Coronavirus (Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson tested positive)

[niteowl7710]

The point of cancelling or postponing things is to keep people away from each other.  You can be asymptomatic for up to a week, but still spreading it to others not even knowing you're sick to begin with - which was the case with the two players for the Utah Jazz.

So here's an illustration of the problem, this is while we're wildly undertesting for the virus.  With a wife in health care we've been tracking the numbers via the project employed by the Engineering Department at John Hopkins and believe the numbers below to be accurate.

So you see the problem is with the exponential growth.  It doubled, then doubled, then went up by 3x, then went up by 7x.  Presuming it doesn't increase by a larger factor you're talking about having over 106,000 cases by the end of the month.  20% of cases are severe enough to require some form of enhanced medical care (hospitalization) which means having around 21k people in Isolation/ICU - and POOF - the health care system lurches into a crisis the way Northern Italy's has the past two weeks.  Canceling mass gatherings and keeping people in smaller social circles is the only way this isn't going to over run the country.  Be prepared, don't panic, but also realize the majority of this forum is the target "audience" for the severe/critical cases - take it seriously and be safe out there.

Edited March 14, 2020 by niteowl7710

[SfanGoch]

9 hours ago, STYRENE-SURFER said:

but if necessary have a getaway available up north.

Unless your getaway is equipped with a sealed CBRN overpressure protection and air filtration system, you can run but you can't hide. Following CDC guidelines will mitigate the risk.

[espo]

My wife's Bunco group has called of their monthly "Hen Fest"  for Monday. Just wash your hands !!!

[Classicgas]

12 hours ago, Motor City said:

As some of you know, China doesn't want it referred to by that name since it possibly originated there.  Anyway, I wonder how this will affect model car shows over the next few months.  

Possibly? That's exactly where it originated and they have a research lab right there!

[vamach1]

People are told to avoid crowds yet the grocery stores are mobbed.  A week ago the toilet paper aisle was stocked to the brim.  A few days ago it was completely empty.  I think this virus is affecting people's brains too. ?

[SfanGoch]

Try explaining the rationale behind hoarding batteries. Or, stocking up on food per recommendations from various agencies in the event one needs to self-quarantine, people are buying perishable items which will spoil in a matter of days instead of getting canned/dry packaged goods.  I also noticed that the soda and beer aisles at the supermarket were as bare as a zebra carcass stripped by a pack of hyenas.

[peter31a]

As much as we like to blame the media, the difference between the SARS epidemic in 2003 and this Covid 19 affair is Social Media. Someone sees a picture on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc of an empty shelf where toilet paper used to be and the people viewing this go OMG we have to get tp right away! And then it keeps snowballing. I'm not excusing regular media but in 2003 social media was nowhere near as prevalent as it is today.

[Safire6]

Reminiscent of George Orwell's "War of the World" panic but on a much larger scale thanks to social media , etc.

[Sam I Am]

This is another reason why many shelves at stores are empty.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/he-has-17700-bottles-of-hand-sanitizer-and-nowhere-to-sell-them/ar-BB11blvS?li=BBnb7Kz

[StevenGuthmiller]

I'll tell you what folks, I'm not going to freak out over it.

All that we can do as individuals is continue with our lives as best we can under the circumstances.

The last thing anyone needs is an ulcer to go along with their Corona virus.

 

Haven't bought a single roll of toilet paper since this whole thing started!

 

 

 

 

Steve

[SfanGoch]

Prune juice can loosen things up.

[Snake45]

1 hour ago, StevenGuthmiller said:

Haven't bought a single roll of toilet paper since this whole thing started!

And you wouldn't have today, at my Walmart. If I'd been homeless, I'd have moved my whole family into the toilet paper aisle. Plenty of room there--probably about as much as a single- wide trailer. 

Wasn't a roll of paper towels in the place, either. 

[StevenGuthmiller]

What does it say about us as human beings, as we race head long into what is our perceived annihilation as a species, that our apparent largest concern is what we're going to use to wipe our backsides!!

