Wine in the age of the corona.

[JimHow]

It will be very interesting to see what Orange Head’s mindset is when the 15 day period is up.

[Nicklasss]

Skepticism, asking questions, "want to understand with facts", these are all good behaviors for intelligent people.

Our Leaders are telling us what to do, we do it without too much hesitation, but we never had any information used/brought for that decision. By the way, our Leaders are next to each other in Press conference, not respecting the 2 meters without each other. They want to be contaminated and die?

The test for Covid, is it clear like a pregnancy test? When you pass it, do they explain all what it is about and show you proof of the result? Or is it the Believe me, you're contaminated. Go home, isolated yourself and if worst, call the ambulance?

Also, there are so many gurus that post information on the social medias that everyone is completely lost. And this why all the extreme decision: our Leaders want to give the impression they did everything to prevent dead people. If not, they will be destroyed after the crisis on the social media. And you will never know if it was a good or bad thing. Probably prayers save more people.

Humain can't do good with what they control. Imagine with something they don't! Stay far away from each other, clean your hands often, don't bring the virus in your body (mouth, nose, eyes), and you'll be fine.

Another problem is that nobody seems to understand that they won't live until 180 years and not rich. It seems like in North America people have two hopes: never die, never lose a penny.

Good coronavirus time to all.

Your friendly neighborood, Nic

[brodway]

test for Covid, is it clear like a pregnancy test? When you pass it, do they explain all what it is about and show you proof of the result? Or is it the Believe me, you're contaminated. Go home, isolated yourself and if worst, call the ambulance?

Nic...

I too find the test is of less significance than social distancing....even if one takes finds out they are positive for the virus but showing very mild symptoms, they will be instructed to self quarantine, something that we should be doing anyway for the next few weeks. There are a LOT more people infected than we are being counted. They are not diagnosed and not tested. Many have very mild symptomology and some may have none. They are however contagious and someone that may have a weak immune system or be susceptible to catching a disease will innocently be infected and die. The lockdown is of more value than the test.

[JimHow]

As each day passes there are going to be more conversations like this from the governor of Texas, who is willing to accept risk:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... li=BBnb7Kz

I heard a Republican senator from Indiana saying basically the same thing on NPR this morning.

This is like a very bad science fiction movie, except it is real.

[JCNorthway]

My concern with such thinking is that parts of the country may let up too soon and what follows could be a greater impact on the economy than what we have now.

[RPCV]

I am optimistic about the chloroquine/zithromax/zinc regime. I spent three years in the African bush as a peace corps volunteer (hence my handle Returned Peace Corps Volunteer/RPCV) and took chloroquine as a prophylactic against malaria. It is well tolerated and safe to most....what if you could take a weekly pill of chloroquine and not become infected? The cocktail appears to work on severely ill patients and quickly so here's to hoping clinical trials reveal positive news over the next two weeks.

[DavidG]

More questions: Is the governor of Texas accepting risk for more than himself and his cohort of over-60 adults? What happens to the 20-40 year olds with severe disease and pneumonia? Even the ones who don’t die may have life long restrictive lung disease. We don’t know how many or how severe.

Jefferson wrote "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness," not "life, liberty, and estate." If you take the Lockean view that part or most of "pursuit of happiness" means property, is the order in which they were listed relevant?

[brodway]

Jim

you also have to accept what the Governor of Texas is preaching with a grain of salt. Oil prices collapsed to levels that have become uneconomic to drill oil for upstream companies. This group represents a substantial portion of the TX economy which i'm sure generates great funding for the state budget. Personally, i've lost a small fortune being invested in oil and gas investments. So put yourself in his shoes...you've lost a good portion of the state funding and now shut down the economy and lose more revenue. Wasn't Texas talking about reversing the annexation of the state 7 years ago? This is a time where different information will be disseminated by different folk, but we really don't fully have the ability to evaluate their reasoning. What we DO know is that this is a deadly virus, more contagious than anything we've seen in our lifetimes (i really was not here in body during the black plague), and as of today there is no cure other than having your own immune system fight off the disease. Its you against the elements. Its all about risk aversion vs. taking a chance and hope you are not one in the hundred that will be a statistic in a textbook in a few years time.

