Illinois Gov. Pritzker has issued an order for all Illinoisans to remain home beginning tomorrow, March 21, and continuing until Tuesday April 7. We may go grocery shopping, purchase gas, go to the pharmacy, or to see our physicians. We may engage in outdoor activity like walking, jogging, or hiking so long as we maintain a six foot distance from others. We may also care for family members or other people in another household.
That’s much what my wife and I have been doing all week.
I will admit that I have reservations about the order but I plan to comply with it. I don’t really believe that anything will have changed between now and April 7 other than that a lot more people will be sick and the health care system more overtaxed. I also don’t think that the decision-makers understand the implications of supply chains. “Essential workers” not only means people who work in grocery stores but people who drive the trucks the supply the grocery stores, the workers in the warehouses from which the trucks obtain the supplies, the people who clean or maintain the warehouses, and the office workers who enter the data and file the paper work that keeps it all going.
Rumor is that Florida is next. But like you, that will be no change for us. My wife grouses that those who don’t follow guidelines will get sick first, and take up the beds. My philosophy since day one: don’t count on the system. Do what it takes to not get sick.
I wish you and your wife the best.
Listened for awhile; OMG, people don’t want to listen politicians, particular ones that don’t represent them.
I wasn’t sure what was impacted by this and thought about the stores I shop that someone might think is non-essential? So, I went to Lowe’s, where there seemed to be a lot of people trying to get paint. Then I went to the Binny’s liquor store and there was space opening up for some beverages, so like minds and all.
That is all I can think of that might be closing — Lowe’s might remain open because essential services apparently include construction; I walked in the store behind obvious construction workers. And maybe grocery stores will still serve booze. The flexibility of large stores. I probably need to hit my coffee roaster tomorrow morning.
While dental services are exempt, our dentist cancelled appointments in response to an earlier announcement (and I believe an ADA opinion). Saying something essential doesn’t necessarily motivate or create confidence that the service providers should take any risks.
My wife and I are making a point of getting carry-out tonight. We want to give our local joints all the help we can.
We picked up last night for my son’s 16th birthday — just another birthday passed without a driver’s license — and the situation seemed grim at a popular Mexican restaurant. I wouldn’t normally tip the same for non-table service, but I tried to tip what I would had I been seated, enjoyed a couple of margaritas and great service. Still seemed slight given I drove up to the place around 6 PM, just after another car left, waited for ten minutes when I got my order and two other cars pulled up. They are saving on table-service costs, but basically with at best ten percent of the tables occupied.
“basically with at best [the equivalent of] ten percent of the tables occupied.”
Since the beginning of the 2019 – 2020 flu season the ratio of the CDC’s average estimate of flu deaths (41,000) to Corona is 155. That’s an aggregate. But what about rate, since regular flu may (may) have been on the scene longer. The average weekly death rate ratio of regular flu to the worst week of corona is 11.
Skip all the buts and caveats. That’s not the point. With the all the breathless, panic inducing, reporting about corona, how many have seen any reporting on the regular flu pandemic. Any! Did we shut down the economy over regular flu. Why no, no we didn’t. We didn’t last year either, when it took 60,000.
We now have 2 docs Covid positive. One is 34 and one over 60 with some co- morbidities.
In our worst flu season we will sometimes fill the ICU. One year we needed help from Philly University for ECMO. Now go read about what is going on in Washington or Italy. We have never seen anything like that recently. Mortality still thought to be about 10 times worse than flu and still don’t know morbidities
IMO the only strategy that would have allowed containment to work would have required China to be forthcoming about the disease no later than December and at that time the strategy would have been to isolate China, quarantining all Americans who returned from China.
The fallback strategy should have been building up the capacity of available resources quickly. Maybe that could have been done concurrently with more aggressive testing. I remain unconvinced that significantly more testing would have done much but increase the level of panic.
I think that’s right, Dave. It all goes back to China’s dishonesty. (Tell it to CNN) The rest is coulda, woulda shoulda, especially from the critics section. In the absence of that early warning I’m becoming more and more convinced that the “quarantine the vulnerable” strategy would have been the most appropriate. Unfortunately, politics, sensationalism and a riskless society mentality caused pure folly. At great cost.
