COVID-19 (Aka China Virus)

[nsplayr]

This seems relevant to the discussion.

To me, there was never an agreed upon strategy from the top down, so it's natural that some people feeling cheated based on what your expectations were when this all kicked off. All of these (and more!) were messages from various leaders/experts/etc., yet no one can definitely say which one is/was the plan.

Example: a lot of people here are dying on the hill of, "We were told #10 or #11!!" and yea, you were told that. But you were also told to prepare for #2, #3, or #5, and worst case #1.

IMHO the President's plan (if you can call it that) has been start with deny, deny, deny, deny, make counter-accusations (classic strategy!), now we're in #4 (delay is also one of my fav tactics), with a sprinkling of #7 and eventually probably end up at #6 because we have no other plan.

List originally taken from here.

[nsplayr]

When it comes to nurses & some of the protests to open things back up, I think we need to show some compassion. 5% toward those protesting because freedom of association and movement and work are important, and 95% to frontline healthcare workers who are going through hell right now. The endgame solution is a balance...feel free to pick from the above options and call your Congressman.

Back to nurses and the (joke) cards running around for people to sign away their right to healthcare if they get the Rona: how many random soldiers recommended glassing the entire Middle East after seeing their buddies get killed or maimed in Iraq/Afghanistan/et al? I know more than a few personally and I also know there are several examples I could pull from this august body of spear-throwers.

Nurses and doctors likely feel about the same right now toward people they see as making the their jobs harder. If I were them I'd be pretty damn angry too; hell, I can get angry at people not doing the right thing and I'm just sitting on my couch. In other news, get off my lawn.

I have great certainty that 99.9% of healthcare workers would treat any patient rolling through the door with COVID-19 regardless of the circumstances, just like 99.9% of soldiers wouldn't murder innocent civilians on the battlefield.

Edited April 20, 2020 by nsplayr

[dream big]

3 hours ago, Waingro said:

I'm OK with this, gotta clean out that gene pool!

What’s wrong with you?

[BashiChuni]

it's rich that the people screaming "STAY HOME" the loudest are the ones with the steady paychecks continuing to come in like clock work every two weeks

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/20/amid-pandemic-unemployment-checks-can-take-longer-to-arrive.html

 

https://medium.com/@jbgeach/changing-the-goalposts-four-more-reasons-it-is-safe-to-open-america-560cfc0ab4c3

Edited April 20, 2020 by BashiChuni

[Pooter]

Apologies on the username confusion boys, that was an old account somehow still signed in on my phone.  Not trying to Russia troll farm anybody into changing their minds.  I'll shack myself accordingly.  

Now back to our regularly scheduled bitch sesh

[busdriver]

Almost every politician has been a panicky shit sandwich.  Organizations have twisted the truth (with good intentions in their hearts) in an attempt at modifying people's behavior, but it's still bullshit.

The media is behaving like a cat chasing a laser pointer, knowing they want to craft a narrative but can't figure out what it should be other than A: Trump is evil and Fox News sucks or B: Trump is awesome and CNN is evil.

The people need to be told the truth, then allowed to make decisions.  If the people can't be trusted to act responsibly of their own free will, what's the point of having a free society?  Yes, I realize that statement is lacking in a lot of the nuance that is actually necessary in making a functional government. 

Then again, telling people who lost their jobs because the government shut down their employer to just fucking stay at home and stop bitching is pretty fucking obtuse.

The reality is this will continue in waves until a vaccine is developed or the pandemic has run it's course, either way ending in herd immunity or a virus mutated for lower mortality that we just learn to live with.

[Homestar]

15 hours ago, Danger41 said:

motorcyclists

I think this is what I'm signing when I log off my annual briefing in MUSTT, no? 😄

[Lord Ratner]

16 hours ago, dream big said:

I am personally terrified that someone that deranged and devoid of logic is allows to be a nurse and work with other’s health. 

Uh, have you ever met a nurse?

 

Break break

 

Are we ready to stop pretending like this thing is a threat to healthy people? We flattened the curve, forestalled the infections long enough to get ventilators and hospital beds ready. There's no cure or vaccine coming soon, so let's just stop pretending like the world stays paused for however long that will take.

