Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

...numbers skewed by a ridiculously lopsided mortality rate among the elderly.

The high mortality rate for the elderly could be skewed by how bad nursing home outbreaks have been while the rest of us have been healthy at home. 60% of PA's Covid-19 deaths have come from senior living homes.

That is a good find Gonch.

The first thing that jumped out at me is, I know its not the flue, but for people 24 and under it is better than the flue, at least from a pure death count perspective.

Sorry - couldn't resist.

Jeff said:

There is also increasing evidence that stresses on the health care system and fears about catching the disease have caused some Americans to die from ailments that are typically treatable. A recent draft paper found that hospital admissions for a major type of heart attack fell by 38 percent in nine major U.S. hospitals in March. In a normal year, cardiovascular disease is the country’s leading cause of death.

This was always the concern and a factor to push curve flattening. On the plus side, automotive deaths are way down.

I don't think the outcome of the article has to do with a non-flattened curve at all. The next part of the article says they expected there to be a higher incidence of heart issues during this time frame for various reasons and...

Potential etiologies for the decrease in STEMI PPCI activations include avoidance of medical care due to social distancing or concerns of contracting COVID-19 in the hospital, STEMI misdiagnosis, and increased use of pharmacological reperfusion due to COVID-19. As the pandemic continues, we plan to continue to follow this early signal and investigate its causes. It is particularly crucial to understand if patient-based anxiety is decreasing presentation of STEMI patients to the US hospital system.

That tells me that people were not being treated for the heart issue, not because of hospital overloading, but rather because they were too scared to go to the hospital. They were worried that they might catch Covid. In other words people were so afraid of catching Covid that they in essence chose to die of a heart attack.

Yeah, totally understand that, but behavior and socioeconomic based outcomes (like the fact that the poor generally fare worse in all health issues) are still outcomes. It wasn't my intention to imply that overwhelmed hospitals were the only possible cause.

Shades said:

I know its not the flue, but for people 24 and under it is better than the flue

New Coasterbuzz meme?

C'mon guys - give me a brake!

eightdotthree said:

New Coasterbuzz meme?

Oh man, I never even thought to add those. Done!

Florida will begin the reopening process on Monday

https://www.wesh.com/article/florida-reopening-plan/32320807

What a weird press conference

I guess he made a comment about the outbreak not being as bad as they expected. Well, yeah, because the counties and municipalities didn't wait to act like the state did.

You and I may disagree on things in regards to this on here, but I think we can both agree that Jerry Demmings really helped us have some rationality here in OC.

Additionally, that made me realize that even though I've only ever met one of you from this thread in person, and even though we've had our pissing matches and disagreements in regards to all things COVID-19 here, the overall level of civility and respect here is actually impressive. We may disagree on things, but unlike in so many situations in our country in the last several years, I feel like there has still been respect on both sides of the argument on here. Jabs and ball busting, yes. But civility and respect. And in this day and age, that's appreciated.

Sucks.

High five!

Jeff said:

I would have never thought to compare overall death count to derive the net deaths related to Covid-19.

There is also increasing evidence that stresses on the health care system and fears about catching the disease have caused some Americans to die from ailments that are typically treatable. A recent draft paper found that hospital admissions for a major type of heart attack fell by 38 percent in nine major U.S. hospitals in March. In a normal year, cardiovascular disease is the country’s leading cause of death.

This was always the concern and a factor to push curve flattening. On the plus side, automotive deaths are way down.

It would be super interesting to try to suss out which causes of death were positively impacted by corona virus and which were negatively impacted. Same for shelter in place orders. I mean, obviously, people dying of COVID-19 is way up from last year, but I have to assume suicides are also up. If there's a noticeable uptick in heart attack related deaths, is that because people are getting anxious and stressed about working from home while homeschooling? Or is it because someone didn't want to go the hospital?

Good news for traditional amusement parks?

It's really hard to research that subject since you need to put a lot of infected people into a population to test the theory. (Trying to get vaccine trials in humans is also hard when infection rates are on the decline from social distance mitigation.) But there was a peer reviewed study that modeled infection spread in a specific restaurant in China that was fascinating. Based on proximity and air flow caused by the HVAC, they could model the movement of the virus through the air.

eightdotthree said:

The high mortality rate for the elderly could be skewed by how bad nursing home outbreaks have been while the rest of us have been healthy at home. 60% of PA's Covid-19 deaths have come from senior living homes.

Could be. Except that when the entire population is that age, we'll never know if it's the close quarters and general spread or the age of those infected. And unless 60% or more of the known cases are also in senior living homes, then that would sort of lean towards supporting my theory (for instance, if 30% of known infections, but 60% of deaths, occur in senior living facilities then they are more susceptible.)

Although, as far as I understand, a similar thing is occuring in prisons as far as spread goes and death rates aren't nearly that high. I specifically remember posting somewhere along the way about a prison here in Ohio with nearly 2000 confirmed cases and no fatalities. Similar situations, but far different representation as far as age groups.

I don't know. You didn't sell me.

Oh. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you convinced in a Coasterbuzz discussion. I wouldn’t dare.

Looks like this is the study on AC spread. I’d really like to know the viral load while it’s in the air inside vs outside. Whats the likelihood of the virus spreading via booths inside vs café tables set up outside?

More poop news, Here's a study in Switzerland where waste water could be used as an early detection method for flareups in the virus.

This could be an interesting trend where existing infrastructure could be used as a tool to monitor future illness outbreaks and better identify the origins and spread of it.

And right on cue, Ohio did a follow-up today in regards to the prison thing I was mentioning in the post above.

Some highlights:

The result: "There's way more people that are asymptomatic and positive than we ever dreamed of," Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction Director Annette Chambers-Smith said.

Yet another instance of anecdotal evidence that this is spread much further than we understand. Although Dr. Acton did say, “We really can’t say a lot about the general population yet." But any public figure acting responsibly is going to say that.

Nearly one-in-four of Ohio's confirmed COVID-19 cases is a person incarcerated in the state's prisons.

After testing 5,676 inmates, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction found 68.5% of them, or 3,890 prisoners, had COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Another 419 staff members have contracted the disease as well.

To date, two staff members and 29 prisoners have died after contracting COVID-19.

Here's another instance of a contained population where spread has happened. No idea on the age demo (I would assume it skews younger, but I have nothing to base that on - the article says, "Those locations were tested because they had sick inmates or older inmates who might be most susceptible to the disease." but doesn't elaborate more. Who knows what "had" means in this case?)

Again, total disclaimer - Just my observations and I'm just a guy throwing ideas out there.

I think we're gonna find that it's highly contagious, and very dangerous for the elderly or compromised. A combo that makes for scary numbers. I think once you hit us middle-aged folks there's a threat, but not a "shut everything down, hide the women and children" kind of threat. Nothing a heightened awareness and understanding that you're reaching an age where the flu can get you too wouldn't get us through. Our youngest population is likely seeing less threat than they do from a common flu.

(And I'm putting this out there knowing my unqualified opinion is incredibly easy to pick apart. I just want to share because I'm not seeing anyone break it down like this...which means either it's a stupid idea or we're missing the forest for the trees)

More interesting studies. This one from Berkeley estimates that your chances of dying from COVID related causes are equal to your chances of dying from anything else. So if you're a healthy 20 year old, doubling your chance of death is not significant, but if you're a susceptible 80 year old, doubling your chances of death is a big threat.

I could sit around and dissect their methodology and what I think about it, but it's a decent baseline to start thinking about susceptibility and mortality.

https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/04/24/study-challenges-reports-of-lo...-covid-19/