Coronavirus. Not to be confused with Norcovirus.

Status
Not open for further replies.
BonsaiNut said:
Netflix stock up 10% over the last five days... while the DOW is down 8% over the same time frame. Nice little gap of 18% :)

Next stock tip: online gaming is red hot. Lot of online games are picking up subscribers like nuts. If you know the industry, there are some stocks you might consider buying.



When the dust settles, my back of the envelope estimate is that we may have spent over $100,000,000 per fatality. I hope I am right... because that means the fatalities remain low - 10,000 or less - a fraction of a typical year's flu deaths. Right now we just crossed 200.
Click to expand...
Honestly, I hope you are right...
Obsidian said:
Yeah, I hope I still have my job when this finally shakes out, but I doubt it.

My understanding is viruses do not just "go away." Once enough people get exposed, the numbers tip in the other direction down to virtually none. If they lock us down for two weeks and then let everyone back out, it will just start again. I could be wrong, but that's what I gleaned from the virologist on the podcast posted earlier.
Click to expand...
They're not trying to make us never catch it. We are all going to catch it, or most of us...

The point is that we all don't catch it at once, and relieve our medical system...

Look at it this way... No matter what we do, let's say 5000 people will catch it. What we are trying to do right now, is stop the 5000 from catching it in a 1 month period, and spread it out over let's say....4 months..
 
Somehow I don't think Gov Noisome has his head screwed on straight. He claims 56% of CA will be infected - 25.6M people. But China came first, with 1.5B people, and here's the stats....with no new cases of community spread in Wuhan in three days.

upload_2020-3-20_18-27-31.png
 
tick said:
The correct equation is cost per fatality avoided.
Click to expand...

Well then it's easy! The population of the world is 7.7 billion. We avoided killing 7.7 billion... so we only spent about $100 per death avoided!

You can't prove a negative. The politicians will say "whoopee! look at us! we saved THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE COUNTRY!" Even now you have Newsome saying that if the California government doesn't do something, 56% of the people in the state will have the virus in 8 weeks. WTF? Based on WHAT? And yet some zombies actually BELIEVE him. And therein lies the problem... no matter how much is spent, no matter how much damage is done, no matter how many peoples' lives are destroyed, no one is going to ask for justification.

If I walked up to you and said "pay me $100 million, or you'll be dead in eight weeks from a novel virus" you'd laugh at me. But let's say you DID pay me $100 million, and I told you to stay in your home and not interact with anyone. Then I came back to you in eight weeks and said "See! You're ALIVE! It WORKED!" Would you think it was money well spent? Because that is EXACTLY what you are arguing... and what the government is doing.

In China, in Hubei province (where the city of Wuhan is located), after all is said and done... the mortality rate across the entire population is 0.005%. That's how many people died... assuming no additional flare-ups. Pretty big difference between that and 56%, wouldn't you say?

(and in case you are wondering about my math... total deaths in Hubei province = 3,139. Population of Hubei province = 58.8 million).
 
Last edited:
Derkderkall said:
So does this mean we are asking for the same government response as China?
Click to expand...

I just think that the government keeps rolling in with these "worst case scenarios" to try to shock people to change their behavior and prioritize self-preservation. But they aren't considering the fall-out from their shock and awe campaign. When 15,000,000 become unemployed... when thousands of personal businesses close... when tens of thousands of people become homeless... when the economy crashes and doesn't recover for five years... when more people commit suicide than die from the disease... was it worth it?

FYI... I am curious if this is going to bankrupt the state. You can already hear Newsome starting to introduce the topic... "I know in prior years we have built up a substantial safety net, but these are unique times..."

That said, the kids going down to Spring Break on Miami beaches don't help, either. Nor do the Costco toilet paper hoarders, or the people who cornered the market on surgical masks. I went out one time today... to go to my pool store to stock up on two months worth of pool chemicals. There was one employee in the entire store. We joked about maintaining safe social distance, but she explained to me how she is a single mom, and if she loses her job at the pool store she doesn't know what she is going to do. My heart broke... but at least I gave her a little (safe) business.
 
Last edited:
Runs with Scissors said:
Somehow I don't think Gov Noisome has his head screwed on straight. He claims 56% of CA will be infected - 25.6M people. But China came first, with 1.5B people, and here's the stats....with no new cases of community spread in Wuhan in three days.

View attachment 62850
Click to expand...
He was using that estimate as a worst case scenario ploy to get our attention. It was a smart move because it’s working.
 
BonsaiNut said:
after all is said and done... the mortality rate across the entire population is 0.005%. That's how many people died... assuming no additional flare-ups. Pretty big difference between that and 56%, wouldn't you say?
Click to expand...

dude. So go out and find someone to infect your elderly loved ones, and show us all that it’s all for nothing.

