Coronavirus in DFW - News & Discussion (Howe, Italy: hospitals, worth)

[CHRockwell]

Originally Posted by As Above So Below...

That is a huge part of it, I highly doubt thats the only reason though.



Its way more complex than that. Its not a good analogy because you dont have to choose between keeping the parachute closed and not being able to pay your bills. Weve got to do something at some point. Ive heard it said "we dont make the timeline, the virus does", thats true, but that saying doesnt amount to a hill of beans because when people have to pay their bills, they have to pay their bills. If you have to choose between getting the virus and economically surviving vs. staying home and potentially having no money to pay your bills, its a complex decision and will vary from person to person. For this reason, we do have to figure out some sort of timeline collectively, virus or no virus.

Well said. I have to laugh when people say "how dare you want open anything and risk your life or other people's" yet they go to the market weekly and risk their lives. They touch deliveries and risk their lives. They go to work, or get gas, or see their family and do the exact same arbitrary thing.

Everyone has their criteria.

Letting the economy and all these lives go to crap isn't worth it to me. For a little while it was. It needs to now start to ease.

[DPatel304]

Originally Posted by CHRockwell

Well said. I have to laugh when people say "how dare you want open anything and risk your life or other people's" yet they go to the market weekly and risk their lives. They touch deliveries and risk their lives. They go to work, or get gas, or see their family and do the exact same arbitrary thing.

Everyone has their criteria.

Letting the economy and all these lives go to crap isn't worth it to me. For a little while it was. It needs to now start to ease.

Well said! It sounds harsh, but that's the reality of the situation. Unless someone plans to have zero human contact until there is a vaccine, then they are making the choice to risk their health and the health of other people.

[move4ward]

A 17-year old high school girl passed away from Coronavirus in Dallas County.

Lancaster high schooler becomes youngest to die from COVID-19 complications in Dallas County, officials say
https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/he...8-928856cfb353

[Katana49]

Originally Posted by move4ward

Costco updated their webpage with a new face mask requirement, effective May 4th.
https://www.costco.com/covid-updates.html

I wonder what medical condition CMC will invent to not wear a mask to Costco.

[Sunbather]

Originally Posted by Katana49

I wonder what medical condition CMC will invent to not wear a mask to Costco.

I've heard a few people mentioning 'what about people who cannot wear a mask due to an existing medical condition?'. If it is a respiratory condition, then they likely should not be in the first batch of people going out right now either. And if it is something more mental than physical, like PTSD, then unfortunately I would have to say the same thing. You are likely not a good candidate or being out and about right now anyway.

[carrcollie]

In Wal Marts that are local it has been noticed that customers seem to be deliberately walking in the opposite direction of the arrows on the store aisles, possibly as some sort of "protest". They should read the story about this 17 year old girl who died from the virus.

[elan]

Originally Posted by carrcollie

In Wal Marts that are local it has been noticed that customers seem to be deliberately walking in the opposite direction of the arrows on the store aisles, possibly as some sort of "protest". They should read the story about this 17 year old girl who died from the virus.

Do you have a link to support that?

[move4ward]

Originally Posted by carrcollie

In Wal Marts that are local it has been noticed that customers seem to be deliberately walking in the opposite direction of the arrows on the store aisles, possibly as some sort of "protest". They should read the story about this 17 year old girl who died from the virus.

Another reason for me to avoid Walmart. I am one of the anywhere-but-Walmart shoppers.

[tcualum]

I have mild claustrophobia and find wearing a mask to be quite uncomfortable. I am also at greater risk because of asthma. My solution is to get curbside pickup and delivery as much as possible (just placed an Instacart grocery order and did curbside at Target today) and wear my mask properly when I have to go out in public such as when I got my allergy shot today. I don't consider skipping the mask to be an option.

That being said, wearing a mask doesn't really help if you don't wear it properly. I've seen way too many people wearing a mask with their nose sticking out and at the shot clinic, one woman's homemade mask was way too loose around the bridge of her nose to the point where she might as well have not been wearing it over her nose.

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

Texas has its worst day ever today. 1,395 new cases and 59 deaths. Seriously, what are people seeing in the numbers that makes them think this is a good time to open? Record high cases and deaths....so how exactly is the worst behind us?

These half-closures, half-openings can run indefinitely. Katana made a great analogy here a while back: It's like we were prescribed a seven day run of antibiotics and have stopped taking them after three days because we were feeling a little better. Of course, we'll be back on the antibiotics, and we can do that dance for a very long time.


