Corona Virus

[The Feral Slasher]

I assume it means for just the first wave of things. How many we have after that depends on how we act once people go back to work. If everyone continues to do what you plan to do, we will be in good shape. If not, we will see another spike at some point. Either way, this first wave looks like it will be mitigated to a greater extent than I thought it would based on how some people were acting. I guess the bad actors just got more press and the vast majority of people have taken this seriously. Good on us.

Not sure how well this is being communicated. I suspect some people think that we shut down for 3 or 4 weeks, 50,000 people die and then we can go back to our normal lives. Not sure how many believe this. The fact that "only" 50,000 people died and not hundreds of thousands will be used by some to urge as all to go back to work and school. At least from what I have seen in other websites/twitter/news.

[Sour Masher]

Not sure how well this is being communicated. I suspect some people think that we shut down for 3 or 4 weeks, 50,000 people die and then we can go back to our normal lives. Not sure how many believe this. The fact that "only" 50,000 people died and not hundreds of thousands will be used by some to urge as all to go back to work and school. At least from what I have seen in other websites/twitter/news.

I think/hope most people understand by now that flattening the curve also means extending things and dealing with more than one smaller curve until we get to a vaccine or herd immunity (and it looks like the world is successfully slowing the spread of this thing that we will get to a vaccine well before we get close to herd immunity, especially since I'm seeing reporting that up to 1/3 of people can get this again, in cases where their cases were mild the first time).

I've long said and based my sense of how bad this would be on the fact that our country won't want to do this lock down again, so I still think the next wave of this could be worse than this one will be. I've predicted several times that we will justify not shutting down but using masks and being careful and maintaining social distancing to the extent possible for social events, but not locking down like we are now. That can change if the next spike gets really bad, but especially if Trump is still in charge after November, I don't think we will see another lockdown like we are in right now. Time will tell.

[The Feral Slasher]

I think/hope most people understand by now that flattening the curve also means extending things and dealing with more than one smaller curve until we get to a vaccine or herd immunity (and it looks like the world is successfully slowing the spread of this thing that we will get to a vaccine well before we get close to herd immunity, especially since I'm seeing reporting that up to 1/3 of people can get this again, in cases where their cases were mild the first time).

I am not as hopeful as you are that everyone has digested and accepted the new reality. I'm not even sure I have. I still can't bear to think about school not starting up in the fall, but it is a possibility.

[umjewman]

I am not as hopeful as you are that everyone has digested and accepted the new reality. I'm not even sure I have. I still can't bear to think about school not starting up in the fall, but it is a possibility.

My concern is the court system re-opening. Right now it's been closed, except for "essential" matters, which I apparently do not practice. But, they're slowly rolling out phone and video conferencing, and I'm hopeful that they don't open the physical courts too soon. I could see it happening though and there is not much I can do, as I'm typically in court at least 3 days a week.

[Kevin Seitzer]

I am not as hopeful as you are that everyone has digested and accepted the new reality. I'm not even sure I have. I still can't bear to think about school not starting up in the fall, but it is a possibility.

Some of the young, single people I know believe that this has been way overhyped, and while they are following the social distancing and lockdown orders right now, if they were officially lifted, I have no doubt they would go right back to their old practices.

I also worry about the impact on rural areas, where the evidence seems to show that the spread is ramping up right now. I think the peak there is going to come later than it has in the urban areas, and the rural areas could suffer the most in the near term if the shutdowns are lifted prematurely. (We all would suffer eventually.)

[Gregg]

I don't doubt a lot of people will go back, and many of those out of necessity, who would choose otherwise if they could. I just don't think nearly all will go back or that our economy will look anything remotely like "normal".

Agreed, I have no idea what the new normal will look like.

Food and shelter will have to come first. To get those, work seems to be the best way to get that.

So much of the work force is associated with non-essentials. All theater, sports, restaurants, etc. will have to be dictated by demand but how much income will people have to devote to those types of things?

[Gregg]

My concern is the court system re-opening. Right now it's been closed, except for "essential" matters, which I apparently do not practice. But, they're slowly rolling out phone and video conferencing, and I'm hopeful that they don't open the physical courts too soon. I could see it happening though and there is not much I can do, as I'm typically in court at least 3 days a week.

My court date for speeding was pushed out from 4/2 to 5/7 unless I wanted to plead guilty and just pay the fine. Which I am not going to do.

[Kevin Seitzer]

https://www.nola.com/news/coronavirus/article_713daede-7922-11ea-8352-b3ab70fc397c.html

interesting article from New Orleans Times-Picayune on how reported cases and deaths are lagging in time

[Kevin Seitzer]

With the daily report in from Michigan, I think it's still too early to say whether the new case curve is flattening there.

New cases per day in Michigan, last 14 days:
503
561
800
996
836
1008
1119
1711
1466
1953
1479
1495
1503
1749 (3pm report today)

Michigan is below average on testing rates (44 per 10,000 people), which makes the picture cloudier there, too.

Report today of 1376 new cases in Michigan. That seems hopeful, but not as clear a drop as New York or Louisiana saw. It could still be more of a plateau than a drop.

[GwynnInTheHall]

I'm relieved to hear that california isn't going to change it's stance on Stay at home and Social Distancing policies even if they're lifted at the Federal level. It's is my guess that California will be one of the LAST states to go back to normal and because of that have one of the lowest per Capita death rate from this virus.

[rhd]

Something strange today, if it's not a mistake. Nevada, which had only about 2000 cases before today, reported 22,547 new cases today and now has the 3rd most # of cases in the US despite having one of the lowest populations. They reported only 13 new deaths, however. Sounds like a mistake but I've seen the same figure 2 separate places.

Edit: Now, the figure is only 172 new cases today. What happened?

[Kevin Seitzer]

Something strange today, if it's not a mistake. Nevada, which had only about 2000 cases before today, reported 22,547 new cases today and now has the 3rd most # of cases in the US despite having one of the lowest populations. They reported only 13 new deaths, however. Sounds like a mistake but I've seen the same figure 2 separate places.

The chart here:

https://nvhealthresponse.nv.gov/

shows 2318 positive cases from 20,566 people tested, and 71 deaths. That's an increase of 954 tests and 102 positive cases from yesterday, and the same death total.

[Kevin Seitzer]

I'm relieved to hear that california isn't going to change it's stance on Stay at home and Social Distancing policies even if they're lifted at the Federal level. It's is my guess that California will be one of the LAST states to go back to normal and because of that have one of the lowest per Capita death rate from this virus.

I like a lot of the things California is doing. I wish they were testing more. They're only being beaten to the bottom on testing by a few states (including my home state).

[Kevin Seitzer]

This is my other go-to site:

https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en

and they have 2259 cases and 72 deaths for Nevada.

That site sometimes follows the official state totals and sometimes aggregates from the county-level data themselves.

[GwynnInTheHall]

I like a lot of the things California is doing. I wish they were testing more. They're only being beaten to the bottom on testing by a few states (including my home state).

They mentioned this the other day--Looks like a fix is on the way.

https://calmatters.org/health/coronavirus/2020/04/california-coronavirus-test-backlog-delays-newsom-announces-ramp-up/