COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US) (1 Viewer)

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For me, the biggest failure of leadership (on all levels) is a lack of effort put forth to data collection, science, and decision support for the population.

When this is all over with, we'll likely learn that there was not much we could have done to slow it down or stop it. Sure, maybe some bad decisions were made, but we were getting overrun by the virus no matter what.

We're three months in, and we still don't definitively know:
- Whether it can spread via surfaces easily
- How realistic the odds are that one can catch it from an asymptomatic carrier
- Whether it can spread via HVAC
- What the risk levels of indoor vs. outdoor are
- What heat, humidity, and sunlight really do to the virus
- Whether or not children are viable carriers/spreaders of the virus, and to what extent?

All of these could have been figured out with some effort. Perhaps we could have taken the $50 million (or whatever) we gave Ruth's Chris via the PPP loan and build a lab specifically to test these things. Or just a billion of the trillions we are pumping into the stock market via the fed.

That's more important than anything. People are having to start making decisions balancing our livelihoods and mental health against our the physical risk of the virus. And we have almost zero reliable, definitive information to guide those decisions.

For example we have to make the decision on sending our toddler back to day care soon. Watching him 4 days a week while I try to work is not really workable long-term. But my wife and I are completely paralyzed in making a decision because we have absolutely no idea what level of risk that presents. There are articles with some presumptive data showing that kids don't really spread it. Then there are other experts saying that's not true.

We should already have this information. But we're relying on various subpar studies and "experts" from France, Korea, and China to tell us our business. As a country, we used to lead on that front. That really sucks.

We are flying blind, and we don't have to be.


At the end of the day, you do you.

I know my girls. I know my oldest will do what is required, my youngest thinks she will live forever, regardless of what is in front of her. We have been quite strict about this whole ordeal, ridiculed at times for seemingly "over-protective" by others.

Welp, the moment my wife gave birth, my main purpose on this planet was to nurture, raise and protect my children. Everything else comes in second. If that means i have to be an arse at times, so be it. If that means i have to endure some glares or ridicule, so be it. I truly dont give two shirts about what people think. ( people being acquaintences vs true friends, because those are the ones casting comments etc ) .

My wife is asst director of a mothers-day-out program. Scheduled to open for summer on 6/8. She will not be working thru summer. There is absolutely ZERO chance that they are able to maintain 3 yr olds 6 ft apart, keeping masked and adhering to other guidelines. The other aspect is the parents- some have NO QUALMS about sending kid(s) with fever. Think that will change? ? nope. 99.9? Well, aint 100.4 sooo off you go.

I get the need for balance in everyones lives. But at some point, we parents have to take it upon ourselves to do whats right for our kids ( and by virtue, others as well ).

I dont know exactly what is right for everyone. I just know what feels right for my girls. I cant project that out to others. I can only offer up the advice that you know your children, you know your circumstances and hope you are able to make the right decision for you, your wife and family.

So many external factors at play. ( societal factors - you mentioned before- dont register, lose spot, waiting list etc ) It all just freakin stinks.

!@#!@# you China.
 
They said if he still has fever today, then to go to the pediatrician for the more accurate three day test. He had fever yesterday but it seems to be going down. No other symptoms. The night he was in hospital he could barely keep his head up and now wants to play. I’m willing to bet it is just a virus as well but they said to air on the side of caution and assume he has it. With that said, my wife says they did not tell her anything about Us as parents self quarantining. However, my wife told her office and is now off for a few days. I work from home, stay home most of the time, and wear a mask if i do have to go out.

I hope your son is ok. It's a high probability its just your normal run of the mill virus... as I'm sure you know, day cares are full of them, and if your son has been away for a while he's probably not up to date on his bug of the week, so he'll just catch them all.

There's little a day care can do for social distancing. The best they can do is just constant disinfectant of the area.
 
For me, the biggest failure of leadership (on all levels) is a lack of effort put forth to data collection, science, and decision support for the population.

