Corona virus

[Fantaztic7]

In Canada 79% of our deaths have occurred in Long Term Care Facilities. It's very unfortunate, and something we need to be ultra focused on correcting, but it highlights that the initial picture painted of bodies littering streets isn't going to occur. Healthy people will get Covid, and they will beat it. Many may not even know they had it.

The Kaiser Family Foundation is tracking cases and deaths in long term care facilities here in the states. Not all states are reporting. It is really tragic.

Also, the focus on trying to protect the entire population has likely diverted resources from those facilities. We know from the the traditional flu that elderly people are more vulnerable. We don’t even need the current data to understand elderly people would be a greater risk.

Here’s the death rate in long term care facilities from several states here (per 100,000 population):

New Jersey 23.1
New York 18
Massachusetts 17.5
Connecticut 10.5
Louisiana 10
Pennsylvania 6.6
Colorado 4.4
Illinois 2.2
Florida 1.2

If we believe there could be a resurgence, we should be assessing how we can better protect these vulnerable populations.

[58Miller]

Taken from the Lincoln Journal Star:

The Sioux City metropolitan area — including Dakota County in Nebraska, tucked on the bluffs of the Missouri River — has the fastest growth of coronavirus cases in the U.S.

The five-county area encompassing parts of Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota topped the New York Times’ list of metro areas with the highest daily COVID-19 growth rate, charting a 131% daily increase in recent days.

So, I would use explosion, that's me though. They had not implemented stay at home orders. My friends thought they were relatively going to go unscathed because it really wasn't talked about until the workers at the plant started getting sick. But with it breaking out at the meat plants, they have seen a spike. And now there are people questioning if they need to do some sort of limited order. Who knows.

How many deaths?
The most up to date numbers show 11 deaths in a state with 880,000 people.

[Bronco51]

So in a conversation about Covid, in a thread about Covid, your response about Covid wasn't specifically dealing with Covid? That's interesting.

Yes, hard decisions are hard. That's why they get paid the money they're doing. But I'd rather a person in power make the hard decision that's unpopular rather than listening to the masses on Twitter. Right now we have decision makers making decisions that are easy because they're popular on twitter.

Just wait until the bills come due, that will lead to some very unpopular decisions.

As for your specific Province, it was never going to be the threat that it was made out to be, your province is too spread out and with relatively little in population. When my friend was getting the hospital in Winnipeg ready for Covid he couldn't believe they were doing it. And now that it sits empty (some units are 2 or 3 nurses to every 1 patient right now) he just shakes his head and wonders about it all.

Yep. My friends in Nebraska were saying their neighbor state in Iowa is making news there (some people commute to work there) because when they open up they have said that workers who fear getting sick at work will not qualify for unemployment benefits and it's a voluntary resignation. Hard decision, but I understand if you have a business and fear losing your business because people don't want to go to work.

[Bronco51]

How many deaths?

The article was from today. I think it might take some time to know how that will pan out.

[Bronco51]

Yep. My friends in Nebraska were saying their neighbor state in Iowa is making news there (some people commute to work there) because when they open up they have said that workers who fear getting sick at work will not qualify for unemployment benefits and it's a voluntary resignation. Hard decision, but I understand if you have a business and fear losing your business because people don't want to go to work.

And, here in Colorado, we have already been told the cuts to education will be catastrophic.

[Fantaztic7]

Taken from the Lincoln Journal Star:

The Sioux City metropolitan area — including Dakota County in Nebraska, tucked on the bluffs of the Missouri River — has the fastest growth of coronavirus cases in the U.S.

The five-county area encompassing parts of Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota topped the New York Times’ list of metro areas with the highest daily COVID-19 growth rate, charting a 131% daily increase in recent days.

So, I would use explosion, that's me though. They had not implemented stay at home orders. My friends thought they were relatively going to go unscathed because it really wasn't talked about until the workers at the plant started getting sick. But with it breaking out at the meat plants, they have seen a spike. And now there are people questioning if they need to do some sort of limited order. Who knows.

When you have a small base of cases it doesn’t take many new cases to spike the percentage. The meat plants are small hot spots so to speak. I was in a small meat packing facility the other day. It’s a small local plant and we were there to pickup an order. When one of the workers opened a door we saw the employees at their stations - close together without PPE.

If they shut down a state because of spreading in meat packing plants, they’re not thinking clearly. If social distancing works then modify the work stations by putting dividers between them and using PPE. I was at a Target store yesterday getting groceries and they’ve done a nice job of putting flex glass between the cashier and guests. It’s hard to keep 6’ of space at the checkout register so they innovated with the barriers.

Going back to those states the death rates per million people are very interesting - those with social distancing have been no worse than those with strict lock downs.

[Rastic]

[58Miller]

The Kaiser Family Foundation is tracking cases and deaths in long term care facilities here in the states. Not all states are reporting. It is really tragic.

Also, the focus on trying to protect the entire population has likely diverted resources from those facilities. We know from the the traditional flu that elderly people are more vulnerable. We don’t even need the current data to understand elderly people would be a greater risk.

