Corona Virus - How bad is it going to be?

[TheSanDiegan]

2 hours ago, mysfit said:

testing and tracing....that and accurate daily updates on positive cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Someting we don't have. The first we never have had, the second disappeared with the edict that all numbers now go to trump rather than the CDC.

These can be fixed, But probably not until late jan.

Absolutely. Visibility is critical. And we've been playing from behind the 8-ball since March due to Dipshit Magoo's off-and-on denial of the magnitude of the problem. By contrast, Vietnam, Taiwan, and other places that were far more proactive early on were able to get ahead of the problem (at least temporarily) and return to some sense of normalcy. And until we can effectively get ahead of it ourselves, it is not entirely realistic to reopen schools.

However, all that comes with the giant caveat that there is - IMO - a way to engineer and implement a reasonably effective solution in the interim - between mask wearing, staggered schedules, outdoor classrooms, social distancing, increased cleaning/disinfecting, and filtration tech, I do think we could return to some degree of on-campus learning without having to achieve the same degree of visibility other nations have. 

[FresnoFacts]

1 hour ago, SDSUfan said:

There's excess capacity in surrounding communities.  SD county for instance is running at 60% capacity. COVID is about 7% of capacity.  Fire and police have a system called mutual aid.  Same can be accomplished with hospitals.  These spiking events usually last no more than a few weeks.  This has been a settled issue for a long time.

But you said hospitals were not overwhelmed. Yet the government has sent military teams to help in some areas.

Capacity is measured in different ways. There are the number of licensed beds and then there is the available staff for those beds.

Does the 60% in SD measure against all licensed beds or the beds available due to available staffing?

It is why military teams are being sent and Kern County is asking for out of state traveling nurses. They have physical beds available but not enough available staff (especially as staff do sometimes have to be quarantined also). Plus you cannot keep working people flat-out without there being impacts.

Moving patients around to other areas also adds stress on the system in other ways.

If an area is overwhelmed and transferring patients to another area, now you may have ambulances locally unavailable for hours at a time while they make a roundtrip to a hospital with capacity. When Yakima, WA was overwhelmed last month they were taking patients 2 hours or more one way to available hospitals in the Seattle metro area. The ambulance team is now not available in the original city for 4 or 5 hours of travel time. That then impacts response time and service for non-COVID emergencies.

[retrofade]

 

The GOP is opposed to to a payroll tax cut. Does he think it's going to bolster his re-election chances or something? 

[NorCalCoug]

16 hours ago, FresnoFacts said:

But you said hospitals were not overwhelmed. Yet the government has sent military teams to help in some areas.

Capacity is measured in different ways. There are the number of licensed beds and then there is the available staff for those beds.

Does the 60% in SD measure against all licensed beds or the beds available due to available staffing?

It is why military teams are being sent and Kern County is asking for out of state traveling nurses. They have physical beds available but not enough available staff (especially as staff do sometimes have to be quarantined also). Plus you cannot keep working people flat-out without there being impacts.

Moving patients around to other areas also adds stress on the system in other ways.

If an area is overwhelmed and transferring patients to another area, now you may have ambulances locally unavailable for hours at a time while they make a roundtrip to a hospital with capacity. When Yakima, WA was overwhelmed last month they were taking patients 2 hours or more one way to available hospitals in the Seattle metro area. The ambulance team is now not available in the original city for 4 or 5 hours of travel time. That then impacts response time and service for non-COVID emergencies.

A few hotspots have been overwhelmed.  That’s it.  We haven’t seen any broad widespread overburden of the healthcare system in this rather large country...  and we should be grateful for that. 

[halfmanhalfbronco]

 

No social distancing, only about half wearing a mask.

[Los_Aztecas]

7 minutes ago, halfmanhalfbronco said:

 

No social distancing, only about half wearing a mask.

Do as I say, not as I do.

[SDSUfan]

Here's a fascinating article about  what we know about how the virus spreads or importantly, what we don't.  It's too long and detailed to summarize. Highly recommended reading IMO

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/07/why-arent-we-talking-more-about-airborne-transmission/614737/

I'll include this snippet as it relates to the most recent topic

Quote

Consider schools, perhaps the most fraught topic for millions. Classrooms are places of a lot of talking; children are not going to be perfect at social distancing; and the more people in a room, the more opportunities for aerosols to accumulate if the ventilation is poor. Most of these ventilation issues are addressable, sometimes by free or inexpensive methods, and sometimes by costly investments in infrastructure that should be a national priority.

Last week, I walked around the public elementary school in my neighborhood while thinking about what we could do if we took aerosol transmission more seriously. It’s a single-story building, all the classrooms have windows, some have doors that open directly to the outside, and many have a cement patio right outside. Teaching could move outdoors, at least some of the time, the way it did during the 1918 pandemic. Moreover, even when indoors or during rainy days, opening the doors and windows would greatly improve air circulation inside, especially if classrooms had fans at the windows that pushed air out.

 

Read: Why can’t we just have class outside?

When windows cannot be opened, classrooms could run portable HEPA filters, which are capable of trapping viruses this small, and which sell for as little as a few hundred dollars. Marr advises schools to measure airflow rates in each classroom, upgrade filters in the HVAC system to MERV 13 or higher (these are air filter grades), and aspire to meet or exceed ASHRAE (the professional society that provides HVAC guidance and standards) standards. Jimenez told me that many building-wide air-conditioning systems have a setting for how much air they take in from outside, and that it is usually minimized to be energy-efficient. During a pandemic, saving lives is more important than saving energy, so schools could, when the setting exists, crank it up to dilute the air (Jimenez told me that Shelly Miller, a fellow professor at the University of Colorado specializing in indoor air quality, persuaded the university to do just that.)

