Coronavirus Updates, Important Information, and Ancedotal Experience

Qhue · Apr 2, 2020

Coronavirus prompts Vermont to order Costco, Target to stop sale of ‘nonessential’ items

Walmart was also ordered to pivot certain items to online sales.

www.foxbusiness.com

I understand their argument, but this seems like an odd move to make.

a_skeleton_05 · Apr 2, 2020

Pretty stormy day here today and something occurred to me for the first time since this started: Look at how antsy people are already being cooped up and then imagine power outages being added to the mix.

slippery · Apr 2, 2020

Dom said:
Pretty stormy day here today and something occurred to me for the first time since this started: Look at how antsy people are already being cooped up and then imagine power outages being added to the mix.

They are expecting an above average Hurricane season. Imagine the shit show that could occur if this drags on and these things line up.

sleevedraw · Apr 2, 2020

AngryGerbil said:
Another interesting point they bring up is the propensity of viruses to evolve over time to become LESS lethal.

It is in a virus's best interests to not kill its host, or least to not kill its host too quickly. It will, by logic, evolve over time to become less lethal.

Think of the common cold. That virus, when it first jumped to humans, (assuming we had perfect historical knowledge, which we don't) was probably much more lethal to humans in the beginning. But over time it evolved to 'figure out' the fact that it could survive and propagate more if it became less lethal. Take the evolution of it and extrapolate it and we now have a relatively benign virus that makes us cough (thus effectively spreading the virus) but otherwise does little to no real damage to us. You could argue that the common cold is a very highly specialized and evolved species of virus. It has 'learned' to live alongside humans, how to use humans to propagate its own genome, but at the same time does not kill those humans.

In other words, the common cold is a very highly evolved and successful critter. It has, through evolutionary time, found that sweet spot where it knows how to make humans cough, but it also knows how to not kill the humans that it infects. Thus, it survives and thrives through time, which is exactly what every critter on Earth is always attempting to do at all times.

COVID has a lot of work to do in order to get to this point, and the cycles it needs to go through to get there might well last longer than any of our lifetimes, but the good news is that most viruses actually DON'T want to kill their hosts. Most viruses are trying to find that perfect balance that the common cold has already found. Namely, "Do something to the host that makes them spread us around, but don't kill any of them in the process."

Other examples of well-adapted viruses: HIV (takes a few years for any significant signs of AIDS to appear), and pretty much the entire herpes family. VZV (chicken pox/zoster) loves to play the long game (lysogenic infection); even after your body gets the acute infection under control, the virus has already integrated its genome into your trigeminal and dorsal root ganglia. It doesn't produce any viruses, but when a cell divides and produces daughter cells, the copy of the viral genome goes along with the daughter cells. Occasionally, the virus reactivates, and you wind up with shingles. CMV acts the same way, and unless a newborn gets infected, it's usually asymptomatic.

Other examples of poorly-adapted viruses: Ebola, Marburg, and most of the hemorrhagic viruses (50%+ mortality rates means they burn themselves out too fast by retarding transmission through a population, and the symptoms are so dramatic that people freak out and quickly take defensive action.)

Sanrith Descartes · Apr 2, 2020

slippery said:
I'm still working, and I'm getting depressed. I can't imagine all the people who have lost their jobs. You know the unemployment numbers aren't actually representative either, because states can't actually keep up with the claims. That numbers is going to keep jumping.

I've talked about it before, but I manage an indepently owned liquor store in Southwest Florida in a place that is highly dependent on tourists. It's a literal ghost town here. The last 7 days of March we where down ~13k in sales for just those seven days. Mind you March is our biggest month of year, and is normally something like ~110k in sales. Without getting into retail math, that isn't actually that much. The margin isn't large on liquor sales. We basically can't buy anything if we want to pay rent, payroll, utilities etc. At some point when this ends how do we get product back on the shelf? No clue. The money just won't be there. We'll slowly bleed money until the product is gone, and then what.

Florida is basically closing down tonight. As a liquor store we will stay open. My 2 hourly employees have already both lost half their hours. I'm on salary so I'm still working 40 hours a week. All the stores around me in my plaza are closing tonight, for at least the month. I think all the people are techinically getting laid off because they can't afford to pay them while they are closed. Some of the places down here have already shut down all reservations for hotels/resorts/condo's/house rentals etc for 30-90 days. If you hadn't checked in by whenever they put it in place you can't, if you are already here you can stay but you can't extend your stay past whenever you had booked. Imagine people who own rental properties just not having any income at all for 90 days.

The financial side of this is so far from over, and nothing the government does will truly help where it's needed.

