EuclidIf you come out of a store with virus on your hands, it gets on the door handle of your car. If you sanitize your hands when you are back in your car, you have to sanitize the outside door handle when you get back out at home. Then you carry in several bags of groceries, all of which can have virus. Your clothes can have virus. You bring all of this into your house
I think that a big part of it is the imperative to not touch "portal" portions of your body once your hands have contacted potential sources.
Where I shop they have a fairly elaborate cart "de-con" procedure, setting carts that have recently been scrubbed out for you to grab upon entry...and I strive to have a fairly disciplined routine while shopping.
AND I usually get a dirty look as I stop to sanitize my hands prior to leaving the store, but it seems worth the bother.
I wash my hands, keys, and steering wheel upon re entering my car with 91% alcohol, And wash my hands with soap and water after putting everything away at home.
And I strive to leave everything just purchsed alone in storage at least 24 hours after getting home.
Admittedly not a fail safe routine, but one where the effort I put into it,... "feels" about right.
Convicted OneI think that a big part of it is the imperative to not touch "portal" portions of your body once your hands have contacted potential sources.
This is where the folks who are wearing gloves are driving infection control types crazy. By the end of their trip through the grocery store, their gloves are at least as contaminated as their hands would be, and you can bet they aren't sanitizing them.
Of course some are just shedding the gloves in the parking lot, ignoring any trash containers that may be there. And there is a technique for removing gloves, which I doubt the vast majority understand.
NY's emperor has now mandated masks if you are in a situation where you cannot social distance. Some stores won't let you in without them. Again, the problem is how they're used. I see people pulling them down to rub their face, etc. And you can bet they aren't getting sanitized either.
My mask is in my pocket. It'll stay there until I'm forced to wear it. Seeing people in their own yards or walking alone down the street wearing a mask drives me crazy.
Bear in mind - I've had that mask in my pocket almost since the beginning of this event, because I'm an EMT and might need it on a call.
The kicker on the masks that many are wearing is that they are mostly ineffective against the virus...
On sanitizing cabs - most EMS agencies now have devices for that purpose. Essentially, it's a paint sprayer using a sanitizing solution...
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
EuclidI think I am agreeing with you here, but I am not sure you understood what I meant.
I think I understood with near laser clarity what you meant. Whether you intended to mean what you said you meant is, as usual, something entirely less clear, but that (also as usual) is something of a semantic infinite regress...
I think the belief that distancing and hand sanitizing is protecting us is absurd.
I think it is far from absurd. I think it is a major reason this infection has not in fact progressed to widespread pandemic, and I think it is in large part a reason the death toll has both not accelerated at a higher overall rate and has not reached much higher absolute numbers at this point.
I continue to think that abolishing 'sanitizing' mindfulness, or eliminating the social distancing and shelter-away-from-strangers precautions, now would only re-establish most of the pandemic characteristics, simply now taken relative to the offset for the new 'case zeros' -- of which we could expect there to be many, disseminated still further 'in the vacuum of contact' when exposed or infected people travel completely out of aerosol or fomite contact with prospectively infectable people.
The point about 'feel good' is that measures intended to slow down infection rate or spread but that don't actually have that effect are only 'feel good'. Wearing masks for influenza, where the airborne virus is several orders of magnitude smaller than any filtering can affect, and in fact where presence of filtration can accelerate practical infection in some cases, is a fairly well-established example in another disease. In my opinion, considering the death rate from skilled medical personnel applying largely state-of-the-art intrusive ventilation, most if not all of the current 'bridge ventilator' development is almost hideously misdirected 'feel-good' sentimentality (by Niven's definition of 'sentimentality'). Requiring masks but not requiring social silence is another feel-good mandate.
Likewise thinking that because you see something that is supposed to work means it's producing the 'working' is just the sort of cargo-cult feel-goodism I mentioned. Some percentage of droplet-to-surface transfer is, in fact, likely to be stopped by feel-good fabric masks. Is that a guarantee of safety? Don't be ridiculous. Does every bit help? Yes, but you'll also keep alive much better by actually recognizing where and how the virus affects you than by kinda-sorta showing you do your part by wearing the blue-eagle mask prominently.
But to your other point, how is "feel good" flattening the curve?
