Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[Skidog]

Yanno.... it's getting to the point where I don't know what to believe anymore with regard to this virus.

Is it really all that deadly?

Should we just open up?

Why can't stores open up if everyone wears masks?

Are we over reacting?

Around my town lots of folks continue to live life as they always have and they look at the rest of us like we're crazy.

I used to think they we're the crazy ones after all there's a killer virus circulating but lately, the more I see the same people at businesses I frequent (one feed store in particular) living life as always with no masks or social distancing the more doubt creeps in.

This...it's so hard to get a handle on what's going on. Stories, studies, modelling, all over the map. Some scared to get gas, some doing normal stuff as much as they can, like me.

Odd time to be alive.

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[Lone Star]

I used to think they we're the crazy ones after all there's a killer virus circulating but lately, the more I see the same people at businesses I frequent (one feed store in particular) living life as always with no masks or social distancing the more doubt creeps in.

Kinda like when your friends all want to ski this great line but you think the slope is suspect and take another route down and then your friends have a great run and everything is fine.

The FOMO is real but it helps to remember that one time that you really messed up and how scared you were and how many times you'd be willing to back off of the fun line in order to hopefully prevent having to ever experience that feeling again.

[El Chupacabra]

King man, Barstow, or San Bernardino

I see you got hip to this timely tip.

[east or bust]

Can confirm: Gallup is still a shit hole. Always feel like I’m about to get shanked there.

Would be better if they built a wall or moat around it.

[Buster Highmen]

Yanno.... it's getting to the point where I don't know what to believe anymore with regard to this virus.

Is it really all that deadly?

Should we just open up?

Why can't stores open up if everyone wears masks?

Are we over reacting?

Around my town lots of folks continue to live life as they always have and they look at the rest of us like we're crazy.

I used to think they we're the crazy ones after all there's a killer virus circulating but lately, the more I see the same people at businesses I frequent (one feed store in particular) living life as always with no masks or social distancing the more doubt creeps in.

What comes back to me are the stories out of the hospitals in Italy and New York, like how many doctors and nurses have died or what the disease feels like in the lungs and body.

Doing all the stupid shit I've done over the course of a life and still be reasonably together (ok subject to debate) I trust my sense of when is the right time to be careful, when is the right time to leave the party or stop consuming.

I don't go out much and if I do, it's a mask and gloves. If people think I'm a freak, fine, it's been that way for fucking years.

[old goat]

Yanno.... it's getting to the point where I don't know what to believe anymore with regard to this virus.

Is it really all that deadly?

Should we just open up?

Why can't stores open up if everyone wears masks?

Are we over reacting?

Around my town lots of folks continue to live life as they always have and they look at the rest of us like we're crazy.

I used to think they we're the crazy ones after all there's a killer virus circulating but lately, the more I see the same people at businesses I frequent (one feed store in particular) living life as always with no masks or social distancing the more doubt creeps in.

This thing is a slow moving disaster-- on a national scale it's not an avalanche but a glacier. Small percentage of the population is infected so far, unlike the pandemics in the movies where almost everyone gets sick all at once. So unless you know someone who got sick or died it doesn't seem real and people aren't careful. The longer they go without being affected personally the less careful they become. But if the experts are right and 60% will get infected that's a lot of dead people.

Another analogy--it's like a tidal wave in real life--there's no giant wall of water crashing over everything at once; the water just keeps coming and coming and coming, so people don't start running until it's too late.

I'd like to see numbers about how many cases are from clusters versus isolated infections. Just in reading the news it seems like a pretty high percentage of cases are from close get-togethers and confined spaces--cruise ships, meat packing plants, Mardi Gras, nursing homes, an aircraft carrier, churches, NYC, and, one can only hope, armed anti-lockdown demonstrations. I'm sure more consumer businesses could be opened, but when people have to follow rules, wear masks, try to avoid each other to go to a store or a half-open restaurant a lot of people are just going to keep staying home. The restrictions take the joy out of doing things.

Schools, government offices and the like are going to have to reopen soon--the long term damage of keeping them closed too long is too severe.

In Truckee it seems like most people are not wearing masks or staying apart.

[east or bust]

OG has a point. If the real end goal is herd immunity, which I know is not yet proven, then opening things up would probably be the way to go. Those who are high risk or uber paranoid can still take measures to protect themselves. The people who venture out need to understand they are rolling the dice and are ok with natural selection.

[Skidog]

OG has a point. If the real end goal is herd immunity, which I know is not yet proven, then opening things up would probably be the way to go. Those who are high risk or uber paranoid can still take measures to protect themselves. The people who venture out need to understand they are rolling the dice and are ok with natural selection.

Yeah pretty much. I'm willing to mask up and take me chances. Unpopular opinion here for sure, but..

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[hutash]

Yanno.... it's getting to the point where I don't know what to believe anymore with regard to this virus.

Is it really all that deadly?