 

We are going to open up, and more old/unhealthy people are going to die. That was never, ever going to be avoided. We didn't flatten the curve to keep people from getting sick forever, we did it to make sure there would be a bed for them when it happened. We're there now, so let's stop ****ing around. 

 

The world doesn't stop just because a disease exists. We had to adapt our medical system to this new reality, and that required social distancing. We're close enough to go back to living again.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Lord Ratner

[otsap]

3 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

Are we ready to stop pretending like this thing is a threat to healthy people? We flattened the curve, forestalled the infections long enough to get ventilators and hospital beds ready. There's no cure or vaccine coming soon, so let's just stop pretending like the world stays paused for however long that will take.

We are going to open up, and more old/unhealthy people are going to die. That was never, ever going to be avoided. We didn't flatten the curve to keep people from getting sick forever, we did it to make sure there would be a bed for them when it happened. We're there now, so let's stop ****ing around. 

The world doesn't stop just because a disease exists. We had to adapt our medical system to this new reality, and that required social distancing. We're close enough to go back to living again.

I think you're exactly right.  What's going to be really irritating is months from now when politicians and talking heads point to the curve and say "Look how it flattened after the lockdowns were put in place."  Watch for that, because that argument is going to be made until people accept it as truth, without any discussion of what else may have caused the flattening.

You know what other infectious disease curve looks like COVID's and also "flattened out?"  EVERY SINGLE ONE EVER.  That's how a new/novel disease works.  It hurts/kills the most frail and vulnerable early when it initially hits, and then it flattens, because the weakest and most vulnerable are no longer around to be infected.

Here's my stab at a logical conclusion that sounds a bit harsh, but seems like reality:  A lockdown doesn't make the frail or immunocompromised somehow stronger or less compromised.  So the purpose then is to slow the spread until the virus is irradicated or a cure/vaccine is found, which means a lockdown for at least one year by current estimates.  But, if we're not prepared for a lockdown until there's a cure or irradication, then the lockdown is again pointless because when lifted, absent a cure or irradication, it will still spread to those who are frail or immunocompromised and they'll end up however they would've ended up anyway.

[jazzdude]

Here's my stab at a logical conclusion that sounds a bit harsh, but seems like reality:  A lockdown doesn't make the frail or immunocompromised somehow stronger or less compromised.  So the purpose then is to slow the spread until the virus is irradicated or a cure/vaccine is found, which means a lockdown for at least one year by current estimates. 

Flattening the curve to slow the virus isn't just to slow the spread, it's to slow the spread to allow the hospitalization rates to stay within the capacity of the medical community to treat them.

A vaccine reduces would reduce the number of people getting infected and needing treatment, but it's not the only solution. You could also attack the other end of the problem, increasing healthcare capacity to meet the demand. (Or hopefully, do both). But that requires significant investment ASAP, with some things having long lead times. I guess another solution is "sucks to be you if you get sick, you shouldn't have been so weak."

That includes beds at the hospitals, doctors and nurses to treat patients, specialized equipment (not just ventilators) and the parts to maintain them, medications and PPE on hand and the ability to produce and distribute, as well as all the other support to make a hospital run.

If non-medical companies retool to build medical equipment, how are they inspected to ensure what they are producing is safe? Or will standards be thrown out?

So it looks like we're doing okay now, though PPE is being heavily rationed, and a lot of safety procedures and best practices regarding PPE for healthcare workers have been waived. Small sample size, but both of my family members in medicine are surging already at their hospital/clinic.

We can't stay locked down indefinitely, my gut says late summer for easing up. But I don't think it'll go back to how it was in Jan/Feb either for a long time.

[SocialD]

25 minutes ago, jazzdude said:

We can't stay locked down indefinitely, my gut says late summer for easing up. But I don't think it'll go back to how it was in Jan/Feb either for a long time.

 

 

Americans won't take being locked up that long.  People are already getting antsy and fed up with being stuck at home, as evidenced by numerous protests.  So as to not lose my mind I've been going on a 150-200 mile drive about every other day (gas is $.99 to $1.10 here...why not) and it damn near seems like business as usual in this part of the country.  Went for a $100 hamburger yesterday and aside from the restaurant requiring take out, business seemed steady with at least 4 other planes flying in while I was there. 

