COVID-19 Discussion

[harbo]

It looks like they take your temperature to check if you have the virus. How come nobody has invented a headband that takes your temperature and displays it?

I'm assuming you know that there are other symptoms to indicate COVID (and that a fever can indicate your body fighting off many other diseases). The CDC has also released a new list of additional symptoms which MAY indicate COVID.
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronaviru ... id-19-list

There are also a multitude of ways to get your temperature taken, some much more (ahem) intrusive than others. There are strips that you can stick to your forehead if you must. A brief Google search shows a wide range of effectiveness for the strips with adults, with much better results with infants.

[harbo]

And as for the election, Biden will likely get the vast majority of Bernie voters if he can energize them enough (he does have Trump to provide that incentive). Trump will once again concentrate on the handful of swing states (a smart move in an electoral college world), so Biden needs to also concentrate on them as much as possible.

[InnervisionsUMASS]

A bit of levity.....


https://gizmodo.com/abc-news-reporter-c ... 1843129676

[TheInsider]

https://www.mass.gov/doc/covid-19-dashb ... 0/download
The state post some pretty interesting stats every day. Its easy to see how heavily skewed at least in Mass this disease is to the elderly population. If you under the age of 70, the death rate per confirmed 100k is a little under .017%. Although the rate is around what the flu rate is, Covid will likely infect far more people so the raw death number will be much higher. Wash your hands, be smart around those that may be compromised, and don't stick your hands in your face after you touch a door handle.

[InnervisionsUMASS]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUdV7Xf ... DxTBGPHH4k

[InnervisionsUMASS]

If anyone is interested in watching the Senate testimony of Dr. Fauci and other top health officials right now:

https://gizmodo.com/how-to-watch-dr-fau ... 1843408359

[Quann]

Time to open everything back up. Do it slowly and properly but do it. The immuno compromised and elderly can continue to protect themselves but we can't stay with this ridiculous unemployment number, people's lives are being destroyed. We're also delaying when we may be able to reach herd immunity (vaccine seems like pie in the sky at this point). We flattened the curve and kept the hospitals from being overwhelmed, that was the whole point of the stay at home orders.

[e_parade]

Time to open everything back up. Do it slowly and properly but do it. The immuno compromised and elderly can continue to protect themselves but we can't stay with this ridiculous unemployment number, people's lives are being destroyed. We're also delaying when we may be able to reach herd immunity (vaccine seems like pie in the sky at this point). We flattened the curve and kept the hospitals from being overwhelmed, that was the whole point of the stay at home orders.

The area with the highest percentage of likely cases at this point in the country in NY, and it's probably somewhere around 25% of their population max. Depending on how infectious a disease is, you need anywhere between 60% and 80% to be immune from infection (either through catching it themselves and surviving or by being vaccinated). What people who are protesting are actually going for is Darwinism: survival of the fittest. The elderly and immuno-compromised cannot exist in a box. They exist with the rest of us and require the same services as the rest of us. They need to rest of us to be just as cautious as them or it will result in them being sacrificed for our benefit.


We are nowhere near that point where herd immunity has been reached. We "flattened" the curve in some areas, but the point is to also reduce it to next to nothing so there's not a risk of it growing back to where it was before or larger than where it was before. Also if you do stupid things you can create a second wave (and eventually a third wave) of infections.

Literally just look at 1918's chart to see this:




A big issue is that people are seeing these as the options:

• Save people and sacrifice the economy
• Save the economy and sacrifice people

When this is another scenario that is entirely likely:

• Sacrifice people and have the economy fail as a result

[TheInsider]

yes because medical technology, treatments, and the general flow of knowledge in 1918 is the same as today. Oh and because we don't want to put 15% of the population in a box, we all should be in said box. Makes no sense. Quann isn't saying we should just send it, he is saying be smart about it. People are getting tired of the moving goal post. Mass is a hard hit state and the latest data tells me that the average age of a Covid related death is 82. It also tells me that 85% of the deaths in our state are over the age of 70 (approx. 11% of the population). For those under the age of 70, the hospitalization and death rate per 100k confirmed cases is in the neighborhood of .072% and .019% respectively. For most of us, while the risk of contracting the disease is moderate, the likely consequence is rather low. Be smart, wash your hands, and do all you can to shield the most vulnerable.

[Quann]

^^^^
Well said insider. I understand the rest of this year is going to be different, which is fine but we can't keep restaurants, bars, hair salons etc. closed indefinitely. Open this stuff back up, do it at limited capacities with social distancing, added hand sanitizer but the flattening of the curve does not mean less deaths overall under said curve, it just means less deaths in the short term and stretching it out over the longer term. We can't stay sheltered like this for the next 1-2 years, there will be nothing left to come back to for many people.

