Covid-19 Pandemic

[Jeff]

So why haven't the homeless camps been decimated by this disease? They are the textbook "worst case scenario".

[Ivanhoe]

So why haven't the homeless camps been decimated by this disease? They are the textbook "worst case scenario".

 

Quite possibly because most homeless people sleeping on the street are tan AF. No shortage of vitamin D for sure.

[RETAC21]

 

I mostly agree with you, with a few points of departure:

 

 

This is the part which has me most worried. The best estimates so far are that 78% of infected people (even asymptomatic cases) suffer heart damage which is likely permanent. Another study shows 8% suffer pancreas damage, but this only studied symptomatic cases, so whether asymptomatic cases can suffer this damage is unknown.

 

I have yet to see firm numbers for damage to lungs, brain, kidneys or liver, but such damage has been observed to happen.

Barring an early S-curve inflection (which might happen! but it is not the way to bet), 70+% of the American population will likely become infected before a vaccine is widely available anyway.

 

I hope to be wrong. This projection is somewhat naive, but so much about SARS-CoV-2 is unknown that I think simplicity is justified:

 

http://ciar.org/h/coronavirus.projection.2020-09-01.txt

 

Do not take this as an argument for "herd immunity". IMO politicians who push "herd immunity" are just trying to put the best possible spin on probable disaster.

 

 

• A safe and reliable vaccine may still be years away

 

It might, but I think we're on track to see vaccines widely available sometime around mid-2021.

 

Nothing is for certain, but there are several vaccines undergoing phase-3 trials now, and some of them are being mass-produced ahead of time, so that those which pass phase-3 can be brought to market.

 

We will see which, if any, are viable. I will be very surprised if none of them are viable.

 

 

• Conclusion: We need to think about viable long-term mitigation strategies. This might result in a stagnant world economy for a good while. As long as Covid infections remain scary, "opening the economy" will not result in confidence. Therefore, we need to find the proper balance between restrictions of daily life and creating a scary, high-infection risk environment where people dare order their stuff only via Amazon and stay away from everybody else for as much as possible.

 

My wife and I are isolating at home, but not everyone has the luxury of that option, and plenty of people who could do it are choosing to disdain the option.

 

I agree that those who can, should, but the reality is that most will not. Given that, we need to throw all of our technological and medical innovation at countermeasures and treatment (and this is already happening).

A couple of points, FWIW. The myocarditis rate is still being studied but there is a similar incidence with influenza; the vast majority of which resolve without complications beyond the transient inflammation. Covid appears to be more contagious so I would expect more complications simply based on numbers and I suspect (with no data, so take with a backpack full of salt) that there may be higher level of damage in younger people due to them placing more load on the heart since their lower symptom rate might lead them to rest less when fighting off the virus.

 

I'll keep my usual Eeyore vaccine beliefs to myself. I will say based on the vaccine testing my team is performing there is an unprecedented amount of money being spent on this with a throw it all against the wall and see what sticks approach. Hopefully that pays off.

 

 

On that front, I am not so sure. In the current second wave of the apocalypsis, it seems the number of those exposed never seems to go over 5% here in Spain. Most recently 67k teachers have been tested and the infection rate is only 3.5%

[DKTanker]

 

So why haven't the homeless camps been decimated by this disease? They are the textbook "worst case scenario".

 

Quite possibly because most homeless people sleeping on the street are tan AF. No shortage of vitamin D for sure.

 

That well could be part of it. I think perhaps it is also possible that living a more medically challenged life has pushed their immune systems so that they're more likely to fight off Covid.

Edited September 6, 2020 by DKTanker

[JWB]

So why haven't the homeless camps been decimated by this disease? They are the textbook "worst case scenario".

Nobody really knows.

https://apnews.com/595410c64aff65fd0e053e9657e7f928

[Jeff]

 

So why haven't the homeless camps been decimated by this disease? They are the textbook "worst case scenario".

