COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread

[fifth_column]

Who would have thunk criminals would do something like that?

LMPD to respond to burglar alarms again, as criminals are 'taking advantage' of pandemic
https://www.wdrb.com/news/lmpd-to-respond-to-burglar-alarms-again-as-criminals-are-taking-advantage-of-pandemic/article_3075e030-7ea7-11ea-ad34-cf6459e2e944.html

I was wondering the other day if the self-isolation/quarantine/social distancing efforts would cause crime to go down on average, it seems to me that it would.  I haven't looked into it yet.

[Hawkmoon]

Interesting my neurologist that prescribed my CPAP machine told me that CPAP machines are more valuable for Covid-19 cases then ventilators.

I wondered about that. I asked somebody a couple of weeks back if CPAP machines could be used to help COVID-19 patients, and I never got an answer.

[charby]

I wondered about that. I asked somebody a couple of weeks back if CPAP machines could be used to help COVID-19 patients, and I never got an answer.

Made sense to me, since it not an invasive way to push air into the lungs vs a intubation tube with a ventilator.

[Hawkmoon]

Where are you hearing about full hospitals?  I would like to hear details if you have some.  

I realize a few states are being hit hard by this, but most are not.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6TYQBKq0B8

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/i-have-never-seen-anything-like-it-says-new-york-city-doctor-about-covid-19#Steep-rise-in-cases

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronavirus-doctor-death-new-york-covid-19-cornelia-griggs-a9436436.html

https://www.kcra.com/article/inside-a-new-york-hospital-that-is-overwhelmed-with-covid-19-patients-and-deaths/31974787#

[Angel Eyes]

If you think lockdowns are unconstitutional, you are "far right" according to the AP:

https://apnews.com/61d9bbe247e03a90b8071d3529d35e31

”Quarantine is only supposed to be for sick people not mandatory for healthy law abiding people,” Shea wrote on Facebook. “Otherwise constitutionally and legally that starts creeping into martial law territory.”
....
“If I choose to peacefully assemble, go to Church, go to a gun shop, take my family fishing, open my business, enjoy the outdoors, or exercise any of my constitutional rights, I should not be restricted from doing so by a would-be dictator,” Culp told supporters during a recent conference call.

[Hawkmoon]

An interesting thing here that I read this morning is that the demographic group with the most reported cases is the 18-29 year old group.

https://idahonews.com/news/coronavirus/idaho-wednesday-coronavirus-numbers-updated-april-15

They were all probably at Spring break in Florida ...

[TommyGunn]

Full hospitals can't be faked. 

There aren't nearly as many "full hospitals"  as were predicted.  Some of the improvised ones have few if any patients and some assembled by the Army Corps of Engineers are being dismantled .  

[Ron]

There aren't nearly as many "full hospitals"  as were predicted.  Some of the improvised ones have few if any patients and some assembled by the Army Corps of Engineers are being dismantled .  

"They" will claim that is because we flattened the curve.

The problem is that all the models used already had social distancing and lock downs built into the models.

The data is all suspect and sucks.

Garbage in garbage out.

[TommyGunn]

^^^^^

True, that.

[Perd Hapley]

Obviously, if people are treating Covid like it's no big deal, it's bad form to hope they get the disease and their loved ones die from it.

Is it any more acceptable, if someone laughs off the ruined economy, to hope they and their children spend the rest of their lives in miserable poverty?

I'm not planning to desire either of those outcomes for anyone. I'm just wondering if we're going to be consistent.

[Ron]

Along the same lines as my previous post.

Unfortunately going forward or looking back for that matter, if you want to be honest, you must accept "reported deaths" is not analogous with "actual deaths".

Same thing with reported cases. Reported cases don't necessarily mean tested positive for the virus or antibodies. It also means the doctor looked at the symptoms and made a judgement call, in many cases misdiagnosing many positive/negative.

[Ben]

They were all probably at Spring break in Florida ...

I should have clarified that the affected demographic was of Idaho residents, not a US demographic. I don't know what the US demographics are. They may have gone to Spring break, but from my experience, most students West of the Rockies like to head to Mexico or Texas or California for break.

[charby]

Another Tyson pork kill plant has a potential outbreak in Waterloo, IA. IA governor just announced that.

[Perd Hapley]

https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/16/the-lockdown-is-loosening-whether-government-likes-it-or-not/

New York City has been on lockdown for about a month. Up until this past week the effect has been stark and nearly universal. Most mornings, weather permitting, I sit in my small Brooklyn backyard as the day begins. For weeks the loudest sound has been the silence, quiet streets forming a backdrop for distant sirens and harbor boat horns. That is changing, the white noise of car traffic, like an ocean lapping on a beach has returned.

On my “essential walks” which I take daily to the grocery or the bodega, I traverse an overpass above the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. For the past month traffic has been spare, an emergency vehicle here and there, not much more. That too has changed. While it has not returned to the soul crushing bumper-to-bumper standstill that makes the BQE infamous, the number of cars coursing to and from Staten Island has built up everyday.