[brodway]

David if you consider that 5 gov't legislators sold off their stocks and equities in January having seen the data that was not available to little people like us, then the question of property does come into the equation. One of them actually sold off an airline stock and purchased a drug maker that was developing a Corona vaccine. Who's watching who?

[JimHow]

David/Emil:
I'm not saying I agree with the governor of Texas.
I'm just saying that there is going to come a point where this shutdown is unsustainable.
Whether we can get to that dot on the matrix that Cuomo was talking about yesterday, where the lines of public health and the economy intersect, remains to be seen.
I haven't heard any discussion from the experts as to what is an "acceptable" level of infections before we can go back to work.
10,000?
1,000?
100?
Zero?

[DavidG]

Nic and Emil - widespread testing of those with symptoms is important from a public health standpoint.

Not because it informs individual behavior regarding quarantine or isolation. You are right that anyone with symptoms should self-quarantine regardless of testing.

Widespread testing is needed so that we have an accurate and timely picture of how quickly the disease is or isn’t spreading. Waiting until people are sick enough to need hospitalization before testing them, which is the current protocol in the US, gives us data that is 2-3 weeks old compared to testing as soon as they have symptoms. It’s extremely difficult to make decisions about the need for continued social distancing or know if it’s working with 2-3 week old data. Look at the curves half way down the page for each of these countries:
China: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... try/china/
Italy: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... try/italy/
US: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
A few days, let alone a few weeks, makes a huge difference in infection rates. If we don’t know where we are today, we don’t know if what we are doing is working.

Testing is especially important in population centers where people are packed more densely and transmission rates are higher. The US may end up with fewer cases and deaths per capita because we’re more spread out than other countries. Places like NY, SF, and any other area where there are significant numbers of people need testing to know whether they can relax or need to increase distancing.

[DavidG]

Jim, we can (probably*) safely go back to work when the number of new infections per day is decreasing, not increasing. It’s not a specific number, but a change in the direction of the curve. That will vary by locale. And it’s why the experts are clamoring for more testing.

*I say "probably" because it depends on how careful people are once back at work and it’s not clear how far past the point at which the curve starts to turn or how fast it has to be heading down. If we go back too soon or are not careful enough about minimizing transmission once we're back amongst each other the numbers will tick up again. Several lower spikes are better than one large one in terms of healthcare capacity.

[DavidG]

David if you consider that 5 gov't legislators sold off their stocks and equities in January having seen the data that was not available to little people like us, then the question of property does come into the equation. One of them actually sold off an airline stock and purchased a drug maker that was developing a Corona vaccine. Who's watching who?

Yes, well there is a more Lockean view among some of our leaders than I would subscribe to.

[JimHow]

"Lockean..."
Those are ominous terms.
I don't begrudge anybody questioning government authority.
After 9/11 everybody moved in lockstep to support the PATRIOT Act. That was an error.
It's okay to have questions without being branded as Neanderthal.
It's when we have this absolutist, cancellation culture that we get in trouble.
Meantime, I like the other 1.3 million Mainers are following our governor's edicts....
Anyway... I'm starting to beat a dead horse.

[sdr]

The number of unknown cases in the general population is likely 10-100 fold what is being reported unfortunately and reflects lastIf we blunt the curve and slow the onslaught allowing us to control the disease decreasing the death rate the skeptics will say I told you so ...it wasn't that bad.

Danny, we’ve all seen a number of graphs showing the incidence of confirmed cases over time, actual, predicted with no protective measures and with maximum protective measures. Of course the peak is much higher in the former scenario and fades much quicker. But I have not seen any estimates comparing the AUC for both scenarios. My eyeball guess is they are similar or identical.

If that is true then the total number of cases either way is about the same; ie, until population natural immunity plus herd immunity approaches 100%. Presumably then, the total number of deaths either way will be the same assuming equal level of hospital care (which may not be the case).

If so, the sceptics will have have nothing to brag about.

