Covid-19 discussion and humor thread [Was: CDC says don't touch your face to avoid Covid19...Vets to the rescue!

[Cripple Creek]

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8232533/Eerie-photos-pack-vultures-circling-New-York-City-amid-coronavirus-pandemic.html

[Hapless Bills Fan]

3 hours ago, Sundancer said:

OK thank you, this makes good sense. Given the availability of these antibody tests now, it seems we will shortly have a lot more data, and a lot more data about "man on the street" prevalence and also how symptomatic this is. But these glimpses seem to show good and bad news: The bad is that the disease can be asymptomatic for lots of people, maybe way more than we know (and if it's transmissible while asymptomatic like we think it is, that's bad), and the good being that it may be asymptomatic and have less complications/fatalities than we thought. Neither is an argument for changing current distancing policy since we've already seen how this overwhelms healthcare systems.

 

Agree.

 

If we could change things up to truly protect for elderly in nursing homes from contracting covid-19, it seems to me this would have a disproportionate impact on the health care system and help us reopen.  Elderly are more likely to become very sick and perhaps remain in need of ICU care for a long time (and less likely to recover).  In one nursing home, they said a covid-19 infected aide had cared for 30 patients.  In Washington, one aide was working 3 jobs and spread covid-19 to 3 homes. 

Closing nursing homes to outside visitors and families and preventing group gatherings within the nursing homes appears to be of limited effect.

Nursing homes and hospitals often pay so little to aides, cleaners, and dietary workers that 1) the aides must work several jobs to get by 2) the workers are drawn from the poorest areas - the areas typically hardest-hit by covid-19.  Hospitals and nursing homes are allowed exemption from the requirement to provide paid sick leave.  They do not have to offer health insurance.  And clearly, even if people do stay home,  telling people "stay home if you're sick" isn't enough with 20-30% asymptomatic infections (even if workers aren't motivated to dope themselves up with fever meds and work 'cuz they don't get paid if they stay home.)

Practically speaking, there are opportunities for non-pharmaceutical interventions that change this picture to have large impact on the healthcare system.

 

[Sundancer]

1 hour ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Agree.

 

If we could change things up to truly protect for elderly in nursing homes from contracting covid-19, it seems to me this would have a disproportionate impact on the health care system and help us reopen.  Elderly are more likely to become very sick and perhaps remain in need of ICU care for a long time (and less likely to recover).  In one nursing home, they said a covid-19 infected aide had cared for 30 patients.  In Washington, one aide was working 3 jobs and spread covid-19 to 3 homes. 

Closing nursing homes to outside visitors and families and preventing group gatherings within the nursing homes appears to be of limited effect.

Nursing homes and hospitals often pay so little to aides, cleaners, and dietary workers that 1) the aides must work several jobs to get by 2) the workers are drawn from the poorest areas - the areas typically hardest-hit by covid-19.  Hospitals and nursing homes are allowed exemption from the requirement to provide paid sick leave.  They do not have to offer health insurance.  And clearly, even if people do stay home,  telling people "stay home if you're sick" isn't enough with 20-30% asymptomatic infections (even if workers aren't motivated to dope themselves up with fever meds and work 'cuz they don't get paid if they stay home.)

Practically speaking, there are opportunities for non-pharmaceutical interventions that change this picture to have large impact on the healthcare system.

 

 

My wife works with this population in a big city and yes, all that you say is true. My step-mother-in-law is in a retirement community (not a nursing home) and it is under a severe lockdown.  

[plenzmd1]

Okay, this has just got to be in WNY somewhere no?

 

 

[K-9]

2 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

Nursing homes and hospitals often pay so little to aides, cleaners, and dietary workers that 1) the aides must work several jobs to get by 2) the workers are drawn from the poorest areas - the areas typically hardest-hit by covid-19.  Hospitals and nursing homes are allowed exemption from the requirement to provide paid sick leave.  They do not have to offer health insurance.  And clearly, even if people do stay home,  telling people "stay home if you're sick" isn't enough with 20-30% asymptomatic infections (even if workers aren't motivated to dope themselves up with fever meds and work 'cuz they don't get paid if they stay home.)

A sad and pathetic commentary. 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

32 minutes ago, K-9 said:

A sad and pathetic commentary. 

 

It's the way of the world.  My point is just being purely pragmatic.  From a POV of effective government interventions to reduce covid-19 cases requiring prolonged and intensive hospitalization, containing infections in nursing homes and senior living centers would be high on the "impact" list and probably high ROI.  But it would have to be investment in people - workers - because there is no way to effectively isolate and protect seniors without caring for the health of the people who care for them. 

