COVID-19 Pandemic: Transmissions, Deaths, Treatments, Vaccines, Interventions and More...

[RU848789]

Everybody in the state. If you don't agree with that then you're banned from the board.

Seriously? Why would you say that? I just posted about the projected 50-70% infection total percentages of the population possibly being too high and 20% maybe being the right number and I've also said multiple times that right now, in NJ, we likely have 10X as many people infected as we have known positive cases. Making ridiculous assertions doesn't help anyone.

If you want to argue the data, then argue it with good data from reliable sources and share those sources, like I and many others have been doing. This is an extremely complex issue and people are being hurt physically and economically, which nobody wants to see, and the options out there are all either bad or horrible, but I'd rather go with bad until and unless we get a medical breakthrough (which we need ASAP as a vaccine will just take too long in all likelihood).

 

[RU85inFla]

And what is also hard to understand
Is the state of Florida is refusing to
Close the beaches.

Spring breakers sent home. Unfortunately mommy and daddy left it to the state of Florida to manage their college aged kids.

 

[fluoxetine]

SIAP, but here are a couple of the reports which reportedly has been influential in moving the needle in a very large way for the Federal Government over the past few days. Also, the first link, from MIT is a great place to find the latest breaking news/info from a largely technology perspective.

https://www.technologyreview.com/collection/coronavirus/

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/...l-distancing-18-months/?set=615328&set=615328

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

View embedded media

looks like 4 million are going to die then. Whoops

 

[RU848789]

If we ever needed proof that aggressive testing, with monitoring/tracking of contacts of people who test positive and quarantining those positives/contacts, along with general aggressive social distancing could work (as it has in SK, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc., so far), here's another case study.

It's from Vo in Northern Italy, where the worst of the outbreak is and they've completely contained the spread of the virus with this approach.

https://www.newsweek.com/coronaviru...0AfoSv197WbHBpGFShsOZPIkzttmq4At9jS37vGsW0W14
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http...2j8SPIK7fMQw2LW3rffcHjj9FZe6pGQGAum4DJYupII2A

 

[rutgersguy1]

Hydroxychlorquine approved for use against COVID-19 by the FDA. Hopefully it shows as promising results as that small French study.

https://www.newsweek.com/hydroxychloroquine-malaria-drug-coronavirus-fda-1493293

edit:
Misstatement from Trump. Looks like it’s not actually approved but can be legally prescribed for off label use.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...laria-drug-as-potential-coronavirus-treatment

 

[LC-88]

If we ever needed proof that aggressive testing, with monitoring/tracking of contacts of people who test positive and quarantining those positives/contacts, along with general aggressive social distancing could work (as it has in SK, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc., so far), here's another case study.

It's from Vo in Northern Italy, where the worst of the outbreak is and they've completely contained the spread of the virus with this approach.

https://www.newsweek.com/coronaviru...0AfoSv197WbHBpGFShsOZPIkzttmq4At9jS37vGsW0W14

Great info. Hope we get some test kits before it's too late.

 

[RobertG]

If we ever needed proof that aggressive testing, with monitoring/tracking of contacts of people who test positive and quarantining those positives/contacts, along with general aggressive social distancing could work (as it has in SK, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc., so far), here's another case study.

It's from Vo in Northern Italy, where the worst of the outbreak is and they've completely contained the spread of the virus with this approach.

https://www.newsweek.com/coronaviru...0AfoSv197WbHBpGFShsOZPIkzttmq4At9jS37vGsW0W14

Actaully Vo is the Veneto Region of Italy which currently has 3214 and I believe around 80 deaths with a total population of around 4 million. Where as Lombardy has 17,000 cases and the majority of deaths.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1099375/coronavirus-cases-by-region-in-italy/

 

[RU848789]

Actaully Vo is the Veneto Region of Italy which currently has 3214 and I believe around 80 deaths with a total population of around 4 million. Where as Lombardy has 17,000 cases and the majority of deaths.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1099375/coronavirus-cases-by-region-in-italy/

True, but that's mostly irrelevant to the point. They had community spread and controlled it, which most of Italy was unable to do. I'm sure population density was a minor factor, but Vo does have 430 people per square mile (NJ is about 1200 and Lombardy is 1100), so it's not the boondocks.

 

[RU848789]

Great info. Hope we get some test kits before it's too late.

