chipmaster

You've been following what happened in China, the very sick took all the resources, if you come last, you may spend a lot of time in the waiting room, or get sent home as all the respirators and beds will be already filled up.

username

60 Minutes tonight had 2 segments that is connected to what you are saying - the interview with Anthony Fauci and the interview with Fiona Hill. You are rooting for those who know what they are doing and are telling the truth.

paolo64

There is always some community criticism of the levels of protection afforded by the seasonal flu vaccine, but the reality is it can never be more than a cocktail of “best guess” , based on estimates of likely circulating strains. But even at 50% protection, it’s better than nothing, and particularly so this year, as access to care for anyone with ‘just’ the flu might be more difficult ( and an ‘unnecessary’ flu will put all the more strain on healthcare systems under pressure).
So I hope everyone will take up the option of seasonal flu vaccine ( in Australia, free for over 65s, and very cheap for everyone else).
It would be terrible ( not to mention awfully bad luck) to end up getting Covid-19 and seasonal flu concurrently.

rustykettel

Some of the Chinese tv stations I watch have been doing that, during every commercial break.

I feel your pain about the observations. Especially when I notice it coming from people that should know better (pharmacy staff or a PA).

helvetic

Bacardi 151 should do the trick in a pinch. Isopropyl alcohol is just alcohol. Almost-pure ethanol will do the job just fine.

notquiteaff

I just flew through LAX and SEA tonight. Didn’t see a single face mask. Seemed pretty much business as usual. Alaska seems to offer its first class passengers single wrap hand wipes together with the tiny water bottle. We in Premium Class had to pull out our own wipes to clean the seat area.

GUWonder

Repeating of such wash your hands and block your cough/sneeze public service announcements is standard on public bus and train displays in various parts of Scandinavia.

Some airlines in Europe have started handing out disinfectant wipe packets during meal/beverage service. Aegean/Olympic Air for example.

Velocipediste

An anomaly here in California is that there was no rain for all of February for much of the state. That has meant lower humidities and colder temperatures, especially nighttime temperatures. (Rainy weather usually means warmer temperatures as the clouds keep heat from radiating into outer space.)

wrp96

This is what I've been telling people when they ask me for advice (because apparently being a relatively frequent traveler makes me an infectious disease expert) and I'm glad to know that it is at least decent advice.

GinFizz

I posted an analysis of this problem (hospital bed, or equivalently ICU bed, demand) earlier in the thread (seems an age ago now the way things have developed since then ... ). It is good to see though that now more focus is being placed on this aspect of the epidemic. This is a little more sophisticated than the one referenced in the twitter thread linked some way above by karenkay , but still relies on estimates of some average numbers for the key parameters (i.e. doesn't consider a distribution of values).

For anyone that it interested you can play around with the numbers using this spreadsheet here (link to Excel file):

The inputs required (and factors that influence the demand for hospital beds are:
(1) the initial number of cases;
(2) the doubling time;
(3) the fraction infections that require hospitalization;
(4) the average number of days after infection that these patients need hospitalization;
(5) the average duration of hospital care needed.

The same model can be used for the demand on ICU beds (changing the inputs in (3-5) appropriately).

In turns out that the fraction of total cases needing a bed settles to a fixed value based on the values of (2-5) above. Interestingly the duration of care needed doesn't have a large impact, as for most sensible values this is already much larger than the doubling time (so the number of patients admitted in the last few days greatly outweighs the much smaller number admitted several doubling-times before).

For anyone interested in the mathematics, I give a walk-through of the derivation of this steady state in the spoiler-box below.
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In other news ... some updates from here in Beijing regarding implementation of social distancing:

(1) Large shops/supermarkets have to stick to a maximum customer density, so in theory you many need to queue to get into a shop. So far this has not happened to me (though it is clear they are keeping track of the number in the shop at any time)

(2) Banks and other places with a service counter follow the same system, but here queues outside are more common, and most have used tape-markings on the sidewalk/pavement to indicate 1m or 2m distance between people in a queue. Remarkable thing, despite much former evidence to the contrary, it turns out that people in China do know "how to queue" - they just needed some tape markings to help with the organizational aspect I had to go to a bank a couple of days ago - what would normally have taken maybe 10 minutes took 40 (with only 2 customers allowed in the bank at any time - as just two bank staff were serving customers).

(3) Restaurants are still mostly either closed or doing (good) business on a take-out/delivery basis. Where they are open the rule mentioned above about "1 person per table" does seem to be implemented as far as I can tell, though apparently this is not a Beijing govenrment rule (only "advisory").

(4) One of the main hurdles to getting the city fully functioning is the large number of workers that would need to use public transport to get from the suburbs to work. The company my wife works for (a state-owned legal office) is ready to start working as normal, but most likely won't as most of the work can be done from home, and companies in this position are encouraged to maintain the "home-office" model, so as to reduce the demand on the bus/metro system for employees who cannot work from home.

(5) In that regard I read that there was a trial of a "pre-booking" system for travel on the metro during rush hour. This works by each day people having to reserve a time-slot for travel on the metro, with only a certain number of people allowed into the metro system during rush hour (in practice done by getting a QR code on a smart-phone that allows access to the metro), This trial was carried out I think at two or three stations - but I haven't heard any feedback yet regarding how it worked, or if it will be extended.

stimpy

In my town I didn't see anyone wearing masks. And when I went to Paris, I didn't see many wearing masks. Maybe a few tourists, but Paris is used to seeing odd tourists.

LapLap

I honestly didn’t think it would get warm enough anywhere to see if weather could have an effect before mid April - so I am VERY interested and will be looking at this extremely closely.

PanAmWT

Rainy weather in winter prevents steep radiative cooling over night in cold spells but it does not lead to any temperature in the sense of being warm. Most winter rain in California are due to cold front passage, so temperature will drop rather than rise.

I cannot read Spanish. Could you tell how long the period and what are the temperature and humidity forecasts? The later could be relative humidity, or dew point temperature, or simply some descriptive words.

I am doubtfully a synoptic (3-7 days) event will make a detectable difference.

T8191

The big statistical distortion in the death toll surely arises from “age and pre-existing conditions”. Whilst any death is a great sadness, until there is detailed data on the victims I find it difficult to determine a degree of personal risk. After all, it’s a form of Flu that kills tens of thousands annually, albeit that this seems more transmissible and severe in some individuals.

Disclaimer - I’m 75 with no health issues, and continuing to enjoy travel NO intention of cancelling or rescheduling anying in the diary - Malta, USA (Virginia), St. Lucia and South Africa. I refuse to participate in a Pan-Panic.

nk15

The Who says there are new papers under review regarding comorbidity, hopefully they can tease out and separate the effects/risks of age from those of comorbidity.