Stu

[JimHow]

I hope skeptics don't brag about anything.
I hope there will always remain skeptics, though, and that they are not ridiculed. Or condescended down upon.

We all like Anthony Fauci. Who doesn't? He's intelligent, interesting, has a thick Brooklyn accent.
We all like Colin Powell. I wish there were more skeptics when he told us there were WMDs, we might not have had a half million deaths in a criminal war.

It's not an exact analogy, obviously, but the point is that we should not be afraid to ask questions, even unpopular questions, of our government leaders.

[jal]

Not to beat the dead horse either, and I am not posting any opinions but here's our anecdotal experience yesterday.
Jill needed an MRI and we went to Sarasota Memorial Hospital
Parking lot is empty, abundant parking on the streets nearby.
To enter the hospital we had to prove we were there for a reason, we were then squirted with Purell.
The front desk is empty, just one lady speaking on the phone with her friend, she gives us directions to Imaging
To get there, through empty corridors, we have to pass through the cafeteria which is FULL of doctors and nurses (at 3:00pm), they apparently have no one to take care of.
Through more empty hallways, we get to imaging, front desk girl hangs up the phone with her friend, makes us fill some forms and sends us to a waiting room.
Waiting room is eerily quiet, I am the only one there for an hour while Jill is doing her test. Not one of the two dozen chairs is occupied, no other patients, one technician and that's it. The TV was annoying, I turned it off.
The hospital is obviously on high alert but there were 20 positive cases in Sarasota County yesterday most of whom were at home.
The hospital has cancelled all elective surgeries but only non-urgent biopsies.
Draw your own conclusions, it just felt very strange.

[JimHow]

Praying all goes well with Jill, Jacques. (And I'm not even religious!)

[brodway]

Jim...

these are all good questions....and you are in fact bring up very good points regarding how much can we as a country afford to continue to be shut down....really don't know that answer to this. i would think that there are people in state and federal govt's that would be getting paid a wage to sit there and calculate the economic risk of disasters and how to deal with them? did we not save up for a rainy day? perhaps.

David..

Agree on the testing...it does in fact communicate the speed of the transmission....i would think its quite high, and higher than we all suspect.

Jacques...
be thankful that there are only 20 cases...and the hospital is a ghost town....that is a blessing....the goal is to make sure that this virus doesn't spread to smaller cities and towns so they can deal with the few cases that may come their way....nipping it in the butt now is the right strategy...

[JimHow]

We will drink a fine northern Medoc or two when this is over, Emil, it has been too long!

[stefan]

Dan Patrick is NOT the Governor of Texas. He is the Lieutenant Governor. His claim to fame is his attempt to pass a bathroom bill. I do not think that he has ever been accused of having a three digit IQ.

[brodway]

Jim

Can't wait...we need some cheer in NYC...and a medoc or two post Corona scare would be very welcomed

[DavidG]

The number of unknown cases in the general population is likely 10-100 fold what is being reported unfortunately and reflects lastIf we blunt the curve and slow the onslaught allowing us to control the disease decreasing the death rate the skeptics will say I told you so ...it wasn't that bad.

Danny, we’ve all seen a number of graphs showing the incidence of confirmed cases over time, actual, predicted with no protective measures and with maximum protective measures. Of course the peak is much higher in the former scenario and fades much quicker. But I have not seen any estimates comparing the AUC for both scenarios. My eyeball guess is they are similar or identical.

If that is true then the total number of cases either way is about the same; ie, until population natural immunity plus herd immunity approaches 100%. Presumably then, the total number of deaths either way will be the same assuming equal level of hospital care (which may not be the case).

If so, the sceptics will have have nothing to brag about.

Stu

I don’t think the bolded is the case. With extreme distancing the AUC can be significantly lower, at least for a year or two at which point a vaccine is available. But extreme distancing is not possible and a year or two is not acceptable.

But even with moderate and temporary distancing, where the AUC is about the same, the level of hospital care is a critical factor in determining how many will die.

