COVID-19: Chapter 4 - OPEN FOR BUSINESS

Paywalled. Does the article by any chance go on to investigate if anyone on the flight with the Manhattan Dr. caught it? Because that sure would be good to know.

No.This is a public health decision that needs to be informed by the science. Polling a thousand parents on their intuitions about best practices is malpractice.

Maybe in an ideal world where we could double the number of teachers per class we could allow some choice regarding online or in person, but that isnā€™t going to happen so the school district needs to make a decision. One teacher canā€™t teach online, in person, and hybrid classes all for one class worth of students. Some colleges are trying this and will find out itā€™s a disaster.

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The 69-year-old surgeon was flying to L.A. so he could move into the Silverado Beverly Place, a dementia-care residence on the edge of the Fairfax district. His relatives did not return calls seeking comment. The surgeon was the subject of a guardianship proceeding in February, and The Times is not naming him because his mental competency is unclear.

Just prior to the flight, he had been discharged from a New York City hospital, according to correspondence from the Silverado and interviews. At the time, coronavirus was spreading rapidly in the city, including in medical facilities.

There was little attempt to quarantine him from other residents once he got to the Silverado from the airport, according to three employees who recalled him eating dinner in the company of other residents shortly after his arrival.

The nurse assigned to welcome him, Brittany Bruner-Ringo, later told her mother, sister and a colleague that the man had a fever and a cough when he arrived. The Silverado has denied that and said medical records prepared by the nurse show he had no symptoms.

By the next day, however, the doctor was clearly unwell with a temperature of 101.9 and a ā€œproductive cough,ā€ according to medical records. One employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak publicly said when she told him he needed to stay in his room because of the pandemic, he replied, ā€œYes, I know the situation. And I am really hot and I have it, and I need to go to the hospital.ā€

Taken to Cedars-Sinai, he tested positive for COVID-19.

Passengers and crew on the flight from New York were obvious targets for contact tracing, but no one attempted to get in touch with them. The county health department said it didnā€™t learn of the surgeonā€™s positive test for 11 days, and at that point, ā€œthe contact information provided for the individual was incomplete and the investigator was not able to conduct an interview.ā€œ The county formally closed the case after 14 days.

It was unclear why the contact tracers would not have turned to the Silverado for information about the surgeon. The facility filed a report with the county within hours of his positive test, providing the sick manā€™s name, explaining his recent arrival and giving contact information for an administrator, according to correspondence provided by the Silverado. Receiving no response, the administrator reached out again three days later and was told ā€œwe did not need to do anything further at this time,ā€ according to a Silverado spokesman.

The surgeon recovered, but the Silverado saw an outbreak. To date, 90 residents and staff have come down with the virus and 13 died, including Bruner-Ringo. A county spokesman said there is an ā€œongoing investigationā€ into the outbreak.

Yeah Iā€™m just curious if any of the people on the plane caught it.

Trying to make a mental map of the most dangerous things. So far I got living with someone who has it, bars, choir practice, working in a hospital or nursing home, living in a nursing home, sports locker rooms, being in a car with someone who has it, sitting next to someone in a restaurant who has it when the AC is blowing over them to you, cruise ships/aircraft carriers, meat-packing plants, distribution centers, paper mills.

What other places do we know for sure have had super spreader events or major spreading?

It was encouraging that I guess none of the 140 people who got their hair cut by the two woman who had it in Missouri came down with it.

How safe or dangerous planes are is a big open question to me.

Itā€™s a political decision that needs to be informed by the science. If itā€™s not a political decision, then school boards shouldnā€™t be elected (or selected by any other political process).

If the school district envisions a scenario where there is in-classroom instruction, with some students attending on-line, it would help them to formulate their plans if they knew what percentage of students are likely to attend virtually. You may not like that plan and you may think it will end up a disaster, but I think it is reasonable for them to consider, even if they believe that the students attending in-person will have an educational advantage over those that donā€™t.

Letā€™s not insinuate that the man is a liar without cause. He could easily be referring to pubic lice.

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Alright, here it is making itā€™s debutā€¦ This should be viewed as a relative, not absolute tool. I donā€™t know what percentage of hospital beds are occupied with non-COVID patients, but I estimated 50%. I am estimating the number of active cases as described in a previous post, and the hospitalization rate at 10 to 16%. That gives us the hospitalization range. Keep in mind this will include non-positive testing patients who are in the hospital with pneumonia, but it still may be too high in some states.

Itā€™s possible at this point that everyone hospitalized is tested, and that I should stop obsessing over the true number of active cases and just work on the positive tests and the rate of hospitalization among positive tests, instead of among total cases.

If you see data on a state anywhere for their number of hospitalizations OR their current hospital capacity, let me know and I can use it to adjust the model and/or calculate by hand.

Iā€™ll address a few things. First, the states I think are in the worst shape:

I donā€™t see how Arizona and South Carolina avoid tipping over. I think weā€™re looking at people dying in hospital hallways or being ā€œcared forā€ in field hospitals. I have no idea what plans are in place to scale up capacity. My model takes the total hospital beds the state has, assumes 50% are occupied for non-COVID, and then the worst case scenario assumes no scaling up and 16% of total active cases requiring hospitalization. The best case scenario assumes a 50% scaling up of the total number of beds, and 10% of total active cases requiring hospitalization. So when theyā€™re on pace to tip over in the best case scenario in less than 14 days, thatā€™s very bad news.