Thanks. I first started whining about test kits on Feb 7th, so forgive me if I'm a little pessimistic, although it does look like NY, at least, has enough as their testing has really taken off.

 

[RobertG]

True, but that's mostly irrelevant to the point. They had community spread and controlled it, which most of Italy was unable to do. I'm sure population density was a minor factor, but Vo does have 430 people per square mile (NJ is about 1200 and Lombardy is 1100), so it's not the boondocks.

In your post you stated that "It's from Vo in Northern Italy, where the worst of the outbreak is." This is a little misleading. Vo is in Northern Italy, but the worst of the outbreak is in Lombardy and not to Veneto, even though it's right next to Lombardy, Veneto has seen much fewer cases and fewer deaths. If you are doing a comparison I would compare the results of Vo to the results of nearby towns and cities.

 

[Plum Street]

I heard a

Thanks. I first started whining about test kits on Feb 7th, so forgive me if I'm a little pessimistic, although it does look like NY, at least, has enough as their testing has really taken off.

Yes you were right. The rest of us we were whining that the basketball team couldn’t close out a road game ! Wow. I wish we could go back whining !

 

[RUhasarrived]

The barbershops and the salons are closing 8 PM.They won't be opening tomorrow but the 21st Amendment is still in effect.

 

[RU848789]

SIAP, but here are a couple of the reports which reportedly has been influential in moving the needle in a very large way for the Federal Government over the past few days. Also, the first link, from MIT is a great place to find the latest breaking news/info from a largely technology perspective.

https://www.technologyreview.com/collection/coronavirus/

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/...l-distancing-18-months/?set=615328&set=615328

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

View embedded media

Thought it was worth elaborating on one of these, with regard to "how long will this go on?" This is obviously a bit of guesswork, but I would be surprised if schools open again before May or we back down on social distancing before May, short of some miracle cure (or the virus petering out significantly due to spring, like most viruses do, although we can't bank on that), but I would think things will start looking up by May or June.

I do think that once we've finally ramped up the testing, medical supplies and hospital infrastructure to handle much larger surges (and we will get them, since we'll likely only have about 0.1% of the population infected when we see a decline from social distancing; China has only seen 0.01% infected for example), we should be able to relax the social distancing to some extent, since we'll be able to handle far more cases in any subsequent surge and will have testing in place to detect surges before they become bad and head back into a social distancing cycle.

We might require several cycles like that until we either have a treatment that's effective or a vaccine and my $$ is on having some good treatments before a vaccine (12 months for a vaccine in the best case). And shame on us if we don't keep that surge capacity in place once this is all over and done with, since there will be future deadly viruses. The graphic below illustrates the cycles I'm talking about from the linked article below.

https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk:8443/bitstream/10044/1/77482/5/Imperial College COVID19 NPI modelling 16-03-2020.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0OocMnNRe0h7ZQY4IkT3oPd3l8TFzq8PIKMYsGVaBu1a5CuBrRQnarzkI

 

[Proud NJ Sports Fan]

There is no treatment right now

Prevention is our best hope until the dry goods can kill the virus

 

[Salvi's Headband]

Thought it was worth elaborating on one of these, with regard to "how long will this go on?" This is obviously a bit of guesswork, but I would be surprised if schools open again before May or we back down on social distancing before May, short of some miracle cure (or the virus petering out significantly due to spring, like most viruses do, although we can't bank on that), but I would think things will start looking up by May or June.

I do think that once we've finally ramped up the testing, medical supplies and hospital infrastructure to handle much larger surges (and we will get them, since we'll likely only have about 0.1% of the population infected when we see a decline from social distancing; China has only seen 0.01% infected for example), we should be able to relax the social distancing to some extent, since we'll be able to handle far more cases in any subsequent surge and will have testing in place to detect surges before they become bad and head back into a social distancing cycle.

We might require several cycles like that until we either have a treatment that's effective or a vaccine and my $$ is on having some good treatments before a vaccine (12 months for a vaccine in the best case). And shame on us if we don't keep that surge capacity in place once this is all over and done with, since there will be future deadly viruses. The graphic below illustrates the cycles I'm talking about from the linked article below.

https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk:8443/bitstream/10044/1/77482/5/Imperial College COVID19 NPI modelling 16-03-2020.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0OocMnNRe0h7ZQY4IkT3oPd3l8TFzq8PIKMYsGVaBu1a5CuBrRQnarzkI

man I would sign up for May in a minnesota second.

