shoshin

Less than PA. We are at 69% of all our deaths are in nursing homes.

I’ve been texting with my friends in Delhi. They are really scared because they know it’s uncontrollable there if it settles in, especially in their hottest time. It’s not possible to be inside for most people and there is no way to avoid other people there. I had hoped some combination of the weather or any mysterious reason might shelter them but there was never much doubt that this would ravage them and most of South Asia. In one of the early interviews I saw during this, Bill Gates was saying that more or less, as bad as things may get in the US and Europe, we can handle it. That is not necessarily true everywhere.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/world/asia/mumbai-lockdown-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage Sobering look at the rising cases in India. I fear for my many Indian friends. Their healthcare barely holds together as it is.

There are two criteria there. Can meet either one. It's not, obviously.

With the exception of NYS, almost no state is following them so it doesn't matter that they originated with the CDC and were published by the admin. The standards for CA are such that much of it will be very hard to open. PA has a very high standard too. Not following some of the other NE state standards. TX just has some things companies have to do--no objective measures to move through phases. Very few states appear to be following the guidelines, even though they are straightforward and objective.

I call them the Trump-CDC guidelines because it hopefully speaks to both sides. Those are good guidelines. On the church/restaurant/other CDC recommendations story of last week, those things had very little substance beyond "practice common sense." Bizzarre that the admin cared about them at all.

WNY is only short in 2 categories. I have no doubt it'll get there soon. Cuomo is using the exact Trump numbers and has even added some arbitrary thresholds not included in the Trump guidelines to make it easier to meet.

You're clinging to someone else's story and are wrong. 4 out of 7 geographic areas can open now and even NY City is not that far off (new hospitalizations is the category it's furthest from and even that is within reach)--and EVERYONE on planet earth would expect NY City to open last. You can disagree with the metrics but they are the ones promoted by the Trump CDC and NYS is getting there on them. NYS is a model for how to come out of this right now considering how horrible the situation was there just a month ago.

The guidelines use only relative measures and have no specific numbers to meet except "days." My guess is that you haven't looked at them too hard, and I don't blame you for that, since only one state appears to be paying any attention to it. NYS modified it, and it applied it by region, which is resulting in larger urban areas opening later, as you would expect. Most people haven't read them. They are set up to work. Not really. The Trump/CDC guidelines set goals and gates to pass through to move through stages of reopening. Many places would not pass the test for stage 1. The goal is to Open Up America. That happens in stages. If you read the guidelines, they achieve full "life being open for all of us" by eliminating the virus in stages as measured by our ability to continuously exercise control over the virus as we open more things. The guidelines take us from shutdown to concert-going. While we are going to concerts, the virus may still be around but who cares--we will have, at that point, achieved the old normal.

The title of the CDC guidelines is pretty clear to state the goal. Opening Up America.

NYS is pretty much using the CDC guidelines put out by the administration. Those guidelines are excellent.

Spain estimate: 5% have Covid antibodies. Not as high as I would hope but in line with what's estimated here (2-5%) in many places--pretty big sample size.

Given that Cuomo and Newsome are opening their states, you can read their concerns as showing concern for people, not holding them hostage with unreasonable goals in mind.

That's just that piece. The medical neglect piece is staggering. My wife goes back to doing in-home visits in Philly on June 1. She will have one N95 mask, paper masks to wear over the N95, gloves, and hand sanitizer. She will take all the precautions she's trained in but we approach the summer assuming we will be "hot" at some point, which may limit our interactions with some of our many parents and aunt/uncles. Kind of hoping we get it early and get over it so we can feel like we're not spreaders. Her team has been told to not expect vacations to be granted this fall/winter as they expect case increases to rise when flu season returns. They're being told to live it up this summer!

Sweden is interesting but it is different. I’m not discounting it as much as you seem to be making me do it. I note the differences and that DE is a better comparison.

Editorial in the NYT about reopening the economy. In late February, as data on the coronavirus pandemic continued to unfold, I started making calls to friends and family to prepare them. I told them to get ready to hunker down for three months. For many then, it was hard to believe that a virus we couldn’t much see evidence of, less understand, would require us to shut down our economy. I also spoke with C.E.O.s and governors, urging them to close nonessential businesses and enact stay-at-home orders to stop the spread of the virus. Other public health advocates called for the same — and fortunately government and business leaders responded. Their actions saved hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives and spared American hospitals the horrors of rationing care. Shutting down was the right policy at the time. As circumstances have evolved, so has my thinking. We have survived the surge in hospitalized cases and suffered immense economic trauma. The full lockdown made sense weeks ago. But the situation is changing, and more data on the virus are now available to inform our next steps. The choice before us isn’t to fully lock down or to totally reopen. Many argue as though those are the only options.

Sweden: - Never shut down like we did so there's nothing to watch on reopening - has a single city of less than 1M people with the remaining pop of 9M spread out over a country as big as CA - nearly 50% of its population lives alone (about double that of US) - homogenous population (50% of Swedes trace their heritage to 10 generations or more of Swedes!) - limited temperature zone It's a good data point but it's just not as good as Germany. We will make our own data because we are different but I think Germany is a closer metric to the US. I also have a gut feel that I can't link to but that's been discussed in literature and via WhatsApp with my Sweden friends that Swedes are much more compliant with distancing, working from home, etc. even though they are technically open. Here we have people saying masks don't work and holding rallies.

Stockholm doesn't even have 1M people. The remaining 10M people in the entire country are spread over an area similar in size to California. Plus they have an amazingly high % population that lives alone. I love Sweden and go there 1-2 times a year for business but it's not as good of a comparison as Germany. I suspect you know that's not true but there are some people here who won't take a Covid vaccine so I'm not sure. Exponential growth means you will see growth after several cycles. Hopefully we don't see the spike. GA looks pretty good right now, which is excellent news. I'm curious how things are going in Atlanta particularly.

I'm just thinking Germany is a larger sample size and they are further ahead of us on the timing. GA is a good measure domestically in the next 4 weeks. For sure NYC got hit hardest and the worst. There is no place like it in the US.

Sweden isn't reopening so there's no trend to watch for in their numbers. Also, Sweden is a super tiny and spread out place with a population that doesn't live like us.

It's time to reopen with the distancing, masks, etc. in place. Watching Germany the closest. They have a population that will do the right things, they test well, and they are ahead of us on the timeline. So far things look OK there--stable (not decreasing) but that's OK. If we sit at stable now as we reopen, that's good. The next hurdles will happen in the fall.

It's great. Shutdowns work, and now we test the reopening.

Actually the way it works is you not taking a vaccine for a highly contagious disease affects others. That's why the US government required smallpox vaccinations. You might have to hole up in the bunker and get your food delivered through a slot but you'll be free! We are doing the right thing. Open the spigot slowly and watch the numbers, particularly hospitalizations. If the max deaths to get to herd immunity or vaccine (assuming people take it--already you see in this thread a bunch of people who will refuse) is 300,000, it would be a kind of amazing outcome.

He will be sober this morning. Then he can explain the first rambling post...Don’t drink and post kids!