Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[JAF-N72EX]

1 hour ago, rob_shadows said:

I'd like to know where all these people wearing masks and gloves to the stores are getting their stuff... Everywhere I've seen is and has been sold out of anything remotely healthcare related for weeks.

 

Gloves I don't know. But alot of people, like my aunt in law, are making masks with hepa filters themselves and giving them away to churches, homeless shelters, and hospitals. 

[MacReady]

I have 5 N95 masks and I’m definitely wearing them anytime I go get groceries.  Fortunate to have bought them for some house projects right before this hit.

[kingseanjohn]

https://player.vimeo.com/video/402577241

Interesting video from some Japanese researchers about micro-droplets and potential for airborne virus.

[JAF-N72EX]

8 hours ago, acowboys62 said:

I have been playing with some numbers just to get a sense of this thing...and please, if this is a stupid way to look at it let me know. But what I am trying to understand is why is it that looking at this virus versus the entire US population seems so frowned upon?  My caveat here is I am taking this serious, my wife is an infectious disease nurse dealing with this daily, my step father, mother and father are all high risk category so I am not trying to down play it, just understand the rationale. 

Is the issue with looking at this thing vs the entire populate not correct because of how low the total # of tests still are?  Is it more because total numbers be dammed and just the pure potential is devastating (ie a 2.4% death rate vs the entire population)?  Just trying to understand and there are clearly much smarter people in this topic than myself. 

As of 4/2:

Positives: 239,000 (0.07% of US pop.)

Negatives: 1,028,649 (0.31% of US pop.)

Hospitalized: 32,649 (0.01% of US pop., 13.7% of positives)

Deaths: 5,784 (0.002% of US pop., 2.4% of positives)

Total Tests: 1,276,658 (0.38% of US pop.)

I don't have an answer to your question but IMHO all of those numbers (worldwide and US) should be taken with a grain of salt and only used to get a general idea of the impact.

Aside from the low amount of tests, there are also countries that seem to run a very tight lipped Gov't (Russia, japan, N Korea) who's official numbers may or may not be questionable at best. 

JMO.

8 hours ago, mission27 said:

This will peak sometime in April and be getting much better in May.  By late May or early June I expect new case numbers to be essentially nothing. 

That's a very optimistic view but I wouldn't be so sure about this. This seems like a very early date.

I understand that your predicting the warm weather to help alot in slowing it down. But what is happening is not like anything we have ever experienced or been prepared for in the modern era and with that comes unforeseen events that could potentially make things worse despite the warm weather theory. In fact, it could end up throwing fuel on the fire.

For example, this morning I was watching 60-minutes that was (somewhat) about the increased strength and numbers of hurricanes over the last 4-5 years and how bad it's predicted to get again this year. 

This got me thinking, what's going to happen to those people when hurricanes, floods, tornado's or other natural disasters strike while we're all supposed to still be practicing social distancing?  Where would those families go and turn to?  To my understanding, people who lose their homes often rely on hospitals, hotels, shelters, people opening up their homes to a select few, or other buildings that can fit a large group of people in order to have some sort of shelter. (someone feel free to correct if I'm wrong here about the living conditions, I live in the midwest and luckily don't have to deal with it---only basing this on family word and what I have read)

This alone is a scary thought because then it becomes a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation and almost forces you to potentially spread the coronavirus which is essentially going to make things worse. 

And there are far more realistic scenarios like these that neither of us can think of at the moment that could cause more spreading of the virus.
 

[kingseanjohn]

2 minutes ago, kingseanjohn said:

https://player.vimeo.com/video/402577241

Interesting video from some Japanese researchers about micro-droplets and potential for airborne virus.

Also just noticed that the CDC officially recommended wearing non-surgical masks in public.

Quote

It is critical to emphasize that maintaining 6-feet social distancing remains important to slowing the spread of the virus.  CDC is additionally advising the use of simple cloth face coverings to slow the spread of the virus and help people who may have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to others.  Cloth face coverings fashioned from household items or made at home from common materials at low cost can be used as an additional, voluntary public health measure.

Source: CDC

[kingseanjohn]

 

[mission27]

26 minutes ago, JustAnotherFan said:

That's a very optimistic view but I wouldn't be so sure about this. This seems like a very early date.

I understand that your predicting the warm weather to help alot in slowing it down. But what is happening is not like anything we have ever experienced or been prepared for in the modern era and with that comes unforeseen events that could potentially make things worse despite the warm weather theory. In fact, it could end up throwing fuel on the fire.

 

Its not really based on the warm weather, its based on the trajectory of cases in the US hot spots and looking at trajectory in other countries.

Europe has been on lockdown for 3-4 weeks and already almost every country in Europe appears to be reaching a peak of active cases.  I expect by the end of April most of those countries will have very minimal new case numbers each day. 

