COVID-19 (Aka China Virus)

[the g-man]

This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but in the face of a widespread pandemic, how is training and flying mission essential?  Especially at an AETC base...everybody needs to take a knee for 14 days. I keep hearing “hack the mission, get after the mission”...gonna be kinda hard to do that when some ops group somewhere develops an outbreak of this stuff. 

Not unpopular opinion.

Note: I am an AETC IP


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[Royal]

On 3/18/2020 at 9:15 AM, Kenny Powers said:

For fucks' sake (yes, all the fucks), it's called the Kung Flu.

Kenny, I don't disagree that Kung Flu should be the standard nomenclature...However, I think an argument could be made for:

Sweet and Sour Sicken

Wumonia

Bat Soup Croup

Flu Man Chu

Communist Lung Herpes

[brabus]

15 hours ago, 08Dawg said:

This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but in the face of a widespread pandemic, how is training and flying mission essential?  Especially at an AETC base...everybody needs to take a knee for 14 days. I keep hearing “hack the mission, get after the mission”...gonna be kinda hard to do that when some ops group somewhere develops an outbreak of this stuff. 

This may be unpopular, but take emotion away for a second: we have an obligation as the military to not cease everything and cower in the darkest corner of our home. Leadership must keep the longterm/“big pic” at the forefront of their decision calculus to prevent a short term problem from causing catastrophic longterm effects (readiness, an even worse pilot shortage, opening up room for unchecked adversary advancement, geopolitical fallout at our country’s expense due to a weakened US military, etc.) 

I think most people and orgs (AF included) are taking reasonable mitigation measures, as they should. But to take draconian measures and shut down important activities for weeks or months (because 2 weeks isn’t going to accomplish much) is incredibly short-sighted, and will have significant effects. 

[FLEA]

Brabus, I 100% agree. It's frustrating being "key personnel" and still doing the grind with reduced support while other functions are staying home. In the end that's what we all signed up for though.

[brickhistory]

12 hours ago, Royal said:

Kenny, I don't disagree that Kung Flu should be the standard nomenclature...However, I think an argument could be made for:

Sweet and Sour Sicken

Wumonia

Bat Soup Croup

Flu Man Chu

Communist Lung Herpes

Let us not forget:

 

Wu Tang Clap

[brickhistory]

On 3/18/2020 at 11:15 AM, Kenny Powers said:

For fucks' sake (yes, all the fucks).

Separate but related, it will interesting to see how big the baby boom generated from the industrialized world's self-isolation will be.

Will replace all the morts plus some, I bet.

[pawnman]

1 hour ago, brabus said:

This may be unpopular, but take emotion away for a second: we have an obligation as the military to not cease everything and cower in the darkest corner of our home. Leadership must keep the longterm/“big pic” at the forefront of their decision calculus to prevent a short term problem from causing catastrophic longterm effects (readiness, an even worse pilot shortage, opening up room for unchecked adversary advancement, geopolitical fallout at our country’s expense due to a weakened US military, etc.) 

I think most people and orgs (AF included) are taking reasonable mitigation measures, as they should. But to take draconian measures and shut down important activities for weeks or months (because 2 weeks isn’t going to accomplish much) is incredibly short-sighted, and will have significant effects. 

Maybe, but I've seen bases that are doing some interesting things...like, half the squadron works 14 days, goes home, and the other half works 14 days.  Ensures you don't lose the entire squadron when one guy comes down with Kung Flu.

[12xu2a3x3]

2 hours ago, brickhistory said:

Let us not forget:

 

Wu Tang Clap

first things first man you're ####in with the worst

i'll be stick pins in ya head like a ####in nurse

Edited March 23, 2020 by 12xu2a3x3

[brabus]

4 hours ago, pawnman said:

Maybe, but I've seen bases that are doing some interesting things...like, half the squadron works 14 days, goes home, and the other half works 14 days.  Ensures you don't lose the entire squadron when one guy comes down with Kung Flu.

That’s a innovative way to minimize risk while continuing the mission, good on ‘em. What would be short-sighted is completely ceasing the mission for x weeks/months. 

[StoleIt]

4 hours ago, pawnman said:

Maybe, but I've seen bases that are doing some interesting things...like, half the squadron works 14 days, goes home, and the other half works 14 days.  Ensures you don't lose the entire squadron when one guy comes down with Kung Flu.

Unless there is a crazy cleaning or 3 day wait between changes...I don't think that will work. Isn't COVID-19 pretty resilient outside of a host on normal surfaces?

And I've tried to think about this too for my Command Post. We paired up people to minimize our normally constant changing partners (2 people a shift, 2x 12 hour shifts a day). But...it's my understanding that if someone get's it then basically everyone going through there has a high chance of catching it because it survives for ~3 days on normal surfaces. Oh, and base supply is out of cleaning products so our current supply of lysol, hand sanitizer, and klorox wipes are all we have.

