COVID-19 Updates

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[quote="Mike Zaun" post=387180][quote="mjmaherjr" post=387179][quote="Mike Zaun" post=387178][quote="mjmaherjr" post=387177][quote="Mike Zaun" post=387168]That is absurd. Every 2 weeks we are getting better and better news. The curve that we wanted flattened? It flattened already. The deaths and hospitalizations are dropping a lot. LI met 5/7 criteria to start reopening phase 1 and then perhaps another month or so later phase 2 which is real estate, etc. Things are looking much better and young people who get it almost ever even have symptoms. There's no proof that they are acting as carriers either last I looked it up about a week ago. I just think we can be reasonable and instead of going into holes and taking years off our lives while killing the economy and people's retirement funds, we can be smart and take precautions but get somewhat back to normal. Wear a mask sure, wash hands, distance...there's no way to say this and not sound harsh, but the elderly and those already sick are the ones dying from this almost exclusively. They can just as easily die from an infection or flu. We were told early on the mortality rate was 2%. Turns out it was more like .02% if that. I know I can get killed in a car accident anyday or seriously injured, but I don't hide and refuse to ever drive again on the .02% chance or whatever it is that I die or get seriously injured. We can be careful but also reasonable...this is not seriously affecting the overwhelming majority of the country. It's specifically the elderly and the sick. Isolate them and let's move on with life carefully. Many of those seriously at risk are retired anyway.[/quote] I’m not arguing for it against going back ( I’d rather be in office ) but I just had a client 71 year old doctor pass away from covid. Have 2 clients in hospital same age bracket have at least 10 clients ( not including their direct family members ) with it my 51 year old cousin got it ( mild case ) but her 25 year old daughter got it from her and was in ICU for a week and had a 53 year old friend spend about 6 weeks in ICU at Huntington hospital and was in a ventilator 3 weeks and almost died. It’s not just the sick and elderly[/quote]

Really sorry to hear that. Of course everyone will be able to provide examples here and there of both sides. I'm talking more about by in large. Did the 25 yr old have a pre-existing condition? I believe something like 80+% of the deaths have been 65+ yrs old. If those who are retired and elderly quarantined and those under that went back to work with interventions in place to help minimize spread, would it really get that much worse? I mean I've been to the grocery store tons of times, been to Dunkin a lot, 7-11 for a few things, and I know it's just me and I'm 31 but I always wear a mask, wash hands before and after going anywhere even my credit cards with wipes, and I stay at least 6 ft away from anyone. Why can't most of the general population do this? Just seems like the goal post is moving a lot. First it was wash hands and don't touch face. Check. Then it was wear a mask after we were told not to. Check. Then it was flatten the curve. Check. Now many leaders are suggesting that we need to test every single person before we can even think about opening the country again? I don't know, just seems kind of ridiculous to me but that's just my opinion. Of course we should take it seriously but when is enough enough?[/quote] Nah Melissa is picture of health. Her mom my cousin too. Ironically I just texted her now to see how her husband is because they just tested him but he had no symptoms and he had antibodies. And he is big smoker and has that kind of deep smoking cough for years. I don’t know about other deaths other than the 1/3 I heard on tv from nursing homes but I’d be curious what MCN and Eric say about their past cases in their hospitals. My good friend is an administrator at Jacobi back month ago they got literally slammed by inflows and deaths and had trailers outside holding bodies. They didn’t run out of vents but at one point 90% of the patients were covid. Spoke yesterday to clients at SUNY Downstate and a hospital in Jersey and like as said on the news in general both have had big downturn in cases. Downstate was almost all covid but now reopening wings. Ironically the hospitals actually are hurting for money from this. Virtually all of them. Less elective surgery more manpower costs etc[/quote]

