Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Razgovory]

And there's not even, by the looks of it, local test-and-trace efforts. It seems like large parts of America just stopped lockdown because they got bored and are now just okay with this

It doesn't just seem that way, it is that way.  People got bored and decided that boredom was tyranny.

[alfred russel]

And there's not even, by the looks of it, local test-and-trace efforts. It seems like large parts of America just stopped lockdown because they got bored and are now just okay with this

I think it is pretty much over in terms of people staying in. Rush hour traffic in downtown Atlanta is almost back to normal, which is actually really wild since a lot of major employers are shut down.

The gym was packed yesterday. The sauna, spa, and massage services at the gym are reopening today. At first people were staying spaced out and wiping down machines - there are signs to do so before and after use - but it really looks like everything is back to normal and half the gym wipes are out anyway. Almost no one wears a mask (which is tough to work out in).

In the climbing gym the crowds have stayed away, but I wonder if that is because you have to wear a mask while climbing.

Restaurants are filling up--I had lunch at a place with basically every table filled. The capacity restrictions are supposed to be lifted here on June 16th--but I guess this restaurant jumped the gun? I don't think they removed any seating capacity.

I went to the mall yesterday and it seemed like it was doing a brisk business. I'd guess 50% of people were wearing masks. A bizarre group of customers were wearing their masks on their chin--leaving their nose and mouth uncovered--they were a minority (maybe 10-15%) of customers wearing masks but I believe their presence is an indictment of the US education system. I think most employees were wearing masks that way, but I understand that more--it is uncomfortable to wear a mask all day and it also makes it tough to do a job.

[DGuller]

Sometimes I wonder whether social distancing guidelines were a mistake, especially after masks became available.  Clearly it seems like there are compliance issues with both masks and social distancing, maybe picking one would've made the burden less onerous.  As it happens, we're now going to observe what would've happened had we not locked down.

[Sheilbh]

Well in the UK test and trace is hardly existent but this fact does not appear to impact the tempo of lockdown-easing.

I mean in England it's up and running and had a two thirds success in the first week - I think the Scottish one isn't running yet. My worry is it's being over-centralised (again - because, England) and it's outsourced and Serco aren't known for their quality public services. But it's a lot more than we had when we were just relying on PHE.

Also I was under that impression on lockdown easing - but there was a piece on the FT pointing out that actually lockdown-easing seems to be happening at a much slower pace than in most of Europe. So I could be wrong.

The current bruhaha is around the 2 meters rule. I don't think it matters that much, Hungary has had a 1.5 meters rule since the beginning and have faired far better than the UK despite having a shambolic healthcare system.

Yeah I don't fully understand this. From my understanding WHO guidance is 1 metre. And presumably that's followed in other countries. 1 metre would make things more manageable - like just walking on a pavement in a city. It also feels like they'll announce we should all wear masks outside soon after months of the scientists saying it makes no difference.

Sometimes I wonder whether social distancing guidelines were a mistake, especially after masks became available.  Clearly it seems like there are compliance issues with both masks and social distancing, maybe picking one would've made the burden less onerous.  As it happens, we're now going to observe what would've happened had we not locked down.

Or that Janan Ganesh piece earlier in the crisis about how surprisingly impressive US civil society was was a bit early. It was impressive but it seems to have dissolved very, very quickly and the pandmic doesn't even seem like a particularly major story any more - I can't think of the last time I heard anything about or from Fauci or Birx.

There was an interesting study in Japan of clusters that found that in their cases people aged 20-49 were most responsible for the spread (which makes sense). Public transport wasn't a major vector (I don't think they identified any clusters linked to that - but there were some linked to air travel) which is counter-intuitive but sort of makes sense - there's a difference between just breathing and, say, talking, breathing heavily in a gym or singing in a choir. Healthcare settings and social care facilities were the biggest clusters. After that: restuarants/bars, workplaces, music events (concerts, but also choirs and karaoke parties) and gyms.

[jimmy olsen]

"Experts said we'd have 3,000 dead per day in June, and we're nowhere near. Let me have my haircut and go to Golden Corral with my extended family! At the same time!"

What could it be
https://covid19science.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-cheating-is-getting-worse.html?m=1

Thursday, June 11, 2020
The Cheating Is Getting Worse
A "mystery" illness is killing about 4,000 people in the US each week - that's more than the number of people killed by COVID-19, according to the most recent death certificate statistics published by the CDC. Here's a graph that shows the number of weekly deaths certificates that mention COVID-19 as a cause of deaths, compared to the number of death certificates that use the "mystery" (R00-R99) category:

GRAPH

Since the submission of death certificates to the CDC is a somewhat chaotic process that is incomplete for recent weeks, the numbers in the graph above are "weighted", to borrow a term that the CDC uses. I used the number of reported cancer deaths, compared to the same week last year, to estimate how complete the reporting was (about 64% for the week ending 5/30, and 80% for the  week before that).

Historically, about 1.25% of all deaths were "mystery" deaths in the US, where the medical examiner could not determine the exact cause of deaths, and only was able to list symptoms or affected organs. That amounts to about 600-650 "mystery" death per week. But this number has been going up steadily during the COVID-19 epidemic; for the last two weeks of May, there were more than 3,600 "mystery" deaths per week.

