Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Xenos]

27 minutes ago, Mega Ron said:

I'm on day 17 since I started showing symptoms, and I'm more or less clear from it now.

Twice during those 17 days I had caffeine, and it was like I angered the virus. I had severe stomach cramps and it made the chest pain and headaches even worse.

There were some dark times where it felt that we, as my wife had it too, were close to hospital, but the breathing exercises, and sleeping on our fronts, advised by a London Dr and nurse did the trick.

I know it is said that some people might get a mild version, but what I had was ******* awful. Be careful people.

Glad to hear you're doing better.

[pwny]

1 minute ago, JaguarCrazy2832 said:

Stupid question what is that? Like they just leave it on the front porch, dont ring the bell and leave?

Yes. 

[JaguarCrazy2832]

21 minutes ago, Xenos said:

@pwny posted some great articles and videos about this earlier in the thread. But in essence, you should be fine as long you take the necessary precautions. I'm doing the same thing to help out local restaurants. And the risk is greater for those who bring you food than the other around. He can post the full article on it so you can make your own decisions about what is best for you and your family.

Are you still having a possibly infected person making your food though? Like even with the contactless delivery system?

[pwny]

Just now, JaguarCrazy2832 said:

Are you still having a possibly infected person making your food though? Like even with the contactless delivery system?

Yes. But even if someone with the virus sneezed directly on a piece of lettuce and that lettuce is never heated or washed, unless that lettuce ends up in your eyes or lungs, you won’t catch it. 

[mission27]

26 minutes ago, diehardlionfan said:

There’s a few more variables though. Everyone is talking about the elderly.

Do you know how many people aged 20-40 have suffered fibrosis because of the disease? How many that have recovered in that age group are now having mobility issues or require oxygen?

China published some early stats but they’ve stopped sharing a bunch of their data publicly about autopsy results and permanent damage.

More than 25 million Americans have asthma including 8.4% of children and 7.7% of adults.

Over 10% of Americans have diabetes. Over 24 million have cardio vascular disease. 

Statistics about deaths in the U.S. are also low. Far to many people died without being tested in the early days. Many states are also not providing breakdowns of the stats like age, underlying conditions etc. The system is under far to much stress in areas to provide any of the follow up data required. Anywhere hit hard by the virus is either way behind on autopsies or simply not doing them and that provides important data.

i know you guys are spit balling but I think it’s very premature to guess what people may or may not accept with conviction. There’s just way to many variables and information gaps.

 

 

Look mission is among the 25m Americans with asthma and has many loved one in other more at risk populations.  I get it.  But those same underlying conditions absolutely exist in populations in Germany, Italy, NYS, and Diamond Princess where we've done more widespread testing and that evidence still gets you to a CFR below 0.5%. 

It seems like some people look at a CFR of say 0.3% and think "sure that's the CFR for a healthy person but for the old and sick its much higher" which is wrong.  For healthy people and young people the CFR is actually orders of magnitude lower because almost none of the numerator is in this population and for the most sick and old its clearly higher.  The CFR is an average and the average person is not a 25 year old in perfect health.  The average person is actually middle aged and has pre-existing conditions.  Its going to be different for everyone, but outside of the very old or very sick the risk is clearly pretty low, including for middle aged people with some risk factors. 

One way to look at it, the median age in Germany is 45.  The majority of 45 year olds almost certainly have at least one risk factor (diabetes, heart disease, obesity, asthma, cancer, smoking, whatever).  So if the CFR in Germany is 0.3% theoretically then the CFR for a 45 year old with a risk factor is probably also in that ballpark (or more likely lower because of the non-linear skew we see towards the elderly) 

To look at it a different way, WHO calculated China's CFR at 2.3%.  If we say the CFR accounting for unreported cases is more like 1/5th of that or around 0.5%, which IMO is still an overstatement, then simplistically you could assume the CFR for each age group is also one fifth of their reported CFR.  Btw I think thats actually understating the CFR for old people and overstating it for anyone under 70, since relatively more of the unreported cases were likely in that younger age range.  But its conservative in this context.  That would get you to the following CFRs:

