Author Topic: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread  (Read 440184 times)

DittoHead

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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #350 on: March 04, 2020, 09:03:02 AM »
What is so obvious to you that we aren't doing?

South Korea is testing 10K people per day, and has been for awhile.
At last count from the CDC (which they removed from their website earlier this week) the US had tested about 500 total.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/covid-19-testing/
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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #351 on: March 04, 2020, 09:12:05 AM »
Well, I guess I can skip going to Costco this morning. Apparently both the Boise and Nampa locations have been selling out of water and TP for the last three days running, even though virus risk is low in this state. Not worth dealing with crowds just for curiosity.

https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/business/article240818796.html?
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K Frame

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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #352 on: March 04, 2020, 09:13:08 AM »
South Korea is testing 10K people per day, and has been for awhile.
At last count from the CDC (which they removed from their website earlier this week) the US had tested about 500 total.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/covid-19-testing/

Yeah, but everyone knows that Americans do crappy on standardized tests...
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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #353 on: March 04, 2020, 09:16:26 AM »
I'm curious as to what you think could be done better?

Here, we've reached out to some friends in the healthcare industry and they are pretty much parroting the government line.

My friend who is a Doctor locally has shared some concerns that it could go sideways on us so that's concerning.

What is so obvious to you that we aren't doing?

Passenger screening from infected countries.  Wasn't done.  Testing.  Wasn't done at any scale. As soon as china ramped this up, we should have recognized and followed suit. 
JD

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Ron

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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #354 on: March 04, 2020, 09:24:21 AM »
South Korea is testing 10K people per day, and has been for awhile.
At last count from the CDC (which they removed from their website earlier this week) the US had tested about 500 total.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/covid-19-testing/

I'm going to ask my Dr buddy about this.

It does seem like it would be helpful to know who has the flu and who has this infection.

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Jamisjockey

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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #355 on: March 04, 2020, 09:25:26 AM »
China is allegedly at 0.000056% infection currently and its worst province is Hubei at 0.0012%.  Why would US go to 30-70%?

China also locked down several major cities and went so far as to weld people's doors shut.  Wuhan got pretty bad and then they got it under control.


30% is the low end I've seen estimated world wide infection without major measures taken to slow the spread, as quoted by several health ministers and virologists.  Swine flu was listed as a pandemic and hit 20% world wide infection.


JD

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MechAg94

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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #356 on: March 04, 2020, 09:36:19 AM »
Passenger screening from infected countries.  Wasn't done.  Testing.  Wasn't done at any scale. As soon as china ramped this up, we should have recognized and followed suit. 
We shut down flights from China.  The way China refused to share information and that this happened at a time Chinese were traveling all over the place made sure that containing this was near impossible. 


Personally, I am not seeing a whole lot yet that has me real worried.  I am concerned more about the media stirring things up and provoking panic. 
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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #357 on: March 04, 2020, 09:38:48 AM »
I don't consider myself overly worried.  However, this is more serious than just a nasty flu.  Look at how it ravaged that nursing home in WA.  It is going to get much worse in the US. Brushing it off as a non event, or a media hype storm is a mistake.
JD

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BobR

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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #358 on: March 04, 2020, 10:00:05 AM »
I don't consider myself overly worried.  However, this is more serious than just a nasty flu.  Look at how it ravaged that nursing home in WA.  It is going to get much worse in the US. Brushing it off as a non event, or a media hype storm is a mistake.


I don't know if it is any nastier than the flu, it just has a different demographic that it sends for a dirt nap, for the most part. People underestimate the flu, it has been killing a bunch of people for a long time.

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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #359 on: March 04, 2020, 10:07:17 AM »
30% is the low end I've seen estimated world wide infection without major measures taken to slow the spread, as quoted by several health ministers and virologists.  Swine flu was listed as a pandemic and hit 20% world wide infection.
The 20% number is a retrospective total infection estimate.  It is also on the very high end of estimates for the 2009 pandemic.  What you seem to be doing is taking confirmed deaths/confirmed cases to come up with a death rate of 1-3% then multiplying by total infection estimates to come up with a prediction.  Let's see how that plays out with real H1N1 numbers:
Confirmed H1N1 cases in the US in 2009: 115,318
Confirmed H1N1 deaths in the US in 2009: 3,443
Confirmed Death rate in the US: ~3%
Retrospective CDC estimates for total 2009 H1N1 US infections: 57,000,000

So ... using your method, we would expect 57 million infected times 3% death rate, or 1.7 million dead Americans.  Actual retrospective CDC estimates were around 11,690 Americans killed by H1N1 in 2009.  Then if you say that 1.4 billion people caught H1N1, and given that we have that 3% confirmed death rate in the US then we're looking at 42,000,000 worldwide deaths for H1N1 in 2009.  Is that what we saw?

