Coronavirus thread for June

Parent Cafe
1061

Time to start paying attention to effect of the protests as it’s been at least two weeks since they started.

“One month later, thousands of people came together for large demonstrations following the death of George Floyd— and images from protests across the country have not shown much physical distancing. Some, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, have speculated that the protests could lead to a surge in virus infections, confirmed cases and hospitalizations, and UCSF epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford believes we’ll be able to gauge the impact of the protests on transmission very soon.“

“Pick any day of protest, and then look seven, eight, nine or 10 days after the protest,” he said. “I think the easiest thing to look at is case counts, which is not a perfect metric since you have to factor in increased testing. We’re finding more asymptomatic cases now, so it’s not exactly comparable to March and April, when most detected cases were symptomatic. Now in May and June, we’re catching more asymptomatic cases so it can be hard to interpret since we’re finding more infections.”

“Rutherford believes that up to 60% of infections are either asymptomatic or so mild an individual does not think to get tested — which means that increased testing will yield more confirmed cases if you expand testing to be available to anyone regardless of symptoms. Because of enhanced testing capabilities, Rutherford believes hospitalizations and percent positivity of tests are the best metrics to use when measuring spread.”

“However, even when looking at confirmed case counts, Rutherford is encouraged by what he sees in Minnesota, which is where the protests started on the week of May 25. It has been almost a full two weeks since the protests began, and the number of new confirmed cases statewide is actually trending downwards.”

“If the protests don’t cause a jump in confirmed cases, there are two reasons for it. One: transmission didn’t occur at a great extent thanks to masks, social distancing, and people being outside,” he said. “Or Two: there was an increase in transmission but we’re not seeing it because asymptomatic and presymptomatic people aren’t being tested.”

“The vast majority of protesters did not maintain six feet of physical distancing at all times, which means masks and and the open-air environment may have helped keep transmission low.”

https://www.timesunion.com/news/editorspicks/article/George-Floyd-protests-coronavirus-spike-COVID-know-15325903.php

1062

Another vote for keeping the thread open. I read every post although I myself post rarely. I agree with those that say if the thread really bothers you, please “shut it down” for yourself – stop reading it! I’m definitely on one side of how we look at this situation, but I like the diversity of opinions. I try to keep an open mind because I can learn from most posters. I also think our experiences vary wildly and that informs our opinions. Personally I would like nothing more than for the posters whose views I disagree with now to be right long term. (They think COVID is no big deal, I am pessimistic. But I hope I’m wrong and they are right!)

1063

This shows Texas with about 7,149 ICU beds, which is around the US average for beds/10,000 population. https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/icu-beds

This map shows ICU beds by counties, quite a few rural areas in TX have few or no ICU beds.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2020-03-24/graphic-availability-of-icu-beds-around-the-nation

1064

Still in the first wave.

‘It’s not a second wave. They never really got rid of the first wave,’ warns ex-FDA commissioner Gottlieb over Texas, Arizona and the Carolinas‘

“When you look at states like Arizona and Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina — those are where the big outbreaks are right now; Florida to some degree seems to be going up — it’s not a second wave. They never really got rid of the first wave,” Gottlieb added.
“If you look at Texas and Arizona, for example, they really weren’t that hard hit relative to other states during February and March. And so, they just had some infection; they had persistent infection. Now, we’re starting to see it go back up as they reopen,” he said, adding that authorities there “haven’t been able to do the contact tracing to find a source or a group of activities that they’re able to take action on.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/11/coronavirus-update-us/#link-BWM7A73N7BFOJGREH2AOTX4ZSM

1065

DH had to return a borrowed tool to his mother. Although he suggested she could just open the garage door and he could drop it and leave, she requested that he bring our daughter. She wanted to congratulate DD on her report card and drivers license. DH warned DD to stay 6’ from grandma, but as DD reported to me later, “Grandma went in for the hug!” I told her it was okay. Grandma really misses her.

Libraries are starting to open in my area. Although mine barely just started doing curbside pickup, I am hopeful they’ll open to browsing-only very soon as nearby ones are. Obviously group programs in-person will take longer. They should have been open for curbside all along. They’re quarantining books and setting orders in trunks, and it seems very safe.

