Coronavirus

It's not what people want to hear, but it's likely that sheltering in place will be necessary for many, many more months. California is fortunate in that the governor seems to have gotten ahead of this thing enough to keep our early exposure down, and we should be able to flatten the curve in a more expedited manner than most states (as long as we maintain social distancing). But one needs only to look at China's recent relaxing of their coronavirus measures, and the subsequent recurrence of the virus' spread in their country, to recognize just how vigilant we will need to be if we don't want COVID-19 to claim the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans. Business will have to adapt. And the feds, the states, and local governments will need to do much to ease the financial toll this will exact on families.

Unfortunately, it means we're not likely to be out of the woods by summer or autumn, the way many are forecasting. And I certainly can't imagine a vaccine being ready and mobilized for mass delivery before summer 2021 at the absolute earliest. It needs to be tested. It needs to work. It needs to be safe.

Of course, I understand the impulse to want to believe we can just beat this thing into submission, like COVID-19 is an enemy we're warring against. But it doesn't care about our guns and our ingenuity and our American exceptionalism. It doesn't care about anything, period. It just spreads, efficiently and dispassionately. Americans are optimistic by nature. Californians even moreso. But magical thinking won't save us. Listen to the doctors and the nurses. Listen to the scientists and other related experts. They're the heroes in this particular fight.
At some point, there needs to be stratification. Best explained here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/opinion/coronavirus-economy.html

Most small to medium sized businesses can’t survive a three month pause; hence, the 10 million (and counting) new unemployment claims. And most large businesses won’t survive a 6 month or more shut down—hence the need to save Boeing (bcz of its supply chain financing practices) and others. This is an economic disaster that is going to take years to recover from.
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
My understanding is that the shelter in place orders are to keep it from spreading at a rate faster than the hospitals can provide care not to stop it in its entirety. So life will go back to normal but it may also necessitate a second shelter period if the curve ramps back up. People will still get sick and die when we return to our workplaces. The hope is that once it is controlled a herd immunity will develop before a vaccine is ready. But hopefully they don't abandon all work on the vaccine like they did with the last SARS.

That said, based on the data I was presented this week, we're on week 3 here and there are 6 more to go before we start dipping our feet in the water. So best case we're looking at continuing to shelter for twice as long as we already have. Scary proposition for many.
 

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
The moral of the story: Don't eat bats no matter how delicious they may appear to be.


PS: Rumors of COVID-19's demise in Japan were greatly exaggerated as the proverbial poo is poised to hit the fan in Tokyo within possibly the next week.
 
Way too pessimistic take from L'Optimisme here. A couple of weeks of shelter-in-place makes folks forget it's still early April. We'll get through this.

My prediction:

There will be MLB this season, but the season will likely be 100 games or fewer.

NFL season will go on as usual.

After desperately trying to make something sensible work out, the NBA will give up on playoffs this year. Next season will go off as normal, with no shift in the starting date needed once "late playoffs" are scrapped.

College sports (football/basketball) next season will be relatively unaffected.

Sports fans will return to their sports in droves, and any drop in attendance due to fear of contagion (10% at best) will quickly be made up for if the teams drop pricing to adjust for it. Sports will remain strong.
I appreciate the counterbalance take here. I certainly hope you're right and I'm wrong. However, I have a gut feeling that the spectator market for pretty much everything was inflated. I hate to be the contrarian here (ok fine, maybe not)... but in the back of my mind I'm just wondering if large gatherings will ever be a normal thing again. To be honest I just don't know, and for once, I'm trying to set aside my "intentional optimism".

For all my optimism, people should know that I use it as a personal psychological tool. I try to at least be aware of the negatives. However in this situation, I'm hyper aware of catastrophic negatives... and not because I have lost hope in humanity, or our country, or our economy, etc... it's because this feels very different... and it can't be compared to SARS, ebola, MERS, anything... the DNA on this virus appears to have been engineered, and, without getting too political... we seemed to have been due for a major world conflict. Whatever or whoever was behind this (and I happen to think there was someone/something behind this... it wasn't just an "accident")... also seems to be behind some of the propaganda around the bungled response. Look, I don't care if you think I'm a nutjob conspiracy theorist. I don't care. But this is not a case of "oops a natural virus got out of a lab on accident". I believe this is 5th generation warfare intended to upend the world order.

We shall see.
 
I appreciate the counterbalance take here. I certainly hope you're right and I'm wrong. However, I have a gut feeling that the spectator market for pretty much everything was inflated. I hate to be the contrarian here (ok fine, maybe not)... but in the back of my mind I'm just wondering if large gatherings will ever be a normal thing again. To be honest I just don't know, and for once, I'm trying to set aside my "intentional optimism".

