[Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

[Jeff V]

Boston Marathon pushed back from April to Sept. And my own half-marathon for April has been canceled.

Shamrock Shuffle was canceled, and for weeks they've been heavily promoting it on TV (it hasn't been an early sell-out like it used to be).

[Daehawk]

My neighborhood bar better stay open as there is zero chance I can be locked up with my wife and kid for 2+ weeks.

I'd give about anything to be locked up with mine.

[stessier]

I've had trouble keeping up - is there any discussion of why Italy was hit so much harder than the rest of mainland Europe?

See the Medium link posted earlier.

Thanks! I had seen the link but was busy and forgot to go back and read it.

[ImLawBoy]

My oldest son's school in the near north suburbs of Chicago has been cancelled for at least next week. The Archdiocese of Chicago has canceled schools and public masses until further notice. Chicago Public Schools still open, but I think it's just a matter of time.

[pr0ner]

Several close to DC Northern Virginia school districts just announced closures through Easter.

[Alefroth]

A friend of mine on Facebook made a big deal out of shaving off his beard "for the safety of others".

Because....his beard is...I really don't understand. Is his beard somehow blocking washing his hands or coughing into his elbow?

Because "beards can carry pathogens".

Someone else on his post said "facial hair holds on to bacteria regardless of what the CDC said".

Maybe he just didn't want to be a hipster anymore and needed a face-saving way out.

[Daehawk]

Beards block gasmasks!

[ImLawBoy]

Just got official word that everyone who can work from home should do so starting Monday until further notice.

[Kurth]

Just got official word that everyone who can work from home should do so starting Monday until further notice.

We got the same notice last night. WFH through the end of the month. Will reevaluate as things develop.

[LawBeefaroni]

My oldest son's school in the near north suburbs of Chicago has been cancelled for at least next week. The Archdiocese of Chicago has canceled schools and public masses until further notice. Chicago Public Schools still open, but I think it's just a matter of time.

CPS is fucked. With the strike they have no days to give and they can't do e-learning because too many students are not equipped to e-learn. Plus it basically feeds and protects a ton of kids. It's not like the strike where they can keep facilities open for at-risk kids.


Lightfoot is claiming they will only make evidence-based decisions but I get the feeling they're going to fight it as long as they can.

[Daehawk]

I chuckled as I got my mail out of the box. All these people trying to stock up and stay home to be safe yet their mailbox is a virus delivery system right to them. From the people who mail the letters to the facilities the letters travel through to the vehicles that deliver it and the mail folks who handle it.

Oh got my census today.

[Kurth]

I've had trouble keeping up - is there any discussion of why Italy was hit so much harder than the rest of mainland Europe?

See the Medium link posted earlier.

Thanks! I had seen the link but was busy and forgot to go back and read it.

I read through that Medium article. Scary stuff. But I'm still struggling with one core question (Smoove, please help!): Doesn't all of his analysis hinge on an accurate mortality rate and rate of serious cases requiring hospitalization? How do we have confidence in those numbers? If it's true that the virus is as contagious as we think and that there are orders of magnitude more cases out there than we know of, doesn't that drive down rates of mortality and hospitalization? We're basing everything on what we know in terms of diagnosed cases, but isn't it likely the undiagnosed cases -- cases that are never identified -- actually dwarf the number of diagnosed ones? And doesn't that change the whole picture?

[Skinypupy]

A friend of mine on Facebook made a big deal out of shaving off his beard "for the safety of others".

Because....his beard is...I really don't understand. Is his beard somehow blocking washing his hands or coughing into his elbow?

Because "beards can carry pathogens".

Someone else on his post said "facial hair holds on to bacteria regardless of what the CDC said".

Maybe he just didn't want to be a hipster anymore and needed a face-saving way out.

They can have my beard when they pry it from my cold, dead...face?

[stessier]

I've had trouble keeping up - is there any discussion of why Italy was hit so much harder than the rest of mainland Europe?

See the Medium link posted earlier.

Thanks! I had seen the link but was busy and forgot to go back and read it.

I read through that Medium article. Scary stuff. But I'm still struggling with one core question (Smoove, please help!): Doesn't all of his analysis hinge on an accurate mortality rate and rate of serious cases requiring hospitalization? How do we have confidence in those numbers? If it's true that the virus is as contagious as we think and that there are orders of magnitude more cases out there than we know of, doesn't that drive down rates of mortality and hospitalization? We're basing everything on what we know in terms of diagnosed cases, but isn't it likely the undiagnosed cases -- cases that are never identified -- actually dwarf the number of diagnosed ones? And doesn't that change the whole picture?

The Medium article used Wuhan as a model and showed how the perceived rate and actual rate converge over time as the full extent of the infections becomes clear. And that's what he used to base the other models on.

[Kurth]

I've had trouble keeping up - is there any discussion of why Italy was hit so much harder than the rest of mainland Europe?