A good and short read.

[Angel Eyes]

Another Tyson pork kill plant has a potential outbreak in Waterloo, IA. IA governor just announced that.

JBS meatpacking plant in Colorado has seen four employees die from COVID-19 and over 100 sick:

https://www.9news.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/family-buries-worker-on-same-day-jbs-shuts-down-plant/73-88499882-139f-4dc0-90e0-7babb0f00263

[Ben]

https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/16/the-lockdown-is-loosening-whether-government-likes-it-or-not/

A good and short read.

Interesting perspective.

Though as an immediate tangent I note:

On my “essential walks” which I take daily to the grocery or the bodega,

Which kinda goes to an earlier point I made that maybe urbanites won't learn their lesson on preparedness. Daily walks to the bodega, whether essential or not, mean that somebody isn't keeping more than a day's worth of food in their place during a lockdown.

[Hawkmoon]

"They" will claim that is because we flattened the curve.

The problem is that all the models used already had social distancing and lock downs built into the models.

The data is all suspect and sucks.

Garbage in garbage out.

Our Governor puts out an update every evening. In it he cites numbers for new cases, total cases, number who have been hospitalized*, and total deaths. A week ago he displayed a graph depicting when our "experts" predict the number of hospitalizations will peak for each county in the state.

But it's all BS. If you look at the Johns Hopkins tracking map (probably the most comprehensive database available, but nonetheless entirely dependent on what each state/country reports), there are NO recoveries anywhere in the United States. In order to have data supporting a bell curve graph with a ramp up, a peak, and then a decline, you have to be graphing active cases. Active is going to be the cumulative total of new cases, minus deaths and minus recoveries. If you have no data on recoveries ... you have no bell curve.

*Then I discovered, by accident, that the number the governor is reporting for hospitalizations is not the total number who have been hospitalized, it's the number currently hospitalized as of the day of the report. That's actually useful if you know how many COVID-19 beds are available across the state, and I guess the governor knows that -- but he hasn't told us. I have complained to my state legislators about the fact that we have no data on recoveries and therefore we have no idea what the active case curve looks like. A week ago I was told that the governor was going to start reporting the number of recoveries as of [last] Wednesday. It didn't happen on Wednesday, and it hasn't happened yet.

All of which tells me that the state government is tossing out numbers to make it appear they have a handle on this when, in fact, we're not doing testing to verify recoveries, so we have no data on recoveries ... which means we have no idea how many active cases we actually have.

[zxcvbob]

Driving across Oklahoma yesterday, I went to a gas station men's room the same time as a state trooper; he got there just before I did.  I noticed how long and how well he washed his hands after he peed.  But then he grabbed the nasty door handle on the way out    I *almost* stopped him and pointed it out for future reference; let him know I'm just trying to keep him safe.  (dry your hands, use the paper towel to open the door, hold the door with your foot as you throw away the towel, etc)  But I wasn't sure how good an idea it was to tell a cop he made a small but possibly costly mistake so I kept my mouth shut.

[BobR]

Driving across Oklahoma yesterday, I went to a gas station men's room the same time as a state trooper; he got there just before I did.  I noticed how long and how well he washed his hands after he peed.  But then he grabbed the nasty door handle on the way out    I *almost* stopped him and pointed it out for future reference; let him know I'm just trying to keep him safe.  (dry your hands, use the paper towel to open the door, hold the door with your foot as you throw away the towel, etc)  But I wasn't sure how good an idea it was to tell a cop he made a small but possibly costly mistake so I kept my mouth shut.

What I teach new Nurslings is to turn on warm water, wet hands, soap up, wash completely for a minimum of 20 seconds, (leave water running) grab some paper towels, dry hands, turn off water with paper towels, open door using paper towels, throw paper towels away once no chance of touching door or parts.


bob

[WLJ]

You could dress like a democrat

[Perd Hapley]

Interesting perspective.

Though as an immediate tangent I note:

Which kinda goes to an earlier point I made that maybe urbanites won't learn their lesson on preparedness. Daily walks to the bodega, whether essential or not, mean that somebody isn't keeping more than a day's worth of food in their place during a lockdown.

The author (David Marcus) smokes, so he's probably just chain-smoking through his supply every day, and then going back for more.

OK, I thought it was funny. YMMV

[Perd Hapley]

Coronavirus hates this: the one weird trick that works against coronavirus.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/14/health/coronavirus-prone-positioning/index.html

[zxcvbob]

What I teach new Nurslings is to turn on warm water, wet hands, soap up, wash completely for a minimum of 20 seconds, (leave water running) grab some paper towels, dry hands, turn off water with paper towels, open door using paper towels, throw paper towels away once no chance of touching door or parts.

bob

That's better than what I did; I used my elbow to turn off the water.  I'll do better next time :)

[MechAg94]

[bedlamite]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/04/15/coronavirus-police-maryland-town-urge-residents-wear-pants/5140750002/