[DavidG]

"Lockean..."
Those are ominous terms.
I don't begrudge anybody questioning government authority.
After 9/11 everybody moved in lockstep to support the PATRIOT Act. That was an error.
It's okay to have questions without being branded as Neanderthal.
It's when we have this absolutist, cancellation culture that we get in trouble.
Meantime, I like the other 1.3 million Mainers are following our governor's edicts....
Anyway... I'm starting to beat a dead horse.

Question away, I don’t have a problem with that.
We need people to question authority, couldn’t agree more.
Healthy debate is important.
But I do think we’ve more than covered the topic.

[JimHow]

I've enjoyed watching Andrew Cuomo, I think he is providing real leadership.

Here's where I think he goes astray, when he says things like (paraphrasing): "You can't put a price on my mother. Or anybody's mother. We can't make decisions based on the stock market." Etc., Etc.

This is where we cross from leadership in dealing with facemasks and contamination rates and budgets, etc., into the realm of pontification.
He says the day before that we can think and chew gum at the same time, but then apparently criticizes anyone as the heartless killer of Moms if you dare express concerns about the economy, the livelihoods of millions and billions of people.

That to me is woke culture, cancellation absolutism.

No, Andrew, anyone expressng concern about the economy does not want to see your Mom, or anybody's Mom, die from this.

[brodway]

Love Andrew Cuomo's posture and demeanor....amazing when you watch a real politician at work, one starts to understand what it is we've been missing. He may not be seasoned and some of the things he says are not polished, but you know that he speaks from the heart.

Jim...you know like when you drink a chunky 1989 Lynch Bages...its not perfectly polished, but it touches your soul like no other

[stefan]

There is also the point that economic distress also causes deaths in addition to obvious hardship. Unfortunately, it is much more difficult to estimate (or predict, for that matter) the number who die due to economic distress than the number who die from the virus. I do not envy leaders who have to decide what measures are taken.

Locally our mandatory shelter in place starts at 9PM tonight. A violation is a class C misdemeanor that carries a $1000 fine. In Brazos County, Texas, there have been 12 confirmed cases of Covid-19, 2 of which were community spread. Most Texas A&M students did not come back to campus after spring break because classes were cancelled for a week and resumed yesterday as online only. The community has set up a pairing system where younger people make home deliveries to old folks. We have friends who offered to deliver to us (we are both 75), but we won't take advantage of them unless the things get really bad. I went grocery shopping this morning. There were signs all over the store encouraging shoppers to stay 6 feet away from other people, and people were following orders. I wore surgical gloves, as did many other shoppers who had been able to purchase some before the store ran out last week or the week before. Toilet paper purchases were limited to one package; papers towels to two; cartons of eggs to two. Of course there were no sanitizers or sanitizer wipes available for purchase, and there also was no flour and no baking powder. The bakery was shut down, but the meat and fish markets were open and well stocked. There were no dispensers for sanitary wipes, but the hand cleaning dispensers were full. The shelves of wine and beer were full--without students demand for these items is low.

[JCNorthway]

Toilet paper purchases were limited to one package

Our local drug store has a sign that limits toilet paper purchases to "1 role a day." The shelves were bare.

[JimHow]

I got one of those big packages before the crisis, there are like 24 rolls. I'm thinking I'm good for at least a year!

[JCNorthway]

I would be good for a year with that, but I also have a wife, which changes the consumption rate by a factor of about 4-5X!

[stefan]

Before the collapse, shortage of toilet paper was a way of life in the FSU. At one international conference in Romania, you had to check out a roll at the registration desk before going to the bathroom.

The old timers here may remember the time that Pravda issued a warning about using newspaper as a substitute for toilet paper because it was carcinogenic. The next day sales of Pravda plummeted 50%.

[JimHow]

Reminds me of Moscow, February, 1990....
Before I was kidnapped.

[dstgolf]

Stu and David,

This model came out of the UK March 16th looking at different scenarios and very detailed but again a model produced by epidemiologists and some pretty bright people that have made the Donald take notice.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperi ... 3-2020.pdf

The executive summary was emailed to me today and a pretty sobering one at that.

Hesitant to be passing this along but you make your own judgement.


