Coronavirus, how are you preparing for it and how it is affecting you so far?

[krimster2]

did you freakin see this?

"http://www.cnn.com/2020/03/19/us/california-coronavirus-stay-home-order/index.html

"...after Newsom warned that more than half the state is projected to be infected with the virus in two months. "

which is weird, because, that's also the kinda number that I'm coming up with....
rednecks get it yet?

it's what I HAVE BEEN TELLING YOU

do you guys even KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS IS GONNA HAPPEN IN JUST TWO MONTHS, LET ALONE AFTER....
DON'T YOU AT LONG LAST GET IT YET????!!!!

the mayor of San Francisco just said, that half the state is gonna get covid-19 by the end of May....
and my calculations show the peak will not be over with YET by then...
and more peaks may be coming....

now do ya'll see what the death rate's gonna be....
JUST in California...

49 other states plus DC, etc....

ya'll STILL don't get it?

[BC]

By the end of January, Trump placed a ban on any incoming traveler from China. Italy didn’t follow until two weeks later.

It seem rather strange to me, if not downright irresponsible, Italian healthcare professionals who had spoken of ‘strange severe cases of pneumonia’ as far back as November, didn’t even bothered to connect the dots earlier than they did. Healthcare in Lombardy region was nationally highly regarded in Italy.

GQ,

Is the information in the article below wrong?

Italy imposed a ban on flights from China on 31 January, immediately after a Chinese couple in Rome tested positive for the virus. The U.S. began to restrict flights from China four days later. But while Italy enacted a full ban, the U.S. policy was only a restriction, with wide exemptions.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2020/03/12/italy-banned-flights-from-china-before-americait-didnt-work/

I also caught a very nasty case of respiratory flu or whatever in February.  Was pretty bad. Worst case I can remember. Was it Coronavirus?  Maybe, maybe not.

It certainly is possible with millions of travellers from all over the world that it was here before WHO provided testing capabilities for this virus. I'd say almost certain. Up north the first confirmed cases were some folks that were doing a bit of travelling between Germany and Italy.  Surely at the time, there were other undetected cases.  Would not be surprising considering the incubation time and many that may not even have exhibited symptoms.  A huge amount of tourists come here, especially in the north.  Airports get really crowded here and Milan is one of the largest hubs for international travel.

[BC]

Found a link that describes death/mortality/case fatality rate that agrees with the formula I talked about earlier. Italy is currently experiencing a 40% case fatality rate which is huge. Notice the numbers below for worldwide and then cases outside of China. Big difference and another sign China lied about how lethal the virus was. 

CFR = deaths / (deaths + recovered)

which, with the latest data available, would be equal to:

 10,031 / (10,031 + 87,408) = 10% CFR (worldwide)

If we now exclude cases in mainland China, using current data on deaths and recovered cases, we get:

6,786 / (6,786 + 16,988) = 28.5% CFR (outside of mainland China)

http://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/#who-report-02-20

I went to another jobsite today. There was no tp in the honey bucket. I wasn't there to drop the kids off at the pool. I was there to pee. I try to make sure I do my #2 at home but I carry a pocket full of napkins with me everyday just in case.

Billy,

refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_fatality_rate

In the hardest hit region as of last night:

7387 hospitalized
3778 discharged
2168 deaths

That's a Hospitalized CFR of around 30% but still just a guesstimate.  Not known is how many critical care and other patients were moved from north to nearby areas.  In the 'state' where I live, Hospitalized CFR is currently around 15% or thereabouts today. Were intensive care cases moved down here from up north for capacity reasons?  Pretty likely but again an unknown factor at least in the data I have available.

Keep in mind that CFR (using whatever same population group) is only a momentary figure, it rises as cases come in, peaks a few weeks after the peak infection (most cases that die are those in intensive care which is reportedly averaging 3 weeks) sticks around for a while and drops when it's over.  Only then can CFR be calculated with any accuracy.

There are so many variables not considered here, like the number of deaths that were not hospitalized as some folks may prefer to stay home and pass with family around (which is impossible in the hospital) 

Doesn't make much sense at this time to give too much weight to the numbers except to try and gauge where we might be in an unknown cycle based on the number of those tested (assuming they were severe enough to go to hospital or their doctor authorized testing)

Sure, there was a big jump in national figures yesterday with the number of infections, but also more than twice the number of tests reported in as the days before..