When this is all over with, we'll likely learn that there was not much we could have done to slow it down or stop it. Sure, maybe some bad decisions were made, but we were getting overrun by the virus no matter what.

We're three months in, and we still don't definitively know:
- Whether it can spread via surfaces easily
- How realistic the odds are that one can catch it from an asymptomatic carrier
- Whether it can spread via HVAC
- What the risk levels of indoor vs. outdoor are
- What heat, humidity, and sunlight really do to the virus
- Whether or not children are viable carriers/spreaders of the virus, and to what extent?

All of these could have been figured out with some effort. Perhaps we could have taken the $50 million (or whatever) we gave Ruth's Chris via the PPP loan and build a lab specifically to test these things. Or just a billion of the trillions we are pumping into the stock market via the fed.

That's more important than anything. People are having to start making decisions balancing our livelihoods and mental health against our the physical risk of the virus. And we have almost zero reliable, definitive information to guide those decisions.

For example we have to make the decision on sending our toddler back to day care soon. Watching him 4 days a week while I try to work is not really workable long-term. But my wife and I are completely paralyzed in making a decision because we have absolutely no idea what level of risk that presents. There are articles with some presumptive data showing that kids don't really spread it. Then there are other experts saying that's not true.

We should already have this information. But we're relying on various subpar studies and "experts" from France, Korea, and China to tell us our business. As a country, we used to lead on that front. That really sucks.

We are flying blind, and we don't have to be.
Not much to slow it down?

Seems that’s a bit hard to reconcile when a number of countries were and are in fact able to do that.

I get the other frustrations though.

America as a whole, and certain sects in particular, seem far more interested in living on the legacy of America and talking about its greatness than actualizing that self-narrative through good stewardship of the government and it’s collective capacity. Simply seeing it as a vessel to strengthen the entrenched portion of the private market at whatever cost. And that myopic vision means in times of crisis like this, where you can’t just privatize and cut your way out, you are left at a deficit of resources, competence, and critical infrastructure to effectively manage something like a pandemic.

And I think what is scary is this is far from the only foreseeable crisis looming on the horizon that America is poorly positioned to adjust to.

But the day to day effect is that because of years of mismanagement and an incompetent response, parents are being forced into decisions that they shouldn’t have to make because these conditions shouldn’t exist. We shouldn’t be having to risk putting children back to daycare when we don’t have an adequate curb on the virus and a robust testing, anti-body testing, and a contact tracing system to give parents the assurances they need to make critical life decisions about their children. People shouldn’t be forced to choose risking their lives for little money at work or risking their lives being left to the streets. About whether it makes sense to go to the doctor for that fever or the ER for that chest pain because if it isn’t Covid you could go bankrupt. And if you don’t get back to work, or your business goes under, your situation could be just like that one.
 
For me, the biggest failure of leadership (on all levels) is a lack of effort put forth to data collection, science, and decision support for the population.

When this is all over with, we'll likely learn that there was not much we could have done to slow it down or stop it. Sure, maybe some bad decisions were made, but we were getting overrun by the virus no matter what.

We're three months in, and we still don't definitively know:
- Whether it can spread via surfaces easily
- How realistic the odds are that one can catch it from an asymptomatic carrier
- Whether it can spread via HVAC
- What the risk levels of indoor vs. outdoor are
- What heat, humidity, and sunlight really do to the virus
- Whether or not children are viable carriers/spreaders of the virus, and to what extent?

All of these could have been figured out with some effort. Perhaps we could have taken the $50 million (or whatever) we gave Ruth's Chris via the PPP loan and build a lab specifically to test these things. Or just a billion of the trillions we are pumping into the stock market via the fed.

That's more important than anything. People are having to start making decisions balancing our livelihoods and mental health against our the physical risk of the virus. And we have almost zero reliable, definitive information to guide those decisions.

