Coronavirus General Discussion

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vnatale
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by vnatale » Tue Sep 22, 2020 11:46 pm

Cortopassi wrote:
Tue Sep 22, 2020 10:00 pm
I have at least one friend whose company has decided to go remote forever. What this is all going to do to commercial real estate is going to be devastating.

And Air Traffic, wow:
Image

Today I was wondering what industries are still being heavily affected by this virus.

Airlines

Entertainment venues

Sports venues

Restaurants

Any others?

Are manufacturing plants still being heavily affected?

Vinny
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by Kriegsspiel » Wed Sep 23, 2020 6:43 am

I'd like to buy some clothing from a small company, but on their website it says they're unavailable due to disruption of their American supply chain.
You there, Ephialtes. May you live forever.
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by vnatale » Wed Sep 23, 2020 7:36 am

Kriegsspiel wrote:
Wed Sep 23, 2020 6:43 am
I'd like to buy some clothing from a small company, but on their website it says they're unavailable due to disruption of their American supply chain.
Things I buy from Amazon seem to go back to flowing.

However, I did ask one question here that never got responded to by anyone.

My supermarket buying pattern is to nearly clear the shelves when an item I buy goes on sale. And, certain of those items used to regularly go on sale. Now I'm seeing that some items now seem to never be on sale. Is this a case of the demand has now stayed so high that there is no need to put those items on sale?

Vinny
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by Kriegsspiel » Wed Sep 23, 2020 8:13 am

vnatale wrote:
Wed Sep 23, 2020 7:36 am
Kriegsspiel wrote:
Wed Sep 23, 2020 6:43 am
I'd like to buy some clothing from a small company, but on their website it says they're unavailable due to disruption of their American supply chain.
Things I buy from Amazon seem to go back to flowing.
In answer to your question again, yes, some manufacturing companies are still heavily affected.
However, I did ask one question here that never got responded to by anyone.

My supermarket buying pattern is to nearly clear the shelves when an item I buy goes on sale. And, certain of those items used to regularly go on sale. Now I'm seeing that some items now seem to never be on sale. Is this a case of the demand has now stayed so high that there is no need to put those items on sale?

Vinny
Vague questions requiring a crystal ball probably do get responded to less. I mean sure, we can all just venture a guess: Yes, whatever items you're talking about will go back on sale eventually.
You there, Ephialtes. May you live forever.
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by WiseOne » Wed Sep 23, 2020 8:27 am

Tortoise wrote:
Tue Sep 22, 2020 7:49 pm
vnatale wrote:
Tue Sep 22, 2020 6:53 pm
What else could be the reason for "excess deaths" this year?
Many or even most of the excess deaths could be due to Covid-1984, or they could be largely due to the unintended consequences MangoMan mentioned. We don't know for sure. It's all guesswork.

But my point about Covid-1984 "cases" still stands: For a given person who (a) has a fever or a cough and (b) tests positive for SARS-CoV-2, how do we know their fever or cough is caused by SARS-CoV-2? Isn't it possible that SARS-CoV-2 caused no symptoms in that person, and their fever or cough is actually caused by the common cold or the flu?

Covid-1984 statistics seem to be based on some unspoken assumptions that aren't necessarily justified.
This is why Ivor Cummins' Youtube discussion of this issue is so important to understand.

There are NOT excess deaths this year overall, compared to an average of the last 20-25 years. We do have a bump in excess deaths in March and April, and that was certainly a big deal. Since May, the death rate has been below normal. Just emphasizing that in case anyone misses it.

Also, the light 2019 flu season played a role. A lot of people who would normally have died of flu in the months preceding COVID did not, increasing the supply of vulnerable people for COVID to pounce on.

Once the people who were going to die of something (whatever happened to come along first) did so, the vulnerable population was then lessened and now we have overall lower mortality for the remainder of the year. That means that the COVID death count is really no more than a statistical anomaly, taken out of context. Tortoise's point is exactly correct: the over-sensitive PCR test will find viral fragments that means that the person was exposed to COVID-19 at some point in the past. It could have been this week, last month, or months ago. If the person then dies, they are now counted as a COVID death even though there is no way to prove that COVID was clinically relevant.

This isn't to say there haven't been COVID tragedies and some shortened lives. It's just that if you place it in context with all the other bad things that happen to people, everything from accidents to cancer to heart attacks to the flu, COVID is probably small potatoes. If we treated any of those other causes of death the same statistical way we are treating COVID (like, has the person ever been in a car accident prior to death), we'd probably come up with some pretty horrific sounding numbers for those too.
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by Cortopassi » Wed Sep 23, 2020 9:55 am

WiseOne wrote:
Wed Sep 23, 2020 8:27 am
Since May, the death rate has been below normal. Just emphasizing that in case anyone misses it.

