Nobody wants to be responsible for 1 million Americans suffocating to death. At this point almost every politician finally agrees on the need for at least an initial lockdown. The real test of political will will come 2-4 months from now.

Open source ventilator project:

https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/19/open-source-project-spins-up-3d-printed-ventilator-validation-prototype-in-just-one-week/

At this point we're just fighting math. 30% increase per day makes me want to become a loan shark:

Screen Shot 2020-03-20 at 2.06.08 PM (resized).png

Here’s a good article about what we might expect after the initial lockdown (the “Hammer” in this metaphor):

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56

To compare countries you should sort by the last column. The country we just passed is China. US only has about 1/4 as many infections per capita as France (but only because we are a week or 2 behind them). See the chart below.

Recoveries lag deaths by several weeks, since you’re not “recovered” until you’re clear of the virus. Actually there’s no meaningful way to compare any of the columns at this point, because they represent different points in the progression of the disease.
591C82D4-C277-4ECE-8B44-69816F63D242 (resized).jpeg

South Korea and Singapore learned a lot from SARS. They have a pretty sophisticated system for tracking contacts, and of course they did a ton of testing early on to isolate people.

One week of total shutdown could actually have a big impact on the growth rate (R). How soon is just as important as how long.

Yeah, it’s a pretty sweet site. The only thing I wish they had was “deaths per Million”, so that we could see where we are relative to other countries. The best way to fact-check our infection count is to compare the US to another country that’s reached the same death rate (per Million). Everything should be normalized by population IMO.

Some positive news from Georgia. I think people are staying away from restaurants, even though they aren’t closed yet. After 8 days of eating at home, my wife and I went to our local Cuban restaurant at noon yesterday. Normally there are people lined up waiting for a table on Fridays. But there was only one couple in the restaurant besides us. We sat about 20 feet from them, and service was strangely normal (no changes to the menu, great service as always). I bought a $100 gift card on the way out. We were as careful as possible of course. We washed our hands coming in and leaving, and I washed my credit card when I got home.

I think people are getting hung up on this being an “all or nothing”. Yes, we should stay home as much as possible. But a 90% isolation approach is much better than ignoring the virus entirely.

A month ago I was called “hysterical” for being concerned about hospital bed shortages. Now I’m being called out for not being perfect. We make a thousand decisions a week, and they won’t all be right. The good news is that we don’t all have to be perfect to make a difference.

We’re on the same side (concern). To be in solidarity with my friends in big cities where the SHTF moment is already here, I won’t go to another restaurant or other non-essential commercial setting until the danger has passed for everyone. Thanks for keeping me honest.

I would ignore the numbers and focus on the rate of growth, R. Actually though, I’m going to ignore all the charts few a few weeks while our testing capability catches up.

I just flew home from Philadelphia 8 days ago. I suspect that our Philly-based workforce will be WFH until June, given how close PHL is to NJ and NYC.

(I’m not ribbing you Levi, just happened to see this meme about the same time as your post)

6C76E53C-E52A-4CFA-9C7D-D2ADC591F8F6 (resized).png

Is it 6 feet tho?

.

I don’t see a lot of value in rehashing how we got here over and over. There will be time for a post-mortem after we get through this. There’s definitely no danger of someone making a mistake and not getting noticed. This is honestly the best time to say the hell with politics for a couple of months, let’s support each other, and that includes the leaders we may really dislike.

If there’s any good news right now, it’s that we are ALL taking this seriously now, on a bipartisan basis. It’s not a left vs. right thing any more, it’s responsible vs. irresponsible.

if you watch the whole video, he was awarded the MOF in 2008 by George Bush.

Fauci reminds me of George Burns: everyone loves him. He’s going to be around for another 20-30 years, I hope.

Wild animal markets are sketchy, factory farming is sketchy, basically meat is sketchy. I’m still going to eat it though.

Well that escalated quickly

I’ll unroll this here, but please donate to this guy’s friend’s cancer GoFundMe if you enjoyed it (2nd link):

https://twitter.com/danajaybein/status/1240307541491494912?s=21
https://www.gofundme.com/f/shannon-fights-cancer

Is this a sore throat?
Is this just allergies?
Caught in a lockdown
No escape from reality.

