2 cents: Looking to governors over the POTUS sounds more attractive. Seeing Cuomo (NY), MD, and TX governors pushing press. Other than that, warnings from state institutions to 'be wary' are all I'm seeing. Framing Nola as a 'fallen' since Katrina is an apt analogy. Exercise, eat and sleep well, hydrate, reduce stress levels?As individuals that means social distancing. As individuals that means doing what we can to stay healthy and prepare for a storm.
I'm going to the UK in two weeks with my wife, brother, and his wife. We will be in London for several days, seeing the sights and going to museums. Then traveling to Bath to see a rugby game with 60,000 other people. Then driving cross country to York and Edinburgh and up to Inverness, stopping along the way to see the sights and museums and distilleries and meet new people and experience new foods and drinks and entertainments. And then flying back to the US. We're toast, aren't we?
I’m meeting a Japanese colleague in 30 minutes, should I elbow bump?
He went for the handshake, which I didn't deny. Maybe you kid, but I could actually see him appreciating a subtle bow. Ugh, I'm a sociopath.
Looks like I'll be stockpiling some food and essentials for a month. Thankfully my job allows me to telecommute full time if I have too. Silver lining in delaying my plans to look for a place near the city / suburbs; being in the country less chance of spread I suppose.
How the hell am I supposed to feel right now. You, mk, and lil have all posted very similar reading stories from three separate sources. Then I go to something like the CDC that mentions "high-risk" and has guidance for business, travel, etc. as if they're already prepping for a post-containment world. I mean. I work in Food Safety. Should I be bringing this up when we talk about food defense and illness screening, because I sure as hell am starting to feel that way.
Look at it like a particularly nasty flu season. It's at least twice as infectious as the flu, and about a hundred times as deadly. Flu infects about 10% of the population of the US every year - figure somewhere between 20% and 50% of the population of the US will become sick with COVID-19. It kills through pneumonia. 57,000 Americans died from flu in 2018, or about as many Americans died in Vietnam. Flu runs about 20 per 100k mortality while COVID-19 looks to be in the 2% range - we're probably looking at between 1.3 and 3.3 million deaths in the US. Spanish Flu killed about 700,000 people in the US when our population was 106 million. This is no joke.
Let us hope that the mortality rate is much lower, due to a chronic underreporting of mild cases. Let us hope that the mortality rate is NOT much higher, due to chronic suppression of unfavorable statistics by the Chinese government. No worries, I trust my own government about as much. "Caronavirus" happened on @realDonaldTrump hours ago.
The former Obama CDC guy says the death rate is probably grossly overstated because he doesn't see how they're testing even a reasonable percentage of cases. In Wuhan, China, the reported proportion of diagnosed patients who die is now 3%. That's a substantial over-estimate; many patients weren't tested, many infected people don't have symptoms and hospitals were overwhelmed. The proportion could be as low as less than 1 in 1,000 -- 30 times lower -- and is unlikely to be more than 1 in 100. The actual rate makes a huge difference, not only to patients but also to decisions about interventions.
Where did you source these facts about COVID-19 from? (Being twice as infectious as the flu, about a hundred times as deadly)
If you look up "COVID-19 R0" you'll get a number between 2 and 2.8 (although LANL calculated 4.7-6.6 based on cell-phone data). If you look up "influenza R0" you'll get a number between 1 and 1.3. If you look up "influenza mortality rate" you'll get about 20 per 100k or about 0.02%. If you look up "COVID-19 mortality rate" you'll get around 2%. That was a week ago, though - my read of the tea leaves is that COVID-19 is more transmissive than 2.2 but substantially less lethal than 2%. However, I'm a guy on the internet with a theory, not an epidemiologist. Nonetheless, we're still probably looking at a particularly nasty flu season.
Thanks, kleinbl00! You're the man as always... admittedly I was telling my father what you had posted in the earlier post 6 days ago, and wanted to provide sources if he asked. If you had to wager a "guesstimate" of the total # dead at the end of this from COVID-19, where would you land?
I would start by pointing out that last year the flu caused a million hospitalizations and 61,000 deaths. I think any figures we get are going to be simultaneously overrepresented (the New York Times doesn't make your phone buzz every time someone dies of the flu) and undercounted (if the asymptomatic rate for COVID-19 is really 50% or higher, than it's going to be a lot more prevalent than we're expecting). Presume, though, that COVID-19 has a morbidity rate of "the flu" or 0.02%. Presume 70% of the world is going to get it. That's still a million dead.
I've been thinking about that all morning, actually. I'm in a position of rare privilege - my wife has prescriptive rights, we're on a first-name basis with a dozen hospital administrators, we know all the local EMS guys, my kid goes to private school and on and on and on. But I also have a medical clinic that cares for pregnant women, babies and small children so we're going to have to figure out some protocols ahead of time so we're not caught flat-footed. No part of our licensure required a pandemic response plan - I suspect that by 2022 or 2024 that will have changed. I'm anticipating a lot of Amazon orders, a lot of grocery deliveries and a lot of time at home with the kid. Thinking about it dispassionately my principle concern is my wife's parents, who are both healthy and hale, and a couple elderly friends who both have kids in the area so they're likely to be fine. My own parents, however, are fucked. Infirm, elderly, rural New Mexico, live alone. They also revel in ignoring my advice, and, as both have degrees in biology (my mother has a Ph.D in microbiology and single-handedly stopped two epidemics back in the '80s) there's very little I can do to help them prepare.
My bad the formatting looked like it was the next article down. Honestly our health care system is at capacity without a crisis we’re totally fucked when one happens. The bill that finally brings Medicare for all will be brought to you by those that died due to this pandemic. As for governments... well if you move fast you might be able to get out of but, where do you go? I assume it’s already loose in the Seattle LA and SF area but it won’t be tagged for a couple more weeks. US has no test kits so we will only know once the cases get severe