The governor of Georgia has already announced some businesses may open up as early as Friday.  Restaurant dining rooms and Movie theaters to open next Monday and the stay at home order ends 30Apr.

[jonlbs]

49 minutes ago, jazzdude said:

We can't stay locked down indefinitely, my gut says late summer for easing up. But I don't think it'll go back to how it was in Jan/Feb either for a long time.
 

 

Some data from Texas. A huge chunk of the state pretty much never even went into social distancing if you ask me. I never stopped heading into work, the highways and everything were bustling everyday. Grocery stores ran like normal. Gas stations full of people. Customers certainly were dying to come to our business, frustrated with the quarantine. People were on the trail running every morning (definitely within 6 ft) etc etc. If I somehow avoided the news completely (and man I tried) I would've have never known anything had changed.

Anyways from my little slice of the world, like @SocialD said, this shit show won't last the end of the month in Texas.

Not here to argue the validity of these choices by any means, just spread some perspective from the good ole lone star state.

[SocialD]

45 minutes ago, jonlbs said:

Some data from Texas. A huge chunk of the state pretty much never even went into social distancing if you ask me. I never stopped heading into work, the highways and everything were bustling everyday. Grocery stores ran like normal. Gas stations full of people. Customers certainly were dying to come to our business, frustrated with the quarantine. People were on the trail running every morning (definitely within 6 ft) etc etc. If I somehow avoided the news completely (and man I tried) I would've have never known anything had changed.

Anyways from my little slice of the world, like @SocialD said, this shit show won't last the end of the month in Texas.

Not here to argue the validity of these choices by any means, just spread some perspective from the good ole lone star state.

 

This can't be true...people would be dying by the tens of thousands and your hospitals would be overflowing.  😁

 

A pilot I follow on youtube made a few videos talking about his experience with getting the rona.  Btw, if you like to geek out on planes that were built 70-80 years ago and have the wheel in the back, check out some of his other videos.  

 

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by SocialD

[Orbit]

Dewey makes some good flying videos. 

[nsplayr]

Here is an actual plan for coming out of this crisis from Dr. Scott Gottlieb, Trump’s first FDA head, and others at AEI.
 

https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/national-coronavirus-response-a-road-map-to-reopening/

Key takeaways are the triggers/conditions to move from one phase to another. We are in Phase 1 now.

They write:

A state can safely proceed to Phase II when it has achieved all the following:

• A sustained reduction in cases for at least 14 days,
• Hospitals in the state are safely able to treat all patients requiring hospitalization without resorting to crisis standards of care,²²
• The state is able to test all people with COVID-19 symptoms, and
• The state is able to conduct active monitoring of confirmed cases and their contacts.²³

Some states, including mine, seem ready to move to Phase II in the next week or two, without meeting any of the above triggers. I’m hopeful we can make some progress toward these kind of benchmarks before the state-wise stay at home order expires, but we truly are in a “Ready, Fire, Aim” situation because it’s not a conditions-based plan, it’s a “I’m sick of this lockdown so press” plan, IMHO.

Edited April 21, 2020 by nsplayr

[Pooter]

3 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

Some states, including mine, seem ready to move to Phase II in the next week or two, without meeting any of the above triggers. I’m hopeful we can make some progress toward these kind of benchmarks before the state-wise stay at home order expires, but we truly are in a “Ready, Fire, Aim” situation because it’s not a conditions-based plan, it’s a “I’m sick of this lockdown so YOLO” plan, IMHO.

Exactly.  People are far too eager to declare a premature victory over this thing and return to normalcy without any semblance of a structured approach.  I think it's partly frustration with the lockdown and partly desensitization.  Mortality numbers like we're seeing today would have been unimaginable in January, but when CNN jams them down your throat 24/7, eventually it stops being alarming.

[pbar]

Getting the public to trust the decisions being made would be a helluva lot easier if our elites hadn't totally thrown their credibility in the toilet long before. We now live in a world where there is no penalty for failing or being wrong if you are in the elite class.  Yet they expect us to do as they say without question....

