Week of Mar 30: COVID-19 info, facts & updates

[Galactica]

Things are still on lockdown in Seattle - but at least supposedly the number of new cases is now starting to slow, so I guess finally the forced closure of businesses and parks is working.

I think the boomers are having the worst time complying.  My co-workers in their 60s brushed this thing off as a "mild flu" and shook their finger at those of us wanting to share information and encourage working from home as "fear mongerers."    Until the facts could no longer be denied- and even now there are a few of them that I KNOW are sneaking back into the office to work...

Even worse are my parents who should know better.  They are in their late 60s and my dad has 2 "underlying health conditions" that could impact his mortality rate.  And when I call, my mom says they are being good and staying isolated-   but then they just texted me how they got bored and went to Costco and they are remarking on the long lines????
JUST this last weekend my dad went out on a motorcycle-riding trip with his buddies.  My Mom and dad say "oh it's great because they are not socializing just riding around."  But what about when they talk ?  I know my dad and the friends he is hanging out with and I promise you they are NOT staying 6' apart from each other.

    It drives me bonkers.

[Wardah]

Our county now enforces social distancing with penalties of $1000 fine or jail time.  The county police are going to stores & parks and announcing it over megaphone in parking lots. 

And yet, I still see people out in groups and people shopping with their partners. So, I suspect there will be tickets given and lots of angry citizens.

I do wonder how they'll practice social distancing in jail.


Edit:
I do agree with the new policy.  Our county hospitals are not big enough to deal with a large number of sick people and the neighboring counties have their own to deal with.  Some people just don't understand how dangerous a situation they could be in if they need hospital care.

People who live together are still allowed to go out together. If I see a group of less than 5 I usually assume they must live together. It's bigger groups that are obviously not living together that need to be stopped.

[brightberry]

Our county now enforces social distancing with penalties of $1000 fine or jail time.  The county police are going to stores & parks and announcing it over megaphone in parking lots. 

And yet, I still see people out in groups and people shopping with their partners. So, I suspect there will be tickets given and lots of angry citizens.

I do wonder how they'll practice social distancing in jail.


Edit:
I do agree with the new policy.  Our county hospitals are not big enough to deal with a large number of sick people and the neighboring counties have their own to deal with.  Some people just don't understand how dangerous a situation they could be in if they need hospital care.

People who live together are still allowed to go out together. If I see a group of less than 5 I usually assume they must live together. It's bigger groups that are obviously not living together that need to be stopped.

Not where I live.  It doesn't matter if they live together.  When outside the home, they must be 6 feet apart.  I'm sure small children are ok with their parents.  But otherwise it makes sense.  How would an officer know if they are living together or not?

[Ponyfan]

I hope you feel better soon LadyMoondancer.


117 cases, 3 deaths and 12 people recovered in my county.  A friend of mine that works retail said that her dr told her today that she probably has the virus but she wasn't sick enough to be tested. The dr told her to isolate herself for 2 weeks, wipe down everything she touches with disinfecting wipes or rubbing alcohol and not to take ibuprofen. 

The child at the daycare tested negative but another nursing home is now an infected site.

In my city the mayor made it clear that families that live together don't count in the no social gathering rules but we should still maintain social distancing in public.

The weather was really nice today. There is a small park  a few blocks from my house and I thought about walking there but turned around before I got all the way to the park.

Someone has rewritten "Go to the Distance" from Disney's Hercules as "I Will Social Distance"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQDZqNmcaqc


Ponyfan

[brightberry]

Someone has rewritten "Go to the Distance" from Disney's Hercules as "I Will Social Distance"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQDZqNmcaqc


Ponyfan

That is so adorable! And he sounds really good!

[Taffeta]

I posted it in the decomp thread but a family here did a very funny lockdown song to one more day from les mis.

Here people who live together don't need to social distance but if one has symptoms all must isolate.

Shopping however is meant to be done alone.

[Barnacle_lady]

This weekend is going to be very warm and people are asked, please stay at home. I am curious who will do that. With the upcoming Easter weekend the tourists are asked, please don't come to Holland. The toilets and showers are closed.
As I write this one of my neighbour friends hears a car parade driving by for her birthday. She is sick so she was not able to receive any visitors or go out herself to somewhere. The whole street was watching.

[Artemesia's Garden]

Even worse are my parents who should know better.  They are in their late 60s and my dad has 2 "underlying health conditions" that could impact his mortality rate.  And when I call, my mom says they are being good and staying isolated-   but then they just texted me how they got bored and went to Costco and they are remarking on the long lines????
JUST this last weekend my dad went out on a motorcycle-riding trip with his buddies.  My Mom and dad say "oh it's great because they are not socializing just riding around."  But what about when they talk ?  I know my dad and the friends he is hanging out with and I promise you they are NOT staying 6' apart from each other.

    It drives me bonkers.

I've had the same problem with my parents. I ended up posting in WYP because it was driving me so nuts.

No updates here really, except the death figures are still doubling every 3 - 4 days. I think the police have softened up on driving to go exercise since it was never actually *not* allowed, and as others have said can exercise in groups of people living together. I mainly see this happening. There are  alot more people out during the day taking exercise but they are doing social distancing from othes/other groups. The reporters are saying there is more traffic on the road again but I think that people were very scared about driving over the first couple of days and are now doing what's necessary, so I don't predict those numbers to rise again.

The worst story at the moment is lack of PPE for care home workers where they are employed to support children in care, adults with learning difficulties, the elderly etc but can't do this while maintaining 'social distance'. There are a lot of good stories about people mobilising to deliver food to the elderly and companies donating PPE etc.

