Working From Home - Impacts of Coronavirus

[Nusa]

I think Dave had a good point when he said "there's no control group." It's impossible for me to think of how the U.S. should have handled this, when there's nothing to compare it to. The U.S. has never actually tackled a disease this dangerous before. I guess it's better to have a bunch of poor people than a bunch of dead people.

Plenty to compare it to. CV19 isn't over yet, but so far we haven't even come close to the death toll from the 1918 pandemic (675,000 US, 50 million worldwide). Remember the US population at the time was a bit over 100 million, so that's a pretty significant death ratio....at least 6000 per million.

If you want more recent, at least within my lifetime, the 1957 and 1968 pandemics each killed at least 100,000 in the US. CV19 has the potential to beat that, but isn't there yet.

And the 2009 one on Obama's watch, which turned out to be wimpy (only 13K died) compared to Covid19, but one doesn't know that beforehand. Which is why Obama left pandemic playbooks and human resources for the Trump administration. Which were then eliminated, shelved, ignored, and the still-working warning systems were attributed to political action rather than actual danger.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/basics/past-pandemics.html

Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it. While not always true, there's a lot of truth in that saying.

[paulca]

I think Dave had a good point when he said "there's no control group."

There are many small "control groups".  Places like care homes, ships, island communities.  There was the aircraft carrier parked in Japan.  You can't do lock down on a navy ship.

[SilverSolder]

It just seems to me like we may be ignoring a substance with great potential to help people.

It is of no consequence on the grand scale if the few us here ignore it. I do wonder, very much so, what drives your insistence in this being the right forum for shilling grape seed and red wine.

Personally, I don't need much convincing that red wine is good for you! 

[cdev]

Apart from the epidemiology, the financial issue is what is the most problematic for people.

They can't evict everybody.  I think they should freeze all bills relating to housing (mortgages and rents and similar) At least for small landlords and low income tenants. (Because it's an unprecedented situation)

in a freeze for both tenants and landlords. Because in many areas, people just dont have the money. Many small landlords may be in a similar situation too, financially. The rent is the big one for many people, and landlords often have substantial ongoing bills too. Small landlords are the people who rent to most "small" tenants and more often than not they are not evil people they are just small businesspeoople. Some are bad landlords, but there are not so many of them, unfortunately, the ones that exist,, cause a lot of problems.

They should just freeze those bills for the duration, not eliminate them, not have a balloon payment either. That is the most fair to everybody and doesn't put the taxpayers on the line for the money either. That way a few months is tacked on at the end of the mortgage or similar. And they cannot evict people for nonpayment, nor is a big lump sum due as soon as the emergency ends. Similar with healthcare bills. (health insurance co pays and deductibles, which can be huge). People should also remember that once foreign corporations are involved in anything, (foreign banks, which may have invested here anticipating lots of foreclosures, really! Or foreign health insurers. The government is only allowed to pay these bills in a bona-fide emergency because of trade policy! A very very dumb trade policy. All that talk about Medicare for all, could only happen after we pulled out of that agreement. Otherwise, healthcare policy can only go one way. towards privatization and less govt involvement and more globalization.)

I think Dave had a good point when he said "there's no control group." It's impossible for me to think of how the U.S. should have handled this, when there's nothing to compare it to. The U.S. has never actually tackled a disease this dangerous before. I guess it's better to have a bunch of poor people than a bunch of dead people.

Plenty to compare it to. CV19 isn't over yet, but so far we haven't even come close to the death toll from the 1918 pandemic (675,000 US, 50 million worldwide). Remember the US population at the time was a bit over 100 million, so that's a pretty significant death ratio....at least 6000 per million.

If you want more recent, at least within my lifetime, the 1957 and 1968 pandemics each killed at least 100,000 in the US. CV19 has the potential to beat that, but isn't there yet.

And the 2009 one on Obama's watch, which turned out to be wimpy (only 13K died) compared to Covid19, but one doesn't know that beforehand. Which is why Obama left pandemic playbooks and human resources for the Trump administration. Which were then eliminated, shelved, ignored, and the still-working warning systems were attributed to political action rather than actual danger.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/basics/past-pandemics.html

Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it. While not always true, there's a lot of truth in that saying.

Amen. Lets not forget, this right now is likely only the "Herald wave" with the big epidemic coming next year, next flu season, at least thats how it worked with influenza.

