Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[Sirwalterraleigh]

My point wasn't directed at any one group. "My people" certainly were heavily involved in wasting plenty of money on COVID.

The point was that before deciding to purchase a half a billion home tests because it sounds good and makes for easy to understand headlines, it might be a good idea to evaluate how they work against the dominant strain and if the purchase will move the needle at all. Even if they're only paying $5 a test, that's still $2.5 billion to have little, if any, effect on the pandemic.

Welcome to politics…at least they’re not sending malaria drugs that don’t work and have potentially lethal side effects

 

[Heppenheimer]

FYI, on my first day back to work in two weeks, the overall going theme is that the treatments for COVID are in severe short supply nationally, due to overwhelming demand.

So, who around here was advocating that we should emphasize treatment over prevention?

 

[Chomama]

I believe rapid tests are picking it up actually. About 75% which is way better than doing nothing, especially when pcr is so hard to get in a reasonable timeframe!

 

[DisneyDebRob]

The point was that before deciding to purchase a half a billion home tests because it sounds good and makes for easy to understand headlines, it might be a good idea to evaluate how they work against the dominant strain and if the purchase will move the needle at all. Even if they're only paying $5 a test, that's still $2.5 billion to have little, if any, effect on the pandemic.

So let’s take the 2.5 billion guess you made on the cost. I’m sure it’s not that much but let’s run with that. We are spending billions right now on lost work hours.. wasted hospital visits for testing etc. even if I give you the 2.5 billion spent on the tests, it still will move the needle in saving money. I agree that it’s not enough tests. The more we can send out, I believe the more we will save.
Starting Saturday with the insurance picking up the cost of 8 tests per month for each person will help. Problem again is supply. If someone purchases 10 in front of the line, how many will be left for the 10th person in line.

 

[JoeCamel]

So let’s take the 2.5 billion guess you made on the cost. I’m sure it’s not that much but let’s run with that. We are spending billions right now on lost work hours.. wasted hospital visits for testing etc. even if I give you the 2.5 billion spent on the tests, it still will move the needle in saving money. I agree that it’s not enough tests. The more we can send out, I believe the more we will save.
Starting Saturday with the insurance picking up the cost of 8 tests per month for each person will help. Problem again is supply. If someone purchases 10 in front of the line, how many will be left for the 10th person in line.

Yeah, its going to be the mask/TP thing again with everyone picking up anything available. I doubt they can ramp production enough until omicron subsides

 

[dreday3]

I hope it's not the one that the folks at NASA fired a missile at to see if they could alter its course? After it was launched the space agency got really quiet about the project. Just coincidence?

Don't fret- that's not until September of this year! The DART Mission. It was sent to space in November, but won't reach destination until September.

Hope no one has trips planned in October!

 

[seascape]

Florida has bad news. They are now at 305 cases per 100k 49 hospitalizations per 100k and 0.18 deaths per 100k. NY and NJ both reported significant reductions of cases. Their numbers are 363, 66 and 0.85 for NY and 328, 70, and 0.85 for NJ. The US as a whole is at 235, 44 and 0.55.

 

[Nubs70]

The point was that before deciding to purchase a half a billion home tests because it sounds good and makes for easy to understand headlines, it might be a good idea to evaluate how they work against the dominant strain and if the purchase will move the needle at all. Even if they're only paying $5 a test, that's still $2.5 billion to have little, if any, effect on the pandemic.

500 million tests for a population of 350 million is inadequate.

 

[DisneyCane]

500 million tests for a population of 350 million is inadequate.

That is definitely true regardless of cost. If they can move the needle, 1.5 tests per person over six months certainly won't.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

FYI, on my first day back to work in two weeks, the overall going theme is that the treatments for COVID are in severe short supply nationally, due to overwhelming demand.

So, who around here was advocating that we should emphasize treatment over prevention?

What is: “people who are wrong for $200, Alex?”

I believe rapid tests are picking it up actually. About 75% which is way better than doing nothing, especially when pcr is so hard to get in a reasonable timeframe!

They work just fine. The problem with the rapid tests - all variants - is you can get a false negative if you’re not carrying enough viral load. The pcr picks that up regardless.

the “tests don’t work” is yet another political red herring. You should always get the pcr to be sure…but the rapids are still 91% effective. Better than denying science and doing what you want so someone else can make money off you…which is what is happening every nanosecond.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

So let’s take the 2.5 billion guess you made on the cost. I’m sure it’s not that much but let’s run with that. We are spending billions right now on lost work hours.. wasted hospital visits for testing etc. even if I give you the 2.5 billion spent on the tests, it still will move the needle in saving money. I agree that it’s not enough tests. The more we can send out, I believe the more we will save.
Starting Saturday with the insurance picking up the cost of 8 tests per month for each person will help. Problem again is supply. If someone purchases 10 in front of the line, how many will be left for the 10th person in line.

