So, we have the person who is both on our city council, and is responsible for our elderly center (finally closed down… last in thing in the town to close), in a council meeting last night, when I asked about PPE during food prep, all the way thru delivery, she said “I know all of our core group preparing meals, and trust them”, and “there is no proof masks do any good, and we don’t have any”. A second council member seconded the mask’s don’t work, as tho read from the script. After two attempts to dissuade her from the mask lie, and the fact that TRUST has nothing to do with if one of them catches this thing… and becomes a super spreader (didn’t say that exact thing) to our elderly population.
It is REALLY hard to convince someone of something they have been programmed to see otherwise.
Our community has a LARGE elderly population… It’s a tiny rural town, so everyone seems to either die early, or live to 100. We may just be losing them all.
Eric & Cindy in Washington State
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/watch-live-white-house-holds-daily-coronavirus-task-force-briefing
I predict the eventual emergence of a new and powerful third political party, The Everything for Everyone Party. They will give everyone everything they want until the whole shebang just explodes (or implodes as it may).
Ejh237,
I totally understand how you must feel. That kind of absurdity has no place in rational discussion. Should have come out and said we are doing our best, we don’t have any masks and are looking for other options for those that want to afford some level of protection to themselves and the community.
In a bizzaro world, their statement that masks don’t work would be wonderful, all of our HCWs no longer need masks either. Mask crisis has been averted. Bureaucracy to the rescue.
If anything I hope that this situation might open enough people’s eyes that we need leaders and statesmen that are ultimately in the people’s interest not managers and bureaucrats what are most often acting in their own interest.
Have had a respiratory infection (bronchitis ) for a month. Finally went to urgent care to get some serious meds. It was a brand new office. No one but me there. I wore one of my few remaining masks. Went to the counter started telling the receptionist what the issue was and filling out paperwork. There was a sign on the counter that said if you are coughing or sneezing please take a mask. I said nice sign but there were no masks . She said they keep them underneath behind the counter because people take them. I said great plan. Then I told her that this was my last mask and she said " oh do you need more?" Not being one to miss an opportunity I said “sure you bet” She reached down and gave me a handful.
Went back yesterday and different receptionist. Again no one in the place. I went in w/o a mask and said I need a mask. She said " sure" and handed me one. I have found my strategy for accumulating masks and am making many more appointments
lol
Considering the connection here to Chris’ own background, this recent Cornell community letter from its president, Martha Pollack, also reiterates the psychological hurdle we are all up against with our friends & family:
https://statements.cornell.edu/2020/20200317-6CA37g-to-the-cornell-community.cfm
…“In the past week to 10 days, all of our lives have changed in ways that are almost incomprehensible. My colleague Vice President Ryan Lombardi likes to talk about the need to “process” new information, and that’s what every single one of us is doing: trying to process our situation. This takes time and it takes psychological energy, so please be patient with yourself and expect a wide range of emotions. Please also be patient with your friends and loved ones, especially those with whom you will be spending a lot of time in the coming weeks.
I am a bridge player—not a very good one, but I do enjoy the game. In bridge, you are sometimes dealt a great hand: lots of high cards, distributed across the suits in an advantageous way. Other times, you are dealt a terrible hand. The great hands are unquestionably more fun to play, but every bridge player knows that you have to play the hand you’re dealt. Sometimes, doing an outstanding job with a terrible hand can be incredibly rewarding.
Right now, we’ve all been dealt a bad hand—and we have to play it, and play it to the best of our abilities. So many of our plans have been disrupted, leaving us frustrated and disappointed. But we can rise to meet this challenge, just as previous generations of Cornellians have when they faced huge and unexpected challenges, whether it was a World War, or the Great Depression, or the scourge of AIDS.”
Worth a read of the entire letter. Its not all negative out there…
https://globalnews.ca/news/6686520/victoria-drive-thru-coronavirus-test/
by referral appointment only, hope this helps and is a start to more like this! Save people from going into hospital emergency rooms!
Hi Afrediv,
Yes, there are simulation models. The main questions are: 1) how is your math?, and 2) what program do you use (e.g., Excel, Phyton, Matlab, or the a manual calculator).
For an example, you could check out this example. A model accounting for policies, and other factors is actually rather complex. The interesting thing about the example in the wikipedia page is that if the number of infected people is much smaller than the maximum population size, a standard exponential function will do.
