Coronavirus COVID-19

[ignatius]

26 minutes ago, Soloman Tump said:

4000 capacity temporary hospital opening in London on Monday, thousands of extra NHS staff being drafted in.... This will get worse.....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52018477

US military setting up field hospitals in NYC. gonna get big ugly and overwhelm all the hospitals i'm sure. 

[chenGOD]

55 minutes ago, goDel said:

Disagree. You imply that it would be realistic to fund the system such that there wouldn't be any problem under the current (abnormal!!) circumstances. Frankly, it makes no sense to always have this kind of peak capacity available. That's like driving a car with an extra tank on your roof with 1000 liter extra gasoline just in case you unexpectedly need to drive to the other side of the planet.

The system in Italy (the northern region) is known as a high quality system. Want to argue that a woefully underfunded system could be high quality? Madness.

Also note, if you look at the healthcare system from an economic point of view - and especially hospitals - you see most of the costs are structural (as opposed to variable). Meaning that the costs don't scale with the volume. Whether you treat 100 patients or 1000 patients in a hospital, the yearly budget wouldn't change much. There's a required amount of people that need to work in a hospital and the hospital itself is mostly bricks and a couple of expensive machines. It's by definition a sector with low flexibility in terms of peak capacity. It's not like IT, where you can insta-call in some extra server capacity to keep up with peak demand.

And the suggestion that what we're currently seeing is in the same ballpark as "any sort of surge" is crazy as well, btw. 

Finally, yes margins in hospitals are spread thin. But this is including costs for what has proven to be reasonable peak capacity. Where reasonable means what we have had some kind of experience with in the past, and what you'd expect could happen in the future. What's happening now....nobody would have though this could be possible. Not at this scale and with this speed. This is simply unheard of.

What the implications will be for our healthcare systems in the future (eg. in terms of budget) is still not clear, I'd argue. Even with what we're seeing, it's not nearly as obvious as you seem to suggest, I'd argue. We can't buy ourselves out of this.

This is generally speaking, of course. Because this might be different for each country. But generally speaking, budgets of healthcare systems is one of those things thats always a discussion. This holds for most, if not all western countries. Some more than others perhaps. But it's more likely all systems have equal peak capacity, regardless of margins. Believe it or not. Reason is that in western countries you could argue there's an equal chance of needing relatively equal amounts of peak capacity. It's not a silly idea to regard it a constant. Which is good btw, as we know hospital systems mostly consist of those structural costs mentioned earlier. So it's relatively straightforward to budget peak capacity. (in the case of being reasonable about it, that is)

Sigh, if that’s what you got from me saying “any sort of surge capacity” then clearly I failed in communicating. 
obviously this is well beyond and normal surge, but if margins are this razor thin, then it points to structural and systemic issues. 
We know that people have issues with wait times for example in Canada (not as overblown as free market healthcare people suggest but there are wait times). The same has been indicated in the UK, and indeed the US. 
so that’s pretty clear that there is very little wiggle room. It’s even worse in developing nations, who are likely to be hit harder by this. 
 

It’s not unreasonable to say that putting more money (in a directed fashion) into the system would provide tangible benefits that aren’t onerous on health budgets. 

[hijexx]

 

[jules]

2 hours ago, J3FF3R00 said:

My mom and stepdad had something similar in late January / early February that completely knocked them out for almost a full month. 

I talked to my mom a couple days ago and she was going on about how she may have had it and might be in the clear now. I had to try to convince her not to assume that she had covid-19, even if she might have (which I'm pretty sure she didn't), and to continue living as if she was trying not to catch or spread the coronavirus.

Better safe than sorry.

yea maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part. Probably not the case or a bunch of people around me would have had it as well. 

[marf]

Having worked in kitchens. I'm not sure that it is a good idea getting take out. People think kitchens and the staff are way cleaner than they actually are. Especially something like a salad? Forget it. Kitchens are always hot, dirty. messy. You get in the weeds and you don't give a fuck about anything but getting the order out 

 

Pizza delivery is probably ok since they keep it hot and Im assuming the virus can't live in that heat.

Edited March 24, 2020 by marf

[prdctvsm]

Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance, by Tomas Pueyo

What the Next 18 Months Can Look Like, if Leaders Buy Us Time

Edited March 24, 2020 by prdctvsm
blech

[Taupe Beats]

46 minutes ago, hijexx said:

 

Wasn’t this same piece of shit one of the ice cream lickers?

Edit: It sure is.

Edited March 24, 2020 by Taupe Beats

[brian trageskin]

yeah i think that's him

great job dude 

[Hugh Mughnus]

@baph how are you doing???

[ignatius]

9 minutes ago, brian trageskin said:

yeah i think that's him

great job dude 

"how does the world view america these days"  wtf. kids got no sense sometimes. 