My ice skating classes are opening up next week. They’re more expensive than they used to be, possibly because hockey groups aren’t open yet, and they do help subsidize the rink. The weekday classes never did have more than 10 people in them, although that might change with all the new flexible-work-from-home schedules we have going. Hopefully skating will help me lose some of these covid pounds.

Finally, after spending 6+ hours at the DMV for DD last week, I got a notice that I have to go in for a vision test in order to renew my license. I had no idea as I have renewed my license routinely for years without stepping foot in the DMV. DH and I need to go in for our real IDs anyway, but we thought, with the extension, we had more time. So back to the DMV where hundreds of people will be in line without masks or social distancing. Ugg.

1066

My niece is going to protests in SF. They are quarantining her in their walk-out basement. Meanwhile my SIL is quaranting herself in their backyard ADU because she got tested last week for a colonoscopy this week. (She had colon cancer last year, so important follow-up.) My BIL seems lonely and very happy to play on-line games with us every weekend. This is the BIL who never answered emails or phonecalls in the past.

I’m off for a short walk to deliver food at the local school. They are collecting for the food pantry and I have a lot of the requested items.

1067

Remember, not all 7,000+ ICU beds in Texas are empty.

ICU beds - currently occupied ICU beds = open ICU beds

1068

Agreed.

This is a good source for hospital resource use, which shows about 2,260 ICU beds avail: https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/texas

1069

I think the protests over George Floyd are premised on a fundamental misunderstanding of the statistics regarding alleged disproportionate use of deadly force against African Americans by the police. As we cannot have an honest discussion of the numbers, I think that the likely fallout from the protests will be negative, not positive, for the relationship between African Americans and the police, as well as for race relations generally in much of the country.

So, with that as backdrop, I do not think the protests are “worth” the increased spread of COVID that will happen because of them, and that the epidemiologists and thought leaders seeking to excuse the protests are also fundamentally misguided in their weighing of the potential benefits of the protests versus the costs.

That being said, there are benefits. I am not a proponent of enforced government lockdowns and coercive measures against the population in order to contain a disease with a well under 1% IFR. The optics of the protests and responses have not been lost on the people. After seeing politicians and even “experts” go out of their way to excuse the obvious flaunting of social distancing and other measures, it will be increasingly difficult to achieve any measure of buy-in from the public for continued coercion. I am even more confident than I always have been that K-12 will reopen this fall, perhaps with some restrictions in some parts of the country that will quickly be forgotten to varying degrees.

Those who are most vulnerable to the disease need to make their own risk assessments, and stop trying to guilt the rest of the population into undertaking measures that have never been taken before in the history of Western civilization on the basis of imperfect scientific understanding of the true risks of the disease.

1070

Yep. They work in Covid units in Chicago hospitals. One is pulmonary and critical care specialist. None have college kids so they don’t have any skin in the game about wanted kids to go back.

1071

It looks to me that Maryland is starting in an uptick as of June 8, with cases similar to those in early April. That doesn’t concern me much as with more testing, I’d expect more positives. Back then, only people getting tested were those who knew they were directly exposed or ready to be hospitalized. Now there is free testing in Walmart parking lots !

But what is concerning is the number of deaths. They are trending upwards in a new spike. Where it ends up going remains to be seen.

As tiny as MD is, the stats vary greatly from county to county. Prince George and Montgomery counties look nothing like Allegany, Garret, Caroline counties, for example. I’m surprise Baltimore City not higher than it is.

I think the next month will show the results of possible waning COVID19 potency and prevalence in the warm weather mixed with the loosening of measures to decrease cases, and the demonstrations, the beach scene , etc. it takes a bit of time for the consequences to show up

1072

As for Texas, I have a college friend who is the Director for Cardiovascular Care at a children’s hospital in one of their major cities. He’s in touch with many, many hospitals in TX and just yesterday reported that they have plenty of PPE. They feel like they all have a much better handle on the virus than they did in March and no longer feel panicked. He’s also optimistic about how many ICU beds the TX hospitals have.

1073

I don’t think we’ve seen the consequences of the protests regarding the spread of COVID yet.

It can take 3 to 14 days for symptoms to show up.

So the person then gets tested, it can take a week to get the test results back.

