Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Tuor]

Why the heck shouldn't I?

Because you are known for dennying the right other have to do the same... You did that with me...

Both are natural, catastrophic dangers that should trigger one's innate sense of self-preservation and cause one to take action to avoid said danger.

If you haven't realised yet, viruses have only been discovered in the 60's. We have lived with them since ever, you can't compare a sense of instant self-preservation, like a hurricane, something that you can actually see and take measures to assure your survival, with something that you can't see, and its dangerous because you heard other people saying so. The psychological response of both cases isn't the same, and you can actually see that, today, when unfortunelly, a huge portion of the planet population is actually giving a shit to the virus.

[Rasulis]

Regional wealth, economy and ethnicity make up appear to make a lot of difference on the impact of Covid-19. Here is a comparison between San Francisco County and Los Angeles County.

Los Angeles

Most recent seven-day average for new cases per 100,000 residents: 24.2

Most recent seven-day average for hospitalizations per 100,000 residents: 27.1

Most recent seven-day average for the percentage of positive tests: 9.9%

Most recent seven-day average for new deaths per 100,00 residents: .41


San Francisco

Most recent seven-day average for new cases per 100,000 residents: 6.5

Most recent seven-day average for hospitalizations per 100,000 residents: 8.2

Most recent seven-day average for the percentage of positive tests: 3.3%

Most recent seven-day average for new deaths per 100,00 residents: 0 (SF has not had a Covid-19 death since June 18).

SF did a good job of protecting their homeless population also. In SF, 6,100 homeless people (estimated total homeless population of 8,000) have been tested for the coronavirus since early March, and 225 — or 3.6% — tested positive. That’s compared with 3.3% in the general population, where 5,158 of the 171,964 people tested came out positive.

[Omega10]

This article requires no comments.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...ak/ar-BB16CfcC

Title: Japanese governor demands U.S. military meeting after coronavirus outbreak

Excerpt:

A Japanese governor has demanded an explanation after dozens of U.S. Marines at two bases on the southern island of Okinawa were infected with the coronavirus.

Governor Tamaki could only say that a "few dozen" virus cases had been found, because the U.S. military had not disclosed the exact figures, he said, before calling for an immediate phone conference with U.S. military officials to discuss the number of infections and what anti-prevention measures were being taken.

"We have also received reports that people linked to the U.S. military have ventured out into the downtown area or participated in beach parties before and after the July 4th celebrations," Tamaki added, urging those who had attended such gatherings to call a hotline number to be tracked and traced.

The coronavirus outbreaks occurred at Marine Corps. Air Station Futenma and Camp Hansen, Tamaki said.

[Forogil]

If you haven't realised yet, viruses have only been discovered in the 60's. We have lived with them since ever, you can't compare a sense of instant self-preservation, like a hurricane, something that you can actually see and take measures to assure your survival, with something that you can't see, and its dangerous because you heard other people saying so. The psychological response of both cases isn't the same, and you can actually see that, today, when unfortunelly, a huge portion of the planet population is actually giving a shit to the virus.

I agree that they differ, but I would say that there is more commonality among those psychological responses. What is new in evolutionary terms is that we can know about a disease before anyone close to us is sick, and it seems we don't have responses evolved for that.

And, of course, those psychological responses are not just going down in your basement to hide - as that would for many be hiding passively alone.

Instead I would say that we want to be together with people (preferably ones near to us), since there is strength in numbers in dealing with dangers; obviously that is not ideal when that can spread a virus.

We also normally want to feel in control, and not be passive bystanders - so regardless of whether washing your hands, taking hydroxychloroquine, or wearing masks help against the virus they help us feel in control.

Obviously if we can attack the danger we try to do that; which explains the stupid attacks early on minorities as disease carriers, if they had actually been visible ill the evolved response would be to stay away.

- - - Updated - - -

Until a few days back people were saying that US number of confirmed cases were increasing since mid-June, but the number of deaths were still declining.

