Coronavirus (Sports-Related and General)

rpmcmurphy 2020-03-12 13:01:04 UTC #21

Part of the problem is that we cannot just assume that the virus will remain relatively mild, or that it is only a danger for the sick and elderly.

Viruses mutate. That is why certain strains of influenza are much different from other strains. It is why flu vaccines must be continually updated, and why they vary in effectiveness year to year.

I think that it is a big mistake to think that what is happening now is an overreaction. It could actually be too little too late. We simply do not know.

The economic hit that we are now taking is in large measure due to the clownishly inept and slow response that the “leader” of the world’s largest economy has taken. This is what happens when those who hate government try to govern.

Lawman 2020-03-12 13:08:17 UTC #22

I tend to agree w/ this. But, there is a line where it is an overreaction. I just don't know where that line is.

andyb 2020-03-12 13:15:33 UTC #23

It is probably not an overreaction to start canceling crowd events (not just sports) until we get a handle on this. Might as well slow the number of new cases until we figure out proper protocols. For most people that will probably end up staying home for a couple of weeks if they get the virus (with certain exceptions for older or sicker people). We don't know that yet though. I wouldn't be shocked if the number of people who actually have the virus in the country is around 100,000 now. The transmission is too wide and varied for that not to be true. That also is likely good news in that the fatality rate is much lower.

We probably don't start to beat this thing until we get some herd immunity of lots of people getting it and recovering.

Now should I go with my friend to the Caps game tonight? I am guessing it is 50-50 the game will actually be played.

bigegypt0417 2020-03-12 13:27:32 UTC #24

20% of the population is certainly not a number to take lightly. Of course we need to balance our reaction but those who may be impacted mildly will come in contact with those who can die from this disease.I tend to believe that the current reaction is an attempt to unring a bell and we know how effective that is...

Lawman 2020-03-12 13:34:25 UTC #25

Agreed that 20% is not to be taken lightly. But, neither is a loss of millions of dollars in lost revenue, loss of jobs, etc...

el-pietro 2020-03-12 13:54:56 UTC #26

Confirmed cases and death tracker
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Italy has taken further quarantine actions, closing bars, restaurants and most shops - 12,462 confirmed cases, 827 total deaths.

Spain has suspended La Liga along with football at all levels including professional and amateur leagues. Schools in Madrid are closed. - 3003 confirmed cases, 84 deaths

Denmark has closed daycare, schools and universities, and sent non essential public workers home with paid leave. Limits on public gatherings to 100, bars being encouraged to close. Libraries, museums etc closing and churches etc encouraged to close.
https://www.thelocal.dk/20200311/denmark-to-shut-all-schools-and-universities-to-fight-virus
Ireland has closed down chold care facilities, schools and universities, limited gatherings above 100/500 indoors and outdoors respectively. Those who can work from home are encouraged to do so - 43 confirmed cases, 1 death

Slovakia has shut down their borders - 16 confirmed cases
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-12/slovakia-closes-borders-for-non-residents-to-fight-coronavirus.

Purduke 2020-03-12 13:55:55 UTC #27

While I tend to be one of what rcmcmurphy would call the "hate government" crowd, it is hard to accuse orgs and states from overreacting right now given that the lack of testing is really harming our ability to make informed decisions about more tailored responses. Just to add a little data into the conversation -- does anyone remember the results of the swine flu from 2009?

Infected in the US - 60 million +
Hospitalized in the US - 275,000
Deaths in the US - 12,500

That occurred over a roughly 10 month period. Back in 2013 during Obama's first term when, by definition, government was stunningly competent, agile, strategic thinking and well, just wonderful in every way.

Using the Fauci estimate that this virus could be 10x more lethal than an influenza type outbreak, and you end up with numbers that no one is being prepared for right now.

My frustration, though, is with all the happy talk we hear from the hospitals and local city/state officials about how "prepared we are" for these outbreaks. "We practice these drills every 6 months with state officials monitoring our drills so we are really well prepared if for something like this." "And here we have a special isolation ward with 30 beds if we get hit with a serious outbreak." And yada yada. And you watch what happens in New Rochelle and you see one person walk into an ER and force 40 doctors and nurses to self quarantine for 2 weeks? No protocol existed in those semi-annual, state monitored tests that the first thing you do is establish a screening tent away from the ER?

But at least we can be assured that once we get through this, government will create 32 house and senate investigations to ensure … drum roll please - politicians favorite words to follow ….. "that this will never happen again." But then I guess I'm just a government hater.

Lawman 2020-03-12 14:20:30 UTC #28

Our whole reaction is akin to building the plane and trying to fly it at the same time. We're responding in real time and making decisions on the fly.

phillychuck 2020-03-12 14:20:58 UTC #29

But, viruses in general and corona viruses in particular mutate to become more mild. That is genetically favored, because killing or severely sickening your host hinders transmission. This is true historically in 100% of the cases we have studied, but it's not certain in the way, for example, physics is certain. I wouldn't spend a lot of time worrying about a more severe mutated strain of COVID-19 even though it is a theoretical possibility. We should be making policy based on the most likely scenarios, not remote, nightmare possibilities.