If they haven't done so, have the owners get on the SBA site and apply for an EIDL (economic injury disaster loan).

Burns · Apr 3, 2020

While I am still hopeful that it works, here is something to temper a bit of the hype for the effectiveness of the azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine treatment. A write up (by Dr. David H. Gorski), that evaluates the second set of data, from France, that was released last week:

Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin versus COVID-19: Grift, conspiracy theories, and another bad study by Didier Raoult

On Friday, Prof. Didier Raoult posted another study of azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine used against COVID-19. It is a single arm observational study of patients with mostly mild (or even asymptoma

sciencebasedmedicine.org

Credentials:

David H. Gorski, MD, PhD, FACS is a surgical oncologist at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute specializing in breast cancer surgery, where he also serves as the American College of Surgeons Committee on Cancer Liaison Physician as well as an Associate Professor of Surgery and member of the faculty of the Graduate Program in Cancer Biology at Wayne State University.

iannis · Apr 3, 2020

slippery said:
They are expecting an above average Hurricane season. Imagine the shit show that could occur if this drags on and these things line up.

If this stretches into hurricane season we've got very serious problems and the hurricane will be a moderate problem.

New York is already stealing from Massacheutseststesdswess. The federal government is about a dick hair away from nationalizing critical industry. These are not minor concerns. There's a potential for a positive feedback loop here where mild hardship encourages response which increases hardship. And if that happens it will spiral into either a war or a severe economic depression. Because it always does. Always.

The response to the virus is more concerning that the virus itself. I don't think our federal leadership is of the caliber that it needs to be in order to effectively deal with the ramifications of the event. They might kinda be able to halfdick their way through it with a little bit of luck and then throw a flaming sack of shit directly into the face of the next sucker.

I'm optimistic about the virus. Much less so about the humans.

Good God, imagine President Biden for a minute with this. Or President Bernie. And then realize that's exactly what 45% of the electorate fantasizes about. They're not outraged anymore, they're terrified. That's not better.

Hoss · Apr 4, 2020

Anybody got anything on the specifics of a 14 day self quarantine? I see there's a difference between isolation (when you are actually sick) and quarantine, but nothing that spells out what they mean. I figure it must be available somewhere, but when I google it, I can't wade through all the fucking articles about celebs bravely self quarantining.

Anyway, the specific situation is that I'll be coming back from overseas and my company has said I'm supposed to self quarantine for 14 days when I get back. AFAIK, there's no legal requirement and no belief that I'll have been exposed as I'm not coming from a shithole like New York. I'm assuming it means I can't make runs to the grocery store, but what about my wife and daughter and daughter's boyfriend? Daughter and BF will be keeping a social distance easily enough but is that enough if we're in the same house? No way I won't be fucking the wife though. Does that mean she can't leave either?

Fucker · Apr 4, 2020

Dom said:
Pretty stormy day here today and something occurred to me for the first time since this started: Look at how antsy people are already being cooped up and then imagine power outages being added to the mix.

Oh just you wait and see. If this thing stretches out to summer and 100F heat, things are going to be really ugly in some places.

Alex · Apr 4, 2020

Hoss said:
Anybody got anything on the specifics of a 14 day self quarantine? I see there's a difference between isolation (when you are actually sick) and quarantine, but nothing that spells out what they mean. I figure it must be available somewhere, but when I google it, I can't wade through all the fucking articles about celebs bravely self quarantining.

Anyway, the specific situation is that I'll be coming back from overseas and my company has said I'm supposed to self quarantine for 14 days when I get back. AFAIK, there's no legal requirement and no belief that I'll have been exposed as I'm not coming from a shithole like New York. I'm assuming it means I can't make runs to the grocery store, but what about my wife and daughter and daughter's boyfriend? Daughter and BF will be keeping a social distance easily enough but is that enough if we're in the same house? No way I won't be fucking the wife though. Does that mean she can't leave either?

Just don't be a fucktard. It's honestly pretty easy to stick close to home. A grocery store run here or there. A stroll so you don't get depressed not seeing the sky. It's pretty fucking easy to stay ~6 ft away from people even at a grocery store. And I'm in tiny ass SF grocery stores.

I know we're a bunch of libtards out here, but we took the appropriate measures and SF is barely getting hit by this. So far.

What California is doing right in responding to the coronavirus pandemic

California's efforts to stem the spread of the virus have been bold and controversial but appear to be working.

www.cnn.com

I know this city being so tech-heavy has a big influence on that.

Lanx · Apr 4, 2020

Hoss said:
Anybody got anything on the specifics of a 14 day self quarantine? I see there's a difference between isolation (when you are actually sick) and quarantine, but nothing that spells out what they mean. I figure it must be available somewhere, but when I google it, I can't wade through all the fucking articles about celebs bravely self quarantining.

