Coronavirus in Massachusetts (Boston: congested, places to go, cell phone)

[Arya Stark]

Originally Posted by Bridge781

There is a surge predicted in April between the 7th and 17th. People won’t be back to the office.

I don't believe it. People were telling me we would have over a million cases by now. "it was math" it already looks like cases are flattening.

[id77]

Originally Posted by Bridge781

I said my husband thinks it will be over by June. Not me

I guess it depends on what you consider over.

If over means the shut-everything-down orders have ended and businesses start opening again, yeah I can see June being realistic. Once hospitals have adjusted to the new normal and can handle cases more efficiently, the doors will slowly begin to reopen so we can start to stop the economic and psychological bleeding.

If over means that Covid is contained and we can put this chapter behind us, that's years away, if ever. A vaccine is an if not a when, and if it does happen, I'm positive it will not be 100% effective (just as flu vaccines aren't due to mutations). Sooner or later, the reality will set it on the general public that there is in fact nothing that can be done to 100% contain this virus; the best we can do is spread out the illnesses and deaths over a longer period of time to keep hospital capacity under control. Sooner or later, every last person will be exposed to it and the best possible situation we can hope for is that by the time some people are exposed, there's a way to make them more comfortable or give them a little better chance at surviving.

[sawyer2]

Very simplistically, there are 4 stages, many of which overlap/are in parallel.

1. Understand what/where it is and how bad - more testing, understand prevalence, incidence, hospitalization rate, mortality, treatment paradigms, demographics, recovery rate etc etc. And do whatever is needed in the meantime to shut it down/prevent spread until we understand this, aka 'flattening the curve'.

2. Expanding medical and testing capabilities. Everything from building stock of PPEs, to expanding and reducing turn around time for RT-PCR, to developing high throughput IgM/IgG antibody tests to detect previous exposure, to exploring efficacy of other anti-virals and other therapies

3. Test the population with some result test/risk group basis for returning to work/general population. Be prepared to shut down/isolate future geographic surges that will absolutely occur.

4. Develop a vaccine and vaccinate everyone - initial data supports low mutation which means greater durability and probability of success.


We are very much in stage 1 - we bungled the lead time and response (to put it mildly), so now we will pay a far higher price on many fronts, and for much longer.


Or maybe Trump is right, and this will be all over soon ..... and you can google yourself what his batting average has been on this thus far

[charolastra00]

Originally Posted by Arya Stark

I don't believe it. People were telling me we would have over a million cases by now. "it was math" it already looks like cases are flattening.

If we had enough tests, I suspect we would have more than a million cases by now. Just based on experience, many people still can't get tests, including people who are showing (mild) symptoms and live with someone with a positive diagnosis.



The 5 minute tests could be a game changer for addressing the true spread if we can get enough of them up and running.


Where are you seeing that cases are flattening? There seems to be *some* flattening in Seattle and SF (though even then, it's still early to tell) because they moved fairly early. I am hopeful about Massachusetts because we have that "Seattle freeze" energy, and it seems like a larger portion of the population took it more seriously than in other places. Even still, we have a few weeks here to see what happens with all the returning spring breakers. They won't get sick, but you better believe this week and next we'll start seeing their critically ill parents and grandparents rolling in.

[Bridge781]

Yeah part of it seems ridiculous in a way that we are basically treating everyone we come in contact with as if they have coronavirus. Like even when out walking you have to be far apart etc. I am all for staying home and not being in large groups but this is kind of an unsettling way to live. Anyone who has anxiety must be a wreck right now. I’ve seen facebook posts of people complaining that when they went outside for their walk another person came to close to them. I mean stay inside or go in the yard if you feel that way.

[charolastra00]

Originally Posted by Bridge781

Yeah part of it seems ridiculous in a way that we are basically treating everyone we come in contact with as if they have coronavirus. Like even when out walking you have to be far apart etc. I am all for staying home and not being in large groups but this is kind of an unsettling way to live. Anyone who has anxiety must be a wreck right now. I’ve seen facebook posts of people complaining that when they went outside for their walk another person came to close to them. I mean stay inside or go in the yard if you feel that way.

Must be nice to have a yard.



People in my building are giving distance. And it *is* a very unsettling way to live. I have severe anxiety and medical PTSD - this is incredibly difficult for me. But it's amazing how many people don't understand how far 6 feet is and who think it's perfectly acceptable to come within that bubble. It's not just about you not getting sick, but it's about not passing along to someone else and not contributing to the overload of the medical system.

[BostonMike7]

Originally Posted by charolastra00

Where are you seeing that cases are flattening? There seems to be *some* flattening in Seattle and SF (though even then, it's still early to tell) because they moved fairly early. I am hopeful about Massachusetts because we have that "Seattle freeze" energy, and it seems like a larger portion of the population took it more seriously than in other places. Even still, we have a few weeks here to see what happens with all the returning spring breakers. They won't get sick, but you better believe this week and next we'll start seeing their critically ill parents and grandparents rolling in.

I have seen a graph of the different cities. Some are doing better than others. Unfortunately I haven't found a good way to plot it day by day for actual states/cities short of myself plotting it in excel. I'm sure someone out there has the data but I can only draw conclusions based on the data I have access to.

Here's the US as a whole. If you click the link at the end, you'll find you can over over each point and get actual numbers. The day-by-day cases in the US has stopped growing. Still quite a large number each day but it's not growing at a rate of 2x anymore. Ignore the dotted line. That's todays total which is being updated in real time. Lets hope the number of US cases today is around 19000...that would be 4 days of consistent new cases.



Need to watch it for a few more days to understand if it really is a flattening, or if it's a bottleneck in testing.


Here is the same graph on the left in log scale. The last few days, the line is starting to roll over which indicates slowing



Here's the data for MA. This could use a few more days worth of data. MA also reports their new cases/deaths at 4PM each day. Lets hope todays new cases are around 1K or less. That would indicate a flattening.



I'm taking this info from this site
https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en

Again...waaaaay to early to really draw conclusions, but it's not as exponential as I thought it would be. If you google search, there are a number of recent articles from different locations around the world showing data that the trend is slowing. All good news if accurate.

I have no doubt in my mind that some countries, and/or regions of various countries are going to get it BAD. I think worldwide deaths will be in the 1-2 million range. I don't think many of those deaths will be officially recorded in many regions.

[htfdcolt]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

What makes you think it will be over in June? There is no vaccine. There is no mass testing capability. There is no gigantic public health organization putting anyone in contact with the disease into quarantine.

Of all the postings I've seen on this issue, none sum it up more starkly than this!

[wolfgang239]

Tests are definitely becoming more available. My job will be testing me in several weeks when I return back for a 2 week sequester, the other people coming in for their term are being tested right away.

[BostonMike7]

Originally Posted by charolastra00

If we had enough tests, I suspect we would have more than a million cases by now. Just based on experience, many people still can't get tests, including people who are showing (mild) symptoms and live with someone with a positive diagnosis.
.

It's getting better (anecdotally speaking), at least with respect to MA.

I now know of several "regular people" who had minor (or no) symptoms, were easily able to get a test, and got results back in approx. 24 hours (all negative) so far.

MA has performed ~40K tests so far with a 12.9% positivity rate