Just curious, anyone have a plan, or preps for global pandemic?

[BrianA]

How Taiwan Used Big Data, Transparency and a Central Command to Protect Its People from Coronavirus

https://healthpolicy.fsi.stanford.edu/news/how-taiwan-used-big-data-transparency-central-command-protect-its-people-coronavirus

[Sibiriak]

On 3/16/2020 at 11:39 AM, BrianA said:

Here's an interesting read of the current lifestyle in China.

 

Another personal look at China from a blogger in Beijing:

Covid Observations from Beijing, March 11

Every apartment compound in Beijing now has someone stationed outside.

[TomBAvoider]

Continuing with my anecdotal sociological observations. This one is a doozy, and I don't know if it's an outlier, or how common/uncommon it is. So, I have a friend, slightly older than me, but we've known each other for close to 40 years. He's in his early 60's. We talked on the phone, just checking up on each other. He told me something that took me aback - he said he's very enthusiastic about COVID-19. He hopes it gets tons and tons worse. Now, I've heard sentiments to the effect that pollution has diminished drastically and if the world population falls, it's earth healing itself with that virus. But this was different, he didn't care about the effect on environment etc. - he just enjoyed the spectacle, and desperately hopes it gets much, much worse. I probed to see what's behind it, and he says if it's an epic global disaster, it'll be the most interesting thing he's seen in his life, so he hopes the devastation is monumental. Now, he's in his early 60's in good health, and very secure financially. He says the chaos around him electrifies him and makes his nerves tingle. He wants to see riots, death in the streets, economy collapse worse than the Great Depression, complete political collapse, societal collapse, he wants to see Black Death plague levels like in medieval Europe. I had to burst his bubble, telling him it'll never get so bad, but he's very hopeful. It's the most excited he's felt in his life, as he reports. He's hoping for loads worse.

I don't know - it strikes me that he's probably a super rare person with that perspective, but it just goes to show that this pandemic has brought out some very bizarre things in humans. 

[Sibiriak]

5 minutes ago, TomBAvoider said:

Continuing with my anecdotal sociological observations.

 

Have you observed anything positive?  Acts of compassion, solidarity,   dedication and selflessness when helping others, etc.?

 

Edited March 19, 2020 by Sibiriak

[TomBAvoider]

Yep. An acquaintance is organizing volunteers so they're ready to go in and do grocery shopping for vulernable elders who may not feel safe to go shopping - this is something being discussed and would apply in our neighborhood. Tons of people calling and asking how we're doing - and for that matter I'm calling too - ready to offer food, necessities or help if needed. There's a coffee shop not far from where I live, it's been open for not very long and the young owners are super dedicated to importing, roasting and brewing the best possible coffee - artists really - so today, on my walk with my wife, I popped in briefly just to lay down $40 without buying anything as a gesture of support because I've enjoyed their coffee so often and want them to stay around - and I'm hearing stories of support for local businesses that's just very inspiring, people are really going out of their way to be good community members. All in all, it seems this crisis - at least so far - to have brought a lot of good out of people too... it's always been there, just no real occasion to show it. Overall, I feel optimistic. YMMV. 

[Sibiriak]

Thanks Tomb.  I'm particularly moved by the incredible hard work and self-sacrifice by doctors and nurses et al. on the front lines:

'You see a lot of suffering, but can do very little': Italian nurse bursts into tears describing Covid-19 struggle

(Trigger warning-- Ron Put-- potential "Russian disinformation")

 

Quote

 

The battle against the coronavirus is tough on medical staffs, not only physically but emotionally as well, as they witness so much suffering, an Italian nurse told RT’s Ruptly video agency.The number of those infected keeps rising, which only increases pressure on the health workers, Francesca Rovati of Guglielmo Da Saliceto Hospital in Piacenza, the city at the heart of Italy’s Covid-19 outbreak, said.

 

Rovati said she almost went deaf from the sound made by the oxygen cylinders for patients suffering from respiratory failure due to the disease. And there’s not enough of this equipment for everybody who needs oxygen therapy. “The wait for a bed is at times longer than expected,” she told Ruptly.

But treating coronavirus patients isn’t only about dealing with respiratory failure – it’s “also not easy to deal with the patient from an emotional point of view,” she said.

The nurse, who has worked at the hospital for 13 years, couldn’t hold back the tears while recounting the situation at the hospital. “Before being health workers, we are also daughters, we are mothers, parents. The human side is there, it is felt, it’s strong.”  

