Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

So, an economist has the answers that the world's brightest epidemiologists do not. Seems legit. Maybe he can get Elon Musk's help after he's done with his meltdown. 😁

Testing accuracy and speed is still not a solved problem, especially in the US. There aren't shortcuts to that either, unfortunately. We could be further along on that, had we made it a national priority three months ago.

Testing is a real cluster. Not totally clear why. CDC was in charge of the testing initially but the tests they had were bad. Cost a lot of time. And there have been promises of millions of tests being available in a "week or two" for almost two months. By Birx and Fauci. Very confusing as to what is available and where. Test kits are supposedly available. But testing supplies are not. Other areas say they don't have enough tests. Some tests take minutes and others take weeks (much of that presumably is just getting the actual tests processed with some type of backlog). I understand its a difficult process. But other countries seem to be able to figure it out. Maybe having national healthcare is a big difference? We have a mix of CDC/FDA and private hospitals and test facilities. Something like herding cats in this type of situation?

Leaving testing up to the states was a baffling decision.

The Pennsylvania governor joined Cuomo, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, Delaware Gov. John Carney, Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo and Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker in unveiling a joint multi-state agreement to develop the regional supply chain.

That joint action is expected to reduce costs and stabilize the supply chain, so that states are not battling each other for critical supplies, thus driving up the prices.

https://triblive.com/local/regional/wolf-cuomo-join-other-governors...-19-fight/

ApolloAndy said:
I'm genuinely curious if we predict different things will happen or if we value different outcomes differently. What do you anticipate will be the outcome if we begin to rollback restrictions? Like, what is the best approach and what do you think is the median and mean outcome for that?

First, let me emphasize that when I say a rollback, I don't mean an all-at-once rollback, but rather the phased approach being experienced right now. Much as I'm optimistic, I can appreciate that a risk still exists, and I think that testing the waters before opening the floodgates is the better way to go. Then, if things don't spike abruptly at any point and the healthcare system is plenty able to sustain any increase in spread, ease further. I expect a climb in case count simply because testing is ramping up and more people out means more exposure, but I would obviously like a solution that examines behavior and makes sure that the theory that not every place will end up like New York City has truth to it before getting more aggressive in dialing back measures.

Of course, the challenge is testing, and regardless of any skepticism I might have on decisions regarding implementing/easing restrictions, I definitely agree that a failure to get high levels of testing out there has severely impacted decision-making in a negative way and therefore requires the gradual rollback I mentioned earlier. Much as I want people back at work, I don't want to be cavalier with people's lives either. I confess that I just can't put a number on it. I thought 23,000 deaths was a gross overestimate, and look how wrong I was. I think that there's a health and safety risk to staying shut down, though, even if that risk isn't realized in the short term, so I think the best option (note that I'm not saying perfect option) is to ease restrictions gradually and test for the virus's behavior along the way.

I also favor maintaining tight restrictions in the name of protecting the at-risk populations, such as not allowing for nursing home visits, but I also understand, knowing people who work at those, that that's taking a very hard toll of its own.

Summarizing a bit, I don't think that this first phase of dialing things back is going to cause mayhem. As far as what outcome I value, I value a balanced one because I don't want another New York City, but I also don't want a total economic collapse and its ensuing effects on health and safety. I want this over as efficiently as possible without resorting to recklessness, and that's why I think, based on the information I've been able to gather, gradual easing that allows for some, but not unsustainable, spread in the name of immunity is the best approach.

It’s all anecdotal, but I’m hearing news reports that people aren’t exactly flocking back to the businesses and leisure activities that are beginning to open. Some have said that they tried but became afraid when they saw how many people were out there, with many not following guidelines.

I did some grocery shopping yesterday at my store of choice, Giant Eagle Market District. I was pleasantly surprised to see probably 90% of the shoppers there (young and old alike) wearing masks, and observing one way aisles and distance barriers provided by the store.

My exercise routine wasn’t all that great to begin with, and now it’s about at zero. I’m so fat now, and I had worked so hard to be in better shape. I’ve also quit smoking (yay!) but that adds pounds. So a few days ago I walked down to Schiller Park here in German Village for a few laps around the block. I didn’t get far after seeing what looked like the entire neighborhood out and about, most without face masks, and many coming up from behind, jogging, and huffing and puffing.

I’m not going to act all oppressed because I’d like a haircut, but good lord, you should see me. I’m gonna have to try that old standby and get some tape and a jar of Dippity Do.

Stay safe.

This is not encouraging:

As President Trump presses for states to reopen their economies, his administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of cases and deaths from the coronavirus over the next several weeks, reaching about 3,000 daily deaths on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, nearly double from the current level of about 1,750.

The projections, based on government modeling pulled together in chart form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases now.

The numbers underscore a sobering reality: While the United States has been hunkered down for the past seven weeks, not much has changed. And the reopening to the economy will make matters worse.

