High Sierra Topix

The NIH (National Institutes of Health) is soliciting for participation of up to 10,000 volunteers for a serological study of who has (and hasn’t) already developed Covid-19 antibodies. Presumably, there will be some kind of screening questionnaire, as well as measures to sufficiently “randomize” the subject population that is accepted for the study.
This should give us some useful data to work with; too bad it wasn’t started a month or so earlier.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-re ... -infection

franklin411 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 13, 2020 2:34 pm India, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand....these are all poor nations with extremely dense populations and poor health care resources, and they're all very close to China. You've got slums in India were people live 6 or 8 to a tiny room the size of a walk in closet. You've got slums where close to a million people live in less than a square mile. There's no such thing as social distancing in that scenario.

So...why aren't people dying like flies over there?

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/st ... y-one-room

I mean I don't know. Absent information there really isn't a good way to know, but a few hypothesis to consider:

1. Maybe they just aren't... YET. I mean phillipines showing 300+ dead and 6.5% fatality rate. (counting issues remain)
2. Maybe they made enough changes in behavior to restrict spread.
3. Maybe while physically close to china, they don't have widespread travel to china(+ secondary introductions from europe) during the timeframe that mattered.
4. Maybe something about their societal structure/infrastructure makes for a different virus spread pattern.
5. Maybe they are and we're just not seeing the reporting - sick patients are dying at home and not engaging the limited healthcare systems (assuming you're correct about that, I am admittedly ignorant on the specifics).

rayfound wrote: ↑Mon Apr 13, 2020 9:10 am I recently ran up to a local creek for a couple hours

Why are you not obeying Gov. Newsom's stay at home order?

This might be interesting. Why do countries like China and India have such low coronavirus infection and death rates compared to their populations? A possible answer: they require TB vaccination, and we don't, and the TB vaccine might coincidentally also teach your immune system to deal with Coronavirus:

"Mandated TB vaccination predicts flattened curves for COVID-19 spread

Researchers say countries that have a current policy mandating BCG vaccination, a TB vaccine, have significantly slower growth of both cases and deaths, as compared to all other countries."

https://news.umich.edu/mandated-tb-vacc ... 19-spread/

TahoeJeff wrote: ↑Mon Apr 13, 2020 3:05 pm

rayfound wrote: ↑Mon Apr 13, 2020 9:10 am I recently ran up to a local creek for a couple hours

Why are you not obeying Gov. Newsom's stay at home order?

The same reason I exceed speed limits by a minor amount: I believe (maybe wrongly) that I could do so without causing unreasonable risk to myself or others. I'm not holding myself up as a paragon of virtue.

In that instance I resulted in ZERO additional contact since: I drive EV/Charge at home, I saw no one at any of the creeks I parked at, saw no one on trails/stream. If conditions would not have permitted that, I would not have pursued that activity.

Rather than study the virus, I set my trip to Inyo for Sept 20-29 and got the permit. Everything should be open by then.

Bad economic impacts will not go away if we totally open up. There are more Americans with "underlying conditions" than you may think, and many of them younger and in prime working age (30-50). So what about those? The healthy go back to work, but do you get unemployment if you are young but not "healthy"? What about "gig" workers. They do not have long term unemployment unless they have paid into it. So they have to decide to go hungry or get sick. I think many workers will have no choice in the matter. Same with kids going back to school; some have serious health issues too. What about child care givers? A lot of then are grandparents. A young woman may be able to go back to work but cannot find childcare, does she get unemployment? There are a lot of economic casualties no matter what you do.

I am for opening things up very gradually and offering a social safety net for those who cannot go back to work. We would also need to keep a close tab on the health care system and not overload ICU's. I would sure like to see less draconian blanket "stay at home" orders. My children, although doing well financially before the virus, now are taking huge cuts in wages, even though they are in "essential" occupations. Cutting all elective surgeries is devastating to many private medical practices. Even if not "essential", I love my dentist, hope he does not fold before this is over. Same with my eye doctor. My husband's beloved barber-- on and on.

So here is my "rant":

The epidemiologists are doing exactly as they should- being very conservative and putting public health above all other considerations.
The economists are doing exactly as they should- putting the American economy above all other considerations.
The doctors are doing exactly as they should- trying to save every life that comes into the hospital.
Some politicians, especially our "president" and his administration are cowardly ducking their duty.

Leaders are the ones who should make the final call on balancing the human cost vs the economic cost vs long term impact on our country, clear of their own political consequences. They decide; the buck stops with them; they take the blame if it all goes wrong; credit if it all goes right. No ducking, no blame game, no bravado, no narcissism. The lack of leadership/preparedness for many years has brought us to this point; now there is no "good" decision, just the lesser of evils.

Not yet. People in those countries don't travel as much, so early transmission is less likely.

I do not immediately reject other points of view on this, but we do need to recognize that the experts you have cited are in a decided minority, compared to the epidemiologists at the head of the response in virtually every nation on earth. So, good that you raise those points, but let's not forget that the people who spend their lives and careers studying this all seem to have a pretty similar take--even the head of the health department in Brazil thinks his own president is out of step for avoiding any major action.

But I think adrenaline is right--your real issue here is a financial one, as opposed to a health issue. I fully understand your concerns on that point. But a virus crisis isn't the best time to solve the economic issues facing the world. Should we raise taxes on those who can afford it? Absolutely. A lot. Should we provide social services to those in need, including those who cannot work because of a pandemic? Absolutely. Should we balance the budget? Absolutely. (Note that in California, despite an earlier post here, we have a budget surplus, which is allowing our state to do more on this situation than some other states--including providing housing for those in need.)

Should we sacrifice the health of millions of people for financial reasons? Absolutely not. Particularly when those most affected are those who are already less advantaged: the aged, people of color, and the poor. They are the ones most likely to suffer, in either scenario.

And as a footnote, I am 67, and in excellent health. I walk about 5-7 miles a day around my town, practice social distancing, and make money by teaching (classes first suspended, then reconvened via distance learning with no additional in pay for developing the materials) and two consulting jobs, both of which stopped the second this thing started. I would like to think that the discussions on these boards go beyond pure personal self-interest, and address what is best for the whole country, not just me or another individual.

Wandering Daisy wrote: ↑Mon Apr 13, 2020 4:13 pmThe epidemiologists are doing exactly as they should- being very conservative and putting public health above all other considerations.

Far too conservative. There just aren't the mass infections or fatalities we were told to expect. Not even remotely close. At some point, policy has to be made on data, and not on fear.

At what point do the people whose health we're willing to sacrifice--the farm workers, the truckers, the food processing plant workers, the grocery story workers--decide they'd rather not be the only ones doing any work? What happens when store shelves are empty, not because people are buying too much, but because food is not being produced. And how much can the state continue to do, when tax revenues are down 40%?

A balance must always be made. Each and every day of human existence, decisions have been made trading lives for economic prosperity. This is nothing new.

By the way: The CDC estimates that in the whole country so far this season, there have been at least 22 million illnesses, 210,000 hospitalizations and 12,000 deaths from the flu. Compare that to COVID19, where more than 10,000 people have died from the virus in NYC alone.