It is almost childishly simple to understand, and demonstrate, how even feel-good shelter-in-place, social-distancing, and personal-hygiene measures have 'flattened the curve' for this relatively difficult-to-transmit virus. In fact there are some discussions in this very thread that have fairly effectively shown why this is so.
There were some early observations that the actual death rate from COVID-19 peaked relatively quickly in an 'unrestrained' outbreak; I expect an interesting line of research (and perhaps statistical disproof) coming fairly rapidly out of available data once it becomes clear what the actual rate of recovery-to-asymptomaticity followed by recovery-to-lack-of-perceptible-shed is across a range of population 'cohorts'. On the other hand, I have seen exactly nothing to indicate that the 'pandemic' characteristic of SARS-CoV-2 clones has decreased in any way (e.g. the specificity of viral-coat binding to active sites on ACE2 and subsequent conformance to enhanced induction) and while that remains conserved the infectious characteristics of the virus are precisely as it was in Wuhan. You would ignore this very simple and obvious truth at your tremendous peril were you a policy-maker.
And if that is not what is reducing the infection rate, what is? I don't believe we have the answer to that question.
Well, when you ask questions to which no answer has yet been generated, you can expect to find answers that won't pass the Euclid conclusion test.
The critical timeline for this infection is really one that is separate from the accidents of epidemiology and spread, although far less commented on or even remarked in 'popular' culture. It starts with the Chinese isolation and sequencing of the actual viral genome (we can call this the effective t-zero of the intelligent response) followed by the possibly-heroic decision to publish this sequence freely and openly worldwide. (I believe subsequent sequences have been run, and I have seen no results since then that controvert the accuracy of the original one). You can then follow a number of subtracks, one of which was to isolate the point mutations vs. less-infectious (or human noninfectious) forms of coronavirus -- something the Chinese already had extensive experience in, thanks to FIP -- another of which was to locate key proteins that could serve as binding sites for therapies or engineered antibodies, or fluorescent promoters, or whatever. One effective track followed here -- it may not be the true most 'critical path' but was effectively one in a critical sense -- was the CDC's response after receiving the sequence data to produce an effective viral-presence test: according to Redfield this was done within '9 to 10 days' of initial receipt of the sequence data. One can ignore the subsequent fribbling with inadequate test reagents, failure to fix the rolled-out tests, 63% specificity for intrusive or casual swab methods, etc. as relatively circumstantial ... they certainly don't apply to any acceleration back into pandemic following relaxation of expedient methods.
We don't know the precise timing of some of the engineered responses to the virus (although I suspect there will be some screaming when the accurate story of the 'failed Trump conspiracy to restrict virus deployment to the United States first' actually gets described by neutral historians) although some of the 'milestones' in developing actual (vs. hyped or fake) serological test modalities are now established. I'd like to think there are more valid reasons for delay in developing ready responses to actually treating ARDS instead of heroically trying to palliate the symptoms, as a great deal of that basic science was done, some on a hurry-up emergency basis in more than one way reminiscent of now, as early as 2012 (with a practical and effective therapy described by mid-2017) but... well, I already see the required-ventilator statistics falling through the floor in state after state, and these certainly wouldn't be falling in the absence of effective antiviral treatment protocols if something weren't dramatically reducing the new-cases-in-susceptible-populations rate. (And, as I mentioned in other posts, in chronically-underserved nursing-home populations right along with the general geriatric population).
What is necessary to relax relatively widespread shelter-in-place and social distancing as pervasive 'default' practices is a combination of 'known' things: better quick and unintrusive serological or amplified-RNA testing that is either 'free' or easily compensated for; better multifactor identification of any developing 'outbreaks' or 'clusters' (including those in communities demonstrated at higher risk for COVID-19 outbreaks including many Hasidim, Latino communities in non-sanctuary regions terrified of enhanced INS scrutiny, and chronically 'underserved' or 'poverty-stricken' groups of the usual kinds that have poor access to things like pervasive cheap wireless broadband for Internet-connected thermometry) with prompt informed-response protocols and flying medical teams established and in reserve to contain any identified outbreak early; effective palliative therapy as needed to defuse any evolved viral symptom -- or dangerous recognized co-morbidity -- for the period necessary while a patient forms or is given an effective 'humoral immune' response to the specific virus. (That somewhere between 80% and 98% of Americans appear to be developing just this response, just as they have for the misery of common colds for many generations, is something that should not have escaped your notice...)
