[lawprofessor]

Good evening,

The one home is for Alzheimer's patients.  Quite a disaster there as no way to enforce social distancing or hygiene like masks and covering ones mouth.  About 80 residents live there and staff is poorly paid, not living there.

On the positive side, only 3 new cases in the county.  A "super spreader" was identified and quarantined.  Seems he is responsible for a large circle of infections in Chicago.  One of those he infected, infected someone out here and on it went.  He had no idea, just thought he had a 2 day cold.  Amazing. 

Out here we are a large supplier of plasma.  For those who don't know this is a way poor people make money.  One can donate plasma twice a week for $50 a session.  Hundreds of people show up daily to donate for the money, most who it's their only source of cash income.  It's also a great way to get screened for diseases like HIV/Aids for free.  Anyway, donation centers have been closed since the virus outbreak.  But now, it seems the state will maybe reopen the centers because they want to collect plasma from those who have recovered to see if there are some sort of antibodies or such in the plasma that can be used to treat others or make a vaccine or something similar as I sort of understand it.  Turnout is expected to be good since those who are regular donors by and large live in the zip codes with the highest rates of infection out here and are also those most likely to be out of work in service type jobs currently and so need the money.

On Facebook on the post advertising for the donations, people are giggling that the drug addicts and prostitutes will finally earn some respect and save the lives of those who socially distanced from them and looked down on them all these years. 

Perhaps that's fitting during this Easter season.

Lp

[marvin4242]

For those of you who are interested and haven’t seen this yet it is a good video about food safety and what you should and shouldn’t be worried about if you are trying to stay away from Covid-19.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=773&v=_vhx5RM41Pk&feature=emb_logo

[Nerissa]

What an impressive woman.

https://mobile.twitter.com/BenjAlvarez1/status/1250563198081740800

[Treasur]

Iirc, she comes from a scientific profession originally? Yes, admirably clear way of describing how and why reducing the spread matters. And why small changes compound into the difference between manageable and not. Rather like Gov Cuomos recent briefings about the use of masks and the criteria for any phased reopening of economic activity. There is something admirable and reassuring about a balance of honesty, empathy and clear-eyed no BS problem solving that we need in our leaders right now isn't there?

[marvin4242]

Angela Merkel is impressive indeed and really shines a light on the power of intelligent, educated and rational leadership. And unlike some countries her handling of the situation has resulted in her approval rating (and her parties) to skyrocket and approval of far right parties to fall.

From her Wikipedia page.: She obtained a doctorate in quantum chemistry in 1986 and worked as a research scientist until 1989.

Edit: found this interesting article

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/16/europe/merkel-trump-germany-federalism-analysis-intl/index.html

[marvin4242]

I know this thread has been inactive, but I wanted to post some information here rather than pollute other threads.

First here is the current state of testing per capita around the world. This is the only measure that means something, total tests is irrelevant as it doesn't represent the size of the country. Granted it is harder for larger countries because they need more tests, but they also usually have more capacity, resources, labs, etc. US is current ranked #18 with only 1.03% testing rate, compared to countries that are at least double that. Also experts are guessing the US test rate needs to be 3x current level before US can "reopen" whatever that means exactly.

https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1251216765893455875/photo/1

Second is a bit of good news, preliminary results (note: preliminary) in Remdesivir trials are showing positive results in fever and respiratory symptoms. If it holds up in the longer term of the study it should be a very good tool in both preventing deaths and shortening the duration of hospital stays.

[xyzcf]

Marvin, please do continue to share information with us. Sometimes the media is just overwhelming with so many different "opinions"

Lately I question the endless need for the stories of individuals who have been really really sick, or individuals who have died...not because I don't care about them, but it skews the information that many others do get better...and perhaps makes us more afraid then necessary. I think I would be happier just to know the number of cases and deaths.

The measures are working but the talk now is at what cost? People were willing perhaps to social distance for a couple of weeks, but many feel this is an infringement on their rights. Very few people have the financial resources to be able to feed and house themselves without a paycheck. And things are becoming very divided. At a protest recently, to be allowed to stop the stay at home orders, protesters were waving Confederate flags.....and I wonder, what do Confederate flags have to do with a public health emergency such a s this? Other than to cause people to be against one another in a time when we really have to rally together.