Screening their temperatures daily and telling them "wash your hands" is plainly not enough.

[Gray Beard]

Apple and Google are working on a contact tracing app.

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/on-the-trail-of-covid-19-contact-tracing-the-virus/

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

17 minutes ago, Gray Beard said:

Apple and Google are working on a contact tracing app.

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/on-the-trail-of-covid-19-contact-tracing-the-virus/

 

 

This actually sounds as though it's being done in a relatively sensible, non-privacy-invading way

[ExiledInIllinois]

I guess this is rare... But there are other complications w/COVID-19: 

 

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/broadway-star-nick-cordero-faces-leg-amputation-due-to-coronavirus-wife-says.amp

[Punching Bag]

18 minutes ago, Gray Beard said:

Apple and Google are working on a contact tracing app.

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/on-the-trail-of-covid-19-contact-tracing-the-virus/

 

 

MOST IMPORTANT PART

Quote

 

Meanwhile, your phone is picking up the beacons from all other phones nearby. It remembers these interactions for 14 days.

Now, here's the cool part: Suppose that a few days later, someone tests positive for COVID-19.  If he's willing, he can report his diagnosis in an app from a public-health agency. At that point, everybody he's exposed in the last two weeks gets notified on their phones, and advised to seek testing, or to quarantine.

To be clear: nobody has to participate if they don't want to. "It's under user control; they can turn it on or off," Tribble said.

 

 

There are things they track you on you do not know about.  Maybe it is buried in multipage disclosure and if you follow all the links, maybe you can opt out or remove but next update puts it back in and if you opt out they say it will take ## days but it will actually be longer for they do it between batches.  And it will probably be shared with marketing partners. There will be a leak and laywers will get the money and you will get the year coupon on saving on protection company (who you do not trust anyways) plan. 

 

Is it any wonder why people do not trust what is said anymore?  Yes I am a cynic but have been screwed multiple times so it only makes sense.

 

P.S. Good thing M$ is not a partner.

I do not care how much good Bill Gates has done for the monster he created is not a good thing.

Quote

And will the data collected ever be hackable, or shared with the government, or used for marketing? "No," Burke said. "In fact, we've engineered the system so that the data doesn't go to a central place. You just know that you were close to somebody who was infected, that's it."

 

It can be engineered that way but somebody working on it will work on a back door. Never believe them when they say "don't worry".

[Hapless Bills Fan]

22 minutes ago, Limeaid said:

There are things they track you on you do not know about.  Maybe it is buried in multipage disclosure and if you follow all the links, maybe you can opt out or remove but next update puts it back in and if you opt out they say it will take ## days but it will actually be longer for they do it between batches.  And it will probably be shared with marketing partners. There will be a leak and laywers will get the money and you will get the year coupon on saving on protection company (who you do not trust anyways) plan.

 

Limeaid, I don't understand your point here.  This has been true, and going on for years and years and years.  So how would having a contact-tracing tool, really necessary to open the country up and get back to normal, change what is already there?

It seems to me a choice between this valid concern (which is already a valid concern with existing apps) plus a public health tool that at least has some safeguards and deletion built into it, OR this valid concern and NO public health tool.

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

Social distancing messaging, S. Africa style

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cb4dSss4pk

 

 

[Punching Bag]

45 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Limeaid, I don't understand your point here.  This has been true, and going on for years and years and years.  So how would having a contact-tracing tool, really necessary to open the country up and get back to normal, change what is already there?

It seems to me a choice between this valid concern (which is already a valid concern with existing apps) plus a public health tool that at least has some safeguards and deletion built into it, OR this valid concern and NO public health tool.

 

 

Already spent enough time deleting and removing connections on new phone and I discovered it pushes some back on and re-enables settings with new updates.  I am sure this will be same sort of application.  I will take their "advice" and get an aluminum foil case.

 

I actually worked at a job before where it was illegal to disclose location where you work and you had a cover story you were supposed to follow.  The cover story made no sense for there was no way that number of people worked at the cover story location and our partners on contract had different cover stories. So I just told investigators I was bad at lying (they knew that from polygraph test) and so I just told people I am not at liberty to say where I work.   I wonder how the people at my old job deal with modern age where it is easy to determine where you are if you use a web-based application from cell phone.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

11 minutes ago, Limeaid said:

 

Already spent enough time deleting and removing connections on new phone and I discovered it pushes some back on and re-enables settings with new updates.  I am sure this will be same sort of application.  I will take their "advice" and get an aluminum foil case.