For all my optimism, people should know that I use it as a personal psychological tool. I try to at least be aware of the negatives. However in this situation, I'm hyper aware of catastrophic negatives... and not because I have lost hope in humanity, or our country, or our economy, etc... it's because this feels very different... and it can't be compared to SARS, ebola, MERS, anything... the DNA on this virus appears to have been engineered, and, without getting too political... we seemed to have been due for a major world conflict. Whatever or whoever was behind this (and I happen to think there was someone/something behind this... it wasn't just an "accident")... also seems to be behind some of the propaganda around the bungled response. Look, I don't care if you think I'm a nutjob conspiracy theorist. I don't care. But this is not a case of "oops a natural virus got out of a lab on accident". I believe this is 5th generation warfare intended to upend the world order.

We shall see.
It's a deeply human tendency to seek shelter in answers for the inexplicable. We conjure up images of vengeful gods to explain the suffering that results from environmental catastrophe. We craft elaborate conspiracy theories in an attempt to puzzle our way out of that which has no discernible edges. It's easier to deal with if there's a "they," if there's an enemy we can name, if it's deliberate and not just a series of random collisions that has no explanation.

But we often forget that the natural world is violent and chaotic. There's little reason in it. It's all reactionary. Attack here, develop an adaptation there. We've managed to insulate ourselves from the realities of nature through extraordinary advances in medical technology. But sometimes a disease is just a disease. A hurricane is just a hurricane. Just because we're in its path doesn't mean there's a good reason for it to harm us. It just is.

Personally, I'd split the difference between your "pessimistic" take and Capt.'s more "optimistic" take. I don't think sporting events will resume normally this year. But whenever they do, I expect fans to return with great enthusiasm. Human beings are nothing if not predictable. We seek comfort in that which is familiar, even if it may endanger us. We declare victory long before the battle is won because we like the way it feels, even if deep down we know it's untrue.
 

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
Personally, I'd split the difference between your "pessimistic" take and Capt.'s more "optimistic" take. I don't think sporting events will resume normally this year.
Just keep in mind that "this year" is a long time. We've been doing Shelter In Place in California for barely over two weeks now. It seems like an eternity, it's been barely over two weeks. People are already going stir-crazy, and the economy can't take it for a whole lot longer. In the end, we're basically going to have a choice between a certain deep worldwide economic depression coupled with massive social unrest, or a probable hospital surge. It's not a hard choice. I would be very surprised if things don't start opening up by the end of April. Sports will take a bit longer, but once the world is back up and running, sports will jump back in soon.
 
Yes, I get ever you are saying. However that’s not what I was questioning. You said you had heard there would be no vaccination, That seems to contradict what’s being said. Is it going to be here next week, next month, next year? No, most likely not. Was just trying to get clarification where you got that there would be no vaccine? Above just outlines what kind of effort and time it takes to get something tested, approved, etc.
They won't come out and say there won't be one, they would get blasted. They will try to make one. But if they haven't been able to make one for a cold, why would they be able to make one now? Would you want one that came out this year when it should take 10 years to be tested?
 
Just keep in mind that "this year" is a long time. We've been doing Shelter In Place in California for barely over two weeks now. It seems like an eternity, it's been barely over two weeks. People are already going stir-crazy, and the economy can't take it for a whole lot longer. In the end, we're basically going to have a choice between a certain deep worldwide economic depression coupled with massive social unrest, or a probable hospital surge. It's not a hard choice. I would be very surprised if things don't start opening up by the end of April. Sports will take a bit longer, but once the world is back up and running, sports will jump back in soon.
I'm hearing the CA stay at home has pretty much been extended through May , it just wont be announced till the end of April. It would take a drastic change in numbers for it to be lifted any sooner.
 
Just keep in mind that "this year" is a long time. We've been doing Shelter In Place in California for barely over two weeks now. It seems like an eternity, it's been barely over two weeks. People are already going stir-crazy, and the economy can't take it for a whole lot longer. In the end, we're basically going to have a choice between a certain deep worldwide economic depression coupled with massive social unrest, or a probable hospital surge. It's not a hard choice. I would be very surprised if things don't start opening up by the end of April. Sports will take a bit longer, but once the world is back up and running, sports will jump back in soon.
It isnt a hard choice if you're talking about the difference between tens of thousands of Americans dying or hundreds of thousands of Americans dying. I'm not sure how many in this country recognize the gravity of those figures in such a short span of time. Less than 60,000 Americans died in the entire Vietnam War. We could double that figure in Coronavirus deaths by 2021 if we aren't diligent. People who were healthy yesterday will be dead tomorrow, and it's up to individual societies to determine just how much of that death is acceptable to them.

