Patterico's Pontifications

5/22/2020

Covid-19 In The Future: Three Scenarios

Filed under: General — Dana @ 10:49 am



[guest post by Dana]

A new analysis by Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist from the University of Minnesota, was released today. Osterholm and his team presented three possible scenarios of a world continuing to live with Covid-19. According to the analysis, the scenarios are “depicted as seascapes, their waves of different heights and widths approaching the unseen and unsuspecting beachcombers on a placid shore.” Here are their three depictions:

In one future, a monster wave hit in early 2020 (the current outbreak of millions of cases and a projected hundreds of thousands of deaths globally by August 1). It is followed by alternating mini-waves of much smaller outbreaks every few months with only a few (but never zero) cases in between.

In the second scenario, the current monster wave is followed later this year by one twice as fierce and even longer-lasting, as the outbreak rebounds after a summer when a significant drop in the number of cases and deaths led officials and individuals to let down their guard, relax physical distancing more than was safe, and fail to heed (or even detect) the early warning signs that a new outbreak was gathering force. After this doubly disastrous second wave, the sea is almost calm, marred only by an occasional wave of cases that number barely one-fifth of what the fall and spring of 2020 saw.

In the third possible future, the current wave creates a new normal, with Covid-19 outbreaks of nearly equal size and, in most cases, duration through the end of 2022. At that point, the best-case scenario is that an effective vaccine has arrived; if not, then the world experiences Covid-19 until at least half of the population has been infected, with or without becoming ill.

The common thread running through the three scenarios is that there is no chance that Covid-19 will end this year. And here’s why:

The reason is the same as why the disease has taken such a toll its first time through: No one had immunity to the new coronavirus.

Epidemiologists suggest that there will need to be a population immunity of a little more than 50% in order for the pandemic to quiet down.

Ulimately:

Society must referee… “a three-way tug of war” among a trio of competing needs: to keep cases and deaths low, to preserve jobs and economic activity, and to preserve people’s emotional well-being.

–Dana

142 Responses to “Covid-19 In The Future: Three Scenarios”

  1. Read the whole thing. There is more detail at the link.

    Dana (0feb77)

  2. Very interesting. Thank you for posting.

    Time123 (ea2b98)

  3. How come, if lock-downs work, there is such a problem in prisons? Why is it a good idea to release felons from a controlled environment and expect them to do better on their own recognizance? This just seems backwards to me.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  4. By virtue of space limitations and communal living in prisons, there can be no such thing as social distancing. When we are in lockdown, we can control the numbers of people we come in close contact with, and determine what risks we want to take. Prisoners can’t. The “controlled environment” to which you refer, is controlled (and has to be) because of a large number of individuals packed into a limited space.

    Dana (0feb77)

  5. So there’s no escape and we can either live free or live as slaves.

    Thanks.

    P.S. Anyone remember the good old days of we have 14 days to bend the curve and getting under the curve was what was key. Not, we must all hide and accept the new normal and live under ever tightening government decrees like good little subjects?

    NJRob (4d595c)

  6. OR, we can live like free people faced with a major threat to public health who adapt intelligently and responsibly.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  7. In the second scenario, the current monster wave is followed later this year by one twice as fierce and even longer-lasting

    Just because it happened with the 1918 flu , it;s likely, or even possible, to happen with this?

    SARS-Cov-2 doesn’t mutate like the influenza virus!

    How stupid can they get?

    Sammy Finkelman (b4888e)

  8. Why isn’t Trump’s scenario here as a fourth choice?

    The pandemic goes away, with or without a vaccine.

    After all, that’s what the “Spanish flu” did – so much so they had dig up bodies in Alaska to get its DNA.

    If the vanishing of the pandemic is not very likely you repeat itself, why should a fiercer second wave either?

    Sammy Finkelman (b4888e)

  9. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/us/obama-graduation-speech-transcript.html

    This pandemic has shaken up the status quo and laid bare a lot of our country’s deep-seated problems — from massive economic inequality to ongoing racial disparities to a lack of basic health care for people who need it….It’s also pulled the curtain back on another hard truth, something that we all have to eventually accept once our childhood comes to an end. All those adults that you used to think were in charge and knew what they were doing? Turns out that they don’t have all the answers. A lot of them aren’t even asking the right questions….

    – Barack Obama

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/us/obama-hbcu-speech-transcript.html

    More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing. A lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge.

    – Barack Obama.

    He wasn’t (only or mainly) talking about Donald Trump! If you want to say the curtain needed to be pulled back on him.

    And he didn’t say: Look to some category of experts – they know what they’re doing. And both times he linked it to the pandemic.

    Was he speaking only of the bills Congress passed?

    No, it’s the epidemiologists.

    Sammy Finkelman (b4888e)

  10. How come, if lock-downs work, there is such a problem in prisons? Why is it a good idea to release felons from a controlled environment and expect them to do better on their own recognizance? This just seems backwards to me.

    Also, prisons and long term care facilities are not locked down. The people staffing, feeding, nursing, guarding them are not locked down, in fact are required to go forth. That’s why prisons and long term care facilities are a worst case scenario, not best. The disease carriers walk in and out daily, the residents are static targets. If one inmate/resident is infected, it will quickly spread throughout the tightly packed community, then infect the staff, who then transmit it out to the community. They’re basically petri dishes.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  11. After all, that’s what the “Spanish flu” did – so much so they had dig up bodies in Alaska to get its DNA.

    No, it didn’t. Herd immunity happened since it was a novel virus, it took 3 years and between 50-150M deaths.

    They didn’t keep DNA back then, because DNA wouldn’t be discovered until 35 years later, and the ability to decode it almost 80 years later. Also, they didn’t keep tissue samples a hundred years ago like today, because things like a reliable power grid and refrigeration was kind of new, like there are parts of the world that don’t have it now.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  12. @Sammy,

    Why isn’t Trump’s scenario here as a fourth choice?
    The pandemic goes away, with or without a vaccine.

    How realistic is it to think that the virus will just poof!, and go away without a vaccine or herd immunity abot the 50% threshhold that the scientists suggest?

    Dana (0feb77)

  13. Moreover, a prison is not unlike a meat processing facility. Every-stinking-body shares the same air, and it is conditioned (if at all) for temperature. It is only filtered as a way-down-stream priority. Prison dining is worse, as are a lot of work details.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  14. No one had immunity to the new coronavirus.

    Not even that is quite correct:

    https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/20/everything-we-know-about-coronavirus-immunity-and-antibodies-and-plenty-we-still-dont/

    Globally, there have only been a few thousand people exposed to the other coronaviruses that have caused outbreak emergencies, SARS and MERS. But there are four other coronaviruses that circulate in people and cause roughly a quarter of all common colds. It’s thought that just about everyone has antibodies to some combination of those coronaviruses, so serological tests for SARS-CoV-2 would need to be able to differentiate among them.

