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Day 56: COVID-19 Pandemic
Countries and territories reporting COVID-19: 162.
Worldometers news update here.
Today’s post is a bit of a stream of consciousness.
California has closed all the bars, winery tasting rooms, brew pubs, etc. (Reminds one of an Airplane movie refrain “I picked a bad day to give up _________.”) Methinks grocery stores and liquor stores will see an uptick in alcohol sales.
California is also asking everyone over 65 to stay home. Let’s see: the largest medical services consuming group is to stay home. Checking with doc office this week about scheduled appointments. Phone discussion will probably be OK — this time. Will still need to go to pharmacy and grocery store. Maybe now is the time to learn about their delivery options.
Has cyberwar come to the pandemic? Somebody was messing with the Worldometer table last night. A Vatican City entry was included with absurd numbers. That has now been corrected and the website posted an apology that sounded like a malicious actor was involved. There was a report out of Israel correcting their numbers after an inaccurate count was posted. The thought (which I wish I could dismiss out of hand) occurs that when you see the world scrambling and scuttling their economies why not just give it a little “push” if you think your own agenda will be promoted? Did the Vatican City ploy (an obvious fake) mask a more clever manipulation? Free societies require “high trust” in its systems. Destroy trust and you destroy the blessings of liberty.
Respirators vs ventilators. Respirators are air filtration devices worn to protect the individual from inhaling the virus. Ventilators are devices to push air into individuals suffering from respiratory failure. CDC has guidance for medical personnel needing to prioritize who gets respirators vs. simply wearing N95 masks, as well as other recommendations where there is a shortage of personal protection equipment (PPE).
If you haven’t bookmarked the CDC website, here is the link. There was a tweet supposedly sent out by CDC that when you clicked on the embedded link you got a warning message. (The tweet about a virus has a “virus”?)
[Note: Links to all my COVID-19 posts can be found here.]
Published in General
I cancelled a “follow up” appointment to the doctor regarding a condition I have, which has improved. So for now, I’ve decided the appointment can wait. I don’t need the extra virus exposure, and someone who really needs to see the doctor will be able to get in.
The crowd in that picture above is really celebrating the virus!
From the WSJ’s daily update:
90,000 people stuck on cruise ships? Yikes.
We are bringing back the Speak-Easy! It really is 1918 all over again. Sheesh!
Pennsylvanians to remain sober throughout the ordeal. The State has closed all its liquor stores, a monopoly that should’ve disbanded 50 years ago. All schools, shops, gyms, bars and restaurants are closed in the 5 counties surrounding Philly, with Philly being next. Just heard from 2 friends whose children’s weddings, one at the end of April, the other the 2nd week of May, have been cancelled. Both venues working off the CDC’s recommendation that events of 50 or more people should be cancelled for the next 8 weeks. Companies, venues, etc. are afraid of running foul of the CDC guidelines so they can’t be blamed. That’s what everybody’s afraid of, blame, especially from a hysterical MSM looking for scalps.
People are getting angry. Are the CDC predictions that accurate that we need to stop living until the middle of May? Predictions often fail to materialize. Is it really necessary to project out this far, can’t we re-evaluate the situation before May 14th? Well, it doesn’t matter now, the 8 week cat is out of the bag and the cancellations are are flowing like a river in a flood.
I wouldn’t count on it being overblown, @jeannebodine. The major pharmaceutical company my brother works for sent all nonessential personnel in his California division home until further notice three days ago. My brother’s lab is considered essential for now so he and his team are still working, with the company sending workers through regularly to sanitize doorknobs and other surfaces.
Just came across this story that underscores my cyberwar observation: Suspicious cyberactivity targeting HHS tied to coronavirus response, sources say.
Some things are not like the other. Why are the serious cases so low for USA, Germany, and Sweden compared with Netherlands, Spain, France, and Belgium.
There was a Cruise Ship anchored in the ocean this morning at the entrance to Charleston Harbor when I took my dog Jack to the beach. Jack practiced social distancing until he saw his dog friend Jazzy and then he was all over her. It was a little embarrassing. In spite of the both being nurtured they were a scene. I said to Jazzy’s owner afterwards that all that was missing was the cigarette when they finished. The passengers and crew got quite the show on the ship. I haven’t heard why the ship wasn’t coming to Port.
Switzerland is also out of wack. Second highest per population but low death rate.
Are the numbers for China of any value?
And what’s up with Japan? Good job there it appears.
It’s American hospitals that are in the worst spot in this crisis. They lack sufficient personal protective equipment for their staffs, and they lack sufficient isolation chambers, which is a problem for everyone in the hospital, and they lack sufficient critical care and intensive care units.