The thing is, "end of April" may not even represent the peak of COVID-19 infection in America, especially since states in the Midwest and the South aren't being hit very hard yet. But when they do get slammed, especially some of those Southern states with older populations and woefully inadequate hospital infrastructure, it's going to be a travesty. The only way to really mitigate that is with hypervigilant social distancing measures.

And yes, the country and the world will start opening up again this year, but slowly, deliberately, and in a limited capacity. I imagine that large gatherings for things like sporting events and concerts will remain restricted for some time. Gavin Newsom has already said he will be listening to the advice of experts on the subject of whether or not it's safe for major sports leagues to resume play in front of their home crowds. He's anticipating that he won't be relaxing those restrictions for many months. I think some sort of MLB/NFL/NBA action will occur this year, but I don't believe "normal play" will resume, particularly if the governors of populous states like CA and NY maintain heavy restrictions on large gatherings of people.

To be clear, I don't think the world is going to look radically different on the other side of this pandemic. I'm not an alarmist. But COVID-19 is going to do a ton of damage, and things aren't going to go completely back to normal. Lots of people are going to die who shouldn't be dead. Parents. Grandparents. Friends. Neighbors. Governments are going to be in the unenviable position of picking economic winners and losers. Local businesses will fold. Restaurants you love won't return. Movie theaters could disappear.

People will press on, and we'll adapt to whatever our new reality ends up being, but I think Americans, in all their optimism, are still in the middle of reckoning with the severity of this pandemic. HIPAA laws prevent COVID-19 deaths from being "on the news" in the same visceral way that coffins returning home from Vietnam were. Just because it's harder to see doesn't mean it's not an absolute catastrophe, and "end of April" doesn't just challenge the wisdom of doctors, scientists, and other experts, it represents a stark moral choice. How much death is acceptable when we could implement simple measures to save lives?

Our economic prospects are much-diminished by COVID-19 in the short-term, but even economists admit that the long-term consequences of bungling our coronavirus response could be much worse than the pain we're feeling now.
 
They won't come out and say there won't be one, they would get blasted. They will try to make one. But if they haven't been able to make one for a cold, why would they be able to make one now? Would you want one that came out this year when it should take 10 years to be tested?
ok, so you haven’t heard there will be no vaccine. I’m not trying to get into an argument about it or attempting to be a jerk, but to say you heard there is not going to be a vaccine is misinformation. Maybe there will be one and maybe there won’t. I am just going by what I read and hear from the experts, not government officials, but actually doctors and scientists.
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
Reality is that vaccines are researched based on profitability. There is a lot more money in treating a common cold that is rarely fatal and mutates far too often to properly vaccinate vs. a novel virus that is producing high fatality rates. That's why we vaccinate for the flu. Consider that treatment for this epidemic is going to largely be written off, whoever comes up with a vaccine is likely to be the big winner even if it ends up given away for free the "we're the firm that produced the vaccine that saved millions" is going to carry a lot of weight for at least a decade when requesting grant money.
 
ok, so you haven’t heard there will be no vaccine. I’m not trying to get into an argument about it or attempting to be a jerk, but to say you heard there is not going to be a vaccine is misinformation. Maybe there will be one and maybe there won’t. I am just going by what I read and hear from the experts, not government officials, but actually doctors and scientists.
Your hearing from the companies trying to make a vaccine who want people to buy their stock.
 
Reality is that vaccines are researched based on profitability. There is a lot more money in treating a common cold that is rarely fatal and mutates far too often to properly vaccinate vs. a novel virus that is producing high fatality rates. That's why we vaccinate for the flu. Consider that treatment for this epidemic is going to largely be written off, whoever comes up with a vaccine is likely to be the big winner even if it ends up given away for free the "we're the firm that produced the vaccine that saved millions" is going to carry a lot of weight for at least a decade when requesting grant money.
And without going through the standards for trials and approvals the potential lawsuits could wipe out profits. Company's gave up on a SARS vaccine after a could years when it was no longer considered a threat. When the treatment and testing of COIVID-19 becomes better understood the need of a vaccine will lessen.
 
It's a deeply human tendency to seek shelter in answers for the inexplicable. We conjure up images of vengeful gods to explain the suffering that results from environmental catastrophe. We craft elaborate conspiracy theories in an attempt to puzzle our way out of that which has no discernible edges. It's easier to deal with if there's a "they," if there's an enemy we can name, if it's deliberate and not just a series of random collisions that has no explanation.

But we often forget that the natural world is violent and chaotic. There's little reason in it. It's all reactionary. Attack here, develop an adaptation there. We've managed to insulate ourselves from the realities of nature through extraordinary advances in medical technology. But sometimes a disease is just a disease. A hurricane is just a hurricane. Just because we're in its path doesn't mean there's a good reason for it to harm us. It just is.