For example we have to make the decision on sending our toddler back to day care soon. Watching him 4 days a week while I try to work is not really workable long-term. But my wife and I are completely paralyzed in making a decision because we have absolutely no idea what level of risk that presents. There are articles with some presumptive data showing that kids don't really spread it. Then there are other experts saying that's not true.

We should already have this information. But we're relying on various subpar studies and "experts" from France, Korea, and China to tell us our business. As a country, we used to lead on that front. That really sucks.

We are flying blind, and we don't have to be.

Are you suggesting that these questions could have been definitively answered without question had we done some kind of research effort that is currently not being done? Mankind has known about this virus since December and the West has only been studying it since January. Of this year. Consider that we don't even fully understand cancer or even the common cold (many of which are caused by coronavirus), I think it's unrealistic to conclude that we would "know the answers" in some sort of concrete/conclusive sense. The biomedical and biotech effort focused on this virus right now, worldwide, is unprecedented.

The US already has the world's leading infrastructure for biomedical research through a network of government, academic, and commercial research facilities funded in various ways including heavily through federal grants. I think there has been quite a bit of research (including US grant / NIH research) on some of those topics. I'm not sure that throwing more money at it would lend to more conclusive knowledge.

It's important to note that with a novel, deadly virus with a full pathology profile that is unknown, you can't really sign people up to get infected so that they can be studied. Research on animals is helpful but it certainly isn't conclusive as to both the human body and how humans socialize. So most of the research on topics like pathways and ease of transmission are either in the lab to draw conclusions about the dynamics of the virus itself (which leads to potentially persuasive but certainly not conclusive results), or through study of known infections by trying to piece together hypotheses based on an investigation about how they happened (e.g. the analysis of the bio-medical conference in Boston that resulted in dozens of infections).

But you can't just do experiments by putting an infected person in a room with uninfected people to study how the HVAC may spread the virus - you can't ethically expose human research subjects to a deadly virus.

There are, however, growing volumes of competent research on those topics. For example, I don't think there is any reasonable scientific doubt that SARS2 spreads (not exclusively) via aerosolized particles expelled and even exhaled by an infected person - and those particle aerodynamics have shown to be fairly resilient. And that resiliency means that they spread through the air, and can remain aloft (and subject to air flow including that caused by HVAC). New research strongly suggests that there is a concentration component to infection that can come from short exposure to high concentrations of virus, or longer exposure to lower concentrations of virus. In other words, short exposure a airborne particles carrying virus doesn't necessarily result in infection if the concentrations are low. Longer or more concentrated exposure will likely have higher infection rates. All of this means that indoor environments are more conducive, and indoor environments with lots of people breathing the same air over a period time will likely see higher infection rates than outdoor activities with distancing.

Research on "asymptomatic" transmission is limited by the fact that most asymptomatic infections don't alert the person to the fact that they're infected - which makes study difficult. Same goes for rates of infection from children.

I think there is substantial, quality research to examine here. But expecting that there can be some kind of conclusive set of "answers" that should have been figured out by just doesn't really make much sense if you consider the full range of issues involved with that.
 
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any of you Louisianians looking to hit FL for Memorial day ?

Bring an extra $500 just in case :covri:


I think it's unconstitutional (dormant commerce clause and 'free-travel' concepts). The state (FL) may have been able to express a legitimate interest in limiting activity originating from Louisiana early on when LA was having a significant outbreak and most other states were not. But not anymore.
 
I went through that checkpoint 2 weeks ago, and there's no verification of anything you write on the form they give you, other than your license plate (which they don't run).

so then its simply "appearance" for DeSantis to look "tough" to Fl residents.

Figures.
 
I think it's unconstitutional (dormant commerce clause and 'free-travel' concepts). The state (FL) may have been able to express a legitimate interest in limiting activity originating from Louisiana early on when LA was having a significant outbreak and most other states were not. But not anymore.

Im Dave Chappelle and you are my white friend, Chip.

You can drive and explain this to the officer when we arrive :haha-rire-395:
 
At the end of the day, you do you.