 

[RUhasarrived]

Newsom just shut down California.Can Murphy be far behind?

 

[fluoxetine]

I don't think people will accept this kind of thing in cycles or for that long (18 months+).

You get one shot at this imo, if you lift the policies and then try to close all of the businesses again, there's no way people accept that.

If it goes into football season (not because of football, just the length of time) you will see ridiculous amounts of social unrest.

These imperial college ****ers better not be wrong..

 

[RU85inFla]

Looks like we pass Italy by end of day tomorrow as leader in daily new cases.

 

[cohwx]

Thought it was worth elaborating on one of these, with regard to "how long will this go on?" This is obviously a bit of guesswork, but I would be surprised if schools open again before May or we back down on social distancing before May, short of some miracle cure (or the virus petering out significantly due to spring, like most viruses do, although we can't bank on that), but I would think things will start looking up by May or June.

I do think that once we've finally ramped up the testing, medical supplies and hospital infrastructure to handle much larger surges (and we will get them, since we'll likely only have about 0.1% of the population infected when we see a decline from social distancing; China has only seen 0.01% infected for example), we should be able to relax the social distancing to some extent, since we'll be able to handle far more cases in any subsequent surge and will have testing in place to detect surges before they become bad and head back into a social distancing cycle.

We might require several cycles like that until we either have a treatment that's effective or a vaccine and my $$ is on having some good treatments before a vaccine (12 months for a vaccine in the best case). And shame on us if we don't keep that surge capacity in place once this is all over and done with, since there will be future deadly viruses. The graphic below illustrates the cycles I'm talking about from the linked article below.

https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk:8443/bitstream/10044/1/77482/5/Imperial College COVID19 NPI modelling 16-03-2020.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0OocMnNRe0h7ZQY4IkT3oPd3l8TFzq8PIKMYsGVaBu1a5CuBrRQnarzkI

That's how I think this will evolve. There will be periodic "easings" of restrictions during which time infection rates will rise, so the restrictions will have to be tightened. We'll have to walk a fine line that keeps the hospital system working and not overwhelmed, while allowing for some semblance of economic activity and "life". Bottom line, it's going to be a long, rough year. Now, if one of the treatments (like the malaria drug) turns out to be really effective maybe things won't be as rough, but I highly doubt there can be a vaccine for at least a year and probably longer.

On the other hand, as more and more people get exposed, infected and recover, a degree of herd immunity will start to set in. There will be more and more people who are immune so the virus won't be able to spread as quickly and efficiently. So subsequent waves should be less and less severe, in terms of spread at least. At some point though it will be flu season again and we'll have to deal with that added burden on the medical system.

As I said...it's going to be a long year.

 

[RU848789]

I don't think people will accept this kind of thing in cycles or for that long (18 months+).

You get one shot at this imo, if you lift the policies and then try to close all of the businesses again, there's no way people accept that.

If it goes into football season (not because of football, just the length of time) you will see ridiculous amounts of social unrest.

These imperial college ****ers better not be wrong..

You may be right. However, I keep meaning to start a thread about my "China Logic" but haven't gotten to it yet. Here's a short version I posted elsewhere the other day, which convinces me that we need to come close to what they did.

Look at it this way. China is generally recognized as not really caring that much about its people, generally speaking, as economic production is everything to the Communist government. Guessing many would agree with that, no? Well, if that's the case and this were no worse than the flu or even just a bit worse, does anyone think China would have shut the country down for 2 months, hugely impacting their economic production? No way.

This tells me that they knew it was far worse than the flu and decided that the shutdown and other aggressive measures were required to prevent an economic production impact far worse than the shutdown. It's also why I don't believe their numbers of 80K confirmed cases and 3100 deaths - many reports, especially out of Wuhan, are that they stopped counting the dead.

It's also hard to believe that they only had maybe 60K infections in Wuhan, a city of 10MM (that's <0.1% and we saw 17% on the Diamond Princess with little control over transmission and Wuhan would've had little control at least early on. It's possible they saw hundreds of thousands of cases and 10,000+ deaths and we'd never know it. Just look at Italy. They have 1/20th the population of China and have now surpassed the number of deaths that China has claimed (3405 vs. 3248) in about half the cases.