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200515092007.htm

    The teams also looked at the T cell response in blood samples that had been collected between 2015 and 2018, before SARS-CoV-2 started circulating. Many of these individuals had significant T cell reactivity against SARS-CoV-2, although they had never been exposed to SARS-CoV-2. But everybody has almost certainly seen at least three of the four common cold coronaviruses, which could explain the observed crossreactivity.

    It is still unclear, though, whether the observed crossreactivity provides at least some level of preexisting immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and therefore could explain why some people or geographical locations are hit harder by COVID-19.

    Sammy Finkelman (b4888e)

  15. It’s been interesting to see a growing segment of the population unable to even consider the possibility that the virus may be with us for a long time before we see it ebb away (whether through herd immunity or a vaccine).

    Dana (0feb77)

  16. What’s going on with the website?

    Sammy Finkelman (b4888e)

  17. The Spanish Flu struck in waves, and in some cities the people got stupid after the first wave seemed to have been beaten back. Consequently, the second wave killed a LOT of people who would likely have been fine but for their flaming desire to resume “normalcy”.

    See for instance San Fransisco.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  18. OR, we can live like free people faced with a major threat to public health who adapt intelligently and responsibly.

    Read: … and do as we’re told.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  19. Might be useful to think of the bubonic plague. It first appeared in Europe during the reign of Justinian, with a massive outbreak that lingered into the next century. Then it effectively disappeared until it was reintroduced into Europe in the late 1340s, when it caused what we know as the Black Death, and lingered around with outbreaks of varying intensity and duration for the next 400 years. The last big outbreak was in 1720/21, in Marseilles and Provence. There was a third great wave in the 1850s, in China, and smaller episodes up until aboit 1900, most associated with Chinese trade or individual Chinese (here in the US it was active in 1902).

    It still hasn’t disappeared, with most cases appearing in Africa, and some in Central Asia, where it all started from in all three great waves. There is also a small reservoir of infected rodents in the southwest US. There’s no vaccine, but we know which antibiotics to use in treating it.

    Kishnevi (e3cbf2)

  20. Why isn’t Trump’s scenario here as a fourth choice?
    The pandemic goes away, with or without a vaccine.

    The correct answer is because he’s an idiot and it’s unpossible. Of course, right after the sun goes nova, it will go away. Hopefully before then we’ll have a vaccine, or the cumulative millions to tens of millions have passed away over years and herd immunity is reached, and even then, herd immunity doesn’t mean zero infections. Immunity will most likely be temporary, but hopefully for years not months, so the waves will be small, i.e. scenario 2, since you need both the virus, and a vulnerable population, that intersect at the right time for an outbreak.

    Today, it’s everyone, anywhere, at anytime, a vaccine is the best hope to avert that, in 2022, or 2025, or never as the third most likely.

    Wear your pants, wear your shirt, wear your mask, doing only 2 is not a neighborly thing to do. Although, as NK pointed out, even in a nuturist(sp?) location, the mask should be worn.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  21. Still seems like the more we know about it, the less we know about it.

    “ A forthcoming Australian scientific study concludes that the coronavirus causing the global pandemic contains unique properties suggesting it was manipulated in a Chinese laboratory and was not the result of a natural occurrence.

    Five scientists who conducted the study discovered an unusual ability of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, as the pathogen behind COVID-19 is called, to easily infect humans.”

    Australian researchers see virus design manipulation

    https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/may/21/australian-researchers-see-virus-design-manipulati/
    _

    harkin (d9e504)

  22. I found this one really interesting:
    https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0092-8674%2820%2930610-3

    SUMMARY
    Understanding adaptive immunity to SARS-CoV-2 is important for vaccine development, interpreting
    coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pathogenesis, and calibration of pandemic control measures.
    Using HLA class I and II predicted peptide ‘megapools’, circulating SARS-CoV-2−specific CD8+ and CD4+ T cells were identified in ~70% and 100% of COVID-19 convalescent patients, respectively. CD4+ T cell responses to spike, the main target of most vaccine efforts, were robust and correlated with the magnitude of the anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG and IgA titers. The M, spike and N proteins each accounted for 11-27% of the total CD4+ response, with additional responses commonly targeting nsp3, nsp4, ORF3a and ORF8, among others. For CD8+ T cells, spike and M were recognized, with at least eight SARSCoV-2 ORFs targeted. Importantly, we detected SARS-CoV-2−reactive CD4+ T cells in ~40-60% of unexposed individuals, suggesting cross-reactive T cell recognition between circulating ‘common cold’
    coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2.

    Might be why certain population were able to shrug this disease off easier than others.

    whembly (fd57f6)

  23. No, it didn’t. Herd immunity happened since it was a novel virus

    And here, too, we will eventually get to herd immunity. If there is no vaccine, or if it doesn’t work (as in The Cold), then we have to do it the hard way.

    Understand this: eventually you will either get antibodies from the vaccine or from the disease. You cannot avoid it forever. Young people, rationally, figure they might was well get it and get it over with. Some few might die, but some few will die today in car crashes. It is what it is.

    Possibly a better approach to such an age-related pandemic is for the economy to shut down for a short period, older/otherwise-at-risk people to sequester completely (along with necessary care-givers), and for younger people to INTENTIONALLY get the virus and get the beginnings of herd immunity.

    With the current strategy we are perpetually at risk, and all of these scenarios show how untenable the strategy is.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  24. Read: … and do as we’re told.

    Just because you’re told something, doesn’t mean you have to do the opposite.

    Your mom told you not to pick your nose…in public and wash your hands. Shared knowledge is a good thing.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  25. 5… yes, I remember that, NJRob. Seems like a long time since that happened…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  26. Possibly a better approach to such an age-related pandemic is for the economy to shut down for a short period, older/otherwise-at-risk people to sequester completely (along with necessary care-givers), and for younger people to INTENTIONALLY get the virus and get the beginnings of herd immunity.

    See prison/long term care facilities above.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  27. P.S. Anyone remember the good old days of we have 14 days to bend the curve and getting under the curve was what was key. Not, we must all hide and accept the new normal and live under ever tightening government decrees like good little subjects?

    And then we accumulated knowledge.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  28. The correct answer is because he’s an idiot and it’s unpossible.

    The fact that Trump’s an idiot does not mean that the virus will not diminish to non-pandemic levels. Trump, even though he’s an idiot, has done a few things right and it does not help your case that people said — at each such point — “Trump’s an idiot” (or worse) and this is the wrong thing to do.

    In short, calling Trump names, however justified, is not an argument.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  29. And then we accumulated knowledge.