[Breckey]

Our squadron is doing something similar with a cleaning party on Friday to try and cleanse the surfaces prior to the next ground arriving. It helps to have a bunch of airman waiting to start flying to be a work party.

[08Dawg]

22 hours ago, pawnman said:

Or a maintenance group... Since there are a lot more of them, and they are in close proximity while working on planes.

And I’d expect one could easily infect the other, especially on a crewed aircraft.  

[AirGuardianC141747]

5 hours ago, pawnman said:

Maybe, but I've seen bases that are doing some interesting things...like, half the squadron works 14 days, goes home, and the other half works 14 days.  Ensures you don't lose the entire squadron when one guy comes down with Kung Flu.

I believe this is the key (above) as “pawnman” indicated. Find a way, lockdown has been proven and our military is the most disciplined within our country to execute this within their community. You will not be combat effective in the near term and be ready long term if this is not implemented. Our civilian sector, not so much with our current culture of selfie before others it’s all about me. We are not practicing social distancing, masks, staying inside unless needs need to be met = sustenance, etc. Look at NY right now, this is just the beginning of the spike. Asian culture has been through this and several maintained structure/discipline without so called Draconian measures.

1 hour ago, StoleIt said:

Unless there is a crazy cleaning or 3 day wait between changes...I don't think that will work. Isn't COVID-19 pretty resilient outside of a host on normal surfaces?

And I've tried to think about this too for my Command Post. We paired up people to minimize our normally constant changing partners (2 people a shift, 2x 12 hour shifts a day). But...it's my understanding that if someone get's it then basically everyone going through there has a high chance of catching it because it survives for ~3 days on normal surfaces. Oh, and base supply is out of cleaning products so our current supply of lysol, hand sanitizer, and klorox wipes are all we have.

Having our military entirely shutdown would work, but not feasible and no one should be advocating this, but separated shift work and cleanliness is the game. With your remaining supplies it’s not beyond policing yourselves. I wipe down every touchable area I normally use as I bounce around hotels:, switches, locks, door knobs, phones, lights, table, especially the remote, etc. (thankfully I brought a ton of wipes with me). In Asia my remote was cleaned and sealed, total pain to rip off but I respect it. I don’t doubt how they mitigated it when I watch them clean our aircraft. Not a perfect situation, but they are sincerely doing their best. I clean the flight deck multiple times every leg. It’s a mindset, get on board. Spray that Lysol, etc. If your truly out, it is what is and drive on. We really have no excuses because we were not lead car in this race. The best solutions at this point were practiced by cars, 2, 3, 4, (Dang China being #1) and some of the following cars are bouncing off the walls (Italy, soon France, etc. and US most likely) Taiwan, Singapore, HKG, and more or less were able to flatten the curve. Just returning from Asia yet again and having been through their process, we unfortunately are lagging way behind with our populations lackadaisical attitude in many areas and the false sense of security of a superior healthcare system is being overwhelmed. I’m just saying. Hope I am wrong but the spike looks like it’s well on its way.

Edited March 23, 2020 by AirGuardianC141747

[08Dawg]

6 hours ago, brabus said:

This may be unpopular, but take emotion away for a second: we have an obligation as the military to not cease everything and cower in the darkest corner of our home. Leadership must keep the longterm/“big pic” at the forefront of their decision calculus to prevent a short term problem from causing catastrophic longterm effects (readiness, an even worse pilot shortage, opening up room for unchecked adversary advancement, geopolitical fallout at our country’s expense due to a weakened US military, etc.) 

I think most people and orgs (AF included) are taking reasonable mitigation measures, as they should. But to take draconian measures and shut down important activities for weeks or months (because 2 weeks isn’t going to accomplish much) is incredibly short-sighted, and will have significant effects. 

Yeah, I think we can all agree about the obligation piece. My thought is that a) our readiness is better served by a healthy force that has been shielded from this crap by as much isolation or minimum contact as possible and b) that if our readiness is in such a critical state that it can’t take the shock of a three week tactical pause, we’re in an even worse way state than perhaps we suspected previously.  I’d be more worried about an adversary’s advancing if this outbreak was largely affecting just the US, but everybody has it. No other country is in much better shape than we are. 
 

We need to aggressively confront this thing. A two or three week hard stop now IMHO is better than dragging this on for months and months by not taking drastic steps. 

[AirGuardianC141747]

12 minutes ago, 08Dawg said:

No other country is in much better shape than we are. 
 

We need to aggressively confront this thing. A two or three week hard stop now IMHO is better than dragging this on for months and months by not taking drastic steps. 

