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windfind



Joined: 18 Mar 1997
Posts: 1899

PostPosted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 2:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi Gang,

Since my wife is working 16 hours a day developing protocols for COVID-19 and because I have a weak background in immunology and a fascination with epidemiology I have been done a lot of reading on this topic and I thought I would throw in my 2 cents.

There is undoubtedly an element of panic right now regarding COVID-19 eg. toilet paper hoarding and the stock market instability. However, there are significant unique facts, not panic, behind the isolation that epidemiologists and health professionals are recommending.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19 is a very different virus from the various flu viruses that have been studied for decades:

1. There is a drastic shortage of Personal Protective Equipment PPE in the USA clinics and hospitals. If the Covid-19 disease becomes even more widespread there will NOT be PPE for health professionals treating diseased patients which will mean a dramatic increase in sick health professionals and more serious prognosis all patients who are sick and more spread of the disease. As of today many clinics in the Gorge only have PPE for a few more days.

2. Almost everyone has a degree of immunity to most of the current variants of the influenza virus due to centuries of exposure to this family of viruses and vaccinations. This is not true of the SARS-CoV-2 so it has the potential to spread much faster.

3. The death rate for the flu is about 0.1% while the published overall death rate for COVID-19 ranges from 1.4% (according to the New England Journal of Medicine) to 2.3% according to the China CDC Weekly. This means the death rate is 14 to 23 times higher for COVID-19 than the flu. (this data probably does not distinguish between mortality due to S vs. L types) https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2002032

4. Given you are reading this on the Classic IW. you are probably in the age group from 60-80+ and the death for those age ranges is 36 times to 149 times higher than for then flu. You are probably also male and the COVID-19 mortality is about about 60% higher for males than females. And while it is true that SARS-CoV-2 does not kill as many young people it still is way more deadly than the flu for most age groups. Do you get a flu shot because you are a bit worried about getting the flu? This you should be far more worried about Covid. https://virusncov.com/covid-19-age-sex-cases-and-deaths

5. There are several weird things about SARS-CoV-2 compared to other diseases. With the flu it is uncommon for health professionals using PPE correctly to contract the flu. For example, my wife has had contact with hundreds of flu patients through the years and has never gotten the flu. Whereas it has been common for health professionals to contract COVID-19 and even die from it. Moreover, for some reason health professionals seem to become much sicker than other people their age if they do develop the disease. For example, a 40-year-old WA state ER doc is now in critical condition despite using proper PPE.

6. We have Antiviral medications that can help with the symptoms of flu. To date, it is unknown if they will work for this virus.

7. There is no vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 and even when one is developed clinical trials will take time. Also, there no lab animals susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 so there is frantic work being conducted to engineer such mice so testing can begin.

8. The flu virus evolves relatively slowly with new varieties like the Swine Flu developing every year or so giving us lots of time to deal with the disease. In just the last several months SARS-CoV-2 virus mutated from the ancestral Type S variety (which causes milder symptom but spreads fast because people are still active and travel to the deadly Type L variety which seems to have first appeared in Wuhan this winter. The L variety has more deadly symptoms but is easier to contain since people become very sick. The fact that the virus mutates so fast says to epidemiologist we have to contain the spread of this virus fast since it could mutate again.
https://academic.oup.com/nsr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/nsr/nwaa036/5775463


9. The flu virus is relatively fragile and only is active on hard surfaces for a day or two. The SARS-CoV-2 virus can be active even after 9 days on hard surfaces at room temperature. This makes it far more likely to cause an epidemic unless we isolate. Think about what that means for your ski chair lift or the door handle at Safeway. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/coronaviruses-how-long-can-they-survive-on-surfaces

10. Since the flu virus is fragile infections fade away during the summer as the virus becomes more inactive and people naturally have more space between. This may not be true for SARS-CoV-2. Remember it is summertime on the southern hemisphere and many countries there are seeing a fast spread of the disease. Moreover, hot dry countries in the N. hemisphere are also seeing a fast spread. So summer, by itself, may not bring relief.

11. You all know that the flu is very contagious. However, COVID is currently estimated to be 200% more contagious than the flu.

12. Take a look at the brown graphic below. If you have any understanding of math you know what an exponential accelerating graph like that means... take strong action very fast or else.

The above are a few of the rational reasons it is important to limit social exposure until we see how this plays out.

Incidentally, my wife, a clinic director, who is utterly apolitical and has never voted for anything in her life says from a health professional perspective the CDC response to the Swine Flu was done to protocol and was very effective at dealing with a known type of virus. Whereas the CDC response to the novel far more dangerous SARS-CoV-2 was slow, contradictory, political and initially ineffective. Ask yourself… why is it that as of March 1 Korea had tested 65,000 people and China reportedly was conducting1,000,000+ tests per week and the WHO had sent test kits to 57 countries the USA had only tested 459 people. This is way beyond inept. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/united-states-badly-bungled-coronavirus-testing-things-may-soon-improve

The most interesting thing about this whole situation is that it is going to make both the non-data driven partisan left and the non-data driven partisan right happy. It all the isolation stops SARS-CoV-2 from spreading widely the left can say it was because of Trump's bungling that it ever spread in the first place while the right can say it was all a hoax.