Apart from that, staff members are also under constant risk of becoming infected themselves, Rovati said. “We are living a very stressful time because we live day by day… We don’t go beyond knowing what shift we have tomorrow. This is because even among us someone might result positive [to Covid-19] or not feel well.”

 

 

 

 

[Clinton]

On ‎3‎/‎5‎/‎2020 at 8:32 PM, Clinton said:

The kill rate is really low so why do healthy people gaf?

I had no idea the virus was going to spread like it has and all of the effects it would have when I wrote that ... I thought it was possibly over-hyped a little and over-reaction.

Edited March 19, 2020 by Clinton

[Gordo]

13 hours ago, Dean Pomerleau said:

Here is a graph from the paper showing how four hours of bathing cancer cells in quercetin (QCT100), EGCG (EGCG100) or clioquinol (CQ100 - an prescription antifungal drug) dramatically increased the concentration of a fluorescent-labeled zinc inside the cell relative to control when zinc in present in the extracellular medium:

Thanks Dean, even though there isn't any research with regard to applicability to Covid-19, I think I will take a EGCg supplement anyway, don't think it could hurt and as a bonus it is a BAT activator.  If anyone else is interested, I did some extensive research to see what product contained the most EGCg bang for the buck (total mg EGCG/$), and it was this one.

Edited March 19, 2020 by Gordo

[Gordo]

12 hours ago, Sibiriak said:

(Trigger warning-- Ron Put-- potential "Russian disinformation")

 

In all seriousness though, I think there is a good point.  I mean there is an awful lot of hysteria for this thing so far, and Italy which is used as a worst case, still has less than 3,000 official deaths, population around 60 million, you extrapolate that to the US population and we are still talking about fewer dead than our regular flu season from last year.  I'm in no way concluding that this should be taken lightly, but it seems the hysteria has overtaken the reality of the situation, and the hysteria is in fact destabilizing the world and imploding global economies which is very very destructive (does Russia want this? Maybe, I don't know...) Russia is a big energy producer and they are getting hammered hard in that regard with oil completely collapsing, I think the economic fallout for Russia will be severe.  This doesn't necessarily mean they aren't motivated to cause further panic though, sometimes when people think they are in trouble they may be even more motivated to stir up trouble for others.  Probably a waste of time to speculate about this stuff.

Likewise Tom - regarding politics, I agree with your sentiment in general, I don't consider myself a Republican or Democrat, you'd probably laugh at the list of people I've voted for, I mostly do protest votes for people who can't win.  Both Donkeys and Elephants have been competing to see who can run up the most debt for decades now, at some point its all going to collapse, but no one knows how far it can be pushed.  The system is broken at the core though, you get elected by promising people lots of "free stuff" which results in lots of debt.  Neither party is fiscally responsible.  And no, I do not think this is the time, in the midst of a pandemic, which is seriously threatening the global economy, to be fiscally conservative.  I like the idea of sending everyone checks, monthly, until the worst is over (I also liked Andrew Yang by the way, the only candidate to do interviews on the freakonomics podcast).  Also inflation could help people with no savings more than others, as long as wages keep up with inflation, so it's a populist policy.

Edited March 19, 2020 by Gordo

[Clinton]

That's interesting wrt EGCg. 

fwiw AOR makes a very nice green tea supplement "Active Green Tea" with pretty significant quantities and one of the few supplement manufacturers I have confidence in.

Gordo - the other one i used to purchase was the NOW one you linked, it's also a good choice and better bang for the buck for sure.

 

Edited March 19, 2020 by Clinton

[Clinton]

35 minutes ago, Gordo said:

does Russia want this?  Maybe, I don't know...

They were referred to as a 'super power' back in the 80's --  now their GDP isn't even in the top 10:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

 

 

Edited March 19, 2020 by Clinton

[Sibiriak]

2 hours ago, Gordo said:

I think I will take a EGCg supplement anyway, don't think it could hurt

At reasonable doses, and you're healthy,  most probably not.  At high, sustained doses, there have  been reports of liver toxicity and other issues ( possibly related to preexisting higher risk factors,   genetic polymorphisms etc.).    I haven't looked too closely at the evidence;  maybe it's not convincing or relevant,  but I thought I'd mention it.  (Personally,  I think high quality organic green tea is the way to go, rather than an extract.)

Polyphenols as dietary supplements: A double-edged sword (2009)

Effect of Green Tea Supplements on Liver Enzyme Elevation (2017)

Safety assessment of green tea based beverages and dried green tea extracts as nutritional supplements (2017)

Quote

In clinical intervention studies, liver effects were not observed after intakes below 600mg EGCG/person/day. Thus, a tolerable upper intake level of 300mg EGCG/person/day is proposed for food supplements; this gives a twofold safety margin to clinical studies that did not report liver effects and a margin of safety of 100 to the NOAELs in animal studies with dietary administration of green tea catechins.

