Sundancer

Discussion thread here. Facts thread up there. I’m not complaining but I feel badly that the mods have to keep cleaning the one above up. I responded in the facts discussion earlier before realizing I was misplaced. Maybe if this thread was titled Discussion: Covid and pinned, it would be clearer. It’s not like this topic is going to page 2 any time soon regrettably. [Edit: took this advice and re-titled Discussion thread. Didn't pin though; figured if folks wanna talk, it will keep it at the top]

inevitable but no pressing need to announce. . I wonder about the fall.

Disturbing to see the jump again in Italy.

Regarding your last quote, there's a whole board for "politics."

Ferguson makes what I said above clear in some Tweets. The source of the earlier tweets Berenson was wildly inaccurate and that was clear if you read Ferguson’s remarks. Be careful out there with the stories. Desire for a sensible narrative in this chaos may cloud the reality of very murky facts at this point. That’s why the (mostly) facts thread here is good.

Yes, but quarantining is a TEMPORARY measure and we need to re-open in a way that's ready for the next wave that will happen when we re-open. I'm not knocking the effect of the quarantines, but noting they are not a solution. They are just triage.

It may slow because we are quarantined, but once we lift that, it will spike unless we are much, much, much more prepared. On another note, sounds like we are moving to a national view of things as the government will start classifying counties by risk.

Let's stick with #3 (hospitalizations) for a moment. Setting aside that the exact % who require it may be unknown, which I agree with, we can all agree that letting this thing loose without distancing, testing, and quarantining will obliterate our health care workers and system. Even with distancing, it already is in places where it's gotten a little loose.

I have been following the "1/2 to 2/3 of the UK already has it or already had it and got over it" movement. I have a simple pin to prick that bubble: If half the UK had it or has it, why are we suddenly seeing an uptick in hospitalizations right now? Were all the other cases non-hospitalized cases? And now we are just seeing a random spike? Ferguson's actual remarks, by the way, suggest continued social distancing and increased testing to follow Korea's model. He is not saying that we are 2-3 weeks away from this being over as the Tweeter Berenson suggests. I would LOOOOOOOVE to be wrong.

The current peak (cases that were in progress before distancing) in NY is to come, and the much bigger peak if there’s a re-opening without the above plan in place would make this initial peak look like a picnic. That’s why we can’t reopen without a national plan and that’s why we can’t waste more time. I want to get back to work ASAP.

The most frustrating thing here is that there is still no national plan in place for how long this lasts and how to come out of this. Even this would be ok to me: 1. We need to have this stockpile in place at hospitals: # ppe. # tests. # beds. 2. We need this on hand as national stockpile to move as needed. # of this and that including ventilators. Also treatment drugs. 3. We need quarantine centers set up in regions that have clear rules about intake and how to use them. 4. We need testing centers separate from 1 and 3 with # tests. 5. We need everyone to get on board with tracking contacts for a time and here’s our system for doing that. Once we have 1-5, we will *start* to reopen the economy sector by sector while encouraging as much distancing as possible. There will be outbreaks. People will end up back in quarantine In clusters. But this is the plan to both reopen and stay on this. This has to be centralized and it needs to be out there soon so we know what the timing is. The above is the Korea plan. It’s not novel. Healthcare workers, the economy, patients. We all need this plan. If we just reopen in two weeks in a kind of free for all, the last few weeks bought us time only to do #1 and maybe a little of the others but not in an organized way so it was a sacrifice without much purpose. That would be tragic. This shutdown should be for a definitive reason with clear goals.

On top of which, a swamped system not only can’t care for CV-19 patients, it can’t care for others. I have tried to find estimates of the side effect of lack of care costs and fatalities. Nothing yet.

That is why we need massive testing and impeccable tracking. I hear lip service to the former and crickets about the later.

I have to tell a lot of people in a few days that a close family member has passed away and I know I’ll have to lead with “It had nothing to do with what’s going on...” Strange days indeed. (Keep the thread clean—no need for condolence posts and thank you because I know people are sending thoughts and prayers. If you pray, pray for someone’s peaceful passing.)

If this happens, I'm going to start licking every handrail in NYC.

The next thing: DKE-19.

Leaving the decisions to close, distribute resources, test, and track to mayors and governors is ineffective.

So they needed that particular hour for that call.

I have many dear friends in Delhi. I too worry for them. The city and country would be helpless.

Summer alone stops nothing--it might only slow the spread. In India, people live on top of each other in ways NYC would be jealous of. I really hope it doesn't catch on there. There is no way, literally no way, they could stop it. No way they could isolate. No way they could test. No way they could track. No way they could provide medical care. It would run its course through 1.4B people.

And the flu sends what percentage of its victims to the hospital for treatment, is transmissible at what rate compared to this, and has a fatality rate of what compared to this? You're comparing apples to bolt-cutters.

I would say that they are even right now and both will continue to add weight. Not soon, the longer we wait, and the impact of that could be more devastating long term. These are decisions made often by politicians: Death vs economy. We can make fun of politicians all we want but some of their decisions are not easy. I've been clear what I advocate for in this thread. You can't have "all open right now," and you can't have "all closed for 3-6 months." That's a devil's bargain.

I don't want to get too political, but there's a balancing that has to happen here in deaths vs economic death. It's grim, but it's real.

I've been hearing as few as 6 weeks from experts, but only with equipment, testing, and tracking being ready for this to localize and stamp down outbreaks, which are inevitable. Broken record here.

I'm not disagreeing with your position in the first clause at all, but the second is as cavalier and class warfare-ish about the economy as the people saying an early open of the economy is saying you want doctors to die. The economy being closed hurts the bottom earners in the economy WAY WORSE than someone who can afford to knock a million off their portfolio.