Coronavirus

[bigburly912]

So a man crashed a train 250 yards from the Mercy because he thought it was there for a government takeover or some other ulterior motive. Sad state of the world we are in. Look it up and read his comments if you get a chance, pretty wild stuff.

 

[nbp]

There's only modest odds of a federal government plan to oversee this time period, so without that there is no one game plan, each state is on their own and what happens will depend on where you live. 70-80% of the population will test positive over the year with at least one million requiring ICU stays, so the actual death rate will come down to how many more states will lock down - the 100,000-240,000 dead number assumes all states under lockdown conditions by the end of this week, which will not be the case, so that number may be conservative. If essentially everyone locks down, then the illness will be restricted to circulating amongst those working, so the infection rate will be slow and low over time, a flattened curve, which could allow some quarantined to dribble back into the workforce slowly, so it could come down to maintaining an infection-rate vs available-beds balance until the vaccine arrives. More reading.

I was wondering what that link would be all about but I actually enjoyed the article. Particularly from The Endgame on. It laid out the couple of alternatives I could envision and how they could play out. Reasonably balanced and not entirely doom and gloom so that was nice.

 

[RetroTechie]

At this point, I'd plan for this like the zombie apocalypse. Assume everyone is infected and can kill you and that this is the new normal. Don't depend on anyone else for your survival. Start building up a stockpile of needed food, water, and supplies(Hopefully you've done this already. It's almost too late to start.) As people running essential infrastructure get sick, that infrastructure can easily fail. Don't depend on our just in time delivery system for getting food daily. Every trip to get supplies is a chance you and your family can get sick. It's possible that this could get bad enough to affect the reliability of our power grid, our water, gas, transportation of goods, phone and internet services, etc. I hope it doesn't. I hope it doesn't last past elections or martial law might end up being declared to keep the government functioning. Hopefully this doesn't happen.

I think it's too late to depend on a government plan for your survival. You need your own plan. Stock up on supplies. Live somewhere you can get water naturally or move there as soon as possible. Grow your own food and raise animals. Learn new skills. Everyone should know basic first aid and wilderness survival skills, how to farm and hunt, and some other useful trade to barter your skills with (don't rely on YouTube videos to learn these skills after the SHTF).

For extended outages of power / water etc, or the food supply, a large enough fraction of the population would need to die that society as a whole falls apart. 'Sorry' to say @HoF, but this virus isn't lethal enough for that. :duh2: If we'd have daily group-hugs around the world so that everyone gets infected in short order, perhaps in the order of 1..2% of people might end up dead due to lack of hospital care. The higher death rate seen in this context is the tip of the iceberg that is found in hospital beds. The underwater part of the iceberg is the many infections that already have been, but showing only mild or no symptoms & recovering on their own. Like the cases we're not seeing in China's fudged numbers.

How can I say that with confidence? Simple: this virus is very contagious, that has already been shown. So if it were both as contagious as it is, AND deadlier than it is, we'd be seeing millions dead by now & mass graves in China that are visible from space (or bodies littering the streets of cities around the world). Not seeing that... Best read I've found so far on this topic:

Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance

So: assume everyone is infected now, and 2% dies at once. That leaves 98% of people surviving. More than enough to keep crops growing, trucks rolling, utilities & supermarkets running. Yes that 2% would be a massive number of deaths, but remember that in the order of 1% of the world population dies every year from various causes. COVID-19 just pushes some groups over the edge earlier, and (right now) does that in a short time span. The "flattening of the curve" serves to a) keep that 1..2% number as low as possible by preventing health systems from being overwhelmed, and b) buy time to do research, improve treatment methods, build ventilators, develop a vaccine, etc. Every day counts & thus every infection you prevent from occurring, helps.

Yes it's possible the virus will mutate into a more deadly strain, and a 2nd wave wipes out 10% of the world population. Again: see time factor. One way or the other, final situation is so many people infected & immune to some degree (or vaccinated), that virus simply can't find hosts to hop between on its route to a person that is not immune (or vaccinated) yet. At which point further spreading will cease or slow down greatly.

So we'll not shake this off any time soon. But unless you're in a high-risk group, it's not the virus you need to worry about. Empty store shelves are not your enemy. It's the panicking idiots that pick a fight over a roll of toilet paper. Politicians that take your rights away - and then want to keep it so after the fog has cleared. I'm fine with being stuck @ home for a while if it helps save many people's lives. I'm not fine with such restrictions staying in place once their job is done.

