Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

[liminalOyster]

I have been taking rapid transit regularly over the last month as usual (one direction only – the uphill one! – returning home from my long bike ride). The trains are almost empty, usually not more than five to ten people per car, and spread out so that they are six – more often ten or more – feet away from each other (easy to do on these mostly empty trains). I occasionally see a lone nurse in her scrubs in the station or on the train, but last night, I saw five nurses as I entered the station, all close together in a pack, talking and interacting without protective gear of any kind, or any effort at distancing. When they got on the train, while they did not sit right next to each other, they did occupy adjacent rows (which I believe most people would have avoided doing).

While thousands of people are out clapping and banging on pots and pans every evening in recognition of the heroic* efforts being made by our doctors and nurses, the few responses from local medical personnel that I have seen suggest that things are much quieter at work than usual, and the behavior described above also leads me to believe that many of them do not take the health orders or the supposed magnitude of this crisis all that seriously.

*No disrespect towards people working in hospitals intended. Hospitals are horrible and dangerous places, and I would not work in one for any amount of money. I feel for those who end up spending most of their waking hours in such inhospitable places.

Nothing personal intended, at all, identity. But I just don't get this kind of stuff. I mentioned in a previous post that I have multiple nurses and other MDs in my family (and social networks) in major US cities. I've not spoken to all of them, but I can tell you that I fully trust the ones I have spoken to repeatedly and their reports of how fucking crazy their workplaces have become, how gruesome, etc. For that matter, I've seen the evidence on the streets of my own city and heard bits and pieces from my kid's friends parents.

So, wide field of things that are questionable, I just don't understand the base mistrust in this post and others like it.

I share all the basic mistrust in how reality is processed through the Beezelbub-ian meat grinder of our emergent post-derivative financial capitalism, new forms of evil and medical grade Orwellian media theatrics that anyone who still comes to this old mess of a PHP board does, but I just truly do not understand the kind of suspicion of this situation - where so much of what we are learning is coming directly from the voices of other worthless plebes like us, rather than any of the expected state and corporate organs of madness.

[JackRiddler]

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identity, does it occur to you those nurses (how do you know? scrubs? can mean a lot of things) may work with each other in close quarters already?

In any case, from your story, nothing follows about what the situation at the hospitals may be. Or even what exactly it is that they do. Nope. In the absence of an interview, what do you know?

Where are you, by the way, if you want to say?

Two days in a row, 600 dead in New York City. That is four times the average number of deaths in a day, a variation that could never just happen. There is no precedent in the last century that did not involve collapsing towers or other major disasters.

Clearly, there is a cause. It certainly is not due to stress or increased death from the measures (a ridiculous idea and anyway, so far the opposite has happened). People I know are reporting of dead acquaintances, also at an obviously higher rate than a month ago.

Yes, comorbidity is obvious. Yes, it strikes the very old most of all. Yes, the real death rate is unknown, as is the real spread of the contagion. Yes, it is not a certainty to what extent the measures are holding down the death rate in any given place, or were advisable, and to what extent they are overkill and panic and ultimately a bigger disaster, or the witting expression of statist overreach. Yes, the projections for U.S. deaths are speculative and land along an incredibly broad range, from a temporary spike in mortality to a millennial death of millions that I frankly find unbelievable.

But this is not an artifact, it is not the result of exaggerated reporting, it is definitely real and killing thousands of people before their time (even if their time remaining was already, sadly, short) and it is the result of a contagion.

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[liminalOyster]

Thank you Jack and just signing on that I very much agree with the current ambivalence around all of the following:

it is not a certainty to what extent the measures are holding down the death rate in any given place, or were advisable, and to what extent they are overkill and panic and ultimately a bigger disaster, or the witting expression of statist overreach.

[identity]

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identity, does it occur to you those nurses (how do you know? scrubs? can mean a lot of things) may work with each other in close quarters already?

In any case, from your story, nothing follows about what the situation at the hospitals may be. Or even what exactly it is that they do. Nope. In the absence of an interview, what do you know?

Yeah, I was aware that what I wrote might be misinterpreted as indicating that I suspect the whole thing is a hoax, and that no more people are dying than usual (which – I hope, obviously – is not the case). Maybe I should have been more clear about that. I just thought it was noteworthy that one of the very few groups of more than three people I have seen closely interacting in public sans protection in the last two or three weeks should be nurses. (Yes, scrubs, but also of an ethnicity strongly represented here in the nurse population, and the unusual sight of a group of five people in uniform anywhere these days suggesting shift workers at the end of their working day. I honestly can't imagine what else they would have been but nurses. I would certainly be willing to bet money that they were nurses, if that counts for anything)

I am, of course, aware that the situation is much more dire in places like NYC. Things never really took off here (PNW city) in a major way, there have not been many deaths, and last I heard the curve was flattening.

[Belligerent Savant]

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My own suspicion is generally with respect to how this situation - whatever its true origins - is being leveraged by powerful/influential entities, now and in the months to follow.

That said:
I grew up and spent most of my life in Queens (Elmhurst hospital was a short bike ride away). I have family that still live in the NYC area. I've family and friends that are nurses, doctors and health care workers in and around the NYC area, and can attest to and echo all JR's words above, along with LiminalO's sentiments.

Identity - none of this is to say scrutiny or inquiry is to be stifled. That's what this thread is for.