[tac airlifter]

41 minutes ago, Pooter said:

Exactly.  People are far too eager to declare a premature victory over this thing and return to normalcy without any semblance of a structured approach.  I think it's partly frustration with the lockdown and partly desensitization.  Mortality numbers like we're seeing today would have been unimaginable in January, but when CNN jams them down your throat 24/7, eventually it stops being alarming.

The mortality numbers are being artificially inflated.  If you’re in hospice for cancer at 82 years old and contract COVID, your cause of death is listed as COVID.  Not legitimate.  Speaking of unimaginable in January— police drones made in China enforcing social distancing (absent any proof it works, BTW) enthusiastically employed on the US populous fits that category.  Protestors arrested for peacefully protesting government violations of the first amendment while our national media cheers.  
 

I get it: we disagree.  Let’s revisit this conversation at years end to see if states like GA and TN are struck by devastating second waves of the virus.  That’s something lacking in our national dialogue on issues as we jump from crisis to crisis in the news cycle: follow up to see, in retrospect, what the right answer really was.  

[HU&W]

3 hours ago, jonlbs said:

Some data from Texas. A huge chunk of the state pretty much never even went into social distancing if you ask me. I never stopped heading into work, the highways and everything were bustling everyday. Grocery stores ran like normal. Gas stations full of people. Customers certainly were dying to come to our business, frustrated with the quarantine. People were on the trail running every morning (definitely within 6 ft) etc etc. If I somehow avoided the news completely (and man I tried) I would've have never known anything had changed.

Anyways from my little slice of the world, like @SocialD said, this shit show won't last the end of the month in Texas.

Not here to argue the validity of these choices by any means, just spread some perspective from the good ole lone star state.

And yet Texas has one of the best effective reproduction rates, with some of the highest fidelity data. https://rt.live/#learn-more

[otsap]

5 hours ago, jazzdude said:

Flattening the curve to slow the virus isn't just to slow the spread, it's to slow the spread to allow the hospitalization rates to stay within the capacity of the medical community to treat them.....

.....We can't stay locked down indefinitely, my gut says late summer for easing up. But I don't think it'll go back to how it was in Jan/Feb either for a long time.
 

 

As to the latter part of what you quoted, I don't think I was very clear in my post.  I also don't think we'll stay under lockdown -- simply because people won't allow it really -- and I don't think we should.  I think my sympathies lie more with those people who lost their jobs and want to work because they need to.  I too have noticed that most of the people saying "stay home" are salaried individuals making six figures and up.  Granted, that's a function of their leadership role in society (politicians), but it's also coming from doctors, researchers, specialists, and other government employees.  "Stay home" is an easy request to make when your paycheck is still coming in; however, the inverse is also true and far more threatening to an individual.

With that in mind, I'd also suggest that it's easier to dictate policy based on data sets that are easy to measure, such as number of hospitalizations or deaths.  It's far more difficult to dictate policy that results in hospitalizations or deaths when it cannot be as easily linked to the lockdown.  But, without a doubt, there will be suicides, domestic abuse, divorces, abandonment, drug and alcohol abuse, et al., attributable to the lockdown due to job loss and economic hardship resulting in increased poverty levels.

As to the first comment, I'm not entirely convinced that hospitals are at the breaking point.  There may be a few in the hardest hit areas, sure, but that's even true during non-pandemic flu seasons.  So it's fair to say that our healthcare system is structurally ill-prepared in the general sense, not specifically because of COVID.  I stated earlier that "flattening" the curve is a stupid phrase because the curve looks the same no matter what disease we talk about.  Here's the first chart I found showing recent trends:

Now, I may be senile, but I don't recall a yearly lockdown that allowed us to "flatten" the above curves for the flu between 2010-2017.  This chart shows hospitalization rates for recent flu seasons, and the average is somewhere between 40-50 per 100,000 looking at the left-hand side of that chart.  The most recent hospitalization rate for COVID published by the CDC is 20 per 100,000 (source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html.  Note that the curve is already flattening at 20, not getting steeper).  That's less than half the regular, yearly, non-pandemic, non-media hysteric, flu season hospitalization rate.