    That’s a polite way of saying “we stopped being idiots.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  30. Government has, rightly, emergency powers. They are intended to last until we can get our sh1t together and no longer. NOT to become the new normal.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  31. How come, if lock-downs work, there is such a problem in prisons? Why is it a good idea to release felons from a controlled environment and expect them to do better on their own recognizance?

    Might wanna ask the quarantined crew of the USS Theodore Roosevelt about that. 😉

    “This is the Captain speaking. l just found out that there’s men on this vessel expecting liberty. I don’t know how this rumor got around, but I’d like to clear it up right now.
    On account of cargo requirements and security conditions…which have just come to my personal attention… there will be no liberty while in this here port!”- The Captain [James Cagney] ‘Mister Roberts’ 1955

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  32. “Five scientists who conducted the study discovered an unusual ability of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, as the pathogen behind COVID-19 is called, to easily infect humans.”

    That may be, or not be. More to come. But this virus does seem to be quite good at paralyzing a society. Viruses like Ebola never become pandemics as they quickly kill/incapacitate the host. This one is infectuous days before symptoms present. How great is THAT!? It’s like “The Thing” — you don’t know The Thing is right next to you until too late. Eventually it does kill some, and they die terrible deaths, so you can’t ignore it or live with it like the flu. ALL you can do is run and hide.

    Not saying it’s designed, but if I were designing a virus to destroy my competitor’s economies, it would be something like this. I’d also want it to be attuned to genetic groups other than mine.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  33. Protect the most susceptible to/endangered by the virus and let the rest go about their lives. The virus isn’t going anywhere, so hiding away only prolongs the event. Let nature run it’s course.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  34. Read: … and do as we’re told.

    Well, no. You can always elect the opposite of intelligent and responsible. Contra NJRob, you are not being “enslaved”.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  35. ALL you can do is run and hide.

    Well, I’ve done neither. Are you running and hiding?

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  36. “Trump is an idiot” is not a substantive argument. Even idiots are sometimes right, just by chance or dumb luck.

    Now another scenario not discussed here is that we get a vaccine by the end of 2020. There has recently been some very faint good news on that score, but it remains to be seen whether it will pan out, and if so, when.

    Bored Lawyer (56c962)

  37. Every state is already in various stages of the reopening process. No one is “hiding away” and prolonging the lockdown. We know that it is happening in stages, which seems prudent. Regardless, it is happening. Certainly people can choose to re-enter public life, or wisely choose to stay at home if they are high-risk. I just wish the people choosing to enter the public square would be mindful that they might be asymptomatic, and thinking others, wear a mask. Remember: mask wearing DOES NOT equate to being against reopening.

    Dana (0feb77)

  38. Everyone has people they get info from on this flu. I do work for a married couple that are Dr’s on the front lines in Maryland. No masks, handshakes and hugs. They loved them some Obama, but said this is B.S. and will be come deplorable come November. We high fived.

    mg (8cbc69)

  39. 38… they sound like a smart couple, mg. They took the red pill.

    The reluctant, willfully ignorant ones may prefer the pill in suppository form

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  40. They loved them some Obama

    Smart? Naw.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  41. Instead of links, I have long lines.

    Sammy Finkelman (b4888e)

  42. I’m sure that masks make you weak or something. It’s never happened before, no time before has the country asked so many to do so little to protect everyone.

    This would never happen in the “good old days“.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  43. SF: Why isn’t Trump’s scenario here as a fourth choice?

    SF: The pandemic goes away, with or without a vaccine.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) —

    The correct answer is because he’s an idiot and it’s unpossible.

    It may be virtually impossible, but so is scenaro number 2: hat it comes back worse. That it comes back, or stats all over again from near zero cases is possible, but that it would be worse is unlikely.

    And both Trump’s scenario and Osterholm’s scenario number 2, are based on the same reason: That’s what happened with the 1918 flu epidemic.

    herd immunity doesn’t mean zero infections. Immunity will most likely be temporary, but hopefully for years not months,

    I think you may have things backwards: Immunity from infection should last longer than immunity from a vaccine – vaccines, in fact, are set to the minimum effective enough dosage now. The chicken pox vaccine is notorious for not giving strong immunity and nurses had to explain (circa 2001) why they didn’t show immunity. They took shots, more than one time, but it didn’t show the kind of reaction that you would get from somebody who ad the disease. The argument that vaccines give more herd immunity is based on the idea that a higher percentage of people have some immunity than what happens after an epidemic runs its course.

    Sammy Finkelman (b4888e)

  44. @42 In my field there is a behavior pattern called “Oppositional Defiant Disorder” It’s a conduct disorder in which people compulsively refuse to do things anyone else has told them to do basically because they cannot stand to be told what to do, even if what they are being told to do is extremely to their advantage.

    Nic (896fdf)

  45. Now we have judges in Ohio and Michigan realizing that states have exceeded their authority in destroying the American dream to “save it” by turning us into a socialist utopia.

    NJRob (c72f39)

  46. Lawyers gonna be having yuuuuuge pay days.

    mg (8cbc69)

  47. The problem seems to be with my computer..

    When I save a page on Patterico as an *.html file and then view the downloaded page in my browser, it comes out OK

    Maybe I just need to reload Google Chrome. Perhaps it is getting overloaded with page and does not interpret all code right. That’s for another time.

    Sammy Finkelman (b4888e)

  48. The links are visible from thw saved to disk and then uploaded to browser version of the page and they work when clicked.

    By the way Nic mentioned a book buying page. I can’t find on what threadthat is. I want to us that to test possible alternative browsers. (although I could also use hotair and legalinsurrection)

    Sammy Finkelman (b4888e)

  49. Now we have judges in Ohio and Michigan realizing that states have exceeded their authority in destroying the American dream to “save it” by turning us into a socialist utopia

    A perfect example of people who say things that they don’t understand the meaning of the words they’re spouting. What response to this pandemic is a turning the US into a “socialist utopia”? What about the pandemic can be described as utopian?

    Words have meaning.

    Socialism: a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

    Well, I supposed Trump kinda sorta implementing the DPA is a tiny bit socialist, but those companies are still getting paid, still privately owned, so tangentially maybe. So there you go, Trump and his supporters are leading America into socialism.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  50. When STAT last asked experts what might happen if the new coronavirus were not contained, three months ago, Wuhan, China — the origin of the pandemic — had been on lockdown only a week. The world had just passed 10,000 cases. The U.S. had one (a man returning to Washington state after visiting family in Wuhan). Its first documented case of community transmission was still three weeks away. Yet there was a consensus that the outbreak would not be contained.

    Instead, the experts told us, while the new coronavirus might settle down and simply cause colds like the other four human coronaviruses already in circulation…

    Might settle down and simply cause colds like the other four human coronaviruses already in circulation.

