Coronavirus

[ERICOPOLY]

 

And I disagree with the N95 for the healthcare workers.  If the everyone in the US wore N95 almost noone would go to the hospitals.

The  US should distribute N95 masks to everyone in the US.

 

 

What is there to disagree with when there is a shortage for nurses?

[LongHaul]

I think if everyone wore N95 it would massively reduce the R0 and thus people going into the hospital. 

 

Fair point though about leaving the N95 masks for healthcare workers- I am not 100% sure of which would be the right way.

 

But everyone should at least wear surgical masks.  They are available on Amazon, etc.

Surgical masks are much more effective than homeade ones.

 

 

[ERICOPOLY]

I think if everyone wore N95 it would massively reduce the R0 and thus people going into the hospital. 

 

I complete agree. 

 

They simply aren't available though and there is no way that Trump is going to order the production of them such that we can all have several when he has not even admitted to a shortage of them for nurses.

[Guest]

Instead of creating all of this "stimulus" money, wouldn't it be cheaper to just build a manufacturing plant and we could make a ton of these masks?

 

 

[Investor20]

 

So its not just information for sake of information.  The purpose is to reduce spread of infection.

 

And resources needs to be focused on where it matters most.

 

How do we know where it "matters most"?

 

Masks.  Nursing homes where more effort is put in separating infected from not infected. 

Better ventilation and training at Nursing homes.

 

[Liberty]

I think if everyone wore N95 it would massively reduce the R0 and thus people going into the hospital. 

 

I complete agree. 

 

They simply aren't available though and there is no way that Trump is going to order the production of them such that we can all have several when he has not even admitted to a shortage of them for nurses.

 

Everything is so confusing about the federal government lately, but am I right in thinking that despite him saying multiple times that he'd use the defense production act, he never actually used it to produce more masks on a large enough scale to make a difference? Or did it happen and I just missed it?

[LongHaul]

Instead of creating all of this "stimulus" money, wouldn't it be cheaper to just build a manufacturing plant and we could make a ton of these masks?

 

I think that is 100% right.  It wouldn't cost anything if they distributed N95 masks at cost for all Americans to the pharmacies and people paid cost.

 

That is what South Korea did.  They are smart, I give them that.

 

Masks would be an incredible high ROI. 

 

I actually just snail mailed some mask research to the most powerful person in the free world - The first lady - Melania Trump.

We will see if she is able to get through to Trump.

 

At least more and more people are slowly getting there and wearing more masks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Liberty]

One Irish doctor's take on the concept of herd immunity in this context:

 

[Liberty]

Instead of creating all of this "stimulus" money, wouldn't it be cheaper to just build a manufacturing plant and we could make a ton of these masks?

 

I think that is 100% right.  It wouldn't cost anything if they distributed N95 masks at cost for all Americans to the pharmacies and people paid cost.

 

That is what South Korea did.  They are smart, I give them that.

 

Masks would be an incredible high ROI. 

 

I actually just snail mailed some mask research to the most powerful person in the free world - The first lady - Melania Trump.

We will see if she is able to get through to Trump.

 

At least more and more people are slowly getting there and wearing more masks.

 

I linked earlier in this thread to an economics paper that calculates the prospective value of masks, cloth, surgical, and N95. Each mask is worth thousands of dollars in expected value because the crisis is so expensive that anything that reduces the R0 and the time it lasts by even a little is worth a ton. Is was obviously the right thing to do 2 months ago to use the DPA to launch large-scale mask production and to encourage everyone to make cloth masks and wear them (like the Czech did).

 

Edit: I found it:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6ua7j979dbqb045/masks_final_n_HF_NA.pdf?dl=0

[LC]

 

So its not just information for sake of information.  The purpose is to reduce spread of infection.

 

And resources needs to be focused on where it matters most.

 

How do we know where it "matters most"?

 

Masks.  Nursing homes where more effort is put in separating infected from not infected. 

Better ventilation and training at Nursing homes.

 

The only reason we know this is because of the extensive testing which was done and continues to be done.

 

And since you’re so concerned with wasted resources, if we had tested more people much sooner, States would not have been fighting over masks and ventilators for weeks. And existing masks and ventilators would have been allocated more efficiently.

[LC]

Not to mention more accurate transmission rates and exposure rates which could potentially justify reopening “the economy”, rather than making less educated estimates.

[Jurgis]

Instead of creating all of this "stimulus" money, wouldn't it be cheaper to just build a manufacturing plant and we could make a ton of these masks?

 

I think that is 100% right.  It wouldn't cost anything if they distributed N95 masks at cost for all Americans to the pharmacies and people paid cost.

 

That is what South Korea did.  They are smart, I give them that.

 

Masks would be an incredible high ROI. 

 

I actually just snail mailed some mask research to the most powerful person in the free world - The first lady - Melania Trump.

We will see if she is able to get through to Trump.

 

At least more and more people are slowly getting there and wearing more masks.

 

I linked earlier in this thread to an economics paper that calculates the prospective value of masks, cloth, surgical, and N95. Each mask is worth thousands of dollars in expected value because the crisis is so expensive that anything that reduces the R0 and the time it lasts by even a little is worth a ton. Is was obviously the right thing to do 2 months ago to use the DPA to launch large-scale mask production and to encourage everyone to make cloth masks and wear them (like the Czech did).

 

Should have done 2 months ago. Do it now anyway*

 

 

*not gonna happen

[muscleman]

My mother in law's community in Wuhan got completely locked down by the government due to virus concerns. I think this is the 2nd wave coming.