I know my girls. I know my oldest will do what is required, my youngest thinks she will live forever, regardless of what is in front of her. We have been quite strict about this whole ordeal, ridiculed at times for seemingly "over-protective" by others.

Welp, the moment my wife gave birth, my main purpose on this planet was to nurture, raise and protect my children. Everything else comes in second. If that means i have to be an arse at times, so be it. If that means i have to endure some glares or ridicule, so be it. I truly dont give two shirts about what people think. ( people being acquaintences vs true friends, because those are the ones casting comments etc ) .

My wife is asst director of a mothers-day-out program. Scheduled to open for summer on 6/8. She will not be working thru summer. There is absolutely ZERO chance that they are able to maintain 3 yr olds 6 ft apart, keeping masked and adhering to other guidelines. The other aspect is the parents- some have NO QUALMS about sending kid(s) with fever. Think that will change? ? nope. 99.9? Well, aint 100.4 sooo off you go.

I get the need for balance in everyones lives. But at some point, we parents have to take it upon ourselves to do whats right for our kids ( and by virtue, others as well ).

I dont know exactly what is right for everyone. I just know what feels right for my girls. I cant project that out to others. I can only offer up the advice that you know your children, you know your circumstances and hope you are able to make the right decision for you, your wife and family.

So many external factors at play. ( societal factors - you mentioned before- dont register, lose spot, waiting list etc ) It all just freakin stinks.

!@#!@# you China.
In your post you alluded to a dynamic of ‘what’s best for my family, even if it harms other families’
But it seems like you were indicating ‘families doing best for each other’
(But maybe I misread)

I think the dynamic is even more pernicious
bc of government inaction and mixed messaging, the ostensible question is not my family vs others, it’s my family in the short term vs my family in the long run
And that’s deeply ****** up

And can we get off the China tip?
That’s an authoritarian, secretive, propaganda driven dictatorship
We can’t fix that from here
What we should be laser focused on is this country avoiding china’s path
 
I hope your son is ok. It's a high probability its just your normal run of the mill virus... as I'm sure you know, day cares are full of them, and if your son has been away for a while he's probably not up to date on his bug of the week, so he'll just catch them all.

There's little a day care can do for social distancing. The best they can do is just constant disinfectant of the area.

The problem becomes that every time a kid catches a bug involving a cough or any level of fever (which, of course, will happen constantly once they all return to being around other children for 7-9 hours a day), what was once a run of the mill inconvenience will become an entire family basically self-quarantining for a week until they can get reliable test results, warning co-workers and other acquantainces who may have to do the same, etc. I don't know how parents are supposed to participate in the economy at pre-COVID levels any more.
 
The problem becomes that every time a kid catches a bug involving a cough or any level of fever (which, of course, will happen constantly once they all return to being around other children for 7-9 hours a day), what was once a run of the mill inconvenience will become an entire family basically self-quarantining for a week until they can get reliable test results, warning co-workers and other acquantainces who may have to do the same, etc. I don't know how parents are supposed to participate in the economy at pre-COVID levels any more.

Sure would be nice to have tons of tests available so we could clear up whether we it or not, right?
 
Sure would be nice to have tons of tests available so we could clear up whether we it or not, right?

It sure would. The test needs to be available immediately on demand from every medical provider and give results that we can rely upon to a high degree of certainty within 15 minutes, like a flu test, for any of this to work.
 
not sure if this has been posted here or not but this looks like good news


Now, a May 19 report from the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that samples from “reinfected” patients don’t have infectious viruses. The finding hints that the diagnostic tests are picking up on the genetic material from noninfectious or dead viruses. That lack of infectious virus particles means these people aren’t currently infected and can’t transmit the coronavirus to others, the researchers say.

“It’s good news,” says Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University. “It appears people are not being reinfected, and this virus is not reactivating.”
...

Now, “we can largely stop worrying about reinfection and address the next big questions,” Rasmussen says. “How protective are immune responses in recovered patients, and how long does immunity last?”

 
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