wuhan - coronavirus

[Jean in Newcastle]

13 minutes ago, Plum said:

Is there one for grocery store workers? They've been through a battle on multiple fronts. 

I don’t know about clapping, but there are three online shout-outs in my area for grocery store workers, pharmacy employees and delivery drivers. Lots of people joining in to thank them. I have seen posters up thanking them as well. 

[SoCal_Bear]

This is just anecdoctally speaking from CA (San Diego area). Even before the SIP order was announced, there were plenty of social distancing actions being taken prior to this. We were seeing large events, field trips, competitions, etc. being cancelled well before the first SIP orders went into effect - like Bay Area 3/15. The state wide order to avoid large gatherings >200 was on 3/12.  I know within the Asian communities, there was plenty of pull back in unnecessary outside activities well before this because we were paying attention to what was happening in Asia. Enough that it was noticeable by other people, and they started to take notice as well. My thinking is that there were social behavioral changes happening locally already - enough that it may have had a significant difference in CA versus NY outcomes. 

@Arcadia were you seeing similar in the Bay Area? Other CA folks, do you recall what you were seeing? My friends and relatives in the Bay Area were pulling back already prior to the SIP order. My family was essentially SIP since 3/5.

 

Edited April 9, 2020 by calbear

[Pen]

46 minutes ago, square_25 said:

Yeah, I've posted a few things in support of that, I think! I assume you looked. 

 

I did!  And, I hope you don’t mind, I forwarded some of that onward to some people I know who might have access to right people in a 6 or 10 degrees of separation way! 

 

[Pen]

10 minutes ago, Plum said:

Dh has to take a PTO day off a week until this is over starting this week. That goes for all admin and it's corporate-wide. They've managed to keep most of their staff this way so far. But it's only the first week. At least he gets 3 day weekends again. 

 

I am glad. 

I think that would be a good idea for all medical and first responder type people!!!

I think people like postal service carriers are also getting overwhelmed with too much work.  And needs some pto.

 

 

[Jean in Newcastle]

18 minutes ago, calbear said:

This is just anecdoctally speaking from CA (San Diego area). Even before the SIP order was announced, there were plenty of social distancing actions being taken prior to this. We were seeing large events, field trips, competitions, etc. being cancelled well before the first SIP orders went into effect - like Bay Area 3/15. The state wide order to avoid large gatherings >200 was on 3/12.  I know within the Asian communities, there was plenty of pull back in unnecessary outside activities well before this because we were paying attention to what was happening in Asia. Enough that it was noticeable by other people, and they started to take notice as well. My thinking is that there were social behavioral changes happening locally already - enough that it may have had a significant difference in CA versus NY outcomes. 

@Arcadia were you seeing similar in the Bay Area? Other CA folks, do you recall what you were seeing? My friends and relatives in the Bay Area were pulling back already prior to the SIP order.

 

The West Coast has all these introverted tech people!!

[Arcadia]

21 minutes ago, calbear said:

 

@Arcadia were you seeing similar in the Bay Area? Other CA folks, do you recall what you were seeing? My friends and relatives in the Bay Area were pulling back already prior to the SIP order.
 

Once Seattle was affected, the tech companies in my area started switching to work from home. Also news reported a Lockheed Martin Corp. employee in Sunnyvale has tested positive for COVID-19 on March 5th. 

A few of the company bus shuttles stop near my home and those buses stopped coming once work from home was activated. FAANG and other tech companies also pulled out of conferences and cancelled their own conferences.

I don’t know about New York but in the Bay Area, Japanese And Koreans do tend to mask up in winter/spring. Chinese not so much but if they mask, they do so mostly in winter/spring

From March 6th

“Atlanta (CNN Business)Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft are all encouraging employees in the Seattle area to work from home due to concerns about the novel coronavirus as the outbreak in Washington grows. 

Amazon (AMZN) revealed earlier this week that one of its Seattle-based employees has been diagnosed with the virus. On Wednesday, Facebook said a contractor who works at one of its offices in Seattle had tested positive.” https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/05/tech/amazon-seattle-coronavirus/index.html

[Jean in Newcastle]

I started to self isolate on February 22nd.  It's easy to look back to that date because that is the date that I got sick.  I just felt better the last two days. 

[The Governess]

I’m in CA. Our last day of school was March 13. Last day at the dance studio March 14 (hard to believe that was almost 4 weeks ago).There had been changes for at least the previous week though. Students were not allowed to come to school with *any* signs of illness. At the dance studio, parents and siblings weren’t allowed to hang out, it was drop off/pickup only. Barres, door handles, etc. were being wiped down between classes. I would say from the beginning of March people were being more cautious. 

It seems like it was sometime around the beginning of March, after the first death and the cruise ship incident, that people started taking this seriously state-wide. They had already been taking things seriously in certain areas since February.

