Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

Tennessee announced that amusement parks, water parks and "more" can reopen starting May 22nd. Dollywood is currently planning their reopening and will announce that date soon.

I wasn't sure where to share this, but the big ol' thread seemed most appropriate.

Why do some COVID-19 patients infect many others, whereas most don’t spread the virus at all?

Most don't spread it at all!? Really?

That seems about right, says Gabriel Leung, a modeler at the University of Hong Kong. “I don’t think this is quite like SARS or MERS, where we observed very large superspreading clusters,” Leung says. “But we are certainly seeing a lot of concentrated clusters where a small proportion of people are responsible for a large proportion of infections.” But in a recent preprint, Adam Kucharski of LSHTM estimated that k for COVID-19 is as low as 0.1. “Probably about 10% of cases lead to 80% of the spread,” Kucharski says.

If you say so. Crazy stuff.

Also, the CDC changed the wording (and, in turn, the overall take) on how the virus spread by now saying:

- The virus spreads easily between people.
- The virus does not spread easily in other ways.

Specifically the wording about surface transmission was changed, put under the "does not spread easily" header and now reads:

From touching surfaces or objects. It may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes. This is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads, but we are still learning more about this virus.

This is a little bit of a shift of sorts. It seems to downplay surface transmission compared to before.

At the very least, it's light years away from gloves, compulsive handwashing and "clean zones" for the stuff you bring in from outside that were prevalent at the front end of things.

Just two stories that caught my eye today as they represent a bit of a change (as far as I understood things) concerning the transmission of the virus.

I still don't think that is going to change the sanitation theater that is happening everywhere anytime soon.

I told my wife about the "new" CDC position on spreading the virus when I saw an article talking about it yesterday. She said that is old news and noted that the referenced CDC page has been there since April 13. Did we all just miss it or is there some conspiracy going on with the CDC updating their pages but not changing the page date?

This is a huge deal to me as it greatly reduces my stress about going to stores. Yes I can still catch it from breathing around people who are sick but at least I don't have to be as anxious about touching a box of Cheerios.

How did we go from being told to set up disinfectant stations in our garage to make sure we decontaminated our groceries to its "no big deal"? This seems too big for all of us to have missed.

Yeah, I'm not sanitizing Amazon packages or other deliveries, because even early on the little research we had implied this was not a serious infection vector. I mean, yeah, I'll wash my hands after unpacking something, but people staging things on their porch and whatever, that seems a little unfounded.

This has been my understanding for some time. I didn't even wipe down my Blue Apron ingredients last delivery. Just tossed them all in the same drawer. :)

It's comforting to hear their shift on surface transmission when my company is spending a fortune on products and labor just to clean surfaces.

COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios

Some info from the CDC that I wanted to share because I'm going to present it in relation to my earlier take on age being the key factor to understanding the real risk.

They outline 5 scenarios changing a few of the variables in each scenario. The worst case shows symptomatic cases for those under 50 years old having a fatality ratio of .1% at worst - the same as the flu. And that's only symptomatic cases. Some scenarios have the asymptomatic rate as high as 50% - which would make Coronavirus half as deadly as the flu for people under age 50.

Under some scnarios the same number hold true for the 50-64 age group - same as the flu. Under other scenarios it's as much as 6 times the risk for this age group...until you account for asmptomatic cases and it can be cut as much as half (three times the fatality ratio)

The scary numbers come in the 65+ group where the falality rate ranges from a low of .6% (6x times the overall flu fatality rate of .1%) to 3.2% (32x!).

With all of that said, Scenario 5 is a "best estimate" scenario that uses the current numbers believed to be accurate. In that scenario the fatality rates for the symptomatic are:

0-49: 0.0005 (half of the flu)
50-64: 0.002 (double the flu)
65+: 0.013 (13x the flu)

It puts the overall rate at 0.004 (4x the flu).

This scenarios also has an asymptomatic rate of 35%, so if I understand correctly, for an overall rate you could cut the above numbers by a third as the fatality ratio is only figured from symptomatic cases.

Now, with that said, even a fatality rate of half that of the flu leaves us with a decent amount of death - Coronavirus seems to be quite a bit more contagious than the strains of influenza that make their way around annually...and low risk doesn't mean no risk. But I like to think those numbers lend a bit of perspective to the actual risk any of us face on an individual level.

Again, just sharing information.

---

Also, the latest out of my fair state of Ohio is that 70% of our deaths come from nursing homes and 78% are people aged 70 or older.

This means that Ohio has had just 364 COVID-19 deaths under age 70 based on yesterday's confirmed death total of 1653.

And I know this sometimes sounds like I'm downplaying the importance those that are of the ages to be facing the most threat, but it's mostly about understanding where the risk lies. I'm not throwing grandma under the bus and saying, "You're on your own, old lady!"

You can't look at fatality rates without considering how contagious it is. A stake in the heart is probably 99% fatal, but not very contagious. I know that you mention it, but it's kind of the thing. That there is new research indicating there's little seasonal effect doesn't help.

Totally. But sometimes it feels like everytime there's good news or positive statistics, the goalpost gets moved.