It seems that has now changed and the number of deaths have begun rising the last week.

[Granyala]

If you haven't realised yet, viruses have only been discovered in the 60's. We have lived with them since ever, you can't compare a sense of instant self-preservation, like a hurricane, something that you can actually see and take measures to assure your survival, with something that you can't see, and its dangerous because you heard other people saying so. The psychological response of both cases isn't the same, and you can actually see that, today, when unfortunelly, a huge portion of the planet population is actually giving a shit to the virus.

Erm... most people are actually pretty paranoid of COVID-19 over here.
Humans have always been terrified about the sick, we used to excise them from society, blamed it on the wrath of deities etc.

Yeah, a virus does not impress our senses like a big ass hurricane.... until we see people dying miserably because of it.

The reasons why some people ignore the current situation is mostly because they:
a) get fed mixed data like in the US
b) think that the death % of 0.2 for young and otherwise healthy people is too low to be of any real concern, esp when other matters seem more pressing.
c) most measures are about you (the general you) taking an inconvenience to protect OTHERS. I think the reaction to the measures would look a lot different if it was about protecting yourself. In the end, most of us humans are pretty selfish bastards.

[PACOX]

This article requires no comments.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...ak/ar-BB16CfcC

Title: Japanese governor demands U.S. military meeting after coronavirus outbreak

Excerpt:

We already know what happens when the military reports on its cases. They will literally expel experienced aircraft carrier personnel who ask for help.

[Zantos]

We live in the wealthiest, most technologically advanced, powerful nation on the world. We live in a nation of gross excess and extravagance comparatively. We should be able to keep people fed during a pandemic.

Our nation is none of those here in the US. Not by a long shot. What we are is grossly excessive. Can't even say extravagant because most people can't do anything extravagant.

Though, the premise is right. We absolutely, on paper, should have no problem keeping people fed and fighting this off. In practice, we have no leader and the money goes to the politicians and military. That is how we have failed so hard to hold about 1/4th of the worlds entire infected populace and being the top in every category for failing on this.

[PACOX]

According to CNN something like 5 states are actually declining. This would be troubling if we were following precautions nationwide. It's catastrophic in our current state because it has been less about CV19 inherent problems. We have systemic problems and COVID19 is just exploiting us.

There's no way we are ready for public schools to open in a month, teachers and parents will be dying in their homes if that happens.

The government has failed healthcare. From the workers on all levels to the patients fighting for their lives.

[PhaelixWW]

Because you are known for dennying the right other have to do the same... You did that with me...

What the hell are you even talking about?

If you haven't realised yet, viruses have only been discovered in the 60's. We have lived with them since ever, you can't compare a sense of instant self-preservation, like a hurricane, something that you can actually see and take measures to assure your survival, with something that you can't see, and its dangerous because you heard other people saying so.

Are you fucking serious right now? Humans have a long, long, loooooong history of doing exactly that. The concept of acting out of a perceived sense of self-preservation simply due to a set of beliefs (or, heaven forbid, intelligence) is so much a part of human evolution, that I'd argue it's one of the founding tenets of human history.

While the hurricane is a more visceral reminder of danger, we're far more than just our visceral reactions.

[Draco-Onis]

Are you fucking serious right now? Humans have a long, long, loooooong history of doing exactly that. The concept of acting out of a perceived sense of self-preservation simply due to a set of beliefs (or, heaven forbid, intelligence) is so much a part of human evolution, that I'd argue it's one of the founding tenets of human history.

While the hurricane is a more visceral reminder of danger, we're far more than just our visceral reactions.

Here's the problem the vast majority of people it is all about visceral reactions, heck even during hurricanes you have people who don't care even shoot at the darn thing every year. I think you have way too much faith in the average person especially in places like the US where we are spoiled. We passed the point of no return the best thing would have been for a coordinated lock down for 1-2 months flatten the curve then return to normal slowly and we didn't have leadership for that.

