Coronavirus

[tkdguy]

 

41 minutes ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

Good luck.  I know people who've been getting work despite losing their job before all this hit.  Things can turn around.

 

Thanks. Considering how I struggle to find jobs, I will need all the luck I can get.

[Cygnia]

[Pariah]

The Utah Symphony released this video as a tribute to the people who are keeping things running during the quarantine.

 

 

[Cygnia]

Sweden's Coronavirus Death Toll 'Horrifying' Says Scientist Behind Country's Anti-Lockdown Strategy

[massey]

11 hours ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

We still don't know why the death rate in New York was so terrible.  Extreme population concentration in public areas is probably a major factor, it allowed the virus to spread insanely fast.  The numbers around it being much less, in the thousands, are because they shut down around the same time, while the reality is New York needed to close a month prior to that.  The virus was spreading so fast that the several weeks it takes from 'getting sick to dead' meant that a tremendous amount of population was already sick before the city was closed.

 

 

I am not an expert in contagious diseases by any means.  The last biology class I had was in 10th grade.  But I'd guess that there are a few break points that NYC is on the wrong side of.  Not just population density, but also the prevalence of mass transit, how close people stand to each other, high numbers of elevators, the number of people you interact with on an average day, etc.  I'm also wondering if the amount of virus you get exposed to affects how sick you get.

 

In NYC, you've got millions of people cramming themselves onto dirty subway trains, they stay packed in for long periods of time, then they go to office buildings and cram into elevators (with people coughing on the buttons).  Then they take the subway home again and go home to their 4 roommates in their tiny apartment.  Compare that to Dallas, where people drive to their jobs alone in their F-150 trucks, where most jobs are not in high rise buildings, then you drive back home and live in your big suburban house with your family.

 

Suppose that just breathing and talking, an infected (but not yet sick) person has a 5% chance of passing the virus to a person standing within 5 feet after 5 minutes of time.  Joey New Yorker probably interacts with 40+ people a day that closely.  That means on average he's infecting two new people each day during the 10 days or so that he's contagious but not yet sick.  On the other hand, Big Tex probably only interacts with 3 or 4 people outside of his immediate family.that closely.  On an average day he's not spreading the infection.  Once these guys get sick, they go to the hospital and they quit infecting people (except maybe hospital employees).  Without a shutdown, the virus would spread completely out of control in NYC.  In Texas, it might just kinda fizzle out.

 

Now obviously you're going to have pockets where the average doesn't hold true.  There are extremely social people in Texas who interact closely with a lot of people.  And there are introverts in New York who never go out and don't take the subway.  So you can't completely ignore the problem in rural areas.  But the different average lifestyles are going to seriously affect how the virus spreads.

[Cancer]

"Get the corona" making its way into Dutch profanity

[Old Man]

2 hours ago, Cygnia said:

Sweden's Coronavirus Death Toll 'Horrifying' Says Scientist Behind Country's Anti-Lockdown Strategy

 

Sweden's economy projected to contract just as badly as that of any other EU country

[TrickstaPriest]

2 hours ago, massey said:

Suppose that just breathing and talking, an infected (but not yet sick) person has a 5% chance of passing the virus to a person standing within 5 feet after 5 minutes of time.  Joey New Yorker probably interacts with 40+ people a day that closely.  That means on average he's infecting two new people each day during the 10 days or so that he's contagious but not yet sick.  On the other hand, Big Tex probably only interacts with 3 or 4 people outside of his immediate family.that closely.  On an average day he's not spreading the infection.  Once these guys get sick, they go to the hospital and they quit infecting people (except maybe hospital employees).  Without a shutdown, the virus would spread completely out of control in NYC.  In Texas, it might just kinda fizzle out.

 

I mean, that's generally what I was suggesting - but Texas does have major cities.  Diseases do hit smaller communities, but in very-slow-motion.  So I dunno if 'fizzle out' is the right word... but generally yes.  In this case I suspect it's kill-rate is low enough that its spreadability doesn't help it much in terms of 'damage'.

 

I also suspect air quality might be an issue - it creates underlying conditions.

[Iuz the Evil]

1 hour ago, Cancer said:

"Get the corona" making its way into Dutch profanity

We refer to it as "the 'Rona" here in California when I've heard it referenced by folks so inclined. 

 

"Frank looks like he got the 'Rona"

[Old Man]

A look at the undercounted worldwide pandemic death toll from three weeks ago.  The NYT updated their version yesterday, but it's paywalled.

[ScottishFox]

2 hours ago, massey said:

I'm also wondering if the amount of virus you get exposed to affects how sick you get.

 

The initial viral load you get based on the volume of viral cells you're exposed to can have a big impact (with my limited amateur understanding) on how sick you get.

 

Imagine your body gets exposed to the impossibly low dose of a single viral cell.  It doubles let's say 10x before your body can build defenses and defeat it.

1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024 cells.  That's probably not even enough for you to know you were sick.

 

Now imagine you get exposed to a million viral cells right off the bat and the viral cell count is in the billions before your body can effectively fight. 

Your immune system can get overwhelmed with a big enough load and not be able to spawn defensive cells as fast as the virus is replicating.

 

Or you can get the cytokine storm where your body gets overloaded and then over-reacts strongly enough to kill you.