Ultimately the point that was made very quickly after the characteristics in Wutan were noted ... and that has been made, sometimes in only partial contexts afterward, here ... is that 'everyone will have to acquire immunity' before this is over. If we take that in conjunction with common knowledge about the 'incurable' nature of common colds, you get the picture that 'everyone will have to get COVID-19 sooner or later' (it's just that everyone doesn't always get really, really sick of it, or die with ARDS, you see...) and that the potential for acceleration into pandemic from any given cluster of infection hence remains until 'everyone has had the COVID-19'. (Or, of course, gotten the magic vaccine that will be rolled out after November 5th, or one of the vaunted artificial-antibody treatments that have been less than a month away for months now, with months and months still in the pipeline ... not that I disagree with carefully-considered testing, mind you.)
Meanwhile -- we could dance around the semantics of 'life' nearly as much as we can dance around the characteristics of 'when is human life protectable'. The one thing we can be certain of, with viruses, is that they don't have the consciousness necessary for any kind of 'free will' that would philosophically allow us to consider their attack consciously vicious or evil, or even particularly 'aware' that their convenient evolved reproductive host might happen to be alive and consider its own reproduction more paramount. Reflection on perceived 'over-generation' is a level of sophistication even above that ... and one that no longer benefits from many of the demonstrably-efficacious principles of natural selection.
Interestingly enough, something that is kinda-sorta like that (especially of value for any of you that are intelligent-design proponents) is the variable or shifting-antigen characteristic that many viral types display. It is relatively likely that a lethal antigenic shift in and of itself is likely either to further mutate out of high lethality (it pays to understand protein folding and interactions to see how this occurs, by the way) or to prove so prompt-lethal that it impedes its own spread and further transmission. So, to an extent, long-term viral 'selection' depends dramatically on very controlled lethality while continuing to value high effective multiplicity and spread...
tree68 zugmann Isn't the the point? So the medical system isn't completely overloaded? It is, but many people seem to believe it means that they won't catch it themselves at all... On the other hand, wouldn't you prefer to have your business completely shut down for a couple of weeks, then be back running full force after that, as opposed to limping along with few customers, etc for months more? Many small businesses here are hurting - dairy farmers are dumping milk, with some afraid they will go under. Some government "leaders" are so taken with their current ability to rule by fiat that they really don't want to give up that control. Banning golf - the original social distancing game. Setting curfews, so you can't take a walk around the block by yourself after 9PM. Closing parks and beaches. It's like they're testing us to see how much we'll take before we push back. A whole bunch of folks in Michigan did push back.
zugmann Isn't the the point? So the medical system isn't completely overloaded?
It is, but many people seem to believe it means that they won't catch it themselves at all...
On the other hand, wouldn't you prefer to have your business completely shut down for a couple of weeks, then be back running full force after that, as opposed to limping along with few customers, etc for months more?
Many small businesses here are hurting - dairy farmers are dumping milk, with some afraid they will go under.
Some government "leaders" are so taken with their current ability to rule by fiat that they really don't want to give up that control. Banning golf - the original social distancing game. Setting curfews, so you can't take a walk around the block by yourself after 9PM. Closing parks and beaches. It's like they're testing us to see how much we'll take before we push back. A whole bunch of folks in Michigan did push back.
Yes, and our illustrious commander-in-chief promptly threw gasoline on the fire, as is his wont.
Do you really think governors are taking these measures--which are bound to piss their constituents off--as nothing but a power trip? True leadership is the willingness to speak the truth and do what you think is the right thing, whether it's popular or not. Cowardice is putting out a set of guidelines one day, and then encouraging people to rebel against them the next.
https://www.businessinsider.com/testing-reveals-most-aircraft0-carrier-sailors-coronavirus-had-no-symptoms-2020-4
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
OvermodMeanwhile -- we could dance around the semantics of 'life' nearly as much as we can dance around the characteristics of 'when is human life protectable'. The one thing we can be certain of, with viruses, is that they don't have the consciousness necessary for any kind of 'free will'...