Don’t touch your eyes
Just hand sanitize quicklyyyyy
I’m just a poor boy, no job security
Because of easy spread, even though
washed your hands, laying low
I look out the window, the curve doesn’t look flatter to me, to me

mama, just killed a man
i didn’t stay inside in bed
I walked by him, now he’s dead
mama, life was so much fun
but now I’ve caught this unforgiving plague

mama, oooooh
didn’t mean to make them die
if I’m not back to work this time tomorrow
carry on, carry on as if people didn’t matter

Too late, my time has come
sends shivers down my spine
body’s aching all the time
goodbye everybody, I’ve got the flu
gotta leave you all behind and face the truth

mama, oooooh
I don’t wanna die
I sometimes wish I never went out at all

I see a little silhouette of a man
what a douche, what a douche
did he even wash his hands though
security is tightening
very very frightening me
Gotta lay low (gotta lay low)
Gotta lay low (gotta lay low)
Gotta lay low masturbate
Masturbate O O O O

I’m just a poor boy, facing mortality
HE’S JUST A POOR BOY FACING MORTALITY
spare him his life from this monstrosity
Touch your face, wash your hands, will you wash your hands?
BISMILLAH NO WE WILL NOT WASH OUR HANDS! (WASH YOUR HANDS!)
BISMILLAH NO WE WILL NOT WASH OUR HANDS! (WASH YOUR HANDS)
BISMILLAH WE WILL NOT WASH YOUR HANDS! (WASH YOUR HANDS!)
WASH YOUR HANDS! (never, never, never wash your hands oh oh oh oh oh oh oh)
No no no no no
Oh mama mia, mia (mama mia wash your hands!)
COVID-19 has a sickness put aside for me, for me
So you think you can stop me and just shake my hand?
So you think we can hang out and not break our plans?
Oh baby, can’t do this with me, baby,
Just gotta stay home, just gotta stay home with my fever
oooooh

Curving can get flatter
Anyone can see
Curving can get flatter
Curving can get flatter, you’ll see

Just look out your windows….

FLATTEN THE CURVE

USA is at 81 cases per million, Italy is at 886 (10x), so we have a little time before we catch up. 10 days at least.

[EDIT] Damn, NY state is at 616 per million (12,316/20), not far behind Italy at all. Be safe and be well, my northern friends.

Italy’s is one of the best in the world, actually.

It’s a 30% daily growth rate, and I think we’ll be at 100k by next Friday (27th).

Here’s my question. Only 2% of cases in the US have resolved (Recovered or Death). What is the criteria for “Recovered”, and are people still infectious up to the point where they test negative? As an example, if I had this in mid-February and I feel better now, could I still be infectious?

I didn’t see any bias or misinformation; it’s a good article. If we’re only allowed to share scientific journal articles, I’m outa here.

Not defending him, but do we know he got back his results before going to the gym? If yes, that’s horrendous. But it’s possible that he found out after.

Ah right - assume it may come back positive. That does make sense. Especially if you’ve been exposed.

So New York (state) is now up to 1,136 cases per million, compared to Italy’s 978. I’m keeping you all in my thoughts right now, especially those with elderly parents.

President is still saying “the Chinese virus”.

EDIT: never mind, asked and answered

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems racist as hell.

False equivalence.

We’re not out of ventilators here yet

In other news, the phrase “politically correct” was invented by people who wanted to be able to say whatever they wanted with no consequences.

I wanted to avoid politics, but it kind of enrages me to hear “we inherited an obsolete system” over and over again. When you’re 3 years into your term, you own what you have. It hits home, because any engineering manager who pulled that shit would be fired. You might get 6 months to blame your predecessor, but after that you own it.

I can’t, I’ve already lost $6k betting on Delta.

The biggest danger for me right now is that my head is going to explode watching these press conferences.

A9CC61C6-9354-4ED3-9961-43714044820F (resized).jpeg

Toilets: flush 10, maybe 15 times
Surgical masks: DON’T THROW THAT AWAY, we have amazing liquids

You must not be watching the same press conference that I am.

Honestly it’s just disappointing. Early last week I was willing to give the big guy a break, and he seemed to be turning a corner. Now he’s back to campaigning and blaming. I’m not gonna try to kick that football again, he pulls it away every time.

That’s when they’ll roll out the 90 day plan, and I’m not joking at all.

I tend to believe those saying that 70% of Americans will get this eventually. My goal is to stay in the 30%. I definitely don’t need this on top of asthma.

#30percentclub

Looking ahead a bit, here’s my worry. We’ve heard very little about the long-term endgame for this war. We get a shot for seasonal flu, but the virus evolves so it’s not 100% effective. But the death rate is relatively low, so we accept that. If this CORONAvirus evolves and we get hit with an epidemic of this mutation just as they’ve worked out the vaccine for the first one, are we going to be playing cat and mouse with this for the next 5, 10, 20 years? Is it a permanent part of our lives now?