I wonder if it was a different strain the 25 yr old got. This whole thing is just so crazy...I am all for protective measures and if you're 65+ you should be extremely careful. But at the same time I'm just not sure bringing everything to a screeching halt is really the right answer at all the crazy cost. School budgets are going to be slashed, tens of millions losing jobs, businesses closing permanently. 2 of the top school bus companies on LI recently closed...permanently. I'm not an expert but just my sense FWIW. That's crazy how the heavy smoker was fine. There are people like my father who suddenly passed at 45 from smoking (stressful job didn't help) leading to a massive heart attack and then there are those who can live to 80 smoking 10x a day. Really fascinating and confusing at the same time lol. By the way sorry in advance to mods it's my fault for changing topic.[/quote] the potential long term economic ramifications make me want to puke the last couple months when I think about it
 
[quote="MCNPA" post=387181]
I could go for a few hours but this is in a nutshell.[/quote]

Please continue. The alternative is listening to my daughters fight for the 57th day in a row. :lol:
 
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[quote="L J S A" post=387183][quote="MCNPA" post=387181]
I could go for a few hours but this is in a nutshell.[/quote]

Please continue. The alternative is listening to my daughters fight for the 57th day in a row. lol:[/quote]

Lol. I too am balancing working in the ICU and homeschooling 3 kids. My kids have been oddly good, can’t figure out how but who knows. I definitely believe in keeping your lenses clear and looking for a pragmatic solution to this mess.
The TV, media and fear mongering will not help anybody see this with a clear perspective. Any specific questions PM me. I won’t hijack your daughters platform...
 
Dick Vitale just tweeted out shaming Cal schools for shutting down for fall already. Good....people need to shame this stuff. It's almost like virtue-signalling now as if to say, "Look how safe I'm being! I shut my life down another 4 months!". The media wants to sensationalize everything. Anyone else seeing the nuts IN THEIR CARS wearing masks?! This is what the panic does...makes people turn into crazies. I work in a school and I've been doing more work than ever before getting calls at 7 or 8 PM when my day used to end around 3:00. With school being shut down lots of kids are also getting into trouble out in the streets. The media isn't mentioning that.
 
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[quote="Mike Zaun" post=387176][quote="Chicago Days" post=387170][URL]https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/covid-19/study-puts-us-covid-19-infection-fatality-rate-13[/URL][/quote]

No way it's that high...1,400,000 cases confirmed 83,000 deaths. That translates to .05% mortality and even that is an overestimate. Hospitals are getting paid more money to report more deaths as COVID that are not actually COVID related. There are tens of millions who have not been tested yet who already have the antibodies meaning they had it and almost certainly had no idea since many have no symptoms. I know a 67 yr old who had it without realizing because he had no symptoms. When you factor those tens of millions if not more who have it without knowing and did not die it will go down way more even from the .05. We were already told that non-COVID deaths would be counted anyway. I realize many have been through some terrible times with this and it's not to be taken lightly. But this country went through the Spanish Flu and didn't even do anywhere near this shutdown. Eventually these things die out anyway after herd immunity.[/quote]

That is actually 5.9%, not 0.05% (you need to multiply by 100 to get the percentage), but clearly the mortality rate is much lower than that (and likely less than 1%). Just wanted to correct the math.
 
Thanks mkras99...was about to mention Mike's math was a bit off.
The takeaway to me at any rate, is that this thing is lethal to older folks but highly infectious, with arguably ~25% of cases asymptomatic.
To me, Dr. Fauci made beaucoup sense today.
People should listen.
Be safe.
And damn, yeah, the season had better open!
Lol.
 
[quote="mkras99" post=387186][quote="Mike Zaun" post=387176][quote="Chicago Days" post=387170][URL]https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/covid-19/study-puts-us-covid-19-infection-fatality-rate-13[/URL][/quote]

No way it's that high...1,400,000 cases confirmed 83,000 deaths. That translates to .05% mortality and even that is an overestimate. Hospitals are getting paid more money to report more deaths as COVID that are not actually COVID related. There are tens of millions who have not been tested yet who already have the antibodies meaning they had it and almost certainly had no idea since many have no symptoms. I know a 67 yr old who had it without realizing because he had no symptoms. When you factor those tens of millions if not more who have it without knowing and did not die it will go down way more even from the .05. We were already told that non-COVID deaths would be counted anyway. I realize many have been through some terrible times with this and it's not to be taken lightly. But this country went through the Spanish Flu and didn't even do anywhere near this shutdown. Eventually these things die out anyway after herd immunity.[/quote]