Dr. Birx says the virus can stay alive on hard surfaces:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmttyxPksHU
When you say we are dancing around the semantics of "life", but the virus does not have consciousness or free will, what exactly to you mean?
If you think it is alive but without consciousness, how do you know it does not have consciousness?
"Pop Rocks" are not alive, but when you add water....
Pretty much the same thing with a virus.
BaltACDhttps://www.businessinsider.com/testing-reveals-most-aircraft0-carrier-sailors-coronavirus-had-no-symptoms-2020-4
Well, since we're going to talk about this virus instead of trains....
That is somewhat similar to this writing in the Wall Street Journal. (Paywall.)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-data-suggest-the-coronavirus-isnt-as-deadly-as-we-thought-11587155298?mod=trending_now_pos2
In Balt's linked article there are 660 cases from the ship. "Over 350" were asymptomatic. Apparently, their bodies just dealt quite well with the virus. "More than half a dozen" have been hospitalized. That's like 1%. One sailor sadly died and one other is in an ICU. Admitidly, the sailors are a younger population who are eating healthy meals (at least while on the ship). Presumably, they're in good physical shape.
I'm 69 so I need to watch it. I don't want to minimize this. If it gets in to a nursing home it seems to be able to turn the place into a death chamber. But the mortality caused by this virus in the general population may have been greatly exaggerated.
The realtiy of the situation is that we don't know all that we think we know and we also don't know everything that we don't know.
Learning takes time and controls as to what is being observed so that we can actually know something - for fact. The learning also applies to railroads.
BaltACDThe reality of the situation is that we don't know all that we think we know and we also don't know everything that we don't know.
But it is equally a reality of the situation that we do know all that we really need to know, to start addressing the medical side of the situation; we also don't know everything we can't know (which no amount of delayed studies will ultimately give us).
Learning takes time and controls as to what is being observed so that we can actually know something - for fact.
Unfortunately, there are also cases where learning is ignored, or other theories are substituted for a while, instead of conducting learning in, say, a properly scientific way that builds on facts and knowledge to build further fact and knowledge reproduceably. That too can be seen as applying to railroads, in various flavors of PSR for example.
The problem is that when people start dying, some of the learning has to be accelerated -- and it becomes increasingly clear that quite a bit of learning that SHOULD have been conducted on effective pandemic response has, for various reasons, not been done or even effectively planned for. In this particular case, there was quite enough collective wisdom to handle many of the difficulties, including the expedient production and logistics of key materials and technology -- and the ball has been fumbled at a remarkable number of levels, by a fairly remarkable number of people who easily could or should have known better. That, too, has been a learning process that took time and involved at least some implicit controls on what was observed before acting; it is one of my great hopes that the more important of the resulting lessons are now clear enough to guide policy, no matter how 'expensive' parts of that policy may seem in 'peacetime' (or after a self-crippling poorly-evaluated economic shutdown), going forward.
tree68 MidlandMike It should be obvious to anyone whose has seen the evening news from New York City. New York City. Once you get north of Westchester County, it's a whole different world. Outside of the metro areas of Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo, you have entire counties with well under 100 total confirmed cases - and few of them are in the hospital. They are all isolating at home. My county has exactly two people in the hospital. And only 42 confirmed cases since the whole shebang started. The media rarely reports the thousands of confirmed cases that have recovered, either. I think we've had either two or four deaths in a four county area. Ninety percent of the cases in New York state are in the NYC metro area. With the advent of antibody testing and more universal virus testing, the death rate will continue to drop. At one point, millions were going to die. Then it was hundreds of thousands. Now it's tens of thousands. Not insignificant, but no where near what the original doomsayers were predicting.
MidlandMike It should be obvious to anyone whose has seen the evening news from New York
City. New York City. Once you get north of Westchester County, it's a whole different world. Outside of the metro areas of Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo, you have entire counties with well under 100 total confirmed cases - and few of them are in the hospital. They are all isolating at home. My county has exactly two people in the hospital. And only 42 confirmed cases since the whole shebang started. The media rarely reports the thousands of confirmed cases that have recovered, either.