Anyway, the specific situation is that I'll be coming back from overseas and my company has said I'm supposed to self quarantine for 14 days when I get back. AFAIK, there's no legal requirement and no belief that I'll have been exposed as I'm not coming from a shithole like New York. I'm assuming it means I can't make runs to the grocery store, but what about my wife and daughter and daughter's boyfriend? Daughter and BF will be keeping a social distance easily enough but is that enough if we're in the same house? No way I won't be fucking the wife though. Does that mean she can't leave either?

if you can be in an entirely different floor from everyone in your house, thats best, basically treating you like a tenant in your own home. what does a tenant do? he doesn't' not sleep in the masterbedroom and infect his wife, while peeing in the master bath, nope. he slums it up in the attic on an air mattress, and he gets food delivered at the door

if you're not being treated like a stranger and feeling isolated, then youre quarantining wrong

Sanrith Descartes · Apr 4, 2020

iannis said:
If this stretches into hurricane season we've got very serious problems and the hurricane will be a moderate problem.

New York is already stealing from Massacheutseststesdswess. The federal government is about a dick hair away from nationalizing critical industry. These are not minor concerns. There's a potential for a positive feedback loop here where mild hardship encourages response which increases hardship. And if that happens it will spiral into either a war or a severe economic depression. Because it always does. Always.

The response to the virus is more concerning that the virus itself. I don't think our federal leadership is of the caliber that it needs to be in order to effectively deal with the ramifications of the event. They might kinda be able to halfdick their way through it with a little bit of luck and then throw a flaming sack of shit directly into the face of the next sucker.

I'm optimistic about the virus. Much less so about the humans.

Good God, imagine President Biden for a minute with this. Or President Bernie. And then realize that's exactly what 45% of the electorate fantasizes about. They're not outraged anymore, they're terrified. That's not better.

I'll put your economic concerns in one simple to follow graph. I had already been parsing this data and seeing the chart still made me sick to my stomach. This is what our elected officials have done to us.

iannis · Apr 4, 2020

Sanrith Descartes said:
I'll put your economic concerns in one simple to follow graph. I had already been parsing this data and seeing the chart still made me sick to my stomach. This is what our elected officials have done to us.

I'd buy you a thoughts and prayers, but i'm saving up a wheelbarrow of dollars so I can buy some toilet paper next week.

I just hope that when the mob forms they will target the right people. It will shorten the duration.

Of course they won't, and we're looking at 10 years and President Lisa Simpson. It'll take about that long for communists to realize that the federal government can't feed them with rhetoric. Not the smartest bunch.

brekk · Apr 4, 2020

Sanrith Descartes said:
I'll put your economic concerns in one simple to follow graph. I had already been parsing this data and seeing the chart still made me sick to my stomach. This is what our elected officials have done to us.

That is NEW claims per week. A single week spike isnt important, its the area under the graph that matters. If you look at the 2008 recession there were many weeks over 400-500k for a sustained period. We need to watch this over the next few weeks to see the real scale. That initial super spike, is misleading, because rather than a slower overtime loss of jobs due to economic pressures the entire service industry was hit all at once like the flip of a switch.

Sanrith Descartes said:
This is what our elected officials have done to us.

What do you think they should have done differently? The scale of infections is growing at a rapid rate WITH social distancing and stay at home orders. You think this would be manageable if they focused on the economy and didn't do what they could to slow the spread?

Kaines · Apr 4, 2020

brekk said:
That is NEW claims per week. A single week spike isnt important, its the area under the graph that matters. If you look at the 2008 recession there were many weeks over 400-500k for a sustained period. We need to watch this over the next few weeks to see the real scale. That initial super spike, is misleading, because rather than a slower overtime loss of jobs due to economic pressures the entire service industry was hit all at once like the flip of a switch.

What do you think they should have done differently? The scale of infections is growing at a rapid rate WITH social distancing and stay at home orders. You think this would be manageable if they focused on the economy and didn't do what they could to slow the spread?

More people have filed for unemployment in the first 2weeks of this collapse than did in the first SIX MONTHS following the collapse in 2008. Thinking this going to be a small hiccup in the economy is completely putting your head in the sand. We've significantly damaged the economy for YEARS. And killed thousands of people through economic hardship because doomsday morons yelled the loudest.

iannis · Apr 4, 2020

brekk said:
That is NEW claims per week. A single week spike isnt important, its the area under the graph that matters. If you look at the 2008 recession there were many weeks over 400-500k for a sustained period. We need to watch this over the next few weeks to see the real scale. That initial super spike, is misleading, because rather than a slower overtime loss of jobs due to economic pressures the entire service industry was hit all at once like the flip of a switch.