Here is a nice timeline for CA’s response:

https://calmatters.org/health/coronavirus/2020/04/gavin-newsom-coronavirus-updates-timeline/

[Pen]

1 hour ago, StellaM said:

NSW introduces $5000 fine for anyone who spits or coughs on a health care worker.

Unbelievable that anyone would do this, but they have.

 

Sad emoji for the health care workers. 

I am glad of some stiff penalties to help keep people safe.  

[Jean in Newcastle]

Prison riot in WA now that there are six inmates and five guards who are positive to COVID19. 

https://q13fox.com/2020/04/08/wsp-hundreds-of-monroe-inmates-threaten-to-set-fires-take-officers-hostage/

[Shoeless]

In the San Antonio area, there was no social distancing until maybe 2 weeks ago. Even up until last week, people were still clogging up the parks and griping that restaurants were not open. 

My husband's employer found out that a worker in the UK office was positive for COVID-19 on Monday, March 9.  Employer announced that they'd do a trial run of working from home for 70% of the staff that Thursday March 12, and then 100% of the staff the following Tuesday, "just in case" they needed to send everyone home.  By the time they completed the Thursday trial run, they'd found out that 2 workers in the Austin office had been exposed to COVID-19 cases AND had been in the San Antonio office recently. Employer never even bothered doing the 100% trial run the following week. They sent everyone home on the 13th and said they were working from home for at least a month, and then extended that out to two months.  I don't expect husband to be back in the office until July, truthfully. 

My husband's employer was one of the first to shut things down in the area, from what I can tell.  I'm really relieved they did that instead of waffling around. About 10 days after husband had been working at home, his boss emailed everyone to say there had been 2 positive COVID-19 cases from San Antonio employees. If husband's employer had not acted quickly, it would have been much, much worse.     

[Ausmumof3]

Germany’s death/no of cases just passed 2pc.  This is significant I think because the widespread testing means this is likely to be a more accurate CFR.  South Korea is just short of 2pc as well.

[Ausmumof3]

5 hours ago, Jaybee said:

I don't know if I'm on information overload or what. But is anybody else a little confused by mixed messaging? It seems that over the past few days I'm picking up on a lot of "Oh, it really isn't going to be so bad," conflicting with "This is what is actually happening, and it's horrible," and it's making me feel more confused as to what to expect. We live in an area where everything has been slower to take off--responses and cases. Maybe it really won't get too bad here, because we've had more time to prepare, population density is less, etc. But people haven't been great until this week to actually follow distancing and staying home guidelines very well. I'm watching figures, but with lack of testing, then lots of testing, then ??--it's just hard to follow what the real situation is.

ETA: A couple more things: I read about the chloroquine treatment, and how it is very promising, and how it's just anecdotal, and how it should be used, and why it shouldn't, and it drives me nuts.

Then there is the confusion I refer to above, and I'm getting the feeling, especially here, that people are becoming really impatient over it all. Maybe because I've taken this seriously all along, I find it disturbing that they will be saying, "See, it was all just a big overreaction so that gov't/whoever could tank our economy and cause everybody to panic so they could take away our liberties, and the virus wasn't anything as bad as they said." Then it will cause that suspicion which seems pretty rampant to grow even more so. So...I don't want to be right and have a bunch of people sick and dying here--not by any means! But I don't want the conspiracy theorists to mock (even more than they already are) and grow even more confident in their theories. Am I even making any sense at all?

One thing that’s frustrating is it seems like chloroquine is now being politicised because trump recommended it and then someone took it and died.  Politics aside I hope that doesn’t interfere with decent studies on it.

but I think the reason the info is confusing is because it’s new and no one actually knows.  Every new development can make a significant difference in outcomes.  We’re trying to extrapolate from a limited amount of poor quality data so we’re going to be changing tack constantly.

[Ausmumof3]

3 hours ago, Pen said:

 

“They” afaik still say no, but from what I have read it seems that there is.  The Asian strain seems less bad than the European.  However, I have to keep remembering to toss all the China statistics out of my brain as unreliable.  

I think west coast USA has also had some come in from Italy and other parts of Europe 

Anecdotally, I think quite a lot more people on west coast seemed to personally “get it” and start some Distancing even before SIP  /Stay Home rules.  More than in New York.    And I think the Distancing is much harder because of density in NYC than even SF.  So that could be more relevant than where the virus arrived from. Maybe.

But there did seem to be differences in the descriptions of cases out of Asia versus Italy . 