I think we've had either two or four deaths in a four county area.
Ninety percent of the cases in New York state are in the NYC metro area.
With the advent of antibody testing and more universal virus testing, the death rate will continue to drop. At one point, millions were going to die. Then it was hundreds of thousands. Now it's tens of thousands. Not insignificant, but no where near what the original doomsayers were predicting.
Sure, NY City is a hub of international travel and commerce, and is densely populated, which should explain its early and quick spread. Didn't your govenor put in place those mitigation rules you are objecting to, before the virus had a chance to take hold in upstate NY? What do you think caused the reduction in infection rate?
Maybe you will have a chance to compare. On the news tonight they showed that Sweden was going to try to see what will happen without social distancing as the pandemic starts to roll over them. They are setting up field hospitals just incase things go bad. Their infection rate is increasing at 5 and 10 times the rate as their two neighboring countries on either side.
azrail We fought wars and ran businesses while waves of polio and measles hit the country. How did we survive?
We fought wars and ran businesses while waves of polio and measles hit the country. How did we survive?
Before vaccines, the paralysis rate for polio was .5%, and the death rate was below .05%. The measles death rate was 1 in 10,000.
MidlandMike What do you think caused the reduction in infection rate?
The fact that we are already essentially socially distanced.
It's fifty yards from my house to the other occupied houses in my neighborhood (the house next door is empty, and still 25 yards away). Even the local bar (currently closed) only has about a dozen regular patrons. I live in a hamlet of about 300 people. The surrounding area is farmland.
The first two confirmed cases in the county actually came in from downstate.
We don't have mass transit, except in the nearby city of 25,000, and that isn't usually packed.
Our fire department chicken barbeque was one of the last events of it's kind in the area before the "pause." We sold 475 halves/meals to some 200 people in about an hour and a half. We only do take-out now anyhow, so no change there. I know of no COVID fallout from the event.
tree68 "Pop Rocks" are not alive, but when you add water.... Pretty much the same thing with a virus.
Just because the Pop Rocks and the virus perform similar activity, it does not necessarily follow that because the Pop Rocks are not alive, the virus must not be alive. I think it is quite possible that the virus is alive and does have a sense of purpose and intent. But I don't think it can be proven whether or not virus is alive. For one thing, you must have a defintion of life, and not everyone will agree on that definition.
tree68Our fire department chicken barbeque was one of the last events of it's kind in the area before the "pause." We sold 475 halves/meals to some 200 people in about an hour and a half. We only do take-out now anyhow, so no change there. I know of no COVID fallout from the event.
What do you think would happen if the BBQ were held now, and a few random tourist attended?
Just a thought, but they have this huge fund set aside to pay the $600/week federal unemployment payments.
If they somehow managed to hustle everyone back to work, whose pocket would the funds remaining undistributed fall into? Could that be twisted into some sort of unsupervised pork?
MidlandMike Maybe you will have a chance to compare. On the news tonight they showed that Sweden was going to try to see what will happen without social distancing as the pandemic starts to roll over them. They are setting up field hospitals just incase things go bad. Their infection rate is increasing at 5 and 10 times the rate as their two neighboring countries on either side.
In terms of death per capita, Sweden is a bit worse than Wash DC and better than Massachusetts. Reports indicate that about half of the deaths are at nursing homes, which unfortunately is inline with the experience with most other countries.
In the US, Wyoming is showing the lowest per capita death rate and the lowest death rate per confirmed case with 2 deaths out of 400+ confirmed cases. Makes me wonder if Wyoming has been taking extra care to protect the elderly or that the elderly may be in better shape.
Texas has the best record of the high population states, though California outside of LA and Santa Clara counties isn't much worse. One thing they did do was require quarantine of anyone coming from the NYC or New Orleans area. The death rate versus confirmed case ratio is also lower than the other large states.
MidlandMikeWhat do you think would happen if the BBQ were held now, and a few random tourist attended?
There are chicken barbeques going on - generally similar to ours, some drive-through. No 'eat-in' offered, as with ours. As long as people maintain social distancing, it doesn't really matter.
