Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Jeff Buchanan]

On the potential for a "lock-down" in the US: That's not going to happen on any national level that would compare to what China did. On a state or regional level? YES ..... already seeing it sporadically....... but it's very much about limiting movement..... and that's not going to work. Well, no shit! ........There are huge cultural differences between China and the rest of the world. The Chinese people will follow rules from their government in almost absolute fashion. The US? No way. Italy? Hah. Here's what the Italians, notorious for not following any rules, did when facing travel restrictions out of Lombardy:

My daughter who lives in Switzerland and is married to her Italian husband, Marco, whose 70+ year old parents live in Milan gives me this report: Marco's parents are fine for now but, he's worried if they get sick, he won't be allowed to travel there and visit because the government has imposed travel restrictions. Word got out that the government was going to limit travel in and out of Lombardy. Lombardy residents, exposed to COVID-19, mobbed rail transport heading anywhere South to escape the restrictions, carrying COVID-19 to the rest of Italy.

[froot loops]

The Italians have more of less followed the rules in the last few days, when they first announced the ban the train stations looked like a repeat of the evacuation of Saigon. From what I've read, they don't really have good idea on how it spread so quickly.

One thing about the ramping capacity versus preventitive measures. Some of aspects are the same thing, one of the theories about Italy was some hospitals got infected and they may not have the same standard preventitive measures like a hospital in the US may have. Getting the test and diagnosis out of the hospital is paramount. That's why the SK drive thru tests have been important.

Just to give a real world example of the preventitive versus ramping up merging. I know of a case that is being tested for corona, they do not think it is but they want to rule it out. The problem with the case if the patient tests positive for it any caregiver that was in contact with the patient they have to go home for 14 days. It was a considerable amount of people. You can ramp up as many beds as you can, but they are useless unless you have the staff there. You have to protect the medical facilities.

[Dr. Strangelove]

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Don't wanna dwell on Fox too much but credit where credit is due to Tucker Carlson. Out of all the prime time schmucks, he's the only one really taking this seriously.

Kind of the saddest thing about all the "hoax" talk Fox is generating? Their audience demographic skews towards the folks that are most at risk.

[Dr. Strangelove]

WHO officially declares coronavirus a pandemic

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51839944

Dr. Fauci was testifying before Congress this morning and was probably a lot more negative than Trump would like. He said the worst is definitely yet to come and people definitely shouldn't just treat this like it's flu. He claimed it's 10 times deadlier than regular seasonal flu. Recommended the NBA eliminate audiences at their games.

[iam416]

The important part is that it's not just like the flu. I mean, obviously, the worst is yet to come. It's inconceivable that we only have 1000 cases. Though, I suppose if we just do what South Korea does we can keep it under 10,000.

[froot loops]

Fauci is a much better messenger, let's hope Trump resists the urge to sideline him.

[iam416]

DeWine, who has been extremely aggressive on this front, has managed to get the rest of the boys and girls high school basketball tournaments limited to family (4 family member per team member). So, that's gonna be weird. I take my son to the D1 Final Four games every year. Looks like that's out.

Hard to see the Dayton and Cleveland NCAA sites having fans.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The CBI just flat out canceled its tournament. Wonder if the NIT is next?

[Hannibal]

[Dr. Strangelove]

Froot's link about the shortage of testing chemicals is a big problem. Moreso than the kits to take samples from people. I read either yesterday or Monday that not a single employee of that nursing home had gotten results back yet, despite over 60 of them showing symptoms. I guess at some point you just assume everyone has it and if they don't seem too bad, tell them to stay home for the next few weeks.

[Dr. Strangelove]

E3, the country's biggest video game conference, just announced it's canceled too. That one doesn't even take place till June

[froot loops]

Here is the story on the first two confirmed cases in Michigan. You would think there would have been a lot more in Detroit by this point seeing that DTW is one of the few hubs that flies direct flights to China.

[froot loops]

One thing I would like to know and we will probably not know until you have postmortems on this is how density of urban areas impacts the spread. Some of these countries that have been hardest hit have highly concentrated urban areas. The US does not have nearly the concetration in the cities. They were showing scenes of Milan and Beijing and how empty the streets were, but that is because those cities are bustling with foot traffic. That isn't the case in a majority of the cities in the US.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Latest from Italy is 10,149 known cases, 631 dead (6.2% death rate). The known cases there may skew disproportionately older. I don't really know. Almost 3/4 of the deaths have occurred in Lombardy

Ugh, Italy gains 2300 cases in 24 hours. Death toll jumps from 631 to 827

[froot loops]

JB wondered earlier about why the tests took so long, here is the latest from the Times on it. For the TLDR crowd: red tape, too high of a threshold for authorization and bad kits.

The bright side of it is in the places where there hasn't been an outbreak they have the ability to test that Seattle didn't. They mention Michigan as state ready and I can confirm that. So far Michigan has tested 70 people.