Personally, I'd split the difference between your "pessimistic" take and Capt.'s more "optimistic" take. I don't think sporting events will resume normally this year. But whenever they do, I expect fans to return with great enthusiasm. Human beings are nothing if not predictable. We seek comfort in that which is familiar, even if it may endanger us. We declare victory long before the battle is won because we like the way it feels, even if deep down we know it's untrue.
The human world is also violent and chaotic, and full of intelligent power seeking people which form into nations and influence world events in sophisticated ways. While what you say about humans seeking answers for complex events is true, speculating on the real wold mechanics of that is not necessarily a coping mechanism. You lose every war you don't realize you're in.
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
And without going through the standards for trials and approvals the potential lawsuits could wipe out profits. Company's gave up on a SARS vaccine after a could years when it was no longer considered a threat. When the treatment and testing of COIVID-19 becomes better understood the need of a vaccine will lessen.
There is some truth to that. Also if we develop herd immunity. Reality is its at least an 18 month process in the USA, maybe 12 if restrictions were lessened, and it will probably have run its course by then. That said it might be worth pursuing just in case the next one is a mutation. I think we are going to see more of these not less as more of our planet is populated by humans and the animals that can host these reach civilization.

It's my hope that unlike past potential pandemics actually having this one pan out will reshape the way we behave in many aspects.
 
I live in a town of about 15k people. We are about 45 minutes out of Columbus Ohio and their cases are climbing as are their neighboring counties.

We have had 6 cases in my county with one death but the one who died contradicted it in Florida and died there. The person had been there since November but it’s still counted here because of their residency.
4 of the other 5 work in Columbus and were tested there. They since have been released from any restrictions. One elderly person is still in the hospital but has been recovering.

Now having said that I kinda of look at us like some of the states in the middle of the country.

Waiting with baited breath for the next shoe to drop but all the cases actually here we didn’t get the results back from 10 to 12 days after they were tested. I believe if testing continues to lag behind it will be hard to control.

As far as shelter in place I can say I have seen a drastic reduction in people out in public and traffic is extremely light.

Most of the local stores have started to restrict the number of customers who are allowed in at any point in time. A few of the smaller stores that are open have closed off sections and have been greeting customers when they come in and direct you to or get your items for you to reduce and shorten your time in the store.

Some of the larger stores are struggling to get enough help as curb side pickup and delivery is becoming big.

I am sure conditions here in some ways are the same for you. for me it seems all surreal.
 
There is some truth to that. Also if we develop herd immunity. Reality is its at least an 18 month process in the USA, maybe 12 if restrictions were lessened, and it will probably have run its course by then. That said it might be worth pursuing just in case the next one is a mutation. I think we are going to see more of these not less as more of our planet is populated by humans and the animals that can host these reach civilization.

It's my hope that unlike past potential pandemics actually having this one pan out will reshape the way we behave in many aspects.
so now they think California already has a herd immunity because it's been here since the fall.

https://abc7news.com/coronavirus-covid-19-herd-immunity-california/6091220/
 

pdxKingsFan

So Ordinary That It's Truly Quite Extraordinary
Staff member
so now they think California already has a herd immunity because it's been here since the fall.

https://abc7news.com/coronavirus-covid-19-herd-immunity-california/6091220/
I am just not sure I buy that given the high R0 (I've seen 5.4?) and the fact that the Wuhan outbreak and subsequent Italian outbreak have done far greater damage than anything CA experienced plus it would have spread throughout the US first if CA was the epicenter. Of course it is possible it mutated from whatever hit people in CA last year (and I've heard people go back as far as February of 19) but to me this seems like a lot of wishful thinking.
 

Warhawk

Give blood and save a life!
Staff member
so now they think California already has a herd immunity because it's been here since the fall.

https://abc7news.com/coronavirus-covid-19-herd-immunity-california/6091220/
Yeah, the problem with everything right now is lack of available testing. We can speculate all we want one way or another but without actual data it is just a guess.

Some folks are saying the actual death rate is lower than reported because deaths possibly due to other causes are being lumped in as "virus"-related. But the opposite also appears to be the case; for instance, a spike in deaths in NY are being labeled as "cardiac"-related even though no tests are being done and the number of such deaths is 4 times what it was a year ago at this time. These are deaths not necessarily in hospitals, but where people are dying at home, etc.

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/loc...en-as-sign-of-covid-19-undercounting/2368678/

Again, without adequate testing we will never know who has had it, who hasn't, and how to attribute the deaths by various causes. And until we have a grip on the situation, we can't start letting folks back to work.

If we could find out who has been exposed already and is potentially immune from re-exposure, those people could freely go back to work or be able to work with those currently exposed (first responders, etc.). But we also need more data on the various strains that might be out there and how exposure to one strain may impact the possibility of being stricken by another. We just don't know at this time.