Jazzhead 2020-03-12 14:51:31 UTC #30

phillychuck:

sf:

As I understand it, the point is to flatten the bell curve on the spread so that you don’t have a whole bunch of infections all at once, which would overwhelm our hospitals who would not be equipped to handle so many patients.
This is an interesting point. It IS important to flatten the bell curve on things like Ebola or the Bubonic Plague, because everyone who gets sick from them will need serious treatment. For this virus, what is important is to protect the vulnerable (those over 70, especially lifetime smokers, males, and those with other conditions (emphasema and diabetes, especially). Flattening the bell curve for the population age 0-65 or so will have no impact since 90+% of those will require no treatment, and the rest can mostly be treated as out-patients.

It just seems to me there must be some way to isolate the likely victims without shutting down the entire economy. People who are close to the edge, living paycheck to paycheck, will suffer immensely from this. Restaurants near colleges, service businesses, small merchandise stores (again, especially those near colleges), people who are part-time already and will lose all their hours, people who are in the kind of jobs where businesses will have to furlough them, people who manufacture things other people buy with the money they earn, etc. And we can't just print money to pay them all, as much as that would be helpful to them, it seems like this will be too large a disruption--it would make the Bush-Obama bank bailouts look minuscule in comparison.

I think this is driven by people being overly afraid of a pretty mild (in most cases) virus, by people being afraid of lawsuits, and by some degree of copy-cat-ism. I don't know if we have thought about a way to actually protect the elderly likely victims in a less draconian way. But it's certainly too late now to change course.

Thanks for this post, phillychuck. It makes sense to me.

bkeich 2020-03-12 14:58:17 UTC #31

On the upside, South Korea and Italy are seeing a reduction in infection rates, so the actions they are taking seem to be helping (working?). I would say that implementing some of the actions (masks if sick, 3 foot distance from each other, etc) will help us.

Large venues like sports and parades seem like bad ideas because, well, frankly, some people are stupid and will go when sick.

(I retract the part of Italy's rate dropping, either I did not read it correctly or I was misinformed, didnt mean to imply something incorrect)

bigegypt0417 2020-03-12 15:01:34 UTC #32

So what in your mind is the balance?

Italy has 12,000 plus cases and 800 plus deaths...that seems like a rate a bit higher than 1-2%...no?

Lawman 2020-03-12 15:04:32 UTC #33

Another Utah Jazz player, Donovan Mitchell, has tested positive.

phillychuck 2020-03-12 15:05:51 UTC #34

I didn't know Italy had turned the corner already. That is really positive news if true.

South Korea is a very disciplined society, I'm not surprised their infection rate is down.

It's a unique problem because of the symptoms-free hosts (both pre-infection and extremely mild cases). Sometimes you don't know you're sick. For me, I have a 90-year-old father with lung issues. Do I visit him? I've been pretty isolated for the last two weeks or so, and I feel fine, but I'm still worried. I have to make this decision today since we usually get together Thursdays...

My Dad wants me to come since he's pretty fatalistic about something or other "getting him", but I sure don't want to be the disease vector that triggers a serious health crisis.

andyb 2020-03-12 15:07:32 UTC #35

They probably have hundreds of thousands of infected people in Italy though. We might also. Our rate is so much lower because so few tests have been run AND the fact that 80% of cases are mild (so people just get better in a couple of weeks, hopefully staying home). We don't know for sure the death rate is lower than 1%, but it is actually fairly likely from a data perspective.

phillychuck 2020-03-12 15:07:49 UTC #36

Italy has way more than 12,000 cases. The estimate is 80% of cases are undetected. That would put the true case fatality rate at 800/60,000, a bit over 1%. And the case fatality rate will go down as we get more experience with treatment.

bigegypt0417 2020-03-12 15:18:37 UTC #37

Isn't that actually worse? if you have that many people walking around spreading a disease with little known, I think you need to take steps until there is an understanding. When entities like the NBA and the NCAA take steps that will cause them immense amounts of money, we may want to give that some weight...all of a sudden we seem to have a bunch of amateur disease specialists all over the TV and social media.

Lawman 2020-03-12 15:23:29 UTC #38

To play devil's advocate, if you have that many people walking around, feeling fine, then doesn't that indicate the disease is relatively harmless?

el-pietro 2020-03-12 15:23:33 UTC #39

I think its too early to say there has been a reduction in infections in Italy. They put their lockdown in place two days ago. Since then deaths have continued to increase. They likely don't have the capacity to test as much as they need to be doing and they still had over 2,000 new cases yesterday. That is the most they have confirmed in a single day. They also had 196 deaths yesterday.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

Countries like South Korea, China and Singapore are the ones seeing slower infection rates, I don't think the western world is ready for the same sort of personal actions that are being taken in these countries, or the full quarantine put in place in regions in China.

el-pietro 2020-03-12 15:24:56 UTC #40

People walking around unharmed are the most dangerous, they will spread it unknowingly. Like Rudy Gobert just did to Donovan Mitchell