Why is the CDC graph still showing excess continually through now?

Image
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by Libertarian666 » Wed Sep 23, 2020 9:58 am

Cortopassi wrote:
Tue Sep 22, 2020 10:00 pm
I have at least one friend whose company has decided to go remote forever. What this is all going to do to commercial real estate is going to be devastating.

And Air Traffic, wow:
Image
Yes, and what about real estate tax revenues? If you have any municipal bonds, you might want to think how they are going to be repaid.
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by WiseOne » Wed Sep 23, 2020 7:32 pm

Cortopassi wrote:
Wed Sep 23, 2020 9:55 am
WiseOne wrote:
Wed Sep 23, 2020 8:27 am
Since May, the death rate has been below normal. Just emphasizing that in case anyone misses it.

Why is the CDC graph still showing excess continually through now?
Because they're comparing to 2019, which was a light flu year i.e. lower than usual death rates. If they compared to the average death rates over the past 5-10 years (or more), the result would be different.
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by Cortopassi » Wed Sep 23, 2020 10:38 pm

WiseOne wrote:
Wed Sep 23, 2020 7:32 pm
Cortopassi wrote:
Wed Sep 23, 2020 9:55 am
WiseOne wrote:
Wed Sep 23, 2020 8:27 am
Since May, the death rate has been below normal. Just emphasizing that in case anyone misses it.

Why is the CDC graph still showing excess continually through now?
Because they're comparing to 2019, which was a light flu year i.e. lower than usual death rates. If they compared to the average death rates over the past 5-10 years (or more), the result would be different.
The graph goes back 3 years. Still not enough?

Image

And this clip of the data makes it seem the orange line is averaged and seasonalized from data all the way back to 2013?

Methods
Counts of deaths in the most recent weeks were compared with historical trends (from 2013 to present) to determine whether the number of deaths in recent weeks was significantly higher than expected, using Farrington surveillance algorithms (1). The ‘surveillance’ package in R (2) was used to implement the Farrington algorithms, which use overdispersed Poisson generalized linear models with spline terms to model trends in counts, accounting for seasonality. For each jurisdiction, a model is used to generate a set of expected counts, and an upper bound threshold based on a one-sided 95% prediction interval of these expected counts is used to determine whether a significant increase in deaths has occurred.
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by Mountaineer » Thu Sep 24, 2020 5:32 am

The NY/NJ graph certainly seems to validate WiseOne's perspective. The survival rate info is also quite interesting.

https://www.citizenfreepress.com/breaki ... es-silent/
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by WiseOne » Thu Sep 24, 2020 12:12 pm

I swear I checked the CDC's graph a couple weeks ago, it must have changed.

I got my data from the Economist's website which showed that bump then reduction in death rate effect for virtually all reporting European countries including the ones that were hard hit like Spain and Italy, and the much-maligned Sweden. The US is like merging together several such graphs all peaking at different times, so the reduction in excess deaths after the COVID bump may not show up for a while yet. But, if you look at one region (e.g. New York) you see that exact same effect, as Mountaineer reports.
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by WiseOne » Thu Sep 24, 2020 12:20 pm

In a bit of a reversal on the effects of COVID, here is a rather sobering story:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-covid ... jem10point

For those unable to read through the paywall here is the JAMA Cardiology article it refers to:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaca ... le/2768916

I'd kind of figured that evidence of cardiac injury would be both limited to people with severe cases (i.e. pre-existing medical conditions) and likely prior cardiac damage that simply hadn't been detected until someone looked. That could still be possible, but this article reports that these effects can be seen even in patients who were asymptomatic or had no pre-existing conditions.

The sample is still biased though, since 33% of the patients were hospitalized and it certainly is not the case that 33% of all patients exposed to COVID-19 are hospitalized. Also, per the article (and this is true) the signs of lingering inflammation & injury can occur after many respiratory viruses such as flu. Thus it's not clear whether these effects are due to COVID-19, or the cold/ flu they got last fall or even the year before or whatever.

Still, it's a good thing if viral-induced heart damage in general is now being investigated more carefully because of COVID. It could be an important, unrecognized cause of heart attacks & rhythm disorders.
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by vnatale » Thu Sep 24, 2020 12:59 pm

Listening to Bill Gates on Fox News Sunday (via iTunes).

He stated one item I do not believe that I've heard or read elsewhere until now.

The travel bans made things worse! I guess they did not take effect immediately? Therefore, there was a rush of
those coming from China to the West Coast and there was no effective testing of these incoming people. He pointed out that there was a large spike in this transfer of people in March.

