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Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) resources and discussion thread (Discussion guidelines in OP)

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Chikor

Chikor

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
14,239
XMonkey said:
Not quite.

arstechnica.com

America is finally testing for coronavirus in significant volumes

Testing in the US has soared to 100,000 tests, but shortages remain an issue.
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
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I have been reading stories for a over a month now about in just a few days the testing capacity is going to meet demand, and soon, even people who are not rich and famous will be able to get tested.
We're always two days of fixing this shit, and meanwhile, I'm in Seattle, and it's pretty much impossible to get tested. Nursing home workers can't get tested here.

I'll believe it when I see it. So far, it has been a colossal failure, and it look like cities are kinda giving up on even trying.
 

Deleted member 13101

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
17,973
Chikor said:
www.upi.com

Authorities urge limits on coronavirus testing to conserve equipment - UPI.com

Health officials and Los Angeles and New York City are moving to change their coronavirus testing protocols, telling healthcare workers to test only those in which knowing the results would change their treatment.
www.upi.com www.upi.com

So America is just giving up on testing?
This seem like a huge mistake. Every country that got it under control stressed the importance of testing.
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To best answer these questions, I would find Governor Cuomo's daily briefings online and watch them to get an idea of how testing has progressed. Testing in New York has now eclipsed both California and Washington states.
 
NaM

NaM

Member
Feb 7, 2018
277
mario_O said:
Italy numbers. Deaths keep climbing like crazy, something that didn't happen in China, where they reached 150 and plateaued.

Day 10: 977 new cases, 168 deaths
Day 11: 2.313 new cases ,196 deaths
Day 12: 2.651 new cases, 189 deaths
Day 13: 2.547 new cases, 250 deaths
Day 14: 3.497 new cases, 175 deaths
Day 15: 3.590 new cases, 368 deaths
Day 16: 3.233 new cases, 349 deaths
Day 17: 3.536 new cases, 345 deaths
Day 18: 4.207 new cases, 475 deaths
Day 19: 5.322 new cases, 427 deaths
Day 20: 5.986 new cases, 627 deaths

Day 21: 6.557 new cases, 793 deaths
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Is hard to trust on chinese data.
 
Chikor

Chikor

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
14,239
Wonderment said:
To best answer these questions, I would find Governor Cuomo's daily briefings online and watch them to get an idea of how testing has progressed. Testing in New York has now eclipsed both California and Washington states.
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NYC has done more testing than any other city in the US, but it's still nowhere near what every country that got it under control tells us it needs to be, and it seem like we're giving up on even trying to get there.
We need to demand more from our government.
 

eathdemon

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,626
mario_O said:
Italy numbers. Deaths keep climbing like crazy, something that didn't happen in China, where they reached 150 and plateaued.

Day 10: 977 new cases, 168 deaths
Day 11: 2.313 new cases ,196 deaths
Day 12: 2.651 new cases, 189 deaths
Day 13: 2.547 new cases, 250 deaths
Day 14: 3.497 new cases, 175 deaths
Day 15: 3.590 new cases, 368 deaths
Day 16: 3.233 new cases, 349 deaths
Day 17: 3.536 new cases, 345 deaths
Day 18: 4.207 new cases, 475 deaths
Day 19: 5.322 new cases, 427 deaths
Day 20: 5.986 new cases, 627 deaths

Day 21: 6.557 new cases, 793 deaths
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how long have they been in lockdown?
 
Cap'n Cook

Cap'n Cook

Member
Oct 25, 2017
230
Are people in the US with a common cold or flu flooding hospitals? Trying to understand how we're already running out of resources
 
Toxi

Toxi

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
17,547
My father is a doctor who primarily works with blood-related diseases. He's still gonna be on the COVID-19 response team if/when things get hairy. Italy scares the hell out of him.

He speculates part of the reason things have gotten so bad there is because Italy's culture is so close-knit and touchy-feely. Which... Actually makes a lot of sense. Social distancing is easier in an environment like South Korea or Germany where personal space is already at a maximum and harder in an environment where people are constantly hugging, kissing, etc. That bodes decently for the United States, but not for Argentina. I hope to god things don't get too bad down there.
 