 

Edited March 19, 2020 by Sibiriak

[Gordo]

Yea, megadoses of any supplement is a bad idea.  I will take the recommended dose, one cap daily with food, which is the equivalent of drinking 2-3 cups of green tea.

Edited March 19, 2020 by Gordo

[Sibiriak]

Quote

Just received word from an ICU doctor at a small NY hospital: They are officially out of ventilators and are now double venting patients with COVID (using the same ventilator for 2 infected patients). Do everything possible to avoid infection. PLEASE ISOLATE as best you can.

— Peter Attia (@PeterAttiaMD) March 18, 2020

 

Quote

Hospital workers in Washington state have been making protective medical gear out of office supplies and other run-of-the-mill materials as they deal with a severe shortage of equipment needed to care for patients who may have Covid-19.

 

Quote

KOFU -- A junior high school girl has handcrafted 612 masks from materials bought with some 80,000 yen of her own savings to help out the elderly, orphans and others facing shortages due to the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Edited March 19, 2020 by Sibiriak

[Ron Put]

3 hours ago, Gordo said:

... Russia is a big energy producer and they are getting hammered hard in that regard with oil completely collapsing, I think the economic fallout for Russia will be severe.  This doesn't necessarily mean they aren't motivated to cause further panic though, sometimes when people think they are in trouble they may be even more motivated to stir up trouble for others.  Probably a waste of time to speculate about this stuff....

Not really speculation.... Russia initiated drop in prices and the long term goal is to take out the shale oil producers in the US, who can't withstand prices below $35 or for long without government intervention. See this, for example https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Oil-Prices-Crash-20-As-Oil-War-Begins.html  Russia, as an authoritarian state, can afford to outlast the shale producers and emerge in a world without them (and a world of lower competition, more receptive to its Nord Stream 2). The Rublyovka residents will not be affected and will support Putin, while the peasants will tighten their belts and will be whipped into nationalist fervor in the face of the virus and tales of "external enemies." Nothing new, really.

As to the steady stream of dire news: The US has by far the most ICU beds per capita and as a rule of thumb, about a third of ICU beds are equipped with ventilators in most developed countries. It's an example of the inefficiencies in the US healthcare system, which makes it the most expensive in the world, but it may come in handy in this case.

[Sibiriak]

Quote

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved hydroxychloroquine—a drug used to treat malaria, rheumatic diseases and other conditions—for COVID-19.

Update:

Quote

...in fact, the drug has not been approved by the FDA for the novel coronavirus. It has long been approved to prevent and treat malaria as well as to treat arthritis, and doctors have authority to prescribe it now, but there is no proof it works on coronavirus.

FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, speaking after the president, said the FDA is considering giving chloroquine to larger populations of coronavirus patients as part of an “expanded use” testing program. Such a trial in patients would allow the FDA to collect data to measure scientifically whether it works. It was not immediately clear how long it would take the FDA to design the study and get it working at trial sites around the country.

 

 

Edited March 19, 2020 by Sibiriak

[mccoy]

Today, an army convoy carried 65 coffins with the deads from Covid19, from Bergamo, the hardest-hit city, to a cremation compound in another region. Even cemeteries start being overwhelmed!

 

[BrianA]

8 hours ago, Gordo said:

In all seriousness though, I think there is a good point.  I mean there is an awful lot of hysteria for this thing so far, and Italy which is used as a worst case, still has less than 3,000 official deaths, population around 60 million, you extrapolate that to the US population and we are still talking about fewer dead than our regular flu season from last year.  I'm in no way concluding that this should be taken lightly, but it seems the hysteria has overtaken the reality of the situation

It's well accepted now that comparing this virus to the regular flu is incorrect. See this arstechnica review of that UK report:

 

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/03/new-model-examines-impact-of-different-methods-of-coronavirus-control/

 

Essentially if you "do nothing" aka treat this virus as the regular flu and just let it run completely out of control, you might end up with around 2 million deaths in the US, something like 20x the amount of the regular flu. This is why the UK and US decided to start taking additional actions to slow it down. I wouldn't call it hysteria, unfortunately it's just the reality of this particular set of circumstances.