[identity]

Perhaps those ¿nurses?* felt like the worst – which was never all that bad here, really – is now behind them, and so to hell with precautions when we're off duty? (Even if they are around each other closely all day and, hell, maybe even live together!, you have to agree it still doesn't set a good example to onlookers for health workers employed by the government to be ignoring distancing orders which everyone else is expected to adhere to.)

cv-19 trends.png

[Belligerent Savant]

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My non-professional (and therefore largely irrelevant) opinion is that social distancing measures should have been relegated to the elderly and immuno-compromised -- service-related businesses should not have been shut down (as far as physical entry). The hope is they'll begin staggered lifting of lockdown measures over the next couple weeks in certain areas.

Perhaps the extreme lockdown/distancing measures were enacted in abundance of caution -- that's the non-cynical view.

[Blue]

So, wide field of things that are questionable, I just don't understand the base mistrust in this post and others like it.

I share all the basic mistrust in how reality is processed through the Beezelbub-ian meat grinder of our emergent post-derivative financial capitalism, new forms of evil and medical grade Orwellian media theatrics that anyone who still comes to this old mess of a PHP board does, but I just truly do not understand the kind of suspicion of this situation - where so much of what we are learning is coming directly from the voices of other worthless plebes like us, rather than any of the expected state and corporate organs of madness.

Great post lO, but seriously you can't understand some of these posters? They are full-on trolls.

Damn, I just saw that Boris is in ICU...how's that herd immunity working for ya asshole?

[identity]

In response to:

Can any hospital workers provide some info in what is going on the frontline? How well is the healthcare system coping at the moment?

60 people upvoted this reply:

Overall the work has been to build capacity in anticipation of a surge of Covid-19 patients. Because of this in some areas there are actually a lot less patient than usual. Also, the ED use seems to be way down, I'm assuming a lot of the casual use of ED for things that are not really emergencies has dropped off as the hospital probably seems like a less safe place to be. It is the calm before the (anticipated) storm right now. The next couple of weeks will be really telling.

And (those same, I assume) 60 people downvoted this one:

I’ve been hearing “the calm before the storm” thrown around for 3 weeks now. Seems like we will be fine IMO.

BelSav wrote: social distancing measures should have been relegated to the elderly and immuno-compromised -- service-related businesses should not have been shut down

I certainly agree with this! (Only major issue, I think, would have been with people who are unaware of underlying conditions they may have, or who have severe but unacknowledged nutritional deficiencies, and maybe even smokers who are more vulnerable to respiratory illnesses...)

[alloneword]

Two days in a row, 600 dead in New York City. That is four times the average number of deaths in a day, a variation that could never just happen. There is no precedent in the last century that did not involve collapsing towers or other major disasters.

I'm sorry, but I have to ask... Where are those figure from?

The NYC data I'm seeing has the daily number of deaths peaking at 258 on 31st March, and declining since.

[JackRiddler]

Two days in a row, 600 dead in New York City. That is four times the average number of deaths in a day, a variation that could never just happen. There is no precedent in the last century that did not involve collapsing towers or other major disasters.

I'm sorry, but I have to ask... Where are those figure from?

The NYC data I'm seeing has the daily number of deaths peaking at 258 on 31st March, and declining since.

Right above the chart it says:

Due to delays in reporting,
recent data are incomplete.

Saturday-Sunday-Monday deaths in New York City were reported as 630-594-599 by New York State at Cuomo's press conference. (No, I don't think they make up death numbers, but there are those who will.) Average deaths per day in recent years has been on the order of 150. (Which, as you know, puzzles me for reasons I described in the other thread.) My sources (real human friends) near major treatment centers in Brooklyn and Queens report the noisiest siren days by far.

ON EDIT: I expect discrepancy is because the nyc.gov data is after they've determined Covid as cause, whereas the NYS numbers from the Cuomo conferences seem to be total deaths in NYC. So 4x normal, but then something like 1/4 of that is still the normal?

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[liminalOyster]

.My non-professional (and therefore largely irrelevant) opinion is that social distancing measures should have been relegated to the elderly and immuno-compromised.

It's a strong-arm move for sure but truth be told its pretty astounding how little we understand this particular coronavirus yet (esp given that all the mil/intel etc pandemic planning correctly identified that the first new pandemic would, indeed, be from the family of coronaviruses.) Even the diabetes co-morbidity, IIRC, took a while to be known. And it remains eminently possible that other unexpected conditions could play a role.

Plus, elderly and immune-compromised is our standard practice for who needs to take special precautions during flu season. It's been important to make the oublic understand, IMO, that this is way (guessing statistically just under 10x when the numbers are in) more deadly than seasonal flu.

[Elvis]

Don't feel bad about the posting goofs, Jack... I just accidentally overwrote a post of my own by hitting the "Edit" button instead of "Quote." At least I preserved the gist of the original.

A text came in from the phone provider explaining that they are "supporting" me "during COVID-10 with Unlimited Talk and Text for the month of April."

The minutes I get recently increased to 1,000/mo. which loads automatically around the first of the month. But this time 50,000 minutes. I suppose they get an extra reimbursement for their generosity?

Of course it costs the phone co. nothing to add minutes to your account. Too bad my phone minutes are not transferrable, like air miles.

[Iamwhomiam]

ΝYC ΙCU DR with nothing to gain shares INCREDIBLE insight t...
Apr 4, 2020

Hi Heaven Swan. I believe the doctor's main concern is the harm caused by ventilators. Everyone who gets hooked up to ventilator suffers some lung damage. Forcing air into the lungs as a ventilator does is far different than drawing in a breath of air naturally aspirating. The longer one remains dependent upon a ventilaor, the more severely one's lung damage is.

This "virus" causes flu like symptoms and lung congestion that make breathing difficult. Supposedly, patients before being placed on ventilators are being given oxygen.

(I'm a few pages back trying to catch-up.)

[SonicG]

Grocery workers are beginning to die of coronavirus
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... onavirus-/