See the Medium link posted earlier.

Thanks! I had seen the link but was busy and forgot to go back and read it.

I read through that Medium article. Scary stuff. But I'm still struggling with one core question (Smoove, please help!): Doesn't all of his analysis hinge on an accurate mortality rate and rate of serious cases requiring hospitalization? How do we have confidence in those numbers? If it's true that the virus is as contagious as we think and that there are orders of magnitude more cases out there than we know of, doesn't that drive down rates of mortality and hospitalization? We're basing everything on what we know in terms of diagnosed cases, but isn't it likely the undiagnosed cases -- cases that are never identified -- actually dwarf the number of diagnosed ones? And doesn't that change the whole picture?

The Medium article used Wuhan as a model and showed how the perceived rate and actual rate converge over time as the full extent of the infections becomes clear. And that's what he used to base the other models on.

Right, but as far as I could understand, the "actual rate" is only based on the cases that were eventually diagnosed. So how is that the actual rate if we are safe to assume there are a shit ton of undiagnosed cases?

[jztemple2]

From Lifehacker... Where to Access Coronavirus News Without a Paywall. Contains links to major news sources like the NY Times that now have coronavirus sections that have been moved to outside their paywall.

[Daehawk]

I think all these companies from banks, to food joints, to Walmart sending me emails telling how good they are cleaning their stuff and protecting us from Coronavirus is just plain silly. Shouldn't you be doing this all the time anyways? Are you just nasty until a bug pops up??

[Zaxxon]

I think all these companies from banks, to food joints, to Walmart sending me emails telling how good they are cleaning their stuff and protecting us from Coronavirus is just plain silly. Shouldn't you be doing this all the time anyways? Are you just nasty until a bug pops up??

Some of it has gone overboard. In addition to the places I expected, I've gotten notes from the airport parking lot I use and a local tire shop.

[morlac]

My 11 year old, brilliant Daughter has decided after learning about Anne Frank that she is going to start a quarantine diary (her school is cancelled indefinitely) and update it twice a day with her observations, thoughts, etc. She said it would help her with her fear and anxiety about it and in 20 years it would be neat to look back at it from a kids point of view. Meanwhile, I'm like "This won't interfere with our daily Smash Bros competition on the switch will it?" She's pretty awesome and I'm sure she's not mine.

[jztemple2]

Well, I'm a bit just overwhelmed by all the news, so I'm having a Covid19-news-free afternoon. And since all the major motor racing series I follow have canceled events for the next few weeks, I guess I'll just read. The wife has just run off to our local supermarket to try to find a few items we couldn't get yesterday.

[hentzau]

My 11 year old, brilliant Daughter has decided after learning about Anne Frank that she is going to start a quarantine diary (her school is cancelled indefinitely) and update it twice a day with her observations, thoughts, etc. She said it would help her with her fear and anxiety about it and in 20 years it would be neat to look back at it from a kids point of view. Meanwhile, I'm like "This won't interfere with our daily Smash Bros competition on the switch will it?" She's pretty awesome and I'm sure she's not mine.

That's tremendous. You should publish.

[gameoverman]

My 11 year old, brilliant Daughter has decided after learning about Anne Frank that she is going to start a quarantine diary (her school is cancelled indefinitely) and update it twice a day with her observations, thoughts, etc. She said it would help her with her fear and anxiety about it and in 20 years it would be neat to look back at it from a kids point of view. Meanwhile, I'm like "This won't interfere with our daily Smash Bros competition on the switch will it?" She's pretty awesome and I'm sure she's not mine.

I think she has a fantastic idea. I would kill for something like that if I had created it when I was her age, unfortunately I didn't create anything like that. The fact it takes place during a genuine international emergency just will make it that much more amazing for her to see one day. It could be like the Pepys diary of the Trump/Coronavirus era. A couple of hundred years from now people might read it and marvel at how crazy life was in 2020 even without flying cars.

[Smoove_B]

I read through that Medium article. Scary stuff. But I'm still struggling with one core question (Smoove, please help!): Doesn't all of his analysis hinge on an accurate mortality rate and rate of serious cases requiring hospitalization? How do we have confidence in those numbers? If it's true that the virus is as contagious as we think and that there are orders of magnitude more cases out there than we know of, doesn't that drive down rates of mortality and hospitalization? We're basing everything on what we know in terms of diagnosed cases, but isn't it likely the undiagnosed cases -- cases that are never identified -- actually dwarf the number of diagnosed ones? And doesn't that change the whole picture?

Yes - our predictions/models are only as good as the data coming in. Which is why some people are starting to point out that 1 month into the H1N1 outbreak of 2009/2010 we had ~1 million tests completed. We're not even close to that and it's been 7 weeks in the United States since the first case was identified.