    Hey, that’s more or less Trump’s scenario. Now that was said at the beginning.

    Sammy Finkelman (b4888e)

  51. Whatever was wrong, it’s fixed.

    Sammy Finkelman (b4888e)

  52. You know, Dana, there was a wonderful article that made me do a double take in the New York Times. Mark Mazzetti writes:

    “The odd thing about reporting on the coronavirus is that the nonexperts are supremely confident in their predictions, while epidemiologists keep telling me that they don’t really know much at all.”

    Um. Not my experience with epidemiologists at all.

    Simon Jester (028bc8)

  53. @48 Bookshop.org

    Nic (896fdf)

  54. 52. I’ve been saying for weeks that making policy based on this level of uncertainty is not good. That is the only thing I am certain about viz-a-vis CoViD-19: there is very little knowledge with which to make sound policy. And you don’t have to be an expert to know that.

    Gryph (08c844)

  55. That’s funny, Simon Jester.

    (So I went and read the opinion piece you referenced, and frankly found it ironic that Kristof was chastising the non-experts, while, as a non-expert himself, condescendingly told us how we should think…)

    Dana (0feb77)

  56. I’ve been saying for weeks that making policy based on this level of uncertainty is not good. That is the only thing I am certain about viz-a-vis CoViD-19: there is very little knowledge with which to make sound policy. And you don’t have to be an expert to know that.

    Because there’s never been a communicable disease before, so no one has any idea of the things you need to do to minimize the impact.

    We are looking at a singular event, just ignore it until maybe 100k American’s die, you know, maybe then (tomorrow), try to figure out what to do in this unicorn event. No one could possibly know how to minimize it, nope.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  57. While not a gauge of whether the decisions taken were the right ones, nor of how strictly they were followed, the analysis gives a clear sense of each government’s strategy for containing the virus. Some — above all Italy and Spain — enforced prolonged and strict lockdowns after infections took off. Others — especially Sweden — preferred a much more relaxed approach. Portugal and Greece chose to close down while cases were relatively low. France and the U.K. took longer before deciding to impose the most restrictive measures.

    But, as our next chart shows, there’s little correlation between the severity of a nation’s restrictions and whether it managed to curb excess fatalities — a measure that looks at the overall number of deaths compared with normal trends.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-opinion-coronavirus-europe-lockdown-excess-deaths-recession/

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  58. Be wary of those who confidently claim they know it all.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  59. Now we have judges in Ohio and Michigan realizing that states have exceeded their authority in destroying the American dream to “save it” by turning us into a socialist utopia.

    May we please see a link to your source?

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  60. I’ve been saying for weeks that making policy based on this level of uncertainty is not good.

    Uh…no. What you’ve said was that CV19 is neither deadly OR debilitating, among a LOT of other irrational nonsense.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  61. 56. Nice straw man, douchebag. Nowhere in these comments did I say we should ignore it, nor did I say I am ignoring it. You are advocating for making policy based on ignorance and uncertainty. I am simply disagreeing.

    Gryph (08c844)

  62. Hmm, maybe someone should create a poster on what you should do for this unique never before seen event.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  63. 60. I don’t believe it is. I could be wrong in the end, but everything I’ve seen so far suggests to me that it isn’t. Of course, I live in America’s armpit, so there is that. But I have no problem with admitting that what works for my home state might not work for New York.

    If you fear a “deadly and debilitating” disease, stay home. It’s really that simple. In the most stricken urban backwaters of America, you won’t find any public gathering place where 100% of the people are wearing masks, and you said yourself, any of them could be asymptomatic carriers.

    Gryph (08c844)

  64. Of course, I live in America’s armpit, so there is that.

    There’s nothing wrong with where you live. Those claiming otherwise are usually individuals with low self-esteem living in dirty, crowded cities.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  65. Nice straw man, douchebag. Nowhere in these comments did I say we should ignore it, nor did I say I am ignoring it. You are advocating for making policy based on ignorance and uncertainty. I am simply disagreeing

    That word doesn’t mean what you think it means.

    History exists, knowledge exists, pandemics have happened before, we know how to minimize the impact.

    You’ve been saying for months that this isn’t deadly, tomorrow 100k Americans will be dead from it, it’s cancer, except cancer doesn’t kill as many or as fast. That is the definition of ignorance.

    Plus, you continue to promote the idea that those things we KNOW work to protect the community, you will not do because it’s inconvenient to you, and you don’t think you personally will die from Covid, so you should not have to be worried about your impact on others.

    None of this was unknown 100 years ago, it wasn’t unknown in January, it’s not unknown today.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  66. Save it, klown.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  67. 65. When I speak of uncertainty, that is exactly what I mean, Klink. Two months ago, those “experts” at the CDC were saying asymptomatic people didn’t have to wear masks. And pretty definitively, I might add. What do we know now that we didn’t know then, and if wearing masks really is a good idea, how was the CDC so wrong such a short time ago?

    It seems to me that what you “know” about minimizing disease spread is erring on the side of caution, rather than definitive knowledge. And that’s fine. But it’s not a good basis for setting policy.

    Gryph (08c844)

  68. 64. And that’s not what I was implying. I do live in America’s armpit, which actually has the advantage of low population density and lots of wide-open spaces, from an epidemiological standpoint.

    Gryph (08c844)

  69. It seems to me that what you “know” about minimizing disease spread is erring on the side of caution, rather than definitive knowledge. And that’s fine. But it’s not a good basis for setting policy.

    Actually, that is exactly how you create policy, especially when talking about people’s lives.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  70. NJRob @49:

    Now we have judges in Ohio and Michigan realizing that states have exceeded their authority in destroying the American dream to “save it” by turning us into a socialist utopia

    Col Klink @59

    A perfect example of people who say things that they don’t understand the meaning of the words they’re spouting. What response to this pandemic is a turning the US into a “socialist utopia”? What about the pandemic can be described as utopian?

    NJ Rob means z socialist utopia, which means not a utopia at all (for the people) but a but a utopia in that they get into law everything they want. (which is not the case, actually – but that’s what the idea of a “socialist utopia” means.)

    Utopia might as well be in quotes.

    Do you really need a secret decode ring in order to understand that?

    Sammy Finkelman (b4888e)

  71. Nice straw man, douchebag.

    There was no straw man. You, again, don’t know what you’re talking about.

    Witness, everyone, who the name-calling begins with and who makes personal insults.

    What I did is quote the person, and I have a LOT of material to back up every word.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  72. It seems to me that what you “know” about minimizing disease spread is erring on the side of caution, rather than definitive knowledge. And that’s fine. But it’s not a good basis for setting policy.

    Yeah, it is. Just like game theory is an excellent tool for setting policy…if you are informed enough to 1) know what it IS, and 2) how to use it.