If anyone would have been tempted to just "let it go" and would've been able to "get away with it" at least internally, it would've been China. But they went all out to stop this. IMO, it's because they knew it could be far worse, i.e., I think they developed their own "Imperial College" numbers and said that would be too much for even them to tolerate (5-10MM dead and 10X that in ICUs) - from an economic production perspective, plus they had the "misfortune" of being first and knew they'd be a pariah if it not only started there, but they did nothing about it.

 

[cohwx]

Interesting critique of the paper and methodology in question. They claim: "Since lockdowns result in exponentially decreasing numbers of cases, a comparatively short amount of time can be sufficient to achieve pathogen extinction, after which relaxing restrictions can be done without resurgence." Not clear what "comparatively short amount of time" might mean - maybe shorter than 18 months but still uncomfortably long for a complete lockdown (2 months or so? Wuhan is approaching 2 months)

1) Direct link to review/critique

https://necsi.edu/review-of-ferguson-et-al-impact-of-non-pharmaceutical-interventions

2) Twitter thread on subject

 

[RU848789]

Interesting little side story of a dozen rafters on the Colorado River who were off the grid for 25 days and came back to a surprise pandemic this past Saturday...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-news.html

 

[GoodOl'Rutgers]

Last night as I was watching the news, I just kept getting angry. How can the government not just mass produce everything? How is testing still an issue? They need to switch over anything they can to make protective gear, test kits, ventilators, oxygen etc.

I am on board with the amount of people "confirmed" is complete and utter BS. It's definitely vastly under reported and the fact that we aren't capable/ willing to test everything that may be positive is crazy. I know this first hand, sick people told to stay at home if not critical with no tests.

We need to lockdown everyone simultaneously, this slow march to it will do nothing. After the lockdown we will need everyone to wear masks to keep transmission down. (is this crazy, maybe?)

Sorry for the rant, I just see the tidal wave of sick coming and all the promises of "this (insert test kits, hospital beds etc)is coming" etc is making me mad.

where were you a month ago? 2 months ago?

 

[GoodOl'Rutgers]

Spring breakers sent home. Unfortunately mommy and daddy left it to the state of Florida to manage their college aged kids.

we don't want them back... risk too high... send them to Cancun

 

[GoodOl'Rutgers]

Will we get one of those things where you can shop 1 day a week.. based on the last name on your drivers license? like A-F on Monday, etc.

 

[RU848789]

Interesting critique of the paper and methodology in question. They claim: "Since lockdowns result in exponentially decreasing numbers of cases, a comparatively short amount of time can be sufficient to achieve pathogen extinction, after which relaxing restrictions can be done without resurgence." Not clear what "comparatively short amount of time" might mean - maybe shorter than 18 months but still uncomfortably long for a complete lockdown (2 months or so? Wuhan is approaching 2 months)

1) Direct link to review/critique

https://necsi.edu/review-of-ferguson-et-al-impact-of-non-pharmaceutical-interventions

2) Twitter thread on subject

View embedded media

My perspective is that Ferguson et al have the right "model" in that I think we're going to see cycles, because, unlike Shen et al, I don't think we can rely, in the real world, on great enough social distancing compliance to achieve extinction. Their models are likely too aggressive, as I don't think infection rates are going to be as high as they do, but I think their general logic is sound. Even if we locked down for 28 days (14 to get to greatly reduced infections with the last new one presumably on day 14, so you have to go another 14 to get to no new ones), we know we have people who simply don't believe the science or don't care or both.

The people they were interviewing on the beaches ignoring social distance orders, were saying it wasn't a big deal and that it was no worse than the flu and it was mostly media scare tactics (hmmm, where were they getting those messages?). Some decent percentage of those folks are never going to self-quarantine and will provide a ready pool of new infections that will break out after X days of lockdown and start new infection chains, since our first wave will likely infect <0.1% of the population.

That's why building ourselves a complete testing/medical infrastructure that can handle peaks is so critical (and why it should've been in place 3 weeks ago), as I think we're bound to have more cycles.

 

[fluoxetine]

You may be right. However, I keep meaning to start a thread about my "China Logic" but haven't gotten to it yet. Here's a short version I posted elsewhere the other day, which convinces me that we need to come close to what they did.