Chikor

Chikor

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
14,239
Shoeless said:
I think it's basically an admission that unless the USA gets outside help, it is physically impossible to do the testing required. Not enough kits and not enough labs to analyze samples.

On a more cynical note, it probably also means Important People are ensuring that if they need to be tested, they can get fast-tracked for it, aka all those basketball players.
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I'll bet you anything China will send us test kits if we asked them. I mean, they even give them to Japan.
But I suspect this administration would rather let people die than do that.
 
Jaychrome91

Jaychrome91

Member
Nov 4, 2018
2,629
All the meat and drinks at two Walmarts I went too are gone because people are panic buying. All these people in here with ridiculous amounts of food in there carts. No one gives a fuck about anyone but themselves. Shit is frustrating.
 
ZedLilIndPum

ZedLilIndPum

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,998
Watching one of these White House press conferences in real time for the first time, and...not sure why Pence gets ANY praise for this.
 

eathdemon

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,626
Toxi said:
My father is a doctor who primarily works with blood-related diseases. He's still gonna be on the COVID-19 response team if/when things get hairy. Italy scares the hell out of him.

He speculates part of the reason things have gotten so bad there is because Italy's culture is so close-knit and touchy-feely. Which... Actually makes a lot of sense. Social distancing is easier in an environment like South Korea or Germany where personal space is already at a maximum and harder in an environment where people are constantly hugging, kissing, etc. That bodes decently for the United States, but not for Argentina. I hope to god things don't get too bad down there.
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would not be upset if a culture shift happends more towords sk or japan in that regard.
 
1.21Gigawatts

1.21Gigawatts

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,278
Munich
iyox said:
Completely agree. It's not just chloroquine talk though. It's with the social distancing steps itself. The idea that areas hard hit now are the only areas that will hit like this is disingenuous. Other areas are just lagging behind like the US as compared to Italy. It seems like they are making the same mistake with regards to NY, WA and CA not being indicative of what's going to happen elsewhere. Similar to the whole of the US looking at Italy.
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People need to understand one thing:
The vast majority of Americans will get Covid-19.
A vaccine is at least 1 year away and the virus will stay and spread until a vaccine is available.

The only thing that is important now is to slow the spread of the virus so the healthcare system can cope.
But in order to do that, you need to know where the virus is and that means you need to test. Not just people will symptoms, because most infected don't have symptoms. You need to test everyone.

This also means that measures taken to stop the spread will stay in place for many months to come. This isn't something that will be over by summer.
As soon shutdowns are lifted the virus will start to spread again.

It will be a constant balancing act between different stages of shutdown and not overwhelming the healthcare infrastructure for the next year.
But that balancing act is only possible if you have the necessary data to balance. The US doesn't have it and will with a high likely hood run right into a medical collapse that will spread across the entire country in the coming weeks.


Back in January, I was mainly concerned about developing nations, mostly in Africa, being hit the hardest by this virus, because their healthcare systems are underdeveloped. Turns out the US is less prepared for any of this then what I expected even from 3rd world countries.

I don't know what to tell Americans right now other than, wherever you are in the US, stay at home and cut off any contact with people outside of your household and if you have people in your household who are high risk (elderly, immunocompromised) cut of contact to them as well. It won't be long until people who fall ill won't be able to get care anymore, so don't fall ill.
 
jfkgoblue

jfkgoblue

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,650
mario_O said:
Italy numbers. Deaths keep climbing like crazy, something that didn't happen in China, where they reached 150 and plateaued.

Day 10: 977 new cases, 168 deaths
Day 11: 2.313 new cases ,196 deaths
Day 12: 2.651 new cases, 189 deaths
Day 13: 2.547 new cases, 250 deaths
Day 14: 3.497 new cases, 175 deaths
Day 15: 3.590 new cases, 368 deaths
Day 16: 3.233 new cases, 349 deaths
Day 17: 3.536 new cases, 345 deaths
Day 18: 4.207 new cases, 475 deaths
Day 19: 5.322 new cases, 427 deaths
Day 20: 5.986 new cases, 627 deaths

Day 21: 6.557 new cases, 793 deaths
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I have a bad feeling that this is worse than what China led us to believe.
 