    According to the Gospel Of Gryph, there is a mighty small universe of tools for setting good policy in a timely way.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  73. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-amid-ongoing-covid-19-pandemic-governor-cuomo-announces-26

    Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo, Thursday, May 14, 2020:

    … This virus has been ahead of us every step of the way. I can’t tell you how many quote, unquote facts I was told that then changed, right?

    When the virus started the virus was coming from China, everybody was looking at China – turns out the virus came from Europe. Nobody told us.

    When this first started if you had the disease and recovered, you then had antibodies and you were immune. My brother had the virus, recovered, so we have the antibodies. We were told, “Well then you’re immune from getting it again,” and we had plans to have people who tested for the antibodies, they could go back to work because they were immune and the facts changed, “You know what maybe they’re not immune, maybe they’re only a little immune or they’re partially immune.”

    Then we were told, children are not affected by the virus – that was the only good news by the way in the whole first evaluation. “Children aren’t affected.” Okay, now maybe children are affected. And we just didn’t know it.” Okay, well what do we know now? Well we’re studying 100 children from one to 21.” Okay, Michaela, my daughter is 22. “Well we only have people up until 21, so she’s okay.” Yeah until we have someone who’s 22 or 23 or 24.

    So, the facts change….

    I think Governor Como overstates his ignorance, there. It was obvious that the virus could come from Italy once there was a big outbreak there.

    Sammy Finkelman (b4888e)

  74. May we please see a link to your source, Rob?

    We’re waiting.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  75. Do you really need a secret decode ring in order to understand that?

    Why, yes… yes he does.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  76. Osterholm said lockdowns were counterproductive. And that has been born out

    Narciso (7404b5)

  77. The thing about uncertainty, is that you can also try uncertain cures, not just uncertain preventativc measures.

    Latest news: A claim that people taking hydroxyhlorquine are more likely to die. Senator Schumer demands the VA explain why they were using it. Claims the patients were maybe not infored. VA says they were.

    The problem is that this was all rerrospective. They should at least control for sage of disease.

    Sammy Finkelman (b4888e)

  78. Sammy,

    I figured what I said was obvious as socialism will fail every time it is tried. But some can’t help themselves.

    NJRob (20264a)

  79. But, Rob, some people get all hysterical and run around like the great headless chicken squawking about “slavery” and “socialist utopias” when there’s no such thing at hand.

    It’s funny to watch!

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  80. I know a doctor treating Covid patients who thinks the disease can be milder and is more widespread than we realize but patients think it is something else — a GI bug, allergies, a neuro problem, etc. The more we learn about Covid, the more we realize it can present in different ways. I don’t know if he is right and I don’t think we should plan on him being right, since he may see Covid “everywhere” because he sees it everyday. But if he is right, even if only in some communities, maybe there is a fourth scenario.

    DRJ (15874d)

  81. Also, we don’t know enough about it to know if everyone makes antibodies. The notion that everyone makes antibodies is based on a Chinese study of 285 + 69 patients, of which most but not all made IgG antibodies. Maybe that is enough to know for sure but maybe not.

    DRJ (15874d)

  82. In an online language class today, the instructor, who resides in Rio de Janiro, said that she came down with the coronavirus. She found out because she had something on the stove, and her husband came in and asked her what was burning. She had lost her sense of smell. Following that, was her sense of taste. Then came the fever and aches, nothing extreme or too uncomfortable, and today she was feeling fairly well.

    Dana (0feb77)

  83. It would be nice if that is how it happens from now on.

    DRJ (15874d)

  84. There are probably 500 different scenarios potentially, depending on what you call a scenario, but you have to base policy on what the likelihood is. The likelihood that “it just goes away” is zero, the likelihood that it will kill 250k Americans this year is a extremely likely, 500k more likely than not. We’re already at almost 300 per million, and we don’t have 10% penetration, probably slightly less than 5%. Even if it was 25%, that would put us at a quarter million, before we even approach “herd immunity” if that is actually a thing for Covid.

    Wear your pants, wear your shirt, wear your mask, it’s literally the least you can do.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  85. By its dead thou shalt know it. And there will still be life-threatening allergies, food poisoning, and neurological problems, and we should not ignore those either.

    nk (1d9030)

  86. Study estimates 24 states still have uncontrolled coronavirus spread
    The coronavirus may still be spreading at epidemic rates in 24 states, particularly in the South and Midwest, according to new research that highlights the risk of a second wave of infections in places that reopen too quickly or without sufficient precautions.

    Researchers at Imperial College London created a model that incorporates cellphone data showing that people sharply reduced their movements after stay-at-home orders were broadly imposed in March. With restrictions now easing and mobility increasing with the approach of Memorial Day and the unofficial start of summer, the researchers developed an estimate of viral spread as of May 17.
    ……
    “ There’s evidence that the U.S. is not under control, as an entire country,” said Samir Bhatt, a senior lecturer in geostatistics at Imperial College.

    The model shows potentially ominous scenarios if people move around as they did previously and do so without taking precautions. In California and Florida, the death rate could spike to roughly 1,000 a day by July without efforts to mitigate the spread, according to the report.
    …..
    The Imperial College researchers estimated the virus’s reproduction number, known as R0, or R naught. This is the average number of infections generated by each infected person in a vulnerable population. The researchers found the reproduction number has dropped below 1 in the District and 26 states. In those places, as of May 17, the epidemic was waning.

    In 24 states, however, the model shows a reproduction number over 1. Texas tops the list, followed by Arizona, Illinois, Colorado, Ohio, Minnesota, Indiana, Iowa, Alabama and Wisconsin.
    ……
    In a news conference Thursday, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) defended her decision to reopen concert venues, movie theaters and other businesses despite rising case numbers.

    “We cannot sustain a delayed way of life as we search for a vaccine,” she said. “Having a life means having a livelihood, too.”
    …..

    Ripmurdock (b867aa)

  87. Missouri hairstylist worked with coronavirus symptoms and exposed 84 clients, health officials say
    A hairstylist in Springfield, Mo., worked while exhibiting coronavirus symptoms and directly exposed 84 clients, the Springfield-Greene County Health Department announced Friday.

    The health department said the hairstylist did wear a face covering, and so did the clients. Those directly exposed, including the stylist’s co-workers, will be notified by the health department and offered a coronavirus test, it said.

    The hairstylist worked on at least eight days within the past two weeks, according to the health department. They also visited a number of other locations, including a Dairy Queen, Walmart and fitness center.
    …….