So, the answer to your question is nothing that wouldn't happen if you went to the grocery store...
tree68 MidlandMike What do you think caused the reduction in infection rate? The fact that we are already essentially socially distanced. It's fifty yards from my house to the other occupied houses in my neighborhood (the house next door is empty, and still 25 yards away). Even the local bar (currently closed) only has about a dozen regular patrons. I live in a hamlet of about 300 people. The surrounding area is farmland. The first two confirmed cases in the county actually came in from downstate. We don't have mass transit, except in the nearby city of 25,000, and that isn't usually packed. Our fire department chicken barbeque was one of the last events of it's kind in the area before the "pause." We sold 475 halves/meals to some 200 people in about an hour and a half. We only do take-out now anyhow, so no change there. I know of no COVID fallout from the event.
So what do you think is going to happen if you reopen upstate NY? Might it be possible that people from the city will flee upstate so they can go out to restaurants, etc? What do you think that will do to your infection statistics?
PsychotSo what do you think is going to happen if you reopen upstate NY? Might it be possible that people from the city will flee upstate so they can go out to restaurants, etc? What do you think that will do to your infection statistics?
With New Yorker's - you never know!
Trust me - we've already had to deal with it. I live in an area with a lot of "summer homes." Local officials have already attempted to make it known that if you show up from outside the area, you need to be able to self-quarantine for fourteen days, just like anyone else.
So far, the impact appears to be minimal. Since the marinas were closed, those folks who wanted to open up their cottages and get their boats in the water from storage were not able to do so. I suspect that many of the local contractors who open cottages and summer homes for their owners have also expressed the desire for those folks to simply stay home.
Never mind the City - a fair number of seasonal home owners in this area are from other metro areas, especially Syracuse and Rochester. I think those folks are a little more sensitive to the need to keep this thing under some semblance of control. Those metro areas are being hit, but not to the extent of the City.
Right now over-the-road servce levels can be had at near rail prices.. That should tell you how covid19 will affect rail.. at least for commodities that are transferrable to road.
Paul_D_North_Jr "One death is a tragedy, and a million is a statistic." - Iosef Vissarionovich Stalin, as quoted by President Jack Ryan on page 750 of Executive Orders (Tom Clancy, 1996). The context there was an Ebola epidemic in the U.S. [only]. Worth reading: " . . . personal interactions are minimized, and that's how you stop one of these things." (same page, but by an infectious disesases expert) Two reasonably short articles with a common author - neither behind a 'paywall' as far as I can tell - from almost 3 weeks ago advocating group testing to return to normal quickly. What they don't address is where those tests are going to come from. One of the authors of the first - likely the son of the other author - has some decent credentials. https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/490300-how-to-get-the-economy-safely-back-to-work-in-just-2-weeks#bottom-story-socials A quote: "If after a month the infection and death rates are down, which they surely will be, and we release everyone back into the wild, the rates will go right back up." https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2020/03/29/group-testing-is-our-secret-weapon-against-coronavirus/#5449911936a6 I'll leave it to someone else to comment on some of the implications of these articles. One that struck me is it would require essentially mandatory testing by the government to get some of our freedom of movement back. Difficult tradeoffs. - PDN.
"One death is a tragedy, and a million is a statistic." - Iosef Vissarionovich Stalin, as quoted by President Jack Ryan on page 750 of Executive Orders (Tom Clancy, 1996). The context there was an Ebola epidemic in the U.S. [only]. Worth reading: " . . . personal interactions are minimized, and that's how you stop one of these things." (same page, but by an infectious disesases expert)
Two reasonably short articles with a common author - neither behind a 'paywall' as far as I can tell - from almost 3 weeks ago advocating group testing to return to normal quickly. What they don't address is where those tests are going to come from. One of the authors of the first - likely the son of the other author - has some decent credentials.
https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/490300-how-to-get-the-economy-safely-back-to-work-in-just-2-weeks#bottom-story-socials A quote: "If after a month the infection and death rates are down, which they surely will be, and we release everyone back into the wild, the rates will go right back up."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2020/03/29/group-testing-is-our-secret-weapon-against-coronavirus/#5449911936a6
I'll leave it to someone else to comment on some of the implications of these articles. One that struck me is it would require essentially mandatory testing by the government to get some of our freedom of movement back. Difficult tradeoffs.
- PDN.