He also goes on to point out the downfalls of the testing system, which have been many times been stated elsewhere. Primarily that the rich have more access to them over the poor and that they are not all that effective if you cannot get a one day turnaround for the results.

Vinny
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by Cortopassi » Thu Sep 24, 2020 2:00 pm

vnatale wrote:
Thu Sep 24, 2020 12:59 pm

The travel bans made things worse! I guess they did not take effect immediately? Therefore, there was a rush of
those coming from China to the West Coast and there was no effective testing of these incoming people. He pointed out that there was a large spike in this transfer of people in March.
Azar on Jan 31: In accordance with the declaration, beginning at 5:00 p.m., Eastern Standard Time; Sunday, February the 2nd, the United States government will implement temporary measures to increase our abilities to detect and contain the coronavirus proactively and aggressively. Any U.S. citizen returning to the United States who has been in Hubei Province in the previous 14 days will be subject to up to 14 days of mandatory quarantine to ensure they are they are provided proper medical care and health screening.

This also included Chinese being barred.

So people had 3 days to decide to come over before the ban if they could. So not immediate, but not a huge amount of time either.

But also (from a July article): The U.S. restrictions that took effect Feb. 2 continued to allow travel to the U.S. from China’s Hong Kong and Macao territories over the past five months. The Associated Press reported that more than 8,000 Chinese and foreign nationals based in those territories entered the U.S. in the first three months after the travel restrictions were imposed.

Additionally, more than 27,000 Americans returned from mainland China in the first month after the restrictions took effect. U.S. officials lost track of more than 1,600 of them who were supposed to be monitored for virus exposure.

Was it helpful, probably. Was it 100% and immediate? No way.
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by vnatale » Thu Sep 24, 2020 2:21 pm

Cortopassi wrote:
Thu Sep 24, 2020 2:00 pm
vnatale wrote:
Thu Sep 24, 2020 12:59 pm

The travel bans made things worse! I guess they did not take effect immediately? Therefore, there was a rush of
those coming from China to the West Coast and there was no effective testing of these incoming people. He pointed out that there was a large spike in this transfer of people in March.
Azar on Jan 31: In accordance with the declaration, beginning at 5:00 p.m., Eastern Standard Time; Sunday, February the 2nd, the United States government will implement temporary measures to increase our abilities to detect and contain the coronavirus proactively and aggressively. Any U.S. citizen returning to the United States who has been in Hubei Province in the previous 14 days will be subject to up to 14 days of mandatory quarantine to ensure they are they are provided proper medical care and health screening.

This also included Chinese being barred.

So people had 3 days to decide to come over before the ban if they could. So not immediate, but not a huge amount of time either.

But also (from a July article): The U.S. restrictions that took effect Feb. 2 continued to allow travel to the U.S. from China’s Hong Kong and Macao territories over the past five months. The Associated Press reported that more than 8,000 Chinese and foreign nationals based in those territories entered the U.S. in the first three months after the travel restrictions were imposed.

Additionally, more than 27,000 Americans returned from mainland China in the first month after the restrictions took effect. U.S. officials lost track of more than 1,600 of them who were supposed to be monitored for virus exposure.

Was it helpful, probably. Was it 100% and immediate? No way.

Bill Gates claims Trump's COVID travel bans on China and Europe ACCELERATED the pandemic because they drove a frenzy of returns from overseas and 'seeded' the virus in America

Clip of Gates' interview with Fox News anchor Chris Wallace was released Friday

In it he claimed travel bans on China and Europe actually made pandemic worse

Gates says that the bans spurred a rush of Americans returning from overseas

Proper testing and quarantine protocols were not ready at the time, he says

Trump has often pointed to his China travel ban to defend his handling of virus


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... demic.html
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by Maddy » Thu Sep 24, 2020 2:26 pm

And exactly why should it matter what a first-year college drop-out with no training in virology or epidemiology thinks?
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Florida

Post by Mark Leavy » Fri Sep 25, 2020 2:27 pm

I'm on the panhandle for a couple more weeks. Florida just removed all restrictions on bars and restaurants and said that if you get fined for not wearing a mask you don't have to pay it. I'm assuming that individual businesses can set their own restrictions. I'm curious as to what the grocery stores are going to do.
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by glennds » Fri Sep 25, 2020 2:43 pm

Maddy wrote:
Thu Sep 24, 2020 2:26 pm
And exactly why should it matter what a first-year college drop-out with no training in virology or epidemiology thinks?
I know, right? Just one more schmuck with an opinion.
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by WiseOne » Fri Sep 25, 2020 2:50 pm

Grin. Speaking as yet another schmuck with an opinion ;D , here's yet another article questioning the unquestionable benefits of lockdowns:

https://reason.com/2020/09/16/how-much- ... owns-make/

To those in Florida: except for the crappy (from my point of view) weather, I'm totally jealous. We could use a Republican governor here in NY, too. Per the NYC mayor today, restaurants & bars can forget about reopening anytime in the foreseeable future. Many of the non-chain ones are starting to close down, and it's incredibly sad to watch the pointless destruction.