    Ripmurdock (b867aa)

  88. CDC – using the historical data – has come up with an planning/analysis on their site, which shows the following:

    1) Their best estimate is that 35% of those who get CV-19 are asymptomatic.
    2) of the 65% who have symptoms, only .05 percent (5 per Ten thousand) of those under 49 will die.
    3) Of those over 65 with Symptoms, only 1.3% will die (13 per thousand).
    4) of those 51-64, only .02 percent will die.(2 per thousand)

    Since only a fraction of the population will get CV-19 (say 40-50%) that means the chances of any young person under 50 dying of the disease is remote. We should stop shutting the whole USA down to protect seniors. Instead, those over 65 should “shelter in place” and be isolated as much as possible. The rest of society could then open up, and obtain “herd immunity”.

    rcocean (846d30)

  89. In any case, a 2nd wave, is not going to decimate the country. 50-60% aren’t going to get it, and of those who do, 35% will have no symptoms. The overall death rate for systomatic CV-19 per the CDC planning/analysis is .04 percent.

    rcocean (846d30)

  90. Minnesota health officials say graduation ceremony exposed people to coronavirus
    Minnesota health officials said that a graduation ceremony that violated the state’s social distancing guidelines may have caused a COVID-19 cluster outbreak.

    A person who tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, helped set up the graduation ceremony and came in contact with two school staff members who later handed out diplomas to the graduates, the Minnesota Department of Health reported, according to CBSN Minnesota, a CBS affiliate.

    The students came up on the event stage one by one while the two school staff members who had been exposed to the virus handed out diplomas.
    ………

    Ripmurdock (b867aa)

  91. Since only a fraction of the population will get CV-19 (say 40-50%) that means the chances of any young person under 50 dying of the disease is remote. We should stop shutting the whole USA down to protect seniors. Instead, those over 65 should “shelter in place” and be isolated as much as possible. The rest of society could then open up, and obtain “herd immunity”.

    There is no way you can isolate those over 65 effectively. Because you would also have to isolate anyone who came into contact with them….

    One news show tonight had a clip with an ICU doctor in Brazil (Sao Paolo, I think). The ICU was full of Covid19 patients , and most of them were in the 40s, with a number of them in their 30s.

    If you do the math using those figures you give, it means at least 300,000 people will die. Are you going to make the coffins?

    Kishnevi (41758f)

  92. We are not alone. What’s happening in the rest of the world? China? Japan? Korea? Germany? Italy? Spain? Great Britain? Canada? What’s different between us and them besides not having New York sewer scum in charge at Gracie Mansion, Albany, and the White House?

    nk (1d9030)

  93. Are you going to make the coffins?

    It’s not fair to ask rc questions. He can’t answer honestly any more than he can tell the truth about anything.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  94. The CDC models have been overly optimistic from the beginning, their original estimate for June 1st was 36k, they missed. Their current model if backdated from February predicts 32k by June 1st, that’s not better. But why revise to a model that can’t even accurately predict today, politics?

    Also, the CDC’s current “best guess” is that — in a scenario without any further social distancing or other efforts to control the spread of the virus — roughly 4 million patients would be hospitalized in the U.S. with COVID-19 and 500,000 would die over the course of the pandemic. That’s according to the agency’s new parameters that the Center for Public Integrity plugged into a simple epidemiological model.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  95. How did I miss this.

    Q Sir, how long do you expect take hydroxychloroquine?

    THE PRESIDENT: I think it’s another day. I had a two-week regimen of hydroxychloroquine. And I’ve taken it, I think, just about two weeks. I think it’s another day. And I’m still here. I’m still here. And I tested very positively in a — in another sense.

    So, this morning —

    Q Negatively?

    THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. I tested positively toward negative, right? So, no, I tested perfectly this morning, meaning — meaning I tested negative.

    Q Have you taken the antibody test yet?

    THE PRESIDENT: But that’s a way of saying it: positively toward the negative.

    Q Have you taken the antibody test yet, sir?

    THE PRESIDENT: No, I have not.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  96. https://www.theblaze.com/news/new-jersey-cop-business-facebook-live-sale

    Another business bites the dust. Proud of those that still support individual ownership instead of demanding the government do everything for them.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  97. @95-
    Ranking the global impact of the coronavirus pandemic, country by country
    Nearly every nation on earth is struggling to reopen its economy safely while continuing to battle the coronavirus. But some are doing better than others.

    We’ve mapped the performance of 30 leading countries by plotting their health and economic outcomes and grouping them based on whether they have instituted light, moderate or severe restrictions on commerce and social interactions.
    ……..
    This matrix considers countries’ bottom lines when it comes to infections, deaths, GDP and unemployment, as well as how those metrics were shaped by specific government interventions.
    …..
    Matrix placements are based on a mix of official statistics and policies, and POLITICO reporting. We took into account International Montetary Fund (IMF) 2020 projections, the Atlantic Council’s fiscal tracker and official government figures to evaluate economic outcomes, including the benchmarks of GDP, unemployment and fiscal stimulus packages.

    We considered both the absolute numbers and how much the situation worsened in 2020. For health outcomes we considered testing, infection and death statistics provided by health ministries and government authorities and graphed by Worldometer and Johns Hopkins University. Our ratings factored in verified or likely blind spots in the data based on POLITICO and other reputable reporting.
    …..

    Ripmurdock (b867aa)

  98. 93. Until it’s safe, Rob. Didn’t you get the memo?

    Gryph (08c844)

  99. Relapses, drug abuse, lost hope. How long can this go on?

    How much longer can what go on? Life? What are you afraid of, Rob?

    BTW, may we please have that source for your claims made up-thread…at last?

    Or are you admitting you were gaslighting again?

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  100. 102. This is what “deadly and debilitating” looks like.

    Gryph (08c844)

  101. And someone else who thinks wearing masks is stupid a bad idea.

    Gryph (08c844)

  102. 105. Until he changed his mind.

    Gryph (08c844)

  103. This is just what the deadly side looks like. Close to double our total losses in Vietnam, and counting.

    That never even attempts to look at the debilitating side of the disease. But those of us who live in reality know that side exists, and its effects for many will last the rest of their lives.

    But, hey, Gryph has declared that if there’s ANY “reporting inflation” by ANYBODY the numbers are suspect. Not a little. Totally.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  104. The Second Coming
    W. B. Yeats – 1865-1939

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
    The darkness drops again; but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

    nk (1d9030)

  105. So what should I make for lunch?
    Pasta shells with beef chili (canned, no beans) for sauce, with grated parmesan; or
    White rice with Spam and soy sauce?

    nk (1d9030)

  106. Pasta and chili. Yum.

    DRJ (15874d)

  107. Or just chili.

    DRJ (15874d)

  108. Then came the fever and aches, nothing extreme or too uncomfortable, and today she was feeling fairly well.

    I hope she’ll be OK.

    From what I’ve read, many infected people start to feel a little better before the onset of the worst and most dangerous phase.

    I think David Lam had that pattern, among many others.