[cdev]

There is no guide to how to minimize death and injury. We're figuring it out as we go along. So we should try to keep people on track. And realize that contact tracing and improving hygeine is where we need to get better. I personally think that if we want large workplaces to reopen, we have to wait until we have a means of preventing large scale illness. Because here in the US, in low wage industries, large numbers of poor people will die if we send them back to work in those kinds of businesses. Because they are too close to one another. Also ventilation needs to be examined in a lot of settings. Heating and cooling systems that recycle stale air will need to be replaced by fresh air ventilation. They should also freeze LNG export because its the only affordable energy source for that. We were lucky because the winter was abnormally warm and of course, COVID-19 basically eliinated the biggest consumers needs for the late winter and spring this year and probably reduced needs for the next as well, but that is not going to last forever, but the lack of business this year might mean that the winters will get colder. Nobody knows where energy prices will end up but we have to be aware, exporting LNG means substantially higher energy prices if everything else remained the same. And natural gas is the way most Americans heat and cook, electricity is much more expensive and likely to get more if the price of gas rises a lot. (The EIA projections say it will track natural gas prices) Millions of buildings are not insulated well enough for a permanent spike in gas prices. Especially not if there is a requirement for more, powered ventilation. They will need energy retrofits and landlords are going to be keen to raise rents and replace tenants -eliminating rent control. That adds up to a major housing problem for the US, especially large cities with lots of postwar multiunit housing. We cant handle that all right now, it would be a sucker punch to the poor to force them to find new housing in the midst of all this.

I think Dave had a good point when he said "there's no control group."

There are many small "control groups".  Places like care homes, ships, island communities.  There was the aircraft carrier parked in Japan.  You can't do lock down on a navy ship.

[NiHaoMike]

Heating and cooling systems that recycle stale air will need to be replaced by fresh air ventilation.

Just adding (non ozone) UVC lamps to the air handlers would be a much cheaper way to prevent HVAC systems from spreading diseases.

[jeffheath]

I think Dave had a good point when he said "there's no control group." It's impossible for me to think of how the U.S. should have handled this, when there's nothing to compare it to. The U.S. has never actually tackled a disease this dangerous before. I guess it's better to have a bunch of poor people than a bunch of dead people.

Plenty to compare it to. CV19 isn't over yet, but so far we haven't even come close to the death toll from the 1918 pandemic (675,000 US, 50 million worldwide). Remember the US population at the time was a bit over 100 million, so that's a pretty significant death ratio...

Well now I know how useful my history class in high school was! More people died from the Spanish flu than the war, and that disease was worse in every way, and lasted two years.Yet it gets glossed over, as they jump straight to the roaring twenties.

[SerieZ]

I think Dave had a good point when he said "there's no control group." It's impossible for me to think of how the U.S. should have handled this, when there's nothing to compare it to. The U.S. has never actually tackled a disease this dangerous before. I guess it's better to have a bunch of poor people than a bunch of dead people.

Plenty to compare it to. CV19 isn't over yet, but so far we haven't even come close to the death toll from the 1918 pandemic (675,000 US, 50 million worldwide). Remember the US population at the time was a bit over 100 million, so that's a pretty significant death ratio...

Well now I know how useful my history class in high school was! More people died from the Spanish flu than the war, and that disease was worse in every way, and lasted two years.Yet it gets glossed over, as they jump straight to the roaring twenties.

That decade was generally awful.
Lets hope that this one does not attempt to surpass it. 

[nctnico]

I think Dave had a good point when he said "there's no control group." It's impossible for me to think of how the U.S. should have handled this, when there's nothing to compare it to. The U.S. has never actually tackled a disease this dangerous before. I guess it's better to have a bunch of poor people than a bunch of dead people.

I think Dave meant something else; more like putting half a country in lockdown and the other halve not to see what the difference is. IMHO China and Italy provide enough data to know what the outcome of the latter will be. There are more countries on the world and the US isn't a special case.

The underlying problem is that a virus spreads exponentially if the reproduction ratio R0 is above 1. This means there is a very sensitive tipping point and doing too little results in an out-of-control situation quickly. So in order to stop a virus outbreak you have to start with maximum measures and then slowly relax while keeping R0 below 1. Countries which where quick to implement maximum measures stopped the outbreak quickly and can also relax the isolation measures sooner and get to 'controlled burn mode'.

[paulca]

Pet peev but R0 is only relevant to patient 0.  We have 4 million+ patients, so we are not at R0.  The 0, as I understand it is the iteration number and is used to categorise the virus. Rn might not be equal to R0 because the 4000000 infected may not get infected again so the R value will decrease as the virus runs out of victims.

But I get what people mean, just being a pedant and pretending like I know what I'm talking about.

[cdev]

I think Dave meant something else; more like putting half a country in lockdown and the other halve not to see what the difference is. IMHO China and Italy provide enough data to know what the outcome of the latter will be. There are more countries on the world and the US isn't a special case.