Because the models are not always correct, people start to lose their trust in what the science is saying. We are also impatient for a cure or vaccine, not understanding why or how it takes so long. If we cannot obtain enough swabs for testing, what will it be like to obtain enough vaccine and syringes and people to administer the vaccine when it becomes available?

I watched Bill Maher last night and his interview with Andrew Sullivan and it spoke very deeply to me. Andrew Sullivan is a reporter. Due to his medical condition, he is more at risk if he gets COVID and so he is strictly isolated, totally alone in his home. He spoke about the need for human companionship, for human touch and how long can people withstand the total loss of contact with others?

For those of us who live alone, this is a real and terribly "cruel" part of the crisis. I see my friends wave to me as they walk by my house with their husbands, husbands who go and do all the shopping because they do not want their wives to take any risks, husbands who prepare food and sit down with you to watch a tv show or play a game of cards, husbands who will be there if you get COVID.

I thought I had done a good job of accepting that I am a single woman, I was content if not totally satisfied with my lot in life. But now, I am faltering. I know this will end and I am really fortunate in many ways...but Andrew's rawness when he spoke about how much he craved human contact spoke deeply to me.

There are so many costs of this crisis.....

[Treasur]

I rather like https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ for the bare numbers and patterns, I must admit.

And wouldn't it be great if trials do indeed throw up some solid treatment options, Marvin. It seems to me that we all need a little humility in accepting the real limits of our current knowledge of how this virus works and how to address it. Tbh I see some of the public discussions as a kind of (understandable) collective trauma response where we are all tempted to focus on 'totems' like ventilators or testing. Which is not to say these issues are unimportant, just that they are not perhaps the magic fix that so many of us (understandably) crave. Certainly I see the discussions (and blame) about testing here  in the UK as being a bit of a broad swathe where more testing=good.....but without necessairily looking at the practical issues of what different kinds of testing actually does or does not do for different issues and at different stages in the progression of the virus. We are all still working stuff out, I think......

Thank you too xyz for your honest comment about how you feel sometimes. I'm sure you are not alone and I guess all of us are finding a way to acknowledge the emotions we feel. Much of what you said rang loudly with me. In fact, I had a bleh start to my day bc I felt things that I didn't quite know what to do with......fortunately a tearful call to a friendly LBS helped tremendously. Pain really isn't a competitive sport is it? And some of our sorrows and fears are not irrational at all. Like you, I have found that this situation underlines my feeling of aloneness and perhaps abandonment or loss. Like you, I don't resent that others have a hand to hold, a person in their life for whom their wellbeing matters.....in fact, I take a kind of solace in all those acts of kindness and love....but it does put into a kind of mental bold text that this used to be true for me and now it is not. And sometimes that hurts.

[readytofixmyselffirst]

Hello,

For all of those wondering, my parents are at their home and are doing fine. I am home and dealing with the impact of the virus on our students and their future education. I am also worried about the long term economic impact on families as well.

but it skews the information that many others do get better...and perhaps makes us more afraid then necessary.

US is current ranked #18 with only 1.03% testing rate, compared to countries that are at least double that. Also experts are guessing the US test rate needs to be 3x current level before US can "reopen" whatever that means exactly.

Xyzcf, you are absolutely correct that many people do get better, but due to the lack of tests, we are not testing people to confirm recovery.

Without the ability to test quickly with fast results, we are forced to cast a wider net in our attempts to suppress the spread. For example South Korea is still dealing with the crisis, but have far fewer cases each day and far less deaths. First, the quickly sealed the border and made all new arrivals test and quarantine. Then they began a massive testing program in the country. At one point, it appeared that they were going to explode, but by testing and following up with more testing, they isolated all the people that came in contact with infected people and were able to isolate quickly. The country is open and still working. Now, they learned a lot from SARS which caught them by surprise. With Covid-19, they were in a much better place with plans and training.