What do you think they should have done differently? The scale of infections is growing at a rapid rate WITH social distancing and stay at home orders. You think this would be manageable if they focused on the economy and didn't do what they could to slow the spread?

More targeted measures than a blanket shutdown. Early indications were that it's the elderly most at risk with most of the productive working class being a far lower risk.

I take your point and it's not a stupid one. Our point is that the response was overzealous and general where a more targeted response would (should) manage to protect the groups most at risk while maintaining better economic health.

If granny starves to death I gotta say that's not much better than if she drowns in her own phlegm in a hospital bed. And yeah, that's on the edge of hyperbolic but it's less so the longer the economic shutdown persists. This can go really badly.

It is possible that those less drastic measures wouldn't have been adopted because it takes something this extreme to get people's attention. I mean that's really hard to argue against. There's a good chance that that idea is true, too. I -really- hope that's the prevailing thought because it will be that much easier to start less invasive measures now that everybody seems to realize this isn't another 4chan prank.

Mist · Apr 4, 2020

What happened to the idea of coding risk county-by-county? Was that just too hard for government to figure out?

Blanket shutdowns everywhere is getting stupid when it's clear that the risk is not evenly distributed.

brekk · Apr 4, 2020

iannis said:
More targeted measures than a blanket shutdown. Early indications were that it's the elderly most at risk with most of the productive working class being a far lower risk.

I take your point and it's not a stupid one. Our point is that the response was overzealous and general where a more targeted response would (should) manage to protect the groups most at risk while maintaining better economic health.

If granny starves to death I gotta say that's not much better than if she drowns in her own phlegm in a hospital bed. And yeah, that's on the edge of hyperbolic but it's less so the longer the economic shutdown persists. This can go really badly.

It is possible that those less drastic measures wouldn't have been adopted because it takes something this extreme to get people's attention. I mean that's really hard to argue against. There's a good chance that that idea is true, too. I -really- hope that's the prevailing thought because it will be that much easier to start less invasive measures now that everybody seems to realize this isn't another 4chan prank.

Sadly American's h

Khane · Apr 4, 2020

iannis said:
More targeted measures than a blanket shutdown. Early indications were that it's the elderly most at risk with most of the productive working class being a far lower risk.

I take your point and it's not a stupid one. Our point is that the response was overzealous and general where a more targeted response would (should) manage to protect the groups most at risk while maintaining better economic health.

If granny starves to death I gotta say that's not much better than if she drowns in her own phlegm in a hospital bed. And yeah, that's on the edge of hyperbolic but it's less so the longer the economic shutdown persists. This can go really badly.

Targeted would have been prudent if it were possible. Every time I see that US Surgeon General tweet about the masks all I can think is they knew supply was going to be destroyed thanks to our reliance on China and lied to try to shift available resources to healthcare professionals. Yet they still gave corporations like 3M space to operate as if this was a normal market under normal conditions.

Sanrith Descartes · Apr 4, 2020

brekk said:
That is NEW claims per week. A single week spike isnt important, its the area under the graph that matters. If you look at the 2008 recession there were many weeks over 400-500k for a sustained period. We need to watch this over the next few weeks to see the real scale. That initial super spike, is misleading, because rather than a slower overtime loss of jobs due to economic pressures the entire service industry was hit all at once like the flip of a switch.

What do you think they should have done differently? The scale of infections is growing at a rapid rate WITH social distancing and stay at home orders. You think this would be manageable if they focused on the economy and didn't do what they could to slow the spread?

The biggest issue we have (and others) is they see this as a binary decision. Economy OR virus. This is the fundamental flaw. We basically decided to "beat" the virus at the cost of our economy. Except one doesn't "beat" a virus.

What should we have done? Triage. Accept people ARE going to die from this. An actual real number of fatalities. Manage the virus as best we could to keep casualties down, but not at the expense of what will soon be 20 or 30 million unemployed and tens of thousands of small businesses destroyed.

I am not a min wage worker in Idaho who is theory crafting. I have a real stake in this and from both sides. I own a business and I live 20 miles from Manhatten. I am seeing this unfold from the second row seats. For a virus that has claimed 0.00015 percent of the world's 12th largest economy's population (3000/20m), we have put millions out of work. And the next unemployment report will skyrocket NY's numbers. 3000 deaths is a tragedy. The unemployed situation is a crime.

Coronavirus Updates, Important Information, and Ancedotal Experience

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