>>>
>>> We can now read the report on COVID-19 that so terrified every public health manager and head of state from Boris Johnson to Donald Trump to the dictator of El Salvador that they ordered people to stay in their houses. I read it yesterday afternoon and haven't been the same since. I urge everyone to read it, but maybe have a drink first, or have your family around you. It is absolutely terrifying. The New York TImes confirms that the CDC and global leaders are treating it as factual.
>>>
>>> Here's a brief rundown of what I'm seeing in here. Please correct me in comments if I'm wrong.
>>>
>>> The COVID-19 response team at Imperial College in London obtained what appears to be the first accurate dataset of infection and death rates from China, Korea, and Italy. They plugged those numbers into widely available epidemic modeling software and ran a simulation: what would happen if the United States did absolutely nothing -- if we treated COVID-19 like the flu, went about business as usual, and let the virus take its course?
>>>
>>> Here's what would happen: 80% of Americans would get the disease. 0.9% of them would die. Between 4 and 8 percent of all Americans over the age of 70 would die. 2.2 million Americans would die from the virus itself.
>>>
>>> It gets worse. Most people who are in danger of dying from COVID-19 need to be put on ventilators. 50% of those put on ventilators still die, but the other 50% live. But in an unmitigated epidemic, the need for ventilators would be 30 times the number of ventilators in the United States. Virtually no one who needed a ventilator would get one. 100% of patients who need ventilators would die if they didn't get one. So the actual death toll from the virus would be closer to 4 million Americans -- in a span of 3 months. 8-15% of all Americans over 70 would die.
>>>
>>> How many people is 4 million Americans? It's more Americans than have died all at once from anything, ever. It's the population of Los Angeles. It's four times the number of Americans who died in the Civil War...on both sides combined. It's two-thirds as many people as died in the Holocaust.
>>>
>>> Americans make up 4.4% of the world's population. So if we simply extrapolate these numbers to the rest of the world -- now we're getting into really fuzzy estimates, so the margin of error is pretty great here -- this gives us 90 million deaths globally from COVID-19. That's 15 Holocausts. That's 1.5 times as many people as died in World War II, over 12 years. This would take 3-6 months.
>>>
>>> Now, it's unrealistic to assume that countries wouldn't do ANYTHING to fight the virus once people started dying. So the Imperial College team ran the numbers again, this time assuming a "mitigation" strategy. A mitigation strategy is pretty much what common sense would tell us to do: America places all symptomatic cases of the disease in isolation. It quarantines their families for 14 days. It orders all Americans over 70 to practice social distancing. This is what you've seen a lot of people talking about when they say we should "flatten the curve": try to slow the spread of the disease to the people most likely to die from it, to avoid overwhelming hospitals.
>>>
>>> And it does flatten the curve -- but not nearly enough. The death rate from the disease is cut in half, but it still kills 1.1 million Americans all by itself. The peak need for ventilators falls by two-thirds, but it still exceeds the number of ventilators in the US by eight times, meaning most people who need ventilators still don't get them. That leaves the actual death toll in the US at right around 2 million deaths. The population of Houston. Two civil wars. One-third of the Holocaust. Globally, 45 million people die: 7.5 Holocausts, 3/4 of World War II. That's what happens if we use common sense: the worst death toll from a single cause since the Middle Ages.
>>>
>>> Finally, the Imperial College team ran the numbers a third time, this time assuming a "suppression" strategy. In addition to isolating symptomatic cases and quarantining their family members, they also simulated social distancing for the entire population. All public gatherings and most workplaces shut down. Schools and universities close. (Note that these simulations assumed a realistic rate of adherence to these requirements, around 70-75% adherence, not that everyone follows them perfectly.) This is basically what we are seeing happen in the United States today.
>>>
>>> This time it works! The death rate in the US peaks three weeks from now at a few thousand deaths, then goes down. We hit, but don't exceed (at least not by very much), the number of available ventilators. The nightmarish death tolls from the rest of the study disappear; COVID-19 goes down in the books as a bad flu instead of the Black Death.
>>>
>>> But here's the catch: if we EVER relax these requirements before a vaccine is administered to the entire population, COVID-19 comes right back and kills millions of Americans in a few months, the same as before. The simulation does indicate that, after the first suppression period (lasting from now until July), we could probably lift restrictions for a month, followed by two more months of suppression, in a repeating pattern without triggering an outbreak or overwhelming the ventilator supply. If we staggered these suppression breaks based on local conditions, we might be able to do a bit better. But we simply cannot ever allow the virus to spread throughout the entire population in the way other viruses do, because it is just too deadly. If lots of people we know end up getting COVID-19, it means millions of Americans are dying. It simply can't be allowed to happen.
>>>
>>> How quickly will a vaccine be here? Already, medical ethics have been pushed to the limit to deliver one. COVID-19 was first discovered a few months ago. Last week, three separate research teams announced they had developed vaccines. Yesterday, one of them (with FDA approval) injected its vaccine into a live person, without waiting for animal testing. Now, though, they have to monitor the test subject for fourteen months to make sure the vaccine is safe. This is the part of the testing that can't be rushed: the plan is to inoculate the entire human population, so if the vaccine itself turned out to be lethal for some reason, it could potentially kill all humans, which is a lot worse than 90 million deaths. Assuming the vaccine is safe and effective, it will still take several months to produce enough to inoculate the global population. For this reason, the Imperial College team estimated it will be about 18 months until the vaccine is available.
>>>
>>> During those 18 months, things are going to be very difficult and very scary. Our economy and our society will be disrupted in profound ways. Worst of all, if the suppression policies actually work, it will feel like we are doing all this for nothing, because the infection and death rates will be very low. It's easy to get people to come together in common sacrifice in the middle of a war. It's very hard to get them to do so in a pandemic that looks invisible precisely because suppression methods are working. But that's exactly what we're going to have to do.

