COVID-19 What Are/Will You Do to Deal with This?

(Scott) #78

This is why it is imperative to get money into peoples hands quickly and for the most part in the US politicians know this. No party wants to burn the country down but that is what inaction will do. On the other hand no party wants to give a “win” to the opposition party. At times I feel like this is a country wide game of Russian roulette and we are the players. The problem is politicians, and I mean both parties, are loading the bullets. I wish in this time of need we could rally around the flag and whomever is president. But that is not going to happen, it is Trump Vs Cuomo in the next election and the country will need to suffer through it. It won’t be pretty.

(Doug) #79

Ron, except for South Korea, everybody’s done too little thus far - seems like politicians are more afraid of being seen as doing “too much” rather than doing too little. To this point, people have been pretty good about maintaining - in the realm you mention - but there would be overlap between anti-virus measures and control of riots, crime, etc., and I imagine the rule would be that there too politicians would be behind the curve, rather than ahead of it.

There’s no national lockdown in the U.S. yet, and much is still legally in the hands of the individual states. Some states and cities have locked down on their own (and Idaho’s stay-at-home order was more timely than most). As of now it would also be the state governors who would call out the National Guard, for example, if people start going nuts.

Thus far, the President has invoked the Stafford Act (from 1988 - ‘The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act’). This says what the federal gov’t can do - first time ever for a health epidemic.

Additional, more severe measures would include declaring martial law (military authority now trumps civil authority) - this both can be on a federal level and on a state level if the state’s contitution includes it. For really hardcore enforcement of social distancing - this is where it’s at, freedom of movement, of association, (stuff we normally take for granted as civil liberties) can be suspended. Obviously, if a state “is in flames” then prior to that the gov’t should have taken action.

Martial law still has limits - federal troops can only do so much. National Guard troops however, being under state control, can do stuff like search and seizure.

A further step would be bringing in the ’ Insurrection Act’ which enlarges the scope of federal action, on the grounds that the states are incapable of maintaining order.

:smile: Yeah… Weeks back, taking a long view, I was thinking about the water and electricity staying on (it sure would suck if they didn’t). Prior to that, I imagine, we’d see the food distribution system breaking down, and I bet things would get “interesting” then.

(Ethan) #80

This is obviously a generalization for estimating, but thoughts?

Here is the bad news. You can extrapolate for your own locality:

The NYC system current is overwhelmed or at capacity.
There are 50,000 documented cases of COVID19 in NYC.
We don’t know how many actual cases though there are, so we can’t say how many people sick it takes to hit capacity, but we can guess. Let’s be generous and at 500k people in NYC have COVID19.
Then 500k concurrently sick people hit the capacity in NYC.
Let’s also be generous and say that the average hospital stay is 2 weeks.
If we get R0 = 1, then the capacity of sick people is 1 million per month.
Let’s say that heard immunity kicks in when 50% have been infected.
NYC has 8 million people.
Then it will be 4 months at healthcare capacity to reach herd immunity in NYC.

It’s worse if we are actually testing closer to the real number who have COVID19. Let’s say instead only 100k people have it in NYC. Then the capacity would be 200k per month, and we would need 20 months at capacity to reach herd immunity.

('Jackie P') #81

Be well @Shortstuff :relieved:

(Doug) #82

It’s gonna be tough, Ethan. The entire state has ~53,000 hospital beds and yesterday the governor said they need an additional 87,000, so it’s a tall order indeed. They’re expecting the peak need to be in about 3 weeks.

NYC is farther along than almost every other place in the U.S. - if the peak is as soon as 3 weeks from now, at least it would be presumed that things would start easing off after that. Frankly, it is a welcome relief to think of such things, even as one realizes that the next few weeks will likely be grim indeed. For the USA as a whole, probably the next couple months.

I’m pretty much lost here - there is so much we don’t yet know. (One thing I’ve noticed is that almost exactly 1/3 of NYC tests have been positive thus far - greatly in excess of the other places I’ve checked.) You mentioned R0 being 1, as an example, but from all I’ve seen it’s between 2 and 3. If anything, I think this argues for a greater and faster overwhelming of medical facilities that most people are picturing as of now.

'Herd immunity" would be a very good thing, as would effective drugs and eventually a vaccine. The problem is getting there and what happens in the meantime.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #83
Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine
(Ethan) #84

R0 can be changed by social distancing. I was proposing keeping at 1 with everything at capacity.

