Coronavirus in Massachusetts (features, home, schools)

[mdovell]

Practically speaking terms like urban and rural and City and town have more exact definition. in Massachusetts you cannot be considered a rural area if you got more than 10,000 people. The designation of an area to be a city or a town in based on how they see fit. You going to have a city of 20000 like Greenfield. There are cities in Texas of 300 people. In terms of rural areas in eastern Mass I would immediately think of something and probably Halifax. Something doesn't even have three thousand people and supposedly they've got more cows on the roads and cars there's only six roads in that town.

I know of many urban Gardens across Massachusetts that clearly can yield a fair amount of products. It can be perfectly legal to raise chickens in Massachusetts and technically speaking even piggeries. Check your zoning rules.


the latest I read today out of a pharmaceutical company in India is that it may take 45 years before everybody gets a complete vaccinations in the world

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/09/...covid-19-dose/

I've also read that the actually shipped this around the world you're going to need 8000 Pilots. I don't know if we got 8,000 Pilots sitting around not doing anything.

on the subject of risk vs uncertainty Nasim Talib wrote in the Black Swan long ago that risk is when you know the odds and uncertainties is when you don't. For example if you were to play Russian Roulette you know the odds, if somebody would have grabbed you and do it to you that's uncertainty.

[redplum33]

Originally Posted by redplum33

No, it wouldn't mean that. There are approximately 6 million cases in the US and approximately 200k deaths. That puts survivors at about 5.8 million. Approximately 75% of those survivors are experiencing COVID-related health problems according to a report on the NBC Nightly News.

Any estimate above the ~6 million confirmed cases is speculation, and that's why there is such a huge range (6X to 24X).

And, to be clear, I'm not suggesting in any way that there aren't plenty of unconfirmed/unknown cases. But you simply can't include them in this type of study.

Originally Posted by Matt32

Right, when you don't know the exact multiplier, you use a range. That's the proper thing to do. We know that there are many more infections than the 6 million detected via PCR+. No room for ambiguity.

It's ironic that you're dismissing the (absolutely vital) contextualization of a multiplier as "speculative" when your own post claims that it's not "detected cases" but "COVID survivors" for whom the 75% applies. Think about the message that sends.

I tried googling NBC + keywords indicative of what you're claiming and couldn't find anything. If you have one, a link would be handy. The devil is almost always in the details of this headline - dig deeper and you'll find that the denominator is actually total hospitalizations / severe cases (a much smaller basis than total infections) or the paper it was based off was still a pre-print and it got retracted or revised, or has way too small of a sample size to be useful.

How would anyone know if the unconfirmed/unknown cases are experiencing health issues months later? That's why they can't be included in this type of study. We can't just assume they're fine. They very well could be dealing with fatigue, brain fog, high blood pressure, etc.

[redplum33]

Originally Posted by Bridge781

I keep hearing people say things like, many people who’ve had Covid are still not doing well even though they’ve recovered. That is certainly bothersome but what good does it do to drive this point home ? Anyone who says this is clearly insinuating that we should continue life as we are now with many things closed and not happening. Vaccines and treatments would be nice but when will those be available? I don’t believe that a vaccine will be available in November.

Because so many people are only focused on the small % of deaths, and they don't seem to realize that there's a high likelihood that they would suffer from chronic and debilitating health issues for their foreseeable future if they get the virus. It's not all or nothing.

And, yes, we should continue to live life as we are now. We can't just go back to normal; the virus doesn't care if we're tired of it.

[CaseyB]

I just flew into Logan tonight and there was no effort to alert the passengers to any quarantine. We just got off the plane and walked out the door. I didn't see any signs, either.

[bohemka]

Originally Posted by CaseyB

I just flew into Logan tonight and there was no effort to alert the passengers to any quarantine. We just got off the plane and walked out the door. I didn't see any signs, either.

That's disappointing. Come on, Massport.

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by mdovell

Practically speaking terms like urban and rural and City and town have more exact definition. in Massachusetts you cannot be considered a rural area if you got more than 10,000 people. The designation of an area to be a city or a town in based on how they see fit. You going to have a city of 20000 like Greenfield. There are cities in Texas of 300 people. In terms of rural areas in eastern Mass I would immediately think of something and probably Halifax. Something doesn't even have three thousand people and supposedly they've got more cows on the roads and cars there's only six roads in that town.

I know of many urban Gardens across Massachusetts that clearly can yield a fair amount of products. It can be perfectly legal to raise chickens in Massachusetts and technically speaking even piggeries. Check your zoning rules.


the latest I read today out of a pharmaceutical company in India is that it may take 45 years before everybody gets a complete vaccinations in the world

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/09/...covid-19-dose/

I've also read that the actually shipped this around the world you're going to need 8000 Pilots. I don't know if we got 8,000 Pilots sitting around not doing anything.

on the subject of risk vs uncertainty Nasim Talib wrote in the Black Swan long ago that risk is when you know the odds and uncertainties is when you don't. For example if you were to play Russian Roulette you know the odds, if somebody would have grabbed you and do it to you that's uncertainty.