[e_parade]

Actually the exact same protests we're seeing today were around in 1918 - there were literally "Anti-mask league" protests from people all over for reasons like "the masks don't work" or "they're infringing my civil liberties" (the same reasons we're seeing today, for the most part). Our medicines today help people from dying, not from getting sick in the first place.

We've had ~1.2% of the state confirmed contract it with basically everything outside of essentials operating remotely or under restrictions (11,900/1,000,000). Even with that, we're still averaging over 1000 new cases per day. There have been only 2 days since the end of March with fewer than 1000 new confirmed cases (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... achusetts/). There have only been 2 days in the past month with fewer than 100 deaths. The past 2 days were the 5th and 6th highest confirmed death totals since the start of it here.


Should we stay shut down forever? No. But there's nothing about anything we're seeing here right now that says we should be anything but extremely cautious when starting to loosen the restrictions. This isn't "moving the goalposts" for the sake of making things take longer. It's a brand new virus and things are being changed as we learn more about it. And no, flattening the curve doesn't mean the same deaths over a longer period. It potentially means the same case count over a longer period, but the result would be fewer deaths (literally the exact reason for it) because each patient would get better care. It could also result in fewer cases depending on when a vaccine is actually made available. OR, if you do it effective enough (like in Taiwan or New Zealand) it could result in next to no cases at all.


Also: the economy isn't closed. Yeah, 15% unemployment is massive. But that also means 85% of people who should be in the workforce are still employed. Even if you want to say it's 25% unemployment, it's still 75% employed. We need to make sure that those 15-25% of the people who are currently unemployed get by. Temporarily approving emergency unemployment funds and actions could cover that if we're willing to do that (to this point, not so much)

You're not in a box. You can go outside - just wear a mask. You can get takeout food. You can go for a run, ride a bike, go hiking. All kinds of things. You're just being asked to be extra cautious about it. Kids are home, that's certainly different. But that needed to happen since kids are some of the fastest virus spreaders on the planet (and with most of them showing next to no symptoms, it would be nearly impossible to do any sort of contact tracing - it would just result in their relatives getting sick and dying and the occasional child coming down with the weird Kawasaki Syndrome symptoms). I now am working from home full time - definitely an adjustment. I'm lucky enough to have space for it. Even if I didn't, I work in Boston and would need to take public transit (stupidly risky) to get to the office. A friend of mine in her late 20s who was extremely healthy before had to go into the ICU for COVID. This was 8 weeks ago. She's at home now and no longer has the cirus but still hasn't fully recovered and only has enough energy to do half days of work sometimes. She does represent a small percent of what can happen, sure. But it can happen.

[Camby4Life]

As someone who has been unemployed since March 16th when the governor shut down my industry, it becomes more frustrating by the day listening to people’s opinions about those unemployed. Yes, the federal cares act is flawed and some people are making more money than they normally would but there is also a decent percentage of people still making less even with the extra federal money that ends at the end of July. MA has one of the better unemployment setups but you still only receive about half of your salary and the max amount to collect is $823 a week pre-tax. We haven’t even gotten into the battles of employers and insurance. Do the math everyone and be grateful 80% of you are still employed.

[e_parade]

As someone who has been unemployed since March 16th when the governor shut down my industry, it becomes more frustrating by the day listening to people’s opinions about those unemployed. Yes, the federal cares act is flawed and some people are making more money than they normally would but there is also a decent percentage of people still making less even with the extra federal money that ends at the end of July. MA has one of the better unemployment setups but you still only receive about half of your salary and the max amount to collect is $823 a week pre-tax. We haven’t even gotten into the battles of employers and insurance. Do the math everyone and be grateful 80% of you are still employed.

I personally think (if my post didn't make it clear) that we need to do more to support people who have lost their jobs. Not just during the crisis, but in general. Most (not all) of the people impacted by this have lost their jobs due to being in high risk industries (tourism, hospitality, etc.) - so right now we have people arguing over sending them back to their high risk to contract the virus jobs and trying to get the government to actually pass something meaningful to get them more assistance.


Also, with the CARES act, there are people who are fine with it as is and then people who think no one should be earning more than their originally jobs That second group is then broken into two (or more) groups: ones who think they should be getting less right now through CARES, and ones who think this shows they should be earning more in the first place. Everything always boils down to politics these days.


Edit: required edit here to say I'm also sorry that you've personally had to deal with losing your job through this. Hopefully it's only temporary and you'll have something waiting for you on the other side.

[Quann]

The best way to support people is by letting them go back to work. Not happening in this state though.

[mdogt12]

https://twitter.com/mattvautour424/stat ... 22656?s=21
Bamford, Bell and McCall taking pay cuts.