Look at it this way. China is generally recognized as not really caring that much about its people, generally speaking, as economic production is everything to the Communist government. Guessing many would agree with that, no? Well, if that's the case and this were no worse than the flu or even just a bit worse, does anyone think China would have shut the country down for 2 months, hugely impacting their economic production? No way.

This tells me that they knew it was far worse than the flu and decided that the shutdown and other aggressive measures were required to prevent an economic production impact far worse than the shutdown. It's also why I don't believe their numbers of 80K confirmed cases and 3100 deaths - many reports, especially out of Wuhan, are that they stopped counting the dead.

It's also hard to believe that they only had maybe 60K infections in Wuhan, a city of 10MM (that's <0.1% and we saw 17% on the Diamond Princess with little control over transmission and Wuhan would've had little control at least early on. It's possible they saw hundreds of thousands of cases and 10,000+ deaths and we'd never know it. Just look at Italy. They have 1/20th the population of China and have now surpassed the number of deaths that China has claimed (3405 vs. 3248) in about half the cases.

If anyone would have been tempted to just "let it go" and would've been able to "get away with it" at least internally, it would've been China. But they went all out to stop this. IMO, it's because they knew it could be far worse, i.e., I think they developed their own "Imperial College" numbers and said that would be too much for even them to tolerate (5-10MM dead and 10X that in ICUs) - from an economic production perspective, plus they had the "misfortune" of being first and knew they'd be a pariah if it not only started there, but they did nothing about it.

I don't really agree with this logic. I think that the Chinese government cares more about how they look than they do about the economic production per se and getting ravaged by disease looks bad.

I also think they're lying their asses off and throwing out the journalists is not so subtle.

My perspective is that Ferguson et al have the right "model" in that I think we're going to see cycles, because, unlike Shen et al, I don't think we can rely, in the real world, on great enough social distancing compliance to achieve extinction. Their models are likely too aggressive, as I don't think infection rates are going to be as high as they do, but I think their general logic is sound. Even if we locked down for 28 days (14 to get to greatly reduced infections with the last new one presumably on day 14, so you have to go another 14 to get to no new ones), we know we have people who simply don't believe the science or don't care or both.

The people they were interviewing on the beaches ignoring social distance orders, were saying it wasn't a big deal and that it was no worse than the flu and it was mostly media scare tactics (hmmm, where were they getting those messages?). Some decent percentage of those folks are never going to self-quarantine and will provide a ready pool of new infections that will break out after X days of lockdown and start new infection chains, since our first wave will likely infect <0.1% of the population.

That's why building ourselves a complete testing/medical infrastructure that can handle peaks is so critical (and why it should've been in place 3 weeks ago), as I think we're bound to have more cycles.

How do you think a population where many people are trying to ignore it now will react when someone tries to reinstitute these policies after lifting them? At best, you will get steadily declining compliance rates.

 

[RUevolution36]

I don't really agree with this logic. I think that the Chinese government cares more about how they look than they do about the economic production per se and getting ravaged by disease looks bad.

I also think they're lying their asses off and throwing out the journalists is not so subtle.



How do you think a population where many people are trying to ignore it now will react when someone tries to reinstitute these policies after lifting them? At best, you will get steadily declining compliance rates.

We haven't gotten to the logical conclusion of this first attempt of distancing yet. Governors and the feds are resisting it, but they will likely need to declare some level of martial law, with the natl guard patrolling the streets and enforcing the rules.

 

[RU848789]

Excellent summary article on whether this new coronavirus will behave in a "seasonal" fashion, like influenza, excerpted below. SARS did peter out by early summer in China, but it's not clear if it was because of seasonal change or effective public health intervention practices and MERS started in September in Saudi Arabia where it's warm (but not humid usually), but it had a fairly low transmission rate, so it might not be a good model for CoV-2. Let's all hope this one is more like influenza, which generally becomes much less of a problem by April in the northern hemisphere.

Though the coronavirus and the flu are both respiratory infections, not enough is known about SARS-CoV-2 to predict if it will have the same seasonal patterns.

To better understand this outbreak, scientists are looking at comparable outbreaks like SARS and MERS. SARS, which started its spread in late 2002, shares almost 90 percent of its DNA with the current virus. The SARS outbreak started in November and lasted until July, which only hints at seasonality, says Weston, and containment may have resulted from early intervention. In other words, did it disappear with warmer weather, or did treatment and prevention efforts simply work?

