Corona Virus & Day to Day

[sjjan]

That may work on areas that the uncle light has contact with, how do you treat the surfaces that have no Vic light exposure

You are right. The UVC light does not reach everything but is a good start next to normal cleaning efforts with water and soap.

 

[Chuck E]

So, I have been tracking the data on weekly number of deaths due to ALL CAUSES. This number in the US and even in a small state like North Dakota generally varies very little. The total deaths each week is pretty constant year after year and fluctuates slightly higher during the winter months due to seasonal flu. As you can see from my graph below, 2020 is a huge anomaly. I am tired of the argument that goes something like . . . "Did they die OF covid or WITH covid?" It is moot. The fact is, just in North Dakota, we have already seen almost 1000 more people die in 2020 than the statistical average. The only thing different in 2020 is the presence of COVID-19. The fact is many people are dying that should be alive today. In the country, this number of excess deaths is over 300,000.

I'm not trying to pick a fight here. BUT, your graph shows that ND had a near normal year until week 32. You cannot say the "only thing different is the presence of Covid 19." Cause of death is not broken out of your data.

The fact remains, that a majority of persons in the US MUST get Covid, by either exposure or vaccine, in order for this to end. There is no other way.

 

[sour_grapes]

I'm not trying to pick a fight here. BUT, your graph shows that ND had a near normal year until week 32. You cannot say the "only thing different is the presence of Covid 19." Cause of death is not broken out of your data.

Yes, well, lessee if we can assess why things started to change at about week 32:

The fact remains, that a majority of persons in the US MUST get Covid, by either exposure or vaccine, in order for this to end. There is no other way.

Probably true under present circumstances. But it did not have to be that way:

But our behavior influences the value of R0. I suspect that most of us have been thinking about "herd immunity" only under the conditions that we lived life, say, last year. Under those conditions, estimates are that something like 70% of people had to have immunity to Covid to achieve R0 < 1. (I should note that we don't even know yet if people who recover from the disease gain immunity, or how long it lasts if they do, let alone whether a vaccine will be developed.)

However, under a different set of behaviors, the transmission rate is different. So mask-wearing, hand-washing, etc., are not just buying us time, they are altering the dynamics of the spread of the disease, that is, they are altering the threshold when "herd immunity" is achieved. Of course, the "herd" is a different herd than we are used to; our behaviors would be different. But we as a society could choose to be part of a herd where the disease doesn't spread as rapidly (at some social costs), and the herd immunity threshold is lower. Or we could choose to be part of a herd where the disease spreads rapidly, the threshold of herd immunity is much higher, and many more people are sickened or die.

 

[sour_grapes]

Cause of death is not broken out of your data.

Moreover, the point of Greg's chart was that you do not NEED to break out the deaths by cause to know that something is afoot. But, such data are available. I posted "new cases" above, but we can also get a graph of "new deaths" attributed to COVID:

 

[Chuck E]

I believe the death rate is down, because the medical profession has gained vast knowledge in treatment strategies. I think that our behavior changes only the time when Ro is attained.

 

[sour_grapes]

I believe the death rate is down, because the medical profession has gained vast knowledge in treatment strategies. I think that our behavior changes only the time when Ro is attained.

I agree with you about the improvements in death rate. I am very grateful that you survived.

I am not sure, but, from your comment, I don't think you have the right idea of what R0 is? It is not "attained" at some time. It is a measure, at all times, of what the new infection rate per existing infected person. Our behavior indisputably changes what the value of R0 is.

 

[Chuck E]

I should have wrote: when Ro<1

 

[sour_grapes]

I should have wrote: when Ro<1

Ahh, okay. I perhaps should have made that inference unaided.

But, now I am further confused. If you agree that our behavior can change whether R0 < 1 or not, then surely you must agree that it would be possible for the disease to die out without the necessity of "the majority of people in the US" to get COVID. Like it did for SARS?

I agree that this is not likely at this stage of the game, however.