All you have to do is look at the president’s Twitter timeline to know that that’s the plan. Look for the tweet in all caps, and the many retweets. I don’t think the feds can overrule a governor’s orders, and I don’t think the intent is to make people in NYC go back to work. It’s more concerning for states like mine where “things aren’t that bad yet”.

I’ve been playing a lot of Andromeda lately, and I’m pretty sure she created this virus:
A79A0C51-95D7-47C1-AD30-B55974100AE9 (resized).jpeg
She even has mutant bats!

Old people’s turn to go on spring break

So the new notion is to start sending people back to work in a few weeks, starting with those under 40. I hope that companies will at least make allowances for people with an elderly parent living with them.

Epidemiologists need to start modeling these proposals so they can estimate the # of additional deaths they will cause. Winging it is not a good idea at this point.

My wife’s boss said she has “a Christian friend who has a cure” but she can’t say what it is because “they” will come and shut her down. I hope it’s something harmless like holy water.

“....doctors believe the episodes he experienced were not a reaction to the medicine but his body fighting off the virus.”

I still hold out hope for clinical studies, this seems very promising.

We didn’t call Ebola “the African virus”.
We didn’t call Mad Cow disease “the British virus”.
We don’t call measles “the European virus”.

“ In 1814, George de Maton first suggested that it be considered a disease distinct from both measles and scarlet fever. All these physicians were German, and the disease was known as Rötheln (contemporary German Röteln), Rötlich means "redish" or "pink" in German. The fact that three Germans described it led to the common name of "German measles."

Still chewing on these 2 comments:

1. “The mortality rate is a lot lower than we thought it would be.”
2. Paraphrase: Deaths from an economic crash could be much worse than deaths from the virus

During the Great Recession in ‘09, an economist wrote that we had to choose between “the car crash” and “cancer” (metaphors for a quick death and a slow death). He later made the point that we chose the cancer, and I believed him. I stayed out of the market for years. 10 years later it’s clear to me that we somehow survived that cancer.

We’re facing a similar moment now, but a pandemic won’t quietly go away like all that bad debt did. We have to choose between two car crashes: an economic depression, or millions of deaths. There’s no “cancer” option this time. We can only choose our catastrophe, and both are unfathomably bad.

Welp, I just really depressed myself.

Regardless of what the feds do, it will really come down to the governors. I watch our governor’s speech today, and it doesn’t seem like he’s ready to accept a legacy of mass death. He seems to be taking this very very seriously. I was impressed, there was no political content in his speech at all that I can remember.

If every state had the option of closing its borders, I would agree with that 100%.

Death is a lagging indicator, and it started 3-4 weeks later here.

If you assume that the US gets to somewhere between Spain and Italy, say 90 deaths per million, that will be around 30k deaths. I'm afraid that we'll get there by the end of April.

What's your source for 22 million dead in China? The official site says 3277. Don't spread conspiracy theories here, please.

Daaaaamn. I usually prefer logarithmic but this tells a story.

98829B1F-FC7A-419F-B192-6CB0AB030FB3 (resized).jpeg

I saw that people were stockpiling bottled water. I think the chance of water supply problems are extremely low, but it reminded me that I’ve been meaning to stockpile a few weeks of drinking water. For us, that’s 40 gallons. If you’re going to stockpile water, this is the way to do it. It’s treated and should be good for 2-3 years. Those cheap plastic bottles (Dasani, Deer Creek, etc) will start leaching into your water within a year.

It’s like CSI says: “3 minutes with air, 3 days without water, 30 days without food.”

5DF2C097-C552-478F-A2D4-FC911F28DE49 (resized).jpeg

I need a few more days of giddyup so I can get out of the bad trades I made 3 weeks ago when I thought this was gonna blow over. Some falling knives cut deep, son (is what I will teach my son).

BAEC1D2A-CFBF-4569-B8C7-220D219C29E0 (resized).jpeg

You forgot “elements of medical”

“Buy the rumor, sell the news” is the best stock market advice I’ve ever heard.

By saying that China cooked this up in a bioweapon lab.

I know next to nothing about this, and I hate to sound like Elon Musk, but I don’t get why ventilators are so hard to make. My CPAP was about $800, and I know that was way overpriced. It’s a pump, some hoses and some mission-critical software. It seems like just a matter of time before the open source folks will have something that’s better than nothing: not FDA approved, but adequate to keep people alive.