    Dave (1bb933)

  109. Rice and spam – just make sure you fry the spam on a cast-iron skillet for a bit, to get it nice and crispy.

    Leviticus (b3a900)

  110. Nice and crispy, so you don’t miss the not so subtle hints of suet, gristle and pig anus…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  111. And someone else who thinks wearing masks is stupid a bad idea.

    Gryph, your grip on reality is very loose. You understand, that your article is 2 months old, and the first paragraph of your linked article says:

    EDITOR’S NOTE: After the surgeon general made comments about healthy people not needing to wear masks, he changed his position. For an updated story on what the surgeon general now says about wearing masks

    It’s a Gryph’t, it’s an outright lie, misdirection, or gaslighting. This is all three, debunked by the first words in the linked article.

    Wear your pants, where your shirt, wear your mask, it’s the least you can do. Don’t be an a-hole.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  112. Sweet Jaysus… COVID destroys the senses of taste and smell!!!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  113. Sweet Jaysus… COVID destroys the senses of taste and smell!!!

    Which intelligent people would miss, and would correctly be a disability.

    Other people will carry a life-long scarring on their lungs which diminishes their normal activities, and would correctly be termed a disability.

    There are other effects, but those will make the point.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  114. Sweet Jaysus… COVID destroys the senses of taste and smell!!!

    Yes, a https://www.healthline.com/health-news/covid-19-losing-sense-of-smell symptom for more than 6 weeks.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  115. Potential marks for the swarm of litigators that awaits.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  116. And yet some will eat Spam…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  117. What level of fatality rate is acceptable not to wear a mask? Are some here going to wear masks every flu season?

    1DaveMac (4cc9b4)

  118. What level of fatality rate is acceptable not to wear a mask? Are some here going to wear masks every flu season?

    What’s the difference between the Flu and Covid? A) One is more than 20X as lethal B) One has a vaccine

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  119. Once testing is readily available, people who are going to come in contact with people over 70 can be tested. Over 65 can decide for themselves if they want to self quarantine based on their level of health.

    1DaveMac (4cc9b4)

  120. @Colonel Klink You are talking about Socialism as a theory. That’s not what people, typically, have in mind, when talking about socialist utopia. It is about practical “implementation” like Soviet Union or China.

    Very Surprised (1abf41)

  121. spam, haggis, lutefisk

    mg (8cbc69)

  122. 123. Rob, stay abreast of the news, bro. Opening is happening.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  123. If you do the math using those figures you give, it means at least 300,000 people will die. Are you going to make the coffins?

    50 million Seniors. Half won’t get CV-19. That leaves 25 million. Of those, only 16 million will have symptoms. Top death rate is 2 percent. That’s 320,000 – compared to 2.5 million who die EVERY YEAR.

    Did you know that overall mortality in the USA has gone DOWN in the last 3 months, while we have lost 100K to CV-19? That’s because a lot of those seniors would’ve died of something else, if they hadn’t died of CV-19.

    Anyway, I don’t expect any sensible detailed analysis from you. Just more left-wing, anti-trump “Push-back”.

    rcocean (846d30)

  124. 121. That wasn’t the question that was asked. What fatality rate is acceptable? You don’t want to answer? It is not at all clear based on CDCs most recent data that 20x is accurate. Not all flu’s have the same mortality rate. Some are more dangerous than others. So please, let us know what level of risk you are willing to undertake or impose on others?

    1DaveMac (4cc9b4)

  125. The next flu season won’t necessarily have a vaccine. Not all flu’s get vaccines.

    1DaveMac (4cc9b4)

  126. rcocean (846d30) — 5/24/2020 @ 8:43 am

    IOW,the ” who cares if a bunch of old people die? I need to make as much money as I can!” argument.

    Kishnevi (0acdcd)

  127. Someone who I think was representing nursing homes was on one of the Sunday morning interview shows today. I think he said that, in sending discharged coronavirus patients to nursing homes Governor Cuomo was only following CDC guidance.

    He was asked did he have to?

    Well, no.

    He could have answered that he was following the scientists.

    Sammy Finkelman (b4888e)

  128. Did you know that overall mortality in the USA has gone DOWN in the last 3 months, while we have lost 100K to CV-19?

    Misleading. Click the link if you actually want sensible detailed analysis.

    DRJ (15874d)

  129. From the Michael Osterholm, article, which I quoted at #50:

    When STAT last asked experts what might happen if the new coronavirus were not contained, three months ago, Wuhan, China — the origin of the pandemic — had been on lockdown only a week….Instead, the experts told us, while the new coronavirus might settle down and simply cause colds like the other four human coronaviruses already in circulation..

    I think the reason for saying that was a possibility, is that they did;t know the mutation rate of the virus. Now there was no reason to think it mutated very fast; most viruses are not like influenza, but all the predicting and planning has been done on the basis of influenza.

    Now there was asecond leap necessary in order to say that. That was the idea hat some mutatioons could make it more lethal and some less, but ones that mad it less also probably would make it take longer to debilitate someone, and people would be around more than in the case of a really lethal virus, and the virus would get around more, and immunize people against the more serious version of the virus.

    Ad this is one explanation given for why the 1918 flu went away – announced as genera principle: viruses get less lethal with time because a less lethal )assuming it is also more communicable) version has an advantage.

    Now that’s actually translating the way that idea is usually expressed into something that makes more sense because they skip steps.

    Sammy Finkelman (d542b2)

  130. National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien says that when China isolared Wuhan and Hubein province, they still allowed them to go out by airplane (not sure about that. Maybe people who had already left Wuhan for other parts of China?)

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-robert-obrien-on-face-the-nation-may-24-2020

    ….when we raised this issue really for the first time really vehemently with President Trump on January 28 with respect to the China travel ban, within two days, even though many of his advisers urged against it, the president made a hard decision and cut off travel from China within two days of- of learning that this was a serious, serious outbreak. And that saved countless lives.

    What we- what we didn’t know at the time, and I, by the way, after cutting off travel from China, I called my counterparts, the other national security advisors in Europe and urged them to take similar action.

    What we didn’t realize is the Chinese would continue to allow folks to travel from Wuhan. Even though they’d cut off travel within China, they allowed those folks to travel from China to Europe and to seed the disease in Europe and then have it come through a backdoor into the United States.

    So, look, in hindsight, perfect hindsight, when we realized the Europeans hadn’t cut off travel and when we really, you know, we didn’t know at the time, but we later learned that the Chinese allowed folks to continue to travel from Wuhan to- to Europe, sure, it would have been better to cut it off early.

    But what I want to focus on are literally the hundreds of thousands or millions of lives that were saved because President Trump made a decision that was entirely courageous at a time when the IC and others did not believe that this was a serious health risk or even a global pandemic.