 

I actually worked at a job before where it was illegal to disclose location where you work and you had a cover story you were supposed to follow.  The cover story made no sense for there was no way that number of people worked at the cover story location and our partners on contract had different cover stories. So I just told investigators I was bad at lying (they knew that from polygraph test) and so I just told people I am not at liberty to say where I work.   I wonder how the people at my old job deal with modern age where it is easy to determine where you are if you use a web-based application from cell phone.

 

So what is your solution for the contact tracing necessary to contain a covid-19 epidemic while letting people get back to work?

[mead107]

Son can’t use anything that is connected to Microsoft. Phone had to be cleared of a bunch stuff. When we are face to face he can talk to us. 
gov stuff. Can use his phone to call us. 

[Punching Bag]

50 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

So what is your solution for the contact tracing necessary to contain a covid-19 epidemic while letting people get back to work?

 

It may be a solution but I am not going to be part of it.

I rarely go out however so will not likely catch it until after restrictions are extremely relaxed.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

32 minutes ago, Limeaid said:

 

It may be a solution but I am not going to be part of it.

I rarely go out however so will not likely catch it until after restrictions are extremely relaxed.

 

OK, so let's assume 3-4 out of 10 people feel as you do, but are not able to "rarely go out".  What's your solution?

 

Restrictions will only be able to be relaxed before a vaccine if we can #testtraceisolate, not if we can #test_____isolate.  The latter is missing a necessary step.

[Punching Bag]

13 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

OK, so let's assume 3-4 out of 10 people feel as you do, but are not able to "rarely go out".  What's your solution?

 

Restrictions will only be able to be relaxed before a vaccine if we can #testtraceisolate, not if we can #test_____isolate.  The latter is missing a necessary step.

 

Solution is to change laws so that companies cannot abuse it and make such crimes blue collar not white.

They can use emergency to put people out of work so do same thing and use it to force changes in laws so companies cannot backdoor ways to use data for marketing.

 

Other than that no idea but I will opt out by either turning off phone when out or wrapping it in something like aluminum foil.

[Sundancer]

3 hours ago, Limeaid said:

 

Solution is to change laws so that companies cannot abuse it and make such crimes blue collar not white.

They can use emergency to put people out of work so do same thing and use it to force changes in laws so companies cannot backdoor ways to use data for marketing.

 

Other than that no idea but I will opt out by either turning off phone when out or wrapping it in something like aluminum foil.

Hapless, this guy Limeaid and the protestors is why I feel like we have to assume the critical piece of contact tracing won’t happen here. 
 

It’s astounding to see how critical it is and how well it’s working elsewhere but here we have people who won’t install an app on their phone, wear a mask in public, or social distance. Sometimes I feel like we need to just get the 300,000-2.4M killed and be done with the charade that we can minimize this. We will close this social distancing phase of it runs its course with 70-80,000 deaths in a 5 month span. And if we reopen without distancing, it will be many times higher.  It’s frustrating. I’m dying to reopen sensibly and believe in the federal guidelines as a pretty good general model. 

Edited April 20, 2020 by Sundancer

[Punching Bag]

37 minutes ago, Sundancer said:

Hapless, this guy Limeaid and the protestors is why I feel like we have to assume the critical piece of contact tracing won’t happen here. 
 

It’s astounding to see how critical it is and how well it’s working elsewhere but here we have people who won’t install an app on their phone, wear a mask in public, or social distance. Sometimes I feel like we need to just get the 300,000-2.4M killed and be done with the charade that we can minimize this. We will close this social distancing phase of it runs its course with 70-80,000 deaths in a 5 month span. And if we reopen without distancing, it will be many times higher.  It’s frustrating. I’m dying to reopen sensibly and believe in the federal guidelines as a pretty good general model. 

 

Sorry Sunduncer but only thing I will not do is allow tracing even if it means I leave phone home which I often do anyways.  Already posted a picture of me with my mask and mask/face shield.

 

And you sound like one of the excuse makers for companies who say "Oops, sorry we forgot about that the app copied your ssn, dob and password to our protected server which was hacked by a teenager and sold on black market.  Here is a coupon."    For one application M$ had you needed to have a M$ email account so I created one in hotmail and each item I included false information.  Less than a month later I get calls on the phone number (office mate's phone who had left) asking for this fictitious person.  There never was such a person so only way they got info was from M$.   Tracking can be used for very bad things and until the government whose laymakers get campaign donations (turned into pocket funds when they retire) I am not allowing any tracking I can prevent.