The underlying problem is that a virus spreads exponentially if the reproduction ratio R0 is above 1. This means there is a very sensitive tipping point and doing too little results in an out-of-control situation quickly. So in order to stop a virus outbreak you have to start with maximum measures and then slowly relax while keeping R0 below 1. Countries which where quick to implement maximum measures stopped the outbreak quickly and can also relax the isolation measures sooner and get to 'controlled burn mode'.

What about the huge investments in all the infrastructure and equipment? Every second it sits unused costs money.  In the old days they would have bought all-risk insurance. But now they don't have to.

[paulca]

As a nicer story.  In Belfast with money, equipment and staff being thrown at the NHS the kidney transplant team used the opportunity to clear their waiting list for transplants and have achieved a record 20 transplants since this shit started. 

The NHS management in general clearly sucks, but I say they should keep who ever manages that department.

[SiliconWizard]

Pet peev but R0 is only relevant to patient 0.  We have 4 million+ patients, so we are not at R0.  The 0, as I understand it is the iteration number and is used to categorise the virus. Rn might not be equal to R0 because the 4000000 infected may not get infected again so the R value will decrease as the virus runs out of victims.

Yes, but 4M people is still a pretty low figure compared to the 7B+ people in total. Of course we don't really know how many people have been infected, not counted and are now possibly immune to it - overall, possibly a much larger figure than 4M. But we just don't know.

[DrG]

/------/

Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it. While not always true, there's a lot of truth in that saying.

Yes!

While some find it impossible to think how the US should have handled this, others, including leading scientists and even Senators within the US Government, have a very different take.

From yesterday's Senate hearing - you can watch it for yourself:
https://www.help.senate.gov/hearings/covid-19-safely-getting-back-to-work-and-back-to-school

0:53:23 Adm. Giriou (HHS, basically in charge of testing) states (proudly) that the US has now more than doubled the number of tests (per capita) conducted in S. Korea.

Note that the population of the US is ~6.36 TIMES the population of S. Korea. Note also that the virus showed up in SK and the US at the same time.

2:27.60 Senator Kaine (D) accurately notes that in March, SK had conducted 40X the amount of tests as the US.

3:44.47 Senator Romney (R) accurately notes that by March 5, SK had conducted 140,000 tests while the US had conducted 2000.

Now, the projection is that the US will be testing 40-50 MILLION / month by Sept (0:56:48) or 25-30 MILLION / month when school opens up in the fall (1:07:00) with the qualification, IF needed (2:33.45).

One can dwell on the differences between the two countries, but to do so only to rationalize is an error, in my view.

Part of learning from history is understanding what has and has not happened in the present. Yes, there are those that would say that it is better to not focus on "mistakes" made in the past and look forward. I think we should look at the past and look at the present BEFORE we look ahead.

It does not have to be a political party, us against them, issue. You do not have to be an MD, an immunologist or a scientist, but you do have to pay attention and you have to be willing to try to be a critical thinker. But if we (in the US) do not face up to what has happened and the failing (if not inexcusable bungling) of what has happened, we will be making this much worse.

SK New Cases


US New Cases

[cdev]

Are they still only counting as "cases" people who tested positive for Covid-19? And as deaths people who were tested before they die, or died in a hospital?

Large numbers of people are dying at home and many, probably most were never tested. Also, its possible that single people without an active support network may have died at home and people may not realize they have died until the smell or something else causes a problem. (the sherriff shows up to evict them for unpaid rent?)

What I am saying is that the curve may still be rising. Perhaps not exponentially as before, but its impossible to tell.

[DrG]

Are they still only counting as "cases" people who tested positive for Covid-19? And as deaths people who were tested before they die, or died in a hospital?

Large numbers of people are dying at home and many, probably most were never tested. Also, its possible that single people without an active support network may have died at home and people may not realize they have died until the smell or something else causes a problem. (the sherriff shows up to evict them for unpaid rent?)

What I am saying is that the curve may still be rising. Perhaps not exponentially as before, but its impossible to tell.

This point was asked by a Senator and addressed by Fauci (I don't have the time code). My memory is that he simply explained why the mortality figure is probably underestimated (including the example cases that you mentioned), that is, he answered why most SMEs think that it is underestimated, but, of course, he correctly, did not speculate on a different number.

[cdev]

I wonder what they are going to do if it continues to grow.

[Nusa]

I wonder what they are going to do if it continues to grow.

Coming from a speaker with no country code, that's an especially meaningless question if you don't define "they". There are so many "they"s that nearly all the likely answers will be reality in the worldwide context.