Nobody really knows.

https://apnews.com/595410c64aff65fd0e053e9657e7f928

 

 

Suddenly they don't know a whole lot about a disease they are pretty sure about in other areas.

[DKTanker]

 

 

So why haven't the homeless camps been decimated by this disease? They are the textbook "worst case scenario".

Nobody really knows.

https://apnews.com/595410c64aff65fd0e053e9657e7f928

 

 

Suddenly they don't know a whole lot about a disease they are pretty sure about in other areas.

 

You don't ask questions if you're afraid of the answers.

[Ivanhoe]

Ignorance is Strength.

[Skywalkre]

 

 

So why haven't the homeless camps been decimated by this disease? They are the textbook "worst case scenario".

Nobody really knows.

https://apnews.com/595410c64aff65fd0e053e9657e7f928

 

 

Suddenly they don't know a whole lot about a disease they are pretty sure about in other areas.

 

 

Per the link it's not that they haven't been decimated and we don't know why... it's we just really don't know what's going on with the homeless and the virus.

 

The article points out how measures were taken early on to prevent the spread (such as limiting the number in shelters). On top of that given how the virus is spread (social contact, super spreaders, etc.) the homeless population is simply going to find themselves in the situations where they could contract it less often. Note how the article mentions more in the West live on the streets than in shelters yet in NY where shelter life is more common the mortality rate is 67% higher for the homeless than the average population.

 

tl;dr - We don't know what's going on. Measures were taken to prevent the spread early on which likely helped. Yet there's pockets of data showing some homeless have been hit hard.

[nitflegal]

I really wish that most of the politicians and pretty much all of the media would have simply been echoing what the various CDC/NIH professionals worldwide were actually saying. When the report is [public health official] said "the virus casues smurf blue skin" there is usually far more nuance, qualifiers, and so forth. Honestly, the majority of the time when you read the actual transcript or paper it bears almost no resemblance to what the talking head says it said. It takes years to fully digest the data; if the virus disappeared today we'd be mining data and having revelations for years abut what happened.

[Jeff]

This week's episode of "Is it real or is it the Babylon Bee?". Spin the wheel and place your bets!

 

United Nations
@UN
The #COVID19 pandemic is demonstrating what we all know: millennia of patriarchy have resulted in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture which damages everyone – women, men, girls & boys.

9:06 AM · Sep 6, 2020

https://twitter.com/UN/status/1302593895029714944

 

 

[lucklucky]

So why haven't the homeless camps been decimated by this disease? They are the textbook "worst case scenario".

I already posted here about Spanish Flu and how field hospitals had much better results than traditional ones.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4504358/

 

 

Records from an “open-air” hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, suggest that some patients and staff were spared the worst of the outbreak. A combination of fresh air, sunlight, scrupulous standards of hygiene, and reusable face masks appears to have substantially reduced deaths among some patients and infections among medical staff. We argue that temporary hospitals should be a priority in emergency planning. Equally, other measures adopted during the 1918 pandemic merit more attention than they currently receive.

 

from 2009

[Brian Kennedy]

This is so fucking depressing. In 35 years somebody please remind me to buy a Camaro and drive off a cliff while guzzling whiskey and chain smoking instead of going into a nursing home. https://story.californiasunday.com/covid-life-care-center-kirkland-washington

[DKTanker]

 

So why haven't the homeless camps been decimated by this disease? They are the textbook "worst case scenario".

I already posted here about Spanish Flu and how field hospitals had much better results than traditional ones.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4504358/

 

 

Records from an “open-air” hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, suggest that some patients and staff were spared the worst of the outbreak. A combination of fresh air, sunlight, scrupulous standards of hygiene, and reusable face masks appears to have substantially reduced deaths among some patients and infections among medical staff. We argue that temporary hospitals should be a priority in emergency planning. Equally, other measures adopted during the 1918 pandemic merit more attention than they currently receive.