Mike Godsey



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Last edited by windfind on Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:18 pm; edited 1 time in total
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dvCali



Joined: 23 Aug 2007
Posts: 1314

PostPosted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 4:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

windfind wrote:
Hi Gang,
'''
Mike Godsey

Thank you Mike, very good information. The one additional piece of information that explains why the whole planet is nearing lock down is related to that exponential growth curve.

The big problem is that right now there is no reason to believe that COV-19 will reach levels of contagion smaller than influenza. There are no vaccines, and there is no immunity in the population. So we are looking at infection numbers that, for the U.S. alone, can be 50 , 100, 150 millions.

What the governments are trying to do right now is to dampen that exponential growth. In the infection keeps growing at the rate shown in the picture above we could get to those figures in a month or two, and as a consequence we would witness the complete collapse of our health system. Italy is already close to that, despite relatively small infection numbers (around 28,000 infected with 2100 dead as of today, with a population of 60,000,000).


Last edited by dvCali on Mon Mar 16, 2020 5:50 pm; edited 1 time in total
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 4:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My source is CDC data.

I mentioned two extremes, one directly from the Left, the other a potential overreaction from the Right. How's that political?

How's about saving your personal rabble-rousing for your sheltered little echo chamber.
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rigatoni



Joined: 25 Feb 1999
Posts: 498

PostPosted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 6:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

As of tomorrow, the Bay Area will be on lock down (meaning everyone confined to home). There is a provision about being allowed outside to exercise provided 6 feet of distance is kept from others. I am sure some intrepid windsurfers/kitesurfers will test the restriction.
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17742
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 6:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

isobars wrote:
My source is CDC data.

I mentioned two extremes, one directly from the Left, the other a potential overreaction from the Right. How's that political?

How's about saving your personal rabble-rousing for your sheltered little echo chamber.


Iso's first posting on corona virus:

Quote:
Influenza is a much more deadly disease. Get your priorities straight, fearmonger.


Ready, shoot, aim.
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bert



Joined: 10 Apr 2000
Posts: 665

PostPosted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 6:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Damn! and I just got my wing and board today. We're pretty much locked down here in Sunnyvale (especially for us old folks) until April 7 at the earliest. I'm chomping at the bit to take it out on the water. Hopefully there won't be much wind until mid April anyway. 4.6 Naish wing and 110L board (182 by 72.4 cm at 14 lbs). I'll be using my slingshot 84 wing with a 30 inch mast.


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Goodwind



Joined: 06 May 2005
Posts: 323
Location: On water

PostPosted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

“You will still be able to walk your dog or go on a hike alone, or with someone you live with, or even with another person as long as you keep six feet between you,” San Francisco health officer Dr. Grant Colfax said at a news briefing.

Social Distancing is the real purpose of this lockdown. The officer said walk the dog or hike are just referring to the most common outdoor activities as examples. There are many gray areas on allowable outdoor activity. What about fishing, boating or windsurfing in the back of my house by myself? I'm sure some folks will test the water and find out for us.
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windfind



Joined: 18 Mar 1997
Posts: 1899

PostPosted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

dvCali: "Thank you Mike, very good information. The one additional piece of information that explains why the whole planet is nearing lock down is related to that exponential growth curve."

Good point dvCali,
Epidemiology has long run computer simulations of how epidemics propagate through a population and how the ratio of
1, healthy
2. Sick and
3. Recovered
changes over time with different viruses and, most importantly, different human countermeasures.

Such simulations are one of the bases of the WHO and CDC recommendations. These computer simulations for COVID-19 have become increasingly disturbing as more current disease data is feed into them. That is likely the reason why President Trump is taking the disease much more seriously in recent days and especially today and why he is no longer contradicting his own disease experts. And it is amazing how different the COVID coverage is on Fox News today compared to recent days.

The link below is oversimplified but accurate computer simulation was posted by, surprise, surprise, the Washington Post. It is only for a village of 200 people but if you have never had a course in Epidemiology it is an eye-opener. It looks at 3 different political responses to a very contagious disease.

1. Just ignore the disease (free for all)
2 Institute a forced quarantine (which is only partially possible even in a totalitarian state.)
3. Encourage social distancing with some isolation (which is what we are starting to do now)

Go to this link and scroll down to each of the simulations. You will need to hit replay to see each simulation. It is quite amazing.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/?utm_source=reddit.com

If you are lazy below are the results of the simulations. The different countermeasures have radically different outcomes and in reality, we are talking about millions of people not just the 200 in this very simplified simulation.

Mike Godsey



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WNDZRFR



Joined: 28 Mar 2000
Posts: 124
Location: Greater East Bay Area

PostPosted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is the first time in my life where I said to myself - god it would be good to be a millennial!

The order from the health office does say that walking and hiking is ok if you stay 6' apart so I read that to include any non group sport 6' apart.

There is also a loop hole that says to engage in activity essential to their health is ok.

Well hiking, biking and windsurfing is essential to my health!!! Without these exercises my weak ass immune system goes to hell.

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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17742
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

True that.
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