MERS began in September 2012 in Saudi Arabia, where temperatures are generally high. Unlike SARS, it was never fully contained, and new cases are occasionally reported. The novel coronavirus has also begun to circulate locally in the Middle East, namely in Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

“We don’t see too much evidence of seasonality in MERS,” says Weston. But whether SARS and MERS were truly seasonal or if this virus will imitate SARS is unclear. Weston says their lab is focused on developing treatments and vaccines for the virus, which he cautions won’t likely be available for a least a year, if not several.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...virus-covid-19-in-warmer-spring-temperatures/

Well, if we're looking for some good news, this article (not peer reviewed data) indicates that we might be seeing seasonality with CV2, as rates of transmission do appear to be lower in areas over 18C, with all of the worst case rate locations being below 13C (avg temp during that time). One would expect seasonality, given known temp/humidity sensitivity of this virus, and seasonality of most viruses, such as influenza, but there wasn't really any good data on previous, more similar coronaviruses, like SARS (petered out largely, before spring in China) and MERS (which started in Sept in Saudi Arabia and died down quickly). The question is, if seasonality is confirmed, whether it will make much difference given the greater inherent transmission rate of CV2. At least it's something hopefully going in our favor.

The results: In the most recent analysis out of MIT, which used data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the researchers found that the maximum number of coronavirus transmissions has occurred in regions that had temperatures between 3 and 13 °C during the outbreak. In contrast, countries with mean temperatures above 18 °C have seen fewer than 5% of total cases. This pattern also shows up within the US, where southern states like Texas, Florida, and Arizona have seen a slower growth rate than northern states like Washington, New York, and Colorado. California, which spans north and south, has a growth rate that falls in between.

Does this change anything? Other factors like population density, quality of medical care, and government responses also affect transmission—perhaps more than weather does. In a recent post, Marc Lipsitch, the director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at the Harvard School of Public Health, echoed this analysis. “While we may expect modest declines in the contagiousness of SARS-CoV-2 in warmer, wetter weather,” he wrote, “it is not reasonable to expect these declines alone to slow transmission enough to make a big dent.”

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/...ow-with-warmer-weather/?set=615328&set=615328

 

[RU848789]

And on the flip side, a recent study from China shows that, while mortality rates were extremely low in young people in China (only 1 death), there were modest to significant impacts with regard to hospitalizations, although still much less than in adults, with 6% of young people experiencing severe to critical impacts vs. 18% in adult patients. I think there's an impression out there that children/teens have no risks and that's not the case at all.

Of the 2,143 cases, 731 (34.1%) were laboratory-confirmed, and 1,412 (65.9%) were suspected. Median patient age was 7 years (range, 1 day to 18 years); 1,213 (56.6%) were boys.

Using clinical signs, lab testing, and chest x-rays, the researchers classified 94 patients (4.4%) as asymptomatic, 1,091 (50.9%) having mild disease, and 831 (38.8%) having moderate illness.

Young children were more at risk of serious illness than older children were. The proportion of severe and critical cases was 10.6 % for children younger than 1 year, 7.3% for those 1 to 5, 4.2% for those 6 to 10, 4.1% for those 11 to 15, and 3.0% for those 16 to 18. "Only one child died, and most cases were mild, with much fewer severe and critical cases (5.9%) than adult patients (18.5%)," they wrote.

Despite that finding, investigators said that children of all ages and both sexes were clearly at risk due to the coronavirus. "Although clinical manifestations of children's COVID-19 cases were generally less severe than those of adult patients, young children, particularly infants, were vulnerable to infection," they wrote.

The authors write that the less severe presentation may be attributed to less exposure or sensitivity to COVID-19, different immune response mechanisms, or higher levels of antibodies to viruses than in adults due to broader exposures to respiratory infections in winter.