$2.5 billion is absolutely nothing…

trillions are given away every year to people who slap backs and smoke cigars…

Or is this the “we care about the budget!” Thing again?

is it wabbit season?

 

[Heppenheimer]

What is: “people who are wrong for $200, Alex?”

Oh, and blood banks across the country are also nearly empty. If someone hemorrhages, or needs a transfusion during a severe illness, they might be out of luck.

Anybody else still think that prevention isn't more important than treatment?

 

[DisneyCane]

Florida has bad news. They are now at 305 cases per 100k 49 hospitalizations per 100k and 0.18 deaths per 100k. NY and NJ both reported significant reductions of cases. Their numbers are 363, 66 and 0.85 for NY and 328, 70, and 0.85 for NJ. The US as a whole is at 235, 44 and 0.55.

I don't think the changes in case rate are really valid data in the peak vicinity due to the positivity being so high. I zoomed in on the CDC data for FL just for the Omicron outbreak and, if you look at the seven day average of new COVID hospitalizations (which track as a pretty constant percentage of infections), it definitely looks like the curve is bending and is about to peak.

 

[JoeCamel]

Don't fret- that's not until September of this year! The DART Mission. It was sent to space in November, but won't reach destination until September.

Hope no one has trips planned in October!

You mean they don't have hyperspace drive? They need to stay at the star wars hotel and pull the lever!

 

[DisneyCane]

For further evidence of the reduced severity of Omicron vs. Delta, I made this chart on the CDC site showing the Delta and Omicron outbreaks in FL with CURRENTLY hospitalized COVID patients. The hospitalization rate for Omicron is much lower to start with but this data shows that the people who are hospitalized are not staying in the hospital for as long. There are no signs that the death rate is higher for hospitalized patients with Omicron so I don't think that exiting the hospital via the morgue is the reason for this observation.

Essentially everything that South Africa told us about Omicron has turned out to be correct.

 

[DisneyDebRob]

Oh, and blood banks across the country are also nearly empty. If someone hemorrhages, or needs a transfusion during a severe illness, they might be out of luck.

Anybody else still think that prevention isn't more important than treatment?

I saw that last night on the news. Red Cross says that the usual supply of 4 days is down to 1 which is a bit concerning.

 

[Andrew C]

FYI, on my first day back to work in two weeks, the overall going theme is that the treatments for COVID are in severe short supply nationally, due to overwhelming demand.

So, who around here was advocating that we should emphasize treatment over prevention?

I was. And yes. They did a crap job creating a strong supply of treatments that are useful.

 

[Andrew C]

Oh, and blood banks across the country are also nearly empty. If someone hemorrhages, or needs a transfusion during a severe illness, they might be out of luck.

Anybody else still think that prevention isn't more important than treatment?

Why not vaccines and treatment? Why must we choose only one? They did poorly with testing availability. They did poorly with contact tracing. They did poorly with treatment availability. Outside of vaccines, we pretty much don’t do anything properly. As I said many times, failed strategy.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I was. And yes. They did a crap job creating a strong supply of treatments that are useful.

In what scenario would treatment be better than prevention?

 

[Heppenheimer]

Why not vaccines and treatment? Why must we choose only one? They did poorly with testing availability. They did poorly with contact tracing. They did poorly with treatment availability. Outside of vaccines, we pretty much don’t do anything properly.

Because people are refusing the prevention arm, which is then overwhelming our ability to actually treat sick people!!! The prevention arm is simple, cheap, and widely available. The treatment arm is extremely expensive, and much more difficult to scale up. We can't snap our fingers and just produce more nurses, doctors, pharmacists, lab workers, respiratory techs, or instantly hire all the skilled workers that would be needed to ramp up production of the new treatments. And all these people ending up with a (in most cases) preventable hospitalization are chewing up resources that are affecting everyone else's care. Why is this so hard to understand?

Would you rather that we didn't do all the work to improve public sanitation in the early 20th century, and just ramped up our production of cholera cots? Would you rather that we massed produced iron lungs rather than prevented poliomyelitis with vaccines? Would you rather than we sent half the population to high altitude TB sanitoriums (a la The Magic Mountain) instead of aggressively quarantining TB cases?