COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US) (18 Viewers)

[tomwaits]

I know people keep using World War II as a reference point because it was the last major extended national crisis of any sort, but there are fundamental differences. In World War II you were fighting a tangible enemy and had tangible goals and even though times got tough, there were objectively real signs of progress or success that could be pointed to. People could join the war effort or buy war bonds or ramp up production. You could get involved and help.

With this? The enemy is invisible and intangible. How do you reassure people when there's nothing to reassure them about? At least not yet?

With WWII, production shifted to war efforts and to pay for it, taxes went up and people were asked to buy war bonds in addition to the taxes. With COVID-19, the government is shutting down production by executive orders, and is printing money to hand out to people. This could be economically more disastrous. The "good" news is other countries are inflating their currency also, so the dollar will likely remain the world's reserve currency.

 

[B4YOU]

New Orleans Saints legend Tom Dempsey has recovered from COVID-19

NEW ORLEANS- Dempsey, a former New Orleans Saints kicker, has recovered after testing positive for COVID-19, according to a spokesperson for Lambeth House. Dempsey has been battling Alzheimer's disease and dementia since 2013.

www.wbrz.com

Some good news.

 

[Infoman]

This is not how epidemiology works. You don't have to test everyone in the population to reach statistically significant conclusions.

So it's not as good a guess as anyone's guess because it's not based on sound analysis. Gut feelings and hunches don't carry the same weight as scientific evidence. We don't need to know all the mild cases to draw sound conclusions.

I have no idea how epidemiology works... I do know how statistics and scientific method works...

I know that any conclusion we come up with today is based on less than 1% of the data being collected, we simply don't have all the variables, and they are still being collected... I know that every future model on this is not based on empirically tested data... because it doesn't exist yet.... I know that as we test more people... the numbers and conclusions we see today will change to fit the actual results.

With ~99% of the entire population not being tested at all... and the >1% that has been tested likely only being tested due to having symptoms... these number we see today will lean hard to the negative outcome and worst case... as millions more are tested, and not out of sickness necessity... these numbers will undoubtedly move more to positive outlook.

I can paint a picture of an all out Apocalypse if I only use numbers based on sick people getting tested, and only using that as my >1% sample and excluding / ignoring the other 99% of the population.

"Significant" is a matter of opinion... less than 1% of the population in a control group consisting of only exhibited sick people... IMO is not significant...

That said... No one should take this lightly... Everyone should stay home... Everyone should take caution... No one should be downplaying this... Everyone should be exercising best practices.... This is highly contagious... and it's not the damn Flu.

That doesn't mean we can't have a sense of perspective on this, or think critically on our own.

Again, stay safe and stay home...

 

[Goatman Saint]

I know people keep using World War II as a reference point because it was the last major extended national crisis of any sort, but there are fundamental differences. In World War II you were fighting a tangible enemy and had tangible goals and even though times got tough, there were objectively real signs of progress or success that could be pointed to. People could join the war effort or buy war bonds or ramp up production. You could get involved and help.

With this? The enemy is invisible and intangible. How do you reassure people when there's nothing to reassure them about? At least not yet?

I meant more in terms of during the Great Depression. His chats started in 34 during that time, not only as a way to gain support for his programs, but also to provide a calm reassuring message during the massive issues of the depression. How this country starts to rebuild itself after this, if not just to get through this, is going to be in reassurance and calming from its leaders. That’s more what I meant rather than inWW2

 

[bclemms]

With WWII, production shifted to war efforts and to pay for it, taxes went up and people were asked to buy war bonds in addition to the taxes. With COVID-19, the government is shutting down production by executive orders, and is printing money to hand out to people. This could be economically more disastrous. The "good" news is other countries are inflating their currency also, so the dollar will likely remain the world's reserve currency.

Exactly. Comparing the dollar to other currencies is one thing.

Comparing the dollar to real prices may be a bit different, particularly on the backside of this thing.

 

[Get in the Carr]

But again, how? Disregarding who is in the office at the moment, what do you say/do to bring calm?

To be fair, they have been saying that we will beat this if everyone just does what they are asking them to do. They have enlisted the man who helped fight the aids epidemic successfully to be the head doctor of the task force. Sure they didn’t listen to him earlier but now he has their ears despite watching the economy crumble around them. It has to be frustrating as a leader when you are telling people their main responsibility is to stay home as much as possible and they can’t even do that. I will admit that the politicians could do a much better job of using this time to come together as a Country but with how much divisiveness we already had i think the damage is too far done. It’s not going to happen overnight even during a pandemic. Hopefully, this is a good start though.