It's obviously concerning if the administration has projections that it's hiding from the public in order to push a particular agenda, but even that aside, if those projections are accurate (and there's no reason I can see to doubt them) it's pretty damn scary to think that we're going to continue to see 2,000+ deaths per day for most of May. That would be an additional 60-75,000 deaths in a single month. We'll be seeing a 9/11's worth of deaths every day by the end of the month. Every. Single. Day.

Regardless of what I think should or should not be done regarding re-opening, that's just horrible.

Does this mean we did not succeed with the stay at home orders and flattening the curve? Or is this inevitable and by doing what we did we at least spread things out enough to not overwhelm the system? If we delay reopening to June 1, does that prevent this?

The argument is and has always been that if we didn't stay at home and flatten the curve (or when we unshelter and unflatten) we will see exponential growth and if we did China style actual lockdown (with police monitoring) we could bring it down as far as we wanted.

As awful as 2,000 deaths/day growing to 3,000 deaths/day is over the course of a month, there's nothing fundamentally preventing it from becoming 10,000/day if we're stupid and run around shaking hands, nor down to 10 deaths a day, if we keep people under lock and key. We're still optimistically somewhere in the 5%-10% infected, so there's still lots and lots of people for it to spread to, which is why I don't understand how people/governments/whoever have chosen this as the time when we should start reopening things.

As the article says, "not much has changed." That's why I don't understand the enthusiasm and parks setting opening dates.

I wonder if the (completely and total, as far as I'm concerned) inaccuracy of the IHME model, which was already optimistic to begin with, is the catalyst. Remember two weeks ago when we were talking about "the peak"? That's when we started talking about reopening, but it never really happened.

Universal Orlando Citywalk may be gearing to reopen

https://attractionsmagazine.com/universal-orlando-citywalk-planning...reopening/

When talks of shutdowns/stay-at-home orders started, my question was how long do they remain in place and on what basis are they removed/eased? Once removed/eased, unless there is a vaccine (at this point there are multiple possibilities out there but its not 100% certain we will be able to create one that will be effective and safe (we can't for all viruses) and even if we can, no assurance as to what the timing of its availability will be to the masses (took decade or more in some instances)) or effective treatments (history of effective treatments for viruses is not good though there are at least one or two at this point which show some promise at the margins but its early (and its not really clear how effective hospitalizations are at this point because with no effective treatments, there isn't a lot hospitals can do)), cases and deaths would increase. What level of increase of either or both is acceptable and on what basis?

In terms of models, they are only as good as their assumptions. Change the assumptions and the model changes. Not sure how effective/useful they actually are.

The peak isn't the time you resume something like normal anyway. You do it when you're most of the way down the other side. The downward trend is barely downward at this point.

It's always been my understanding that "flattening the curve" was about spreading the rate of infection over a period of time, not so much stopping people from being infected. (I think I said something to that effect in the podcast we did in March)

It's clear at this point that decisions are being made. I'm not using the slider analogy because this isn't just moving the slider a little. The decision is being made to allow a greater rate of infection.

We all know that we exceeded the need in the first phase of flattening. Hospitals didn't come close in most cases to being overwhelmed (or even utilized in some areas).

If both those ideas are true, then this is simply "letting out the line" so to speak. We can house more sick at a time than we were...so we will.

I know this sounds a little "conspiracy theory", but there's not misjudgement happening here. There's a calculated move being made.

Is any state going back to normal? From what I have seen (though haven't studied all "resume" guidelines for each state) states are going more towards normal but not all the way to normal. And I am not sure there is a definitive and objective answer as to when those steps toward normal should be taken.

One of the things a lot of people didn't seem to understand is that flattening the curve was also about extending it. Not sure how it could have worked otherwise. A lot of people said things like "everyone should just stay at home so we can get this over with" but that wasn't how the stay at home orders were meant to function. So that the curve is extended, some people seem to think we have done this too long (or at least long enough).

And on the flip side, people seem to freak when its said cases are projected to increase when we move more toward normal. But that would always be the case as well. Short of a vaccine or effective treatment that approached a cure.

What we will be finding out soon is if social distancing, masks, good hand washing, etc, is the same or close to just staying home. I know I keep talking about PA but daily hospitalizations have been dropping steadily. Allegheny County has TWO new hospital admissions yesterday. My employer’s manufacturing sites have had no positive cases despite increasing production to three shifts and staffing up.

If those numbers are able to remain relatively consistent at enough places in the world, you are going to see things open back up. That is great to hear for Pittsburgh.

Here's a CNN article that goes in depth with the debate we have been having here:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/05/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-ec...index.html

"It's the balance of something that's a very difficult choice," Fauci said on CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time," putting the bargain in the form of a question the American people must resolve.
"How many deaths and how much suffering are you willing to accept to get back to what you want to be, some form of normality, sooner rather than later?" he asked.

My governor telling it like it is...

https://www.kentucky.com/news/coronavirus/article242505696.html

(Then stating it was an "audio glitch...")