 

[Chuck E]

Yes, I agree it is/was possible for the disease to die out due to our reactions, but that possibility existed at the onset. Where we are now is another matter entirely. PPE works in a clinical setting. The strict protocols of disposal after each contact is NOT what happens in the USA. I believe we should focus our efforts at keeping the elderly and folks with co-morbidities safe. The rest of us will need to take our chances with exposure or the vaccine. More and quicker testing would help immensely. As would a reduced focus by the news media on positive cases. Hospital capacity should be more of a focus. Flatening the curve in hospital usage within a locality seems to be more important to me.

 

[Rice_Guy]

The wife (extrovert) and I (introvert) had a emotional discussion yesterday about “do we NEED a 25 pound turkey this year”? , , was it ever really possible to prevent the infection when we can’t agree on what is real? My logic answer after stewing over what thanksgiving looks like is “no, COVID is not real”. We as a society have enough resources that most of us won’t personally see covid.
The brother in law made it through with fever and headache/ sister in law claims no symptoms. , , , ie it is not real in the emotional mind , , , and so much on the TV and Facebook or thanksgiving is emotion driven.

Yes, I agree it is/was possible for the disease to die out due to our reactions, but that possibility existed at the onset. Where we are now is another matter entirely. PPE works in a clinical setting. The strict protocols of disposal after each contact is NOT what happens in the USA. I believe we should focus our efforts at keeping the elderly and folks with co-morbidities safe. The rest of us will need to take our chances with exposure or the vaccine. More and quicker testing would help immensely. As would a reduced focus by the news media on positive cases. Hospital capacity should be more of a focus. Flatening the curve in hospital usage within a locality seems to be more important to me.

 

[DizzyIzzy]

You are right. The UVC light does not reach everythinb but is a good start next to normal cleaning efforts with water and soap.

I have purchased a hand-held UV light scanner to scan small items like cameras, phones, remotes, etc. Purchased it for traveling, primarily, but who knows when we will be able to do that again? My thoughts.........................every little bit of protection is a good thing!..............................................DizzIzzy

 

[DizzyIzzy]

The wife (extrovert) and I (introvert) had a emotional discussion yesterday about “do we NEED a 25 pound turkey this year”? , , was it ever really possible to prevent the infection when we can’t agree on what is real? My logic answer after stewing over what thanksgiving looks like is “no, COVID is not real”. We as a society have enough resources that most of us won’t personally see covid.
The brother in law made it through with fever and headache/ sister in law claims no symptoms. , , , ie it is not real in the emotional mind , , , and so much on the TV and Facebook or thanksgiving is emotion driven.

My boyfriend's eldest daughter (age 50) was in a coma, and intubated for one month, not expected to live through the ordeal, which she did fortunately. Just today got a call from my church stating that our pastor and one of the deacons are both hospitalized with Covid AND pneumonia, not yet intubated, thank God. We all live in a rural part of Ohio with minimal outside contact. If it can hit here, it can hit anywhere. Covid is definately real!!...............................DizzyIzzy

 

[sour_grapes]

My boyfriend's eldest daughter (age 50) was in a coma, and intubated for one month, not expected to live through the ordeal, which she did fortunately. Just today got a call from my church stating that our pastor and one of the deacons are both hospitalized with Covid AND pneumonia, not yet intubated, thank God. We all live in a rural part of Ohio with minimal outside contact. If it can hit here, it can hit anywhere. Covid is definately real!!...............................DizzyIzzy

So glad to hear your friend's daughter recovered. Good luck to her and all in your community.

 

[GreginND]

I'm not trying to pick a fight here. BUT, your graph shows that ND had a near normal year until week 32. You cannot say the "only thing different is the presence of Covid 19." Cause of death is not broken out of your data.

The fact remains, that a majority of persons in the US MUST get Covid, by either exposure or vaccine, in order for this to end. There is no other way.

No fight. Good discussion! Our number of cases have been very low until recently. After 32 weeks, our number of cases started rising exponentially. However, that does have some variability depending on how testing is done. Our test positivity rates also have been rising to very high numbers (even over 40%) indicating we are not testing enough. All that being said, the main indicators of a real problem are hospitalizations and deaths. Currently our hospitals are beyond capacity and our death rates have increased dramatically. Those graphs for North Dakota are shown below. It looks like we may have peaked in new cases, active cases and hospitalizations. Deaths will lag.