 

[gavinj]

But again, how? Disregarding who is in the office at the moment, what do you say/do to bring calm?

There isn’t anything. We don’t trust Presidents and the federal government the way people used to before the Vietnam/Watergate era imo. A fireside chat would be considered fireside bullchat by most people imo.

 

[bclemms]

To be fair, they have been saying that we will beat this if everyone just does what they are asking them to do. They have enlisted the man who helped fight the aids epidemic successfully to be the head doctor of the task force. Sure they didn’t listen to him earlier but now he has their ears despite watching the economy crumble around them. It has to be frustrating as a leader when you are telling people their main responsibility is to stay home as much as possible and they can’t even do that. I will admit that the politicians could do a much better job of using this time to come together as a Country but with how much divisiveness we already had i think the damage is too far done. It’s not going to happen overnight even during a pandemic. Hopefully, this is a good start though.

6 weeks. It took our leaders 6 weeks to quit calling it the flu and disregarding the medical advice of the experts of the entire world. 6 weeks during a pandemic when the #1 goal is to buy time and slow the spread. 6 weeks.

Airlines aren't shut down, they were getting crushed long before stay at home orders because people and businesses quit flying long before any stay at home orders.
Oil began collapsing when China shut down.
Cruise ships quit running but only after it started costing them more money than they were making.
Hotels, rental cars and restaurants were already shutting down before stay at home orders were being issued because most were losing money.
Casinos shut down before any stay at home orders because it was costing them more money to stay open than they were making.
Car sales were down 16% quarter to quarter before any lockdown order was announced.
Concerts, conventions and sporting events started cancelling before any lockdowns were announced.
Banks were already under pressure due to all of the above before shutdowns began.

What people aren't understanding is the virus was going to kill the economy either way. You can't wipe out the energy, travel, restaurant, autos, entertianment and the financial sectors without having a MAJOR recession. If the shutdown orders weren't in place and everywhere in the country started to look like NYC do you think the economy was going to hold up to that?

The economy was never an either or proposition. It was either the economy is going to collapse and we were going to have millions die or the economy was going to collapse and we were going to have thousands die. The biggest difference. If we really wanted to protect the economy we would have shut down international travel and cranked up testing from day 1 while stockpiling PPE. Seriously, it was basic math and common sense. We could already be coming out of this if we just used the country's pandemic playbook that was set up very specifically for this. That's it. That's all we had to do.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Maybe this has already been answered or maybe it's a stupid question but:

If I was just infected with Covid right now and took the test an hour from now would it come up positive? If not, would it tomorrow?

Is there an incubation period before it would get a positive result?

 

[DavidM]

6 weeks. It took our leaders 6 weeks to quit calling it the flu and disregarding the medical advice of the experts of the entire world. 6 weeks during a pandemic when the #1 goal is to buy time and slow the spread. 6 weeks.

Airlines aren't shut down, they were getting crushed long before stay at home orders because people and businesses quit flying long before any stay at home orders.
Oil began collapsing when China shut down.
Cruise ships quit running but only after it started costing them more money than they were making.
Hotels, rental cars and restaurants were already shutting down before stay at home orders were being issued because most were losing money.
Casinos shut down before any stay at home orders because it was costing them more money to stay open than they were making.
Car sales were down 16% quarter to quarter before any lockdown order was announced.
Concerts, conventions and sporting events started cancelling before any lockdowns were announced.
Banks were already under pressure due to all of the above before shutdowns began.

What people aren't understanding is the virus was going to kill the economy either way. You can't wipe out the energy, travel, restaurant, autos, entertianment and the financial sectors without having a MAJOR recession. If the shutdown orders weren't in place and everywhere in the country started to look like NYC do you think the economy was going to hold up to that?

The economy was never an either or proposition. It was either the economy is going to collapse and we were going to have millions die or the economy was going to collapse and we were going to have thousands die. The biggest difference. If we really wanted to protect the economy we would have shut down international travel and cranked up testing from day 1 while stockpiling PPE. Seriously, it was basic math and common sense. We could already be coming out of this if we just used the country's pandemic playbook that was set up very specifically for this. That's it. That's all we had to do.

Agree with everything here, except to quibble over the closing.