That is actually 5.9%, not 0.05% (you need to multiply by 100 to get the percentage), but clearly the mortality rate is much lower than that (and likely less than 1%). Just wanted to correct the math.[/quote]

Oops you're right...but yes obviously it's way lower. That just goes to show that it's obviously false information. Probably has tens of thousands of deaths that weren't really from COVID. No way it's anywhere near 6%. Very infectious yes, thus wear masks, be clean, stay 6 ft apart, etc. But not very deadly. Dare I say we should take the slight risk of letting non-retired people get back to work now knowing that most will be fine? I mean most people who get this fight it off just fine. 80,000 deaths which again is awful but put that in perspective when they told us it would be 2 million. That would mean that the death toll right now (I know it's still rising unfortunately but won't be anywhere near) is 4% of the original estimate of 2 million (check my math lol). There's always the major gap between what we all see on main street in real life and what the media is trying to convince us of....and that's usually that the end of the world is here.
 
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[quote="L J S A" post=387169]

Ha ha, I actually googled it the other day to see if 1) it still existed; and 2) if it worked. Shaving most of the head was simple enough, but I left hair in the front for power alley coverage.

You'd think it would be easy enough to scissor what's only up front, but it's been an adventure getting it to look normal. Daughter told me I looked like broccoli and that I should join a Korean boy band when I first did it. Fixing it made me look like Rick Astley. So then I had to cut it again and shave some more. Looks OK if you look directly straight at me.

So I guess what I'm saying is Austour, definitely let your wife cut it. You'll never regret it. :lol:[/quote]

I let my beard grow out for a while then it started getting hot so I said screw that and not only shaved but I went for the full baldy complete with shaving cream. I had visions of getting my dome nice and shiny but I guess there is a trick to that. Mine was more like a Shar Pei. Nice and soft and fun to rub but not shiny... too bad. Actual photo:
[img ][URL]https://www.vet.cornell.edu/si...es/nodecontent_default/public/Shar_pei_puppy_[/URL](age_2_months).jpg[/img]
 
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Some of the people on this board are retired from long careers working with chronic relapsing illnesses. No small amount of our effort has gone in to educating collateral folks in the lives of people with these illnesses about the patterns of relapse and the movement from acute to chronic to acute on chronic illness phases. The amount of hurt incurred when people take snapshots in time and say to themselves "at last" only to then discover that the illness doesn't conform to the snapshot or their expectations, is enormous, and damages their capacity to re-engage with the ill person for whom they care.

We are still too ignorant about COVID19 to believe any snapshot and politicizing our judgments does a disservice to the attitude of "humility" described by Dr. Fauci in his Senate testimony on 5/12/20.
 
We don’t know how many people have the virus, only those that tested positive. Millions more are negative.
 
[quote="fuchsia" post=387210]Some of the people on this board are retired from long careers working with chronic relapsing illnesses. No small amount of our effort has gone in to educating collateral folks in the lives of people with these illnesses about the patterns of relapse and the movement from acute to chronic to acute on chronic illness phases. The amount of hurt incurred when people take snapshots in time and say to themselves "at last" only to then discover that the illness doesn't conform to the snapshot or their expectations, is enormous, and damages their capacity to re-engage with the ill person for whom they care.

We are still too ignorant about COVID19 to believe any snapshot and politicizing our judgments does a disservice to the attitude of "humility" described by Dr. Fauci in his Senate testimony on 5/12/20.[/quote]

I don’t disagree. That said, the damage from tens of millions of job losses, small businesses dissolving, inability to feed families unfortunately does not make work an “optional” thing. I certainly see both sides of this. I have to tell families their family member is dying weekly. I also see multiples of that I terms of young families without work, inability to provide etc. A balance must be struck for those who need to work and provide with protecting our elderly. This isn’t about humility. It’s about necessity. People can’t shelter in place if in a month they have to shudder their business forever and won’t have a shelter to go back and live in because the banks take it a way. A pragmatic solution must be sought.
 