The average person right now is sick of hearing about the virus sadly.

[Rasulis]

This is an interesting article about Modoc County in CA. The one of five counties without a single Covid-19 case in the seven western states.

This one California county has zero coronavirus cases. What’s its secret?

To anybody who has not been there. It is remote, beautiful, and surrounded by snow-capped mountains. I spent a year in 1989 in Modoc building five vacation homes around an artificial lake for a friend. The waitress at the place where I had breakfast every day carried a gun openly in a holster on her hip.

[Granyala]

The waitress at the place where I had breakfast every day carried a gun openly in a holster on her hip.

I certainly would not feel at ease, eating at that restaurant then.

[Forogil]

Its the same effect. False sense of security. There are plenty of studies showing how lack luster they are in terms of actually stopping anything if they are a loose fit.

Here is one for ya https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...302v2.full.pdf. Basically shows that in places with mask mandates in the US, people started to spend Less time at home and more time in moderate to high-risk areas due to the false sense of security the masks gave them.

Correct, and the most noted increase in high-risk areas were in restaurants (and other eating places). I'm a bit unsure how masks are used in restaurants by the eaters, but I don't think it works well, obviously you don't wear it while eating, and you take it off and on and thus touch the contaminated mask with your hands.

However, a problem I see in the US is that the public discussion about preventive measures against covid-19 isn't that nuanced (or in other words not that intelligent).

The vocal ones against masks aren't saying that physical distancing is enough, as they generally ignore that as well. It's not like Trump held his mass rally outdoors with large distance between participants.

On the other side many who argue for masks skip the physical distancing, exactly as you indicate:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/07/h...rnd/index.html
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/06/o...man/index.html
If that is because they don't know any better or because they want one battle at a time is unclear, but the natural outcome for the population is primarily no physical distancing, with or without mask. If, as the preprint study indicate, mask-wearing reduce physical distancing it is even worse.

And thus people think that the mask-wearing below is a good step (or too late), and ignore that there are too many persons walking too close together:

from https://nypost.com/2020/07/11/presid...itary-hospital

Obviously there are situations where you cannot always physically distance - like on public transports - and the simple idea is to avoid them when possible.

- - - Updated - - -

According to CNN something like 5 states are actually declining. This would be troubling if we were following precautions nationwide. It's catastrophic in our current state because it has been less about CV19 inherent problems. We have systemic problems and COVID19 is just exploiting us.

There's no way we are ready for public schools to open in a month, teachers and parents will be dying in their homes if that happens.

School closures are not that effective in stopping the virus:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...095-X/fulltext (Note that this is not a flu.)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2405-7
(See below.)

And they cause a number of problems (kids going hungry, kids with less education fare less well later in life, health care workers needing someone to care for their kids, etc).


Regarding the Imperial College article in Nature:
It seems robust in terms of school closures being ineffective (the first pre-print had them as possibly somewhat effective and then it dropped to almost nothing in the second iteration, and in this actual article they are still almost ineffective).

However, I don't understand their "partial pooling for last intervention", as their report makes it seem that for 10 of 11 countries lockdown was the only thing that significantly reduced R, but for Sweden that haven't had a lockdown the last intervention (banning public events) instead is seen as reducing R from 2.5 to 0.8. If we instead look at Norway that banned public events early that didn't seem to reduce R significantly, but instead the lockdown changed it.

To me it seems as if something other than the studied government interventions is a significant factor, and they don't know what.

[PACOX]

@Forogil, no one said anything about shutting down schools entirely. Resuming schools to pre-pandemic status is straight anti-scientic, anti-critical thinking, and idiot. There's no way America is ready for face-to-face schooling when can't even mitigate the virus yet. Schools are breeding grounds for diseases, not the time to pretend things are normal in the middle of a pandemic. If law makers wanted traditional school to resume then they should have listening to scientists, medical professionals, and the CDC to return to normalcy. The window is gone and and we have to deal with what we got. Districts are going to have to rely on alternative/remote methods of schooling or schools are going to collapse with teachers, faculty, caregivers, and students succumbing to the disease. The aftermath would be worse than even taking the semester off (which no one is suggesting).