I know, I'm not a doctor or healthcare specialist.  But in the (long) video below, this guy is -- "Professor Johan Giesecke, one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, advisor to the Swedish Government (he hired Anders Tegnell who is currently directing Swedish strategy), the first Chief Scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and an advisor to the director general of the WHO:"  (highlights include: the novelty of COVID which is a "mild disease" scared people; results will be similar for all countries regardless of mitigation measures; Imperial College paper wasn't published or peer reviewed and shouldn't be used to base policy decisions on; flattening of curve is because most vulnerable die first)

* It's just one doctor and I know we could all cherry pick our sources to support our view, but I wanted to show that it's not just my opinion either.

[nsplayr]

1 hour ago, tac airlifter said:

If you’re in hospice for cancer at 82 years old and contract COVID, your cause of death is listed as COVID.  Not legitimate.

I mean I get what you're saying, but if someone is a stage 4 cancer patient with weeks to live and you put a bullet in their head, what is their cause of death? Are you charged with a crime?

No different here. Your 82 year old hospice patient died unnecessarily early due to a virus rather than cancer; the cause of death is the virus. Not the same number of QALYs lost as the virus killing a young healthy person, but it's still a loss.

[Pooter]

34 minutes ago, tac airlifter said:

The mortality numbers are being artificially inflated.  If you’re in hospice for cancer at 82 years old and contract COVID, your cause of death is listed as COVID.  Not legitimate.  

I understand your point, but this is exactly how regular flu deaths are counted as well.. the flu doesn't usually kill young, healthy people either. If you want an apples to apples comparison you can't ignore pre-existing condition cases for covid, while including them in the normal flu death rate.  

And when you do that comparison you find that covid19 has killed as many Americans in April as a mid range annual flu deaths estimate.  

Coronavirus: ~35k deaths since the end of March.

Flu: annual estimates range from 12k-61k deaths

And that's with the entire country being shut down and almost all of our medical capacity converted to combat this one virus.  

[GrndPndr]

1 hour ago, pbar said:

Getting the public to trust the decisions being made would be a helluva lot easier if our elites hadn't totally thrown their credibility in the toilet long before. We now live in a world where there is no penalty for failing or being wrong if you are in the elite class.  Yet they expect us to do as they say without question....

This, coupled with the fact that American opinion has now settled into its usual 50/50 ratio (OMG, I'm gonna die vs. This is bullsh*t, let's get back to work).

So it's the BAU two-sided fight.

[AirGuardianC141747]

1 hour ago, pbar said:

Getting the public to trust the decisions being made would be a helluva lot easier if our elites hadn't totally thrown their credibility in the toilet long before. We now live in a world where there is no penalty for failing or being wrong if you are in the elite class.  Yet they expect us to do as they say without question....

Makes you really think, especially when you serve. 
So many great points being made and history will reveal itself as it always does. Nothing like 20/20 hindsight and “What if” something to death. In some states this thing will work out, some obviously hurting more than others so not so much. Amazing how different effects are so vast from East to West so if nothing else, one size does not fit all. 

Just one of many examples of needing to rise up when “they expect us to do as they say without question.” VA Gun laws attempt. They’ll be back. $$$ for projects tactics vs the business owner relief bills being held hostage - this is all messed up no matter what the topic, as long as we let them know by vote, letter/email/petition or protest, etc that they work for us. It’s easy to see true colors come out these past few years. Keep them , get rid of them it’s our decision. Orange has always been 🍊 

[SocialD]

Either way you look at it, our leaders better figure out their plan to deal with this when people start ignoring the stay at home orders, because that's going to happen and soon!  If you're from the south, you many not understand how much we in the north value our summers.  Yesterday was the first really nice day of the year (especially since the lockdown) and people were out in droves!  Some were defying local orders and on the river fishing.  The parks were full of people walking/running with their kids/pets.  Ice cream shops were busy.  On and on...  No fuckin way way people will continue to entertain these stay at home orders as the weather gets nice.  Especially as we get more and more testing and people really start to realize that many of us have already had it and are fine and/or to most people it's a minor nuisance.