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-pers...ns-covid-19-risks-unique-chinese-studies-find

 

[albanyknight]

One of the things I have not seen discussed is reopening and retrofitting hospitals that have closed over the last decade. Granted many are rural hospitals but it may be more cost effective to transport patients in some cases than build temporary hospitals from scratch.

https://www.hrsa.gov/enews/past-issues/2017/october-19/hospitals-closing-increase.html

 

[RobertG]

One of the things I have not seen discussed is reopening and retrofitting hospitals that have closed over the last decade. Granted many are rural hospitals but it may be more cost effective to transport patients in some cases than build temporary hospitals from scratch.

https://www.hrsa.gov/enews/past-issues/2017/october-19/hospitals-closing-increase.html

https://www.politico.com/states/new...prepped-as-fema-arrives-in-new-jersey-1267349

 

[albanyknight]

https://www.politico.com/states/new...prepped-as-fema-arrives-in-new-jersey-1267349

Good stuff. Thanks for sharing.

 

[NickKnight 1]

And on the flip side, a recent study from China shows that, while mortality rates were extremely low in young people in China (only 1 death), there were modest to significant impacts with regard to hospitalizations, although still much less than in adults, with 6% of young people experiencing severe to critical impacts vs. 18% in adult patients. I think there's an impression out there that children/teens have no risks and that's not the case at all.

Of the 2,143 cases, 731 (34.1%) were laboratory-confirmed, and 1,412 (65.9%) were suspected. Median patient age was 7 years (range, 1 day to 18 years); 1,213 (56.6%) were boys.

Using clinical signs, lab testing, and chest x-rays, the researchers classified 94 patients (4.4%) as asymptomatic, 1,091 (50.9%) having mild disease, and 831 (38.8%) having moderate illness.

Young children were more at risk of serious illness than older children were. The proportion of severe and critical cases was 10.6 % for children younger than 1 year, 7.3% for those 1 to 5, 4.2% for those 6 to 10, 4.1% for those 11 to 15, and 3.0% for those 16 to 18. "Only one child died, and most cases were mild, with much fewer severe and critical cases (5.9%) than adult patients (18.5%)," they wrote.

Despite that finding, investigators said that children of all ages and both sexes were clearly at risk due to the coronavirus. "Although clinical manifestations of children's COVID-19 cases were generally less severe than those of adult patients, young children, particularly infants, were vulnerable to infection," they wrote.

The authors write that the less severe presentation may be attributed to less exposure or sensitivity to COVID-19, different immune response mechanisms, or higher levels of antibodies to viruses than in adults due to broader exposures to respiratory infections in winter.

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-pers...ns-covid-19-risks-unique-chinese-studies-find

Do know if and where masks are
Available in our area?

 

[RU848789]

Do know if and where masks are
Available in our area?

Sorry, no idea - which kind of masks (surgical or the N95 style respirators)?

 

[GoodOl'Rutgers]

Well, if we're looking for some good news, this article (not peer reviewed data) indicates that we might be seeing seasonality with CV2, as rates of transmission do appear to be lower in areas over 18C, with all of the worst case rate locations being below 13C (avg temp during that time).

China has a lot of activity in Australia and it is summer down under and they really have not been much in the news for out of control pandemic stuff. Summer could have saved them.. I wonder what their fall and winter will bring them.

 

[NickKnight 1]

Sorry, no idea - which kind of masks (surgical or the N95 style respirators)?

Surgical.

 

[RU85inFla]

On same trajectory as Italy weighted for differences in population. John’s Hopkins today said 94.3% of Americans do not know how they got virus.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/3/20/21179040/coronavirus-us-italy-not-overreacting

 

[RU Cheese]

China has a lot of activity in Australia and it is summer down under and they really have not been much in the news for out of control pandemic stuff. Summer could have saved them.. I wonder what their fall and winter will bring them.

You raise a point I haven't thought of. Even if spring / warm weather provides virus relief, it'll be colder weather and better conditions for virus to spread in Southern Hemisphere. Unless int'l travel is suspended for months and months, we'd likely have someone carry it back here in the fall (assuming optimistically it was under control here by then).

 

[Scarlet16E]

You raise a point I haven't thought of. Even if spring / warm weather provides virus relief, it'll be colder weather and better conditions for virus to spread in Southern Hemisphere. Unless int'l travel is suspended for months and months, we'd likely have someone carry it back here in the fall (assuming optimistically it was under control here by then).

While this is true, there are perhaps a couple of mitigating factors.
For one, the southern hemisphere does not have as many large cold weather cities as the northern hemisphere. Places like Melbourne, Hobart, Aukland, Cape Town, Santiago, and Buenes Aires don't really get that cold, and those are the at the highest southern latitudes (of population centers).