dynato

It is 21.2% in NYC, nearly 50% larger infection rate. Using the same logic would indicate that the infection rate is significantly lower than 13.9% in cities outside of NYC. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

After the 2008 recession, the unemployment benefits were extended up to 53 weeks. The average time on unemployment was 34 weeks if i recall correctly. Employers like to run off skeleton crews. Meaning a portion of the employees will not return back to the business solely because it saves the owner operating costs. A portion of businesses will not open up unless they know they will have consistent business (ie public sentiment needs to be pro consumerism). A portion of employees will not return back to the workforce until they know they will be protected. A lot of factors go into it

Keep in mind early results and testing are all incredibly crude (see the 2M projected deaths). This study was one of the first of its kind for COVID. The Stanford study that got the 50-85x infectious rate had severe selectivity bias. They got their participants from a facebook advertisement, who were located in a covid hot spot, and were able to reject participants from certain localities. Preliminary peer review has a lot of mixed responses, here is the most positive, non-biased one I found: "The study confirms the widely-held belief that far more people than originally thought have been infected with the coronavirus, said Arthur Reingold, an epidemiology professor at UC Berkeley who was not involved in the study, but it doesn’t mean the shelter-in-place order will be lifted any time soon. “The idea this would be a passport to going safely back to work and getting us up and running has two constraints: we do not know if antibodies protect you and for how long, and a very small percentage of the population even has antibodies,” he said. Even with the adjusted rate of infection as found by the study, only 3% of the population has coronavirus – that means 97% does not. To reach herd immunity 50% or more of the population would have to be infected and recovered from coronavirus." It is easier to poke holes in someone else's research than to conduct your own. Hopefully this leads to more immediate research, testing, vetting, and scrutiny of serology with respect to COVID.

If we are still heading towards peak cases, it gives governors reason to extend for two weeks. In my opinion, the only way to know if we peaked is to have consistency with the amount of testing we do. To me this means testing more, or at least the same quantity every day, to confirm suspicions of asymptomatic spread, reaching the peak sooner. The whole mass testing event every 7 days will just skew/prolong the decision. This is why I questioned the vague guidance. Both for closing in the first place and for opening up.

We are still looking to meet the criteria for opening up. Then Phase I is businesses open up. Phase II is schools opening back up. There is a mass testing event today in GF for the remaining employees at LM Windpower. They encouraged all Simplot employees to get tested to help see if there is significant asymptomatic spread in our community. If this leads to a spike in cases, another "two weeks" message is likely to be given out when the results come back.

For those of you curious about where the "two more weeks" keeps coming from, it is actually from the current (4-23-2020) set of federal criteria for opening up. If everyday is a new peak, then you will be in an infinite loop of two more weeks. https://www.whitehouse.gov/openingamerica/#criteria

For anyone curious, this is (was) the national strategy for pandemic influenza - implementation plan that president Bush orchestrated. It has a little bit of everything for everyone. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/pdf/pandemic-influenza-implementation.pdf "Low-cost or sustainable social distancing measures should be introduced within the workplace immediately after a community outbreak begins, and businesses should prepare for the possibility of measures that have the potential to disrupt their business continuity. Decisions as to how and when to implement community measures will be made on a case-by-case basis, with the Federal Government providing support and guidance to local officials. "

There should have been a plan going into this. A plan that says when certain cities/states should shut down. What businesses stay in operation. Which business don't. Funding, Unemployment, Bailouts, Coverage planned out. As well a a plan for opening. Despite Bush setting aside 7bn for a pandemic budget, Obama continuing said budget/plan, and bill gates advocating for his own plan in 2015. All of that was thrown out the window. As such, our government is winging it with absolutely no guidance. Winging it into it this mess, winging it out of it this mess.

Are their economies thriving as a result?

I found it strange too. That they are able to track it to such a degree, but not enforce it. https://www.grandforksherald.com/news/crime-and-courts/5386148-LM-Wind-Power-quarantine-order-could-be-difficult-to-enforce-says-local-law-enforcement

LM Windpower employees are required to stay home for 14 days or face legal action. Their spouses, however, faced no such restriction, it was only suggested they stay home. My co-workers wife came into direct contact with a spouse of someone who tested positive at the LM Windpower outbreak. His wife was tested last week and everyone he came into contact was advised by a medical professional to quarantine until his wife test results come back (3-5 business day results). If his wife tests positive, then they start going down the line of contacts and testing them.

General question: Do people believe that shutting down the national economy, severely limiting business and travel, banning events larger than 10 people, closing down schools, implementing nationwide social distancing and stay at home measures, had absolutely no impact on the ~30-40k covid deaths we have experienced in the past month? Or is the general belief that continuing these measures now outweigh the benefit that they provide?