You might expect that the alarm bells would be ringing if something kills 3,000 Americans each week - but I have not even seen a single news report about this. Medical examiners in some large city must see dozens of these cases per week. They'd have an obligation to alert the public, but they probably know what this really is: COVID-19 deaths without a positive test. In some states like New York, many (but not all!) of such cases nevertheless listed COVID-19 on the death certificate, and counted the deaths as "probable" COVID-19 cases. But in many states where government officials downplayed the threat of COVID-19 and insisted on rapid re-opening, probably deaths from COVID-19 are not reported at all. Here's a look at the states with the highest number of "mystery" deaths, compared to COVID-19 deaths:

GRAPH

So - either these states need to alert the public that some "mystery disease" is killing hundreds of people per week, or they pretty much admit by their inaction that they are cheating. As the first graph shows, the cheating is getting worse, with more reported "mystery deaths" than COVID-19 deaths in the last week of May.

[DGuller]

  It says right below what it probably is:  a COVID-19 death without a positive test.

[HisMajestyBOB]

And there's not even, by the looks of it, local test-and-trace efforts. It seems like large parts of America just stopped lockdown because they got bored and are now just okay with this

I think it is pretty much over in terms of people staying in. Rush hour traffic in downtown Atlanta is almost back to normal, which is actually really wild since a lot of major employers are shut down.

The gym was packed yesterday. The sauna, spa, and massage services at the gym are reopening today. At first people were staying spaced out and wiping down machines - there are signs to do so before and after use - but it really looks like everything is back to normal and half the gym wipes are out anyway. Almost no one wears a mask (which is tough to work out in).

In the climbing gym the crowds have stayed away, but I wonder if that is because you have to wear a mask while climbing.

Restaurants are filling up--I had lunch at a place with basically every table filled. The capacity restrictions are supposed to be lifted here on June 16th--but I guess this restaurant jumped the gun? I don't think they removed any seating capacity.

I went to the mall yesterday and it seemed like it was doing a brisk business. I'd guess 50% of people were wearing masks. A bizarre group of customers were wearing their masks on their chin--leaving their nose and mouth uncovered--they were a minority (maybe 10-15%) of customers wearing masks but I believe their presence is an indictment of the US education system. I think most employees were wearing masks that way, but I understand that more--it is uncomfortable to wear a mask all day and it also makes it tough to do a job.

In the DC/MD/VA area, lots of restaurants are still carry-out only and many employers that allow for WFH are planning to do so through the rest of the summer. Traffic has picked up, but its still definitely lighter than normal, especially around rush hour.

We'll have to build a wall along the VA-NC border to keep out the COVID hordes. Or maybe blow the bridges across the Rappahannock.

[crazy canuck]

The problem is obvious in the very way we are talking about it.  We talk about COVID in Spain, in Germany, in Canada, etc.  But we talk about COVID in Florida, California, Illinois, etc.  We are half a year into this and still the US is dealing with this as 50 different countries.  We knew back in February that what is needed is a robust nationwide testing regime to identify and then track (contact tracing) cases through a unified national database using national level resources.  Here were are in June and still no progress has been made. It is catastrophic political and policy failure.

Well, yes and no.  In a country as vast as the US it makes no sense to have one policy response for the whole country.  We didn't do that in Canada for the same reason.  Each Province had its own policies and as the BC PHO often said, we each had our own pandemic to deal with. Local circumstances mattered.

But we were certainly fortunate that all our political leaders in all provinces and at the federal level took this seriously, regardless of political strip, and although there were regional differences in approach there were more similarities then there were differences. 

[jimmy olsen]

It says right below what it probably is:  a COVID-19 death without a positive test.

Sarcasm DGuller.

They're certainly not reported in the media like that.

[Caliga]

Yeah it looks bad.  Unfortunately, I won't be really safe until the US is safe.  So I hope your politicians fix this soon.

Not sure you understand how inept our government truly is.

[DGuller]

It says right below what it probably is:  a COVID-19 death without a positive test.

Sarcasm DGuller.

They're certainly not reported in the media like that.

Sarcasm on Languish?

[Eddie Teach]

Sarcasm is ungodly.

[The Minsky Moment]

Well, yes and no.  In a country as vast as the US it makes no sense to have one policy response for the whole country. 

That cannot work

Eg. NY, NJ and CT cannot have their own contact tracing systems because people move across state boundaries in massive numbers.

The US made a policy decision to court death because it was too much of a pain in the ass to do it right and because our federal government is led by someone who after declaring a state of war existing between COVID and the American people, has sided with the disease.

[PDH]

Yes, but Trump's siding with the virus gives us a fighting chance.

[alfred russel]

Sometimes I wonder whether social distancing guidelines were a mistake, especially after masks became available.  Clearly it seems like there are compliance issues with both masks and social distancing, maybe picking one would've made the burden less onerous.  As it happens, we're now going to observe what would've happened had we not locked down.

I know some of you think I'm a broken record, but as I have been saying since March, the guidelines should have been written with an eye toward sustainability. If you tell people that they need to give up 80% of their activities and stay home, you eventually get mass disobedience. If you instead told people that they need to give up 20%, that could have worked.

Birdwatching was never a high risk activity. That shit easily feeds into an atmosphere where people are go to church without masks and sing hymns.