Interesting NYT piece about behind the scenes decision making.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...cid=spartandhp

and lot more has happened after that.....!

Seems the media/press starts to release that it is not business as usual any more.

Ars, which I highly respect for their quality reporting, published an article:

STAY CALM —

Don’t Panic: The comprehensive Ars Technica guide to the coronavirus

This is a fast-moving epidemic—we'll update this guide regularly.

March 8: Initial publication of the document.

Table of Contents

• How worried should I be?
• What is SARS-CoV-2?
• Where did SARS-CoV-2 come from?
• How did it start infecting people?
• What happens when you’re infected with SARS-CoV-2?
• What are the symptoms?
• How severe is the infection?
• Who is most at risk of getting critically ill and dying?
• Are men more at risk?
• Are children less at risk?
• How long does COVID-19 last?
• How many people die from the infection?
• How does COVID-19 compare with seasonal flu in terms of symptoms and deaths?
• How does SARS-CoV-2 spread?
• How does coronavirus transmission compare with flu?
• How likely am I to get it in normal life?
• What can I do to prevent spread and protect myself?
• Should I get a flu vaccine?
• When, if ever, should I buy or use a face mask?
• Should I avoid large gatherings and travel?
• What precautions should I take if I do travel?
• How should I prepare for the worst-case scenario?
• Should I keep anything in my medicine cabinet for COVID-19?
• Should I go to a doctor if I think I have COVID-19?
• When should I seek emergency care?
• Is the US healthcare system ready for this?
• What are the problems with testing in the US?
• What could happen if healthcare facilities become overwhelmed?
• When will all of this be over in the US?
• Will SARS-CoV-2 die down in the summer?
• Will it become a seasonal infection?
• What about treatments and vaccines?

How worried should I be?

You should be concerned and take this seriously. But you should not panic.

....


https://arstechnica.com/science/2020...e-coronavirus/

Italy's death rate as derived from today's numbers is just under 5%

Understood. At the same time, we can do back on the envelope calculation with current growth factors how many hospital and ICU/CCU beds would be required if hospitalization time is 7, 10, 14 or 21 days and if serious/critical percentage of hospitalized are 5, 7, 10, 15%. Right?

This is a good summary, and they quote the paragraph below regarding the fatality rates. This basically, more or less, gives you the fatality rates range (even if it is a slight overestimate), based on whether the health care system is overwhelmed or not. Even if the numbers are overestimates, it strongly suggests that an overwhelmed health care system will result in 8x more fatalities than normal.

"This seems to be what we’ve seen in China so far. In the WHO-China Joint Mission report, the experts noted that in Wuhan—where the outbreak began and where health systems have been crushed by the number of cases—the CFR was a whopping 5.8 percent. The rest of China at the time had a CFR of 0.7 percent."

Germany’s mortality rate is 0% with 1018 positive tests and 218 new cases today. The US has slightly less than half the number of identified cases and 19 fatalities. Bad luck (hasn’t hit a German nursing home... yet?)? Better healthcare system? France, next door, has about the same stats as Germany (1126 cases), but already 19 fatalities...

I am not an infectious disease expert, but I agree that drawing conclusions from individual countries or regions at this time is probably fairly unreliable given the “small” numbers and different approaches to care and testing.

Fauci today:

"This will be a recommendation," Fauci said. "If you're a person with an underlying condition and you are particularly an elderly person with an underlying condition, you need to think twice about getting on a plane, on a long trip. And not only think twice, just don't get on a cruise ship." (bolding mine)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/hea...cid=spartanntp

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/page/covid-19-cruise-ship

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/07/health/coronavirus-mutations-analysis/index.html
It will likely stop or slow down itself before we have a vaccine. The sickest are too sick to socialize so the most virulent strains don't spread to as many people as the less virulent strains which continue to get spread but induce only mild symptoms and immunity in the host. Viruses tend to mutate randomly and become less virulent after that critical but random mutation that allowed then to infect humans at all. RNA viruses don't have a brain so they cannot proofread their bad copies and fix them, therefore they are subject to the positive entropy of nature to create more disorder within their own ranks. And disorder and randomness favors less virulence, not more.

The reason we contain now is to delay the peak so the peak will be shallower and not over-stress the medical system. And hopefully with widespread testing, we will know when that peak passes.

If you have to catch this, odds are the later you catch it, the better you will do, all things considered, IF there is an ICU bed for you in the unlikely event you need it.

There is an article about process of testing in Alaska. Note, it was published 4 days ago, situation now there might be differnt.

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2020...r-coronavirus/

Here’s how Alaska is testing for coronavirus

I thought test kits were individual/per patient. But
Congratulations to Alaska, now they can test 200 people in the whole state.

Tonight's 60 Minutes: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronav...es-2020-03-08/

CBS News Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jonathan LaPook talks with medical staff at The Johns Hopkins Hospital about how they're preparing for coronavirus, and leading disease and epidemic experts weigh in on the U.S. response.

You should watch today's Face the Nation, if possible, it has a lot of interesting interviews:
https://www.cbs.com/shows/face-the-n...cott-gottlieb/

Sen. Murphy discusses some obvious stuff about lack of testing preparedness, how we should have been either producing our own tests since early January, or have used the ones from abroad. There is also discussion how we should be working on revising work policies, paid sick leaves, providing child care assistance, etc. now, which we don't do, as severe social distancing and economic disruption measures are coming.

Former FDA Commissioner Gottlieb said we have two months ahead of us of rapid acceleration of the disease, and touch economic and social distancing measures. He also mentioned that an economic bailout will come anyway, but should be done now upfront to help people do the right thing, not after the fact, when it is too late. He said that the CFR will end up being 1% (fatality ratio of those who become symptomatic), and he mentioned that COVID-19 shows a more binary picture either light symptoms, or very severe and critical, with not much in between (contrary to other types of flu). He said that the federal government should be providing consistent guidelines/recommendations and comprehensive support for implementing social distancing measures around the country, such as school/business closures, etc., and not leave this to the local communities, because they will act idiosyncratically and risk their health care systems getting overwhelmed easily, possibly resulting in a Wuhan style situation with 6% fatality rates.

I wandered this weekend on FB and some other social media places and honestly - wanted to wash my hands (pun intended) after reading utter bullcrap, I wish I can unread some...

One more thank you to the audience - probably apart from specialized resources/forums where specialists are exchanging opinions and planning actions, this thread/forum I think is the one of the highest quality resource available for generic audience, with high quality reporting, open minds and facts checking.

Let's keep this way (reminder to myself for not being triggered by trolls, who inevitably will pop up here from time to time).

Tonight's 60 Minutes covers some of this in its interview with Anthony Fauci: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronav...es-2020-03-08/