Arkansas is in a lot of trouble. As we all know, mitigation has to be done two weeks in advance. They have a very short window to avoid going over capacity. North Carolina has a pretty wide spread there, but they should be in quite a bit of trouble too. Their official hospitalization number is 797, but Cooper seems to be in a near panic about the situation. Iā€™m guessing Iā€™m overestimating hospitalization and underestimating typical hospital capacity with non-COVID cases.

Vermont apparently is going to have a very low hospitalization percentage on these cases, as they skew younger. (Thanks @eyebooger!)

Florida is very concerning. The womanā€™s data actually seems pretty safe, as it results in way fewer hospitalizations. That said, I think their official published number is higher than what I generated from her data. So my guess is something like a current track for 27-35 days. But thatā€™s STATEWIDE! Itā€™s very likely they start tipping over somewhere sooner than that in such a big state.

Texas is only showing 2,300 people in hospitals with COVID so thatā€™s good, but their hospitals are 70% full by their own numbers. That means they should be able to reduce the number of voluntary surgeries and such before they hit capacity, so I think theyā€™re ok for awhile.

Oregon appears to be in bad shape, but the re instituted a pause in the reopening a few days ago, so I think theyā€™re going to be fine.

Iā€™ll probably keep tweaking this. I think my model is showing that thereā€™s enough testing now that all of the cases making it to the hospital are getting tested. Iā€™m guessing almost all the people with symptoms are getting tested. So I should probably ignore the untested mild cases, and focus on the case hospitalization rates (CHR) instead of IHR.

I think that tweak is going to put this thing just about on the money.

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First thing that popped into my head was ā€œstarting hand chart.ā€

Fold pre. You canā€™t bluff the virus. Youā€™ve gotta play LDP.

Iā€™m like two sentences in and already want to nuke Florida.

A fucking golf cart parade with SIXHUNDRED-AND-FIFTY golf carts.

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Fair enough. And well, ok contact tracing but not awesome, and 7/10 quarantine, but no curfew ever (not needed).

So your assumption was for the conditions in the US specifically then, given the set of conditions there?

On bolded: Iā€™m sort of shocked (but not really) at how starkly the pandemic has put this on display for all of the world to see. Not that it was hidden before given the insanity happening under Drumpf (and other structural issues in place long before him), but the recent months has definitely taken it to another level.

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Ive been working the whole way through and at first people were pretty good about masks but now not so much. Even with the safety guy making it a requirement most dont wear them not even the supervisors.

Generally in life i could give a crap what others think though and when they ask why im wearing one i just say i dont want to dieā€¦when they say but you wont die i tell them right you have more underlying conditions so you will go firstā€¦which ends the conversation. Im sure people talk behind my back but again who cares what others think. Take care of yourself.

There are rumors a couple people at work, i work in a very large workplace, have gotten it so will see if that causes the masks to go back on. Think that is about all that would convince them.

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I raise.

https://twitter.com/KaageIrv/status/1256598599858872320?s=19

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Ilhan Omarā€™s father dies with virus

Somali-born US congresswoman Ilhan Omar has announced the death of her father with Covid-19.

Ms Omar and her father, Nur Mohamed, came to the US as refugees in 1995 during Somaliaā€™s civil war. She is one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress.

https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1272729952086044673?s=20

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This guy gets it.

A couple things that might help. One the number of hospital beds in use is quite seasonal with hospital censuses being typically lowest in the summer and highest in the winter. Secondly at least at my wifeā€™s hospital every single patient is tested for Covid at this point.

Very interesting work btw.

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Yeah itā€™s a totally different story when almost 1 percent of your population is known to have or have had the virus (and likely 5x more) and your have OFB while cases are going up.

I donā€™t know the heck has happened at the CDC, how they are silencing so many voices. Iā€™ve a fair amount on disease epidemiology, vaccine campaigns etc and the CDC has the been the hero of almost every story. Now-crickets chirping. Drumpf has committed no less than genocide against certain vulnerable populations.

Norway seems about the best place on the planet currently.

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OFB on an upward trend isā€¦something else.

We generally end up at #1 or #2 in happiness surveys every year (along with Denmark) anyway, so itā€™s a pretty decent place to be in general - but maybe especially now, yes. Even though we have a center-right (meaning left of eDems in USA terms) government right now, theyā€™re actually competent and sane.

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New Zealand and iceland seem pretty elite.

Looking at all the best countries in the world it seems pretty clear population size is important. You can make it work when you only have a couple million. Like there would be a TON of spots in the US where we would be comparable to these places if they formed their own government. Problem is there would also be a lot of spots with legalized slavery.

But I think a bunch of states declaring independence is really the best thing. With nuclear weapons you donā€™t even need a massive military anymore. Then again if some states like Alabama get to choose their own president and they have nukes who knows.