That said: nothing wrong with increasing one's self-reliance. Especially for US citizens given the crazy political situation there. :shakehead Not to mention economic fall-out, or the psychological stress of having restrictions in place for months or more. I'm sure this year will be filled with unexpected side-effects... :eek:

I tend to view this pandemic as a bullet that is grazing mankind. Serious s**t, absolutely. Could easily have been much worse. But as things stand now: as long as we sit tight & keep our heads calm, mankind will come out just fine. As for yourself & loved ones? Watch your step... :p

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

The problem is that we don't have a 1 or 2 percent death rate. Total known cases are currently at 935,960. Total deaths are at 47,245. (Excluding China's real numbers that would add about 40,000 more dead.) That would make it a 5% death rate worldwide, conservatively. However, new cases lag behind deaths by about 2 weeks. It's more accurate to compare deaths to those that recovered. Total cases with an outcome 242,821 vs. 47,245 deaths puts us at a death rate of over 19% worldwide. Deaths in the U.S. have been doubling every 3 days and we had 1,049 people die in the last 24 hours. If this continues at this rate, we would have 1,074,176 dead in 30 days in the U.S.. If we had no new cases and everyone was locked down for a month starting today, assuming those that were infected either recovered or died within 15 days, we would still have 33,568 people die in the U.S. That would be without a single person getting infected from now on (absolute best case scenario). That's in addition to the 5,102 that had already died. Best case scenario is absolute lockdown where nobody else gets infected and 38,670 people total would have died in the U.S. in 15 days. To give you an idea of how fast doubling every three days is, it would be 1,024 times the original number after 30 days. If worldwide infection spreads at that speed, we're looking at close to 1 billion infected and over 48 million dead in 30 days.

 

[turbodog]

The problem is that we don't have a 1 or 2 percent death rate. Total known cases are currently at 935,960. Total deaths are at 47,245. (Excluding China's real numbers that would add about 40,000 more dead.) That would make it a 5% death rate worldwide, conservatively. However, new cases lag behind deaths by about 2 weeks. It's more accurate to compare deaths to those that recovered. Total cases with an outcome 242,821 vs. 47,245 deaths puts us at a death rate of over 19% worldwide. Deaths in the U.S. have been doubling every 3 days and we had 1,049 people die in the last 24 hours. If this continues at this rate, we would have 1,074,176 dead in 30 days in the U.S.. If we had no new cases and everyone was locked down for a month starting today, assuming those that were infected either recovered or died within 15 days, we would still have 33,568 people die in the U.S. That would be without a single person getting infected from now on (absolute best case scenario). That's in addition to the 5,102 that had already died. Best case scenario is absolute lockdown where nobody else gets infected and 38,670 people total would have died in the U.S. in 15 days. To give you an idea of how fast doubling every three days is, it would be 1,024 times the original number after 30 days. If worldwide infection spreads at that speed, we're looking at close to 1 billion infected and over 48 million dead in 30 days.

Don't confuse mortality rate with CASE mortality. Can't extrapolate between them.

 

[bykfixer]

48 million in 30 days? I'll be stepping over dead people while shopping at Food Lion. Pushing my cart along in the cat food row when the lady behind me "splatt" dead. Can't check out aisle 4 'cause the cashier just keeled over and died. A fire truck crashes through an intersection because the driver just died. "This just in Ken 44 dead at the same time in an Alberqurque Wal Mart, pictures at 11".

Luckily for a lot of folks who do succumb to Covid-19 they go fast. No suffering for extended periods. But in the end it will likely be somewhere between 1.2 to 1.4% of people did not survive the virus infection.

Humans are pretty stupid, but we are kinda tough too.

 

[Modernflame]

I miss my family. I like my co-workers. But I love social distancing. Does that make me a bad person? I've never had such a perfectly crafted excuse not to visit the in laws.

I'm blessed to have the opportunity to work from home, at least for the moment. A paycheck is always a blessing, but it means quite a bit more right now.

 

[ven]

The WHO are re-looking into masks CG
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52126735

 

[markr6]

I miss my family. I like my co-workers. But I love social distancing. Does that make me a bad person? I've never had such a perfectly crafted excuse not to visit the in laws.

LOL actually, I don't really care about it so far. I must be a bad person! In fact, I wish I could travel so I can further isolate on a backpacking trip.

Cabin fever, what? There's so much to do inside. And outside. I almost have this anxiety trying to decide which thing to do...to pack in as much stuff as possible every day after work especially since the weather is getting nicer.

 

[RetroTechie]

The problem is that we don't have a 1 or 2 percent death rate.

You're right... it's probably LOWER.