Number of tests    New
reported per day   cases  %
14 March 11477    3497  30
15 March 11682    3590  30
16 March 15729    3233  20
17 March 13065    3526  26
18 March 10695    4207  39
19 March 34120    5322  15

As best as I can figure with a simple average, in Italy approximately 26% of those getting tested were positive.  This surprisingly correlates with CDC results for the US using today's figures from:

http://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/testing-in-us.html and http://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html

Will other figures end up coming close as well?  I hope not but it is simply too early to tell. 

[BC]

Krim,

The shortage of TP is momentary.  There always was enough TP for everyone to have a supply.  Manufacturing and shipping of TP have not stopped.  As soon as folks have their fill, demand will drop and shelves will be full again and like others, you will have enough TP for aeons you can't get rid of and paid a premium for.

[BC]

Although is seems Italy got it worse than China, I look back on history and still believe China still had it worse than Italy although they reported just over 3000 deaths.

Wuhan is a city of 11 million people. Before the government lockdown in Wuhan happened, people were already in panic about the killer virus and 5 million people fled before the lockdown. It's pretty bad if the people had to act on their own before the government felt it needed to take action. I'm certain many of those 5 million people were infected. Where did they go? Mostly all over China.

IIRC Hubei province was cut off, not only the city of Wuhan.  Look at the Johns Hopkins map, neighbouring provinces had far fewer cases, less than 1000 each compared to 67,000.  This is pretty similar to the hotspot counties in Northern Italy vs other areas to the south.

[msmob]

SC called in a panic at 02:30  as her flight from BKK ( Bangkok)  with Etihad via Abu Dhabi was cancelled.

We checked with the Russian Consulate in her area of Thailand and this was due to the Middle East being considering a risk region.

So, a flight has been booked with Aeroflot, direct to Moscow,..

No quarantine for SC as long as she can prove she was not in an at risk nation ..for 30 days ..


Currently, Thailand is not on that list ..

Took Ma to a local Asda, currently owned my Walmart - as they offered a 'Vulnerable' shopper's time - before 0900 ..

No-one checked to see anyone's status, but most folk seemed to be it the right category ( Carer with vulnerable person)

No pasta, little toilet paper, hand sanitiser or bread /  pasta making ingredients available ...


I guess Trench had been in with his G.Grandmother, already ! ... 

[krimster2]

update from Houston, Texas   3-20-2020  8:00 AM

daughters just came back from supermarket
might be the last day I allow them out
yup, a further 25% decline in items on supermarket shelf
was not restocked from night before
best way to get food now is to find what nights the supermarket restocks and be first in line next morning....

you have less than a week at most before food will be EXTREMELY difficult to get in Houston from super markets

only about 10% of the people are wearing masks and gloves
everyone in China I'm in contact with tells me we should ALL be wearing gloves and masks NOW in the USA!!!!
wake up people!!!

mask is more to prevent people from coughing, sneezing, etc and spreading the germs
because we're NOT testing healthy people we don't realize how BAD the infection already is
by next week we will have more cases than China

it is NOW dangerous to be in public around a group of people
 

[fathertime]

only about 10% of the people are wearing masks and gloves
everyone in China I'm in contact with tells me we should ALL be wearing gloves and masks NOW in the USA!!!!
wake up people!!!
 

Instead of doing what we should be doing, we will cry about China.  At least for the moment China seems to have got their situation under better control then we (The US) have. 

daughters just came back from supermarket
might be the last day I allow them out
yup, a further 25% decline in items on supermarket shelf
was not restocked from night before
best way to get food now is to find what nights the supermarket restocks and be first in line next morning....

you have less than a week at most before food will be EXTREMELY difficult to get in Houston from super markets

Last night when I went to the grocery market I was surprised to see more food than the day before.  Many items were gone of course, I decided to be a high roller and buy one of the last 12 packs of 'organic brown eggs' at $4.00 a dozen. 
 
I'm going to be very curious to see what the roads look like this morning.  It appears I'm exempt enough to work today, so I will.  I suspect the California stay at home order will be ignored by many. 

Fathertime!   