 

 

[ScottishFox]

49 minutes ago, TrickstaPriest said:

I mean, that's generally what I was suggesting - but Texas does have major cities. 

 

We do, but they are not as densely packed as big cities in New York.

 

DFW minus dead center down town Dallas is like a suburb that sprawls out for 50 miles in every direction.  There's a lot of people, but there's a lot of room too.

 

Just watching people walk the streets in downtown NY City makes me claustrophobic.  People don't get that close to each other here.

[TrickstaPriest]

57 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

Just watching people walk the streets in downtown NY City makes me claustrophobic.  People don't get that close to each other here.

 

I can only imagine.

 

That's interesting. I knew the population density was different, but it's probably particularly true when included with your other post - getting a million viral cells over the course of a day might have a world of difference compared to being exposed to a couple.  I just don't know enough on the subject to say if that's the case or not.

 

Something like this could probably still churn through Dallas, but more slowly.  It's notable that suburbs are being hit less hard than I expected - with the substantial amount of delivery services and common 'watering holes' (like getting gas) I thought this would spread more. 

 

That's good news, because it seems this thing isn't going anywhere.

[TrickstaPriest]

1 minute ago, TrickstaPriest said:

Something like this could probably still churn through Dallas, but more slowly.  It's notable that suburbs are being hit less hard than I expected - with the substantial amount of delivery services and common 'watering holes' (like getting gas) I thought this would spread more. 

 

 

May have to walk back on that - thinking back over the last decade or so of being in AZ, I've always gotten sick for two places and two places alone - when going to work and getting sick from a coworker, and when going to a convention.

[Matt the Bruins]

5 hours ago, massey said:

I'm also wondering if the amount of virus you get exposed to affects how sick you get.

 

It's anecdotal, but the deaths of those three materials management department employees who were handing out PPE supplies in Elmhurst Hospital would seem to imply that getting exposed repeatedly can make the consequences much graver. They supposedly had no direct contact with COVID-19 patients, but obviously frequent contact with medical personnel who were treating them.

[Iuz the Evil]

So we have begun reopening in California today. State guidelines are in place, and several Counties are moving forward. It'll be interesting to see how "we are establishing 'guidelines' but not certifying your local plan' works in practice. Deferring to local health officers cuts both ways, they ultimately work for a Board of Supervisors. 

 

I'm guessing this will lead to much local variation in response. 

[Badger]

4 hours ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

I mean, that's generally what I was suggesting - but Texas does have major cities.  Diseases do hit smaller communities, but in very-slow-motion.  So I dunno if 'fizzle out' is the right word... but generally yes.  In this case I suspect it's kill-rate is low enough that its spreadability doesn't help it much in terms of 'damage'.

 

I also suspect air quality might be an issue - it creates underlying conditions.

 

Of course, with my talk last night, read about today the city of Bristol.

 

Bristol is on the TN/VA border, parts of the town in both.  With TN opening up more, and VA staying more clamped down.  It talked about in one place a place is open up in TN.  

 

...and 50 yards away another similar business across the street in VA, is forced to stay closed.

 

Note: I am tempted to make a why didn't the coronavirus cross the road joke, but I don't got the energy.

[Badger]

2 hours ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

May have to walk back on that - thinking back over the last decade or so of being in AZ, I've always gotten sick for two places and two places alone - when going to work and getting sick from a coworker, and when going to a convention.

 

I've been sort of sick this week.  I was coughing up my lungs on Saturday, initially I was kind of worried about that obviously.  I did realize one thing I had done differently.  Wore the cloth mask that my workplace gave me.  Hadnt washed it yet, so still had the new smell.  After washing it, things have gotten markedly better.  Not much coughing, little bit of a sore throat still from coughing up mucus.

 

I think my lungs must have gotten a bit inflamed.  So, literally the mask was doing more harm than good. 

[BNakagawa]

What are the germans doing right? Paying attention to instructions maybe?

[Old Man]

Yes, plus lots of testing.

[Matt the Bruins]

Also, not the touchy-feeliest people. Note the difference in infection rates with Italy.

[Badger]

2 hours ago, BNakagawa said:

What are the germans doing right? Paying attention to instructions maybe?

 

They declared blitzkrieg on it.

[TrickstaPriest]

2 hours ago, Matt the Bruins said:

Also, not the touchy-feeliest people. Note the difference in infection rates with Italy.

 

Yeh.  But not less than America... though.  But I imagine aggressive testing helps, and just better organization/protection.

 

I wonder how much public transportation there is in Germany.

[Lord Liaden]

Regarding the infection rate in New York City, keep in mind that it's also an alpha international transit hub and tourist destination. People passing through from across the country and around the world multiplied the probable virus carriers introducing it into the city.

[unclevlad]

2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Regarding the infection rate in New York City, keep in mind that it's also an alpha international transit hub and tourist destination. People passing through from across the country and around the world multiplied the probable virus carriers introducing it into the city.

 

Also saw an article that it's suspected that travel *from* NYC may have been the source of the seed infections for many other places.  NYT, IIRC.  I didn't read the article but it's quite possible.  We're pretty darn sure there were a LOT of cases just floating around.  

 

Both sides of that point illustrate why large gatherings should be totally off the table for MUCH longer.