Awareness - Printable Version

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RE: Awareness - Genuine Realist - 04-11-2020

(04-11-2020, 11:01 AM)Mick Wrote:  

(04-11-2020, 10:58 AM)BostonCard Wrote:  I think it is odd that you mention China, because in many ways their response was even more heavy-handed than ours.  It is only because they were able to get the virus under control that they were able to re-open their economy.  I think that once we get over the worst of it and reduce the number of new infections into the hundreds with effective testing and tracing that we too would re-open much of our economy.

I can't tell if you're kidding or not.  Agreed, their response was more heavy handed, both in the prevention phase and in the reopening phase.

I hate to play the unaccustomed role of goody-two shoes here, but the dichotomy between 'the economy' and 'people' is just plain naive - so naive that I can't believe a Stanford graduate posits it, except for debating purposes. A devastated economy can produce as much or more human misery than a pestilence - maybe even more death, though indirectly.

I come down in favor of the massive lockdown because I am not aware of a single responsible epidemiologist who has a different idea. You may find a maverick or two, but the consensus is remarkable.

I also disagree with Mick's metaphor of the economy as 'a finely tuned machine'. I think a remarkably sophisticated organism is more apt - one that has suffered (and continues to suffer) from a terrific shock - one, I think, that was unavoidable, because the virus was going to be devastating no matter what. It will be interesting to see how it reacts and adapts - because that will happen. I remain optimistic. We have created a remarkably, resilient society.

Finally, I also disagree with Mick's projection that all this will produce a wave of Leftist, Sanders style sentiment. I do believe the public is going to vote for a return to normalcy, business and life as usual, as rapidly as possible. Which candidate that helps is up to you.

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RE: Awareness - BostonCard - 04-11-2020

(04-11-2020, 11:01 AM)Mick Wrote:  

(04-11-2020, 10:58 AM)BostonCard Wrote:  I think it is odd that you mention China, because in many ways their response was even more heavy-handed than ours.  It is only because they were able to get the virus under control that they were able to re-open their economy.  I think that once we get over the worst of it and reduce the number of new infections into the hundreds with effective testing and tracing that we too would re-open much of our economy.

I can't tell if you're kidding or not.  Agreed, their response was more heavy handed, both in the prevention phase and in the reopening phase.

No, I wasn't kidding.  I think we agree with each other more than might appear.  I would be in favor of reopening the economy, if we could get the outbreak under control to the same extent as the Chinese did (even making allowances for their under-reporting of cases).  And while I am not advocating for the kind of heavy handedness the Chinese have shown (neither in enforcing the shutdown nor in emerging from it), I do favor an phased approach that will allow us to reopen over time.

Where I am not certain on your position is what we should do until the outbreak has been brought under control.  Perhaps you take the current shutdown as a given and are trying to focus the discussion on the aftermath.  That's not the way your posts read, however.  But if that is what you are saying, and are just advocating for an aggressive reopening (like China) after the wave passes, then as I said, our positions are not so dissimilar and what we are debating is the "how soon" and "how much".  I don't claim there are any right or wrong answers on that.

BC

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RE: Awareness - 2006alum - 04-11-2020

Looks like those Chinese millennials must be every bit as selfish and inclined towards economic self-immolation as we American millennials apparently are:

[tweet]https://twitter.com/sharonchenhm/status/1248785984906354688?s=20[/tweet]

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RE: Awareness - dabigv13 - 04-11-2020

Well reported story out of NYT this morning. 

Our executive branch was clearly aware of the danger by January. POTUS failed the nation, and he's got more blood on his hands than bin Laden. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html

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RE: Awareness - Nan3cy - 04-11-2020

At the risk of going back to GR’s original question... It was March 10th. We were scheduled to go to New York the following week, for five days for our son’s brother-in-law’s wedding, to be followed by a week in New Orleans. (We really know how to pick the spots!) Our son and his wife are anesthesiologists in suburban Long Island. We had talked to them a couple of times about what was going on in NYC (at that time not much), and their attitude was pretty much “ho hum, wash your hands and be careful.” Then we talked to relatives (both immuno-compromised) who had already started taking extreme precautions, and we decided to pull the plug on our trip. We called the docs in NY, and they seemed to think we might have gone a little overboard, but were understanding. Then the next morning we got an email from our son, saying he’d been reading reports out of Italy, and not only did he think we definitely should cancel our trip, but he didn’t want us leaving our house. He isn’t someone I think of as a Nervous Nellie, so we took him seriously. We went out for dinner once that week and have been hunkered down ever since.

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RE: Awareness - Genuine Realist - 04-11-2020

Your experience with your son matches mine with my daughter, down to being alerted by the Italian experience.

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RE: Awareness - magnus - 04-11-2020

Aware of the severity early January as my attention was directed towards Asia due to a planned vacation.  At the end of January,  i cancelled my February trip to Taiwan/Singapore.

That said, it was more out of logistical fears.   Traveling with kids who, as a demographic, are notorious for random colds in the winter,  we were afraid what might happen if we picked up an innocent cold in the first country and got scanned in the second.   Didn't help that our hotel in Singapore is where their first case was found.  