    There were already some cases in Europe at the time Wuhan was quarantined. Still, obviously could have been more.

    There seems to be a connection with ski resorts. Anywhere in the world. What is there about ski resorts that would make the transmission of the virus easier?

    Sammy Finkelman (7b1b59)

  131. There seems to be a connection with ski resorts. Anywhere in the world. What is there about ski resorts that would make the transmission of the virus easier?

    And there was the nearly 50,000 people that came to the US from China in February and early March, after the fake “locking down” of Chinese flights had already been implemented on Feb 2nd.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  132. Trump only paid attention to citizenship and immigration status. There was no real attempt to screen travelers and follow up.

    Stiil, it probably reduced the transmission.

    Sammy Finkelman (7b1b59)

  133. 82. DRJ (15874d) — 5/22/2020 @ 5:49 pm

    . The notion that everyone makes antibodies is based on a Chinese study of 285 + 69 patients, of which most but not all made IgG antibodies. Maybe that is enough to know for sure but maybe not.

    Most but not all is “almost 95% of 285 and all but 2 (67) out of 69, or 97% there.

    They maybe beat it back without having to make them.

    There could also be cases were they made antibodies, but uncommon antibodies that worked against SARS-Cov-2 and weren’t picked up in an antibody test.

    If they recovered, they made antibodies.

    Sammy Finkelman (7b1b59)

  134. Another place the people in charge don’t know what they’re doing (pr maybe there;s nobody in charge.)

    Or maybe worse, some people do know what they are doing and they are trying to steer peole awau from thinking about antobodies.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/cdc-and-states-are-misreporting-covid-19-test-data-pennsylvania-georgia-texas/611935

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is conflating the results of two different types of coronavirus tests, distorting several important metrics and providing the country with an inaccurate picture of the state of the pandemic.

    We’ve learned that the CDC is making, at best, a debilitating mistake: combining test results that diagnose current coronavirus infections with test results that measure whether someone has ever had the virus. The upshot is that the government’s disease-fighting agency is overstating the country’s ability to test people who are sick with COVID-19.

    The agency confirmed to The Atlantic on Wednesday that it is mixing the results of viral and antibody tests, even though the two tests reveal different information and are used for different reasons.

    They apparently are totaling up all tests given. It;s like adding apples and oranges.

    “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ashish Jha, the K. T. Li Professor of Global Health at Harvard and the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, told us when we described what the CDC was doing. “How could the CDC make that mistake? This is a mess.” …

    ,,,“The viral testing is to understand how many people are getting infected, while antibody testing is like looking in the rearview mirror. The two tests are totally different signals,” he told us. By combining the two types of results, the CDC has made them both “uninterpretable,” he said.

    Sammy Finkelman (7b1b59)

  135. For 2/1/2 months they published no report of how many tests were taken. Then they included antibody tests but still said it was only viral tests

    The CDC stopped publishing anything resembling a complete database of daily test results on February 29.

    When it resumed publishing test data last week, [May 11-15) a page of its website explaining its new COVID Data Tracker said that only viral tests were included in its figures. “These data represent only viral tests. Antibody tests are not currently captured in these data,” the page said as recently as May 18.

    Yesterday, [May 20] that language was changed. All reference to disaggregating the two different types of tests disappeared. “These data are compiled from a number of sources,” the new version read. The text strongly implied that both types of tests were included in the count, but did not explicitly say so.

    The CDC’s data have also become more favorable over the past several days. On Monday, a page on the agency’s website reported that 10.2 million viral tests had been conducted nationwide since the pandemic began, with 15 percent of them—or about 1.5 million—coming back positive. But yesterday, after the CDC changed its terms, it said on the same page that 10.8 million tests of any type had been conducted nationwide. Yet its positive rate had dropped by a percent. On the same day it expanded its terms, the CDC added 630,205 new tests, but it added only 52,429 positive results.

    The percentage of tests that were positive would anyway be a meaningless statistic.

    Sammy Finkelman (7b1b59)

  136. Remdesivir; Literally, a cure in search of a disease.

    But Bloomberg Business Week had on its cover (of the issue dated May 18, 2020) that this was a casele of somebody thinking ahead – that this was foresight.

    Sammy Finkelman (45c255)

  137. It’s not transmitted by touch

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/how-will-we-ever-be-safe-inside/611953

    Or here, of this goes back behind a paywall:

    https://medium.com/the-atlantic/social-distancing-is-not-enough-5c56e9301304

    On March 8, South Korean public-health officials learned of a COVID-19–positive patient working in a call center in downtown Seoul. The office was located in one of the densest parts of the city, on the 11th floor of a 19-story mixed-use building with hundreds of offices and apartments. More than 1,000 people worked or lived in the building, sharing several elevators and a lobby. The possibility of mass infection was high.

    But investigators found that the outbreak was surprisingly concentrated. Of the 97 people in the building who tested positive for the disease, 94 worked on one floor — in the call center. Of those 94, all but a handful worked in one densely packed phone bank. On one side of the floor, the disease was transmitted to two-thirds of employees. But less than 5 percent of the rest of the floor tested positive, as did less than 1 percent of the remainder of the building.

    In its conclusion, the Korean CDC writes that the spread of the virus was almost entirely limited to the one floor “despite considerable interaction between workers on different floors in the elevators and lobby.” This would suggest that the main facilitator wasn’t common touch points, such as doors and elevator buttons, but rather common airspace. When people talk — or sneeze or cough — they produce respiratory droplets that that can come to rest in other people’s mouths, noses, and lungs. Talking for hours in close quarters, in an unventilated space, can create an ideal petri dish for COVID-19 transmission.

    t would be irresponsible to use the Korean study an an illustrative example if it were an outlier. But its main finding is fully in line with the emerging scientific consensus. On Thursday, the CDC updated its summary of COVID-19 transmission to clarify that the virus “does not spread easily” from touching surfaces or objects — like, say, elevator buttons. Instead, they wrote, “the virus is thought to spread mainly from person-to-person … through respiratory droplets.”

    Sammy Finkelman (45c255)

  138. One thing about utopias is that the idea is that nobody will have to think about it again, and no human intervention tp help people will be required. It doesn’t happen.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/world/europe/coronavirus-uk-nursing-homes.html

    The virus has ravaged nursing homes across Europe and the United States. But the death toll in British homes — 14,000, official figures say, with thousands more dying as an indirect result of the virus — is becoming a defining scandal of the pandemic for Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

    By focusing at first on protecting the health system, Mr. Johnson’s strategy meant that some infected patients were unwittingly moved from hospitals and into nursing homes. Residents and staff members were denied tests, while nursing home workers begged in vain for protective gear.

    (Nursing homes in Britain are not included in the NHS.)

    Sammy Finkelman (45c255)


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