Totally agree, the faster we do the right thing and confront reality of separation, the quicker we come out of it.

Taiwan, Singapore, HKG numbers makes other nations look bad. S. Korea had their own way to stifle it with 10-15,000 tests a day and flattened their curve. Just walked thru HKG streets 2 days ago. Smaller crowd but very large amount still shopping constantly dodging each other, masks on and more cordial than normal. Billboards stating Wear your masks, be vigilant, etc. Someone placarded a cardboard statement with “Hey You Gweilo, are you too poor to buy a mask?” Embarrassing since I saw several without them ( a few HKGers weren’t either, but limited and the ratio was far less). 1 every 100 vs 3 out every of 5 of us. I wore the mask they gave me, gloves, wipes, contact list and thermometer given as well. It was blatantly obvious. We will spike, don’t be a Spring Breaker, etc.

Edited March 23, 2020 by AirGuardianC141747

[brickhistory]

But where - and I don't presume to have any answer - is the line between being smart and fighting this and absolutely wrecking our, and the world's economy?

Is a repeat of the 1930s worth the culling of the human herd that most likely will happen anyway?  I write that knowing that I'm in a higher risk of not recovering group due to age.  This isn't the Black Death.  It's a deadly form of influenza that will likely get 100s of thousands worldwide not 100s of millions.  Where's the line?

More importantly, to my anyway, is where is the line regarding keeping our Constitutional system alive and mostly well? (pun intended).

Gonna need more bourbon.

And Pop Tarts...

Edited March 23, 2020 by brickhistory

[drewpey]

1 hour ago, brickhistory said:

But where - and I don't presume to have any answer - is the line between being smart and fighting this and absolutely wrecking our, and the world's economy?

Is a repeat of the 1930s worth the culling of the human herd that most likely will happen anyway?  I write that knowing that I'm in a higher risk of not recovering group due to age.  This isn't the Black Death.  It's a deadly form of influenza that will likely get 100s of thousands worldwide not 100s of millions.  Where's the line?

More importantly, to my anyway, is where is the line regarding keeping our Constitutional system alive and mostly well? (pun intended).

Gonna need more bourbon.

And Pop Tarts...

There were an estimated 38-54M cases of the flu in the US alone over the last 6 months.  Given that Covid-19 is twice as transmissible as the common flu, topping 100M isn't a far fetched thought.  Lets imagine we just let it run wild and it only infects the same amount of people as the regular flu...even with the conservative CFR we've seen in the US of 1.31/100 you're looking at 700k dead...roughly twice the size of the USAF.  What's that worth to the economy?

Now imagine it's twice as transmissible (it is), and that some countries have seen CFRs upwards to 4+ (China) or 9+ (Italy).  Also you aren't even considering the logistical side of our crippled healthcare system dealing with that many cases of Coronavirus.  You think the VA is bad now?  Just wait.

 

[brabus]

6 minutes ago, drewpey said:

There were an estimated 38-54M cases of the flu in the US alone over the last 6 months.  Given that Covid-19 is twice as transmissible as the common flu, topping 100M isn't a far fetched thought.  Lets imagine we just let it run wild and it only infects the same amount of people as the regular flu...even with the conservative CFR we've seen in the US of 1.31/100 you're looking at 700k dead...roughly twice the size of the USAF.  What's that worth to the economy?

Now imagine it's twice as transmissible (it is), and that some countries have seen CFRs upwards to 4+ (China) or 9+ (Italy).  Also you aren't even considering the logistical side of our crippled healthcare system dealing with that many cases of Coronavirus.  You think the VA is bad now?  Just wait.

 

And what does the rate of transmission mean without context? This is a serious problem, but look at data with context and it’s not nearly the Black Death the media is pedaling...we are crushing ourselves for many years to come because we’ve bought into the hysteria and are overreacting in some ways (but certainly reacting appropriately in other ways). Aggressive action needs to be taken in some ways, but to peg our total response to one side of the spectrum is asinine.  I think this is part of Brick’s point. 

[brickhistory]

I think your math is inflated by several digits, but as I premised, what is the cut line?

Some, worst case in my opinion, 20,000-30,000 in the U.S., another 50,000 worldwide deaths or a literal stopped economy, both ours and Western Europe?  BTW, China is cranking its factories back up and Russia never stopped.

We are printing money by the non-metric sh1t ton-load and the stock market is still tanking.  Small businesses do not have the reserves to stand more than 1-2 weeks of not getting customers.  Even if we opened for business tomorrow, thousands of mom-and-pop's are gone.  They'll eventually be replaced assuming there's still an economy to make it worthwhile to try.

As I said, I don't have the answer(s).  More/gooder medical supplies/meds, yea!  Shutting everyone up behind closed doors?  Not so sure.