 

from 2009

 

Which makes it all the more perplexing that the "experts" deemed it imperative to confiscate hotels so that people in homeless camps could be saved from the scourge of Covid by stuffing them into the hotels.

[Stefan Fredriksson]

A brief pause before it gets worse again, or a positive trend?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8698925/amp/Lockdown-free-Swedens-coronavirus-case-rate-lower-Nordic-neighbours-Denmark-Norway.html

[lucklucky]

Probably the virus already moved in most of those it can kill in Sweden while in the neighbors did not.

Edited September 7, 2020 by lucklucky

[Skywalkre]

 

The problem is, the health effects of Covid 19 are being wholly ignored. We simply have no idea what the long term problems it causes are. People are complaining of problems with breathing months after the infection, problems with memory, even joint pain if I remember rightly. And even having it and consoling yourself with the idea at least you are no immune seems an illusory hope now, if people genuinely are being reinfected. There are no breaks on how long this thing can keep rolling unless we keep socially distanced.

 

If this is not defeated, its going to make Winter Flu look trivial. And its not like Winter Flu is going to go away either.

 

Schooling is easy, if we are willing to invest in broadband services and giving all kids their own laptop. Whether we are willing to make that investment, or the leap of faith it requires is another. Yes, there are many jobs that require people to be present, no doubt about it. But many dont. Do we really need such large and developed financial districts in our cities, when everyone can work from home? Do we really need businessmen to bounce across the Atlantic when we have Skype or better? So we really need shopping malls, shopping districts, high-street newsagents, when we can buy online via Amazon or other highstreet stockists that have made the leap to the internet?

 

Society is changing via technological innovation anyway. The pandemic is certainly speeding things up, but many of these changes were in the works anyway. Most factories utilize small fractions of the workforce's they employed even 30 years ago. Not much need for social distancing in a factory that hardly employs anyone.

 

 

75 years ago people had to keep curtains up at the window for fear of showing lights, and had to kip at the bottom of the garden in an anderson shelter for fear of enemy bombs. They kept that up for 6 years. The transitions we are having to make seem trivial compared to that. They got through it, so will we, it just takes patience and imagination, and a similar thought of 'we' rather than 'I' which seems to be a major sticking point for 21st Century societies.

I agree about the uncertainty of long term health effects, heck I've posted about them in this thread. We also have fairly indicative data that the serious complications have to do with the severity of the attack on the body which has a high correlation to age and comorbidities. Which implies we can manage quarantine with a more tailored approach that focuses on people with risk factors such as age or disease. We currently have a one size fits all which will have its own drawbacks, costs and fatalities. We will need to have a quarantine structure for at risk populations for years. However, does socially isolating a 10 year old child have enough benefits to outweigh the cost on the child? What are the effects of socially isolating tens of millions of children? How do we create a structure to minimize that harm? That's my overall point, we're not investing in massively revamping our education system or really any societal system because it will be hard, it will be expensive, and the public wants to believe that magical science will fix this soon enough that no further sacrifice will be made.

Been meaning to comment on the bolded bit. America is a country that's greying, fat, and overall unhealthy. A tailored approach that focuses on quarantining the folks who are at risk is an approach that quarantines a massive segment of our society. From the beginning I've been all for getting kids back into school but how do you do that when a majority of the folks running those schools are the greying, fat, unhealthy Americans who fall into those risk groups? Locally we've had a few instances where schools were supposed to open but so many teachers called out 'sick' they had to cancel those plans.

 

I think you've brought up some great points about discussions we haven't been having. I'm curious if the approach the CDC recommends (five steps - no large gatherings, wearing masks, social distancing, hand hygiene, and bars closed indefinitely with restaurants at reduced capacity) is cheaper than the efforts needed to revamp society to continue running for the few healthy while quarantining the vulnerable. Just look at education... how long would it take, and cost, to replace the cadre of vulnerable teachers out there so schools could pick back up?