Even WITH a country code, "they" is pretty ambiguous, especially in a place like the USA....federal, state, county, city. Many of the most important decisions are happening at the state level. There are 50 of those, D.C., and several territories, many of which will follow different paths. Also Indian reservations, which have their own governments at a state-like level (to the endless frustration of the states they reside in, of course).

[langwadt]

I think Dave had a good point when he said "there's no control group." It's impossible for me to think of how the U.S. should have handled this, when there's nothing to compare it to. The U.S. has never actually tackled a disease this dangerous before. I guess it's better to have a bunch of poor people than a bunch of dead people.

Plenty to compare it to. CV19 isn't over yet, but so far we haven't even come close to the death toll from the 1918 pandemic (675,000 US, 50 million worldwide). Remember the US population at the time was a bit over 100 million, so that's a pretty significant death ratio...

Well now I know how useful my history class in high school was! More people died from the Spanish flu than the war, and that disease was worse in every way, and lasted two years.Yet it gets glossed over, as they jump straight to the roaring twenties.

and it mostly killed young adults, I guess everyone was used to lots of death from the WW1 meat grinder

[nctnico]

and it mostly killed young adults, I guess everyone was used to lots of death from the WW1 meat grinder

Recently I did some reading about how immunity against flu virusses works. It seems that you are immune forever to the first  type of virus that hits you and build up partial immunity (which wears off) to the virusses which come next. According to the paper I found this can be an explaination for why age groups are affected differently by a certain flu virus.

[james_s]

They can't evict everybody.  I think they should freeze all bills relating to housing (mortgages and rents and similar) At least for small landlords and low income tenants. (Because it's an unprecedented situation)

in a freeze for both tenants and landlords. Because in many areas, people just dont have the money. Many small landlords may be in a similar situation too, financially. The rent is the big one for many people, and landlords often have substantial ongoing bills too. Small landlords are the people who rent to most "small" tenants and more often than not they are not evil people they are just small businesspeoople. Some are bad landlords, but there are not so many of them, unfortunately, the ones that exist,, cause a lot of problems.

They should just freeze those bills for the duration, not eliminate them, not have a balloon payment either. That is the most fair to everybody and doesn't put the taxpayers on the line for the money either. That way a few months is tacked on at the end of the mortgage or similar. And they cannot evict people for nonpayment, nor is a big lump sum due as soon as the emergency ends. Similar with healthcare bills. (health insurance co pays and deductibles, which can be huge). People should also remember that once foreign corporations are involved in anything, (foreign banks, which may have invested here anticipating lots of foreclosures, really! Or foreign health insurers. The government is only allowed to pay these bills in a bona-fide emergency because of trade policy! A very very dumb trade policy. All that talk about Medicare for all, could only happen after we pulled out of that agreement. Otherwise, healthcare policy can only go one way. towards privatization and less govt involvement and more globalization.)

The potential problem with this is that one person's rent or bill payment is another person's paycheck. While it's true that some landlords are corporations with deep pockets, plenty of others are just ordinary people who own a second property that they rent out or in some cases an extra room in their home which is something I used to do to make ends meet back in the first several years after I bought my house. It's easy to say just freeze rent payments but that doesn't freeze the need of the property owner to eat, pay property taxes, perform maintenance and other expenses. Everything is connected, if you want to freeze one person's bill, you have to freeze the expenses of the next person in the chain, and the next and the next, somebody has to be left holding the bag.

I'd be in a real mess if I were renting a home to someone who lost their ability to pay and I couldn't evict them to get someone in there who can pay. Also it's going to be ugly when all these people who live paycheck to paycheck are several months behind on rent even if they are allowed to pause that many of them are never going to get caught up again. A shocking number of people seem to be perpetually behind already and seem to live on the assumption that they'll have more money later than they have today. I have friends who are always broke and gradually accruing more and more debt while deluding themselves that they'll pay it back "later". One guy in particular was coasting along for years waiting to strike it rich, I finally lost touch with him after it became obvious that he was just going to keep waiting forever for success to land in his lap.

[Nusa]

They can't evict everybody.  I think they should freeze all bills relating to housing (mortgages and rents and similar) At least for small landlords and low income tenants. (Because it's an unprecedented situation)

in a freeze for both tenants and landlords. Because in many areas, people just dont have the money. Many small landlords may be in a similar situation too, financially. The rent is the big one for many people, and landlords often have substantial ongoing bills too. Small landlords are the people who rent to most "small" tenants and more often than not they are not evil people they are just small businesspeoople. Some are bad landlords, but there are not so many of them, unfortunately, the ones that exist,, cause a lot of problems.