You're referring to case fatality rate. Which is deaths per known cases. Known cases = people who have gotten sick, have been tested, and found positive (infected).
What I'm referring to is infection fatality rate. Which is deaths per everyone infected. That is: people who have gotten sick + people who did not notice anything. People who went to hospital + people who didn't. People who were tested + people that were not. That # of people is much much higher than cases tested positive. Many experts estimate that perhaps 10..20x higher than # of people that actually tested positive. Why? Simple: we KNOW the virus is out there in the wild (people are picking it up from 'random' others). We KNOW it's much higher number than what's tested. Because we're 'not' testing. At least not large cross sections of the population. And enough time has passed for many people to have been infected (and possibly become ill or even die). Note that several countries (like China or Italy) are much further along the curve. These have had enough time for the masses of dead to show up if that were happening.

So again: IF infection fatality rate were 5% or even higher, we'd be seeing mass graves all over the world by now. We are not. THUS it follows that fatality per infected person is pretty low. It wouldn't surprise me if all is said & done, and a large cross section of the population is tested (random members of the population, that is), we find a fatality rate around 0.5...1%. In the order of # of people that die each year anyway. COVID-19 is just doing it quicker for some groups now, that is all.

So yes, it IS a serious problem. Yes many more deaths will follow. And it's important to slow down the spread to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. But NO entire swats of the population are not going to die, and society will not descend into anarchy. Well if the masses don't panic, that is. :devil: Political or socio-economic fallout otoh - your guess is as good as mine... :confused:

 

[knucklegary]

Great time to be a loner.. long as you're far away from big cities and the burbs

Last couple days.. i keep hearing, in my head, Willie singing.. On the Road Again :whistle:

 

[bykfixer]

My coworker said this morning that his brother is not the touchy/feelie type and last night his granddaughter said "gandpa been practicing social distancing my whole life".

 

[bigburly912]

I’m still working every day but there’s this guy named Tom over the hill that’s bullying a couple of guys named jake every time they talk to a lady he thinks he owns. I need to change that. They aren’t practicing social distancing at all. At least tom, 10 guys named jake and about 40 women running around.

 

[knucklegary]

Man o man thats alot of grass cutting BB!

Could be that guy who derailed train into USS Mercy was smoking some of the cuttings?

 

[scout24]

Tom, jake, and the gals have been quite a presence in the mornings for my dog walks. It's nice to hear them after the long winter. I should start seeing groups of them wandering through our yard during the day here sometime soon. Good pic, BigBurly!

 

[knucklegary]

We rarely see more than families of 8, coastal deer

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

Don't confuse mortality rate with CASE mortality. Can't extrapolate between them.

Okay, granted they are currently saying the real number of cases is 11 times higher and nobody really knows the real number. We know China's numbers are b.s.. Some say over 40,000 died, some say around 1 million. However, the numbers I extrapolated for the future known cases and deaths weren't based on an unknown percentage. I used total known cases and total known deaths in U.S. and worldwide and extrapolated based on the current death rate in America (doubling of deaths every three days). That's 32 times higher than the original number for 15 days and 1024 for 30 days. Spread of this virus is logarithmic. The numbers also only went out 15 and 30 days. Unfortunately, once you hit the peak on a bell curve, it's usually the same on the other side going down. In other words, you could have a matching number of deaths after the peak as before it. That 48 million dead number could end up as 96 million. However, if the death rate is indeed, only around 1 percent, deaths globally would be capped at 78 million if everyone got infected (1% of 7.8 billion). I sincerely hope it doesn't get nearly that bad and that current measures to stop it work quickly. Things to keep in mind: Nobody has immunity to this virus. It spreads much faster than the flu. They think it has a death rate 10 times higher than the flu. Nobody really knows where in China it came from (some think a Wuhan market, some think a nearby lab that studies corona viruses and Ebola). It has an incubation period of around 2 weeks so you can be assymptomatic long before you know you're sick. It has already tanked economies worldwide, affected the ways government can operate, weakened our military, and lowered our number of essential workers (doctors, politicians, grocery workers, military, etc.). It can mutate quickly (We might have another round or several rounds with this virus.) Knowing all this, it's better to be prepared for the worst case situation than to wish you were when it's too late.

 

[markr6]

Finally, people are starting to be sent to work from home next week. 50% is the goal. I offered to stay here...and they took me up on it. Dammit! No I'm kidding. I know for a fact, me "working from home" would involve drinking coffee, messing around on the computer, eating pizza and watching Prime for 5 hours straight, then maybe tinkering outside and in the garage. Then when I go hiking or kayaking, I'd get a call...busted!

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

Total known corona virus cases just passed 1 million people.

 

[bigburly912]

Total known corona virus cases just passed 1 million people.

50000 deaths.