[Zephyr_Nova]

36 minutes ago, marf said:

Having worked in kitchens. I'm not sure that it is a good idea getting take out. People think kitchens and the staff are way cleaner than they actually are. Especially something like a salad? Forget it. Kitchens are always hot, dirty. messy. You get in the weeds and you don't give a fuck about anything but getting the order out 

 

Pizza delivery is probably ok since they keep it hot and Im assuming the virus can't live in that heat.

It's the cardboard box you have to worry about.  The virus can live there for quite a long time. With any takeout stuff you should microwave it into hotness before consuming.  Which, as it so turns out, makes McDonald's double cheeseburgers quite satisfying I'm ashamed to say.  Everything just melts into itself.  

[cwmbrancity]

Edited March 25, 2020 by cwmbrancity
It's a squid ok

[sweepstakes]

3 minutes ago, cwmbrancity said:

[Enthusiast]

48 minutes ago, prdctvsm said:

Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance, by Tomas Pueyo

What the Next 18 Months Can Look Like, if Leaders Buy Us Time

This guy is good

[cruising for burgers]

A wise man once said:

The cure CANNOT be worse than the virus! 

Edited March 25, 2020 by Tim_J

[cruising for burgers]

1 hour ago, marf said:

Having worked in kitchens. I'm not sure that it is a good idea getting take out. People think kitchens and the staff are way cleaner than they actually are. Especially something like a salad? Forget it. Kitchens are always hot, dirty. messy. You get in the weeds and you don't give a fuck about anything but getting the order out.... 

Yeah i can confirm this... Here on the ship i often go to the kitchen to get food for the cast and it is indeed a disgusting place... No gloves, no hand washing, people coughing and sneezing in uncovered plates with food... A lot of times I'm eating and i have a hard time trying not to think about it... 

Edited March 25, 2020 by Tim_J

[YEK]

I think a skip to dishes for snacks would be a really great idea right about now...

[luke viia]

1 hour ago, Tim_J said:

Yeah i can confirm this... Here on the ship i often go to the kitchen to get food for the cast and it is indeed a disgusting place... No gloves, no hand washing, people coughing and sneezing in uncovered plates with food... A lot of times I'm eating and i have a hard time trying not to think about it... 

QFT

[Zephyr_Nova]

New cases between yesterday and today in Canada spiked by by over 300%.  They dropped 50% between Sun and Mon, so I was hopeful we might be on a decline.  But no, that was just the calm before the storm apparently.  I wonder why there would be such a wild shift in the pattern like that - biggest drop off followed up immediately with the biggest jump.  My first thought was people going back to work on Mon, but that wouldn't be it unless symptoms were visible overnight... which I'm pretty sure is not how these things work.  So... weird, and alarming.

Edited March 25, 2020 by Zephyr_Nova

[apriorion]

Yes. I worked in kitchens for my livelihood for nearly a decade, and I can also confirm all of this. Just humans serving humans; it’s no different seeing strangers working hard in front or strangers working hard in the back. 

[diatoms]

3 hours ago, prdctvsm said:

Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance, by Tomas Pueyo

What the Next 18 Months Can Look Like, if Leaders Buy Us Time

nice one:)

 

The Dance of R

                                     AVE

[Roo]

University of Sydney modeling (albeit not rigorously peer-reviewed just yet) shows that apparently 8 of 10 Australians complying with simply staying home may flatten the curve into controllable territory over 3 months. 70% compliance will result in failure to flatten the curve. 90% compliance would come close to eliminating the threat. Closing schools will ultimately have negligible impact on all this.

So yeah, hopefully 3/4s of us at least are strictly following self-isolating advice.

Edited March 25, 2020 by Roo

[J3FF3R00]

4 hours ago, Mesh Gear Fox said:

this is probably the biggest case of trump being dangerously stupid in the most literal way

remember when republicans were crowing about dems wanting death panels...

I don’t believe that he is stupid. I believe that he is a monster of a person that A) is so fully self-absorbed/narcissistic that he truly could care less to get details correct and to even entertain a moment’s thought that isn’t 100% about himself being the best at everything... B) is so thoroughly corrupt and shady that he can’t operate on any other level than conning the fuck out of everyone he comes into contact with... and C) has been coddled to so relentlessly for his entire life on such an absurd scale that his comprehension of reality is deeply, tragically distorted. 

If he was actually stupid, I don’t think he would be as successful as a con man. He continues to be an incredibly successful con artist. 
He’s the worst. I hope he and all of the soulless slimebags in the RNC get this fucking virus in their daily golden shower circle jerk meeting and die a painful death. 

 

 

edit

wtf

super-glitches

4 hours ago, Mesh Gear Fox said:

4 hours ago, Mesh Gear Fox said:

Edited March 25, 2020 by J3FF3R00

[diatoms]

On 3/22/2020 at 10:35 PM, diatoms said:

On 3/22/2020 at 10:26 PM, Enthusiast said:

Investigate 3/11

someone investigate my total

reputation

please

[cruising for burgers]

9 minutes ago, diatoms said:

someone investigate my total

reputation

please