Coronavirus 2020-22

[Guardian Enzo]

I suspect his meaning was six digits - as in, hundreds of thousands.

[MeoTwister5]

Oops yeah I mean six digits.

That being said, aside from private services, ambulances here are free if they're under the local government unit.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

It's almost exclusively an American (read: Trump) thing.

Actually there were anti-mask movements during the 1918 influenza pandemic as well.

https://www.businessinsider.com/san-...andemic-2020-5

[kari-no-sugata II]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

So what does it mean? Better treatment, improved testing, or horrible surprise in a few days?

A couple of non-obvious ideas from my own analysis of UK data:
1) It's useful to differentiate between "date of sample" and "date of death" and the day it is reported at. If confirmed COVID-19 deaths can take say a week on average to be announced then the "current" picture is basically out of date by a week. In general this means that when things are getting worse then the current situation looks better than what it truly is and when things are getting better then the current situation looks worse than it truly is.

2) Changes in the rate of testing can skew things. For example, early on in the pandemic in the UK you could take the confirmed cases and predict about 20% of those would lead to deaths 5 days from then on average. (These were hospital tests for inpatients, not the general population. Also this was based on the actual sample date and date of death, not the reporting date). However, as testing ramped up and expanded this simple correlation shifted quite a lot.

3) If a high percentage of the population is regularly being tested then cases are likely being detected earlier on average. Meaning that the gap between a test and death is increasing on average. (It would be interesting to see if the correlation between hospitalisations and deaths is more consistent than the correlation between confirmed cases and deaths).

There's various other factors that might be involved as well. For example, improved treatments could leave to better survival deaths or at least bigger gaps between a patient arriving in hospital and their date of dearth.

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

I attribute it mostly to the changing demographics of who is being infected and better treatment.

Also a substantial portion of the earlier deaths have occurred in prisons and in facilities for the elderly. As of a week or so ago, half the deaths in Florida had occurred in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. These kinds of institutional epidemics still matter, but there are more people becoming infected from mask-less public interactions, and more of them are younger.

Yep. The kinda "golden standard" for comparisons between regions or countries (as far as I am aware) is age corrected (or demographically corrected) excess mortality.

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Actually there were anti-mask movements during the 1918 influenza pandemic as well.

https://www.businessinsider.com/san-...andemic-2020-5

There are "mask slackers" in every country today, too (including Japan, as I can verify). But that's not the same thing as the political wedge issue it's become this time. This is like during the middle ages when people refused to wear masks during plague outbreaks because that wasn't a Christian teaching.

[The Green One]

All the while people suffer and die while because a group of people are being stupid, selfish, and pigheaded.

[Ithekro]

Unlike the flu seasons we have had in my lifetime, I've not known anyone who has died or had family members who have died from the flu.

I do know at least one person who's had family die from COVID-19.

[barcode120x]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Unlike the flu seasons we have had in my lifetime, I've not known anyone who has died or had family members who have died from the flu.

Fortunately, this is good for you and your family. Unfortunately, many of the common laypersons think the flu is nothing. Doing a quick Dr. Google check, average about 200k people are hospitalized for infuenza and last year alone, I think ~50k died from the flu or problems secondary to the flu. I've taken care of some sick patients with the flu in the hospital and it is no joke. This is part why covid was probably initially taken lightly because it is "similar" to the flu in some ways, but in many other ways it is not.

[The Green One]

So now demands from Trump are coming in to open schools this fall, under the implication of a threat to withhold federal funding for districts that do not comply. Threatening children and teacher's safeties during a pandemic, implying further defunding of an already underfunded school system which further cripples children's educations. All during an election literally months away.....

Putting voters children at risk is not going to help..... I can't help but think parents are going to crucify Trump for this at the polls unless he manages to distract and make them forget about this with something else in the next few months.

Still what can schools do with the corona virus raging on? I imagine it can't be easy to do online classes, especially for low income families. It's got to be tough raising a child this year. Hopefully some sort of solution can be found that doesn't involve putting children at further risk of sickness and death.

[James Rye]

15000 cases in Florida in one day, damn, that is a lot. If even only 5% of them get real sick to need to go to a hospital that is still 750 people in one day in need of a bed or even an ICU. There is no way all hospitals can answer that call at once if that is the case.

[EroKing]

‘Coronavirus Particles Can Remain Infectious in Air for Over an Hour’.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by The Green One

So now demands from Trump are coming in to open schools this fall, under the implication of a threat to withhold federal funding for districts that do not comply. Threatening children and teacher's safeties during a pandemic, implying further defunding of an already underfunded school system which further cripples children's educations. All during an election literally months away.....

Putting voters children at risk is not going to help..... I can't help but think parents are going to crucify Trump for this at the polls unless he manages to distract and make them forget about this with something else in the next few months.

Still what can schools do with the corona virus raging on? I imagine it can't be easy to do online classes, especially for low income families. It's got to be tough raising a child this year. Hopefully some sort of solution can be found that doesn't involve putting children at further risk of sickness and death.

Far be it from me to agree with Trump, but kids need to go to school. And they're the least at risk from the Covid, or even of contaminating others.

[The Green One]

I can at the very least agree that education is a deeply important issue, it just doesn't feel right to make children and the school staff to risk themselves like this. Social distancing is great and all but it can only do so much in a classroom setting.

But I concede that continuing as we have is not an answer either. The more time that passes the more catch up that is required. Forcing physical presence at the schools isn't safe either.

It's a tough situation without an obvious answer. Opening the schools is one thing, but I'm not hearing a concrete plan to keep the attendees safe. Or at least minimize the risks as much as possible since complete safety is simply impossible.

[Key Board]

Originally Posted by EroKing

‘Coronavirus Particles Can Remain Infectious in Air for Over an Hour’.

It's a bit vague.

I assume it means it can be infectious if there's enough viral load, and in some airborne instances it has been.

But yes, it seems to confirm our suspicions that closed buildings + recycled air -> less dilution -> more viral load

TLDR: wear a mask in public buildings, so you can catch most of own your particles. Have some empathy.


//

[GDB]

Originally Posted by The Green One

It's a tough situation without an obvious answer. Opening the schools is one thing, but I'm not hearing a concrete plan to keep the attendees safe. Or at least minimize the risks as much as possible since complete safety is simply impossible.

The concrete plan was get the situation under control before summer break ended. But seeing as how this administration has completely vomited over themselves with this that's no longer feasible.

[Ithekro]

A lot of teachers are worried about their own safety in the classrooms and who it to be responsible for cleaning surfaces. And activities where schools share materials between multiple students.

Also the conditions are different depending on the age range of the children involved.

Plus their are safety protocols that are in direct opposition to Covid protocols.

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Far be it from me to agree with Trump, but kids need to go to school. And they're the least at risk from the Covid, or even of contaminating others.

They’re a huge risk for contaminating others. In Japan they call them “asymptomatic super-spreaders”.

[The Green One]

The US apparently has at least 3mil confirmed Cov-19 cases at this point and climbing.

[Ithekro]

Last I checked (some days ago now) the US was roughly on par with all of Europe in terms of number of cases and deaths.

[kari-no-sugata II]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Last I checked (some days ago now) the US was roughly on par with all of Europe in terms of number of cases and deaths.

Europe should definitely be ahead in terms of total number of deaths. Though, that could change fairly quickly.

In terms of confirmed cases, USA is way ahead. (More of a side-effect of Europe being hit before testing had really been ramped up).

PS I've seen some sites include all of Russia in "Europe". Who the heck decided that? I wouldn't say I found a trustworthy summary of the US compared to Europe...