Originally Posted by Bwana:
Once again, don't come in this thread with some kind of political agenda, or you will be shown the door. If you want to go that route, there is a thread about this in DC.
Originally Posted by Dartgod:
People, there is a lot of good information in this thread, let's try to keep the petty bickering to a minimum.
We all have varying opinions about the impact of this, the numbers, etc. We will all never agree with each other. But we can all keep it civil.
Thanks!
Click here for the original OP:
Spoiler!
Apparently the CoronaVirus can survive on a inanimate objects, such as door knobs, for 9 days.
California coronavirus case could be first spread within U.S. community, CDC says
By SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA, JACLYN COSGROVE
FEB. 26, 2020 8:04 PM
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating what could be the first case of novel coronavirus in the United States involving a patient in California who neither recently traveled out of the country nor was in contact with someone who did.
“At this time, the patient’s exposure is unknown. It’s possible this could be an instance of community spread of COVID-19, which would be the first time this has happened in the United States,” the CDC said in a statement. “Community spread means spread of an illness for which the source of infection is unknown. It’s also possible, however, that the patient may have been exposed to a returned traveler who was infected.”
The individual is a resident of Solano County and is receiving medical care in Sacramento County, according to the state Department of Public Health.
The CDC said the “case was detected through the U.S. public health system — picked up by astute clinicians.”
Officials at UC Davis Medical Center expanded on what the federal agency might have meant by that in an email sent Wednesday, as reported by the Davis Enterprise newspaper.
The patient arrived at UC Davis Medical Center from another hospital Feb. 19 and “had already been intubated, was on a ventilator, and given droplet protection orders because of an undiagnosed and suspected viral condition,” according to an email sent by UC Davis officials that was obtained by the Davis Enterprise.
The staff at UC Davis requested COVID-19 testing by the CDC, but because the patient didn’t fit the CDC’s existing criteria for the virus, a test wasn’t immediately administered, according to the email. The CDC then ordered the test Sunday, and results were announced Wednesday. Hospital administrators reportedly said in the email that despite these issues, there has been minimal exposure at the hospital because of safety protocols they have in place.
A UC Davis Health spokesperson declined Wednesday evening to share the email with The Times.
Since Feb. 2, more than 8,400 returning travelers from China have entered California, according to the state health department. They have been advised to self-quarantine for 14 days and limit interactions with others as much as possible, officials said.
“This is a new virus, and while we are still learning about it, there is a lot we already know,” Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “We have been anticipating the potential for such a case in the U.S., and given our close familial, social and business relationships with China, it is not unexpected that the first case in the U.S. would be in California.”
It is not clear how the person became infected, but public health workers could not identify any contacts with people who had traveled to China or other areas where the virus is widespread. That raises concern that the virus is spreading in the United States, creating a challenge for public health officials, experts say.
“It’s the first signal that we could be having silent transmission in the community,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. “It probably means there are many more cases out there, and it probably means this individual has infected others, and now it’s a race to try to find out who that person has infected.”
On Tuesday, the CDC offered its most serious warning to date that the United States should expect and prepare for the coronavirus to become a more widespread health issue.
“Ultimately, we expect we will see coronavirus spread in this country,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “It’s not so much a question of if, but a question of when.”
According to the CDC’s latest count Wednesday morning, 59 U.S. residents have tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus — 42 of whom are repatriated citizens from a Diamond Princess cruise. That number has grown by two since Messonnier’s last count Tuesday, although the CDC was not immediately available to offer details on the additional cases.
More than 82,000 cases of coronavirus have been reported globally, and more than 2,700 people have died, with the majority in mainland China, the epicenter of the outbreak.
But public health leaders have repeatedly reminded residents that the health risk from the novel coronavirus to the general public remains low.
“While COVID-19 has a high transmission rate, it has a low mortality rate,” the state Department of Public Health said in a statement Wednesday. “From the international data we have, of those who have tested positive for COVID-19, approximately 80% do not exhibit symptoms that would require hospitalization. There have been no confirmed deaths related to COVID-19 in the United States to date.”
CDC officials have also warned that although the virus is likely to spread in U.S. communities, the flu still poses a greater risk.
Gostin said the news of potential silent transmission does not eliminate the possibility of containing the virus in the U.S. and preventing an outbreak.
“There are few enough cases that we should at least try,” he said. “Most of us are not optimistic that that will be successful, but we’re still in the position to try.”
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
But what they're saying is that it the R0 literally dropped to 1 overnight.
Because those models have been trending like crap from 24 hours of being released. They've NEVER been close. If they're claiming that the fact that they were off by 2-300% within 72 hours of releasing the model because of improved social distancing, then they're saying that the 90% was already happening and the R0 was down below 1 even prior to the study being released (because these are all lagging indicators).
And even if we're NOW at at R0 below 1 (I don't believe we are because again, history says it simply never happens in practice like it does on a spreadsheet), there are still lagging indicators all over that data and it STILL wouldn't explain how wildly disparate the changes were, even on a state to state basis.
Nor does it get into the fact that, again, the models lacked internal consistency. When the imperial college put forward its best case scenario and assumed complete social isolation, it didn't bring the peak forward.
You can't be off by that much, that fast and claim it was a result of a social behavior that wasn't even being demanded on a nationwide (or generally statewide) basis at the time your model was released. It simply doesn't work. Maybe had the models tracked for a week or even 2 and then went off the rails, I'd buy that.