It gets even more complicated when you start making population adjustments, particularly when we're comparing different nations. The core of epidemiology is creating rates, but all kinds of math needs to be applied to adjust those rates in order to make valid comparisons. We do this all the time in the US when we're trying to make comparisons between broad public health elements (say rate of Diabetes in NJ vs AL), but I'm not sure I've seen these adjustments being applied for this yet. This is also why people are freaking out about Italy and what appears to be an increased death rate. However, their population numbers need to be "age adjusted" to ours for a true 1:1 comparison (case fatality rates).

All the information is useful - information from China, the Philippines, Italy, etc... as it helps us understand (broadly) what's happening. But unfortunately they're all still guesses until we can go back and get a retrospective analysis on what happened, after it's done. As the Medium article covers, there are definitely better estimates and models possible as the disease progresses through populations, but the fact that it's been 7 weeks in the US and we have no idea where it is and how far/wide it has spread is beyond concerning.

[Daehawk]

I haven't seen a buffet in years but this will probably finish them off.

[stessier]

I haven't seen a buffet in years but this will probably finish them off.

No more so than any other restaurant.

[Daehawk]

[Paingod]

I haven't seen a buffet in years but this will probably finish them off.

One of our favorite places to eat around here is a Chinese buffet. As long as we get there 15 minutes after they open, everything is fresh and good. 45 minutes or more out and not so much.

I was thinking of going to visit this weekend as a last show of solidarity before Maine goes south, to them that I don't disdain "Chinese" folks in association with this bug - but now that you mention it, I'm not overly keen on gripping a ladle that dozens of other people grip and then immediately putting that hand inches from food that goes right into my mouth.

[Blackhawk]

The Governor announced this morning that gatherings above 250 were verboten, and he gave all schools in the state a 20-day waiver on the required instruction days this year.

I just got the notification from the kids' school: Out until April 6th, at which time it will be reevalutated. That encompasses spring break, which starts on the 23rd. For those days on which school would normally be in session, we'll be doing elearning.

I mentioned it earlier, but it's one time when being in the middle of nowhere is beneficial. Due to the impact that snowstorms have on rural areas where kids live out on county roads, Indiana gets a lot of snow days. Enough that they used to have to schedule a couple of weeks of extra school every year just to hit the required number of days. In order to counter that, my kids' school, which doesn't even have a single computer class, switched all textbooks for Chromebooks a few years ago and instituted an elearning system. They started having 'practice days' for that last year, and we haven't had a single snow make-up day since while having had a dozen elearning days instead. For those who don't have internet connections, they have 'lender' hot spots (which I assume are some sort of a wifi connected router.) Net result: we have an established system that is perfect for dealing with closures, while schools in better off areas are struggling.

[Daehawk]

Man I would have loved this as a kid. Not only does it not bother kids much but school out for moths? Wow. Now days Im the old guy hoping to not die so I can care for our pets.

[Jeff V]

Our company's policy is that if you can't come to work because you're kids school closed, tough shit, you're not getting paid.

I wonder how much fun the kids would have living in a van down by the river?

[Blackhawk]

I just got an email from Roll20 (a virtual tabletop) suggesting that this is a good time to join up.

I'm not sure how I feel about that.

[em2nought]

The Governor announced this morning that gatherings above 250 were verboten

How many people is a Walmart allowed to contain at one time?

[Paingod]

I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I don't think it's terrible for services like theirs to remind people in a time like this that they're still available as a way to socialize and play with other people. As a player, you don't need a subscription to have fun. Just a free account.

[jztemple2]

I haven't seen a buffet in years

Here you go...

[jztemple2]

The wife went to our local supermarket (a Publix). No shortages of anything noticeable, except for TP of course. Everything in stock, the usual sales and BOGOs in place, everyone calm and friendly. She did notice a number of folks buying paper towels, maybe in place of TP? She wanted me to pass along to remind anyone who is not aware of it that putting paper towels down the toilet is not a good thing.

[Lorini]

It was pandemonium here in Santa Clarita, you'd have thought everything was free. Well if all the food runs out, I'm going on that diet I've needed to be on.

[LawBeefaroni]

here in Santa Clarita...I'm going on that diet...

[em2nought]

The wife went to our local supermarket (a Publix). No shortages of anything noticeable, except for TP of course. Everything in stock, the usual sales and BOGOs in place, everyone calm and friendly. She did notice a number of folks buying paper towels, maybe in place of TP? She wanted me to pass along to remind anyone who is not aware of it that putting paper towels down the toilet is not a good thing.

Also, putting "flushable" disposable wipes down the toilet isn't a good thing either. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable ... -flushable

[jztemple2]

It was pandemonium here in Santa Clarita, you'd have thought everything was free. Well if all the food runs out, I'm going on that diet I've needed to be on.

[gilraen]

El Arroyo doesn't disappoint