And I'm (using the royal "I," not me personally) losing my first, second, fourth, sixth, and seventh amendment rights because somebody said so.  Is that us?

I'm agin that.

Edited March 24, 2020 by brickhistory

[Breckey]

The problem with that is that we as a country are not okay with letting 20-30k people die of a respiratory disease in this day-and-age. Granted the majority of people that are most at risk do not contribute that much to the overall economy, the thought of keeping calm and carrying on for the benefit of the economy is a thought that many do not want to have. Look how much we spend on end of life and hospice care, this is no different. 

This is the trolley dilemma but on a massive scale. Do we accept the fact that those people will die to make it easier for the other 330 million people?

[arg]

15 hours ago, pawnman said:

Maybe, but I've seen bases that are doing some interesting things...like, half the squadron works 14 days, goes home, and the other half works 14 days.  Ensures you don't lose the entire squadron when one guy comes down with Kung Flu.

The squadron I work in is doing one week on one week off.

[brabus]

7 hours ago, Breckey said:

The problem with that is that we as a country are not okay with letting 20-30k people die of a respiratory disease in this day-and-age

When this eventually blows over and the politicians boast how “only X amount died/we saved Y amount,” keep an eye on the 2020-2022 suicide rates. I bet the increase dwarfs any “saves” by the draconian steps we’re taking right now.

[Whisky]

23 hours ago, brickhistory said:

Separate but related, it will interesting to see how big the baby boom generated from the industrialized world's self-isolation will be.

Will replace all the morts plus some, I bet.

It will be interesting. I vote we call this new generation "Coronials" and in thirteen years we'll refer to them as "quaranteens."

[Whisky]

12 hours ago, brickhistory said:

I think your math is inflated by several digits, but as I premised, what is the cut line?

Some, worst case in my opinion, 20,000-30,000 in the U.S., another 50,000 worldwide deaths or a literal stopped economy, both ours and Western Europe?  BTW, China is cranking its factories back up and Russia never stopped.

We are printing money by the non-metric sh1t ton-load and the stock market is still tanking.  Small businesses do not have the reserves to stand more than 1-2 weeks of not getting customers.  Even if we opened for business tomorrow, thousands of mom-and-pop's are gone.  They'll eventually be replaced assuming there's still an economy to make it worthwhile to try.

As I said, I don't have the answer(s).  More/gooder medical supplies/meds, yea!  Shutting everyone up behind closed doors?  Not so sure.

And I'm (using the royal "I," not me personally) losing my first, second, fourth, sixth, and seventh amendment rights because somebody said so.  Is that us?

I'm agin that.

I agree with Brickhistory here. 40,000 people die on highways in the US every year.  We don't shut those down, we accept a certain level of risk and try to reduce the deaths. I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything to mitigate risk and try to reduce the curve, but I think history will judge that we were too aggressive on this. That the cure was more dangerous than the disease. Worldwide depression seems very likely with our current course of action. Pour money into the healthcare system and a vaccine with the economy continuing to function and pay for it if instead. 

I also may be mistaken, but I think the CFR will be drastically reduced in the future, when they finally start mass testing. So many people are asymptomatic, and they're strict with who they test. As a result, the number of critically ill and deaths  to cases is artificially high because the denominator in that ratio is very under reported worldwide.

Of course every time someone loses a loved one, it's tragic. But I think we can do the best we can to protect the vulnerable, without shutting down the country completely.

[Jetpilot]

Agree that draconian lockdowns are not effective unless there are other mitigating strategies i.e. mass testing, constant sanitizing of public spaces, and diffusion of information on who is infected and who is not.  I look to South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan who all came out strong early and used a multitude of strategies.  

Second point, the last time I checked, the media is not in control of the White House, Congress, and/or Military.  I understand there seems to be some hysteria playing out, but looking at transmission data and number of hospital beds, we are in for a shit storm if we decide to just ride it out.  What would the economy look like when 2/3 of a given business' workforce is out sick despite their age.  Also, what if this virus effects large chunks of those who maintain water and power grids?  Putting the world on hold for a month will tank the economy, but so will letting upwards of 1 million people die with many more being too sick to work. (https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf).  It also is hard to quantify all of the second and third order deaths that will result from a lack of hospital space.

We need a flexible, targeted approach to tackle this.  We should also be shifting towards a national unified effort that calls on all applicable businesses to tweak their production lines and being producing vital products (respirators, masks, hospital beds etc.) It needs to be an all hands on deck with a coordinated strategy originating from the top.  Anything less and we will fail to instill the confidence the average American citizen needs to continue their pre-COVID19 lives.  

However, currently we have anything but this level of coordination and effort.  Individual states will take matters into their own hands, which will ultimately conflict with another state's plan leading a continued reduction of efficiency.