2714

That’s hilarious, almost like Chris Matthews’ “so last night I was reading about Hitler invading France, and this is just like that…” bit.

Iwo Jima had a higher death rate than corona, so settle down libtards.

2715

Oh sure, but make us Oregonians take the brunt of it.

2716

Any talk of religious exemptions for churches/mosques/etc.? Will people abide by that or push back?

2717

Considering the largest community spread in NY was centered around a temple…exemptions there seem ill-advised.

2718

Yes, it’s fun watching the Fed pointlessly blow their wad when it can do nothing now due to the nature of the issue, but will remove the tools they may need in the future.

2719

No way is it the peak that early. 10 weeks maybe? That’d be about right. But the thing is, that timing will happen if and only if the UK is intending to do nothing and have 30 million people infected at the same time.

And the fatigue argument maybe makes sense for things like total lockdowns. But they’re doing nothing at all to slow it down, not even the less invasive things like forbidding large public events.

2720

AOC gets the most media attention, and I am not saying she’s underserving. But Katie Porter may be the sharpest member of Congress. If I had to pick a future president from the younger Democratic generation, she’s it.

2721

Hear, hear!

2722

So this makes a lot more sense. Though the idea that you have found 500 but you estimate 5-10K people are infected… is bonkers. That suggests that the government has zero control over the situation. Norway’s draconian measures today was instituted because the government just lost control (i.e., we’re no longer able to trace where the infected have got the virus).

And I’m not sure why they want to be on the same trajectory as Italy (which seems to be what they’re going for - we wait until the same time and then institute restrictions?) The lesson to learn from Italy, IMO, is that they waited far too long to clamp down.

As do we all. This is not good for people who suffer from anxiety.

2723

I can only guess…

The strategy seems to be, avoid suppressing the spread of the virus too severely, too early in case we end up with multiple peaks. Instead we try to aim for a single peak and time the adoption of more severe social distancing strategies to blunt it. They are aiming to encourage herd immunity.

From what I’ve read this appears to be a good strategy. I guess we’re about to find out…

2724

Now that I think about it, 500 is a big Church. Isn’t it closer to 100-200 people?

At least now I know what “reducing the density” means. Yesterday I saw that and I panicked for a second.

2725

Looking at the arcgis hopkins site and i’m dubious about it for the first time - has china really plateaued or are they not reporting anymore?

2726

Isn’t “herd immunity” just “everyone gets this, and those who don’t die will be fine?”

That sounds bonkers. It’s a national version of the chicken-pox parties suburban US parents held in the 1960’s and 1970’s. But the Covid version kills 1 - 4% (at a guess) of your population. I appreciate that everyone wants to get through this quickly, to get it behind us. Sometimes, what you want isn’t possible.

2727

Again… I can only speculate.

If I was the government I would have built a model to predict the spread/impact of the virus in my country. If there are many data streams feeding information into my model (such as hospital admissions, health service inquiries etc) then it’s possible that large amounts of official tests are not required or rather only have a negligible impact on the accuracy of my predictive model.

It’s possible the government has not lost control (as much as that is true under such conditions) but instead we’re following the predictive model. Again, I can only speculate - this is just me (some random Internet dude) offering a possible, plausible(?) explanation.

2728

No, it means that a large percentage of your herd is immune for various reasons (they’ve had it before and have antibodies, or they were vaccinated), and that makes it difficult for that biological agent to propagate. So it basically peters out. There’s always going to a be a few members of the herd who are vulnerable for various reasons, but they’re protected because most of the herd are immune and won’t pass it to them.

2729

Coworker just sent this to me over slack - a look at the mortality rates for various tranches of people sourced from 2 papers that are well powered.

They don’t see a 50% death rate for hypertension, though it’s certainly not good.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/

2730

The UK has twice as many dead as Germany, yet 1/4 confirmed cases. This strongly suggests the UK has a few thousand cases, at the very least. The US, with its ~40 deaths, easily has 10k.

2731

Even 5% is horrifying. How many times have you had to hit a crucial roll in D&D and rolled a 1?

5% of the world is like 350 million dead

2732

I look at that, and the results from other countries such as Singapore and S Korea, and I see hope. It is possible to constrain this thing, at least. But we’re not taking the necessary measures. I feel like the US and the UK are more likely to be Italy.

My hope for our nations is simple: Slow this thing down until they find a better way to treat it. We might have a somewhat effective drug by late spring or summer (remdesivir).

Side-note: With a huge healthcare debate imminent in the US, our Big Pharma has to recognize the chance to be true heroes here. If they can develop a treatment, scale up quickly to distribute it, and they don’t price people out of access to it… I think that changes the debate somewhat.

2733

Also chicken pox parties had a certain logic. The disease is less harmful and serious as a child than an adult where shingles is potentially deadly. So contracting it as a child, given the high probability of catching sometime during your life, makes sense. You give them a natural boost of immunity against a more serious adult illness.

It works because the adults already have the immunity and so are at very low risk. Covid-19 however has no such case. There is no immunity among older members, so this isn’t catching a mild form to prevent a serious one, it is catching a mild form and spreading the deadly one to all older family members.