0-9: 0.00%

10-20: 0.04%

20-49: 0.06%

50-59: 0.26%

60-69: 0.72%

70-79: 1.60%

80+: 2.96%

If we say only 1/10 cases are known, which tbh is probably closer to the truth, then all those numbers get cut in half again and accounting for the above skew of reported cases to old people the 20-49 number is probably even lower.  It wouldn't surprise me if the true CFR of this disease for 20-49 year olds was 0.01% or 0.02%.  That's the vast majority of our working age population.  Is it really reasonable to ask all of these people to stay home for 12-18 months and sacrifice their happiness and wellbeing and economic future indefinitely?  To me that seems like way too extreme of an approach here.  A better approach would be to let younger people get back to work in the next 1-2 months, put in place more traditional public health response as best we can like testing contact tracing and asking people to wear masks in crowded spaces, and continue to provide support to the most at risk folks in the 70+ or 80+ range to the extent those people choose (and it should be a choice) to continue isolating. 

[pwny]

21 minutes ago, pwny said:

22 minutes ago, JaguarCrazy2832 said:

Are you still having a possibly infected person making your food though? Like even with the contactless delivery system?

Yes. But even if someone with the virus sneezed directly on a piece of lettuce and that lettuce is never heated or washed, unless that lettuce ends up in your eyes or lungs, you won’t catch it. 

To further expand, for all those who haven’t followed along: food just isn’t a transmission vehicle.

We have done a ton of research on SARS and MERS, and done a ton of backtracking to see where cases come from and have never seen a case that can be tied to food transmission. We also know that there’s nothing special about this virus that could offer the ability for it to be different from SARS or MERS in that respect. And due to the structure of food and other biological material, we also know that it would take a significant difference in the structure of the virus for it to be viably transmitted through food.

In addition, because of the lipid exterior of the virus, washing with simple soaps kills the virus with no issue.

There’s two main ways of transmission; breathing in the aspirations of a person with the virus, or touching a surface and then touching your face. The contactless delivery removes the possibility of the first method, while the moving of foods to clean dishes, disposing of all delivered materials and then thoroughly washing of hands without contacting your face removes the possibility of the second means.

Edited April 11, 2020 by pwny

[naptownskinsfan]

So our tradition for Christmas and Easter dates back almost 20 years, when my stepfather's employer at the time would give everyone a honey-baked ham as a bonus.  We've always had the ham, and decided since the store was opened today, we would go get one.  Of all of the places I visited/drove by today, they probably had the best social distancing efforts of them all.  Only 7-8 people in the store at one time, and they siloed their positions in the store to minimize contact.  The line was outside, and everyone stayed far enough apart that there was no issue.  

Contrast that with the Giant we stopped at, where it was packed and everyone was jammed at the door sanitizing their carts and ignoring the one-way dividers.  Just for fun, we drove past some of the other supermarkets in the area (Safeway, Weis and a local chain) as well as a Sams, and it was clear as day that everyone was experiencing holiday shopping volumes.  

We're going to have another spike coming in two weeks here in Maryland, I have zero doubts about that.  

[MacReady]

I want to learn:

Why is it touching your face that is the issue?  Why isn't it just as dangerous to touch something with your hands and then not touch your face?

I know it's true; I'm not doubting it, I just want to know why. 

 

[naptownskinsfan]

19 minutes ago, pwny said:

To further expand, for all those who haven’t followed along: food just isn’t a transmission vehicle.

We have done a ton of research on SARS and MERS, and done a ton of backtracking to see where cases come from and have never seen a case that can be tied to food transmission. We also know that there’s nothing special about this virus that could offer the ability for it to be different from SARS or MERS in that respect. And due to the structure of food and other biological material, we also know that it would take a significant difference in the structure of the virus for it to be viably transmitted through food.

In addition, because of the lipid exterior of the virus, washing with simple soaps kills the virus with no issue.

There’s two main ways of transmission; breathing in the aspirations of a person with the virus, or touching a surface and then touching your face. The contactless delivery removes the possibility of the first method, while the moving of foods to clean dishes, disposing of all delivered materials and then thoroughly washing of hands without contacting your face removes the possibility of the second means.