I understand the notion of testing to discover hot spots and accurately document cases and mortality rates. But its really just scorekeeping. Its like a business with their factory on fire but the accountants hand the CEO a report on how many widgets in inventory will get burned up and dollar cost………..but no plan to put out the fire.
So my intuitions about what might not be “essential” was wrong. Lowe’s and Binny’s say they provide essential services, and the coffee place is apparently a restaurant because coffee is food.
The mall closed, as has Kohl’s, before the announcement. It looks like clothing and specialty retail (records, sporting goods, florists, crafts, comics, etc.) are non-essential.
I found the following stats on the CDC gov site, regarding the current flu season spanning 10/2019 to 3/14/2020:
38,000 – 54,000 flu illnesses
380,000 – 710,000 hospitalizations
23,000 – 59,000 flu deaths.
So far, the following are stats in the US for COVID – 19:
19,459 confirmed cases
263 deaths
Worldwide the COVID-19 impact has been:
287,379 confirmed cases
11,951 deaths
There has been very little news coverage, no western civilization shut-downs regarding the impact of the flu, while just the opposite has occurred upon the discovery of this novel Coronavirus outbreak. The logical part of me is uncomfortable with the ballooning hysteria, accompanied by draconian measures being undertaken, in what seems to be in a vacuum of reasonable perspective. I also don’t understand the hesitancy of the FDA, CDC in discussing, with more positivity, the introduction of chloroquine to patient treatment interventions might be. Instead, we all seem to be on one tract of doom, measuring countries like Italy as mirrors of our own presumed destinies, despite their more vulnerable demographics, diminished healthcare capacities, closeness with Chinese manufacturing tethered to open borders policies.
Big correction: left off some 0’s on flu illnesses. It should be 38-54 million flu illnesses.
WE now have first detected case in town. 48 year old man went to Colo., same as last three cases. We shouldn’t have to break quarantine to get M.J.
You and I were looking at the same stats, Jan. That’s where the ratios I cited come from.
Very few want to deal with the point I have been making, and now you. The relative responses to “regular†and covid flu are wildly out of balance. Wildly. Just spectacularly. Only a tiny few are putting forth any perspective. Perhaps afraid of being accused by the mob of economics over people. Perhaps other motives. This is a false choice. As usual, no one wants to deal with the costs of the cure. Just focus on the costs of the disease.
I don’t have an explanation for this. However I think years from now people will look back and think the we lost our minds.
PS – I recall in early days, a media person said that corona deaths had skyrocketed – doubled – without noting that they had gone from 6 to 12. Idiot, or venal person?
Drew, the underwhelming infection/death stats here in the US, media emotionalism and high stakes economic repercussions of preventing it’s spread just don’t add up for me. It’s not that I don’t see this virus as being onerous, dangerous, particularly for specified groupings of people. What I do question, though, is the degree of vigilance being government-mandated actually causing more harm than good, in the overall measurement of our health – emotional, spiritual, physical and financial health.
There’s an interesting side bar as to why Italy has a much higher death stat than other countries. Besides the fact they have the second highest number of older people in the world, they also record their hospital deaths differently too. Any hospital death is ascribed as a Coronavirus death. Whereas, in reality, only 12% has been directly linked to this virus, and 88% of deaths had at least 1 premorbility – with many having 2 or 3.
“Any hospital death is ascribed as a Coronavirus death. Whereas, in reality, only 12% has been directly linked to this virus, and 88% of deaths had at least 1 premorbility – with many having 2 or 3.”
Evidence please. My guys know the critical care doc at Penn who is Italian who talks with some of the docs in Italy and he never mentioned that. Can have one of my guys ask him.
Steve
I would have thought an engineer would understand the concept of exponential growth.
Steve
” I remain unconvinced that significantly more testing would have done much but increase the level of panic.”
It would have let us know how fast it was really spreading. Rather than sitting on butts maybe someone starts making more PPE gear and ventilators sooner. We dont burn through PPE gear now because we would know who is actually positive. We wouldnt need to shut things down so much if we could test and know whom to isolate.