I think you are correct that we have learned better how to treat the disease after six months of experience. Early in the pandemic, death rates in the country were much higher and we have helped that with knew knowledge and better treatments. This is why I criticized the Sweden model as they had a very high number of deaths (10 times their neighbor, Norway) early in the pandemic. If they could have slowed the spread, many of those who died early in the summer would likely have been saved if they were to get infected now. No, we can't stop it, but we can mitigate the deaths due to it by slowing the spread to manageable levels. This is even more critical for the hospitals. There will likely be, and we have already seen, deaths from other critical accidents and diseases like heart attack and stroke because patients can't get the care they need from our overwhelmed health care system. "Flattening the curve" is even more important now than ever before as the situation in health care is dire in large swaths of the country now. Here are today's graphs for North Dakota.

 

[Boatboy24]

Nice to see those trend lines moving downward. I was tracking that closely for VA through early August and noticed that we had several cycles of peaks and valleys on the trend before it sorta stayed down for a while (of course, we're now higher than ever for the state, but the northern region is still doing reasonably well). Hopefully, SD just sinks, and quickly.

 

[Chuck E]

@sour_grapes I believe in what's called the Avalon-Hill model of how the virus affects people. That is, it depends on a combination of viral load and patient vulnerability.
My problem with “keep R below 1″ is that it is a representative-agent model. That is, it treats everyone the same, with identical probability of getting or spreading the disease. But in fact people differ greatly in terms of vulnerability and in terms of propensity to spread the disease.

 

[BernardSmith]

But Chuck E - why would it matter what model undergirds the infection rates for this virus? If the goal was to ensure that the R factor is kept below 1 so that across the entire population the rate of infection is equivalent to any one person who is infected infects fewer than 1 other person. That might mean that if 10,000 people are newly infected today, tomorrow, fewer than 10,000 are infected and the next day, fewer than that smaller number are infected... That said, we will need to do more work to maintain that negative trajectory IF vulnerability and viral load is not uniform.. But aiming for an R of less than 1 is critical no matter what - and I would argue that until the vaccine is being given to 100 percent of the world population we need to require a total lockdown - TOTAL - except for emergencies, and that that lockdown remains in effect for at least 3 weeks.. Then, no matter the load and no matter your vulnerability the virus would be unable to reproduce and would die out assuming emergency workers were kept isolated from their immediate families. And to begin that lockdown we would need to provide everyone with enough food and meds for their needs for that lockdown and so that lockdown might ot be able to begin for another few weeks. But then the economy would completely close ... but it would close for 3 weeks and not be hobbled for months and months and months.

 

[ceeaton]

Just had my boss text me that his wife is showing flu like symptoms. He's been going on site every day and doing things that need done in there to support the rest of the staff (including sales people) since the rest of us are working from home for the most part.

Looks like I'll be heading into work a lot more starting tomorrow, possibly the weekend too. He can't come in unless she tests negative (possibly twice depending on the type of test used). If she does have it he'll be working from home for 14 days starting the day her symptoms fully subside, unless he gets tested 5 days from today and tests negative.

Here's hoping and praying that she doesn't have it!

 

[DizzyIzzy]

So glad to hear your friend's daughter recovered. Good luck to her and all in your community.

Thankyou sour grapes! Pastor Dave today will be receiving nutrition by IV. We are praying for recovery!...............................DizzyIzzy

 

[DizzyIzzy]

Just had my boss text me that his wife is showing flu like symptoms. He's been going on site every day and doing things that need done in there to support the rest of the staff (including sales people) since the rest of us are working from home for the most part.

Looks like I'll be heading into work a lot more starting tomorrow, possibly the weekend too. He can't come in unless she tests negative (possibly twice depending on the type of test used). If she does have it he'll be working from home for 14 days starting the day her symptoms fully subside, unless he gets tested 5 days from today and tests negative.

Here's hoping and praying that she doesn't have it!

Lets hope so.........................Times are so difficult now....................................DizzyIzzy