 

 

Jimenez also wondered why the National Guard hadn’t been deployed to set up tent schools (not sealed, but letting air in like an outdoor wedding canopy) around the country, and why the U.S. hadn’t set up the mass production of HEPA filters for every classroom and essential indoor space. Instead, one air-quality expert reported, teachers who wanted to buy portable HEPA filters were being told that they weren’t allowed to, because the CDC wasn’t recommending them. It is still difficult to get Clorox wipes in my supermarket, but I went online to check, and there is no shortage of portable HEPA filters. There is no run on them.

2nd edit.

I'll add that Alaska tents, in which I've spent a fair amount of time while vacationing in places like Afghanistan and Djibouti have massive ECU's ( Environmental Cooling Units) that can filter and exchange air at a remarkable rate. Imagine keeping the inside of a large tent holding 15-20 people @ 72 degrees in 115F outside temps.  The one in the photo below appears to have 2 ECU's

[FresnoFacts]

3 hours ago, NorCalCoug said:

A few hotspots have been overwhelmed.  That’s it.  We haven’t seen any broad widespread overburden of the healthcare system in this rather large country...  and we should be grateful for that. 

I have said before that we are moving into a whack-the-mole stage instead of a nationwide outbreak. To me that means we can't be Kevin Bacon in Animal House saying "All is well". We have to face that it has not gone away we just don't know where it will appear next.

We have to realize that there will be outbreaks in different parts of the country that will pull state and national resources to battle.

Those areas will be overwhelmed at times and need support and tax dollars to battle the outbreak.

Polio was never a problem nationwide all at once. Instead there were outbreaks in different regions and towns every year. Those areas had to quarantine, ask for medical resources from elsewhere, etc. But it was recognized that on a national level it was something to be concerned about and to battle.

[NorCalCoug]

1 minute ago, FresnoFacts said:

I have said before that we are moving into a whack-the-mole stage instead of a nationwide outbreak. To me that means we can't be Kevin Bacon in Animal House saying "All is well". We have to face that it has not gone away we just don't know where it will appear next.

We have to realize that there will be outbreaks in different parts of the country that will pull state and national resources to battle.

Those areas will be overwhelmed at times and need support and tax dollars to battle the outbreak.

Polio was never a problem nationwide all at once. Instead there were outbreaks in different regions and towns every year. Those areas had to quarantine, ask for medical resources from elsewhere, etc. But it was recognized that on a national level it was something to be concerned about and to battle.

Even in most areas where we’ve seen surges it hasn’t been overwhelming for the healthcare system - obviously with a few exceptions.  I just feel you’re exaggerating the stress on the system.

[ridgeview2]

On 8/1/2020 at 9:31 AM, soupslam1 said:

I think the biggest concern is going home and spreading the virus. Plus, teachers getting the virus. I have a friend that is an administrator for the Nampa school district. He indicated they couldn’t afford to lose very many teachers as finding substitutes is not easy and most substitutes tend to be older. 

The issue with substitutes is that they don't get sick leave and there are no health benefits. Subs are going into classrooms with literally no support system. I don't know anyone who would want to be a substitute teacher right now. 

[FresnoFacts]

Melbourne and Victoria state in Australia are shutting back down this weekend for at least 6 weeks.

In Melbourne there is now a nightly curfew between 8 pm and 5 am. Only one member of a household can go out during the day to purchase groceries and supplies. That person can only shop within a radius of 3 miles of their home unless there is no market in that radius.

Outside of Melbourne the rest of Victoria is shutting down bars, restaurants, and in-person schooling.

 

[RSF]

7 minutes ago, NorCalCoug said:

Even in most areas where we’ve seen surges it hasn’t been overwhelming for the healthcare system - obviously with a few exceptions.  I just feel you’re exaggerating the stress on the system.

There's no exaggeration when you're in the middle of it.

[NorCalCoug]

6 minutes ago, RSF said:

There's no exaggeration when you're in the middle of it.

Your anecdotal experience in 1 of 6000+ hospitals in this country isn’t indicative of a broader overwhelming of the healthcare system either. 

[FresnoFacts]

8 minutes ago, NorCalCoug said:

Even in most areas where we’ve seen surges it hasn’t been overwhelming for the healthcare system - obviously with a few exceptions.  I just feel you’re exaggerating the stress on the system.

I just see the potential for individual regions to be overwhelmed, it is potentially an exponential case growth situation if not stopped early. I see too many people who are not willing to follow rudimentary hygiene recommendations to prevent a large outbreak somewhere.

[NVGiant]

On 7/30/2020 at 10:04 PM, NVGiant said:

Just learned my wife’s 43 yo cousin is in an Arizona ICU. She has some underlying conditions, and it doesn’t look good.

Quick update. My wife’s cousin has taken a turn for the worse. Barring a miracle, she’s not going to make it. Pretty sad. Just 43.

[mugtang]

On 2/28/2020 at 3:58 PM, halfmanhalfbronco said:

I bet we have a vaccine before the death toll hits 50 in the USA.

 

 

[mugtang]

1 hour ago, NVGiant said:

Quick update. My wife’s cousin has taken a turn for the worse. Barring a miracle, she’s not going to make it. Pretty sad. Just 43.

I’m sorry  

[halfmanhalfbronco]

1 minute ago, mugtang said:

 

This is why I have decided to listen to the experts.

[halfmanhalfbronco]

1 hour ago, NVGiant said:

Quick update. My wife’s cousin has taken a turn for the worse. Barring a miracle, she’s not going to make it. Pretty sad. Just 43.

+++++.  I'm sorry.

[retrofade]

8 hours ago, NVGiant said:

Quick update. My wife’s cousin has taken a turn for the worse. Barring a miracle, she’s not going to make it. Pretty sad. Just 43.

Shit, I'm so sorry.