The Covid-19 Info thread (keep politics out please)

[Todd4State]

yeah, if people do what they are supposed to do. Like all things, leadership on how to open, what to open, and at what rate would be key. So far, that leadership at all levels has been missing.

I definitely think opening up should be gradual. It appears as if the Federal government agrees too.

[Lord McBuckethead]

I definitely think opening up should be gradual. It appears as if the Federal government agrees too.

I think everyone is on board with a gradual reopening. Great care has to be taken, by everyone involved, (govt, businesses prepped for safer working conditions, and the workers).
My issue is that weeks ago, there was a sentiment that we just need to let everyone go back to work starting May 1. Well that is not reality. From what I have read, most state governors are saying the correct things. Florida, Iowa, NJ, and NY all have laid out pretty good looking plans in general. It all comes down to, people taking this thing seriously even when things appear to be going in the right direction. It could turn if everyone lets their guard down. Just saying.

In general, most offices and work places can take steps to protect. The hardest will be things like restaurants, bars, bowling alleys, etc. I think most people will refrain from going into a crowded place, regardless of where the numbers are. Everyone needs to keep reminding people to protect yourself and demand the best possible scenario at each place of business as possible. Some will be impossible. Some may not need to be reopened.

[Todd4State]

I think everyone is on board with a gradual reopening. Great care has to be taken, by everyone involved, (govt, businesses prepped for safer working conditions, and the workers).
My issue is that weeks ago, there was a sentiment that we just need to let everyone go back to work starting May 1. Well that is not reality. From what I have read, most state governors are saying the correct things. Florida, Iowa, NJ, and NY all have laid out pretty good looking plans in general. It all comes down to, people taking this thing seriously even when things appear to be going in the right direction. It could turn if everyone lets their guard down. Just saying.

In general, most offices and work places can take steps to protect. The hardest will be things like restaurants, bars, bowling alleys, etc. I think most people will refrain from going into a crowded place, regardless of where the numbers are. Everyone needs to keep reminding people to protect yourself and demand the best possible scenario at each place of business as possible. Some will be impossible. Some may not need to be reopened.

I really don't think getting people to follow along is an issue. Remember a month and a half ago or so when people thought that Americans wouldn't go along with social distancing? Yes there have been a few small protests but it's only been recently for the most part when it's about time to start to open back up anyway if those people wait a couple of weeks.

[defiantdog]

I really don't think getting people to follow along is an issue. Remember a month and a half ago or so when people thought that Americans wouldn't go along with social distancing? Yes there have been a few small protests but it's only been recently for the most part when it's about time to start to open back up anyway if those people wait a couple of weeks.

We are lucky that technology allows a lot of us to work from home. A pandemic like this in the 90s would have been catastrophic.

[Todd4State]

We are lucky that technology allows a lot of us to work from home. A pandemic like this in the 90s would have been catastrophic.

Absolutely. And this will change things in healthcare because a lot of our MD's are doing virtual MD visits with the COVID patients and others that don't want to go to a clinic to potentially be exposed for obvious reasons. It's still a "niche" kind of thing in my field of work- usually it's someone that works with kids working with kids in a rural part of the country like the Alaskan wilderness or something. But I think that is going to start to become more commonplace because now these MD's are starting to become comfortable with it.

I'm sure a lot of things will change like that too.

[StateDawg44]

The correct information has to be repeated. People have short term memory issues and without being reminded will then follow this post up with a "so when are we all going to start going back to football games" post. The simple fact is, this will not get better without better testing, herd immunization, or a vaccine. Just telling older people to stay home will do next to nothing when everyone they could have contact with is compromised. Other than full quarantine on older people, it will fail. That's including all packaging on food product. etc.

Truth is, there is no ground breaking information to share in this conversation or other Covid conversations. The simple truth is that things are not going to go back to normal until one or more of those three simple things are achieved. Sure, we could start back the economy right now with safe guards on how we work and things may not get too bad. We can try it, but people act like we are going to just flip the switch back on we are going to stay with the current trends is crazy. Within 3 weeks of the on switch, we could surpass our capacity given the current numbers of known and to a bigger extent the unknown infected.

Seriously, two days after they stopped the day by day updates on infected and deaths people were like....."so we can go back to doing what we want?"
Common sense approach is the best bet, but do not forget that anyone that chooses to go out and has any kind of contact with anyone or anything that could find its way into a compromised person is upping those peoples chance of contracting it and dying.