Oddly, sadly, enough the US is used to events such as natural disasters dusrupting school in the fall and winter...and yet we are acting like we don't have plans anf resources to deal with forces of nature. What's different now? Politics and egos.

Sweden is a terrible example to go by. It's mortality rate is nothing to ignore in a country thats becoming increasing isolated due to its response. Humans wouldn't be humans if we just 'let nature take its course', which doesn't translate to much large and densely populated countries like the US.

A better example would be countries like SK and Japan where precautions respected. People and governments Yoon the virus seriously, and life was relatively minimally affected. Japan avoided lockdowns and did great, because people were responsible.

The US isn't responsible. The US is paying got it with a worst case of the pandemic on Earth. We can't even get out of wave 1,heaven forbid the possibility of a wave 2 I the fall happens. The US is forced to take the hard and difficult road such as online/small remote schooling because we didn't prepare. Like the ant and the grasshopper story. We let the house fall and now we have to put in the work to rebuild.

[Tuor]

Are you fucking serious right now? Humans have a long, long, loooooong history of doing exactly that. The concept of acting out of a perceived sense of self-preservation simply due to a set of beliefs (or, heaven forbid, intelligence) is so much a part of human evolution, that I'd argue it's one of the founding tenets of human history.

While the hurricane is a more visceral reminder of danger, we're far more than just our visceral reactions.

The sense of self-preservation you were talking about is always triggered by fear, could be fear coming from past experiencies, or could be fear just from the visual information you get. Fear allows people to react, and adapt so they can survive.
But with virus, you can't see it, you don't have past experiencies with it, all the information comes from the surrownding society, this means, for most people, the virus just doesn't trigger any sense of fear, it only does so, normally, after infection, and by then its already too late to react, you already in the hands of other people (health professional's).

The example you gave of comparing a biological entity (virus) with a natural event (hurricane) doesn't make any sense because the psychological response in both circunstances is not identical.

- - - Updated - - -

Erm... most people are actually pretty paranoid of COVID-19 over here.
Humans have always been terrified about the sick, we used to excise them from society, blamed it on the wrath of deities etc.

I've seen some of those paranoic people myself, but look at the middle ages plague, people reacted after they noticed a lot of people was dying around, and they did the most weird stuff around, execept none of those stuff obviously worked, because they lacked the proper information, its the same with sars-cov-2, after 5 months we still discussing how the virus spreads.

Again, the psychological response of a natural event such as an hurricane can't be compared with the one of a virus, we humans prioritise visual information just too much (and you can actually see that here on MMO-c), for a lot of people, not being able to see a threat, is almost has if didn't existed.

[Soulwind]

The sense of self-preservation you were talking about is always triggered by fear, could be fear coming from past experiencies, or could be fear just from the visual information you get. Fear allows people to react, and adapt so they can survive.
But with virus, you can't see it, you don't have past experiencies with it, all the information comes from the surrownding society, this means, for most people, the virus just doesn't trigger any sense of fear, it only does so, normally, after infection, and by then its already too late to react, you already in the hands of other people (health professional's).

The example you gave of comparing a biological entity (virus) with a natural event (hurricane) doesn't make any sense because the psychological response in both circunstances is not identical.

Animals fear disease. Most don't understand it, but they still evolve to avoid it, as the ones who don't, die, and don't reproduce.

Humans are slightly more intelligent than the average sea slug, and can understand that drinking brown water is bad, and will try to avoid it when possible. Sure, having experienced an epidemic and watching their loved ones die in agony as they bleed out of every pore for weeks helps, but in the end, it's still knowledge that can be passed from one generation to the next without having to experience the threat. Abstraction and communication, those are what separate us from other species.