XMonkey

XMonkey

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,827
Chikor said:
I have been reading stories for a over a month now about in just a few days the testing capacity is going to meet demand, and soon, even people who are not rich and famous will be able to get tested.
We're always two days of fixing this shit, and meanwhile, I'm in Seattle, and it's pretty much impossible to get tested. Nursing home workers can't get tested here.

I'll believe it when I see it. So far, it has been a colossal failure, and it look like cities are kinda giving up on even trying.
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I agree, but the article gives me some actual hope that these bigger companies are finally getting manufacturing going. The turning point seemed to be this:

Finally, on February 29, the FDA opened the door to other labs developing their own tests. Under the FDA's new framework, labs that met certain prior regulatory requirements would be allowed to begin using their own tests before they'd gotten explicit approval from the FDA. Under the new guidance, labs had a 15-day grace period after they began testing to file the necessary paperwork with the FDA.

"That changed everything," one lab director told the New Yorker. "We didn't have to wait to get the forms in and then wait for the response."


That decision opened the floodgates. In the last three weeks, the volume of coronavirus testing has grown exponentially. Data from the COVID Tracking Project shows that the total number of coronavirus tests performed in the US grew from fewer than 1,000 on March 4 to almost 10,000 by March 12 and more than 100,000 by March 19.
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Doby

Doby

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,587
Toxi said:
My father is a doctor who primarily works with blood-related diseases. He's still gonna be on the COVID-19 response team if/when things get hairy. Italy scares the hell out of him.

He speculates part of the reason things have gotten so bad there is because Italy's culture is so close-knit and touchy-feely. Which... Actually makes a lot of sense. Social distancing is easier in an environment like South Korea or Germany where personal space is already at a maximum and harder in an environment where people are constantly hugging, kissing, etc. That bodes decently for the United States, but not for Argentina. I hope to god things don't get too bad down there.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I'm not a doctor but I've thought this for a while. Any culture with kissing as a greeting is going to see far more transmission and makes the hand washing advice largely obsolete. I expect to see similar trends in other Sothern European countries (Spain looking likely).
 
El Bombastico

El Bombastico

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
36,022
Finaj said:
Italy having a much older population probably has something to do with it.
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My personal guess:

-Much older population

-Cultural propensity towards close physical contact even with strangers

-I read yesterday that there was already a flu outbreak in the country earlier in the year, so many people infected with COVID-19 already had weakened immune systems.

This:

washing-hands-source.jpg
 
Basileus777

Basileus777

Member
Oct 26, 2017
9,197
New Jersey
363 cases in Bergen County now, up 113 from yesterday. We're only one day into testing being available in any notable way. And I work for a business considered essential.
 
Juturna

Juturna

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,834
Sorry to ask, but has diarrhea been seen as a symptom in any subset of patients? I went from fever and sore throat to sh*ting my brains out in the span of a week.
 
Toxi

Toxi

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
17,547
Punished Dan said:
Why is it so rampant in Italy?
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It's unclear. That's what's so scary about Italy. We don't know what makes it unusual.

Some things I've heard...
  • Early transmission. Northern Italy has a lot of Chinese trade, and the first case was a businessman coming from China IIRC. This is the scariest factor because it suggests we will see the same thing happen in other places.
  • Lack of early lockdown. You can actually compare the disease curves of different parts of Italy and the worst hit parts are the parts that responded later.
  • An aging population means more of it is at risk and requires intensive medical care, which has overloaded the healthcare system and as a result vastly increased the mortality rate.
  • Culture that is unused to social distancing; people kiss and hug to greet, stay up in each other's personal space, etc. If you've ever been to Latin American countries, it's very similar there.
  • Many old people in Italy live with family. This means it's harder to isolate them.
  • Possibly genetics, though this feels like hopeful speculation.
 
Trice

Trice

Banned
Nov 3, 2018
2,653
Croatia
The main reason Italy, primarily Lombardia was hit so hard becase the virus spread like wildfire in their hospitals and infected hundreds of medical workers, before they could even do something about it.
 
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