To the "it's time to open" crowd: What are you seeing in the numbers that makes you think this is a good idea? Or do the numbers just not matter?

Originally Posted by CDContribuitor

2 points -

1) I do not know how you are ariving at 'peak active cases' unless you are tracking recovered cases.

You can do a 7-day or 10-day lookback based on new daily cases. This is why the White House task force recommended fourteen straight days of declining cases, which Texas isn't even close to (highest new daily case total ever was today). If new daily cases have declined for 14 straight days, active cases will almost certainly have peaked as well.

Here are the national numbers for a 7-day and 10-day lookback....as you can see, we are pretty much at the top:




Opening things up when we might be at peak virus is crazy.

You've said before that you think deaths matter more than anything since testing is uncertain. Well, Texas had 59 deaths today. How exactly is it a good idea to open things up when this virus is at its worst? We've now had over 61,000 deaths nationally and are adding 2,000+ per day (2500 today). These are as bad of numbers as we've ever seen.

This is not a "measured" move. It's insanity.

Originally Posted by CDContribuitor

2) Austin-but-not-Dallas argument is touched upon in my earlier point. In my opinion, DFW can be looked upon as a unit since there is economic activity and flow of people across counties. Similarly Austin and its suburbs, Houston and its suburbs have to be looked upon as individual units. So each of these economic units have to make a decision on its start date. Rural parts of the state can be opened, owing to its low numbers.

I am continuing to advocate for social distancing measures, targeted contact tracing (especially for passengers coming in at airports like DFW). Private businesses have an obligation to help contain the spread by enforcing social distancing, masks (cloth masks at least) wearing at all times, cleanliness guidelines for their facilities, temperature monitoring, etc.

Austin and DFW and Houston are all way too close and include too much travel between them for them to be units. There is a reason the states around New York were hit so hard. That sort of plan isn't going to work.

Contact tracing is impossible when there are 30,000 new cases nationally and a thousand new cases in Texas every single day. Focusing on DFW passengers is silly because we can't even do contact tracing on the people we know have the virus because there are a thousand new ones every day. Why would we use contact tracing resources on people who only might have the virus?

I agree that contact tracing should be an important part of this, but it doesn't work when case numbers are this high.

Originally Posted by CDContribuitor

One last point - I have always believed that we were not behind on getting infections, we were behind on testing and reporting active cases. So, the fact that we are in control of our hospitalization numbers and capacity percentage for beds and ICU beds and are at par with Spain or Italy or even better than them at this point, is a good sign.

That is true, but it does not lead to this:

Originally Posted by CDContribuitor

It is an indication that we have flattenned the curve enough to ensure our hospital system will not be overwhelmed for the current wave of the pandemic.

That is a non-sequitor. The fact that social distancing has allowed our hospital system to meet demand means the social distancing is working. It doesn't mean that we can open things up and not have the system be overwhelmed.

We are on our blood pressure medication, and we're now at a manageable level. That doesn't mean we can jump off it.

Originally Posted by As Above So Below...

Weve got to do something at some point.

Of course. No one is saying this should go on forever. Most experts have said we need a few things:

1. 14 days of declining case numbers. Texas just set a record for case numbers and deaths today, so it's on day zero.
2. Increased testing capacity
3. More PPE for non-essential workers
4. Lower case numbers so we can do contact tracing
5. Better serology testing and data

These things aren't forever away. They might be a month or two, but they aren't here yet.

Originally Posted by As Above So Below...

The curve is a lot flatter compared to a month ago at least.

Yes, it has flattened at the peak. That's a bad time to open. We should be down, off of the peak a good ways before opening. Instead, what we have is the highest number of cases we've ever had, and we're now going to open things up and let all of those "seed cases" spread.

Originally Posted by hbdwihdh378y9

What is a "case"? Is it an infection, or something else? We currently have no idea how many new infections we are getting each day, and anything else you want to count is arbitrary in a way that will overstate new "cases" compared to past "cases".

A case is a positive test. I completely agree that our positive tests are understated, but thus far, they have correlated well with deaths, which is likely more accurate. We've been very close to 28-33k cases and 1800-2500 deaths on a daily basis, so until there is a deviation in this ratio, there's no reason to think that our positive tests has stayed high simply because we are catching a higher percentage of the true positives. If that were true, the number of deaths per positive test would have dropped.