[Adam Peter]

A Supercomputer Analyzed Covid-19 — and an Interesting New Theory Has Emerged

 

Interesting article explaining a lot of things, including why it is viewed as vascular disease now. This little thing is jam packed with fun.

 

 

The end result, the researchers say, is to release a bradykinin storm — a massive, runaway buildup of bradykinin in the body. According to the bradykinin hypothesis, it’s this storm that is ultimately responsible for many of Covid-19’s deadly effects.

 

 

As bradykinin builds up in the body, it dramatically increases vascular permeability. In short, it makes your blood vessels leaky. This aligns with recent clinical data, which increasingly views Covid-19 primarily as a vascular disease, rather than a respiratory one. But Covid-19 still has a massive effect on the lungs. As blood vessels start to leak due to a bradykinin storm, the researchers say, the lungs can fill with fluid. Immune cells also leak out into the lungs, Jacobson’s team found, causing inflammation.

 

 

Through another pathway, the team’s data shows, it increases production of hyaluronic acid (HLA) in the lungs. HLA is often used in soaps and lotions for its ability to absorb more than 1,000 times its weight in fluid. When it combines with fluid leaking into the lungs, the results are disastrous: It forms a hydrogel, which can fill the lungs in some patients. According to Jacobson, once this happens, “it’s like trying to breathe through Jell-O.”

 

The good news:

 

 

It also suggests 10-plus potential treatments, many of which are already FDA approved.

[bd1]

A brief pause before it gets worse again, or a positive trend?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8698925/amp/Lockdown-free-Swedens-coronavirus-case-rate-lower-Nordic-neighbours-Denmark-Norway.html

most likely end of first wave, we had it 4 months back. now , after months of no known infections, we´re getting back to 5-15 infections a day, although since the end of first wave, only one fatality iirc.

Edited September 7, 2020 by bd1

[MiloMorai]

The 2cd wave will be worse than the 1st wave. People got complacent with the Spanish Flu and the 2cd wave was the real killer. Same happening today.

[Soren Ras]

 

At least as far as Denmark goes, since we are doing massive testing, we are finding more new cases, though they are nearly all asymptomatic, and these cases are almost all among young people (and certain immigrant groups). The number of people in intensive care in the entire country is three (3) at the moment, and there has been no uptick in deaths so far.  So the main focus is on how to limit social gatherings and parties for the young. Masks are mandated for public transport and not anywhere else.

--

Soren

 

 

 

Edited September 8, 2020 by Soren Ras
Figuring out how this upload function works

[RETAC21]

Same here, in the top of this page you can see how it has evolved in Spain, blue part: possitive cases, red lines: deaths:

https://www.elconfidencial.com/

Widespread testing of contacts shows lots more infected (nearly to the level of March, when only hospitalised cases were tested), but way less deaths. Lots and lots of people get infected and nothing happens to them evidently.

[Adam Peter]

Same in Hungary, way more infected with infection transmission rate > 2. Mostly under 40 years, holiday in Croatia, despite their summer infection rates because "the virus is a joke". Few deaths because it did not hit yet the hospitals (primer weapon against the virus is hygiene - low wages - no cleaners, government stopped reporting hospital infection deaths long ago) and elderly care homes. Some elderly care homes isolated now.

About 11 people on respirators, sampling (done by ambulance crews) can't keep the 24 hour deadline, ambulance cars sent to the capital to help sampling.

[glenn239]

On 9/6/2020 at 5:20 PM, Jeff said:

 

Suddenly they don't know a whole lot about a disease they are pretty sure about in other areas.

Pretty clear now that they were talking out of their asses all along.

[Colin]

On 9/6/2020 at 11:41 AM, Jeff said:

So why haven't the homeless camps been decimated by this disease? They are the textbook "worst case scenario".

From what I personally seen and talking to our ambulance guys, the weak have often already been eliminated by other causes, some of these homeless have immune systems that are battle hardened and are damm near impossible to kill, what they go through on a monthly basis would likley kill us "healthy" types pretty darned quick.