The US is clearly a week or two or three behind Europe so we're probably talking mid-May at the earliest but I don't see what's unrealistic about that timeline.  Every population center in the US is currently under lockdown.  The government is now asking people to wear masks when they do inevitably venture outside their home.  It will work and cases will slow down.

[JAF-N72EX]

3 minutes ago, mission27 said:

Its not really based on the warm weather, its based on the trajectory of cases in the US hot spots and looking at trajectory in other countries.

Europe has been on lockdown for 3-4 weeks and already almost every country in Europe appears to be reaching a peak of active cases.  I expect by the end of April most of those countries will have very minimal new case numbers each day. 

The US is clearly a week or two or three behind Europe so we're probably talking mid-May at the earliest but I don't see what's unrealistic about that timeline.  Every population center in the US is currently under lockdown.  The government is now asking people to wear masks when they do inevitably venture outside their home.  It will work and cases will slow down.

Ok, I see your point but as I said above to the other user, the numbers shouldn't be taken as gospel either tho, imo. 

There are still too many people that have not been diagnosed or even know they have it at all until it's too late. Take this bus driver for example who was furious that a women got on his bus and coughed several times without covering her mouth. So he took to social media to go on a rant about the stupidity of people not taking it serious and died a week later to COVID. He didn't even know he had it. 

Also, what constitutes as a peak in this scenario? Because according to numbers the US saw it's highest number of deaths just today (or something like that, I could be confused on that).

IMO, expecting nearly no cases to start happening as early as 30-60 days seems like a best case scenario.  

[Malfatron]

1 minute ago, JustAnotherFan said:

IMO, expecting nearly no cases to start happening as early as 30-60 days seems like a best case scenario.  

feels unrealistic

[holt_bruce81]

26 minutes ago, mission27 said:

Its not really based on the warm weather, its based on the trajectory of cases in the US hot spots and looking at trajectory in other countries.

Europe has been on lockdown for 3-4 weeks and already almost every country in Europe appears to be reaching a peak of active cases.  I expect by the end of April most of those countries will have very minimal new case numbers each day. 

The US is clearly a week or two or three behind Europe so we're probably talking mid-May at the earliest but I don't see what's unrealistic about that timeline.  Every population center in the US is currently under lockdown.  The government is now asking people to wear masks when they do inevitably venture outside their home.  It will work and cases will slow down.

Doesn’t feel like anything is on lockdown. There’s still 1,000 people at the grocery store every time I Drive past it to and from work. And the lines for Chik-Fil-A might be the longest I’ve ever seen them. 

[TecmoSuperJoe]

1 hour ago, kingseanjohn said:

Also just noticed that the CDC officially recommended wearing non-surgical masks in public.

Source: CDC

"bUt MaSkS dO mOrE hArM tHaN gOoD"

"YoU'lL jUsT eNd Up INfEcTiNg YoUrSeLf"

Edited April 4, 2020 by PapaShogun

[theJ]

5 minutes ago, holt_bruce81 said:

Doesn’t feel like anything is on lockdown. There’s still 1,000 people at the grocery store every time I Drive past it to and from work. And the lines for Chik-Fil-A might be the longest I’ve ever seen them. 

People need to eat

[mission27]

4 minutes ago, JustAnotherFan said:

Ok, I see your point but as I said above to the other user, the numbers shouldn't be taken as gospel either tho, imo. 

There are still too many people that have not been diagnosed or even know they have it at all until it's too late. Take this bus driver for example who was furious that a women got on his bus and coughed several times without covering her mouth. So he took to social media to go on a rant about the stupidity of people not taking it serious and died a week later to COVID. He didn't even know he had it. 

Also, what constitutes as a peak in this scenario? Because according to numbers the US saw it's highest number of deaths just today (or something like that, I could be confused on that).

IMO, expecting nearly no cases to start happening as early as 30-60 days seems like a best case scenario.  

So first of all I 100% agree with you, we will not be at nearly no cases 30-60 days from now. 

The goal is to get down to a small portion of your population and low stable number of new cases that keeps active case numbers at that small portion of your population and keeps them from growing over time.  In the case of the US, I could see that level being about 10,000 active cases at any given time and 500 new cases a day.  Maybe those numbers are lower due to seasonality.

China is there, South Korea is there, I think Europe gets there in April and the US in May.  Europe will tell us a lot about our timeline though. 

re: peak there are really 3 peaks people talk about:

1. When you report the most new daily cases

2. When you report the most new daily deaths 

3. When your active cases peak 

The first peak happens first then a week or two later the second and third peaks.  In Europe most countries seem to have already peaked in number of new cases although deaths are generally still going up or are flat because there is a bit of a lag.  A few countries like Austria have had flat active case numbers or actually declines in the past handful of days.  I've been calling #3 the 'apex.'