The Chinese figures are ever more confusing.  They are currently reporting a lot of asymptomatic cases.  But the previous study showed that 2/3 asymptomatic cases became symptomatic after a week or so.  But there’s no reports on that.  The Wuhan lockdown is “ended” with trains leaving and private vehicles.  But they still have a 14 day quarantine.  And some buildings are still locked down.  And there’s still videos from somewhat dubious sources apparently showing people collapsing in the streets.  But there aren’t many reliable on the ground sources...

just in case you needed any more reminders to take it all with a pinch or a ladleful of salt.

[Ausmumof3]

3 hours ago, Cecropia said:

Yeah, but that 50/50 chance is under "normal" disease conditions, right?  I'm reading that 80%+ of coronavirus patients on ventilators are dying.  There is speculation that ventilators are actually harming those patients instead of helping.

https://apnews.com/8ccd325c2be9bf454c2128dcb7bd616d

Honestly, I don't understand the push for great quantities of ventilators (seems it is constantly on the news) if they are ineffective, at best, for 8 out of 10 critically ill covid19 patients.

I’m seeing similar.  If it turns out the main issue is actually the blood/haem thing not primarily a lung issue we may have a lot of ventilators that don’t help.  But because we don’t have firm science on that I guess it’s better to make ventilators that may not ended up used than not to have them when we need them.

[Ausmumof3]

Not sure if it was mentioned yet that global cases passed 1.5 million today.

[ElizabethB]

I wonder if some of the racial difference with Coronavirus death rates are because of Vitamin D differences.  I wrote a LinkedIn Article about it.  

Short version: Vitamin D helps with other respiratory illnesses, 75% of black Americans deficient in Vitamin D, 40% of all Americans deficient in Vitamin D, low rates of racial death rate differences in California and Florida, southern latitudes where people are often outside with sufficient skin exposure to make vitamin D production possible.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/vitamin-d-coronavirus-gap-liz-brown/?published=t

ETA: Louisiana is an outlier in the data, but there are a lot of unique things about Louisiana. (Southern latitude but high death rate disparity.)

Edited April 9, 2020 by ElizabethB

[Ausmumof3]

Bno- Russia reports 1,459 new cases of coronavirus and 13 new deaths, the biggest daily increase to date

[Ausmumof3]

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/08/vetinary-scientist-hailed-faroe-islands-lack-covid-19-deaths?__twitter_impression=true
 

a veterinary scientist on Faroe Island adapted a veterinary test back in early Feb enabling human testing for Covid 19.  So far they have tested 10pc of the population and found 184 cases.  131 have fully recovered.

[Carrie12345]

I had posted the other day about an article on a local patient who claimed he was only allowed 1 test per household. Yesterday, someone I know confirmed that... because she tested positive, and her family members aren’t allowed to be tested.  (She’s doing well. Statistically, could have been contagious when we were supposed to attend a party but I was already on COVID/general illness alert and declined!)

This does freak me out. While our county’s increases are slowing down, I don’t know if testing has always been 1 per household, or if that changed at some point, accounting for the slow down.  By yesterday’s numbers, we had 4 cases per thousand.  Thinking about what the actual rate might be when adding untested household members hurts my head.

[Jaybee]

9 hours ago, BusyMom5 said:

I feel the same way,  and have noticed a marked difference in opinion since the beginning of the week.  I live rural and there is currently 1 case in my county, 4 in the county next to us.  Having everything shut down feels like a big overreaction when there are no cases.  Now, there are just 12 ICU beds, so it wasn't a bad decision to shut down!  I'm not arguing that point, but I do think that there is a perception here that it's a political hoax totally overblown by the media, only a problem in big cities, we are almost protected bc of where we live.  (Again *I* am not saying these things, but going by what others are posting, this is the sentiment.)   We are already the second highest poverty rate in my state, and keeping people from work is going to really hurt- for a long time.  Without a long term plan, there isn't going to be adherence to any rules.  Until we know sick people and some younger ones have died, it really isn't going to sink in- unfortunately.   

Not quite as rural, there are more cases in the county, but yes, that is what I am seeing and sensing.

Edited April 9, 2020 by Jaybee

[Ausmumof3]

Just now, square_25 said:

I'd ignore Russia's numbers, like I ignore China's and Iran's. 

Ignoring the specific numbers but not the trends.  Increasing reports of deaths plus China closing that town that jade orchid song said was on the border and China reporting imported cases sounds to me like Russia may have a bigger problem than they are talking about.  

[TracyP]

Yesterday my governor extended the stay at home order. In his briefing he discussed the modeling that prompted his decision. He said a few things I found interesting. 

He said it has become clear as they learn more that the early models were far too pessimistic. He said it is also clear that the current IHME model is too optimistic. The only models that matter to him are ones using data specific to our state, and even those should not be taken too seriously. I found it funny to hear him echoing what has been said on this board over the last couple days. 😋

Anyway, my main point/question... He said that over the last 2 weeks they have learned that the infection rate is not 2.2, but closer to 4. On a more positive note, he also said the hospitalization stays are shorter and the disease less severe than they originally understood. Has anyone heard anything similar?