[BrianA]

The "Contain and Eradicate" strategy discussed here is essentially my best current guess as to how to proceed:

 

Covid-19 Points of Leverage, Travel Bans and Eradication

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Ddgry4k64oBZYfrHy/covid-19-points-of-leverage-travel-bans-and-eradication

 

The biggest lesson for the Western countries in this is next time this happens, they need to react waaaay earlier to implement this strategy. If they could have effectively contained it much earlier in just a few smaller geographic areas like in Taiwan or even South Korea, the economic damage would have been so much less.

[Ron Put]

18 hours ago, BrianA said:

To me this seems to be a good replication of the South Korea approach. Test a huge amount, ...

As far as I know, they test those with fever and likely to have been exposed. Which is kind of what everyone else seems to be doing (CT scans can detect issues better than the current tests, AFAIK).

I don't know that being immersed in every screaming headline is helpful for people, unless panic is the goal. While this is not the flu, it's not the Spanish flu, either. And the world has better facilities and technology nowadays. So, "Nothing to fear but fear itself" is quite apt.

From UCLA:
""What will the final overall mortality rate be? It seems highly likely that it will be south of 1% (versus the current media reports of greater than 3%). Perhaps 0.5% or less? We'll see. But it's not like the 1918 Spanish flu that had a mortality that some estimated to be as high as 10%."

https://www.smobserved.com/story/2020/03/19/news/covid-19-death-rate-will-be-well-under-1-says-ucla-infectious-disease-specialist/4502.html

[TomBAvoider]

""What will the final overall mortality rate be? It seems highly likely that it will be south of 1% (versus the current media reports of greater than 3%). Perhaps 0.5% or less? We'll see. But it's not like the 1918 Spanish flu that had a mortality that some estimated to be as high as 10%."

My friend will be disappointed, but like I told him - it's nothing like the Spanish flu!

More than ever, I think the biggest takeaway from this will be generating some kind of plan on protecting the economy the next time this happens. This pandemic (which clearly is not the last time, it'll only happen more frequently!), has exposed a lot of weaknesses in the present setup. We really should not be dependent on foreign (and potentially hostile!) supply chains for our most critical goods, such as medication and medical equipment, security related equipment and so on. Also, it should not be the case that whenever a pandemic hits, the economy immediately collapses and mass unemployment ensues with weak safety nets. There's got to be an end to this debt spiral. There's a reason why Keynes advocated for a massive rainy day fund, and we've gone in exactly the opposite direction... now that a crisis hits, the wallet is empty and we're forced to pile on even more debt... this kind of behavior will inevitably undermine trust in the financial system and massive volatility and raised costs of operating. I hope lessons are being learned, but I fear our politicians are not up to the task.

[Ron Put]

1 minute ago, TomBAvoider said:

... My friend will be disappointed, ...
 

I'd find another friend. :) This guy sounds like a sociopath, if not worse.

As to comparisons with the flu, this is from the CDC:

"During the 2017-2018 season, the percentage of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza (P&I) was at or above the epidemic threshold for 16 consecutive weeks. During the past five seasons, the average number of weeks this indicator was above threshold was 11 (range of 7 to 15 weeks). Nationally, mortality attributed to P&I exceeded 10.0% for four consecutive weeks, peaking at 10.8% during the week ending January 20, 2018."

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season-2017-2018.htm

Imagine if we were served the above stream of apocalyptic news, making wild and ultimately pointless and unhelpful conjectures, and counting every day's death toll in screaming headlines....

[Todd Allen]

Worldwide deaths jumped from less than 5000 on March 12 to over 10000 today one week later and the day isn't done.  And that's with over 3000 deaths in China and hardly any new ones there.  Minus China the rest of the world went from roughly 2000 to 7000 deaths in one week.  Looking at the daily body counts it looks like an exponential growth rate which if sustained for a month will make a big impression on even the most math challenged people on the planet.   Merely tripling the 7000 deaths weekly for 4 weeks would get us to over half a million.

Edited March 19, 2020 by Todd Allen

[Ron Put]

Half a million?

"According to new estimates published today, between 291,000 and 646,000 people worldwide die from seasonal influenza-related respiratory illnesses each year, higher than a previous estimate of 250,000 to 500,000 and based on a robust, multinational survey."

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p1213-flu-death-estimate.html

And keep in mind that in 2018 the estimates are for for double the average death toll, with 80,000 American dead, compared to about 35,000 in a normal year. Again, not to make lite of it, but just to help place this in perspective.

[Todd Allen]

Ron, with that growth rate most of the half million would die in the last 3 days of that month not over an entire year.  If it continues for a second month we beat the Spanish flu.