They want to save lives, not turn people away to die. I’m glad they feel that way. They are on the front lines of this crisis. I am heartened to know they care so much about their patients.
I’m hoping that telemedicine will speed up in its development, and I’m sure it will do so now. A few years ago, I read a great book about this type of innovation being embraced by the Mayo Clinic, and it allows one doctor or physician’s assistant to treat five patients remotely in the time and space it takes to treat one patient in a physical clinic setting.
We’ve invested in home care and outpatient care in a big way in this country. Insurance companies started reimbursing towns for ambulance service, which enabled cities and towns to ramp up the emergency medical technician (EMT) programs, which ultimately enabled people to be discharged from the hospital sooner than was true in the past. It was a decision we made as a nation. I love this innovation. But there was a cost–the construction of inpatient facilities. It was a gamble.
Where I hope this ends is in some medium-care facilities being built that don’t need expensive diagnostic equipment or surgery suites but do provide medical care and equipment like ventilators.
China only cares about ramping up industrial production and blaming the CIA.
Well, I am looking forward to the next iPad Pro.
thank you @Rodin for providing these daily updates
+1.
In 1918 you didn’t need a speak easy booze was legal.
If it were still rampaging they wouldn’t be able to hide it. Even if the numbers are being low balled the fact that they aren’t still climbing exponentially is a good sign they are controlling it. And they did that by locking 100 million people in their homes in Wuhan and shutting down all industry and economic activity, more or less.
For those who are comfortable with phrases like “confidence interval” and “Kalman filter”, check out this paper in Science, by a Chinese team modeling the beginning of the epidemic there. Take-aways: a large fraction of infections are probably due to non-symptomatic spreaders. Travel and other restrictions in China had a large influence on reducing the spread from each virus carrier, and increasing the fraction of infections that were ‘documented’, i.e., due to transmission from cases that presented themselves for care.
I guess it helps to have a government well schooled in authoritarianism.
There is now a study suggesting that temperature and humidity affect the “R ” number of the virus.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3551767
One degree Celsius increase in temperature and one percent increase in relative humidity lower R by 0.0383 and 0.0224, respectively. This result is consistent with the fact that the high temperature and high humidity significantly reduce the transmission of influenza. It indicates that the arrival of summer and rainy season in the northern hemisphere can effectively reduce the transmission of the COVID-19.
Life is good in Arizona. 80 degrees today.
That’s one way to look at it. The point though is that since there are no vaccines or drugs to give only way to stop the spread is to contain people. And the dastardly thing about this virus is it’s long latency period. People can spread it for days if not weeks before they show symptoms and a very high percentage of people may never show symptoms. So this thing has been building up for probably two weeks before we started to see the hospitalization numbers going up.
Theft of supplies in hospitals. Imagine that. It’s happening.
Elective surgeries are cancelled to make way for the wave.
China accomplished the reduction by welding people into their homes, and dragging people in the street.
Here in USA we are asked to self-isolate, and when people don’t comply, will we get a better result than China? I don’t think so.
If nothing else, we need to contain this virus willfully, as adults, not like screaming wailing toddlers who need a time-out.
Which door, should I choose…
Are you channeling Jeb!
Oregon announced closure of all bars and restaurants, except takeout, effective at midnight. Something we don’t think about: what happens to all the restaurants’ perishable food? My daughter stopped at a place she used to work at, and they were just giving it away. She came home with three grocery bags of bread, eggs and vegetables. I suspect some of the bigger places will donate to charity.
The governor announced that Oregon is going to be short 1000 hospital beds plus 400 ICU beds. They are going to try to create them in the next month. I don’t know how.
They also announced that the plans are based on a projected doubling of cases every six days. Isn’t that low? Somewhere I read three days.
This is an interesting interview with a TCM practitioner from Wuhan.
This link is to strategies, diagnosis and formulas being employed in China. For educational and informational purposes only.
An interesting analysis of the Diamond Princess natural experiment.
Six counties around San Francisco locked down. My niece lives in one of them.
Oregon schools were closed because “school employees considered vulnerable to the disease, particularly those 60 and over, were rapidly deciding to stay away from schools.”
San Francisco has imposed a total 24 hour lockdown with residents ordered to be confined in their homes with the only allowable trips outside must for “emergency services” and “monitored’ trips to the grocery store.
Wow! It’s amazing how quickly the Radical Left goes for total control given an excuse.
Self imposed quarantine and limiting your exposure to groups is one thing but mandatory lock down is quite another. Many people are living paycheck to paycheck so this will not help.
Arguably San Francisco has this permanently coldish weather ( 56F to 47F today) in perhaps exactly the wrong temperature range that may be very hospitable to the CoronaVirus but a total lockdown is kinda crazy.