[Ausmumof3]

La repubblica are reporting that over 100 doctors have died in Italy through the epidemic.  If my beginner Italian plus google translate is correct 

[Ausmumof3]

5 minutes ago, TracyP said:

Yesterday my governor extended the stay at home order. In his briefing he discussed the modeling that prompted his decision. He said a few things I found interesting. 

He said it has become clear as they learn more that the early models were far too pessimistic. He said it is also clear that the current IHME model is too optimistic. The only models that matter to him are ones using data specific to our state, and even those should not be taken too seriously. I found it funny to hear him echoing what has been said on this board over the last couple days. 😋

Anyway, my main point/question... He said that over the last 2 weeks they have learned that the infection rate is not 2.2, but closer to 4. On a more positive note, he also said the hospitalization stays are shorter and the disease less severe than they originally understood. Has anyone heard anything similar?

Does that mean R0?  Is that infection rate?
 

I was starting to have the opposite impression that it was maybe less contagious but more lethal than we thought but I haven’t seen recent estimates. 

[Ausmumof3]

1 minute ago, square_25 said:

 

I'd say that's right, but the point here isn't that they are pessimistic or optimistic -- rather, they try to use human behavior to predict what happens, which means that if you change the behavior, the predictions become wildly off. 

I haven't heard that about the infection rate -- that's interesting. I'll keep an eye out. 

I haven't seen anything like what he's saying on the hospitalization front, either, so I'm rather skeptical. From what I've seen, the disease is rather binary: either you're in trouble, or you're not. As we've known for a while, most people won't be in trouble. It's just that they really don't know what to do with the ones that are, and there's a fairly sizable chunk of those (10%, I'd guess, although those don't all die, of course.)

And we don’t know who they are.  There are pre existing conditions that raise the risk but there seems to be something else unexplained going on that makes some people far more Susceptible for some reason.

[TracyP]

1 minute ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Does that mean R0?  Is that infection rate?
 

I was starting to have the opposite impression that it was maybe less contagious but more lethal than we thought but I haven’t seen recent estimates. 

Yes, the R0 is what he's talking about.

[Ausmumof3]

I have no idea why my phone puts random capital letters in and then it’s almost impossible to fix!  Frustrating because it looks illiterate.

[Ausmumof3]

3 minutes ago, TracyP said:

Yes, the R0 is what he's talking about.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article?deliveryName=USCDC_333-DM25287
 

this study supposedly has it at 5.7 but it’s based on Hubei data which is a bit questionable.  I don’t have the mental energy to read the whole thing right now.

[TracyP]

4 minutes ago, square_25 said:

 

I'd say that's right, but the point here isn't that they are pessimistic or optimistic -- rather, they try to use human behavior to predict what happens, which means that if you change the behavior, the predictions become wildly off. 

I haven't heard that about the infection rate -- that's interesting. I'll keep an eye out. 

I haven't seen anything like what he's saying on the hospitalization front, either, so I'm rather skeptical. From what I've seen, the disease is rather binary: either you're in trouble, or you're not. As we've known for a while, most people won't be in trouble. It's just that they really don't know what to do with the ones that are, and there's a fairly sizable chunk of those (10%, I'd guess, although those don't all die, of course.)

What you said in your last paragraph seems right on. But at the same time *average* hospital stays could be shorter than they originally thought. And a smaller percentage of cases could be turning severe than they originally thought. 

[TracyP]

5 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article?deliveryName=USCDC_333-DM25287
 

this study supposedly has it at 5.7 but it’s based on Hubei data which is a bit questionable.  I don’t have the mental energy to read the whole thing right now.

He said his info is coming from Mayo clinic, CDC, and the data coming out of other states. But he didn't clarify what's what...

[Ausmumof3]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-imf-idUSKCN21R1SM?taid=5e8f1d9cf93002000189b8dc&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
 

imf chief says we’re in for the worst recession since the Great Depression. 

[TracyP]

Just now, square_25 said:

 

That's the part I'm not seeing -- we definitely have the expected number of severe cases (and deaths 😞) in NY. Our countrywide CFR is not low so far, as you'd expect given the fact that we didn't prepare super well and the parts of the country that are hit hard are fairly overwhelmed. 

Yeah, he also said that they are basically ignoring data from any hotspot. Once an area gets to that point, the numbers are no longer reliable.

[TracyP]

1 minute ago, square_25 said:

 

Oh, I see. In that case, I think there isn't new information, either -- South Korea had fairly promising data at the very beginning, and so does Germany now. I think it's been known for months that if you do NOT overwhelm the healthcare system, you get much better results. But that's no surprise. 