GA, starting this weekend, is going to run a dangerous experiment on 10 million people. Make it 9,999,999 people. I'm not participating.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
oltmanndGA, starting this weekend, is going to run a dangerous experiment on 10 million people. Make it 9,999,999 people. I'm not participating.
A point made elsewhere. It's a free country - you're free not to participate in the reopening.
Research, formal and accidental, is starting to show that thousands, even millions, of people already have this virus in their systems, with no ill effects. It remains to be seen if those folks are infectious or not.
You may wonder what I mean by "accidental" research. That would be cases such as the Boston homeless shelter and the USS Theodore Roosevelt where testing was done to discover the extent of the infection and it was found that many "infected" people were asymptomatic, indicating that there's a bigger picture here. Not everyone who tests positive is guaranteed to get sick.
The Stamford study showed that potentially 50 to 80 times as many people have the virus in their systems as previously thought.
tree68Research, formal and accidental, is starting to show that thousands, even millions, of people already have this virus in their systems, with no ill effects. It remains to be seen if those folks are infectious or not.
CDC was making some interesting commentary, as a kind of 'retrospective lite study', on this issue just before they stopped tracking global stats in the second week in March.
The problem is that it's fundamentally wrong to find out whether they're infectious or not by throwing everyone in the pond to see who now can swim.
At least until they get the finger out and start actively pre-treating people at risk for ARDS, or older cohorts at risk with co-morbidities or 'aggravating factors'. And y'all will note how incredibly backward most of the 'official' response has been on this, fully to date.
I had someone give me a half-hour analogy of statistics day before yesterday, without once mentioning that infection rates for SARS-CoV-2 are only second-order correlated with ARDS progression. I think this is related to why no one accurately tries to track the 'recovered' but obsess instead over trying to keep the absolute infection rate utterly minimized even though that's a near-entirely forced-orbit solution.
Now, one thing that's an option for the would-be fascisti is retaining mandatory SIP/SD for 'cohorts at risk' -- in other words, the elderly or the over-50s are still encouraged (or compelled depending on your politics) to stay in known surroundings, use full social distancing (now with better control, such as absence of talking and more frequent periodic hand and face sanitizing) etc., while those serologically or otherwise tested positive then receive follow-on testing from nasal/lung viral RNA sequence until they are reasonably 'shed-free'.
Alas, what I'm expecting is the modern equivalent of 'who gets the ticket when a jaywalker steps in front of a car in California' -- the old folks will be mandatorily isolated, like it or not, and all the proven infected will have to wear the yellow 12-pointed virus star and keep their distance --Unclean! Unclean! -- until the government gives them their official immunity clearance papers and internal pass.
And probably go after their guns a la Katrina, and start using all that firepower salted away from the FEMA procurements, and otherwise Showing How The Government Is Resolving This Crisis... no, wait, it's still too early for that. At least, I hope it is.
Rio Grande Valley, CFI,CFII
PJS1, your last post got lost in the quote-tag formatting. Could you please repeat the text of your reply in its own window so I'm sure what you said?
(Edit: I see you have. Thanks!)
Overmod PJS1, your last post got lost in the quote-tag formatting. Could you please repeat the text of your reply in its own window so I'm sure what you said?
Done. I got a message that my reply was a duplicate; it wasn't.
Convicted One Euclid said: " Then you carry in several bags of groceries, all of which can have virus. " To which I replied: " I strive to leave everything just purchsed alone in storage at least 24 hours after getting home".
Euclid said: " Then you carry in several bags of groceries, all of which can have virus. "
To which I replied: " I strive to leave everything just purchsed alone in storage at least 24 hours after getting home".
I find it reassuring to see the FDA jumping on my bandwagon:
From CNN
Convicted One Convicted One Euclid said: " Then you carry in several bags of groceries, all of which can have virus. " To which I replied: " I strive to leave everything just purchsed alone in storage at least 24 hours after getting home". I find it reassuring to see the FDA jumping on my bandwagon: "One reasonable and easy-to-implement precaution for groceries that don't need refrigeration is simply to let them sit for a day or more before unpacking them," he said. "This will vastly reduce the level of any contamination that is present." From CNN
Frozen foods get a little soggy!
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