Tests, good ones, would have made a huge difference. It takes 48-72 hours for a test to return. What do I do about all of those people who were exposed but working that 72 hours? We cant get people tested so we have people working wearing masks, hoping that is safe. We really needed the tests. We still need them. Lets hope some day soon we see the day where “everyone who wants a test can get one”.
Steve
Absolutely a hardware store would be essential. Imagine a plumbing problem or a broken refrigerator and no chance to replace it.
Signs and wonders! I agree with Steve!
By Drew’s reasoning nothing should have been done about SARS or MERS. Fuck it, not as bad as the flu!
Looking at the stats, deaths in the USA jumped about 20% on Saturday. Drew, how long can that keep up before you admit this isn’t – perhaps maybe – not just like the flu? How rich could you get in a month off $300 if you got a 20% return a day? How rich in two months?
Steve – the concept of lumping together all kinds deaths from “flu like illness†and also not parsing those who would have died from some underlying issue anyway, not corona, has been widely observed, here, elsewhere and in the past. It’s a problem with the statistics.
Of course I understand exponential growth. But I also understand crappy data. No one one knows where this curve goes. But just take the last two flu seasons. The most recent was approximately 3x worse than the previous. You didn’t hear a sound of panic about it. As of this morning we may have, say, 300 deaths. During swine flu we had about a thousand before any alarm was sounded. We, however, have deep sixed the economy already, and no one is looking at the costs of that. The only cost appears to be corona mortality.
Lastly, and few want to deal with it. The notion of quarantining this entire nation is simply a fools errand. The best we could have done was get early warning from China and shut the border sooner. Even then, Canada was letting in 4-5 flights a day into Vancouver well into this. Where did those people go? I’d much rather, if I’m in the business of violating civil liberties for the greater good, quarantine 1/10th of the population, the vulnerable portion and let herd immunity run its course. It would render your exponential growth concerns relatively moot, and with much, much less general societal cost, and probably a better outcome for the stated goal of protecting the vulnerable. And perhaps, staying within bounds of the ability of the health care system to cope. General quarantine is failing.
You may be right, steve, about earlier testing, but I doubt it. The gestation period is so long, and some responses to illness so unremarkable, that widespread infection would take hold. Not to speak of compliance issues. For the most part we would just be better accountants. Do we need tests to tell us that NYC with its density is a hot spot?
No, again, had the Chinese come clean it would have enabled us to take action sooner and more effectively. We offered (begged?) and were turned down. Despite the Chinese propaganda and their useful idiots at places like CNN I hope the world has learned their lesson about China. If not we have only ourselves to blame. Let the globalists and environmentalists explain why we should deal so much with China.
Hey Icepick, hope your families safe.
Yeah, hardware is listed as essential; I missed that on the first go. But I was also focused on particular items. I was there for dirt for a project I could have started a couple of years ago. A lot of people looked like they were going to paint a room while shutdown. Whether those are “construction” activities or hardware misses the point that Lowe’s is in those businesses.
Advantage box stores. Or as my wife pointed out, all you have to do is sell some food and your essential.
“also not parsing those who would have died from some underlying issue anyway, not corona, has been widely observed, here, elsewhere and in the past”
Where? When? Have any actual evidence that his is either common or going on now? People criticized China for not acting sooner. What you miss is that they spotted this when there were only few hundred cases and could tell that it was different and not just the regular flu. Epidemiology is actually a pretty decent science. Doctors dont really just make up stuff on dearth certificates. I have had to fill out some. Maybe your experience was different when you filled out some. Plus, you get to double check it with overall death rates.
I guess this is a new right wing talking point that came from some idiot talk radio person or stupid blog. You realize that this would be a bit like me advising you that if you are going to buy a new company you should look at their balance sheet? (Waiting for Skype meeting. We are finding creative ways to make our own PPE gear.)
People can test positive at 5 days, maybe earlier. If someone became symptomatic we could have tested all of their contacts and locked them down.
Steve
Drew,
“I remain unconvinced that significantly more testing would have done much but increase the level of panic.”