Please just stop it. It is ABSOLUTELY hitting the urban areas harder (Chelsea, Brockton...) and for obvious reasons. The numbers do not lie, it's not even open for debate.

[mdovell]

Originally Posted by massnative71

Please just stop it. It is ABSOLUTELY hitting the urban areas harder (Chelsea, Brockton...) and for obvious reasons. The numbers do not lie, it's not even open for debate.

Those aren't the only cities in the state. Springfield hasn't had a death in three weeks. Holyoke has 1,000 cases bug that's in total, not new. Pittsfield hardly has any, same with North Adams and Greenfield. In April cases exploded, no argument there but then it dropped.

The curve was flattened in western mass in April/May.

https://www.wmasscovid.com

For the past two weeks there been more in Suffolk County vs Hamden. More in Plymouth and Bristol.. That's nyt numbers.

There's other factors that can be at play like obesity and blood type.

[Matt32]

Originally Posted by redplum33

How would anyone know if the unconfirmed/unknown cases are experiencing health issues months later? That's why they can't be included in this type of study. We can't just assume they're fine. They very well could be dealing with fatigue, brain fog, high blood pressure, etc.

Your original post said "75% of COVID survivors". That's an objectively inaccurate conclusion to draw from the data you had available. You're playing fast and loose with "could be"s; specious theorizing based on anecdotal reports and outliers is irresponsible when there isn't an emergency and irresponsible when there is an emergency.

Again, we know roughly what volume of people have gotten this and survived. It's huge. All infectious pathogens, including ones with a much higher IFR than this one, and including all the ones that are most genetically similar to SARS-CoV-2, leave a small portion of survivors with lingering problems, almost always the most acutely affected, almost always healing over time.

If you want to advance speculation that this virus breaks from that well-established norm and leaves the vast majority of those it infects with lingering or permanent damage - a claim that by definition implies tens of millions of people already impacted today - then the onus is on you to meet a high bar for evidence.

You're essentially promulgating the idea that getting this is a slow-motion death sentence; I'm not sure you're aware how damaging it is to stoke fear into the millions upon millions who have crossed paths with this infection already that they have no hope for recovery.

[wolfgang239]

Originally Posted by Matt32

You're essentially promulgating the idea that getting this is a slow-motion death sentence; I'm not sure you're aware how damaging it is to stoke fear into the millions upon millions who have crossed paths with this infection already that they have no hope for recovery.

All of the unsourced doom and gloom is starting to get tiring. Out of context headlines and journalists trying to play epidemiologist are not helping people make rational decisions. Cowering away in fear on the internet and searching for each day's latest bad news is not good for mental health.

[mdovell]

https://www.hackensackmeridianhealth...s-of-covid-19/

"A recent study from the University of Frankford in Germany showed abnormal heart findings in more than 75% of people studied who had recently recovered from COVID-19. A considerable majority of patients in the study were found to have had inflammation in the heart and muscle lining.

This can be troubling as inflammation in the heart can lead to long-lasting cardiac disease and failure.

“There’s a lot more that needs to be studied, but it’s important to know that there’s the possibility out there that a coronavirus infection could mean development of a serious heart condition,” says Dr. Jacobs."

"Research shows COVID-19 can affect the brain and central nervous system. Some people have reported symptoms like headaches, dizziness, trouble concentrating or recalling things and even hallucinations after recovering from COVID-19. Investigators indicate that symptoms are most common in patients who had severe forms of disease. Strokes are also an ongoing concern among patients who have recovered from COVID-19. Learn more about if COVID-19 can cause a stroke.

“As inflammation increases in the body, so does the chance of a stroke-causing blood clot, although we do not yet entirely understand why clotting is more common with COVID-19 infection than with other viral infections such as the flu,” explains Dr. Jacobs. “Inflammation is known to be a risk factor damaging the heart. Others recovering from COVID-19 have had heartbeat irregularities as well.”

This isn't some conspiracy theory website.

Jama is as legit as they come
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...rticle/2768916

"A total of 78 patients who recovered from COVID-19 infection (78%) had cardiovascular involvement as detected by standardized CMR, irrespective of preexisting conditions, the severity and overall course of the COVID-19 presentation, the time from the original diagnosis, or the presence of cardiac symptoms. The most prevalent abnormality was myocardial inflammation (defined as abnormal native T1 and T2 measures), detected in 60 patients recently recovered from COVID-19 (60%), followed by regional scar and pericardial enhancement. Findings on classic parameters, such as volumes and ejection fractions, were mildly abnormal. Myocardial measures, native T1 measures, and native T2 measures provided the best discriminatory value against healthy controls and risk factor–matched controls for exclusion of any myocardial disease or confirmation of COVID-19–related involvement, respectively."