campaign speeches?

Watch Mike Dewine and Dr Amy Acton's daily briefing starting now! 2 pm est

The Ohio Channel

they've been fantastic

Just got final word that the overnight camp for which we'd paid $100 is switched to a virtual camp. Total cost $80. (Was $450.) Why so much for just a camp t-shirt, bag, notebook, and devotional materials??? It's a camp for youth in our entire diocese, run by folks from our church, at a camp property in Virginia that we were renting for the week. Our staff made the decision not to bring together 400 youth in one place in mid-June, but the camp is refusing to return the deposit that our church paid them for the entire group, so we need to pass that cost along to campers so as not to lose a bunch of money that we can't afford. If their governor extends the shutdown there into June, we're hoping that they'll be forced to change that policy. But yeah, incredibly short-sighted hardball there, guys. We'll hold our camp somewhere else next year.

Today … is not looking good nationally.

According to the current death toll, 1 in every 770 New Yorkers has died from this virus in the past month. That's just a staggering stat to me that will only get worse.

What's crazy is the regional difference. According the the numbers for today, we've had 2,395 new deaths. 2,123 were east of the Mississippi river and 172 were west. If you take out Louisiana, the western states have only 7.6% of the total deaths in the US. Again, you don't know which states are testing and so forth, but that difference is pretty extreme. I think it goes to the theory that the areas with high population densities and mass transit are getting hit much harder. It also speaks to how some states may start rolling back the shelter in place while places like NY, NJ and the east may have to keep it in place longer.

Easy as you mentioned it is very likely due to testing. Mathematically speaking the higher the population density the numbers will be higher than rural. I would say if a Denver wastes time g more for example the numbers would show more infected and likely more deaths attributed to it.

I agree to a point, but you don't hear anything about hospital issues in Oregon, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico or even Texas. Here in Arizona, we project to need around 950 total hospital beds and have over 6,000 available. They went to two of the bigger hospitals in the Phoenix area and found a total of 6 Covid19 cases.

I know there is a growing pent-up demand to start relaxing guidelines and slowly reopening the country. And current indications are that they may do it based on the local/regional data related to COVID-19.

So help me understand the thinking: City#1 has a very low number of cases/deaths. And the number is steady or possibly even trending down. Then this might be a candidate to allow workers in City#1 to get back to work. Ah! But you have to assume %X of the workers don't actually live in City#1. They live in City#2 which is still suffering a higher number of cases/deaths. Why doesn't it then dawn on these decision-makers that by doing it this way, workers from City#2 are likely to bring the virus into City#1 and further the spread?

I truly don't see how this works until we ramp up Testing, Tracing, Public Health Capacity, and ultimately a vaccine. This is of course what many of the Governors are also saying, and all indications are that we are still a long way (months) from having any meaningful ability to handle these issues.

So what am I missing? What's the scenario that "safely" reopens certain sectors? I even heard an example about how sporting events may be restricted to the younger and non-vulnerable populations. But none of these scenarios actually occur in a vacuum. These people will still interact with others which will surely include older & vulnerable populations.

Best thing I can say on that is safety is relative. I.e., the virus spreads slower if there is some social distancing, not as much as on full stay-at-home/lockdown protocol, etc. Since we know we can't sustain it forever, I think it's just a matter of trying to find that balance point where we have enough control that it's less costly to relax restrictions to a degree than it is to continue them. I don't think anybody knows where that line is, it may be decades into the future before researchers even have a good idea of how close we come to it (not close, probably).

It's all very nebulous and uncertain to my mind.

Testing is key to me until a vaccine or effective therapeutics are produced. Widespread, self-administered with quick results & self reporting would be fantastic.

Everyone practices social distancing, everyone have masks & good hygiene, office workers are rotated in on odd-even days (or like), air travel, hotels and theme parks cut occupants to a third or so etc.

I am optimistic we can find a way. Won't be perfect, there'll be some misses but just as long as people can be tested quickly to restrict/constrain the spread I'm all for opening up in a measured pace.

Also, am I right in thinking that although respirators/medicines/healthcare workers were stretched, there wasn't massive no. of fatalities because we lacked those 3 items? If so, does that mean future spikes won't be worse than now because we have the respirators, medicines and healthcare workers will be more experienced.

We're just going back to a March 1 scenario where we do too little testing and hope for the best.

If you think things are ugly now, wait until we get a new wave and have to decide whether or not to close down again. Then, see what happens when we try to open up after that.

You're right on the first part, at least so far - it's not yet obvious that we're past the worst of this wave. I don't think that means future spikes won't be worse though. It all depends on how quickly we react to them. I think it's going to be harder for governors to do restriction orders a second time.

Just out of curiousity - what numbers are we using for that? NYC population vs dying in NYC hospitals? Or metro population?

SI

I have no idea how they're going to do it. I'm sure as shit not going to a restaurant to sit down or attend an event with people. Definitely not getting on a plane anytime soon.

We can avoid some death by being careful but you're still going to turn on the news every day and see 1-2k people dying from this it seems if we open things up.

Many people unfortunately are too stupid or too impatient. They are like children or dogs -- they're going to have to learn the hard way and/or get smacked on the snout before they learn, I'm afraid.