D&D and the rising pandemic

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yes, but that's more than a bit of an understatement. A more accurate statement is "The American lockdown was a disaster that reduced the spread of Covid-19, but was not initiated soon enough or broadly enough to be effective to the point that was needed."

And we had the complications of misinformed imperfect compliance and deliberate noncompliance.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

And we had the complications of misinformed imperfect compliance and deliberate noncompliance.

Oh, and the protests against the lockdown.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes, but that's more than a bit of an understatement. A more accurate statement is "The American lockdown was a disaster that reduced the spread of Covid-19, but was not initiated soon enough or broadly enough to be effective to the point that was needed."

That's more like most of the world.

Each person getting 60 000 calories heading for the hills for a month would help a lot. Not really viable though. They shut down 60%+ of the economy and did a wage subsidy. Subsidy will run out just after the election in September.

Looks like the economy will bounce back faster than expected and the bad parts will be towards the lower end of the doom and gloom scenarios (11%-25% unemployment).

No one really knows. Data from 1918-20 isn't that relevant now.

 

[Ryujin]

Ontario is down to 240 cases/day, and 90% of them are in one city (Toronto) and 75% of them are medical care (old folks homes included) related.

So 24 cases/day for 8 million (give or take) people (depending on how widely you define "Toronto"). Plus others asymptomatic, of course.

Good news:

Areas with exhaustive contact tracing are finding asymptomatic infected people (people who catch C19 and get better without symptoms), and more importantly, are not finding infections in turn from them. Presymptomatic people (people who have C19, and before they develop symptoms) are a different story.

So contract tracing based on people with symptoms and positive tests (even a runny nose) should be effective at making Re plummit; have their contacts isolate and get tested. (By going after their as-yet asymptomatic contacts, we catch presymotomatic people before they start infecting others).

Social distancing and the rise of summer means that traditional colds are dying off; so everyone with any cold-type symptoms gets tested, you have a good chance of being able to choke this thing off.

Add in modest social distancing (no indoor choir singing! Masks for service workers! Working from home when possible!) and ramp up the economy without megadeath. Maybe.

---

This is one of the reasons behind "flatten the curve". It bought time. We know more about how it spreads, we have more PPE, we have hospitals that know how to treat it, we have tests to detect it. Now we can drop Re more efficiently than we could in March.

And if we keep Re under 1.0 and this thing dies out.

Now, the number of additional infected during the die out phase is (1/(1-Re)). So an Re of 0.9 isn't that useful (as we get 10x more infected before it dies out). An Re of 0.5 means we get 2x more infected, and one of 0.25 means we get 33% more infected. OTOH, our learning and testing and contact tracing gets better as numbers fall and time passes; so even an Re of 0.9 means it doesn't get worse (per day), and if costs are low enough we can sustain that and start applying improved measures.

Unfortunately I live in Peel Region, which currently has one of the highest infection rates. In fact a very close Postal Code was specifically mentioned in the list of Postal Codes that Premier Ford didn't want to release. I expect to be a virtual shut-in for another month, though I will have to start doing 2 days a week at work, in downtown Toronto, starting next week.

If only I could convince my gaming buddies to do virtual games.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

If only I could convince my gaming buddies to do virtual games.

I know, same.

 

[Hussar]

In other news, please don't gargle with bleach.

Now, there's a sentence that I never, ever thought I'd have to utter.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

In other news, please don't gargle with bleach.

Or inject UV light into yourself. It doesn't have to be said, because how are you even going to do it?

 

[Zardnaar]

Or inject UV light into yourself. It doesn't have to be said, because how are you even going to do it?

UV light in Australasia is fairly dangerous.


Haven't figured out how to inject it.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

UV light in Australasia is fairly dangerous.


Haven't figured out how to inject it.

We need to find a vaccine for UV light now!

 

[NotAYakk]

Apparently gargling with extremely dilute iodine is a Japanese thing, and won't kill ya. If you are tempted by bleach. (reseach the concentration they use, don't eyeball it)