All I can do in the meantime is root for these guys:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielcass ... 54e1e64ab5
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by Libertarian666 » Fri Sep 25, 2020 8:57 pm

WiseOne wrote:
Fri Sep 25, 2020 2:50 pm
Grin. Speaking as yet another schmuck with an opinion ;D , here's yet another article questioning the unquestionable benefits of lockdowns:

https://reason.com/2020/09/16/how-much- ... owns-make/

To those in Florida: except for the crappy (from my point of view) weather, I'm totally jealous. We could use a Republican governor here in NY, too. Per the NYC mayor today, restaurants & bars can forget about reopening anytime in the foreseeable future. Many of the non-chain ones are starting to close down, and it's incredibly sad to watch the pointless destruction.

All I can do in the meantime is root for these guys:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielcass ... 54e1e64ab5
If I were in NY, I would contribute to a fund to saw NYC off and push it into the ocean. They can be their own state and beg for money from the feds, leaving the rest of NY in peace.
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by Mountaineer » Sat Sep 26, 2020 8:39 am

Libertarian666 wrote:
Fri Sep 25, 2020 8:57 pm
WiseOne wrote:
Fri Sep 25, 2020 2:50 pm
Grin. Speaking as yet another schmuck with an opinion ;D , here's yet another article questioning the unquestionable benefits of lockdowns:

https://reason.com/2020/09/16/how-much- ... owns-make/

To those in Florida: except for the crappy (from my point of view) weather, I'm totally jealous. We could use a Republican governor here in NY, too. Per the NYC mayor today, restaurants & bars can forget about reopening anytime in the foreseeable future. Many of the non-chain ones are starting to close down, and it's incredibly sad to watch the pointless destruction.

All I can do in the meantime is root for these guys:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielcass ... 54e1e64ab5
If I were in NY, I would contribute to a fund to saw NYC off and push it into the ocean. They can be their own state and beg for money from the feds, leaving the rest of NY in peace.
Ditto the Kalifornia, Oregon and Washington coastal metro areas. O0
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by Libertarian666 » Sat Sep 26, 2020 8:45 am

Mountaineer wrote:
Sat Sep 26, 2020 8:39 am
Libertarian666 wrote:
Fri Sep 25, 2020 8:57 pm
WiseOne wrote:
Fri Sep 25, 2020 2:50 pm
Grin. Speaking as yet another schmuck with an opinion ;D , here's yet another article questioning the unquestionable benefits of lockdowns:

https://reason.com/2020/09/16/how-much- ... owns-make/

To those in Florida: except for the crappy (from my point of view) weather, I'm totally jealous. We could use a Republican governor here in NY, too. Per the NYC mayor today, restaurants & bars can forget about reopening anytime in the foreseeable future. Many of the non-chain ones are starting to close down, and it's incredibly sad to watch the pointless destruction.

All I can do in the meantime is root for these guys:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielcass ... 54e1e64ab5
If I were in NY, I would contribute to a fund to saw NYC off and push it into the ocean. They can be their own state and beg for money from the feds, leaving the rest of NY in peace.
Ditto the Kalifornia, Oregon and Washington coastal metro areas. O0
Yes, of course.
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by vnatale » Sat Sep 26, 2020 9:04 am

You Can Calculate Exactly How Many Lives You'll Save by Wearing a Mask

The math depends on your mask's material.


Two Ph.D. students in Poland have built a free online calculator to help you figure out how efficient your face mask could be—or how dangerous it is to go without one.

Play around with different variables, like your own mask material and the percentage of the rest of the population that wears one.

The creators hope to quell misinformation surrounding masks.


https://www.popularmechanics.com/scienc ... alculator/
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by pp4me » Sat Sep 26, 2020 10:33 am

vnatale wrote:
Sat Sep 26, 2020 9:04 am
You Can Calculate Exactly How Many Lives You'll Save by Wearing a Mask

....

The creators hope to quell misinformation surrounding masks.


Say what?
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Re: Coronavirus General Discussion

Post by vnatale » Sun Sep 27, 2020 9:20 am

There’s a new weapon against COVID-19. And it’s dogs

https://www.fastcompany.com/90553797/th ... ontent=rss
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