Coronavirus: COVID-19

[CBJ]

This mean that drugs tested on these rats might be safe for rats, but not to actual humans.

Nobody ever claimed that they would be. That's why testing on animals in only one phase in the drug testing process.

[mr.WHO]

This mean that drugs tested on these rats might be safe for rats, but not to actual humans.

Nobody ever claimed that they would be. That's why testing on animals in only one phase in the drug testing process.

Any we will make all the testing in one year, instead of five? Does it mean that before COVID they were just joking/lazy/make uneccessary steps?
Yeah, better call me conspiracy theorist - I belive in conspiracy called Murphy Law and it doesn't favor haste or skipping the steps.

To be honest I'd have no problem with vaccine made in normal timeframe, but given how flu vacines work (you have to update vacinne and re-vaccinate every 2-3 years) I'd still question it's use.
If it would be like Polio or Smallpox vacine (well tested, one-time, globally deployed) then it would make perfect sence. Unfortunately Coronaviruses are much more like a Flu (30% of flues are from coronaviruses, different strains than COVID-19).

[red assassin]

It's strange that both UK and Sweden went against lockdown and UK was hit hard, while Sweden was not.

Just wanted to point out that this is nonsense. "See, Sweden didn't go into lockdown and they're fine!" is a super common talking point among people arguing that the expert advice on dealing with coronavirus isn't useful, but, er:



Sweden's case count is still extremely high and shows little sign of slowing down, when near neighbours with stricter handling dropped case counts rapidly.

Meanwhile the UK, which was late going into lockdown but most certainly did, took longer but has also dropped case counts:


Lockdown works. Medical advice works.

[fiksal]

What was the expert advice exactly, that wearing masks doesnt help protecting yourself ? Well it still doesnt, does it, nothing changed there?

It's good for just the opposite.

You can choose to be semantic, but you know it's moot in term of public interpretation. We went from the act of wearing mask itself was questioned as either dubious ill-informed superstition or outright criticism, to almost mandatory - law bidding ordinances, that's a big about face no matter how you slice it. Not that I have problem with the turn, because that's how I thought it should be from the beginning.

This is where I don't have time, is time to follow some opinions of uninformed public.

On the matter of effectiveness of masks, CDC haven't changed its stance at all, and from what you are telling me, neither did WHO.

Government officials did, but they are definitely no experts.

[Mightysword]

On the matter of effectiveness of masks, CDC haven't changed its stance at all, and from what you are telling me, neither did WHO.

No, the advises from medical experts themselves changed, including the CDC and WHO, they admit it themselves as much, that they had to revise the original guidance in the face of new evolving evidences, it's not a changes prompted by politicians. This is an example of how theoretically knowledge get overwritten with contradicting empirical evidence. They thought mask wouldn't help (and went as far as saying it's next to useless unless you have medical grade N95 mask) based on technical understanding of how things works, but as it emerged mask wearing cultures were faring far better it proved empirically the original scientific assumption was flawed.

(And yes, I'm using these grand - specific vocabularies specifically just for you )

[fiksal]

On the matter of effectiveness of masks, CDC haven't changed its stance at all, and from what you are telling me, neither did WHO.

No, the advises from medical experts themselves changed, including the CDC and WHO, they admit it themselves as much, that they had to revise the original guidance in the face of new evolving evidences, it's not a changes prompted by politicians. This is an example of how theoretically knowledge get overwritten with contradicting empirical evidence. They thought mask wouldn't help (and went as far as saying it's next to useless unless you have medical grade N95 mask) based on technical understanding of how things works, but as it emerged mask wearing cultures were faring far better it proved empirically the original scientific assumption was flawed.

(And yes, I'm using these grand - specific vocabularies specifically just for you )

Thanks!

Doesn't their advice read about the same though?

So they said it is not needed for no symptoms people before. Now we know those can still be carriers. So now they say, masks are for everyone.

Previously they said surgical masks are better. With the shortage they note basically cloth masks are good enough, without going into details of what is enough.

I understand that it can seem as changing their advice, but the overall advice was always to wear masks in order not to spread it. We all knew that, right?

What changed is the tone of message. At least how I read it.

[mr.WHO]

It's strange that both UK and Sweden went against lockdown and UK was hit hard, while Sweden was not.