Still,  concerns were mostly about overseas activities and only slight concern domestically.  Eventually still flew to San Diego in mid February though with extra hygiene issues.  Not until the WA nursing home did it feel locally serious and even then it was probably another week till travel patterns changed as we still went to little league practice until they were shut down.

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RE: Awareness - akiddoc - 04-11-2020

It was a topic of conversation at our big Christmas dinner. My sister was planning a trip to China and later to Europe. I knew there was a SARS type illness in China and I advised my sister that it might not be a great time to travel. I advised her again of the same in mid-January but she went anyway. In early Feb I was convinced it was going to be a major disaster in the USA and on Feb 10 pulled all of my retirement money out of stocks. I actually thought the stock market would tank more than it has. 

In retrospect, I believe we were seeing Covid-19 at work throughout January. A bunch of kids were coming in who appeared to have influenza but they had negative influenza nasal swabs. They all had prominent hacking coughs, fevers and headaches. We'll see if the Stanford Covid antibody testing confirms that.

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RE: Awareness - M T - 04-11-2020

(04-11-2020, 04:41 PM)akiddoc Wrote:  In retrospect, I believe we were seeing Covid-19 at work throughout January. A bunch of kids were coming in who appeared to have influenza but they had negative influenza nasal swabs. They all had prominent hacking coughs, fevers and headaches. We'll see if the Stanford Covid antibody testing confirms that.

The standard response would be, if they had Covid-19, where were the pneumonia cases (not necessarily in the kids, but in the parents or grandparents or teachers)?   But you know that question, so you must have thought about it already.   So, where were they?   The CT scan of the pneumonia is, I believe, very distinctive and should have been obvious in January, and certainly obvious in retrospect.   And, also, why didn't you or the staff around you get it?

We see in country after country that about 20% of those that test positive for COVID-19 get pneumonia about 5 days after symptom onset.

Is it possible there are two diseases running around, both new & both producing similar coughs?  It seems extraordinarily unlikely to me, but could be.  One is capable of giving you the COVID pneumonia, and the other not.   There could even be some antibody effect, like cowpox and small pox.  The question would be, why hasn't it been sequenced and detected as different?  Have all the sequences been from the severe cases?

I have been wondering why only ~10% of the tests have been positive for COVID-19.   A year ago, one might have thought that the 90% were flus or colds.  But with social distancing in full force, and the evidence of flu seemingly low, it feels unlikely that these are the flu or colds.   Could they all be like your situation (an allergy cough in a health worker) where a test was required?  With the scarcity of COVID-19 testing, I had thought all the sick would first be given the standard set of tests (flu, etc.).

If there were two diseases, then it would almost seem likely that some of those with the severe cases would have both kinds, and it would be found in them.

If there are two diseases, then the question would be if the non-COVID disease may confer any immunity to the COVID disease. 

The epidemiologists have indicated that the pattern of spread in China and elsewhere indicates a significant number of asymptomatic cases.  I don't think those models would be influenced by a different disease with similar symptoms.  (I believe the models require they asymptomatic cases to spread the COVID-19 and cause symptomatic cases to appear.)

I presume there's no way to go back and test the January swabs for COVID-19.

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RE: Awareness - BostonCard - 04-11-2020

(04-11-2020, 05:18 PM)M T Wrote:  I presume there's no way to go back and test the January swabs for COVID-19.

No, but once serology is widely available, it should be possible to test those specific patients for coronavirus antibodies.  If positive, it doesn't necessarily mean that the particular episode was definitely COVID-19, but if the patient didn't remember any other significant illnesses it would be suggestive.  If they were negative, it should prompt you to think of something else (though a false negative is always a possibility).

 BC

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RE: Awareness - oldalum - 04-11-2020

(04-11-2020, 04:41 PM)akiddoc Wrote:  . I actually thought the stock market would tank more than it has. 

patience, there's still time . . .

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RE: Awareness - Genuine Realist - 04-11-2020

(04-11-2020, 04:41 PM)akiddoc Wrote:  It was a topic of conversation at our big Christmas dinner. My sister was planning a trip to China and later to Europe. I knew there was a SARS type illness in China and I advised my sister that it might not be a great time to travel. I advised her again of the same in mid-January but she went anyway. In early Feb I was convinced it was going to be a major disaster in the USA and on Feb 10 pulled all of my retirement money out of stocks. I actually thought the stock market would tank more than it has. 

In retrospect, I believe we were seeing Covid-19 at work throughout January. A bunch of kids were coming in who appeared to have influenza but they had negative influenza nasal swabs. They all had prominent hacking coughs, fevers and headaches. We'll see if the Stanford Covid antibody testing confirms that.

I'm aware enough of your age to have an educated guess at your sister's. An IA major for a woman must have been an uncommon choice at that time. Kudos to her.