Should we just open up?

Why can't stores open up if everyone wears masks?

Are we over reacting?

Around my town lots of folks continue to live life as they always have and they look at the rest of us like we're crazy.

I used to think they we're the crazy ones after all there's a killer virus circulating but lately, the more I see the same people at businesses I frequent (one feed store in particular) living life as always with no masks or social distancing the more doubt creeps in.

Just remember if only 1 or 2% of the population is currently infected 98 to 99% aren't (yet). Of course it looks like everything is normal with those numbers. Visit a nursing home or COVID ward where those numbers are flipped.

Even in '18 and '19 the vast majority of people didn't die, but that is slim comfort to the 650,000 Americans who did. Nearly 65,000 people are now dead, with all this restrictions in place, the number would be (it's debatable ) higher with out. Likely much higher. When public health is doing it's job, it looks like public health isn't necessary.

[Benny Profane]

Yanno.... it's getting to the point where I don't know what to believe anymore with regard to this virus.

Is it really all that deadly?

Should we just open up?

Why can't stores open up if everyone wears masks?

Are we over reacting?

Around my town lots of folks continue to live life as they always have and they look at the rest of us like we're crazy.

I used to think they we're the crazy ones after all there's a killer virus circulating but lately, the more I see the same people at businesses I frequent (one feed store in particular) living life as always with no masks or social distancing the more doubt creeps in.

Just not there yet. Hell, we didnt really start wearing masks here, in the epicenter, until a few weeks ago.

Saw an interview with Osterhelm last night, and he's pretty sure only 5-10% of our population is infected. Long way to go.

[LeeLau]

Kinda like when your friends all want to ski this great line but you think the slope is suspect and take another route down and then your friends have a great run and everything is fine.

The FOMO is real but it helps to remember that one time that you really messed up and how scared you were and how many times you'd be willing to back off of the fun line in order to hopefully prevent having to ever experience that feeling again.

Equating this to skiing consequential lines is a powerful analogy and very apt.

One difference of course is that if you get injured skiing you don't potentially pass your injury to others. Which is how I frame it when thinking of wanting to keep visiting my parents for what remains of their life

[hutash]

His example may be flawed, but I get the point he's trying to make. The total population of a country probably isn't all that relevant. The virus is going to spread how it's going to spread based on R0.

I too get his point, ut his point is just plain wrong. The population is relevant as a virus needs hosts to spread. How it gets from host to host is also relevant, and that is what is most important relative to how a country handles the pandemic. Some countries are better then others and controlling spread, which reduces the R0. Italy did a horrible job, South Korea did a good job, and the US has done a mediocre job, which the original graph does not show.

To get it back to the original analogy, the size of the petri dish matters, as does the medium in it that allows growth and spread, or if the petri dish has a good public health response, that inhibits growth and spread.

[old goat]

From Sacramento demonstration

[The AD]

The way I see it is there are really two ways to get this thing under control for good and they are herd immunity through infections and herd immunity through a vaccine. It may turn out that it takes so long to develop a vaccine that we get to herd immunity the "natural" way first, but that's not a given. The other thing to remember is that even with herd immunity the virus will still be around and people will die who get infected and hot spots will still develop locally that could overwhelm local capacity. Herd immunity is exactly like critical mass in a fission reaction. Below critical mass you still get a reaction, it just can't sustain itself.

[hutash]

Covid-08!

There is a Kelly Ann Conway put down in here somewhere.

[hutash]

.

Is this overly intrusive on my privacy?

You may not care about your privacy, but the professional you visited behind Walmart just might.

[The AD]

The population is relevant as a virus needs hosts to spread. How it gets from host to host is also relevant, and that is what is most important relative to how a country handles the pandemic. Some countries are better then others and controlling spread, which reduces the R0. Italy did a horrible job, South Korea did a good job, and the US has done a mediocre job, which the original graph does not show.

And the sentence highlighted is really the only thing that greg was addressing. His supposition is that so far the virus hasn't really been constrained by number of hosts, so total population isn't the major factor. All those other things you listed are.

[Tri-Ungulate]

From Sacramento demonstration

[Stikki]

On another note, what Dawn's on me. If the exposure risk is so high why are we not seeing big box store employees dropping like flies? Sure there have been a decent amount and some deaths, but I can't go to a park without maybe catching it, but a Walmart employee can see a 100 customers a day and not get sick? Why can't I go to a smaller biz then? [/URL]

Walmart store has been ordered to close its doors after nearly two dozen of its staff members tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

[Ottime]

No. It's a huge help toward solving the problem

Bringing the logic. Again and agin. Let's ski a few laps next winter. I'll bring the bat shit crazy.

And you better get tested if that is the Walmart you were hanging out behind...

[Benny Profane]

Italy did a horrible job, South Korea did a good job, and the US has done a mediocre job, which the original graph does not show.