Just wanted to point out that this is nonsense. "See, Sweden didn't go into lockdown and they're fine!" is a super common talking point among people arguing that the expert advice on dealing with coronavirus isn't useful, but, er:

Sorry, but daily new case means nothing - it could be million new case per day in Sweden and country would be what I describe as "fine".

The only solid indicator of how country fare is total death.
UK lost 43k, Sweden lost 5k - Sweden as slightly lower death per 1M, but in total numbers 5k is fine unless you're microstate.
I choose total death over death per M, because 5k is average number of victims of traffic accidents in my country - we don't shut down entire traffic because of this, so I don't blame Sweden for not shutting down their entire economy as well.

The only other indicator that would provide additional clarity would be the total amount of people with pernament health dammage among "recovered".

If there is significant percentage of people that will have pernament health dammage (I'd like to see such statistic, if it exist), then yes, daily new cases would become important.

[pjknibbs]

The only solid indicator of how country fare is total death.
UK lost 43k, Sweden lost 5k - Sweden as slightly lower death per 1M, but in total numbers 5k is fine unless you're microstate.
I choose total death over death per M, because 5k is average number of victims of traffic accidents in my country - we don't shut down entire traffic because of this, so I don't blame Sweden for not shutting down their entire economy as well.

You don't choose deaths per million because of traffic accidents? What kind of bizarre logic is that? The raw numbers of deaths means nothing, you have to compare to the size of the populations involved. In this case, Sweden's death rate is about 505 per million inhabitants, while the UK's is 637--hardly the huge difference you're making it out to be.

Also, 5000 road deaths sounds like a heck of a lot. In the UK in 2019, a country slightly smaller but with nearly double the population of Poland, we had less than 2000 people killed on the roads in 2019.

[mr.WHO]

You don't choose deaths per million because of traffic accidents? What kind of bizarre logic is that? The raw numbers of deaths means nothing, you have to compare to the size of the populations involved. In this case, Sweden's death rate is about 505 per million inhabitants, while the UK's is 637--hardly the huge difference you're making it out to be.

Lat me give you an example.

Lets have:
State A - microstate with population of 2.
State B - population of 10 mil.

Then say death rate is 50%.
State A lose 1 person, State B lost 5 mil.

For both states it's a tragedy, but situation in state A is "just one guy".

That's why I discart death per 1M as not giving a good overview how bad or god the situation is.

Also, 5000 road deaths sounds like a heck of a lot. In the UK in 2019, a country slightly smaller but with nearly double the population of Poland, we had less than 2000 people killed on the roads in 2019.

The charm of living in Central-Eastern Europe (and Russia) - we have a very bad traffic culture.
That's also a reason why "Situation in Sweden" in not a big deal to me. We "have Sweden on our roads" every year.
BTW the number of dead from COVID in Poland is around 1.5k so far. The most bizzare thing is that due to COVID the traffic was reduce and the number of accidents dropped - it's like COVID saving lives in Poland :/

The logical part of me also try to reason that 43k dead in UK is also not big deal for 60 mil country, but 43k in not insignificant number...especially if you compare them with UK traffic victims.

[pjknibbs]

Lets have:
State A - microstate with population of 2.
State B - population of 10 mil.

Then say death rate is 50%.
State A lose 1 person, State B lost 5 mil.

For both states it's a tragedy, but situation in state A is "just one guy".

That's why I discart death per 1M as not giving a good overview how bad or god the situation is.

The thing is, though, if such a microstate as A did exist, chances are very good that losing one of its workforce would pretty much destroy it. Let's say he's the guy who does the farming to feed the pair of them, the other guy is going to starve to death in fairly short order. So, it being "just one guy" isn't really meaningful when it still means you've lost half your workforce. Whereas B will probably have enough people still working to keep the place running. So the population of the two places is still significant.

[mr.WHO]

Lets have:
State A - microstate with population of 2.
State B - population of 10 mil.

Then say death rate is 50%.
State A lose 1 person, State B lost 5 mil.

For both states it's a tragedy, but situation in state A is "just one guy".

That's why I discart death per 1M as not giving a good overview how bad or god the situation is.