Instead of creating a complex model with all kind of parameters that need to be determined I would suggest to “fit” an exponential function:
#Infected = Bexp(Adays),
with A and B the fitting constants, and days the number of days since a starting point (the days are plotted on the horizontal (x) axis). All complexities are captured by the fitting constants. You will find that this give a reasonable accurate short term prediction (1-5 days ahead) and a rough (and scary) long term prediction.
- If you only have a hand held calculator I can create an example how to do all this by hand.
- If you know some basic math and some basic spreadsheet skills, this should be rather straightforward: you convert the data to a linear function:
- by taking the natural logarithm (the "ln" function) of the equation above you get: ln(#Infected) = ln(B) + A*days. This is a linear function (straight line). A is the slope of the line, days is plotted along the horizontal axis, ln(#Infected) is plotted on the vertical (=y) axis, and ln(B) is the intercept, the value at which the straight line crosses the y-axis.
- If you are fluent in math and programming this should not be an issue at all. I calculate the fit parameters based on the last 7 days, and if the doubling time changes more than 10% I update the constants that I use for prediction.
My wife is a pharmacist and she doubts when she goes back to work next week there will be PPE. I’m trying to come up with a decent solution. I have enough for all her employees to get 1 N-95 each. Should have stocked up, but didn’t want to hoard and it never crossed my mind if she was the only one showing up in PPE, the herd would get nervous. You are on top of everything here…best ideas for sterilizing and reuse and best idea for homemade masks. Thanks, TJ
Also great work on the forum lately. You’re quickly becoming a PP legend like saxplayer, Davos, and many others.
I predict the eventual emergence of a new and powerful third political party, The Everything for Everyone Party. They will give everyone everything they want until the whole shebang just explodes (or implodes as it may)Well thank God! It’s easy to be cynical when you have lots of money. I have children who will find this quarantine financially difficult. There are A LOT of people who will find not getting a paycheck through no fault of their own ———-devastating!! This situation is not just about “us”. We are all parts of a community and when the community suffers we should notice! And help. AKGrannyWGrit
I met with a military contractor today, whose main job is teaching about human behavior to military and law enforcement. His side job is installing gates and deer/elk fences, which is what we met about. His upcoming contract work has been cancelled. I asked him about the military being brought home, and for what reason - to keep peace, or - ? He said that it is being done for their own safety, as they live in such close quarters, that if they get this virus, it will sweep through ferociously. They are no longer able to fly commercial. And, they are on/will be on lockdown, for their own safety. He guesses that all, or most, military have already been tested for the virus. Perhaps this has been shared already, though I didn’t see it on a quick look.
I posted yesterday that I just got shingles. This isn’t about me though. I just want to encourage everyone to do whatever needs doing at your place or in your life NOW. If you get sick, your brain may not work as well, nor your stamina. I learned this in the past couple of days!
But are you taking a verbal shot at me because I posted this?
I didn’t say people won’t find this quarantine financially devastating. I also didn’t say people not getting a paycheck wouldn’t be devastating. I also didn’t say this is only about “us” nor did I deny the importance of community. Quite frankly, I’d rather see the money going to the people than to banks, financial services, and other corporations. But do you think this is a sustainable situation, regardless of who is getting the money?
Forgive me for saying this but you often seem to find minimal excuse for taking offense. If I’m wrong here, I stand corrected.
I’m just reporting the news. Don’t shoot the messenger.
Hello from SE Wisconsin,
I just came across the latest research from epidemiologist Dr. Neil Ferguson on ZeroHedge. I first became aware of Dr. Ferguson’s scholarly insight about the then Chinese crisis in a video posted weeks ago in this ongoing daily forum.
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/terrifying-new-research-warns-22-million-could-die-us-without-drastic-action
Summary: even the best health care systems aren’t moving fast enough. Disaster dead ahead.
http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/03/you-really-have-no-idea.html
...Some days back, I stated that I didn't think we'd bring Kung Flu patients into the hospital, but instead, triage them in tents outside, then send the ones meeting criteria to some FEMA-set-up Kung Flu Treatment Center, staffed as possible, and serviced by dedicated Hazmat 9-1-1 ambulances, whisking members of the community there as appropriate, in full protective gear, 24/7/365.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFCvg8uokZc&feature=emb_logo
Because, as I argued with flawless logic, to do otherwise would be to
a) risk our entire healthcare system being overwhelmed and destroyed, a la Italy, and
b) make every other medical emergency impossible to deal with, thus doubling casualties from every other treatable and preventable cause of death, from heart attacks and strokes to appendicitis, because the entirety of any and every hospital would be filled with Kung Flu-infected plague petri dishes, in every nook and cranny.