That was definitely the playbook to follow, which is why politics can't and shouldn't be dismissed in understanding what we are facing, but no real definitive success can be declared until a vaccine and/or proven treatment protocol is in place.

Several Asian countries are planning for, or dealing with, second waves, from what I've read.

 

[bclemms]

Maybe this has already been answered or maybe it's a stupid question but:

If I was just infected with Covid right now and took the test an hour from now would it come up positive? If not, would it tomorrow?

Is there an incubation period before it would get a positive result?

Depends on the test and there is no good answer. Most tests we are using now will show positives before symptoms start to show which is usually around day 5. How far before is impossible to know yet and likely variers quite a bit from person to person.

 

[bclemms]

Agree with everything here, except to quibble over the closing.

That was definitely the playbook to follow, which is why politics can't and shouldn't be dismissed in understanding what we are facing, but no real definitive success can be declared until a vaccine and/or proven treatment protocol is in place.

Several Asian countries are planning for, or dealing with second waves, from what I've read.

Those Asian countries also didn't shut down all international travel and still aren't testing on the level that is needed but they are worried about stopping a 2nd wave in the future instead of watching tens of thousands of people die. That is the goal, to be ahead of the virus and buy time to prepare. You have to shut down international travel, set up safeguards on international commerce and you have to make testing available to everyone with multiple tests per person. This couldn't be ramped up overnight but we could have slowed it down so much while cranking up testing that we come out the backside with the capacity to test in the hundreds of millions while keeping cases and deaths really low. If we had done all this then we have the manpower to do contact tracing and isolation/quarantine. If we did this we wouldn't have national PPE shortages infecting our healthcare workers and would have been far more prepared to handle this.

This isn't using the advantage of hindsight. These very things were being discussed in this thread back in early February by a bunch of people brought together because they like football. Didn't take some sort of savant epidimiologist. It was painfully obvious.

 

[efil4stnias]

To be fair, they have been saying that we will beat this if everyone just does what they are asking them to do. They have enlisted the man who helped fight the aids epidemic successfully to be the head doctor of the task force. Sure they didn’t listen to him earlier but now he has their ears despite watching the economy crumble around them. It has to be frustrating as a leader when you are telling people their main responsibility is to stay home as much as possible and they can’t even do that. I will admit that the politicians could do a much better job of using this time to come together as a Country but with how much divisiveness we already had i think the damage is too far done. It’s not going to happen overnight even during a pandemic. Hopefully, this is a good start though.

to be equally fair, POTUS stood in front of the Country and said this was nothing more than a flu. Said we had 15 cases and soon will be 5 then zero.

So when you dont take the canary in the coalmines death seriously, you pass the point of no return. We did that. By completely ignoring China and Italy and what they showed us. They were the canaries. And because our leader had other things to focus on ( re election ), turned a blind eye to the canaries.

now the mine is full of noxious gas and its now WHO do we seal off and lose vs evacuating the mine and save ALL.

thats the whole point here.

You want to repair devisiveness? Stand in front of the American people and apologize for downplaying this. Tell them that it was incorrect and for that im sorry.

Thats where it starts.

im not holding my breath.

 

[Krodwhodat]

 

[DavidM]

Those Asian countries also didn't shut down all international travel and still aren't testing on the level that is needed but they are worried about stopping a 2nd wave in the future instead of watching tens of thousands of people die. That is the goal, to be ahead of the virus and buy time to prepare. You have to shut down international travel, set up safeguards on international commerce and you have to make testing available to everyone with multiple tests per person. This couldn't be ramped up overnight but we could have slowed it down so much while cranking up testing that we come out the backside with the capacity to test in the hundreds of millions while keeping cases and deaths really low. If we had done all this then we have the manpower to do contact tracing and isolation/quarantine. If we did this we wouldn't have national PPE shortages infecting our healthcare workers and would have been far more prepared to handle this.

This isn't using the advantage of hindsight. These very things were being discussed in this thread back in early February by a bunch of people brought together because they like football. Didn't take some sort of savant epidimiologist. It was painfully obvious.

Again, I agree with your observations, other than to include the eventual discovery of a vaccine or treatment as a more definitive turning-point in getting past this.

I think you pretty well nailed it on what needed to happen and why. Take your win, bclemms.

FWIW, to my own general understanding of what is unfolding, my wife is a GM at a large downtown hotel, which has been a sobering view of just how bad the economic impact is likely to be.