Sitting in a room and quietly listening to both sides of Aqualung with nothing in our hands and a smile on our faces.

Someone asked me today what we gain by delaying the inevitable. This graphic describes it much better than I could.

A5DAD0E5-659E-4FAE-A3CC-A1A475A190ED (resized).jpeg

Yikes, Atlanta could be the next NYC soon:

E5490104-B8CA-4DD2-B9A0-ED7547447CAA (resized).jpeg

Some gentle humor...

BCF8DF99-63C3-406F-BBAA-E5FD6629B25A (resized).jpeg

...and a smattering of people saying they don’t like this thread, but yet here they are.

Some in the GOP like Lindsey Graham and Meghan McCain have starting calling out “Health vs Economy” as a false choice. There’s no way that things can just go back to normal while hundreds of thousands of Americans are dying. And while we can’t keep doing lockdowns and social distancing forever, we can do it for a few more months, long enough to give the hospitals and researchers a fighting chance.

I respect that some people believe we can go back to work and still be careful, but I disagree. We’re talking about a nation that’s hoarding toilet paper and fish tank cleaner. It just takes a few fools to make the workplace dangerous again.

It's not hard to see how we get to hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Here's the math on the low end:

330M population * 25% of population infected * 1% mortality = 825,000

On the high end (the "Easter plan"), we might have this by 2021:

330M population * 70% of population infected * 3% mortality = 6.93 million

The higher mortality rate for the "return to normal ASAP plan" reflects hospitals having to turn people away sooner.

My adult son is in that category, he works at Panera Bread and just had his hours cut from 40 to 20. The math for him and his roommates doesn't work with that kind of income. I've been helping out in a small way by getting something from their drive-thru for lunch every day. I know that it's even harder for single moms.

Not true, we have lots of data on mortality. I know some people have heroic assumptions about how much better the US healthcare system is, but the fact is that the mortality rate ranges from 1-6% depending on the health of the population and how much we do to slow the spread.

I think the WHO estimate is on the high end here, but it's a starting point for a discussion:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/

So the medical experts are all lying and you’re the one who has the truth? Would you let someone with COVID-19 cough into your face while you’re wearing a mask?

But a virus is very very tiny. It's not a chemical where you can mitigate harm by blocking most of it. I think the virus goes through an N95 mask as easily as a neutrino goes through our bodies.

EDIT: I don't know, but I'll listen to the experts on this one (like our doctor friend here).

With apologies to The Clash, I thought it was time for this:

Fauci, you got to let me know
Should I stay or should I go?
If you say that I should stay here
I'll stay home 'til the coast is clear
So you got to let me know
Should I stay or should I go?

It's always tease, tease, tease
You say we might beat this disease
One day it's fine and next it's black
So if you want me off your back
Well, come on and let me know
Should I stay or should I go?
Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go, there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know

My neighbor's music's bugging me
He's playing Cher and Black Eyed Peas
Can't even drink outside in peace
Because we're stuck with this disease
Come on and let me know
Should I cool it or should I blow?

Split

Should I stay or should I go now? (yo me enfrió o lo soplo)
Should I stay or should I go now? (yo me enfrió o lo soplo)
If I go there will be trouble (si me voy va a haber peligro)
And if I stay it will be double (si me quedo sera el doble)
So ya gotta let me know (me tienes que decir)
Should I cool it or should I blow? (me debo ir o quedarme)
Should I stay or should I go now? (tengo frío por los ojos)
If I go there will be trouble (si me voy va haber peligro)
And if I stay it wil be double (si me quedo sera el doble)
So ya gotta let me know me tienes que decir
Should I stay or should I go?

I’ll go out again when I can wear one of these.

7E1AF5F4-A463-4407-9CB7-0C1E93BEB089 (resized).jpeg

So I stand corrected, N95 masks do protect us better than nothing. But if you have one and your doctor’s office and hospital don’t, you’re an asshole. Do I have it right now? Just to drive it home, most of us have the luxury of standing well clear of other people, even while at work. Doctors and nurses don’t.

I thought it was a good first effort. People can wrap their heads around 15 days of self-sacrifice, and it WILL make a difference and slow the spread. What comes next will be interesting.

You actually raise a really good point. Why aren’t they keeping a count of people who have been hospitalized with COVID-19?

Are you a Hobbit?

Rezdog where did you find that 2nd map?

Just one of many good charts from Robert Williams on his Twitter account, @isfBob:

A295B4C0-35DF-45C4-A607-4FC56D45188E (resized).jpeg