You say NYC is 3 weeks from peak. That doesn’t mean jack when peak is because of social distancing and thus would last months or years at a steady rate. Turn off the social distancing, and you will get a new, higher peak.

(Bunny) #85

At least here in America (I’m also a Native American Citizen of Canada and Belize British Honduras besides being an America born citizen) I think people will be getting more money than when they were working if my personal projections are correct. After doing a lot of research my income actually increased (a lot, by hundreds of dollars) because of this scandalous virus not decreased.

(Doug) #86

Yeah - the 3 weeks is just what the NY governor and the “state gov’t” are currently saying. It definitely remains to be seen what exactly happens…

(Ethan) #87

And again… it would be a long term peak… no return to normalcy here for 1.5 years

(Bunny) #88

Walmart is going to give there peeps bonuses from what I hear?

(Doug) #89

Ethan, isn’t that greatly dependent on how many people actually get “sick” versus having the virus and never displaying symptoms to that extent? 1.5 years - “effects” may well linger longer than that, no argument there, regardless - I guess it’s how we define “normalcy.”

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #90
(Empress of the Unexpected) #91

I consider myself lucky. As a lifelong germ phobe, I was all over news reports in February. My boss informed me her brother at fox “news” said it was a hoax. Sure. I was polite. My husband and I manage a small mobile home park so we get to stay at home. He snuck out to home depot a few times, but when the California governor locked us down he got serious. He does lawn maintenance, home repair, and way too much Netflix. I organize,garden,and read. We thank god his son got laid off work. We are content. Now, if only we could find toilet paper. We are down to six rolls.

(Susan) #92

Hi Regina =). It is nice to see you back on here =). We have found going to Walmart at opening at 7am works well for us for getting toilet paper. Ours has wisely put a limit of one pack her family, which is good --to be fair for all I think.

(Empress of the Unexpected) #93

Hi Susan. Missed you. At some point we will have to go on the hunt. But I have always had the impression (based in part on my Canadian cousins) that canadians are way more polite than Americans? So not holding my breath on the tp. And no Sears catalogues to be had!:rofl: saul has mentioned a type of plant leaf…:scream:

(Susan) #94

I know that some people are using baby wipes, or paper towels, toilet paper, napkins, other paper products. I have been able to go at 7am on Saturday mornings to get it so far (we didn’t go since last Saturday and I think we have enough until the 11th–I plan to shop that day for some food and another pack of it then too.

We are totally out of vegetables, fruits and my fridge is quite empty now but we have 2 freezers quite full still and a lot of canned goods =) so we are still fine for food, just different choices =).

(Ethan) #95

I answered that in my analysis, which I am linking to again here. I used NYC as an example. if 50,000 documented cases overwhelm the system, the real question is how many ACTUAL cases is it? In my analysis, I posited first 500,000 cases and then 100,000 cases. If this really means 500,000 actual illnesses (including those not tested or reported) in NYC overwhelms the healthcare system, then the system would need to slow down the infection rate to the maximum sustainable for the healthcare system for 4 months to achieve 50% immunity, which is likely herd immunity. This assumes that the average hospital or ICU patient is there for 2 weeks. Using all the same assumptions (which are pretty fair estimates), I showed that if you instead say there are 100,000 actual illnesses in NYC at healthcare capacity, then it would take 20 months to reach herd immunity at healthcare capacity.

(Ethan) #96

We have tons of meat. The only thing I need periodically (every 4 weeks) is eggs. Unfortunately, not everybody here eats like me. We need berries and lettuce occasionally for my son, random deli meat for my wife (pregnancy comes with all kinds of food side effects), and very specific naan bread for my father-in-law, who doesn’t want to just buy enough of it and freeze it…

(Susan) #97

I am the only Keto person in my house – so I have been eating a lot of Salmon, Shrimp, ground beef, canned tuna, chicken, chicken and eggs for me --and I was eating a bit of vegetables at times with those too. My husband, 2 daughters at home still (19 and 21) and my grand daughter (almost 4) are all SAD eaters and there is a lot of food for them -we are fine for food but the no vegetables and fruits bothers them --I can tolerate it, although I miss having some vegetables.

I have 8 bottles of my Distilled Water for my CPAP machine, which to me was more of a necessity then food for me --I can Fast easily =).

That is exciting that you two are having a new baby soon – best wishes =) and congratulations =). Your little boy must be excited to be a big brother soon, that is terrific =).