[BlackCurtains]

Gov. DeSantis finally issued a stay-at-home order but only for SE Florida (Miami and area). Meanwhile, those counties that didn't have any cases that he used as an excuse to not lockdown the state are slowly getting infected. Great foresight and all that

There are two quarantined cruise ships docked somewhere on the east coast.

Case numbers as of this morning are 9,585 and 163 deaths. Over 1200 people hospitalized. I can't find recovery info anywhere, just test results. There've been 82,000 negative tests. They are only testing people with symptoms, so that's a whole lotta people with regular flu or something else not Covid-19 though.

My dad, sister and niece continue to ignore staying at home. None of them are sick but I feel it's only a matter of time.

[lonewolf]

Kansas is at 620 and 17 deaths now. The number of cases at the nursing home in Burlington continues to grow, and one of the cases in my county is connected to it.

[KarentheUnicorn]

Gov. DeSantis finally issued a stay-at-home order but only for SE Florida (Miami and area). Meanwhile, those counties that didn't have any cases that he used as an excuse to not lockdown the state are slowly getting infected. Great foresight and all that

There are two quarantined cruise ships docked somewhere on the east coast.

Case numbers as of this morning are 9,585 and 163 deaths. Over 1200 people hospitalized. I can't find recovery info anywhere, just test results. There've been 82,000 negative tests. They are only testing people with symptoms, so that's a whole lotta people with regular flu or something else not Covid-19 though.

My dad, sister and niece continue to ignore staying at home. None of them are sick but I feel it's only a matter of time.

Johns Hopkins map shows the total recovered, also by country but it doesn't appear to show recovered by state, just the whole USA etc.

It looks like worldwide we've had 225,519 recover. In the USA it shows 9,521 have recovered.

I don't know what it would be at the granular level as far as, per state or is the 9000 only people who were hospitalized or is that total regardless of if you did or didn't go to the hospital. Obviously the number is probably larger because we're constantly being told that some people never went to the hospital or even reported it to a doctor, back when it first started some folks could have easily just assumed they had the cold or flu, got better and moved on without ever knowing it was a big deal.

So, our herd immunity is potentially larger than what we're seeing in the numbers. So on one level, it's hard not to focus on the deaths because it looks scary but I think a lot of people seem to get better. And hopefully since younger people and kids are not quite effected as badly then this might faze out since the younger population that is exposed can protect the rest of us in future.

[Ponyfan]

Here's the latest from where I live. The city's stay at home order has been extended to April 30th. Tonight's totals for coronavirus are 138 cases, 4 deaths and 20 recovered.

In the US all Target and Walmart stores will start enforcing social distancing and limiting the amount of people that can be inside the store at one time. The CDC is now recommending everyone wear non medical face masks/coverings while in public.

I found out my uncle's test for coronavirus officially came back negative but the doctors told the family that they think his test was a false negative because he had all of the symptoms. Also 5 people in one of the last places he went before he went to the hospital now have coronavirus. 


Ponyfan

[LadyMoondancer]

The University of Washington has produced a data model that predicts the expected peak of the coronavirus by state:

http://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

Obviously this isn't set in stone, it's a model, etc, but it's based on the data that has been gathered state by state, and the measures each state has taken, up to this point in time.

[banditpony]

ETA:
forgot to mention, I believe we had a 14% increase in confirmed cases. Which seems ok to me. I know my state is working hard on preparing for the surge. And everything is pretty clear on what their plans are.

Our stay at home order is lengthened for about a month, and there are some tighter restrictions like all open businesses need to only allow so many people in at a time. Which we'll see how that goes. I heard some big box stores are going to do that anyway.

---

Regarding recovery in the US...

Not all states have reported their recovery numbers. I know Ohio hasn't, and I can't recall the reason, though they said they'd share as soon as they can. It doesn't appear that FL has released their recovery numbers. Some people are taking up to 16 days in the hospital to recover. 

6,222 NY. 582 WA. 528 TX. 410 MN. Are the big ones I see right away.

The University of Washington has produced a data model that predicts the expected peak of the coronavirus by state:

http://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

Obviously this isn't set in stone, it's a model, etc, but it's based on the data that has been gathered state by state, and the measures each state has taken, up to this point in time.

In regard to my state, the dept of health director said that model didn't have all of the info for Ohio (and that they'd give them that info-- this was 4 days ago, but it seems similar). I like this more then the other one I've seen. a mid-april peak would be lovely...

I guess that is a statistical model, there is also epidemiological models out there. We were told neither are wrong.

[LadyMoondancer]

A lot of people will recover.  (Three of my friends have had suspected coronavirus--not possible to get a test unless you have severe symptoms or are a medical professional--and recovered.)

The problem is a small percentage of a HUGE number is also a huge number.  Hospitals only have so many ICUs.  Other illnesses and accidents will continue to happen, which also require ICUs.  So hospitals are at risk of getting overwhelmed.

Eventually we'll reach a point where we have herd immunity (or get a vaccine to provide immunity), but we're not there yet.  The less protections are in place (like ordering people to stay home) the faster it spreads.

Here are Florida's numbers:

March 1st - 2 cases
March 10th - 28 cases
March 20th - 563 cases
March 30th - 5,704 cases
April 3rd - 10,268 cases

That is some WILD exponential growth.

Edit:  As far as Washington's recovery numbers, definitely not accurate because they just don't have enough tests to test everyone.  People who get tested are medical workers, people with severe symptoms, and I believe some people who've had contact with a confirmed COVID carrier.  Our governor, Govenor Inslee, started taking the situation seriously pretty quickly.  Our cases are still increasing, but the rate of infection is slowing.