Lack of evidence as to the scope and danger of Covid is what is feeding fear and panic and driving policies designed to prevent worst-case solutions. Uncertainty is probably the biggest driver of human fear, so I don’t agree that more information would create more fear.
A comprehensive testing program would give us the data we need to definitely quantify the problem of Covid and allow us, individually and collectively, to tailor our response appropriately instead of pursuing policies designed to prevent worst-case scenarios.
Hey Icepick, nice to hear from you. Like PD, I hope that you and yours are safe and doing well.
Drew, deaths were around 300 when you wrote your post this morning. This evening they’re over 414 and counting.
The first case in NY was recorded on March 1. As of about 30 to 60 minutes ago, it was 15,777 three weeks later. It won’t stay exponential forever, but when does the curve flatten?
PD, Andy,
Thanks for the thoughts. We’re safe in Florida. I started prepping weeks ago, though I keep thinking of things I missed. But I’m good on TP for another month!
My wife’s mother passed this week, unfortunately. She started seizing last Monday. They discovered advanced cancer that had metastasized from her left lung to her brain, liver, adrenal glands, lymphnodes, etc. The decision to remove the ventilator was made Friday, and she died a couple hours later.
This has been tough on my wife & her sister. My wife wants to go out there, but can’t. (TSA agents are dropping like flies at our airport.) My SIL is having to deal with this on her own. This is … suboptimal. The hospital where my MIL died admitted its first COVID patient Friday, by the way.
Also, still a bit amazed at the passing. We had no idea anything was wrong, but she was apparently on death’s door. Of all the people I’ve seen die from cancer, I’ve never seen anyone go that quick.
But we remain locked in.
Here’s a web site, Coronavirus Dashboard that consistently has updated figures on this virus, in the US. and all over the world. It even gives percentages of infection/death increases, as well as a well informed perspective of the daily changes going on.
Ice, nice to see your name again. Sorry to hear about your recent loss. Being locked down, also means being locked out of what we normally do in times of loss. Also added must be a sense of helplessness. In the meantime, I hope you and yours are able to see your way through this whole event to a better place.
Oh, the death toll jumped over 190% in the last hour. So Drew wrote about 300 deaths this morning, now we’re at 460 this evening. More than a 50% jump in about 12 hours.
It’S jUsT lIkE tHe FlU!
Ice,
Unfortunately, we have some tragedy in common. My wife’s Dad died suddenly right before Christmas and then in February her grandmother died, also suddenly. That same day my wife fell and broke her foot. Then this past Friday the 13th, my sister (who is institutionalized with dementia), fell and broke her hip.
So far 2020 is turning into a really sucky year.
Jan,
“Here’s a web site, Coronavirus Dashboard that consistently has updated figures on this virus, in the US. and all over the world. It even gives percentages of infection/death increases, as well as a well informed perspective of the daily changes going on.”
I hadn’t seen that one before, there are a few others out there. Again, though, the problem is testing. Only around 100k here in the US have been tested, with roughly 1/3 of those being positive. We have no idea what the actual numbers are.
I think I mentioned here last week my friend who was tested for Covid. It was 8 days before the state lab gave him his results (negative thankfully). The effects of 8 days of uncertainty were not easy for him, his family, and all the people he and his wife worked with who were potentially exposed.
Damn typos. That was over 10%.
Wow Andy, when “it rains it pours,” or so the saying goes for when everything bad happens at once. Family deaths seem to follow such a pattern, where multiple losses occur, one right after the other. My heart goes out to both you and Ice. I think we’ve all been there at least once in a lifetime, and so understand the almost paralyzing effects it can have on family members.
Ice, as of the last posting I’ve seen, US deaths are 467, with 35,017 identified virus cases. As you can see, the numbers are increasing. The virus has not peaked. However, they are still relatively “tame” compared to what some of the models have predicted. We’ll see, and hope for the best.
Sorry to hear about this year, Andy. Stay safe.
Jan, they’re tame compared to the most outrageous models, but are pretty in line with what we saw in China and especially in Europe. Our pace is a little hotter at the moment in part because we’re finally getting more tests run. Probably a good proxy would be hospitalizations versus a “normal” year, and then multiply that by some number to gauge total cases.