However, I do agree. Like I said, it does nothing for the total pandemic death counts. But it says a lot about the real individual risk for someone like you or me.

I’ve wondered about nursing homes for a while. I realize that seniors are more susceptible, but what’s about a nursing home that guarantees infection and almost guarantees death?
Then I was reminded that the cases actually originate from the people that work there. And who are they? For the most part minorities and immigrants, and we know there’s a racial disparity. I go back to density of living conditions as the blame. And a friend that does nursing home therapy for a living (and yes, she’s nervous) told me that a good percentage of nursing home employees work at more than one, each holding down 2 or 3 jobs. Which absolutely increases their chance to expose the most vulnerable.
So yes, simply, the young, asymptomatic amongst us count for 0 of the dead until you factor in the contagion aspect of it.

Lord Gonchar said:

But sometimes it feels like everytime there's good news or positive statistics, the goalpost gets moved.

Which is why I've stopped participating in any discussion about this. People are going to believe what they want to believe. I'll just agree to disagree and do what I do...

Genuinely curious... where does belief fit in your daily decision making process? How is it different in where it fits relative to this health issue?

Without speaking for Rob, I see it as the fact that anytime anyone on here posts something that is positive, optimistic, or something that could be perceived as "good news", others immediately play the role of Debbie Downer and bring up the worst parts of things and immediately crap on whatever positivity was shared and essentially says everything sucks, Science, and don't dare try to have a positive outlook because the numbers say everything is terrible.

By "others" I assume you mean me. But that doesn't answer the question. I get that optimism is rooted in belief. Believe it or not, I'm insanely optimistic IRL and in work.

Maybe a better question is, what informs your belief to be optimistic?

It's kind of important. When the guidance you get changes almost daily, you have to evaluate that information, decide how it fits or modifies your model of how the world works, and then take action on what you believe...what your model of how the world works now looks based on the information you have. I don't care what kind of background you have, whose information you read, what you think of the advice you've been given...you are going to process that information and develop your model--your belief--and make your decisions based on that model. Note that unlike HeyIsntThatRob? I fully allow that beliefs are going to change. But whatever model you accept, that's what you...believe.

Let me give you a concrete example. The advice we have been given about coronavirus on surfaces has been that traces of the virus have been found on surfaces weeks after they were left behind. Maybe not viable virus, but recognizable traces of virus. We've heard that live virus can stay live on stainless steel for four hours, on plastic for days. So people have been cleaning like crazy, wiping down surfaces and spraying disinfectant constantly. I don't know if you've been in a grocery store lately, but you know those plastic handle covers on the grocery carts? Those are pretty much destroyed from all the disinfectant they've seen in the last couple of months.
And now the CDC says that there is a very low risk of infection from SARS-Co-V2 coming off a contaminated surface.
Now I have to process that. I have to consider what the CDC is saying now, compare it with what I know about viruses in general and the danger of contaminated surfaces, and figure out what that means in terms of how I am going to behave. Now I'll tell you that I think the CDC advice is generally sound, but the sound-bite leaves out some important distinctions. If I've got COVID-19 (which I'm pretty certain I don't, but bear with me here) and I cough all over a shopping cart handle (since COVID-19 doesn't generally involve sneezing, which would be a better example), I'm probably going to leave some SARS-Co-V2 behind. And that virus, being a fragile virus, will live there pretty much until the ...ahem... moisture it is encapsulated in evaporates. If I immediately hand that cart off to someone else, that wet virus is going to end up on that person's hands, and if he licks his fingers he has a pretty good chance of getting a dose of virus from that contaminated surface. That's not what the CDC is telling us, that's what I believe based on what I know and what I have been told. But if that handle has a chance to dry off for a few minutes before some other poor soul gets hold of it, that virus is going to dry out and probably won't be viable by the time that person gets his hands dirty. Now his risk is very low, in accordance with the newest CDC guidelines (assuming they didn't change again today).

I could be totally wrong about that, and the CDC isn't explaining it the way I just did. But to me, it fits both the "old" and the "new" guidance. And it explains why I have not been quarantining my groceries on the back porch, and why I am still washing my hands *a lot*.

We do this, consciously or otherwise, for every risk management decision we make. Yeah, I think what you believe is pretty darned important. Hopefully it is grounded in reality.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Jeff said:

.Maybe a better question is, what informs your belief to be optimistic?

You are right in that it's not nearly as fact or data based as it would be for you. For me, in the COVID world, being optimistic is seeing that none of my friends, family or co-workers have been ill with this. It's that despite the awful two and a half months we've had as a nation, I have seen some inspirational people doing some good things. It's that after two and a half months of being closed, some of the library locations where I work have reopened successfully this week and my location opens in a week and a half. It's seeing friends and acquaintances in the theme park world getting called back from furlough. It's seeing articles like the one Gonch shared where things for my immediate circle are relatively optimistic, and that we know who in the circle or loved ones in the circle are at the higher or highest risk and what we can do to keep them safe. It's having folks like Fauci (and I didn't think I'd ever say this next one) Mike DeWine at the helm in my home state where my parents and some close friends live, despite what President Dips**t blows out of his ass on a daily basis.