The US has not peaked by any of these measures however most projections show us peaking in the next couple of weeks at least on #1.  Thats a bit misleading because the US numbers are dominated by New York and New York is further along in its outbreak than other areas.  So while New York may peak in daily cases next week and active cases / deaths by mid or late April, some other states probably wont peak in daily cases until late April or May.  The good news is because those states are under lockdown and have relatively flat curves even if they peak later its almost inconceivable IMO that we will have another disaster area like New York. 

UW has built a state by state model that the federal government is apparently using extensively in formulating its response, actually very interesting and informative, if you look at the model for the US and each state the case levels are very low by late May or early June (aka 60 days from now).  I tend to agree with you that I think this model is a tad optimistic however I also dont think we need to be down to essentially 0 cases to lift lockdown.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/

 

[mission27]

8 minutes ago, holt_bruce81 said:

Doesn’t feel like anything is on lockdown. There’s still 1,000 people at the grocery store every time I Drive past it to and from work. And the lines for Chik-Fil-A might be the longest I’ve ever seen them. 

right but people are also going to get food all over Europe and both in Europe and the US the growth is slowing and curves are flattening 

some people will get sick at the supermarket, but not enough to stop this from slowing down, especially if people take the masks thing seriously

[mission27]

4/3/2020 MoL Scores:

"All I know since yesterday is everything has changed - Taylor Swift

Today we introduce a new MoL for the world while Europe continues to crest and the US breaches a key threshold

Tier 1: Outbreak under control, safe to begin relaxing social distancing measures

China: 1.9 (Because MoLs are weighted heavily towards transmission in the active identified cases, I'd expect China to converge closer to where South Korea is at 2-3 over time)

South Korea: 2.2

Tier 2: New case growth is minimal suggesting social distancing is working, likely a few weeks away from breaking into tier 1

Italy: 6.0 (While we haven't broken the 4k barrier yet, this now marks 5 straight days below 5k cases which is a key period of time for the MoLs, Italy will need to break 4k soon to keep the MoL on the decline)

Australia: 6.6 (its actually remarkable how right the MoL and @Shady Slim were about #seasonality and Australian Exceptionalism)

Austria: 6.7 (Austria's active case numbers continue to look flat now over 4 days, potential to leapfrog Italy as the furthest along the curve in the next few days) 

Switzerland: 7.4 

Hong Kong: 7.8 (similar to Australia, MoL is looking prescient here that this is not a true wave 2 and more of a travel related blip, hope they can keep it up!)

Netherlands: 9.9 (single digits!)

Tier 3: Countries in this group that are showing increased MoLs have the potential to go deep into the danger zones, but countries with falling MoLs may only be a couple of days from tier 2 status and may have already peaked in gross # of new cases

Germany: 10.9 (Germany continues to inch down but has somewhat stabilized, in contrast to neighbors Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands) 

Iran: 12.8  (Iran is really trending in the right direction if we believe the numbers)

Ireland: 12.9 (Newcomer inches up the list...)

Belgium: 13.1 (Belgium continues to rocket down the list, good for them)

Spain: 13.3

Portugal: 13.5

Sweden: 13.6 (Sweden climbing too, although still at a reasonable level all things considered)

Global (NEW): 14.1 (going forward we will be publishing a global MoL based on the aggregate results of all the countries we are tracking)

Japan (NEW): 15.4 (but rising over the past few days, will watch for @Malfatron)

Israel: 15.5 (after a few scary days they are headed in the right direction)

France: 15.9 (as the MoL pointed out yesterday the France data continues to be noisy lots of rumors of issues, I wouldn't pay too much attention to their up and down)

Tier 4: Aggressive growth, still likely have not peaked in single day cases, and likely a week or two minimum from peak in deaths (however many of these countries are still slowing down)

USA: 19.6 (we're below 20!  USA USA USA!  But as the MoL mentioned the US is still dominated by New York numbers, which is thankfully slowing, but we'll wait to see how other hot spots develop over the next few days before putting US in Tier 3)

UK: 20.5 (slow and steady progress)

Canada: 21.3 (Canada as well)

Brazil: 24.0 (while Brazil is still inching up, the case numbers have been relatively stable the last few days, there could be testing availability issues so we'll watch this one)

Philippines (NEW): 24.5 (Duterte has some unconventional social distancing policies, guess we'll see if they work)

Turkey: 26.1 (also stabilizing) 

India: 34.2 (India only reported 24 cases today, which is kind of hard to believe, but as the MoL has said its such a small portion of the population so far that's its hard to know how serious this is yet)

The MoL would like to thank everyone for their contributions to this important work

Edited April 4, 2020 by mission27