Perhaps that is the difference? Maybe early on in this they were looking at places like Italy and they have now realized that just isn't reliable? 

[vonfirmath]

7 hours ago, MissLemon said:

In the San Antonio area, there was no social distancing until maybe 2 weeks ago. Even up until last week, people were still clogging up the parks and griping that restaurants were not open. 

My husband's employer found out that a worker in the UK office was positive for COVID-19 on Monday, March 9.  Employer announced that they'd do a trial run of working from home for 70% of the staff that Thursday March 12, and then 100% of the staff the following Tuesday, "just in case" they needed to send everyone home.  By the time they completed the Thursday trial run, they'd found out that 2 workers in the Austin office had been exposed to COVID-19 cases AND had been in the San Antonio office recently. Employer never even bothered doing the 100% trial run the following week. They sent everyone home on the 13th and said they were working from home for at least a month, and then extended that out to two months.  I don't expect husband to be back in the office until July, truthfully. 

My husband's employer was one of the first to shut things down in the area, from what I can tell.  I'm really relieved they did that instead of waffling around. About 10 days after husband had been working at home, his boss emailed everyone to say there had been 2 positive COVID-19 cases from San Antonio employees. If husband's employer had not acted quickly, it would have been much, much worse.     

 

Is your husband's office Dell?

That is local to us (my husband used to ride his bike when he worked there briefly) and I remember they were doing a trial run of working from home then suddenly everyone was working from home.  And on March 12 (the last day my daughter went to soccer practice) one of the other parents told me that a Dell employee who was overseeing her son's special class at Pflugerville High School had gone over to Asia and been exposed to COVID-19 and it was unclear to me if he'd been back at the high school since returning from that trip or not.  I was actually surprised to NOT hear of confirmed cases in our little city until much later.

Austin has multiple times thanked SXSW for going ahead and cancelling when they did. Otherwise we would have had people from all over here March 13 for the festival!

[Ausmumof3]

Google translate of a German preliminary study.  Bearing in mind I don’t think it’s published or peer reviewed properly yet?  Not sure about tbat. 
serology testing in one area showed about 15percent of the population had antibodies to the virus.  About 2 of had active infection Cfr on that basis was around .37 per cent.  It’s also based on one location so hard to know if it’s just a pocket with a higher infection rate.
 

Prof. Dr. Hendrik Streeck (Institute of Virology)
Prof. Dr. Gunther Hartmann (Institute for Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Pharmacology, Spokesman for the Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation2)
Prof. Dr. Martin Exner (Institute for Hygiene and Public Health)
Prof. Dr. Matthias Schmid (Institute for Medical Biometry, Computer Science and Epidemiology)
University Hospital Bonn, Bonn, April 9, 2020
Background: The municipality of Gangelt is one of the most affected places in Germany by COVID19 in Germany. The infection is believed to be due to a carnival session on February 15, 2020, as several people tested positive for SARSCoV2 after this session. The carnival session and the outbreak of the session are currently being examined in more detail. A representative sample was drawn from the community of Gangelt (12,529 inhabitants) in the Heinsberg district. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a protocol in which 100 to 300 households are sampled depending on the expected prevalence. This sample was coordinated with its representativeness with Prof. Manfred Güllner (Forsa).
Aim: The aim of the study is to determine the level of the SARS-CoV2 infections (percentage of all infected) that have been undergoing and are still occurring in the Gangelt community. In addition, the status of the current SARS-CoV2 immunity is to be determined.
Procedure: A form letter was sent to approximately 600 households. A total of around 1000 residents from around 400 households took part in the study. Questionnaires were collected, throat swabs were taken and blood was tested for the presence of antibodies (IgG, IgA). The interim results and conclusions of approx. 500 people are included in this first evaluation.
Preliminary result: An existing immunity of approx. 14% (anti-SARS-CoV2 IgG positive, specificity of the method>, 99%) was determined. About 2% of the people had a current SARS-CoV-2 infection determined using the PCR method. The overall infection rate (current infection or already gone through) was approximately 15%. The mortality rate (case fatality rate) based on the total number of infected people in the community of Gangelt is approx. 0.37% with the preliminary data from this study. The lethality currently calculated by the Johns-Hopkins University in Germany is 1.98% and is 5 times higher. Mortality based on the total population in Gangelt is currently 0.15%.