How do you come to that conclusion? Italy did a horrible job. Sure, they weren't totally on top of it, but shut things down pretty damn fast and are still shut down. Better than us? Really? We have a leader who is actively trying to undermine the process of mitigation. I'm guessing, that looking back in a few years, we will be the worst example of how to deal with a modern pandemic, although Brazil is giving us a run for the money right now, but even the Brazilians are smart enough to try to can their idiot leader to save lives, which seems to be happening now. If we weren't so rich, we'd be the laughingstock of the world. We are already.

[MultiVerse]

Yanno.... it's getting to the point where I don't know what to believe anymore with regard to this virus.

Is it really all that deadly?

Should we just open up?

Why can't stores open up if everyone wears masks?

Are we over reacting?

Around my town lots of folks continue to live life as they always have and they look at the rest of us like we're crazy.

I used to think they we're the crazy ones after all there's a killer virus circulating but lately, the more I see the same people at businesses I frequent (one feed store in particular) living life as always with no masks or social distancing the more doubt creeps in.

FWIW, virologists say not knowing what to believe is normal. COVID is weird, just like every virus is weird.

I don't think herd immunity is a strategy. It's a sign all other strategies have failed. Herd immunity is just a euphemism for survival of the fittest. It's either a monster wave, small outbreaks, or a persistent crisis all accompanied by the virus becoming endemic. The absolute best way to ensure a robust return to normal is to beat the bug.

A rule of thumb is 5-10x more deadly than the flu. Or think of getting infected as becoming ten years older in terms of life expectancy. If you're 20 becoming infected is like having the mortality risk of a 30 year old. Getting infected at age 60 means you have the mortality risk of a pre-COVID 70-something.

The initial lockdowns acted as a reset sharply reducing the initial spread. It shut down super-spreaders, that along with a bunch of other behavioral changes allows free riders to go about their business as if nothing has changed.

Regardless, strict government restrictions were never going to last for long. Slowly transitioning to a less restrictive more voluntary regime provides many of the benefits of a lockdown. People take preliminary warnings very seriously, the infection rate goes down, then they lower their guard and the infection rate goes back up but less quickly than before. Mobile data from Sweden, for example, shows people calibrated their behavior based on the stock of initially infected in ways not unlike much of the United States.

Masks are the new dumb culture war. Wearing a mask in public makes a lot sense but social pressure means wearing masks at feed stores makes you look crazy and not wearing one at Whole Foods does too.

[old goat]

I too get his point, ut his point is just plain wrong. The population is relevant as a virus needs hosts to spread. How it gets from host to host is also relevant, and that is what is most important relative to how a country handles the pandemic. Some countries are better then others and controlling spread, which reduces the R0. Italy did a horrible job, South Korea did a good job, and the US has done a mediocre job, which the original graph does not show.

To get it back to the original analogy, the size of the petri dish matters, as does the medium in it that allows growth and spread, or if the petri dish has a good public health response, that inhibits growth and spread.

Given two populations one much larger than the other but otherwise the same in density, demographics, behavior and protective measures a pandemic will spread from a single source at the same rate through both until herd immunity is reached. While the infection is spreading, at any given point in time the number infected will be the same. However, herd immunity will be reached sooner in the smaller population while the number infected is still growing in the larger, so that once herd immunity is reached the larger population will have a larger number of people ultimately infected.

What if you add up all the countries in Europe. 1,500,000 cases in roughly 500 million population. So Europe as a whole isn't doing any better than the US. The factor that would seem to explain it all is the number of independent sources of infection--the number of infected people arriving from China (presumably) into various parts of the US and Europe. If one infected person landed in SF, Seattle, Chicago, Detroit and NYC on day one, and one infected person landed in London, Milan, Madrid, Berlin, and Paris on day 1 the number of infections at day 1 + X should be the same in Europe and the US all other factors being equal, but lower in each individual country in Europe.

[garyfromterrace]

What comes back to me are the stories out of the hospitals in Italy and New York, like how many doctors and nurses have died or what the disease feels like in the lungs and body.

Doing all the stupid shit I've done over the course of a life and still be reasonably together (ok subject to debate) I trust my sense of when is the right time to be careful, when is the right time to leave the party or stop consuming.

I don't go out much and if I do, it's a mask and gloves. If people think I'm a freak, fine, it's been that way for fucking years.

Well said my friend. We see no evidence of it here day to day. That doesn't mean it's not real. Perhaps 10 % of the population is masking/gloving up but although I may experience a little FOMO, at least I likely won't be "that guy" who transmits.

[Name Redacted]

Masks are the new dumb culture wars. Wearing a mask in public makes a lot sense but social pressure means wearing masks a feed stores makes you look crazy and not wearing one at Whole Foods does too.

It is a weird dynamic that people would be against something so simple as wearing a mask. I'm just surprised those dumb ass MAGAs will miss out on the perfect opportunity to bedazzle a new fashion accessory made of denim.