Very few if any are acting like that. Just because one's opinion is that football will be played this fall or they are ready to watch sports doesn't mean they think everything is back to normal and the virus has just up and vanished. But yes, people are itching to get back to some sense of normalcy. Humans nor many animals at all are really built to be complacent and just sit around and wait and cower in the corner forever.

Do you expect this virus to ever be gone? What is your tentative date of return to normalcy? Normalcy will become everything we were doing + Covid and herd immunity or a vaccine. Even with a vaccine. It will very likely become part of "the norm" or we will have a COVID-20 strain.

So far, that leadership at all levels has been missing.

Maybe you should send all the leaders and experts the book that was written on how to handle this.

[DownwardDawg]

Absolutely. And this will change things in healthcare because a lot of our MD's are doing virtual MD visits with the COVID patients and others that don't want to go to a clinic to potentially be exposed for obvious reasons. It's still a "niche" kind of thing in my field of work- usually it's someone that works with kids working with kids in a rural part of the country like the Alaskan wilderness or something. But I think that is going to start to become more commonplace because now these MD's are starting to become comfortable with it.

I'm sure a lot of things will change like that too.

A lot of us that work offshore have been using the tele-med vid stuff for years. We call it “Doc-in-a-box”.
I had something going on this past month and it was cool to basically “FaceTime “ my doctor and have him call me in some meds.

[Dawgology]

I think everyone is on board with a gradual reopening. Great care has to be taken, by everyone involved, (govt, businesses prepped for safer working conditions, and the workers).
My issue is that weeks ago, there was a sentiment that we just need to let everyone go back to work starting May 1. Well that is not reality. From what I have read, most state governors are saying the correct things. Florida, Iowa, NJ, and NY all have laid out pretty good looking plans in general. It all comes down to, people taking this thing seriously even when things appear to be going in the right direction. It could turn if everyone lets their guard down. Just saying.

In general, most offices and work places can take steps to protect. The hardest will be things like restaurants, bars, bowling alleys, etc. I think most people will refrain from going into a crowded place, regardless of where the numbers are. Everyone needs to keep reminding people to protect yourself and demand the best possible scenario at each place of business as possible. Some will be impossible. Some may not need to be reopened.

This is the biggest hurdle. Cases will begin to nosedive and a lot of people will say "it's over" and throw caution to the wind.

[SheltonChoked]

This. I still hear people saying shelter in place was to stop the virus. Shelter in place was just to slow it down so medical resources wouldn't be overwhelmed. As you said it's been flattened and it's time we move ahead.

Flattening was not a one time thing.

Without testing, we are exactly where we were in January.... But with 1,000,000 x more cases to start the spread...

That's my biggest frustration. We have no centralized plan.

We used the DPA on 3m only to make N95 masks, 2 months after the rest of the world put in an order... https://www.whitehouse.gov/president...ng-3m-company/
https://apnews.com/cbed1f366882b07ecc5a45cdee9f4e1e

But I find no similar notice to these companies https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/t...-manufactures/ that would enable us to expand testing...

Even if he just applied the section to prevent price gouging (due to multiple states bidding on the same items, against FEMA),

But nope...

Just telling the state they are on their own...

Meanwhile, we should be able to expand the definition of "essential businesses", and if everyone wore a mask, we could reduce the transmission rate.

[SheltonChoked]

I can think of no better way of achieving herd immunity than opening things back up.

You mean like the "Herd Immunity" to HCoV-229E? HCoV-NL63? HCoV-OC43?

Or , in other words, what if, your "immunity" wears off in 2-3 months? Like it does in other human Coronavirus?

Are we going to start locking everyone over 65 in bubble? Is that our new retirement party?

Or is that the new GOP solution to save Social Security and Medicare?

[defiantdog]

You mean like the "Herd Immunity" to HCoV-229E? HCoV-NL63? HCoV-OC43?

Or , in other words, what if, your "immunity" wears off in 2-3 months? Like it does in other human Coronavirus?

Are we going to start locking everyone over 65 in bubble? Is that our new retirement party?

Or is that the new GOP solution to save Social Security and Medicare?

Immunity may wear off, but you'll still have antibodies built up to fight the virus.

[defiantdog]

Looks like Alabama is opening on Friday..... 50% occupancy for restaurants? Stupid..... you can't manage that. Also, that won't help the restaurant because they still won't be making money by limiting occupancy.

[Liverpooldawg]

Immunity may wear off, but you'll still have antibodies built up to fight the virus.