I think in any conversation outside of this COVID conversation, Jeff, we are probably very like minded and would get along great. We both grew up in Northeast Ohio, figured out we had to leave to not get incredibly sad with seasonal affective disorder every year from November to April but still love and miss Cedar Point, and appreciate Central Florida living despite the shortcomings. Drinks with umbrellas at Epcot or Universal are something that (outside of this) are available to us whenever we want, but we also know we're fortunate to have that. I'm sure we could talk for hours about coaster nerd stuff, growing up in Northeast Ohio, and why the f the traffic on I-4 West from Exit 64 to Champion's Gate in the early evening (pre-COVID) makes Midtown Manhattan at rush hour look like nothing.

As Gonch pointed out somewhere at some point, your approach is to take all of the literal facts and present them as such. I agree. Testing sucks. The numbers aren't nearly good enough to show this is ending. Our leadership outside of a few key individuals is an international embarrassment. There will be a second wave. I'm not disagreeing with any of it. But I'm also seeing that in so many places it wasn't nearly as bad as predicted. I'm seeing things opening up and in many places people are being smart enough to do it as safely as possible. I understand that realistically more people are going to die than would have if we locked down sooner and stricter. But that didn't happen. And the numbers are going to spike with the way we are doing things. And maybe Universal is opening too soon. We're all flying blind here and we're being led by a guy that is clearly making it worse. But subjectively I just look for the good in each day, the positive in each news story or numbers report. It's an awful situation made worse by the way it was and is being handled. But I'm still optimistic that we are in a better place than we were at the end of March/beginning of April. We at least know enough now to know what we should have done then. And we know enough so we can get back to some level of normalcy in a much safer way than just opening the doors.

And I can go ride a roller coaster in two weeks. Not necessarily the one I want to ride, but I'll have the option to do it. That's an optimistic feeling.

It wasn't as bad as predicted because we took action. Now we're flippantly acting like it's all good, when the disease is now among us and there's still no treatment or vaccine. But maybe you're on to something in terms of perspective. When half of your coworkers live in NYC, you can bet that you view it in a very different light.

Regarding Dave's post, first off, I disagree that guidance, from people qualified to give it, has changed daily. It has actually been remarkably consistent. What has varied has been the specificity with which the statisticians could model outbreaks, because there wasn't a lot of data to work with. But with the preliminary understanding of how contagious the disease was, the guidance has always been to use social distancing to limit the spread, that not doing so would cause significant death and overwhelm the healthcare system.

Second, John Q. Public, you and me, don't model anything, because it's not what we do. We are not experts. But we can use critical thinking to evaluate the credentials of experts and recognize their consensus. At that point, we put aside our egos and recognize that those experts know exponentially more than we do, and that our opinions do not hold equal value to the consensus of experts. What I believe doesn't mean dick. People believe the world is flat and that climate change isn't caused by the actions of humans. Are they right too? Does it matter how they model their beliefs?

You can bring up surface pathogens as some kind of anecdote about the correctness of information, but while experts have said that it's possible to find it living on surfaces, they generally did not weigh in on the viability of transmission that way. The Internet took care of that. Even if experts did weigh in on it and were wrong, that wouldn't invalidate the very real truth that people are really good at spreading it around, and despite our efforts (certainly not our best), almost 100k Americans are dead so far in the last two months that wouldn't have been otherwise. It's not over, and it isn't going to get better. I know this because there's little reason to believe that the experts are wrong.

That doesn't give me a lot to be optimistic about, and it only leads me to believe it's going to keep getting worse and prolong all of it. It doesn't mean that there aren't things to be optimistic about (I too have been sucked into Some Good News), but opening up theme parks isn't one of them.

Even if science says not to, I'm going to go ride White Lightning this weekend

This is a quick semantic point...

Replying to me, Jeff said:
...John Q. Public, you and me, don't model anything, because it's not what we do. We are not experts. But we can use critical thinking to evaluate the credentials of experts and recognize their consensus. ...

Ah, but that's exactly what we do. You are thinking of modeling in the sense of a mathematical model, and that's too specific; that's not what I am talking about at all. In fact, I think you know exactly what I mean...you even alluded to it 9emphasis mine)...

...People believe the world is flat and that climate change isn't caused by the actions of humans. Are they right too? Does it matter how they model their beliefs?...

I'm talking about a "model" as our view of how the world works. It's based in experience and observation and hopefully informed by the people we learn from. We know things about our universe and how we think it works, and we extrapolate from what we know to try and anticipate the answers to the things we don't know. The more accurate our models are, the better we are at using them, mostly. But we model everything. It's how we figure out what inputs to put into the black boxes in our lives to get the outputs we want. How about a black box with wheels where we've learned that if we push the right-hand pedal it goes faster, if we push the left-hand pedal it goes slower. That's all we really have to know for that part of the model. And the model is abstract enough that we know that it applies to all kinds of vehicles, and it doesn't matter whether they run on dinosaur juice or angry pixies. Then we get into an airplane and discover that the pedals have a completely different function, and we have to work that into our model. More experience makes for a better model.

I think you know what I meant, but I thought I'd best make sure.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.