Within the time period for test results to come back, the protester infects an older, vulnerable person. It then takes 3- 14 days for that person to become sick. Then a period of time in the hospital, say a week or two and then death.

We should look for a spike in deaths at the end of June.

1074

US human trials begin for first antibody cocktail that might treat and prevent Covid-19

By Jen Christensen, CNN

A medicine that may treat and prevent Covid-19 is now being tested in patients in multiple sites around the United States, according to an announcement Thursday from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.

It is the first trial of a Covid-19 antibody cocktail in the United States. If successful, Regeneron hopes it could be available by the fall.

The clinical trial started Wednesday. Regeneron said its antibody cocktail will be tested in four separate study populations: people who are hospitalized with Covid-19; people who have symptoms for the disease, but are not hospitalized; people who are healthy but are at a high risk for getting sick; and healthy people who have come into close contact with a person who is sick.

“We have created a unique anti-viral antibody cocktail with the potential both to prevent and treat infection, and also to preempt viral ‘escape,’ a critical precaution in the midst of an ongoing global pandemic,” Dr. George Yancopoulos, co-founder, president and chief scientific officer at Regeneron, said in a press release. “Ultimately, the world needs multiple solutions, and the innovative biopharma industry is collectively working hard to help as many people as possible with a variety of complementary approaches.”

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/11/health/regeneron-covid-19-antibody-trial-starts/index.html

1075

Here is a chart comparing where various countries stand (as of a few weeks ago):

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-road-to-recovery-which-economies-are-reopening-covid-19/

Horizontal axis: COVID-19 recovery rate. Higher is better in that most cases have recovered, and there are few new or active cases now.
Vertical axis: workplace mobility - residential mobility (deviation from baseline), a proxy for economic activity. 0% is baseline.

What it looks like:

Upper right: winning the fight against COVID-19, returning to normal mobility.
Lower right: fighting COVID-19 and likely winning, but with limited mobility and high economic disruption.
Upper left: giving up the fight against COVID-19, trying to return to normal mobility.
Lower left: fighting COVID-19 and likely losing, with limited mobility and high economic disruption.

The US is in the lower left corner. Getting to the upper right corner likely means passing through the lower right corner or the upper left corner. But disagreements among the population (including with respect to personal behavior as well as political opinions) likely mean that the US will stay in the lower left corner for a while.

1076

My husband lost his wallet and needed to get a replacement driver’s license. He applied online but there was no provision to pay the fee…so he had to call. Today he successfully was able to speak to the DMV person and give his payment. His new license should be here in a few days.

He also found out he could have done this replacement license thing at AAA…and had made an appointment. That is getting cancelled now.

1077

@ucbalumnus that graph is cool. US is so big geographically and divided by state on how to deal with the virus so it’s almost impossible to look at the US as one dot on a map. Again, if we had some national direction on this, we could look at the US in totality a little more. I don’t know what the answer is since it seems we will have hot spots on and off in different states until there’s a way to treat the virus. Right now, most people aren’t traveling but, when they start again, that’s going to be a whole other ball of wax. I wonder when we will see airline travel pick up. I know a lot of kids who have to fly to college in August.

1078

I am not sure where you are seeing any uptick in deaths at all. The deaths by date chart shows a really clear trend towards dropping after a peak in late April. Obviously there will be little blips but when you look at the trend it is certainly down, where’s the uptick?

The only slight uptick I see is in positive tests, which is a 7 day running average, In the last two days. Two days ago there is an increase of 0.07%, then yesterday is 0.01%.

Cases reported by date is trending down also again with obvious blips.

Absolutely there are lags in some numbers. Time will tell.

I can tell you I have looked at the cases and deaths per-capita by county and it’s not crazy by any stretch between locations. The numbers look one way when looking at total numbers but when done by population it really brings things into perspective. Obviously an area like Montgomery or Prince George’s with about a million people that is congested would be a bit higher than the counties you listed with less than 50,000 residents each.

It is something to keep an eye on and there very well may end up being an increase on all levels as we open up more for various reasons.

1079

The St. Louis Zoo opens up today! Yay, the animals have missed us. Masks are required. We’ll see how that part goes.

1080

The San Diego Zoo is going to be opening June 12, but with only 50% capacity.

Disneyland will be opening in July with a reservation system.