Turns out, TPTB, top to bottom, make the Italians look like Leonardo da Vinci.
1) We're not putting tents up everywhere.
2) We're not segregating people out of the hospital.
3) We'll do a half-assed triage assessment outside the building somewhere (fill in the blank where___________)
4) Using screening criteria overtaken by reality a month ago, because the CDC, no matter how asinine, is always the CDC
4a) to wit, asking about foreign travel, even though homegrown community-acquired cases outstrip foreign travel candidates, and have for two weeks
4b) ask about exposure to known Kung Flu patients, even though the CDC and local public health departments refused to test for Kung Flu until four days ago, in most cases, (due to jackassery, fuckwittery, and a dearth of functional kits for two months) thus insuring via Catch-22, that if you never test for King Flu, nobody anyone was in contact with ever officially has Kung Flu
5) then bring the infected into an appropriate sealed negative airflow room
5a) which cleverly has no patient monitoring equipment
5b) will not allow you to get portable chest x-ray equipment into the room with the patient with respiratory problems (which, cleverly, no one thought about prior to then)
5c) which would contaminate said portable x-ray equipment every time you got it into the quarantine room
5d) which would require an extensive, nigh impossible decontamination of said X-ray equipment for each and every subsequent patient
5e) thus leading to shooting x-rays outside the building, or in other places that probably violate 27 hospital safety policies, local health and safety codes, and probably eleventy Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations regarding radiological safety of patients, staff, and bystanders, in a slow-rolling Chernobyl sort of way
5f) and taking them to CT scanners which are then contaminated, and failing to do a full terminal clean of said rooms and equipment each and every time, which would take them offline for hours each shift, and necessitate closing the hospital to ambulance traffic, so why bother cleaning?
6)unless you're fresh out of negative airflow rooms, in which case you
7) put them into open rooms with no protection or containment
8) thus insuring that all staff members and other patients are exposed over and over again
9) to cases which will not be tested for Kung Flu unless they're first proven negative for the flu
10) Or not
11) All such "policies" being rather more like the Pirates Code ("just guidelines, really"), purely at the whimsy and caprice of whatever doctor(s), charge nurses, or cranky old bat nurse has phone duty that day at the Public Health office, and their personal and capricious interpretation of the current (of four or five or six, so far) CDC guidelines
12) which apparently are changed every hour, if not more frequently
13) while the managers, and senior management, who should be living in the same shoes and underpants 24/7/365 until they sort this shit out, weekend or no, but whom are instead nowhere to be seen, heard from, or in any wise directly involved, until the total colossal clusterfuck falls over from its own weight seven or eight times over, between Friday afternoon and the middle of the following week.
14) while staff and patients having to deal with the results of people with Acute-on-Chronic Head-Up-The-Ass-Syndrome are repeatedly subjected to potential pandemic exposure, leading to sickness, preventative quarantine, lawsuits, and death
15) as the Low IQ staff members, who still think this is no big deal, continue to half-ass every bit of their response, 24/7/365, because half of them were below the upper/lower cut in their graduating classes as well...
All business in Holland that had to close such as bars, restaurants etc get 4000 euro and 90% of all employee costs until reopening.
Very much agree with thc0655’s post of the ED nurse above: Our hospital based systems cannot adapt in time. Every suggestion to increase efficiency is met with a counter “We can’t do that because _____”
The system is complex and interconnected and would require a re-engineering/re-designing to make it work well in the pandemic setting. And many of the changes needed are actually unlawful.
We are heading into a total shit show from top to bottom and people will die on the sidewalks in front of the ER. And the staff will get sick and die with them.
I am very discouraged.
Also self-employed who lost contract can apply for assistance without fuzz or need to repay later
just look at Italy and Germany… 2503 of 31506 died in Italy versus 24 of total 9352 in Germany