[BillyB]

Is the information in the article below wrong?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2020/03/12/italy-banned-flights-from-china-before-americait-didnt-work/

Article is very misleading. As you can see from the article below on January 31 Trump banned all foreign nationals, Chinese or not, from entering America if they been in China. Trump allowed planes to get our citizens and legal permanent residents back and later cancelled flights from China. Europe's mistake was they banned flights, not individuals. So while Italy banned flights from China, a Chinese or foreign national that been in China can still vacation in Italy with a layover in another country and hop another plane or rent a car.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/01/31/us-declares-coronavirus-a-public-health-emergency-as-major-airlines-suspend-china-travel/#b123751586e4

While America and Italy took different actions, we took it at the same time and we are having very different results. I can see our hospitals aren't overflowing. We don't need test kits to tell us if we're in a crisis or not. Our government did better than other nations and our health care system will not be overloaded as much as Italy's. Unfortunately people from worse off nations will say Trump didn't take proper action although they called his early actions banning foreign nationals from China racist. Italian doctor who said they've run out of gloves has now died from the virus.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/20/coronavirus-italy-doctor-dies/

SC called in a panic at 02:30  as her flight from BKK ( Bangkok)  with Etihad via Abu Dhabi was cancelled.

So, a flight has been booked with Aeroflot, direct to Moscow,..

W've been talking about this issue for weeks. Better stop fukcing around and get your wife to her home country. She should've came back to you a long time ago. Eventually we are going to get to a point where governments tell their citizens if they leave the country, they may not be allowed back in. Here's a list of nations with border closures and restrictions.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/coronavirus-travel-restrictions-border-shutdowns-country-200318091505922.html

[fathertime]

SC called in a panic at 02:30  as her flight from BKK ( Bangkok)  with Etihad via Abu Dhabi was cancelled.

We checked with the Russian Consulate in her area of Thailand and this was due to the Middle East being considering a risk region.

So, a flight has been booked with Aeroflot, direct to Moscow,..

No quarantine for SC as long as she can prove she was not in an at risk nation ..for 30 days ..


Currently, Thailand is not on that list ..

At this point there will be 'no place like home'.  I'm ultimately going to feel sorry for people who are stranded in a strange place away from home. 

I guess Trench had been in with his G.Grandmother, already ! ... 

Old Trenchcoat's warchest of TP is probably growing further, so the ladies will be soon lining up at his door.  In addition to the feverish shopping, perhaps he is already using leaves so as to protect his stockpile.

Fathertime! 

[HoundDaddyLee]

No early day conference calls today so I ventured out to the BJ's Wholesale Club (think Cosco, Sam's Club). Filled up my gas tank, no line up. The store itself was more crowded than usual, but many people are working from home. There were mostly people older than me in the store. Only saw two mask wearers. So here is what I observed:


- No toilet paper, paper towels, napkins or Kleenex. (Note: I have plenty of each of these items)
- Plenty of everything else, except hand soaps, but they had some (I get this online, so didn't buy any)
- Had fully stocked meat, deli, cheese (forgot to check on eggs)
- Had fully stocked breads, cakes, etc.


This is in Western New York and a fairly populous area. The roads and highways are quiet. People in the store seemed to be keeping the 6 - 10 foot separation, even while waiting in the checkout line. I do self checkout and there was no waiting.


Anecdotal, I know. But it is how things look today in Western New York.


HDL

[msmob]

While America and Italy took different actions, we took it at the same time and we are having very different results. I can see our hospitals aren't overflowing. We don't need test kits to tell us if we're in a crisis or not. Our government did better than other nations and our health care system will not be overloaded as much as Italy's. Unfortunately people from worse off nations will say Trump didn't take proper action although they called his early actions banning foreign nationals from China racist. Italian doctor who said they've run out of gloves has now died from the virus.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/20/coronavirus-italy-doctor-dies/ 

Boy, are you and 'Trampu' going to have egg on your faces, soon ... The virus is on your shores ... it WILL spread...  You will be like Italy - or worse, perhaps ... The only think you've got going for you is the size of your nation

W've been talking about this issue for weeks. Better stop fukcing around and get your wife to her home country. She should've came back to you a long time ago. Eventually we are going to get to a point where governments tell their citizens if they leave the country, they may not be allowed back in. Here's a list of nations with border closures and restrictions.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/coronavirus-travel-restrictions-border-shutdowns-country-200318091505922.html

Silly BillyB

SC has had a ticket booked for some time and we booked insurance for 'changes' and any extra costs involved

She is booked on the national carrier and Russia has been setting dates for last flights out - even for citizens

IF she had to stay ... she is covered

There is NO WAY she'd have been coming to the UK to be quarantined, then locked up with Ma and I for 12 weeks

A 'real man' wouldn't do that to his missus' 

[GQBlues]

GQ,

Is the information in the article below wrong?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2020/03/12/italy-banned-flights-from-china-before-americait-didnt-work/

I also caught a very nasty case of respiratory flu or whatever in February.  Was pretty bad. Worst case I can remember. Was it Coronavirus?  Maybe, maybe not.