The thing is, though, if such a microstate as A did exist, chances are very good that losing one of its workforce would pretty much destroy it. Let's say he's the guy who does the farming to feed the pair of them, the other guy is going to starve to death in fairly short order. So, it being "just one guy" isn't really meaningful when it still means you've lost half your workforce. Whereas B will probably have enough people still working to keep the place running. So the population of the two places is still significant.

Very good and valid point!
I'm looking more from global perspective. "Just one guy" is still "Just one guy" comparing to 7.6 bil.
This prove that two person can looks at the same data and still see two different things and both can be correct.
This happens with every modern research study and is normal practice.
What is not normal is current "Shut up and obey the experts" approach.
I can selectively pick any data to prove my point and so can "experts", expecially if they are under time pressure and general stress.

We will have to wait like 5-10 years and thousands of research studies before we actually figure out what really hapened with COVID and how good or bad it really is.

[BrasatoAlBarolo]

The number that actually counts isn't the number of deaths, but the number of hospitalized. If hospitals are full of covid infected, they lose their ability to treat other diseases, potentially bringing more non-covid related deaths.

The cold reality is the number of deaths is the "less important" one when managing a pandemic, provided you can "try" to treat them (if they die because you can't intubate them, the problem is hospital saturation, not covid). New cases, but more than these, new acute cases (the ones you need to hospitalize and put to intensive care sectors) are numbers you want to monitor and be prepared for.

From the beginning, in Italy told face masks were very important to reduce the chance of transmission from an infected: they don't literally protect from infection (talking about the standard masks with no medical filters), but they avoid the saliva of an infected person goes far from himself (very simplified explanation).

[Vertigo 7]

The number that actually counts isn't the number of deaths, but the number of hospitalized. If hospitals are full of covid infected, they lose their ability to treat other diseases, potentially bringing more non-covid related deaths.

The cold reality is the number of deaths is the "less important" one when managing a pandemic, provided you can "try" to treat them (if they die because you can't intubate them, the problem is hospital saturation, not covid). New cases, but more than these, new acute cases (the ones you need to hospitalize and put to intensive care sectors) are numbers you want to monitor and be prepared for.

From the beginning, in Italy told face masks were very important to reduce the chance of transmission from an infected: they don't literally protect from infection (talking about the standard masks with no medical filters), but they avoid the saliva of an infected person goes far from himself (very simplified explanation).

I just don't understand why some people have decided to politicize wearing masks. OR doctors don't wear masks to show they're a liberal. They do it to reduce the risk of infecting their patients. Why must it be any different for the general population when dealing with a highly communicable disease? I mean really... how dumb do you have to be to try to turn that into some kind of political agenda?

[BrasatoAlBarolo]

The number that actually counts isn't the number of deaths, but the number of hospitalized. If hospitals are full of covid infected, they lose their ability to treat other diseases, potentially bringing more non-covid related deaths.

The cold reality is the number of deaths is the "less important" one when managing a pandemic, provided you can "try" to treat them (if they die because you can't intubate them, the problem is hospital saturation, not covid). New cases, but more than these, new acute cases (the ones you need to hospitalize and put to intensive care sectors) are numbers you want to monitor and be prepared for.

From the beginning, in Italy told face masks were very important to reduce the chance of transmission from an infected: they don't literally protect from infection (talking about the standard masks with no medical filters), but they avoid the saliva of an infected person goes far from himself (very simplified explanation).

I just don't understand why some people have decided to politicize wearing masks. OR doctors don't wear masks to show they're a liberal. They do it to reduce the risk of infecting their patients. Why must it be any different for the general population when dealing with a highly communicable disease? I mean really... how dumb do you have to be to try to turn that into some kind of political agenda?

What if your opposing party couldn't stop the pandemic? What's the solution? Clearly, the solution is voting the other party, isn't it?
Everything is politicized, especially by right wing parties because they're the one which would sell their mother just to have some power or money.
It's about marketing, actually: people is pissed by not-going-out and having to wear a mask? You tell people covid is a hoax to control them and masks are useless - even better: they're dangerous!!! - so people is happy about the truth you give them and start to gather in unmasked rallies. They spread the disease, so you can say something in the lines of - "Did you see? Masks were useless, the disease spread anyway!" - proving your point to the same people who spread covid in the first place.

Covid will end, and international community is going to help your country with a lot of resources to spend. Resources you are going to spend, because during the pandemic, when people was dying, you got a lot of approval with fake news and rallies.