Here’s the death rate in long term care facilities from several states here (per 100,000 population):

New Jersey 23.1
New York 18
Massachusetts 17.5
Connecticut 10.5
Louisiana 10
Pennsylvania 6.6
Colorado 4.4
Illinois 2.2
Florida 1.2

If we believe there could be a resurgence, we should be assessing how we can better protect these vulnerable populations.

New York sent affected Covid 19 elderly patients into nursing homes contributing in over 3,600 lives in Empire State nursing homes.

Florida protected the elderly and had a much lower pct. of deaths in nursing homes.

[CanDB]

I live in California and I think the governor here has done a great job!
That said I don’t believe the numbers support keeping another month of restrictions.

My understanding in the beginning was to prevent the hospitals from being over run with patients.
That has been achieved.
Hospitals in many areas are empty.

The area I live has a population of 1.5 million
We have 41 deaths related to the virus.

That's cool. I think the biggest concern when this bust out on us, was the need to prevent hospital/equipment/staff overload. It was the fundamental place to protect. Once the medical system gets over-taxed, this thing gets very tragic/uncontrolled. I may be wrong to compare, but during the 08 Recession it was deemed that the banks needed to be supported. It seems similar to me, because though not the same situation and not all inclusive, those first priorities made sense to those in charge. Heck, I wouldn't know what to do first!!!! But getting the first step correct is huge!

You know what's a little sad to me....because it is relative, my wife and kids were going to be in California last week, as was planned way back. Birthday gift, with the old man looking after the dog at home. They'll make that trek sooner than later! You live in such a great place!!

[CanDB]

So in a conversation about Covid, in a thread about Covid, your response about Covid wasn't specifically dealing with Covid? That's interesting.

Yes, hard decisions are hard. That's why they get paid the money they're doing. But I'd rather a person in power make the hard decision that's unpopular rather than listening to the masses on Twitter. Right now we have decision makers making decisions that are easy because they're popular on twitter.

Just wait until the bills come due, that will lead to some very unpopular decisions.

As for your specific Province, it was never going to be the threat that it was made out to be, your province is too spread out and with relatively little in population. When my friend was getting the hospital in Winnipeg ready for Covid he couldn't believe they were doing it. And now that it sits empty (some units are 2 or 3 nurses to every 1 patient right now) he just shakes his head and wonders about it all.

It was about covid….I was referring to hard decisions.

As to the second point, I just offered my opinion about where I live. I am quite happy. I do not work in a hospital. But I live here. It's an opinion.

[Rastic]

New York sent affected Covid 19 elderly patients into nursing homes contributing in over 3,600 lives in Empire State nursing homes.

Florida protected the elderly and had a much lower pct. of deaths in nursing homes.

Yeah, the whole nursing home issue is a big question mark for me. We know who the most vulnerable are yet, for some reason, nursing homes are disproportionately hit. Why? And why are nursing homes in some states so far ahead of the curve, while in others less? When the mortality rate for those ages 80+ is around 13% I wonder why and how and how better to protect them.

[Butler By'Note]

That's cool. I think the biggest concern when this bust out on us, was the need to prevent hospital/equipment/staff overload. It was the fundamental place to protect. Once the medical system gets over-taxed, this thing gets very tragic/uncontrolled. I may be wrong to compare, but during the 08 Recession it was deemed that the banks needed to be supported. It seems similar to me, because though not the same situation and not all inclusive, those first priorities made sense to those in charge. Heck, I wouldn't know what to do first!!!! But getting the first step correct is huge!

You know what's a little sad to me....because it is relative, my wife and kids were going to be in California last week, as was planned way back. Birthday gift, with the old man looking after the dog at home. They'll make that trek sooner than later! You live in such a great place!!

And that was a reasonable thing to do at the time, because we didn't know what we were dealing with. But given the way it's played out we know firsthand that the fears won't come to fruition, thankfully. We keep hearing about "follow the science" but the people in charge continue to trust models that have no basis in science (they need all data points fed to them in order to create a model) rather than following the real data that we now have.

[Butler By'Note]

It was about covid….I was referring to hard decisions.

As to the second point, I just offered my opinion about where I live. I am quite happy. I do not work in a hospital. But I live here. It's an opinion.

Cool. I gave you another opinion from someone who lives where you do and actually does work in a hospital. At some point maybe you'll start to wonder why your province cancelled all "elective" surgeries in the province and changed all of the surgical wards to Covid wards, yet currently have a grand total of 0 people in hospital with Covid.

Will the dozens of people who die from cancelled "elective" cancer surgeries be treated as Covid deaths?...

[Fantaztic7]

New York sent affected Covid 19 elderly patients into nursing homes contributing in over 3,600 lives in Empire State nursing homes.

Florida protected the elderly and had a much lower pct. of deaths in nursing homes.

I had not heard about that. Did they intentionally send more people to some of the nursing homes?

[58Miller]

Yeah, the whole nursing home issue is a big question mark for me. We know who the most vulnerable are yet, for some reason, nursing homes are disproportionately hit. Why? And why are nursing homes in some states so far ahead of the curve, while in others less? When the mortality rate for those ages 80+ is around 13% I wonder why and how and how better to protect them.

Over 10,000 deaths in the country are from nursing homes in 23 states.