All great points.  As someone in the food industry, I would recommend that anyone taking food to go is making sure they are changing out the containers as soon as they get the food and throw the delivery ones out and immediately wash your hands.  For fast food, remove your food from the bags and throw the bags out, put your fries or other items onto the plate and throw the fry box out, don't eat out of those containers (or as I've seen countless times, people putting their sandwich on top of the bag it comes in.). 

My concern right now is that many places are mandating gloves to be used by service employees (not just back of house/kitchen) and I vehemently disagree with that.  We were also implementing masks before I took a LOA from my work, and the masks were black.  Too many team members had them dirty from putting them on.  So I wouldn't count on your local food places promoting proper mask/glove use either, and many are doing it solely to satisfy customer complaints. 

So everyone needs to make sure they are taking precautions when getting their food and groceries home right now and dealing with the containers/packaging. 

[squire12]

5 minutes ago, naptownskinsfan said:

So our tradition for Christmas and Easter dates back almost 20 years, when my stepfather's employer at the time would give everyone a honey-baked ham as a bonus.  We've always had the ham, and decided since the store was opened today, we would go get one.  Of all of the places I visited/drove by today, they probably had the best social distancing efforts of them all.  Only 7-8 people in the store at one time, and they siloed their positions in the store to minimize contact.  The line was outside, and everyone stayed far enough apart that there was no issue.  

Contrast that with the Giant we stopped at, where it was packed and everyone was jammed at the door sanitizing their carts and ignoring the one-way dividers.  Just for fun, we drove past some of the other supermarkets in the area (Safeway, Weis and a local chain) as well as a Sams, and it was clear as day that everyone was experiencing holiday shopping volumes.  

We're going to have another spike coming in two weeks here in Maryland, I have zero doubts about that.  

that is my fear as well.   family, church gatherings will lead to a bit of a bump in the 10-14 days from now.  

[mission27]

1 minute ago, Outpost31 said:

I want to learn:

Why is it touching your face that is the issue?  Why isn't it just as dangerous to touch something with your hands and then not touch your face?

I know it's true; I'm not doubting it, I just want to know why. 

 

Because the virus doesn't enter your body through your skin (like the skin on your fingers) it enters your body through mouth nose and potentially eyes

[candyman93]

Liked reading this

 

https://forge.medium.com/prepare-for-the-ultimate-gaslighting-6a8ce3f0a0e0

[naptownskinsfan]

Just now, Outpost31 said:

I want to learn:

Why is it touching your face that is the issue?  Why isn't it just as dangerous to touch something with your hands and then not touch your face?

I know it's true; I'm not doubting it, I just want to know why. 

 

The potential for you to breathe in air droplets, the mucus membrane in your eyes, etc

[JaguarCrazy2832]

28 minutes ago, pwny said:

To further expand, for all those who haven’t followed along: food just isn’t a transmission vehicle.

We have done a ton of research on SARS and MERS, and done a ton of backtracking to see where cases come from and have never seen a case that can be tied to food transmission. We also know that there’s nothing special about this virus that could offer the ability for it to be different from SARS or MERS in that respect. And due to the structure of food and other biological material, we also know that it would take a significant difference in the structure of the virus for it to be viably transmitted through food.

In addition, because of the lipid exterior of the virus, washing with simple soaps kills the virus with no issue.

There’s two main ways of transmission; breathing in the aspirations of a person with the virus, or touching a surface and then touching your face. The contactless delivery removes the possibility of the first method, while the moving of foods to clean dishes, disposing of all delivered materials and then thoroughly washing of hands without contacting your face removes the possibility of the second means.

I appreciate all the help Pwny and guys. 

[squire12]

3 minutes ago, Outpost31 said:

I want to learn:

Why is it touching your face that is the issue?  Why isn't it just as dangerous to touch something with your hands and then not touch your face?

I know it's true; I'm not doubting it, I just want to know why. 

 

 

Just now, mission27 said:

Because the virus doesn't enter your body through your skin (like the skin on your fingers) it enters your body through mouth nose and potentially eyes

access points for the virus into your body is the mucus membranes.   Nose, mouth (respiration vs ingestion) and eyes.  "eating" the virus is a very unlikely way to get infected as the stomach environment is not conducive to the virus surviving.   It would still have to be absorbed somewhere along the digestive tract which is unlikely