But they were wrong immediately. And no, there's no way to say that a wholesale behavioral change that hadn't even been adopted yet caused that. Especially when they kept 'updating' the model mid-stream and still didn't think to address that claimed multiplier? Wouldn't that have been the first and most obvious target?
1) The Imperial Model was built upon 75% social distancing, not 90%.
2) If you believe that we'll never get to an R0 below 1 then you also must believe that there is no way that this disease will even have peaks and valleys, because as long as the R0 is above 1 case growth will continue until herd immunity is reached. It's the nature of exponential growth.
If you believe that can't happen, then you also must not believe that South Korea, or Hong Kong were ever able to get their caseloads under control, but they were.
3) We don't yet know when the peak in cases will be (or perhaps was), because we aren't testing everyone simultaneously. These things take time. We also know that large scale isolation measures were adopted in large portions of the country starting several weeks ago. The areas that waited will likely have peaks that are delayed and/or less severe. The areas that instituted them sooner will likely have peaks that occur sooner with less severity.
4) No one knows for sure what the R0 of the virus is, but it's probably not 10 or 15. The makers of the model didn't know the extent of community spread. As they've learned more, they've input more data. It seems to have made the models more accurate, but that itself is also not yet known for certain. [Reply]
But there's a bit of good news: The modeling shows fewer people will die from coronavirus than previously expected.
On Tuesday, the IHME estimated about 82,000 people will die from coronavirus disease by August. On Wednesday, that estimate was lowered to 60,415.
And Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking coronavirus cases worldwide, changed its trending description for the US to "down" -- similar to the current trending statuses for Italy and Spain.
That new designation is based on a five-day moving average of new cases and can change again at at any time. [Reply]
I don’t understand the math inside the models nor will I pretend to but, hurricane models have been a part of my life for the last 10 years.
Some on here that attended the Jacksonville tailgate were effected by the models. On Tuesday before Sunday’s game Jacksonville was going to take a direct hit from the hurricane. No game. By Thursday it was just going to sideswipe the city and Chief fans could party on.
Couple of years ago a hurricane was going offshore of my house. No danger. My area had never taken a direct hit from a hurricane. Two days later the hurricane passed directly over my house.
They track and model hurricane paths 100’s of times a year. If they were wrong about the last two hurricane models that impacted me, with all that real world experience of hurricane models, how can we expect a pandemic model to be more accurate in real time when it doesn’t happen that often? [Reply]
Originally Posted by Titty Meat:
Even if we dont rush back this is going to happen. It sucks Singapore had done a good job on this too
No - they simply hadn't had their story written yet.
Again, this is the problem with a presumption that putting the brakes on immediately is the answer. It doesn't help you win the battle - it just pauses it.
And in so doing, you're stopping an organic progression that could allow hot spots to emerge and be addressed sequentially - you're forcing everyone onto the same timeline in the hopes that an intervening factor emerges in the interim.
The problem is with the presumption that the most draconian efforts were the best for long-term outcomes. That fast was inherently 'good'. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
No - they simply hadn't had their story written yet.
Again, this is the problem with a presumption that putting the brakes on immediately is the answer. It doesn't help you win the battle - it just pauses it.
And in so doing, you're stopping an organic progression that could allow hot spots to emerge and be addressed sequentially - you're forcing everyone onto the same timeline in the hopes that an intervening factor emerges in the interim.
The problem is with the presumption that the most draconian efforts were the best for long-term outcomes. That fast was inherently 'good'.
I do think it's nice in a way that Sweden is doing something different and trying to keep the restrictions to a minimum. I have no idea if it'll work out for them, but it's good for building knowledge to have at least someone going against the grain a bit.
It could majorly bite them in the ass. Or maybe it won't... [Reply]
Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins:
1) The Imperial Model was built upon 75% social distancing, not 90%.
The imperial model was a series of levels of compliance and the correlation was the same throughout - that flattening a curve pushed it out. So where's the logic there?
Originally Posted by :
2) If you believe that we'll never get to an R0 below 1 then you also must believe that there is no way that this disease will even have peaks and valleys, because as long as the R0 is above 1 case growth will continue until herd immunity is reached. It's the nature of exponential growth.
If you believe that can't happen, then you also must not believe that South Korea, or Hong Kong were ever able to get their caseloads under control, but they were.
In the same way Singapore was. A pause doesn't mean an end. And R0 below 2 prevents exponential growth and eventually that will yield a long-term decline provided that there is acquired immunity. It becomes 'de facto' social distancing. And with any set of numbers there will be peaks and valleys, but you don't need an R0 below zero for a negative trendline. Again, we've seen enormous declines in incidents of HIV/AIDS over the years, beginning most clearly in the early/mid 90s. Yet we've never had an R0 below 1 for it. It's declined because it was below 2 and inside those trends have been small peaks/valleys.
Originally Posted by :
3) We don't yet know when the peak in cases will be (or perhaps was), because we aren't testing everyone simultaneously. These things take time. We also know that large scale isolation measures were adopted in large portions of the country starting several weeks ago. The areas that waited will likely have peaks that are delayed and/or less severe. The areas that instituted them sooner will likely have peaks that occur sooner with less severity.
Sure, but that doesn't speak to the fact that within those specific test groups those peaks have been ripped backwards with little internal logic.
Originally Posted by :
4) No one knows for sure what the R0 of the virus is, but it's probably not 10 or 15. The makers of the model didn't know the extent of community spread. As they've learned more, they've input more data. It seems to have made the models more accurate, but that itself is also not yet known for certain.
Sure - doesn't change the fact that the initial efforts were throwing darts at a wall and then drawing circles around them. [Reply]