It certainly is possible with millions of travellers from all over the world that it was here before WHO provided testing capabilities for this virus. I'd say almost certain. Up north the first confirmed cases were some folks that were doing a bit of travelling between Germany and Italy.  Surely at the time, there were other undetected cases.  Would not be surprising considering the incubation time and many that may not even have exhibited symptoms.  A huge amount of tourists come here, especially in the north.  Airports get really crowded here and Milan is one of the largest hubs for international travel.

BC-

Again, Dr. Remuzzi remarked that unexplained cases of severe pneumonia were happening in the region as far back as November. Italy banning flights from China at the end of January is 2+ months too late. Italy already have reasons to at least be suspicious of the coincidences of a likely epidemic. Two known cases of sickened travellers (Seattle/Chicago) from China in the US prompted flight restrictions in two weeks. Italy is as much culpable in the global spread of the virus as China was for not reacting to this disease immediately.

Heck, when Trump banned flights from Europe, this was the reaction of the European conglomerate.

But European leaders argue that their scientific advice suggests travel restrictions are ineffective when the virus is already present almost worldwide, and lamented that they had not been consulted

The US needed to first get permission from the EU to decide what we need to do for us? Are you guys kidding me? Especially knowing now Italy took 2.5 months after cases of coronavirus had already taken lives in Lombardy. Look at what these same band of idiots did a few days after their hissy fit session.

[GQBlues]

...I'm going to be very curious to see what the roads look like this morning.  It appears I'm exempt enough to work today, so I will.  I suspect the California stay at home order will be ignored by many. 

Fathertime!

I received a meeting postponement notice at 4:30 this morning. We are scheduled to meet internally to discuss the daily changes and adjustment we need to do with our company going forward.

I think the majority of (SoCal) Californians are taking heed on what they're being asked to do. The attached picture below shows you what the freeways look like at 6:30 this morning. Usually you'll see all the freeway would be in blood red depicting traffic jams in almost all direction. I have never seen this happen in LA. Not 911, not during the LA riots, etc...

The lone, misguided dude in SoCal is fathertime who apparently have a serious egg addiction.

[GenMish]

I'm still concerned about buying at this moment.   It SEEMS there is still more room to go down, a lot more room.  Verizon may be a good choice though if it falls further.

Fathertime!

There was  fear  on Wednesday . But I closed out my positions today with a reasonable profit for the effort. I guess common sense got the better of me. I just got an email from my broker projecting a 3 MILLION jobless claim number for Wednesday release. And get this, a revision of Q2 GDP from -5% to -20%

I really don't want to be long next week

[GQBlues]

There was  fear  on Wednesday . But I closed out my positions today with a reasonable profit for the effort. I guess common sense got the better of me. I just got an email from my broker projecting a 3 MILLION jobless claim number for Wednesday release

I really don't want to be long next week

Department of Labor already reported a huge hike in unemployment filing. We apparently crossed the 30% unemployment threshold. They are making the decision to halt all reporting going forward.

As for the stock market, these politicians need to be investigated when all of this is over, and if found to be guilty they all need to be removed from their positions immediately.

The new normal:

[GenMish]

Oh, I should add this
http://theweek.com/speedreads/903646/goldman-sachs-devastating-revision-gdp-growth-predictions

In a Friday research note, the bank projected a 24 percent drop in the U.S. GDP in the second quarter — a stark revision from its prediction of a five percent drop earlier this week. Goldman Sachs does see a slight rebound in Q3 and Q4 of 12 percent and 10 percent, respectively, but that still leaves the GDP down 3.8 percent at the end of the year.

[jone]

What is a 'Social Contract'?   