[quote="Knight" post=387211]We don’t know how many people have the virus, only those that tested positive. Millions more are negative.[/quote]

Agree, without an accurate picture of the denominator, we are blind as to the true mortality rate of the disease. Also, some therapeutic agent to ameliorate acute phase makes COVID19 much less scary, but we are not there yet.
 
[quote="Knight" post=387211]We don’t know how many people have the virus, only those that tested positive. Millions more are negative.[/quote]

Millions more had it also I’d venture to bet also.
 
[quote="fuchsia" post=387214][quote="Knight" post=387211]We don’t know how many people have the virus, only those that tested positive. Millions more are negative.[/quote]

Agree, without an accurate picture of the denominator, we are blind as to the true mortality rate of the disease. Also, some therapeutic agent to ameliorate acute phase makes COVID19 much less scary, but we are not there yet.[/quote]

In actuality, the mortality rate, if anything, will go way down with more testing. All the deaths that are being attributed to Covid are patients that are Covid positive and generally die from the course of the disease. Likely millions and millions of untested that have had it without symptoms or
minor ones.
 
If the mortality rate was something like 50% and a healthy 20 yr old's life is suddenly a coin flip then I'd totally understand locking ourselves in our houses and pretending it's the apocalypse. But it's a very contagious yet not very lethal virus. Sorry, I watched the news constantly, I myself got freaked out for a while but the longer this goes on even as things get way better, the more it looks politicized. These guys have a vested interest in seeing the economy tank because that's what Trump was running on for re-election. I'm not going to be one of those crazy people protesting and not wearing a mask anywhere, but I'm also very suspicious about what's going on.
 
[quote="Mike Zaun" post=387176][quote="Chicago Days" post=387170][URL]https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/covid-19/study-puts-us-covid-19-infection-fatality-rate-13[/URL][/quote]

No way it's that high...1,400,000 cases confirmed 83,000 deaths. That translates to .05% mortality and even that is an overestimate. Hospitals are getting paid more money to report more deaths as COVID that are not actually COVID related. There are tens of millions who have not been tested yet who already have the antibodies meaning they had it and almost certainly had no idea since many have no symptoms. I know a 67 yr old who had it without realizing because he had no symptoms. When you factor those tens of millions if not more who have it without knowing and did not die it will go down way more even from the .05. We were already told that non-COVID deaths would be counted anyway. I realize many have been through some terrible times with this and it's not to be taken lightly. But this country went through the Spanish Flu and didn't even do anywhere near this shutdown. Eventually these things die out anyway after herd immunity.[/quote]

I would point out that being further down the pandemic schedule AND having a good public health system has helped he US keep their mortality rate pretty low compared to others. Overall the global figures are are 4.4 million infected, 300K dead, mortality rate 6.8% using your same equation. But what Marcus said probably applies globally re the lack of testing even more so and therefore higher figures.

That said a slow reopening does appear to be necessary for economic purposes but it's not going to stop the bleeding, just slow it down. A high percentage of people still won't be going out if they don't have to. Movie theaters, restaurants, retail and groceries will be no gos for many for quite some time. Travel industry is fucked as well. Glad I work for a country not a tour operator, hotelier or airline. Just because the government might tell you you can go out doesn't mean you should. Spending will still be much lower and the folks who have to go out invariably have less to spend so they're not jump starting the economy or job market by themselves.
 