The US started sealing the border, but the order was poorly implemented and confusing. The initial testing was poor, controlled by CDC and took a long time for results and those results were faulty at best. Now we have spread across the entire country, it requires drastic actions. Once we get past this first wave in the next month, we need to be in a better place to test and test quickly. Far better to shut down one business or school for two to three weeks than the entire community.

I do understand the frustrations of the protesters, but the states and local governments they are protesting against are going to suffer much more than the federal government. I live near Disneyland. The loss of tax revenue from that one business is going to resonate for months. All the loss of revenue from restaurants, hotels, and other service industries will be felt for the next two years. Until we get the facts and are able to draw strong conclusions rather than anecdotal observations, we all are going to be in the dark and feeling the impact.

Finally, there is so many unknowns at this point due to limited research. For example, most viral infections hit the young particularly hard as well as the very old. Besides immune system, what about the proteins in the lungs of the young help fight the infection? I think when we test for antibodies, we are going to find that a large number of children had the virus.

Does a recovered person have built in immunity? No research to support this at this time.
Can the virus remain dormant in an infected person only to return years if not decades later ?(Chicken Pox and Polio)
What are the long term health impact on serious cases to other organs in the body?

Lots of questions and concerns as we navigate this threat.

((((Ready))))

[marvin4242]

First there have been a great deal of studies and there are a lot already ongoing. The amount and rate of we are learning for a new disease is not only unprecedented it is staggering. We are learning more and more every day, adjusting what we do. And we have never in the history of history been able to do and learn so much in so little time. One of the most interesting factoids is that some of this is thanks to the human genome project, where we discovered how to sequence genes so much more rapidly and cheaply. Which means our understanding of the virus has been very good. The world is sharing data, coordinating and mostly viewing this as a global problem. Again US is the one exception in the western countries. We call it “the foreign” or “Chinese” virus like it has nationality.

As for closing borders there have been mathematical models that show that closing borders doesn’t work because “internal” spread becomes dominant very quickly. I can’t find the study I read, but the number of “local” cases in a country before closing borders become ineffective is amazingly small, it is in the hundreds. So by the time you even realize it no longer matters. Its mainly for show. That is unless you manage to contain your own outbreak (suppression, which only a few countries managed to do) then close the borders to make sure it is not reintroduced. That ship said in the US and most countries a long time ago.

RTFM: it is true we will still learn a lot more, but the media and the “exception cases” as xyzcf pointed out makes it seem like we don’t know certain things. We know immunology and immune systems very well. We have not done studies but the basic numbers show there has to be acquired immunity, otherwise families would continue to re-infect each other and we would see staggering numbers. The media reports cases where we either think someone was reinfected or test was incomplete, but this is something like maybe a couple of hundred out of at this point millions of cases around the word. The first basic thing that is confusing to most is this basic truth:

EXCEPTIONS DO NOT INVALIDATE THE RULE.

Essentially this means if there are some people who are indeed reinfected and we don’t know why it doesn’t mean we don’t have immunity. If that number was 50% of cases then maybe, but when they are a minuscule percentage it still means we have immunity and disease can not reoccur UNTIL it has mutated enough to escape detection by our immune system. But then again keep in mind most mutations are harmful and weaken the virus, so it could, like SARS mutate itself out of existence.

And yes there are many costs. But in societies with good functioning social networks the economic costs are mitigated. Sadly this is not true of the US. The sad part is all the people protesting are the same ones who are being hurt by the fact that we don’t have such a system, yet they think they are better off if they tear is down even more. The Payroll Protection Program ran out of money before most small mom and pop business could not even get their banks to accept their applications. While the bigger businesses with “premium” services had their loans processed. Which group do you think those people protesting belong to?

The human cost of loneliness and isolation is real. No one denies that. But also there is probably a good overlap between lonely people and people who are at risk (elderly, sick). Technology is part of a solution, but it is true that we can not socially isolate for long period of time without bad consequences. That was part of why the better coordinate countries tried to TIME the start of the isolation. Of course some question why they didn’t act sooner, but maybe that will become clearer as we are isolated for too long.