And I'm still not talking about spreading this kind of fake news and dangerous words just to speculate on the markets (just look at how volatile are stocks these days).

[Vertigo 7]

What if your opposing party couldn't stop the pandemic? What's the solution? Clearly, the solution is voting the other party, isn't it?
Everything is politicized, especially by right wing parties because they're the one which would sell their mother just to have some power or money.
It's about marketing, actually: people is pissed by not-going-out and having to wear a mask? You tell people covid is a hoax to control them and masks are useless - even better: they're dangerous!!! - so people is happy about the truth you give them and start to gather in unmasked rallies. They spread the disease, so you can say something in the lines of - "Did you see? Masks were useless, the disease spread anyway!" - proving your point to the same people who spread covid in the first place.

Covid will end, and international community is going to help your country with a lot of resources to spend. Resources you are going to spend, because during the pandemic, when people was dying, you got a lot of approval with fake news and rallies.

And I'm still not talking about spreading this kind of fake news and dangerous words just to speculate on the markets (just look at how volatile are stocks these days).

That's the thing. I don't care who stops it. If Preacher Pat could wish it away and it actually worked, awesome. If Dr. Whoseit of the Super Awesome Disease Fighting Squad develops a cure, awesome. Until either of those scenarios comes to fruition, I'm gonna do whatever it takes to keep my kids, my parents, my friends, and, to a lesser extent, my community safe. If that means I spend more time at home than normal and when I do go out I wear a mask, oh darn. There are worse things. I still have food on my table, I still have running water, I still have electricity and internet and a whole host of other luxuries. I'll be just fine.

What I don't give a rats ass about are some f'n stocks. I could count on one hand the number of times the stock market has had any serious impact on my life, and I wouldn't use any fingers.

[BrasatoAlBarolo]

That's the thing. I don't care who stops it. If Preacher Pat could wish it away and it actually worked, awesome. If Dr. Whoseit of the Super Awesome Disease Fighting Squad develops a cure, awesome. Until either of those scenarios comes to fruition, I'm gonna do whatever it takes to keep my kids, my parents, my friends, and, to a lesser extent, my community safe. If that means I spend more time at home than normal and when I do go out I wear a mask, oh darn. There are worse things. I still have food on my table, I still have running water, I still have electricity and internet and a whole host of other luxuries. I'll be just fine.

What I don't give a rats ass about are some f'n stocks. I could count on one hand the number of times the stock market has had any serious impact on my life, and I wouldn't use any fingers.

The sad truth is stock market impacts everybody's life, potentially.
If suddently somebody says Twitter is bad - or for instance this somebody says it's a terrorist organization - and everyone following that somebody starts to sell Twitter shares, how many employees is Twitter firing to keep its managers' bonus high?
This happened in the past (firing people to give managers their bonus: e.g. Blizzard did it last year, I believe), and will definitely happen again and again and again. But that's off topic and, sooner than later, a mod is going to split me after splitting my replies.

Current situation in the US, as viewed from here, looks like out of control. Be careful ladies and gents, don't listen to those people, because masks and social distancing work very well.

[mr.WHO]

The number that actually counts isn't the number of deaths, but the number of hospitalized. If hospitals are full of covid infected, they lose their ability to treat other diseases, potentially bringing more non-covid related deaths.

Death is an effect of overload of hospital system. But the actuctual overload was only severely experience in Northern Italy and maybe in Spain and in New York for a short time (they sent off the hospital ships without using them at all).

In Poland we have currently about 10% occupancy ratio of hospitalized/avaliable COVID emergency beds (almost 2k hospitalized right now).
I might be biased, but I don't see hospitalized number as a pressing issue, especially that it is stable right now.
If the occupancy ratio would be 50% and would be on increasing trend then I would worry - we'll se how situation will develop after lockdown lift.

If Sweden or UK is any reference then I'd expect 4-8 times increase of hospitalized. 4 times would be still OK, but 8 times will be close to the upper limit.
On positive side we have less dense city population that these two, but on negative we have more multi-generation households (nothing at Italy level, but far more than UK or Sweden).

From the beginning, in Italy told face masks were very important to reduce the chance of transmission from an infected: they don't literally protect from infection (talking about the standard masks with no medical filters), but they avoid the saliva of an infected person goes far from himself (very simplified explanation).