[JimHow]

Maine governor shuts down the state as of 2pm this afternoon.

[brodway]

Dstgolf...

i agree with most of what that report states...its well thought out and maybe the numbers aren't precise but the trends do make a lot of sense...the last sentence really describes what our biggest challenge really is.

It's very hard to get them to do so in a pandemic that looks invisible precisely because suppression methods are working. But that's exactly what we're going to have to do

.

[brodway]

Louisiana expects to run out of hospital beds in “as soon as a week”. Governor says no reason to believe LA won’t be the next Italy.

[Chateau Vin]

Toilet paper purchases were limited to one package

Our local drug store has a sign that limits toilet paper purchases to "1 role a day." The shelves were bare.

It's been like that in CA for almost 10 days...Costco has long lines to get in, and are letting in few people at a time. The lines are snaking around the building and into parking lots. The entrance has a list of out of stock items, and "essentials" such as toilet rolls, paper towels, milk, bread, water, etc. are limited to 1 per purchase...Forget about cleaning supplies and hand sanitizers, which are always almost out of stock...

And 8 to 9 am time slot is reserved for senior citizens to shop at local Costco...

[Nicklasss]

Good news: my parents are finally back in Quėbec, Canada.

Bad news: they lost all their chances to be buried next to Salvador Dali.

Nic

[JimHow]

That's really good news Nicola.
How is your better half doing, CV?

[Chateau Vin]

That's really good news Nicola.
How is your better half doing, CV?

Thanks for the thoughts, Jim...

She is doing well, and says things have been streamlined and they also started to do phone consultations like dstgolf mentioned. Now they also started to have access to supplies too. Now her hospital has opened separate testing area, where she can send suspected patients to. But says some staff have mixed feelings as the paychecks of the hourly employees are getting affected (understandably).

On a different note—- One of our friend’s father has been sick and was admitted to hospital with an end of life scenario. With lockdown and Coronavirus, the hospital stopped all visits, including for immediate family members. Not able to visit/see him for nearly 10 days, my friend’s mother was literally in tears and pleaded with my brother in law, who is a geriatrician and also an executive at the hospital system. He was able to arrange a 2 hr exemption for the family to visit. The gentleman, who was sick, passed away that evening while his family was visiting him. It was a consolation for the family that atleast they were able to be at his bedside when he passed away. The emotional toll that the virus is causing upon us is unbelievable...