 

[Liberty]

My mother in law's community in Wuhan got completely locked down by the government due to virus concerns. I think this is the 2nd wave coming.

 

They're apparently going to  tests 11m people in the city within the next 10 days.

 

https://nationalpost.com/pmn/health-pmn/chinas-wuhan-plans-city-wide-testing-for-coronavirus-over-period-of-10-days-sources

[clutch]

Not to mention more accurate transmission rates and exposure rates which could potentially justify reopening “the economy”, rather than making less educated estimates.

 

For that, randomized antibody testing studies would be better.

[LC]

Not to mention more accurate transmission rates and exposure rates which could potentially justify reopening “the economy”, rather than making less educated estimates.

 

For that, randomized antibody testing studies would be better.

 

I agree. Why isn't it happening?

[clutch]

Not to mention more accurate transmission rates and exposure rates which could potentially justify reopening “the economy”, rather than making less educated estimates.

 

For that, randomized antibody testing studies would be better.

 

I agree. Why isn't it happening?

 

I think they are being done at the moment in many states, but many people are concerned about its accuracy.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/07/politics/coronavirus-antibody-testing-problems-cdc-fda-invs/index.html

 

[Liberty]

Not to mention more accurate transmission rates and exposure rates which could potentially justify reopening “the economy”, rather than making less educated estimates.

 

For that, randomized antibody testing studies would be better.

 

Depends what the false positive rate is. It's one more data point, but it shouldn't be given more weight than it deserves.

[Spekulatius]

 

So its not just information for sake of information.  The purpose is to reduce spread of infection.

 

And resources needs to be focused on where it matters most.

 

How do we know where it "matters most"?

 

Masks.  Nursing homes where more effort is put in separating infected from not infected. 

Better ventilation and training at Nursing homes.

 

We are fighting the Virus on twitter and with the Fed. So far, the Virus doesn’t seem to care.

[clutch]

Not to mention more accurate transmission rates and exposure rates which could potentially justify reopening “the economy”, rather than making less educated estimates.

 

For that, randomized antibody testing studies would be better.

 

Depends what the false positive rate is. It's one more data point, but it shouldn't be given more weight than it deserves.

 

Sure, but once we find a method that is precise enough, it will give us very strong confidence in the most important data -- infection fatality rate & infection rate.

[Liberty]

Sure, but once we find a method that is precise enough, it will give us very strong confidence in the most important data -- lethality rate & infection rate.

 

That's an important "but" that can't be hand-waved away.

 

A lot of antibody tests had false positives in the 50% range, depending the population being sampled (it'll be higher outside of the major outbreak zones). That's way too high to be very useful.

[Jurgis]

 

So its not just information for sake of information.  The purpose is to reduce spread of infection.

 

And resources needs to be focused on where it matters most.

 

How do we know where it "matters most"?

 

Masks.  Nursing homes where more effort is put in separating infected from not infected. 

Better ventilation and training at Nursing homes.

 

We are fighting the Virus with on twitter and with the Fed. So far, the Virus doesn’t seem to care.

 

Virus does not have Twitter account yet? Oh horrors. How does it establish social presence then?

[Liberty]

Of course even the UFO conveniently-timed distraction was BS:

 

[Jurgis]

Of course even the UFO conveniently-timed distraction was BS:

 

 

Aliens brought Covid to Earth.

 

The truth is out there!

[Investor20]

Sure, but once we find a method that is precise enough, it will give us very strong confidence in the most important data -- lethality rate & infection rate.

 

That's an important "but" that can't be hand-waved away.

 

A lot of antibody tests had false positives in the 50% range, depending the population being sampled (it'll be higher outside of the major outbreak zones). That's way too high to be very useful.

 

Stanford Dr. Bhattacharya says he had 0.5% false positive in his test.

The 0.5% may be important for Santa Carla study that found 3% infection rate.  But still you can take 2.5% and calculate IFR.

 

0.5% false positive is not important for NYC with 20% infection rate.  Or Boston Chelsea with 30% infection rate.

 

The different studies gave infection fatality rate between 0.1% to 0.5%. NY had higher rate at 0.5%. 

 

For example Miami Dade study gave 6% and 0.5% is not very important. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article242260406.html

They say 165000 infected.  Presently about 500 dead (I dont know numbers as of mid April).  So a conservative number of using todays 500 deaths/165000 gives 0.3% IFR.

 

Below is a study by Denmark:

 

Using available data on fatalities and population numbers a combined IFR in patients younger than 70 is estimated at 82 per 100,000 (CI: 59-154) infections.  Thats 0.082% for patients younger than 70.

The seroprevalence was adjusted for assay sensitivity and specificity taking the uncertainties of the test validation into account when reporting the 95% confidence intervals (CI).

 

New tests are even better. See below:

 

Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine found Abbott’s test had a specificity rate of 99.9% and a sensitivity rate of 100%, suggesting very few chances of incorrectly diagnosing a healthy person with the infection and no false negatives.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/08/study-suggests-abbott-covid-19-antibody-test-highly-likely-to-give-correct-results.html

 

Some people dont like the result of 0.1% to 0.5% IFR but it is now done by Denmark, Germany, Santa Carla, LA, Miami Dade, NYC, Boston by different well known professors and hospitals.  The IFR is much lower if you take less than 70 population.

 

At one point people need to agree with the data.