Preliminary conclusion: The 5-fold higher lethality calculated by Johns-Hopkins University compared to this study in Gangelt can be explained by the different reference size of the infected. In Gangelt, this study includes all infected people in the sample, including those with asymptomatic and mild courses. The proportion of the population that has already developed immunity to SARS-CoV-2 is about 15%. This means that 15% of the population in Gangelt can no longer become infected with SARS-CoV-2, and the process has already been started until herd immunity is reached. This 15 percent share of the population reduces the speed (net reproduction number R in epidemiological models) of a further spread of SARS-CoV-2.
By adhering to stringent hygiene measures, it can be expected that the virus concentration in the event of an infection in a person can be reduced to such an extent that the severity of the disease is reduced, while at the same time developing immunity. These favorable conditions do not exist in the event of an unusual outbreak event (superspreading event, e.g. carnival session, apres ski bar Ischgl). With hygienic measures, favorable effects with regard to all-cause mortality can also be expected.
We therefore strongly recommend implementing the proposed four-phase strategy of the German Society for Hospital Hygiene (DGKH). This provides the following model:
Phase 1: Social quarantine with the aim of containing and slowing down the pandemic and avoiding an overload of the critical care structures, in particular the health care system
Phase 2: Beginning withdrawal of the quarantine while ensuring hygienic framework conditions and behavior.
Phase 3: Abolition of the quarantine while maintaining the hygienic framework
Phase 4: State of public life as before the COVID-19 pandemic (status quo ante).
(DGKH statement can be found here:
https://www.krankenhaushygiene.de/ccUpload/upload/files/2020_03_31_DGKH_Einl adug_Lageeinschaetze.pdf)
Note: These results are preliminary. The final results of the study are published and presented to the public

[Cindy in FL.]

7 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

One thing that’s frustrating is it seems like chloroquine is now being politicised because trump recommended it and then someone took it and died.  Politics aside I hope that doesn’t interfere with decent studies on it.

but I think the reason the info is confusing is because it’s new and no one actually knows.  Every new development can make a significant difference in outcomes.  We’re trying to extrapolate from a limited amount of poor quality data so we’re going to be changing tack constantly.

Are you talking about the man in Arizona that took fish aquarium cleaner? Because that really shouldn’t factor in at all. 

[Ausmumof3]

4 minutes ago, Cindy in FL. said:

Are you talking about the man in Arizona that took fish aquarium cleaner? Because that really shouldn’t factor in at all. 

Lol yeah I agree.  Not a trump fan but I think you can’t really blame him for that.  People are doing all kinds of weird dumb stuff.  But it seems like somehow it’s turned into a political thing.  I guess it’s not likely to affect other countries outside US.

[Ausmumof3]

8 minutes ago, Happymomof1 said:

So how does that relate to rural Texas where we are barely testing?  So many numbers and I do not know what to do with them all.

The thing is epidemiologists don’t like to calculate case fatality rate till the end.  Anything up until then is somewhat of a guess.  Which isn’t much fun for the rest of us trying to figure out our lives.  

[Ausmumof3]

3 minutes ago, square_25 said:

Just looked up the population distribution of Gangelt, where they ran the antibody study: 

https://www.citypopulation.de/en/germany/nordrheinwestfalen/heinsberg/05370008__gangelt/

Looks pretty reasonable to me -- not young or anything :-). So the fatality rate of a third to a half of a percent seems like a reasonable estimate! That seems good. Now we just need to know how long immunity lasts... 

Hmm good to have that extra info.  I agree that study seems to be assuming that immunity will last.  I understand for other coronaviruses they think it’s only about 1-2 years.  I don’t know how flu compares.

[sassenach]

10 hours ago, calbear said:

This is just anecdoctally speaking from CA (San Diego area). Even before the SIP order was announced, there were plenty of social distancing actions being taken prior to this. We were seeing large events, field trips, competitions, etc. being cancelled well before the first SIP orders went into effect - like Bay Area 3/15. The state wide order to avoid large gatherings >200 was on 3/12.  I know within the Asian communities, there was plenty of pull back in unnecessary outside activities well before this because we were paying attention to what was happening in Asia. Enough that it was noticeable by other people, and they started to take notice as well. My thinking is that there were social behavioral changes happening locally already - enough that it may have had a significant difference in CA versus NY outcomes. 

@Arcadia were you seeing similar in the Bay Area? Other CA folks, do you recall what you were seeing? My friends and relatives in the Bay Area were pulling back already prior to the SIP order. My family was essentially SIP since 3/5.

 

 

9 hours ago, lovelearnandlive said:

I’m in CA. Our last day of school was March 13. Last day at the dance studio March 14 (hard to believe that was almost 4 weeks ago).There had been changes for at least the previous week though. Students were not allowed to come to school with *any* signs of illness. At the dance studio, parents and siblings weren’t allowed to hang out, it was drop off/pickup only. Barres, door handles, etc. were being wiped down between classes. I would say from the beginning of March people were being more cautious. 

It seems like it was sometime around the beginning of March, after the first death and the cruise ship incident, that people started taking this seriously state-wide. They had already been taking things seriously in certain areas since February.

