PlagueWatch 2020-23 - Coronavirus

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

A quick update from a little resort beach community in SW Florida... just forwarding what I’m seeing happening, not making any judgments.

Things are back to normal, pretty much. Some people still wearing masks, including my employees in the retail shop, but I’d bet 90% of customers all ages are not wearing masks.

I was in a local restaurant last night that was full, 70+, no people wearing masks. None, including employees. As normal as 5 months ago.

Our May retail numbers after reopening May 1st exceeded last years May numbers. This really surprised me, we were expecting the worst, but people are shopping, spending and getting out and about here.

My fishing guide service lost 150+ trips back in March For tarpon season, mostly corporate clients. That did not return, but local clients and now people who can travel in have filled my calendar. My losses will be minimal from this season which is a big relief from what it looked to be back in March.

People are coming and going from mostly around the state, but some coming in from other states. Beaches and state parks are open.
I heard bars are supposed to open today.

We haven’t seen any significant spike in cases or hospitalizations that I’m aware of, and there are a lot of people around acting very normal.

It seems we may be ahead of other areas around the country getting back to this new normal.

People are excited to be outside. Our business has also bounced back much more quickly than I anticipated. We've been open since May 9th, and the last week was nearly at last year's numbers again.

I'm glad I'm not running a restaurant. Those folks have much more complicated logistics, at least here in NC.

[House P]

It would seem to me that hospitalization rates would be the best indicator of how pervasive, and potent, the virus is. While it is somewhat of a lagging indicator of spread, it does mark the point where the rubber meets the road no matter how good or bad testing may be.

Is there a site with that info by state?

The CDC publishes maps which estimate a) the percentage of hospitals beds current occupied by COVID patients by state, and b) the percentage of ICU beds currently occupied by state. If you hover your cursor over a state, you can see the raw numbers.

Unfortunately, the CDC maps don't show whether the rate of hospitalization is growing, declining, or roughly staying the same. Historical hospitalization information is available on the COVID Tracking Project site (covidtracking.com/data), but this site doesn't show any nice graphs. If you are so inclined, you can download a spreadsheet with state-by-state historical data and create your own graphs.

Here is a graph comparing daily hospitalizations between Massachusetts, Michigan, Louisiana and North Carolina. As you can see, MI, MA, and LA were hit hard early, but NC seems to be catching up.

Tracker2.jpg

[aimo]

NC seems to be catching up.

Tracker2.jpg

NC hit its highest # of hospitalizations today. Not good.

[MChambers]

It's an interesting read. There are doubtless people who stay sick longer than others and that have atypical symptoms. These people are clearly outliers.

A few years ago my wife contracting a respiratory virus that sent her into a tailspin that lasted maybe 5 or 6 months, that gave her early renal failure, elevated liver enzymes, landed her in the hospital for 4 days, etc. Nobody could figure out what happened to her. She eventually got better. Obviously that was well before there was such a thing as SARS-CoV-2. The initial symptoms resembled influenza, but she tested negative.

Some of these people may be having a similar reaction to this virus that my wife did to whatever agent it was that threw her into a tailspin. Of all the stories in the article, the patient who has persistent fever is, in my opinion, the one that is most likely to really have pure long-term SARS-CoV-2 symptoms.

A number of the others, including the woman who is featured in the first sentence, I suspect has at least a component (and probably a large one) of psychosomatic illness. She says, “I’m acutely aware of my body at all times of the day.” I know that many people have been told over and over again in the past to "listen to their body," but this is actually the worst possible thing you can do when you are trying to recover from an illness.

Another personal story: my brother, who lives in NYC, had fever for 16 consecutive days, accompanied by extensive fatigue, during the heart of the NYC SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. He did not get tested during his illness. Several weeks after he recovered, he got the antibody test, which came back negative. Did he have it? Who knows? Neither the PCR test for active disease nor the antibody tests to prove infection looking back, are perfect.

Here's another story on the same topic, from Vox: https://www.vox.com/2020/6/4/2127472...g-term-effects

[jv001]

Here's another story on the same topic, from Vox: https://www.vox.com/2020/6/4/2127472...g-term-effects

Thanks for the link. Those folks are caught between the rock and the hard place and it seems no one has an answer for the relapse. This virus seems like it's going to be here for a while.

[Tappan Zee Devil]

The case trend for Wake County is bending the wrong #%$@‘ing way!

Why can’t people wear a frickin mask?!?

Attachment 10858

Is that per day or the total count?

[elvis14]

NC hit its highest # of hospitalizations today. Not good.

I need to dig around the numbers some. I want to see the numbers for the country...excluding New York. Nothing against NY, it's just that they were hit so hard that including them skews the numbers and I think gives people a false sense of security. If the national numbers are going down, is it just because just about everyone in NY has already suffered through? (hyperbole...).