They should just freeze those bills for the duration, not eliminate them, not have a balloon payment either. That is the most fair to everybody and doesn't put the taxpayers on the line for the money either. That way a few months is tacked on at the end of the mortgage or similar. And they cannot evict people for nonpayment, nor is a big lump sum due as soon as the emergency ends. Similar with healthcare bills. (health insurance co pays and deductibles, which can be huge). People should also remember that once foreign corporations are involved in anything, (foreign banks, which may have invested here anticipating lots of foreclosures, really! Or foreign health insurers. The government is only allowed to pay these bills in a bona-fide emergency because of trade policy! A very very dumb trade policy. All that talk about Medicare for all, could only happen after we pulled out of that agreement. Otherwise, healthcare policy can only go one way. towards privatization and less govt involvement and more globalization.)

The potential problem with this is that one person's rent or bill payment is another person's paycheck. While it's true that some landlords are corporations with deep pockets, plenty of others are just ordinary people who own a second property that they rent out or in some cases an extra room in their home which is something I used to do to make ends meet back in the first several years after I bought my house. It's easy to say just freeze rent payments but that doesn't freeze the need of the property owner to eat, pay property taxes, perform maintenance and other expenses. Everything is connected, if you want to freeze one person's bill, you have to freeze the expenses of the next person in the chain, and the next and the next, somebody has to be left holding the bag.

I'd be in a real mess if I were renting a home to someone who lost their ability to pay and I couldn't evict them to get someone in there who can pay. Also it's going to be ugly when all these people who live paycheck to paycheck are several months behind on rent even if they are allowed to pause that many of them are never going to get caught up again. A shocking number of people seem to be perpetually behind already and seem to live on the assumption that they'll have more money later than they have today. I have friends who are always broke and gradually accruing more and more debt while deluding themselves that they'll pay it back "later". One guy in particular was coasting along for years waiting to strike it rich, I finally lost touch with him after it became obvious that he was just going to keep waiting forever for success to land in his lap.

There are small lenders as well. I (as an individual, not a bank) hold a property recorded mortgage on a property with three houses. The owner/landlord lives in one and rents out the other two. So two tenants play the landlord, who uses about half of that income to pay me every month and the other half for maintenance and personal expenses. This arrangement has been quite successful for 18 years so far. As it happens, I won't be in pain if that rather substantial chunk of cash flow is suspended for a while, but others may not be so well off.

[james_s]

James, it seems you didnt read, or didn't understand, what I said.

  What is large scale services liberalization? Its a giant displacement of people in developing countries (the carved in stone - long planned "losers" of globalization) who have worked their entire lives, because they are suddenly more expensive than the new workforce. After training it the old workers (who may be young or old) are dismissed. By the millions. They are free to go.

Really, since this was planned for a long time (32 years, actually, since the meeting in Punta Del Este, Uruguay of  September 15-20 1986, or perhaps even earlier, as two trade activists who had been at those meetings insisted to me, they said its roots went back to 1982.) The coronavirus must have been the answer to the rich's prayers. Providing a plausibe excuse and explanation. But the scheme is hardly new.

Its been hanging over our heads for a long time.


Look, I dont want to devolve into the usual mush people emit. But, people have to realize that the very rich are not rich because they worked especially hard and earned all that money themselves.

I didn't read it all, frankly it's a bit of a wall of text that bounces from one topic to the next and a lot of it is not stuff that particularly interests me.

I'm also not sure what the very rich have to do with this, I never said anything about the very rich having worked hard to get there, I agree that the huge and growing wealth gap is a very real problem, and people like CEOs and massively overpaid and that a lot of them got there by exploiting others, but this isn't really about them. This is about everyone else, there's an entire supply chain of sorts supporting housing and everything else. Take for example freezing rent or mortgage payments, is that going to come out of the pocket of the super rich guy at the top of the corporation that owns their apartment complex or the bank that owns the mortgage? Absolutely not, instead they'll lay off some of the underlings, property management, maintenance, suppliers, office staff, tellers, customer service, etc. Cut pay, cut benefits, cut corners, outsource, as income drops off it's only going to impact all the ordinary people who you're trying to help. If you have it out for the top you can't attack them from the bottom and expect that to accomplish anything useful because the top will be the absolute last to suffer, just look at any large corporation that has imploded and see how things worked out for the executives compared to the rest of the employees. Nothing exists in isolation, it's all connected and there's no easy fix.

[Syntax Error]

BBC News: Coronavirus antibody test a 'positive development'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52656808

[EEVblog]

How many more off-topic posts do I have to delete in this thread before get the message to stay on topic?