Without more testing, how do you know there’s no activity vs no detected activity?
So what happens when I (hypothetically) live in NYC and hear that Kansas has opened up and I want to get out of the house. I get in the car and drive to western Kansas and book a hotel room for a week and spend the first few days hanging out in bars and restaurants and shaking hands with Kansans and enjoying the freedom I have.
But on day three I start coughing. Turns out I was unknowingly exposed to Covid-19 before I left NYC and exposed 150 people in western Kansas.
Wouldn’t you see at least a few people being admitted to the hospitals and needing to be put on ventilators?
There must be some extraordinary situation that would cause people to stay at home and “skip summer”. Can’t you imagine such a circumstance?
For instance, what if there were a big pandemic going around and unless you “skipped summer” thousand of people would die. Then might it happen? No?
Goddamn this country is truly fucked if many people think as you do.
It’s good that you’re not the one making the decision then.
After about two months apparently Wuhan had enough:
I think it’s important for this issue that government be
- VERY transparent, and
- VERY clear.
If government’s message is a muddled version of “It’s bad. Everyone stay inside a long time,” people’s patience will wear thin very rapidly.
Clear, unambiguous messaging in terms of how bad the situation is and what the government’s specific plans are is key. I’m a patient man, but if I have no idea what’s going on or what the plan is, even I will get tired of this pretty quickly. If I know precisely what the threat is, what the status is, and that the government wants to do X, Y and Z for time periods A, B, and C, I’m good. I will roll with the plan if I know what the plan is. It might not be a perfect plan, but telling the people everything you can is critical in getting buy-in.
I am fortunate where I live in that the government of Ontario has been very forthcoming with the facts. It makes this much easier to accept.
In the early stages? Perhaps not.
That’s one of the problems with this virus. It’s usually around 2-3 weeks (sometimes sooner and sometimes longer) from infection that ventilators are needed. A lot of these counties have not been locked down for 2-3 weeks or locked down at all.
Rural areas of the country are now seeing an uptick in cases and there are already suspicions it’s spreading undetected.
It’ll be at least another week or two before I’d expect to see any cases, much less serious ones.That is to say, I suspect they’re out there but with no or mild symptoms (for now).
Eventually, but between the incubation period and the fact that many of those who do catch it are either asymptomatic or have only mild cases, it can be spreading for quite a while before it sends somebody to the hospital where they are tested.
They are not longer required to stay indoors but they are to wear masks when in public and have been asked to only go outside for essential reasons.
Things have not completely turned back to normal and probably won’t for some time.
As of April 8 2020: 1,046 Confirmed Positive Test Results
How many Kansans have been tested? If the population isn’t tested, how can you know virus prevalence? Tests in KS and MO are limited to the very sick, not to all possible carriers. Have you been tested, Urbanredneck? I haven’t, so I have no idea if I’m asymptomatically spewing. I won’t visit Dodge City for the air anytime soon.
They absolutely will. I was just making the point that restrictions are why they only have 5 as opposed to suggesting that restrictions should be relaxed because they only have 5.
Having some areas restricted and other areas not restricted is like having a peeing section in the swimming pool.
Ok, go back to the original site I linked to and you will find they show the number of people who 1. have been tested 2. have tested positive 3. have died from the virus. You have to scroll down a ways but its about the 3rd statewide map. Again, some counties have maybe 4-5 tested and maybe one or even zero tested positive. I’m pretty sure by now all the counties in the state have testing kits available and if someone shows up at some tiny county hospital with symptoms, they would be tested. You are right though they arent testing people at random. No, I havent been tested but I hope to if the opportunity arises.
Good news. Soon they will have a test out to show 1. if you have it but also 2. if you HAVE had it and now have antibodies against it.
PS, there are stories about vacation areas on the east coast that are asking for bridges to be closed to stop the very visitors you are describing.
I think this is something we need to emphasize: This disease will spread differently in different areas, with a lot depending on how dense the population is.
If you live in a sparsely populated rural area, you’re already mostly practicing social distancing, just because your neighbors all live very far apart. You won’t get the nice smooth exponential growth you see in crowded cities like New York. But that can very easily give you a false sense of security.
If you think, “Well, we’re not New York, so we’re fine!”, you’ll still do things like shop at Walmart, go to football games and attend church. And that’s where you’re going to see the infections start. One guy goes to the Big Town Walmart on Wednesday, and gets infected. Then he goes to the Friday night football game, and Sunday Church services, and passes it to several other people. With a two-week incubation period, those people keep attending events, and pass it to others. Then you suddenly have a spike in cases that “came out of nowhere”. By the time people start showing up in a hospital, that first guy, the one who went to Walmart at the wrong time, has completely forgotten about that trip.
I can go along with this. Keep people informed about number of new cases, number requiring hospitalization, number recovered, and where they seem to be coming from.
They did finally publish today that 6 of the 11 people who have died so far in our county were from 3 nursing homes.
So, a strategy that places the survival of a moderate number of people against the inconvenience of a great number of people is doomed. That’s just not “The American Way.”
Flattening the curve means keeping the whole population alive by not overwhelming the totally unprepared medical services sector in the first two months. It also means extending the total duration of the pandemic by a proportional amount. Half the peak, twice the duration. Ten percent of the deaths. It’s a shame that the virus doesn’t strike the stupid and entitled preferentially, but it doesn’t.
You started off well here with the excellent cite, but then you went off the rails by making baseless assumptions. You’re “pretty sure” based on what? Hopes? Wishful thinking? There may be enough testing kits before long to test everyone who shows up, but asymptomatic people aren’t going to show up because they won’t know they’re carrying the virus. Plus if someone tests negative today, it doesn’t mean they won’t pick up the virus tomorrow. Finally, up to 30% of the tests yield false negatives.
As much as we’d all like to find a quick way for this to be over and the economy to bounce back, it’s not going to happen any time soon. And experience has shown that leaving restrictions in place actually **benefit **the economy:
People are NOT going to rush back to restaurants, malls, and other businesses. The minute that virus started to spread here, the economy was going to get thrashed. If you want it to recover faster, stop pushing to lift restrictions.
I’m reminded of something one of the epidemiologists said: “If after we get through this the average person says, ‘Why did we go through all that trouble? It wasn’t that bad.’, then we’ll know that our efforts were successful.”
:eek: :smack:
Damn son, you running for office? Are you an escort? It took Typhoid Mary several years to infect 51 people.