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RE: Awareness - Mick - 04-12-2020

(04-10-2020, 01:34 PM)Mick Wrote:  The layoffs we've seen are the tip of the iceberg.  The last Goldman Sachs estimate I saw was a 6% contraction in GDP.  If it's only twice that, we'll be exceedingly fortunate.  Kiplinger says a 4% contraction.  These are pipe dreams.

Consumers are to the economy what voters are to politics.  In sum, they are the only engine that matters, the lever that turns all business and government spending.  If people can't buy, we cease to function.  And if they can't buy for long, both the people who buy and the businesses who sell to them and build for them are well and truly f'd.

Every day we wait increases the odds of this country not being able to bounce back fully.  I don't think we have the resources, and based upon what I've seen from the millenials -- even though I have two of my own and 15 among my employees -- I'm not sanguine about their ability to restart the country, from any perspective, including financial, emotional, physical.

JP Morgan says 40% annualized drop in Q2, by far the worst in U. S. history. They also predict a 13% and 23% increase in Q3 and Q4, assuming that social distancing and all other social habits that avert the coronavirus are implemented.

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(04-11-2020, 04:41 PM)akiddoc Wrote:  It was a topic of conversation at our big Christmas dinner. My sister was planning a trip to China and later to Europe. I knew there was a SARS type illness in China and I advised my sister that it might not be a great time to travel. I advised her again of the same in mid-January but she went anyway. In early Feb I was convinced it was going to be a major disaster in the USA and on Feb 10 pulled all of my retirement money out of stocks. I actually thought the stock market would tank more than it has. 

In retrospect, I believe we were seeing Covid-19 at work throughout January. A bunch of kids were coming in who appeared to have influenza but they had negative influenza nasal swabs. They all had prominent hacking coughs, fevers and headaches. We'll see if the Stanford Covid antibody testing confirms that.

My college roommate and his son (Tustin residents) both had an illness with those symptoms in January. I had an illness with those symptoms in December, laid me up for two weeks. Sickest I've been since 1992, the last year I didn't get a flu shot. There are two engineers (Chinese nationals) at my son's company in Menlo Park who had an illness with those symptoms beginning in late November. Probably just a coincidence. I'm still getting an antibody test.

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RE: Awareness - Genuine Realist - 04-12-2020

(04-12-2020, 08:23 AM)Mick Wrote:  

(04-10-2020, 01:34 PM)Mick Wrote:  The layoffs we've seen are the tip of the iceberg.  The last Goldman Sachs estimate I saw was a 6% contraction in GDP.  If it's only twice that, we'll be exceedingly fortunate.  Kiplinger says a 4% contraction.  These are pipe dreams.

Consumers are to the economy what voters are to politics.  In sum, they are the only engine that matters, the lever that turns all business and government spending.  If people can't buy, we cease to function.  And if they can't buy for long, both the people who buy and the businesses who sell to them and build for them are well and truly f'd.

Every day we wait increases the odds of this country not being able to bounce back fully.  I don't think we have the resources, and based upon what I've seen from the millenials -- even though I have two of my own and 15 among my employees -- I'm not sanguine about their ability to restart the country, from any perspective, including financial, emotional, physical.

JP Morgan says 40% annualized drop in Q2, by far the worst in U. S. history.  They also predict a 13% and 23% increase in Q3 and Q4, assuming that social distancing and all other social habits that avert the coronavirus are implemented.

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(04-11-2020, 04:41 PM)akiddoc Wrote:  It was a topic of conversation at our big Christmas dinner. My sister was planning a trip to China and later to Europe. I knew there was a SARS type illness in China and I advised my sister that it might not be a great time to travel. I advised her again of the same in mid-January but she went anyway. In early Feb I was convinced it was going to be a major disaster in the USA and on Feb 10 pulled all of my retirement money out of stocks. I actually thought the stock market would tank more than it has. 

In retrospect, I believe we were seeing Covid-19 at work throughout January. A bunch of kids were coming in who appeared to have influenza but they had negative influenza nasal swabs. They all had prominent hacking coughs, fevers and headaches. We'll see if the Stanford Covid antibody testing confirms that.

My college roommate and his son (Tustin residents) both had an illness with those symptoms in January.  I had an illness with those symptoms in December, laid me up for two weeks.  Sickest I've been since 1992, the last year I didn't get a flu shot.  There are two engineers (Chinese nationals) at my son's company in Menlo Park who had an illness with those symptoms beginning in late November.  Probably just a coincidence.  I'm still getting an antibody test.

Do you know how and where to get one?

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RE: Awareness - Mick - 04-12-2020

(04-12-2020, 09:19 AM)Genuine Realist Wrote:  Do you know how and where to get one?

I think so, but PM me... Near as i can tell, ask my PCP for a referral to Stanford's program.

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RE: Awareness - BostonCard - 04-12-2020

Posted this in another thread, but Stanford has retrospectively analyzed its respiratory samples dating back to January to see if any mysterious respiratory illnesses for which they didn't find a source, could have been positive for SARS-CoV-2.  They looked at 2740 samples overall, and just two (both after February 17) were positive.





BC

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