Discuss. (Article published on April 15th, before the outcome of the LM Windpower plant)

Please correct me if I am wrong: They have reported on it. But Gilead used a small sample size. Not officially proven yet. The FDA has not approved it. No government approved it as an official response/guideline to treat. The information about the trial was not suppose to be made public and there are investigations into the company for manipulation. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/18/us/sec-investigation-request-coronavirus-drug-leak-remdesivir/index.html

You missed the point due to being stuck in an echo-chamber. If you want to believe it is the new fear porn, then so be it. Just know that our current administration is catering to it. Our president just utilized the Defense Production Act to increase production of test kits by over 20M a month at a single facility. He intends to use the act again to increase production at additional facilities.

April 3rd - Morgan Stanley calls for more testing to ease Investors fear of a market collapse if markets open too soon: https://www.dcba-pa.org/UserFiles/files/events/Biotechnology_ COVID-19_ A Prescription To Get The US Back To Work.pdf Early April 8th (Referencing same author as the 20M/tests a day, except in the except he was looking at only 500k tests/day) : https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2020/04/08/to-get-our-economy-moving-focus-on-testing-for-coronavirus/#7d7b246673f2 Later on April 8th: First white paper from Harvard on the 5M to 20M tests per day figure https://ethics.harvard.edu/files/center-for-ethics/files/white_paper_6_testing_millions_final.pdf April 16th: Referencing 20M to 30M tests to open up the economy https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/16/coronavirus-testing-needs-to-be-widely-done-before-economy-reopens.html April 17th: Again, referencing 20M to 30M tests by the team at Harvard https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/17/amid-push-reopen-states-businesses-plead-more-federal-testing-help/

Go to saturdays conversation, you'll likely find a bit on it there. The 20M tests per day report came out last monday, April 13th, 2020. Harvard actually made the study. They actually advocate for 5M tests a day up until June. https://ethics.harvard.edu/files/center-for-ethics/files/roadmaptopandemicresilience_updated_4.20.20_0.pdf

Not the article, but the 20M tests/day required to open up the country has been old news.

This has been linked here before. The general consensus is more tests would undeniably help. Quicker results would help. More testing is the opposite of fear porn. It would not increase death counts, but rather confirm the true mortality rate is lower than the number we currently see due to limited testing. It would ideally lead to better isolation of the sick. Which is their last argument, the tracking of the infected goes hand and hand with testing. These definitely would help with the argument of opening up the country. However, 20 million tests a day is really unrealistic.

The answer is... its not that deep. No life or death type questions. Just randomly selected 1000 people from the American Community Survey and asked them relatively benign and vague questions about the current situation. Detailed poll, questions and results: https://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/athena/files/2020/04/20/5e9e1857c5b63c5b58734cc0.pdf

To be fair, the other states have had more time than ours to buff out the initial curve making outliers negligible. To compare to national data, what isn't built in to the data is the time lag. Thus comparing recent testing data in ND, to the national average, allows for a better comparison. Starting from day 1 (40 days ago): Average positive cases/day = 14 Starting from day 30 (10 days ago): Average positive cases/day = 31 Starting from day 35 (5 days ago): Average positive cases/day = 49 Data from early on naturally becomes irrelevant.

All I can say is that toilet paper was practically sold out in our state before a case was even confirmed. Likely early on people were getting tested out of fear. The test positive rate will continue to climb as it spreads through our population. Especially with how prevalent in the population everyone thinks COVID is.

424 tests were conducted as a response to the LM Windpower outbreak. 110 tests came back positive, results from 50 are still in progress. That is a rate of 25% minimum, which is more comparable to the national average. Keep in mind that the tests are likely only being administer to those with reasonable suspicion of having COVID. Selectivity bias plays a role here

The only objective criteria for success right now is our healthcare system not imploding. To say that curve flattening and social distancing is not medically supported is the true populist drivel. The theory of social distancing has been studied for at least the past century, especially since the outbreak of the Spanish Flu. A simple research journal search will show you that there has been at least 10,000 peer reviewed publications the subject. Here is a high level summary of social distancing theory that could help you argue your point for why social distancing is moot for our epidemic. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2877723/

I'd suggest you drop the conversation on what additional preventative measures current industries can take. Most are likely doing as much as they can without financially ruining themselves or laying off people. This virus has been found to be asymptomatic the first few days. It is also highly contagious, even when showing no symptoms. Meaning it spreads to many people before it is known to even be an issue.