Here is a nice timeline for CA’s response:

https://calmatters.org/health/coronavirus/2020/04/gavin-newsom-coronavirus-updates-timeline/

We (my fam) were just remarking yesterday on how quickly things shifted. On Feb 13 we sent dd to a cheer competition in LA. Plane, convention center filled with 15k people, Disneyland... not one moment of hesitation. It never even came up. She came home, got pretty darn sick, I brought her in the week of the 24th and by then things were starting to percolate. By March 3rd, the hospital that I do my nursing clinicals in had called off students. The week of March 9th I told my kids that I thought that would be their last week of school, and indeed it was. I never imagined that the rest of the year would be toast. It took me another week for that reality to set in. 

Looking back, it really is wild how things so quickly unfolded in my own understanding of the situation. 

[Ausmumof3]

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus·

“Today marks 100 days since WHO was notified of the first cases of what we now call #COVID19 in Over 1.3M people have been infected & almost 80K have lost their lives. This pandemic is much more than a health crisis. It requires a whole-of government & society response.”

100 days!  So much happened in such a short time

Edited April 9, 2020 by Ausmumof3

[SKL]

21 hours ago, Mainer said:

One thing I hope happens as a result of this horrific situation is that people will finally understand the value of a national health care system. I see the Brits cheering their NHS, the prime minister praising the NHS... and I just really want to have that here, too. 

When this is over, we can compare how the NHSs in developed countries fared - what worked and what didn't and what didn't make a difference.  Many of the worst hit countries have NHS.

Edited April 9, 2020 by SKL

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Google translate of a German preliminary study.  Bearing in mind I don’t think it’s published or peer reviewed properly yet?  Not sure about tbat. 
serology testing in one area showed about 15percent of the population had antibodies to the virus.  About 2 of had active infection Cfr on that basis was around .37 per cent.  It’s also based on one location so hard to know if it’s just a pocket with a higher infection rate.
 

Prof. Dr. Hendrik Streeck (Institute of Virology)
Prof. Dr. Gunther Hartmann (Institute for Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Pharmacology, Spokesman for the Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation2)
Prof. Dr. Martin Exner (Institute for Hygiene and Public Health)
Prof. Dr. Matthias Schmid (Institute for Medical Biometry, Computer Science and Epidemiology)
University Hospital Bonn, Bonn, April 9, 2020
Background: The municipality of Gangelt is one of the most affected places in Germany by COVID19 in Germany. The infection is believed to be due to a carnival session on February 15, 2020, as several people tested positive for SARSCoV2 after this session. The carnival session and the outbreak of the session are currently being examined in more detail. A representative sample was drawn from the community of Gangelt (12,529 inhabitants) in the Heinsberg district. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a protocol in which 100 to 300 households are sampled depending on the expected prevalence. This sample was coordinated with its representativeness with Prof. Manfred Güllner (Forsa).
Aim: The aim of the study is to determine the level of the SARS-CoV2 infections (percentage of all infected) that have been undergoing and are still occurring in the Gangelt community. In addition, the status of the current SARS-CoV2 immunity is to be determined.
Procedure: A form letter was sent to approximately 600 households. A total of around 1000 residents from around 400 households took part in the study. Questionnaires were collected, throat swabs were taken and blood was tested for the presence of antibodies (IgG, IgA). The interim results and conclusions of approx. 500 people are included in this first evaluation.
Preliminary result: An existing immunity of approx. 14% (anti-SARS-CoV2 IgG positive, specificity of the method>, 99%) was determined. About 2% of the people had a current SARS-CoV-2 infection determined using the PCR method. The overall infection rate (current infection or already gone through) was approximately 15%. The mortality rate (case fatality rate) based on the total number of infected people in the community of Gangelt is approx. 0.37% with the preliminary data from this study. The lethality currently calculated by the Johns-Hopkins University in Germany is 1.98% and is 5 times higher. Mortality based on the total population in Gangelt is currently 0.15%.