I don’t really mean that at all. Keep away from sick people, and from me.

I’m not at all saying that the politicians are gonna cover themselves in glory here, but Italy can’t bury their dead fast enough.
 
Runs with Scissors said:
No, he's a fu**ing moron heightening the panic.
Click to expand...
Yes, that is also true. But they have to say something. I'd rather hear them say that the end of the world is coming unless we all do our part to keep that from happening, rather than them saying that there is nothing serious to worry about, so carry on. It's going to be one or the other. Put yourself in their shoes and tell us what you would say.
 
BonsaiNut said:
I don't think it's working, because I don't think he knows what he's talking about (at best) or he's lying (at worst).
Click to expand...
What does a Drill Sergeant tell you if you don't shape up? He tells you that he is going to rip both of your arms off and shove them up your ass. Of course, he never does it because the fear tactic snapped you back into shape.

That's what this is. The leaders release estimates in a worst case scenario situation to get everyone's attention. And yes, it's working. I see empty freeways, empty roads, closed businesses, nobody loitering, people practicing social distancing,....

The funny thing is, I've been seeing this going on where ever I am (and I am all over the place for work) for weeks already. We scared the crap out of ourselves with all the BS and rumors floating around. And it is scary indeed. It's too new for us to get a grip on just yet, but we are learning new facts by the minute. We will get a handle on it and I think it is already largely being done by the people who are clearly being cautious.

We could be at a pinnacle right now. Either we all already have it, or it's already being reduced greatly by our actions. Personally, I feel it's the latter but only time will tell.
 
Sasquatch9billion said:
I really think that we're ignoring the worst part of this whole thing and that's sitting in virtual meetings with people's cats, dogs and babies while we all have to pretend to be excited and happy about the interruptions.

"Oh sorry, everyone, my cute baby is jumping into my lap! OMG! I told you daddy is working!"
Click to expand...
Yup. Happened today. Toddlers with my boss and a cat with my co-worker. Not sure why we have to look at each other.
 
herzalot said:
Yup. Happened today. Toddlers with my boss and a cat with my co-worker. Not sure why we have to look at each other.
Click to expand...
What? Just say no to videoconferencing. Put some PowerPoint on the Skype, mark up a few PDFs. Then hang up and go do the real work...We put men on the moon with view graphs and speaker phones.

No need to hog bandwidth so we can see the homemade art on the coworker’s fridge.
 
Eight sick and four dead in one family in NJ, men dying at twice the rate of women even though the percent of contacting the virus is similar for both, illnesses seemingly escalating at a faster rate than any other disease we know about (except maybe the Black Death or flu pandemic of 1918); something needed to be done, but without political pressure a more prudent, less reactionary response might have been generated.
 
fos'l said:
illnesses seemingly escalating at a faster rate than any other disease we know about
Click to expand...

Really quick... just to shed some facts on your point:

There is no way to know how fast "illnesses are escalating". Remember what I wrote earlier this week about them rolling out new test kits? Here is the rate of TESTING in the US (not the rate at which CoViD-19 cases are increasing)

lab-specimens-tested.jpg


The availability of good test kits in the US has severely hampered our ability to know how many people have the virus. There is NO WAY anyone can use the current testing methodology to know how fast, or even if, the number of people in this country with CoViD-19 is actually increasing or decreasing. If you want to read more about the testing fiasco, here's a good read:

What went wrong with coronavirus testing in the US

The true number of cases is definitely higher than the reported number of cases - but no one knows by how much. But just because we are testing more people, and getting more positives, doesn't mean the disease is expanding. It is possible that the number of people with the disease is 10x what we know... and we are just finding them now.

Good news is that in addition to our production capacity increasing, Turkey just sent us 500,000 test kits, so testing should continue to increase. FWIW, of the over 100,000 tests conducted this week, fewer than 10% resulted in a positive - even though people were showing up with a fever and a cough. Seasonal flu is still very prevalent in many parts of the country.
 
Good data which I can't refute with any numbers. However, nothing in memory has ever spread through areas like this virus has in Italy or that nursing home in WA or the family in NJ. More testing, which should have been a given, would have alleviated or substantiated fears.
 
fos'l said:
Good data which I can't refute with any numbers. However, nothing in memory has ever spread through areas like this virus has in Italy or that nursing home in WA or the family in NJ. More testing, which should have been a given, would have alleviated or substantiated fears.
Click to expand...

More importantly, good testing would have identified who had the virus early on, we could have required them to "shelter in place", and could have provided the necessary food and money. Then, if they started to have serious problems, they could have called into a health hotline which would have connected them with the nearest hospital, and people would be ready to receive them with the proper protective gear, and could have whisked them into care without endangering other hospital patrons.

So many things we could have done better. Hopefully we will learn for the next time.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top