COVID-19

[masterfins]

We will be at the end of the run and playgrounds will be safe again.  This will probably kill about  ~150 thousand before we have enough of the population with immunity to the slow the exponential spread and another ~100 thousand after the inflection point. Unless we get a vaccine first.  (very rough numbers, could be more)

I am not underestimating the seriousness of this disease. But I don’t think flattening the curve will do much unless you think that we can delay the spread long enough to get a vaccine.  I am resigned to the fact almost everyone is going to get it.  Those who survive will be immune and once there is nobody left for it to transmit to it will end.

Agree.  Until we get to the point that over 50% of the population has been infected the number of infected will continue to rise.  Best case scenario is that it will take 12 months to get a vaccine, and maybe 18 months.  The question I have is what percentage of the severely infected that go on respirators are surviving?  If the survival rate with a respirator is still extremely low then are we just making ourselves feel better by stretching out the curve from months to years?

[Spider-Dan]

If you shorten the curve, then the hospitals are flooded and the fatality rate for everything - from car accidents to kidney failure to cancer - increases.

The idea that there is some benefit to killing more people quickly is a fantasy.

[fyo]

I'm pretty sure that they know it's due to pangolin.

They said that seemed the most likely initially. Then it was bats. The latest report from the WHO sampling animal populations in the area is that they haven't found a strain that matches very closely in either group, so the question is still open. It's even possible according to the report that it jumped to humans first, circulated for a while before mutating to the current form. This was picked up and reported by the media ("corona virus might have circulated for years"), but in reality it is the more unlikely scenario since no such strain has been found humans.

The two previous corona-virus outbreaks (SARS and MERS) jumped from civets (cat-like wild animal) and camels, respectively. SARS didn't actually originate in the civets, though, but rather in a population of horseshoe bats, but the human infections uses the civets as an intermediary.

SARS (technically SARS-CoV-1) is very closely related to the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2).

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

If you shorten the curve, then the hospitals are flooded and the fatality rate for everything - from car accidents to kidney failure to cancer - increases.

The idea that there is some benefit to killing more people quickly is a fantasy.

Maybe.  If the hospitals are overloaded for one month than for one month car accident victims can’t get care.  If hospitals are overloaded for three months than for three months car accident victims can’t get care. 

[Spider-Dan]

"Overloaded" is not a binary yes/no status.
The degree of overload matters.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

"Overloaded" is not a binary yes/no status.
The degree of overload matters.

True, but so does length.  Let’s assume automobile accidents require 10 ICU beds per week.

And that if we don’t flatten the curve for one week the ICU will be overloaded by a factor of 10 meaning that they can only treat 1 out of 10 patients. OTOH of we flatten the curve for 5 weeks the ICU will be double capacity. 

That would mean that with the spike there would be one week in which 9 of the accident victims could not get an ICU bed, but with the flatten model there would be 5 weeks in which each week 5 victims could not be treated for a total of 25. 

I am not heartless, I am not trying to sacrifice people for the economy.  But 9 deaths is better than 25. And that is my concern with extending the curve.

[Spider-Dan]

You fail to account for the increase in medical staff who gets sick due to increased exposure and lack of sufficient PPE (which is already a problem even with existing measures).   You are also failing to account for all the people whose lives will be saved by extending the curve.  And the longer we extend the curve, the more time we have to hire additional medical staff, manufacture more ventilators, and build more emergency hospitals (like at the Javits Center).

[Spider-Dan]

dolphins4life, I split the Facebook post you pasted into a different thread.

Please try to keep this thread free of partisan political discussion.  I'm sure you all know I am more than willing to engage in such discussion, but I started this thread as a way to discuss this crisis outside of the left/right divide, and so far we've gone 9 pages with very little of it.

The actions we take every day during this crisis are critically important, and I don't want that discussion to be obscured by everyday political sniping.  Thanks.

[dolphins4life]

The actions we take everyday are important, which leaves me with a crisis that I posted in another thread.

[Pappy13]

This is interesting. Seems pretty feasible to me. Just FYI, SWA removes the entire cabin seats from an aircraft quite often to do maintenance which sometimes requires pulling up the floor boards underneath the seats. It really is as easy as they made it sound in the article. Also the hangars where we do the maintenance have air conditioning ducts that attach to the aircraft when they are doing heavy maintenance work like this. I can see this working and perhaps even be a source of revenue for the airlines. Not sure exactly how all that would work, but I would think it at least makes sense to look into it's feasibility.

https://medium.com/@aliarab.2020/turning-airlines-into-lifelines-709d659e6342

[Pappy13]

More information about the Airline industry and the proposed government relief.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/airline-news/2020/03/31/coronavirus-stimulus-package-us-airlines-must-continue-flying/5093641002/

https://apnews.com/5286bcd6b87db2865a64639a18811a4e

[dolphins4life]

Work has been so stressful

I forgot to use a face shield while doing a throat swab on a patient, and spent the rest of the day worrying.  My coworkers said the patient didn't cough, so I shouldn't worry.

[Dolphster]

I think that COVID-19 is the Lord's wrath on a world that has turned their back on Him.   I'm actually an atheist.  I just thought I'd throw that out there to see if I could start a good argument. 

[Tenshot13]

I think that COVID-19 is the Lord's wrath on a world that has turned their back on Him.   I'm actually an atheist.  I just thought I'd throw that out there to see if I could start a good argument. 

None of the arguments here are any good lol.

[Pappy13]

I think that COVID-19 is the Lord's wrath on a world that has turned their back on Him.   I'm actually an atheist.  I just thought I'd throw that out there to see if I could start a good argument. 

I'm Catholic, but I don't really believe in all that wrath of God stuff either...and I don't really want to get into a discussion what I believe from a religious standpoint here. But on the other hand I do believe there is something about nature finding a way when things get out of balance to bring them back into balance. Viruses and the like are a great illustration of that in my opinion. Sometimes things are necessary in the short term for the long term well being of the race.