[quote="austour" post=387229][quote="Mike Zaun" post=387176][quote="Chicago Days" post=387170][URL]https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/covid-19/study-puts-us-covid-19-infection-fatality-rate-13[/URL][/quote]

No way it's that high...1,400,000 cases confirmed 83,000 deaths. That translates to .05% mortality and even that is an overestimate. Hospitals are getting paid more money to report more deaths as COVID that are not actually COVID related. There are tens of millions who have not been tested yet who already have the antibodies meaning they had it and almost certainly had no idea since many have no symptoms. I know a 67 yr old who had it without realizing because he had no symptoms. When you factor those tens of millions if not more who have it without knowing and did not die it will go down way more even from the .05. We were already told that non-COVID deaths would be counted anyway. I realize many have been through some terrible times with this and it's not to be taken lightly. But this country went through the Spanish Flu and didn't even do anywhere near this shutdown. Eventually these things die out anyway after herd immunity.[/quote]

I would point out that being further down the pandemic schedule AND having a good public health system has helped he US keep their mortality rate pretty low compared to others. Overall the global figures are are 4.4 million infected, 300K dead, mortality rate 6.8% using your same equation. But what Marcus said probably applies globally re the lack of testing even more so and therefore higher figures.

That said a slow reopening does appear to be necessary for economic purposes but it's not going to stop the bleeding, just slow it down. A high percentage of people still won't be going out if they don't have to. Movie theaters, restaurants, retail and groceries will be no gos for many for quite some time. Travel industry is fucked as well. Glad I work for a country not a tour operator, hotelier or airline. Just because the government might tell you you can go out doesn't mean you should. Spending will still be much lower and the folks who have to go out invariably have less to spend so they're not jump starting the economy or job market by themselves.[/quote]

It is mid May and the time colleges would have been graduating their students so to presume what college campuses would look like in mid-September is pure speculation on our parts. I think the Fall semester will look different in terms of masks and gloves and the congregation of students at sporting events but I see no reason to prevent students in the 18-22 age group to be under the same restrictions as a 70 year old. Especially those that dorm at a school.
As for the economy, there is no choice. It must reopen in short stages or many companies will just close and citizens will suffer long term economic consequences.
I don't know the public perception of Californians in this lockdown but here in NYC people are getting frustrated by mixed messages being sent by public officials ar all levels of government. Federal, state and city officials have politicized the virus to the point where they can no longer be relied upon for truthful unbiased information. New York and New Jersey lead the nation in cases and deaths by the way the democratic establishment in these states has been slow to address the issues that helped speed the spread of the virus. The subway system that transported millions of people never shut down but yet the Governor and the mayor shut down the economy. Nursing homes were completely disregarded and the handling is now a national disgrace. In the similarly democratic run state of Pennsylvania close to 70 percent of all deaths were in nursing homes! In New York over 30 percent died in nursing homes. Eighty or so percent of deaths are people with multiple comorbidities over the age of sixty! Yet the population that drives the economy and the population that makes up college students is nowhere near that demographic population.
Finally, the arbitrary selection of essential businesses is nonsensical. I still go out for groceries and general supplies. Even in New York hardware stores, the post office, doctors offices, small grocery stores, skilled trade workers, and parks are available to citizens. Yet, wall street brokers have to work from home, bankers have to work from home. Many politicians are just making up rules as they go. You can fish in one state but not in another. Fishing is fishing for Christ sake!
I hate to say it but it appears that democratic leaders seem to be trying to prolong the misery of Americans so that the Republican administration looks less attractive in November. Using American citizens as pawns in a political game is criminal.
 
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Totally agree...it's so subjective. Construction workers can work in groups and people are right on top of each other at grocery stores and many others, yet we haven't seen any spike. That should tell you something. If it was really that bad, even the smallest congregation would yield a massive spike. If you can go to grocery stores, you can sure as hell go to work and be fine.
 
I dont know how it is at your grocery stores but at least at mine in huntington everyone wears masks and gloves. I'd like to think that maybe that is at least helping with slowing the spread

I'm already hearing that my company wont be letting us back to office till at least september and now I'm hearing it could be potentially january. I dont mind remote working for a few days but damn I would rather be in the office even with this stuff going on at this point
 
I heard a report this morning,
COVID-19
More than 84,000 people have died in the U.S.
Of the total, 459 of the deaths are attributed to those under the age of 35,
973 between 35-45.
Seems like the focus to “protect” should be addressed to the elderly and infirm.
Let the economy return to normal.
 
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