Preliminary conclusion: The 5-fold higher lethality calculated by Johns-Hopkins University compared to this study in Gangelt can be explained by the different reference size of the infected. In Gangelt, this study includes all infected people in the sample, including those with asymptomatic and mild courses. The proportion of the population that has already developed immunity to SARS-CoV-2 is about 15%. This means that 15% of the population in Gangelt can no longer become infected with SARS-CoV-2, and the process has already been started until herd immunity is reached. This 15 percent share of the population reduces the speed (net reproduction number R in epidemiological models) of a further spread of SARS-CoV-2.
By adhering to stringent hygiene measures, it can be expected that the virus concentration in the event of an infection in a person can be reduced to such an extent that the severity of the disease is reduced, while at the same time developing immunity. These favorable conditions do not exist in the event of an unusual outbreak event (superspreading event, e.g. carnival session, apres ski bar Ischgl). With hygienic measures, favorable effects with regard to all-cause mortality can also be expected.
We therefore strongly recommend implementing the proposed four-phase strategy of the German Society for Hospital Hygiene (DGKH). This provides the following model:
Phase 1: Social quarantine with the aim of containing and slowing down the pandemic and avoiding an overload of the critical care structures, in particular the health care system
Phase 2: Beginning withdrawal of the quarantine while ensuring hygienic framework conditions and behavior.
Phase 3: Abolition of the quarantine while maintaining the hygienic framework
Phase 4: State of public life as before the COVID-19 pandemic (status quo ante).
(DGKH statement can be found here:
https://www.krankenhaushygiene.de/ccUpload/upload/files/2020_03_31_DGKH_Einl adug_Lageeinschaetze.pdf)
Note: These results are preliminary. The final results of the study are published and presented to the public

Just to add after seeing some extra twitter discussion the 0.37pc rate is apparently the IFR (infection Fatality Rate) not (case fatality rate) - confusion is something to do with the German.  I think the difference is infection fatality rate refers to how many people who are infected overall die whereas case fatality rate only calculates based on cases that are significant enough for medical attention.  I’m sure there’s someone else here who knows more about the difference.

[Joker]

I saw an article this morning that said South Korea was now also seeing people test positive for a second time. I know other places have mentioned it happening as well so I wonder if that is going to be a common occurrence and if it will cause issues with a possible vaccine.

[Ausmumof3]

5 minutes ago, square_25 said:

It’s a pretty academic distinction though :-). It’s the number we’re interested in, either way — the average chance of dying from it.

FWIW If I calculated right in Italy it’s something roughly like 1:3500 Covid deaths per person (total population).  

 

[Ausmumof3]

24 minutes ago, square_25 said:

It’s a pretty academic distinction though :-). It’s the number we’re interested in, either way — the average chance of dying from it.

I guess it’s useful when comparing to something like the flu.  We can’t compare the infection fatality rate from one disease to the case fatality rate from another.  I’d expect there would be a reasonable difference between the two except in cases where widespread testing is picking up most cases.

[Ausmumof3]

9 minutes ago, square_25 said:

Well, that’s not the right statistic, since it includes people who were never infected, right?

Yes.  Just for my own interest to think what my likelihood of actually personally knowing someone who was both infected and died in that scenario if that makes sense?  It’s not a cfr or ifr or anything like that.  Of course there’s also the fact that different areas are affected disproportionately 

[SeaConquest]

11 hours ago, calbear said:

This is just anecdoctally speaking from CA (San Diego area). Even before the SIP order was announced, there were plenty of social distancing actions being taken prior to this. We were seeing large events, field trips, competitions, etc. being cancelled well before the first SIP orders went into effect - like Bay Area 3/15. The state wide order to avoid large gatherings >200 was on 3/12.  I know within the Asian communities, there was plenty of pull back in unnecessary outside activities well before this because we were paying attention to what was happening in Asia. Enough that it was noticeable by other people, and they started to take notice as well. My thinking is that there were social behavioral changes happening locally already - enough that it may have had a significant difference in CA versus NY outcomes. 

@Arcadia were you seeing similar in the Bay Area? Other CA folks, do you recall what you were seeing? My friends and relatives in the Bay Area were pulling back already prior to the SIP order. My family was essentially SIP since 3/5.

 

 

On March 6th (a Friday), I wrote a post on FB called, "The week of living dangerously," where I detailed that we went on 3 field trips that week. I titled the post that way because I knew it would be the last week that we would be taking any field trips, or basically going out at all. Sure enough, it was (and I was already feeling nervous about going out that week in early March, so we took extra precautions). So, even outside of Asian communities, that was the last time the boys went to any of their extracurriculars or other activities (including their charter schools) in San Diego. And, I agree that just that two weeks of difference is huge in looking at the stats between CA and NY.

Edited April 9, 2020 by SeaConquest

[SeaConquest]

3 minutes ago, square_25 said:

Do you mean that you figure it started here a few weeks earlier than in CA?

 

No, I mean that more Californians (even outside of Asian communities that were in touch with friends and relatives who knew more about what was going on in China) were socially distancing and isolating earlier than people in NY. California and the PNW are just more connected overall IMHO to the pan-Pacific region at large vs NY, which is more connected to Europe, and you can see that in the genome of the virus. De Blasio was late in closing schools vs Newsom, who has taken bold action and not pussyfooted around in making decisions that affected 40 million people (which is just a crazy number of people). When the Bay area was looking like a hot spot, it was locked down stat, with the rest of the state quickly following behind.