I suspect that what I'll find is that flattening the curve worked and as states have opened back up cases have increased. I also want to see if states that opened back up earlier will have more new cases.

[budwom]

Prez says two million "vaccines" (doses?) are ready to go, but Fauci has no idea what this refers to :https://www.forbes.com/sites/carliep.../#61bdeae8175d

[camion]

Prez says two million "vaccines" (doses?) are ready to go, but Fauci has no idea what this refers to :https://www.forbes.com/sites/carliep.../#61bdeae8175d

This may be similar to when I invented the flat screen tv in 1975. I had the concept and the advertising ready. All that remained was the grimy engineering details.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

Is that per day or the total count?

It’s the aggregate case count. I keep hoping that it’s simply b/c there is more testing. But there isn’t good testing data at the county level to match. All we can see is the state wide number of tests. The number of tests appears to be increasing at somewhat of a steady rate over time while the number of confirmed cases is not only increasing but accelerating. That’s the part that concerns me the most.

[devildeac]

It’s the aggregate case count. I keep hoping that it’s simply b/c there is more testing. But there isn’t good testing data at the county level to match. All we can see is the state wide number of tests. The number of tests appears to be increasing at somewhat of a steady rate over time while the number of confirmed cases is not only increasing but accelerating. That’s the part that concerns me the most.

It is about time for those crowded beach and speedway counts to start showing up on the stats sheets.

[devildeac]

The sands shift again:

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52945210

"The World Health Organization (WHO) has changed its advice on face masks, saying they should be worn in public where social distancing is not possible to help stop the spread of coronavirus.

The global body said new information showed they could provide "a barrier for potentially infectious droplets".

Some countries already recommend or mandate face coverings in public.

The WHO had previously argued there was not enough evidence to say that healthy people should wear masks."

For me, it remains pretty simple:

Wear my mask as directed/suggested in the first sentence above. Cheap, common sense and reasonably effective.

[MChambers]

The sands shift again:

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52945210

"The World Health Organization (WHO) has changed its advice on face masks, saying they should be worn in public where social distancing is not possible to help stop the spread of coronavirus.

The global body said new information showed they could provide "a barrier for potentially infectious droplets".

Some countries already recommend or mandate face coverings in public.

The WHO had previously argued there was not enough evidence to say that healthy people should wear masks."

For me, it remains pretty simple:

Wear my mask as directed/suggested in the first sentence above. Cheap, common sense and reasonably effective.

My wife, a friend, and I went to a non-DBR vigil yesterday, along upper 16th St. in DC. I was happy to see that 99% of the many folks there were wearing masks and observing physical distancing.

[MChambers]

A Washington Post article on how the virUs is now spreading in areas that had been largely spared until now. https://www.washingtonpost.com/healt...bbd_story.html

[devildeac]

My wife, a friend, and I went to a non-DBR vigil yesterday, along upper 16th St. in DC. I was happy to see that 99% of the many folks there were wearing masks and observing physical distancing.

Encouraging to read.

[Ggallagher]

There was a pretty disappointing article in the paper her this morning. The focus was on how Japan had made so many mistakes in reacting to the virus, and yet still had a low pro rated death rate. And it pointed out the fact that Japan is pretty crowded in its cities. The article was composed as if it was some kind of mystery. Accompanying the article was a photograph of a densely packed crowd of (I assume) Japanese people. EVERYONE was wearing a mask.

There was one short paragraph pointing out that it was recognized that the Japanese regularly wear masks and avoid hand contact by bowing. But it just really torqued me off that the article was written as if Japan's success was some kind of puzzle.

I really wish the author had thought to compose it differently pointing out that you can actually screw up a lot of what gets done in reaction to the virus, but if you do ONE simple thing you can be much more successful.

Really bad missed opportunity.

[bundabergdevil]

In a county that just moved from “red” to “yellow” and in a wal-mart...pleasantly surprised to see most folks still wearing masks and behaving well.

[OldPhiKap]

In a county that just moved from “red” to “yellow” and in a wal-mart...pleasantly surprised to see most folks still wearing masks and behaving well.

Mrs.PK just came back from a Wally World here, said that hardly anyone had a mask.

My experience is generally that everyone wears masks, expect for A group of white folks in T-shirts who are 40 and under (usually male). It’s a predictable pattern.

[rsvman]

Mrs.PK just came back from a Wally World here, said that hardly anyone had a mask.

My experience is generally that everyone wears masks, expect for A group of white folks in T-shirts who are 40 and under (usually male). It’s a predictable pattern.

Not around here. Around here it seems random.

[devildeac]

Mrs.PK just came back from a Wally World here, said that hardly anyone had a mask.

My experience is generally that everyone wears masks, expect for A group of white folks in T-shirts who are 40 and under (usually male). It’s a predictable pattern.

I've found a bit wider swath of stupidity/ignorance/neglect that crosses generational, ethnic and gender lines than what you've observed.