The fun fact is that I got my supply of proper face mask, cleaning fluid and food supplies in January. When the fear panic started in early March I was calm and ready. Fortunately the panic was about 2 weeks long, but face mask shortage was for a month.
It's a strange feeling having to wear mask, but if Asians could do it even before COVID then I can live with it.
This is the only solid and proper thing that average Joe can do right now (unfortunately social distancing in any city is a delusion).

[Vertigo 7]

That's the thing. I don't care who stops it. If Preacher Pat could wish it away and it actually worked, awesome. If Dr. Whoseit of the Super Awesome Disease Fighting Squad develops a cure, awesome. Until either of those scenarios comes to fruition, I'm gonna do whatever it takes to keep my kids, my parents, my friends, and, to a lesser extent, my community safe. If that means I spend more time at home than normal and when I do go out I wear a mask, oh darn. There are worse things. I still have food on my table, I still have running water, I still have electricity and internet and a whole host of other luxuries. I'll be just fine.

What I don't give a rats ass about are some f'n stocks. I could count on one hand the number of times the stock market has had any serious impact on my life, and I wouldn't use any fingers.

The sad truth is stock market impacts everybody's life, potentially.
If suddently somebody says Twitter is bad - or for instance this somebody says it's a terrorist organization - and everyone following that somebody starts to sell Twitter shares, how many employees is Twitter firing to keep its managers' bonus high?
This happened in the past (firing people to give managers their bonus: e.g. Blizzard did it last year, I believe), and will definitely happen again and again and again. But that's off topic and, sooner than later, a mod is going to split me after splitting my replies.

Current situation in the US, as viewed from here, looks like out of control. Be careful ladies and gents, don't listen to those people, because masks and social distancing work very well.

That's true to a point, that's why I said "serious impact". Price of goods do tend to fluctuate with changes in the stock market, sort of. Even when gasoline in my area was $6/gallon something like 12 years ago and I was driving a ridiculous V8 spending more than 200/week to keep my vehicle fueled, it sucked, but it wasn't unrecoverable. But even with the impact on the global economy that COVID is having, it will stabilize and eventually creep its way back up. People aren't going to suddenly stop wanting to buy things, and haven't. Supply and Demand, basic economics. It's continuing today and will continue tomorrow.

No doubt there will be a change in how certain goods are being manufactured and delivered in the short term. But again, it will recover after things settle down.

[mr.WHO]

No doubt there will be a change in how certain goods are being manufactured and delivered in the short term. But again, it will recover after things settle down.

That's one of positive effect of COVID that I hope for.

Having 90% of product produced by one city in region is stupid.
Having 90% of product produced by one region in country is stupid.
Having 90% of product produced by one country in continent is stupid.
Having 90% of product produced by one continent on the Planet is stupid.

Having 100% of product produced by one Planet is stupid (hopefully Elon will fix it)

Of course I exaggerate, but more decentralized and spread production will make us more resilent to various catastrophes and will also reduce inequalities.
Megacities were a mistake - city up to 1 mil provide optimal living conditions and are more sustainable.

[BrasatoAlBarolo]

No doubt there will be a change in how certain goods are being manufactured and delivered in the short term. But again, it will recover after things settle down.

That's one of positive effect of COVID that I hope for.

Having 90% of product produced by one city in region is stupid.
Having 90% of product produced by one region in country is stupid.
Having 90% of product produced by one country in continent is stupid.
Having 90% of product produced by one continent on the Planet is stupid.

Having 100% of product produced by one Planet is stupid (hopefully Elon will fix it)

Of course I exaggerate, but more decentralized and spread production will make us more resilent to various catastrophes and will also reduce inequalities.
Megacities were a mistake - city up to 1 mil provide optimal living conditions and are more sustainable.

I agree with you but I don't see it changing in the near future. People making choices is the same who chose to increase the gap between the 1% and everyone else.
Covid made prices rise (I went to a high end restaurant to "treat me" recently: pre covid you spent ~70 euros for dinner + a good japanese whisky; post-covid, after 3 months of lockdown, ~100 euros with no after dinner whisky). A lot of prices went higher to absorb lockdown losses, but salaries are the same. I don't believe them taking down prices to pre-crisis levels, do you?