 

 

 

 

Steve 

[Snake45]

12 minutes ago, StevenGuthmiller said:

What does it say about us as human beings, as we race head long into what is our perceived annihilation as a species, that our apparent largest concern is what we're going to use to wipe our backsides!!

Steve 

It says we want to stay civilized all the way down! 

[SfanGoch]

Civilized swells use bidets (also an Australian form of greeting as in "Bidet, Mate!)) after wiping.

[JollySipper]

I think you've got a touch of the Freddy-Krueger effect, there Joe..... Australian greeting.........

[bobthehobbyguy]

Well toilet paper also is a good standin for kleenex. If all the kleenex has been purchased then tp fills the need.

[Lunajammer]

My local grocery store, not really a supermarket, had a sign at the TP that said, "LIMIT 2. Be neighborly and consider and needs of others." Good for them to take a stand.

We live in a flood prone area and every year people boast about how great we are for helping our neighbors with sandbagging, "...Because that's how we are around here and what makes our community special. We're that kind of people." ...Until it's not just about making themselves feel good. Where are those people when their selfish hoarding is denying their neighbors basic necessities?

Edited March 15, 2020 by Lunajammer

[Dave Ambrose]

Hello again. I've merged this thread with another from General. Please leave the discussion here. 

I'll caution the newcomers against political discussions. There are other places to do that, and it's neither productive nor welcome here. 

[Joe Handley]

This was posted on another forum I go on, seemed to be a pretty good finding!

 

Read this and decide for yourself.  What is the saying about numbers don't lie?  Can't say that about some of our top government leaders.  Maybe not as much lying but not sharing the whole truth!  

Ernie

 MANY PEOPLE ARE FOCUSED ON THE WRONG NUMBERS:

Yes, the virus only kills a small percentage of those afflicted.  Yes, the flu kills 10s of thousands of people annually.  Yes, 80% of people will experience lightweight symptoms with COVID19.  Yes the mortality rate of COVID19 is relatively low (1-2%).  All of this true, but is immaterial.  They are the wrong numbers to focus on...  

The nature of exponential math is that the infection rates start slowly, and then goes off like a bomb and overwhelms the hospitals. You will understand this math clearly in the next section if you do the short math exercise.  Evergreen hospital in Seattle is already in triage. I have heard credible reports from people on the ground that they are already becoming overwhelmed.  And the bomb won't really go off for a few more days.  Probably by Wednesday, March 18th (next week).  In just a few days from now we will hear grave reports from Seattle hospitals. 

You should assume the virus is everywhere at this point, even if you have no confirmed cases in your area. 
 

COUNTRIES THAT GET OVERWHELMED WILL HAVE A MUCH GREATER MORTALITY RATE BECAUSE THEY WON’T BE ABLE TO ADEQUATELY CARE FOR THE SICK.  

And by sick I mean not just coronavirus patients.  Your son or daughter that needs acute care surgery this May for his badly broken leg will be attended to by an orthopedic doctor that has been working at maximum capacity and working 18 hour shifts for 7 days every week for 6 weeks because it was required to care for all the coronavirus patients at her hospital.  Or the orthopedic surgeon will be sick with the virus and your son or daughter will be operated on by a non-expert or a member of the National Guard.  Your elderly Mom that has diabetes and goes into acute distress next month may not receive ANY care because the doctors are consumed and have to prioritize patients based on triage handbooks filled with success rate probabilities.  Your sibling’s family that are all injured in a terrible car crash in June will have diminished care.  If one of them needs a ventilator there will be none available because all of them will be in use by critical coronavirus patients.  Your young friend with cancer and a compromised immune system from treatment will succumb even though the cancer was curable and the treatment was working, because their body was too fragile to combat the coronavirus due to the chemotherapy and they couldn't receive the customized, acute care required due to the hospital being overwhelmed.  All of the above is currently happening in Italy, who had the same number of infections we have today just 2 weeks ago.  You must start today.