People are denying the threat, not because they're unable to understand it, but because they've been taught wrong in other ways.
Someone who believes that a god chooses who lives and who dies, won't accept that their actions have any real influence.
Someone who believes that the world outside their country only exists as a threat to said country, won't trust anyone to teach them new information, as they're potential enemies.
Someone who believes that the only lives that matter are those closest to them, will hate others for being a threat to them, but won't do anything to avoid being a threat themselves.

So it's not an innate inability to see the danger. It's that they see the danger, but the information surrounding it is in direct conflict with their beliefs.

[Forogil]

@Forogil, no one said anything about shutting down schools entirely. Resuming schools to pre-pandemic status is straight anti-scientic, anti-critical thinking, and idiot. There's no way America is ready for face-to-face schooling when can't even mitigate the virus yet. Schools are breeding grounds for diseases, not the time to pretend things are normal in the middle of a pandemic.

For many diseases that is true, but the data for covid-19 indicates that schools are not an important factor in the spread of the disease; as indicated by the articles.

That doesn't mean that schools shouldn't put in place in physical distancing and encourage other measures, but it means that the focus should be on the non-school part.

Obviously schools can still be a problem during the fall even if don't contribute to the spread of covid-19, since kids spreading flu or the common cold might cause confusion and overwhelm the testing capacity.

If law makers wanted traditional school to resume then they should have listening to scientists, medical professionals, and the CDC to return to normalcy. The window is gone and and we have to deal with what we got. Districts are going to have to rely on alternative/remote methods of schooling or schools are going to collapse with teachers, faculty, caregivers, and students succumbing to the disease. The aftermath would be worse than even taking the semester off (which no one is suggesting).

Since schools don't spread the disease that much such a collapse doesn't seem likely, and closing schools will not magically cause children to stop gathering. Obviously parts of the schooling can be done remotely - especially theoretical subjects for older students.

I'm not saying that the solution is "don't close schools" - but that the focus should be on other measures.

Sweden is a terrible example to go by. It's mortality rate is nothing to ignore in a country thats becoming increasing isolated due to its response. Humans wouldn't be humans if we just 'let nature take its course', which doesn't translate to much large and densely populated countries like the US.

I wasn't holding up Sweden as an example, but used Sweden (and Norway) to indicate that the article's analysis was lacking.

However, if current trends continue it seems the US will have higher official death rate than Sweden in about 2 months (and possibly a lot sooner). Based on differences in under-counting it may already be the case for actual deaths (in contrast to parts of the US the Swedish flu deaths dropped to basically zero).

The US isn't responsible. The US is paying got it with a worst case of the pandemic on Earth. We can't even get out of wave 1,heaven forbid the possibility of a wave 2 I the fall happens. The US is forced to take the hard and difficult road such as online/small remote schooling because we didn't prepare. Like the ant and the grasshopper story. We let the house fall and now we have to put in the work to rebuild.

I'm not saying that the US shouldn't take actions, but that the actions should be chosen with more care.

[Granyala]

its the same with sars-cov-2, after 5 months we still discussing how the virus spreads.

That's because we still lack data to some extent.
I've seen studies stating that surfaces are low risk, since the material can be detected but no longer be cultivated. These tests were done in the homes of positively tested, infected people, mind you.

The main mode of transmission still seem to be droplets directly from snout to snout, so to speak.

[Felya]

I'm not saying that the US shouldn't take actions, but that the actions should be chosen with more care.

Manafort and Stone are out of jail, because covid is too dangerous. The day after US president demands schools reopen.

[Draco-Onis]

Manafort and Stone are out of jail, because covid is too dangerous. The day after US president demands schools reopen.

So all we have to do is give all teachers across the US blackmail material on the president and he will start caring about their safety