Immunity and antibodies are basically the same thing. Wearing off means the antibodies are fading away. The truth is we don't know yet and won't for a while. The track record of some coronaviruses suggests immunity will be fleeting. On the other hand I think with SARS it was something like 2 years. Hopefully even if there is no real immunity you will still be left with your immune system at least being geared to quicker response to a repeat infection. Again, we just don't know right now.

[Johnson85]

You mean like the "Herd Immunity" to HCoV-229E? HCoV-NL63? HCoV-OC43?

Or , in other words, what if, your "immunity" wears off in 2-3 months? Like it does in other human Coronavirus?

Are we going to start locking everyone over 65 in bubble? Is that our new retirement party?

So you have no end game? We aren't going to have immunity so let's just voluntarily kill our economy/

Or is that the new GOP solution to save Social Security and Medicare?

Well voluntarily starting a depression will certainly help save social security and medicare.

[Dawgology]

You mean like the "Herd Immunity" to HCoV-229E? HCoV-NL63? HCoV-OC43?

Or , in other words, what if, your "immunity" wears off in 2-3 months? Like it does in other human Coronavirus?

Are we going to start locking everyone over 65 in bubble? Is that our new retirement party?

Or is that the new GOP solution to save Social Security and Medicare?

Right. We should lockdown everything and everyone for years because they might get sick. Then the US can just print paper money and hand it out to everyone. That always ends well.

[Johnson85]

Looks like Alabama is opening on Friday..... 50% occupancy for restaurants? Stupid..... you can't manage that. Also, that won't help the restaurant because they still won't be making money by limiting occupancy.

I haven't looked at the order but the summary I saw for Alabama was the same as Mississippi. No dine-in restaurants. Small retail can open at 50% capacity (which for most places is well above full capacity b/c they are rarely, if ever, at 50% of their capacity).

[confucius say]

Flattening was not a one time thing.

Without testing, we are exactly where we were in January.... But with 1,000,000 x more cases to start the spread...

That's my biggest frustration. We have no centralized plan.

We used the DPA on 3m only to make N95 masks, 2 months after the rest of the world put in an order... https://www.whitehouse.gov/president...ng-3m-company/
https://apnews.com/cbed1f366882b07ecc5a45cdee9f4e1e

But I find no similar notice to these companies https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/t...-manufactures/ that would enable us to expand testing...

Even if he just applied the section to prevent price gouging (due to multiple states bidding on the same items, against FEMA),

But nope...

Just telling the state they are on their own...

Meanwhile, we should be able to expand the definition of "essential businesses", and if everyone wore a mask, we could reduce the transmission rate.

I don't get the infatuation for testing. The tests are often inaccurate, and, more importantly, people are being treated based on symptoms, not test results. If you are showing symptoms, you are being treated, including quarantined, the same way regardless of your test results. Everyone I know who has tested negative but still showed symptoms has been told to remain quarantined.

[smootness]

I'm thinking more and more that Sweden has the right approach.

I think the only positive responses to this long-term are the complete and total shutdown of society for 3 weeks, or Sweden's approach. What's going to happen in most places is that they're going to try to reopen, cases will spike again, they'll shut down again. But that shutdown is never total. It's enough to kill the economy and people's livelihood but not enough to stop the virus.

[smootness]

I don't get the infatuation for testing. The tests are often inaccurate, and, more importantly, people are being treated based on symptoms, not test results. If you are showing symptoms, you are being treated, including quarantined, the same way regardless of your test results. Everyone I know who has tested negative but still showed symptoms has been told to remain quarantined.

If you expand testing enough, you can test a much wider swath of society, even those not showing symptoms.

That's the point. Right now, we have to just wait and treat people with symptoms because we can't test enough people to catch it before they show symptoms. But that leaves asymptomatic people spreading the virus, which is why nobody can get ahead of this thing.

I don't know when testing that widespread is possible, but it's the only way to accomplish a wider opening of the economy without another big spike in cases.

[confucius say]

If you expand testing enough, you can test a much wider swath of society, even those not showing symptoms.

That's the point. Right now, we have to just wait and treat people with symptoms because we can't test enough people to catch it before they show symptoms. But that leaves asymptomatic people spreading the virus, which is why nobody can get ahead of this thing.

I don't know when testing that widespread is possible, but it's the only way to accomplish a wider opening of the economy without another big spike in cases.

But that strategy (testing people to catch positive people before they are symptomatic) would require testing every person who leaves their house every day right? Otherwise, I test negative on Wednesday and go out in the world and become positive Thursday. Even if we had 200 million tests per day to do that, there is no way that many tests could be processed daily by labs unh?