Comparing apples to oranges doesn't give good results.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2020, 11:18:40 AM by cordex »

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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #360 on: March 04, 2020, 10:19:30 AM »
First, i'm only looking at how much of the population got swine fiu as a comparison, not the mortality rate.  The mortality rate of that variation was lower than the regular flu, .001%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemic.html

20% is the high end estimate of how many people got it during the outbreak.

So no, I was comparing only the numbers based off potential outbreak numbers.  

I, too hope this is a nothing burger.  Hell, I have convention plans for next month and haven't cancelled them. 

However, this bug has a lot of potential to wreak further havoc on our health care system and economy. 
JD

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cordex

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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #361 on: March 04, 2020, 10:41:04 AM »
First, i'm only looking at how much of the population got swine fiu as a comparison, not the mortality rate.  
So no, I was comparing only the numbers based off potential outbreak numbers.  
Yes, I know exactly what you're doing, and it is wrong.  You're comparing apples to oranges and I showed with real historical numbers why that results in bad predictions.  I never suggested you were using H1N1 lethality numbers, just showed the error of using ([confirmed deaths] / [confirmed cases] * [estimated total infected population]) to come up with a predicted death toll.  That equation sucks.

One more time - you are multiplying retrospective estimates of total H1N1 infected (a huge number that might well eventually reflect Covid-19 infections) with the confirmed mortality rate of Covid-19 which comes from confirmed cases and confirmed deaths.  Right?  The problem is your death rate is highly inflated because detection and death is more likely in serious cases.  Thus, you are multiplying a huge number by an artificially high death rate.  

As I showed using actual stats and estimates from H1N1 (even with its eventually determined low mortality rate) if you had calculated an estimated eventual death toll by first coming up with a mortality rate by dividing known deaths by known cases (exactly as we are doing with Covid-19 because that is all the info we have) then multiplying by the estimated number of actual infected (which is a big, big number) then the result is scary looking ... but in no way reflective of reality.  The scary part of H1N1 is that it impacted the young at a higher rate than expected.

Edit: I screwed up my percentages in my previous post, but not the calculated numbers.  Honestly it makes an even better comparison than I thought, though, because the H1N1 death rate based on known deaths/known cases is pretty much the same as Covid-19 is currently thought to be, but ended up being 148 times overstated compared to the final estimated mortality rate. 

If this holds true for Covid-19 (and I can't say that it will) then we might be looking at a real mortality rate equivalent to H1N1.  I'm guessing that in the final analysis Covid-19 is going to be found to be a bit more deadly, but not so much so to make this a serious catastrophe.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2020, 11:23:25 AM by cordex »

Jamisjockey

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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #362 on: March 04, 2020, 01:38:16 PM »
Well, since the government took forever to spool up testing, and is now hiding the data, it may be awhile before we have a real number. 
JD

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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #363 on: March 04, 2020, 01:45:02 PM »
Curiosity got the better of me and I went to Costco to watch the zoo animals. Report from the Nampa, ID Costco:

Preface: Last week I mentioned I was at that Costco and other than long lines, I wasn't sure if people were hoarding or not. I can now say they were not, because I would have absolutely noticed. Ten seconds after entering Costco today it was obvious that there were panic buyers.

One third of shoppers were buying nothing but water and TP, with some throwing in a case of paper towels. And I mean LOTS of water and TP. I would WAG an average of three cases of water and three cases of TP per shopper. Some people were only grabbing a couple of cases of water and one of TP, but many were using the pallet carts and buying like half a dozen or more of each. I got there right when they opened. Looking at stock left, I'm going to guess they will run out again (see the link in my previous post) in the next hour or two. And they had LOTS of stock.

Another third of shoppers were grabbing maybe a case of water and TP, then just doing their regular shopping. Another third were just doing regular shopping.

I didn't see anyone grabbing sacks of rice and beans, which Costco has lots of. Or very many people grabbing cases of canned anything. For some weird reason, there was a run on peanut butter. Also people were buying the cases of pre-mixed protein drinks, but not touching the tubs of protein powder.

Batteries were fully stocked. There were two pallets of nitrile gloves, and not a single box was missing from the pallets. I suspect if there were N95 masks next to the gloves, those would have been gone. I didn't see anyone buying any of the various hand soaps Costco sells.