The count of actual virus infections doubles every ~3 days. The news and government agencies are lagging in their response. So we hear that the US only has 1573 cases today (3/12/20), ( see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/) and it doesn't seem like a lot.  It would be better to report the estimated actual cases, since reported cases don’t tell us much.  However, we know from China that the actual number of cases are at least an order of magnitude greater than the reported cases, because people get infected and do not display symptoms.  In math, an "order of magnitude" means ten times difference, or put another way, a factor of 10.  100 is 10 times greater than 10, so it's an order of magnitude greater.  

Harvard Medical School / Massachusetts General Hospital just released their estimate (recording is here:  https://externalmediasite.partners.org/Mediasite/Play/53a4003de5ab4b4da5902f078744435a1d) that the actual cases are 50x greater than the reported cases.  So we likely have 75,000 cases in the United States already.  The number of reported cases is not that important.

But let’s assume the current number of cases is only 10,000 ACTUAL cases in the United States just to be conservative and model out what will happen:

If we don’t stop the virus from spreading, in 30 days we will have 2 to the 10th power more cases of infected people because the infection count doubles every 3 days (the virus doubles every 3 days and there are 10, 3 day periods in 30 days).  

The math: 2 to the 10th power means 1,024 times as many cases as we have today (2 times 2 repeated 10 times).  

This number is a catastrophically big problem for all of us:  We will have 10 million+ actual cases (10,000 actual cases today x 1,024) in the United States in just 30 days’ time if we continue without extreme social distancing.  10 million people with the virus.  And it will keep doubling every 3 days unless we practice social distancing.

15% of cases require significant medical attention, which means that 1.5 million people will require significant medical attention if 10 million people get infected (15% of 10 Million total infections = 1.5 million people requiring hospitalization).  

1.5 million hospitalizations is about 50% more than we have beds for at hospitals in the United States.  And 65% of all beds are already occupied in our hospitals.  So we will have a huge bed shortage, but that is not the biggest problem, as we can erect temporary shelters and bring in more temporary beds, as Italy has already done, and California and Washington hospitals have already done.  Evergreen Hospital in Seattle has already erected temporary triage tents in the parking lot as of 3/13/20.  All regular beds are full at Evergreen Hospital as of yesterday.

Once the government of China, Norway, and Italy came to understand this math, they reacted accordingly and shut EVERYTHING down.  Extreme social distancing is the only response available to stop the virus today.  The United States is not responding well nor are other countries like France or the UK.  Countries that do not respond well will pay a much larger, catastrophic price.

But hospital beds are not the big problem.  The lack of ventilators is the big problem.  Most estimates peg the ventilators in the United States at roughly 100,000 to 150,000 units.  See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21149215 (admittedly dated) and https://theweek.com/speedreads/900850/doesnt-have-enough-icu-beds-ventilators-deal-even-moderate-coronavirus-outbreak

The primary and most serious comorbid (comorbid is a medical term that means co-existing or happening at the same time) condition brought on by the Coronavirus is something called bilateral interstitial pneumonia which requires ventilators for treatment of seriously ill patients.  So if 1.5M people of the 10 million infected 30 days from now require acute care (15% of the 10M estimated total infections), 1.3M may not get the care that they need because we don’t have enough ventilators in the United States.  And remember, this is only if ALL OF US EFFECTIVELY start social distancing by April 11th (30 days from today).

BUT IF WE START EXTREME SOCIAL DISTANCING BY MARCH 23 (12 days from this writing), WE AVOID OVER 1.4 MILLION PEOPLE GETTING CRITICALLY ILL AND OVERWHELMING THE HOSPITALS:

If everyone takes extreme measures to social distance, and the United States can dramatically reduce the spread of the virus 12 days from now, the math is very different, as the exponential growth will only be 2 to the 4th power (12 days divided by the doubling rate of every 3 days equals the exponent of 4):

2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 16

So instead of 10 Million cases in the United States if we wait 30 days, if we act 18 days sooner, we will have only 160,000 cases (16 times the estimated 10,000 actual cases as of today), of which 15% are likely to require critical care.  This is 24,000 critical patients (a huge difference compared to 1.5 million acute patients).   The difference between taking extreme measures now, versus waiting even a few days, is very large due to how exponents work in math.

THE OUTCOME IS EVEN BETTER IF WE TAKE ACTION IN THE NEXT 6 DAYS:  If the vast majority of the population self isolates and implements social distancing in only 6 days from now the exponential math is 2 to the 2nd power (6 days divided by the 3 days it takes the virus to double means the exponent is only 2).  In math this is "two squared".

2 x 2 = 4  

Multiplied by the estimated 10,000 ACTUAL cases as of today (3/12/20) that means only 40,000 total cases will develop, 15% of which may be critical which is 6,000 critical patients.

This is why you should share this post broadly.  If people begin social distancing in the next 6 days it will greatly reduce the impact on all of us.  It's why they say a "post goes viral".

SOCIAL DISTANCING WILL REDUCE THE FINANCIAL IMPACT TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY:

Finally, the longer everyone waits to practice significant social distancing the greater the economic hardship will be on all of us.  Lost jobs.  Mortgage defaults.  Closed businesses.  Bankruptcies.   All will be minimized if you start social distancing today.

Some of the reasons the economic impacts will be reduced are worth mentioning:  If we stop the virus now the overall duration of the outbreak will be far shorter.  The stock market will normalize more quickly and recover more quickly.  Businesses and people will be able to survive a shorter duration outbreak vs a longer duration outbreak.  More companies will avoid bankruptcy if we begin to practice social distancing now.

This is a big financial reason to begin social distancing if you are employed by any company:  if companies see that the virus is being slowed, they will be less likely to conduct layoffs.  You will be more likely to be laid off or experience a job-related event if we don’t practice social distancing immediately.  It’s the last thing companies want to do.  But if they see that the pandemic will be shorter lived vs long and drawn out, they are less likely to make the permanent decision of laying off staff.

The overall economic impact that hits your bank account will be greater if you wait or you don’t practice social distancing.   This is why Norway acted now, because it’s less economic impact to take drastic measures early than to do them later, and it saves a lot of lives and suffering by doing so.  And Norway has only one confirmed death as of this writing.  

START TODAY.  I CAN’T STRESS THIS ENOUGH.  YOU MUST START TODAY.

[1930fordpickup]

I wonder if this has not been here longer than we thought and people just thought they had or have the flu? 

 

[StevenGuthmiller]

1 hour ago, Joe Handley said:

This was posted on another forum I go on, seemed to be a pretty good finding!

 

 

 

I'm sorry, but this is the sort of thing that causes the panic that we are seeing.

Everything in that post is conjecture.

If this happens, if that happens, etc.

 

We act like this sort of thing has never happened before, even though the last apocalypse just happened with Ebola, (which actually kills nearly everyone it infects deader than dead)  and before that swine flu, etc, etc, etc.

If it doesn't bother anyone, I'll reserve my terror until it's warranted.

 

 

 

Steve 

[Spruslayer]

2 hours ago, StevenGuthmiller said:

I'm sorry, but this is the sort of thing that causes the panic that we are seeing.

Everything in that post is conjecture.

If this happens, if that happens, etc.

 

We act like this sort of thing has never happened before, even though the last apocalypse just happened with Ebola, (which actually kills nearly everyone it infects deader than dead)  and before that swine flu, etc, etc, etc.

If it doesn't bother anyone, I'll reserve my terror until it's warranted.

 

 

 

Steve 

What Steve said x10

I bet the op has a storage shed full of Charmin tp

?

[Snake45]

4 hours ago, Spruslayer said:

I bet the op has a storage shed full of Charmin tp

I saw a Charmin commercial on TV last night. Couldn't believe it. Who was THAT for? 

[jchrisf]

46 minutes ago, Snake45 said:

I saw a Charmin commercial on TV last night. Couldn't believe it. Who was THAT for?