The California governor has called his unspecified shutdown a 'Social Contract'.   When quizzed about it, he said that it is something that will not be enforced, but is a common sense request for our people to do what is right in stopping the spread of the virus.   

In the Tom Clancy book 'Executive Orders' the President shuts down interstate travel and orders a 'stay-in-place' order enforced by the National Guard to stop a pandemic.   This is not such an order.   

[LAman]

After reading about high death rate in Italy, started doing some research as to some reasons for this.
Someone mentioned an older average age of population.
These are some stats( close to what I have found in other articles).

-Over 99% of coronavirus deaths in Italy were from patients who have previous medical conditions.
- The average age of those who have died from the virus in Italy is 79.5.
- The median age of those infected is 63
-

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says

[GQBlues]

What is a 'Social Contract'?   

The California governor has called his unspecified shutdown a 'Social Contract'.   When quizzed about it, he said that it is something that will not be enforced, but is a common sense request for our people to do what is right in stopping the spread of the virus.   

In the Tom Clancy book 'Executive Orders' the President shuts down interstate travel and orders a 'stay-in-place' order enforced by the National Guard to stop a pandemic.   This is not such an order.

I can't help but think to that moment in a Star Trek movie where Spock sacrificially locked himself in a highly radiated room to try and save the Enterprise from exploding. He said to Capt. Kirk, " Jim, the needs of many will always outweigh the needs of the few. In this case, the needs of one!"

Elective, for the most part. Methinks it's more CYA. So maybe he can say later, "it's not like I didn't try to do something short of violating anyone's freedom."

FWIW: Our industry did reach out to the Governor's office for clarity. This is the reply we received:

~ Construction, including housing construction, is listed as an essential need during this crisis. ~

More info here

[Gator]

For those attempting to use the existing data to calculate morbidity and mortality, I suggest you leave the task to the epidemiologists who have access to more data and better statistical tools.  They will also factor the differences in data sets  from each nation.   

Instead, I suggest the following guideline, something I synthesized intuitively from listening to various  health professionals.   

                   IN COMPARISON WITH ORDINARY FLU, COVID-19 IS
                  3X  MORE CONTAGIOUS AND 10X MORE FATAL.

If this guideline is accurate, it means if we live and work as we do in normal years, 30X more people will die from COVID-19 than die each year from flu.   

CDC estimates the annual deaths from all flues since 2010 is in the range of 12,000 - 61,000.   
              Source:  http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html


If we live and work the same as we do in normal years, COVID-19 could cause 30X increase in deaths, or a total of 0.4 - 2.0 million deaths for 2020.

The upper estimate should be increased because our healthcare system will be overburdened.   The upper estimate should be decreased to account for the fact that the predicted  maximum number of illnesses is 4x greater than our population.   

These estimates would decline only in response to mitigation measures and compliance by individuals. 

[GQBlues]

With 627 fatalities in one day, Italy has now called in the military to enforce lockdowns.

Caution: Reported by CNN

"We're working in a state of very high stress and tension," Confalonieri told Reuters. "Unfortunately we can't contain the situation in Lombardy, there's a high level of contagion and we're not even counting the dead any more.

"Look at the news that's coming out of Italy and take note of what the situation really is like. It's unimaginable."

[msmob]

Actually, it was reported by REUTERS and quoted by CNN...

[Gator]

THE NEXT CONCERN - THE ECONOMY

I will not be a Krimster and say the economy will crash and money will be worthless

Nevertheless, the health of our economy is second only to the health of  our citizens, and its recovery will be more problematic than the recovery of public  health. 

I have no idea about how this plays out, yet consider these remarkable events.

            -  This will be the first time in history that our nation purposefully created a recession.

            -  The Fed took extreme monetary steps because we were in the worst liquidity crisis since WWII.

            -  The liquidity crisis will become a solvency crisis.

            -  The number of unemployed will set records.   

            -  The speed at which the decline in employment occurs will overtax the capability of unemployment agencies to respond.

            -  A different approach is needed than the typical response of helping stressed  companies, or we will be in long, slow, recovery.     


In two months I feel we will be more focused on our economy than our health.  That could be a good sign.   

           

[BC]

It is a 'perfect storm' Gator

In the midst of a health crisis, those same hard-working folks that get laid off will lose their health insurance driving hospitals into insolvency.

Maybe, in the end, this will provoke some deeper thought and change.