When I hit the checkout, I heard the checker tell the person in front of me (who apparently asked about the panic purchasing) that they were told this is happening in most all the Costcos across the country.

Meanwhile, on my way home, I stopped at my podunk grocery store for milk and did a walk-through. They were fully stocked on everything, including TP and water. They had a couple of pallets of water outside the store, and there was maybe 30% missing, which seems kinda normal to me. I couldn't even see a dent in the TP or paper towels. They were out of hand sanitizer though. Otherwise, business as usual. Have to wonder if it's a rural vs city thing or what.
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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #364 on: March 04, 2020, 02:03:27 PM »
So Australia, SK and Japan went batshit over TP in the last few days.  I think people have started glomming onto that and buying more.
Lucky I bought two mega packs last week.  I'm headed out today I might grab one more.  And I asked the wife to buy PT, she bought one sad little 6 pack.
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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #365 on: March 04, 2020, 02:36:00 PM »
Looks like made in china will soon disappear from store shelves:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC01Xgl1ZSA
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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #366 on: March 04, 2020, 03:05:55 PM »
Looks like made in china will soon disappear from store shelves:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC01Xgl1ZSA


When I built my bike last year, several items were post ship from China via ali express.   
JD

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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #367 on: March 04, 2020, 03:08:40 PM »
Looks like made in china will soon disappear from store shelves:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC01Xgl1ZSA


Something about putting all your eggs in one basket comes to mind...
Absolute reliance on "Made in China" was eventually gonna bite us in the ass.
Hopefully this will get people and corporations to rethink our supply chain a little but I don't have much hope. Just as soon as things calm down it will be back to business as usual until the next big flusterlcuck comes along.
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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #368 on: March 04, 2020, 03:13:06 PM »
Something about putting all your eggs in one basket comes to mind...
Absolute reliance on "Made in China" was eventually gonna bite us in the ass.
Hopefully this will get people and corporations to rethink our supply chain a little but I don't have much hope. Just as soon as things calm down it will be back to business as usual until the next big flusterlcuck comes along.

Agreed. China shut down their economy to get this done, and their economy is pretty much sending goods to us...

On the bright side, we don't import a lot of food from them.
JD

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cordex

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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #369 on: March 04, 2020, 03:13:36 PM »
My wife went to Sam's today.  She says there were no sanitizing wipes available at all.  Plenty of toilet paper though.

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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #370 on: March 04, 2020, 03:29:05 PM »
Looks like made in china will soon disappear from store shelves:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC01Xgl1ZSA


It can't happen soon enough. Maybe Americans can start making things again.
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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #371 on: March 04, 2020, 03:43:00 PM »
It can't happen soon enough. Maybe Americans can start making things again.

That's not going to happen.

Instead stuff will spread out to Vietnam, other SE Asian countries with labor rates that are comparable. India maybe. You'll probably see some higher end things going to E. Europe, and some low end manufacturing even going to Africa.

It was inevitable, China's huge manufacturing surge was going to eventually cause them to have labor price increases, and manufacturing was going to start moving. The trade war with China and now Covid-19 is just upping the timetable earlier than pure economic/market forces would have. China is on the brink of stagflation just like Japan has been for the past 30 odd years.

Large scale manufacturing of anything/everything is not coming back to America, at least not for decades until dozens of countries have gone through their "China phase" and wages worldwide (minus shipping) rise until they've leveled off everywhere.
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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #372 on: March 04, 2020, 03:44:34 PM »
Something about putting all your eggs in one basket comes to mind...
Absolute reliance on "Made in China" was eventually gonna bite us in the ass.
Hopefully this will get people and corporations to rethink our supply chain a little but I don't have much hope. Just as soon as things calm down it will be back to business as usual until the next big flusterlcuck comes along.

I don't know if they will. Corporations have been extremely focused on short term decisions, and supply chain disruptions only matter if you plan on running your company for 30 years.

Most corporations are run by short-timers. (Illustration: https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2018/02/12/ceo-tenure-rates/)

Maybe we should start looking at the laws for Corporations versus family-owned companies and start providing significant incentive for the latter versus the former. Family-owned companies tend to make decisions differently.
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makattak

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Re: COVID-19/corona virus mega thread/prepping thread
« Reply #374 on: March 04, 2020, 03:48:12 PM »
This was from a Sam's Club in Cincinnati last night.

Wow. We might actually need some TP in the next week or two. I suppose we better get some soon.

Thankfully, Kroger was fully stocked this morning when I stopped by.
I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.

So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you also were meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought